It wasn't long before the others returned.

We were halfway through our third episode of The Golden Girls before an intricate knock caught our attention.

In a mad dash, I jumped up from the couch and ran to the door. I tripped on one of the dining table's legs, nearly falling into a tumble before twisting the lock to open the front door.

The face I was greeted with brightened immediately. "GYPSY!" She squealed.

"Maxie!"
The rest of my words got drowned out as Max pulled me into a hug, unconsciously ruffling my hair.

Her flame-coloured hair tickled my cheeks. She pulled back and I grabbed the ALDI'S plastic bag she was carrying.

"Where are –"

"Lyn! Gracie! Skye! Gyps!" 

I smiled as the rest of my friends appeared at the front door, calling out our names and answering my question before I had the chance to finish it.
We ushered them in, Eric and Casey carrying four bags each with Lily carrying two. 

That was fair, since Eric had masculine strength and Casey had grown up moving heavy bales of hay. 

The Twins, Lyn and Jess all helped with retrieving stuff from the car, and soon all the shopping (food, different assortments of soft drinks, toothpaste, clothes and, weirdly, a pack of crayons) was put in their respective places, asking Jess and Max for confirmation of where they belonged. Once the job was done, we met up in the living room.

Jess pushed the couches so they were facing each other, then took a seat on one of them alongside Max, Grace and Skye. Lily, Casey, Eric and Lyn took up another couch, and I was content with sitting on the couch's arm next to Lyn.

Gracie and I did the introductions. (Well, Grace did the introductions, I provided the backstory.)

"So guys," Gracie addressed our friends and pointed to the dirty-blonde, "this is my cousin, Jessica."

Jess waved from beside Max.

"And this is her girlfriend, Max," Gracie explained, and Max waved again, as friendly as ever.

"They both babysat Josh and I the month I met you guys," I informed. "Back then they were only friends."

I paused, looking at Jess, who nodded and picked up the story from there.

"Cuz got me in contact with Gypsy's parents, saying I was looking for things to kill the time and that I was good with kids. Max and I took the task together, using the house she inherited from her uncle," Jess paused to gesture around us at the house. "Then Max asked me to move in with her. A guy came onto me once and Maxie told him to hit the curb because I was her girlfriend. And that's how it started, I guess," she shrugged, and her fiery-haired girl put an arm around her.

I laughed, realising Jess had started blushing. Max rested her forehead on Jess's shoulder, giggling.

"This is Eric," Lily smiled at the two – but was the logical one, realising we needed to sort this out. "Who I'm ninety-nine percent sure has the ability to slow down time."

He gulped at Lily's statement, nodding. "Yeah. That's why I wasn't... surprised or scared, and that's why I ran with you guys. Don't worry, I promise I'll help in any way I can."

I sighed. "Eric, you know you don't have to. This whole thing's my fault."

Max sat back, staring at me.

I lowered my gaze to the ground, and I felt Lyn put a comforting arm around my shoulders. I met her gaze and gave her a small smile.

"No. You just acted on instinct. It was Brie who was in the wrong," Casey hissed, determination riddling her voice.

"Absolutely," Lily spoke up. "Don't beat yourself up over it."

"Yeah! We should be beating up Brie!" Skye cheered. "I never did like that brand of cheese," she added, blanching.

 "We will," Grace promised (I wasn't sure if she was joking or not). "We just gotta find out how long this recharge lasts."

"Recharge?" Maxie asked. Her head tilted slightly to the side like it always did whenever she was confused.

"Oooh, right," I remembered, turning to her. "The reason Lily didn't just use a forget-me-knot to get out of this mess is because she actually couldn't. We think she used it too many times for too many big things."

"And small things," Lily added, probably thinking back to all the times we got caught shoplifting cookies and unneeded junk food.

Now Eric looked confused. "Forget-me-knot? So her power making people forget things?"

The gang nodded.

I thrust a thumb in the Twins' direction. "They have telekinesis," I explained. 

I pointed to Jess. "She has a healing power. Lily has forget-me-knots. Casey is a mind-reader. Evelyn has portals and –"

"Wait, why didn't you just portal everything away then?" Max groaned, and Jess chuckled.

Lyn blushed. "I didn't think you knew about our powers. Sorry."

