Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Beep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeep! “Mmmrghbrrgh…” Max reached blindly for his phone to shut off his alarm, eyes still closed under the weighted blanket of sleep trying to drag him back down to its hypnotic depths. He really had been sleeping a lot deeper after he finally got his dad to install those blackout curtains in his room. Now the only disturbances that he had to worry about rousing him were the spectral kind.

Max’s searching fingers finally found the flip phone he tossed on his nightstand and jabbed at the off button, silencing the alarm. He blearily opened his eyes, only to come face to very close face with a very excitable ghost boy. “Gahhh!!!” Max yelled. “PJ, don’t do that!”

“Sorry Max,” PJ said. “Your breathing looked so nice. It’s been so long since I breathed like that, and you looked so peaceful sleeping.”

Max gave PJ a look. “Man, can you maybe spend a little less time watching me sleep? This is the fourth time this week you’ve almost given me a heart attack, you’re gonna send me to the hospital.” Max looked down at his left arm still in a cast, annoyed by yet another itch he couldn’t get to. The cast was covered in signatures, from the Activity Club and Johnny’s gang, Cody, Jeff, Lisa… there were so many names on there, some of them from people Max wasn’t sure he'd even met before. “Heh, on second thought, keep doing that. Maybe while I’m at the hospital I can get this dang cast off. I’ve had this thing on for like two months already, and that’s two months too long.”

Max glanced around the room. “By the way, where’s Lefty? I swear, that hand always pops up in the weirdest pl—”

“Max.” Said boy turned his head to see his little sister Zoey standing in the doorway. “What are you doing standing around in the dark talking to no one? Practicing your creepy horror movie child impression?”

“What? It’s not dark in here,” Max replied.

Zoey stomped her way into Max’s bedroom. “Can’t see a thing cuz’ of those stupid curtains,” she grumbled, as she marched across the room and yanked the blackout curtains open. Sunlight shot into the room right into Max’s waiting eyeballs.

“Ow!!! The heck, Zoey, I thought they were open already!” Max blinked rapidly and rubbed his eyes trying to get his vision back to normal from the blinding rays of the sun.

“...Really?” Zoey gave him a flat look, wondering how in the world he could’ve thought the curtains were open when the room had been so dark. “Whatever, just stop yelling at seven in the dang morning.” She left the room, off to go get ready for school.

Max shrugged at PJ, saying “Sisters. What can ya do?” and headed off to the bathroom to get himself ready for school as well. He started brushing his teeth, going over his plans for his day at Mayview Middle School. He was pretty sure Johnny had morning patrol today, so he was free to hang out with the rest of the Activity Club for a little bit before school started. His lunch was unfortunately probably not free, thanks to the possibility of Lisa calling on him to fulfill whatever dark tasks she had for him this time.

He looked up at his reflection. Huh. There was something… off with what he saw in the mirror. What was wrong? He squinted, looking closer at the reflection. He looked around the room, and saw nothing amiss. Odd. Max looked himself up and down, then stared into his own face. He squinted, then his eyes widened in surprise. Where his eyes had once been colored grey, they were now colored black, swallowing up his pupil in an inky blackness.

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Max burst through the door to the Paranatural Activity Club, startling Isaac off his perch on the arm of one of the couches. Ed looked up from their position upside down on another couch, or down from their perspective, their eyes tracking Max across the room behind their glasses. Isabel greeted Max as he entered the clubroom. “Morning, Max.”

Max flopped down on the couch across from her. “Hey Isabel, what color are my eyes?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Brown… black? I dunno, why are you asking me?”

“They’re supposed to be blue. Or like a blue-grey kinda color, I guess, but definitely not whatever’s going on right now.” Max rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Do you guys know what this is?”

Isaac sprang up from his seat on the floor and put his phone up in Max’s face. He took a photo with the flash right in his eyes.

Max recoiled and furiously rubbed his eyes. “Ow what the heck man, why the flip do you have your flash on right now?!”

“Well sorry for wanting my photos to have decent lighting.” Isaac glanced down at the photo. “Oh shoot your eyes did the weird flashy photo thing.”

“Ugh I always hate it when I get redeye in photos,” Ed chimed in.

“No, this is more like greeneye… Oh well I’ll just take another picture.” Isaac raised his phone up and took another photo of Max’s black eyes, this time making sure to turn the flash off.

Ed sat back up and took a look at the first photo. “Huh,” they said. “It looks like the color part of your eyes turned black.”

“You mean his irises?” Isaac helpfully corrected.

“What are you, some kinda eye nerd?” Ed snarked.

“Wha— No, I just…” Isaac thought back to all the OCs he made with purple and red eyes, sometimes both. “How do you not know what an iris is?”

Max took Isaac’s phone and looked through the photos of his eyes, frowning. “Is this just a thing that happens to spectrals?” he asked. “Do your eyes turn the color of your spectral energy?”

“I guess they are the color of your spectral energy,” Isabel acknowledged, “but no, that’s not a thing that happens.”

“But look at how blue Isaac’s eyes are!” Max said.

“My eyes were blue before I got possessed,” Isaac retorted. “I just happen to also have blue spectral energy.”

Isabel looked at Max with a pensive expression. “I would say this looks like a medium mutation, but your spirit’s in your bat.” Max looked down at his tool, and pictured Scrapdragon’s face in his mind.

“Yeah, I don’t think this looks like my spirit either.”

Isabel frowned, tapping her chin in thought. “I don’t really know what this is,” she said.

“Should we ask Spender about this?” Max asked.

“He’s off talking to Mr. Garcia about something right now,” Isabel replied. Isaac blushed next to her.

“Maybe a spirit with the power to change people’s eye color passed through your house in the middle of the night and used its power on you,” Ed said.

“That’s super weirdly specific,” said Max.

“Weirder things have happened in Mayview,” Isaac said. Max opened his mouth to retort, but then he remembered some of the weirder adventures he’d had over the past two months. He shut his mouth and nodded in agreement.

Riiiiiiiinnggg!!! The bell rang to signal that the first class of the day would be starting soon. “Oh right, we should probably get to class before our teachers roast us over a fire for being late,” said Isaac. The Activity Club said their goodbyes and went on their way to their classes. Walking to class, Isaac frowned. He somehow felt there was more to the story than a random spirit power.

Chapter Text

Max’s eyes still hadn’t changed back yet. He gazed at them in the bathroom mirror. It’d been a couple months since they were turned black, and nothing had changed since that day. He was starting to think that having weird black eyes like a cartoon character was going to be his new normal.

He spit his toothpaste into the sink and went to finish getting ready for school. “Ow, flippin’ heck!” Sharp pain bloomed in his bottom lip and the taste of blood entered his mouth, ruining the minty freshness his toothpaste had first provided. Max turned back to the mirror and curled his lip to check the damage. He froze. His canine teeth were longer than they were before, and evidently sharper. He’d grown fangs.

How did this happen? He’d thought his eyes would be the only things that would change, but evidently not. Why did he suddenly grow fangs, and why now?

“Maaaaaaax?” The eponymous boy was broken out of his spiraling thoughts by his dad’s call from downstairs. “Come on down! I’ve got pancakes!”

Max shut his mouth and headed down to the kitchen. He knew from experience that if he didn’t grab his dad’s food quickly, it would somehow end up disappearing before he got there. Upon entering the kitchen, he spotted the pancakes on plates for him and Zoey. “Did you make these pancakes, or did you just grab the E-Z-Mode Pancakes from the store?”

“These pancakes were made with love!” Max’s dad smiled.

“Okay but did you make them?” Max asked.

His dad grabbed a plate and sat down. “Eat your pancakes sonboy.”

Max looked down at his plate as he ate, trying to avoid his father getting a glimpse of his new fangs. There was definitely something paranatural going on here, and he needed to get the Activity Club’s advice before he did anything else.

A minute of silent eating passed between the two, with his dad being the first to break it. “So, kiddo, school’s out for President’s Day on Monday, right? You got any plans with your friends?”

Max covered his mouth with his hand and said, “Oh, uh… I guess we might hang out at the Mayview Mini Mall.” He flipped open his phone to check for any new messages, and his eyes zeroed in on the time. “Shoot, I’m gonna be late for the bus!” He started shoveling bites of pancake into his mouth, going faster and faster until—“Ow, again?!”

Max’s dad stood up, concerned. “You OK, Max?”

Max turned his face away from his father. “I’m fine, Dad,” he mumbled. “Just bit my lip, that’s all.” Unseen by his dad, wisps of black rose from his shoulders.

“Well, if that’s all, then that’s fine then,” his dad said.

“Yep, it’s all good.” Max swallowed the blood welling up from his lip again. “I really gotta get going now though.” Max ran out with a pang in his heart, waving goodbye to a bleary-eyed Zoey wandering down the stairs and a brighter-eyed PJ who was following her around.

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Max only just missed the school bus, so he rode the rest of the way to school on the apology scooter Johnny had given him this past Christmas to make up for the one he broke. He narrowly avoided being late for homeroom, so he had to wait until lunchtime to talk with the Activity Club.

He navigated through the sea of cafeteria tables, making way to the table that Johnny’s gang had claimed for them and the Activity Club. Max plopped down at a seat, grumbling to himself, and he slammed down the random stuff he grabbed from the Corner Store for his lunch today. Isaac, Isabel, Johnny, and Ed paused in their conversation and turned to look at the grumpy new arrival to the spectrals’ table.

“What’s up, Max?” asked Isabel. “You look grumpier than usual.”

Max sighed. He glanced around the cafeteria, making sure no one was watching, and he bared his fangs at them. “This,” he said, pointing to the new additions to his mouth. “This is the problem.” The club’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Woah, fangs?! That’s so cool!” Isaac exclaimed.

“No! It’s not cool!” said an annoyed Max. “Do you know how many times I’ve bitten my lip since they showed up this morning?! Way too dang many times!” He huffily grabbed some chips from his bag of Chaaaaps, about to shove them into his mouth before pausing and slowing down to chew more carefully around his new blade-sharp teeth.

Johnny gave a shark-toothed grin at Max. “Man, I did that too when my teeth came in.” He gestured toward his own pointy teeth. “Oh hey, this means we’re officially sharp tooth buddies now!” he said, attempting to give Max a noogie through his baseball cap.

Max snorted and pushed Johnny away with his hands. “Yeah, you with your shark teeth and me with my vampire fangs.” He stopped. “Wait, are vampires a thing that happens?”

Across the cafeteria, Cody’s ears perked up. He plastered a smile on his face while he shifted his attention towards the Activity Club’s conversation.

“Yeah, but I haven’t heard about any vampires in Mayview,” Isabel responded.

“Wait, really?!” said Max. “I thought I was joking!” He thought for a second. “...Am I a vampire now? I don’t wanna sparkle in the sun, it would totally break up my brooding persona.”

“Well first of all,” said Isabel, “real vampires don’t sparkle—”

“It would be cool if they did though,” Ed butted in.

Isabel continued, “but they do burn in sunlight. Literally, not like a sunburn or something.” She started counting on her fingers. “They’re also weak to crosses, stakes to the heart, silver, garlic… There’s some other stuff too, but that’s just off the top of my head.”

Max looked down at his garlic-flavored Chaaaaps that he’d started eating. “Given that these garlic chips haven’t killed me, I think vampire’s off the table.”

Cody sighed in relief and went back to the argument Jeff and Violet were having over whether Madoka Magica or Gurren Lagann was better.

Isaac put his hand to his chin, confused. “Huh. What else could it be?”

“Have you tried asking your spirit what they think is going on?” Ed piped up.

“Wait, you guys can go to your spirits for advice?” Max said.

Isaac crossed his arms in annoyance. “Honestly, King C. gives me too much. More of the ‘Smite them!’ variety and not enough actually good advice.” His eyes flickered white as he talked back to his spirit in what looked like a very affronted sneeze from the outside.

Johnny casually leaned back in his seat (which was very impressive considering he was sitting on a plastic cafeteria bench) and lit a small flame at his fingertip. “Yeah, Forge tries to get me to be more ‘just’ and ‘honorable.’ He’s great for English homework, though.”

“Aw, man, now I’m jealous,” Max said. “Scrapdragon’s just a big junk snake who eats trash and screeches. He doesn’t talk.”

Something about that statement niggled at Isaac’s brain. It reminded him of something, a conversation some time back maybe? He frowned, trying to remember who it was with. Doorman, maybe? He shook his head and reentered the flow of conversation, which had apparently gone on without him.

“...And that’s why I don’t let PJ have the bat at night anymore.” Max blinked. “Oh hey, I just remembered, I was talking to my dad about hanging out at the Minimall on Monday, since there’s no school and all. So who’s gonna come?”

“I can’t,” Ed said. “I already promised Violet and Jeff that I’d hang out with them Monday.”

“Yeahhhhh, I can’t either,” said Johnny. “Me and the boys are gonna go rough up some Academy twerps while RJ steals their stuff.” He grinned and punched his palm in anticipation.

