Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 5 Chapter 18 Homecoming By Amethyst

It was late the next afternoon by the time that Sarah and Annie returned to Tír na nÓg. It had taken them a while to find out how the search for us was going after reassuring Talisha that we were all fine. When they had gotten there, a little less than half a day had passed since we were shwooped away and the search for us hadn’t really gotten underway yet. The sun had set by the time it was being organized and due to that and a severe snowstorm, the search wouldn’t be starting until the morning arrived there.

They did know where the search would be picking up in the morning though and had already found a good spot for us to appear. The plan was to spend another day in the village relaxing and then just after dinner we would cast a gate to the right area. Annie and Sarah felt that would get us there a few hours before dawn so we could get things set up and look like we had been surviving out there somehow for a day or so.

We settled in and other than relaxing, we tried to get Rebecca used to life in a Faery village. The troupe seemed to take to her well, though that could have been due largely in part to her being so entertaining to them. Not that she was trying to be. Poor Beks was having trouble adjusting to the openness of the Faery and the troupe found it hilarious that a Succubus (even if she wasn’t a real one) would get nervous, turn bright red, and run off whenever she saw someone naked or having sex.

I think that she was even more awkward about it than I was at first and even I was finding it entertaining. She would get used to it in time, as the rest of us did. She wasn’t happy with the thought of staying in the village while the rest of us went back to our world to get rescued though. It was closing in on dinner time when Rebecca and I flew to a cozy little grotto near the canyon that the village was in so I could talk to her about it privately.

It had felt good to stretch my wings after keeping them mostly under wraps by staying in human form since we had arrived at the village. I sat down on a rock near the pool of water, gave my companion a serious look, and asked, “What’s wrong, Beks?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Shannon,” she snarked. “Could it be that you’re leaving me here in a strange world with a bunch of exhibitionists?”

“We agreed that it was better for you to wait and establish a new identity when things are more stable,” I insisted. “You know that nothing good would happen if you went back with us and tried to pretend to be your old self, Beks.”

“I… know that,” she agreed with a sigh. From the dark look in her eyes, she was probably imagining being sent to live with her father, or something equally terrible. “I just…”

“The Faery are good people and you’ll only adjust to the culture shock by being exposed to it,” I told her plainly while trying to ignore her little snort of amusement when I said ‘exposed’. Maybe she had been spending too much time with Ellie.

Rebecca and Elsaishe had spent most of the day together while my cousin tried to introduce her to the finer aspects of Faery life and culture, and I was afraid that her odd sense of humor might be rubbing off. Ellie had claimed that it was so I could spend some much-needed quality time with Ziralin after our long separation but I could tell that she was attracted to Rebecca’s new form. Ellie wasn’t exactly subtle. Impulsive was a much better word to describe my Faery cousin.

“What if you don’t come back?” Rebecca’s question was barely audible and delivered with an uncharacteristic show of vulnerability.

“Beks, I already promised that I won’t abandon you, here or on any other plane of existence. This is temporary, just until we can be found and then disappear from the public eye for a while. We’ve gone over that enough. Or are you afraid that we’ll leave for Heil without you and deny you your chance at revenge for your mom?” I pressed.

From the way that she turned away from me, I figured that I had hit the nail on the head. It was a moment before she replied through tears and sniffles. “I need this, Shannon. Don’t… take this away from me. I still see… the inside of that cockpit… every time I sleep. I have to… be the one who kills her. For Mom.”

I stood up and walked over, wrapping her up in my arms while she cried out her pain and loss. “Beks, I promise that we’ll come here to get you before going to Heil. You know that I don’t like revenge but I promised you that we’d avenge your mom together, and I keep my promises. You deserve a chance to go as much as any of us. I’m worried though. This isn’t just a jaunt to another plane, this will be war and we could lose people. I think that you’re the one that I’m least worried about.”

Rebecca returned the hug, sniffling into my shoulder for a moment before replying. “I guess you haven’t broken a promise to me yet,” she admitted. “Maybe you’re just less afraid of losing me because we haven’t really known each other that long, and I was kinda a mega-bitch to you at first. I mean, I’m not even sure what this thing between us is now that we’re not focused on surviving; are we friends, frenemies, or something else? I don’t want to lose it though, so don’t go dying on me when we get to Heil. I can’t… lose someone else that I… care about.”

For a moment I was too shocked to speak. Even while we had traveled together it was rare to hear Rebecca talking about her feelings. I just hugged her tighter and said, “Yeah, let’s both try not to die. You’ve kind of become like an annoying kid sister over the past couple of months and I don’t want to lose you either. That’s not why I’m least worried about you though.”

