The first car that stops for her is something sleek and black with leather upholstery and no back seat. The driver, leaning across the passenger seat to open the door for her, is not far off from her own age.

"You look like you've had a day," he remarks as he straightens up again.

She wishes it wasn't so obvious, but even with the wig she looks run-down and she knows it. "You could say that," she says as she gets in. "Can I get a ride to Tenth and Maple?" It's a few blocks from her house; she'd rather not give out her address. 

"Sure, no problem." He waits for her to get her seatbelt on before he keeps driving. "I'm Sean, what's your name?"

"Melinda. How has your day been?" It's got to have been more interesting than hers. Also she just noticed that this is a really nice car.

"I spent like half of it driving around aimlessly because my parents got me this car last week and it's my new favourite thing in the world. How about you?"

"Eh, school, homework, errands. It's a really cool car; what's your favorite thing about it?" Just off the sound of the engine she bets it's fun to drive.

He means to come up with some kind of reasonable answer to that question but instead the words that come out of his mouth are "that it's mine," with a flicker of golden light in his eyes.

Is it really yours when your parents bought it for you, she doesn't say, and then gets distracted by his eyes. It's probably just a lucky reflection from a streetlight but it's very aesthetically appropriate nonetheless. "Wow, your eyes just lit up when you said that."

"—yeah I guess they did, huh."

He spends a moment contemplating this and then says "...fuck it, whatever. I have magic powers."

His eyes light up again and this time they stay on. The light is sunny gold, with a fiery orange-red edge.

"I should probably be proving that somehow so you don't freak out but I can do literally anything as long as it stays in my car so it's kind of hard to think of something specific. My eyes sure do glow, though."

Oh wow that is the coolest shit. "I definitely believe you can change your eye color! Anything you want so long as it stays in the car . . . telekinesis? Magic healing? Speaking languages you don't know?" She thinks she managed to say all of those in the same tone of generic curiosity.

"...I wouldn't know how to try to speak a language I don't know, the other two seem fine—here," and he pulls a crumpled movie ticket out of his pocket and sets it down unsupported in midair, where it continues to float. "Telekinesis. I can make stuff appear out of thin air too but I don't know that I can give it away afterward, the magic only works on stuff that's mine or in my territory. ...I might be able to speak a language I don't know if you know it, but I might end up doing it by reading your mind?"

Magic!! She waves a hand all around the floating ticket and pokes it. "Try, hm, making a butterfly and letting it fly out the window or something? And I can quote the like two lines of Ode to Joy I know and if it works it won't be by reading my mind because I barely know what they mean either."

The window on her side of the car rolls down. A pretty blue butterfly appears, flutters toward the window, and vanishes again as soon as it crosses the place where the glass isn't.

"...if I'm gonna be fucking around with magic a bunch I should maybe find somewhere to park. I mean, if you'd rather fuck around with magic than go home."

Damn, there goes her half-formed hope of a cure, she thinks when the butterfly vanishes. Though maybe a pre-existing person would be a bit more durable. Either way her next choice is obvious. "I cannot imagine anything I would rather be doing right now than fucking around with magic."

"That's fair!"

He starts looking for a reasonable place to pull over. In the meantime, he can tell her whatever else about his powers happens to cross his mind. "The other thing I can do magic to is me—I kinda semi-accidentally made myself six inches taller and it's gonna be awkward if my parents ever notice."

"That sounds like the kind of thing they'll inevitably notice if you live with them but most people wouldn't jump to magic as an explanation. And I guess you can shrink yourself again if you're worried about it."

"Yeah, but I like being tall, and I know me and I know I'm gonna forget to keep putting it back."

Which reminds him of something awkward and he spends about two seconds wondering if he should maybe not say it and then realizes that of course he's going to.

"...the one thing I can do that sticks even when something leaves my car is like—change things back. Like if you, I don't know, broke your shoelace or something in here and I fixed it, it'd stay fixed. And I can take away memories of things that happen in here and that sticks. I... was planning on not letting anybody leave my car remembering I can do magic in it, because the guy who gave me the magic powers is incredibly sketchy and I bet if there are any other people around who got magic from the same place I don't want them to ever notice me, but, I dunno, you seem cool and it would be kind of a dick move and maybe I'm bad enough at hiding things that there's no point trying."

He successfully locates a place to stop, and stops there.

"I can keep a secret. And . . ."

Melinda takes a deep breath and provides some candor of her own. "Can you put things back to how they used to be before I got in the car. Because I've been--sick, for a long time, and I'd take being fifteen again with amnesia if it would fix it."

"I dooon't think so. But uh. People can be mine, I asked."

"What, precisely, does that mean?"

"He said they have to 'think of themselves' as mine, whatever that means, and then I can do magic to them same as I can to me or my car or whatever, and it sticks."

"I don't generally think of people being someone's as a coherent concept but I'm suddenly very motivated to figure it out. Thinking of myself as owing you a massive favor would be trivial, if you healed me."

"I mean, so, I do actually want to help you if I can figure out how, and I don't actually want to do anything bad to you, but you met me like five minutes ago and should maybe be thinking slightly harder about whether you want me to have absolute power over you forever?"

"Believe me, I'm thinking about it. But on the other side of the scale is the fact that if you were going to attack me you could have done it already, and the fact that if I turn you down my 'forever' could end up being a lot shorter than most people's. But I don't have to decide anything tonight unless you insist on it."

"Fair enough. Okay. ...I can fix you for now if you want."