Teagan’s Sunday night odd encounter(Teagan)

September 21, 2025

Date: 2025-09-21 01:16

(Teagan’s Sunday night odd encounter(Teagan):Teagan)

[Sun Sep 21 2025]

At Weathered Parking Lot
The parking lot stretches behind a building with a brick facade, its cracked asphalt surface
marked with faded yellow lines that delineate spaces for perhaps two dozen vehicles. Weeds push
through the pavement near the edges where it meets the concrete curbing, and a few scraggly
sumac trees grow along the perimeter fence. A single sodium vapor lamp on a tall pole casts an
orange glow over the center of the lot after dark, leaving the corners in shadow.

It is night, about 46F(7C) degrees, and there are a few wispy white clouds in the sky. The mist is heaviest At Birch and Woodcrest/span> There is a waning crescent moon.

(Your target discovers a cursed object in an antique shop that begins to warp reality around them in increasingly dangerous ways. They must find a way to break the curse or contain the object before it consumes them completely.)

“Have you been to this… Penumbra gallery?” Eloa asks as she follows Matias while looking at her phone. It might make for a bit of dangerous walking given she’s not looking up but she’s trusting the other man to keep her heading the right way! And to stop her from running into cars.

Matias is walking with Eloa around the Penumbra Gallery in Fairefield. The place that he had informed Teagan to meet them to discuss the missed trip and some of the clues both Eloa and she had found.

Matias says “I have been yes, but that just so happens to be where I told Miss Lawson to meet us.“

“Oh did you enjoy it? What kindof art is it? Modern? Contempory? Eloa kindof like contempary art.” Eloa admits as she follows Matias down the street towards the art gallery. Of course with her face glued to her phone she COULD look it up. But then she wouldn’t be redditing. Another cat pick, another swipe, another WCGW, Eloa seems to be trying to distract her brain an awfully alot lately, probably so that she doesn’t have to think.

The little VW Golf that Teagan drives is fairly recognizable, if not just for the various dents, dings, and repairs it has gained from her crashes in the mists. Crashes she has avoided for over a week now! She and the car are very happy about this fact. But the bright blue of it flashes under street lights until arriving at the address she was given. The redhead steps out of her car, looking down at her GPS, up at the brick facade, then down at her pone again with a furrowed brow.

This gallery is mysterious. It may exist? It may not? It may just be an abandoned building. No details exist on it whatsoever that anyone can find, it would seem. And this parking lot faces the rear of the building. With weeds in the pavement and no doors, windows, or signage in sight… is there actually a gallery here at all?

Standing outside the enigmatic gallery Matias replies to Eloa, “It is Supernatural art. I think one of pieces is painted in blood for vampires.” and the pair approach Teagan and VW. “Miss Lawson, The missing time is a little annoying. I am sorry we missed the window to go on the recovery trip. I thought we could save time Wednesday by discussing some of the preplanning now. So you two are able to keep the pacing up since we only have one night to do this.”

“Just checking we have to steal – uh Eloa mean repurpose.” Eloa means steal. “Three things for you in one night?” Eloa asks matias as she finally looks up from her phone to wave at Teagan who she hasn’t had to visit in hospital for a while. Hurrah for that too! And Teagan’s car, although one has to wonder what kindof insurance company would insure cars in Haven. “Also if you paint a painting in blood for vampires.. does it make vampires want to lick it? Like sculpture made of fairy floss? Eloa would like to lick… ” Eloa muses thoughtfully as she glances at well, the back of the gallery which is where Teagan is parked and they’re walking through!

Blue eyes flicker upward, over the rims of her glasses, but those soon follow suit as Teagan lifts her chin entirely to regard the two approaching. “It’s been happening more frequently. Side-effect of the mists?” But that may be another puzzle for another time. She slips her phone into her back pocket because seriously, when will women get pants with proper sized pockets? But at least she can tuck her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Mostly. Her elbows wing out a bit.

“Well, we do have to change some of the plans. I was starting to collect things like staff rotations, security schedules, and some of those do change between weekend and weekday.” Teagan says with a slight shrug, looking up to the building again. “So, uh, why are we here?”

Maybe it’s one of those places where you have to touch the right brick. Or a door appears when the moon hits it just right as soon as there’s a break in the clouds. Or once the clock strikes 2, a ghostly parade leads the way into the gallery like a strange twist on the bath house in Spirited Away.

“Just needed a place to meet that was no the mall.” Matias explains to Teagan and Eloa. “I think we should just walk down towards the mall and grab a drink.” Basically a classic… Walk and talk. “So I believe there has been a bit of a crossed wire. All three of the targets have returned to Rio De Janiero. I have a little report back at home that says… One is at a coastal Plaza, One is in a penthouse, and the other is on the run from loansharks in Rio.”

