Revelations by Hellmouthguy

One

THE WITCH

"I don't believe in magic," the handsome, shirtless boy with the bushy blonde hair and the blue rimless spectacles said, as he sat down at the picnic table and handed a five-pound note to the dark-haired woman looking back at him with a hint of amusement in her green eyes. "Just so we understand each other, luv."

"So then why are you here?" she said.

"Maybe I'm curious. Or maybe I just like talking to pretty girls," the boy said, and grinned. "So what's your name?"

"Willow," the woman said.

"Willow," the boy said. "Pretty name. I'm--"

"Oliver," Willow said, and shuffled her tarot cards. "Don't you think I'm maybe a little old for you?"

"Hold on," Oliver said. "How did you know my name?"

Willow smiled.

"Magic," she said.

People had been stopping by the picnic table all day long on their way to catch the next gig, or to the food stalls for fish and chips or bangers and mash; Willow was doing tarot and palm readings for five pounds a pop and business was good. But Willow wasn't looking to make money that bright, blustery summer day at the Reading Festival in England; she was looking for a girl. She kept scanning the crowd of gawking, pot-smoking teenagers as they passed.

Willow had been looking for this particular girl all day long. She knew she was here somewhere but she hadn't come across her yet, not even at David Bowie's set, where she had been absolutely certain she'd find her.

But Willow wasn't worried. She knew she'd find her sooner or later...

The Reading Festival attracted teenagers from all across the United Kingdom and Europe, and a fair number from the United States too, and they all seemed exceptionally open-minded about magic; the kids visiting Willow's picnic table had been a constant all day long. The Viet Nam War had a generation questioning its values and the counter-culture was in full swing; young people were open to new experiences.

They were open to magic.

It was August eleventh, 1972.

"Hey," Willow heard a girl say to her friend as they passed by the table. "Let's stop here, I heard people saying this fortune-teller woman really is something."

Willow looked up. The girl who had spoken was pretty, with long, thick dark hair, a curvaceous, tanned body that hadn't quite lost all of its baby fat, and a carefree smile. She talked too loud, and she giggled when she talked. She was wearing a blue peasant skirt and yellow flip-flops and a bright yellow tie-dyed tee-shirt, and far too much makeup, and also the most enormous gold hoop earrings Willow had ever seen. She had big hazel eyes that were entirely devoid of calculation or artifice, eyes Willow knew hadn't yet seen the world, and didn't understand what people were capable of. But Willow knew the girl's eyes would change, after tonight...tonight, that girl would know firsthand the terrible things people could do to each other.

Willow knew the girl's name was Heather.

Willow kept her eyes on the blonde-haired girl with her.

"Fortune-telling's rubbish, Heather," the blonde girl with the deep, dark blue eyes said, and lit a cigarette. "It's nothing more than a way to separate wankers from their money."

"Oh, come on, birthday girl, it'll be fun!" Heather said, all grins and giggles, and dragged her friend toward the picnic table.

"Magic, huh? Or maybe you heard my mates call me by name during Zeppelin's set?" Oliver said, with a big smile. "I saw you there."

"Actually I'm pretty sure Zeppelin permanently damaged my hearing? So, nope," Willow said, and looked up at Heather and her friend as they approached her table. Oliver was looking at them too now, appraising them. Heather was appraising him right back. Her friend was rolling her eyes.

"Sure, sure. So are you supposed to be a witch then?" Oliver said, focusing his attention on Willow again. "Like with crystal balls and black cats and all that? Or are you just a pretty girl with a hobby?"

"Witch. Got a crystal ball at home. Not so much with the black cats though. Got a big, obnoxious dog who barks at everyone in the world."

"But you're pretty."

Willow smiled again. Men could be fun at his age.

"So what kind of reading are you interested in?" she said. "Let me guess. You're just dying to find out how your love life's gonna go, right?"

Heather giggled, and moved closer to the table, and dragged her friend with her. Her friend smoked her cigarette and looked bored. She was wearing a Ziggy Stardust tee-shirt, cut-off jeans, pink sandals with straps colored like rainbows, and a string of turquoise love beads around her neck. Her blonde hair reached to her waist, and she wore a white rose in it, just above her ear.

Willow thought Heather's friend looked absolutely adorable. It was all she could do not to leap up and hug her.

"Hello, girls," Willow said.

"Cheers," Heather said, and smiled.

Her friend merely nodded at Willow, and smoked her cigarette, and looked bored. She didn't smile.

"You girls here for a reading?" Willow said.

"No," the blonde girl said.

"Yes," Heather said.

The blonde girl frowned at Heather. Heather smiled back at her.

"Don't you believe in magic?" Willow said to the blonde girl.

"No," the blonde girl said, firmly.

"Bet I can change your mind," Willow said.

The blonde girl raised her eyebrow. "When my mind is made up, it doesn't change," she said. Firmly.

Heather put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Sorry, Rebecca doesn't mean to be rude," she said. "But her total prat of a boyfriend took off on her yesterday and she's feeling pissy about things."

Rebecca glared at Heather. Heather smiled back at her.

"Like I give a toss," Rebecca growled, and then glared at Oliver too. "My only regret is I didn't kick him in the balls before he buggered off. Men are good for exactly fuck-all."

"Well I couldn't possibly imagine why any man would ever leave a ray of sunshine like you," Oliver said, and grinned at Rebecca. Rebecca blew cigarette smoke at him.

"She's feeling pissy about men too," Heather said, and giggled. "Nothing personal, mate."

"So what kind of accent is that?" Oliver said, writing Rebecca off as a lost cause, and turning back to Willow. "You from around here?"

"I'm American," Willow said. "I only moved to London a few years ago. Guess the English accent's not all there yet, huh?"

