The Sound Carries

By Meghan Williams

"Chaos rears its head again. Elastic extends and ruptures. A scattered nest, a house in flames."

The Sound Carries follows sisters Cara and Ada Leiva, who are forced to reckon with everything their mother, Miriam, has kept hidden when a giant appears near their home. Miriam is a skilled magical practitioner, and her four childr

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meghan Williams P.
• Release date: Feb 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989577200

Meghan Williams

Meghan Williams grew up on the Caribbean coast of Colom- bia. She has since lived in the United States, Hong Kong, and France. She started writing The Sound Carries halfway through her bachelor's degree in International Business, a culmination of ideas that had been swirling shapelessly in her head for years prior. Prior to that, she had mainly written on online platforms for young authors like Figment (RIP), publishing a steady stream of short stories, poems, and unfinished novels.Now based in Paris, Meghan is directing her professional efforts toward the environmental sustainability sector. She is passionate about mitigating environmental and social issues and hopes to one day merge her passion with her love for writing. She is currently working on the sequel to The Sound Carries, the second of the Hope Springs trilogy. Subscribe to her newsletter or follow her on social media to receive updates on her work.Subscribe to my newsletter:https://thesoundcarries.substack.com

Book preview

Prologue

Neither Miriam nor Richard grew up in Hope Springs. The twists of life that led them there, after tangling them up with each other, were nearly untraceable in their complexity, unfathomable in their vastness. To their children, it would seem like they had always lived there; their roots plunged deep into the rich soil at the base of the Cascades. To them, the young couple was a towering pine—and they were birds perched at the branches, ready to fly away. It wasn’t that the children didn’t like Hope Springs. It was a peaceful town not far from one of the state’s best universities. A good place to launch but not the most exciting to land. That was all well with Miriam and Richard. They hadn’t been looking for excitement when they found Hope Springs but for refuge.

The first prerequisite Miriam had when selecting a house was the land. Much like any other part of the world, the western United States had been drenched in blood and rancor years before, once and twice, and once again. Miriam didn’t expect to find land at peace, but she wanted to find land she could appease. The process started the day they mounted their beat-up Volvo 240 with the dream of the I-80 W and no idea how to get there past the I-77 N. Somehow, they had made it past the never-ending plains of the central continental US and emerged at the other side if not victorious, at least feeling disillusioned enough to settle.

The Hope Springs community was fairly open to them, barely out of their twenties, heterosexual, and familiar. It didn’t matter what gods lay behind Miriam’s dark eyes; her skin was fair enough, and her head was uncovered. The couple would never speak of their past to any of their new friends or coworkers, and after the first few months, nobody was ever interested enough to pry. Soon, they grew into the town’s customs, lending a hand for school fundraisers, attending local football games, and helping set up for yearly festivities. But first, they had to find a house.

The Victorian sat at the end of a short cul-de-sac off Willow Street, which fed into Jackson Drive, one of the city’s main roads on which the supermarket, the bank, and the public schools were located. Other than its convenient location, the house had beautiful window panes, gray stone roofing, and two enchanting flowering dogwoods, one in the front and one in the back. The place would have sold for a fortune in any other city, but nothing cost a fortune in Hope Springs. It was the nineties, and Miriam had carried a worn-out blue backpack on her lap all the way from the southeast full of twenty dollar bills. If the realtor found the arrangement suspicious, she didn’t let on, and Miriam and Richard were glad it never came up in conversation.

It was in this house that the couple would go on to raise not one child but four. Cara was the first who had nestled deep in the center of Miriam’s body even before they climbed in that Volvo. Cara was expressive from the moment she was born. From the womb, according to Miriam, who had to put up with her incessant kicking. Miriam was unmistakably present in the prominence of her nose, the roundness of her face, and the texture of her hair; however, her most striking feature, her periwinkle eyes, were drawn from her father.

After Cara, came Ada. Months after the second daughter was conceived, thick rivulets of blood streamed out from between Miriam’s legs, a sure sign, she thought, that the life in her womb had come to an end. Before the couple could mourn, however, the doctor put an ice-cold stethoscope to her stretch-marked belly and listened. There, hidden behind her mother’s frantic heartbeat, was the little pitter-patter of Ada’s twelve-week-old heart, pumping along. When the second daughter was born, she had brown skin that reminded Miriam of her father. Though it would leak out into an olive by the time she was a teenager, her dark eyes and thick eyebrows would always remain reminiscent of a family her mother had long ago left behind.

