Accidental Magic
by Allison Krane

Chapter 28: Feedback Distortions
 

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Terri's arrival was accompanied by a shock wave akin to an explosive going off and the contents of the room were pushed away from her including shattering the windows and throwing the couch up onto one side.

Other than the lack of fading on the couch, there was little evidence to suggest she was now in the same room only twenty-two years earlier.

It was the same home-office as before though the pictures on the wall were newer, even one that Terri recognized as having a picture of Augustine and Agatha in it.

"Terri!" snapped Agatha Winston, Terri's own grandmother, breaking her out of the trance as she popped into the room.

"Gramma?" Terri asked, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. "I can't believe its you!"

"No time for hugs; take my hand!"

Terri reached out, then stopped. "No, we aren't going anywhere," she said calmly.

"But Augustine is coming..."

"I know and that's why I'm staying right where I am."

At that moment Augustine kicked open the door screeching "Get out of my house!"

The woman's tirade ended abruptly as she recognized her friend in the pale light. "Agatha?"

"I'm sorry Augustine," a now shaking nervous Agatha said, the words tumbling out rather meekly.

Terri recognized the nervousness and turned toward Augustine herself. Even startled, the woman was a bastion of confidence.

"Augustine Meyers," Terri began. "Its nice to see you again. Sorry about the loud noise that woke you. I promise I'll find a way to pay for the windows."

"Do I know you? I am quite certain I would have remembered your face had we met."

"I've had the chance to talk with you before, but for you this will be the first."

"Terri!" squeaked Agatha. "What are you doing?"

Terri ignored her grandmother's plea. She instead faced Augustine with determination. "Augustine Meyers," she began again, "My name is Terri D'angelo and I am the grandchild of Agatha Winston but I will not even be born for another five years..."

She paused for a moment. "...and I am a Vortex."

Augustine stepped back until she could slide down the wall onto her posterior. She had lost all of her demeanor, now sitting there in shock.

"Would you like proof? Terri asked.

"No, I believe you," the older woman replied with a slight quiver in her voice. "But why are you telling me this?"

"Because I need your help and because you need to know the truth. Because I'm not the only only one in this room with a secret you need to hear."

"Terri, what are?" Agatha began to ask but was interrupted.

"Tell her or I will Gramma," Terri snapped. "I will not let you make the same mistake again!"

"Tell me what?" Augustine asked, regaining some of her composure.

"I'm... a precog," stammered Agatha. "All my life and I'd planned to keep it secret until I died."

Terri looked down at Augustine. "She is afraid to tell you and you yourself once explained to me why."

Augustine nodded as she stood up. "So you came back in time because you need my help?"

"Not just yours, but you are the first."

"I see," Augustine said as she motioned for them to follow through the door. "It sounds we have much to talk about."
 

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Lexi was standing over a spot on the floor where Terri had been moments before. Her tiny hands placed as if she were warming them over an invisible fire.

"There," Lexi said as her eyes snapped open. "She made a major change in the time line. The ripples are going to build as they expand forward."

"What did she do?" asked Cindy.

"... I don't know," Lexi said as she looked to her right upon the the now truly dead corpse of her mother.

Everyone in the room save Lexi gasped as the body exploded into a dissapating mist with a sound like a an old latex balloon popping.

"Is that a good sign or a bad one?"

"It's a sign that I'm next!" said Lexi, who then turned to face Augustine.

"You said you wanted answers so here is your chance," she said as she pulled a small teardrop-shaped stone on a chain from her pocket. "This is Agatha and she will be able to explain everything to you when this is over. This is why I could be the custodian."

Augustine held out her hand and let the child pool the chain into her palm, but was stunned when Lexi breathed a spell causing her fingers to snap over the stone and clutch it tightly.

Lexi then stepped over in front of Allyssa. "I have another one that I'll need your promise to get to Terri after the wave hits."

"It's you," Cindy commented. "Isn't it?"

"Promise me that no matter where you find yourself on the other side of the Paradox, you'll find a way to get that to Terri!" Lexi shouted.

"Yes," Allyssa shouted back. "I promise."

Lexi pulled another chain up from around her neck and Allyssa took it and again the spell was cast clamping her hand shut as well.

"The spell sets the space inside your hand as sealed away from time for the next ten minutes. Hopefully that will be long enough..." Lexi explained but was interrupted as a blinding flash of light overtook the room.
 

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The group awoke to find themselves in the same room as before, the feeling of being out of place now overtaking them.