"A Yank witch?" Oliver said. "Seems inappropriate somehow. Well don't worry, your accent's lovely. So how about a palm reading instead of those cards."

"You just want me to hold your hand, don't you?" Willow said. "You understand that I'm like, kind of a lot older than you?"

"I like older women. And I'm eighteen, you're not that much older. What are you, maybe twenty-one, twenty-two?"

"Twenty-eight. And even though this is all just you completely hitting on me? I'll take the compliment anyway."

"Am I that transparent?" Oliver said, and got the cutest pouty look in his eyes. Willow knew it was as practiced as the rest of his routine, but she enjoyed the act anyway; it was like seeing a favorite play she had attended many times before. There were no surprises, but that didn't mean there was no pleasure in watching the actors bring the story to life.

"Yup," Willow said, to Heather's amusement. But Willow said it with a smile. Oliver laughed, in tacit acknowledgment that he had lost ground, but it was the kind of laugh that clearly signaled he was going to keep on plugging away.

Willow knew his type; she had once known a boy just like him. Gorgeous, smart, clever, funny, magnetic...full of life and light...for awhile.

Willow knew Oliver enjoyed being Oliver; life was always fun for someone like him. Every day there were new opportunities to look forward to, new conquests to make...for awhile.

Until one day, without any warning, your time ran out...

Willow remembered a beautiful boy with big brown eyes. He always told her dumb jokes...they always made her laugh...

And then his time had run out.

And even though Willow had come to hate that beautiful boy for the terrible thing he did to her friends before he died, she knew that what he had done, he had done for love...and eventually, she just couldn't bring herself to hate him anymore.

Willow knew part of her still loved that beautiful, brown-eyed boy...part of her always would.

Willow knew everything came down to love, in the end. It was the engine that drove the world, and it was the surest evidence of the Goddess's hand. Love made people desperate, and sometimes it even made them monstrous...but it made them beautiful, too. It made them human.

Out of the corner of her eye, Willow noticed Rebecca checking Oliver out covertly. She seemed to be having a hard time tearing her eyes away from his shoulders. Willow couldn't blame her. Oliver had great shoulders.

Willow took Oliver's hand in hers, and looked at his palm. Most of the time in palm readings, the person being read looked down at their palm with the reader, so they could try to follow what the reader was talking about. But Oliver looked into Willow's eyes.

"Do you see a dark-haired beauty in my future?" Oliver said, as he smiled and leaned closer to Willow. "Perhaps she'll have lovely green eyes?"

"You never know," Heather said, and giggled. Oliver looked back at her, appraising her again. He seemed to like what he saw. Rebecca blew cigarette smoke at him.

"'Fraid not, handsome," Willow said. "I see a blonde-haired beauty in your future."

Oliver glanced back at Rebecca with a devilish smile.

Rebecca raised her eyebrow.

"Not if you were the last man on Earth and I was being chased by a pack of wild lesbians," Rebecca said, and made Willow laugh out loud. Oliver laughed too, and turned back to Willow.

"So what's in store for me, Willow?" he said. "And who's this mysterious blonde beauty? Just please tell me it's not the girl standing behind me."

"Not on the best day of your life," Rebecca said to the back of Oliver's head, while staring at his shoulders.

"Oh, that's brilliant," Oliver said, without bothering to turn around.

Willow studied Oliver's palm. His life line was short, but she didn't need that to know he was going to die young.

Willow knew he would die at age thirty-three, not half a mile from where they were sitting. He would die with his six-year old daughter.

"You'll have a happy life," Willow said. "You'll live every day to its fullest. You'll have a lot of friends. Um, a whole lot of girlfriends too."

"Now, come on Will," Oliver said. "That's just a bunch of generalizations, anyone could say that stuff. I just know you're a better witch than that."

"Of course it's all generalizations," Rebecca said. "Fortune-telling's rubbish."

Willow looked up at Rebecca, and smiled.

"Um, no offense, miss," Rebecca said.

"None taken," Willow said. "But now you're definitely gonna have to let me give you a reading."

"I don't think so," Rebecca said, a hint of a smile tugging at the edges of her lips. "I can think of a lot more productive things to do with a fiver."

"Your friend said today's your birthday, didn't she?" Willow said. "So the reading's free."

"I thought you didn't like me," Oliver said, looking up at Rebecca with a playful little challenge in his eyes. "Now you're talking to me?"

"She likes you," Heather said. "Our Rebecca's always a little bitchy with guys she likes."

Rebecca nearly, but not quite, blushed. She turned to Heather and folded her arms across her chest and fixed her with a glare that could have frozen the English Channel. Heather looked right back into Rebecca's dark blue eyes and remained unimpressed.

"I'm impervious to your evil eyes, dearie," Heather said. "But you're beautiful when you're angry."

"I wouldn't say beautiful," Oliver said. "Cute, certainly. I'd go as high as fetching, maybe."

"You be quiet," Rebecca said, pointing at him, and aiming the glare in his direction. She turned back to Heather. "Why do I let you hang around and annoy me all the time?"

"Because you love when I annoy you," Heather said. "And because without me to guide you through life I'm absolutely certain you'll end up some miserable old hen living alone with six cats."

"And how old's the birthday girl?" Oliver said.

"She's sixteen," Heather said. "Going on forty."

Oliver laughed again. Rebecca glared at him, then turned back to Willow.

"I suppose if the reading were free," Rebecca said. "But so far you haven't told him anything any flim-flam artist couldn't come up with off the top of her head. No offense."

"None taken," Willow said. "You really are very cute when you're angry."

"Fetching, even," Oliver said. "And she's right. Come on now Willow, tell me something I don't know. How about the name of that blonde beauty you mentioned?"

