1 - Myra Lockwood

Despite Myra’s best efforts, or perhaps because of it, they were about to be late for school.

How did this happen? What will you do, if anything, to try to make it in time?

Myra's alarm clock was still on european time, and if it wasn't for her grandmother, she would have oversleeped. Last Friday, she came home from an extended trip to Italy and Greece. Some of her parents' old friends were funding an archaeological dig, and she was invited as an intern / volentear / unpaid labour.
The important bit was to be there and be a part of history and the recovery of it.

Myra was walking fast and energetically. When she left home, she was almost running, but the further she got away from the house, the feeling of urgency lessened. She didn't want to arrive late, but she didn't want to arrive sweaty either.

With a good pace, she starts to ponder this, her last year.
She wants to write a comprehensive report of her Mediterranean adventure, and hopefully convince the Smithsonian or similar prestigious institutions that she would be a good candidate to unearth forgotten history.
The fruits of her archaeological adventure were not impressive; they found an old fishing vessel that carried a soldier of somekind. Net and fishing hooks, along with a sword. They argued about romanticising a narrative about a an armed agent on a secret mission. There were no facts to support this claim.
The experience was still valuable and should open a few doors for her.

Teenagers on the cusp of adulthood weren't typically given to superstition and other such easily-dismissed thoughts. But if there were a chance for hindsight years from now, the Awakened ones of the Class of '26 might be able look back to as early as their first day of school to realise that change was in the ether. Perhaps it was the greater weave of fate that pushed against their coming back, as if delaying them, keeping them away from the penumbral shores, from what was about to happen.

But they wouldn't have known that of course. To them, the situation was simply that they would be late. Myra, for all her wealth, walked to school. There were others also legging their way up the gentle incline of the long driveway, as buses and cars whizzed past them. She found herself keeping her pace even though some of those ahead of her already began to quicken their step, and a few behind her also stepped faster to overtake her. Did she need to start running again just to make it on time?

Myra speeds up, wills herself to move up the driveway effortlessly. She feels like she is getting a gentle push like the wind is with her, but it fails to increase her speed significantly.

If anything, to the other students traipsing up the last stretch, Myra looked as if she had caught a gust of wind which threatened to propel her forward but instead made her trot forward a bit more clumsily in her haste to make it on time. "Come along!" A fellow student, she didn't know whom, brushed past her, giving Myra the impression that this student was strangely more fleet-footed than she was despite her magick.

The Library was the building next to the gymnasium. When the students were dismissed, Myra had thought to see how to get hold of Cass, but it seemed like the ever-conscientious student council president appeared to continue to busy herself with helping the teachers clear the hall. Myra made a mental note to try to get hold of her soon if she could, which meant she could now pursue the other pressing train of thought in her head. Clutching her notebook tightly, she crossed over to the Lower Stacks, which was what almost everyone called the library, on account of the fact that the lower two floors were the ones open to the student population.

"Myra, are you bringing the next group -" The warm voice that greeted her was Mdm Esme Silverton, the librarian, but Silverton stopped short when she realised that Myra came alone, as opposed to bringing another group of enthusiastic freshmen for an orientation tour of the library.

Myra returned the greeting, but charged past her, single-mindedly headed to research the symbols, worried that they might vanish even though she was sure she drew them in her notebook. There was hardly anyone using the library; it was after all the first day of school, no one stayed back to do research or prep homework or mug for exams. This also meant the library wouldn't be open too late, Myra didn't have that much time to do what she wanted.

Having spent years with the Library club and rising to a position of seniority, Myra knew the ins and outs of the place, and her seniority also permitted her to the closed shelf sections. She went one floor up to the third floor, the Upper Stacks, certain that there was a shelf or two on secret histories and arcane languages...

Myra knew that she had seen these symbols before.

The public library is a familiar place, a safe place—the kind of safety that comes from rules and hush and the promise that the world will stay in its lanes if you do. There are shelves here that bear a small brass plate with a name she has grown up seeing on invitations and bookplates: DONATED BY THE LOCKWOOD FAMILY. It is not pride, exactly - it’s lineage. It’s the quiet claim that she belongs in the place of knowledge.

It’s those deep shelves she’s searching now.

Occult / comparative religion, modern witchcraft and Wicca paperbacks with shiny covers. And tucked among them like someone tried to hide a blade in a drawer of spoons: thin, sober volumes that look like academic work. There are even a few ledgers and bound dissertations with university stamps, the kind of thing you don’t read for fun unless you really need to put references into your assignment.

The titles are bland on purpose Modern Esoteric Societies, A Field Guide to Contemporary Mysticism, Paradigms of Will. Nothing that screams occult or magic, just boring stuff the casual eye slides off.

Myra pulls one free, then another. She sits on the floor with the ledgers before her and her open notebook beside her, and begins to leaf through them with the brisk patience she uses on any text that might be irrelevant. Skim. Index. Table of contents. Glossary. The places where truth has to show itself.

She turns a page, and the first symbol appears.


Her stomach drops in a very specific way: the feeling of seeing something you recognise without having permission to recognise it. Like her hand knows the shape before her mind can justify it. Like a word in a language she was never taught.

For a moment, she goes very still. Myra’s fingers tighten on the paper as if she can hold the page in place through force of will.

The text doesn’t say magic is real. It says something much more dangerous to Myra, they speak her language of logic:

There are multiple models for how reality can be influenced. They disagree on the story, but they share repeatable results.

It lays out nine Traditions, framed like schools of thought—each with a worldview, tools, training methods, and typical phenomena. Myra doesn’t buy the mysticism, but she spots the pattern. A way of mentally reshaping how you observe the universe through symbols, tools, ritual and structures - changing the observer, changing the system.

She reads them the way she reads anything that matters: not as factions, not as superstition, but as competing methodologies, ways of doing the same impossible math.