The third child and their only son seemed to appear between one second and the next. Cara was six years old when they brought Gage home. And it wasn’t until five years later, when Richard received a phone call from a lawyer in Detroit, that a ten-month-old Meena would be hand delivered to their doorstep and placed with the utmost care and a sigh of relief into their open arms. At that moment, Miriam and Richard knew their family was complete.

Chapter One

Ada had been dreaming about towering ivory spires and a red moon when the song woke her. It infiltrated her dreams and brought her consciousness back to her bed. Suddenly, she could feel the sheets wrapped around her legs, her head pressing into her pillow. She opened her eyes.

The light of dawn had not yet found the cracks between her window frame and her blinds. Her clock read four thirteen AM. For a disorienting moment, she couldn’t even hear the singing anymore. Then, there it was again, as clear as day. She looked over at Cara’s sleeping figure. Her sister hadn’t even budged. She listened for noises in the hallway, telltale signs that other people in her household had been jostled awake by this melodious voice, but there were none. This seemed odd. Ada was one of the deeper sleepers in her family, and the sound had been loud enough to wake her up. It seemed to reverberate through the very air. A low, steady humming. Try as she could, it was impossible to pick out words. Finally, convinced it wasn’t coming from inside the house, she rose and headed for the window.

Blue light illuminated the road and unlit houses, the clustered trees, and the sprawling mountains in the distance. Nothing stood out immediately—there were no lit windows nor cars driving by—but as her eyes adjusted to the dawn, beyond the neighborhood and Jackson Drive and even beyond the forest, she saw one figure towering far above the rest. Specter-like from the distance, Ada was perplexed by the sheer size of it. The more she stared, the more it began to look like a woman, a woman five times as tall as the Cascade Mountains.

Doubting her own senses, Ada walked over to Cara’s bed and shook her. Hey, she said. Hey, wake up. I think there’s a giant outside, Cara mumbled and groaned, annoyed, but she didn’t give up.

What? she finally snapped, cracking open only one eye. What time is it?

I think there’s a giant outside.

What? Cara pushed herself up on her elbows, still irked.

Come look. Tell me if you see it, too.

Reluctantly, Cara sat up, the cold air hitting her like a bucket of ice water. I swear if this is a joke, you’re so dead.

Ada walked over to the window. It was almost five, and the sky was beginning to brighten. There by the mountains, can you see her? She stepped aside to give her sister space.

Cara stared for a moment, completely expressionless. Then, Holy shit. Did you tell Mom and Dad?

No, I just woke up, Ada sighed, relieved to be corroborated. Can you hear her? she asked, eyes wide.

What? Cara tore her eyes from the silhouette.

Can you hear her? Ada tried again. She’s singing.

No, I can’t hear her. You should get Mom and Dad, like, now. Cara held steadfast by the window as if the giant would disappear if she turned away.

Ada reappeared minutes later, groggy parents in tow. Too late, Cara realized they could’ve let their father sleep. A non-practitioner, Richard would see nothing even as he crowded around the window with them.

Jesus, their mother said, catching sight of the figure. I haven’t seen a giant in ages. Noticing her husband staring blankly into space, she patted him on the arm. There seems to be a giant standing right over there by the mountains.

What’s it doing? he asked, gaze still fixed somewhere on the horizon.

She’s just standing there. Miriam shrugged. Time moves slower for them, you know, being so big and all.

So she’s just going to stand there? Cara jumped in, concerned.

Well, I don’t know, dear. We’d have to ask her.

Can you hear her singing? Ada asked again, hopeful.

Singing? Her mother turned to her, startled. I can’t hear anything.

Am I hallucinating, then? She wrung her hands. Her singing was what woke me up.

Miriam regarded her for a moment, then turned back to the giant. Do you see how hazy she looks? The girls nodded. It’s because she’s behind a veil. Do you remember I taught you about magical veils before? She turned to her husband to explain, Magical beings put up barriers between the human world and their world in order to live undisturbed. By doing this, they create parallel dimensions running along the same space and time. Some are separated by small degrees and are actually quite easy to stumble through, but others, like the giants’ realm, are usually difficult and rarely traversed.

How did she get here, then? This was Ada, already forgetting her original question.

And why? Cara added.

Miriam shook her head. Again, we’d have to ask her. It is quite strange for her to be here. She may just be lost, but because she is still partially behind the veil, we can only see a hazy silhouette and shouldn’t be able to hear anything she says. She turned to Ada. Maybe you’re a gifted traveler if you are able to hear her even now? Her voice turned up at the end as if she were asking a question.

