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| A crack in the sky isn't always easy to notice at first. |
Yue rubbed the middle of her forehead and sighed. "So, let me get this straight, you were trying to chase off the neighborhood bully, but your friend accidentally tripped him on his way out and he fell into a wall that you didn't see was there. In the middle of a field. Now the wall is cracked and it's dark in that part of the field. Is that right?"
Yue's younger brother, Aiki, nodded solemnly. "There wasn't anything in front of him, but he fell into it."
"And you don't remember which friend accidentally tripped him?"
"No," Aiki said, his eyes sliding to the side.
Yue knew he was lying, but there were more important things to worry about. She stood up. "You'd better show me where this crack is."
Aiki grinned. "Then you can fix it!"
"I can try," Yue replied. However, when they walked out to the field, she saw her brother and his friend had really done it now. There certainly was a crack, but it looked like it was suspended in midair.
Yue walked all the way around it and passed her hand under and below it. Gently, she touched the area that had been cracked. Only there did it feel solid and real. Yue turned to Aiki. "You'd better bring Dori back over here. And don't tell me he didn't do this. I know he did. And bring a flashlight."
Yue, being a witch and with a younger brother who got into trouble a lot, had taken to checking into her brother's friends. Out of all of them, only Dori would have been able to do something like this. And he probably didn't realize how bad it was. It was already getting hard to see in this part of the field.
It wasn't too long before Aiki was back with a flashlight and Dori. They had the flashlight on since this part of the field was fully dark now.
"I didn't mean to-"
Yue cut Dori off by putting her hand up. "I'm sure you didn't. You just wanted that bully to fall into something, right?"
Dori nodded, guarded.
"Well, you managed to get him to fall into the sky and crack it."
"Into the sky? That's impossible!"
Yue shrugged, drawing up every inch of her teenage self-control. "That may be, but that's what I see here. You are going to help me fix this."
"How?" Dori asked, despairing. "I've never broken anything this big before!"
Yue pulled out her phone. There were a few sites that had real spells on them, so she checked through them. Of course, none of them had a spell to fix the sky. Yue was worried, really worried, but she was the tough older sister. Aiki had brought her here because he thought she could fix this.
Yue took a deep breath. "Well, if the sky broke like this, there must be some pieces around, right? We need to find them all."
Dori nodded quickly. He and Aiki started looking. Yue grabbed some dirt from the field and started squishing it in her hands and chanting. It began to turn into mud. It was a little hard to concentrate with the light of the flashlight bobbing around, but Yue made do. She was sort of cobbling together a spell she'd learned to fix most things. It should work on the sky. Probably.
After a few minutes, Dori and Aiki came to her with the pieces of the sky they'd been able to find. Yue nodded. "Give me some light," she told Aiki. He pointed the flashlight at the crack, and Yue started putting the mud over the crack. It was a little disconcerting, seeing mud floating in midair like that.
"Put the pieces of the sky in the mud," Yue directed.
Aiki and Dori did, pushing them in.
"Okay, now Dori, put your hands flat on the mud."
"Are we going to do magic?" Dori asked.
Yue nodded.
"Cool!" Aiki said. He loved watching his sister do magic.
"Aiki, turn the flashlight off," Yue said, putting her hands on top of Dori's.
Aiki clicked the light off and they were surrounded by their own patch of darkness. It was very strange and Yue started speaking before she could get scared. "Now, Dori, I want you to close your eyes and think about mending what is broken. All right?"
Since Dori was a child and probably hadn't cast many spells before, Yue was going to do most of the work. She just wanted Dori to have some investment in fixing what he had broken so he wouldn't do it again.
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Yue began the spell that was supposed to fix most broken things. The power flowed out of her, with a little coming out of Dori. Yue kept her eyes closed even as a light shine from under their hands.
"Cool!" Aiki said.
Yue kept herself focused and finished the spell. Mud splatted to the ground and Yue took her hands off of Dori's. The crack was gone and there was no trace of it. Yue breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed her hands together to get the worst of the mud off of them. She let herself droop. That spell had taken more out of her than she expected.
"Why isn't it getting bright again?" Aiki asked.
Yue looked up. Sure enough, they were still in their own patch of darkness. "Give it a minute," Yue said, not sure what to do if it stayed dark.
They waited and waited. It stayed dark.
"I broke it!" Dori yelled. "We can't even fix it. I'm going to be in so much trouble."
"You won't be in trouble. We just need to ask the sun to shine here again." Yue had said the first thing that came to mind and she regretted it. Talk to the sun? Just because she could do magic didn't mean she was crazy.
"How do we do that?" There was hope in Dori's eyes.
"Yue will know how," Aiki said.
Yue swallowed. Great. Maybe she could get them to meditate while she thought of something else. "We all have to sit down and be very still."
Aiki immediately sat on the ground. After a moment, Dori did too. Yue settled herself on the dirt. "Now, close your eyes and let your breathing settle into a long, slow pattern. And just let yourself be part of where you are."
Yue peeked one eye open and saw, for a wonder, that both boys were sitting relaxed with their eyes closed. Then again, this whole situation was overwhelming and they probably thought Yue knew what she was doing. Yue closed her eyes again. She slowed her breathing and began thinking through how she could get the sun to start shining here again. It might be easiest if the sun were something she could talk to and explain everything to.
Something around her changed and Yue opened her eyes. She wasn't in the field anymore. She focused her mind a bit. Her body was still in the field, but her spirit was roaming. She'd only done this a few times, so Yue started to get nervous. She turned around and immediately had to shut her eyes as it was blindingly bright.
"You might want to look away from me." The voice was big, bright, and intimidating.
Yue turned herself away and slowly opened her eyes again. There was no way this was really the sun. Was there? Either way, Yue didn't want to stay here long. "Um, the sky is all fixed now," she said.
"You mean where that child broke it with his head?"
Yue swallowed. "Yes. We repaired it."
The sun, for what else could it be, sighed. "And I suppose you want me to test your repair by standing on it?"
"It's a perfectly good repair," Yue was annoyed he would doubt one of her spells, forgetting who he was. "The crack is completely gone."
The sun chuckled. "Very well, then. You have done well. Not many would have dared to repair that crack, or to confront me about it."
Yue's mouth went dry.
"Come again if you have any more trouble," the sun said.
"Thank you," Yue said. She closed her eyes, turned and bowed toward the sun.
The sun chuckled, and Yue decided this was a good time to leave. She blinked and found herself back in her own body.
The sun was shining fully on them, although it was getting toward sunset.
"She did it!" Dori said.
"Of course she did," Aiki replied.
"Yes, I fixed it, but don't do that again!" Yue even shook her finger at Dori. Inside, she cringed at how old she must be getting, but she didn't let that show.
"Yes, ma'am," Dori said, giving her a small bow. "I'll be careful."
"Good," Yue said. "Now go home."
Dori was off like a shot.
Yue stayed sitting on the ground for a moment. She was exhausted and she wasn't sure how she was going to get home. But she had to stand up first.
Aiki walked over and offered Yue his hand.
Smiling a little, Yue took it and Aiki helped her up.
"You're always tired after a big spell," Aiki said, doing his best to help Yue walk.
Yue laughed. "Thank goodness I have you here to help me."
Aiki nodded seriously. Yue smiled and realized she was starving. Hopefully they were having something good for dinner tonight.
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