Max looked at the other two Activity Club members. Isaac enthusiastically said, “I’d be happy to hang out with you, Max! I’m sure my dad’ll be cool to give me a ride down there.”

Isabel shrugged. “Yeah, sure, I’ll join you guys,” she said. “Beats staying in the dojo all day.”

Riiiiiiiinnggg!!! The Activity Club jumped at the sound of the school bell. “Great,” Max said as he started to pack up for class. “Isabel, Isaac, you good for the Minimall at 1?” They both nodded at him as they packed up for their next classes. Max shouldered his backpack, making sure his bat was secure before getting up to go. “Cool, see you there.”

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After a long weekend filled with Max avoiding showing his fangs to his family, Monday finally arrived. At the Mayview Minimall, Max stepped out of his dad’s car and gave a jaunty wave goodbye, as his dad was already speeding off to do some errands for the store. He fished his flip phone out of the metal junk he kept in his backpack to text Isaac and Isabel.

maximillion: hey, you guys here?
weatherboy: over at the fountain

Max looked up. Sure enough, he saw Isabel and Isaac sitting on the edge of the fountain at the center of the plaza, eyes down at their phones. He put his phone back in his bag, next to his bat, and headed over to his friends. “Hey guys,” he greeted them. “Any spirit shenanigans happen before I got here?”

“Nah, not yet,” Isabel answered. She looked disappointed.

Isaac looked up at Max. “We were just talking about getting food. You wanna come?”

“Yeah, I could eat.” He looked around the plaza. He could see some clothing stores and shops filled with touristy knick-knacks, but no food. “So, what are our options here?”

“We could go to Lakeside Lunch,” Isaac said. “It’s not far from here.”

Max shook his head. “I already had a light lunch today. What else is there?”

Isabel pulled up the Maps app on her phone. “Oh, there’s Sundae Service Ice Cream. That sounds good.”

Max shrugged. “Yeah, I’m down for ice cream,” he said. “You guys have money, right?”

Isaac put his hand in his pocket. He froze, then did the slappy hands check that everyone does when they realize they’ve forgotten something. “Shoot, I forgot to ask my dad for change!”

Isabel peered down into the fountain. “Well, there’s change in there if you want it,” she said.

Isaac sighed and started to roll up his sleeves and reach down into the fountain. “Wait!” Max said. “I have a better idea.” He pulled his bat out of his backpack and stuck the end in the fountain. The water rippled as all the coins in the fountain were pulled toward the metal tool. He lifted the bat out of the water, an assortment of coins attached to it. Right as he was about to let the coins go into Isaac’s waiting hands, a giant bronze bird spirit swooped down and grabbed the bat, coins falling to the ground as Max’s tool was snatched out of his hands.

“Wha— Hey!!!” Max yelled as he started sprinting after the spirit. “Give me back my bat!!!” The other members of the Paranatural Activity Club ran after him. In one fluid motion, Max yanked his scooter out of his backpack and flicked it open. He jumped on the scooter and sped through the Minimall after the bird, tourists jumping out of his way. Isaac kept up with him, speeding himself up with the wind at his back. Max huffed angrily, black spectral energy billowing off of him as he furiously scooted for his bat.

The stores passed Max by in a blur as the chase took them past Sundae Service Ice Cream and they approached the outskirts of the Mayview Minimall. The bronze bird flapped harder with a burst of black spectral energy, Max’s bat still in its talons as it started to fly up Mayview’s West Hill towards the Academy. Max groaned at the thought of having to scoot up the hill after the bird. He looked back and saw Isaac still keeping up with him with his wind-fueled speed, but looking just as exhausted as he was.

“Hey, Isaac!” he called. “Hop on and boost us up the hill!” Isaac nodded and ran faster. He jumped on the scooter behind Max, holding on to Max with one arm as he extended the other behind them. A stream of air from Isaac’s outstretched hand propelled the two of them forward up the hillside road as Max kept the metal bird spirit in his sights. Isaac glanced at his arm wrapped around Max’s chest and blushed, glad Max was facing away from him.

Isaac watched as cars sped by them on the road. The further they got up the hill, the fancier the cars became, and so did the brief glimpses he got of the people driving them. “How far is this bird going to take us?” he said. He looked down at the bottom of the hill, where Isabel was likely left behind. “I hope Isabel can catch up.” He flared as much of his blue spectral energy as he could in an effort to catch her attention.

Nearing the top of West Hill, Max turned off the main road into a fancy-looking neighborhood, following a well-timed Lamborghini through the gilded gates. He’d never been to this part of town. He could spy topiaries of dolphins and unicorns among immaculately kept lawns and alabaster fountains pristine of the rabble’s pennies in front of enormous mansions. To his left, Max saw a banner with red, white, and blue emblazoned all over it hung on a fence, reading “Vote for Bill!” Behind the fence he could see an extravagant-looking backyard party, filled with who he could assume was Mayview’s elite.

The bronze bird flew with Max’s bat through an open ground-floor window into that party’s mansion. Max planted his foot and skidded the scooter to a stop in front of the open window. “Hey Isaac,” he said. “Wanna crash a rich people party?”

Isaac smirked. “I thought you’d never ask.” Together, they climbed through the window into the mansion’s grand foyer. Or rather, it looked like it might have once been grand. The tile floor was scuffed and chipped, the stairs leading up to the landing still had bits of velvet stuck on, and leftover flakes of gold leaf clung onto the iron banister and chandelier. It was utterly devoid of life. One of the only things that hadn’t seemed to be touched by time was a portrait of a smarmy-looking blonde man who just looked like a politician.

“Yeesh,” Max said. “No wonder the party’s out there. This is just sad.” He looked up and saw the bird spirit circling around the iron chandelier, bat still clutched in its talons. It seemed to have made a nest up there, filled with stolen metal items. “Hey Corviknight!” he shouted. He pointed up at it, charging up a spec shot. He tossed the core of black spectral energy up and caught it in his hand, then lobbed the energy ball at the spirit. The projectile just barely missed the bird, going through the ceiling of the mansion, and the bird screeched, turning to face the pair of spectrals.

“Wait, you play Pokémon?” Isaac asked, charging up his own spec shot.

Max shrugged, black spectral energy billowing off of him for the fight ahead. “Yeah, but I kinda stopped playing after the England one.” Isaac fired his spec shot, blue energy streaking out and hitting the big bronze bird on the leg. It screeched even louder and dropped Max’s bat. Max dove for his bat as the spirit flapped in place, and bronze feathers shot to where he just stood moments before. He looked at the feathers stuck in the floor. “Woah, okay, this guy’s got some range. Now would be a great time to use your lightning, Isaac.”

Isaac glanced out the window behind him. “I think thunder might attract some unwanted attention.” He jumped back as another round of feathers streaked toward him.

With his tool newly returned to him, Max scanned the room for metal objects he could use. It was surprisingly pretty empty. Not much furniture, just a small wooden table between the stairs, and—aha! An iron chandelier! He pointed his bat up at the chandelier and pulled at it, sending him flying up. Max clambered up into the chandelier. He rummaged through the collection in the bird’s nest, and stuck a silver statuette of a dolphin to the end of his bat.

“Yo, Big Bird!” Max called. He launched the statuette at the bird, which passed right through it. It paused in confusion before it screeched and streaked toward him. “Woah!” He leaned and swung the chandelier back, narrowly avoiding the spirit barreling into him. It slammed beak-first into the ceiling inches away from him, and cracks spread out from the point of impact.

“Max!” Isaac yelled out. He fired another spec shot at the bronze bird to get its attention, this one barely making a dent in its wing. The chandelier shuddered and dropped a couple of inches as the cracks circled around the chandelier’s anchor point. Max desperately looked around for a new perch point.

The chandelier fell. Max screamed. In a moment of weightlessness, he instinctively kept his bat up and pulled. He flew up toward the bronze bird, the bird dipping a little in return. Max stuck onto the metal bird spirit, held up by his magnet bat. He sighed in relief. “Oh yeah, the spirit’s made of metal too.” The bird screeched right in his ear and started to fly erratically around the room. Max winced at the harsh noise directly in his eardrum. “Yeah, yeah, screech louder, why don’t you?” he said. “I already get enough of this from Scrappy.”

The spirit flew in a zig-zag pattern high above the ground, trying to shake Max off. “Isaac!” Max yelled. “A little help, please?!” Isaac charged up a spec shot, but he hesitated, not wanting to hit Max. Just then, Max felt the magnetic pull of his bat disappear. He plummeted to the ground. As he fell, he turned to grab the approaching banister, but missed. His fingertips grazed the painting of the politician, and he felt a drag, his fall slowing ever so slightly before he hit the floor.

Max looked up, and saw five parallel lines gouging down the length of the painting over the politician’s face. “Huh?” he said. He looked down at his hand in surprise. His usually short nails were lengthened into sharp points. He checked his other hand, and yep, that one had claws too. “What the flip?” he muttered. “Gaahhh!!” He was dragged back into the fight as a bronze feather grazed his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood.

“Okay, that’s it,” Max growled at the bronze bird. “If I can magnet you, then…” He pointed his bat toward a bunch of feathers stuck in the ground, pulling them to the end of the bat. He smiled. “Eat this!” Max swung his bat, launching his bronze feathers at the bird spirit. The feathers pierced through the bird’s metal armor, and it gave one final screech before poofing with a burst of black energy into a wisp.

Max’s shoulders sagged as the battle adrenaline wore off. “Whew, we did it, Isaac,” he said, turning to face him. Behind Max, Isaac could see the bird wisp make a beeline for Max.

“Max, look out!” Isaac said. Max turned around, and the wisp hit his chest, bouncing off of it. It sat there stunned for a second, then went to find something else to possess. Before it could do that, though, black spectral energy flared up around Max’s bat, and the wisp was slurped up into it.

Isaac stared in confusion. The bird spirit matched Max’s black spectral energy. It should’ve gone right in and possessed him. Unless… Isaac remembered what Doorman had said to him that kicked off their separation months ago, that Max’s spirit was an enemy of Doorman’s that had possessed Max to talk to him. He’d assumed at the time that Doorman was referring to the spirit in Max’s bat, but… Max had said that his tool’s spirit couldn’t talk.

“Oh,” Isaac said. “That’s who Doorman was trying to warn me about.” Isaac turned to look at Max and saw his new claws for the first time. “Max, I know why you’re getting fangs and—” Max’s eyes were glowing with the white light of possession. “You’re not Max.”

Max’s face gave an almost disinterested smirk. “No, I am not.” Isaac could hear another voice layered on top of Max’s, one he couldn’t place the gender of.

Isaac hardened his stance, glaring at the spirit who was currently possessing Max. “Who are you?” he asked. “Why are you talking to me now, like this?”

“You have fought my siblings before. As much of a fool as the Sphinx of Games may be, we are not a faction to be trifled with. As to why I’m speaking to you like this,” Max’s arms gestured to his body. “I’d rather not have the boy know about me just yet.”

“Why not?” Isaac asked coldly. “He deserves to know the truth.”

“There are certain things that are easier to do if he doesn’t know I exist.”

“What kinds of things?” said Isaac, crossing his arms in defiance.

Max’s face grinned wickedly, showing off his new fangs. “Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.”

“Arrggghh!!!” Isaac threw his hands up in annoyance. “Was there anything else you wanted, or are you just going to gloat about your big secret using Max’s body?”

“Yes,” the sphinx said. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone else about Max being possessed.”

“And why should I do that?” asked Isaac coolly, a breeze starting to swirl around him.

“You will if you care about your friend here.” Max’s body leaned against his bat with a predatory ease.

Isaac sighed. “Fine, I promise,” he said, fully intending on breaking that promise as soon as he was out of the spirit’s (and unfortunately Max’s) earshot.

A smile creeped up Max’s face. “Excellent.” His head turned toward the front door. “Now, I do believe we have company, so I’ll be taking my leave.” Max’s body straightened up, and the white glow left his eyes. Max blinked and looked around, confused.

“Huh? Did you say something, Isaac?” Max looked down at his bat. “What happened to the wisp?”

Isaac opened his mouth to say something, but just then Isabel kicked the front door open.

“What’s up, party poopers?” she said. “Did you get Max’s bat back?”

“Yup.” Max slung his bat over his shoulder. “I poofed that big chicken with its own feathers.”

“And the bat ate the wisp before it could tool up into anything,” Isaac added.

Max took a good look around the room and noticed that the bronze feathers the bird had shot were still there on the ground. “Oh hey, I can use these,” he said. He pulled all the feathers lying around the room onto his bat.

“Ooooo, since they’re made of spirit metal, you can actually hit spirits with them,” Isabel said.

“That’ll be useful,” Max said as he dropped the feathers into his backpack with his other metal objects.

Isabel leaned against the open door frame. “It’s a shame you couldn’t crash the boring rich people party Mayor Bill Spender’s throwing out back. Cody and Collin look like they’re having a good time at least.”

Max snorted. “His name is Bill Spender?” He paused in his snickering. “Wait, Spender?! Mr. Spender’s dad is the mayor?!” He gestured toward the now torn-up painting.