"Oh, quite alright!" Max shook her head, flicking her hair over her shoulder. 

Eric murmured. "Huh. So what's your power then? I mean, evidently you control fire and water, but air and earth–?"

"Oh yeah," I nodded, and clicked my fingers. A single rock appeared above my palm, floating in mid-air.

"Getting back to the point," Lily gently reminded, and the rock vanished. "My power got shut off for some reason. Like she said before, we think it's to do with a recharge."

Eric nodded understandingly. "It's the same with mine. So far the recharges have all been at random, though. They've usually lasted anytime from two days to two months."

"Two months?!" Lily echoed, distressed as she jumped to her feet. "You're kidding!"

"Unfortunately not," Eric said solemnly. "I'm not sure if your power is more capable and/or stronger than mine, though, so it could take longer or less."

Lily sank down next to Casey. We sat in uncomfortable silence for a few moments.

"Guys," Jess said. "I think we're all avoiding addressing the most confusing issue here: why do we have these abilities? I mean, why us? Where can we learn about them?"

Silence.

"And..." I started, unsure. When nobody else talked, I continued. "And does anyone else in the world have them? How many people, if any?"

Nobody answered, as confused and clueless as I was.

Blank noise growing louder in my ears, until it was a sharp ringing. The birds and insects outside didn't matter.
It made me feel sort of sleepy. Odd.

"I have an idea," Max nodded.

"Yeah? Anything would be helpful," Lily prompted.

Max sighed. "One problem at a time here, guys. First of all, we need to find out how long you'll all be staying here."

"That info might've been useful before we went shopping," Casey sighed.

Max nodded, sheepish. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Did you actually have an idea?" Lily asked, temper running a bit short (though I saw she was trying to be patient).

"Yes," Maxie replied, unfazed. "We take it one step at a time. We have a guest bed that can fit a bunch of people, plus we've got the couches here. You all can stay here as long as you need."

I smiled brightly at Max, dangerously close to hugging her again. 

"You all sort yourselves out with the bed and couch," I declared, getting to my feet. "I can sleep on the floor."

"Like hell you will!" Evelyn flared, and at the same time Lily stated, "absolutely not".
"This may be your bad, but we're not gonna let you punish yourself, Gypsy!" Lyn said firmly.

I rolled my eyes affectionately, regarding my friends with a smile. 

"We'll worry about sleeping arrangements later," Jess stood up, stretching. "Right now, we need food."

<⚙︎>

A little while later, we were enjoying the fruits of my friends' labour and having a wonderful meal of microwave pizza (oh, one other thing I should mention is that Max and Jess are the pizza kings). 

"So, who's sleeping where?" Jess asked, when all of us were chowing down.

"I'll sleep on the couch," I suggested, shrugging. 

"I'm sharing with her," Lyn said immediately, and I sighed, realising there was no way she would relent.

The wind was rattling the windows as if it thought we would let it inside, asking us for entry. Thanks but no thanks.

"Whatever you two want," Max smiled, grabbing another slice from the middle of the dining table.

"What about the rest of you?" I queried.

"Eric can bunk with us," Skye suggested, and I saw the glance she shared with Gracie.

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't hide a smile. Were they ever going to be grown-ups and not hit on the new guy?

The aforementioned boy looked up from his spot in-between Casey and Lily. "If you want me to," he shrugged, phrasing it more like a question. 

"Casey and Lily can share the guest bed, and Skye and Cuz're gonna set up something else with Eric," Jess decided. "And Gypsy will crash the couch with Evelyn. Perfect!"

A laugh track from the tv played, bringing my attention back to it. I watched the show for a few seconds, being able to stare at the tv in the lounge room behind Jess.

I smiled. I used to watch Golden Girls all the time with Willow on my lap.

I jolted. 

Willow! Josh! Mum and dad, weren't they all freaking out by now?

"Oh my god," I stated. 

"What's up?" Casey asked.

I responded by fishing my phone out of my back pocket. 64%.

Eighteen missed calls from mum. Ten missed texts from Josh. Thirteen voicemails from dad.

I groaned. "I got spammed by my parents." I held up my phone as evidence.