“So… are we doing the stealing.. in Brazil or here in Haven?” Eloa asks confusedly given that they had been in haven and now they’re not again. “Apparently there was also weird mutated wasps in Brazil.” She muses to the other two just idle collections of information that she has found. “Hopefully we don’t run into any of those. They were part of someone else’s research mission.” Following along after Matias, Eloa reaches out to hook an arm around his arm so that he can once again guide her while she walks with her face buried in her phone. A classic, this is what boyfriends are good for really. “Also found out there is a customs storage house in Redstone that got pallet of goods for the elori flori person. Destined for Rio… If we’re late does that mean the warehouse would have shipped it?” She wonders out loud, gasping a little as she trips on a step and almost dragging Matias down with her before catching herself.

“They’re all in Brazil,” Teagan echoes, meandering along with all the ease of an expert at walking with their nose in a book. Or a phone. Because she is the latter, pulling up her notes. The trick is to find the sightline where to hold the phone that keeps the ground in your peripherals. “Which, I hope so, as that’s where I’ve been collecting information. Still trying to track down our guy on the run, but… I’ve got most of his contacts, shelters in the area, flop houses are a little harder but… hopefully we’ll find him.”

That doorstep? Was actually not there before. Whether Matias will tell Eloa this or not is another story! But it leads up a few steps to a store front, the old clouded door lit from within with a warm glow. Over the door is an old, yellowed lamp that flickers every now and again. The sign hanging in the door reads ‘OPEN.’ There’s no exterior window and the only indication of what the shop is is a faded wooden sign reading ‘Antiques.’

There is always time for an antigue store in New Haven whether by the strings of fate or the fact Matias is ever the tchotke collector. “We will just peek in here. Eloa did the information you have include any information about an end destination or just ‘Rio’?” then they are into the antigue shop now why does he do this? Well Matias is an arcanist and can sense cursed items he is touching so… Antigue shops are kind of a game to him, how many items does he touch before one is cursed?

“Waitt this isn’t a gallery.” Eloa gives Matias a very suspicious look when they end up at antique store instead of an art gallery well because antique stores are kindof Matias’s thing. “Did you know the art gallery didn’t exist in the first place?” She asks as she follows Matias in, sneezing a bit at the musky smell of old things. “Said it was being shipped to Piazza de Fortuna.” She tells Matias, not really bothering to keep her voice down because who else would be in an antique shop apart from Matias Everyone else would be running for the hills from the cursed objects! “You like old stuff Teagan?” Eloa asks as she reaches out to poke a teapot, rubbing her finger up and down as if rubbing for a genie.

If Matias hadn’t suggested it, Teagan would have! In fact, she’s eyeballing the store suspiciously because she’s never seen it before! And she thought she knew all the spots in the city by now. How dare it. But the redhead is following after, scooting in just before the door closes behind her with that jingle of a bell that all such shops (from antiques to books to elderly men telling you not to feed this pet after midnight) have. She pulls her hands from her pockets and looks over to Eloa as she veers off at another angle, pulling out little drawers in an apothecary cabinet. Buttons. Keys. “I do. And just little weird things in general, actually.” Another drawer and she surfaces with a handful of doll eyes before letting them clatter-clink back into place.

There doesn’t immediately seem to be anyone in the shop, but it’s hard to tell. The place is not necessarily small, but it feels small due to the claustrophobic nature of crowded shelves, furniture butting up against one another, and sharp turns going into dead ends. There does appear to be some movement toward the back, but it’s hard to say.

After a moment, once the trio begins browsing, there is the faint crackling of a gramophone and soon, faintly, Judy Garland singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’

Matias has yet to find his cursed item but… then the gramophone begins to play and he lets out a soft *oooh* like a kid in a candystore. “Eloa, I think we have found a winner.” he slips from her old and walks towards the back of the store. “There is no other place in all the world, Miss Lawson, Eloa. No other place that always has -one- cursed item or a ghost in every antigue shop.” a game for the Professor it seems.

Managing to look up just Teagan lets a handful of doll eyes from a drawer, Eloa gives Teagan a look. The look says okayyyyyyy you’re not as normal of a person as I thought you were are you. It is a little judgy especialy when someone is poking around with dolls eyes! “He gets really excited about cursed items.” Eloa tells Teagan as she fails to summon a genie from the lamp by only stroking it with the tip of her finger. “Matias try not to get cursed Eloa will leave you thinking you are like a tunip.” She warns the man as she comes up behind of him only to get distracted by some shiny crystals the old school kind where they still cut them to reflect the light instead of glueing rainbow colored stuff onto it.