Isabel looked up and saw the painting for the first time, scratch marks down the mayor’s face. “Woah, what happened there?”

“I—” Max looked down and fidgeted with his hands. “I was falling and I tried to grab onto something, and then this happened.” He extended his hand, revealing his new claws. Isabel immediately sprinted forward, taking his hand in her own to look at it closer.

“Huh,” she said, lifting Max’s hand up before he snatched it away from her. “First you got fangs a couple of days ago, and now claws? This can’t be a coincidence. Are you sure you weren’t bitten by anything recently?”

“I thought we ruled out vampires earlier,” Max said.

“Could be a werewolf,” said Isabel.

“Well I don’t remember anything biting me recently, werewolf or not,” said Max. “Not unless werewolf bites heal super fast.”

Isabel just shrugged. That’s not it, Isaac thought. Max isn’t a werewolf, he’s possessed by a spirit and the medium mutations are coming through. But he couldn’t say that, not while Max’s spirit could still hear him.

“Whatever, we’ll figure this out later,” Isabel said. “For now, let’s just get back to the Minimall and finish the day.”

It was a long and tense walk down the hill for Isaac. His gaze bore into the back of Max’s skull as he walked behind him and Isabel on the narrow sidewalk. He hated having to keep this a secret from Max, but if Max didn’t hear it from him, then things would be fine, right? Yeah, he could just tell Isabel. She could figure out what to do.

Before Isaac knew it, they were back at the Mayview Minimall, and Max’s dad pulled up in front of them to take Max home. The window rolled down, and Max’s dad said, “You ready to go home, kiddo?” His gaze landed on Max’s face. “What’s that on your cheek there?”

Max started to lift his hand up to touch it, but quickly remembered his new claws and stuffed them in his pockets. “It’s just a scratch. Nothing to worry about.”

“Well, okay then,” Max’s dad said hesitantly. “Hop on in.” Max waved goodbye to Isaac and Isabel and got in the car to go home.

Isaac watched the car drive away for a second, then turned to Isabel. “Hey Isabel, I have to tell you something.” She turned to face him. “Max is possessed by an evil spirit and that’s why his body’s been changing.”

Is what he meant to say, but when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. He tried again. Three simple words. They shouldn’t be that hard to say. Max is possessed. But again, there was only silence.

“Well, what is it?” Isabel said.

Oh. Oh no. So that’s what the spirit’s power was. Like an idiot, he had promised his silence, and now he was bound to it. Of course the spirit had word powers, they said the sphinxes were their siblings. Isaac sighed. “Never mind, it’s nothing important.” Isabel raised an eyebrow at him, but before she could say anything his dad honked the car horn at him from across the street. “I gotta go. See you tomorrow?”

Isabel smiled at him. “Of course, you big dork. I’ll see you at the club.”

Isaac waved and climbed in the front seat. “How was your day off from school, son?” his dad asked as he drove away from the Minimall.

Isaac stared out the passenger side window. “It was fine.” He was magically forced to keep his silence about an evil spirit possessing his best friend, forced to watch as his friends frantically scrambled for an answer he physically couldn’t tell them, but he was fine. “Just fine.”

Chapter Text

It was a quiet Friday morning for Mayview Middle’s science teacher Jean Garcia, which he was grateful for. He’d had a tough time getting to sleep last night thanks to the almost-full moon, and he was more tired than he usually was. He rested his head on the desk, keeping one sleepy eye open on the kids trickling into their first period class. Lisa was early, as usual, and making something that looked suspiciously like coffee for herself and Violet, but Jean didn’t have the energy or the care to stop her. Actually, he might track her down for some later.

Jean’s gaze shifted to the door as Max and Ed walked in together, presumably from morning patrol for the Activity Club. Max plopped his backpack down next to his seat and slumped in his chair, clearly already exhausted. He covered a yawn and idly stared into space, flexing his fingers. Jean was about to attempt to take a power nap himself, but—hold on, did he see claws just now?

Jean opened both eyes and watched as a sleep-deprived Max flexed his fingers and claws extended from his fingertips. He flexed again, and the claws retracted, leaving normal-looking hands. Well that’s new, Jean thought, his eyes widening in surprise. Max continued to flex his claws in and out, too tired to care about people seeing him, and he yawned again. Jean could see why Max was covering his yawns before; he caught a glimpse of some wicked-sharp canine teeth before Max groaned and dropped his head in his arms on his desk. Jean’s already wide eyes got even wider.

Cody chose that particular moment to walk into the classroom. “You okay, Max?” he asked, walking up to his desk. “You look exhausted.”

Max blearily lifted his head up a fraction and looked at Cody. “The moon was way too dang bright last night,” he grumbled. “I couldn’t get a lick of sleep. I swear I could see the moon through my curtains. And certain early morning activities,” he glared at Ed, “didn’t help much.”

“Hey, you were the one who chose to run around the school all morning on a wild goose chase,” Ed said. Max flicked something off his hoodie, and Jean sniffed as an invisible feather tickled his nose. Max had claws, fangs, and the almost-full moon was keeping him up at night. Could he be…? No, Jean had to be sure. The kid couldn’t have been turned… right?

The tardy bell rang as Jeff came bounding through the door. Jean sighed and stood up to start today’s class on the physics of Superman’s abilities. As he grumbled his way through his lesson plan, he stole glances at the problem child, searching for signs of a lycanthropic nature. Max kept yawning as he scribbled down his notes, only sometimes remembering to hide his sharp canines. Jean really needed to talk to Spender after this. Rick’s kid was going to end up revealing himself at this rate, werewolf or not.

“...And that’s why super strength is the worst superpower to have.” The bell rang as Jean finished his lesson, and the kids started packing up and heading out. He waited until all the kids were out of the room, then walked out and locked his classroom door. He and Spender shared a prep period, which they often used for some alone time. Jean opened the door to Spender’s room, where he spotted what looked to be the tail end of a conversation with his spirit.

The glow from behind Spender’s sunglasses vanished as he turned to face his boyfriend. “Oh! Hey Jean, thought you were coming later today.”

Jean sighed and pinched his brow. “I need to talk to you, Rick.” He stepped closer to Spender and crossed his arms, shifting his weight to the side. “Are you sure Shrike is dead? I know I shot her with a silver bolt, but she was also transformed without the moon, so maybe she was able to survive that.”

Spender raised an eyebrow in confusion. “I was there, remember? I followed her as she walked away, and I watched her take her final breath. I took care of her… her body, Jean. I’m pretty sure she’s dead.” He pulled his partner closer, embracing him. “What brought this on, Jean?”

Jean sighed and looked Spender in the eyes. “I don’t know how long this has been going on, but Summers’ kid was showing some pretty wolf-like traits this morning. He mentioned the moon keeping him up too, and he had fangs and was summoning claws.”

Spender pulled back a bit in surprise. “What?! Are you sure? I think I would notice something like that with one of my students.” Jean pointedly raised an eyebrow at him, and he sighed. “Yeah, okay, point taken.” Spender let go of the embrace, putting his fingers to his chin in thought. “But how? The only other werewolf in Mayview is…”

“...Me,” Jean finished. His brow furrowed. “...You weren’t here last full moon. God, what if our safety room failed in my sleep and I got out and bit him?” He started pacing back and forth. “This can’t be happening, not again.”

Spender grabbed him by the shoulders. “Jean. It’ll be okay,” he said. Jean looked up at him. “I’ll keep an eye on him. Heck, maybe we’re wrong. The full moon’s tomorrow night, so maybe I can take the kids out somewhere I can keep watch over Max, and help him if he does wolf out.” His gaze softened. “But that means you’d have to use the safety room tomorrow, since I wouldn’t be there to help you. Are you okay with that?”

Jean sighed. “I think I have to be, for the kid’s safety.” He picked his bag up from where he dropped it by the door. “Now, what do you say we take our mind off of this with some grading?”

“Alright,” Spender chuckled. “These papers don’t grade themselves.” And with that, the teachers settled into a comfortable silence, marking papers until their next period.

<><><><><><><><><><><>

“Remind me again why I had to tell my dad the club was going on an emergency camping trip on Easter Eve?” said Max, batting away stray branches with his metal bat. The Paranatural Activity Club was forging their way through the woods of Mayview’s Camp Lakeside in hopes of finding a good clearing to make camp. Out of the corner of his eye, Spender could see Johnny attempt to incinerate a branch that hit him in the face, a light warning smack from Isabel enough to stop him from burning the forest down.

Spender looked down at Max to answer him, though he didn’t have to look down quite as far as the start of the school year. When had he stopped paying attention to June’s son, the legacy she left Spender to find? Now that he was looking for it, he couldn’t believe how he’d missed the fangs Max now sported, or the claws he occasionally sprang out to cut some smaller twigs out of his way.

Spender reached for the reasoning he’d come up with for the kids to come out here with him. “It is said that on some Easter mornings in these very woods, if the weather is just right, a bunny spirit will come out of its burrow and spread its eggs around the forest, said to be filled with fabulous rewards!” He spoke with a peppy smile on his face that didn’t quite match his eyes, hidden as they were under his sunglasses. He wasn’t wrong about the spirit, but it was so picky about when it would come out that most spectrals had given up on finding it.

Ed slung an arm around Isaac’s shoulder. “If the weather’s the problem, Isaac here’ll be perfect for the job!”

Isaac laughed and lightly shoved Ed off of him. “My powers don’t work like that and you know it.”

“So we’re looking for the Easter Bunny,” Max said. “Of course it’s real. How am I still surprised at this point?” He squinted as the sunlight grew stronger and they finally wandered into a clearing.

The Activity Club cheered as they dropped their bags. Spender clapped his hands. “Okay kids, let’s get this spot camp-ready!” He grabbed two of the many bags he was carrying and held them out. “Isaac, Ed, and Johnny, you guys put this tent up, Max and Isabel put this one up, and I’ll get a campfire started!” Spender grabbed some rocks to form a stone circle, and started digging out a fire pit.

While Ed got the tent materials out of the bag, Isaac grabbed the instructions to read through. Johnny grabbed the folded up tent poles and started swinging them around like a sword with no regard for anyone who happened to get hit. Isabel and Max decided to forgo the instructions entirely and just follow their camping instincts. By the time the tent poles were being erected, Spender had finished his fire circle and was rubbing two sticks together to try to get a flame going.

Seeing smoke rising from Spender’s attempts at a campfire, Max snarked, “Where’d you learn to do that? Boy Scout training?”

“Consortium training?” Isabel asked.

“Yes,” Spender said. He was getting smoke from his efforts, but a flame had not yet appeared. Johnny was getting impatient. Ed and Isaac were busy pitching the tent, so he sidled over to the pile of sticks and shot a fireball at it, lighting the campfire instantly. “Oh,” Spender said dejectedly. He didn’t get a chance to show off the fire starting techniques he’d learned with Jean and Shrike.

Spender looked around and saw that all the kids were done with the tents. “Well,” he said. “Now that everything’s up, everyone go put your stuff in the tents that you pitched and meet me outside to start dinner.” Isaac and Johnny looked at each other, one reluctantly and one maliciously, before taking their sleeping bags into the tent. Spender grabbed his bags and knocked on Max and Isabel’s tent. He stuck his head in and said, “Hey kids, I’m going to be sleeping in here, okay?”

Isabel and Max looked at each other. “Uh, okay, sure,” Max said. Spender dropped his bags in a corner of the tent and exited. He set up his yellow camp chair by the fire and laid out some sausages on a paper plate. As he waited for the kids to come out one by one, he nervously watched the sun go down over Mayview’s West Hill.

Once everyone was out in their color-coded camp chairs, Spender said, “Okay, everyone! Go find a good stick, because we’re roasting weenies tonight!” The Activity Club spread out into the forest in search of the perfect roasting stick, keeping in Spender’s sight. As the kids were busy searching, Spender saw the full moon start to rise. He immediately turned to watch Max, hand outstretched preparing to take the moonlight off of Max if necessary, but nothing happened. Max didn’t sprout fur, shoot up in height, or grow a snout. He didn’t even seem to notice the moon had risen. Spender sighed in relief.

Across the clearing, Johnny yelled, “Think fast!” before swinging his stick at Isabel, who instinctively parried it with her own stick, a burst of red spectral energy flowing and ready to use.

Isabel grinned. “Was that a challenge?” she taunted. She swung her stick in a wide arc at Johnny, almost hitting a nearby Ed in the process.

“Woah!” Ed jumped out of the way of the swing, their own green spectral energy flaring up in surprise. They brought up their stick in a stance a Jedi might use in a galaxy far far away. “If you’re taking me down, then you’re coming down with me!”

The three spectrals swordfought their way back to the campfire. Isaac made his way back after selecting the perfect roasting stick, while Max looked to have just grabbed the first suitable stick he could find. Once all the kids were seated, Spender passed the weenies around for the kids to roast. Johnny excitedly extended his sausage over the fire, but after pulling it back once and realizing how long it would take to roast he blowtorched it with his own flame instead.

