Yerim stooped over the seizing boy, doing the only thing she knew in this situation; she held his head and tried to keep him away from injury. Everyone else seemed just as shocked as she was. They stood in a frozen circle of onlookers, eyes wide and mouths agape.

    “Somebody call for help!” Yerim pleaded, and it was only then that the other students began to assist.

    Two boys came over and tried to restrain Jungkook’s trembling body, as his movements were so erratic and jerky that Yerim was having trouble holding his head. A few other students ran to find a teacher. Yerim had little clue how long Jungkook had been seizing for at this point, but she was getting worried, as she knew that he most likely wasn’t breathing. His face had lost all color and the jerking was only getting more intense. To make matters worse, Yerim knew that this seizure wasn’t natural - it was undoubtedly from Joohyun’s magic - so she had no idea how long the effects would last.

    That’s when she realized that she was still wearing the necklace. She took the chance at releasing Jungkook’s head for a moment to rip the piece of jewelry from her neck and stow it away in her uniform pocket, hoping that anyone who saw the movement would attribute it to her getting the necklace out of the way so that she could hold the boy’s head a little more securely.

    The change was almost instant. Jungkook’s muscles relaxed, his body falling limp within the arms of the other students who were trying to keep him still. His eyes shut completely, his mouth hanging open, still dripping some leftover spittle that had accumulated within his cheeks. Yerim placed her hand on his chest, and felt a slow rise and fall. He was breathing again. The brunette let out a sigh of relief and relaxed back, her racing heart thumping in her ears, preventing her from hearing any of the noise from the other students.

***

    “I don’t know what happened… one second we were walking together, and the next thing I knew, he was on the ground,” Yerim lied, looking down at her hands.

    “I’m so sorry you had to experience that,” Mrs. O’Donnell, one of the vice principals, said, her voice dripping with sympathy, “You did the right thing, telling people to call for help, holding his head so that he wouldn’t hurt himself. He’s lucky you were there.”

    “Yeah… I guess so,” Yerim could feel a hot flood of shameful self-hatred filling her as she was forced to go along with the story, “How’s he doing?”

    “They took him to St. Michael’s for treatment. He was conscious when he left and seemed to understand where he was and who he was, although he couldn’t remember much of the incident.”

    “That’s a relief,” Yerim replied, and it really was. The teachers and school nurse had whisked Jungkook away on a stretcher as soon as they’d arrived, disallowing any students from joining them as they went, “I hope he’s alright.”

    “We all do,” the vice principal said, reaching forward and laying a hand atop Yerim’s, “And thanks to you, he has a much better chance of that. I know the events today have probably been traumatic for you, so if you’d like, you can go home early today.”

    “That sounds good…” Yerim said in a low voice, almost cringing at the irony of it all.

    “And you’re okay to drive?”

    “Yeah. It’s only a ten-minute ride anyway.”

    “Alright,” Mrs. O’Donnell said with a smile, “Get some rest. You deserve it after this morning.”

    Yerim departed with a weak smile, trying her best to fight the urge to vomit.

***

    As soon as Yerim pulled into her driveway, she flicked the notifications on her phone “off”. She knew that she would be flooded with questions and kind words from her classmates (mainly Sae-ron). She knew most of them meant well, but it wasn’t what she wanted to deal with right now.

    Her mother was at work and her sisters were at school and day-care; it was only 9:23am at that point, so she had plenty of time before anyone else came home. She sent her mother a quick text explaining what had happened (or, at least, the official version of what had happened) and told her she would be spending the day laying in bed and trying to sleep it off. Of course, this led to an immediate, frantic call.

    “Yerim?!” her mother said breathlessly, sounding as if she’d just been sprinting, “Yerim, are you alright?”

    “I’m fine, mom,” Yerim replied, her words coming out a little more pensive than she meant them to, “It’s Jungkook you should be worried about.”

    “Jungkook… isn’t that the boy who likes you? The one who annoys you?” her mother said, calming down now that she knew her daughter was in no immediate danger.

    “Yeah. He is annoying, but I wouldn’t wish this on him…” Yerim was appalled at how close to tears she was.

    “I know, I know... Do you want me to come home and make you something? My boss might get a bit mad at me, but if you’re upset...”

    “No, that’s alright. I’m still good to do things for myself. Just shaken up is all.” the short-haired girl said, her heart beginning to ache at how much her mother cared for her. If only she knew the truth.

    “Alright, baby. I’ll see you when I get home. Try not to exert yourself too much, alright?”

    “Okay momma. Bye, love you.”

    “Love you too, sweetheart.”

    Yerim hung up the phone and ran her fingers through her hair with a heavy sigh before stepping out of her car and into the cool fall air. It was a windier day, although there wasn’t a single cloud in sky. She stood in her driveway, leaning up against the slightly-rusted metal frame of her car, rolling the necklace between her fingers, lost in thought.

