Previous Chapters:
Chapter 0, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4
“I’ve got something for you”, Finn said, holding up a small bracelet. A ray of sun shone through the leaves of the surrounding trees onto the metal and let it sparkle. Sophie looked at it and raised an eyebrow.
“What is it?”
“It’s an … amulet. You can do magic with it. See, I’m wearing one too.” He raised up his hand, showing off the bracelet on his wrist.
“Don’t you need a wand for that?”
“Wands are outdated. Do you want to try it or not? I can take it home with me again if it’s not good enough for you.” His hand was shaking. Finn tried to slow his breath, tried to calm himself. He was about to hand his research to a child. What was he doing?
“No, no, of course, I want it. Give it to me!” She snatched the bracelet from him and put it on. No way back now.
“How does it work?”
“We need to calibrate it to your voice first.”
“Why?”
“So that nobody else can use it but you.”
“Sounds smart. How do I do that?”
“Do you see that small button on the side? Yes, that one. Press it and say your name.” He watched her press the button, and the bracelet started to give off a soft, white glow. He had added this functionality to show that the device hadn’t been paired with anyone yet.
“Sophie”, Sophie said. The glow changed to blue, and the girl gave him a quizzical look.
“Okay, it worked. Let’s try it out.”
“Abracadabra!” Nothing happened. “Why doesn’t it work?” Sophie pouted, and Finn had to suppress a laugh.
“Because you can’t just say a random word and expect it to happen. There are only special … spells that work.”
“I want to turn invisible then like you did last week.”
“Sorry, not possible. That spell is too powerful for you, for the time being at least.” Over and over again over the past, Finn had thought about how to best approach this. He didn’t want to give Sophie unlimited power, that was not a smart thing to give a child. But the bracelet had to allow her to use enough “magic” to satisfy her curiosity and stop blackmailing him.
In the end, he had decided for some simple formulas that shouldn’t do too much harm. Calling them spells, sticking to the whole “Amazing Finbar” persona, it made him feel ridiculous. But what other options were there? He couldn’t really tell Sophie that the universe was just a simulation.
Would she even understand what he means? Was a young child like this able to grasp the gravity of his discovery? Would she even believe him? How could he put his trust in a little girl, when he couldn’t put it in any adults? No, he had to keep up the façade, until he was able to get rid of Sophie.
“So, what magic can I do? Can I fly?”
“Not yet. But you can move small items.”
“Like in Star Wars?” Her eyes lit up.
“I … I guess. Yes, if you want to see it like that, sure. Like that.”
Finn watched as Sophie looked around, trying to find something small. Her choice fell on a short branch that was lying on the grass. She extended her arm, spread her fingers, narrowed her eyes, and seemed to concentrate really hard on the piece of wood.
“What exactly are you doing?” Finn asked after a few seconds.
“Trying to move it with my mind”, Sophie replied, her voice strained.
“That’s not how it works.” Suppressing a smile was hard, the corners of his mouth twitched. Can’t laugh about a child. She hadn’t known any better, he hadn’t told her. But it was still amusing to watch her try and focus so hard, with nothing happening.
It seemed like she had noticed his amusement, and she shot him an angry glance.
“Then explain it to me. What do I have to do?”
“Point at the branch and say levitate.”
Sophie extended her arm again.
“Levitate”, she whispered, and the branch was lifted off the ground. Her eyes grew big with excitement.
“Move your hand a bit”, Finn instructed her, and she complied. The branch moved with her. She extended her fingers, the branch moved away. She closed the hand, the branch moved closer.
“Excellent”, Finn praised her. “Now …” The branch hit him from the side and almost knocked him off his feet.
“Sorry! Sorry! That was not intentional!”
The wide grin on her face proved her a liar. It was obvious that she had indeed done it intentionally, and now she was proud of how well she could control her new ability. Had it really been a good idea to give her powers? At least the levitation formula stored in the bracelet had a weight restriction, so she wouldn’t be able to lift cars or other, more dangerous things.
“What else can it do?” Sophie asked, rocking back and forth on her feet, filled with energy. “Can I make things disappear? Set them on fire? Bring them back to life?”
“You want to raise the dead?” Kids these days …
“Maybe? I don’t know. I want to impress the other kids at school, they’ll be so jealous!”
“What? No. You can’t take the bracelet to school. You can’t tell anyone about it.” This had been a bad idea, after all. “Give me back the bracelet now, please. Our lesson for today is over.”
“But …”
“No. Hand it over.”
The sound of a branch falling off a tree startled Finn, and he turned around, half expecting to find someone watching them. But there was nobody. His racing heart slowed down again a little.
“Okay.” Sophie still sounded very sad, and Finn felt a little bit bad for her. She was, after all, just a child that believed to finally have entered a world full of magic.
“Hey, we can meet up again, okay? Then you can try a different trick.” His words didn’t have the effect he had hoped for, the girl still looked to the ground while handing him her bracelet. She then turned around and started to walk away, her head hanging low.
Finn was still standing there when she was already out of sight. Guilt spread through his chest. He hadn’t wanted to make her sad.
Carefully, he put her bracelet back into the small box he had transported it in, put it back in his bag and …
… noticed his own bracelet was gone.
Time seemed to stop moving, as he replayed the last few minutes. The branch that had fallen from the tree. He had looked away because of the branch. Sophie must have had stolen his bracelet while he had been distracted. Had she made the branch fall? And levitated his bracelet off his wrist?
“That little brat.”
Hurriedly, he followed her.
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