Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Preface

Once upon a time, there was a young witch named Malachai Parker, born into an ancient coven called the Gemini.

On the morning of his twenty-second birthday—the day of the sacred Merge, when a pair of twins are bound together and only one survives—Malachai murdered four of his siblings.

To end his reign of terror, his twin sister Josette agreed to complete the ritual. But it was a lie. A trap, woven in desperation. Instead of becoming one with him, she helped the coven cast him into a prison world—a pocket of suspended time where he would never age, never die, and wander alone for eternity.

Or so they believed.

When Malachai murdered his siblings, he also drained them—siphoning every last drop of their magic. What he didn’t know was that in taking their power, he took something deeper.

Their essence.

And so, bound by blood and death, the four he killed were tethered to him in exile. Undying. Unaging. Trapped alongside their killer in a world that would never change.

But there was one who could not bear such finality.

Sheila Bennett of the Bennett line, keeper of ancient magics and older mercies, believed that no soul was beyond redemption. Not even his. She could not damn a boy to eternal solitude, no matter the sins he carried.

So she left behind a key.

A sliver of hope, hidden in spellwork and secrecy.

Escape would require three things: the blood of a Bennett witch, the ascendant forged by the coven, and a spell cast in truth. But even that would not be enough.

Before his twenty-second year of solitude ended, Malachai Parker would have to do the impossible:

Learn to love.

Be loved in return.

Or remain sealed away forever.

Chapter 1: Watching

“Oh, she’s pretty. Do you like her, Kai?”

A little girl around the age of seven peered over her older brother’s shoulder.

A boy with his face glued to a Game Boy looked up. “Of course he likes her, Beatrice. She’s pretty, and she’s like the only girl he’s seen other than you in, forever.”

“The question we should be asking is how did she get here?” said the preteen, his head just reaching his older brother’s ear.

The fourth to join them, a dark-haired teenager, said nothing. They all stared from their hiding place, watching the newest arrival to the prison world.

The woman — Black, bob haircut, compact build — walked into the grocery store with no hesitation. Her stride was confident. Unchecked.

“You guys stay here,” the man said as he stood, brushing dust from the side of the car he’d been leaning against.

“Are you going to talk to her? Why can’t we come?” Beatrice asked, clearly annoyed.

“Because I said so. I’ll be right back.”

---

Inside the store, Kai watched.

She moved casually, humming. Nothing in her posture suggested caution or awareness. Unaware. That was useful.

He tracked her silently.

Heart-shaped face. Symmetrical features. Slim build. Five-three, maybe five-four. She fit the profile — statistically disarming. An easy person to underestimate. But that wasn’t what held his attention.

What mattered was how she got here.

She turned a corner. He ducked behind a shelf before she could glance back.

“Okay, what’s next?” she said, glancing at a handwritten list. “Pasta, pasta, pasta…”

She scanned the shelves, found her brand, dropped it in her basket, and moved on.

He kept parallel. She stopped in front of another shelf, scanning bottom to top. Her brow creased when she reached the highest row.

Then — a pause. A breath. She stepped forward, rose to her toes, stretched an arm upward. Her leg lifted slightly behind her, stabilizing like a dancer’s pose.

She grabbed the item and returned to a neutral stance. No complaint. No comment. Just movement.

Kai noted it all.

No magic. A witch wouldn’t have reached manually — she’d have levitated the item with a thought. The absence of that told him everything.

Human.

Not a threat. Not yet. Possibly not at all.

Disappointing.

---

She moved to the canned goods aisle, humming again. Her focus was light, idle. Like she was browsing on a Sunday morning. Not like someone who’d been dropped into a magical prison loop with no exit.

She didn’t belong here. Not just because she was new — but because she behaved like none of it mattered.

He leaned slightly for a better view.

Then — motion.

Low to the ground, quick, loud enough to register.

His jaw locked.

“Beatrice,” he muttered, stepping quickly around the endcap just in time to catch the little girl weaving between two displays, curls bouncing.

He reached her in three strides, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her behind a wall of paper towels.

“What did I say?” he hissed, crouching to eye level. “What did I just say before I came in here?”

Beatrice blinked up at him. “You said stay put.”