Order of Hermes.
This reads like home. Structured practice. Inherited systems. Symbolic languages that behave like code. It doesn’t even matter if the author is sensationalising, because Myra recognises the voice of it: rules, proofs, hierarchies, correspondences. This isn’t belief, its tried and tested. This is the curriculum.
She underlines a line too hard and snaps her pencil lead clean in half.

Virtual Adepts.
A modern cousin: reality as information, systems, and exploits. Myra doesn’t fully understand the jargon, but she understands the posture. If the world runs on rules, you can hack rules. Hermes translated into circuitry and clean interfaces.

Sons of Ether.
Renegade scientists: impossible devices, theories that work because their makers insist they do. A tradition that treats reality like a machine with undocumented features.
Somehow it makes her think of her father. Not a memory, but a sense of his presence, the idea of his laugh she can’t quite hear.

Akashic Brotherhood.
Discipline of body and mind; clarity through practice. She doesn’t romanticize it, but it scans as internally consistent: training produces results. She respects that. The method may be different, but the discipline is familiar.
She thinks of Zen monks that masters inhuman feats.

Celestial Chorus.
She expects religion and finds something closer to consensus psychology: faith as a unifying equation. She doesn’t like it, too much surrender, too much because we say so, yet she can’t dismiss it because it’s also structured. A single axiom applied relentlessly until it changes the room.

Verbena.
Biology mixed with ritual—life, blood, cycles. Harder for her to accept until she realizes it’s simply a different set of variables: not numbers, living systems. She doesn’t want it to be true. That’s not the same as it not being coherent.

Dreamspeakers.
This one triggers irritation, too interpretive, too story-based, until she notices the repeated emphasis on relationship and negotiation rather than meaning. Not symbolism for symbolism’s sake. Protocol with entities. That, annoyingly, is a kind of structure.

Cult of Ecstasy.
She expects the hippy teacher and gets something closer to neuroscience: altered states as instrumentation. Time perception, attention, the subjective lens. Myra doesn’t like it, but she understands it. Changing the observer changes the system.

Euthanatos.
This is where she goes cold. Not because it’s "evil," but because it’s brutally pragmatic: death as a rule, endings as leverage. It reads like someone using a theorem she tries not to look at, because the math checks out and she hates what it implies. Entropi is a bitch.

By the time she reaches the end of the section, her notebook margin is full of cramped, controlled handwriting. Her pulse is steady only because she makes it steady.

These are her faded symbols. There were two more, but they are not here in these legers. Legeres that is going home with her. Nine Traditions. Nine toolkits. Nine ways to change the mind and, by changing the mind, change the world.

Different languages. Different rituals. Different instruments.
But the same proof.

And the most frightening part is not that it’s real.

It’s that she understands it.

She saw snakes stretching towards Joe main auditorium. Her hand rests on the Order of Hermes' serpent's head crest. Connections, lines, snakes and ladders. As her mind is toying with the idears er eyes are resting on the cart of books that needs to be shelved. Myra sees thin golden threads between each book and its spot on the shelf. Almost all of the books are pointing towards the same section, but there is one that points down into the basement. She can't help but examine this outlier. Inside a large textbook about geology, she finds a glossy magazine. Some students must have hidden his, and Myra is sure that it is a male student, an erotic magazine in a textbook and forgotten to retrieve it.
Part of her is horrified, and part of her finds it extremely funny.

There was so much to take in that it was overwhelming. Myra would've completely lost track of time were it not for Silverton who signaled her approach with some loud walking steps, as if to give Myra time to pretend all was in good order, "School's closing early, I'm here to shoo you away. Continue tomorrow?" Myra wondered if the librarian was giving her a slight knowing smile, but Silverton walked away before Myra could think of asking her anything.

Her head full of thoughts and ideas, Myra walks home.

"Have a seat." Despite the serious formality of the title of Doctor, Veritas was generally regarded as a motherly figure amongst the staff, more youthful in appearance than one might guess her true age to be, though her chopped bob and bangs, slightly streaked in grey, gave her some kindly gravitas to match.

The counselling room was furnished with soft armchairs and a table for the counsellor, carpeted but enclosed with no natural light. A small shelf sat to one side with a tray of glasses and a water flask.

Today though the shelf was partially blocked by a third person in the room."Ms Nixon will join us today as well, as part of the school's efforts to improve our care programme." The woman looked as proper as she did yesterday, again in nearly the same shade of grey suit. In her hand was a tablet and stylus.

"How are you doing at the moment Myra? I am concerned about what you may have experienced at yesterday's blackout. Can you tell me a bit about what's going on with you right now? I'm ready to listen if you're willing to share." So that’s what the school was calling it, a blackout.

Her tone was gentle, but nonetheless probing..

Yesterday, when Myra came home, she stepped over the threshold and felt at home, at peace, as if a warm blanket was put around her. But for the first time, she also noticed that, like a blanket, her movement and expressions were hampered by the heavy cloth. Not an issue if you were sitting on the couch or in bed doing nothing, but the idea of looking up the symbols and traditions in her family library evaporated while she was having dinner with her Grandmother.
It was when she got to school that she remembered that we didn't look up the symbols and traditions in the family library. It has put her a little on edge.

Before this counselling session, she had a chat with her classmates and realised that the staff were hiding something important.

Thank you, Dr Veritas. I'm surprised to see a guidance counsellor in this session. Two on one, to talk about a simple blackout that is a bit much, isn't it? Unless it was not a blackout.

In that case, I am concerned about what the school is hiding.
Are we safe?


This was a tad more rebellious and confrontational than Myra expected herself to be, but she schooled her face not to give away the surprise of her own words.

The same disconcerting feeling Myra had yesterday as her eyes darted to Nixon even as she evaded Veritas' questions was amplified, for the guidance counsellor from the Board of Education revealed no expression even though Myra had explicitly mentioned the grey suited woman.

Nixon scribbled something briefly on her tablet and said nothing, whereas Veritas always warmer and assuring, resumed the conversation. "Stress can sometimes make us see events negatively. Did you see or hear something that made you feel less safe yesterday? Did you speak with anyone that made you feel this way? Why don't you tell me why you feel this way."

