October 15, 2023

Jamie ought to start coming up with better plans.

A few years ago, after first reconciling with her family, she'd been invited to spend Christmas at her parents' place. Jamie had accepted the invitation, but the week leading up to it had been a hectic one-it had included a whirlwind trip to Sleepy Hollow, New York, for video purposes, plenty of subsequent editing work, lots of last-minute gift shopping she should have gotten out of the way much earlier, and one Christmas party too many. By the time the family Christmas celebration rolled around, sleep had unintentionally become such a secondary concern that Jamie couldn't keep her eyes open through dinner.

It hadn't gone over well. Mom had gotten upset as if it had all been a personal attack on her efforts to prepare dinner, a devil-may-care, disrespectful slight on Jamie's part. Dad had exploded—if you think getting recognized in the streets gives you a free pass to get away with anything, girl, I'll set you straight before you can blink—and Jamie wouldn't have any of that bullshit, so she'd exploded right back. Stella and Gino had packed up and left in an instant—we can't have a single normal Christmas without you people shouting at each other, can we?—and Jamie would've left herself, too, but getting behind a steering wheel for a two-hour drive home would have been dumb in her exhausted state, so she'd gone to bed angry and had left in the morning before anybody else had a chance to wake up.

Needless to say, it hadn't been a great holiday. The following year, Jamie hadn't been quite so tired and the family Christmas celebration had gone off without a hitch. The whole ordeal did end up teaching her a valuable lesson.

In order for there to be peace and love on planet Earth, never, ever fall asleep at a family gathering.

With that in mind, Jamie's preparation for the coffee appointment consisted of knocking back a few energy drinks like she did in the crazy old times when she waited tables by day and made videos by night. She hadn't had time for a nap-she'd wasted it all on a shower so long it doubled the size of her carbon footprint and a social media scrolling binge that should've brought her racing thoughts about the night to a halt, but didn't do much of anything in the end. So she'd settled for an energy drink or three, damn-near in a row, knowing that would keep her awake for a good while.

But that amount of Red Bulls in a short amount of time on an empty stomach, combined with getting on a water bus, is turning out to be little but a great shortcut to feeling sick as a dog.

So maybe she should've thought this through a liiiiiiittle bit longer.

Jamie resolves to slap that bitch called hindsight sometime, but preferably when the world has stopped spinning.

The vaporetto taking her and her family to Murano, the part of the Venetian Lagoon where Gino's mother lives, is packed. The low hum of voices speaking in Italian and an assortment of other tongues fills the space. The day isn't too warm and a light drizzle assaults the boat's windows, but Jamie feels way too hot and sweaty regardless and the air inside seems stale. She stares past the rain drops and out at the sea, forcing herself to keep her gaze trained on a fixed spot on the horizon. She tries to sit still, to keep the roiling nausea at bay, but can't help fidgeting, uncomfortable in her seat. The woman who briefly sat down next to her must've been delighted to get off at her stop and be rid of such a jittery neighbour.

A dull ache pounds in the back of Jamie's head. The heart palpitations are killing. She's just about wired enough to run to the other end of the ferry, jump into the sea and swim the rest of the way to Murano. She might even be able to pull it off without drowning. It could be better than continuing to crash and burn in this tacky green plastic chair and-

"Do you mind if I sit next to you for a bit? I'd like to talk."

Jamie looks up and to her side, careful not to do it too fast, or else she might just vomit on her sister's shoes. Stella indicates the recently-vacated seat next to Jamie, looking a little awkward as she stands there.

Jamie thinks this better not be about criticising how she showed up this morning. Because okay, maybe she was late, but she skipped out on breakfast to regain some lost time and they were still out the door the exact minute Dad had wanted to leave, so no problems there. If Saint Stella, Queen of Punctuality and Definitely-Never-Sanctimonious Decorum, wants to make a subsequent big deal about what does and doesn't constitute good behaviour on this trip, Jamie will reconsider the whole vomiting thing.

But Stella's question came tentative and almost painfully sincere, so maybe it's something else. No matter how poor her timing is, Jamie is still curious and willing to listen. Too much so to shut her sister down without hearing her out.

"I mind if you sit. I don't mind if you talk." Jamie rises from her seat, ignoring how dizzying that move is. "I was just about to go to the deck outside and stand there, so..."

Stella frowns. "But it's raining."

