Some people turn away and say nothing... unless you get to know them well enough for them to warn you against dark magic.

Midway up the road from the bus stop to Bridgbury, Ian Tirwinnin lets his rucksack slide from his shoulders, sits back against the fence, and reaches into his sack for the bag of cookies Cousin Sara - out of all his cousins, the closest he's had to a sister - had packed him.

Ms. Cooper wrote that she'll have a pot of soup ready for supper... and if it's anything like what she cooked the last time she visited the Tirwinnin clan, it'll be perfectly filling and maybe a bit magical, but not much more.  Just the sort of thing Ian doesn't want for the start of his First Quest.  Or the middle or end of it, really... and who knows how long that'll be, till he does something that he'll be sure his aunts and uncles will accept is worth making him a full Practicing Mage of Clan Tirwinnin.

He's known all his life this would be coming some day if he chose it; he's never imagined not choosing it.  But now, nibbling Sara's delicious cookies, he feels he's still waiting for something else before he walks into Bridgbury and starts it.

With the cookie mostly eaten, Ian decides to take a look ahead.  Glancing up and down the road, and seeing no one, he holds out his other empty hand to a small puddle next to him.

He murmurs, "Show me Vera Cooper and her surroundings."

The pool obligingly quivers and turns into a small image of a kitchen.  It's the perfect rustic English kitchen, with modern plumbing and gas stove and a few such things shoved in the middle of a room that otherwise might almost be from the nineteenth century or earlier.  Peeling wallpaper and an outset fireplace are surrounded by bacon and herbs hanging from the ceiling.

In front of the stove is Vera Cooper herself, stirring a pot of her promised soup.

And next to her, grinding one of the herbs, stands...

"Huh," Ian says.  He hadn't heard Ms. Cooper had taken in any young witch.

Well, that's as much a spark as he's likely to get now, and he does want to get settled before suppertime.  Standing, he slings on his rucksack and waves at the puddle for it to go back to being a normal puddle again.

Up close, Bridgbury looks like a charmingly quaint English village...

...until Ian flares his aura-sight.  Too many of the villagers look drained.  It's worse than he's seen since that time Cousin Pat dared everyone to lend their power to his illusion spell.  He didn't even know plebbs could be drained this badly without being dead!

He shudders.  His aura-sight slips; he grasps to flare it again in fear but loses it again.

Vera Cooper looks like the epitome of a country grandmother:  grey hair kept back in a bun so tight not a single strand escapes, a shawl and skirt that look a little threadbare but not with a single stain, and hands that look like they've been busy gardening and carrying heavy pots every day.

She smiles at Ian and waves him in - he's right on time by sun-time, and she doesn't care about clock-time unless she has to.

"Hello, young Ian; guest-welcome to you!  Your room's ready; I've already told the local brownies you'll be staying a while, but just let me know if you're having trouble getting along with them."

Ian flares his aura-sight for just a moment before his worry subsides at her sheer friendliness and ordinariness.

"I saw some of the plebbs outside are drained - what happened?"

Vera purses her lips and stares over at the window behind Ian.

"They really are?  I was afeared of that, but I can't just see auras like you can...  I've got a lot of guesses, but nothing more.  Maybe those plebb writers have it right and it is the bog.  Maybe it's a curse from some old grave; I've heard enough stories.  Maybe it's the Maying..."  She shakes her head.

"You didn't know?  But you'd seen enough to be afraid --"

The thought had crossed Ian's mind that maybe it was simply some overhungry mage that his aunts and uncles had sent him to hunt down for his First Quest.

But it looks like it's a lot harder and darker than that.

"Let's not talk of it your first hour in town.  Wait till tomorrow, maybe.  Or at least till you've set down your pack and said hello to your sister."

He doesn't have a sister.  

"My - sister?"

Ms. Cooper isn't one for metaphor, but that has to be it?

"Why, Lily's been eagerly waiting for you all week!  She's around back in the garden, I think."

Something's up between Ian and his sister... and Vera's memory must be slipping; she doesn't quite remember how they were getting along the last time she visited.