Veritas did not rise to Myra's baiting, not did she react to Myra's more confrontational tone, for Myra had still maintained the proper decorum and respect in speaking with a member of staff. She was used to handling students, not as disciplinarian, but as counsellor. She made no mention of any discrepancy in truth, but turned the questions towards what version Myra was going to bring to the table.

Myra had the feeling though that the version of the story she chose to tell was somehow important to herself personally. That it would shape how she dealt with her newly experienced reality in some way. Sure, she could try to convince Veritas, but could she affect herself in the process?

I feel less safe now with this investigation with this stranger I don't know.

Why is Ms Nixon part of this investigation?

Myra's point was a reasonable one. To her, Dr Isabella Veritas was a long time member of staff even before Myra joined the school four years ago, and as far as she knew, Veritas was in charge of counselling for the last three years. The forbidding Ms Nixon was entirely new to the school, and here she was, sitting in on a typically private session.

Her defiance was finally enough to provoke a response from Nixon. The expressionless woman will the bunned-up hair adjusted her spectacles ever so slightly, and spoke, "Guidance, not investigation," she murmured. While the words were directed at Myra's challenge, they seemed more to be about setting the existing atmosphere correctly to counter Myra's stated position than about admonishing Myra.

In fact it was Veritas who quickly resumed with, "Myra, it seems to me that you are more affected by this incident than you realise, and are not yet ready to talk about it. We will make a note of this, and resume another time. Or when you feel differently, let Ms Young know so we can continue."

The answer was opaque; there was nothing else Myra could wrangle from the adults here before she was dismissed. In the back of her head she was already thinking about the esoteric skewing of this place and wondered if that was affecting her responses. She had tried very hard to reject the narrative she felt was being imposed on her, and to some degree she succeeded. Her mind was clear, for now.

Myra nods and leaves the session.
Her story branch joins the main story here

Myra came home to the Lockwood estate, her mind full of questions. Old feelings were reopened about her parents, more unanswered questions. She had long since come to terms with their absence, thanks to grandmother Lockwood, the stabilising presence in her teenage life, but Cassandra Devereaux seemed to be very certain about her family's connection to magic. Myra had suspected, but recent events confirmed it. There was something special about her family.

Interestingly, Joe was more likely the only other person in their recent association who had a inkling of the world of the awakened. Sure, it was revealed to him in enigma and spirit and and mystery and dream, for that was the way his insights came to him when he was alone. Now was a chance to share his knowledge with the others, perhaps together they could dig into their past and uncover hidden truths.

Myra leads the way up the driveway. The rain has darkened the gravel, so it looks almost black. The driveway curves through old trees and stone walls that feel more like boundaries than decoration.

Myra adjusts the strap of her satchel and looks up at the house. The Lockwood estate sits back from the road like it was built to avoid being seen. Tall windows watch from behind heavy curtains. The roofline is all sharp angles and old gables. Ivy climbs where it has been allowed to climb.

Myra smiles as she can tell what her friend is thinking. It’s not… haunted. It just has a presence.

The front path is clean despite the weather. The stone steps are worn smooth in the middle from generations of feet. The air smells like wet leaves and brick, and something faintly clean underneath.
Myra taps her boot against the first step before she climbs it. The sound is quick and deliberate.

Myra notices her friend noticing. It’s for announcing yourself.
She taps the step a second time. My grandmother says it’s polite.

She unlocks the front door. The lock clicks with a crisp finality. The solid oak door opens without a creak, like it has been recently cared for.

Inside, the temperature drops just enough to feel intentional. The entry hall is wide and dim in a controlled way. Light falls where someone wanted it to fall. Darkness stays in the corners like it has been instructed to stay there.
The carpets swallow footsteps and the walls are thick. The silence is the kind that makes you lower your voice, even if no one asked you to.

Myra walks with practised steps; her pace is measured, like she knows the house’s timing.

Two doors along the corridor look perfectly normal. They have polished brass handles and well-kept panels. Myra’s eyes slide over them like they are not there.

Myra glances back to make sure her friend is still with her. You might feel a little turned around. She pauses for half a second.
Don’t panic. This place is just… particular.

The air changes when she opens the library door; warm lamplight spills onto the hallway, like a welcome that the rest of the house refuses to give. The smell of paper and leather settles in your lungs immediately, providing a sense of peace and contemplation.

Shelves rise higher than your head and keep going. With ladders that sit on rails like they are often used. A small brass plaque marks one section as a Lockwood donation. The books here look heavy and serious, and are handled with care.

Myra relaxes by a fraction as she steps inside. She sets her satchel down with the ease of someone returning to the only room that always makes sense. Myra touches the hexagon pendant at her throat without thinking. This is my favourite part of the house. I feel safe here.

She looks at her friend with a faint smirk that is warmer now. If you get lost, come back here.

Please wait here for a bit. I will find my grandmother and tell her we have a guest. She will insist on offering tea. Please accept, but feel free not to drink it, if you don't want to. Being a good host is important... Something is not said about being a good guest. Or guest-rites? Who knows? And what happened to the determined Myra that was hellbent on answers?
Myra leaves the library and returns a few minutes later.

Joe opts to go home with Myra; this is, after all, a new town to him, and while getting lost with a modern phone should be difficult, peering at a screen too often makes one vulnerable, especially in unfamiliar surroundings. The Lockwood house is… imposing.
"Where I come from, we’d say it certainly has character. There, you can mostly read the age of a building by its architecture, even if it runs in phases. Here, it’s more a case of what someone really wanted… how old is the house?" he wonders politely. He smiles nervously. "Please excuse my curiosity; reflexive history geek!"

---

Joe contemplates tapping the step as fast as he can, an exercise in weight transfer and balance, but decides against it; this isn’t a dance studio, nor a dojo. Instead he taps each foot once, deliberately and precisely, as if knocking upon a heavy door. "Courtesy is always an important tradition," he acknowledges. "When in Rome…" he smiles, confident that finishing the sentence is unnecessary.