Isaac looked up at the night sky filled with stars. “Oh, hey, it’s a full moon tonight,” he said.

Max glanced up from cooking his dinner. “Oh yeah, I guess it is.”

Spender looked at Max, the firelight illuminating the young spectral’s face as he gazed intently at his dinner’s progress. For a second, he saw his old mentor’s face as she worked on one of her welding projects with her flame tool, but it vanished as the campfire smoke blew in Max’s face and he let out a tiny sneeze. Spender coughed. “Did you know that the full moon helps determine when Easter is?” he said. “Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.”

“Oh, I always thought the date kept bouncing around because no one had a clue when it was supposed to be,” Ed said.

While the kids were finishing up their roasted weenies, Spender reached into his backpack and pulled out marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers for some smores. Isaac took his time with his marshmallow, trying to toast it the perfect golden-brown. Johnny, on the other hand, breathed fire on his marshmallow, setting it ablaze before stuffing it in his mouth still on fire.

As Spender was toasting his own marshmallow, he saw a pair of glowing green eyes in the darkness of the forest. Goosebumps shivered down his spine. He looked around. Wait. Where was Max? Oh god, what if he was wrong about being wrong and Max was lumbering out there in full bestial form? Spender pinched off some of the firelight from the campfire and threw it at the eyes in the darkness.

In the burst of light, for a split second the green eyes narrowed into slits before revealing Max, shielding his eyes from the blast and not wolfed out in the slightest. “Ow!!! What the heck, man?!” he cried, rubbing the spots out of his eyes.

“Sorry, sorry! I thought you were something else,” said Spender, his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. “Where were you?”

“I was just grabbing another marshmallow stick,” Max replied. Sure enough, when Spender looked down he saw a stick in Max’s hand that he hadn’t noticed before. As Max grabbed a marshmallow and sat back down in his black camp chair, Spender’s unseen gaze lingered on him.

He’d pretty firmly established that Max was not a werewolf. The full moon shone high in the sky, its beams caressing the faces of everyone at the campfire, and Max remained human. If he wasn’t a werewolf, though, then what was causing his fangs and claws? Spender looked at Max casually blowing out his slightly-on-fire marshmallow. He’d have to keep a much closer eye on him.

When Spender looked up from his thoughts, he realized Isaac and Johnny had retired to their tent. The clearing was quiet, save for the sound of crickets and various spirits lurking in the dark Mayview forest. The warm glow of the campfire revealed a rare moment of silence for the remaining Activity Club kids as they gazed up at the starry night sky. It was peaceful.

That peaceful moment was shattered as Johnny came sprinting out of his tent, Isaac close behind him. “Hey!” Isaac yelled. “Give it back, Jhonny!”

Johnny cackled. “Not a chance, boyo!” He opened the book in his hands to an early page. “‘Dear Diary,’” he read. “‘I had a close call today. Isabel almost saw me reading Chivalry X Romance fanfiction on the club computer, but I told her I was reading up on the new episode of Law and Order. I think she bought it.’” Max snickered, hiding his laugh behind his hand.

Isaac blushed. “That’s private, Johnny!” He made a swipe for his diary, but Johnny held the book out of reach.

Johnny flipped forward to another random page in Isaac’s diary. “‘Dear Diary, there’s something about Max that I can’t say out loud, and I hate that I can’t say it.’ Ooooo, juicy stuff!”

Isaac’s eyes widened. “Wait, Johnny—”

“‘Max is possessed by a sphinx.’” Everybody stared at Johnny in shock, Max most of all. Johnny swallowed and continued reading. “‘I don’t know how long he’s been possessed, but he is. The sphinx took over Max right when I realized that, when the bronze bird spirit failed to possess him, and they made me promise not to tell anyone that Max is possessed. Turns out, that promise was magically binding. Whenever I’ve tried to tell the club members, the words just wouldn’t come out of my mouth. I guess this works because I’m never gonna show this diary to anyone.’”

The whole Activity Club turned to look at Isaac. He sighed in relief. “Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag now,” Isaac said sheepishly.

Max stared down at his hands in shock. Had there been a spirit inside him all along? Wait, how long had the spirit been there? The AC kids’ eyes ping-ponged back and forth between Isaac and Max, not quite sure who to look at. Spender leaned forward in his seat. “Is this true, Isaac?” he asked.

Isaac tried to nod, not trusting his voice to confirm what his private diary had told the group, but his head wouldn’t move. Guess that counted as telling them Max was possessed. “I can’t say anything about this,” he said.

Spender brought his hand up to his chin in thought. “If you are a medium, Max, you should be able to enter spirit trance without your tool,” he said.

Max took a breath. “I can try,” he said, centering himself. He got up from his chair, leaving his bat resting against it. All eyes were on him as he walked closer to the fire and away from his tool. He closed his eyes. When he’d entered spirit trance with Scrapdragon before, he hadn’t felt like he had much control over it. How was he supposed to do this? Hey, sphinx, he thought at the void. If you’re in here, I need to talk to you. The sound of crickets and other forest noises stopped.

Max opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was the sky. It was lit in the orange-red glow of sunset just like his usual trances. He took a step forward, and his feet sunk in sand, which seemed to bury the tents. Where the trees had been were tall ruined sandstone arches and statues, too weathered to make out much detail. He looked back to his friends and saw mummies sitting in their place on sandstone thrones. In the throne where he was sitting moments before, Max saw his spirit.

The spirit was a small, slender black cat with tan markings, decked out in golden jewelry—rings, bracelets, earrings, you name it. “Hello,” the sphinx said with a voice like a wizened old lady. She extended her large black bat wings and flapped toward Max. “I suppose you had to find out sooner or later. Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long.”

Max stood his ground. “Who are you?” he asked. “How long have you been possessing me for? ‘Cause last I checked, mediums get cool powers, and I think I would’ve noticed having whatever your powers are.”

She puffed out her chest. “I am the Sphinx of Vows,” she said, bringing her long pen-nibbed tail up for Max to see. “I have power over any oaths or promises made in my presence. And so, you do too.” She arched her back and flared her wings in a big stretch. “I’ve been stuck in your pitiful body for years. At least you finally spectralized when you did. Just a day sooner and the Mayview barrier would have been quite a problem.”

Max imagined what would have happened if his newly spectral body had tried to go through the impassable barrier in the moving truck and winced. “Wait, so I have promise powers?” He let out a chuckle. “No wonder I didn’t notice anything. I don’t make promises.”

The sphinx raised an eyebrow at him. “Just because you don’t make promises, boy, doesn’t mean you haven’t already made one while I’ve been here.”

“What? When?” Max tried to remember who he had promised something to. He felt a tug around his heart. He blinked, and suddenly a ghostly metal chain came into view, stretching from his chest out into the desert of his spirit world. He could feel the chain wrapped tightly around his heart, giving one last squeeze before vanishing. “Gaahhh!! What was that?!”

Vows curled up for a nap, opening one dark purple eye at him. “You’ll figure it out soon enough,” she said disinterestedly.

“You’re about as much help as Spender is,” Max grumbled as the spirit trance faded back into the dark forest clearing.

As the Activity Club stared at Max, Spender coughed and adjusted his sunglasses. “Well,” he said. “Looks like you have been carrying a spirit inside you. How long has it been in there?”

Max rubbed the back of his neck. “She said she’s been possessing me years before I became a spectral.”

“So that’s why you became a spectral!” Isaac exclaimed.

Max looked up at him. “Huh, I guess you’re right. I hadn’t really thought about that.”

Isabel leaned forward in her camp chair. “What kind of powers does your spirit have?” she asked.

“We kinda have power over promises and stuff,” said Max. “So it hasn’t really come up all that much.”

“So this cat spirit’s why you got the teeth and claws then?” said Johnny. “We really are sharp teeth bros!”

“Yeah,” Max said. His eyes widened in realization. “Wait, that’s why my eyes changed color! Man, I really should have realized something was up way sooner.”

“Yes, well, speaking of your eyes, are you aware that they flash green in the dark?” Spender said.

“They what?” Max said.

“Like a tapetum lucidum?” said Isaac.

“A tape-whatum?” said Ed.

“Tapetum lucidum. It’s like a reflective layer in the back of cats’ eyes that lets them see better in the dark,” Isaac clarified from his experience making certain kinds of OCs.

“Woah, you’ve got dark vision Max?” Ed said. “That’s so cool!”

“Oh yeah, guess I do,” Max said.

Isabel opened her mouth to ask a thousand more questions about Max’s spirit, but Spender cut her off. “It’s getting late, kids,” he said. “Let’s let Max process this, and if there’s more questions maybe we can talk about it more in the morning.”

The kids all groaned, but they started getting themselves up and filing into the tents for bed. Before he went into the tent with Max and Isabel, Spender shot a quick text to his boyfriend in the hopes that the shoddy signal out there would get it through to him by morning: “Max is okay. He’s not a werewolf, just possessed.”

<><><><><><><><><><><>

“Shhhh! Isabel, be quiet. We don’t want to wake up Max, he deserves the rest right now.”

Max came to a groggy awareness buried in the darkness of his sleeping bag cocoon. Right now, he was content to catch as many z’s as he could, the sleeping bag shielding as much light as possible from his sensitive eyes.

“Right, sorry Mr. Spender.”

That didn’t sound very quiet. It sounded to Max like Isabel was just using her normal speaking voice, not even trying to whisper. Groaning, Max opened his eyes and sat up. “If you guys are gonna be in here, can you at least whisper? I’m trying to sleep.”

“What? But we—were…” Isabel’s voice trailed off as she stared at Max, or rather at something on his head.

“What? What are you guys staring at?” said Max. Isabel silently took her phone out and snapped a photo (with the flash on, flashbanging Max yet again), turning the phone to show it to Max. When Max was finished rubbing the spots out of his eyes, he looked at the photo and saw, along with the green flash in his eyes, black cat ears on his head, angled back in annoyance. He slowly reached a hand up to the top of his head and felt them. One of them twitched as he brushed against it, and wow that was certainly a new sensory experience.

“Huh.” Max could feel as his new ears tracked various forest sounds. Of course right as he found out he had a cat spirit inside him, he got cat ears.

“Can you… hear out of those?” Spender asked.

Max brought his hands up to his normal ears, which he fortunately still had. When he covered his normal ears, the world got quieter, but he could still hear. “Yeah, I think I can,” he said. As soon as he lifted his hands, sound flooded louder into his awareness. “I think I’m hearing out of both sets of ears.”

Isabel spotted Max’s baseball cap on the ground. “It’s a good thing you already wear this stupid hat all the time,” she said, picking it up to hand to Max, “because it looks like you’re gonna be wearing it a lot more often now.”

Max put his cap on, squishing his cat ears against his head. He sighed in relief, as it made the world a little less loud and a bit more manageable. “I guess I’m gonna have to be that one weird hat guy now,” he said as he stepped out of the tent.

Max was greeted with the sight of the rest of the club fighting over the campfire. Isaac was trying to put out the fire with some rain, while Johnny kept relighting it, Ed egging both of them on. Johnny looked up and saw Max. “Morning, Maxie-boy!” he said. He paused in his war with Isaac and jogged over to him. “How’d your little cat-nap go?” He seemed proud of himself for that one, reaching for Max’s hat so he could give him a noogie. “Did you get your beauty sl—Oh.”

Max’s newly freed ears flicked back in annoyance. Isaac blushed a cherry red, bluescreening as his mind went back to the self-insert fanfics he’d written. It was hard to see Ed’s full expression behind their glasses, but they were grinning ear to ear. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up guys,” Max said. He snatched his hat back from Johnny. “And this”—he planted his cap back on his head—“is staying on my head while we’re at school, Johnny.”

Isaac shook his head to clear out his thoughts. “Man, why do you have to get all the cool medium traits?” he said.

“What are you talking about, Mr. Spiky Hair?” Max chuckled. He reached over and tousled Isaac’s hair but was jolted by a static shock, and Isaac’s hair returned to its natural ginger spikes.

After Spender exited the tent, the club had mini boxes of dry cereal for breakfast. Johnny kept snatching Max’s hat, which he continued to put back on until he reluctantly realized it would probably be a while before he could comfortably be hatless in the open again. The Activity Club packed up their stuff, each member finding an opportunity to sneak a poke at Max’s new ears.

When Spender poked his cat ears as he was loading bags into the car, Max exploded. “Enough with the touching, guys!” His face was screwed up in a pout and his ears were pushed back in anger, and if he’d had a tail Max felt like it would have been lashing side to side.

“But they’re just so pokable!” Isabel chimed in as she walked by with more bags. “It’s adorable!”

Max crossed his arms and looked to the side. “I’m not adorable,” he grumbled. An ear twitched in annoyance.

“I dunno, bud,” Johnny smirked. “Lookin’ cute as a kitten to me. Right, Isaac?”

“W-well,” Isaac sputtered, “he’s not not cute.” He spoke into his hand, failing to hide his full-face blush.