Ada shrugged. Okay?

That might be the case. It would certainly explain why you can hear her when no one else can. After a pause, What is she saying?

I can’t make it out. It sounds like music or humming.

Miriam assessed the situation. I don’t think giants speak English in the first place. Let me think about how we can communicate, and we’ll talk again tonight. For now, she said, turning to them. See if you can get a little more sleep, girls. You still have classes to attend. It’s Wednesday.

* * *

Ada rushed down the stairs with her backpack in hand, heading for the door. Cara was waiting for her in the driver’s seat of the Jetta, having come down a few minutes before. Bye, Mom, Gage, Meena! she called. See you later.

Bye, love. Have a good day. Miriam replied as the front door slammed shut.

In the car, Cara shook her head. What? Ada asked, settling into her seat and adjusting the air vents. It was February, and the morning air was frigid. We’re not even late. It’s just seven twenty-eight, she said, pointing at the dashboard.

Yeah, barely, Cara replied shortly, pulling out of the driveway.

Hey, she’s still there, Ada said, leaning forward to get a better view. From the car, they could only manage to see the bottom of the giant’s legs, stretching up into the sky like buildings. What do you think she’s waiting for?

What makes you think she’s waiting for something? Cara asked, taking a turn.

What else could she be doing, just standing there?

Cara glanced at her sister’s wide eyes, unamused. You know time passes slower for them.

Oh yeah, cause they’re so big. Ada sat back. That’s wild, but still, how much time would be a long time for her to be standing there? A week? A month? Should we ask her?

I don’t think she’d be able to hear us, Cara mumbled.

But I can hear her. She can probably hear me.

She’s so tall, you’d have to fly up there or something.

Yeah, I guess so. Ada was silent for a second before muttering, I’m going to ask Mom.

Cara sighed. To her, most things Ada said or did just sounded like trouble. Unlike her sister, Cara was a precision instrument. A scalpel. A fine point pen. Extra fine. She needed specificity. Clarity. Predictability. That isn’t to say that she was perfect. Cara could be mercurial, inflexible, and overly sensitive, especially at home. Even so, she always had a clear view of who she was and where she was going. After high school, she enrolled in one of the country’s top plant biology undergraduate programs, located conveniently within a thirty-minute commute from their house. She minored in Latin and Hebrew, despite her counselor’s attempts to convince her otherwise, and graduated with honors. Now, she was completing a master’s program at the same university and working part-time in a tenured biochemistry professor’s lab.

Ada, on the other hand, had only agreed to attend college so close to home because her mother just short of begged her to. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why. Miriam and Richard were loving but not overprotective. They preferred their children to be home before nightfall, but once the girls graduated high school understood that wasn’t what reasonable boundaries looked like. Cara had turned twenty-four in July, and Ada twenty-two in November. Cara had already been at the university for six years and would probably stay and teach there if they gave her a job. Already in her last semester of undergraduate studies, Ada couldn’t wait until she never had to step foot on campus again.

A creature of habit, Cara prickled at change and hated surprises. In her mind, she saw no real reason to leave her beloved Hope Springs, cradled in the curve of a mountain, shrouded in foliage and fog. Just like her parents, she felt safe, protected. Nothing within her sought more than that. Even Gage, who would be graduating from high school that Spring, had selected their university as his first choice. Granted, he would likely receive generous financial aid, but Ada could not understand her family’s complacency. Their home was beautiful but small. Safe, but boring. She loved it dearly, but she would give anything to know something more. Rarely did they leave their state. Miriam signed off on field trips reluctantly when they were growing up and still seemed anxious when Gage had to travel anywhere for a soccer game. Ada had first noticed when she was twelve and had since wondered what in the world was her mother so afraid of?

It seemed that the very things that excited Ada frightened Miriam. Adventure. The unknown. Possibility. Uncertainty. Once Ada graduated, there would be no holding her back. She would move to a city so big it would be impossible to find her in the crowd. Maybe she would move halfway across the world. Ada longed for anywhere and everywhere. There was only one place she was wary of: wherever her mother had come from. In recent years, she had realized how wild it was that she didn’t know where that was. She had found writing in Arabic before, and her mother had once talked about going to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. That was as narrow as the list got.

