Isabelle has an idea.

But well, as interesting as that story was, it still didn’t tell us just how trustworthy Mr. Allen was, and that was the main question mom needed answered.

“Ugh, I hate this,” Isabelle said, rubbing her face. “It’s too much. My head hurts.”

“We’ve already accepted the situation your brother is in,” mom told her. “Complaining won’t solve anything.” Then she let out a soft, drawn out sigh. “That said, I don’t disagree. Why? Why did it have to be you, Oliver?”

“What do you mean?” I asked her. “Why did I have to be possessed? Or why did I have to catch the eyes of Luke Allen?”

“Both, I guess.” Mom sounded tired, worried and resigned all at once. She didn’t say much, and neither did Isabelle for that matter, but I could guess that they kept asking themselves all sorts of questions about all this. I was thankful that they at least kept treating me like normal. I think they understood that despite all the craziness, I was still myself, and that meant a lot to me.

I put the knife down and threw the chopped onion in a pan. It began to sizzle in the hot oil and the sound filled the silence for a moment.

“No reason, really. Could’ve been anyone, I bet. Frey just happened to choose me, and Mr. Allen needs Frey’s abilities more than he needs me.”

“You mean that, if the spirit was gone, then Luke Allen would leave you alone?” mom asked.

That made me stop completely. I held the pan by the handle and stopped shaking it, suddenly glaring at the cooking onions. Something about the way mom worded it gave me pause.

If Frey was gone. Not if I lost the power and abilities, but if Frey, The Spirit of Lust, was gone. I only ever spoke to her in my dreams, I only recently started clearly remembering those conversations and the ones we had before were very vague and foggy memories. And yet there was something very wrong with the idea. My chest tightened painfully at the mere thought.

Even though I couldn’t remember everything well, I knew I’d seen her punching the air in excitement before. I’d seen her floating upside down in deep thought and thought it was amusing. I knew she had scolded me when I deserved it and praised me when I achieved something great.

My eyes began to itch. I rubbed them with the sleeve of my shirt.

“Probably,” I told mom. “But I’d lose someone important.”

“Frey…” Alice began. “We’ve talked to her through a ouija board a couple of times. For what it's worth, I really believe she cares about Oliver. Of course, she has her own agenda. She needs energy from… y-you know. That’s how she sustains herself. But even so…”

Alice trailed off, stopping before saying more. She understood that vouching for a supernatural being we barely understood was probably not wise, even if she did believe it.

“W-Well, it’s not like we could get rid of her even if we wanted to, right?” Isabelle said.

“I suppose.” Mom then turned to Alice. “And what about you, Alice? You and the others. You say you’ve known about it for a few months already, but… Are you okay? Have you felt anything weird?”

Alice blushed and looked down at the table, chuckling bashfully. “Um… The answer is yes to both things, actually. I can speak for myself and the others on this. Not only do we feel fine, we feel better than ever. And… Yes, being with Oliver felt weird at first. We could tell there was something strange going on, but it wasn’t unwelcomed. Now those strange things are the pillars that help make our relationship work. I’m sorry, I know I’m being very vague, but…”

“You mean that mind reading thing Oliver mentioned?” Isabelle asked.

Alice nodded. “Well, yes. That’s one thing. You’d think knowing what he’s thinking would reveal some… I don’t know, some dark secrets, but it really just proves how honest he always is. And we could second guess everything, but then that’s true for every relationship, isn’t it?”

Mom nodded wordlessly in agreement.

“Hmm…” Isabelle bit the tip of the thumb while looking deep in thought. She turned to look at me and asked another question. “Hey, brother, you said your… mind reading didn’t work too well on men, right? That means it works best on women?”

“Hm? Yeah.” I nodded slowly, still mulling over mom’s words. “But I don’t have full control over it. Why?”

“Oh, it’s just that… You say Luke Allen really cares about his girlfriends, right? You’re so sure you’d vouch for him without knowing him.”

Again, I nodded.

“Then… Well, I was thinking maybe you could try talking to one of them and ask about Mr. Allen. I thought maybe you could read their minds and try to find something out, but if you don’t control it…”

My eyes widened, and Alice had much the same reaction. We looked at each other, wordlessly questioning how none of us had thought of that before.

“You know, that’s actually not a bad idea,” I told Isabelle.

There was something else that made me remember. Frey had said that the balance of power wasn’t completely tipped in Mr. Allen’s favor. My abilities were a deterrent against aggression because he believed that if I wanted to, I could take his girls away from him. Not that I would, but…

If I asked him to let me talk to one or all of his girlfriends… how would he react? I hoped that Frey was paying attention here, because a lot of this plan would depend on her.

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