Spender slammed the trunk door down, oblivious to the antics of his club. “Alright, that’s all the bags,” he said. “Get one last whiff in of that fresh forest air because we’re leaving.”

The kids piled into the minivan Spender had rented, since Giancarlo was no longer enough to fit the whole club without breaking some road laws. Max put his hat back on as the rental car drove back into town, keeping his ears away from prying eyes and out of the reach of Ed and Johnny. Isaac was dropped off first, then Johnny, leaving Max the last of the non-dojo kids to be dropped off.

The door chimed as Max entered the Corner Store, alerting his dad as he counted cash at the register. “Hey kiddo,” Max’s dad said as he looked up from the counter. “How was your Easter camping trip? Did you find any eggs?”

The ghostly chain appeared again, and this time Max could see where it led. It extended from his own chest, where he could feel it wrapped around his heart, and entered his dad’s chest. Right, he had promised his dad something months ago, but he hadn’t intended on keeping it. What was the exact wording of the promise? To trust him with his problems? Max couldn’t remember.

Max realized he was taking a bit too long to answer his dad’s question. “No, I didn’t find any,” he replied. Come to think of it, wasn’t that what they’d been there for, to find some magic Easter eggs? They hadn’t bothered looking in the morning, but he didn’t remember seeing any in the forest anyway.

“Well, I think the Easter bunny came here, ‘cause there’s a ton of eggs upstairs,” Max’s dad said. He reached down to ruffle his son’s hair under the cap, but Max batted his hand away.

Max froze. He felt the chains squeeze around his heart and knew he had broken the promise he made to his dad. It hurt, but he was going to have to keep breaking that promise anyway. His dad couldn’t help him with the spectral struggles he faced, and he wouldn’t understand. Max fixed a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and said, “Bet I’ll find more eggs than you,” pushing past his dad up the stairs home.

Chapter Text

Rrrriiiinnngg!!! Max was swept along by the herd of whooping seventh-graders, now free from gym class to enjoy the freedom of lunch period. He almost felt like whooping for joy along with them; it had been another stressful gym period of trying to keep the Shockodiles from knocking his cap off in throwball. He was sure Coach Oop had noticed his refusal to take off his baseball cap, which was hiding his cat ears, but the coach hadn’t said anything about it so he wasn’t gonna touch that issue.

Max let the throng of students, both ghostly and human, pass him by as he ambled along through the hallway to the cafeteria, backpack and baseball bat in tow. He noticed a poster on the wall reminding the eighth-graders to pick up their cap and gowns. Right, Isaac would be graduating in a few days. Crazy how the school year seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye.

Lunch was a dangerous time for spectral students; you never knew when you’d get ambushed by a rogue spirit. Case in point, Max felt a tug on his heart, and Ed’s aluminum chain faded into view, leading through the floor somewhere downstairs. When Max had realized that he could always know his dad’s location through the ghostly iron chain that tied him and his dad together through a promise, he’d realized the potential his promise powers had. He didn’t necessarily have to force people into keeping their promises, but he would know when they were broken through their chain. So, he had asked the Activity Club members if they’d promise not to make a special hand gesture so he could find them if they needed help.

He felt the tug on Ed’s chain again. Sighing, Max turned away from the cafeteria and ran downstairs, following the spectral aluminum chain. With one hand, he grabbed his bat out of his backpack, ready to bash whatever spirit was giving Ed trouble. He sprinted through the first floor halls, skidding to a stop when he turned a corner and found the chain led into the School Store. Max nodded a greeting to Ollie, who nodded back and stepped aside, clearly seeing he was in a hurry.

Max slammed the saloon doors of the School Store open, turning all eyes on him. He stopped, scanning the room for whatever the danger might be, but saw nothing, just the chain leading into Ed’s heart disappearing, before the saloon doors swung in his face. He huffed and walked over to where Ed was sitting at the bar, a drink already in their hand.

“What’s the emergency?” Max asked, glancing around the Barfé for any spirits that might be causing trouble.

“Oh, Lisa wants to talk to you,” Ed said, sipping their green juice. Max’s gaze slid over to Lisa behind the bar, and she winked and waved at him.

“That’s it?” Max stowed his bat back in his bag. “Why didn’t you just text me?”

“Would you really have come if I’d texted you that?” Max shrugged in agreement, taking a seat at the bar.

Lisa sidled over, glass mug in hand. “Alright Max, let’s talk business.” Ed took their cue to leave and scooted off their seat to join Violet at a table across the room. “I need you to talk to Cody for me.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Why can’t you do it yourself?”

Lisa glanced up from the mug she was cleaning. “You are still my debt collector, are you not? Cody just needs a little reminder of what he owes me. Or should I release whatever Suzy has on you?”

Max sighed. “Fine, fine, I’ll do it,” he grumbled. “What exactly does he owe you, anyway?”

“He knows,” she said ominously. “Just remind him that the wrong rumors could easily get around to his dad if he’s not careful. You should be able to find him in the cafeteria with Jeff.” He shivered. Cody’s dad was someone he wouldn’t want to see around the school again. Max picked up his bag and headed out to the cafeteria, Lisa calling after him, “And don’t forget to tell me when it’s done!”

Climbing up the stairs back to the cafeteria, Max said, almost to himself, “Man, Vows, it’s a good thing she’s not the one who ended up with your powers.”

A good thing for you, perhaps, came a voice in his mind. I might have liked having that one as a medium. At least she knows the power of a good contract.

“What, you mean blackmail?” he scoffed. “Like that’s hard. I’ve got like five things I could blackmail Spender on right now.”

But you don’t, the Sphinx of Vows replied.

“I’m just waiting for the right time.” Max felt the sphinx raise a metaphorical eyebrow before she faded into the back of his mind as he entered the cafeteria, where he had been going in the first place before his little detour. He spotted Jeff and Cody talking animatedly about something over by the cafeteria exit and headed their way.

“And that’s why Saitama could beat Goku in a fight no matter what.” Jeff saw Max and smiled. “Oh hey Max, how’s it going?”

“It’s good,” Max said. “Hey, can I steal Cody for just a second?”

“Well you’re doing a terrible job at stealing by announcing your intentions, but sure go ahead!” Jeff grabbed an apple from his bagged lunch and started chowing down on it. Max gave Cody an apologetic smile as he led him around the corner into the walkway.

“Sorry man, I hate to do this but Lisa wants you to give her what you owe her. She kinda vaguely threatened to tell your dad about something or whatever.” Max knew he didn’t have to break out the bat for this one; Cody’s dad was already scary enough.

Cody’s easygoing smile froze almost imperceptibly. “Oh, yeah, I know what she wants,” he said casually. “I’ll get it to her, I promise.”

Max felt the pull of the promise asking him to use his powers on it. He sighed. “I’ll know if you don’t dude.” He blinked as he felt Cody’s promise chain, which looked to be silver, form around his heart and saw it stretch off to his left. Wait. The chain wasn’t going into Cody. Were his powers broken, or was Cody’s heart somehow not in his chest?

“Was there anything else?” Cody asked, breaking through Max’s racing thoughts.

Max glanced to his left where the silver chain led and back to Cody. “No, that’s it. Look, I gotta get going. Gotta eat. Sorry about Lisa.” He left before the situation could get more awkward. Once he left the cafeteria, Max immediately followed the silver chain. Where did it go? How and why was Cody so different from the other promises he held? He pulled up Johnny’s bronze chain to check. Yep, looked like he was somewhere in the school, as expected. He did the same with Isabel’s steel chain and Isaac’s copper one and got the same result. For some reason, Cody’s seemed to lead westward somewhere into Mayview.

On autopilot, Max headed back to the school store. He knew how his powers worked. Whenever a promise was made around him he wanted to keep track of, a metal chain would wrap around his heart that only he could see and go into the chest of the other person, presumably wrapping around their own heart. If he was right about that, then how was Cody’s heart separate from his body? He was pretty certain that those two needed to be together in order to live, and last he checked Cody was still alive. He supposed there could be spirit shenanigans afoot, but—

Max was stopped by a big, meaty hand to the chest. He looked up from his thoughts into Ollie’s blocky face in front of the school store. “You’ve got a tail,” Ollie stated matter-of-factly.

Max turned around. “Were those three Student Council stooges watching me again? I swear, I wasn’t doing Student Council stuff with Cody. Well, probably not, at least not on my end, anyway.” He felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked back at Ollie, who pointed down. Max’s gaze followed his finger downward. “Oh.”

Lashing side to side, and very much attached to him, was a long black tail sticking out of a new hole in his cargo pants. He caught the end of it to confirm and yep, that was his tail all right. Max sighed. “Really, Vows?” he grumbled. “Did this have to happen right now?”

As much as it irks me, boy, I have no more control over these manifestations than you do. This new tail was a sign that Max was one step closer to having the sphinx healed and out of him. He pulled out his phone to text the Activity Club. He hovered over the kids’ group chat to text them, then decided to text the “official” group chat instead. Spender should probably know about this, and Max wouldn’t put it past him to somehow not notice the new limb he had without telling him.

Max: AC emergency
Max: Meet me in the club room

Max shoved his flip phone back in his pocket. “Soooo, I gotta go…” He thumbed back toward the club room.

Ollie nodded in understanding. “I’ll talk to Lisa for you.” He took off his enormously large varsity jacket. “Here.” He offered the jacket to Max. “To help cover up.”

“Thanks.” He took the huge jacket and tied it around his waist. It fell to below his knees, but he could still see the tip of the tail as it flicked back and forth. Max focused, trying to consciously move his tail out of sight. He managed to curl it up behind his legs as Ed burst out of the school store, Ollie slipping in behind them.

“Oh! Hey Max,” they said, surprised to see him. “What’s the emergency?”

Max glanced around the hallway filled with spirits and ghosts, the occasional student walking straight through them. “I’ll show you guys in the club room.”

Ed looked down at the jacket that clearly wasn’t Max’s covering his lower half. “Oh, so it’s that kind of emergency. Well, now I’m more curious.” They joined Max at his side. “Lead the way, metal man. To the club room!”

By the time Max and Ed entered the club room, the rest of the Activity Club was there. Spender was looking through papers at his desk, and Isaac and Isabel were quietly talking in the corner. Johnny looked up from his position lying down on one of the couches. “So what’s the sitch?” he asked, tossing a ball of fire between his hands.

Max closed the door and untied Ollie’s jacket, tossing it in Johnny’s face. His tail came free and began slowly swishing back and forth now that he’d stopped concentrating on keeping it still. “Well this is happening now,” he said, gesturing to the long black tail that had captured everyone’s attention.

If Isaac had bluescreened at Max’s cat ears, this was like the Xbox 360’s infamous Red Ring of Death. Isaac’s face was so hot that it almost heated up the room like a warm sunny day, though that might have been Johnny, whose excitement for a new target of his teasing was growing by the second.

“Ah,” Spender said. “Yes, this would certainly qualify as a club emergency. Did this just now appear?”

“Well he didn’t have a tail when I saw him ten minutes ago,” Ed said. They tried to grab at the tail that had been thumping them in the leg for the past minute, but Max sidestepped away from them.

“Yeah, this thing is pretty hard to miss.” Max took off his cap and went to flop onto the other couch. He winced as he sat on his tail, pulling it out from under him and getting as comfy as he could on the couch. “It’s gotta be a bit harder to hide than these bad boys,” he said, gesturing to his newly freed cat ears.

“Maybe you can stuff it in your pants,” Isabel suggested.

“Yeah, that could work.” Max paused. “Oh man, I’m gonna have to wear pants all summer, aren’t I? That’s gonna be annoying and uncomfortable.”

“Hey Max, do you want one of my skirts to wear at home? They’d be pretty comfy.”

“What—Ed all your skirts are my skirts.”

“Yeah so it’s a joint decision to give it to him.”

“That’s not how it—” Isabel sighed. “Okay, fine, Max you can have one of our skirts if you want it.”

“My folks aren’t spectral, guys, they don’t know about all this”—he gestured to all of himself—”so I’m gonna have to pass for now. I can’t openly have a tail around my dad or I’d fall into the bottomless abyss of cat puns. I’d never hear the end of it.”

“And also it’s important to keep the spectral world hidden from non-spectrals,” Spender reminded Max.

“Right, yeah, that too I guess.” He sighed and leaned back into the couch.

“But think of all the killer cosplays you could do now!” Isaac said, having recovered enough mental capacity to think about all the anime characters he could get Max to dress up as now.

“You’re not dragging me into any of your anime conventions, dude,” Max shot back. His tail tip was twitching, and his ears were pricked, angled slightly toward the door in case anyone was walking toward the club room. This new tail was yet another part of himself he’d have to hide from his family and the world. At least school was almost done for the year, but that meant even more time for Zoey and his dad to notice something was up.

“Ow! The heck, man!” Max felt pain shoot up the base of his spine, and looked down to see Johnny had pulled on his inner RJ and snuck up to pull his tail. “Don’t do that, Johnny!”

Johnny shrugged. “Had to do it at least once. You know how it is.”