Clearly, Teagan is not very normal, no. Not unless you count digging through places like this for tchotchkes as normal. It might be more normal than Matias’ hobby of looking for cursed items, though. But perhaps not by a whole lot because she does peek her head up from behind a shelf, a few ancient beachside motel style keychains clutched in one hand. The real deal, mind. Not the recreations that crop up every few years. “Like a turnip?” There’s a confused look for Eloa before Teagan sidles past to follow Matias toward the back of the store.

The record skips a few times, but in no more creepy a way as any gramophone is in this the year of our Lord 2025. Judy Garland sings and even on such an old recording through such an old speaker: damn did she have a beautiful voice.

But Matias does not get the opportunity to investigate the gramophone because his Cursed-y Sense starts going off as he passes an ornate vanity-and-dresser combo. Something that may have been from sometime in the twenties, perhaps, for all the art deco gilding and the high level of detail around the mirror, on the drawer handles, and even on the tapered legs it sits on. The vanity itself is not what he senses, but something in one of the drawers, perhaps…

There is a bit of disappointment as the true item is not the gramophone and instead something in a rather well preserved bit of furniture with a chic style. “I like the musical ones.” he sighs as he turns back around and shoo shoo shoo’s Eloa and Teagan to back up so he can examing the vanity and dresser. “So for the benefit of Miss Lawson. When approaching an item you believe may be cursed. Reflections. Vibrations. Directions.” he checks his own reflection in the vanity and even reaches out and tip tip tips his fingernail against it. “If the reflection is good. Vibrations.” he raps his knuckles against the top of the dresser and then the side. Knock knock… Nothing knocks back maybe. “Then directions. Use as directed and see what happens.” Matias opens a drawer!

“Matias is so going to turn into a turnip.” Eloa tells Teagan which seems to be her way of saying he’s probably going to get cursed or have something horrible jump out at him. When he makes the shooing gesture, Eloa backs away quite alot, putting her hands up in the air as if to say she’s not armed with anything cursed. Backing until her ass is against a shelf – which has dangers itself like things collapsing on her or whatnot, Eloa wince as she watches Matias rap, then knock then pull open the drawer! She ducks on instinct, even if nothing happens.

Backing up dutifully, Teagan spends a moment looking over her found keychains. One is discovered to- gasp! It is a reproduction. From 1994, but still. She chucks it into a nearby bin of nuts and bolts. The other two are set on the shelf at shoulder height. Just in case. And then she focuses on Matias and his impromptu lesson! You can take the Professor out of the Classroom. You can’t take the Classroom out of the Professor. (Or can you…)

When ‘direction’ turns out not to be a matter of cardinal directions and their use within correspondences, but literally ‘use as directed,’ Teagan looks a little disappointed.

The drawer opens! There is nothing in it.
Another drawer opens! There is nothing in it.

Thankfully for all involved, it is on the third drawer. Within there sits an (open) jewelry box containing a classically styled tennis bracelet. (Clearly finely made costume jewelry and not real diamonds, sorry, Eloa.)

As Matias reaches for it, the record goes into a chk-chk-chk…

And as soon as the Fae man touches it, the record spins back up…

…right into the middle of Rhapsody in Blue! And between one blink and the next, our trio finds themselves not in the antique shop, but in the middle of a dance floor in a manor on the New Haven oceanfront, windows open to the sea. Matias by a fireplace among a crowd of other men, holding not a bracelet but instead a cigar as the men around him discuss the business matters of the day. Eloa surrounded by other debutantes all giggling as they await the available bachelors to ask them to dance. And Teagan, serving the crowd from a platter of canapes.

All three are dressed appropriately for a 1920s party, all three know who they are and remember the antique shop. How did they end up here?

Matias is dressed the same as he had been before but with a cigar which he looks at. Listening briefly for anything of note to establish the exact year or anything of note… It seems no, but he does puff on the cigar. Is it real? Is it good? He does enjoy his cigars so he is a little bit picky. At first he makes eye contact with Eloa the debutante and then Teagan the ‘help’ as it were. Stepping away from the group of men, they are not discussing anything worthwhile anyway, he begins to walk to Eloa with a smile like he is about to ask her to dance or do something with him. He is bringing the cigar smoke with him.