---

The Lockwood house doesn’t just have character; it has presence. Indeed, it has what some martial artists might call "centre". Utter solidity; almost a sense of… fortitude? Watchfulness? Judgement, maybe? Joe has been in places which possessed such an atmosphere before, but never a private home, and never with such intensity. Finally he decides what the right word is: Gravity. In every sense. Joe feels that a light-hearted smile would be severely misplaced. His curiosity is not oppressed, however; rather, it is energised by an unfamiliar environment which he cannot help somehow feeling he should be able to understand on some level; he tries to take in everything.
All else apart, getting lost in someone’s home would be embarrassing.

---

So even Myra finds it hard to relax in much of the Lockwood house. Joe is not really surprised. "Thank you," he says, finally feeling welcomed rather than admitted. "I also tend to feel more comfortable in a library. And tea would be quite welcome!" With ancestry that could be superficially described as mostly-British-with-Asian-complications, this is literal truth for Joe; he’s intrigued by what kind of tea might arrive.
When Myra leaves, he sets off on a slow circuit of the room, touching nothing, but examining the books by title and organisation, seeing what impressions the library gives of the interests of those who created it and use it.

---

The brass plaque identifying the Lockwood donation is particularly curious; that implies that the Lockwoods only contributed part of the library. That suggests some divide, or change, of ownership.

Joe half expected a coat-tailed servant to turn up with refreshments, given the grand size of the estate. Instead of cutting through Ashford town to get here, they took the adjacent highway to reach past the suburban housing district, and then towards the historic older estates that dotted greater Ashford, closer to Salem than Boston. But Myra had so fondly mentioned grandmother Lockwood, and so accurately described her, that the door opened, and there was a white-haired lady of dignified bearing despite her slight stoop, where her dignity did not prevent her from carrying a silver tray of fine china. She smiled as she looked at Joe standing rapt in the study area of the library room, taking it all in. "A guest! And Myra didn't even message beforehand." Myra said she had gone off to find her grandmother, but her grandmother found Joe first instead.

"I'm Evelyn. Sit, sit." She beckoned to the mahogany table, laid the tray down, and began pouring. Myra was right, tea was being offered. "She hardly brings friends home." Evelyn Lockwood was too proper to probe, whether Joe was a schoolmate, a buddy, a boyfriend, or something else. Joe almost wondered if he would be invited to stay for dinner.

Now where was Myra? And what secrets might her own house have kept from her?

She must be out... oh. Hi grandmother. Myra stands in the door to the libary. She didn't expet her grandmother to be home, but apparently they missed eachother in the house.

Introduce me to your friend. Everlyn is dressed in a dark Tai Chi clothing.
I was out back doing my afternoon routine. Perhaps you will join me tomorrow?

I would love that, but Joe and I have some things to discuss. Something is going on at school. And Joe is a classmate.

Very well, I'll leave you to it. Its nice to have some life in the house again.I'm not totally sure about the age of this house. I think part of it is very old, or has been shipped from Europa, or both. Or something like that. I was just a little girl when I heard my dad talk about it. A shadow falls over her face as she misses her father, but she quickly shakes it off.

She turns to one of the shelves and starts to peruse. I have a nagging feeling that I have seen some of those symbols I showed you, somewhere here in this library.

She starts to search. What did you learn today, Joe?

"Ms. Evelyn, you’re most kind. Myra went to look for you. I’m sorry we disturbed your routine, I thought we were being quiet. My name is Joe- oh, hey, Myra."

---

"What’d I learn? Well, I gather the staff aren’t investigating, implying they already know what happened or think they do, but they’re terrible liars, because I called Dr. Veritas on the discrepancy between what she said and what everyone around school was saying, and she was so rattled that she didn’t answer my simple question about whether the school was safe, which should have been a reflexive ‘yes of course’ or ‘why wouldn’t it be’. All she said was that I was jumping to conclusions, but I hadn’t given her any conclusions, just observations about the rumour mill running over possible disappearances. A teacher should know the difference, and normally I’m sure she does."
"But that’s my supposition, and my subject is history not psychology. What’d I learn about Emily; well, I could sense her life force, and her - well, her magick. She not only had - has? - magick, she was using it yesterday; some kind of Spirit power that allowed her to appear in several places. After what Cass said today, it sounds like we’re not the only ones in school with magick. Frankly, I’m wondering if what Emily was doing was some kind of deliberate prank or showing off, and something went wrong; she revealed too much, because it seems like anyone with magick has something to hide; I get the feeling there’s a lot going on not everyone knows about, and nobody hands out explanations until they know you’re already in the secret club; but if you don’t know about it, or know who’s safe to talk to… well, it’s a Catch-22; you can’t find out who’s okay to talk to without talking to them. You’d like to think smart people could do better, and I don’t know how worried to be that apparently they can’t."
"As to us; well, Cass as good as said your family is known for this kind of thing, so I’m assuming that’s connected to your family having a long history in these parts. I apparently have a family connection as well, but because my family isn’t from around here, nobody knows about us. Which might be good, or might not. I -" he pauses, chokes up briefly, then resumes, "I think my mother had magick as well. I’ve had some really odd dreams…"

A twinge went through Myra's heart when she heard Evelyn's warm parting words, about having some life in the house again, for she had largely suppressed how alone she felt in this massive house despite the deep love and companionship grandma Evelyn had surrounded her with. It occurred to her that she had had no guests of her own, perhaps Joe's presence was the start of some openness in her life.

Joe recognised the roomy cut and silken fabric of Evelyn's exercise garment; did she also practise the same kinds of mindful meditative arts that he did as well? Joe joined Myra was she began to look through her extensive shelves, for while it wasn't the same collection he had at home, he seemed to be proficient in perusing through the rows and rows of books. Myra knew what she wanted to dig for - all the information she could gather on the traditions of magick. She had found some such knowledge someone had stashed away in the school library of all places, but here is where she was confident she would find more history, and who better to understand history than Joe?

