Club Luna

Me and Nina paused on our way out the door and I called towards mom's office, "Bye mom, see you later!"

"You two have fun!" she responded. "Call or text if you're going to be late!"

Then as the two of us headed down the driveway and started walking in the general direction of downtown my little sister asked, "Where are we going? You never told me what the plans were for today. And what's that?"

"What's what?" I asked.

She gestured at a smallish brown cardboard box I was carrying. She took a closer look at it, including the pre-paid shipping label on top, then asked "Who's Ari in Chicago?"

"No idea," I shrugged as I looked down at the parcel in my hand. After a second or two I added, "Uh, mom asked me to drop this off at the post office? I don't know anything about it. Maybe it's something to do with her work?"

Nina frowned slightly, but if she had more questions she kept them to herself.

Meanwhile I continued, "As for what we're doing, I don't know? I figured we'd think of something on the way. I'm just happy to be able to spend a whole day hanging out with you. Like without Kaylee or the rest of the club, you know? And without mom and mum hanging around. We can just be sisters, and maybe get to know each other better?"

That put a smile on her face, though after a minute or two it faded into a frown. "I like the idea of the two of us spending time together Cass, but what will we do? Is there anything to do around here?"

"Yeah... Not so much. Sorry Nina," I grimaced. "We've probably already done all the stuff there is to do around here. We could wander around Main Street, or hang out at a coffee shop."

Then I asked, "Or do you have any ideas? Anything you want to do, or see?"

She looked like she actually did have something in mind, but she was maybe reluctant to mention it. I didn't pressure her right away, I figured I'd let her think it over for now. At least till I dropped off the package at the post office, then we'd need to figure out some plans.

There was one of those little postal outlets at the back of a pharmacy along the way, so we went in there and I gave them the little box. They scanned the label, then gave me a receipt to prove it was shipped. That got tucked away in my little purse, then the two of us were completely free to do whatever we wanted.

"So did you have any ideas?" I asked as we left the pharmacy. "You looked like you had something in mind a couple minutes ago."

Nina hesitated, "Um, actually when me and Julie... I mean when me and mom went down to the city to meet that fae guy, I saw some things down there I'd really like to visit?"

"Too bad we don't have a car," I sighed. "There's so much more we could do and see if we weren't stuck in this little town."

My little sister leaned closer and whispered, "I can teleport us, remember? We could go almost anywhere."

That put a big smile on my face as I whispered back, "We'd probably get in trouble if our parents found out. So maybe we just won't tell them?"

"Ok," she grinned as well.

The two of us went around the side of the pharmacy so we weren't out in the open, then a swirl of purple magic surrounded the two of us. I felt that little tug in my chest again, but it wasn't painful and I was positive it had to do with being teleported instead of having something to do with the fragment of Socha in there.

When the magic faded we were in an alley someplace, but Nina led me out onto the busy city street.

"Where are we?" I asked as I looked around.

There were some tall buildings I probably should have recognized, but being teleported was kind of disorienting when you didn't know where you were going. Then something unusual caught my eye, and I couldn't help stare for a few seconds.

Across the street were two girls with pony ears and tails, walking and talking together. One of them had tan-coloured ears while her long hair and tail were both brown, and the other had floofy purple hair on her head and a long matching purple tail at the back, while her pony ears were a pastel pink. They were both carrying book-bags with them, like they were out doing a bit of shopping together or something.

I couldn't help smiling as I stared, and I was positive they both had a couple tiny keychain pony plushies hidden away somewhere.

Then my view of the ponygirls was briefly blocked as a streetcar passed by, and the TTC logo on the side told me for sure we were in Toronto. That sort of helped me orient myself, and a moment later I recognized a bunch of landmarks around me.

At the same time Nina replied, "Toronto. I wanted to visit the CN Tower? And maybe we could do other tourist things, if that's ok with you?"

"Yeah!" I grinned. "This is super cool sis! I wish I knew how to teleport. It's way better than getting a car!"

She smiled, "It's pretty good? But there's limitations. You need to know where you're going, so you either need to have been there before or you have to be able to scry the area ahead of time. And it can take a lot of power."

"That's why I didn't take us straight there?" she added. "I'm not so good at the scrying part, so I mostly only teleport to places I've already been? And the fae guy's antiques shop is right over there."

She pointed up the street a little ways, and sure enough there was a little shop with 'Antiques' on the sign above the storefront. It meant we had a bit of walking ahead of us to get to the CN Tower, so I suggested another idea.

