Margot, who Josh had thought did not have any tattoos, had suddenly gained a rather large and complex half sleeve that covered her entire forearm. But what really shocked Josh to his core was that the design on her arm was glowing a bright white light. And as she held her arm close to Sara’s forearm, that light was spreading. Like it was being transferred from contact paper, the marks were beginning to appear on Sara’s arm.

That was when Josh stepped back and decided that he hadn’t seen anything. He went to the bathroom, closed the door very quietly, took care of his business—which took a while—and returned to the kitchen area. Margot and Sara were already back and engaged in quiet excited conversation with Connor. They transitioned into something more audible as Josh approached and their level of casual banter seemed incredibly natural. If Josh weren’t still able to see the suddenly very visible tattoos on both Margot and Sara’s left arms, he would think nothing had changed. Out of curiosity, Josh’s eyes made their way over to Connor’s left arm. But it was obscured by his long sleeves. If there was anything there the only part he’d be able to see wouldn’t confirm any of his newfound paranoia.

“Thank you again for helping, Josh.” Sara was beaming at him as he sat down. “But I won’t make you help us unpack. That’s a lot to ask of you. But, when we’re done… maybe… would you want to come over for a movie night?”

“Uh… I’ll see how things go. I have to go over some early homework for a few classes, but I could maybe make some time.”

“Well, you’re welcome here any time… Preferably while I’m here too, but I’ve decided not to move in.” Margot looked pained as she said it. “So I won’t be around that much.”

Her meaning was distinctly unclear. It sounded like she was warning Josh against getting close to her daughter in an unsupervised setting, but also like she was encouraging those unsupervised social interactions to happen. And yet the tone she had used for each seemed swapped with what Josh thought it should be.

“I’ll remember that. But I should also go and get ahead on that homework…”

“Oh, yeah. We got it from here.” Connor stood and waved Josh towards the door with food still in his mouth. “Take care of your business, you helped with ours.”

“Yeah…” Josh wasn’t exactly sure how best to exit, but he figured heading towards the door was a good start.

“Thank you again.” Sara smiled and waved. “Oh! Wait!”

Josh froze in his tracks. And for a moment he was afraid that she was going to say something about what he’d seen… maybe that she’d realized he’d been so close when it happened. But she didn’t have a hint of malice in her voice.

“Let me get your number.” Sara held out her phone and an empty hand to take Josh’s. “You know, so I can invite you to movie nights and stuff?”

“Sure.” Josh reluctantly handed over his phone and accepted hers.

It was a different model of phone and Josh struggled initially to figure out how to put his number in while Sara seemed to be done before he could understand what was happening.

“Oh, yo. Put mine in there too and send me a text.” Connor called from the island.

“Wait… Why?” Sara sounded just as confused as Josh was by the request.

“Because you’re gonna harass him and not know it, and I’m gonna be the one to apologize for you.” Connor laughed, nearly spitting out his food. “You’re not a low energy person Sara. You need a balance.”

“I worry about you two.” Margot sighed. “And heaven help you, Josh, it’s too late to get out now.”

Something about the way she said it made Josh’s eyes dart to to Margot’s arm where the marks that hadn’t been there before still lay visible. The glance did not go unnoticed by Margot, but Josh quickly thrust the phone in his hand back to its owner and accepted his own back.

Josh tried to act casual, but the strangeness was starting to get to him. “I’ll be fine, just don’t run up my phone bill.”

“No promises.” Sara was completely unphased by the awkward tension in the room. She was smiling, same as she had been when she first met Josh. All sincerity. No doubts that she wanted to be friends.

Josh couldn’t feel uncomfortable, not completely, not with the pure honest glowing off the girl in front of him. But he couldn’t keep talking, he needed to leave. To breath air untainted by confusion and insanity. And with a nod, he left. He didn’t see the nodding behind him as he turned to leave. And as soon as he closed the door he made his way immediately to the elevator while he checked his phone. There were two new numbers in his contacts, Connor Bushnell and Sara Wilder.

And while Joshua Hall was looking at his phone, mid descent on the long elevator ride back down to earth, Connor, Margot, and Sara were sharing a silent conversation. One that quickly grew out of its silence.

“You said he wasn’t able to see your mark before… but you’ve had sleeves on all day, haven’t you?” Margot’s tone had quickly because accusatory.

“I think so…” Connor’s face went flush. “I was cold this morning though….”

Margot sighed. “If your mark was active I’d be a lot more frustrated with you, but you’re both still young and the rules don’t mean as much to you yet. When you get activated, you’ll understand. But you need to keep your marks visible as much as possible. That way, when someone else can see them, you can help.”

“You’re sure he saw yours?” Sara was being uncharacteristically sheepish. “He didn’t seem to react when you showed up, and he didn’t react to mine…”

“I just gave you yours, and he wasn’t looking at your hands when you traded phones.” Margot had her face in her hands now. “So you two need to find out if he can see your marks… and if he could have always seen them or if interacting so closely with you two changed things.”

“He might have seen you pass it on… he went to the bathroom while you two were off… changing Sara’s fate.” Connor was back to his food, but there was a sulking manner in his posture as he finished off his meal.