He stared. She stared back, completely unbothered.

“Then why are you in here?”

“I wanted to see the pretty lady up close. She looks nice. And it’s not like she saw me.”

He touched his forehead — not out of frustration, but habit. It helped him think.

“I don’t want her to know we’re here.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need to observe her. Figure out what she’s doing here. Who she is. What she wants.”

Beatrice folded her arms. “Why don’t you just ask her?”

Kai stood, pulling her toward the exit.

“Because I don’t trust her.”

“Well, you have to know someone to trust them.”

He stopped and gave her a flat look.

“Beatrice.”

“What?” she asked, too innocent to be real.

“Just do what I say next time.”

---

They stepped into the dry heat of the parking lot. The sun hung overhead, suspended in its perfect loop. Nothing here cracked. Nothing decayed. Midnight would reset it all.

They crossed to the black sedan. The others noticed them approaching.

Myles dangled his legs out the window, reading a tattered comic. Nathan lay on the roof, spinning a wheel on a skateboard. Robert sat on the curb, arms crossed.

“I told her not to,” Myles said, glancing up. “But it would’ve made a scene if I stopped her.”

Kai gave a short nod. He wasn’t angry. Beatrice moved when she felt like it. Trying to stop her was wasted effort.

Then the store bell rang.

All heads turned.

The woman stepped outside with two bags in her arms. She walked toward a black 1967 Impala — pristine and polished, untouched by time.

“Nice car,” Nathan mumbled.

She loaded her bags, climbed in, and drove off without a glance.

Kai turned to the kids.

“Find something to do. Be back here in three hours.”

“Why three?” Myles asked, already frowning.

“Because I can’t follow her with four kids in the car. It’s suspicious.”

“Suspicious to who?” Nathan asked, throwing up his hands. “It’s just us and her.”

“Exactly.” Kai was already walking away. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Groans followed. Robert stood up. “You heard him. Let’s go.”

Kai got into the sedan — still smelling like new leather — started the engine, and pulled out.

By the time he reached the road, the Impala was disappearing over the hill. He pressed the gas.

Not too fast. Just enough to keep her in sight.

He followed her through winding roads and still woods. The light shifted. Shadows stretched. But nothing truly changed. The world would reset at midnight — same start, same loop, same breath.

She didn’t look back. Why would she? She probably thought she was alone.

After twenty minutes, she turned onto a stretch of road he recognized.

His grip on the wheel tightened.

She pulled into the drive of a brown-shingled Craftsman cottage, tucked under heavy oaks. The porch, the trim, the layout — all exactly as he remembered.

Not preserved by time. Protected from it.

He knew that house.

Every creaky step. Every crooked shutter.

Sheila Bennett’s house.

Not the real one — just a replica. A magical facsimile dropped into this world as a monument to the witch who helped bind him here.

He’d searched it once. Found nothing useful. Reset spell jars. Staged furniture. Books no one had read.

But someone built it for Sheila. On purpose.

And now a Bennett was here.

Kai leaned back in the driver’s seat and rubbed a hand across his jaw.

The Bennetts weren’t strong because they were clever. They were strong because they were obedient. Willing to bleed themselves for balance. For order.

It was their magic his father needed to lock him away.

And now — one had landed right inside his cage.

He drummed his fingers against the wheel, eyes never leaving the house.

This changed everything.

She was the key.

To freedom.

To escape.

To ending this loop for good.

And she didn’t even know it.

Not yet.

But she would.

Oh, she definitely would.

Chapter Text

The key slid easily into the lock.

Bonnie stepped inside the house, pushing the door open with her hip, a bag of groceries in each arm. The screen door slapped lightly shut behind her, and the quiet that followed felt almost too perfect — thick, still, like the whole place was holding its breath.

She stood in the entryway for a moment, just listening. No creaks, no footsteps. No Grams calling from the other room. She wasn’t used to this much silence, not really. But something about this house — the way the air smelled like lemon oil and old wood, the way the sun filtered through those sheer curtains — made her feel… okay. Not safe exactly, but not in danger either.

Just… suspended.

