I stare at the ceiling of my bedroom, the quiet darkness of 2 am mocking my inability to sleep.  It's been four days now since the hospital.  Four days since I got my mind back, somewhat worse for wear.

The Council people had said I should avoid unnecessary contact with anyone.  They apparently don't have a lot of experience with "contagious" demonic influence, but the normal sort wears off in a few days without additional exposure, so they're hoping this too will just go away.

In one sense, it's not very hard...I don't really have friends or anything.  I have work acquaintances, and neighborhood acquaintances.  My family lives three states away, and even if they didn't, I wouldn't want to visit them any more than they'd want to see me.  And mystics are abnormally susceptible - those normal people at the periphery of my life are supposedly safe as long as I don't engage with them.  Basically, that just means things are as they were a couple weeks ago.

But not quite.

For one, it's not just the old loneliness.  Now I know there's a whole community of people I'd really love to talk to, learn things from, ask for advice.  But I specifically can't, at least for now.

For another, I've got these memories.  Even knowing that it was magic, a brutal unnecessary violation, and I cringe at remembering how I acted...all that aside, when I was Julia's "friend", most of the time I was...happy.  Not just content, but actually waking up early with a smile on my face (prophetic nightmares notwithstanding), looking forward to the day, to seeing her.  It had been comfortable.

In a way, it might be easier now if I could just hate her unreservedly...if she'd just been a horrible person, wanting to abuse me and discard me when she was done.  Thinking about it the past few days, I wasn't sure at first that she wasn't.  The way she worded the mystically-enforced commands, "closer than a sister"...it's hard to see how she could have not been angling for a less-than-platonic relationship.  And yet, every time I had even hinted at it, she got uncomfortable.  And so many other times where a look or a tone had gone over my head at the time, but now seemed like clear signs of internal conflict.  On top of all that, there was the fact that in the end, she'd let me go.

Maybe it didn't mean anything.  She knew she was caught, so she was just trying to make it look as good as possible for the Council people.  But in the hospital bathroom, she looked so abjectly miserable...I could swear she genuinely cared what I thought of her.

And they did say she was influenced too, even though that apparently wasn't a blanket excuse.  Demonic influence made you more likely to act on "negative impulses", but it didn't force you, and it didn't give you ideas.  And I hadn't done anything horrible that I remembered.  Still, it made it impossible for me to just condemn her outright.  Besides, if I was influenced too, could I even trust any negative feelings I had right now?

They'd said they would contact me if she was located, and it wasn't a lie - that little air-twisting thing really made talking with Sorceresses rather refreshing.  They hadn't had time to explain too much before I went into isolation, but there were other kinds of mystics than Sorcerers.  One sort, called Seers, were much more concerned with information than the physical magic most Sorcerers used, and they were unbelievably good at finding things, or people.  The way they'd talked, the Council people expected Julia to be found within hours at the most.  But it had been four days now, and nothing.

I didn't know what that meant.  Was she...dead?  Just better at hiding than they expected?  Or working with someone else, someone with more experience, more knowledge?  There was still the question of the demon, after all.  After pointed questions to me, they'd quickly decided that I hadn't had enough significant contact with anyone but Julia, so I must've picked up the influence from her.  But if this thing was being passed along, who could say if she'd received it directly, or as just another link in a chain?

It bothers me, because even though she broke the bond she had on me and her prior commands have lost all their force, I still care about her.  It was despicable and wrong and messed up in so many ways, but at the same time she opened my eyes to an amazing new world, she spent time and money helping me.  She really acted like a friend, even if I was being forced to reciprocate.  On top of that, Julia was gorgeous, too, and dynamic in a way I admired.

I make an noise of equal parts disgust and exasperation and fling the covers off, sitting up.  There's no way I can sleep with my thoughts going in endless circles like this, and my own broken desires are making me despise myself.

The last thing they'd said was that until they contacted me again, I should absolutely, under no circumstances, Vanish...I was still not properly trained on the nuances, and it was more risky than normal for people under demonic influence.  But there were other things I could still practice.

I reach over and flick on my bedside light, then kick my feet out so I can lay down on top of the covers, toes pointed, hands straight at my sides.  I close my eyes and breathe evenly, picturing myself tied to the bed with thick straps, firmly holding me down.  My breathing quickens and I realize that particular abstraction is a bit too exciting, so I banish the image and start over.

