I abide and abide and tarry the tide,

And with abiding speed well ye may.

-Abide and Abide and Better Abide, Thomas Wyatt.

The only word that could describe my house was infested.

First distinction: there was a giant centipede circling around on its outer walls.

On a more detailed glance: monsters were moving about in and out of the house through any crevices they could find.

There were several witches around the house, and there were even some male magi, but none of them could reach the door. They managed, however, to keep incoming invaders at bay.

Cora drew her dagger, muttered her Gaelic Stonecutter spell - I knew because she muttered the exact same thing in Disaster back then - and lunged directly towards the centipede. I shoved several things with my telekinesis, dodged as many monsters that I could manage, and entered the house.

Bad choice.

My house was swarming with monsters. There were palm-sized spiders and ants crawling the walls, pumpkin-sized bees buzzing around, and things that I couldn't tell what like on the floor. But they all had one thing in common: they reacted as soon as I entered.

Aggressively.

Just in time, I remembered something I'd done before - the fight with Nyx. My magic tingled and I sensed it adapting to the number of targets. "Quiescite!"

The monsters froze. The bees slowly fell towards the ground. There were even bigger monsters on the ceiling that also began to slowly move downwards - maybe I exerted too much on that spell.

"Jack?" I called as I looked around. The whole house was a mess, but none of the mess could hide any grown person. "Amanda?"

No, not the kitchen. Not the living room...

I checked around the corner. Not in their bedroom.

There were soft critters as the falling monsters began to near the ground. I didn't have much time left.

Upstairs. Upstairs, Alden, upstairs.

I ran up as quickly as I could - in the second floor of this house were only two rooms: the small library (it was originally a storage room, but the freed-up backyard and the ever-increasing number of books forced some changes) and my bedroom. How quickly could I check out two rooms -

There was a laughter coming from the library.

I took a sharp turn to the right at once, and was greeted by the sight of the Ace of Diamonds.

"Well, hello!" she said merrily. There was a book in her hand, and she was sitting on the reading desk. "Why, I've been expecting you!"

You don't say. My first reflex was to reach around in the strings' plane for the books on the shelves and maybe even the shelves themselves.

There weren't any string.

Ace of Diamonds threw me a sly smile. "My, my, isn't it impolite to grope around like that amidst a conversation?"

Three books took off and hurled towards me.

I almost tried Quiescite again, but the lack of strings in a non-magical place warned me that something else was going on, so I dodged the books instead. The lack of strings wasn't like in the standoff between Ivan and John; it was more like there were never any strings at all. When I ducked, my eyes landed on the diamond necklaces around Ace of Diamonds' neck.

An old conversation popped in my head: it's not cursed. One of the Diamonds put several of their diamonds over the cage. Some diamonds could prevent magic from being cast.

Yet another signature Ace of Hearts helpfulness. If Nyx was right about her being caught and punished, I would definitely have to figure out a way to save her.

The diamonds were jinxed. I couldn't cast magic when in Ace of Diamonds' presence.

Soft whimpers snapped me back from my thoughts and I realized that Jack and Amanda were being held and gagged in the corner by the smaller monsters. Ace of Diamonds followed my gaze and grinned.

"Ah, yes, since we need you, we figure that we may as well gain some...leverage, over you."

I stood still, ready to react, just unsure what to do. The critters from downstairs had grown louder; my spell's halting effects must've expired. Here was when I realized that Ace of Diamonds had a similar habit with Ace of Hearts: villainous monologue in the presence of silence.

"So we're probably going to carry them over," she carried on, shutting the book in her hand - Jack's old copy of Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan, why on Earth would she need that? - as she tilted her head towards my parents. "You know, to the forest where we're keeping the other humans. Where we kept you until you so ungracefully escaped. Just so you won't try anything. Not like you can try anything, though. These diamonds are pretty powerful."

Jack and Amanda's eyes switched between me, the tendrils that gagged them, and the Ace of Diamonds.

Wait.

The Ace of Diamonds.

Nonmagi weren't supposed to be able to see the monsters.

Ace of Diamonds caught my eyes again and read my mind. "Yes, they can see me. They can see all the monsters. Everyone can see the monsters, in fact. We just have this...a kind of scent, I believe, that permeates us. This scent makes non-magic users look away and act as if we were not even there! Until, of course, we actually come into contact with them. That'll break the effect."

"Alden -" Cora's call was abruptly cut as she entered the library when she saw Ace of Diamonds on the desk. I could instinctively tell that she was also reflexively groping around in the strings plane and found nothing.

