Sarah was being so discrete, she wasn't sure they'd ever let her back into Heraklion again. Of course, she used a little magic to follow Karyn unobserved when she had left the building, but nothing that would be noticed. And of course, she could only hear Karyn's half of the conversation with the shoes.
But she didn't like it.
And when she saw Karyn walk over to talk to Biff, she really didn't like it.
It was some combination of the feelings of being taken advantage of yesterday, and the last remnants of the original Sarah fighting to keep something that was hers. Even though she was the one who had given it away. How dare Karyn just take advantage of Sarah in her own bedroom like that, and then toss her aside in order to steal Sarah's boyfriend the very next day! It triggered something in Sarah that she thought she'd done away with.
Why did she seem to always backslide around Karyn?
It didn't matter. What mattered was stopping this. What mattered was punishing Karyn. And Sarah had just the sock to do it with.
The girl in the pink sweater snuck over to a supply shed next to the bleachers, leaned against the wall so she couldn't be seen, and retrieved something long and soft from her backpack. She had enchanted this sock puppet in order to get back at Karyn for using magic to force her into a romantic encounter, so it seemed only appropriate that Sarah use the puppet to force Karyn out of one.
Karyn couldn't believe what she was doing. What she was letting these magic shoes do to her. They just kept giving her little suggestions here or there, what to say, how to pose, and before Karyn knew it, she was flirting. She was flirting with a football player. And a guy who she'd barely ever spoken to before today.
But it felt so natural! It was like the shoes were a safety rail. Karyn was doing all the work, they were just there to make sure she didn't fall off a cliff. Karyn was giving Biff every possible expectation, and she could tell it was all having an effect on him, so it wasn't a surprise when the boy finally made his move.
"So, you wanna find me back here during lunch and maybe fool around?"
This was it. This was where Karyn would go in for the kill. Seal the deal. Wrap Bifferson Roderick Meadows around her little fingers for as long as she wanted him there, even if that wasn't his real name.
"Oh," Karyn let out a sharp laugh she hadn't been expecting. "Oh no. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to give you the wrong impression." Karyn couldn't stop the words from coming out of her mouth. "I am definitely a lesbian."
"What?" said Biff
What? thought Karyn
"WHAT!?" thought the shoes.
"Yep, that's me." Karyn gave another laugh, this one more of a chuckle. "I am a girl who is only interested in girls. A big ol', sloppy, boob-loving lesbian."
Karyn's mind was reeling, but somehow she couldn't find any way to express that outwardly. Her body was moving on its own. It felt almost like when the shoes had taken over those few times the day before, but something was different. This felt more sinister. And while Karyn couldn't figure out how to get any kind of message to the shoes, they were certainly trying to talk to her.
"What are you doing, Karyn?" they plead. "Why are you fighting me? I don't want to force you to do anything, but if you keep talking like this, it could ruin your social life. You can't just lead Biff Meadows on for half an hour, and then cut him off like this. Why didn't you tell me you were going to say these things? I would have set you up differently!"
"I'll probably just fall for the next girl I see," Karyn's outside voice continued, unfazed in the face of both the two internal protests and Biff's look of shock. "And I'll dream of living the rest of my life at her side, two women against the world, a life wrapped in femininity, with no masculine intrusion."
"Karyn, please stop," the shoes cried to a Karyn who could not respond. "I don't want to exert my power over you, but I will for your sake."
Silently, Karyn hoped that they would do just that.
Out loud, however, she said "Like, I'm flattered. I really am. But no thanks. I am a woman who knows what she wants, and what I want is other women. Full stop. No exceptions."
That was it. This was going too far. The shoes had to play damage control somehow. They collected all the magical energy they held inside of them, concentrated it all in the balls of Karyn's feet, and slowly pushed up, to the ankles, to the knees, to the hips. Why was this taking so long? Why was it such a struggle? Of course, the shoes had no way of knowing that they were fighting against the very same magic that had created them in the first place. And they had no guide or reference for what to do when their energy stopped advancing.
Theoretically, the shoes had control of Karyn's legs. They could make her walk away. But it was taking all their effort just to maintain this control, even without sending any commands. And besides, they needed to get to the mouth. Needed to make Karyn say something that wasn't... whatever this meltdown was.
"So what girls in school do you think are cute?" Karyn's mouth asked Biff. "Maybe you could be my wingman. That would be pretty cool, right?"
Almost imperceptibly, and against every precedent that the shoes were aware of, their area of control retreated. A millimeter. Then a centimeter. Then an inch. Before they knew it, they were struggling just to keep control of Karyn's knees. Then her ankles. That's when the shoes realized that this was some outside force. That magic other than their own, other than whatever latent magic Karyn may have, was at play. When it was right at their doorway, right at the collar of the chestnut-colored suede Ugg boots.
But it was just for a split second. And then the boots were overwhelmed.
Karyn felt a tingle in her feet. Like pins and needles after you lost circulation. Then she had a funny feeling like her head was full of cotton. Then another one like her intestines had momentarily turned to soup. What was going on? Oh yeah, she was talking to Biff.
"Tell him you're really sorry that you caused him any confusion," her shoes instructed her in a weary voice. "and then give a little flounce as you turn and hop away." They had lost the fight. Whatever that magic was, it now exerted some amount of control, not only over Karyn, but also over the shoes.
Once Karyn was halfway down the football field, the shoes could feel at least some level of control returning to them. Not over Karyn quite yet, but at least over themselves.
"Karyn?" the shoes managed.
"Yeah?" the girl, now oblivious to any internal conflict she'd experienced only a moment ago.
"I think you should find Jon. Right now."
Sarah smiled to herself, with a smugness that was uncharacteristic of this new version of Sarah that she'd cultivated. But as far as she was concerned, it was a job well-done. She'd punished Karyn, and she'd kept Biff free and single. Not that this new Sarah wanted anything to do with Biff, romantically. But it was the principle of the thing.
Sarah had no idea how this new spell had interacted with her old one, nor any idea how that would come back around to affect her own life in the very near future.
