I made my way to PE, and went into the locker room.

“What’s the matter, Seth?” Coach Nichols said. “You look a little pale.”

“Uh, nothing Coach,” I said, making my way to my locker. “A little tired today.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Coach nodded at my hair which I still hadn’t cut. “Tangling with a witch, I take it?”

I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “You know me, Coach.”

“First and Third situations today at practice. Need your head in the game, son.”

I shook my head. I really really loved baseball practice. I was the third baseman, and First and Third situations were my absolute favorite drills.

“Yeah, about that, coach.”

He looked up from his clipboard where he’d been recording the roll.

“I, uh. Have a conflict after school today.”

He set the clipboard down, and crossed his arms over his chest. “What kind of conflict?”

Coach Nichols was also a magic user. I don’t think he was sorcerer level, much less wizard level like Coach Greene, but he was a fair but firm coach. There was going to be no pulling the wool over his eyes.

“Can I talk to you about it in your office?”

“Sure,” he nodded his head in the direction of the coaches office. “Be there in a sec.”

I nodded, and dressed out for PE. This meant changing out of my shirt, pants, and shoes, and putting on the white High Valley High Athletics T-shirt and red shorts. As I changed, I glanced at all my extremities and attachments to make sure everything was where it should be and as masculine as when I woke up.

So far so good, April. I thought.

Great! I heard back, and blinked in surprise.

Wow, you can hear me even now?”

Yep! Be careful what you train your mind on, Seth. I’ll perv all your nasty thoughts!

I pictured in my mind earlier, with when I swatted April soundly on her backside.

Hey! No fair!

I pictured in my mind when April and I had been playing on the playground. She’d had mousy brown hair then, a cute little upturned nose, and chubby cheeks.

I got back an image of a time when sixth graders had cornered me in a vacant lot, and had yanked my pants down. She’d been there that day, when everyone had seen my underwear. She zoomed in on the stains.

Very funny.

Two can play this game, Seth. Don’t forget that!

Stupid. She sent an image of her in full witch regalia swatting the nose of a tiny little puppy with a newspaper. Bad dog!

I disconnected our communication and grinned. It was the kind of exchange we used to have when we were close. I missed that April, the April I'd fallen in lovely.

She’d slowly pulled on the tendril, earlier, then performed a very intricate and fancy knot, and tied the thread just past my toe. It felt like someone had a string attached to my gonads. They felt stretched a little beyond comfort, like wearing a jockstrap that’s too tight but I could put up with some discomfort if it meant we could make it through the day. She had called the knot, a Witch’s knot and it had magical connotations.

I went into coaches office just as Coach Nichols finished and came in.

“So what’s up?” he said, sitting on the edge of the desk.

I explained everything to him from the start of the day. Beginning with April calling on Mitzy, and ending with the Witch’s knot tied in the connection of our tendril.

Coach closed his eyes briefly, and I figured he was looking through his third eye.

“Wow, that is some powerful stuff right there,” he said.

“Yeah. April is pretty powerful.”

“Not talking about April, Seth. You. Has anyone tested you for magical ability?

“Just what we got in the second grade. I do know I can open my third eye, and I was able to grab the tendril.”

“This is pretty irregular. I know her Coven.”

“Not good?”

He shook his head. “You should think about joining the Brotherhood. We protect all our members no matter how new they might be.”

"I'll give it some thought."

He opened his eyes, and regarded me. “So what does this all have to do with Practice this afternoon?”

“April and I are going to meet with Desdemonia.”

Coach Nichols hissed through his teeth and made the sign of the horns, and spit on the ground. “Don’t use her name in here, son. Especially since you’ve discovered your a magic user.”

“Why?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t have a lot of time to get into it, but that person is a high level witch of the black order.”

I nodded.

“Have you considered this might be a trap?”

I thought about April. I also thought about what the school leaders had said about the Gate.

“What’s the Gate and who is at it?” I said.

He got up and closed the blinds. “Damn, boy. You have to watch your words. I know you don’t know a thing about magic or magical influences, but you just can’t spout shit out here in the open. I got wards on the blinds, so we should be okay now, but use your head, son!”

“Miss Minnick and Pete Vargas were talking about it.”

“That topic delves into a lot of existential stuff we don’t have time for right now, Seth. Are you familiar with the works of Lovecraft?”

I frowned. “So a Cthulhian horror?”

I shrugged. “Let’s say Lovecraft was not far off the mark. There are beings that exist that could eat the entire earth like a gumdrop.”

“And that’s what's coming through on the dark of the moon?”

He shrugged. “Some think so.”

“I think April suspects the black tendril interwoven with our connection is somehow connected to that too.”

“Like I said, I don’t have time to get into it. We have a class to get to.”

“But you understand where I’ll be at three?”

He sighed, getting up and grabbing some jump ropes. “Yeah. But friend to friend, anything surrounding Desdemonia is going to spell disaster. I’m really sorry your entangled with her daughter, but I wouldn’t trust any of them with a ten foot pole attached to another ten foot pole.”

“What should I do?”

He handed me a card. There was a single name on it, and some geographic coordinates.

“Ernest Langmore?”

“He’s an elder in the Brotherhood. Go to him and tell him what’s been going on.”

I sighed, looking down at the card. If I did that, it would have to be behind April’s back. I didn’t know if she could find me now, with this new connection thing, or knew where I was at all times, or what.

“I take it I shouldn’t tell April that I’d be going to…”

“Elder Langmore? No.”

“She’s in my head, though coach.” I put the card on the desk. “I don’t think I can defy her.”

“She’s talking to you in greyspace?”

“Whatever it’s called yeah. We can apparently communicate with each other.”

He winced.

“I don’t know what kind of abilities she has over me.”

“I’ll reach out to him now,” Coach said. “Maybe he can meet us here before class is over.”

I nodded, and we left to head out to the fields.