She pulled away to look up at me with confused tear-filled eyes, “Why then? They all have those Celestial forms and cool magical abilities. I just have my Succubus abilities, and I can’t even use magick unless I were to…” A disgusted look settled on her face as she trailed off, unwilling to finish that sentence.

“Your Succubus form should make you able to survive there better than anyone with a Celestial Mark, Beks. You can blend in when needed and you have the physical strengths of a Demoness. If Sarah and the others run out of those okka stones that I charged, they’ll have to draw on the local magick energy to keep using their abilities and that stuff is toxic to Celestials. It could kill them, either through taking the time to purify it in the middle of a pitched battle or by using it without purifying it,” I explained.

I must have let my concern show on my face because Rebecca looked worried now too. “I guess we’ll need to come up with a plan then,” she muttered.

“Yeah, I’ve got some ideas but we’ll discuss it as a group once we come back here to get you and prepare,” I told her as I unfurled my wings. “Now let’s go and get some dinner, I want to eat before I go back to Earth. Who knows how long we’ll have to sit in the cold before the search parties find us.”

It wasn’t until well into the afternoon that a search and rescue helicopter got to us. It had been still snowing heavily when we had appeared on the small island near Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron and it continued through the morning, making searching for us difficult. That water was damn cold too, though not cold enough to freeze yet so the rescuers would be looking for us by search planes, rescue helicopters, and boats.

We had prepared as much as we could by wearing the warmest clothes from our bunkers but it was still freezing. Since we needed to look like we’d been waiting in the cold for rescue for a while, we couldn’t use magick to make ourselves any warmer either. We also gathered what wood we could find and built a fire to gather around while we waited and discussed our next steps.

I didn’t have it quite as bad as the others since I was in my Succubus form with my demonic features all shifted out of sight to make me appear like my human self, and I didn’t seem to get cold quite as badly that way. Still, there were enough fallen trees and branches on the island to keep the fire going throughout the morning and afternoon and the fire and the warm clothes kept us all from completely freezing. To sate our hunger and thirst, we had some granola bars and bottles of water from our backpacks.

It was the smoke from the fire that got the attention of one of the search planes when the sky began to clear. As soon as the helicopter came into sight, I created an illusion of a life raft on the shore that I had practiced and perfected the day before with Rebecca since she knew what the raft on her mother’s plane should look like. At least it wasn’t something that needed to move, and that made the illusion easier to keep up.

The island wasn’t large and there wasn’t any level ground where the helicopter could land so we were brought up one at a time in a harness after extinguishing the fire. Thankfully, they were more concerned with getting us all aboard the helicopter and getting us warm with blankets and thermoses filled with hot soup than they were with retrieving the illusory life raft. I didn’t even have to whammy anyone, which came as a great relief since the person who came down with the harness was female and not effected by my Succubus mojo.

I made sure that I was the last to come up so I could keep the illusion in place until she followed me up. Apparently, the raft and anything else left behind could be retrieved later, their priority was getting us somewhere warm where doctors could look us over to make sure we were alright. It wasn’t until I was wrapped in a blanket and enjoying some chicken soup that I allowed myself to shift back to human form. My Succubus form had made things a little awkward with the guy who had helped me out of the harness at first.

With nine of us being rescued, it was feeling a little cramped in the helicopter so I snuggled up against Ziralin, who was now back in her Beth glamour, as best I could to share warmth and comfort. As we flew to the coast guard base in Parry Sound where the search was being coordinated, Sarah and Annie told them our story of woe. How the plane had shuddered and then started to go down, and how we had had to use a life raft after the plane hit the water and started to sink. We had tried to check on the pilot and her daughter but we weren’t able to get into the cockpit.

Sarah did have to use a bit of mind magick, just enough to make our rescuers, including the paramedics who looked us over, think that we had all suffered some bruises and a bit of whiplash from the rough landing and were badly shaken up from the experience. They didn’t seem to want to traumatize us further and once we had been deemed to have no serious injuries we were allowed to go to see our families, who had all rushed there from Toronto to wait for news on the rescue efforts.

I was a bit worried about Lisa’s mom being a doctor and not in on our secret, but Lisa had managed to convince her that she was okay except for some bruises. Still, she and the other sets of parents had all been hovering since we’d gotten the okay to be released, especially Michelle’s and Jen’s parents. Mason’s mom was being pretty clingy too. Talisha made it clear that she had been worried but she wasn’t hovering that much since she knew what had really happened.

