[Earlier...]
There's a thing nobody tells you about witchcraft, in part because it's impossible to really, truly understand what that thing is before you've experienced it, and in part because understanding itself takes on a whole different meaning, once one starts to really understand magic. Once one has seen reality at its most raw, stripped to barest elements, and started to piece together how it all works -- seen just what it is that makes the clocks tick forward and the planets go around, or seen what makes the cell divide and the mind think thoughts, or seen why the soul feels and what it is that death really means -- it simply isn't possible to look at the world the same way anymore. The "coincidence" ceases to exist, and yet, mystery remains all about... And, most relevantly to Athena DeVries right at the moment, one becomes what may be called a "sensitive", and keen to feeling with more senses than just the five.
"Athena? Hey, Athena, are we going?" Zoe asked, looking Athena as directly in the eyes as she could to get her attention. It didn't work; whatever Athena's gaze was focused on, it had to be about a mile behind Zoe and outside the school, Zoe judged.
"C'mon, wiz, we really can't do this here," Zoe said, taking a shoulder and shaking it a bit to snap Athena out of it. "School's been over for a while now; they're gonna kick us out here soon!"
Athena blinked, and looked around, booting up as though from a very deep sleep. Where was she? Who was this? Zoe, Zoe who? Zoe... Gibson, yeah, Jon's little sister and her best friend, and about the purest embodiment of the "mousy goth girl" spirit as could be found at their high school. That's where she was, yes, high school... except nobody was around except a couple vigilant teachers and a handful of straggler students still hanging out there.
"Oh... okay," Athena nodded slowly, getting up and putting a hand on Zoe's shoulder for guidance, before letting her eyes start to unfocus again.
"Wiz, I am not guiding you around like my fucking pet zombie so you can go back to Outer Space or wherever it is you just were," Zoe snapped, brushing off Athena's hand and snapping her back to her reality. "What's going on, girl? You've been acting strange all day!"
"I'm... tired?" Athena tried, weakly. It wasn't completely a lie; for many long and restless nights beforehand, Athena's dreams had run absolutely fucking wild, and got more and more vivid with each passing night. There were dreams of a Lake Point where identities were traded, genders swapped, and memories rewritten; dreams of guidance counselors turning schoolchildren into their barbies; dreams of mystic clouds, miasmas of transformation, spreading over the city; dreams of the sun changing color, as its radiance changed lives; dreams of wardrobes changing the man to fit the clothes; dreams and dreams and more dreams, that Athena had realized immediately weren't just dreams. She knew enough of divination and fortune-telling to recognize a premonition when she had one, glimpses at the myriad of possible futures from there.
Not that she could explain any of that to Zoe, who wasn't sensitive like she was. "Tch, like hell you are; you're a creature of the night! I've seen you stay awake for like, 3 days or some shit with no ill effects, Wiz, you aren't tired now!"
"Some stars had to align for that, y'know, it wasn't just any odd day," Athena mumbled only slightly defensively. "But yeah, you're right; I suppose I'm not tired."
Zoe sighed into the ensuing silence. "Are you going to tell me, or is this another one of those 'magicians never reveal their secrets' things?" She asked after a moment, looking disappointed.
Now it was Athena's turn to sigh, and as much as she hated doing it, she pulled her thoughts back from across the aethereal worlds and into the present, so she could focus all her attention on the friend in front of her. She even cringed a little bit, feeling a veil snap shut over thoughts and memories mortals weren't supposed to have, a veil she'd have to pry open again later; but for now, it couldn't be helped.
"I really am sorry, Zoe, but whatever's happening today, it's going to be HUGE, and it's really important that I figure out what to do about it, in time!" Athena pleaded. "I've already sensed something powerfully magical at work, earlier today, and every omen I've been getting is telling me that something more is coming; Something much, much more! You know I couldn't explain it all even if I tried, and I hate asking; but would you please, just, lead me home, and let me zone back out there so I can investigate more? I'll owe you one!"
The way Zoe looked at Athena then was filled with little other than pity. "Can you at least tell me, then, that whatever this is, it doesn't have anything to do with your mom, or finding her?"