She walked through the front room into the kitchen, set the bags down gently on the spotless counter, and looked around. Everything was exactly how she remembered it from her childhood. The white cabinets with their brass handles. The checkered blue dish towels folded on the oven door. The little wooden rooster clock on the wall, its wings twitching with each second. Except this wasn’t her Grams’ real house.

It was a replica. A copy dropped into this strange pocket dimension for reasons she was still trying to understand. Bonnie had realized it the second she’d arrived — something in her blood, her bones, just knew. The air here wasn’t right. The energy hummed wrong, like a spell caught in a loop.

Still, it looked like home. And for now, that mattered.

She started unpacking, setting things into the fridge, organizing dry goods into the pantry. Halfway through, she flicked on the radio — it sat on the counter just like the one Grams used to keep, the kind with the round tuning dial and peeling faux-wood paneling.

Static. Then—

“You light my fire. . . I feel alive with you, baby”

Bonnie’s face lit up as the Gap Band’s “Outstanding” kicked in. Her heart tugged. That song had been Grams’ favorite — one she played when she was cleaning, cooking, or just sitting on the porch sipping her sweet tea.

“You blow my mind…”

Bonnie turned the volume up and smiled.

“I’m satisfied… Outstanding… Girl you knock me out!” 

She poured herself a glass of red wine — the bottle she’d picked up from the store still perfectly chilled — and set it on the counter. Then she washed her hands and got to work.

The knife moved easily under her fingers as she chopped a bright green bell pepper, her body swaying side to side in time with the music. She added a yellow onion next, slicing it thin while mouthing along to the chorus. Every now and then she’d pause to snap her fingers, or let the knife rest so she could do a quick little two-step in place. Nothing fancy. Just muscle memory — Grams used to say you couldn’t cook anything good unless the kitchen had some soul in it.

Bonnie planned to make spaghetti — but not just any spaghetti. She was craving her grandmother’s version: bolognese, but done the Black southern way. A little extra. A little indulgent. Fried sausage, sweet and spicy. Turkey seasoned and browned with onion and pepper. A little breakfast sausage to thicken the flavor.

The scent began to fill the air as she dropped slices of rope sausage into the cast iron skillet, watching the edges curl and crisp. Next went the hot breakfast sausage, then the turkey — each layer seared and seasoned to perfection before she combined them in the big silver pot. She stirred slowly, adding garlic, fresh basil, crushed red pepper, and just a pinch of sugar to cut the acid in the sauce.

The smell that rose from the stovetop was rich, heavy, and nostalgic. Bonnie inhaled deeply and smiled to herself.

---

Outside, Kai watched.

From the shadows just beyond the window, he’d been still for almost forty minutes. Thirty of them spent unmoving, observing.

He could hear her through the cracked kitchen window — not every word, but enough. The music. Her humming. The occasional soft lyric threading out between beats. Her voice was low, smooth, precise. Like velvet over steel.

And she danced.

Not for anyone. Not performative. Just movement — natural, unselfconscious. Like she didn’t know she was in a cage. Like she didn’t think she was being watched.

He noted that.

The smell came next — thick, layered, intrusive. Kai inhaled slowly, cataloging.

Spaghetti. But not ordinary. Rope sausage. Breakfast sausage. Turkey. Each heavily seasoned. The layering was deliberate. Not a mistake. Not improvisation. It was constructed. Controlled.

Like a ritual.

He narrowed his eyes. She wasn’t guessing — she knew what she was doing. Her precision was instinctual. And effective.

He didn’t just want to taste it.

He wanted to taste it in context — while it was hot, while the music played, while she moved as if untouched by consequence. The environment mattered. It was part of the formula.

But he didn’t move.

Didn’t knock.

Didn’t speak.

She was alone. That much was clear. He’d waited long enough to confirm. No other cars. No voices. No footsteps. Just her.

The only new variable in this world.

He filed the information away and began to retreat — slow, careful. The scent of the sauce clung to him, intrusive and persistent. It would follow him all the way back. But that was fine. He could use it later.

He needed to reach the others before their curiosity got them seen.

Before they disrupted the experiment.

---

Inside, Bonnie turned off the stove.

