Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 4 Viral By Amethyst

My sleep was broken and plagued with troubling dreams. I was getting used to the dreams of fighting Demons and visiting strange places and stranger people, those had become a constant in my life since I had become a girl and all of this magick and Demon-hunting stuff began. That was understandable under the circumstances, but these dreams were different. I kept seeing a Skarik feeding on Lisa and the whole time she was blaming me. I couldn’t really fault her either, since I was blaming myself. I should have shaken Lisa and left the mall sooner. I should have tried to take Khinara down as soon as I had felt her aura approaching.

In my head, I knew that I couldn’t have done either of those things, not without risking revealing the truth that magick was real to at least one person and/or revealing my secret to one or more enemies. My heart was not quite so forgiving though. Lisa was in this mess because she was following me. After all, I had dared to stand up to her instead of backing down. She wasn’t the only one who had gotten hurt because of me either. Sgt. Williams and her partner had both been hospitalized because they had been after Lisa, and that was on me too.

It was just after two in the morning and the third time that I had woken up in a panic. For a time I just sat there in my bed, my knees pulled in as I rocked back and forth. At least I wasn’t crying this time, but I had to very carefully control my breathing in an attempt to slow both it and my rapid pulse. I closed my eyes and tried to put my thoughts in order as Sarah had taught me. Panic never helps anyone so she was having me work on carefully organizing and prioritizing things in my head whenever I got like this. She said that it would help me to avoid any snap emotional decisions and also with multitasking with my magick when in stressful situations.

As I thought about it, I realized that my sister was right. There was really nothing that we could do for Lisa right now. First, we needed to find out where she was, and we could only do that by getting that information from Khinara or some other Demon. We had to hurry about that too because every minute that Lisa spent as a captive the risk of some sort of permanent harm to her increased. If I was going to be spending most of the next night fighting Demons though, I needed my rest. If I wasn’t alert and prepared then I would be a danger to myself and everyone that I cared about and it could lose us the chance of finding Lisa in time. With a sigh, I curled back up under the blankets, closed my eyes, and tried to get to sleep again.

I was on edge and distracted for most of the day as I anxiously waited to do something about the situation with Khinara and Lisa. Somehow, I managed to pay attention in my morning classes, but at lunch I found myself picking at my food as I paid far more attention to my plans for the evening than to what was going on around me. It was an elbow to the ribs from Beth that brought me back to the present.

We were eating lunch with Jennifer and some of the girls from our volleyball team and it seemed that someone was asking me something. I could see Dorothy leaning expectantly across the table. “Sorry Dot, I was kinda spacing out there. What did you want to know?”

“Molly Jenkins was with her little sister Meghan at the mall last night and they caught the whole thing in the food court on camera. So, is it true?” she asked again.

“Which part?” I asked carefully. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Dorothy, after all, she was on our team and they all knew about me and Beth and were really supportive about it. It could be bad though if Molly really did record that video, she had a reputation.

“Well, all of it? You being on the cover of Teen Queen and the engagement?” The other girls at the table were leaning in, just as eager to hear the dirt. “Molly is the worst gossip in school, so at least half of the school has probably seen that video by now. Whether it’s true or not people are going to be talking about it.”

I turned to glare at Elsaishe and my Fae cousin shrank back in her seat a bit, giving me an apologetic look. Then I let out a sigh and nodded. “Yeah, it’s true. We heard about the thing with Teen Queen last week and Beth… umm… proposed yesterday in private. It’s not an engagement ring though, just a promise ring. We were trying to keep both of those things quiet, especially at school, but somebody got over-excited.”

Ellie winced and shrank even further into her seat. “I’m sorry, but you shocked me with the whole magazine cover thing and then people were already filming and I didn’t want people to think that Beth is some gold-digger when it’s not like that. And those rings are really nice, Mom didn’t let me see them before Beth popped the question.”

“Can we see the rings?” Jennifer asked. “I’m your best friend and you didn’t even tell me about the proposal. I only knew about the magazine thing because Mom and Dad had to approve the photos, article, and the mock-up of the cover.”

“Jen, it just happened yesterday and I had other things on my mind with Lisa following me around and other stuff. And you know the rules, we’re not allowed to wear jewelry in school, or I’d be wearing it.” I countered before looking toward Beth.

