“Oh Ra! If only you could see what I see!”

  Lara’s face was joyful – a rare occurrence in the aftermath of her trauma. The sparkling flecks in her eyes danced as she looked around the room, absorbing an incredible variety of details that had previously been unnoticed or unseen.

  Specks of dust floated in the air, swooping and soaring on the eddies caused by their movements. The afternoon sunlight filtered in through the rough archway Oswald had ripped out of the front of the house. Individual rays illuminated surfaces and limned the floating particles in gold. Snapping her head to the side, the scuttling form of a tiny money spider on the wall was as clear as if she were crouched right next to it.

  Lara’s head started to ache at the sheer volume of detail it was trying to take in, and with a wince she scrunched her eyes shut. Everything was clearer. The wood grain lines on a discarded drinks coaster. The faint prickles in the pain covering the wall. The tiny galaxy-like spirals deep in her best friend’s eyes.

  “Are you alright La? What’s the matter?” Kira’s voice was concerned at the sudden grimace.

  “Too much… my head hurts…” Lara said between gritted teeth.

  Oswald looked down anxiously. “I am sorry Mistress; I did not consider that this might be caused by our sharing.” He looked out into the road. “Miss Kira, I believe we should escort my mistress immediately to Mrs Brand for treatment and care.”

  Kira gently helped Lara to her feet, holding her friend’s hand tight in worry. Oswald uncoiled his full length and preceded them outside, where he scanned the surroundings.

  “It is safe, you may cross.”

  Kira carefully led Lara out into the front yard, helping her navigate the rough ground and rubble. Shards of glass twinkled in the afternoon sun, but Oswald used his scaled tail to sweep these aside. The two girls hurried over the road to the Brand’s house, Lara’s eyes still tightly closed.

  Carry was sat in a chair, grooming Nala’s coat to a lustrous shine when her feline companion’s head suddenly turned toward the door. Moments later, a frenzied knocking hammered on the repaired wooden portal, and Carry stiffly got up and hobbled through the hall.

  As she ushered the girls inside, she took note of Kira’s fearful concern and Lara’s tightly-shut eyes. She sat both of them down on a sofa which had been acquired from a neighbour’s house, after their previous one was used as a makeshift barricade against a swarm of rats.

  “Tell me what happened, and how long ago.” Carry said, slipping into triage mode.

  “Well, you know I’ve been reading about how to help La and Oswald with their connection. We found out that Oswald can share… dragonish things? Treats I think he called them.”

  “Traits.” Lara added quietly.

  “That’s it! Traits. Things about himself that make him a dragon. Anyway, we were practicing this and La managed to get it to work, so now she sees things like Oswald does. And she looked really happy about it, which was great. But then she suddenly closed her eyes and now her head hurts really badly!”

  Kira finally stopped for a breath, and Carry switched her focus to Lara.

  “Lara, is there anything else? What can you tell me about what hurts?”

  “When it worked, I could see everything so much clearer. It was magical, but after a few moments it was like my head started to get full up and now I’ve got the worst headache ever.” Lara grimaced again at the throbbing pain.

  “Kira, please close the curtains. Then go to the kitchen, wet a cloth and bring it back.” Carry’s instructions were crisp and concise. Kira leapt up and rushed to fulfil them.

  Carry turned back to Lara. “This is very normal love; it’s called sensory overstimulation. The brain gets overwhelmed by the amount of detail it is trying to process and gets really stressed. We just need to settle it down and the pain will go away.”

  Kira ran back into the room carrying the wet cloth. Carry directed Lara to lie down on the sofa, before covering her forehead and eyes. Lara sighed in relief at the dark coolness and her body lost some of its tension.

  “I think I need to have a word with Oswald about trying these things out, without letting me or one of the other grown-ups know about it first.” Carry said, not unkindly. The girls started to protest as she continued.

  “I know that there are some truly wondrous things we’ve seen since this all happened, but you have to be careful. There is so much we don’t know – about the way things work, what effect they will have on us and the like. Particularly when it comes to anything magical – we don’t know enough about it yet to just try everything without some idea of the consequences.”

  Kira couldn’t contain herself. “But we did everything we could to find out first! We talked to Oswald, we looked in my book, we…”

  Carry cut her off sharply. “And look what happened Kira! Your best friend is flat on her back unable to open her eyes!” Her voice and face softened at Kira’s chastised look. “You have to remember love, Oswald has only been awake for a matter of weeks and is somehow finding out a lot of ‘dragonish’ things by a process we don’t understand at all. Your book has given us a lot of information, but we don’t understand how. When you don’t understand the whole of how something works, you have to be extra careful, or…” She looked pointedly down at Lara. “…accidents happen.”