Lexi hopped to her feet as quickly as she had opened her eyes.

Not even taking a moment to observe the change in their surroundings, Lexi threw open the door and moved to step into the hallway, but her heel never reached the floor before she stopped.

Standing at the other end of the hallway was Terri, her arms crossed over her chest.

At first glance Augustine didn't notice anything different about her except her clothes, but that quickly changed.

She realized Terri was purposely balanced on her left foot, while the right sat poised on the ball of the foot.

Augustine realized the girl must have studied martial arts.

Looking into Terri's eyes over a pair of small rose-tinted round glasses that perched on the edge of her nose, she no longer saw the brash impulsiveness of youth, but the serenity and maturity that only age could bring.

Further musing and inspection were interrupted as Lexi nearly shouted. "Did It Work?! You didn't make the same mistakes this time?"

Allyssa had watched Lexi go from calm and curious to tearing up and shaking in only a second, just from the sight of this woman.

They all looked toward Terri, waiting for her response.

Not saying a word, she merely uncrossed her arms, revealing her left hand, which then she held out both toward Lexi.

Said girl could no longer contain herself and broke into a dead run down the hallway.

Terri crouched down and caught the girl now visibly crying.

"It worked, it worked," Lexi managed to squeek out between sobs.
"Yes it did, thanks to you and Grandma," Terri quietly responded.

"Do you even remember who I am?" Lexi asked.

"Of course, nothing could ever make me forget you."

"I... don't know... how much time I have left. You promised you wouldn't let go until I disappear."
"I remember that too," responded Terri calmly.

Allyssa, Cindy and Ausgustine froze in place, watching daughter cry into her mother's arms, as though the slightest movement would tear the fabric of reality itself and blink Lexi out of existance that much faster.

Time lost all meaning as the three watched as Terri hold a shaking, bawling mass that was Lexi.

In Allyssa's mind, just to move was tempt the fates that kept Lexi where she was. She didn't even turn her head but could see Cindy and Augustine both locked in place, but both had tears in their eyes. They shared her sentiment.

She could still feel the stone in her left hand that held the copy of Lexi's essence. She knew she could use it to operate a golem and she swore to give it one, no matter what it took.

Augustine, meanwhile was emotionally torn between admiration and grief for Lexi's sacrifice.

This little girl had orchestrated the unthinkable because she cared more for her mother than the wicked wretch that Terri had become was worth.

This little girl had forced herself on a path to undermine her own existance, just on the chance that Terri would change hers.
Now, with her desire made real, Lexi faced her own mortality head on, as a four year old should; crying into her mother's arms.

Augustine could not imagine how strong she had needed to be, but she doubted that she, herself, could have done it.

Augustine vowed that she would never forget the actions of such a young life and would have a memorial made.

Cindy didn't have any notions of what she could do for Lexi, the little girl she had barely known. She wished that she could have gotten more time with her.

Lexi, was now quieting down; her tears having spilled and her heart finally at peace, knowing her machinations worked and her sacrifice had not been in vain.

Terri made no sound, but picked Lexi up, clutching her tightly to her chest. She calmly turned and walked down the steps with everyone now following closely behind, their trances broken. Cindy tried vainly to grasp Lexi's hand that hung off Terri's shoulder.

Augustine watched Terri turn into the kitchen then open a cupboard door, taking out a plate and walking it to the chair on the island in her kitchen.

"You certainly know your way around my kitchen," Augustine commented as she watched Terri open a cookie jar and take out a handfull of chocolate chip cookies. Terri did not acknowledge she even heard her though.

Setting it on the island, Terri set the cookies on the plate, then sat down on one of the stools turning Lexi in her lap, then offered a cookie to the girl.

Lexi hesitated, but took the offered treat with both hands and slowly brought it to her lips. Before it reached her tongue, her bawling began anew. She put her arms back around Terri, letting the cookie muffle her crying as she used her teeth to hold it in place.

"Shhh, don't cry. Everything will be alright," Terri said softly. "I know your life was so hard and mom basically raised you. Will you forgive me?"

Lexi only hugged Terri with vigor, unable to say anything due to both the cookie and her state of mind.

"Maybe Terri's magic is the reason Lexi is still here?" Cindy questioned.

"Well," said Terri as she gently rocked back and forth in the chair, "This is the part where Lexi would tell you that the probability of someone in displacement over a paradox continuing to exist in post-paradox environment is one in ten-thousand to the power of X, where X is equal to the number of seconds after the paradox."

