via veritas et vita

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny loves the church. It's beautiful even for a small church, of course, but it's just... she feels peaceful here. It's relaxing. She likes it here. She doesn't go to Catechism herself any more, but her siblings are still there for the most part, and she would just have to come back for them anyway. If it was a nice day maybe she would go outside while she was waiting, enjoy the nice weather, but it is one of those cold and miserable sort of drizzle days that no one likes. Even Jenny. So, she'll be in the church, waiting for Catechism to end.

She curls up in the side of one of the pews towards the back and settles into a half doze. So peaceful and quiet. She'll just be here, feeling content, until otherwise disturbed.

Comments

[keyed_up]

The porch lights come on when the car approaches. "Hi, Jenny!" says Soph, sticking her head out the door.

[bright_and_beautiful]

"Hi! I hear there is glowing to be had!"

Jenny is actually mostly expecting this to be sleight-of-hand, but she's excited regardless.

[keyed_up]

"Only if I do it right. I decline to actually explicitly invite you into the house for vampire reasons."

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny looks down at her neck, still displaying the cross necklace, and then back up at Soph. "Errrr..."

[keyed_up]

"Yeah, I know, it's not because I think you might be a vampire, if you were a vampire you'd be on fire, I'm just trying to cultivate the habit."

[bright_and_beautiful]

"You have the weirdest problems!"

[keyed_up]

"I kind of do."

[bright_and_beautiful]

Belatedly interpreting Soph's comment as you should come in even though I didn't say so, Jenny waves goodbye to her mother and enters the house. Behold: she is not impeded. On top of not being on fire or tearing off her necklace. She is extremely not a vampire.

[keyed_up]

Soph shows her to the kitchen table, where she's got a bunch of rather witchy stuff laid out. There are crystals and little sachets of herbs and a spiraly seashell.

"If I do this right," she says, "the seashell will be able to turn into a knife that can cut through anything, and back, when Bella wants. It'll be less obtrusive than taking a regular knife everywhere - she'll still need wood stuff for vampires, unless I manage to make the knife long enough to cut off their heads, but not everything's vampires. And if I do it right, the shell will glow when the spell's done."

[bright_and_beautiful]

"Noooot all the time, right? I mean, it's not carrying a knife everywhere, but glowing seashell!"

[keyed_up]

"No, just for like a second, or I'd just get Bella to show you her glowing seashell at school or something. Are you ready?"

[bright_and_beautiful]

"Yes ma'am witch lady ma'am!"

[keyed_up]

"Okay, here goes!"

And then Soph chants in Latin slowly and steadily for about a minute.

And the seashell glows.

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny squeals with delight. It's cool even if it's faked. And it didn't look faked. She will go with not faked, for now, because that is way more fun.

"Eeeeeee!"

[keyed_up]

"And now I give it to Bella and she makes sure it works, because I made it so only she can do the thing."

[bright_and_beautiful]

"...can I try too? As a test!"

[keyed_up]

"Uh, sure." Soph hands her the seashell.

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny pokes at it. It continues to be a seashell. She shrugs and hands it back.

[keyed_up]

"Bellaaaaaa," calls Soph. "I think I did the knife."

[cross_and_bow]

Bella trots briskly down the stairs.

She takes the seashell by the wider end, and blinks at it, and in her hand it becomes a shell-handled, glittering white knife, just barely long enough that she could probably decapitate a vampire with it if she got in close enough.

"Nice, Soph. Best witching. Hi, Jenny. I'm gonna go attach this to a necklace."

[bright_and_beautiful]

Jenny stares when the knife changes. She can come with maybe half baked ideas on how you could get something to glow on command, but that- turned into a knife.

Magic!

"Actual real live magic," she cackles, bouncing up and down in her seat. "Soooooph, you are the best."

[cross_and_bow]

Bella gives the knife a couple swings, then changes it back. "Was that the first supernatural anything you saw?"

[keyed_up]

"Yeah, I felt weird about doing like the glitter spell in a church? So yeah."

[bright_and_beautiful]

"What! What what what, there is a glitter spell, can I see?!"

[keyed_up]

Soph giggles. "Okay, but just once." As Bella scampers back up the stairs, she waves her hand through the air and trails glitter.