•••

Swooning has proven more refreshing than Peneloper initially thought possible, much like a slice of watermelon on a summer's day, or a shot of whiskey savored at the tail-end of a work week.

The act, as involuntary as a cough, sneeze, or tossing of one of Mother Auttsley's breakfasts into the bin, requires little in terms of physical exertion and provides a delightful nap, in miniature.

Peneloper could have done without the embarrassment, but when your friend looks like that and is looking at you that way, pheromones seem to have a way of wreaking havoc on your fragile, seventeen-year-old psyche, awakening latent desires and a flush of cheek, as it's a genre staple.

After awakening from her swoon, it takes her a moment to recall wherein the story she is. So much has happened, and yet there's so much more to come.

Chant sits at the foot of her bed, anchoring her to this time and place, knees pulled into his chest, pupils slitted, teeth pressed into his lower lip, his tell-tale worry wrinkle cutting a Mariana Trench across his forehead. If he had a tail in this form, it'd be swishing aside bedsheets and sending Peneloper's army of stuffed green aliens to explore the untamed jungles of her carpeted floor.

She reaches for him, squeezes his wrist. He turns, flashes a wry smile and returns the squeeze with fingers red-hot and rough yet kind. This interaction is small and nonverbal, but in those seconds, everything is conveyed that needs to be: it's okay; I'm fine; I accept you no matter what. Peneloper cocks her head and raises an eyebrow - a werewolf, huh? You'll have to tell me everything as research for my story.

Chantham chuckles, Peneloper's laughter not far behind. Genesis, on the other hand, watching the pair from the windowsill, impatiently struts, wings cross, eyes like melted gold, far removed from the moment being shared on the bed. Rain beats against the pane, each reverberating ping promising to soak his feathers, and his expression worsens.

He taps his beak unhappily against the glass. Having lived with a thirteen-year-old, Peneloper, and Chant, being the foremost authority in charge of twin, younger sisters, recognizes this for what it is: the tinny, staccato beats of annoyance.

Chant gets to his feet. Peneloper gathers up her notebook and newly acquired star. Together, with Genesis gliding over their heads, they make for Mire Hill.

Halfway through their trek, Chant's muscles - chiseled from years of track and the genetic makeup to be predisposed for unearned muscles and width, as all werewolves were - give out. Without so much as a huff or wobble, he crumples to the asphalt.

Genesis squawks his impudence, offering no help as birds do, and instead begs Peneloper to leave Chant for Monday's garbage pickup. Peneloper will not let her friend fester on the side of the road like roadkill until Monday, so, with resolve equal to that of this chapter's desire to begin, she picks her friend up and staggers the rest of the way to Mire Hill house.

Red-faced, out of breath, slimy, and pitted, she arrives. Finger trembling, she rings the doorbell. Crispen Heavensley answers before the first trill finishes as though he'd been waiting for this precise moment, and in truth, he had. Flashing a smile, he lets them in. Dragging Chant, Peneloper sets foot inside the mysterious house on Mire Hill, where her instruction into the wonderfully nonsensical world of magic is about to unfold.

• The Roof Is Leaking •

Through clenched teeth, perspiration raining off her skin at an alarming rate of twenty-two drops per second, the eldest Auttsley urged her friend to get off. Chant's bulk, an additional one-hundred, seventy-fifty pounds, had made Peneloper feel like she'd buckle, much in the way of Mire Hill house's foundation.

Chant, barely coherent enough to register his friend's desire as raging dreams of household items relating the secrets to a delicious sheet cake lay siege to his mind, willed his limbs onto Heavensley's sofa. He took note of the couch - brown, peeling, paisley-patterned, and propped on stacks of unopened math and history books.

At this observation, he found enough strength in his reservoirs to remark, "You've got as much respect for learning as Peneloper does."

Crispen thrust him a cup of tea, then handed Peneloper hers. "I learn what's important."