"Actually there are two blonde beauties," Willow said. "I'll give you one of their names. The other one...I'll leave that for you to find out yourself. Life's no fun without surprises, right?"

"Sounds fair, I suppose," Oliver said. "So is this the first blonde beauty I'm gonna end up with, or the second?"

"Second. Meeting the first is how you're gonna end up meeting the second."

"So what's this second girl's name?"

Willow glanced up at Rebecca. Rebecca raised her eyebrow again.

"Well don't look at me," Rebecca said.

"Believe me, I wasn't," Oliver said, without looking at her.

"Gwendolyn," Willow said.

Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, I thought you were gonna tell me it's her," he said, and did look up at Rebecca this time, and grinned.

Rebecca gave Oliver a good, long, glaring-at.

"You are the ponciest excuse for a complete tosser I have ever had the utter misfortune to lay my eyes upon," Rebecca said.

"That means she wants you to ask her out, mate," Heather said.

Willow told Oliver he would be an architect someday, and that the band he had put together would unfortunately not score a record deal no matter how great he insisted their demo tape was. Oliver asked for her phone number when the reading was done, and Willow told him she liked girls.

"That is a terrible, terrible tragedy for men everywhere," Oliver said, and smiled gallantly.

"But maybe not so bad for a certain woman," Willow said.

"And my band really isn't gonna work? Really? Because we've got a hell of a demo tape, you know."

"Sorry, sweetie. No groupies for you. You have too many women as it is. I think you need to settle down."

"So I've been trying to pick you up all this time and you were already taken? And by a girl, no less. Well that's hardly fair. I feel used."

"I've got a blonde beauty too," Willow said.

Oliver kissed Willow's hand as he stood up, and then bowed to Rebecca.

"Madame," he said, bowing low in front of Rebecca. "I am ever at your service."

"Oh, please," Rebecca said, and blew smoke at him. But when she sat down at the picnic table across from Willow, that hint of a smile tugged at the edges of her lips again.

Willow and Rebecca watched Oliver as he walked away. He looked great walking away. Willow looked back at Rebecca, and raised her eyebrow.

Rebecca frowned at her. Then she put her cigarette out against the edge of the picnic table, and folded her arms across her chest, all business. "Well then. I'm going to tell you straight off that I think all of this is claptrap," she said.

"Do you know you make the most adorable hippie ever?" Willow said.

"Hippie?" Rebecca said, as if someone just told her that her house had exploded. She raised her eyebrow, unholstered the glare, aimed it squarely at Willow and cocked the trigger. Behind her, Heather stopped Oliver on his way to the food stalls.

"Right, so where are you from, mate?" Heather said.

"Uh, Manchester," Oliver said. "I'm just down for the--"

"Smashing. We're from Staffordshire, it's right close by. Here you go then." Heather took a pen and a slip of paper from her purse, wrote down a phone number, and pressed it into his hand.

"What's this?"

"Rebecca's phone number. We're heading home tomorrow night, you can call her Sunday. Seven-ish."

"Call her?" Oliver said. "Are you daft, woman?"

"Oh, please! You know you want to. I was just about to tell you two to get a room back there. You have a car, right? If you don't have a car then forget it."

"Well, yeah, but--"

"Fabulous. It's a date."

"But--"

"She can really be very nice. I'll make her be nice, I promise."

"I don't think anyone can make that girl do anything," Oliver said, and looked back at Rebecca, and frowned. "Maybe I'll call her. If I'm bored. And if she's lucky."

"Oh, we both know you're gonna call her so stop pretending you're not," Heather said. "Sunday night's good. And bring a friend for me, we'll be double-dating. Make sure he's cute. Rebecca and I both like Italian food, by the way. Cheers!" And then she giggled and kissed Oliver's cheek and sauntered back to Willow's picnic table, leaving Oliver to walk away shaking his head.

"I'm not a hippie," Rebecca was saying, sitting there in her Ziggy Stardust tee-shirt and her cut-off jeans and her pink sandals with the rainbow-colored straps and her turquoise love-beads, with a flower in her hair. "Hippies are a lot of ridiculous wankers."

Willow couldn't hold it in any longer; she burst out laughing.

"Oh Goddess," Willow said, and held her head in her hands and laughed and tried to catch her breath. "You are just...so...adorable! Oh, oh my Goddess..."

Rebecca let loose with both barrels on the glare. It had no effect on Willow; Rebecca's glare at age sixteen was nowhere near what it would be thirty years later, when she could drop Willow in her tracks with it at fifty paces.

Willow got her laughter under control. It took some time; Willow thought Rebecca in a hippie outfit was the cutest thing this side of a box full of puppies.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Willow finally said, breathlessly, as her laughter trailed off in a series of goofy giggles. "I'm...being rude. I'm Willow."

"And I'm Heather," Heather said, and sat down next to Rebecca, and giggled. "And this is Rebecca. She's not always so dour. Actually, she is. But it's endearing. Once you get used to it. After a few years or so. Plus she did just get dumped, the poor lamb."

"Heather's my best friend," Rebecca said, and didn't blush through sheer force of will. "So of course she likes embarrassing me in front of strangers."

"Yes, I rather do," Heather said.

"You gave him my phone number, didn't you?" Rebecca said.

"Absolutely," Heather said. "What would you do without me?"

Rebecca sighed.

"Listen to the girl, Becca," Willow said.

"Becca?" Rebecca said.

"You don't like being called Becca?"

"No one's ever called me that before." Rebecca thought about it. "But...I think I like it."

"Thought you might," Willow said.

"Well since it doesn't annoy you at all I suppose I'll just keep calling you Rebecca," Heather said, and giggled. "Maybe Becky."