"No, magus, no!" Ace of Diamonds said as more books from the shelf suddenly hurled towards Cora. She was behind me, so I had no choice but to dodge again. "That is impolite! Has anyone ever taught you people to not grope around?"

Jack and Amanda were trying to say something to me, maybe something in the tone of run, but their muffled hmph wasn't exactly helpful.

"What do you want me to do?" I said between clenched teeth. Ace of Diamonds' smile melted and she stared at me calculatingly for a while.

"Let's see...the other Aces are too busy punishing Ace of Hearts, so I'll have to take care of the whole thing alone. Huh. Maybe that's not so bad. I still do know where to cut you." Her eyes - unlike Ace of Hearts, she apparently still had both her eyes - flickered. "And I'll be able to get more than the others. So let's go to the forest, then. And you better not try anything stupid -" she pointed at my parents, "- or some people might be harmed."

They're already harmed, I thought, but I chose to nod. At least there were other magi out there. Maybe someone would be clever enough to concoct a plan or something.

Maybe. If I could be honest, I didn't really like my odds.

I took a deep breath. "Alright. The forest."

I turned to the door, Cora also void of ideas, and began walking out of the library. There was a small beetle on the doorframe, which was actually quite the contrast when compared with the bigger monster insects, but I didn't really find a reason to worry about that at the time.

Ace of Diamonds smiled triumphantly, walking on my tail as the gag monsters forced my parents to move along. Cora looked flushed; I could tell that she was attempting something, but Ace of Diamonds' jinxed jewelries were still not giving in.

We were about to reach the stairs when everything suddenly happened.

There were Barney and Isaac down there, and suddenly Isaac was reaching out a hand towards me. I was about to warn them of Ace of Diamonds and the monsters keeping my parents hostage, but Barney was already running up the stairs and almost shoved me out of his way.

He moved over right to my parents, and from the sleeves of his jacket, five beetles flew out and began pecking on the gag monsters. The tendrils seemed to move about, trying to shoo the beetles away while still not letting go of my parents, but they eventually gave in and went after the beetles.

As soon as the gag monsters were gone, my parents drew deep breaths. But Barney was keeping his toes on the action this time.

"Sir, Ma'am - we need to leave. NOW."

We didn't need to be told twice. I and Cora were still a little lost about what happened, but we ran down the stairs like our very lives depended on it. Isaac still had a hand reached forward, but his feet were on their running stance. As soon as we ran past him, he caught up with us.

"What - Barney - what just -" I began, but Barney shook his head dismissively.

"Talk later," he said hastily as we kept running further and further away from my house. "Safety first."

We kept running, our breaths never too far from our lungs, our legs felt stronger than a gazelle's for some short period, until Amanda finally began to gasp for breath. We'd managed to cover quite some distance, and there was no sign that Ace of Diamonds or any of her monsters from the house was in pursuit. We nonverbally decided to stop there and catch our breath.

"Okay," I said, trying to manage my breath. "Tell...what's up...now..."

"I...intel," Barney said, breathing hard as well. "Dead...beetles...monsters in...your house..."

He paused for a second and managed his breath. It didn't exactly get any better.

"Saw folks...hostage...then Isaac...magikinesis..." Sigh, sigh. "Then we go...free folks...and run..."

It didn't really make sense as a whole sentence, but at least I could find key events there. Barney surveyed inside with Zombie Beetles - so that's the odd little beetle on the doorframe - and saw what happened, with the monsters and my parents and all. Then Isaac probably realized that I and Cora would've used magic against the monsters, and since we didn't, something must be wrong. So he did a gamble and tried to pull magikinesis on Ace of Diamonds without knowing if it would work - from the looks of it, though, it worked. The diamonds could block out telekinesis, but she was apparently unarmed for magikinesis.

So they went inside for the rescue and we all ran away.

And that brought us here. Our breaths had gotten better. "The catalyst failed," I told them. "We need to find another way."

"Alden..." It was Jack. His and Amanda's expressions were a lot of things, but mostly worry. "What is going on?"

I'd opened my mouth to answer, but suddenly I realized that I was at a loss for words. How could I tell them about everything? I could get ingratiated in the magic world easily because Barney evoked Zombie Chicken right before my eyes, followed by a fight with a killer ghoul with a witch trapped in a ritual circle nearby, and that was all even after that gigantic spectrocide performed by myself just a few minutes prior. Jack most definitely didn't go through spectrocide in his Witch House shift. Really, the spectrocide was what changed it all for me.

But what would change it all for them?

