Chapter 27
I manage to hastily eat the lunch I had started to prepare before I have to run back to class. I definitely can’t miss this one because I have an exam. Willow gives me a kiss and tells me to break a leg.
I make it to class with a few minutes to spare and slip into a seat next to Miryam, breathing hard.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
“I went home to check on Buffy. She’s sick.”
Miryam pauses on that, “Buffy—not Dawn?”
I nod, “Yes. She got hit with something out of the blue. Willow made it home to take over though. She’s—got a fever, so she’s a bit delirious, don’t want her setting the house on fire.” I give a brief laugh. God, I suck at lying. I shouldn’t have mentioned anything.
“I hope she’s feeling better soon.” She says, and then jokingly makes a shape with her fingers, that I think is supposed to be a pentagram and holds it up in front of me, “Get thee away with thine evil germs.”
“I’m fine. I think she brought it back from her visit in LA. We’re staying as separate as we can. Lots of handwashing.”
The professor walks in with a stack of papers tucked under his arm, which he sets down along with his brief case and then starts each front row person taking one and passing back so that we all get the papers.
“We’re all adults.” He says, “You know how to take a test. You’re free after you finished.”
Miryam apparently hangs out in the room and waits for me to be finished, given as soon as I turn in my test paper she’s turning in hers and following me out, “Is everything okay with you and Will?” she asks, “You’ve not been talking about her so much lately, and when she comes up you get a funny look on your face sometimes.”
I give her a rueful smile, “We’ve been having…it’s hard to explain; but thank you for checking in.”
She takes my hand and turns so we’re facing each other, “What do you mean hard to explain?”
I find myself quirking my face, because how can I explain it without getting into everything else, “We’ll work it out—” I tell her, “It’s just about communicating better so we can be on the same page.”
“But—” Miryam says.
“It’s difficult to talk about because of certain things…” I sigh, and in the end just suck in a breath and blurt out, “Have you ever noticed all the weird things that happen around here? Because the weird things are real: vampires, demons, and magic—magic is different than it looks like on the surface, there’s actual proper spells that you can cast, and sometimes they’re not the greatest because there’s bad things that can happen when you do, and there’s spirits, and did I mention vampires?”
Miryam adjusts her hold of my hands and looks me right in the eyes, “Take a breath, Tara. Take a breath.”
She hasn’t laughed in my face, that’s something.
“Okay.” She says, and then she laughs in a sort of well, ridiculous—but it feels like it’s at herself and not me.
“You okay?”
She nods, “It just—there’s so much that makes sense now. I thought I was having a nightmare, but there was that time everyone couldn’t talk, and I could have sworn I saw creepy floating bald men with these awful grins…and…” she shakes her head.
“That’s actually when I met Willow, well, properly did.” I explain, “I’d seen her at the Wiccan group before that, but we wound up hiding from them together in one of the side rooms.”
“Oh. Wow. Okay.” She says.
We start walking again, keeping to the quieter areas of campus, as we continue our chat.
“Who else knows about this?” she says, “Does Casey know?”
“I don’t think so. At least not officially. She could be like us and just not have been mentioning things to each other. I’m not going to go into too much detail, because people knowing is kind of their business. I do—I mean, Willow does. She’s been dealing with the whackiness since long before me.” Aside from the whole demon blood thing, but that’s just not worth talking about, “I kinda knew because my Mum would do things when I was a kid and taught me some about it; but—it's just…”
“So, all this time you’ve been doing what did you say proper magic? What’s that even mean?”
I’m not sure how to demonstrate without doing something kinda silly, which makes me think of the talk Willow and I had about her being cautious. Still, it’ll help cement that none of us are crazy short of taking her home and asking Spike to do his vamp face, “Okay, well, this isn’t going to be—just—” I murmur a quick spell while waving one hand through the air and sparkles trail away from my fingers as I do so.
She gives a little giggle, “Oookay.”
I shrug, “I’m not going to try and light a fire or make it rain, things can get out of balance easily that way. Maybe…” I go to one of the bushes, it’s getting towards fall and things are getting a bit wilty and the like. I speak to Demeter and ask for her aid. I acknowledge it’s a vaguely unnecessary request, but ask if she will see fit to lend me some of the joy of spring to brighten someone’s day, and thank her for whatever she chooses to do. I don’t know if it’ll work. I should have more faith I realize in myself; but I feel guilty doing something like this when Willow and I have been having such discussions. The flower brightens up and becomes stronger again, more vibrant, the petals smooth back out instead of being dried up and crinkled.
Miryam’s eyes are wide, as she looks at it. She touches it carefully, “That was amazing.” She says, then, “What’s that look for?”
“I just feel weird using magic for things like that when—when the trouble Will and I have been having is about her relying on magic too much—using it for all sorts of things which aren’t really necessary and kinda taking it for granted.”
“Ah.” Miryam says, “You’re worried about universal blowback that will hurt her.”
“You learned about this less than five minutes ago. How are you--?”
She gives a smile, “Game mechanics. There’s this roleplaying game I used to play with my brother and his friends. If you did something too blatant or overchanneled above your skill level the universe would smack you in the face sometimes literally.”
All I can think to say is “Oh”
Sometimes life imitates art imitates life.
“I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time with that.” She continues, “Given I found out about this all of five minutes ago take my advice with a pinch of salt especially as I don’t fully know the extent of everything—but if my partner was taking unnecessary risks and engaging in dangerous behavior I’d be taking a long, hard look at whether our paths still aligned, especially if we’d already discussed things.”
“Right.”
“You have discussed things?” she asks, nudging me, “I know you can go a bit wallflower sometimes.”
“Yes. We have. I just—” I know I’m chewing on my lip again.
“You just what?” she asks.
“Sometimes she’ll walk away from the discussions, and things.” I sigh.
Miryam nods, “Sounds like she knows she’s wrong and can’t deal with it.” She shrugs, “but…I’m just throwing things out now based on what little I know.”
I nod, “Thank you though.”
“So, wait…your illness…?” she says, softly, “Was that…?”
“It wasn’t exactly magic. It wasn’t—Glory is hard to explain without a lot that’s probably too much to get into; but she was a … creature that—fed on people’s brains to stay coherent. I got on the wrong side of her. Willow, she fixed it, pulled me back—hurting Glory in the process. Her magic is so strong. I think that’s what makes it harder.” I explain, “I owe her my life—my sanity.”
“That shouldn’t be your only reason for being in a relationship.”
“It’s not. I love her. I love her so much. She’s brilliant and intelligent, caring and compassionate—”
Miryam hugs me, “I get it. I’m just—I want to be sure you’re okay.”
“Thank you.” I tell her.
“Of course.” She says, as we separate from the hug, “Just let me know if I need to come beat some sense into her.”