The lights came back...
Steven blinked... then slapped Ken.
"Ow!" the rat-boy winced holding his muzzle. "That wasn't necessary!"
"You 'kissed' me!" she said angrily.
"No- you 'kissed' me." Said Ken.
"No! I- I was just- when the electricity went out I- I just- stumbled a-a-nd-" Steven was looking like she was about to lose it. This was not what she had in mind at all. She felt afraid thinking this may well be 'the end of the world'... and was actually glad to have someone with her. But- to be kissed by 'him'?! Or.. did... she... really...
Ken looked very embarrassed about it. "Uh- I'm sorry Steven please don't be upset about it. It was just... you're... well... I thought..." He looked guiltily. The rat-boy found Steven so very attractive, the way the petals pressed onto her form... despite... who she used to be. It was probably very stupid of him to press on it, tease her when she was so confused, and he swore he wasn't going to... but when the lights went out, and there was nothing but darkness, he found himself seeking her scent...
...and when they touched... sensing her nerves and fears, he wanted to just make sure... "Urgh! I'm sorry Steven- this is so confusing to me!"
"To you?! What do you think this is doing to me?!" Said the flower girl pensively. "God!" she threw her arms up in frustration, throwing even more scent and pollen into the air.
Ken bit his tongue, as his sensitive nose took in the.. aroma, making his heart beat just a little faster. Ordinarily, he would leave but this was his own house... and Steve could leave, but with bizarre things going on outside at the moment, it didn't seem like a good idea either. The rat boy wasn't sure what to do. The telephones were currently out as well, things were just... very tense. "I'm sorry Steve- really." he said again. "I didn't think about it that much. It's just.. you're a girl now!" Not to mention a.. 'mostly' naked girl. Even if she was covered in petals and leaves, and had such a cute flower on her head...
"If you are so keen about it, why couldn't the sun have made you the girl?" said Steve folding her arms.
Ken tilted his head. "So... if I was a girl you would have kissed me?"
"Yes! I mean- No! No!" Steven blushed, smoothing over her pink petals. "You're a friend.. I.."
Ken looked at her quietly. "This.. is.. probably wrong," he admitted. "You just.. relax okay? Of course we're friends," Maybe... part of him did want more... but he valued Stevens friendship. "We help each other out, and if this is the end of the world.. I face it with my best bud." he said grinning.
"Urgh, don't say 'bud'," said Steven gesturing to her flower parts. Let's just get the soda, and see if the sun rises."
Lilly walked home, slowly...
she walked through green grass and fields, that were around the gentle slopes of the suburbs outside the church. There was so much... just so much for her to think of now... and what the Tree-priest Maxwell, had said.
A talking tree...
The squirrel girl suddenly realised... that Maxwell, was 'stuck' there. Yet... he did not speak in any resentment of what had happened to him. If God was judging everyone... why did He judge Maxwell, to be a tree? Why did He judge her, to be... in this form? Why was Father Maxwell 'okay' with things?
The young child wished she could know... but more so, she wanted to know how she could... forgive? She wasn't sure if she believed in God... but...
... she believed in Jenny.
She believed that her magical friend, would make people happier, and help them in this new world, where magic was starting to waken in the strangest of places. Even if she now knew who she really used to be... she still believed in her. She would have followed her to the ends of the Earth, and beyond... (and had actually done so.)
She arrived to her house, her mother opened the door before she even knocked.
"Lilly! Goodness! Where have you been? Why have you run off like that?!" She looked tearful with worry.
The little animal girl looked very ashamed suddenly of what she had put her parents through. "I- 'm okay, mummy. I... was helpin' some people."
"Please come inside. There have been some very strange things going on. We're waiting on the news to see if anyone knows what's happening."
Lilly did as asked, wiping her feet at the doormat.
Mrs Gordon looked at her daughter with concern. She looked so pensive... her ears were flattened and the tip of her sizeable front teeth were touching the end of her chin. "Did something happen?" she asked gently, placing a hand onto her head.
The young child looked up at her. "I... I think- I was a magic girl. For a little while," She said softly. "But... I had to give up the magic."
Ms Gordon smiled a little. She wasn't sure if this was the child being overly imaginative, or... if she really had done something. Though she noticed, Lilly wasn't carrying that oddly painted stick any more. "Why did you give up magic sweety? I thought it was what you always wanted?" she asked, humouring her a little.
Lilly stared a little sadly. It was indeed, what she always wanted. For a while, having that magic stick, made her special... capable... enabled her, to follow and help her friend. But it was over... she knew it would eventually happen, but it happened just so quickly. All that magic she could have grown, cultivated, energised like a new crop in the world bathed by the power of the sun, allowing magic to flow to ordinary people like her. All of it gone...
"...I... had to spend it savin' one stranger," she said to her mother.
Mrs Gordon hugged her daughter. "Honey... things come and go... people, are more important. You made the right choice."
Lilly nodded. She didn't regret the choice... but even she was aware of the magnitude of what she had done. Somehow, she had felt the future shifting in a myriad of different ways, based on her choice...
She went up to her room, pushing aside her telescope for the moment... and looked out the window... across the sky and high above, she saw Anneza, floating, a silhouette on the clouds. Even if she didn't know her... seeing her alive and well, made the animal girl smile.
... No, she didn't regret it one bit.
"God," she asked in silent prayer. She couldn't remember if Billy prayed much, now that she remembered her old name... praying to Him though, she felt... a little afraid now. Like... she wondered if He really was watching, and wanting to know what she was about to ask.
... if God was really there... what could she ask of Him? Demand an answer for why she was in this form? Why Maxwell was so nice but 'punished' to be a tree? Why Jenny was 'forgiven'? If Jenny was forgiven, was she herself being punished by getting turned into an animal girl? Just what was 'The Plan'! What exactly was it when you did good or bad?
... but she didn't ask any of that. It just... didn't seem important- not the most important question she could ask. She saw things she couldn't have seen before- things that would have been impossible as a human. She could not begrudge being transformed...and accompanied someone she thought was very special. She should not lament on 'what was', but what 'could be'...
She should ask God, about the future...
She tapped the pot that once grew a cutting of the magic stick, four times, invoking Jenny's number... and picturing her face.
"... I... I want to protect Jenny," she said with quiet strength in her voice.. "cause... I believe in her. An'... 'cause of that I... I forgive her," she said speaking from her heart still. "So... help me to... help her? Cause... I got no magic no more... an' I dunno how to help any more."
... but magic or not... she will be there.
Always.
Melanie stared at Muriel in wide eyed shock. She was staring blankly, and not eating at the kitchen table.
The police woman looked with concern at her unexpected other adopted child. "You have to eat something dear," she said patiently.
"Gone... they... are... gone..." She said staring at the most impossible situation conceivable.
"Who's gone?" Asked Muriel.
"...nothing," she said.
Jenny- the magic girls of this reality, just ended them...
... what will happen to her now?
