Ch. 19

Home is that intangible thing that you feel in your soul only when you've come to truly know a place—when you can wake up, and smile, in self-satisfaction, that you're safe—a place that feels right. Or even feels off, but in the right ways, like the way the sunlight might catch you right in the eye in a certain time of the year. Alternatively, you can drink a bottle of Home Tonic, because that sensation has been magickally isolated.

Recipe #1014, Alchemickal Craft and Cruft 12th Edition

Horry's recounting of the past couple of day's events to Hermany, Romb, and Daisy takes the better part of the afternoon—accounting for occasional interruptions to assure passerbys that he is not, in fact Moggley, or, for that matter, dead.

After class selection, they continue on a more expansive tour around the castle—including a view of the sport's pitch, and an entirely too close trip to the lake. The castle has…subdued? Different bits still seem to rotate along a thousand different axes, but the gargoyle's battle has reached some sort of incomprehensible end, with one identical-looking faction having declared victory and littered the outer surface of the castle in the body parts of the other.

The moat water still sloshes in turbulent slow-motion, though. A blob of ejecta occasionally ventures too far from the surface, and time seems to catch up for it, the father it gets away.

Frothy spray foams at Horry and Hermany's feet as they watch the water.

"You're sure it was…you? I'm sure plenty of people have cactus tattoos…you are pretty famous, Horry,"

"Definitely…I…I think I know some of his story even. When I'd copied some of my book with Horbid, the text became readable after whatever he did. And it was…well…Hermany, I just wrote down random pages…random pages out of a life story. And like half of them were terrifying. I think—I think that's what I was going to be…if he didn't do whatever he did?"

"Maybe…but…who's to say he didn't hex your books too? Or just scramble your story? Just because it's his story doesn't mean it's yours too,"

"I dunno," Horry squeezes his arms around himself, unsure what else to say. Cool moat-spray tickles his cheeks.

"I'm sorry," he says, looking down.

"Horry, what do you have to be sorry for!"

He kicks a rock into the space below and it slows as it nears the water surface, "I've known you guys for like a couple hours, and I dunno…all I've done is complain about my weird problems…um, and stuff."

"Horry." Hermany says then stops, she turns and kicks another rock into the moat, and nods at it, "Horry, a month ago, I didn't know that was possible," she points at the rock as it slows and is encompassed in a roiling wavefront. "Any of this," she swoops an arm at the castle—at Romb and Daisy jumping around on the sports pitch behind them.

"A month ago, the thing I was most worried about was whether or not the library had the next Jacques book I wanted to read. Two days ago, right? Two days ago, you left your aunt and uncle's place, and you've had a ridiculous crazy world-breaking magickal adventure and almost died twice. I think," she pauses again, "I think talking about it is healthy," she nods to herself, "Or, that's um, what my mum would say. I think."

"Yeah…" says Horry, watching the waves.

"And the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me was I broke my arm trying to do a cartwheel once. And I'm pretty sure I complained about it for like six months. So I think you're allowed. In my opinion," Hermany crosses her arm.

Horry touches his arm along the magickally healed fracture, "Hm," he says.

Bells chime in the distance, and students slowly drift back towards the main entrance for dinner around them.

"I think…I miss it. Not being, uh, magickal,"

"Oh, I'm homesick too, Horry. The only way I kept from bawling the entire train ride was yelling at Romb," they both laugh.

Horry pauses, "I don't think it's homesickness—home, uh, wasn't great. It's hard to explain. Home made sense, I guess. Even if it wasn't great. I could still, like, imagine how it might be good. Could wrap my head around it…"

"Christmas isn't that far away," starts Hermany.

"Hm," Horry says, noncommittal—suppressing a confusing knot in his gut.

Romb and Daisy float down from the low-gravity pitch behind them giggling madly.

"Horry, you've gotta try this pitch. They've been playing on it for so many hundreds of years it has thousands of permanent rule changes. It's—it's mad!" Romb lands gently a few paces away.

"No thanks. I've been up in the air enough lately,"

"Do they use the field for anything else?" Hermany looks up at a fractal assortment of hoops and bells—each different on either end of the pitch.