    In the end, she decided it was best to stop wasting time. Not that time would even be a factor, once she reached the place that she knew she had to go. The fastest way there was, conveniently, right through her backyard, so she headed in that direction.

***

    Given the events of the past two days, Yerim had gained a kind of strong trepidation when it came to walking in the woods. Previously, she’d had no problems with the wilderness, especially at this time of the year, when the trees were bathed in different hues of yellow, brown, and red, and when the ground was covered in a similar blend of color. Now, it seemed as if the entire forest was watching her, waiting for her to let her guard down so that it could swallow her up like a helpless animal. She found herself reluctantly donning the necklace once again as she started her journey back to the mysterious house. Although the item had caused her (and others) a lot of strife in the past couple of hours, there was one mildly positive thing she had learned about it; it worked. Not that she didn’t expect it to, but seeing the necklace’s effects first hand was much different than simply being told about them.

Come to think of it, Joohyun hadn’t really specified what the necklace would do exactly, merely that it would protect her from things that sought to harm her. The older girl had never mentioned that it would attack people in the event that Yerim felt threatened. What would have happened if she’d been playing with her sisters, or goofing around with Sae-ron, or any number of situations where the consequences could be far more dire? Yerim shuddered at the thought. She wasn’t even sure of how Jungkook was doing. She would text him if she’d had his number, but she had turned it down an unfathomable amount of times at this point. Irony seemed to be the theme of the day for her.

Yerim started to notice that she was crossing the circle within roughly ten minutes of walking. The sunlight felt muted here, as if it were being filtered through a dark-colored sheet of paper first. The temperature dropped, and she zipped her hoodie up in order to compensate (if there was one thing Yerim hated in this world, it was the cold). At each step she took, the silence of the forest was exacerbated tenfold, the crunching of the leaves beneath her shoes amplified eerily.

And yet, Yerim felt at ease. Perhaps it was because she knew why these changes were occurring, or because of the necklace that she wore, or because she was secretly excited to see the girls so much sooner than she was going to originally (although she refused to admit the latter point to herself).

The house came into view shortly after she crossed into the circle. In broad daylight, the place still looked as abandoned and sad as it had during the nighttime, though Yerim could appreciate the kind of decrepit beauty of it. The way the vines grew onto the semi-rotted wood, the fallen leaves that lay strewn across the entire property, the effect of the mid-morning sunlight playing on the entire scene, giving it all a shadowy, peaceful look… Yerim felt her head beginning to clear just by being there. She wondered if this was some kind of spell the girls had placed upon the area. Just as the brunette was about to approach the steps to the house, the door flew open, causing her to jump backwards in surprise, the necklace heating up against her skin once more.

Sooyoung sprinted over to Yerim, a blur of crimson and white (it appeared that she’d dyed her hair in the time that Yerim was gone).

“Sooyoung, be careful I’m wearing-”

But it was too late. The taller girl had already captured her in a hug (less bone-crushing than before, but still slightly uncomfortable), lifting her off the ground and spinning her around a few times. The necklace’s warmth had increased further, but Sooyoung either didn’t notice or didn’t care. The artifact seemed to have no effect on her.

“Yerim!” she said, lowering the shorter girl to the ground and holding her out at a distance by her shoulders, “You’re back!”

Sooyoung had changed her look considerably. She was wearing a thin blue crop top with denim shorts that showed off her milky, well-contoured skin. Her feet were bare, leading Yerim to wonder how cold they had to be, out here in the chilly autumn air.

“Did you come to play with me?” Sooyoung asked, taking Yerim by the wrist and half-dragging her into the house, flaunting her uncannily large amount of strength, “I was just playing on the beach!”

    “No, Sooyoung, I need to talk to Joohyun… and what do you mean, beach?!”

    “Joohyun is busy with Seulgi in their room right now, so you have to wait until they come out,” Sooyoung said, leading Yerim up the master staircase to the second floor, the front door shutting by itself behind them, “And look, I’ll show you!”

    Before Yerim could process any of these vague answers, she was brought not into Sooyoung’s room, but the room directly across from it.  Except, it wasn’t a room.

    It was as if the door they’d stepped through was a portal to another world. Yerim blinked hard as powerful rays of what felt like tropical sunlight shone down on her. The air was immediately hot and salty, and the brunette could already feel herself beginning to sweat. The sound of waves crashing on the shore, occasionally punctuated by the cawing of seagulls in the distance, filled Yerim’s ears. They were in the middle of an empty beach, the sand and sea sprawling infinitely to the right and left of them. The thoroughly confused girl spun around to see the doorway standing there, defying physics entirely, opened just enough to reveal the interior of the house beyond. Paradoxically, the areas around the doorway and behind it appeared to be nothing but sand and sunlight, with absolutely no deviation in the flatness of the land whatsoever.

