Two weeks later, Sage rolled out of bed with a different sense of purpose than she had ever had before. It felt stranger, more intriguing, and more powerful than any other reason she'd given herself to get out of bed previously, yet still smaller than her dream of a highly paid job and a big house.

It was the first day of their fair - they'd agreed to run it on both the Saturday and the Sunday to give more people the chance to visit - and she felt the familiar swell of pride in her chest. Once again, she had worked hard and planned spectacularly and got something done.

She sighed as she was reminded of every moment before this absurd adventure started: All of the time and effort she put into school work, focusing so hard on the curriculum that every quiz show became impossible; all of the homework she had poured her soul into so the teachers would know she deserved the higher grades. She could only wish there were more things she could add to that list, but the truth of it was that she hadn't spent any significant time doing anything else. Sometimes, Sage wondered what her life would be like if she'd let herself have more 'fun'.

It wasn't a feeling she liked to dwell on, so she rarely did. She knew she was smart - she'd learnt the entire specification for each of her five subjects within the first few months of Sixth Form - and she had every faith she'd land a position in a high status university of her choice, and that had been all she'd ever thought she needed.

A successful life was a happy life.

And then Mateo had died.

Mateo was her older brother by two years and had always been her rock - invincible. He had been her guardian angel. Every project she set her mind to, he was there to be the encouraging light to help her work through the night. Mateo had been everything Sage had never been, could never be - carefree.

Staring into the circular cracks in the flooring, Sage was swallowed by the flood she'd spent the last year both drowning in and running from.

There was Mateo, just six years old, showing her his newest Lego construction. The tiny redbrick dragon had taken him days to complete and the pride was written all over his face. It was impressive, however pointless. Sage smiled and bent down to take it, his small fingers letting go of it very cautiously. As she turned it over carefully in her fingers, she remembered how four-year-old Sage had grabbed it with careless hands and accidentally broken off the head at the base of the neck.

She looked away from her hands just in time to see Cinderella slip back into place on the bookshelf, nine-year-old Mateo taking extra care to keep the cover from folding. Feeling the dragon fade away, morphing between her hands into something new, she looked down. Rapunzel was clutched in her hands tighter than she'd really held it that day. Mateo came back from the bookshelf and offered for her to sit on his bed so he could read the story to her. He was patting the space beside him on the bed, the Lightning McQueen covers creasing and re-creasing under his hand.

She knew she'd been staring when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see her twelve-year-old brother, a blur of golden movement as he wrapped his arms around her. Wrapping her own arms around his back and squeezing tightly, Sage remembered that moment as if it had happened only an hour ago. Bad school days had been a regular occurrence in primary school, but Mateo had always made her feel better when she arrived home. Closing her eyes, Sage tried to hold him a little tighter, but he was no longer in her arms.

Mateo caught her as she fell forward, his arms strong and steady from the weekly visits to the gym that he and his friends had done for the past two years. He laughed, his fourteen-year-old voice breaking and setting Sage off in her own laughter, weaker than it had really been back then. She'd tripped over nothing, but just like she did five years ago, she turned back to check.

Hearing her name, Sage spun back around to find Mateo at fifteen laughing at how she'd become distracted again. He was talking about 'the reality of magic'- how they could have it and still be totally unaware simply because they'd never tried. He even tried convincing her that his friend had telekinesis. Of course, Sage hadn't bought any of it, and had accidentally let her mind wander away from him and his stories. Because that's all they'd been to her. Sinking onto crossed legs in front of him, she wished to pay attention now to make up for when she didn't four years ago. But as she sat down, her eyes fell to the floor to keep track of the distance between it and her hand, and when she lifted her eyes again, he wasn't there anymore.

Her notebook was in her lap and she was tapping the end of her pen on her chin when hands covered her eyes. At the time, she'd laughed and told him how obvious it was that it was him. Now, she just spun quickly to get one more look at his face. His soft golden-ringed brown eyes and soft brown hair that, in her opinion, he should not have grown into a ponytail. Standing up, she found herself laughing at how, even at sixteen, he was so much taller than she was at seventeen. Really, she didn't think she'd grown at all in the last three years.

When she straightened to face him, he'd aged a year, and he was saying something she couldn't hear. About the magic world, if she had to guess. She'd listened at the time, she was sure of it, so she didn't suppose it mattered much now as she tried to commit his face to memory. But if she were able to see him so clearly, she assumed she'd done that long ago. He was holding her again and she knew she'd been crying again about losing their dad in that moment two years ago. Eventually, they moved apart, but remained holding hands.