The pot simmered low, the sauce thick and dark and glossy. She opened the oven and pulled out a pan of golden cornbread, its edges perfectly crisp. The smell alone made her stomach tighten. She plated her meal slowly, not rushing — half a bowl of spaghetti, a warm square of cornbread, and a generous pour of wine.

She set it all on the coffee table, then bent down in front of the old TV and loaded a worn VHS tape into the deck.

Krush Groove (1985).

It was part of her grandmother’s collection — not something Bonnie had picked for herself, but a comfort movie. The kind of thing you put on when you were somewhere unfamiliar, and needed to remember who you were.

As the first bass-heavy beat dropped through the screen, Bonnie pulled the blanket over her legs, twirled her fork, and let herself exhale.

She didn’t know what this world really was — not yet.

But tonight, she’d made it her own.

Just for a little while.

---

Kai pulled into the parking lot fifteen minutes early.

It was quiet. It always was, no birds or animals, as just trees, earth, buildings and water; a silent  sunset. He stepped out of the car and stretched, glancing toward the road. No sign of the kids yet.

He preferred silence after extended interaction. Not because he needed to decompress — that would imply some emotional toll — but because it allowed for clearer thinking.

The music from the Bennett witch’s house still looped faintly in the back of his mind. Her voice had been layered over the track — smooth, deliberate, well-paced. It lingered. Not unpleasant. But distracting. He noted its effect, then moved on.

The food had been interesting. Not because he’d eaten it — he hadn’t — but because of how she’d made it. The combination of meats, the pacing, the deliberate way she stirred, as if following some internal rhythm. The smell was strong: smoky, dense, likely meant to evoke something. Nostalgia, maybe. It didn’t touch him. But he noted the composition. Might be useful later.

He could replicate it. Of course he could. Every ingredient, every step — even the small pauses in her prep — easily reproduced. But there was no purpose in copying it for himself. Imitation wouldn’t yield the same effect.

There was something in the way she did it — not the recipe, but the delivery. Intentional or not, it had weight. People responded to it. He’d seen that. He remembered.

No point in making a copy. It wouldn’t land the same.

Better to keep the original close. See what else she could do.

He paused on the sidewalk. Not because anything stirred — but because the realization was clear, specific, and worth attention.

He didn’t want the dish.

He wanted hers.

He kept walking, already sorting through the implications.

He shook his head and headed back into the store. Might as well pick up something for dinner. Watching her cook triggered something unexpected — a physiological reaction. His body responded before his mind did. Hunger, sharp and real. Not just for food, but for the precision of it. The deliberate sequence. The focus in her movements.

He noted that.

Strange. He hadn’t experienced that kind of appetite in a while. Not because he couldn’t, but because most things lacked intent. This didn’t. It was… constructed.

Effort had gone into it. That was rare.

And mildly inconvenient.

He grabbed what he needed for shrimp and salmon alfredo — heavy cream, parmesan, garlic, a lemon, fresh herbs from the frozen aisle (still magically bright and crisp), and linguine. He threw in some sparkling water, just because.

By the time he stepped back outside, the Impala was rolling into the lot.

Myles was driving. Poorly. Robert leaned forward from the passenger seat, clearly giving instructions, while Beatrice had her head out the back window like a dog. Nathan stood up through the sunroof, shouting something unintelligible until the car came to a sharp stop.

Kai stood still, bags in hand.

“How did it go?” Robbie asked, climbing out, arms crossed and tone cautious. He always tried to sound like he wasn’t asking for permission. It didn’t work.

Beatrice’s eyes locked on the grocery bags. “Wait… are you cooking?!”

“Yes.” Kai didn’t offer anything more than that as he moved toward the car. “Get in. I’ll explain once we’re settled.”

The kids exchanged glances, then piled in without arguing. That was the thing about Kai — he didn’t demand obedience, he just expected it, and people complied more often than not because it was easier than the alternative.

He didn’t believe in lectures or power struggles. He believed in leverage, and he had all of it.

The boarding house was nestled deep in the woods, barely visible from the road, but Kai had spotted it earlier. It was big, clean, and untouched like everything else in this godforsaken loop. He’d known from the second he saw it that it would be perfect. Close enough to keep an eye on the Bennett girl, far enough that she wouldn’t hear them.