    Yerim spun back around to see Sooyoung running towards the beachfront, simultaneously gesturing for the younger girl to join her. Near the shore, Yerim could see Seungwan, standing in the sand and staring out at the ocean, still wearing the orange dress she’d previously had on.

    Yerim looked up at the sky, down at the ground, and did a full three-sixty as she attempted to absorb what was happening around her.

    “What… what the ing is this ?!” she yelled, and Sooyoung seemed to find her colorful vocabulary as the pinnacle of comedy, causing the playful witch to fall to the sand, rolling around and laughing like an innocent child.

    Yerim took this opportunity to catch up to the taller girl, stripping off her hoodie in the meantime, wishing that her school uniform was a little more breathable.

    “You’re so funny, Yerim,” Sooyoung said finally, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes as she sat up in the sand.

    “I wasn’t trying to be funny, that was my genuine first reaction,” Yerim muttered, taking a seat beside Sooyoung on the hot ground, “How did you guys do this?”

    “I didn’t,” Sooyoung said, pointing at the dress-wearing figure that was standing about fifty-feet ahead of them, “Wannie did. She loves the beach. I’m not usually allowed in her room, but she says as long as I don’t bother her, I can play here sometimes.”

    “But I thought you guys couldn’t leave the circle?”

    “Oh no, we haven’t left,” Sooyoung said, conjuring a small plastic pail and shovel from thin air and starting to work on a sand castle, “We’re still inside the house. The room is just different.”

    Yerim nodded, pretending that she understood.

    “So how long do Joohyun and Seulgi usually stay in their room for?”

    Sooyoung’s shrug reminded Yerim that there was essentially no concept of time here.

    “Do you know anything about this necklace?” Yerim offered a different question now, removing the piece of jewelry from herself and holding it out so that Sooyoung could see it.

    Sooyoung looked up, her eyes settling on the object with a sort of mild amusement.

    “Oh, I know that necklace,” the crimson-haired girl said, returning to her sandcastles, “Joohyun told me she gave it to you to protect you.”

    “Did she say anything else about it?”

    “No, just that she hoped you liked the color of the stone. It’s a pretty necklace, I’m just not a big fan of jewelry in general. I think I look good enough without it, don’t you?” Sooyoung looked up and batted her eyelashes exaggeratedly, causing Yerim to giggle despite herself.

    “You have such a nice laugh,” the witch quipped.

    “Thanks… Anyway, the necklace,” Yerim tried to get back on track, “One of my friends from school today touched me, and it hurt him. He had a seizure, but once I took it off, he stopped and lost consciousness. Do you know anything about that?”

    “Hmmm…” Sooyoung contemplated, “Well, did he hit you or something like that?”

    “No, he just grabbed my hand. It actually-”

    “Grabbed your hand?” Sooyoung interrupted, finally looking up from the lopsided castle she was crafting, “Why did he grab your hand? Is he your boyfriend?”

    “Boyfriend?” Yerim’s face suddenly grew hot (hotter than it already was in the powerful sunlight) and she found herself unable to meet Sooyoung’s eyes, “No, nothing like that… why do you ask?”

    Sooyoung shrugged again, her attention focused on the sand, although she was now aimlessly running it through her fingers.

    “Do you have a boyfriend at all?” she asked in a small voice, and Yerim could practically feel the insecurity emanating from the older girl, “Or… a girlfriend?”

    Before Yerim could answer, or even comprehend what the older girl was implying, a familiar voice called from across the beach:

    “Yerim! You were looking for me?”

    It was Joohyun. She stood in the doorway to Seungwan’s room, her black hair whipping around her face as the sea breeze assaulted her.

    “I’m gonna go talk to Joohyun now,” Yerim said, waving at Joohyun before standing up and dusting herself off.

    “Will you come back and play with me? We didn’t get to play…” Sooyoung sounded sad, so Yerim made the on-the-fly decision to give her a hug of reassurance. The older girl seemed to appreciate this greatly, because she nuzzled up against the brunette as soon as they made contact.

    “Maybe not right now, but I will be back in the future. I made a promise, remember?”

    Sooyoung smiled, her perfectly white teeth flashing as her face lit up with happiness. Yerim found herself wanting to pinch those adorable, chubby cheeks. With a great measure of effort, she refrained from doing so.

    “Bye, Seungwan!” Yerim called to the motionless girl in the distance.

The auburn-haired spellcaster replied with a lazy wave, not even bothering to turn around. Not that Yerim expected her to.

The brunette gave Sooyoung one last smile before running back towards the door.

--------------------------------

"What the ing is this ?"
- Kim Yerim, 2018

Thanks for reading<3