Best she can do now is just push them to talk it out whatever it is.  "Go ahead; just leave your bag here.  Go talk with her."

"No - who is she?  Where'd she come from?"

He frantically tries to reach out his magic to look into Ms. Cooper's mind and see what spell she has on her, but the spell slips.

"Ian, she's your sister!  Don't be so upset, whatever's up between you.  If you want to talk with me, I'll be here."

Vera considers squeezing Ian's shoulder, but then thinks better.  That might help a young lady, but probably not a young man.  Instead, she steps over to the door to beckon him toward the garden.

Just then, Lily bangs the door open and races in.

"Hello hello big brother you're here!  So happy to see you come on let's go!"

Talking at top speed, she grabs Ian's hand and pulls him toward the door.

For a moment, things feel weird, like he's moving in two worlds at once -

- and then things clear, and Ian grins at his sister.

(He was somehow just saying bad things about her?  Doesn't matter.)

"Sure!  Where to?  I don't know Bridgbury yet - what've you found here?"

Lily, wearing an even broader grin, pulls Ian out to some thick bushes behind Ms. Cooper's back garden, asking after Mum and Dad and the cousins as they go.

The bushes are almost growing up against an old crumbling rock wall, but there's a spot where they can sit on some of the crumbled rocks with the bushes shielding them from view from the garden or the houses... not quite everywhere, but most everywhere.

"Here!  Isn't this spot great?  I can't Bless it myself, but it's the sort of spot that should be, you know?"

"Could you Bless it?  Please?"

"Yeah," he says, with a sigh.  He can't deny that look from Lily - even if it wasn't a good idea in itself.

"Bridgbury could use places like that... did you see their auras?"

He holds out his right hand - his left still holding Lily's - and starts murmuring the spell: "I bless this place and call on all goodness that this place be a blessing..."

^{"Yeah. We do need it."}

"... You saw it too?  They're drained?"

For some reason he can't remember whether his sister has aura-sight yet.

"Not quite saw it, but - yeah.  It's that bog.  Er, I think.  And... other things, I don't know how deep..."

Ian squeezes his sister's hand.  "Sorry you were here by yourself all week in the middle of this.  Let's - I'll go in and give the brownie a chance to see me, and then if there's time before dinner we can get a better look over the town?"

Lily squeezes his hand back and nods.

Ian's quickly half-unpacked, and he hasn't seen the brownie yet, but then he wouldn't.

Just as he's leaving his room back to Lily -

to whom?

he didn't have a sister yesterday

Who is 'Lily' - and, what is she?

What spell did she cast on him?

She not only tolerated a Blessing but asked for it - he can't remember all the different types of spirits, but Uncle Malcolm said they wouldn't help most dark spirits - so that sounds good at least -

- but why is she putting on this mask? -

After a few minutes of confused fear, he tears a page out of his journal and writes, in case the spell gets him again:  "LILY IS FAKE.  NOT MY REAL SISTER."

He leaves it on the old oaken desk in his room, in the offchance it'll help.

And then he rushes back downstairs.  Ms. Cooper probably didn't break free from the spell when he did, but it's worth checking before he goes out to look around town by himself.

"Hi, Ian!"

Lily's sitting at the bottom of the stairs, weaving something out of grass which she quickly slides away into a pocket of her dress.

He's moving in two worlds at once; he stumbles as he's stepping down and grabs the banister to steady himself.

"Hey, sis," he says before he can clearly think, "what're you weav -"

"Just come on out!"  She beckons.

Ian follows Lily out to the street, even while half of him is trying to say he shouldn't be.

It's a narrow cobblestone street, just wide enough for one car to squeeze through if you really wanted one.

Nobody really wants one right now.

There're a few people in the street - some adults walking, including a few with market-baskets, and a few teenagers standing whispering together several houses down.  To all appearances, they all look human.

The street is also clarifying.

The superposition resolves.  Ian stares at the changeling, with only a tiny voice in the back of his mind still telling him she's his sister.