And more importantly — enough space to get the kids out of his hair when he needed quiet.

They pulled in, and the others scattered immediately.

“I call the attic!” Nathan shouted.

“I want a room with windows,” Myles announced like anyone cared.

Kai didn’t respond. He moved straight to the kitchen, dropped the grocery bags on the counter, and opened every cabinet just to confirm what he already knew — fully stocked. Cookware, plates, even a spice rack arranged alphabetically.

He ran a finger along the countertop. No dust. No fingerprints. This place had never been used.

Perfect.

He began prepping methodically: deveining shrimp, slicing salmon, zesting lemon. His mind moved faster than his hands — jumping between what he’d seen, what he’d heard, and how to exploit it.

The girl was alone.

She hadn’t tried to use magic, not even to reach the top shelf.

She was too comfortable.

Too unguarded.

Too much like bait.

That thought made him grin a little as he minced garlic. There was something almost satisfying about how predictable witches could be — always thinking with their hearts, their memories, their dead relatives whispering in their ears.

This witch might be clever. She might even be dangerous.

But she wasn’t ready for him.

And when the time came, he wouldn’t hesitate.

Even if her voice still echoed somewhere in his head.

Even if he could still smell the sauce.

Even so, the thought surfaced: sitting at that table, tasting something made by hands that didn’t flinch at his presence. Just once.

Not out of sentiment. Curiosity, at most.

He’d never seen it before — someone unafraid, creating without calculation or caution.

It might be… instructive.

He dismissed it. Pointless. Distraction.

He wasn’t here to connect.

He was here to get out.

And no one — not the Bennett witch, not the coven, not even the kids in the other room — was going to interfere with that.

---

The shrimp sizzled in the pan, popping gently as the garlic and butter turned golden. Kai stirred slowly, watching the heat rise and curl in the air like smoke signals. The smell was sharp and clean and layered — nothing like the chaotic meat-heavy storm from the Bennett witch’s kitchen, but it had its own perfection.

This was control.

This was precision.

He knew every ingredient, every movement, every outcome.

No surprises.

That was the way he liked it.

“Are you seriously making Alfredo from scratch?” Myles asked, dragging a stool to the kitchen island.

Kai didn’t answer at first. He just flipped the salmon in the cast iron and added a squeeze of lemon. The hiss that followed was exact, expected, and oddly satisfying.

“There’s a version of you,” Kai said, without looking up, “that got kicked out of the kitchen for breathing too loud.”

“There’s a version of you that cooks like an angry French ghost,” Myles shot back.

Kai smirked. Points for nerve.

Beatrice wandered in next, barefoot and wrapped in a blanket like a cape. She climbed onto the counter without asking, legs swinging.

“Does this mean you’re in a good mood?” she asked, eyeing the creamy sauce warming on the back burner.

“It means I don’t want to kill any of you tonight,” Kai replied casually, which made Myles pause and Beatrice roll her eyes.

“You always say that,” she muttered. “But then you don’t kill us.”

“Yet.”

“Uh-huh.”

She grabbed a grape from the bowl near the sink and popped it into her mouth.

“You’re weirdly happy,” she said around a chew. “It’s that pretty lady, isn’t it?”

The muscles in Kai’s jaw twitched.

“I’m not happy.”

“You’re not… not.”

He turned off the burner.

“She cooked,” he said simply. “She cooked well. I found it… interesting.”

Myles made a face. “We’ve been here eighteen years and that’s what impresses you? A good sauce?”

“Not just the sauce.” Kai moved with calm precision, plating the salmon and pouring the Alfredo over fresh pasta. “The way she moved. The way she sang. The way she didn’t know she was being watched.”

Robert appeared in the doorway just as Kai set the first plate down. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes went immediately to the food.

“You’re feeding us tonight?”

Kai nodded once.

“Something’s changed,” Robert said.

It wasn’t a question.

Kai handed him a plate. “Something is changing.”

They gathered at the kitchen island — mismatched chairs, hands reaching for forks. For a moment it was quiet. Forks scraping plates. The hum of the fridge. Familiar.

The calm before someone did something stupid.

Kai didn’t eat at first. He just watched them.