"Heather, one of these days I'm going to stuff you in a box and mail you to Tasmania," Rebecca said.

"Will you at least punch some air holes in the box?" Heather said.

"You should hold on to her, Becca," Willow said, and began shuffling her tarot cards. This deck was new, and she was still breaking it in; she had given her own deck away the day before. She had been very fond of that deck; it was a magical deck that had been hand-painted for her by a devious Asgardian dwarf named Eitri after Willow had beaten him in a poker game. She'd won Thor's hammer in the poker game too, but had given it back to him once he started getting all pouty. A pouty Thunder God could be dangerous. Unfortunately Willow had to give the tarot deck away because the person she was meant to give it to already had it in their possession before Willow had actually given it to them. You had to be careful with time paradoxes. "You never know, Heather might just bag you a husband someday," Willow added.

"Not today," Rebecca said. "Right, well let's get this over with."

"What kind of reading would you like, sweetie? Palm reading? Tarot?"

"The tarot cards. I know a bit about those so I can catch you if you just start making things up."

Willow laughed again, and shuffled the cards.

"So you know a bit about tarot, huh?" Willow said. She always wished she could have met Rebecca's aunt Jane; she sounded like quite a character from the way Rebecca always described her...

"My aunt Jane is a witch," Rebecca said. "Or she fancies herself one, at least. Mostly she makes smelly potions and goes around talking to trees. She says I have a natural gift, that I could be a witch if I choose."

"Maybe you could."

"Except there's no such thing as magic. No offense."

"None taken. Bet I can change your mind though."

Rebecca raised her eyebrow again.

"I rather doubt it, Willow," she said.

Willow spread the cards in a rainbow, face-up, and let Rebecca get a look at them. Then she picked them up and handed them to her. Rebecca started shuffling. Willow watched Rebecca's hands; all of Rebecca's movements were smooth and sure and precise.

"So should I think of a question?" Rebecca said. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"

"Nah," Willow said. "Just give the deck back to me, then I'm gonna have you pick a card and turn it over. Make sure you turn it across, not up and down."

"Because of reversed cards, right?" Rebecca said, and gave the cards back to Willow.

"Yup," Willow said, and spread the cards out in a rainbow across the table again, face-down. "Okay. So pick a card. The card you pick is gonna be the High Priestess, reversed."

"What?" Rebecca said. "The High Priestess?"

"Yup."

"You're telling me in advance what card I'm gonna pick?"

"You don't believe in magic, right? So I'll show you some. I'm gonna predict every card you pick in advance."

"That's impossible."

"We'll see. Pick a card."

Rebecca shrugged her shoulders and picked a card. She turned it over, horizontally. It was the High Priestess, reversed.

"That's...hey, how'd you do that?" Heather said, and smiled. "That's pretty neat."

"Magic," Willow said. "That card is you, Becca...it's your best destiny, but you haven't achieved it yet. That's why it's reversed. The High Priestess represents mystery, inner wisdom, the unknown. She's female strength. The spirit of the Goddess. She leads us to the understanding of hidden things, and you'll lead other people to that understanding someday. But not until you understand those things yourself first, and you don't yet."

Rebecca searched Willow's eyes.

"The next card will tell us what your situation is now," Willow said. "You're at a crossroads. You might think your aunt Jane's a little loopy but you know your great-grandfather wasn't, and he wanted you to be a Watcher."

"How do you know about--?" Rebecca started to say.

"Magic. You say you don't believe in it but what you mean is you don't want to believe in it. You know your great-grandfather wasn't lying to you when he told you those things."

"Rory?" Heather said. "Rebecca, what did he tell you? What's...a Watcher?"

"Hold it," Rebecca said. "How do you know about that? How do you know about the Watchers? Did they send you? I already told them I'm not interested."

"Wait, who are the Watchers?" Heather said.

"That's...a long story, Heather," Rebecca said, and sighed. "A long, insane story."

"They didn't send me," Willow said. "I know this stuff because I'm a witch. The next card you pick will be the Hermit. Because you've taken yourself out of the fight. Because you need to take some time to think about your life, where you've been and where you're going. Where you stand. Pick a card."

Rebecca folded her arms across her chest, and looked hard at Willow. Willow met her deep blue eyes, and didn't back down.

Eventually, Rebecca blinked.

"Rebecca," Heather said, a new urgency in her tone. "Pick the card."

Rebecca picked a card, and turned it over. It was the Hermit.

"This is a trick," Rebecca said.

"You know it isn't," Willow said. "You're the one picking the cards, not me. I'm not touching the cards. You saw them all face-up, you know all the cards are there. The next card represents why you are where you are. Why you've taken yourself out of the fight. It's gonna be the ten of pentacles, reversed."

A group of four boys happened by. They zig-zagged a bit as they walked. One of them pointed to the picnic table, and they all came over, laughing.

"Sorry boys, last reading of the day," Willow said.

They were apparently Scottish; they said something but Willow hadn't the slightest idea what it was because their accents were very thick, but also because they were all very drunk. They leaned over the picnic table, swaying. One of them flipped Willow the bird, and then they all laughed again.

Rebecca turned and looked at them.

"Piss off," Rebecca growled.

"Oh yeah?" one of them said, and yanked Rebecca's arm.

"Hey!" Heather said.

Willow snapped her fingers. Suddenly all of them, not just the four Scottish boys but Rebecca and Heather too, were focused entirely on Willow.

"You boys are tired," Willow said, looking at each of the boys in turn. "You wanna walk over to that big tree way down there by the food stalls and go to sleep under it."

The four boys turned around and walked away without another word or even a backward glance.