He'll talk politely, for now at least - it's always the best starter.  And she hasn't been nasty to him beyond the enchantment.

"What are you?"

"Your sister."

(She reaches one hand into her pocket.)

"No.  It was a strong spell, but no."

He shouldn't have broken through the spell so quickly. Did she make an error with her human fingers? Or are the Hungry Ones working against her? Or is this human - Ian - just that powerful? Hopefully it's the last one; it'll help soon...

^{And she really wanted to just be his human sister for a while!}

"What are you?"

^{"I don't have a mouth-name save 'Lily'...can I stay?"}

She doesn't quite mean to beg for exactly that, but it slips out.

If she's trying to make him feel bad about making an apparent little girl almost cry... well, she's succeeding.

"You made everyone think you're my sister... why?  And for that matter, who did you put your spell on?"

(He doesn't quite want the passers-by to hear, but he's not making much of an effort to whisper.)

"Ms. Cooper.  And Gracie.  And you.  I didn't need to enspell anyone else."  Especially since she added an aversion loop to make sure they wouldn't think to mention her to the rest of the Tirwinnin clan.

"Oh, Gracie's the other witch in town.  About your age; she and Ms. Cooper have tea every few days."  And put down each other's aesthetics, and have Ms. Cooper keep insisting Gracie's miscasting the omens when they tell her disaster is coming.

Well, that's better than the alternative.

"Why?  Are you trying to corrupt us?  Lead me - lead us - into some doom?"

"Not corrupt.  And if I do lead you to a doom - I swear, it'll be one you wouldn't have wanted to avoid."

When he doesn't instantly respond, she adds -

"Can I just show you around town for now?  Please?  There're things you'll want to know!"

(It'll really help save them... and give her a bit longer as his sister.)

He knows many spirits' oaths are trustworthy.  But not all of them.  And if she's offering to go around town with him... he knows a decent way to check.

Also, he really could use a guide around Bridgbury.

"You won't enspell me again?"

She does want to just make him think she's his sister again.  Oh so very much.

But the spell's now bubbling too close to both of them for her to control it anymore.  It's enmeshing more than he knows, binding their magics together - not that she's going to mention that part.  She could weave the whole spell stronger - not that she's going to mention that part either - but nothing more.

"I can't control anymore how it comes and goes over your memories.  And if I could, I could do it just as well here."

Well, she's not wrong there.

"All right, let's go...  But why'd you do this?"

Because she really wanted to.

And also, because the Hungry Ones are about to swallow -- 

She shivers.

Ian notices her trying to lean into him for comfort like his little cousins do, and sidles away.  Not yet, at least.

He points a finger at her, trying to read her mind just in case he can see what she's (at least pretending to be) scared of -

(Nope, that spell isn't going to get anywhere near her mind, thankyouverymuch.)

(Don't most human sisters have secrets from their big brothers, after all?)

She smiles, pretending she hasn't noticed.

"So, you'll really want to see the pub.  It's called the Bull's Head - over this way.  Debra'll let us both in, don't worry.  And the library's right next door..."

After a little while of leading down the street and pointing out the different people and houses they pass, she's almost skipping.

Ian notices that Lily seems to not just know every single person in the village, but every single cat and dog and house too...

... Does she usually put up a better front of being a little girl who just arrived here a week ago?

Her face suddenly blanches as she catches sight of three teenagers leaning up against an old stone wall talking and laughing.

"- and that's Robin.  The one with red hair.  ^{He's Hungry.}"

Ian flashes his aura-sight.

The guy with red hair glances up and nods slowly to acknowledge their presence.

He doesn't have a human aura at all.  It's almost as far from human as that time Ian was looking at a kelpie.

Ian nods back, grips Lily's hand tighter, and turns away.  

("Always be polite with the spirits and fay-folk," Father had said.  "Even if you're fighting them.  Doesn't cost you anything, and they'll usually mind if you aren't.")

Back towards the pub and library and church, if the map in his head is right.  No need to challenge this Robin just yet, at least until he's surer whether he and Lily are on the same side.

Speaking about which - he taps her hand, trying to look into her mind...

