24 December 2017
5pm on Sunday
Pacific Junction, Iowa, USA
25° F / -4° C

It was getting dark, and the dry frigid windless air bit at Natalie Morrow's pinked cheeks. There was only a light dusting of snow[1] nestled on the edges of the gravel road. There were no sidewalks, but the two young wix stepped aside for a passing pick-up truck.

"It's so trippy," Nemo said. No. Natalie, again. She'd heard her name often enough in the last several months (as she'd been shuffled through the bureaucracy of the British Magical immigration system, which she had naively defied and deftly evaded for two years)[2] that it felt like hers again. Virgil already knew, and certainly her mom did. Being required to come back to the U.S., Natalie was trying to recontexualize it as a new beginning. A new chapter. An opportunity to achieve some wisdom.

"Being back."

They'd floo'd into the old schoolhouse, which the muggle residents believed was boarded up, but the magic folk used as a gathering place. It would be a short walk to her mom's new house, and Natalie figured she'd, uh, show Virgil the town, she guessed?

The houses they passed were iconically American, and umistakably rural and Midwestern. Most were decorated for Christmas with lights and fairy-light deer. It was totally quiet.

She used to be embarrassed of this place. Now she felt like some kind of anthropologist, observing the once familiar as something else, something worthy of … being observed.

1.	Des Moines Register, 24-12-2017
2.	Nemo's Five Years On update

He was glad to be away from New York, though he hadn't shared that thought with his companion yet. There was a lot he couldn't share with her these days -  mostly involving his time at The Agency and the politics behind it. But that was the way of things and he'd not dwelt on such secrecy in years. Not since he first became an Unspeakable.

This visit was untouched by those concerns. Virgil pulled his beanie lower to sit over his sensitive ears as they walked by house after house. Colourful Christmas lights and lawn decorations, dressed in a way foreign to his own festive traditions.

It wasn't a great lifestyle shock for a city wix to go from London to New York. Nemo's hometown was a different experience altogether. He had remained as quiet as the street, taking everything in with serious eyes.

"Does it still feel like home?" he asked, genuinely curious about how it felt like to be home after long adventures abroad. "Or like you're dreaming of home, if it's so trippy?"

V's imagination had been supplied by an embarrassing number of muggle Christmas movies - classics, yes, and those trite pictures about urban women finding love in small towns.

This place resembled those fictitious worlds in form but not ambience. "It isn't what I expected," he added in his usual droll manner.

Once upon a time, Nemo would never have brought Virgil Carstairs here. But now, there's no one else in the world she'd bring. Maybe Abby Reid, once.

"That delights me for some reason," Natalie admitted. "I don't know what you expected, but the very idea that P.J. would surprise anyone? Jeepers."

She smiled as she reached up to tap the fading red stop sign at the corner. Virgil was a Seer, but he didn't know everything.

"Like, I never lived anywhere else. But I never wanted to live here," she said without sourness. "I got out, so like, I can come and go as I wish now. I don't think my feet are really on the ground."

Trippy like that. She was glad there wasn't anyone around. They wouldn't know what to do with a real English wizard.

"My mom's cool, though," Natalie added to her unspoken thought. Compared to Virgil's mom, though? An alien.

He laughed, glancing at Nemo fondly. Virgil was always grateful for their friendship but living with her on-and-off during this exchange had deepened his affection.

His admiration, too. She was a very brave witch who never failed to surprise - so why shouldn't her hometown do the same?

"I suppose leaving the first time is the hardest," he mused as they passed a particularly festive looking house complete with Santa and sleigh. "A threshold once crossed doesn't seem like so much of an obstacle."

There seemed a sadness about this place. V wasn't certain how to phrase it out loud and, even if he did, it could wait until later. He felt the same hollowness as when he pondered the English countryside[1]. Like there was something missing.

"What do I call her?" Virgil turned his thoughts back to the imminent moment. "Mrs Morrow?" he tasted the name, half-smiling, and continued in a more playful tenor. "Madam Morrow... Ma Morrow..."

1.	Summer 2008 - Coming From an Endless Place

"Oh my god, you have to call her Madam Morrow," Nemo laughed. "She'll love that. But not Mrs."

Cassie Morrow was as vulnerable to a posh English accent as anyone else around here would be.

They arrived on Cassandra Morrow's street and Natalie led them up the walk. The house was a classic American four-square from 1920, a cube with big front port, pyramidal roof, and a kitchen addition on the back. A great twisted oak was in the front yard. The porch had lights strung around it, and there was one of those light-up deer. As they approached, some of the wear and tear on the house faded away to Natalie and Virgil's magical gaze - Cassandra had fixed it up in the wand-way witches could and muggles couldn't.

A spectral sparrow, a Patronus, sat on the porch and once the travelers approached it flitted away through the wall. Before Natalie could decide if she should knock or not, the door opened and her mom was there.

Cassandra Morrow was in her 40s with the same color hair as her daughter with the same round face. She was dressed in loose knits and bare feet. Behind her the house looked warm.