The kids. His siblings — though that word felt like it belonged to someone else. He didn’t feel it, not in any real way. Family was something people talked about on holidays. On deathbeds. Not here.

Not in this place.

But still… they were his. In the only way that mattered.

He knew them by type — which ones pushed, which ones pulled, which ones could be manipulated with just enough rope to feel free. Robert was the only one he didn’t ignore — steady, contained, smart enough to keep Kai’s attention. The others were still kids in a world that never made them grow up.

And he was a man in a world that never let him change.

“So what’s the plan?” Robert asked finally, between bites.

Kai leaned back in his chair, spinning his fork slowly.

“We stay at the boarding house,” he said. “It’s close to her — not too close. I want to observe her longer. She doesn’t know she’s being watched. That makes her honest.”

“Honest about what?” Myles asked.

“About who she is.”

“You think she’s dangerous?” Robert asked.

Kai tilted his head. “Not yet. But Bennett witches are like rattlesnakes. Quiet until they strike. You don’t ignore that kind of bloodline. You study it. You dissect it.”

Four heads looked back at him now, all their chewing paused.

“She’s a Bennett?” Robbie asked, his tone shifting immediately.

Kai nodded once. “She went into the replica house. Sheila’s house. Unlocked it like she’d lived there. Started cooking like it was second nature. The loop reacted to her — not like it does with us. That doesn’t happen for just anyone.”

Beatrice blinked. “Like… the Bennetts?”

“Yep,” Kai said, grabbing his drink. “Same family that helped Dad build this place. Same bloodline. Same magic. Different packaging.”

“You sure?” Myles asked.

“Sure enough.”

“So she’s the key?” Myles asked, mouth half-full. “The magical escape clause we always hoped for?”

Kai shrugged. “Maybe. Or she’s just another layer of the prison. A test. A trick. Could go either way.”

Beatrice looked up from her plate. “I like her.”

Kai turned toward her.

“You don’t even know her.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t like her.”

“It does to me,” he said simply.

That quieted the table.

He finally took a bite of the pasta.

It was perfect. Rich. Balanced. Creamy with a bite of citrus.

But flat.

It was missing something. Something he couldn’t recreate. Something that had been simmering in the Bennett girl’s sauce and hadn’t left his tongue since sunset.

It wasn’t flavor.

It was the pattern. The way her presence threaded itself into what she made — seamless, unstudied. Illogical.

And it disturbed him.

Not emotionally. Intellectually.

Because he didn’t understand it. And what he didn’t understand, he couldn’t control.

He mimicked. Studied. Performed. Took whatever emotion was needed and wore it like a coat — just long enough to serve its purpose, then discarded it.

But whatever she had… it wasn’t mimicry.

It was real.

And it made him want to peel the world apart just to find where it came from.

Kai stood suddenly, pushed his plate away, and walked to the sink.

“Get some sleep,” he said over his shoulder.

“Tomorrow we start testing the limits.”

“Of what?” Nathan asked.

Kai didn’t turn around.

“Her.”

Chapter Text

CHAPTER 3 — (RESIDUE)

Bonnie

The sunlight hit Bonnie’s face through gauzy white curtains, soft and warm, almost too gentle to be real. She blinked against it, not because it hurt, but because it felt like a lie.
This world was good at lies.

She sat up slowly, the cotton sheets sliding off her body, and let her bare feet touch the cold wood floor. Another day. Or the same one, again. It was hard to tell anymore.

The house felt quiet. Too quiet.

She pulled on one of her Grams’ old robes, now hers by inheritance and memory, and padded into the kitchen. The coffee had to be brewed manually — of course it did — and while it dripped, she opened a small notebook she’d been using since her arrival.

On the first page:

Find the spell. Find the exit.

Below it, lines of crossed-out symbols, half-decoded glyphs, and theories that weren’t leading anywhere.

Today, she added:

Grams always hid things in layers. Look deeper.

Coffee in hand, she walked to the back study — a room she hadn’t finished sorting through yet. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, many handwritten, some burned at the edges, all arranged like someone wanted her to find something specific.

This place was a copy of Sheila’s real house. A loving one. Intentional.
And if Grams built it, then she left something here.