Watching with bated breath as Matias opens the drawers one by one, Eloa winces more and more as if the cursed item being in the top drawer would’ve made things better somehow. When Matias finally touches the item which Eloa totally thought it was real because why would anyone open that dresser and Eloa gets teleported to the 1920s well…. Eloa has no idea it’s the 1920s. Because the thing about being a homeschooled girl on the run is that the attire of debutants in the 1920s was definitely NOT on the ciriculum. Not that the rest of history made it onto the ciriculum of a girl who was constantly on the run and who was only interested in reading romance because well.. because Eloa is Eloa. “Oh… is this the solstice ball?” Eloa asks, thinking that they might’ve time skipped ALL that time as she looks down at her ball gown to see if it’s any good. Because well she usually makes her own gowns and it better be good! Seeing Matias coming towards her, Eloa plasters a smile on her face, “Did we time slip again?” She asks Matias as he stops infront of her.

Unfortunately for Teagan, her outfit is very bland. Shades of gray, really. Even stark black and white is more of a movie-ism than anything. Gray and beige was cheaper and more unobtrusive. But it’s fitting for the redhead (whose red hair is likely the most noticeable thing about her and has caused a few heads to turn, conversations to slow) who is looking more than a little wide-eyed as she moves through the room. She nearly dropped her tray at the outset, but managed to recover and start… well, circulating is not the word. She was going to make a beeline for Matias, but someone grabbed her by the arm and pointed her toward a cluster of more matronly women who were clearly watching over the potential courtships.

And so that is where Teagan heads, trying to catch the eye of Matias or Eloa with a definite look of ‘help.’

Much of what Matias hears could place them anywhere from the end of the Great War to the beginning of the 1930s. It’s very day-to-day business for New England and without knowing specifics about companies and brokers at the time, it’s hard to say. It’s a little too niche for the latino’s interests. The cigar is a cigar and the tennis bracelet is nowhere in sight. The music is very upbeat with a lot of jazz influence. Matias can, however, sense that the cursed thing is nearby still.

Fortunately for Eloa, it is a very fine gown. Unfortunately for Eloa, a very fashionable gown of the era is not what suits her body type. Drop waists and A-lines were the order of the day. And it is not a ‘flapper’ style (as those were more for the rebellious types!): a pale blue solid ‘slip’ dress that is floor-length, straight-lines, without sleeves and a very conservative v-neck overlaid with a more diaphanous pale-blue layer that gives her cap-sleeves that fall to just above the elbows and from the waist down is threaded with tiny glass beads that catch the light. It is very pretty, but it was certainly designed with the ‘ideal’ body type of the era (‘flat as a board’) in mind.

Eloa waits for Matias

Matias nears the debutantes as Eloa’s latina physique trying to fit a flat as a board dress is, well she gets a look from the man and puff of a cigar as he holds out a hand towards her as if beckoning. “Come here Eloa, I want to talk to you.” he says with a big smile as if playing into the fantasy of the scenario. Gentleman asking a debutante to ‘talk’ while puffing some cigar smoke to the side. “No we did no go forward, this is back… Early 1900s. Prohibition-y maybe right after or before. Is American history but around the Great Gatsby surely.” now the question is does Eloa know what the Great Gatsby is… If Eloa is able to walk to him, he casts his gazes and finds Teagan seeking help. Thus they go that way for canapas probably. “So we need to find the tennis bracelet. Ideally without disrupting the memory, aspects or spirits get violent when they get displaced from the moment.” he comments to Eloa while pitching his voice a bit loudly for Teagan’s benefit.

Well Eloa’s chest kindof fits at least! Eloa does seem to be wearing a corsetty thing though which she tugs a little and blushes at as Matias holds out his hand towards her. Giving him a semi suspicious look, Eloa puts her hand in his, probably getting some titters that she isn’t curtseying or bowing to Matias or something. She coughs a little as she walks into a plume of Matias’s cigar smoke and lifts her free hand to waft her hand at her face. Maybe that’s why fans were popular for so long. And long sleeves. Coughing a little given the plume of cigar smoke IN THE AIR because who cares about polluting the air for others, Eloa lets Matias practically drag her across the dance floor. “We have to find the bracelet? To end this? This is .. America before it became great?” She asks, possibly getting her history tangled again, “Also great gatsby? That is book right?” Success! “Eloa never read it.” Oh. Eloa clears her throat a few long times to try and clear it from the smoke haze and looks around to see if she can spot any tennis bracelets.

For Teagan’s benefit, yes. Unfortunately, it also means people around Matias and Eloa as they walk hear it, too. And conversation ripples behind them.

“Did that man say spirits?”
“Well, I never!”
“Violence? Horace, did you hear that gentleman?”

Either these are all just some very fine, normal people that Matias has just upset or he has already upset these so-called spirits!

Unfortunately for Eloa between the cigar smoke and the fact that in the 20s, art deco was *big* which means lots of big, flashy jewelry everywhere… There’s so many glimmery, shiny, pretty things that she probably sees half a dozen possible tennis bracelets. Or maybe something else pretty. Or that. Or that. There’s a lot of glimmer in this place!