My Familiar/intended nodded and we took a quick look around before we each extracted a ring box from our purses. Every eye at the table went wide as we opened them to display the matching rings. “Omigod! Those are gorgeous! Where did you get them?! They must have cost you a lot, Beth!” Kelly squealed from beside Jennifer.

“She made them,” Ellie teased. “She’s been studying jewelry crafting as an apprentice for my mom when she’s not working for Shannon. Mom said that Beth and I could be even better than she is someday. Those rings are worth at least a grand each.”

“You made them?!” Jen gasped. “Those are amazing! I didn’t know that you were that far along in your lessons with Talisha.”

“She said that I’m a quick learner and she’s been pushing me hard to keep improving. I had to get her to do the engraving though. I didn’t want to mess it up, and I wanted these to be perfect,” Beth replied, scratching her head and looking self-consciously at the table.

Our table was starting to get a lot of looks from the other girls in the cafeteria and it was making me a bit uncomfortable so I hurriedly put my ring away and motioned for Beth to do the same. "Let’s get these out of sight. It’s bad enough that Molly is probably spreading that video around to every girl in the school, at this rate it won’t be long before…”

Of course, that was when the intercom activated with a crackle of static, followed by the voice of the Headmistress’ receptionist. “Shannon O’Reilly, Bethany Sanders, and Elsaishe Ferreire please report to the Mother Superior’s office.

I groaned and gave Ellie another glare before sighing and gathering my things. It wasn’t like I had much of an appetite anyway. Beth and Ellie followed suit and looked about as thrilled by the summons as I was, which was not in the slightest. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Ellie suggested hopefully as we trudged off toward the office, with everyone in the cafeteria watching in either interest or sympathy.

“Oh yes, how could this possibly be something bad?” I retorted in a wry whisper. “You’ve only made a very public deal about Beth and I being ‘engaged’ and now it’s all over the school after Mother Josephine specifically asked Beth and me to keep our relationship quiet here.”

“I’m sorry, Shannon, I was caught up in the moment and it seemed like such a good idea at the time,” she whispered back, shrinking under my look.

“You’d better not walk in the office all hunched like that, Ellie,” Beth advised. “Or Mother Josephine will send us all to Mrs. Simmons to work on posture and acting more ladylike if we are in for detention. Lily had to go through that once and she swears that she’ll never slouch again. Walking around with books on our heads and whatever else she can cook up does not sound like my idea of a good time.”

Ellie was walking like she had an iron rod strapped to her back as we were ushered by Miss Jameson into the Mother Superior’s office. Okay, all of us were, but really who could blame us? None of the girls in school would want to spend any more time with Mrs. Simmons than they had to, it was bad enough having her for an hour of Home Economics every day. She was one of the strictest teachers at the school, a total perfectionist, and she expected her students to be the same. Woe befell any students who didn’t measure up to her exacting expectations on anything because she would not stop working them until they did.

“Good afternoon, Reverend Mother,” we all recited dutifully as we stepped before Mother Josephine’s desk.

The school’s headmistress leveled a hard look at me and Beth. “I thought that I told the two of you to keep your relationship quiet at school. And now I’m hearing every girl in the hallway talking in hushed tones about your engagement.”

I winced and, even though I was keeping my eyes locked in front of me and on Mother Josephine, I could sense Beth and Ellie doing the same. Ellie took a deep breath and stepped forward. “This was all my fault, Reverend Mother. I kinda freaked out about Shannon being on the cover of Teen Queen next month and I didn’t realize that anyone was filming it at first and I got kinda carried away I guess, with the ring and stuff too.”

“You’re not a bad girl and I think that you mean well, but you need to learn to restrain your excitement and your impulses, Elsaishe. I will let you off with a warning, this time, but be more aware of your surroundings and circumstances in the future and think about how your actions could negatively impact both your cousin and Bethany. For you, I think that should suffice as a punishment,” Mother Josephine told Ellie sternly before turning her attention on me and Beth. “Now, as for the two of you, what should I do with you? You have made your engagement fairly public.”

“Umm… to be fair Reverend Mother, it wasn’t an engagement ring. It was a promise ring, though it means the same thing to me. We were trying to keep it quiet at school but this whole thing is being blown way out of proportion and that video and the gossip are being spread like wildfire. The news only got out because of phones taking video footage at the mall, so technically it didn’t start in school and we weren’t the ones making a big deal of it on school grounds,” I suggested hopefully.

