Chapter 11

"Why did you have to talk to him!?"

Milady spouts as she walks down the hill. She's just mean. And they are not friends. But Lucy had started to hope when she saw that the Wizard was real. Maybe he could make her nightmares go away. And the Wizard did say that he could help them. But Milady doesn't see it. And Lucy doesn't understand what "harmony" means. But it makes sense, everything is easier when you are friends.

But Milady is just angry all the time, blaming everything on Lucy, even though it was she who took her to him and into the ritual. Things aren't as in the stories. She didn't find any friends on the street, only Milady. And Rat. And Milady even wanted to use her as the price, she said so to the Wizard.

She hears Milady mumble to herself. Lucy hasn't talked to her since the park, only that night when she was scared of the nightmares and Milady told her why she had come to live on the street. She was sorry for her then. At least Lucy had run away willingly. But that doesn't mean she can be mean to her.

"If you had just kept quiet, nothing of this would have happened!"

Milady yells at her over the shoulder. Maybe she can get Milady to see that the Wizard can help them. And then her nightmares will go away.

"But he said he could help us?"

"No, he didn't. "

"But he said that he could help us if we find harmony?"

"There is no such thing as harmony! He didn't know what he was talking about. A fucking waste of time...," Milady mumbles.

"But the harmony...," Lucy tries.

Milady turns to her.

"You want to find harmony? I'll tell you how. There are some rules to follow. Rule number one, you're quiet. Rule number two, you don't speak if you're not asked. Number three, you do what I tell you to."

Lucy should have cried. That's what she's always done when someone is mean to her. But Milady cannot blame everything on her, not when the Wizard said he could help them.

"You are just mean! I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for you! And the Wizard said we needed to find harmony!"

"Fuck it..."

Milady turns back and keeps walking, mumbling to herself. She was never kind to Lucy, she only pretended. And now she doesn't even want to help her.

It's already dark outside, they must have been with the Wizard longer than she thought. The shops are closed and the streets are empty when they come to the town. She wonders where they will sleep tonight. Milady is still mumbling to herself as she leads them to a half-ruined building they saw on their way from the station. She finds some sheets of cardboard in a bin and takes one and heads to the abandoned house. Lucy takes another and follows, sitting down as far away as she can from Milady. She doesn't want to hear her mumbling and shouting at her. It's not so cold, either, so she can stay in the corner. She doesn't have nightmares that night because she doesn't sleep much on the hard floor, but sometime in the morning, she wakes up to Milady poking her with her foot.

"We're leaving."

Lucy follows her out to the train station. When all of this is over, if the Wizard can help them, she will go away from Milady. She doesn't know what she will do when she lives on her own. But she doesn't want to become like Milady. She doesn't want to be mean. She hopes the Wizard can help them if they can only find what harmony means.

They don't speak on the journey back. Milady just sits by herself, mumbling, and Lucy is trying to figure out what harmony means. But she doesn't know enough about magic to understand what he said.

When they come to the city and leave the train, Milady says,

"I'll go and see Gullvi."

She turns and walks down the street. Lucy doesn't trust Gullvi, but she wants to find harmony, so that her nightmares disappear, and maybe Gullvi will listen. She follows. Gullvi has come home from the hospital and when Milady knocks on the door Gullvi is looking almost back to her old self.

"A fucking waste of time, Milady says before Gullvi has a chance to speak."

She goes inside and Lucy follows.

"How so? Did you find him?, Gullvi asks."

"Yeah, and he's bonkers. Absolutely crazy. No idea what he's speaking about."

Lucy thinks that Milady cannot say that. The Wizard did say he could help them.

"But he talked about harmony...", Lucy says.

Milady sighs,

"But for fuck's sake... You got introduced to magic a month ago. What the fuck do you know?"

She turns to Gullvi.

"She wouldn't stop talking. Kept asking questions and god knows what... I guess that just proves the point that he was crazy because he answered her."

She slumps down on the sofa and turns to Lucy.

"Now, just be quiet. You have no clue what you're talking about. Can you please shut up and let us talk?"

Gullvi sits down on the sofa and before Lucy has a chance to tell Milady not to talk to her like that, Gullvi says,

"So he wouldn't help us?"

"No."

"He would, Lucy says. He..."

Milady groans, but Gullvi says.

"Come on, let her speak. I want to hear it, even if it's rubbish. It's not every day you get to hear what this so-called legendary Wizard has to say."

"Whatever.."

Lucy looks at Gullvi. Maybe she will understand what harmony means, even if she was part of everything that happened. She tells her everything she can remember from the visit to the Wizard.

"And he said that the guardians took the weakest and that we need to have harmony. Then we can come to him and he'll help."

"Told you so. He's nuts, Milady says. Do you have any biscuits? I'm starving."

Gullvi frowns and Milady continues,

"The only thing that could make sense is that they took you and not me."

