Zoë crept out the window and landed in the dewy spring grass. It was nearly three a.m. and the streets lay like the stripped bones of the city. Now that she held the rock in her hands, the night seemed to tingle with energy.
She felt like she had the first time she'd set up the secret altar in her room based on some stuff she found online. She didn't really feel like she knew what she was doing, but she'd always been more spiritually connected with nature the musty church her parents used to drag she and Jon to when they were younger. Just the feel of the night air on her skin and the exhilaration she felt were a more intense religious experience than she'd ever had there.
She had intended to have a ritual for Ostara, or Easter, that evening, but the news of the rock has disrupted her plans. Now she was just too tired to do a proper job of it and she thought she'd probably just crash. She couldn't figure out why the web page she'd found suggested having it on March 21, anyway. Easter always fell on a different day every year, she thought.
When she got home she climbed in her bedroom window and closed it behind her, shivering a bit. She knew she was too tired to stay awake for much longer that night, but she was also too excited about the rock to go to bed without trying it. After stripping down to her underwear, she climbed into bed, gripping the rock. Before she went to sleep, she thought of what she should wish for.
"I wish that Ostara would gift me with her powers. I wish that magic were real."
When nothing happened, she decided that she'd overestimated the rock, or she wasn't using it right. She was just going to have to figure this out in the morning.
