Chapter 4
The next few days are more of the same, other than me taking finals in the two make-up classes I’ve been doing over the summer considering I was “sick” the last half of last semester, and Willow and I take Dawn shopping for school supplies and some new clothes for the new year—her first year at the rebuilt Sunnydale High School.
We can put the housing grant allotment of our scholarships and student loans in to Joyce’s checking account, though it’ll be a few more weeks until we get that as the college semester starts two weeks after the high school one. Buffy Bot managed Dawn’s pre-school meeting, mostly, well. Dawn said there was an embarrassing moment about school lunches, but she and Janice commiserated their way through it given Janice’s Dad continued the tirade about free food.
Willow has, finally, been looking into investing some of Joyce’s money and putting the remainder into a high yield savings account one she can set up online using a copy of Buffy’s ID. She sets it up so the dividends from the stocks will come into the high yield savings account and a regular allotment into the checking account.
Into this plan comes the Urn of Osiris. Willow had set up some sort of program thing to scour the internet for us looking for images like the urn. We had several false positives over the past couple of weeks on museum websites, or people who had pictures of the urn but were actually selling fragments. Then eBay of all places turned up what looked to be an actual version, and had a minimum bid of only $250. Whoever had it was clearly not into the Magic Arts and thought it was some sort of replica from a movie set.
It sets in now.
How real this is.
We wind up having to pay $682 plus shipping which is not bad considering how valuable this actually is. If the buyer had realized it was actually, probably the last existing copy, of a highly powerful magical artifact it would have been tens of thousands. I hope they pack it well for shipping.
Then we get hit with a bomb. Giles is planning to leave back to the UK. Anya is excited, purely because she gets to run The Magic Box by herself and he’ll become a silent overseas partner. He’s even put her name on the deed.
“What if we tell him what we’re doing?” Xander asks, the next time we meet to discuss things, “If he knows we’re bringing her back—”
“Are you trying to ruin my start of being a business owner?” Anya demands. She’s been tense with him, more than usual, for a while. I’m not sure what’s going on.
“It’s not about that—” Xander starts, “besides he can still be a silent partner if he stays.”
“And what if it doesn’t work.” Anya adds.
“It’ll work.” Willow insists, adding, “It has to.”
“Willow is strong enough to do this.” I put in, trying not to show my fears about the depth of this spell, and the preparations she has to do, which I’m fairly sure she’s not fully gone into with me.
“And the rest of us need to be there then why?” Anya asks, “If Willow is this strong.”
“A circle of four people adds more energy and makes the spell more powerful.” Willow says, nodding at Xander, “You remember how we did with Adam.”
“Isn’t four people more of a square?” Anya comments.
She has a point given other spells of that nature involve the calling of the corners. I decide it’s better to tell that to Anya later though. But the corners and the term circle are separate.
“Tara…” Xander puts in, “You think this is safe, for us, for Buffy?”
I shake my head. Willow shoots a glare.
“Any big spell like this is going to have it’s dangers.” I point out, reaching over to squeeze Willow’s hand to reassure her I’m not trying to talk anyone out of it and I do have faith in her, “That’s another reason it’s good she’s not going out there by herself. On the miniscule chance something goes wrong we’re there. Plus, she’ll be really drained afterwards and I’m sure Buffy will be disoriented so the more people to help the better.”
“So, we tell Giles.”
I think again about the fact we’re keeping this from Dawn too, but on that chance it doesn’t go well…I don’t want her to effectively lose her sister all over again. She’s lost too much already. We can’t hope to compensate.
Willow shakes her head, “He’ll just try and talk us out of it because it is a difficult spell, and he’ll say I’m not ready, and it’s wrong. I’m not leaving her in a Hell dimension. I remember what he said Glory’s world was like. What kind of friends would we be?”
“It’s wrong?” Anya asks.
“Well, of course it’s wrong.” I add, “she died, and we’re bringing her back, but her being in Hell is also wrong, and,” I kiss Willow’s cheek, “That’s why we’re going to fix it.”
“The urn should be here the day after tomorrow.” Willow continues, “Which is perfect because the full moon is just a couple of days later.”
“Giles is leaving soon too.” Xander says, looking at the calendar on the wall, “There’s absolutely no way we can do it before he does?”
“He said he was leaving this past weekend too.” Anya remarks, “He’ll probably bump again so we’ll be fine. Not now, Anya. It’s not the right time.”
“Well, okay.” Xander says, “Maybe it’s time for us to go.”
“We’re at your apartment.” Willow chides, “We’ll go. Sounds like you two have something different to talk about.”
Anya just folds her arms and fixes Xander with a withering look he shrinks back from. We scoot out of the door.
“You worried me there.” Willow says as we walk home, clasped hands swinging between us.
“I saw your expression.” I point out, “and it is a risky spell. You’re appealing to an ancient Death God to intercede and give us back our friend—pull her from a place that wouldn’t be his domain. I doubt the Egyptian Pantheon had anything to do with Glory.”
“When you put it like that—” Willow remarks.
“A-and you said he was going to test you. That’s all why I didn’t say anything about that back there.” I explain, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. If I didn’t want to help you more than I can, but my magic is a toddler compared to yours. I know you’ve done powerful things before like teleporting Glory, but I know how drained it made you—you had that headache for days and nothing would touch it. This is a whole other level—”
“You don’t think I can do it?” she asks.
I lean closer, touching her forehead to mine, “I know you can.” I tell her, “but I think that’s what scares me.”
She searches my face, looking hurt, “What do you mean?”
I chew on my lip for a moment, “You’ll be channeling a lot of power, Will. I don’t want you to get hurt.” Or worse like it too much.
She kisses me, “I’ll have you right there next to me. I told you. I’ll always find you. No matter what.”
Giles tries to sneak away the day after the urn arrives, thankfully, in perfect, if dusty, condition.
We almost miss him, but after a brief stop to get we’ll miss you gifts at the gas station between here and the airport in the next city we catch him just before boarding. It’s bittersweet given when we resurrect Buffy I’m sure he’ll come back. It feels like we’re letting him waste money, but at the same time I wonder if The Council has worked out that Buffy has passed they could have gotten pissed at him putting leaving off and pressed the issue too.
I keep thinking about how The Council, if that isn’t the case, hasn’t sent a word of condolence or any show of anything towards Dawn, just pull away another level of her support system. The poor kid’s father hasn’t made any effort to get in touch either, unless the spell couldn’t reach that far and he doesn’t think he has a second daughter.
Not as though the douche bag ever returned Buffy’s call after Joyce died.
We stop at a diner on the way home trying to drown the sadness in big greasy burgers and fluffy milkshakes. The ride the rest of the way home is quiet and almost sullen, all the things unsaid like a blanket smothering us.
Dawn goes directly up to bed and we say goodbye to Xander and Anya, clinging that little bit closer, while electing not to talk about the spell work we’re going to do in a couple of days.
“This sucks.” Xander remarks, as they’re leaving.
He’s not wrong.