Ada, so desperate for novelty, was sure she was dreaming when the giant appeared before her eyes. That she had somehow willed this being into existence. That her desperate longing for the strange and unusual had called the giant forth from behind the thick veil. Or that she had dropped a seed between the frozen Cascades and watered it with her thirst, and from it had grown this colossal visitor, this looming presence. So focused was she on the giant that she didn’t hear a single word her professors said that day.

* * *

Cara wouldn’t be done at work until after five, so Ada took the bus home. When she arrived, the house was empty. Her parents were at work—her father owned a flower shop and her mother a construction company—and her younger siblings were at their respective classes. Sitting down at the dining room table, Ada opened her computer determined to find a way to communicate with their otherworldly visitor. Thankfully, she knew exactly where to look. It was their mother’s life’s work, transmitting magical knowledge into an encrypted online database for preservation. Always being added upon by a community of hundreds of practitioners around the world, the site was accessible by referral only. Its wisdom was not for the random Peddler. Needless to say, Miriam’s children took it completely for granted.

Ada had been searching for little over an hour and had gone off track, clicking into a description of time jumps when she scrolled to the related terms at the bottom and saw the words astral projection. Clicking the link out of curiosity, it wasn’t long before a word caught her eye. She read it in her mother’s voice, traveler. Projection spells usually require three or more practitioners for the safety of the subject. The description began. "However, some practitioners possess remarkable skills in traversing dimensions and are often referred to as travelers. These persons may have the ability to slip in and out of their physical forms at will. Travelers may have an affinity for other transportive spells. See also: planetary links, wormholes, rifts in spacetime."

If she really was a traveler, and that was why she could hear the giant’s voice, this webpage was the jackpot she was looking for. Further into the page, it said beings disconnected from the human world by twenty or more degrees, such as giants and titans, experience many more physical dimensions than humans would, including the plane of astral projection. Because of this, it is much easier to contact them within a state of projection, as communication becomes intuitive rather than linguistic. Engrossed in her research, Ada jumped when the front door opened, her father walking in with Meena.

He had brought back a big bouquet of pink, purple, and red flowers from the shop. His way of giving a second life to those on the verge of wilting he could no longer sell in good conscience. Hey, sweetie, he said, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. How’re you doing?

Good, she mumbled. What are those?

Mostly begonias, some anemone, and rhododendron, he replied. Meena sat in the chair across from Ada, pulling out her homework. She always completed it as soon as she got home. They’ll last a couple of days, not much more. Can you put them in water, please?

Ada got up reluctantly, shutting her laptop and following him into the kitchen. She would have to wait for her mother to get home in a few hours to discuss her findings. In the meantime, she helped her dad prep for dinner, chopping vegetables and picking herbs.

Cara arrived first, replacing Ada as the sous chef, then Miriam and Gage, who had just finished soccer practice. He had joined the team his senior year of high school, an odd move but overdue given his stellar performance. Their parents liked to say they didn’t understand why it took so long, but his sisters knew he would much rather stay home playing video games than train after school for hours a week. It was a wonder his friends had managed to convince him.

Ada let her mother set down her things and greet the rest of the family before broaching the subject. Mom, did you come up with a way to talk to the giant? Ada didn’t wait for an answer before continuing, Cause I think I did.

Oh, no, honey. I was so busy today I completely forgot. I’ll look into it tonight, Miriam replied, apologetically stroking her hair.

It’s fine. I actually found something that might work, Ada repeated, the excitement seeping into her voice and catching Miriam’s attention.

Really? What is it?

Astral projection, Ada blurted. Miriam’s brow immediately furrowed. It says communication is intuitive, so it doesn’t matter that we don’t speak her language.

Honey, no. Her mother turned away, as if avoiding the conversation.

No, listen. You said I was a gifted traveler, and the spell only takes three people. Ada scrambled, but her mom was still shaking her head.

Cara snorted, coming up behind her, snack in hand. Are you an idiot? You can’t just cast an astral projection spell. It takes years of practice. People dedicate their lives to it.

Sweetie, I’m sorry, but astral projection spells are risky even for seasoned practitioners. Miriam seconded. If I agreed to try, it would take months at the least to prepare you for your first attempt. Ignoring Ada’s protesting gaze, she continued. "I promise I’ll look for another safer way to communicate with her this week, but any kind of projection is out of the question."

Knowing better than to argue with her mother at the end of a long day when she was tired and hungry, Ada bit her tongue and kept quiet throughout dinner. Once again, she was keenly aware of Miriam’s unjustified fear. It felt unfair. That night, before going to sleep, she turned to Cara. If you and Gage help, we can still try astral projection.