Lexi perked up, her emotions subsiding again. She took the cookie from her mouth and her mood almost completely changed "I don't ever remember sitting down and discussing quantum theory with you."

"No, I suspect you don't," Terri replied. "But at this point your odds of still being here, not counting any outside force, are about one in a number with about thirty-million zeroes behind it; am I right?"

Lexi's eyes were wide, but she nodded slowly.

"Even anything I could do might have, at best, kept you around only a minute,"

"But... how?" Lexi asked fearful of the answer.

"Define Occums Razor," was Terri's only reply.

Suddenly, Lexi broke into tears again. She raised a fist as if she was going to attack her mother, but it was stopped as Terri's hand closed around hers.

"How could you, you said you didn't make the same mistakes."

Terri gently lowered Lexi's hand. "You were never a mistake," she said before kissing the tiny girl on the forehead. "As Bob Ross liked to say, 'We only have Happy little accidents' and you made me happy."

"I told you that nothing could make me forget you. Like everyone else here, the moment I learned that I was your mother and how it happened, I realized why you wanted me to change my future, but I realized also how precious you were to me."

Lexi would not hear it, she tried to tear herself away, but she wasn't strong enough.

"You didn't have to do it!" Lexi nearly screamed. "You didn't have to let yourself get raped!"

"Oh, is that what you're worried about," Terri said with a sudden smile. "You seem to think I would let anyone do things to me. Well, let me tell you, I spent seventeen years planning for you."

It was at this point that a man who looked in his late twenties stepped in from the doorway leading outside. No one had even noticed he was there at that point.

"What's going on... oh wait, it was today?" he exclaimed. "I thought it was tomorrow!"

"No funny business sweetie," Terri calmly replied. "You need to introduce yourself as no one in this room has all their memories back and likely doesn't know who you are."

He slowly stepped forward, now as if on eggshells. He grabbed a short stool and sat on it, so he could look up at Lexi, still sitting on Terri's lap.

"Alexander," he began, but was interuppted.

"Alexander?!" both Cindy and Allyssa exclaimed.

He sighed softly and began again. "Alexander, I am your father."

Lexi appeared to have difficulty processing everything that had just occured.

Augustine looked at Terri, "Why are you so familiar with my house?"

"Because," Terri responded softly. "It's actually my house. You sold it to me three years ago. It'll come come back to you in a minute, at least I hope so anyway."

"But then where do I...?" Augustine's question was suddenly stopped as a familiar pair of arms encircled her at the waist from behind. "We're RV'ing for our retirement dear, or did you forget?"

Augustine spun around, tears in her eyes, to see her husband of forty plus years alive and well.

"Nathan?" she stammered. "But, but how?"

He touched her forehead to his as she started to cry, both of joy and remembering the last two years of her life that had gone without him.

He pulled back and leaned his head to look over her shoulder at Terri, who was still holding her child, who only moments before had her true name outed.

Lexi, or Alexander, looked at the man who just gave her away. "Darth Vader?" she simply asked.

He lowered his head and nodded like he had done something bad.

Cindy elbowed Allyssa, neither of them had moved as both were picking their jaws up from the floor. "Terri has a wedding band on her finger, look."

Allyssa nodded. "You two are married then?" she asked with a soft pout. "I wish I could have been there."

Terri smiled again, "You don't realize you were, both of you actually. Go look at the photo album in the den, it'll come back to you."

The girls both screeched in excitement and ran into the other room.

Augustine turned around, still being held by her husband. "Were we both there too?"

"Of course, you are Alexander's adopted great-grandparents," Terri replied. "Of course, that is just his formal name, for when he's in trouble. You gave this little girl here a different nickname."

"Alexis," replied Augustine. "Short for Alexandra, my mother's name. But why me? Why us?"

"Many time loops," Terri replied, "each one passing on information to the younger version. The sickly, frail one figured it all out and that's why were all here now. If it makes you feel better, she figured out what I needed to do because this last time through, you said something to me on that beach that you had never mentioned in a thousand times before."

"So Agatha told me before she died," Augustine asked.

"I made her spill the beans as soon as I landed in the bedroom twenty-two years ago and blew out all the windows."

"Thank you," Augustine meekly replied.

"In order to save myself, I had to save the world first. For that I needed help. Thank you for letting me stay here after Grandma passed away."

"I half-expected her to come around the corner and yell at me," Augustine commented. "She is really gone?"

"Yes... and no..." Terri replied with a smile as Augustine's hand finally released the stone she was given before the Paradox hit.

