Glass and Mirrors, Part 5

"So? How's my lovely ex-girlfriend?" Avel asked. I stared at him. "Work still interesting?"

"Uh. Yes? What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you doing all this? The road, the theater. I thought you were reformed, Avel," I said. Avel chuckled and put his arm around my shoulders. Crossing my arms, I looked at him as he stared straight ahead. He'd pulled out of the teenager disguise and was back to normal. He took a breath and opened his mouth, like he was really about to answer me.

"What are you doing?" he asked suddenly. He tried to get his arm back from around my shoulders, but I was holding his hand in mine, tightly.

"Tell me, Avel. Tell me what you're doing," I said sweetly. Minty air flowed around us, and Avel's pupils dilated suddenly, and his irises gained a healthy dose of brown. Gradually, slowly, painfully, all of my colors came back. I almost breathed a sigh of relief but the moment was too crucial.

"What I'm doing?" he asked slowly, like his words kept getting stuck in marshmallow sauce. I leaned my head on his arm, looking up into his eyes and smiling with half of my mouth. He tried to pull his hand out of my fingers, but my grip was strong. Avel shifted in his seat. I could almost see all the wheels whirring in his head, trying to figure out what I was doing. We both knew he still had the upper hand. But the chocolate magic was confusing him. The minty smell was nearly overwhelming, enveloping us like a chenille blanket. I reached into my pocket with my free hand and curled my fingers around a small mirror. Avel used to hate mirrors. He couldn't walk in front of them without turning a peculiar shade of green.

Avel shifted again, and as he did he saw light glint off of the mirror's face. In a flash his other hand was over mine, and his cheek was against my temple, holding my head away from him.

"A mirror?" he whispered in my ear. Oh crap, I thought. I swallowed once, hard, and tried to smile.

"Just a mirror. I wanted to check my makeup," I said. Avel snorted.

"You don't check your makeup, Meli. Now, let's look at this," he said, and he threw the mirror in the air above us. It hit something like an invisible barrier and sounded like it shattered, but no pieces came showering down on us like I expected.

After the shattering sound there was a pop so loud it made me jump. I kept most of my focus, though, and still held his hand tightly in mine. I looked up to see what had become of the mirror, and I found myself looking into my own eyes. Avel held his free arm up, perfectly straight, with his fingers splayed. The mirror had grown to be at least 60 or 70 times its original size. It was hard to tell because it almost looked like it was still growing.

He laughed, lowering his arm so that the mirror was straight in front of us instead of above us. Then it was my turn to shift uncomfortably. Avel changed; he still had the same hair and nose, but he seemed older by several years. And then he changed my hair, making it shorter and lighter. I glanced down to look at my hair on my shoulders; it was still dark.

Avel changed again, becoming younger and blond and bespectacled. I became wrinkled and fat, and then thinner with a very low-cut shirt on. I gasped and instinctively went to cover up, which was very stupid. Avel took his opportunity -- in a split second he had flipped himself over the backs of our seats and was kneeling behind me. I have no idea how he did it without breaking his arm, since I was still holding his hand, but hey, the guy could make antiques and skyscrapers out of nothing.

"Relax," he said as he weaved his fingers into my hair. It was a command, and I couldn't help it. I leaned into him, even though my brain was screaming at me. Avel pointed at the mirror, dropping all the disguises and jerking his hand. The mirror disappeared and was replaced with tiny pieces of colored glass which fell to the ground like silver-toned rain. I tried to stand up but Avel snaked his arm across my collarbone.

"Let me go," I said. I felt him shake his head. He was leaning pretty far over my chair.

"Relax," he said again. "Look at the glass. Beautiful." I decided to try one more thing. I had a little bit of magic left from the chocolate bar; at this distance I couldn't go back for more without him noticing. So I swirled it around a little, got a good breath in, and leaned my head back. My nose brushed the skin just above his ear, and I felt Avel pull back a little. I breathed in through my nose, and exhaled softly through my mouth. He breathed in sharply, and I made sure my giggle was short and sweet.

"Losing control, my dear?" My magic glittered strangely in the light reflected from the shards of glass. I placed my lips on his jawline, still using the magic. Avel sank back, landing on both of his knees. Spinning up from my seat, I pulled the handcuffs out of my back pocket and slapped half of them on the wrist closest to me; the other half went on my own arm. He wouldn't look up at me, and I smiled triumphantly. I had him.