"Come in, it's cold," he said as if urgency was important. Whether or not Natalie wanted a hug, Cassie took her in for one. It was warm and soft like Natalie remembered, who hadn't realized how much she'd missed it. They held on for a moment or two and Natalie drank in the smell of it. She'd decided weeks ago that she wouldn't allow the moment to be awkward. It seemed Cassie had decided the same thing.

"Hi, mom," Natalie said. There was a coat rack there in the entry way. A tabby cat watched them from the stairs.

"And you must be Virgil," Cassie said closing the door behind them against the frigid air. She hadn't known what to expect, but he looked exactly right.

He had liked the house at first sight - its twisted oak appeared as something of a friend in his eyes.

As Virgil stood in the entrance, he felt a golden warmth rush to fill in the hollowness sensed outdoors. Not simply a physical warmth; there was something else, something kind and alive about the place. It made him cognizant of the compliment Natalie paid by bringing him along this evening.

He averted his eyes from their immediate reunion, taking the opportunity to cheerfully divest himself of hat and coat. As he pulled off his gloves, V tipped his chin into a nod at the watching cat. Nemo's mother finally shut out the cold winter.

"Madam Morrow..." he affected one of his bows and smiled softly as he stood straight. "At your service."

The resemblance endeared her to him instantly. Virgil couldn't help glancing at Natalie for a second, as if to confirm it, before his smile widened with inexplicable affection. "You have a beautiful home."

"Oh, he's like Downton Abbey!" Cassie said with a vibrant blush. She batted the young man on the shoulder and then led the way into the house. "It's just Cassie. Shoes on, shoes off, doesn't matter. How old are you, should we do wine?"

Behind her back, Natalie looked delighted, held onto Virgil's sleeve, and silently bounced. The exchange was adorable; exactly what she'd hoped for. Also adorable was Madam Morrow's house! It was a massive upgrade from the place they'd lived before. Past the entry way was the living room, which was updated with some trendy touches. There was a nice TV, a cozy couch, and family photos on the mantle.

"Mom, your place is so cute!" she agreed with Virgil. She went to look at the photos. They were the same ones they'd had before. Gramma, Cassie's graduation, that time they went to Chicago, Natalie's volleyball picture, Cassie and her sisters. Their old cat Harvey as a kitten. Their current cat Mabel.

Cassie had continued on to the dining room where she had a wine cabinet by her cauldron.

"It's a construction site," Cassie disagreed. "But thank you. Work in progress."

Indeed, taking up half the dining room table were DIY home improvement magazines, mostly of the magical sort.

Downton Abbey! He had spent most of this year keenly aware of his Britishness but nobody had ever said that. Not to his face, anyway.

Virgil glanced down at Nemo as she took his sleeve, and mirrored her delight. She was happy so he was happy. And he didn't try to resist the good cheer the way he normally might, as they followed Madam Morrow into her nest of a home.

On the surface it was different from Carstairs' aesthetics - but at its heart, Virgil saw the same abundance of personality and a life being lived. You couldn't accuse this place of minimalism or dullness. It made him ache for his own family home, unexpectedly.

"All part of the process," he chipped in mildly as he lingered at the busy dining table, tilting his head to read the article header of an open magazine. Six Exciting Ways to Make Your Floo less Blue!

A sense of Cassie's life. Virgil couldn't help it; by now it was perfunctory, trying to piece a personality together in his head every time he met someone new.

"Is there a grand plan?" he asked and looked up, curious, hands behind his back. "Or do you suppose you'll look around one day and think this is it...?"

"Believe it or not," Cassie said, and put two bottles on the table, a red and a white. The white she tapped with her wand to give it just the slightest chill. "But Nat's going away ... woke me up."

Cassie's smile was a little sad and for a moment Nat/Nemo/Natalie thought that they were going to 'do this now'.

"I was stuck, and I thought it was all I was capable of. And when it felt like I'd lost everything, it just came to me. Clear as day. I knew exactly what was going to happen. But. But!" Cassie held up two index fingers, holding the suspense as she disappeared to the kitchen.

Natalie glanced at Virgil, with an expression of both mortification (at her mother's sudden and theatrical confession) and intrigue. None of this had been in the texts and letters.

Cassie appeared again with a bag of bagel chips and a plastic tub of hummus. "But! I had to get off my butt. Do it!"

"You carpe'd that diem's ass," Natalie said.

"I did. And I bought my dream house." The twinkle in Cassie's eye implied more, but she'd taken Virgil's small-talk and flown off on a tangent. 

"Red or white?" she asked them both.

He managed, barely, to stifle a surprised laugh when Nemo's mother answered his curiousity with more personal honesty than expected. There was nothing funny about it really - just that he thought wine would precede the subject rather than the other way around.

When Cassie returned with chips and hummus, though, V did laugh. Never a dull moment with either Morrow.

"You can slow down and you can speed up but you can never stop," he recited with a musical lilt as he picked up one wine bottle after the other to consider them. "That's what I tell myself when I feel stuck, anyway."

What went better with hummus? He only ever had wine at dinner, with kelp being the preference at all other times, so this was something of a novelty.

"My vote is for the white..." Virgil handed the bottle over for his host to do the honours. "So you bought your dream house, and all of this is fine-tuning?"