Teagan is a big busy at the moment as several of the women have surrounded her to snack from her tray even as they talk about this pairing or that match or did you hear that soandso booked the dance hall for a Christmas wedding? But something shines at the wrist of one of the women and Teagan is close enough that she recognizes it. And maybe not thinking or maybe just wanting desperately to not feel so, so, so very crowded and suffocated! She makes a grab for it…!

chk-chk-chk…

When the clock strikes two, three and four
If the band slows down we’ll yell for more someone’ gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’til broad daylight
We’re gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight

Blink and you’ll miss it!

The ballroom is gone. The cigar smoke is gone. The stuffy dresses, meddling mothers: all gone. So is the tennis bracelet. Our trio is divided again and this time, in a very typical American High School basketball court all dolled up for a Homecoming Dance. The theme is… indeterminable. But there is a band! And some people are even dancing! Matias is off to one side with a group of guys dressed all the same: khaki slacks, boater shoes, white polos, and red letterman jackets. Eloa is seated on some bleachers, a compact in hand, touching up her makeup while similarly dressed girls (and some greasers!) hang out around her. She’s in a much more fitting outfit: high-waisted ankle pants, a sleeveless button down (with a cute polka-dotted neckerchief), heels, and a large, bright red rose in her hair. Teagan is by the punch bowl in a navy-with-white polka-dots dress with a wide neck, cap sleeves, a solid-black neckerchief, matching wide black belt, and black-and-white saddle shoes. Her bright red hair is up in victory rolls and she seems to have appeared waiting her turn while a couple of guys chat with her.

For Teagan’s benefit, yes. Unfortunately, it also means people around Matias and Eloa as they walk hear it, too. And conversation ripples behind them.

“Did that man say spirits?”
“Well, I never!”
“Violence? Horace, did you hear that gentleman?”

Either these are all just some very fine, normal people that Matias has just upset or he has already upset these so-called spirits!

chk-chk-chk…

When the clock strikes two, three and four
If the band slows down we’ll yell for more
We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight
We’re gonna rock, rock, rock, ’til broad daylight
We’re gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight

Blink and you’ll miss it!

Matias it takes him a few minutes to place this, because brazilian schools did have dances, and some of these fahsions lingered in South America in different forms well after they went out of fahsion in America. The real world professor checks the letterman jacket he would have never had growing up to see if he has a Captain’s patch… Nope. He lets out a disappointed sigh and a tch sound. This time the arcanist closes his eyes letting his senses expand outward. Can he just pinpoint an item without touching it. No. Could he get a direction or a general this way, normally.

Whereever they went it’s bloody cold! Eloa shivers as she uses the mirror in her compact to look around her. Surely a tennis bracelet will be MORE out of place at a high school prom? Once she’s done sneakily – not that sneakily looking around at the other girls with her mirror, Eloa does her lipstick because she’s curious to see if leaving a kiss on Matias’s lips will transition to the next place they go, including home. This lipstick is way more red and noticable than her usual lip gloss so… On it goes. Smacking her lips a few times afterwards, Eloa sets the compact into her bag and gets off of the bleachers to head for the not team captain Matias. “Do you see it anywhere?” She asks Matias, which is an odd way of asking the man to dance, although surely that’s Matias’s job.

“I’m… I’m good,” Teagan is saying to two young men that have both tried to offer her punch. And each one glaring at the other as if certain she will pick his! Meanwhile, she’s looking for an escape and in looking, she spots something off toward the opposite side of the gym. Something that, once she’s spotted Matias and the approaching Eloa (that lipstick will totally clash with your letterman jacket, Matias she starts pointing! Frantically pointing! LOOK, LOOK! LOooo- “Ohhh, I just-” She plays it off like she was stretching a bit which her chest? In that dress? The boys didn’t even notice.

“May I?” And a third has arrived and since he’s offering her an escape from being cornered, she takes it. New problem: she has no idea how to dance.

Should Matias and Eloa look in the direction Teagan had pointed, they’ll see something very strange for a 1950s school dance: a young woman in 1920s attire looking lost, confused, and very scared. She’s backed up against a wall, is pale, and appears to be hyperventilating as she looks around herself. She’s not wearing a tennis bracelet, but she’s absolutely from their previous environs.

Matias is kissed with red lipstick on the lips. There is a bit of a look at Eloa there as he says, “Kisses are hardly tennis bracelets or escaping this trip through American fashion. Although it is very educational.” the end he sounds like he might look up a youtube video on eras of fashion in North America or something later. “Oh.” looks from Teagan being corner by boys with punch (probably not the roofie kind) over to the scared girl. He puts a hand on Eloa’s back and begins to walk her towards the scared pale girl hypoventilating. “Hello, my girlfriend Eloa is lost and I am trying to help her home. Are you lost too?” he says with a brazilian accented voice.

