Enchanted Lounge
Copyright© 2026 by Danielle Stories
Chapter 6: The Pressure Cooker
The magic didn’t just seep; it began to boil over.
It started in small ways. The toaster stopped producing burnt prophecies and began to sing. Specifically, at 7:15 AM precisely, it would emit a tiny, yet unmistakable rendition of the chorus from “Total Eclipse of the Heart” before ejecting the toast. My father, once a man of quiet routine, now stood before it each morning with a look of profound resignation as if waiting for a tiny, carb-based oracle to speak.
Then, the mirrors. Any reflective surface, the toaster’s side, the microwave door, the dark TV screen when the sun hit it just right, would fog up when we were near, and words would appear in the condensation. Not Miriam’s elegant script anymore, but hasty, desperate-looking scrawls, as if the magic itself was getting impatient.
TIME RUNS.
HEARTS BARE.
MOON HUNGRY.
One morning, I came up from the basement to find my mother carefully covering the living room mirror with a bedsheet. It promptly burst into flames, but she just beat out the small blue fire with a couch cushion, her face a mask of grim determination, and tacked up a piece of cardboard instead.
“The town board is meeting tonight.” My father announced over the singing toaster. He didn’t look at us. “About the... ‘ongoing disruption to the educational and community environment.’”
The “ongoing disruption.” That’s what we were. A public nuisance with a heartbeat. Two of them.
The town board emergency meeting was held in the high school auditorium, and it was packed tighter than a Friday night football game. The air hummed with the low buzz of a hundred conversations and the scent of cheap perfume and anxiety. Parents filled the rows, their faces etched with outrage, morbid curiosity, or a weird, proprietary pride as if our cursed nudity was a local attraction they had a stake in.
Lila-Beth and I were given two folding chairs, placed conspicuously alone at the front of the room, facing the stage. We’d been allowed to wear the choir robes again, a temporary, scratchy reprieve that we knew wouldn’t last. We sat so close our chairs touched, the heavy black fabric a thin veil over the constant, humming connection between us. I could feel Lila-Beth’s heart thrumming through the bond of a frantic bird against my own ribs.
Principal Hendricks stood at the podium, a man facing a firing squad. He cleared his throat. The microphone screeched.
“Given the unique ... and unprecedented circumstances.” He began, his voice too loud. “The board has convened to discuss a path forward that ensures both the educational needs of the students in question and the ... decorum ... of our learning environment.”
He spoke in a careful, bureaucratic drone about “remote learning solutions,” “alternative curricula,” and “prudent distance.” He was building a case. Boxing us up and shipping us out. Making us someone else’s problem.
I could feel Tammy Jo’s gaze like a laser on the back of my neck from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Her satisfaction was a sour tang in the air, a feeling I knew was partly my own perception and partly leaking through the bond from Lila-Beth’s heightened senses.
“Therefore,” Hendricks said, reaching his crescendo. “The board determines that the most equitable solution is for Miss Dawson and Miss McCallister to complete their senior year via an accredited, independent study program, conducted off-campus, effective immediately.”
POP! BZZZZZT! CRACK!
Every single overhead fluorescent light tube in the auditorium exploded at once.
It wasn’t a power surge. It was a violent, simultaneous detonation of glass and sparks. A collective gasp rose from the crowd as the room plunged into near-total darkness, lit only by the red EXIT signs and the slivers of twilight around the doors.
And by us.
Our choir robes, the “barrier,” disintegrated. Not in a flash of fire this time, but in a silent puff of black dust that vanished into the dark. And our glow, no longer muffled by fabric, blazed forth.
In the pitch-black auditorium, we lit up like two human-shaped lanterns. A pulsing, swirling aurora of pink and gold light emanated from our skin, illuminating our two folding chairs, the stunned, pale face of Principal Hendricks, and the first few rows of gaping spectators.
It was utterly silent save for the faint ting of falling glass shards.
Then, from the very back of the room, a familiar, wheezing chuckle cut through the stillness. Old Man Holloway’s voice, rich with vindication, rang out:
“Told ya. Miriam always did hate homeschooling.”
Chaos erupted. Someone screamed. A baby started wailing. Chairs scraped as people stood up, their shadows huge and monstrous against the walls in our unearthly light.
In the pandemonium, Lila-Beth’s hand found mine under the folding chair. Her fingers were ice-cold, but where our skin touched, a new kind of light sparked a sharp, focused arc of pure gold, visible only to us. It was a thread, a tether, a silent conversation.
They wanted to separate us, the bond seemed to scream.
We won’t let them, the golden spark whispered back.
The aftermath was a quiet, domestic surrender.
My parents’ final, desperate attempt at normalcy was what my dad called “Limited Supervised Contact.” It was born from the ashes of their other failed schemes.
The Shower Incident had resulted in both bathrooms flooding with warm, iridescent, champagne-scented bubbles.
The Church Intervention had ended with every Bible spontaneously flipping open to the Song of Solomon.
The Science Fair Debacle had left the gymnasium dripping with enthusiastic, unexplained foam.
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