This time, no bed, no apartment, even...just my body hanging above the Earth, a spotlight beneath me, and as the light hits me, it pulls me downward.  I imagine an enormous circular sheet of some thin material, translucent, sliding between me and the spotlight, the beam dimming but not being cut off.  The pressure of my back against the bed lessens slightly.  I shift my arms and legs a bit, and it feels sort of like swimming but not, I'm supported, but without the resistance of water.  I picture more sheets sliding on top of the first, the beam growing ever dimmer, and my body continues to lighten apace.

I open my eyes, then push my arms down against the bed and feel myself rise, then slowly drift back down.  As gloomy as I felt a minute ago, I can't help smiling.  There are certainly "more impossible" things I can do now, but this just feels magical.  You don't often think about how oppressive gravity is until you can take a vacation from it.  I push myself up again with only one hand this time, making me rise and spin lazily about my axis, like a slow-motion pairs skater in some improbable maneuver.

Inspired, I close my eyes briefly and glide my palms down myself as far as I can reach, head to thighs, bending my knees up so I can continue down to my feet.  When I reopen my eyes, my pajamas have gone and I'm dressed like the hypothetical figure skater I'd imagined, sans boots...I didn't want to snag or gouge anything with a wayward blade.

I gingerly get to my feet, taking care not to accidentally launch myself into the ceiling.  I kick a leg out, trying to start a proper spin, but I end up going head-over heels instead, doing a couple flips before I can grab the covers and stop myself...with so little gravity to anchor me, balance is...tricky, to say the least.  No sooner have I thought this, than a little of my weight returns.  I take a couple of very-light bounces on the bed and smile again.  This time when I kick, my toes stay planted and I get several spins in before I lose my balance and topple over gently, laughing.

I so have to try this next time I see Jules, she'll-  Like magic, my smile vanishes as the thought cuts off abruptly.  I lie motionless for a moment as judgmental thoughts stomp through my head.

Next time you see Jules.  You're hopeless.  You're so pathetic that you still want to think everything is okay between you and the at-best, kidnapper.  Whatever the mystical equivalent of Stockholm syndrome is, you're the newest resident.  Maybe they'll have to lock you up for your own good.

I sweep an arm over myself and suddenly I'm in a regulation straitjacket, securely tightened over the skating dress.  Mildly surprised by my own impulse, I let out a short, humorless laugh.  I'd always wanted to try this, but until now I'd never been able to figure out how to do it properly by myself.

"Figures.  All the freedom literal magic affords, and I use it to tie myself up.  I'm such a freak."  I feel myself choking up for a moment, but I push the self-pity down with more verbal berating.  "Boo-hoo, poor Goose.  People would kill for what you have, you know, so stop sniveling."  I sigh.  Talking to myself sternly only sort-of works...you can't really put yourself down without being a hypocrite, by definition, and I loathe hypocrites.

I try to wave a hand over myself to banish the straitjacket but find my arms are far too secure, and my heart begins to race.  I close my eyes and firmly imagine myself wearing nothing but pajamas, but nothing happens.  I struggle for a minute, twisting and thrashing around on the bed, but don't produce any results aside from some unintended sensations that are largely an irritating distraction.

"Crap," I breathe, in panicked understatement.  I rapidly run through all the effects I've learned.  Blocking gravity works but doesn't help, I might contrive squishing or flattening, but they work on my clothes too so I can't get out of them that way, and I don't have the proper leverage to disassemble myself.  "Double crap."

I could yell for help, maybe wake a neighbor.  But none of them have keys...I guess one could go wake up the super, or call the cops, who could then come in and...

My face almost seems sunburned, I blush so hard, I can even feel it on my shoulders.  The scene is painfully vivid in my imagination, a couple police officers, a fireman, the building super, a couple of neighbors, all standing around my bed staring at me in a figure-skating costume and straitjacket and whispering to each other, making tsk-ing noises.  I wither in mortification under their stares, I can't stand it, even though I know it's not really happening it seems like it's going to, it feels real, and I desperately want to be somewhere else, anywhere else, just plain elsewhere-

Whereupon, of course, I suddenly am.