  She sighed, laying a conciliatory hand on both girls’ arms. “I remember what it is like to try new things, to explore and discover. I remember how it felt when something special or ‘cool’ happened. But we don’t have the luxury now of taking unnecessary risks. So, I want a promise from you both – and I will extract if from Oswald as well – that you won’t try this ‘sharing’ again without telling me first.”

  The girls sheepishly fidgeted for a few seconds, before a couple of mumbled promises were just about audible.

  “Good, I will hold you to that. This isn’t to say that you’re not allowed to explore this connection you have with Oswald, Lara. But we should take some precautions to ensure that doing so doesn’t lead to lasting harm.”

  “Will my eyes get better, Aunty Carry?” Lara asked, unconsciously using the same form of address as Kira.

  “They will, love.” Carry replied with a smile. “They just need to get used to what they’re seeing now. We do that by opening them in dark rooms and gradually making it lighter. It might take a few days to be fully comfortable with it, but you will be fine, I promise.”

  Spontaneously, both girls threw their arms around Carry, holding on tight as she stroked their hair. Her shirt growing a damp patch as Lara’s cloth-covered face nestled into her arm. Only Carry noticed the scraping sound from the road, blowing a kiss to Alan as he hurried out the door with his staff held ready.

  “Moment of truth, let’s give this a go.” Matt said as he stood with Arlee outside their house. “Are the girls still with Oswald next door?”

  “I saw them heading over the road a while back to see Carry.” She replied, before raising her voice. “Oswald, are you all finished with your new lair?”

  There was no reply, but as she moved to the fence between yards, she became aware of a low, rhythmic rumble. Hurdling the fence, she moved to the shadowy hole in the housefront and peered in.

  Inside, Oswald’s red-orange scales shone dully in the rays of afternoon light. Wisps of light smoke curled upward from prominent nostrils, as his neck, body and tail looped around to fit within the cleared space. The low rumbling matched the gentle rise and fall of his body, and the slowly accumulating smoke was pushed hither and thither by the powerful breaths.

  Arlee paused for a moment at the latest in a series of unexpected and wondrous sights that the ‘Overlay’ had brought to their world. She recalled the front cover of ‘The Hobbit’ which she had read in her youth – Matt kept a copy around somewhere – and the magnificence of Smaug atop his glittering hoard of dwarven gold.

  “You’ve got some growing to do yet.” She whispered softly. “And I’m not sure there is that much gold around nowadays for a proper hoard.” She smiled affectionately before turning back to Matt.

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  “He’s asleep.” She said simply.

  “Again? He sleeps a lot, doesn’t he.” Matt asked rhetorically. “I wonder if it’s a growing thing, or just a fact about dragons that fantasy literature got right by chance.”

  “I suspect that only Kira could tell us, my love.” Arlee laughed. “We can add it to the list of homework. Now, you wanted to test out a new invention, I believe?”

  Matt focused back on the task at hand, running nervous fingers over the latest patch he had finished. He was comfortable enough with the process now that he had no particular fear of failure. But each new idea he tried out was a step further into a world that had only ever existed in books, movies and imagination. The horrors he had witnessed over the last month or so since the Over… - ‘the Weirdness’ he corrected himself with a slight smile – were still the subject of nightmares, but the magic of his weaving…

  Since an early age - reading his first fantasy stories, watching old movies like ‘Krull’ and ‘Legend’ – a young Matt had often fantasised about being thrust into a world of magic. Of wondrous creatures, heroes and dragons. Immersing himself in hundreds of books, movies and games over the years had only deepened his love of the genre.

  The realisation of these dreams was a rock he could build on, as well as being a key component of the group’s success. With each new patch he felt a growing connection with the sheer volume of possibilities open to him. With each attunement he had felt the power within him growing – and the visibly increasing effects from his patches only served to reinforce this.

  It was compelling. Intoxicating even.

