For several agonizing minutes after everyone woke up, they simply sat in silence pondering their predicament. None of them remembered anything after passing out during the incantation. Sarah had a thoughtful, amazed look on her face, like she had been waiting for a moment like this for a long time and now it was finally here. Caly’s eyes were glazed over, open but seeing nothing except possibilities and explanations in his philosophical mind.
“It must have been some type of mass-hypnosis.” Caly finally said, breaking the long silence.
“I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.” Sarah responded to him, sarcasm etched in her tone.
“I don’t necessarily believe in magic, but mass-hypnosis is a psychiatric concept that has been proven and researched.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “We must have been unconsciously influencing our own sense of inner-reality.”
“Um, in English please?” Jasmine pleaded, trying not to be rude but wanting to make a gentle point.
“It’s a concept not unlike a placebo. You guys know what that is?” Jasmine perked up.
“Oh yeah, seventh grade science fair. I took a bunch of kindergartners and gave them different colors of syrups and told them things that weren’t true, like one would make them cough, one would make them laugh, things like that. And they would start coughing or laughing just because I told them they would.”
“Exactly. We all tried to concentrate and all at the same time wanted it to work in our own ways, and so in a psychological way we actually did make something happen.”
“No, it was more than that. I felt something.” Sarah insisted. “Something powerful. I think the Goddess listened to us. I think she blessed us.” Beth sat up, obviously feeling impatient.
“Okay look, we did the spell so tell us what’s supposed to happen now.” Caly looked over at Beth with surprise written all over his face. Jasmine wondered the same thing she figured Caly was wondering; was Beth buying into all this now, too?
Suddenly out of nowhere, Jim sprang up from his sitting position. “Whoa.” He said, and soon after received expectant stares.
“What?” Caly persisted when Jim didn’t explain his outburst.
“I feel, different.” Jasmine frowned. Now really wasn’t the time for Jim to play a joke on Sarah, she feared it would take Sarah over the edge.
“Um, I don’t think-“ Jasmine tried to gently warn Jim, but she was cut off.
“No, I’m not kidding. I feel, I don’t know. Stronger or something.” Jasmine still thought he was joking, and nervously watched Sarah for her reaction. She seemed at the edge of her seat; as if silently begging that Jim was being serious. Leaping to his feet, Jim’s eyes brightened as he ran over to the kitchen table, heaving it upwards effortlessly. Jasmine’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, her jaw stammering and agape.
“Whoa!” Tom said for her and leapt to his feet as well. “How the hell are you doing that?” Jim grinned.
“I don’t know. I just felt this, surge of strength, like I could lift the entire Titanic over my head and not even strain a muscle.”
“If you don’t pop your ears swimming down to the bottom of the Atlantic to get it first.” Jasmine quipped, not too happy about Jim’s newfound strength. He ignored her. Tom suddenly raced over to his computer. “What are you doing?” Jasmine demanded, her voice fairly desperate and confused.
“I know this is a really messed up time, but I just got this really good idea about how to kill a virus.” Tom said, already pounding away at the keyboard. Jasmine flinged her head to the side to look suspiciously at Sarah. Something very strange was going on, although she refrained from saying it out loud. She thought it would be tactless to state the obvious right now.
Jim set the kitchen table down with ease and strode swiftly over to Sarah. He took a deep breath. “Man, I don’t know what you did, but I feel GREAT!” Sarah beamed, deliriously pleased that Jim was finally taking a moment to pay attention to her.
“Jim, you should probably sit down.” Jasmine kindly advised. “It’s like Caly said, probably the placebo effect. You don’t want to hurt yourself.” Jim turned quickly on Jasmine.
“No. I would know if this was bullshit, and it’s not. Something happened to me, something that goes way beyond a trick of the mind.”
“I got it!” Tom suddenly yelled, and his hands seemed to tap the keys at warp speed. “It’s working!”
“What’s working?” Jasmine asked him.
“You see, the reason some virus’ can get so out of hand is because often dumb people get them in emails as forwards, and they open them and before they can stop it, the virus eats through their entire hard drive. What I just did is write a program that will weed out ANY form of virus that your computer has picked up and eliminate it.”
“Writing a computer program- doesn’t that take days?” Beth suddenly asked.
“Normally, but that’s because it’s always trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn’t.”
“So, why did it just take you five minutes?”
“I don’t know, I just knew exactly what to do. I guess I just got lucky.” Something was definitely wrong, Jasmine could feel it inside her like a foreboding stench slowly encompassing the room. This time, it couldn’t just be paranoia or irrational fear.
“Seems to me it was more than luck.” She muttered.
“What?” Tom said, having not quite heard her.
“I said, it seems to me like it’s more than luck.” Pieces were starting to come together inside of Jasmine’s head. She turned to Jim. “Jim, what’s one of your biggest dreams?” Jim opened his mouth, but Sarah beat him to it.
“He wants to be a famous wrestler, like the Rock or Mankind.”
“And Tom, you’ve always wanted to become rich off of computers, right?” Tom nodded blankly, obviously not seeing where Jasmine was taking this. She turned to Caly.
“What about you? What’s your dream?”
“Well someday I want to major in psychology.” He said matter-of-factly.
“Do you feel any different?” Caly shifted uncomfortably.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, are thoughts any clearer for you, are explanations to things coming to you more easily than normal?”