A door slammed somewhere in the room, making me jump. "Hey!" yelled Kadey from the employee's only entrance behind me. I turned and waved.

"Here! I got him!" Kadey gave me a strange look, one that made my smile falter as I turned back to look at Avel.

He was gone.

Glass and Mirrors, Part 4

Parts 1-3 are on your left. -m

The most uncomfortable part of having someone else in your head is not, in fact, the simple fact that they are there. It's the nagging fear that at any moment they'll accidentally find that key under the mat in front of the door to the rest of your mind.

Avel had conjured up a leather chair to sit in while he relaxed on the front porch of my mind. I kept trying to push him out, but he had some sort of magic thingie around me, and there was nothing I could do. All of my efforts pushed me further away from him, leaving torn up tracks of sod all over the lawn. He smiled benignly.

"Having some trouble?" he asked.

"Get out of my head!" I yelled. My actual voice, the one Kadey could hear as she sat in the theater, sounded like a muffled mumble. In my head, I was screaming.

"But I like it here," he said, pulling a glass of lemonade out of thin air and taking a sip. Ice cubes clinked against the glass. I threw my hands up into my hair, feeling like I wanted to pull it out. Keeping a wary eye on Avel, I half pulled myself out of my mind so I could look at the theater again. Everything was still in shades of gray, and Kadey had a firm grip made up of freezing, shaking fingers on my lower arm.

"Meli? Can you hear me?" I looked up at her from my slouched position and tried to nod. She at least noticed that I was trying to acknowledge her, and she pointed at the theater screen. At least Avel was still letting me see things, even if the color was sapped. The images on the screen were still making people scream. For a few seconds it was a small child's memory of tripping on the sidewalk, then it switched to a girl stealing jewelry from a department store. Avel was enjoying it way more than he should have, I could feel his self satisfaction practically oozing all around the unsheltered parts of my mind. I decided I needed to do something awkward.

But before I could go back and confront Avel, Kadey's fingers tightened on my arm. I jumped a little, able to move because Avel couldn't guess that I would have been surprised by something Kadey did. Kadey leaned over and put her head close so I could hear her whisper.

"I think I found him," she said. I tried to move my head, but nothing happened. She rolled her eyes, thought for a minute, and then reached into her pocket and pulled out her touch screen phone. The screen was dark and for a second I was really confused, until she held it so that the people next to me were reflected on the surface. "Sorry, I don't carry a mirror," Kadey said. She turned the fake mirror slowly, so that I could look at everyone in its reflection. It was hard to see, especially in the strange light of the theater, but I could at least make out, about three people away, the shape of a teenaged boy with dark hair sitting with his arms up.

I couldn't see clearly enough, and I looked back at Kadey, hoping for an explanation. She nodded, understood my confusion, took one last look at the boy, and copied his pose. Sitting up very straight, Kadey lifted her arms so that her forearms were parallel to the movie screen. Tilting her head back, she half-closed her eyes and bent her wrists back a little so that her fingers were near her eyebrows.

Then, once her arms were in place and she'd peeked once or twice to make sure that she was accurately copying Avel's position, she began twitching her fingers randomly. I swallowed and uneasily began to return to my mind, to confront Avel in his leather chair. My spine tingled. I'd only seen Avel sit like that once before, and it had ended with the other guy in pieces. I mean, literally. Many pieces. And he'd done it to himself, with his own magic.

"Avel, stop," I said. This time there was urgency in my voice. He put down his drink, stood up, and came to me.

"Stop chasing me," he said. I shook my head. "Tell Kadey to leave." I hesitated. He was so close, and even though it was all in my head, I could smell him. He still wore the same cologne.

"You'll stop using their minds as entertainment?" He smirked and lifted a shoulder. "Let me talk to her, at least?"

I opened my eyes in the theater. Kadey was still holding my arm.

"Mmphar," I said on the first try. I licked my lips, cleared my throat, and tried again. "He wants you to leave."