Athena saw it coming, but nonetheless she to be taken aback and blubber a bit. Face reddening, she replied, "Well... look, I have to hope, don't I? She's one of only a handful of witches in the world, and the only living witch I know of powerful enough to have cast something like what I felt this morning!"
"Right. 'Living'. Hm." Zoe shook her head. "You're sure it was her?"
"It... didn't feel like her..." Athena admitted, "but all the same, Zoe, I can't just ignore this! It'd be irresponsible!"
"I know, I know..." Zoe nodded unhappily. "Just, look... don't get your hopes up, okay? I hate seeing you torture yourself with stuff like this."
"I am not torturing myself," Athena replied, this time defensive with her full consciousness. "In fact, I'd like to think I'm a better witch than I ever would have been if I weren't on my own little witch hunt!"
"Whatever you say," Zoe said wearily, then took Athena's arm. "Look, I'll get Sabrina to lead you home to Granny while you're still in the zone, if you still wanna go out there. We just can't stay here long, what with the side-eye Mrs. Finch is giving us, okay?"
"Get Sabrina for sure, but I'd like you to come too," Athena said urgently. "I can afford you and her a measure of protection from what's coming, if you stay close to me."
"Protection!?" This was the first thing Zoe had heard from Athena that she found legitimately surprising. "Protection from what? Why me!?"
"Like I said, I don't know, but it's BIG," Athena reiterated, in a tone that now seemed to Zoe to be much too calm. "And it's going to set a lot of shit in motion. Call your mom and explain if you need to, but really, we don't actually have that much time to waste, savvy?"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it now! You do your thing, I'll get us going!" Zoe yanked on Athena's arm to start her walking, now with a sudden urgency.
"Not so hard, Zo, I still need to focus..." Athena complained a bit. When Zoe mostly ignored her, Athena just sighed, shut her eyes, and tried to clear her mind of Zoe, the walking, and all the other distractions.
Somewhere at the intersection between prayer, autohypnosis, and meditation lived the sort of spell Athena meant to cast. It was particularly difficult this time, with Zoe making so much tactile noise, but soon enough that fell away. So too did everything Athena could hear, and the sight of her own eyelids, and the feeling of her feet on the ground, and soon enough she pierced the veil. In spirit, Athena found herself drifting through surreal worlds of dreams and visions and things felt but not thought... a space where space and time were one and the same, and not nearly as important as they were in the worlds within spacetime. Spirits and magic and things forbidden to know prowled their usual haunt, and Athena made herself known among them with the politeness of strangers before resuming her search.
She had already determined by then that examination of the spells cast earlier that morning wasn't going to be nearly so fruitful as the spells that would be cast later that day, but all the same Athena allowed herself a brief look back at them anyway, it being much easier to look at the receding past than the branching future at any rate. She had told Zoe they didn't feel like her mother, but honestly, to Athena, they hardly felt like anybody; the intent behind them was so weak they may as well have just been mere whims made manifest, only hardly bearing that distinctive and unique sensation of their caster's soul. Athena couldn't even tell what gender they were. Still, she was sure she didn't really know the casters, regardless. There was a very very vague familiarity, more with one caster than the other, but aside from maybe brushing shoulders at school or around town every so often they must have been complete strangers, at least in the past. They definitely didn't seem to have any experience with magic, unfortunately.
The real powerhouse of the spells weren't the casters, Athena saw, but instead was the magic focus they were using; a focus, Athena felt, that was one of the strangest and most absurdly powerful things she had ever seen. It was supplying ALL the energy its magic needed, which, given that the quantity of memories and minds each spell reached to alter, the area they meant to affect, and the amount of matter they meant to materially transmute, was not at all small in quantity. That focus was probably the sole reason such mere and insensate whims could become such indomitable spirits of realty-altering change as they had. It was also absolutely unfamiliar to Athena; she was almost certain she knew of every even minor magic item that had existed in Lake Point before yesterday, and this was like unto none of them. It probably wasn't an idol or an icon, nor had much personal significance to either of the casters, judging by their intent with it; it probably was something that had been deeply sacred to a much, much older society of people, judging by the impression they had made on it. Athena herself had never interacted with it at all before, at least not before it started permeating her premonitions and powering spells to try and change her memory, and yet its magic felt... familiar, somehow? Athena couldn't place it. She couldn't imagine that she'd simply forget an encounter with a focus like that, given what a royal pain it had been to counter its effects on her memory that morning, even with her pendant... she wasn't looking forward to struggling against its spells again, in the future.