"Drizzle. I just need some fresh air, Stella." Jamie moves past her and starts on her trek outside, still staring straight ahead in hopes it might ease the discomfort. "We can talk outside or we can talk later. Your choice."

Stella doesn't balk further at having to brave the drizzle. Even without looking back, Jamie can sense her sister trotting after her through the narrow aisle, muttering apologies as she bumps into the occasional tourist's suitcase. Jamie herself soldiers on wordlessly, tunnel-visioning towards her destination. She wonders what it is Stella wants to discuss, what subject matter could be important enough for her sister to abandon the modest comforts of the ferry's inside area.

She suspects this conversation might not actually become any fun and braces herself accordingly.

They stop when they reach the railing, rolling waves and the rumble of the ferry's motor drowning out the buzz of strangers' conversations. Jamie sees water and boats and countless islands in the Lagoon-all lovely sights on a better day-but yearns for the moment she'll be able to set foot upon the shore again, where the queasiness will fade if she's lucky. How long will this vaporetto still need to get to Murano Faro, anyway? Fifteen minutes? And is there any way to make time speed up?

Stella still hasn't said anything, as if she doesn't quite know how to begin. The mood between them is heavy. Jamie doesn't vibe with heavy moods, so she ventures to lighten this one.

"Just a reminder in advance," she says with a little smirk, "that it's been a few years, but I still won't take constructive criticism from anyone whose middle name is Dolores."

It's an old joke, an argument once turned into laughter by a single assertion blurted out on impulse. But bringing it up doesn't have the full desired effect. The corners of Stella's mouth quirk up for a split second, but she gets her facial expression in check right after. Her mood is grave, still.

"I actually need to have a serious conversation with you, María. So maybe don't... Maybe try not to treat it like a joke."

"Uh... Yeah, sure. Cool." Jamie nods. "Wait, you're not dying or anything, are you? Because if you're going to be springing something like that on us during this trip-"

"What? No, nobody's dying, jeesh. This isn't even about me. It's about you."

"Me?"

Stella sighs. "What I'd just really like to know is... I mean, it boils down to a simple question. Are you okay?"

That isn't at all a simple question.

But aside from being physically ill and still unsettled by the night's events? Yeah. Jamie's doing pretty okay.

Just fine.

It doesn't matter, anyhow. Stella can't learn about anything that happened tonight. Not yet. She'll find out eventually, once they're back home and Jamie uploads her Poveglia video somewhere around Halloween, but that's still a long way off. Jamie will have been able to prepare for the earful about it in the meantime. For now, Stella just needs to be kept in the dark. Peace and love on planet Earth and all that.

So Jamie summons another slight smile and hopes it does a decent job putting her sister at ease, though she struggles to conceal how pained it is today.

"Of course I'm okay. It's just, it was a long night and I'm really pretty hungover right now, so a little out of it, I guess, but I swear I'll be on my best behaviour at Gino's mom's place, alright? Don't worry about it."

"I'm not talking about right now, Jamie. I meant it in a general sense." Stella crosses her arms, leaning on the boat railing. "Because I've been pretty worried about you lately, so maybe you can shed some light on if I should be or if it's misplaced."

Out of all the things Jamie expected her sister to say, that didn't even make it onto the list. "Why worry?"

"Oh, I don't know." Stella's gaze hardens. She doesn't seem to know whether to keep it trained on Jamie or Murano in the distance. "Maybe it's because you wrecked a great reputation and career out of the blue over something as moronic as a prank. Maybe because you dropped off the radar entirely for two weeks right after, disappearing to some obscure country-"

"Tajikistan," Jamie feels the need to add, even though she hasn't been there to this day. She was living it up with Nathan in Iceland, postponing having to deal with the fallout of her actions through a delightful road trip. But telling anyone she was in Iceland would've been a terrible idea. It would've been a suspicious destination, considering how the magic book she had to claim wasn't real originated from there. "I was in Tajikistan. And I told you about it. I sent some pictures and everything."

Jamie is nothing if not an excellent editor, and if she's going to bother lying, she'll damn well make her stories convincing. She settled on Tajikistan because Nathan used it for a distraction after she'd uploaded her fake apology video, when she was on the verge of breaking down. If all else fails, you could always fake your death and start over in Tajikistan. Easy.

Jamie wouldn't ever do that for real, but she likes the idea. It's a nice coping mechanism. Much nicer than her previous I could always crash my car.