In the end, my mouth opened and closed like I was a fish out of water. Jack and Amanda waited patiently still.

Spectrocide...

Zombie Chicken...

Killer ghoul...

That wasn't just a vampire. It was a vampire that's too far gone, a killer ghoul if I may.

She's a Necromancer. I've met her during one of our meetings. She's actually a pretty nice girl. A year our senior.

It must've been a spell gone wrong. She might've accessed the wrong Door.

Door?

Yes. When you let the dead go back to the realm of the living, you need to open the doors for them.

But that's not the only Door there was...

I suddenly realized what I needed to do at the moment. "I'll explain later," I finally said. "But right now, we need to get you to safety. Cora - can I trust them with you?"

Cora caught my eyes and she nodded. "Shelter, got it."

"Barney, I need you to tell me everything about the Doors," I said. "And Isaac - I know you might be against this because the Shamans' grimoires must be precious knowledge, but I might need help with finding a spell with a specific action."

The two magi nodded. Cora took my parents' hands and began to walk to the shelter. Like with Ace of Hearts, and like with Bev, I found the words that I had to say only in the last seconds. "Uh, guys?"

Everyone turned and focused at me. I sighed. It's going to be pretty tricky from here on, and yet again, there's going to be a chance that I wouldn't make it out alive from this one. But it's worth a shot.

"Thanks."

//

It took some persuasion, but since everything else failed, Isaac finally resorted to blackmail. The library was supposed to be exclusively for the Shamans, and the guardian was adamant about it - at least until Isaac brought about the blackmail card. Apparently Isaac had dirt on the Shamans' Library's guardian. That wasn't exactly something I expected, but I couldn't be more thankful.

"So - what do you need to find?" Isaac asked, forcing Barney to pause his lecture to me about the Doors. I held a hand to my chin.

"A lot. But I think we can start with the terraformation spell," I said. "I used montar o ambiente para os monstros. Is there a specific way to negate it?"

Isaac recanted the spell and several books moved outwards from their shelves, pointing themselves out.

"Those grimoires contain the spell. Let's see if any suit your needs."

I nodded as Isaac began leading us on a quick library tour. "Carry on, Barney."

"Uh...right," Barney said as he knitted his eyebrows. "So as I was saying, these Doors are, well, mostly like actual doors. It can be opened from both sides, it can be locked, it can be held open, and the traffic goes two ways - in and out. That's why the spell opening the Door to the realm of the dead is pretty tricky. That's why necromancy isn't the easiest style around."

"If the traffic goes two ways, shouldn't there be a way to make the monsters go back through the Doors to their own realm?" I asked. "Make them go back home or something?"

"Maybe," Barney said. "But you'll have to herd them to the Door, don't you think? And unfortunately, I haven't seen us do a very good job at that."

Unfortunately, he had a point. "Can you detect Doors?"

"Sometimes, if it's big enough or powerful enough. Why?"

"Where's the Door to the monsters' world? I mean, the mist keeps spreading, and we can be pretty sure that the mist is coming from their world. Our world doesn't create that mist naturally, and although yes I casted a terraformation spell, I didn't cast it to spread, so I think the mist is coming directly from their world. And if it keeps coming..."

"You're saying that the Door is still open," Barney concluded. I nodded.

"It may be our only chance. If they've spread too far, there's no way we can herd them back there."

"Got something," Isaac said with a thick green leathery book in his hands. "Uh...never mind. It says that since the mist is the terraformation agent, even if there's a way to negate the spell, it would be obsolete. You'll need to get rid of the mist if you want it to work. Minimize the size of the mist so that the monsters' range of movement would be reduced, then herd them."

"I don't think we're in the position to herd anyone, really," I said. "But thanks. Is there a way to force the monsters to go home, though? And preferably something that can go through ancient jinxed jewelries. We still have to do something about those things."

"It's your lucky day," Isaac said as he turned a page. "Here. Ever since the trickery with her grandmother by the werewolf, the little girl we know as the Red Riding Hood finally popped the idea to devise a spell that can cast away unwanted strangers from places - homes, rented spaces, even worlds."

"Whoa, hold there," I couldn't help myself, "Red Riding Hood is...real?"

"Werewolves were a threat back then," Barney recalled. "There were werewolf trials, kind of like the witch trials. The dangers of wild wolves were also prominent at the time. Her story was also orally told before a printed published version finally came out. Maybe she was real."