"Why don't we take the subway?" I asked. "I think we can get day-passes, then we can explore all over the place without wasting a lot of time walking from one thing to another?"

She agreed, and we headed down the stairs into the next subway station we found. We figured out how to use the fare vending machine and got a couple day passes, then we were set for our little adventure. I'd never been on the subway before, but Nina had apparently been on several, including the ones in Moscow, Kyiv, Minsk, and Tbilisi.

That was the kind of thing I found fascinating about her. We almost missed our stop since I was so interested in hearing her describe details of what it was like in some of those places. She could even speak Russian and a few other languages from that part of the world, which sounded cool when she gave me a demonstration. Even though I couldn't understand a word of it.

Then as we emerged from the subway and headed back up to the street level a thought crossed my mind. "Is that where I came from? Like that part of the world? Russia or somewhere around there?"

Nina blushed and her eyes dipped down to stare at the ground. She nodded slightly and mumbled, "Yeah. I'd rather not talk about it though, if that's ok Cass?"

"I'll tell you more if you really want to hear it," she added. "But I still feel bad about it."

I was actually kind of curious, but not enough to want to make her uncomfortable. So I shook my head, "Nah it's ok. Sorry Nina, I didn't mean to upset you."

She gave me a grateful smile, and the two of us kept walking till we reached the base of the tower.

"Oh look!" she pointed. "Want to check that out afterwards?"

Apparently there was a big aquarium next to the tower, so I nodded "Sure. Whatever you like Nina. I'm having fun just spending time with you, and all this stuff is kind of neat."

The tower was busy, there were lines and crowds even though it was a Monday morning, but we got passes and eventually got into the elevator and up to top. Or the middle, anyways. There was another ticket and another elevator to get up to the highest part they let tourists visit.

It was kind of cool and we both took lots of pictures and selfies with our phones. The weather was good and the sky was clear so we could see really far. And we did all the touristy stuff up there, looking around at the city below us and the lake and everything. Eventually though we'd seen enough, and the elevator that took us down let us out into a big souvenir shop.

As we wandered around that Nina commented, "Back in the nineties...or maybe it was the eighties? They used to have a huge video arcade here. At the base of the tower I mean."

"Were you here back then?" I asked.

She shook her head, "I never made it here. I wanted to though? The tower was the tallest building in the world back then, and I heard about the arcade somehow and wanted to come see it."

That reminded me of what she said back at Marissa's not-birthday, about spending a lot of time in video arcades and how she got good at playing games.

"Are there any of those arcades left now?" I asked. "Or home consoles and computers probably replaced them?"

Nina sighed, "There might be one or two big video arcades left? Sort of a retro thing. There's other kinds of arcade games though, instead of video games? Like Skee-Ball, Whac-A-Mole, things like that? But no, video arcades are mostly gone I guess."

We continued looking around at the shirts and trinkets and stuff, while I thought a bit more about all that. Finally I asked, "You had fun playing video games over at Melanie's place right? Maybe we should get a console at home?"

"Maybe," she tried not to sound too interested, but I could see the little smile on her face. Actually I was surprised she didn't already have a console, but maybe she just never bothered.

Then she answered my unasked question, "I looked at some of the home game stuff when they first came out? Like in the seventies and eighties? It was ok, some of it was pretty good for the time? But I liked the crowd and atmosphere of being in an arcade. Even if the stuff on your TV screen looked similar, it wasn't the same without the noise and the people around."

"It was fun though at Melanie's house," she added. "Playing with friends was a lot of fun. I never had that before. Socha wasn't interested in games, and they didn't have video games back then anyways."

We eventually found our way out of the souvenir shop without buying anything, and from there we left the tower. Before we went over to the aquarium though I asked, "Want to get some food? I'm getting a bit hungry."

"Sure," Nina agreed.

There were some street vendors, and even a couple of those fancy food trucks like you saw on TV. I wasn't feeling that adventurous though, and settled for a hot dog and can of soda. My little sister got herself a big fresh-baked pretzel and some juice, and the two of us found a place to sit.

As we ate I asked, "Is there anything else you want to see or do, after the aquarium?"

"Sure," she nodded. "There's all kinds of stuff we could do? If you want to visit a fancy shopping place we could go hang out at the Eaton Centre? If you want to do something cultural or educational there's the museum and art gallery. Or we could just wander around and see what we find?"

I teased, "Museum and art gallery? Educational? This isn't a school trip you know Nina, we're supposed to be having fun!"

She blushed but rolled her eyes, "I bet there's fun stuff at the museum! Or interesting stuff anyways. Depending on the era and location, I might even recognize some of it."