Myra was also looking for details on that last symbol. To find the dark room with that symbol, she would have to search the campus. But perhaps there was some background on it. Joe wondered if he could find out more about his parents' connection to magic the way Cass seemed so sure Myra's family was, but a library wouldn't be a place to find it. Unless Myra was prepared to go digging into anything her parents might have hidden away from her. For Joe wouldn't have the same chance to do so as he had recently moved to Ashford, unless he confronted his father with these questions. Joe could search up how his dreams work if he wanted. He now had the odd thought: was his enrolment in Ashford High, with all this magical phenomena, incidental? How could he know what his connection to the school was, when it was so hard to figure out who to speak to and trust, and who to be avoided?

Myra and Joe were beginning to realise that they could spend days sifting through the extensive collection. Partly because, for one, Myra's parents had vested a lot of effort into curating this vast library of works and tomes. Their interests were wide-ranging, from hard science and tech all the way to esoterica and kabbalah. What made their search equally fascinating and annoying was the fact that it wasn't about looking for that one book in the form of a musty leather-bound tome written by some self-professed archmage which documented all the traditions of magick. That only happened in fiction. Instead, what both Joe and Myra possessed was the uncanny ability to make connections between the books they were flipping through. A mention of the practices of Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary Hellenistic figure and the mythical founder of Hermeticism found in one volume of encyclopaedia, and then a different reference to Hellenistic mystery religions in the stories of dionysinian and eleusinian hymns needed two intelligent teenage minds to connect together, and then further connect to a third book, and a fourth, and so on, before Myra and Joe could marvel at what the magical Order of Hermes was as part of the Nine Traditions. Similary, with its origins in ancient Sanskrit, and two different translations of the yoga sutras combined with the Dao De Jing led them to understand better what the Akashic way entailed. There was so much to learn and so little time to learn it.

As for the unknown symbol, the closest they could find was an 18th century symbol which contained an impossible amalgamation of various cultural origins from Futhark runes to the eye of Horus to a Sephirot six-pointed star. The common feature was how the circle diagram was a broken one. Perhaps the more modern one Myra saw took inspiration from that, but there was nothing else they could locate in the books.

Myra was amazed by all the connections she and Joe made. The pile of books around them had started to look less like chaos and more like a map, where every thread they tugged on pulled three more into view.

A half-laugh escapes her, but it never fully becomes a laugh. I had no idea my parents knew all this. I thought they were just… academics. Not this.

One page lies open where a paragraph has been underlined years ago in neat pencil. The mark is old, deliberate, and unmistakably intentional. She taps the line once, then meets Joe’s eyes with a sudden, bright intensity. They curated this. This isn’t just a library. It’s a structure.

Another volume is flipped open, and she pushed it toward him. Diagrams of hands and posture fill the pages, surrounded by numbered footnotes, and somewhere near the back a careful hand has cross-referenced three different translations. Her words come fast and exited. Look at this. It’s a guide to hand gestures and movements that facilitate energy flow.

The book turns in her hands so the illustrations face him properly. One stance gets an extra tap of her finger, almost accusatory in its familiarity. Her brow tightens as memory and observation overlap. It resembles T’ai Chi. Not exactly. But the bones of it are there.

Standing carefully, she avoids the scattered books by instinct, nudging a chair aside with her foot to make space. The first position settles into her body with unsettling ease. Her hands float into place with a steadiness she does not remember learning, and her shoulders release like they have been waiting years for permission.

The next movement brings a faint resistance in the air, like water meeting a palm. It isn’t theatrical. It is simply real, and that is worse.

Eyes closed, she repeats the gesture more slowly. Something in her chest loosens, as if a knot has finally been picked apart one patient strand at a time, and even her breathing changes - lower, steadier, less guarded.

When her eyes open again, she swallows. The energy flows a bit better. The movement repeats with a small shift of weight, and the sensation sharpens into a strange clarity that makes her want to laugh and flinch at the same time. Her voice drops. Like removing stones from a riverbed.

A glance toward Joe checks whether he felt it too, whether this is shared reality or private insanity. There’s probably more to it, but that’s what I can feel right now.

Sitting down again feels different now, not like a student hiding in a safe room, but like someone who has realised the room was built for her, and that she has been circling the edges of it her whole life.

The notes they have made are scattered between books and notebooks like breadcrumbs across a dark forest. Hermes Trismegistus. Mystery religions. Dionysian rites. Eleusinian hymns. Each connection like stepping stones across dark water, and each step more certain than the last.

Her fingers find the pendant at her throat without thinking, and her throat tightens around a breath that refuses to settle. The library looks different when she lifts her head again, not changed, but newly legible. Her vision blurs. She blinks hard. The tears come anyway.

When she speaks next, it is not to Joe. It is to the room, to the shelves, to the careful silence her parents left behind. I didn’t know any of this. Why didn’t you tell me?

Her voice cracks, and she hates that it does. Now we’re thrown into a strange new world, and I would really like to talk to you about it.

The back of her hand wipes at her cheek, sharp with embarrassment and sharper with anger that she has a reason to cry. The silence answers the way it always has. The library does what it always does. It holds.

The notes about the unknown symbol drag her attention back down. The broken circle. The impossible amalgamation of origins, runes and Horus and sephirot geometry welded into one sign, as if someone stitched together a dozen traditions and left the seams visible on purpose.

If this is the closest we can find, then whoever made the modern version wanted it to be recognisable.

A fresh page flips over in her notebook, and the pencil starts moving again. The symbol is copied carefully, line by line, as if precision could pin it to the world. Or they wanted it to look like something that already exists… so it could hide in plain sight.