Unfortunately Matias now has a giant lipstick imprint on his lips. So it may make it a bit harder to look like the helpful young man that he is. Eloa gives the scared girl a smile and a wave, and a shiver. “Ola.. Um… Yes eloa is very…. lost.” She gives Matias a strange look but nods contritely as she turns back to the woman. “Cannot find home… This is strange.. place.” She adds with a gesture around. “More used to people dressed like you…” Her hands to pat herself down to see if she has a phone on her… To google Great Gatsby dresses of course if she does find a phone. Although it is probably not the smart phone era yet.

Luckily for Teagan, the boy that’s led her out to the dance floor is very smooth! He’s leading her through the steps quite well. Unluckily for Teagan, it means she’s not able to keep up with what’s going on with the girl from their previous location. Every so often she manages a look over that way, but usually the boy just turns her around so she can’t see them anymore! How annoying.

“Wh-wh-wh-where am I?!” the girl wails after Matias asks if she’s lost. There’s a sort of ripple through the air and for a brief second, the music playing is *not* 1950s rock and roll, but rather some big band style. Nothing else changes and when it cycles back, no one else seems to have noticed. Except Teagan maybe.

Sorry, Eloa. No phone. And the girl does not have a tennis bracelet. Surely, however, it’s around here somewhere. There’s always some girl who wore her mother’s jewelry or is from a family with more money than sense.

“You’re in a memory. But it is not your own.” Matias says to the girl out of time and that flicker of a different song as he says to Eloa, “Go and look for the bracelet. And be careful it feels as if these time periods further from her own are unstable.” his tone warning caution but then again how cautious can you be in a time slipping scenario. Those slate-grey eyes refocus on the 1920s scared girl. “Do you have a name? Are you missing your bracelt? My name is Matias.”

“Yes Matias…” Eloa intones as if Eloa is Matias’s slave although that lipstick mark on his lips secretly makes her giggle. Maybe the girl out of time will think that’s what men look like in this current time. Fashionable! In any case, Eloa turns around and starts to scour the dance floor, with her hands on her hips. Surely, she will be able to notice some twinkle of light? A glittering spark? Unfortunately Eloa isn’t particularly perceptive as a human.

The girl can’t stop staring and not at Matias though he is very nice and she’s at least not wailing anymore. “Mary,” she manages to eke out for him. What she’s staring at is everything else. The people. The musicians. The clothing. There’s just absolute horror on her face and she crosses herself. “Am I in hell?”

What Eloa notices is not a bracelet on the floor. Surely that would have been snatched up if one had fallen! But what she does notice is a very fine pair of wingtip shoes and when she looks up, a charcoal pair of slacks and up up- it’s one of the other gentlemen from the ball! He’s puffing a cigar, too, and reading a newspaper! The paper is lowered and there’s just a cloud of that smoke that they had only just escaped. “Young lady!” Puff. “What do you think you’re wearing!”

Is this all going to be up to Teagan It’s possible. She’s managed to extract herself from the man she was dancing with, insisting on a need for something to drink (and really, she does, because she is *not* in good enough shape for this!). And it’s by the punch table (this time with much less attempted foisting of beverage!) that she spots it. Well, she hopes it’s ‘it.’ Some of Eloa’s former… well, in-this-universe friends from the bleachers have joined up with another crowd and they all stand around a couple where one girl is showing off the bracelet her boyfriend just got her.

Teagan downs her punch and with a glance back over her shoulder, a grimace (because really, is this going to help anything? but at the same time…), she plows right through with an: “OH MY GOSH, LET ME SEE!” And everyone is just too surprised to stop her as she grabs hold of the young woman’s wrist to take a good look (and grab) of the tennis bracelet-

chk-chk-chk

All that she wants is another baby
She’s gone tomorrow
Boy all that she wants is another baby yeah
All that she wants is another baby
She’s gone tomorrow
Boy all that she wants is another baby yeah

The lights flare wide and the music comes through distant tinny speakers. As everyone’s vision clears, they find themselves in a classic mall food court. The mall decor says 80s, but the advertising says 90s. Matias would be able to venture (especially if he knows the song!) early 90s. He’s sat on a table wearing a Nirvana t-shirt, torn jeans, Converse, and a flannel… literally *on* the table, as he’s holding an acoustic guitar. Eloa is in the classic of the late-80s that was still big in the 90s: brightly colored leggings, bike shorts, hi-tops, and an over-sized sweatshirt. She’s got shopping bags, a walk-man: everything a girl needs for a shopping trip. Teagan is walking out of a bookstore, new purchase already in hand and open to the first pages: dark-green slip dress under a black-and-green flannel with a pair of Doc Martens.