Peneloper gasped, as she grazed the dainty petal-shaped lip of the cup. "That's exactly what I-" Her face fell, and with cheeks as full as Potter Oak's resident chipmunks were given the time of year, she blew on her tea, a swell of steam slicking her face. "Using my thoughts against me?" she asked, curtailing her previously given excitement.

Crispen took his cup and sat opposite her in a recliner. "Honestly, your thoughts are more voracious than Mire's weeds. I can't keep track of them all, Miss Auttsley, nor do I have the time and resources to catalog what I'm sure would turn into an ever-growing library, rivaling in size and strength that of Alexander's. What I've said just now, is what I believe to be true."

Peneloper took a sip of her tea. Floral hibiscus notes burst along her tongue—tangy and bitter and sweet—making for a delightful experience. "Well, I've found it to be true as well, though Chant believes in the inherent good nature of school, and lessons, so you'll need to be more persuasive if you wish to have him seeing as we do." She shooed Chant's legs and took up a position on the couch, her gaze lingering on every one of Crispen's one hundred and fifty-seven metallic buckets that stood sentinel collecting the rain spilling through the roof.

Chant, noticing her interest, commented, "Your roof's leaking."

Crispen leaned back, the chair releasing a sigh that added a nice softness to the song of the pails. "How else would you expect me to see the world outside?"

Chant pointed toward the door. "Go outside."

Crows circled above the wounded roof. They exchanged caws, and Crispen, the only one fluent in their language, smirked. "They say you're single-minded, like most dogs," he brought the cup to his lips, and with eyes alight with mischief, took a protracted sip, steam curling around his nose before disappearing up his nostrils, "that's why your kind can't work magic like the rest of us. You sniff it out, recognize it for what it is, have the color of its connection traversing your blood, but—" He released the teacup, draped his arm over the chair. The cup remained in the air, twirling like a prima ballerina. "—but you can't wield it. Dogs will never earn their place in the sky."

Hatred crackled off Chant. "I have no desire," he snarled, "to be one of those magical weirdos you consider peers." The words flew out of Chant's mouth without a second thought - as he was hardwired for honesty which often led to his thoughts, bypassing a second review of the brain and being ill-conceived in their nature and poorly reviewed.

Peneloper bristled. "If that's how you feel, what will become of our friendship once I'm ordained a magical weirdo?"

She had meant for the words to be light, and add an airiness to the conversation it sorely lacked, but they added no levity. Instead, her words had struck a deep chord, an insecurity within herself she hadn't known she had, which reverberated through every one of her bones.

If Chant hated those with magical abilities, and she had said magical abilities, would he come to hate her? She found it unlikely that he ever would - that the hands that had reached out and embraced her the evening after her father's wake would someday be retracted, that Chant's kind invitation into his home to dine with his family, to rest in the comfort of his room, or be smothered in one of his oversized hoodies which hit her mid-thigh and always smelled of him—of fresh linen and sandalwood—would be revoked.

A notion so preposterous should easily be banished, but if Peneloper turned out to be something he despised would their friendship be able to champion that chasm?

She blushed out of desperation, out of embarrassment, out of anger and doubt about the future while fighting back the tears threatening to fall. Crispen had rain buckets in droves, but Peneloper doubted he had any small enough to contain the sadness she felt swelling behind her eyelashes.

She needed to focus and remember the point of their visit: the notebook, the star. No one had come here anticipating her break down over something that might not even be. She gulped.

Might not be. Meaning something that could be. One day, it might be that Chant would want nothing to do with her. One day, it might be that Chant ends their friendship because of something Peneloper can't control. One day, it might be she ended up losing one of the most important people in her life-

"I'll always love you, Nells."

Chantham Luric, eldest son of the Luric family and heir to one cow-shaped creamer, colored beige, proved, once again, to be one of the best decisions Peneloper had ever made.

His words soothed Peneloper like no salve ever could; they smothered her fear, tempered her frantic heart, and banished those thoughts that had become too painful to think. She squeezed his arm, a replacement 'thank you' for the one she couldn't put into words.