"Yes... Gullvi agrees. I think that would confirm what we've always suspected, that you are stronger in your magical powers. "

"But we could have figured that out by ourselves. It doesn't answer anything. It's just a random sentence that doesn't make sense. But, now you've heard it, and it's bananas. What's next? How do we sort this shit?"

"But wait, let's look at this at least. Maybe there is something here that can help us," Gullvi says.

Milady turns to her.

"What? Did you hit your head when you fell? There's no fucking sense in it. It is whacko. Can we have the biscuits now?"

"Wait, let's focus for a moment. If I'm the weakest of the two of us, why did they take me and not her?, Gullvi says, gesturing at Lucy."

Milady sighs,

"Okay... Why you and not her... What went wrong?"

Milady goes through all the steps they took and how the spells were cast correctly. The only thing she isn't sure of is the invocation; if that was wrong. What if the Guardians didn't accept Lucy in the end, because she had seen the Shadow Man? And Gullvi became the price instead.

"But that still doesn't explain the Shadow Man and why I couldn't close the portal," Milady says.

Lucy listens as they speak. It's true, why did they take Gullvi and not her? She didn't think about that. Why wasn't she the weakest? And she did see the Shadow Man.. But...

"Who can see the Shadow Man?," she interrupts.

Milady sighs, but Gullvi turns to her.

"People with power, you could say."

"What does that mean? And why did I see him? And not you?"

"It's... Some people are born with magical powers, even if they never become a magician. It's a predisposition, you could say. But not everyone with powers will see him. I only saw his shadow in my divination, but not him."

"But we have no fucking clue why you saw him," Milady adds.

Lucy doesn't know why she saw the Shadow Man either. He didn't say anything to her.

"Can't we go and talk to him? Can't we go and ask him?"

Gullvi turns to stare at her, and Milady puts her head in her hands and sighs.

"You don't go and strike up a conversation with him, for fuck's sake... He's not some friend you can visit when you're bored. "

But Lucy cannot stop her thoughts now.

"How did you find out about the magic?, "she asks Gullvi.

"My family has a long line of magicians. I was brought up with it. "

"Can anyone learn it? Even if you don't have powers?"

"Yes, theoretically yes. You will always be stronger and learn faster if you have powers, but anyone can, in theory, learn it. "

"But you were not born into a family of magicians?", Lucy asks Milady.

Milady sighs, but answers,

"No, I found out by myself. And yes, I do have a predisposition towards it."

"How?"

Milady groans.

"I have had enough of your stupid questions for a while. Why don't you stay with Gullvi for a couple of days and let me breathe and think."

"But what if I have some power? Wouldn't it make sense? If you have it, Milady, maybe I have it too."

Gullvi frowns.

"You mean that you would have a predisposition towards magic? So even though I know more about magic, you are stronger?"

"How can she have any powers?" Milady asks. Just...

She waves at her.

"Look at her... "

Gullvi turns to Lucy.

"Have you had anything unusual happening in your life? Some special ability that no one else had?"

"I don't know..."

She can't remember ever being different. She's just been normal Lucy.

"Maybe you wanted something, and your parents always got it for you. Or you always found money on the street, or you always knew who would come and visit you, or who was calling."

"No, nothing like that."

Gullvi hums and gets up and walks over to a drawer.

"Let's see what the pendulum has to say."

Milady sighs.

"Come on, Gullvi, it's a pendulum. It will spin in whatever direction you want it to spin."

Gullvi ignores her and asks for Lucy's hand. She holds the pendulum over it, and it starts to tremble. Gullvi murmurs to herself.

"This is odd.. It does say you have a predisposition."

Lucy only stares at the pendulum. She has powers? Is she a magician? All this time she thought she was normal, but she has a superpower. Just like the stories when you find out you're special! She forgets that she can't trust Gullvi and blurts out,

"Does that mean I can do magic!?"

She lifts her hand and tries to throw a fireball on the wall. She saw that in one of her movies.

"No, no, stop it, Gullvi says."

Milady groans and covers her face with her hands.

"Calm down, Lucy, Gullvi says. You can learn magic. You will have an easier time learning magic than for example me. Because I don't have a predisposition. But that doesn't mean you can shoot fireballs from your hand without knowing how."

It doesn't matter, she can learn. She will learn to shoot fireballs. Just like the movies.

"Okay, so what do we have now?, Gullvi says. Looks like you have a predisposition. That would explain a lot of things. That would also explain why you understand things without actually knowing magic."

Milady looks up from her hands.

"But what the fuck? Listen to you. You've done a fucking pendulum, swinging it in the way that you want to. And now you're trying to believe something just because it would fit a fucking story. What is this?"

Gullvi looks at her, but before she has time to reply, Milady gets up.