Speaking of that, Athena was a bit vexed to find that the next spell cast by that focus wasn't purely in her future; it was cast within the blend of time before she woke from her trance-meditation, as Zoe and Sabrina walked her home to Granny. Immediately, her action in the aether had to take a major turn; there wasn't enough time and mana allowed to her for any truly thorough investigation of sorts, not when she was responsible for protecting her two friends, her grandmother, and herself from the influence of such a wild and powerful spell. It utterly dwarfed the last several spells in power, split time into myriads more branches than Athena cared to count, and despite having almost negligible amounts of its caster's intent, was possessed with a lunatic chaotic energy to make it a very unpredictable foe, and perhaps more sexual than Athena was entirely comfortable sensing directly. Still, Athena found some comfort in how unfocussed it seemed, spreading its influence across town and well into the future as a lingering curse; though it meant the Lake Point she knew would be a very different place from then on, she wouldn't have to struggle against its full strength to protect herself and her friends.
After all, Athena had a psychic focus of her own: her mother's crystalline pendant, especially made to protect its wearer from unwanted magical effects. With that around her neck for the entirety of her autotrance, she very well could counter the other spell, insofar as to prevent its effects on her and the 3 nearest her for the time being. Back in the physical world, it must have been giving Zoe and Sabrina and especially Granny quite a shock, heating up and glowing as it did when Athena had to draw on its power; this in addition to how tired and pale Athena must've looked, with all the magic she was going to have to cast with her own power while still entranced.
Telepathy, for instance. Athena was to spend many hours put under -- she needed the rest, the energy from the rest, and the time spent dealing with the curse and her counterspell -- but Zoe and Sabrina weren't prepared to stay by her side for all of that time, and Athena needed them near for as long as possible for her countermagic to be most potent. Athena had to silently urge them not to leave, to stay with her and spend the night, and silently urged her own Granny to invite them to, and entertain them with stories about Athena or her mother Sage or whatever they'd listen to while they were there. Doing so was not simple, since the other curse wanted them lured away from Athena so it could work its magic over them; that psychic influence became yet another thing for Athena to struggle to counterspell.
For its own part, inasmuch as it was actually capable of thinking, the other curse didn't much like the existence of a witch in town that could counter it, but it wasn't so bothered that it would waste much energy struggling against Athena. It had other goals, from which the teenage witch was just an annoying distraction. It did fight Athena's counterspells somewhat, once she'd drawn enough energy from her pendant and summoned enough will to throw up a properly defensible ward against the curse, but it was clearly just toying with her for amusement, in much the same way a grown man might playfight with a small child. It teased her with sexual enticements should she let it in; gave her biased visions of her body under its influence that'd stay with her after she woke up; telepathically commanded Zoe's mom to text her to come home, just to make Athena urge Zoe to decline again; and when it reached out to Athena's mind to alter her memories (which Athena actually partially allowed, intending to access them alongside her real memories by means of Doublethink), it tried overwriting much more of her personality as well, just to watch Athena jump to counter the attempt.
As half-heartedly as it did these things, Athena yet still struggled and fatigued herself in the resistance. She wasn't her mother; she wasn't powerful or experienced enough to keep up a fight like this with any degree of ease, and was painfully aware how much she was relying on her mother's pendant to do most of the work with the counterspells. She certainly didn't want to overuse the focus, even conceding some ground to the other curse to be sure she didn't; if the pendant failed and got damaged somehow, well, it wasn't like Mom was around to fix it. Athena really needed to find her. She made sure she'd recall that much once she woke up.