"Some duels," says Daisy, landing a short ways behind Romb, "Or mock battles. Mostly sport, though."

"Sometimes two sportss at once," says Romb as they start walking up a newly-erected drawbridge.

"I'm surprised one field is big enough for ballsportss for the entire castle," say Horry.

"If they put pitches too close together, balsport games can start interferin'—I mean, they do it intentionally sometimes, but it can be a little dangerous for the players."

"Full contact rulesets are way better," Daisy grins maniacally.

"Daisy, the point of sbort is not to kill each other,"

"Neither is dueling!"

"Okay then what is the point of dueling?"

"To dominate your opponent, mentally and magickally," Daisy says, as if reciting a dear mantra.

"Sounds like sports."

"It can be, but that's not what it's entirely about. It's like, it's like the difference between um cupcakes and and a magnificent, delicately crafted gourmet cake. Sometimes the cupcakes taste really good—I mean, usually cupcakes taste good anyway, right?—but the gourmet cake is just divine,"

"Dueling is supposed to be the gourmet cake?"

"Yes! Of course! What else would it be!"

The Great Hall, having ambulated during their daytime activities, sits immediately adjacent to the front door, and bustles with activity. It's probably twice as busy as it had been during Searching, and significantly more older students already sit in the prime seats far from the bench of faculty. As they make their way in, Horry still detects the occasional stare, but the gossip about him seems to have percolated enough that no one is fully dumbstruck by his appearance anymore.

They sit, and another bowl of vomit appears in front of Horry who, immediately, gags.

"Oh jeez Horry, you don't have to eat that y'know? It's just the default…"

A beef wellington folds out of the table in front of Romb, a salad unwraps in front of Hermany, and a stew bubbles into a recession in front of Daisy.

"Oh…no…I did not…"

Hermany taps her wand in front of Horry on the table and a 'menu' appears. Except it isn't really a menu—it's a list of foods that seems to be updating itself as Horry looks at it.

"Okay somebody just…what's the punchline here?"

"It's your favorite food, just pick it! Don't have to have the brown slop,"

'Potato soup' sits in the middle, with auxiliary lines pointing towards a couple of different types of sandwich. He taps his bowl, and the slop flips around and is replaced by the soup.

The smell almost brings tears to his eyes.

"How did they…"

"S'good, right? I mean, I think everything is better than the slop,"

Horry brings a single spoonful to his mouth, but is interrupted by a card flying into his face.

"Ahhg, really?! Again?" he tears it off of his face and looks at it.

YOU HAVE BEEN INVITED

"What?!"

He looks up, and Hermany has one too—but not Romb or Daisy.

"Oh! You got a club invite! Already! Maybe it's a secret one," Daisy says, conspiratorially.

He turns the card around in his hand, "Does yours say anything?"

"No, you?"

"No, just that I've been invited. Is it supposed to be a puzzle?"

"Sometimes!" Daisy says cheerily, "Although probably not too tricky if they're sending them to you Moggley people, uh, no offense."

"None…taken," Horry says, as the letters disappear. He tries the soup again.

A second card flaps into his face.

Fuming, Horry tears it off.

IF YOU NEED A HINT—HE DOESN'T NEED A HINT—IF YOU NEED A HINT—WHY WOULD HE NEED A HINT—HE PROBABLY DOESN'T KNOW ANY SPELLS—SO WE'RE GIVING HIM A HINT-OH IS IT STILL RECORDING? WAIT—

Horry sighs, puts his spoon down, and waits. After a beat, a third note shoots down the table, and he catches it in the air.

TAP IT WITH YOUR WAND

"Lookit Mr. Popular over here," Ron mumbles around a bite of wellington.

"It's—it's the same people! They gave me a hint,"

"What, to tap it with your wand or something?"

"Yes, uh, exactly that."

Romb snorts.

"Isn't that like the first thing you would try anyway?"

Horry rips out his buzzing wand and taps the first note.

SEVEN RIGHTS FOUR LEFTS TEN RIGHTS, MIDNIGHT

Then, after a second:

COME ALONE