"I'm just kidding with you," I smiled. Then I got a bit more serious as I commented, "Though it's funny. Hearing you talk about stuff like playing video games in the eighties or comparing subways in eastern Europe is cool, but when you talk about recognizing stuff in a museum it reminds me that you're older than you look. Like I guess it's easy for me to forget you're really fifteen hundred years old, when you look and act like my little sister."

Nina continued blushing as she responded quietly, "I'm still kind of a teen anyways? I mean in demon years I guess?"

"Oh yeah? How's that work?" I asked.

She kept her voice down, not that anyone was listening or could overhear us in the crowded space between the CN Tower and the aquarium, "It's not a perfect comparison, but between one and two millennia demon age is kind of human age times a hundred? So fifteen hundred years is sort of like fifteen."

"Please don't tell anyone though?" she added quickly. "Especially not our parents. I don't want them making me start in grade ten because they think I'm too young or something. I'd rather be with Marissa and Melanie in grade eleven."

I grinned, "Your secret is safe with me."

Since she mentioned our two missing friends that got me thinking of them, and I ended up pulling my phone out to send them both a text. I knew Kaylee and Paige and Brooke had tried a few times, but I was kind of worried about them. Like I knew it was weird for both of them to disappear and not say anything. So I texted that I was worried, and wanted to know if they were ok and stuff.

After that I put my phone away then we headed over to the aquarium. That was cool too, but apart from looking at fish and stuff I was kind of distracted thinking about the demon age thing again.

"Hey Nina?" I asked quietly while we were staring at fish in one of the big tanks. "What's the demon age stuff mean for me? Like do I count in human years or demon years or what?"

She frowned as she watched the fish swimming around. After a half minute or so she finally sighed, "I don't know Cass, I'm sorry. I think it means you're starting off as an almost mature demon? Like the equivalent of seventeen or eighteen hundred years old? But I don't really know. You're unique, so maybe this stuff doesn't really apply."

I frowned too, "What's it mean though for the future? Like... say in two or three years, will I look like a college student? Or will I still look like I do now? Actually, apart from clothes and make-up I'm pretty sure I still look exactly like I did ten months ago? Like I don't think my body's changed at all since then."

Nina sighed again, "It's like mom and I said last week Cass. Your body is mostly demonic now. You might age a bit more over the next century or two, then you'll just stop. Once demons are mature they don't age anymore."

"Wow," I mumbled.

The idea that it might take a century or two before I looked twenty was hard to get my head around. Just the thought that I'd be around for centuries, or even millennia, was even harder to grasp. It did lead me to another question though.

I glanced at my little sister and asked softly, "So if I'm mostly demonic, what does that mean for food? I still get hungry and eat normal food, but you said you only eat because you like it? You need nightmares to survive, right?"

"That's where you're different from a normal demon," she replied quietly. "Socha probably did that on purpose, so she wouldn't have to deal with that herself when she took control? There's some other restrictions that demons have, like things we can't eat, stuff that's bad for us. You can eat that safely though, which means she could too once she returned."

After a slight hesitation she added, "Remember, your body's only 'mostly' demonic. You're also part goddess. And like I said, you're unique. Not all the demon stuff applies to you."

"Yeah..." I nodded slowly. "Ok. Thanks Nina."

It was all still a lot to consider, but fortunately we were distracted at that point. Both our phones buzzed a few times with some incoming texts. We found a bench where we could keep watching the fishes as me and Nina both pulled out our phones, and found some messages from Paige on the Club Luna group chat.

"Looks like the fairies have struck again," she wrote. "A group of teens were in Monora Forest Saturday night. Saw 3 fairies riding around on a fox. 1 of the teens confronted the fairies & vanished, except for his clothes. Turned up 'skinny dipping' at Island Lake."

The next two messages were a pair of links, the first was to a social media status post from one of the teens. He'd posted a dark blurry picture of three small colourful blobs on a larger red blob, along with an excited and barely coherent account of the event. The other link was to the town's police social media feed, specifically a post about a teen cited for illegally swimming in the reservoir and for indecent exposure.

After that was a message from Brooke stating, "Lucky nobody was hurt. This makes it even more important we deal with the situation. See you all on Wednesday!"

"That doesn't sound good," Nina frowned as she looked up from her phone.

I shrugged, "Nope. But we can't do anything about it till Wednesday. So let's try and enjoy the rest of our day together. Ok sis?"

"Ok sis," she replied with a smile.