Crispen cleared his throat and motioned toward the pails. "Well, Miss Auttsley, I believe it's time to begin your lessons."

She turned toward him, the word, 'lesson' prompting a reaction well-honed since primary school. Scowling, a sour taste settling on her tongue, she asked, "Lessons? Really now, I haven't avoided learning inside of school walls all my life only to learn beyond them." She clasped her notebook and looked down. "Besides, what of my missing story and this sta--"

Crispen took her hand, his skin smooth, his warmth, explosive. He looked into her eyes as though she were the only soul in the room. "First lesson," he said, "don't ask so many questions." He dragged her toward one of the buckets pregnant with rainwater. "Lesson two," he undid the Walkman at his hip, slid off his headphones, and with a grin, placed them over her ears. His fingers went to the cassette player's plastic buttons, and with a hint of muffled excitement, he taught her arguably the most important rule any magic-user could learn, "with the help of Phil Collins, Miss Auttsley, nothing is impossible."

He pressed play and the world ebbed away.

●

In the chasm left behind from a world no longer in existence, the sole consolation Peneloper found was in the words of Phil Collins, which floated through her ears like the whispers of a dream, sweetly saturated.

Now I, I wish it would rain down, down on me, Phil Collins crooned, Yes, I wish it would rain, rain down on me now.

If words could sprout arms and said arms could wrap around you, pat your back and convey to you the sense that everything would be okay, that was what Peneloper felt, with each stanza of the song working its way through her being. She understood Crispen's words - nothing was impossible. At one with the song, she felt both impervious and strong. Lyrics and reprieves filled her up, giving her the impression she could wrestle the world, or Death, and win.

Cause I know, I know I never meant to cause you pain, and I realize I let you down, but I know in my heart of heart of hearts, I know I'm never gonna hold you again, Mr. Collins continued, pouring his heart and soul into every word.

Tears pounded against Peneloper's eyelashes insisting on being spilled. Her heart swelled like a stitch about to burst. The music cut out, and Peneloper, who'd felt as though she'd been floating through nothing, found her footing. Something akin to a wet sponge squelched underneath.

This has been Phil Collins of Inter-Layer Travel: Music to Magic By, an announcer with a Spanish flourish to his words, filled the void left by the ending of the song. If you wish to hear more smooth, drum beats by the man himself, say, "Yes," a pause, in which Peneloper had a moment to ponder what was going on, If you've reached your destination, and have no need of this service, say 'done,' at the end of this message.

Now, before you go, remember Mr. Collins, as we all know, is in the midst of a multi-layer tour. To find a date and layer nearest you, search Bing! by typing in the phrase, "Cheese is best served Collins-style." You can also check out his Warbler page, free to all on the Witch Wide Web. And remember, dear listeners, for all your eighties needs, Channel 47, 653 and 5/3 has you covered. Next up, a thirty-six-hour loop of that one song from Toto everyone knows, Arkansas!

The voice cut out. Peneloper said, "done," removed Crispen's headphones and filed away for later use all her questions about the witch wide web, Warbler, and Inter-layer travel, which held the innate whimsy she'd come to associate with all things magical.

She found herself encased in glass, slick to the touch and cool. Colors, no more than a painter's initial smears on canvas, rolled past her. Greys and whites, speckled with black. These gave way to shades of green, some lime, some ever, but green none-the-less. The green shades bowed before more earthy tones - beige, chestnut and mahogany. Peneloper regained her bearings and thought it likely, she'd become a microscopic version of herself, falling through the world in macro.

The colors shifted again, transitioning to more muted greens and browns interspersed with flashes of a timid blue. Peneloper wondered if those were the shingles of the house's roof.

Crispen's disembodied voice wafted into her ears. "You're raining down," he said, echoing the sentiments of Mr. Collins. Three words, that was all it took, to confirm her theory. Peneloper rode the rain.