Bonnie knelt on the rug and began sorting. Grimoires marked with runes. Personal journals. One labeled in Sheila’s tidy script:

Ancestral Guidance – Emergency Protocols

“Emergency enough,” she muttered, opening it.

Pages of notes. Spells for contacting spirits. Pathway sigils. Dimensional navigation.

Most required power.

Channeling. Intent. Focus.

Bonnie held her hands above the page and inhaled, grounding herself.

Nothing.

Not even a spark.

She tried again — louder this time, firmer, reaching for the candle wick as she spoke the incantation.

Still nothing.

“Come on, come on, come on…”

She tried the old way — open heart, reach with her spirit.

No warmth. No hum. No flicker.

Her forehead met the book.

“Grams? It’s me. Bonnie.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know what this place is exactly, but I know you had something to do with it. You said you’d always be with me… so here I am. Asking for help. Please. Say something.”

She opened her eyes.

Stillness.
Silence.
Nothing.

Her stomach sank. Her fingers clenched the robe.

“Dammit,” she whispered. “Come on, Grams. You sent me here. The least you could do is answer.”

She rubbed her face, throat tight, frustration buzzing through her like static.

“What good is being a witch if you can’t even use your magic?”

Out in the trees behind the house, hidden in a curve of thick woods, a man crouched low behind a pine.

Paying close attention to her every move.

She couldn’t sit still anymore. The frustration scraped at her ribs, and her body felt too small for the tension inside it.

She needed to move.

She changed into shorts and a bathing suit, threw a towel over her shoulder, and headed out behind the house. The pond glistened like polished glass beneath the static midday sun. It wasn’t huge — just big enough for kids from all nine houses on the block to spend summers in it. A small wooden deck jutted over the water, sun-bleached and simple.

She waded in.
The cold hit her hard enough to make her breath catch.
She dove beneath the surface and came up gasping, her curls hugging her face in wet, tight coils, goosebumps rising along her arms.

For a few minutes, she floated.
Eyes to the sky.

This prison — this world — hadn’t taken everything.
Water still felt like water.
Her lungs still burned with breath.
The sun still warmed her face.

Maybe it wasn’t the worst kind of limbo.

But it wasn’t freedom.
And it wasn’t home.

She thought about Jeremy. Elena. Caroline.
She thought about Grams.

What would she do here?

Bonnie didn’t know. But she wasn’t ready to stop asking.

After the swim, she showered. She slipped into one of Grams’s house cardigans and soft drawstring pants — warm, worn, and comforting in a way she didn’t expect. With a cup of tea, she sat down in front of the grimoires.

She opened a volume on dimensional anomalies.

Halfway down the page, she froze.

She had folded this corner yesterday.
She remembered doing it.

Now it was smooth.
Flat.

Reset.

The book sat exactly where it belonged every morning. So did everything else.

“Fine,” she muttered. “You win that one.”

Behind her, the radio downstairs clicked on. Not loudly. Just that soft hum of static it always started with after reset. She hadn’t touched it.

She stood in front of it now, “Not funny,” she said, turning it off.

She hoped she was talking to no one.

She’d dealt with spirits. Vampires. Hybrids. Doppelgängers.
If this place thought it could break her, it needed to try harder.

From the woods, Kai chewed a blade of grass and watched her through binoculars.

No magic.
Talking to herself.
Didn’t scare easy.

This was going to be fun.

By the next reset, the cracks were showing.

That morning, the guest-bedroom window was cracked open. The Reset should’ve closed it. But a thin smear of mud streaked the sill.

Not a footprint.
Not proof.
Just wrong.

Later, she set the kettle on to boil. Left the room for a moment. Came back.

Gone.

Not moved.
Gone.

She found it an hour later wedged neatly in the linen closet between towels, positioned like someone had set it there on purpose.

“The world is misplacing things now,” she muttered. “Great.”

Her chalk sigils weren’t smudging themselves mid-day — but they might as well have been. Straight lines appeared crooked. Curves blurred. Reset wasn’t supposed to change things before midnight.

Maybe time here was fraying.

The radio had started clicking on randomly often too — static, not music — like the dial kept shifting on its own. She hadn’t touched it.

She began leaving notes for herself.
Markers.
Objects arranged in specific ways.