"Either way," Isaac snapped in. "The Brothers Grimm recorded the version where a hunter saved both Red and her grandma by cutting open the wolf's stomach. From what this book says, I think that version is the closest to reality. The grandmother, who abandoned witchcraft in her youth, took it up again soon after that and, with Red, developed a spell. It's in French originally, but the Brothers Grimm managed to snuggle a copy of the translated spell in German. This German version is the one that persists through the ages."

"Does it work, though?" I asked. "I mean, with it being translated and stuff?"

"It says here that it works," Isaac said, his eyes still stuck to the book. "But...oh, man. There's one problem."

"Yeah?"

Isaac reread the book again a few times, as if confirming what he was reading, before finally turning to look at us. "The spell...it has to be done in the stranger's home."

In the stranger's home.

My heart sank. "What?"

"It was pretty easy back then in the time of the spell's creation, because the wolf's home was the forests. But, Alden...if you're trying to use this spell on the monsters, wouldn't that mean...?"

No way. "I'd have to go to the monsters' world first."

"It's your lucky day alright," Barney said. "I've told you the Door goes two ways."

"But we can't let him just wander there," Isaac said as he left a bookmark and shut the book. "Can you imagine what happens if the Door shuts and he's still in there? No, there has to be a way around this."

Barney didn't miss a beat. "What about this? I teach him to find and open the Doors, but instead of having him cross it physically, he uses his astral projection? I mean, sometimes astral projection can be used to cast spells. Plus, you're a Shaman. Your clan practically invented astral projection. There must be something about that around here."

Isaac thought for a while. "That can work. Okay, I'll go find something for astral projection. You teach him to open Doors. Alden, study this spell and everything about it."

He tapped on the book before handing it over to me. As soon as the - oof, that's heavy - book was in my hands, he left to the other shelves as more books dove into the lines and more moved outwards, responding to his query. I opened his bookmark - the title on the page was Homeforcer. Below it were a detailed story about how the spell was fabricated, what would be needed for the spell (the location of the stranger's home), the instructions for the spell (do in stranger's home, repeat until effective), some scribbled notes, and a diagram depicting the format of the incantation, followed by a table of words that could fill in the formula.

Aside from the fact that apparently the spell-caster's defined location of 'home' could be detailed and replaced - the table mentioned the basic ones, like 'home' and 'world', but there were new ones scribbled there like 'hotel' or 'motel' - the spell was in German, which meant the target of the spell - the 'stranger' - also had to be detailed, at least in the enumeration. The target was definitely mentioned in the spell in second person ('you'), but it could be singular or plural.

Wow. A lot of details there.

After fixing up some of the details and choosing the words according to the tables, I could finally make out the incantation I needed. "Eure Zuhause ruft für euch, lasst jetzt. Eure Welt ruft für euch, lasst jetzt. Unsere Welt lehnt euch ab, lasst jetzt. Ugh. I've only heard spoken German once from a movie and I'm not really sure how I should pronounce this." Based on the tables on the book, I could tell that it translated as your home calls for you, leave now. Your world calls for you, leave now. Our world rejects you, leave now. Should be pretty simple, right?

Barney took a peek at the page. "I've browsed some online courses before," he said. "Allow me."

"Oh, miracle," I murmured.

He began teaching me the pronunciations of the words - how the z isn't read like a z, but more like a tch. How the eu was pronounced oi. How the h wasn't read. How the j was read like y. How every -e­ ending was read with the kind of e sound that resembles uh. And then there's that weird swing when reading the letter u with two dots on top of it - Barney called the dots umlaut, but honestly, I didn't think it mattered that much at the moment.

"Barney, I just want to know how to read this," I said when he began talking about the other letters with umlaut in German - o and a.

"Right, sorry," he said. "It goes something like this..." He pronounced it like oi-ruh tchoo-haus-uh rooft fyur oich, lust yets. Oi-ruh vweld rooft fyur oich, lust yets. Oon-sarah vweld leynt oich ahb, lust yets.

I felt weird pronouncing it after him, but I tried.

"Again," Barney said.

I tried again.

"Again."

And I tried again.

"Getting warmer. Again."

I tried again - damn it, Barney.

Barney was silent for a moment. "One more time, and make sure it sticks in your head. You're getting the hang of it."

I shook my head. "I still need the book. I can mentally see your pointers in the sentence, but only if I see it."

Barney reached into his pouches and pulled out a notebook and a pen. "Copy it here. Then pronounce it one more time."

Wow. I could really use some of those pouches.