Rebecca and Heather turned and watched them, following their progress all the way to the food stalls, where the four boys found the tree Willow was referring to, laid down under it, and promptly went to sleep.

"Well I am positively fucking gob-smacked over here," Heather muttered, as she watched them.

"What the hell did you just do?" Rebecca said, turning back to Willow and looking hard at her again.

"A bit of suggestion," Willow said. "It usually only works on people who are already under the influence of some sort of depressant. Like booze."

"So if they were doing like LSD it wouldn't have worked?" Heather said.

"Nope," Willow said. "Would've worked if they were doing quaaludes though. Like every third person here."

"What would you have done if they were doing LSD?" Heather said.

Willow smiled. "I would've asked them nicely to leave," she said.

"You really do know magic," Heather said. "I don't bloody believe it. There's magic. Magic really exists. That's...that's...that's...well actually I think it might be kind of fabulous."

"It's all fun and games 'til you get into the eye of newt and the chicken feet," Willow said.

"Suggestion isn't magic," Rebecca said.

"Whatever you say, Scully," Willow said.

"What?" Rebecca said.

"American thing," Willow said. "Okay, back to the reading. Ten of pentacles, reversed."

Rebecca hesitated. She watched Willow suspiciously...met her eyes.

Then she looked down at the picnic table.

"Thank you for helping us with those boys," Rebecca said.

"You're welcome," Willow said, and smiled.

Rebecca looked at the cards. She hesitated. She knew only one of the cards was the ten of pentacles and she was determined not to pick it. Her hand moved toward the left side of the rainbow, then the right; finally she settled on the middle. She picked a card, and flipped it. It was the ten of pentacles, reversed.

"Those little coin-looking things are...?" Heather said.

"Pentacles," Rebecca said. "This card is the ten of pentacles."

"Reversed," Willow said, and looked down at the card with them. It depicted an obviously wealthy family shopping in a marketplace. Ten coins were in the air around them. "That card represents conformity, holding to tradition. The Watchers and the Greers go back a long way. You're part of a great family, Becca. Generation after generation, the Greers have made a difference in the world. But you feel hemmed in by your family and their expectations. You feel like your destiny has been decided in advance, and you want to escape it."

"Hasn't it been decided in advance?" Rebecca said. "You're telling me in advance which fucking cards I'm gonna pick! Don't I get to live my own life? Or does everyone else get to live it for me? Some fucking witch I've never even met lives it for me?"

"Rebecca," Heather said, and took Rebecca's hand. "Don't be mean to her. I think...she just wants to help you."

"Your destiny is yours to make, Becca," Willow said. "The cards haven't predicted your future yet. All they've told you so far is who you are, and who you could be...if you choose. The next card represents things that are fading from your life now, things its time to let go of."

"Fine," Rebecca muttered. "Let's just get this the fuck over with. So what's it gonna be?"

"The Fool," Willow said. "You've had your fun. Now it's time to choose your course."

Rebecca picked a card, and flipped it, and it was the Fool.

"It's time to grow up, sweetie," Willow said. "I know it's not fair. Everyone else, they get to be kids awhile longer. But not people like us. Me? I had to stop being a kid when I was fifteen. Next card represents how you see yourself. What you're thinking about. How you see your life. Seven of wands."

Rebecca sighed and rolled her eyes, and picked a card and flipped it. It was the seven of wands. It showed a man on top of a hill, holding up a staff, fending off attackers coming from below.

"You can tell just looking at it," Willow said. "The card is about fighting. You against the world. That's what you think you're going through now. You're fighting against people's expectations, trying to make your own decisions."

"Losing, apparently," Rebecca said.

Willow touched her hand.

"No," Willow said. "You're not gonna lose. You're gonna make your own decisions. You're gonna live your own life. You're gonna be strong, like you always are. And you're gonna be happy, Becca. You're gonna be surrounded by people who love you."

Rebecca didn't smile, but some light peeked through the storm clouds.

"Next card?" Rebecca said.

"The next card represents an influence coming into your life," Willow said. "Someone who will affect your destiny. King of Wands."

Rebecca knew the next card would be the king of wands so she showed no surprise when it was. The king sat in the middle of the desert on a throne decorated with lions.

"And who's this handsome devil?" Heather said.

"Becca's husband," Willow said.

"So I get to have a husband at least," Rebecca said. "Well bully for me. Are you gonna tell me who he is?"

"No," Willow said.

"Do you...do you know who he is?" Heather said.

"Yeah," Willow said.

"Why not tell me then?" Rebecca said.

"Because if she did you wouldn't marry him just to be stubborn," Heather said. "Obviously."

"Yup, pretty much," Willow said. "Plus life's no fun without surprises, right? The next one is what the cards are saying you should do. Not what you will do. That's up to you. It's what the cards think you should do. Eight of cups."

Rebecca picked a card, and flipped it; it was the eight of cups. The card depicted eight chalices in the foreground, and a man in the background, his back turned, holding a staff in his hand; he seemed to be setting out on a journey. It was night, and the moon was up. The moon had a face drawn on it; it was looking down at the man. The moon's face didn't look happy to Rebecca, but it didn't look angry or judgmental either. Rebecca thought the moon approved of what the man was doing...as if this journey he was going on was something that needed to happen, and the moon had accepted that.

"This card is about going on a journey of discovery, and leaving the past behind you," Willow said. "It's what you need to do."

"And what am I supposed to discover?" Rebecca said.

"I could tell you, but you wouldn't believe me," Willow said.

"I'd discover that what the Watchers say is the truth?"

"Yeah, but trust me, that's the tip of the iceberg. The next card is the forces around you, the things affecting you that you can't control. Judgment."

"What happens if I pick the card instead?" Heather said.

"It'll be a different card," Rebecca said.