"Irrelevant deflection," Stella shoots back. "I don't care what country it was. I care that you only told anyone about it after weeks of radio silence. And I thought you might explain yourself properly at some point, but you never did, and now you're just going on with your life as if nothing ever happened? Newsflash, Jamie—none of that is normal behaviour, and then I'm already measuring it by a standard uniquely tailored to you. Do you see my point?"

Jamie grips the vaporetto's railing a little tighter. To combat the tremors going through her hands, induced by the caffeine high. No other reason. "I see it. But what do you want me to say about it that I haven't already said? It was stupid, I didn't think it through, I should never have pulled a stunt like that and I've learnt my lesson, end of story. It's a dead issue to me now."

"To me, it's alive and kicking. I know what you did. The whole world does. I had terminally online coworkers grill me for any updates or knowledge I had on the situation for over a month, for Christ's sake. But what I can't understand is the why. Because a prank like that? It's nothing like you. You're better than that."

It would be satisfying, so incredibly satisfying, to nod. To simply agree and tell Stella the full truth. That there was never any prank and magic is real, that she saw it with her own two eyes and recorded it for everyone to see. That she held a book full of spells in her hands once and even used its power, but that she gave all of it up because it was the only right thing to do.

The darkest part of Jamie had wanted to keep the grimoire no matter the consequences for Veronika Lockhardt, the bishop, Nathan, herself. Proving magic's existence? She could've changed the world with that. Could've fucked everyone over for her own gain, could've avoided this damage to everything she ever amounted to and earned a place in the history books.

But it hadn't ever truly been on the table. Doing something like that would've sickened Jamie more than a hundred energy drinks ever could. It would've hurt so many people. People she'd come to care about, too. And what's the point of being mentioned in history books when the price is a lifetime of smashing every mirror in sight?

So this is what it is now, this is the reality Jamie chose, and in that reality, the truth about magic ought to stay six feet under. Do not dig, like that sign on Poveglia said. The grimoire should remain hidden this time around. But Stella wouldn't even believe it if Jamie did tell her the real story, would she? Not since Jamie already altered her narrative once, not without any proof. Telling the truth would only make Stella think her sanity is giving out at last. Getting yourself locked up in a psych ward 101–tried and true methods by Professor J.M. Carrera.

If there are difficult women around who don't fit into your life, history shows putting them in lunatic asylums is a solid way to get rid of them. Jamie won't further push her family towards coming to that realisation.

So all she does in response to Stella's assertion is quirk up an eyebrow, and all she says is, "Am I?"

"I kept thinking about a conversation we had when you were still living with me." Stella's tone softens. "You were listing ideas you were hoping might double the size of your audience in due time. I suggested maybe you could sensationalise and embellish more, capitalise on that clickbaity thing that seemed to work out well for others. I thought it was a decent and harmless idea, but you just looked up from your list all scandalized, and you said that isn't much better than lying, Stel, and it does everyone who watches my content a disservice. Do you remember that?"

Jamie doesn't, but it's kind of flattering that Stella does. "No, but it sounds like the kind of thing I might've said."

"Maybe it didn't stick with you, but it stuck with me. Because there was a lot of integrity in that statement and I admired it. I really did."

It isn't very cold out despite the drizzle, but the raindrops feels like ice on Jamie's face. "Thanks for having faith in me, but I'm sorry. It's been years since I lived with you and people... People change over time. Not always for the better."

"I suppose that's true." Stella doesn't say anything else. Jamie knows exactly what she's leaving unsaid: I just hoped you wouldn't have proven it like this. Jamie's fingers tap a restless rhythm on the railing while her sister stands unmoving next to her, and come on, Stella, turn around and go back inside, you have your answer, leave me be. Jamie tends to prefer any company over her own, but her headache has intensified and maybe, right now, she'd rather be alone. Alone and free to be miserable on this vaporetto a little longer, alone to count all the waves in the sea.

But Stella won't go.

"What's Nathan to you?" She picks up the thread of their conversation again. "Just a friend or actually a boyfriend?"

Where did that even come from? Jamie startles. She doesn't know why, but the fact the conversation is suddenly shifting to Nathan of all things fazes her more than she cares to admit. And it isn't easy to faze Jamie these days. Finding out strangers write heaps of erotic fanfiction about you will do that to a person.

