Somewhere across town, in the area where they built all the particularly large houses, there sat a house that was particularly larger, if only slightly, than even those around it. Inside was a foyer and a wide, open living room with a vaulted ceiling, and a staircase tucked away in a corner. If you climbed that staircase, you'd see a long hallway with many doors, and if you opened one door in particular, you would find all the accouterments of teenage girlhood, complete with a frustrated teenage girl pacing alongside her over-pillowed, pink-blanketed, queen-sized bed.
"You want to help my mom," she heard inside of her head.
"Stop it."
"You're in my shoes, you have to help my mom."
"I said stop it, Jon."
"But you're in my shoes! I order you!"
"I'm far too advanced a magic user for you to influence me," Sarah brought two fingers to her temple and shook her head. "I'm just wearing you to keep you out of trouble."
"Help my mom."
"No!"
"Help my mom!"
"Urgh!" Sarah grunted and threw herself on the floor, grabbing at the sandals on her feet. In two swift moves, she removed the velcro and kicked them into her closet, where they landed next to her large collection of sandals, sneakers, and boots. Sarah didn't have time for this.
The duplicate shoes weren't a totally unexpected surplus effect, but their presence made things complicated. It's one thing if you're changing one person at a time. It's another thing entirely if up to... Sarah counted on her fingers: Jon, Karyn, and Jon's mom so far had worn her shoes, so including her own it was potentially four people at once. And that was assuming the effects stayed contained.
Which they wouldn't, Sarah realized, because Jon's mom had now worn two different people's shoes, and was carrying both of their influences. Chaos begets chaos.
Sarah threw herself onto her bed in frustration. Why the hell did Jonathan Malachi Goddamn Gibson, of all people, of all possible individuals in all possible realities, why did the Jon Gibson that shared a reality with her, a town with her, a school with her, have to inherit an object as powerful as the Stone of Red Souls?