“Which is the only reason that you’re not getting detention,” the Mother Superior said with a sigh. “I realize that you’re becoming a bit of a celebrity, Shannon, and that puts you under a microscope. Because of this, your behavior reflects on this school more than other students, even when you are not on school grounds or wearing your uniform. Those close to you will naturally draw similar attention. That being said, your lives outside school are yours to live as you please. I only ask that you try to behave responsibly and do nothing that will reflect poorly on St. Catherine’s. You’re good girls, all three of you and I would hate to see any of you hurt because you didn’t properly consider your actions or their consequences.”

“We understand, Reverend Mother. We’ll keep doing our best to keep our affection to the minimum at school and we’ll try not to do anything that could look bad for the school,” Beth offered.

“We will do our best Reverend Mother,” I agreed.

She nodded but continued giving me a long and steady look. “Now as for this magazine that you are going to be gracing the cover of, Shannon. Is there anything in that article that could negatively impact the school?”

I thought back to the interview, but I couldn’t think of anything that would make the school look bad. “Well, the interviewer did mention that I’m a student here, but I only said how much I love the school and the staff. I did admit to being bisexual but I told them that I try to keep a lid on my orientation at school, I wouldn’t ask a girl who hadn’t already shown a definite interest in me, and that I’m already in a relationship with a girl, but I never mentioned Beth by name. I also told them that we do not have a physical relationship and that I don’t think either of us will be ready for one until we’re much older. I wasn’t going to lie about anything, Reverend Mother.”

“Thank you for your honesty, Shannon. I am sure that shouldn’t cause any problems, if anything it should make us appear more forward-thinking and accepting, which could be a good thing. It also shows you to be a girl of good morals, which will also make the school look good. I just hope that your celebrity status won’t put the school under a microscope as well, not all of our students are as level-headed as you,” she said before letting out a sigh.

“We really didn’t want any of this getting all over school like this so fast and I would hate for this to cause problems for the school. I don’t want to be a celebrity, I was happy with my life the way it was and I’m already way too busy as it is. I’m already dreading how many copies of that issue of Teen Queen that I’m going to have to sign now that word is getting around school about that.”

To my surprise, Mother Josephine smiled. “We don’t always get what we want, Shannon, but I’m sure that you won’t let all of the attention go to your head. So, for your punishment…” She let it hang there for a moment, making me very uncomfortable and I could sense that same sense of dread coming from Beth through our link. “Well, perhaps it is more of a favor than a punishment.”

“A favor?” Beth and I asked at once, a little uncertain of where this was going.

“Yes, a favor,” she clarified. “You do not have to accept it. Normally I would not involve my students in what is essentially a personal matter, but I think that you and Beth could help my niece, Michelle. She’s a bit younger than you and she admitted to her parents that she’s attracted to girls when she was fourteen, just before Bethany’s orientation was made public in school. I had originally found the support group that I referred Bethany to for her. She’s not like the two of you though, she’s so alone and isolated right now. She’s very timid socially, a bit of a social misfit, and lacks confidence so we haven’t been able to get her to go to the support group yet. I was hoping that she might gain some confidence, feel better about herself, and possibly get the support that she needs with the right example. Maybe you could even sign an extra copy of that magazine for her. She needs to know that she’s not alone.”

I knew what it was like to feel all alone in the world and if I could help free someone from that burden then there was only one answer that I could give. “I’ll do it, Reverend Mother.”

“Me too,” Beth quickly agreed.

“We’ll all do it,” Ellie chimed in. “I know what it’s like to feel all alone and not know where you fit in socially. That was my life until I came to stay with my cousins. What do you want us to do?”

The Mother Superior smiled at us as she breathed a sigh of relief and quickly scribbled something on a post-it note before handing it to me. “You are all such good girls, you make me proud. This is my sister’s cell number, you can make the arrangements with her. Just tell her that you’re the girls from my school and that I asked you to call, she’ll know what it’s about.”

“We’ll call her after volleyball practice, Reverend Mother,” I quickly promised.

“Thank you girls, now you should all hurry or you’ll be late for class. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have Miss Jenkins summoned so that she and I can have a little conversation about the consequences of idle gossip.” She sighed again and waved us out of the room.

“Well, that could have gone worse,” Beth said in a relieved tone as we made our way to our lockers.

“Yeah, it could have,” I agreed. Just remind me to make that call after practice, I don’t think that we’ll have the time tonight. We have a busy night ahead of us.”