Changeling Theory - Chapter 3 Sneak Peek · 2:54am Mar 15th, 2021
Chapter 3 is still being edited, but have this sneak peek to quench your thirst.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” Trixie said, and she sighed. Her horn ignited and the glasses floated off her face and folded in the air. “Although, I guess I’m glad that you’re awake. I need a break.”
She set the glasses down and placed her forehead at the edge of the desk with a huff. Starlight came around and got a good look at the spectacles. “Since when did you start wearing glasses?”
“Trixie got them last week,” she said tiredly, forehead still placed against the desk’s edge. “She needs them for reading and writing.” She lifted her head from the table. “I tried to tell the ophthalmologist that the Great and Powerful Trixie—” she threw both of her forelegs in the air. “—doesn’t need anything belittling as specs to study her spells, but he changed my mind when he told me to read a magazine out loud.”
“Well, I think they look good on you!” Starlight added.
“Hm-mm,” Trixie hummed and stood up, veering around the desk. “I’ll go make us some tea.”
Starlight started working on her sundial clock. She got the tool kit from her supply closet and used a screwdriver to remove the face, revealing all the toothed gears, springs, and everything else that made time move forward. She was loosening one of the cogs when Trixie set a cup of tea over a saucer onto the desk.
“Thanks,” Starlight said without looking up.
“You should drink,” Trixie said. “I put a couple of ice cubes in there, so it should be the perfect temperature.”
Starlight downed the tea in two quick gulps. It was warm and minty, and if her mind wasn’t hazed with everything in the universe, she would have given herself the chance to enjoy it.
She set the cup back down on the saucer with an audible clack and resumed tinkering with the inside of the sundial clock. The cog she removed was chipped and had to be replaced. Starlight got up from her pillow and walked back over to the supply closet.
“Why don’t you sleep and let me fix the clock?” Trixie called.
Starlight ignored her, sliding out a drawer labeled “cogs” and trying to match the right one with the chipped version. She found it, shut the drawer, and went back to her desk.
She could tell that Trixie was staring, so picking her screwdriver back up, she said, “You wouldn’t know how to fix it.” Okay, ouch, rude, Starlight thought. She raised her head up and said, “I’m sorry Trixie, I’m tired, and —-”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie knows how to repair clocks!” Starlight could tell that Trixie didn’t even say it out of offense. It was out of pure, simple acknowledgement that she knew how to do something.
Starlight went back to tinkering. “That may be so, but I’d like to work on this myself, if that’s fine.”
She heard Trixie huff. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Starlight stopped. She didn’t have to think about what it was because it was perfectly embedded into her brain. She didn’t say anything to Trixie and continued screwing in the fresh cog.
Trixie cleared her throat. “Trixie spoke to someone earlier today.”
“That’s nice,” Starlight said, only absentmindedly paying attention.
“He said he was a private investigator of some sort — yadda yadda yadda, and he asked Trixie for her detail of the events or whatever.” Starlight heard a loud sipping sound, and Trixie continued. “So she told him about your episode.”
“The meltdown I had after blowing up the coffee maker?”
“Bingo. He asked Trixie what you said during your little spat, and I told him about how you thought you saw me.”
Starlight set the screwdriver down and focused her magic onto a small knob on the back of the sundial clock. A clicking sound emitted as she began winding it. “So what did he think?”
“He said that it’s possible that the trauma was causing your memory to go all over the place and such and such. He also said that it’s possible you created the event in your mind.”
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.” She picked the screwdriver back up in her magic when a powerful wave washed over her, and it fell from midair. Starlight had the sudden urge to kneel over and pass out. Her eyes landed on the dregs at the bottom of her empty teacup.
