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“You need to be quick about it,” Chloe encouraged. “You can’t let your mind start talking over your intuition.”
Lucas opened his eyes, and his shoulders fell. “I don’t know. I didn’t really get an answer. Or… maybe I already know what I need to do, but I’m afraid to do it.”
I realized what he was saying. “You don’t want to learn all the spells in the book.”
“How can I?” Lucas asked. “I can’t destroy a soul just to show I know what I’m doing. But how do I demonstrate the full capacity of my powers unless I pull off the most powerful spell in the book?”
Chloe flipped through the pages. “There’s got to be more to it than that. I don’t think you’d design a system that worked that way. Not in this life, not in any.”
“It’s not just that spell,” Lucas said. “There’s another one I don’t quite understand. Maybe that’s the last piece to passing the Warlock’s Trial.”
Chloe flipped through the book. “Which spell?”
Lucas looked over her shoulder. “Two more pages. That one. It’s a grief spell of some sort, but I don’t understand it. It says it’s to manifest the grief of living people, which doesn’t make any sense. Why would I want to create grief for people? I don’t even wish that on my enemies. Besides, I don’t have power over the living, so I don’t understand where it fits in.”
“Maybe it’s not a spell at all,” Chloe theorized. “Maybe it’s more of… a metaphor? I’m not sure.”
Lucas sighed and took the book back. “I don’t know, either. I just need to think about it for a while. I’m sure it will make sense eventually.”
Lucas glanced at the clock on the wall. “I think I’ve made enough progress for the day. I might go lie down.”
“Let us know if you need any more help,” I offered, though I didn’t know how much more help we could be.
“I will,” Lucas said, before leaving the room.
Chloe breathed a heavy sigh and turned to me. “I feel bad for him. I wish we could help more.”
“You don’t have to help… but I’m glad you’re here,” I said.
Chloe chuckled lightly. “Of all the things I never thought you’d say.”
I shrugged. “People change.”
“Absolutely,” Chloe agreed. “Just look at the two of us. I never did get a chance to say thank you for what you did for me in the Abyss.”
I waved a hand. “You don’t need to thank me.”
“No, I really do,” Chloe argued. “This kind of thing might be normal to you, but it’s not the way I was taught. Kindness wasn’t expected, no matter how hard I tried. I guess you’d never believe I wasn’t always a mean girl before you came to town.”
“Really?” I asked curiously. “Who were you before I came to town?”
“Oh, I was an absolute bitch,” she admitted with a laugh. She hopped up on the desk, sitting on the edge like she was settling in for a long chat. “But not always. I tried to be nice as a kid, but I learned at a young age that it was easier to get what I wanted when I treated people with cruelty rather than kindness. Obviously, I’ve realized that’s bullshit, but for a while, it was the only way I operated. But all that cruelty just reflected on me, and I ended up hating myself. It wasn’t worth it.”
“What would make you feel that way in the first place?” I wondered.
“Nobody listened to me when I was nice,” Chloe admitted. “The only time I ever got my point across was when I was being aggressive. Growing up, I wanted to do nice things, but if I was too soft spoken, my parents didn’t think I was passionate enough. I remember in middle school I organized a fundraiser for the animal shelter. I thought I could place all the stray cats into homes. My parents are a bit like my grandma, if you haven’t guessed. They believed hard work could get you anywhere, so they said if I wanted to do a fundraiser, I’d have to figure it out myself.”
“Do you believe that?” I asked. “That hard work can get you anywhere?”
“I used to,” Chloe replied. “But it only gets you so far. Hard work didn’t get my dad the connections his father made before he was born. Those connections earned him his first job, then his first promotion. Hard work didn’t earn my mom financial support from her parents that bought her first house. I think connections and support are important—that’s why we have community—but I also think my parents didn’t realize how much other people struggle to get somewhere. I don’t think privilege makes them bad people, but I think my parents’ inability to recognize it prevented them from lifting others up. That’s what I wanted to do. Help others.”
Chloe sighed. “I spent weeks planning this fundraiser—talking to the shelter, posting flyers around town, trying to get people involved. I even set up a bake sale and made cookies for days to raise money. Come the day of the fundraiser, nobody showed up.”
My heart dropped. “I’m sorry, Chloe.”
“You know me. I’m headstrong. I wasn’t going to give up,” she continued. “So I ran the fundraiser again, only this time, I decided that if people weren’t going to take my invitation nicely, I was going to bully them into showing up. At fundraiser day round two, the shelter said it was the best turnout they’d ever seen. Those stray cats needed homes, shelter, and food, and without me, the winter would've come in and they would've froze. Nobody else cared, but I did. If I had been nice and accepted that I couldn't make people want to help, all those cats would be dead. But because I was an asshole, and I threatened and forced people to see things my way, I saved lives. I realized that sometimes, being cruel was the only way to make people care and get things done. Because no one would care unless their own skin was on the line. My hard work meant nothing compared to my ability to bully people into complying. I didn't want to be that way, but I couldn't deny that it produced results. People might've gotten their feelings hurt, but at least those cats didn't have to be in pain, and that's what mattered to me. I had to pick and choose what I wanted, and I wanted to help more than I wanted to be good. Because being good means nothing if you're plastering on a polite smile while watching something suffer."
“That must’ve really affected you,” I said sadly.