Joe examines the book Myra held out to him with interest, and a critical eye. "This reads like an analysis of martial arts by someone coming from a distinct standpoint, as a mystick or magickal theoretician. Someone who treated the subject as a science, but with an observational approach, more like an eighteenth century natural philosopher than a modern analytical scientist. It’s similar to t’ai chi, but closer I think to some styles of chi gung. My mother-" there’s less of a catch in his voice this time; "my mother taught me something very like this. Chi gung is about energy flow, gathering and channeling it in the body. T’ai chi is more like a manual on how to use the body, like practicing with a tool or an instrument. Some of it involves the application of energy, but almost as a guiding factor, a back-to-first-principles, child’s primer level introduction. Some of what she said suggested a more complete application of the first principles…" he tailed off, in thought.

---

Show me! Myra stands and go through her own movements again. This time she is feeling for shifts in the energy flow.

Calling out to her absent parents made Myra feel less alone. As if they were there to prepare for this eventuality, that Myra would discover her own legacy one day. There were no personal notes in this library, no secret from her parents stashed away in between the pages of a book to give Myra the big reveal, for that would have made it so crystal clear. There were only inferences, but boy were these inferences and connections more and more illuminating, not just for Myra, but for Joe as well. Both of them coming to the same conclusion as they pored over the texts meant that they were right. They did discover the tip of the iceberg, and wealth of knowledge about magic just waiting to be uncovered and learned. But were they supposed to learn how to use their abilities through these books? Almost coincidentally, one of the volumes lying open amongst all the scattered ones on the table and floor was open to page about apprenticeship, learning from a teacher of the right tradition.
But who would teach such a thing to further their education?
The growling of their stomachs reminded Myra and Joe that time had whizzed by as they delved book after book. They hadn't even noticed grandma Evelyn had left a plate of savoury baked puffs next to the tray of tea. The clock showed that it was way past dinner time, but Evelyn's genial permissiveness meant she wasn't the type to summon them to sit down for dinner together. But the hours did past quickly, and they were barely scratching the surface.

Joe, which of these traditions appeals to you?
I feel that the Order of Hermes stings true to me. But there is something familiar about the Sons of Ether.
Perhaps my parents were members of these traditions?

Joe sighs, pausing mid-movement. "I understand that I am heir to the techniques and history of the Akashayana, or the Akashic Brotherhood as it has been known. My mother passed without telling me anything directly, but she evidently prepared. She gave me some preliminary training herself, and she seems to have made other arrangements as well; unfortunately those don’t seem to have been straightforward and for some time I was struggling to decide whether to accept them or not. Frankly, I’ve been considering Occam’s Razor with some desperation, and as of yesterday what seems to be real life suddenly became at least as hard to accept as what up until then I was finding hard to believe in. This," he gestures around him with a waved arm to encompass the preceding thirty hours or so, " suddenly seems more definitely consistent, convincing, and plausible, and therefore likely to be true. Given that, I know some things. My father and my sister are Sleepers, that is, non-mages, and it seems very much that the school operates on the principle of explaining nothing except to those who have Awakened, just as my mother did. Unfortunately it seems that we have all awakened without anyone both familiar to us and in on the great secret close at hand and able to realise what had happened. Result; confusion."
He looks at Myra sympathetically. "So, it looks like your parents were making preparations too, for your sake, in a similar way, without revealing anything; they were planning for the future. If I may ask, and you can say it’s not my business, do you know what happened to your parents?"

A notification alerts Myra to a text.
Hey Myra, is that invite still open? I finished up my project for Jonathan. I can head be over in a bit.

Myra looks up with a fiery passion in her eyes. Like this is a question that she wanted answered and danm the consequences...
And then the passion evaporates. They went missing years ago. I still hope that they will show up, but its just my grandmother and me now.Myra text Kyle back.
That is great Kyle.
Joe and I have made some progress.
Tell you about it when you get here.

About 15 minutes later a knock, followed by the doorbell ringing

"Oh hello!" A kindly old woman with lively eyes and a spring in her step, garbed in a tai chi outfit, greeted Kyle at the main door of the impresive Lockwood mansion. "Three years of high school and hardly with friends over, but tonight, oh my. Come in, come in, you must be here for Myra." It was another boy, but Evelyn Lockwood reminded herself not to tease these young ones in that manner, for it was a different generation now. More than anything she was genuinely surprised by Myra's new social activity. What a way to start senior year. "She and a friend have been holed up in the library since they got here." A study circle? Evelyn thought. It was no secret to her that her granddaugther wanted to ace her final year.

"Hellos miss. I'm Kyle. Myra invited me over?"

He keeps up a dialog but tries not to overdo it. His folk had money but this place gives Kyle the impression of old family money. "I knew Myra last year but we were mostly in different circles. A bunch of us just clicked early this year and she invited some of us over. You have a nice home here mam. "

Upon reaching the library Kyle instantly though he would have loved this place as a kid. Though he did most of his reading on devices now, as kid he had loved reading all kinds of books and would likely have spent many hours in the room, if allowed. Seeing Myra and Joe he smiled and apologized. "Sorry I'm late. I seem to keep arriving after thing happen or have already been discussed, so I need to play a bit of catch-up. Thanks for the invite" and nods to Myra

"Evening Kyle. We’ve been busy, and it looks like Myra’s family have quite some history; we’ve found a lot of material, but it’s not exactly designed to fit together just for us. We’ve got these symbols associated with different magickal Traditions though, and we’ve been talking about which we feel some affinity for. Do any of them speak to you?" Joe gestures to the collection of symbols Myra had found. "We’re also pretty sure that our parents were preparing us for something like what’s happened, this Awakening, but, uh, didn’t get to finish the job. They seem, quite independently, to have been nudging us forward and hoping something would happen, that they couldn’t explicitly explain until after it happened, and all the signs are that the school, or at least some of the people there, have been proceeding on a very similar path, maybe without the active nudging part. We’re definitely not the only ones; I’m sure that Emily - the girl who vanished - had magick too, and she was using it just before whatever happened, happened yesterday." Joe finally pauses for breath, aware that he’s infodumping excessively, and stumbles to a halt. "It’s a lot to process," he finishes weakly.