“That… is admittedly possible. When we came out, the bedroom door was ajar.” Margot brought her fingers to a point and rested her chin on them. “And I don’t frankly remember which of us closed it, or tried to at least. So there’s no blame to put on anyone if that’s what happened. But I admit, it would be regrettable if we cut his future short like that. I don’t care for the people that have bright futures here, but we all agreed that dragging them out of their potential was a bad idea. It’s a shallow world for them, but it isn’t painful.”

“Marked life doesn’t have to be painful either, Margot…” Sara started, “and he doesn’t seem the type to pry. He might be content to just move on with things if he gets pulled in…”

“I’ve never seen that happen with interrupted people. But we don’t even know if that is what happened.” Margot sighed. “But we can worry about it in a bit. You two should get unpacked. I’ll take the truck back and then sleep here for tonight. But after that, I want you two to figure out what’s going on with Josh… and please, for the love of all that is good, don’t scare him. You knew Connor for a long time before he was ready to hear the whole truth, and he’s been able to see the marks his whole life.”

“Alright…” Sara and Connor sighed in unison.

And by the time that conversation had played out, Josh was walking down the street; occasionally he would look up and back towards the highest balcony on the building he was fleeing from. There was no way that he would be able to see if any of his new acquaintances, or for them to see him as he walked away. But there was an intense sense of fear that Josh couldn’t explain developing within his mind. Fear of something he couldn’t explain no matter how hard he tried to pretend he’d imagined it. It was as though he was waking from a nightmare and trying to calm himself by saying it was all just a dream.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a dream at all. Quite the opposite sensation seemed to be dawning on him.For reasons that Josh did not understand, he began to feel more and more as if the world he was in—the world he had always been in—was more dream or nightmare than reality and he was struggling to convince himself that he’d woken up from it. That daze of confusion and fear persisted even as Josh opened the door to his door and slid through the barely opened door.

The door to the dorm was in poor condition. It opened all the way, but squeaked very loudly if opened more than two feet wide. Which meant that if anyone wanted to sneak in or out, or even just not draw attention to themselves, they had to squeeze through a small gap. It made it helpful for Josh when he was trying to judge when it was safe to venture out of his room when he knew Kerry had company over. He didn’t tell the girls he brought home about the door on purpose, that way he knew if they tried to sneak away from him. It as also a decent alarm in case anyone tried to break into the dorm, which had happened once.

“How’d the move with the spunky blonde chick go?” Kerry didn’t need to hear the door to notice that Josh had slunk back in. “Did you get any?”

Josh groaned. The discomfort of being asked a question like that, combined with the psychological discomfort of what he had seen was not a pleasant cocktail.

“Things were fine, for a bit. But they got… weird.”

Kerry was reclined at one of the study desks, eyes on the front door. The room was shockingly empty of companionship for a Saturday.

“Yeah. That’s usually why I try and keep things in my own space instead of going to a girl’s place. Unless its a really nice place… like the girl is rich or something. Like…. ah… what’s her face… Jennifer...” Kerry lost track of his thoughts as he rambled on. “But what happened? Weird how?”

“She moved into the Benedictine… into the penthouse.” Josh didn’t know how to start with anything else that went weird, and that seemed to be the most unusual part of his day.

“Oh… snap. That’s ritzy.” Kerry turned around completely, immediately interested. “But it’s weird that she asked for help if she’s got that much money.”

“I have no idea if she has money or not. Her mom said they got a discount on the apartment…”

“Oh, woah. Hold up. Her mom was there?”

“Yeah, and her roommate…”

“Was her roommate cute?” The question was basically a reflex for Kerry, Josh couldn’t fault him for maintaining his priorities.

“I… guess?” Josh wasn’t entirely sure how to process the question. The fact that Connor was a man and Kerry was not interested in men totally slipped his mind. “Not the point…”

“Right… Right. Josh, I’m sorry. What else happened?”

“I saw… something. I don’t know how to describe it. It was like I was seeing magic. Real magic.”

Kerry stood and made his way over to Josh, concern clear on his face.“You’re going to have to be real careful about how you explain this to me, and you need to explain this to me or I’m going to ask you to see someone in the campus clinic. What did you actually see?”

“I saw Sara, the girl you saw me talking to after class, and her mom in her room. And her mom did something. And there was a bright light, like a glow, and she gave Sara a tattoo… I think?”

“Hell…” Kerry hissed through his teeth. “That sounds bad.”

“I don’t think it was bad…” Josh was about to try and play it down, but he was interrupted.

“No, I mean you sound like you’re crazy and I’m worried about you. I think you should get checked out. Maybe you overworked yourself and got lightheaded and saw something that didn’t happen.”

“I… might have.” Josh paused. “But I have a better idea. I can’t afford another clinic visit this year. But they invited me over for a movie night tomorrow after they finish moving in their things, and you can come with me to verify if I’m losing it. And I promise, if I’m seeing things you don’t I will absolutely get help.”

“You promise you’ll trust me if I say you’re seeing things?”

“You tried to gaslight me into believing I ate the last frozen burrito twice last month.” Josh was mostly joking, but as he made eye contact with Kerry he knew his roommate and friend was taking the situation more seriously than he normally took anything. “But yeah. I trust you about real stuff.”

“And this is real stuff. People doing magic is always real stuff. Because people thinking they see magic never turns out well.”

Josh nodded in unison with Kerry at the sentiment. They’d both completed a unit on Salem the previous semester for their rhetoric one class. They knew how slippery things could get one people believed they were seeing things that weren’t really happening. If historical accounts were anything to go by, someone usually died.