I copied the spell to the notebook, and tried pronouncing it again. Barney nodded. "Good. Just don't mispronounce it later when you're doing it. And try to stay focused - the book said you'll need to repeat it until all the strangers you target with the spell are 'back home'." He then ripped the notebook page with the scribbled spell and handed it to me.

I took it and sighed. "What's that about astral projection, by the way?"

"Oh, that. You transfer your consciousness so it can wander outside of your body. I've heard that the Shamans had managed to figure out a way to make the consciousness snap back into the body in case of anything, so as long as your body stays here, if anything happens to your consciousness out there, you'd simply be back here and you'll be okay."

"So you guys are practically planning to turn me into a ghost?"

Barney paused. "No, not exactly. I think 'consciousness' is the right word. Not soul. Consciousness. It's you alright, but your life force stays in the body to keep it alive. Meanwhile, this incorporeal you can go wander around and do whatever you need to."

"And on that note," Isaac said as he came from behind Barney with a book in his hand, "here's how you can do it."

Unlike the grimoire with the Homeforcer, the instruction for astral projection had no spell in its pages. Instead, it was all about finding calmness and willingness to let go. There were notes about how one's spirituality needed practice and everything in order to achieve the perfect projection, the kind of projection where the consciousness can wander outside the body in its entirety, and the safety notes - including steps to 'snap the consciousness back' into the body if anything happens to either element.

"So what do I do with the 'years of experience' part?" I asked, pointing the line next to the article about the training of spirituality to achieve the level needed to project. We didn't exactly have years. Barney, however, didn't look too disturbed.

"You could do spectrocide, on a lot of malevolent ghosts, in the Witch House, only by instinct. Spectrocide is also a spell that needs years of experience, you know. Then you were hung upside down until you passed out, and that's quite an effective way to weaken magic, yet you still managed to telekinetically move a huge stage away across Disaster, not to mention with you on it. That also needed a lot of practice. Then you casted terraformation only by repeating the spell thrice." He paused and squinted slightly, as if thinking for a while. "I think you'll be just fine. I know we said we would help train you control your magic, but right now, I think the best we can do is simply make sure that your magic knows what to do. Then let it do the rest."

I remembered when I casted the Halter spell in the house - the first time I ever casted the spell was to one object, the muscle car, so it made me say Quiesce; but when I targeted multiple objects, my magic instinctively suited the spell for my needs and I ended up saying Quiescite. Barney had a point - my magic just needed to know what to do.

I took a deep breath. At least the Homeforcer was already in my hands. Then I'd just need to find where the Door was, and I'd be only a step away from getting this all over with.

"Okay then," I said, bracing for the worst. "Teach me astral projection."

//

Astral projection wasn't something I'd do multiple times if I had the choice.

Unfortunately for me, I had no choice.

However, thanks again to my miraculous innate magic, I managed to master some basic astral projection in two hours. The guardian of the library was looking fairly annoyed by the time we finished - he definitely wasn't comfortable with letting us in via blackmail - so the three of us agreed to carry on outside.

"Remember all the instructions for the Homeforcer?" Isaac asked. I nodded.

"Read it in the stranger's home, focus on the stranger while mentioning the target in the spell, and focus on my own home to make sure the spell stays specific."

"Perfect. So now we just need to send your consciousness to the monsters' world."

"So we'll need the Door," I said. "Barney?"

"It's, uh..." Barney began and looked around. "It's hard to tell. It's huge alright, and it's somewhere here in Calamity, but...there's a lot of magic surrounding it right now. I think it's the -"

He paused. Then he gulped once.

"I think it's Disaster."

Silence took us over. "Disaster?" I began. Barney nodded.

"I think the magic surrounding it is the raid. The rescue mission. It's not finished yet. They're still locked in combat."

"It's gonna be crowded, then," Isaac groaned. "There's no way we can leave his body there."

"Wait, guys," I said, raising a hand. "When I do astral projection, then it's just my consciousness that wanders, right? I mean, I think it wouldn't matter where my body is exactly. It doesn't have to be in Disaster. I can just project here and go to the Door and you guys can just guard my body."

Barney and Isaac shared a look. "Something tells me it's going to get messy in a bit," Barney said. "We'll need help."

"Yeah, but first, we need safety and seclusion," Isaac said. "We can't afford anyone accidentally leading the monsters our way."

Seclusion.

There was a collective brainstorm that struck all three of us in the same time.

There's only one place in this town where no one would go.

"The Witch House," we said in unison. I nodded.

"Yeah. Alright, Witch House it is."

We didn't walk there. We ran there.

Somehow running out of breath wasn't as much asan issue as it used to be.