Looking over the symbols Kyle shrugs
" Nothing.

So, is it just the symbols or are there any other references?

I'm not sure if it's just me or what but so far everything I do seems to work well with or be related to tech, or tech like effects. But that might just be me limiting myself. Of this really is magic them I think I need to get rid of allot of preconceptions and the modern social mindset.

Zane, another student, also seems to be a bit sensitive to these things. I found out the hard way and I think he's pissed with me now. I really wish my parents had been prepping me for anything like this. I've only just been fumbling with things by myself over the summer."

To be honest, I think this tradition thing is also just a mute question right now. With no one to guide us, then what use is it?
On the other hand, we know there are others at the school who are in the know.

Cass for one, Cass Devereaux, and her father Alistar Croft are both active, and I think we can trust Cass with some questions.
But who else we can trust I dont know.

Mr Necth and Ms Nixon, the new Guidance counsellors, those I don't want near me.

Myra share a look with Joe. What did you learn Kyle? Joe and I got to talking about energy flow and martial arts, and how Shi-Gong, and Thai-Chi both have moves that benifets the flow of energy we feel when we do... She cant say the word. When we do what others cant.

Kylel pauses a moment to think before replying.
"Honestly, I'm still figuring things out. It seems to be a combination of mindset, both mine and others, as well as some sort of power. Whether the power is mental or magical I have not clue, if it really matters either way. I experimented a bit over the summer and found that some things are a lot easier if I find some plausible way to explain it to other, like this" and Kyle pulls out his phone and taps it a couple of time, causing one of the lights in the room to flicker and pulse in time with his commands. Parlor Trick

" I've also noticed that doing too much of it can result in some sort of feedback that can make things worse latter on. I'm still trying to figure it out but it seems that, for me at least, mixing in science and tech seems to help me get the results I want. Just thinking about it isn't enough. But if I can create some form of plan that make sense at least in my own mind or use something to focus my idea of what I want to happen then it becomes more reliable. The biggest problem I have now is, how do I figure out the rules in dealing with others. So far all my tests have been on my own and I hadn't interacted with anyone who could even feel what I was trying to do. Now it seems there a a ton of people, students and faculty, that not only can sense it but are way better at it than I am."

Myra and Joe had had some time to pore over the Lockwood collection of eclectic tomes. Perhaps it was their newfound awareness that gave them the ability to be more effective than any librarian in choosing the books that were relevant (perhaps it was some heightened intuition), and then zooming in on the information that was of interest and seeing their inter-connections. There was too much to process, it would take time to go through it all, but they scratched the surface and got the gist of it.

All this wasn't immediately apparent to Kyle. While he loved the notion of books and libraries, lately his knowledge came through online sources. Also, because he had been witnessing the effects of his own digital manipulations and how that could affect things, he didn't immediately see anything useful in the arcane symbols that Joe pointed to, nor to the older names given to what appeared to be schools or philosophies of magick such as the Order of Hermes, or the Akashic Brotherhood. But then a page from one of the volumes caught his eye, then another. Some of it looked like ordinary writing, other parts like a transcript of indecipherable squiggly lines. Kyle had a flash of insight, could they be code? A quick scan of the image would help.

In the meantime as Kyle caught up with all the wealth of resources this library provided, Myra and Joe contemplated on what they had found. The knowledge, though eye-opening, was still merely academic in nature. They knew the history behind the traditions of magic, but as Myra rightly pointed out, they still didn't know the actual practice of it. For that, the books mentioned apprenticeships, training, learning from others who had mastered the mystical arts. Joe, Kyle and Myra did not know yet that Jonathan and Minsoo were one step closer to finding out about this, for the two of them were at this moment consulting with someone who gave them direction as to whom to speak with to learn more.

One book even made it sound like there were such things as wizard schools (presumably where the fiction of Harry Potter came from), but this view was largely dismissed by others. Most of them taught that it was about finding a tradition (with a small t), a way of believing and of expressing that belief in concretely manifested ways. If one thought that magic was about incantations and fomulae and spells, then they had to practise those in order to be able to perform that magic.

The other thing that Joe and Myra started doing was to take note of who in school already had inklings of this other world. What surprised them, and in equal measures comforted and concerned them, was that there were others like them they did not know about. Amongst their classmates were Cassandra and Zane, and Wren mentioned Daniela had an episode yesterday and left school before lunch today. Minsoo and Jonathan also currently realised that Kirk was within their sphere of knowledge. Was it coincidence that they were all from the same class? And so many of them?

The last conclusion Myra was inferring was that their parents were somehow preparing them for their eventual awakening, based on what she discovered in her own home. This was disputed by Kyle, for a number of them had absent parents for some reason or other. Perhaps there would be reason to dig around their own family background to see if there were secrets to uncover. They would find out later that Wren had gone straight home to do exactly this, confront her parents, and that she did discover, not the truth, but that there was some mystery behind why their parents stayed silent about their innate abilities.

Kyle is instantly curious about the potential embedded code within the books. As he reads up and listens to the others talk about their own insights he wonders just how much the arcane and mundane worlds cross paths and how much of mythology is actually history of the arcane world. He would love to scan this entire place and starts a systematic search of all the symbols. While they mean nothing to him now, the idea that each persons beliefs or mindset affects how they interact with the arcane world suggests that the symbols might be useful to others. If he can figure out how then maybe he can adapt the knowledge for his own use. The idea of finding a mentor sounds great too, but Kyle is incredibly wary of revealing his powers to others at this time. He wonders if his family, his parent and his uncle, are or were involved in the arcane world. He cant think of anything that would indicate it but determines to look into it more when he gets home.

Thinking about it he asks Myra, before he can talk himself out of it "Hey Myra, since your family has all this information then it seems like they are in on this hole magic secret. Most of the books seem to be using a method that doesn't seem to be the way I do things. Do you think they might know others that work the way I do?"

I would love to have an answer for you, but I don't. They didn't share this with me. And looking for my parents' journals... Myra has a sense of vertigo and takes a few extra steps to keep her balance. ...Would not be proper.