"It'll be the same card," Willow said. "Judgment."

"But that's impossible," Rebecca said. "Even by the rules of magic it's impossible. The cards are supposed to be influenced by the person picking them. If Heather picks they should come out different."

"Unless I knew in advance that Heather was gonna pick this time," Willow said.

"You couldn't know that," Rebecca said, and looked at Willow suspiciously again.

"You sure?" Willow said.

Heather picked a card. She hesitated a moment before she flipped it. When she did, she saw that it depicted naked bodies rising up out of coffins, returning to life, their arms raised up to the heavens in supplication, as an Angel appeared in the sky above them, blowing a trumpet.

"Judgment," Heather read, and looked up at Willow, her tanned face suddenly very pale.

"I know, sweetie," Willow said, and smiled, and patted Heather's hand. "Tarot cards can be kinda creepy. It's cool. I'm the Good Witch. Like Glinda from The Wizard of Oz. Right down to the fabulous shoes." Heather giggled, and relaxed.

"So what's it mean?" Rebecca said. "Is the card for me or for Heather?"

"You," Willow said. "This card is about making choices. Everything around you, your family and friends, everything in your life is pushing you toward making a decision, Becca. You can feel it, you can feel the pull of it. You know the future's coming but you haven't decided how you're gonna meet it yet. The decision is up to you, and you still have some time to think about it. But you have to decide eventually. This is the one card in the reading Heather could pick for you, because it represents the forces around you, and Heather's part of that. She influences you. She's gonna help you decide. Might even bag you a husband someday."

"As long as it's not that tosser from today," Rebecca said.

"We're going out with him and a cute friend of his Sunday night, by the way," Heather said.

"Over my dead body we are," Rebecca said. "And how do you even know he'll call?"

"I have magic powers too," Heather said. She held her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes, and pretended to concentrate. "I predict he'll call," she said. "I predict this handsome stranger will have an equally handsome friend, and they will take us out to dinner. And you will be nice to them or I will smack you. Also, you will wear those tight sexy jeans I bought you for your birthday. Yes, I see it all very clearly."

Rebecca sighed.

"Next?" she said, wearily.

"What you want out of life," Willow said. "The Empress."

Rebecca picked a card, and flipped it over to reveal the Empress.

"So like she wants to be the queen of the world?" Heather said, as she looked down at the card, and giggled. "Figures."

"It represents motherhood," Rebecca said. "At least that's what daffy old Aunt Jane says."

"You should listen to Jane," Willow said. "You want to be a mother, Becca. You want someone to take care of."

"Yeah. She does," Heather said.

"You'd make a great psychologist, Heather," Willow said.

"Yeah," Heather said, and giggled. "I think I'm gonna start charging Rebecca money for my sage advice."

"Will I be?" Rebecca said. "Will I be a mother someday?" Willow thought Rebecca looked worried.

"Yeah," Willow said, and smiled. "You're gonna be a great Mom, Becca. A lot of kids are gonna love you."

Willow noticed that hint of a smile tugging at the edges of Rebecca's lips again.

"So I suppose it's time for the last card," Rebecca said.

"How do you know it's the last?" Heather said.

"She's doing a Celtic cross reading," Rebecca said. "She hasn't arranged the cards in the pattern but the meaning of each card is the meaning it has in the Celtic cross. The next card should be the last one."

"Yeah," Willow said.

"And it should be my future," Rebecca said.

"Yeah," Willow said, and scooped up all the cards, and stood up.

"Hold on, why did you do that?" Rebecca said.

"Your future is yours to decide, Becca," Willow said, and put her cards back into their leather pouch.

"But you know it, don't you?" Rebecca said.

"Go have fun," Willow said. "The Stones are starting their set in like twenty minutes. They're never gonna be this great again. Believe me."

"I'm sorry I swore at you, Willow," Rebecca said. "I'm sorry I was being..."

"A bitch?" Heather said, and giggled.

"I would've said stubborn," Rebecca said, and folded her arms across her chest and unholstered the glare again. Heather smiled back at her.

"Forget it, Becca," Willow said, and squeezed Rebecca's hand. "You're completely cute when you're stubborn. Hey, um, either of you guys have like a comb or something I can borrow? My hair's a total disaster right now."

"Yeah, here," Heather said, and handed Willow a hairbrush from her purse. Willow ran it through her hair while at the same time pulling a few of Heather's hairs from it.

"Thanks," Willow said, and gave the hairbrush back, and stuffed Heather's hairs into the leather pouch with her tarot cards, and put the leather pouch in her handbag. "Well, it was nice meeting you two? I gotta go. Stay outta trouble, okay? Like, stay away from rude drunk guys. I won't always be around to hypnotize them."

"I'll keep her out of trouble," Heather said.

"Cool," Willow said. "Oh, and hey? Like, LSD and quaaludes and stuff? Stay away from that stuff, okay? It looks like fun and everything right now? But trust me, it isn't. It'll screw you up, bad. So, um...just say no to drugs."

"Just say no to drugs?" Heather said, and giggled again. "Sounds like something my grandmum would say. And here I was just beginning to think you were cool."

"You can do all the pot you want," Willow said. "Just stay away from everything else. Deal? Don't make me turn you into a frog, Heather."

"Wait," Heather said. "Could you actually turn me into a frog?"

"I will if you don't give me a hug, sweetie," Willow said, and leaned over and hugged her. Heather giggled.

"I still don't believe in magic, you know," Rebecca said...and smiled.

Willow hugged her, and held on to her for a long time.

"Yes you do," Willow whispered in her ear.

