But they can't talk there. There's people everywhere.

And they definitely can't talk in the car.

And they can't talk at the kitchen table, where everyone's crowded around to do homework—

"Is that my notebook? I've been looking for that!" She pulls it out of his backpack. And it's lavender and pink with faint floral motifs, so he can't very well argue it's his.

God fucking dammit.

Now what's the deal with this stupid notebook?

Right now it's mostly a very long list of ridiculous magic powers. There are numbers in the margins in Zachary's handwriting.

At the end there's a short exchange between Zachary and someone with exuberant glittery pink cursive.

What are

"Put your name first."

Eyeroll.

What are you guys hiding? Who's your friend?

—Ariel

Her handwriting is a terrible scrawl.

Oh, hello! Are you Zachary's sister?

What the fuck!

Inasmuch as she was planning ahead, she was going to make her brother write responses on his own sheet of paper, or maybe to pass it off after homework time and get more of an explanation later. 30 seconds ago she would've guessed this was some gimmicky journal for girly girls and Zachary's big secret was that he dreams of painting his nails and wearing flowers in his hair. This was not even on her radar.

How are you doing that

I'm magic! How much did Zachary explain?

Absolutely nothing.

It would be stupid to tell whatever this is that magic isn't real. Either it is, and she's going to look naive and bullheaded, or it isn't, in which case they both know it isn't but it's going to take more to get the notebook to admit it. And anyways, there are more pressing questions.

What do you want from my brother?

Is he with you? I'm sorry, I thought meeting you would be less abrupt than this and now I'm all out of sorts.

He's right here.

It'd be weird if both of us wrote in the journal right now but I can ask him to confirm that I really am his sister and he really did promise I'd get an explanation of his journal antics now.

She pokes him. "Hey, can you check this for me?"

He's been ignoring his homework to watch her write out of the corner of his eye. He leans over immediately to scan the page.

from Zachary

It's true. But only if she solemnly swears not to

"Why are you writing on Ariel's homework?" his foster mother asks. He jerks his hand away from the notebook like it's a hot stove.

On the back of an English paper rubric, he scribbles

you have to swear never to tell anyone what the notebook tells you

and then he folds it up and puts it on the table near his sister and stares intently at his own work.

She picks up the paper and unfolds it.

Ariel

He wants me not to repeat anything you tell me. I've got a note saying so, I don't know if that helps you any.

If you press the note against my pages or attach it to them I should be able to read it, I think.

She does that.

Explain what's going on now?

I think he wanted you to swear first? Unless you've done that already out loud.

I, the entity known as Ariel Turner, do solemnly swear upon this day to never reveal to anyone the contents contained within this magical notebook, particularly the stuff that my brother seems sensitive about. 

Thank you. I must confess, that helps my peace of mind immensely.

The short explanation is that I am a magical notebook. I'm here on behalf of a force outside this universe in order to offer Zachary magic powers. The powers available are listed on the pages before this one. Do you have specific questions?

That's a dangerous road you're going down, notebook. Ariel is made out of questions.

Why should we believe you about any of this? Are there other talking notebooks out there? Why does he in particular get magic powers? Are gods real?

Unfortunately, I don't presently have evidence on hand for anything except for my own unlikely existence. Once Zachary has finalized his decisions and accepted the gift of the Spirit, he will be able to tell that he's arrived in another world and check that all of his powers are in place quite easily. My understanding is that he plans to return as soon as possible to collect you, so at that point you will also have incontrovertible proof of my claims. Until that point, all I can offer is my assurances that this is quite real, my refusal to lie to or mislead my Chosen, and my sincere attempts to help you verify what's going on here.

There might be other talking notebooks out there, but I don't know of them. I am the only instance of myself in this world. I also exist in other universes, but whether those count as separate talking notebooks is complicated and depends on how you understand identity.

Certain people are much more likely to get the Spirit's attention than others. Without going into details Zachary might consider private, it wants people to get the chance to be powerful and beautiful and special and feminine, and the powers it likes most to offer them reflect that. The Spirit selects people who are most likely to take full advantage of these powers, or who would most benefit and flourish and grow if they have them available, or who are deeply aligned with the Spirit's preferences and aesthetics. 

The Spirit is not a god. I am also not a god. It is possible that the Spirit has at some point chosen a god, but I have no specific memories of other Chosen and couldn't really say. Gods do exist throughout the multiverse, in too many cosmologies arrangements to begin to describe. There are not to my knowledge any gods in this universe in particular, but I am sometimes wrong about that.

So you're agnostic, then, at least in this universe?

What is the Spirit if it isn't a god?

What's the deal with other universes existing?

Does my brother have to be powerful AND beautiful AND special AND feminine?

You aren't going to lie to him, sure, but are you going to lie to me?

I definitely will not lie to or mislead you either! I would only do that if my Chosen specifically requested it, and I would feel very uncomfortable the whole time and try to avoid the situation entirely.

It feels strange to describe myself as agnostic when I believe in the existence of a countless number of specific gods throughout reality, but I suppose you could round me off to that.

The Spirit is a being that exists outside of time and space, more on the level of an idea than something corporeal. It is like some types of god in some types of ways, but it doesn't want people to relate to it in the same way they would relate to a god, and it isn't limited to one or a few worlds the way that gods typically are.

I'm not sure what specifically you want to know about other universes. Reality is a big big big place! If you can think of a way that a world might be, it probably exists somewhere out there.

The Spirit only chooses people who are open to the possibility of being all of those things, but they certainly don't have to be any of them. It's even possible to not accept the Spirit's offer at all!