"I'm not leaving," Kadey said. A man screamed from one of the front rows, and we both jumped. I glanced at Avel, the teenaged version of him, at least. He still had his arms up, fingers playing some unseen symphony, and he was still in black and white. Without blinking, I went into the back of my mind, unlocked the trap door, and dropped through, covering my tracks with magic made to look gray. What I needed was a bit of my own magic to take out of my mind with me, but Avel was blocking it all. So, physically, I was screwed. No fireballs or anything cool.

But I could play the word card. Easy.

Quickly I felt into the pantry and grabbed the first thing I could reach -- a chocolate bar. I unwrapped it as I jumped back out of the room and locked the door, shoving it in my mouth just before I got back to the theater. As far as I knew, Avel had no idea what I'd done.

Before I said anything to Kadey, I turned as much as I could towards Avel. He had my English tied up tight in his hands, but he didn't own all the words in my mouth. I could feel the chocolate magic tingling between my teeth, like really strong mouthwash. It even tasted a little minty. I took a very deep breath.

"Ambreel! Arrete!" I yelled. Ambreel Avel Tucker jumped in his theater seat, looked at me, and grinned. The instant he opened his eyes I shut down the walls in my mind, forcing him out. The movie screen went black, and within seconds people began to leave as though nothing unusual had happened.

Soon the theater was completely empty; even Kadey had gone. It was just me and Avel, and he came to sit next to me, stretching his long legs out on the top of the seats in front of us.

Glass and Mirrors, Part 3

Parts 1 & 2 are over there. -m

If I hadn't've been sprinting after the ever-changing form of my ex-boyfriend, I probably would have taken at least a couple of moments to revel in the crazy luck we'd had in finding him in one of the first antique shops we'd tried. Just the ridiculous timing of it all made me grin. But then Avel would try to change his hair color, and my mind would be whipped back to reality. If I didn't pay better attention, my luck wasn't going to stick around very long.

Kadey's feet were pounding behind me, and I could also hear her having a hard time with other people on the sidewalk. I wanted very badly to glance back and check on her, but I had to keep both eyes on Avel. He was heading deeper into downtown.

How had he gotten so fast? Geez. It was like his legs were slurping up the pavement and spewing it out in dust. And I was eating it. My breathing was so labored I was certain that any moment I was just going to collapse, and then we would never find him again, because there was no way that Kadey would keep up with him.

Avel flung himself around a corner, the first one in several blocks, and I pushed harder, trying to keep up. I was only a few steps behind him, but once I came around the curb he was gone. I screamed in frustration. I needed to focus and look for him, but I was breathing so hard that all I was good for was leaning over and putting my hands on my knees. I saw Kadey's shoes on the pavement.

"He's gone!" she said. She was breathing hard, too.

"I know," I said. I took one huge breath and straightened. "You put your arms down!"

"I'm sorry," she said as she warded off a slap on the arm. "They were getting tired, and I honestly didn't think he was there any more!"

"Fine. Ok. Where would he go?"

"Why are you asking me? You're the one who knows him," Kadey said. I could almost hear her adding, You're the one he made out with and almost married....

"Ugh. I know! Ok, let me think," I said. I closed my eyes and leaned against the building. The art museum, movie theaters, restaurants, angsty poet hovels... all these ran through my head. But to no avail. That dang street corner was going to pay for making us lose him. I punched the wall. Ow.

"Hey, that's weird," Kadey said.

"Huh?"

"I could have sworn 46th went all the way through here," she said. Kadey took a couple of steps forward. I'd completely forgotten where we were during our run, but while I'd been thinking Kadey had looked up at the street signs. People rushing to their cars and to the metro from work ran into us from every angle. But we didn't move.

"Where are we?" I asked. I spun and looked at the sign. 46th and Jelly. I looked around, getting my bearings. If this was Jelly, and the sun was there... 46th should go straight through, crossing Linoleum. But a block away was a skyscraper, and 46th turned into a right-or-left choice. A choice that had never been there before. I started running, and Kadey followed me.

"Brace yourself!" I yelled over my shoulder. The transition point was coming up, and there was nothing weirder than passing through one of Avel's illusions without warning. It was like getting hit with a wall of marshmallows. Didn't leave any bruises, but it didn't exactly leave you feeling very healthy. We hit the edge of the illusion at a sprinting speed and I felt my hair get caught in the magical wall. Everything was kooky and soft for a second, and then we were through, and 46th didn't run into a skyscraper anymore.