  That is the power of the Dark Side. Matt mentally flicked himself out of the daydream. This is the part of the story where I fall victim to temptation and turn into a right arsehole, he thought to himself with a slight grimace. He had never lusted after material things, happy to make phones, computers, cars and the like last for far longer than intended, as long as they did the job. His work career was respectable, but financially a long way behind his more ambitious colleagues. The success that society measured in money and stuff, Matt measured in experience, in friends and in happiness. It was a philosophy which had served him well, alongside a strong measure of practicality.

  But now, he had to be ambitious. He had to push forward and test the boundaries of his weaving. He had to, in order to keep his family, friends and their growing community safe from the new threats of a markedly different world. Performance reviews had been replaced with dangerous adaptations of nature, and coasting along would leave them unprepared for some unforeseen threat down the road.

  His moment of introspection was interrupted by Arlee clearing her throat.

  “Are you waiting for an audience Mr Tapper? Some adoring fans to marvel at your marvellousness?” She grinned archly.

  “Getting on with it, Miss!” He replied with a crisp salute, evoking a musical giggle from his wife which tugged all the strings around his loving heart. Turning back to the car they stood besides, he slapped the patch onto the roof and stroked it. Immediately a soft sheen – similar to the effect his armour patch had – slipped smoothly out of the patch and across the scratched, dirty surface of the mid-sized Hyundai.

  There was a creaking sound, and the car visibly rose a few inches; as if the weight had been taken off the suspension. The couple looked at each other optimistically before Matt reached down, set his grip against the lower edge of the car, tensed and lifted.

  “Woah… no… damn… oh, crap.” Matt cursed eloquently as the car flew out of his control and rolled completely over, a scraping grind assaulting their ears. Finally, it settled back onto its tyres with a thud on the other side of the road. Matt nervously looked around, wincing as front doors were flung open and armed residents came boiling outside, alerted by the sudden noise now fading on the breeze.

  Matty, Alan and Frank all looked around, spears and staff held at the ready. In the doorway of their house, Beth gripped a flame tube in white-knuckled hands. Upstairs curtains were drawn back and children eagerly scanned the road for whatever fantastical beast had come to call. Ben and Kia Chen nervously peered out of their doorway, still growing accustomed to their new living circumstances.

  Matt held up his hand in apology. “Err, sorry everyone. False alarm. Just a bit of experimentation with some unforeseen results, that all. Good work on the fast response though!” He finished with forced lightness as his face grew redder by the second.

  Frank and Beth relaxed, relieved chuckles audible as they headed back inside. The Chen’s bobbed their heads and quickly whisked the door closed. Alan and Matty exchanged smiles and sauntered over to stand by Arlee as she unsuccessfully tried to smother her laughter. Losing the battle, she leant on a garden wall as her mirth rang out into the air.

  “So, uh, mate. What did you break this time?” Matty asked as Arlee fought for breath.

  “It’s a patch to make things lighter, okay! I thought it would help us move heavy stuff around, that sort of thing. Only… it worked a lot better than I thought.” Matt replied, sheepishly.

  Alan handed his staff to Arlee and moved over to the now out-of-place car. Placing a hand against the side he pushed gently, eyes widening at the ease with which it moved.

  “It’s like a block of polystyrene!” He exclaimed, wonder in his face. “And not a solid one either. I wonder if…” His voice trailed off as he spread muscled arms, getting a grip on the ridge running along the underside as well as the roof rack. He set his feet, took a deep breath and lifted. The others stared in amazement as their friend initially raised the wheels off the ground, before eventually bringing the whole vehicle to rest on one broad shoulder.

  “Bloody hell!” Matty almost shouted. “What the actual fu… what is going on?” He amended, nodding apologetically to Arlee. With a growing number of young children in the road, she had been less than impressed on some of the more explicit rugby team vocabulary that the young man had brought with him. In fairness, Matty was managing to reign in some of the more everyday vulgarities, but still slipped occasionally.

  Alan grinned like a kid who had found the stash of chocolate. He turned around carefully, wobbling to keep the unwieldy shape balanced, before letting it drop back onto its wheels with a creaking of springs.

  “Let me have a go!” Matty demanded, handing his spear to Arlee before repeating Alan’s exploits with a childish yell of glee. Struggling to balance the awkward shape, the attempted shoulder press ending in a staggering, cursing wobble, before the car came down on its roof.

  “Dammit, sorry all, another false alarm!” He called out as front doors once again opened at the noise. With a number of onlookers in various stages of amusement or bewilderment, Matty reached down and rolled the car back onto its wheels with nonchalant ease.

