Ooh what a cute little store. Rebecca doesn't exactly have money burning a hole in her pocket but looking is free till they tell you otherwise! In she steps.

"Hello! Welcome to Wake's Curiosities. All kinds of oddities and wonders... Oh! For you, more than for most people."

"I'm just looking, thanks!"

Gwen pauses a second. "...Don't worry, this is on the house," she says, and twiddles her fingers. A swirl of wind starts at a box of glittery sand near Rebecca and spins upward in a spiral around her, booping her nose before cutting out, dropping the sand to the floor. "Magic exists! Want some of your own?"

"Eep! Um! Maybe! If it's not too against my religion!"

She tries to smile reassuringly. "There's a whole organization of Christian witches. Or Muslim or Jewish witches. They work together with each other, and the celestials."

"Celestials? Like angels and stuff?"

"Some people argue about whether they're 'real' angels, but yes, they're angels. They work for someone who is either God, or close enough that we can't tell the difference since He doesn't talk to any of us directly."

"That is great. I would love to do magic and meet angels."

"Great! I love awakening new witches, I have the best job." She makes a gestures and the window shades drop and the sign flips to 'open' 'closed' but on the opposite side.

"So, how this works is, you meet my gaze and take my hands, and then we will do a meditative kind of visualization of all the choices you have in the process of awakening as a witch. You have several ancestors who were a magical species - you'll be able to choose one of those species to become. There are three types of witch who learn and gain power in different ways - you'll pick on of those. And there are many types of magic you can choose, which you'll start out knowing some of and have talent to learn more. There's also a lot of small perks and drawbacks that let you tweak the details, which we can get into later."

"Also, and I can do this before or after awakening, I'll tell you about the world behind the masquerade. Magic's hidden from most people, for good reasons, and now you'll be able to find it."

"What're the good reasons?"

"It is metaphysically important that most people think the world follows straightforward physical laws. If that breaks down, we either get Heaven and Hell fighting a war with all of Earth as the battlefield, or Earth and most of its interplanar neighbors stop existing. It hasn't happened for sixty-five million years, and it's not that easy to put strain on the masquerade, but we have to keep the number of informed people relatively low."

"Sixty-five million years is... the... dinosaur number of years."

"You see why we don't want another of those wars? As I understand it, this Earth wasn't the primary Earth at the time, it was a neighbor, and the war wasn't being fought here but the side effects of the war were still enough to wipe out the dinosaurs. And then after the war settled down, this Earth became the primary 'keystone world' where the masquerade is enforced."

"Whoa, how many Earths are there?"

"Complicated question. There are hundreds of planets that are in approximate the same spatial location as Earth in parallel worlds, but the further you get along the weird perpendicular direction that separates parallel worlds, the less like Earth they get. But there's at least a dozen that are obviously recognizable."

"Wow. Okay, no wars."

"It would be bad. Now, it's not as hard as you might think. You can tell your immediate family, and the Veil will help you blend in, so you can live your life pretty well. But you can't tell your fifty closest friends or your whole congregation, or you'll start pushing the limits."

"Okay. And my parents shouldn't tell, like, my aunts and uncles or anything?"

"Depends how big their families are. It's something like - if you tell a dozen people and regularly do magic in front of half of them, you'll probably be fine. Double that, you might be fine. Fifty, you'll be causing Veil backlash for sure. Most people choose to tell their immediate family, anyone they're dating seriously, and maybe their couple best friends and favorite cousins who can be trusted to keep the secret, but it's mostly about numbers and trust."

Nod.

"Should I talk more about the world, or get right to the magic?"

"Magic!"

"Then let's go. You'll have some new senses - don't worry if they're confusing, I'll guide you through it."

Gwen reaches out both her hands and stares firmly into Rebecca's eyes.

Staaaaare.