"But what I was referring to is that Grandma was big into recycling," Terri remarked as she stroked Alexis' hair.

"Really?" Augustine asked.

"It tends to run in the family," Terri commented. "Myself included. I inherited mine from Uncle Andrew."

Alexis tried to hop down from her mother's lap but Terri wasn't letting her go.

"Uhm, Mom?" Alexander quietly asked, "Can I...?"

"I promised to hold you until you faded, or did I dream that up?" Terri commented.

This statement caused Alexander to lean back into Terri, allowing Terri's arms to fully encircle around her waist.

Terri dipped her head down and inhaled from her daughter's hair. "Besides," Terri added. "I won't be able to chase you down when I'm blind."

The exclaimation "Blind?!" erupted from four different sets of lips, two in the other room as they realized they needed to be back in the conversation.

Alexander twisted her body so she could stare into Terri's eyes, tears in her own.

"Temporarily," Terri chuckled as all the females in the room were now suddenly aware she had never turned to address them directly, but they had all assumed it was because she was doting on Alexander. "In order to make sure everything went to plan this time around, I've been spending so much time seeing the future, I have a nasty case of seer's shroud."

"I didn't know you were a precog," Augustine said as she watched Terri gently kiss Alexander on the forehead before turning the girl back forward and pulling her back into the snug embrace.

"I wasn't," Terri replied. "Not until Grandma passed it on to me when she died."

Augustine lowered her head. "I miss Aggie."

Terri's husband pointed to the glowing stone on the chain that hung off the curled end of Augustine's finger. "Looks like she wants to talk and apologize."

Augustine turned to her husband. "Where are we parked?" He chuckled and walked to a door she didn't recognize and opened it, dragging her with, the door shutting quietly behind them.

"They need a bit of catch up time," Terri said with a smirk. "He Was the only person who could tame her personality.

"So you stayed here with Augustine all these years?" Cindy asked.

"Well," Terri began, "Not the whole time, but I had the guest bed and a warm meal for most of it."

Allyssa turned to the Terri's husband. "I don't know you, I'm Allyssa. I don't remember getting your name."

"Rene Olson, and I was told to expect this."

"Are you Gay?" Allyssa asked quite bluntly, causing Cindy to squeak in protest.

Rene lowered his head a moment in defeat, then took a deep breath before answering.

"Its not a simple yes, but I suppose 'More so when Sober,' might describe it better."

"You are obviously aware that she is a magic user, else I'm sure you would have freaked out by now."

"Of course," Rene responded. "We have a very open relationship."

"So you know..." Allyssa began but was interrupted.

"When I was very young," Rene began, "the man who sired me left my mother to raise me alone. She worked two jobs and was gone more than she was around. I suppose I transferred my anger onto her, but she was the only one there for me at all."

"In a night of drinking, somehow I managed to gain a courage and strength to ravage this beauty in my presence."

"Let tell this part," Terri interrupted. "I knew in only a few hours, but I spent nearly two weeks avoiding Rene after becoming pregnant. It came as a shock to me when he went down on one knee and promised to be a faithful husband and father."

"She asked me if I loved her," Rene added. "I admit that her question surprised me in a way I should have seen coming. Four years later I can safely say I love her in ways I never thought possible."

Terri was simply smiling as she laid the side of her head against Alexander.

"Can you two make it home by yourselves?" Rene started, "I think it's getting late.

Cindy nodded, "I think we'll manage."

"Is it safe to teleport from inside the house?" Allyssa asked. "I don't have to worry about traps or anything?"

Terri chuckled, "I suppose you wouldn't know about the hallway yet. Go through the door that Augustine and her husband went through, then second door on the right."

"Where does it go?" Cindy asked as she stopped with one hand on the knob.

"My mother's house, the basement door into the kitchen."

"How come there isn't a door straight to my house?" Alyssa commented idly.

"You and I both know that your parents would never understand our world," Terri responded. "When you move out of your parent's place, then I'll think about it."

"I'll hold you to it," Allyssa managed as Cindy dragged them through the door, letting it fall shut behind them.

Rene chuckled as he got off his knees and started up the steps before he turned toward his wife and daughter.

"Are you two coming to bed?" He asked.

Terri shook her head. "You go and get some sleep. Alexis and I will be bonding down here on the armchair."

"Sometimes I wonder if you sit and watch us sleep," Rene mused aloud. "What with you hardly ever sleeping yourself."

"Sometimes," Terri answered back, "But never for long. Somewhere the sun is always rising."
 

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End Part One.