“No, I don’t, dude.” Max grabbed his tail back from Johnny’s clutches and started stuffing it into his pants, curling it around one of his legs.

Rrrriiiiiiiinngg!!! The bell rang signaling the start of the passing period. Max and the rest of the Activity Club grabbed their stuff to get to their next classes as he made sure his ears and tail were out of sight. Max frowned. “Aw man, I didn’t even get to eat my lunch!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Max trudged into the Corner Store, he felt cramping in places that didn’t even exist when he left that morning. Who knew that keeping a new body part completely still for just a couple of hours would be this exhausting? As he passed through the counter, Zoey popped up from behind it.

“How was your day at boring old school, Max? You jealous of my freedom yet?”

Max ruffled her hair, messing up her ponytail. “You got it in one: old and boring.” He looked around the store devoid of customers at the moment. “Where’s Dad? This is his store, you’d think he’d be here to at least give the impression we’re not relying on child labor here.”

“He said something about a Family Time Surprise and talked me into watching the store for him while he sets it up upstairs.”

“Awesome.” Knowing his dad, that could be something ranging from an explosively bad dinner (there were still scorch marks on the kitchen ceiling) to some legitimately fun game time. Max winced as his tail twinged with pain around his leg. “Well, I’ll be in my room. Yell if the store’s getting robbed or something.” He stepped gingerly up the staircase, looking forward to the privacy of his room.

“You good?” Zoey called from her post at the register.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, doofus,” he waved back without looking. Coming up into the living room, Max spotted his dad crouched next to a large Spamazon box in front of the TV. He didn’t seem to notice Max, too distracted by figuring out how to plug whatever he’d bought into the TV. Max walked past him to his room. The Surprise didn’t look to be a kitchen disaster this time, so he could roll with whatever his dad had planned for them tonight.

Max shut and locked the door, sighing in relief. He threaded his tail back through the newly-created hole in his pants, stretching it out before letting it do its own thing, and tossed his cap and himself onto the bed. Finally, some time to himself.

“Max, you’re back!”

Well, almost to himself. Max turned his head to see PJ floating up through the floor. “Oh, hey PJ.” The ghost boy floated the rest of the way into the room, Lefty resting on his shoulder like a pirate’s parrot. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

PJ’s eyes fell on Max’s new appendage that was lazily resting limply across the bed. “Not for us, but it looks like you had an interesting day!” He flew towards Max to take a closer look. Lefty perked up, floating down to Max’s tail in an attempt to poke at it. Max moved his tail out of the way.

“Ugh, not you too, Lefty. Why is that everyone’s go-to response to this?” Max buried his face in his arms, hoping to rest his eyes before whatever wacky shenanigans his dad had planned for them occurred. After a moment, he looked up. “Oh yeah, something else weird happened with Cody today.”

“Normal weird or superpower weird?” PJ asked.

“Superpower weird. You know how when someone promises me something, I see a chain that binds our hearts together? Well right before my tail appeared, Cody promised me something, and the chain wasn’t going into Cody. It was like, leading off into Mayview somewhere.”

“Woah!” PJ said. “So is that where his heart is?”

“Either that or my powers are broken. I don’t know how his heart could be there, though. You know, separate from his body? You kinda need that to live, don’t you?”

Behind Max, Lefty froze from where he was still trying to sneak a poke at his tail. He angrily curled into a fist, shaking himself at an imagined enemy. “Woah, Lefty, what’s wrong?” PJ asked. Lefty formed a cutlass out of his spectral energy and left, zooming off into town with a purpose. PJ cried after him, “Where are you going?!” but Lefty was long gone.

Suddenly, Max heard a knock on his bedroom door. “Heya kiddo, I heard you were up here,” his dad said. The doorknob jiggled, and Max panicked. His ears and tail were still out. If his dad came in right now, he would see them. He heard his dad sigh, and he remembered he’d locked the door when he came in, just like the last fifty afternoons since his ears came in. He felt a tug on his heart, reminding him of the promise he’d made to his dad without even looking at the iron chain that passed through the door. His dad cleared his throat. “Well, when you’re ready to come out, I’ve got a fun surprise for you and your sister in the living room.”

Max looked at his lashing tail through the thick black clouds of spectral energy billowing off of him. He’d already been hiding his cat ears from his family for a couple of months now, avoiding them every chance he got and never leaving his room without his hat on, but now it was really hitting him; he’d have to spend who knows how long separating himself from them in his own home to avoid them learning about this part of himself. The tug on his heart grew stronger, almost physically pulling him towards the door. Would it really be so bad if his family knew about the spectral world?

Max sighed. “Screw it. I’m telling them.” He got up, grabbing his bat from the side of his bed.

“About what, Max?” PJ asked.

“Everything.” And with that, Max opened the door, cat ears and tail on full display.

Sitting on the living room floor in front of the TV was a large box covered by a blanket, Max’s father standing in front of it keeping Zoey from taking a peek. “There you are, son of mine,” he said. “I see your friend Isaac gave you some of his costume stuff.”

Zoey looked down at the swinging tail behind Max. “How is it moving like that?”

“You ready for the big surprise?” His dad went to ruffle his hair, and for the first time in a long time, Max didn’t flinch away. One of his ears twitched as his dad touched it, and both he and Zoey jumped back in surprise.

“Were you ready?” Max said.

“Those are real?!” Zoey squeaked out. “How??? Why??? What happened???”

Max leaned on the side of the couch. “So, ghosts and spirits are real, and I’m possessed by a cat spirit which gave me superpowers and is making me look like her.” He produced a waft of spectral energy in his hand, staring at it instead of looking up at their faces. “You can’t see it, but I make this black gas that lets me connect with black energy spirits. Oh, by the way, the cat spirit gave me promise powers, so be careful what you say around me. I can’t turn them off.”

Max glanced up at his father. His dad sighed. “Oh, kiddo. Those powers sound rough.”

“It’s not that bad,” Max shot back. “My bat also gives me magnet powers.”

“Ooooohhhh,” Zoey said. “So that’s why you take that thing everywhere.”

Max smiled. “Wanna see it in action?” He tossed his flip phone onto the couch, took a couple of steps back, and pulled his phone to his bat.

Zoey’s face lit up. “So cool!!!” She darted over and grabbed the bat, but the second it left Max’s hand his phone dropped to the floor, the tool now acting as a normal metal bat. “Aww man, I wanted to try!”

Max chuckled. “It only works for me ‘cause I’m a spectral.”

She looked up, confused. “What’s a spectral?”

“Someone with ghost powers,” he clarified.

“Oh, okay,” she said.

Peeking around his dad, Max spotted PJ sticking his face into the covered box on the floor. “Speaking of ghosts, there’s someone I wanna introduce to you guys. Hey PJ, go grab your tool.”

PJ perked up from the box. “Right, Max!” he said as he zoomed off downstairs.

As Max could hear PJ’s tool dislodging the pile of junk his dad left downstairs in the garage that morning, Zoey and his dad were looking around the room, wondering if they could spot the ghost Max was referring to.

“PJ’s not in here right now,” Max said. “He’s grabbing his tool, which is the only thing he can hold here besides my bat. If you see anything else moving around, that’s probably Lefty, who’s like a floating hand ghost.”

“Well, I can’t wait to meet him,” Max’s dad said. Upon saying this, he and Zoey saw a toilet plunger floating up the staircase into the living room. “Ah, I was wondering why you had a plunger in your room.”

Max gestured toward the floating plunger, or more accurately to the ghost holding it. “Dad, Zoey, meet PJ.”

“Hi, Mr. Puckett! Hi, Zoey!” PJ beamed, zipping around in elated energy.

“They still can’t hear ya, bud,” Max reminded him. To his family, he said, “PJ says hi.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, PJ!” Max’s dad said.

“So, you’ve been here this whole time?” Zoey asked. PJ shook his plunger up and down for “yes.” “Wow, you must’ve seen a lot of stuff.”

“Oh yeah, what’s in that box over there, PJ?” Max pointed to the covered box that had been left un-unveiled by his admittedly bigger surprise. “I saw you peeking in there earlier.”

“I don’t know,” PJ said. “It looked like some kind of video game box.”

“A console?” Max said, surprised.

His dad sighed. “Well, looks like the cat’s out of the bag.” He glanced over at Max. “Pun not intended.”

As Max’s dad lifted the box and blanket up to reveal an already plugged in Playstation 4, Max said, “You guys are taking the whole ‘ghosts are real’ thing a little too well.”

“If your tail is real then ghosts might as well be too,” Zoey said, gesturing over to the plunger still floating in the air.

“I grew up here in Mayview, kiddo,” his dad said. “Did you think I never saw anything like this?”

“Really?” Max said. Looking back, his dad was surprisingly unaffected by some of the more scientifically unexplainable aspects of the town. “Huh.” He probably could’ve told him about his spectralness way earlier.

“Hey, Max?” Zoey asked. “Are there any other ghosts in this house?”

Max looked around the living room with tiny spirits lounging on all the furniture. “Oh, there’s tons of spirits here. As for dead guys, I’m pretty sure it’s just PJ and Lefty.”

Zoey glanced up at Max. “...So is Mom here?”

His face fell. “No, I… I haven’t seen her. The Activity Club—oh right, they’re all spectrals too—says that ghosts usually stick around where they died, so she’s probably back in Baxborough… if she’s still here.” Max turned to face his father. “There’s a barrier around Mayview that’s trapping me here so I can’t leave. There used to be a way to get through the barrier but… it’s gone right now.”

His dad’s face fell. “I’m sorry you had to go through that alone, Max. I’m sure your mom is still here. She’s stubborn like that, like you.” He glanced at Max’s folded back ears and swishing tail, and saw the plunger move closer, as if the ghost holding it was going to comfort him. “Heh. I guess this is another way you turned out like her.”

Max’s brow furrowed as he looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

Max’s dad smiled. “Sometimes, when your mother thought no one was looking, she’d start talking to things that I couldn’t see. She hid it pretty well, but I always saw.”

Max’s eyes widened. “Mom was a spectral too?!” He’d found out his old babysitter was a spectral early in the school year, and now his mom was too? Were there any other secret spectrals in his life?

His dad booted up the Playstation and started the Crash Team Racing game he’d set up earlier. “Looks like we’re all learning something new today, huh kiddo?” He handed Max and Zoey the other two controllers, navigating to a screen with a bunch of cartoon racers.

“...Yeah.” Max didn’t quite know how to process this revelation yet. Logically, he knew the spectral world was supposed to be kept secret from the normal one, but she was his mom. Couldn’t she have bent the rules for her family? Why did the rules need to be that strict in the first place?

Turning back to the game, he looked at the character select screen filled with video game characters he didn’t know and chose a character at random. “I have no idea who any of these guys are, Dad, but you’re gonna eat my dust!” He narrowed his eyes in concentration as the family gaming started.

Chapter Text

It was a late summer morning in the Puckett family household. On a whiteboard in the kitchen, what had started as a tic-tac-toe game between Peter Puckett and the ghost holding the marker taped to the floating plunger had expanded into a multi-stage strategy game taking up every available space on the board. Zoey had been called in from her slumber to referee, which in practice meant arbitrating whatever rules her dad came up with on the fly.

Down the hall, a few rebellious rays of sun snuck in through the gaps of Max’s heavy curtains. Max scrunched his eyes as he groaned himself awake. He arched his back and stretched his tail out, along with two more appendages between his shoulder blades. Max sighed in contentment, about to go back to sleep. Wait, he thought. What was that last part that stretched out? He lifted his head from the pillow. Yeah, those were wings alright.

“Of course,” Max grumbled as he stumbled out of bed toward the light switch. In the mirror, he watched the green flash disappear from his eyes as the light revealed the details of his new wings. In the dark he hadn’t been sure, but now he could see the feathers were indeed black. As he stretched out a wing, he noticed a faint purple sheen on the feathers. The wings themselves weren’t tiny; his wingspan looked around eight feet, with a thumb-sized wing claw at each wing’s bend.

Max watched the room take on a golden hue as his bedroom became a pharaoh’s tomb. He turned around to see the Sphinx of Vows lounging on the sarcophagus that was once his bed. She hopped down and padded towards him, pen-nibbed tail raised in greeting.

“So,” Vows said, circling Max in interest. “Your wings have finally come in.” She inspected his wings from all angles, flapping her own wings to get a closer look at his black wing claws. She nodded to herself. “Good,” she purred, “they are befitting of my grand stature.”

Max glanced down at her as she landed at his feet. “Sure, grandma,” he snarked, “but what’s Mayview Middle School going to think when I go to school in a couple of weeks with two new limbs and feathers?”

“Luckily for you, boy, you may not have to worry about that much longer,” she said. “I can feel our time together will come to an end very soon.”

“Oh.” Max didn’t quite know how to feel about this. On one hand, he’d spent the last few months to a year getting used to her powers and features, and her in general, in his life. On the other, maybe more important, hand, he wouldn’t have to hide parts of himself when he went out in public anymore. Or was it more important? He wasn’t sure. “You’re gonna miss me when you’re gone,” he smirked.