He glanced at Nemo, lips witching into a smile. "You grew wings and she's growing roots."

Virgil stayed light but Natalie was a little stirred by what her mom had just said. Even though Natalie knew that the way she'd left had been cruel, both witches had forgiven each other for everything. But it was only just now that Natalie saw that something about Cassandra Morrow had changed.

Pop! The cork made a satisfying sound. The crinkle of the bagel chip packaging attracted Mabel the tabby cat to the table top.

"Yes. The kitchen's next," Cassie said. She poured wine into stemmed glasses for the three of them. Natalie took to the chips and hummus first, so that no one else had to.

"Virgil's working for the EPA," Natalie said, keen to steer the conversation away from what was itching at her. The deflection did not go unnoted by her mother, who did not try and stop it.

Cassie sipped her wine. "That's right. Must be interesting. You know, one of Natalie's classmates did an internship there. Alison Kasprzyk."

"Yeah?" Natalie asked. She hadn't actually graduated high school, nor was she on Facebook keeping track of everyone.

"Yeah," Cassie said.

He slid his glass closer and sipped, distracted for a moment by Mabel the cat joining them at the dining table. Dante was probably having a lovely little Christmas of her own with the building neighbours who'd offered to watch her tonight.

"I'm not working for them," Virgil interjected archly as he picked at the bagel chips and held one out for the cat to sniff. "It's an exchange, I'm on loan."

It would all be over soon. He wasn't ready to think about that, torn between home and a growing fondness for the States. The country was vast - too vast for itself even - but it was new, exciting.

He scooped up some hummus, glancing from mother to daughter. This was bordering on awkward and he felt worried for Nemo.

Alright, Neems? V sent a mental nudge at his friend.

"I'm sure Alison Kasprzyk's tongue is as tied up as mine with all of the Agency's secrets," he smiled at Cassie conversationally, meanwhile. "Nem-- Natalie says you work with blood?"

Mabel sniffed at the bagel chip but declined. She gave their guest a blink and sat down tidily. Cassie made no move to shoo her off the table - it was usually just her and keeping cats off surfaces was a losing battle.

Natalie glanced at Virgil upon getting the little voice in her head; she offered good-natured shrug in response. It was going better than she'd expected, but the evening was young. But on the positive, Natalie could see that Virgil was winning points with her mom. Complimenting her home, being kind to her cat, and now asking after her new career.

"I do," Cassie said, getting more comfortable in the padded dining room chair. Nemo drew her feet under her and let herself feel proud of her mom, for being brave and trying for something new. It hurt a little to feel that maybe being her mom was what had held Cassie back from following her dreams.

"I'm a phlebotomist," Cassie elaborated. "I work in a no-maj clinic in the city for now. I draw blood for lab tests and blood drives all day. I'm hoping to get something at the District hospital."[1] Cassie's words described a regular routine but her tone didn't hint that she was bored at all. "I've always liked blood."

She wrinkled her nose in just the way Natalie did.

1.	The local district's magical government runs a hospital in the area. Magical healthcare in the US

If Nemo was fine then she was fine - he trusted her to reach out in her own way if she needed anything. Virgil figured he might as well relax into the spirit of the season; everything about the place was conducive enough to it.

He crossed his ankles under the table, leaning forward on crossed arms as he listened to Cassie with interest. Drawing blood seemed like such a specific vocation. It made him think of two reckless kids a long time ago, having their blood taken by misfit vampires[1] before it was fashionable to do so. Bite the boy and stick the girl.

"The stuff of life," he grinned at the older witch, deciding that he quite liked her. "How do you find it, working with no-maj day in and day out? I'm fascinated by how integrated you lot are with your muggles."

That was the one thing about being here that probably qualified as culture shock. Almost everyone he met dipped in and out of their non-magical society as a matter of fact. They knew all about the internet and films and what was going on.

"Not that I don't play on either side of the fence," V clarified as a quick afterthought. "I just can't imagine being around them all the time."

1.	4th Dec 2011 - It's the Freakiest Show

"Can I put on some music?" Natalie asked, hoping not to interrupt the flow of the conversation that was turning to an interesting place. Cassie leaned in her chair to point to the record player in the next room. Natalie would be in chatting distance while she looked for the familiar Christmas albums she knew were there.

"I can't really imagine it any other way," Cassie said, unsure of how to even describe it. She tried though. "I think hiding anything about yourself diminishes you a little. But I'm glad they don't know about us. You see how they treat gay people around here, I don't know."

As if magic folk were any better about that; but no-maj had the 24-hour cable news and school board seats.

Natalie set a needle in the groove of a generic compilation from the 60's, and piped up.

"My dad's a muggle," she said casually as the music began. She didn't think she'd ever mentioned her dad to Virgil, but she'd never had reason to. He'd r-u-n-n-o-f-t when she was real little. She'd decided not to feel any kind of way about him, if such a thing was possible.

At this, Cassie had to quickly hide a distinctly uncomfortable look. She moved past it. Natalie padded back in.

"They think we're just like them, and honestly, I forget that we're not sometimes," Cassie said. Natalie sat back down.

"It's demoralizing," Natalie added. "You should come visit New York before -- you should just come."