  “Right boys, if you’ve finished playing can you put your toys away in their proper place and tidy up the mess.” Arlee said archly, leaning weapons against the garden wall. “I’m going to see Carry for a cuppa.” She strode off across the road, head shaking in disbelieving mirth.

  The men looked at each other, laughed and easily lifted the car back into place, unblocking the road. Matt retrieved the patch from the car roof, still in good condition. Pushing against the side of the car, he was unsurprised as his effort barely rocked the vehicle a couple of inches. Contrasting this with the car’s earlier weightlessness, he was struck with an old memory.

  “Holy crap guys, do you realise what this means? We could totally cut holes in the car floor and ‘Flintstones’ them! Stick our feet out the bottom and run along with them as a protective shell! How cool would that be?!”

  Younger than the others by some years, Matty looked totally lost at the cartoon reference, as Alan let out a full belly guffaw. “It’s a cool idea mate, but pretty sure it wouldn’t work as easily as we think. Plus, I’m pretty sure that’s going to be low down the list of stuff we need to get done.”

  He looked over at Matty’s still-confused face. “Old cartoon, before your time mate. I’ll explain in full if this one…” Alan jerked a thumb in Matt’s direction. “…actually gets the time to give it a serious go.”

  “I’m never getting used to all this magic stuff.” Matty said, sat on the wall. “I keep finding new blades and things on my multi-tool that I know weren’t there originally. It’s like it responds to whatever I’m trying to do with it. Useful, I’ll give you – but bloody creepy at the same time.”

  “It’s the new way of the world, mate.” Alan remarked, leaning against the increasingly beaten-up Hyundai. “Us normal folk are surrounded now by high-muckety-types like ‘His Wizardliness’ here. Personally, I’m waiting for a huge eye made of fire to appear above his place and start looking around for small people and jewellery.”

  They shared a laugh at Matt’s mock protestations, the easy camaraderie they had built since the younger man’s arrival keeping them at ease with the regular jibes and jokes. They were readying to go their separate ways when Matt remembered an earlier conversation with his wife.

  “There’s something Arlee and I need to do over in Wargrave, and we’re going to need help. How do the two of you fancy a short road trip?”

  Matty looked interested, Alan leant on his staff and gestured for Matt to continue.

  “We got married in the church over there, and I spent most of my early life at my parent’s place. They’re both good chances to have a locus that I or we could both attune to.”

  Alan looked thoughtful for a moment. “Is it that important to find more, do you think? We’re doing pretty well with the patches you’re making now.”

  Matt was briefly taken aback, before finding his voice to respond. “I think so, yes. I don’t think we can afford to let possibilities like that go. You’re right that we’ve done well so far, but we’ve only run into a handful of different threats – and several of them could have ended us if we hadn’t been lucky.”

  Turning more serious, he continued. “I don’t want to wait for something to come along that we can’t handle. We have to take every chance to get stronger – for all our safety.”

  Matty piped up. “I’m in mate. I owe you all for getting me out of the mess I was in.”

  Alan looked torn. “I see your point, Matt; I just don’t like taking away all the strongest defenders. Like you said, there are threats out there we don’t know about. There’s danger for us travelling, and for everyone else while we’re gone.”

  “I understand Al, really. I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think we’d all be okay though. With Oswald and the kitties here, I’m pretty sure that…”

  Alan’s voice was a shade colder as he cut in. “’Pretty sure’ doesn’t cut it now mate – not when it comes to family safety, does it.”

  Matty broke the uncomfortable silence between the older pair. “I remember you all showing me the early stuff that Matt had made – the first fire tube. Seeing that in action, I don’t know that we would have got out of the rat nest if we only had the early versions to rely on. We needed the more powerful ones to finish the job there.”

  He thought for a moment, then continued. “And what about Oswald? If he hadn’t levelled up, there’s no way we could have got you back from the nest alive mate. You were bleeding out, and you only made it because he could fly you back.”

  Alan did not look convinced but nodded grudgingly, conceding the point.

  Matt spoke up once again. “Nothing’s set in stone Al, no deadlines or anything. Let’s have a chat to the girls and see what they think. Like I said though, if we’ve got the opportunity to get stronger, we’ll be better off down the road if we take it.”

  Alan sighed, nodding again. “Let’s see what the girls say.” He paused for a moment. “But if I get an earful from Caz about going away without her, I’m blaming you. And I still owe you a nut-shot from that bloody spider house as well!”