“Hardly,” Vows scoffed. She stalked away dismissively, and the Egyptian tomb melted back into Max’s bedroom.

Max ducked into the bathroom, getting himself as ready as he could for the day. He extended a claw to poke the foil covering the new tube of Smiley Teeth toothpaste his dad had brought up from the store and brushed his teeth. Spitting out the toothpaste, he bared his fangs in the mirror. Soon, he wouldn’t be accidentally biting his lip anymore. He could avoid smiling for cool persona reasons instead of hiding his fangs.

Max’s stomach growled. He headed toward the kitchen to hopefully answer the call of his stomach, only to find his dad still in a very spirited (not literally yet) game of tic-tac-toe with PJ and Zoey.

“Max!” PJ said. “Help me with this game! I don’t understand the rules anymore! I would ask your dad, but there’s no more room on the board for me to write.” His eyes landed on Max’s new additions. “Also, woah! Those wings are so cool!”

Max chuckled. “Hey, Dad? Is there any part of that game you can erase? PJ wants to be able to ask you some questions.”

Max’s dad took in how big their game had gotten. “Whoops, sorry PJ. I forgot you can't pick up the eraser.” He erased a corner of the board and set it aside for PJ, then turned to see Max. “Heyo, those are new!” he exclaimed, seeing Max’s wings.

Zoey, meanwhile, had snuck around behind Max, and poked his left wing near the shoulder blade. Max startled, his tail raising and his feathers puffing up. “You felt that?” she asked.

“Yeah I felt it,” he said, ears flicking in annoyance. Zoey reached up and plucked a fluffy feather from the middle of his wing. “Ow! I definitely felt that,” Max cried, his tail now whipping.

“Sorry,” Zoey said, like a liar, twirling the black feather in her hand. “Hey, PJ, can you hold this?” She held the feather up for PJ to take, then paused, pulling it back closer. “Wait, can you hold this? It came from Max, but it’s not attached to him anymore, right?”

PJ opened his mouth to give an answer, but realized she wouldn’t hear him. Also that he didn’t actually know. He lifted his plunger, purple marker taped to the end of it, to write in his newly-freed space on the whiteboard: Good question. IDK. That last acronym was one of the many wonders of text-talk Max had taught him. It saved so much time!

PJ swooped closer to Zoey, careful not to bonk her with his tool (again). She offered the feather up in his direction. He hesitated for a moment, then darted his hand out to grab it. It worked! PJ ran his fingers gently over the downy feather. “Oh wow, Max, it’s so soft!” He pressed it to his cheek, eyes getting a little watery. “Heh. It tickles.” He smiled up at Max. “I haven’t felt that in… well, since I died!”

Oof. PJ always seemed to find just the right moment to hit Max right in the feels with his poor little orphan boy charm. “Yeah, well, just… ask if you want another one. These wings aren’t gonna be here forever,” Max said, glancing away from PJ.

“How long are they going to be here?” Max’s dad asked. “School starts in a couple of weeks, kiddo, and these look like they’re going to be harder to deal with than your ears.”

“Oh, I asked Vows about that earlier,” Max said. “She said I wouldn’t have to deal with all this,” he said, gesturing to himself, “by the time school rolls around.”

“Congratulations! I think?” Peter searched his son’s expression for how he was feeling about that. Max seemed relieved, so his smile widened on his face.

“Yeah, I’ll finally look like a normal person again,” said Max wistfully.

“Please, you’ve never been normal,” Zoey scoffed. “Speaking of dealing with it, though, how’s the shirt situation gonna work out?”

“Shirt situation?” Max twisted around to look at his back. There were holes in his plain grey T-shirt where his wings met his back, but they weren’t nearly big enough for the wings to come through. It was almost like the wings had just appeared there instead of coming out from his back. Max shuddered, almost glad he didn’t have to go through that, but it meant that removing his shirt might be a bit of a challenge.

“Hmmm…” Max’s dad put a hand to his chin, stroking the barely-there stubble in thought. “Turn around for me?” Max obliged, and his dad inspected the shirt, lifting it up as far as the wings would allow, which wasn’t very far. “Sorry son, I think we may have to cut you out of this.”

“Aw, really?” Max glanced down at his shirt. He didn’t want to obliterate a perfectly functional T-shirt just yet. “Do we have to do that right now? I feel like I could wear this out if I wanted to.”

“Do you want to go out now?” his dad asked.

“I kinda want to stretch my wings a bit,” Max smiled. “I wanna see if these things actually work.” He tried to think of a place he could go where he wouldn’t be seen by prying eyes. “There’s a spot in the woods where the Ghost Train went to pick us up before it got tooled. Maybe I’ll go there.”

“Sounds fun,” Max’s dad said. “Want me to drive you?”

“Only if I get shotgun,” Max replied. “You almost hit me with a spirit last time.”

His dad scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Haha, yeah, that’s probably for the best.”

Max stood in the Ghost Train’s old clearing, his dad close behind him. It felt different being here in the light of day, with no giant train spirit in sight. When he looked closer, though, he could still see traces of the Activity Consortium’s presence; scorch marks dotted the grass from training sessions gone wrong, and what looked to be potion bottles were strewn across the area where a tent clearly used to be.

“So this is where the Ghost Train used to live, huh?” Max’s dad said. “What was it like?”

“It was like a giant snake, but a train, I guess.” Max fiddled his thumbs on the straps of his mom’s old backpack. “It could move anything it wanted out of the way, so it could cross the barrier. I dunno, I only saw it once before it got wisped.” He definitely wasn’t telling his dad about the train falling in love with him. To this day, Isabel still pointed out any vehicles she thought would be a good “match” for him; he would actually become a ghost if his dad joined in on the joke too.

He glanced up at his father, who appeared to be lost in thought looking around the clearing. Max took his flip phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the group chat with the other Activity Club kids.

maximillion: anyone wanna hang out in the woods?
maximillion: i want to try smth out with my powers

He hadn’t been wrong when he texted that during the car ride over. He did bring a bunch of metal, including the bronze spirit feathers from a few months ago. He just wanted to surprise his friends, see the look on their faces when he showed his new wings. He adjusted his mom’s hiking backpack, making sure it covered his wings from the back, and scrolled through the rest of the conversation.

fightmaster: wish we could, but gramps is making ed and i do our own training in a minute
inkblot: isn’t it “ed and me”?
flameon: nerd
weatherboy: says the guy with the fantastic 4 username
flameon: don’t disrespect the 2nd coolest johnny
maximillion: is that you or the superhero
flameon: the superhero obviously
flameon: i am the ultimate johnny
flameon: but also me and the gang are gonna see if i can cook an egg in my hand
flameon: later losers
weatherboy: i’ll hang out with you max
maximillion: cool
maximillion: meet me at the ghost train’s clearing

It sounded like it would be just him and Isaac, but that was fine. He could hang out with the rest of the club another day, probably.

Max’s ears twitched as he heard a car door slam in the distance. He looked up the trail to catch a glimpse of Isaac’s father driving off, Isaac hiking down to greet him. “Hey, Max!” he called. As he rounded the bend into the clearing, Isaac saw Max’s dad waiting with him. “Oh, uh, hi Mr. Puckett.”

Max’s dad smiled at him. “Hi, Isaac,” he greeted in reply. “Well, I’ll be over there if you kids need me.” He pointed his thumb back to where he’d parked the car. “There’s a Junior Crossword with my name on it.”

“Aren’t you a little old for the Junior Crossword, dad?”

“We’re all Juniors at heart, aren’t we, kiddo?” He ruffled Max’s hair between his cat ears. “I’ll leave you guys to it. Have fun!”

As his dad left, Max groaned, his ears folding back in annoyance. “Ugh, daaad!” A small smile creeped onto his face, though, where his dad couldn’t see it.

Isaac sighed. “I wish I could tell my parents about all this spectral stuff,” he said. “Your dad doesn’t even care that you’ve got cat ears and a tail.”

“You can just tell them, you know,” Max replied. “Oh, and speaking of the cat stuff…” He dropped the backpack and flared his wings in one smooth motion. “Surprise!” Max fluttered his wings in time with the jazz hands as Isaac stared in shock, red rising to his cheeks.

“Woah…” Isaac breathed, his hand instinctively reaching for them. “Can I… can I touch them?”

“Uh, sure.” Max extended a wing to Isaac, who ran his fingers along the edge of the wing. Max felt his tail puff up a bit as shivers went down his spine at the soft touch. “Heh, that kinda tickles, dude.”

“Oh! Uh, sorry.” Isaac yanked his hand back, keeping it at his side. His face flushed even harder in embarrassment, and he took a breath to calm himself down. “This is like super cool though.”

Max smirked. “Yeah it is. Though it’s gonna be a pain to deal with in public.”

“Right, yeah.” Isaac looked around, unsure what to talk about but the wings. “So, can you fly with them?”

“I don’t know yet.” Max looked Isaac straight in the eye, grinning as he said, “Let’s find out.”

Isaac backed up as Max extended his wings out to their fullest wingspan and flapped hard. The grass rippled under his feet, but Max was still earthbound. Max frowned. He flapped even harder, strain evident on his face, but flaps alone wouldn’t get him off the ground.

“Are you sure your wings are big enough?” Isaac asked.

Max stopped flapping, taking a closer look at his wings. “You’d think so,” he muttered. “I guess I thought maybe magic or something would do the rest.” He planted his feet, bending his knees in preparation. “Maybe…” He jumped, flapping as hard as he could as he could, but only managed a slightly longer airtime before his feet hit the ground once more.

The sparky one is right, boy, came the Sphinx’s voice in his mind. Your puny wings are not enough to carry your corporeal body through flight.

“Puny?!” Max saw Isaac’s look of confusion at the outburst, and signalled “not you” at him. “Vows, your wings aren’t much smaller than mine are!”

Yes, but my body is much smaller and lighter than yours, and I was born with my wings. Max frowned in thought.

“Is it a surface area problem?” Isaac asked.

“Huh?” Max looked at him, confused.

“You know, you can’t catch enough air to lift you up,” he clarified. “Maybe we can attach something to your wings to make them bigger.”

“Yeah.” Max grabbed his backpack and emptied it out onto the ground, his bat slipping out of the water bottle pocket he kept it in. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” Lying in a pile on the ground was the metal junk that Max brought to magnetize, a bag of crushed potato chips from the Corner Store, and an orange.

As Max shoved the food back into the bag, Isaac picked up a bronze feather that had ended up at his feet. “Hmmm…” He looked closer at the feather. “How many of these do you have?”

“Oh, those?” Max looked at the pile, counting in his head. “Like, ten of them?”

“Would it be possible to add them to your wings?”

Max took another look at his wings. Upon closer inspection, some of the larger feathers closer to his body appeared not as close together as they could be. Yes, perhaps you could add some feathers to your secondaries, said the Sphinx.

“Yeah, over here,” Max said, gesturing to the problem areas of his wings. He looked around for something to help attach the feathers, and spotted some silver duct tape that he’d missed before. Huh. He hadn’t packed it, so it must have been something his mom left in her hiking backpack.

Max extended a wing and handed the tape to Isaac. He guided Isaac through placing the bronze feathers in the gaps, since they were hard for him to reach dexterously, and Isaac taped them to his other feathers.

“And done!” Isaac took a step back to get a full view of their work.

“How does it look?” Max asked.

Isaac snapped a picture on his smartphone and showed it to him. Isaac had taped the spirit metal feathers to his secondaries under what Vows had called his “coverts,” so the silver duct tape wasn’t visible. Interspersed through the feathers closest to his body were the bronze feathers, their luster catching the light. The purple sheen of his natural black feathers complemented the bronze nicely.

Sunset dimmed the sky, and the trees turned into pillars of sandstone in a desert as the Sphinx of Vows appeared before Max in spirit trance. She circled him, inspecting his wings with a careful eye. “Finally,” she said with an approving nod, “metal adornment befitting of my stature as a goddess.”

“Is that Vows-speak for jewelry?” Max said. “‘Cause I could totally rock some bronze piercings to go with the feathers.”

“As much as I agree that would improve your appearance, I unfortunately have to save you from your idiotic idea and remind you of what would happen next time you use your tool.”

Max pictured the results of the tug-of-war between metal piercings and his magnetic bat and cringed. “Yeah okay, point taken.”

The surrounding pillars faded back into trees as the spirit trance ended. Isaac smiled at Max. “You good?” he asked.

Max smiled back at him. “Yeah. Vows approves of your handiwork, by the way.” He looked up to the sky, and nodded to himself. “Alright, let’s try this again.” He stepped back and jumped, flapping as hard as he could. He managed to hold himself in the air for a few seconds, his feet landing with a thud as he stopped flapping. “Okay,” he panted. “That was better, but I think I need a little more oomph to really get flying.”

“You need wind? Because I can give you wind.” Isaac held his hands out, prepared to give Max an updraft.

He nodded. “Alright, flyboy. Boost me.” Max counted down on his fingers.