All seems perfectly standard for when grunge started to hit the American scene… except for that storefront that’s a true soda shop, complete with girls in pencil skirts at the counter and boys in letterman jackets. Or that other one where a group of men sit in a smokey parlor smoking cigars, playing at cards in three-piece suits. And walking toward Eloa, a cluster of women in the daytime petticoats of the 1920s, parasols in hand, chattering among themselves.

Matias looks down at himself and now he sighs. “God damnit.” and he hops off the table and strums at the guitar a few times before singsonging, “Maria Maria Maria, where are you…. Mary?” instead of looking for the bracelet he tries to find the lost consciousness slipping through time. “I think I need you Mary, oh Mary, with the lost tennis bracelet. That we need to reunite.” he says with as much skill as anyone in the 90s trying to learn guitar in a mall.

There’s a groan as everything changes. Eloa sighs as she looks down at her new clothes which.. honestly isn’t even that different from what she wears except the bright coloring. There’s even a walkman! She jams a earpiece into her ear as she surrupticiously peeks at Matias to see if the lipstick survived. Eloa also looks around to see if they have anything to eat or drink because Eloa has been carted around from timeline to timeline without a drink! “Do you see Teagan?” Eloa asks Matias looking around for the people from the past time as well as well Matias’s other student who had probably managed to grab the bracelet. “Is she out because she grab bracelet?”

Having grabbed the bracelet twice now to no avail, Teagan is.. not out. It just so happens that the book she landed here with is one of her favorite books from her childhood and she got a little distracted. But Matias’ singing as he goes looking for the girl from the previous… well, era? does snap her out of it and she goes running down the way toward the familiar voice… nearly stumbling over some guys in their 1950s Letterman jackets throwing a football back and forth, catching herself, and off again.

There’s more and more around now. And every so often there’s a shudder, one that all three of them can feel. And when it passes, something is different. A patron of the mall suddenly from a different era. A store has changed. The music might be early 90s one minute, 20s the next, 50s the next…

But no Mary to be seen.

“What-” Teagan is panting, holding the book in one hand. What, was she supposed to drop it? Patricia C. Wrede’s Dealing With Dragons is a masterpiece! “…How…” Deep breath. Teagan grabs onto Matias’ sleeve partially to get his attention and partially because she just needs something to stabilize herself to catch her breath. Haaaaa- “How do we make it stop?!”

We will never know if Eloa’s red lipstick made the time jump but when Teagan comes running up and then catching her breath Matias licks his lips and says. “Reunite the bracelet and the girl… Ideally. Otherwise I just summon the bracelet and if I can touch it I can decurse it myself and just break the memory.” from his tone it is obvious he is resisting simply bruteforcing the experience with his ritualism and trying to play by whatever made up scenario the magic has created. Truly this is for his entertainment those slate-grey eyes looking from Teagan to Eloa, “Looks like she is not out. Now where is the 1920s girl and I wonder if the bracelet might be in a store.”

No, the lipstick did not make it over. Nothing else has with each jump!

Another few deep breaths — she really needs to get to the gym more — and Teagan straightens with hands on hips. And book in hand. Even if she’s unlikely to get to read even one more page. “The girl? The-” And then she remembers, “Oh! Her! So you think it’s her? She wasn’t even the one wearing it at the first place. It was some… older lady with big gray hair-” she gestures to the top of her head, miming one of those rather large Victorian updos. Out of style by the 1920s, but a matron would have still been partial to them perhaps.

While Matias cannot sense or see Mary anywhere, he does sense the bracelet. Finally. And when he looks that way, it feels just a little too obvious this time. There’s a fountain near the escalators and coins glimmering in the waters. Unsurprisingly, there’s a bracelet glimmering in there, too.

Unfortunately, however… the ripples are still happening. And it’s not just the decades the trio have visited. Revolutionary soldiers on horseback go charging by as soon as the three begin to move. But a turn of the head… and they’re gone. A few steps later and behind them, there’s a great big rumbling, a crashing, and dust goes blowing heavily all around them and at their feet, debris clattering as the distant wall of the food court is brought down by a wrecking ball.

The universe? It’s shrinking. And the central point around which it all revolves is the bracelet.

Matias seems a bit concerned by the increased fluctuations and the fact some of these are less idyllic American eras and more conflict oriented. He hurries to the fountain and reaches into the fountain. As he does so he forces his arcane energies into his hand and tries to snatch the bracelet and hopefully instead of being time slipped and losing it, the bracelet becomes bound to him.