The Gang's eyes went wide. I guess in all the excitement, we collectively forgot that we had people back home who would miss us. Simultaneously, they jimmied their phones out of their pockets and their thumbs swiped their screens.

"Oh god," Skye wailed quietly, letting her forehead fall to the table.

"We can't ignore them forever, but we can't tell them where we are," I rationalised, making my voice loud as I scrolled through the seemingly endless texts from my frenzied brother: a torrent of "where are you?!" "answer me!" "gypsy! you guys are all over the news! why'd you jag school?" "GYPSICA!" 

There was a sharp knock at the door, bringing me out of my old panic and right around into a new one.

I turned to the others.

"We got it; you guys hide," Jess inhaled, then stood and got up from the table. She stalled, giving us time to run to the lounge room.

We shimmied over so we were behind the lounge-room wall, hopefully out of sight of anyone looking in through the front door. Max began moving some of the dishes to the sink, acting normal in the hopes of fooling whoever was outside.

The lounge held a collective breath as Jess opened the front door. We could hear the conversation.

"Good evening ma'am, I'm Officer Walkers. Today your cousin and six of her friends were seen running out of school and their parents are concerned of their whereabouts. Do you have any idea where they might be?"

It was a slight second before Jess answered. Her tone was just the right shade of panicked with just the right underlining of level-headedness. 

"I know, Officer, my family is in a frenzy," she sighed. "I'm so sorry, but I have no clue where they went."

A dangerous pause.

Beat. Beat. Beat.

"You haven't seen them?"

"No, sir."

"Did you have any contact with your cousin before today? Were there any clues she might've given you as to where she ran off to?"

Jess took a breath. "No, sir. The last time we talked was last week."

The officer moved, his equipment making light jangling sounds. "Are you home alone?"

"My girlfriend lives with me, sir. She's here today."

As if summoned, Max's voice joined the fray. "Who's at the door, Jess?"

"It's an officer asking about Grace," came the reply.

"Hello sir, what can I do you for?" Max asked, remaining calm.

"Good evening, ma'am. Could you tell me..." Officer Walker must've peered past Jess at the open pizza boxes, because he said, "why you have so much food for just two people?"

Max answered after a moment, "we just had some friends over," and I pictured her shrugging.

The amount of time she had been quiet before answering was exactly right. Not too hasty to sound prepared, but not too long so the officer would think she was coming up with an excuse. The answer sounded as if it had come up organically.

Pause.

Lily was gripping my shoulder tight. I placed my hand over hers. I was shaking, my heart trying to break down its bony prison. 

Beat.

Beat.

I pictured Officer Walkers jotting down the information on a notepad, weapon of murder strapped at his hip.

"Thank you very much for your time, ma'am," he finally said after a minute. "Please take this card so we can be in touch."

"Thank you, sir. Please find her." 

"We will, ma'am. I promise."

The door closed.

Beat. Beat. Beat.

"He's gone," Max announced from the front door.

Immediately my knees buckled and I sank to the ground, exhaling in relief.

"That was too close," Casey breathed, her voice croaky.

Jess and Max appeared from behind the wall. "This is getting serious, guys," Jess said. She turned to Lily. "We need to find out how long your recharge is." 

We all moved back towards the table, after pulling down the blinds.

"We can't hide forever, but we're in serious trouble here," Casey observed. "If they find out Jess was lying..."

We got the idea.

"Can I say something?" I asked.

"Of course," Lily replied, squeezing my shoulder – this time to comfort me.

I nodded at her and gave her a smile. "We have to find the answers to all our questions. Because something tells me this is much bigger than just us."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"We'll stay here, figure out a plan," Eric offered. We agreed to that too.

"Maybe we can go back to our parents once things have died down a bit," Grace suggested.

"But regardless of what happens, we have to stay together now," Jess interjected. "Once Lily's able to fix this, everything will go back to normal. But no matter what, we have to find out if anyone else has powers, and why."

Skye groaned. "I just realised that the nine of us are gonna have to share two bathrooms and two phone chargers," she pointed out in dismay.

We all wilted a little more at that. It was clear nobody was thrilled with this arrangement. But we'd have to make it work somehow. I just hope the calm, ever-present river of guilt in my stomach doesn't eat me alive before we can fix this.