For those wondering how I have managed to get to Day 173 on the second day of the year, I wasn’t quite finished with the story I was telling and so decided to continue it until it reached an ending point. Then I will start a new one. Besides, I kind of want to see where Penelope ends up. And so we have…
Day 173: Many of those skills came in handy as she grew older.
Many of those skills came in handy as she grew older. ‘But I can’t see any sort of magic in them.’ She sipped her lemonade and thought of them. The pills were starting to dull the throbbing in her arm and in her head.
‘Unless my magic helped shield me from people who weren’t really friends.’ She didn’t know if magic worked that way. Did it protect someone from bad influences like it protected the Emperor from an attack by conventional weapons? She didn’t know and added it to the list.
She thought about the necklace. The guardian said thee were seven incidents and then she dreamed of seven separate instances. Each left her feeling vulnerable and often humiliated. ‘I would think my magic would keep me protected.’
Penelope frowned and sat up as a thought hit her. “Maybe the magic clicked on because I was feeling extremely vulnerable.”
She thought of the incident with the vacation clothes. She was not looking forward to wearing them the rest of the summer and was feeling low. Jeanette and Trinity both used them to make her feel less. “But then all the luggage got lost.”
Penelope remembered thinking it was surprising even then. One bag, would be nothing notable, Two bags even might be expected, but all of their luggage was missing. Every single bag.
‘And there was no accident, no damage to other bags.’ When they got back, the bags simply were lost. They weren’t delayed or rerouted, just lost. She thought it strange at the time but as it helped her out, she didn’t dwell on the thoughts too much. There were other things to think about.
“So maybe the incidents were the precipitating incident and my magic flared after.”
It was a new thought but seemed more logical than anything else she had at the moment. Penelope wondered if something happened after Trinity and Ella became friends that was similarly beneficial and unexpected. She narrowed her eyes as though that would help her peer into the past.
It didn’t.
If something happened following that moment of rejection it didn’t come to mind. ‘Unless it is making some better friends.’ She was still friends with the people who she ended up sitting with after being rejected by Ella. At the moment none of them were in town. Gia was in the capitol working on an internship. Lucy too was on an internship, but located halfway across the empire and researching in one of the science facilities. Danaris was traveling, an Empire wide tour that had something to do with her family business.
‘Still friends though,’ Penelope thought. She imagined when they returned they would be tickled to find that she had magic. ‘They’d probably laugh at Ella trying to be friends.’
Penelope smiled. If it weren’t for the fact that she might have to field more calls from Ella in the near future, she would find it amusing that she now became someone Ella felt it advantageous to know.
‘Because Trinity’s star is no longer rising.’ She thought about the investigation Michaelson said was launched.
Ten til Midnight 