“Well,” he hesitated. “I guess maybe a little, but then again I only might think that because it was subconsciously suggested to me.”
“See? You rationalized that without even thinking about it.” Caly refused to meet Jasmine’s eyes. She turned to Sarah.
“And you?”
“My magic. I want to be a high priestess.” Jasmine didn’t know how to respond to that since she found the concept of magic too far-fetched. Blinking uncomfortably, she turned to Beth.
“What about you?”
“A novelist.” Jasmine frowned, there really wasn’t any way to test if her writing skills have suddenly improved without getting her a pen and paper.
“Okay, I see where you’re going with this, but I really think the suggestion is starting to get to you.” Caly said. “Why don’t we all talk about something else?”
Silence enveloped the room like a dark cloud of emptiness, and everyone helplessly looked to each other, depending on someone else to go ahead with Caly’s suggestion.
“How ‘bout those Redskins?” Jim asked sarcastically, a grin stretching across his face. Sarah snuffled a giggle.
“You guys, this is serious!” Jasmine finally spat out. “We can’t just ignore this. Something is happening to us! Am I the only one who sees it?” Desperation was written all over her face, but she couldn’t help it. She had tried to excuse and reason away the bad feeling that she had about this from the very beginning, but now it was just too much to ignore.
Suddenly, the TV turned on and Jasmine narrowed her eyes.
“Yes!” Sarah yelled enthusiastically, but her smile softened when everyone turned to stare at her quizzically. “Sorry, it’s just, I’ve never been able to do that before.” Jasmine turned to her quickly.
“Do it again.” She said calmly, waiting with invisible doom for what she guessed was happening. Sarah narrowed her eyes and stared at the TV, but nothing happened.
“I- I can’t. It’s not happening.” She finally said, disappointed. A shiver of relief was quickly spreading through Jasmine’s body, but the sitcom on the TV suddenly ceased to exist. Sarah sat back. “Oh my god.” was all she could say. Jim’s jaw was practically touching his knees, and Caly was for once without a rational explanation. Sarah narrowed her eyes again and looked deep in thought, and suddenly the sitcom reappeared. “I can really do it!”
“You wanted to be better at magic.” Jasmine muttered under her breath, totally taken aback. She didn’t believe in that stuff, but she did believe in her own two eyes and that’s what they just showed her. She should have been filled with child-like exuberance, but instead she was gripped tightly with paralyzed fear. “And now, you are.”
Suddenly Beth got up. “Tom, do you have paper anywhere?” He looked confused, but pointed towards the kitchen.
“Top drawer, I think there’s loose leaf in there.” Beth rushed to the drawer and pulled out a few sheets of paper, relocating herself at the table that Jim had effortlessly lifted a few minutes ago.
“What are you doing?” Caly demanded of her, but she ignored him and pulled out a pen. He sat back down. Everyone’s gaze slowly drifted over to Beth, whose hand was slowly moving across the page. Finally, she grunted and put her pen down.
“I don’t feel it.”
“Feel what?” Caly asked her. She frowned.
“I’m not any better at writing. I’m not better at anything!” She yelled in frustration, then threw her pen down and turned to Sarah. “Thanks a lot.” She said. Now it was Jasmine’s turn again to drop her jaw. She didn’t know Beth very well, but she was acting really immature and irrational, and Jasmine had no idea what to say to her. She sat down at the table too, but when she tried to talk to Beth, she got up and walked away. Frowning, Jasmine absentmindedly picked up the pen and started scribbling on the paper.
Tom continued to type away on his computer, and the TV was flicking on and off. She couldn’t take the chaos much longer without going mad.
“Whoa, that’s really good.” A voice suddenly said in Jasmine’s ear, forcing her out of her daydream. She looked down, and without even really paying attention, she had drawn an entire castle scene complete with dragons, knights and a moat.
“I- I wasn’t even paying attention.” She mumbled. Caly tilted his head. “You like to draw?”
“Yeah, I guess even though I’m not very good at it. When I was younger I always wanted to be an artist-“ Her own words stopped her in mid-sentence as her eyes darted back down to the paper. She had wanted to be an artist, and suddenly her artistic talent seemed to appear out of thin air. Oh god, it was happening to her, too! She shoved the paper violently away from her and stood up, nearly knocking Caly over. “Okay, you guys, we need to talk RIGHT NOW!” She demanded forcefully. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at Jasmine thoughtfully. She took a deep breath.
“Okay, I don’t know what is going on here exactly, but I know that something weird is happening and weather I like it or not, none of it happened until after we said the incantation. We don’t know what’s going on, or why, or how, or anything. Can you guys at least promise me that you won’t mess around with Sarah’s magic any more until we figure some things out?”
Tom turned away from his computer and nodded, as did Caly. Beth stood with her arms angrily folded over her chest, glaring at Jasmine as if this was her fault. Jasmine shrank back, hurt and insulted by Beth’s glare.
“Yeah, that’s cool.” Sarah said, but with limited warmth. Jim was last to agree, and even as he did, he was staring at his new muscles with excitement and admiration. Jasmine finally realized that she was not going to win, so grudgingly she sauntered into Tom’s bedroom and stared at the crystal horse. She wondered if his mother would make up for not protecting him in life by protecting him now. Jasmine for some reason felt they all needed protection, but from what exactly, she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.