As they discuss things Kyle decides it s best to get more comfortable and familiar with the world of magic pulls out his off grid phone to take pictures of the pages that caught his eye. As he does he focuses his mind through the phones camera to feel beyond just sight, recalling that using tools seemed to make working with the energies easier at times. After recording and probing the most interesting symbols and pages he then opens his senses, shifting through each in turn, Prime, Matter, Force, to the library and house around it.
"It's your family, so your call, but maybe they left clues that would only make sense once you started on this path we are all on now. What about the lady who let me in? Maybe she knows something that might help.

Well if it is common to follow families it makes me wonder about my own. Only, how do I find out without getting if trouble if none of them do have magic, and what does that mean for me? I mean my parents were well off, but they're gone now, and my uncle does OK, but nothing like this." and gestures at the room and beyond to encompass the house.

" I'm no expert but humans are humans and history shows that older established power often don't like young upstarts. Not that I want to start anything. Sheesh, I mean it seems that in school at least some of the leaders are in on it but they don't seem all that open and inviting. But going in blind as we are seems risky. It's a good thing that there are others that seem willing to talk about it but since all of this is not general public knowledge I'm a bit nervous about why that is and how they manage it. "

As they spoke, Glitch seemed to have made itself very much at home in the well-appointed space of the Lockwood library. The drone took to reading the book titles off the shelves, row by row, from left to right, high to low, as if recording everything to add to its database. Whatever books were open it showed a great curiosity about, hovering over Myra, then Joe, then Kyle as Kyle began to also delve into the wealth of information before him. It felt so natural for Kyle to interface with the books through his gadgets, just like the interweb was itself a vast library. His phone screen began to fill with bytes and bytes text, so much so he needed to pull out his laptop instead to use its processor to resummarise what Myra and Joe had been researching into organised data maps, labeled graphics, and clearly laid out expositions, in essence, a 'cheat sheet' of all they unearthed.

And while it was rare for Myra to open her house to others, the fact that she did meant she had to deal with opening herself up a bit more. The presence of Kyle and Joe prompted her to talk about her family. For Kyle's questions were sincere, no one had asked about her parents for a long time, and Myra's first impulse was to feel a little protective about what she wanted to say about them. She was resolved in her heart that if her parents wanted her to explicitly have the knowledge she was meant to have, they would have laid out a will containing instructions, or something more personal, like letters or journals. But Myra did not have anything of that sort. Perhaps that was the mystery. They must have wanted her to know about her legacy, but also took pains to not give her anything direct or explicit. Not until today did Myra discover that things were there all along, but hidden, embedded, implicit. Did grandma know anything about this? What about the staff and helpers, some of whom had been with the family for a long time?

So while Kyle's question was a legitimate one, Myra had had no reason to think anything of the people who lived with her knew anything about magic, and could only answer him in the negative. But Kyle's heritage paralleled Myra's; both of them had absent parents. Did this mean that Kyle's parents would have also left him some legacy for him to discover? How would he go about doing so? By asking his uncle? This also made Myra the most suited to help him discover this, given how she just discovered it for herself.

Quietly, Joe contemplated his circumstances. He had had other preparations. His mother had passed recently, but unlike the other two, had made some very specific and significant arrangements for him. Even though she didn't have the chance to talk to him about it, she had plans. But what were those plans for? With such a context, could Joe assist here? It was up to him how much he wanted to open up to Kyle and Myra about himself.

Myra explains that it's only her grandmother and herself that lives in Lockwood House. There is a maid service that comes around 3 times a week and helps with the cleaning, washing, etc. There is also a gardener that comes around 1-2 times a week, depending on the season, to keep the grounds.
Other than T’ai Chi, she is certain that her grandmother does not know anything about their new world.
But they all knew her parents in a different way that Myra did. They could know something.

Kyle is getting excited at the results and thanks Myra sincerely for the use of the library. Since Glitch was interested he just tied his laptop to the drone and fed the images through an OCR filter to record as much text as possible while simply flipping pages for the drone while searching for hidden messages, patterns, or anything that Glitch or the programs missed.

Feeling a bit guilty he decided it is best to keep things fair and two way so shares a bit about his own resources as he continues flipping through books.

"Near the end of last year I found a place that jut felt interesting, like it was calling to me. Anyhow Glitch seems to love the place and it seems a bit easier to mess around with some of my powers there. It isn't too far from campus and I have no idea what these are but the place produces these periodically and they seem to be some source do energy. " and pulls out a Tass crystal he had collected from his node to show the others. "The place seemed to be hard to find so I have been using it to stay off anyone's radar while experimenting but today it felt like someone had been that way. I'm not sure why. Maybe just someone exploring or a new student getting lost but with all the strange things with the first day back I'm honestly wishing it wasn't in such a public space."

Kyle felt comfortable enough here to be entirely open with Myra and Joe. Even the house itself felt like the kind of place that seemed to make the display of magic safe, as safe as when he was alone in his own hideaway. His mind was already wondering how he could link the two locations. One of the books mentioned mages transporting themselves or other objects instantaneously from one destination to another once those places were linked and empowered by magical essence, or tass, the substance of which Kyle was very excited to finally give a name to. He assumed tass would take the form of crystals, for that's what he understood in terms of nodes. But raw quintessence came in various forms and substances.

During all this discovery, Joe wondered if he ought to also tap into his inner landscape. That was the place where he found many of his answers, perhaps interrogating his dreams now would reveal more based on what he had learnt today.

In his enthusiasm and novice unfamiliarity, Kyle attempted to tap into the essence of the mansion itself without sufficient understanding. And something in the mansion pushed back, like a ward or enchantment of some sort designed to preserve the privacy of the place and everyone in it. Kyle's wireless network went down again and he had to scramble to reboot his system. The house clearly attempted to enforce some compliance. Perhaps Myra had some insight into what occurred.

Just then, the doorbell rang. Wren was expected!