Too late, she realised she'd taken herself to another memory later that same year, and Mateo had turned eighteen in the space between. They were dancing in their shared room because Mateo had insisted on teaching her. It wasn't the memory she feared, but she'd worked out how this time-lapse of his life seemed to be working and what she feared was the moment it ended. She relished the memory of the clumsy dance and the worse-than-beginner routine, but the spin she knew they'd done came too early, and it wasn't Mateo's hand she was holding when she came to a stop.

Even squeezing her mother's hand as tightly as she had ever held anything before didn't bring any feeling into the overwhelming silence that deafened Sage as she stared at the coffin being lowered into the earth. A chill wrapped her spine in tendrils of ice as the wind coiled around her and suffocated her, but she was glad of it. In that moment, she'd wanted nothing more than to join him.

The scene faded away, and she was faced with her reflection in the bathroom mirror, eyes raw from crying. She knew she'd landed back in reality because she felt the cold tiles, hard beneath her knees, when she fell. Mateo wasn't coming back, and that truth had tormented her for too long. Her words so quiet she couldn't even be sure she was speaking, Sage muttered the same words she'd given to the grave that day, some remnant of a song she used to love when it had meant so much less. "I hope that I make you proud. I wish you well, this hurts like Hell, but you're somebody else's now."

The house she grew up in would never be home again. It would never feel safe again. But she was a survivor. It didn't bring all the comfort she had hoped it would but fulfilling her promise to Mateo would be all she needed. She'd made it at his headstone a month later, finally letting herself see his name on that awful stone. It had only been a whisper, but she hoped he heard as she promised to believe in magic. Hand on his name, head on top of the stone, she'd promised to find proof that magic existed, and defend it against the world with every breath she was blessed with.

Slowly, she lifted herself from the floor.

Sage took one look at her tortured reflection and recoiled at the utter imperfection. She drowned her memories in water from the tap and scrubbed her face until the tears and pain were buried under a greater redness. As she brushed her teeth, she challenged the red-raw face looking back at her. But she was not as strong as Lexis or Kallai. It didn't take long for her stare to falter and fall back to the bowl before her. Even knowing her opponent had only been herself, the reflection was a stranger with watchful eyes on her back as she left the bathroom.

Taking deep breaths, she composed herself again and the presence of her mirror image dissipated as the air stilled. She flicked through the yellows, greens and blues in her colour-coordinated wardrobe for a top that would hopefully improve her mood.

She would go to that fair, and she would run it. She would make sure it all went smoothly and they raised more than enough money to go to Germany and find the stupid mirror that was supposed to be a ridiculous portal and she would finally get the proof Mateo had talked of for years. And then maybe, just maybe, she would find herself genuinely believing in magic.

Back tall and shoulders back, Sage took power strides down the pavement, head held high and ready for a day of working money from others' pockets into her own. This would work. Houses blurred together in a cloud of brick reds, painted whites, and grey slate roofs. The pavement underfoot moved so quickly that, to her eyes, it became as smooth as anything, the old splodges of chewing gum blending into the tarmac.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. The fresh air chilled her bones enough to keep her pace up. Fifteen minutes later, she was stood outside the large community park with the rest of her group.

Sage had worked hard to see that everything was perfect, and she was not disappointed. Even before entering the grounds, she was pleased.

Kailani was in charge of decorations. Flags sporting different colours and patterns formed an archway over the delicately patterned black gates of the main entrance. The same fabric flags were also worn by the central fountain and each individual gazebo. Kailani had insisted on fabric rather than paper or plastic, so they'd neither be damaged by bad weather nor thrown away at the end. For environmental reasons, Kailani also declined balloons.

Lexis and Kallai were putting the gazebos and tables up. Asking Lexis to do the more boring and strenuous tasks may have been selfish, but it was easy. She knew Lexis would never complain and, lately, neither would Kallai as long as he was with her. Despite not getting off to the best start, there was no denying that the two made a good team.

She'd assigned herself and Tallie the duty of carrying the remaining boxes of items from the Blackburn garden to the park. The siblings had brought down one each when they'd first come, an hour ago, but were happy to leave it at that to set up. Sage had had half a mind to ask them to bring them all, since they had been storing them, but she was aware that that would leave her without a job. Apparently, 'supervisor' didn't count.