(I don't know what weirds me out more, Stella had said about that once. The fact that people write it or the fact that you've read it. Jamie respectfully disagrees on her opinion that she ought to dismiss and ignore such work, because they're good for a laugh every once in a while. Jamie has also always been afflicted by something called 'morbid curiosity' and therefore needs to know exactly what freaky shit people think she's into.

And also what freaky shit may be worth an attempt, but that's beside the point.)

"He's my..." Jamie falters. Friend, best friend, but none of those terms seem to do him justice. None of them manage to convey just how much he truly means to her. "...Nathan?"

Wow. That's the best she could do?

On another day in another time, Stella might've found her slightly-too-blushy stumbling through this question entertaining. On this day, in this time, she can't even crack a smile. "Right. Your Nathan. Noted."

"How does he come into this conversation? Why bring him up?" The questions come out far sharper than Jamie herself expected. It's just that Stella's attitude in particular has been profoundly negative towards Nathan through no fault of his own and it's starting to get on her nerves. Nathan may not have stated it outright, but Jamie can tell it's been bothering him, that it touches right on what seem to be deep-rooted insecurities, and he doesn't deserve treatment like that. This may be a good time to try and make Stella change her tune.

"Because you said you met him at the start of the year, but you never mentioned him before your prank video. Not once, even though you're now apparently thick as thieves to the point where you bring him on trips like this. And he was in your prank video. None of that paints him in a very positive light, Jamie, and it wouldn't be the first time you have a toxic man in your life. Forgive me, but after Mr. Arrogant Player, Mr. Controlling Psycho and Mr. Selfish Opportunist, this guy could be some ex-criminal for all we know. Bonus points if he killed someone."

Jamie can't help but laugh at how unintentionally accurate that was.

"You're laughing, but this isn't a laughing matter at all."

"Then what are you really getting at, Stel? Give it to me straight for once."

"Was the prank really your idea or was it Nathan's? I just want to know if he put you up to it in any way. Because if he did..."

It's funny, Jamie thinks, how somebody's concerns can be so valid and so completely off the mark at once. If this is what has been bothering Stella all this time, she's going to put an end to it real quick.

This conversation is just about over, anyway.

"You want to know why I really did it?" Stella may or may not deserve her glare, but she receives it regardless. "Because I wanted to, Stella. Because I was curious and I fucking felt like testing the limits. Because Dad was right that Christmas and I thought getting recognized in the streets gave me a free pass to get away with anything. So sorry if it disappoints you, again, but Nathan didn't have shit to do with the original idea. I dragged him into the video, not the other way around. All me. Not him."

Would you look at that? The last bit is even true.

If anything at all good came out of the whole ordeal, it's Nathan. Jamie isn't going to stand around and let him be treated poorly.

"And now that you know that, maybe you can stop looking at him like you want to put him on the next flight home. He didn't do anything wrong here, so don't treat him like he did. We're not even dating and we aren't going to, but it still wouldn't kill you to just give him a fair chance. And quit worrying about me, because I'm telling you right now there isn't any reason to."

There. Said it. Jamie isn't sure how many of her statements Stella actually believes, but maybe they can drop it, at least for the time being. They could always get back to it some other time, perhaps, some other time when Jamie doesn't feel like puking her guts out in the Venetian Lagoon.

"Okay. Okay." Stella nods slowly and steps away from the railing. "If that's how it is... I'll try. I'll respect your wishes. And I'll do my best to be a little nicer to Nathan." She turns around. "Thanks for talking to me. I'm... I'm just going to back inside now and see if Gino saved my seat."

Yeah. Good talk, Stel. Murano's colourful buildings have gotten much closer, a white lighthouse standing over them tall and proud. But Stella is walking away from the sight, disappearing back into the depths of the water bus, and in a few seconds she'll have left and this will be behind them and Jamie won't have a reason to ask any longer.

"Stella, wait."

Stella stops and turns back with question marks dancing behind her eyes. "Was there anything else?"

On a scale of one to ten, how disappointed in me are you right now?

Jamie smiles. "How long until we can leave this damn boat, you think?"

"I'd estimate it at four minutes," Stella says, and then she disappears and leaves Jamie to linger outside in the rain.

Four minutes. So if she jumped off the boat now and swam the rest of the way, she'd totally make it and survive.

Though maybe drowning a little doesn't currently seem so bad.