"I'm out of here. I can't cope with you two. Good luck with finding anything with your pendulum and your chicken fireballs. Ciao."

She leaves.

"But Milady, what's the...?", Gullvi says.

The door slams. Lucy looks after her.

"Why did she leave?"

"She's... realizing she's wrong, Gullvi says. You can say a lot of things about Milady, but she's always been arrogant. It's difficult for her to admit that she's wrong."

"But I didn't mean to prove her wrong. I just realized something. And I just wanted to tell you because like that, maybe the Wizard can help us."

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter. Milady's Milady. As much as she's amazing, she can also be difficult sometimes. She will come back."

Gullvi turns back to her.

"So what do you think happened?, she asks."

"I... I don't know.. I just know that the Wizard said that harmony is important."

Gullvi hums.

"It doesn't make sense, she mumbles. I've never heard of any harmony in magic. And in any case, it wasn't you who cast the spells."

"The wizard also said you don't know what you don't know."

"When did he say it?, Gullvi asks."

Lucy tries to remember.

"There was something with the Guardians. And he said something that you tried to bribe them instead of fighting your way through. And that you don't know what you don't know. And there was no harmony. He said it again. And he said that you are afraid of them."

Gullvi frowns.

"Of course, you're afraid of the Guardians. You have no business doing magic if you're not. And fighting your way through. I've never heard of a single book mentioning that. I can't even see how that would be an option. What else he said? Tell me everything."

"He seemed to know things without us telling him. When Milady forgot to tell him about the Shadow Man, he said, "You don't tell me everything". And he said that using me in the ritual explained something, but he didn't say what. And that the Shadow Man tricked you. In the end, I asked him if he could help us. And he told me that we will not understand it. He cannot help us until we have harmony. And then we can come to him, and he will help us."

Gullvi mumbles something that Lucy thinks is "good luck with that", but she's not sure she heard it right.

"I don't understand it, Gullvi sighs, but something is ringing true in all this. But I don't understand it."

She gets up to make them a cup of tea. Lucy has almost forgotten that Gullvi tricked her. She's not like Milady. She listens to what the Wizard said. And maybe she can find how to have harmony.

"What does it mean if you see the Shadow Man?, Lucy asks."

Gullvi sits down and hands her a cup.

" It... is a bit unclear, it only says you have a role to play. But no one knows what that means. Maybe it's different each time he shows himself."

Lucy wants to know more about magic, and so Gullvi goes on to tell her, how it works and what happened in the ritual. She tells her about what she's learnt in her life as a Priestess and how Lucy could learn magic. The night falls outside, and Lucy forgets that she was angry with Gullvi. When Gullvi has told her everything, she stands up and says,

"I'll make you a bed on the sofa. You can stay here tonight."

Lucy wiggles her toes as she lays under the duvet when Gullvi has left. The room is warm, and the sofa clean. And she has magical powers! And Gullvi seems nice, she doesn't pretend like Milady. And maybe she can help them so they can go back to the Wizard. She falls asleep and this night, she doesn't have any nightmares.

In the morning, Gullvi makes them toast for breakfast. And she says that Lucy can have a hot shower, and Gullvi even puts her dirty clothes in the laundry. It's nothing like Milady's basement. Lucy even wonders if maybe she can stay with Gullvi, maybe she can teach her magic. She didn't ask yesterday. And then it would be like the movies in the end. She would find friends.

Someone knocks on the door.

"That's earlier than I was expecting, Gullvi murmurs as she gets up. "

Lucy hears Gullvi talk to someone and moments later, Milady comes into the kitchen. She's shaking.

"You dreamt about the Shadow Man?, Gullvi asks."

"No, he came to me in my dreams. He told me he's coming soon. We need to fucking fix this".

Gullvi goes quiet for a moment.

"I've been thinking, and I have one idea, but you will not like it, Gullvi says. "

"Spit it out. What can be worse than crossing the worlds?"

"The Wizard did say some truths. You need to admit it. Things fit, even if you don't like it."

Milady grumbles.

"He talked about harmony, Gullvi continues."

"Whatever.. Unhinged.. "

"We risk nothing to try it. You must see it, no? Even if he was crazy, what other options do we have right now?"

"Yeah, but what does it mean? "

"Listen to me, he must have meant harmony between the two of you. He even said it when you left."

Milady throws a glance at Lucy and then turns back to Gullvi.

"And that's why he's a nut case. We have good harmony, we have good roles."

"But you know, maybe you could try to live together again. And have a good relationship? Maybe that's what he meant? You know, it's worth trying. It will not hurt you."

Lucy puts her toast down. Will she live with Milady again? But if that makes her nightmares go away, it's worth it.

"What am I? A babysitter?"

"Come on, What do we risk trying?"

"We risk my sanity."

"Milady..."

"I'll give it a week. I will be babysitting Wonder Kid for a week."