if i got three wishes, first i'd find out all about how wishes work

[self_composed]

Bella brings two blank notebooks to school the next day. Her old one is safely computerized and boxed up with its predecessors.

At lunch, she sits with Angela; Jessica and Eric and Lauren sit at the same table but mostly talk to each other, and Mike is nowhere to be seen.

Bella is just about on time to gym, thanks to an overnight icing that means she has to pick her way with extreme care across the slippery grass or the slick sidewalks. The second time she falls down, she gives up on attempting any dignity at all, and, cradling her thwacked elbow, scoots the rest of the way to the gym on her rear. This leaves her with damp jeans but no further injuries, and they were a little damp anyway from the falls.

She doesn't have time to do more than smile and wave at Alice on her way to get her mat and get out of the way of careening balls. She spends the class doing the subset of her safe activities that won't stress her elbow.

Comments

[edgeofyourseat]

"Okay. I'll ask her."

[self_composed]

Bella hums happily to herself. "My dad's having Hilary over on their coinciding day off next week. I think he intends to teach her to fish."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Sounds like fun."

[self_composed]

"Fishing is dull as a poorly maintained guillotine during the French Revolution," says Bella. "But perhaps they'll have fun chatting."

[edgeofyourseat]

...He cracks up.

[self_composed]

Bella giggles a bit too.

"What do you read about, when you read?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"Pretty much whatever I pick up," he says. "If it's boring I put it down again."

[self_composed]

"Anything good lately?"

[edgeofyourseat]

"I have a favourite book!" he offers. "You wanna see my favourite book?"

[self_composed]

"Yes. Yes I do."

This is liable to be interesting.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Cool. I'll show you when we get there."

[self_composed]

And in due course... they get there.

[edgeofyourseat]

Alice rings the doorbell; his mother answers with suspicious promptness.

"Come in, come in!" she says, beaming at both of them, no less formally dressed than she was last time.

[self_composed]

"Hello, Mrs. Hammond," says Bella brightly.

[edgeofyourseat]

"It's nice to see you again." She steps back out of the doorway to let them in. "The man of the house is away on business, so you two have the run of the place," she adds, and winks.

...Alice laughs.

[self_composed]

Bella giggles softly. "I'm told I missed some basement."

[edgeofyourseat]

"Don't let me stop you," Mrs. Hammond says serenely, and sails away up the stairs.

Alice watches her go, shaking his head.

"I have known her my whole life and I still have no idea what it's like in there," he says. "So, basement or book?"

[self_composed]

"Book first," Bella says.

[edgeofyourseat]

"Sure thing," he says, and leads her up the stairs.

Mrs. Hammond is nowhere in sight; Alice leads Bella past the farthest room they explored on their previous tour—just past it, in fact, to the very next door.

In Alice's room, the remains of the ex-fireplace are visible as an actual brick chimney set in one wall—a peculiarly wide one. The floor is almost invisible beneath a snowdrift of discarded clothing; he looks at the mess, looks at Bella, and then says, "I'll get the book, one sec."

[self_composed]

Bella follows him in, looking at the decor more than the mess on the floor.

This proves to a mistake.

She pitches to her right, feet tangled in a pair of jeans, and braces herself to hit the bricks -

Which she goes right through.

[edgeofyourseat]

...

That is not what Alice expected to happen!

He puts his hand against the chimney, which is entirely solid and does not at all appear to have just swallowed a teenager whole.

[self_composed]

Bella's screaming her head off, but whatever let her through the chimney doesn't admit sound; she hears echos.

She lands.

With a crunch.

She screams some more.

[edgeofyourseat]

After exhaustive groping and a few kicks reveal that the chimney is impermeable to Alice, however permeable it was to Bella, he goes around to the other side and hits the wall a few times just to be thorough.

Then he goes downstairs, to the living room that used to have a fireplace in it, and starts going over that wall.

[self_composed]

Bella has broken bones before. She is very sure that this has happened again. She breathes. And breathes. And calms the fuck down. She has to figure out what's going on.

Why can she see? She's in a closet-sized room at the bottom of an enclosed pit; where is all this light coming from? It's like the air in here glows.

Her foot - on the bad leg - is wedged against a book, tied closed with a twist of hemp string or something that's strung with a hexagon-shaped bead.

That's the only thing in the room.

She leans - very carefully, wincing horribly - and picks up the book.

[edgeofyourseat]

Nope. Nope nope nope and nope with a side order of nope.

What the fuck.

Technically, if he tells his mother, they could have this whole house methodically torn down to find out where the fuck Bella went. But he's not sure that would help, and he is sure that it would take a long time and lead to pretty much every kind of attention his father doesn't want.

Hell, he could see his dad just having Bella's car quietly disposed of, if he thought he could avoid getting heat over it that way.

If that happens, Alice decides, then fuck it, he's going to her dad. With the whole fucking story, if necessary.

Before that, though... well, hell. Maybe there really is a secret passage. In which case, there's one more floor of the house this chimney goes to, although as he recalls they wrapped it in a pillar.

He heads down to the basement.