No, he's still not getting to do that.

Even if he's acting like a good big brother at the moment, saving her from Robin.

That didn't feel like a spell failing, so much as its not being cast in the first place.  Maybe his mind's still too full of fear and excitement for his magic to work?

He doesn't think so... but oh well.

The back of his mind still wants to just trust her anyway.

Robin glances after the kid and teen who'd just left, with the hollow expression of someone who might be missing someone walking over his grave.  He doesn't know them, and he doesn't really like that.  She looked scared of him.  Nobody's scared of him - no one in Bridgbury, not even the few outsiders who somehow find their way here.

The kid doesn't even look old enough to be at the Maypole.

"Who're they?" he asks his friend Liam.

Liam shrugs.  "Think I saw the girl a few days ago, coming out o' the Bull's Head.  Haven't seen the guy before.  What's up?"

Robin frowns.  "She looked scared.  Guess we must've reminded her of someone?  Like to look her up and see what's up."

Or she's got enough magic to see me for what I am...

Liam shakes his head.  "Why're you so curious 'bout a little girl?"

Robin shrugs.  "New kids in town.  Don't get 'em often."

Liam laughs.

Ian is gently but firmly steering Lily back past the pub (his memory of the streets had indeed been right) to the church.

He knows one way to test her oath and intentions - at least, he thinks he knows it.

It's called St. George's Church.

The polished wooden doors look centuries more modern than the moss-covered stone of the rest of the church; it looks like nobody has been able to wash the building for the last few decades.

There're no churchbells visible.

To Ian now, remembering stories of how the sound of churchbells drives away evil spirits, that looks ominous.

But still - it's a church.  He doesn't need churchbells for this test, and it'll be a surer one anyway.

He doesn't pray much, but it feels like the thing to do when he's going to be borrowing a church for a test, so he whispers a prayer now.

Lily balks, staring at the statue above the doors.  Was that - the humans she'd asked hadn't been clear on just what that saint was killing, but it sounded like some sort of spirit.

Ian squeezes Lily's hand, and makes an effort to speak impassively.  "Are you able to enter?"

Somehow it's harder to form words with her human mouth now.  "Wh-what if I don't want to?"

"Then I'll guess you can't.  Which means..."

How much do spirits and fay-folk know about the magical properties of churches, anyway?

(He glances around and lowers his voice so the people across the street won't hear.)

"... Which means I'll assume your oath earlier didn't mean anything more than if you were a wild fay."

(And what would he do then?  Well, it'll start with a whole lot more wards against her and her magic.)

She isn't a Flittering One, like her brother's guessing.

She isn't a Hungry One, either.  If she really thinks about what Ms. Cooper and the others had said about the "dragon" the saint's killing up there in the statue... it does sound more like a Hungry One than like her.

(And rescuing people from Hungry Ones who want to devour them is exactly the problem here...)

... but all her habits and all the stories she's heard are screaming this isn't a place for her.

She takes a deep breath - she doesn't want to forget to breathe - and turns to her brother.  "We'll just go in the building together?  Tell me truly."

(And she laces the last words with a tug on the spell she'd cast earlier.)

Ian's mouth is open before he realizes it.

"And I'll bless you with the holy water, if they have any, and ask you to swear whatever you're willing to swear - and I still won't be sure of everything; I'd need to ask Father to really know, or at least wait for the morning Eucharist - but I'll know your mind works something like humans' and your oath means something -"

Ian snaps his mouth shut.  Why's he babbling everything to Lily?  Did she cast a spell on him just now without his noticing?

- he could hardly blame his sister for casting a spell on him to at least tell her what he's planning to put her through -

- why's he calling this spirit his sister?  But, all right, if he did have a human sister, and was putting her through this, he could hardly blame her.

Lily shivers.  She doesn't know what holy water will feel like - or Eucharist-bread - but she's talked with myriads of Fay and spirits who've been burned by them.

But then... they were all Hungrier, or Flitterier, than her.  If the humans' Church burns Hungry Ones and Half-Hungry Ones - well, she can't fault the humans for that.