Three.

Two.

One.

Blast off.

He shot upwards, his wings catching the wind Isaac provided and lifting him up, up past the treeline. His wings found an air pocket, and he circled fifty feet above the clearing. Max whooped in excitement. “I did it!” he yelled, and Isaac cheered back at him. Warm air rose under his wings, and he found himself soaring even higher.

Max looked down at Isaac. He looked so small from this distance already. He gave Max a thumbs up, and Max continued circling the thermal, gaining altitude and flying higher and higher until Isaac looked like a speck in the clearing far below him. The sparse summer clouds were still thousands of feet above him, but something was in the way of him going any higher: the curved wall of the Mayview barrier.

He watched a murder of crows fly through its glassy sheen towards town, one bonking off of it like it hit a window. It squawked angrily with a burst of hot pink spectral energy and attempted to pass through one more time before flying off. Max sighed. “Yeah, me too buddy,” he muttered after the spectral crow.

He turned his gaze back to the lake. Man, he could see the whole town from here, from the mayor’s mansion on Mayview’s West Hill to Mayview Middle School on its East Hill. After he exited the thermal and started slowly making his descent, Max spotted the Guerras’ dojo with its rainbow of spectral energies rising out of it like smoke. He wondered if that dot of red was Isabel training, or if that spot of lime green was Ed. He wondered where Johnny was, somewhere down in that town between two hills.

Max’s ears caught the rumble of a car approaching the clearing below. He followed it from above, his shadow on the car’s roof slowly growing larger as he gradually lost altitude. It parked close to the Pucketts’ car. Now that he thought about it, Max did recognize that stupid red sports car. Sure enough, Mr. Spender stepped out of the driver’s seat. Max heard him say, “Oh! Hello, Mr. Puckett!”

Max’s dad stood up from his camp chair and smiled at Spender. “You must be Max’s teacher, Mr. Spender,” he said warmly. “Please, call me Peter.”

“Of course,” Spender said. “So what brings you out in this neck of the woods?”

“Max and Isaac wanted to ‘hang out’ here, as the kids call it, and practice something for their club.” Spender looked past Peter and saw Isaac in the clearing down the trail, looking up at something he couldn’t see and twisting a blade of grass between his fingers. Peter cleared his throat and asked, “So, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I was here to pick something up for the Paranatural Activity Consortium.” Spender’s shadowy eyes widened behind his sunglasses. He’d meant to lie and say he was picking something up for a friend, and now here he was telling a non-spectral about the Consortium!

Up above, Max startled. He hadn’t heard it in months, but that was the Sphinx of Truth’s power. And where there was one sphinx, there was usually another… He scanned the edge of the clearing, and… There!

“Isaac!!!” Max yelled as he gave a mighty downthrust of his wings, launching a volley of metal feathers at the other two sphinxes behind him, who were about to pounce. Isaac turned, and put up a hasty shield of blue spectral energy as the feathers flew over his head and thunked into the ground in front of the sphinxes.

Max dove for the clearing, a comet wreathed in roiling black energy. At the last second he flapped hard to break his fall, and he landed in a crouch beside Isaac, slapping the ground to disperse some force.

“Aw, come on!” whined the Sphinx of Rules. “Just let me eat him for once!” He stalked forward, circling left while his brother, the Sphinx of Lies, padded right. Max glanced behind himself, where his bat was left a few yards away with the rest of his stuff.

Isaac loosed a bolt of lightning at Rules with a thundering boom, and Max sprang up after his tool. He only made it a couple of steps before the yellow lion sphinx pounced on him, pinning him to the ground with his girth. Max winced as the weight pressed his wings and tail into the ground, his cat ears folding back in pain. He tried to push the sphinx off, but he couldn’t get the leverage.

“Huh. The wings are old news,” said the Sphinx of Lies, his power warping his true reaction.

“You know what else is old news?” Max quipped, and he extended the claws on his right hand. “Not these.” He raked them down the sphinx’s muzzle, Lies rearing back a little in pain.

A spear of light flew past Max’s face, clipping a wing of the Sphinx of Lies and thudding into the ground by Max’s feet. The lion sphinx yowled and jerked back even harder, and Max shimmied out from under him. He looked up to see Spender standing in the treeline across the clearing, panting and reaching for another sunbeam.

Hidden in the trees, Max could see the faint periwinkle blue glow of the Sphinx of Truth’s spectral energy, stalking Spender from behind. “Above you!” Max yelled. Crud, Truth wasn’t close enough for her and Lies’ powers to cancel out yet.

Spender looked up, confused, and in his moment of distraction the Sphinx of Truth leaped at him, a blade of spectral energy extending from her tail. “Aaargghhh!!!” he cried, whirling around and grabbing a sunbeam as a quarterstaff. He blocked the kitten’s next bladestrike with his staff, a thin diagonal gash visible through the back of his suitsie.

Max sprinted for his tool, grabbed it, and spun around, black spectral energy trailing his bat. He scanned the clearing for his spirit metal ammunition. Between him and his feathers was Isaac, down on the ground with the Sphinx of Rules held at arm’s length away from his face. Isaac electrified his grip, but that only seemed to make Rules madder, screeching and trying to bite him with increased fervor.

“Isaac, duck!!!” Max called, and he pulled the bronze feathers to his bat. The flying feathers cut the sphinx all over and sliced red feathers off of his wings. Rules yowled in pain, and Isaac rolled out from under him.

Max dropped most of the feathers stuck to his bat. As long as the Sphinx of Lies’ power was active, good team communication would be impossible. He launched a couple of metal feathers in Truth’s direction, hoping to lure her closer to the fight. “Hey!” he heard her yell. “Watch where you’re thwowing those things, you widdle—”

She caught sight of Max and froze, getting hit by Spender’s sunbeam staff in the process. “Vows is in that kid,” she said to herself. “Huh.” She flew towards Max, dodging another swing of the staff. “Wait!” Truth called, and the other two sphinxes stopped clawing at Max and Isaac, looking up at her. She landed in front of Max. “Vows, is this where you’ve been all this time?”

With him and with his mother before him, Vows said in Max’s mind.

“Mom was your old medium?” Max felt a little betrayed. Vows had known his mom was a spectral this whole time, been her spirit partner, and she hadn’t told him anything. Of course. Why did he expect her to? She wasn’t exactly the most forthcoming with information unless it was absolutely necessary. Black spectral energy plumed off his shoulders in thick clouds.

“June was a medium too?”

What? Max turned his gaze to Spender, who had entered the clearing after the Sphinx of Truth. “Wait, you knew my mom?”

“Did she never tell you about me?” Spender said. “She trained me, she was my mentor in the Con—” He glanced at Isaac, who frowned. “...With other spectrals.”

“No, she didn’t tell me,” Max said, crossing his arms. “She didn’t tell me anything! Nobody did!” He looked at Isaac, who looked just as sick of Spender’s allergy to explaining things as he felt. “And I’m starting to think that’s a common theme with you.” Black energy was roiling off of him, and his tail was lashing back and forth. “Vows I kind of understand, she’s just kind of like that. But you? You’re supposed to be a teacher!”

“I…” Spender looked to be at a loss for words, yellow energy wafting off of him. “I guess I thought she’d told her son at least half the stories she’d told Agent Day.”

“Valerie?!” Max thought back to all the times Val had been over at his house when he was little, both babysitting him and just hanging out. All that time his mom had shared this secret life with her, and she hadn’t told him or anyone about it. “I’m starting to see where you got the secret-keeping from.”

Max held out a hand to Isaac. “Come on, let’s just go.” Isaac hesitated, glancing back at the sphinxes they were leaving behind, but took his hand.

Max took a couple of steps toward his stuff and stopped. He felt a kind of pressure in his head, almost like Vows was moving, stretching her wings in there. Max’s wings beat on their own as a portal opened up on his back. Spectral energy covered his body as his medium mutations dissolved into the black mist, and the Sphinx of Vows pulled herself out of her now former medium.

Max stumbled, readjusting his center of gravity with his tail missing. The world was quieter now, less bright, as he ran his fingers over his hair, no sensitive cat ears to poke against. He chuckled mirthlessly and turned around to see Vows, free from his body at last.

“I told you I’d be out before your pitiful school started,” the Sphinx of Vows said with a smirk. She turned to her siblings. “Just what have you imbeciles been doing while I was away?”

The Sphinx of Truth looked at Max, shook her head, and bent down into a crouch. “Come, sister,” she said, leaping up into flight. “We have a wot to catch up on.” And with that, the other sphinxes joined her, flying off into the great blue sky.

Max silently gathered his things, pulling all his metal to his bat and dumping it into his mom’s hiking backpack.

“What are you doing?!” Spender said, conjuring a bow of spectral energy. “They’re getting away!”

Max walked past him, Isaac in tow. “No.” He tiredly placed a hand on Spender’s, and the yellow bow dissipated. “We’re done here today.” He and Isaac continued up the trail back to the car, twin plumes of black and blue trailing them, leaving Spender behind.

Still engrossed in his crossword, Max’s dad said, “Hey, kiddo. You guys finished already? Sounds like you beat whatever spirit you were fighting.” He got up and grabbed his camping chair, then saw Max. “Oh! Your cat stuff is gone. Congratulations! Er… condolences. …Congrolences?”

A small smile tugged at Max’s lips. “That’s a word for it.” He hopped in the car, feeling the cheap imitation leather car seat through the holes in his T-shirt and cargo pants. Isaac hopped in the back with him, and his dad slipped in and started the car. Max met his eye in the rearview mirror. “Let’s just go home.”

Max flopped onto his bed, already exhausted at 2 in the afternoon. He rolled onto his back, saluting a passing Lefty as he pulled his flip phone out of his pocket. Checking the spectral kids group chat, Isaac had already posted the picture he took of Max’s wings.

weatherboy: you guys missed out on all this
fightmaster: woah max you have wings now!
fightmaster: that’s awesome!!!

Max smiled. Isabel’s supportiveness of his medium transformation was great, but he didn’t really need it anymore.

maximillion: HAD wings. as of today i am no longer a medium
inkblot: you’re a large
maximillion: i’m a large
maximillion: dangit ed you scooped my joke
maximillion: but yeah seriously i’m not possessed anymore
flameon: so lightning legs got to see those wings and we didn’t
maximillion: hey you could’ve joined us if you wanted
fightmaster: i wish grandpa didn’t make us do training today instead
maximillion: i would’ve broken you guys out of the dojo if i had known they’d only be here for like a few hours
flameon: hey sparky give us the details
flameon: or else
weatherboy: oooo so scary

With his phone buzzing with the notifications of Isaac’s explanation, Max turned his attention toward other matters. He sat on the floor and held the old hiking backpack upside down, dumping its contents onto the ground. All his metal knickknacks came tumbling out, along with the spirit metal feathers and some leftover snacks.

The silver duct tape bounced off of Max’s knee. He picked it up, staring at it in contemplation. It had been in his mom’s old backpack this whole time. What else had she left behind from previous “hiking trips”? Were they even actually hiking trips?

Max shook the bag out. Nothing. He felt around the inside of the bag, and found a mass inside a zippered pocket he hadn’t noticed before. Opening it, he found a pair of aviator sunglasses. Had he ever seen his mom wearing them before? He couldn’t remember.

Did these use to be Spender’s? Max couldn’t tell if the sunglasses were his or his mom’s. He tried to picture a tweenage Spender wearing them, and snorted. No matter how cool the sunglasses were, they wouldn’t offset the dork factor Spender undoubtedly had at that age.

Max sighed. Was he really all that angry at Spender? Yeah, he was still pretty miffed that Spender had just assumed he’d been told about anything all this time, but how much of that was his fault?

He wished his mom was here. Her ghost was probably on the other side of the barrier, waiting for him to come find her. Why else wouldn’t she be here, with her family? He wished he could ask her for stories about weird spirits she’d encountered and what Spender was like as a kid, but he couldn’t right now.

The sound of wingbeats broke him out of his thoughts. He looked up to see the Sphinx of Vows flapping at his window. She knocked her pen-nib tail on the glass. “Let me in, child,” she said with her usual haughty disdain.

Confused, Max opened the window for her, and she flew inside, resting on his pillow. When he looked closer, he saw that the pillow refused to indent where she lay. “No offense, Vows, but why are you here?” he asked, sitting on the bed next to her. “Shouldn’t you be with the other sphinxes?”

“You think I don’t want to be with my siblings?” She sank golden claws into the fabric, the pillow remaining untouched as they retracted. “Unfortunately for me, long ago your mother made me promise to protect you.”

“And you can’t exactly do that if you’re not there.” Max chuckled, almost bitterly. “Just when I thought I’d never have to see you again.”

Vows scoffed, nudging him with her wing. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, boy.”

He looked out the window, almost expecting to see sunset with the sphinx’s presence beside him. A bittersweet smile appeared on his face. He might not have found his mom yet, but he still had her old spirit partner to keep him company. He had all the time in the world to hear stories about her from Vows until she was home.