Her sister just rolled her eyes. Sorry, no. I don’t want my body to be taken over by astral plane gremlins. Also, you know Gage has no interest in magic, so good luck convincing him.

Ada rolled her eyes back. "Shut up, astral plane gremlins are not a thing."

Cara scoffed. You suck at research, dude. Gremlins are like the main concern when projecting, but whatever. It doesn’t matter because we’re not projecting. Mom will find another way to communicate with the giant, so just forget it.

Ada couldn’t forget it, and she tried. The giant’s voice seemed to grow louder and clearer at night. It only increased the thoughts racing through her head. One in particular stuck. Travelers, the wiki had said, could slip in and out of the astral plane at will. Laying there in her bed, Ada started to concentrate. All she had to do was separate her consciousness from her body. Magic is a witch’s will, Miriam would say to them when they were younger. All they had to do if they wanted to practice their magic was concentrate all of their energy on their thoughts and will them into existence. Without any instructions or guidance, Ada could only rely on instinct for what it would feel like. She visualized herself like a spirit, a soul overlayed on her body. Drawing on meditation methods, Ada forced herself into a state of hyperawareness, zeroing in on her toes, feet, ankles, and every joint, leading to the crown of her head. My body is but flesh. A vehicle.

In her mind’s eye, her body shimmered and rippled like water. It felt like she was rising, floating. Elation and light flooded her mind, so bright it was blinding. Then, suddenly, it turned dark. A thick fog suffocated her. She was being buried alive, the air around her thick like mud. She tried to dig through it, but it was hard to focus. Smog threatened to stifle her completely. She ventured a look back from whence she came and saw a ray of light breaking through the darkness. Concentrating, she willed her body to follow it, trusting nothing could be worse than where she was there and then. With a start, Ada awoke in her bed. Her body felt too warm. Feverish. The giant’s song filled the dawn-drenched room.

Chapter Two

That following day, Ada’s mind kept wandering toward the fog that had enveloped her throughout the night. That morning, her muscles had felt strangely sore, like she had done an hour of kickboxing after quitting years before. The most obvious reason for the darkness, objectively, would be that she boggled the projection attempt somehow, resulting in her consciousness entering a plane it shouldn’t have. Or it could have been a dream. Ada found neither theory convincing. She had started self-identifying as a traveler from the moment she understood what it was; the concept seemed so natural to her. It wasn’t usually as difficult for her to admit she was wrong—unlike Cara—but this time, it pained her immensely.

Instead, she searched for spells to strengthen her projection so that she could better control it. Giving up on her classes for the second day in a row, she jumped into an archive of transportive spells and their complimentary incantations, or boosters, as Miriam had taught them. After bookmarking an acceleration spell and finding a booster for intuitive communication, she finally turned to the term that had been bugging her since last night: astral plane gremlins. Of course they were a thing.

A heavily stylized image graced the upper right side of their page. Heavily stylized, Ada assumed, because it said within the first paragraph that, being creatures purely of the astral plane, they had no shape humans could perceive, instead appearing as shadowy blurs. The picture on the page was exactly what you would expect a gremlin to be: small, wrinkled, and irritated. However much she sympathized with their adverse representation, the more she read, the more she came to regard them as a real threat to projecting practitioners.

They originated from the Mistlands, whatever that meant, and had gotten stuck in the astral plane because of a failed bid to reach the Midlands, the earthly realm where practitioners and non-practitioners alike lived. Journeying through the veils that separate them is much easier within the astral plane and nearly impossible through the physical one. The Mistlands were apparently so terrible that the gremlins, desperately hoping to escape, left their bodies behind and traveled to the Midlands as specters in hopes of encountering an underprepared projecting practitioner they could rob of a physical body.

In the astral plane, the ties spirits have to their earthly vessels glow like stars. Most projector protection spells focus on dimming or completely hiding that light from everyone but its owner, who must keep sight of it if they ever want to find their body again. As she read, Ada’s skin pricked with goosebumps. She had seen the light from her body quite clearly the night before and was sure any gremlins in the vicinity had as well.

Her priority, then, would be to perfect a spell that would conceal the glow from eyes other than her own. Ada’s method of study was much different from Cara’s. Her older sister was unnaturally good at memorizing, and she wielded her talent well. Ada, on the other hand, needed to understand why she was using each element in a spell to truly learn it. Spells were made up of basic symbols and natural elements, sometimes also movements and phrases. When combined together, they were larger than the sum of their parts.