Four hours later, Willow sat in her stolen car across the street from a little redbrick cottage in a little town called Somerset, and waited. The car smelled like pot but it was 1972 and Willow was getting used to it. There were cars parked everywhere along the street, haphazardly, and music boomed from within the cottage, so loud it was actually causing the cottage's windows to vibrate. Willow could hear the music perfectly all the way across the street sitting in her car, even with the windows rolled up; it was Jimi Hendrix. All Along the Watchtower. She wondered if it was a sign of getting old when you no longer wanted your music to melt your eardrums. Don't trust anyone over 30, Willow thought.

Someone was going to try to kill Rebecca tonight. Willow knew it. She knew because they had already succeeded once.

One moment, Willow had been preparing to take her friends into battle in 2009; the next moment, her friends began disappearing in front of her eyes. First Rebecca disappeared. Then Faith, then Tara, then Fred, then Dawn, then Connor, then Buffy...one by one they disappeared, as a ghastly white light, a great empty nothingness, swept across the world like a tidal wave...

Willow just barely escaped it: she grabbed the handbag she kept her magic items and her tarot cards in--she always had it close at hand--and conjured an energy shield that protected her from the light for a few moments; it bought her just enough time to conjure a time portal and leap through it into the past, alone, before the white light could erase her, too. She hadn't bothered to concentrate on a date; she didn't have time. She just conjured a portal and leaped...

She ended up centuries in the past, lying in the middle of the woods. She realized her location hadn't changed; she was exactly where Faith's mansion would someday be, in Newcastle. The mansion wasn't there, but Willow recognized the little swift-running stream, and the magnificent oak tree, ancient even then, with its branches tapering toward its summit in the shape of a crown, standing tall in what would someday be the mansion's front lawn. Willow always loved that tree; she loved running her hand over its coarse old bark, and she loved the way it smelled in summer, and she loved sitting beneath it just as the sun came up, and praying to the Goddess, and meditating in the shade until noon.

So Willow sat beneath the old tree as the sun appeared over the horizon, and closed her eyes, and prayed to the Goddess for guidance, and meditated.

She meditated long past noon. She had a lot to think about...

When the sun rose again the next morning, and Willow finally opened her eyes, she had her answers. She knew what she had to do.

She saw the changes that had been wrought upon the world, saw the damage that had been done. She knew that the world had been robbed of its future: it ended now, in 1998.

She knew who had attacked her friends, and doomed the world: she knew his name. He'd attacked them before, and Willow had defeated him before. But he had escaped her then, and now he was attacking again...

She knew how he had done it. He had done it with technology: he'd invented a time machine.

But Willow knew her magic was more powerful than his technology. Technology was a human creation. But magic was a gift from the Goddess.

He had taken her family away, this man who was dead inside, who could understand every nuance of a machine, but not people. He had killed everyone Willow loved. But even though he was a very smart man, Willow knew he had made two very dumb mistakes.

He had thought to win the battle in 2009 by traveling into the past and eliminating his enemies; he hadn't realized that by eliminating these people in the past, he had doomed the world, and therefore himself, eleven years earlier. That was his first mistake.

Willow knew he had managed to escape the disaster he'd caused. He'd escaped into the past just as she did, and Willow knew he was out there somewhere now, making new plans, trying to bring the world back into existence so he could take it for himself, and the creatures he had allied himself with...

No one had ever hurt Willow so badly as this man; no one had ever taken so much from her. All her friends were dead now, and she was utterly alone.

But she was alive. He had failed to kill her.

That was his second mistake.

Sitting under that ancient oak tree, feeling its coarse old bark like armor at her back, looking up into the rising sun, feeling its warmth, feeling its boundless power, Willow decided she was going to make him pay dearly for that mistake.

And then she stood up, and got to work. He'd done damage. Willow was going to fix it...

That was two days ago now, by Willow's reckoning, though she had crossed centuries in the interim. Since then she'd gotten to Tara and protected her from him; he wouldn't be able to find her now. He'd gotten to Rebecca and killed her, but time travel promised a second chance. Anything he did, Willow could undo if she could just get there before him. Willow was going to save Rebecca this time.

And when she had saved them all, gotten every member of her family back and restored the world, she was going to return to her own time...

And she was going to find Warren, and see to it that he could never hurt anyone she cared about again.

Seven years before, Willow had promised herself she would never take a human life again. She wondered if she would break that promise now. She thought she might have to. The people she loved were more important to her than her promise. Rebecca was more important to her than her promise.

So Willow sat in her stolen car now, and waited. She knew how to hotwire cars; Faith had taught her. She'd taught Willow an appreciation for cars over the years too, so Willow had rather impractically stolen a very powerful Aston Martin V8. The car stood out like a hooker in church in the little working class neighborhood Willow had followed Rebecca and Heather to. But Aston Martins looked like Ford Mustangs, and Willow loved Ford Mustangs; Faith bought her a new one every year for her birthday and she owned eleven of them now. And the Aston Martin was red, and it was just so pretty...

Willow hadn't known where, or by whom, Rebecca would be attacked; her visions of the changes to the time stream had been ambiguous in places. All she knew was that it was going to happen tonight, and that Heather would be with her, and that they would be taken somewhere first...a dark place. She knew Warren arranged it, but somehow she didn't get the sense that he was the one who actually murdered Rebecca. But if that was the case Willow had no idea who did. Some things, like Rebecca's tarot reading, she saw in extraordinary detail during her long meditation, but other things were murky.

Willow had considered trying to stay with Rebecca and Heather, but sixteen year-old girls didn't like hanging around with twenty-eight year old women as a rule and Willow knew if she tried to stay with them all day and all night she would have to tell them what was going on. And even if she left out the crazy parts and just told them they were in danger, they might insist on going to the police, and that would mean questions Willow didn't want to answer.