Concerned? That’s one way to put it. Terrified might be another. Teagan finally loses track of the book (woe) when the wall comes crashing down and she nearly trips and falls. Luckily she only stumbles several steps but in fearing the fall, she drops the book, and it becomes lost in the cloud of dust. Coughing she throws a flannel-covered arm over her mouth to try to avoid inhaling too much dust. Thankfully she manages to keep up with Matias and presumably Eloa as well.

There are more ripples and not all conflict-oriented. There’s a row of people waiting outside of a theater for the release of RETURN OF THE JEDI. People clustered outside of an electronics store, watching man land on the moon. Kids lined up to see Santa in various decades attire nearby in the mall. Sometimes they remain after a ripple, sometimes they disappear. But each ripple seems to strip away something in the distance, leaving only a murky fog. And with each ripple, that fog is closing in on the bracelet: on the trio.

Matias is able to get the bracelet bound to him as he grabs it. There is a pulse (not a ripple) as its magic fights against his own and in coming out on top, the arcanist Fae does learn something important: this is not bound to a spirit. The magic is within the bracelet itself. It is a Tear in time and one that has gone Unstable. The Thread is Unraveling and Unraveling fast.

“Oh Lord, tether thy sheep and herd thy herd!” Eloa sprouts some brazilian translation of a prayer or something as the place they’re in becomes unstable and she gestures Matias onwards after being disappointed he isn’t still wearing lipstick! It means she isn’t either, so she licks her lips before making her way after Matias, her bright blue and yellow spandax tights super form fitting. It shows off that thicc ass because why not not look good while the universe is collapsing around you? “Eloa hope you can get us out!” Eloa shouts to Matias as she runs after him – if the universe is shrinking well she’d want to be next to him! Reaching out to grab Teagan by a wrist, Eloa grabs onto Matias’s belt – or the top of his trousers if he isn’t wearing any as if preparing to be sucked through time!

As the universe of the memory shard shrinks down and down but Matias is already incanting the ritual to cleanse the bracelet that he has bound to him so it does not shift the ripples. It normally takes fifteen minutes but this is kind of a rush job. He truncates several parts of the rite and surges more life force into it to compensate before ending as the space pushed all three of them Matias, Eloa, and Teagan together. At the end he drops the bracelet and step! TWIST! Break! Release, maybe?!

The hand is appreciated even if Teagan was definitely going to be keeping up. Mostly because even if she trips now, the redhead is going to be kept along. Presumably. But trust, she’s not doing any Lot’s Wife here. No looking back when she should just be getting the fuck out.

Fortunately, panic feeds a whole lot of power into intent and isn’t that most of magic anyway? Matias really, really, REALLY intends to live and so the ritual is compressed down into as small of a space as the trio is. Or will be. Or could be. There is a sound not unlike shattering glass as he stomps down on the bracelet and that note hangs in the air as everything goes white.

…If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh, why can’t I?

Overhead, a streetlight flickers and the three are left standing on the sidewalk. The last lines of Over the Rainbow fade off into a foghorn in the distance. The antique store is gone, replaced by the hum of the streetlight overhead. Everything is as it had been on their original walk in the general direction of the mall, save for the sky growing pinkish-orange in the east as dawn reaches her early fingers into the dark.

Matias looks down at the item as it likely converts to dust, such is the fate of broken magical knickknacks. “I really wanted to know the solution.” he grouses and then looks to make sure Eloa and Teagan are alright and whether he has two people clinging to his… belt?

“Thank god.” Eloa cries out as the memory shatters leaving them all on the sidewalk. She looks at the ground as if wanting to sit down and then takes another look at the ground in the dingy alleyway. Eloa still has her hand on Matias’s belt although it might be tugged down a bit now from Eloa pulling on it. “No more antique shops!! No more cursed objects!! Was supposed to be nice gallery viewing! Exploring the town! Not exploring curses!” Eloa grumbles.

At least one party is not disappointed: Teagan. She rubs at her face a few times, relieved to be back in her own clothes, in her own time, and not watching the entire world start to disappear around her. “There never was a gallery viewing,” she reminds Eloa. “That’s just where he wanted to meet.” Before going to the mall. Where they could have met. And maybe avoided this whole thing! Okay, maybe she is a little disappointed.

The mall has the cookie carousel.

“I… am going to go home. I am going to get some sleep. Just… email me your notes and I’ll see if I can get their locations, security details…” she’s already turned back around to start heading for her car, waving a hand over her shoulder as she yarns into the other one. “blah blah blah…”