The worst of the experience was the media circus outside the Parry Sound Medical Center when we were finally allowed to leave. We had all been given strict orders to take it easy for a few days and go to the hospital if we felt any unusual pains or discomfort. By that time, we were all tired, uncomfortable with all of the attention, and Sarah wasn’t too happy about having had to use mind magick on the paramedics and the particularly insistent pair of doctors at the clinic.

So we weren’t thrilled to see reporters and cameras everywhere when we stepped outside. The camera flashes were blinding me and I could hardly hear anything but the questions being rapidly fired at us. Sarah and I both knew that we weren’t going to run that gauntlet unscathed so we decided to give a statement so the others could slip through while their attention was on us.

Still, they were crowding Sarah and me, and I wanted them back off a bit. I had to focus to keep my Succubus form from activating while I thought about what to say. My control over the shift while in highly emotional states was still a work in progress and after the long day, most of it out in the cold, I was tired, hungry, and just didn’t have the energy to deal with the media hounds.

“We’re all a little shaken up and a bit bruised, but we’re fine. We just need a bit of quiet time to reflect on what happened, and… I don’t think I’m going to be flying again for a while,” I said simply while giving an obviously forced smile. It played well on television that night though, people thought that I was trying to put on a brave face after my traumatic experience.

“Search efforts are still underway for our pilot, Lauren Kline, and her daughter, Rebecca,” Sarah added sadly as she put an arm around my shoulders. “We ask that you keep them and their family in your thoughts and prayers. After what happened we’ll be going home to spend a quiet Christmas as a family and count our blessings.”

Annie had hovered, watching the crowd around us in bodyguard mode as we gave our brief statements. Now that we had finished, she led the way through the crowd to where Talisha’s minivan was parked on the side of the road. She and Elsaishe were already inside and the engine was running. As soon as the three of us were buckled in, Talisha put the van in gear and took off.

“Are you okay, Sis?” Sara asked as Talisha pointed us toward the highway.

“Yeah, just tired and hungry, and Rebecca and I are still trying to master not changing forms when we’re really upset,” I replied as I looked out the window. “We haven’t had as much time to practice controlling that kind of stuff since we got enough magick energy to track the rest of you down. Xuriel’s memories help a bit but practical experience is better.”

“You’ll get it, Sis. Look how well you took to magick,” she assured me while reaching out to take my hand in hers. “We haven’t had much time to really talk since you guys found us but we’re proud of all of you. You put aside your differences with Rebecca to help her and the two of you survived together and mastered those abilities well enough to help the others and find us. When I realized that there was no magick energy there, I was a little worried that you two might end up killing one another, if something else didn’t kill you first.”

“It was close at first,” I admitted. “She turned around once I ‘blessed’ her and she started to realize that I wasn’t the bitch she thought I was. I thought she was going to be a terror when her first period hit a week or so after I changed her but she was actually happy about it. I think she was even starting to get a bit of a crush on me before Ellie derailed it with the Succubus-mama comment.”

Ellie giggled in the front seat. “All part of the plan, Cuz.”

I tried not to think about what she might be up to and thankfully, Annie interjected. “Speaking of plans, we’ll need one soon. We can’t afford to wait long before going to Heil. Khinara knows who Shannon and Lisa are and if she’s figured out that we managed to escape her little ambush she’ll come after them first.”

We discussed it as we drove but other than the wards that were already in place on both ours and Lisa’s house, and keeping our senses peeled for trouble, there wasn’t much we could do. Talisha had finalized the purchase of our new house yesterday but the trouble would be getting movers before New Year’s with Christmas only three days away. The new place was much more secure against more mundane intruders like nosy reporters though since it had a high fence and a security gate. As for supernatural problems, I would be helping Sarah with the wards to make sure that those wouldn’t trouble us either.

By the time we stopped in Barrie for something to eat, we had decided to rent a moving van the next day and keep up appearances by moving things ourselves without any noticeable magick. I would have liked to do it the easy way, but with reporters still watching our old place we couldn’t afford to. They might get suspicious if the place went from fully furnished to empty overnight without any obvious signs. After the move, we would play it by ear but leave for Heil on the 26th at the latest.

I retrieved my phone from my purse and turned it on to text the others and let them know the plan. For the moment, I tried to ignore the massive amount of texts and missed calls from our agent, friends at school, and numbers that I didn’t recognize. People would understand me not being in any condition to talk after a seemingly near-death experience. Once I had let the others know what we had decided I tried to just relax and ended up drifting off to sleep until we arrived home sometime after midnight.