Every morning after reset, something would be off.

A chair straightened.
A glass flipped upright.
A book shed placed on the shelf would be sitting on a table.l.

By the third reset, she started watching smaller things.

Spoons.

Half the drawer was empty.
She hadn’t used them.

Later, she found them on the back porch rail — lined up, handle to handle, sunlight reflecting off each bowl.

Too neat.
Too deliberate.

“I am not crazy,” she told the yard.

No one disagreed.

That night, she slept on the couch.
Not because she was scared — she was too tired to be scared.
She left a light on and the fireplace glowing low.

Sometime past midnight, she drifted off.

And woke to the same radio song.
Same second.
Same note.
Same light.
Same time.

Reset.

Again.

From the woods, Beatrice yawned into the walkie.
“She’s losing it. Not major, but she’s twitchy.”

“She’s close,” Myles added from crouched down hidden by the side porch. “Saw her talking to her coffee cup.”

“She’s gonna snap soon,” Nathan said.

Kai watched Bonnie pace the yard, barefoot, drawing sigils in the dirt.

“She’s trying grounding spells again,” he murmured. “Same structure. Different forms.”

“Should we pull back?” Robert asked.

“No,” Kai said. “One more reset. Then we start pushing.”

By the next cycle, the tricks had settled into a routine.

Bonnie woke.
Did the same loop.
Watched the world reset while she didn’t.

And she added a new habit.

The crossword.

The paper reset every morning. Same date. Same puzzle.

She’d filled it out once on a whim.
Now it grounded her.

“Seven-letter word for ‘kill me now,’” she muttered.

Every day she filled it in faster.

Every day she stalled on one clue.

27 across: Old tongue twister, Eddie turned top 40?
Eleven letters.

She knew Eddie Vedder. Knew Pearl Jam.
Still couldn’t get the answer.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Four months of the same puzzle…”

Blank.

She snapped the pencil.

Went to the bathroom to splash her face.

“I’m not crazy,” she told her reflection. “This place is.”

Next day, she tried again.

Same clue.
Same block.

She left it blank out of spite and walked away.

Out in the woods, Kai grinned.
“She hates that puzzle,” Beatrice said.
“Good,” Kai replied.

The day it snapped was nothing dramatic.

Bonnie sat at the table, tea cooling beside her, cardigan pulled tight. She filled in the crossword automatically, breezing through the clues.

Until 27 across.

She dropped the pencil.

“Bathroom,” she muttered. “Don’t move.”

She headed down the hall, working her fingers lightly through her curls as she went. At the sink, she washed her face, moisturized, then brushed her teeth. The routine took a few minutes — just enough to settle her nerves.

When she came back to the kitchen, she sat down.

The paper lay open exactly as she left it.

But the last answer wasn’t blank.

She stared at the word:

Yellow Ledbetter

A weight settled in her chest.

Someone else was here.
Close enough to watch her walk away.

Bonnie inhaled once. Slow. Controlled.

Fear hit hard — a cold spike — but she boxed it in.

She folded the paper neatly.
Set it aside.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Noted.”

All the strange things from the last few days…
She hadn’t imagined them.

That was a comfort.

Someone wanted her attention.

___________________________________________________
Now they had it.

Across town, Kai stood in the parlor of the Salvatore Boarding House. The room looked frozen — dust suspended in sunlight.

“Witches don’t lose their magic,” he muttered.

He talked mostly to himself. The siblings were scattered — Nathan asleep in the library, Myles in the basement tinkering with wires, Beatrice hiding inside the grandfather clock, Robert silent somewhere in the house.

“They get bound. Blocked. Burned out. She’s not broken. Just blocked.”

He crossed the room, boots thudding lightly, stepping onto the raised platform on the right — the one with the shallow steps leading toward the hallway and the staircase behind the wall.

He was halfway across when he stopped.

Bonnie stood at the bottom of the platform steps, looking up at him.

Real.
Here.
Close.

Kai didn’t move.
Neither did she.

Her posture stayed steady.
Her eyes fixed on him.

Kai tilted his head slightly.

“Hi,” she said, voice low and calm.

A beat.

“Are you the one who’s been moving my spoons?”