An hour later they were on the floor in Alex's bedroom, rising and falling toward a ceiling streaked with rainbow dragons. Alex's braided coif has fallen into disarray and she was playing with Lacey's red hair, trying to remember how to braid. Her mind remembered, but her fingers didn't. They nested into Lacey's hair, clawing like fingers on a typewriter. Lacey was her own life-size mermaid Barbie. The more she looked at her, the more like a mermaid she seemed. Alex found a long string of iridescent pearls and draped them around her new friend's neck.

They spoke nonsense back and forth, pressing Alex's crystals to their foreheads and pretending to astral project themselves into other realms. Alex tried to do a shoulder stand and ripped her sleeve. What might have distressed her before only made her laugh now, and inspired a game of dress up. She and Lacey threw all the clothing out of her closet, sifting through vintage couture. They jumped in and out of costume, donning beaded gowns and silk kimonos.

"I love clothes," Alex sighed, "dressing up, becoming someone else for a little while."

"Your clothes are beautiful," Lacey said. She caressed Alex's arm with an albino peacock feather.

"You're so beautiful, Lacey. I wish I could be half as pretty."

"Aww."

"Honestly," Alex stammered, suddenly gloomy, "Next to you, I feel so plain."

"You have nothing to worry about, little cake." Lacey kissed her cheek. She touched the collar of Alex's silk robe and slid it slightly back.

Alex covered herself up, tightening the front of her robe. "Lacey!"

"I could teach you things that would drive Nathan crazy."

"I couldn't. With you?" She giggled and folded her arms. "Nathan and I are over anyway."

"It's normal to be scared, Alex," Lacey said, shrugging off the rejection like rain droplets. "Sex opens you up to an ocean of peril. Emotions. Attachments. Intimacy."

"I feel so bad for it now. Taking his pills."

"Why did you?"

"I thought that if I made him hate me I could be brought into the coven. He wouldn't come looking for me if I disappeared." She held herself around the trunk, feeling sick to her stomach. "Oh, gosh. He must think I'm a horrible, horrible person, Lacey. I didn't know he'd lost his leg. It came off like he was made of wood. I threw up when I saw it. He must have been so ashamed."

"Shit," said Lacey. She took a breath. "Just... wow."

Alex lay down in her bed and stared at her gauzy canopy. "He pushed me," Alex said. The words came spilling out against her will, as if her thoughts were no longer just her own. "He went crazy in the woods when these paintballers showed up. He would have killed one of them if I hadn't fought him. That's how I messed up my eye."

Lazey collapsed beside her and bit her lip. "Play with fire and you're bound to get burned."

"Don't tell anyone."

"I won't."

"Lacey?"

"Hm?"

"Is he real? Baphomet? Please, tell me. That night was the most real thing I've ever felt in my entire life."

Lacey's lips curled into a smirk. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes."

"Come with me to Litha and you can ask Hypatia for a second chance."

"I thought she was just a girl named Cheyenne."

"She is, but she's still one of the few genuine witches I've ever met. Are you sure you want to follow this path? There's no going back if you do."

"I'm sure."

"Have you told anyone who you saw there that night?"

"No."

"Promise?"

"I promise. I didn't even tell Tom about you and Liam."

Laughter fluttered out of Lacey. "Good. But just so you know, Tom and I are polyamorous. He's my primary but not my one and only."

"Your primary?"

"Yeah. It means we're a couple but we still see other people."

"Doesn't he get jealous?"

"No. Jealousy is only a product of a society that forces monogamy on people. If you trust your partner, you can let them be happy without claiming ownership of them."

"But what if you got an STD?"

"Uhh," she laughed. "Condoms."

"What if Tom got another girl pregnant?"

Lacey sighed. "Condoms."

"Aren't you scared he'll find someone he likes better?"

"Nope. The whole institution of monogamy is constructed around poor self-confidence. If you love yourself and you like to be free, you don't need to own anybody else."

"It's not like you own your boyfriend, though," said Alex. "It's just more special when you know that you and he share something nobody else understands... I don't know."

"Well, Tom and I have that. We just also sleep with other people because it's fun." Lacey went to hang up some of the dresses that were discarded on the floor. "Are these fencing knickers?" she asked. She pulled a pair of white pants out of the closet and jumped up on Alex's bed, waving them in the air.

"Give those back!" Alex jumped up on the mattress and used it like a trampoline.

"Did Tom have his way with you, you little tramp!" Lacey teased. They wrestled playfully until they slipped and fell flat on the mattress, giggling like insane people.

"I was fencing long before Tom! My father runs the fencing club here."

"Liam's in that club."

"I know," said Alex. "In fact, he started coaching me when I was eleven. He let me play with real swords, swords that could slice through bamboo like paper."

"Oh my," said Lacey.

"He's a great teacher. Once he brought wild daisies to our lesson and had me lunge and cut off the head of each flower. When there was only one left, he wound it into a ring and put it on my finger."

"And you still wear them to this day."

Alex smiled surreptitiously. She found a silver permanent marker in her desk. "Will you give me a tattoo?" she asked Lacey.

"Sure." Lacey bit the cap off and proceeded to draw paisley on Alex's hands like bridal Henna. She trailed symbols up her arms, attentive to every detail in the runes and coils. The silver spread across her skin and Alex felt like alien royalty. She felt the shrooms working their magic as the coiling lines on her flesh seemed to tighten and unfurl. The vines were alive.

"Let me draw on you too," Alex said. She took the marker and colored Lacey's shoulders, filling a crescent moon.

"You're talented," Lacey said. "We should start a business, a silver henna tent at Asbury Park."

"We should."

"What would we call ourselves?"

"Moon sisters," Alex said, drawing stars down Lacey's arm.

"Yes!"

"I always wanted a sister," Alex whispered.

"I had a sister." Lacey's eyes showed hints of sorrow forming. "She passed away."

"I'm so sorry."

"It was a long time ago. Do you have siblings?"

"An older brother," Alex said. "He's a douche bag."

Lacey chuckled and dabbed the puffy skin under her eyes. "Siblings are really special."

"Yeah," said Alex. "Brett and I fight a lot, and we never see things the same way, but if anything ever happened to him, I'd be devastated. I've known him my whole life. Growing up, it always felt like we were rivals. But looking back, I realize he was my first real friend. I wish I could tell him. He would just laugh at me." The shrooms made her sentimental. She looked at all the pretty coils and flowers mapped on her hands, arms and shoulders. Lacey had worked so intently on each part, mindful of proportion and making long, clean lines. Alex started to cry and she didn't stop for what felt like many hours.

Lacey held her, hushing her like the shoreline pulling away at sorrow.

Alex closed her eyes, drinking in the remnants of the psychedelic effects as they began to wane. She imagined the silver paisley crawling off her skin and encasing Lacey and herself in a gilded cage that shimmered like starlight. They would be moon sisters forever.
_______________

Music: "Go Ask Alice" Jefferson Airplane

You might recognize this scene if you read my short story Girl Chivalric. For a long time I thought this novel would never see the light of day so I gutted some pieces from this exchange. I never did finish that short story. Couldn't figure out the ending.