And she wants to stand among the humans now, too.  That was already too much for the Hungry Ones, even before she made herself the form of a body.  Will it be enough for the humans' Church?

Ian releases his grip on Lily's hand on feeling her shiver.  Even if she were his full-human real sister... well, he doesn't know what he'd do if she was shivering at the thought of holy water, but he wouldn't force her to it.

Lily turns from Ian to stare at the stone saint as if trying to read his thoughts.  What is that spirit he's killing?

But she wants Ian to trust her.  She wants him to defeat the Hungry Ones.  She wants... to be Ian's sister.

Slowly, she steps toward the doors and puts out her hand to open them.  "If it hurts me -" she says with her hand on the handle "- I'll try anyway."

Ian squeezes her shoulder for a moment before lifting his hand again.

If he could trust all his emotions that were screaming at him - if at the very least she hadn't admitted to casting a spell on him that's still entangling his emotions -

The dusty, empty church echoes at Lily's footsteps.

She doesn't burst into fire.  She doesn't get bowled out the door.  She doesn't fall to the ground in pain.

She just walks in.

(There's a dust-free corridor up past the pews to the altar and pulpit.  Not much else - if Lily or Ian were looking closely, they could tell very few of the pews have been sat in recently.)

Ian breathes a sigh of relief.

Even better, there's a font of holy water in the corner.  He walks over, beckoning for her to follow.

Lily follows, looking around appraisingly.  Maybe it's just her imagination, but she can imagine that everything in here is pointing at her and calling out "Imposter!  Inhuman!"

But it's still much better than any story she's heard from Peasblossom or Tigerlily or any other Fay.

Ian bows his head over the font of holy water.

He doesn't know how this works; he's just going off one thing his father said once and a half-remembered chapter he read in one book - but he whispers another prayer:  "Make this work."

And then he dips his finger into the holy water and daubs it on Lily's lips.

She's trembling.  But not burning up!  Or falling down!

The water feels like perfectly ordinary water.

Not a moment later, the door opens again.

Rev. Wright blinks his eyes to see two kids leaning over the holy water.  He can't recognize either of them, which is a little strange in such a small town as Bridgbury.

On the one hand, he feels like he really needs to pray; that's why he came here, after all.  He'd heard those voices again in his head, calling for help.  He still doesn't know what to do about them - he's already been to the doctors, and he really doesn't think writing to his bishop will help - but he can at least pray.

On the other hand, he doesn't want to avoid helping these kids if they need any guidance.  But back on the first hand, are they really here for guidance or just for jokes and games...

"Hello?" he says, trying to sound friendly.

Lily backs away from him.  Even though she can still feel the holy water on her lips.

"Hello, Reverend - we needed some holy water."

It's only after he says that Ian realizes he's unsure whether he wants to be as candid as possible without letting slip about magic, or just duck the questions.

How long does the priest mean to stay here?  And how long is Lily going to be willing to stay?

Rev. Wright nods.  He doesn't care to get into quizzing them about whether they're using it respectfully or jokingly or superstitiously.  And what does he know?  If the voices he hears are true, the "superstitious" uses might be perfectly good after all!

"Do you need a bottle?"

He shakes his head.

Rev. Wright glances between the two kids.  There's obviously some tension, and he doesn't want to just ignore it...

"If you're arguing, the church isn't the worst place to do it.  It can remind you not to let the argument go too far and hurt each other."

What would be going too far, with a wild spirit?

- no, Ian doesn't want to hurt her.  At least if she's a friend.

"Thanks, but my sister -"
- what else could he call her? -
"- really -"

He sweeps his hand through the air, since he can't think of more words.

He leans against the back pew.  He's heard scores of kids arguing with their siblings like this.  Sometimes they're willing to listen to him.

"But she what?"

Ian doesn't want to talk about magic, so he settles for staring at Lily.

It might look sort of like a glare.

The water doesn't feel like it's drying on her lips.

She doesn't want to talk to the humans' priest.

But -

"H-he, he doesn't trust me."