Once she understood how the puzzle pieces fit, she could use them in new ways, creating new spells, painting new pictures entirely. Because of this, her magic was a patchwork of Eastern and Western tradition, religious imagery often mixing with their pagan adversaries. This was a core tenet of Miriam’s magic education: interdisciplinary and cross-theological experimentation. After all, when magic is the witch’s will, it matters not whether she uses crystals or crosses, rhyme or reason, English or Thai. But as much as Miriam encouraged them to learn outside of traditional confines, Ada’s eclectic style bothered her.

While she allowed her daughter to improvise spells fairly often, she drew the line at Ada creating new symbols of her own. It was something she would do often as a child until her mother’s warnings grew more heated. It was dangerous, she explained, because of the lack of consistency. Made-up symbols weren’t guaranteed to do the things you wanted them to do. They were spells that could go wrong with a single wrong brush stroke, even if Ada’s seldom did. The issue persisted until Ada was fifteen.

The last time she found scribbled spells on her daughter’s notebook pages, Miriam ripped them out and burned them, threatening to feed her second daughter a magic-blocking potion so she could never perform spells again. Ada, throat tight with righteous fury and tears, slammed her bedroom door and searched the magic database for such a potion. Unfortunately, she found many. Since then, she only traced such spells with her fingertip on nearby surfaces, where they would never be seen again. This kind of magic she only ever did alone.

* * *

Ada headed to the club after class that day to set up the complex magic circles needed for astral projection. Having left the Jetta with Cara, she took a bus that stopped just across from the woods, by the deserted diner’s parking lot. Crisp leaves crunched underfoot as she made her way through the woods. A late afternoon breeze brushed the back of her neck, sending a chill down her spine. She sped up, knowing the brisk walk would warm her up in no time. The music blasting through her headphones set the pace: something upbeat and vaguely mysterious.

As the ground fell away, giving form to a hidden valley, a wide gray structure materialized in the far left, tucked away behind clusters of towering pines. It was a hunk of a building, really short and to the point, nothing more than a big cement cube. As children, they would always end up at the club after school, purportedly for daily magic lessons. The siblings probably spent more time reading comic books and playing than learning, but it was, nonetheless, the best setting for spell casting they had. The back wall was lined with shelves from end to end, floor to ceiling, and held all the ingredients a witch could possibly need. From bat wings to bakuli pods, the club was stocked. The windowsill housed bunches of quartz and amethyst, hypnotizing strings of orgone hung above it, all charging in the fading afternoon light.

Ada walked past it all to the open space on the second floor and got to work drawing scores of symbols with a piece of fine tipped charcoal. Incorporating all the booster spells she had researched took a while, and nearly an hour had passed by the time she checked and double-checked each stroke. Heart pounding, she stepped in the middle, laid down, and hoped for the best.

Every spell she cast felt empty at first. It didn’t matter if it was strictly scientific or absolute drivel; Ada had never felt what magic books called a spell’s innate power. It was the same with this circle as with any she had drawn before it; until she instilled her energy in it, it held no power. It was like a golem, all built and shaped, waiting for an incantation. A light bulb waiting for electricity. Spells always seemed to be waiting, holding their breath, until she decided to give them life. Purpose. Because of this, she had never quite understood the way other practitioners wrote about magic, as if it had a mind of its own. The genie waiting to twist your every word into a terrible wish. To Ada, magic had always been forgiving and warm, intuitive, predicting her thoughts before she even had them.

She lay in her circle and saw, in her mind’s eye, her energy trickling from her body like a stream into the chalk lines. The circle drank, and it drank and drank and drank. Then, finally, it lit up with a thousand colors, opening a dimensional rift, inviting Ada easily into the astral plane. Unlike in her bed the night before, this time, she didn’t have to concentrate. Like a ghost, she drifted up from her body, weightless. She could see a black haze, the protection spell, around her perimeter. She hoped it would stay up.

Her gaze directed upward, she willed herself to propel toward the giant. In a second, she was enveloped in the same darkness as before, squeezing her as if she were at the deepest depths of the ocean, the pressure almost unbearable. As soon as it had started, however, it stopped. She had traversed through it much faster, coming out the other side as she hadn’t been able to before. Now, she could see the giant standing by the mountains, blocking the setting sun.

Unlike in the physical plane, the light glowed through her like she wasn’t really there. She shimmered like a film of oil on water. Ada propelled herself forward once more toward her and found herself a few meters from the giant’s shoulder. The giant’s eyes were fixed