So Willow did the only thing she could: she found a way to take a few of Heather's hairs, cast a locator spell, stole a completely fabulous red car, and followed them. And waited.

Willow was going to save them. She was going to get her family back. Tara was safe. Now Willow was going to save Rebecca. She kept telling herself that. Over and over again. Rebecca wasn't going to die this time.

Willow felt the panic in her stomach again, like a lead weight; it had been there ever since she saw every single person she loved in the world collapse into nothingness in front of her eyes. Sometimes it went away for awhile. It had gone away when she found Rebecca that afternoon, because Rebecca always made her feel safe. Even when Rebecca was only sixteen, she made Willow feel safe.

But the feeling always came back. It was coming back now.

The car suddenly felt small, closed-in, confined. It felt like there wasn't enough air in there.

It felt like a closet.

Willow noticed her breathing. She felt like she wasn't getting enough air.

She fought the feeling back. She knew she wasn't really claustrophobic anymore; her psychologist had worked with her for a long time and with her help, Willow had overcome her claustrophobia. Willow knew she wasn't really afraid... she was just afraid of becoming afraid.

But she wanted, needed, to get out of the car. She felt the need, scratching at her insides.

She rolled down a window instead. She knew her psychologist would be proud of her.

Willow smiled. If she made it back to her own time, she and Heather would certainly have a lot to talk about in their next session...

Her smile disappeared as quickly as it arrived. Everyone Willow loved was dead, their destinies snatched away in a burst of light. The world had no future after 1998.

Willow knew she was completely alone. She felt the weight of it, again; she felt it crushing her.

She remembered the look on Dawn's face, the panic in her eyes, when that terrible, ghastly light stabbed through her, and tore her apart from the inside out, molecule by molecule, cell by cell...ripped her out of the world, as if she had never been. Being erased out of existence by a time paradox wasn't a painless experience. The universe was harsh and ruthlessly efficient when it reordered itself. Dawn died screaming, in agony. They all did.

Tears ran down Willow's cheeks.

"I'm gonna get you back, Dawnie," Willow whispered. "I'm gonna...I'm gonna...I'm gonna get you all back."

When she meditated Willow had seen that Rebecca was the domino that started it; with her death, everything had changed. Without Rebecca to save her, Faith died before she could become the Slayer; without Faith, Willow died in an alley; without Willow, there was no one to pray on humanity's behalf when the Four Horsemen were released...and then the world ended, in 1998.

Willow saw that potential life, that potential death, hanging like a loose thread from the tapestry of possibilities that made up her existence; she felt it. It wasn't her reality yet, but she knew it could be, if she failed to stop it; when the terrible white light came for her, Willow had seen that life, had seen that death, gaining substance, becoming real, closing off all the other possibilities; one by one, it was paring them down...paring Willow down, to nothing. She escaped the white light just in time, but that existence was still out there, stalking her. If Rebecca died, Faith died too; and if Faith died, Willow knew her own death was inevitable. She'd die, raped and murdered by three vampires in an alley.

And then the rest of the human race would follow...

A sudden realization hit her. She had allowed herself to think that if she failed to stop Warren tonight, she could just conjure another portal and leap back a day and try to save Rebecca all over again. She realized now that wasn't how it was going to work. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she knew, knew it as an absolute fact, that she only had one chance at this. If Rebecca died tonight, Faith would die in 1997, before she ever became the Slayer, because Rebecca wouldn't be there to save her...and then Willow would die in an alley in 1998...and never have a chance to travel back in time in the first place...

She had only been given a temporary reprieve, she realized. That future was waiting for her, waiting to become her life...that alley was waiting for her, waiting to become her death...

That nightmare future had stalked her, and finally found her: it was here with her now, waiting. Willow felt it in the car with her: a predator, watching her from the shadows. If she failed to stop Warren tonight, and Rebecca was killed, Willow knew the predator would devour her...she would instantly cease to exist.

And then all the people she loved would be dead, forever...because she had failed to save them...

The momentary panic that had gripped her a moment ago was nothing compared to what hit her now; it felt like she had been kicked in the stomach and all the wind had been knocked out of her. She couldn't breathe: it was like she had suddenly forgotten how. She felt like she was suffocating. She flailed her arms around for a second like she was drowning, wrenched the door open, jumped out of the car and made herself breathe. She sucked in air, gasping.

She fell back against the car, and felt her heart beating, too fast. She knew she was having a panic attack. It had been years since the last one, but she was having another one now...

Willow took in as much air as she could, as she felt the pressure begin in her stomach, and then spread through her, filling her up. Her hands began to shake, and then the rest of her body followed, but the shaking felt worse inside of her; it felt like she was falling apart inside, collapsing to pieces...

She fought the urge to scream. But the urge was growing; it grew and grew and grew like a fire burning out of control inside her...

She remembered how Tara had died, ripped from the world, and then exploding in white light...

"Willow," Tara had screamed, just before she faded into nothingness.

Willow held her head in her hands, and fell to her knees in the street, and wept.

She tried to breathe as she cried; it was becoming progressively harder. It was like sucking in air through a straw now.

She remembered the closet. She remembered feeling numb in her ankles and wrists, because she had been tied up for so long...she remembered the voices that came to her in the dark...she remembered biting the walls.

Blackbird, Angelus had always called her.

She remembered the way his hands felt on her, when he touched her... when he forced her. His hands were cold. They were always cold.

Willow shivered, as she gasped and wheezed, and fought to breathe...the world seemed to be closing in. It was getting smaller...darker.

Everyone she loved was dead, and Willow wondered if she was about to join them...if she would suffocate to death here, on a deserted street, years before she was even born.

She wondered if she would die now, alone...

Everyone she loved was dead.

Continued...