"Whoa," said Kadey. "That was awesome!" I kept running, but I still grinned at her. I don't know why, but part of me felt a little proud of Avel for being able to pull off something like that. It didn't even occur to me that maybe I should have wondered why I hadn't seen the illusion in the first place. Something that huge should have been obvious.

"There!" I yelled and veered to the left. A gray haze was just disappearing into the alley behind the movie theater. We darted through the narrow opening and were suddenly the only people within view. Something told me that he was hiding in the theater. Avel couldn't have gone far while maintaining that illusion. I yanked open the back door and Kadey and I practically fell into the theater. After the bright sun of the streets it took a while for my eyes to adjust.

Kadey grabbed my arm and I started walking slowly, picking my way around shadowy obstacles. A few seconds later I found another door and opened it. We were in the back of a giant IMAX theater that was filling with people. It was then that I noticed that I wasn't seeing things very well. Everything was black and white and gray. I looked at Kadey. Her normally dark blue eyes were still dark, but they were gray. My hands were shaded, too; the flesh tones were gone. I choked on air in my rush to speak, but by the time I cleared my throat a theater attendant was at the top of the stairs leading down to the door we had just come out of.

"Excuse me, but you can't go down there. Employees only," he said. Kadey and I apologized and mounted the steps, pretending to look for our seats. The attendant wouldn't let us do anything but sit down. Every time we tried to head away to the exit, he corralled us and led us back to the seats. We sat, resigned, and stuck our heads together to figure out a battle plan. I kept staring at my hands in their gray creepiness and at the ends of my hair, which was just plain black. All the richness of color was gone, and I knew it wasn't because I had suffered any trauma. Avel was here and was doing it to me.

"What's wrong?" Kadey whispered. The lights in the room had just dimmed and people were putting on 3D glasses.

"I can't see," I said.

"What!?"

"No, I mean, I can't see colors. Everything's gray and black," I said. Kadey spun around in her chair, trying to look all directions at once.

"My vision's fine," she said. I sighed. If everything was already gray and black, I wasn't going to be able to find Avel. Not a chance. And he knew that. He remembered.

The screen flickered once, and the audience "Ooohed". Every seat was full and I could see two people in the aisle, walking up and down the stairs as they looked for open seats. Immediately I felt guilty, but there was nothing I could do. I needed this seat so I could keep looking for Avel. I tried scanning the crowd for him the way I'd looked for his work in the antique store, but everything looked hazy and gray in the darkness.

I slouched in my chair, frustrated. Kadey was still looking, wide-eyed, at all the people in the auditorium. With no chance of finding him, I closed my eyes. And saw Avel.

"Don't react," he said. I suddenly found I couldn't open my eyes, but I could still hear everything. Avel's voice was coming from just a few feet away. I struggled to sit up, but the weight of magic was on top of me. I was frozen and felt sick whenever I tried to move.

"I said, 'Don't', Meli. Don't move," he said. My mouth wouldn't open to speak. "Stop chasing me." I gave in to the illusion and let down the smallest of my mind barriers, so that I could at least yell at him.

Shoving my own magic back in his face, I said, "Give me back my sight!" Avel laughed, overjoyed.

"Finally! Doesn't it feel good to let it out?" In my mind Avel sat in a leather-backed chair, grinning like crazy as he ran his hand through his hair. "Let's play with them, shall we?" My stomach sank. Play?

The crowd in the theater gasped, and one woman screamed. Avel let me open my eyes to see the screen. The scene was from the perspective of a person walking on a dark road. Footsteps sounded from behind, and the person turned to look. Three thugs in gang gear were following the person; they smiled maliciously. The same woman screamed again.

"Meli?" Kadey said. There was a worried hesitance in her voice that I didn't like.

Suddenly the scene changed and Kadey gasped.

"That's my house," she whispered to me. This time I understood. Avel was ruffling through the audience's minds like they were picture books. Every five seconds, the picture changed, and a different person screamed or at least gasped in surprise. He was still in my mind, and I pushed my way up to his chair.

"Stop it!" I said as I reached out to slap him. But even in my own mind I was slow, and he blocked it before my fingernails could do any damage.