Art by Sorophora

"Stop the car," Pacifica demanded.

The driver looked at her quizzically. "Well?" said Pacifica. "Stop the car! Before we get into town."

The driver sighed, checked to make sure there were no other cars around (even though Pacifica hadn't seen another car for miles), and applied the brakes. The truck — a horribly dirty vehicle — rumbled to a stop, and the driver got out. Pacifica waited primly in the passenger's seat of the truck as the driver walked around and pulled her door open.

"Her royal highness," the driver said dully, "Pacifica Pleasure." With a dramatic sweep of her arm, she sarcastically welcomed Pacifica out of the truck.

"Why, thank you," Pacifica said, ignoring the sarcasm. She carefully jumped down onto the snowy road — the golden triangles on her skirt jangled with the motion — before heading purposefully to the nearby sign.

As she passed, the driver muttered, "Eleanor owes me big time for this."

Pacifica gave a little huff at this. Eleanor — Pacifica's grandmother, with whom she'd been living for the past year — owed this woman nothing. She volunteered, after all, to drive Pacifica from Portland to Gravity Rises. The way Pacifica saw it, it was a privilege for her to chauffeur Pacifica across the state. Yet the woman (whose name Pacifica hadn't bothered to learn) didn't seem to realize her fortune.

Well, nothing to do about the driver's terrible attitude. It didn't matter now, anyway, for they were finally here.

Pacifica looked up to the sign in front of her: "Welcome to Gravity Rises," it said. A wide smile spread across Pacifica's face. The smile wasn't for the snow, nor the tiny town, nor the idiotic people she'd have to deal with here. No, there were a lot of things that she didn't miss about this place; she greatly preferred Portland, except for one thing: a purple stone, which currently rested in her hands.

Pacifica rubbed her fingers eagerly over the stone. "Are you ready, my precious amulet?" she asked it. "Will you glow for Pacifica?"

The amulet did not respond, but Pacifica thought she could feel it vibrating in anticipation. Or, perhaps her hands were shaking — but Pacifica's hands never shook. It must be the amulet, as excited to work its magic as Pacifica was to yield it.

"It's time," she said.

One year. It'd been a year since she'd left Gravity Rises: a year since her magical amulet had stopped working. She could still feel her connection to it — the connection she had formed four years ago — but she couldn't activate its magic. It only worked inside Gravity Rises, she had surmised, and its surrounding forest. Thus, despite the wonderful year she had spent in Portland with her grandmother, Pacifica couldn't wait to return to her hometown.

She couldn't wait to return to her power.

All she had to do, as far as she knew, was step beyond the sign. Then her power would come rushing back. Of course, she wasn't entirely certain of this — but surely she was right. Surely she was only a few steps away from her power.

With a determined breath, she passed the sign.

Nothing happened at first. A distant pang of fear tried to enter Pacifica's heart, but she squelched it. She stared intently at her amulet, cradled it in her hands, caressed it with her fingers.

She closed her eyes. "Glow," she whispered to the amulet.

Her eyes opened, then went wide. She squealed at the top of her lungs and clutched the amulet in her fingers. Excited, relieved peals of laughter rang out from her throat.

In response, the amulet bathed her hands in purple light.

~~~~~

Unfortunately, Pacifica had to get back in the grimy pickup truck so she could be driven to her parents' house. This hardly concerned her, however, as she fastened her amulet to its place on the black shawl around her shoulders. The amulet was back. Her power was back. This was it.

The nameless driver drove Pacifica into town, and they soon pulled into Bud Pleasure's driveway. To Pacifica's dismay, her parents were standing on the porch, waiting for her.

"Pacifica, my darling!" Bud Pleasure hurried down the porch steps toward his daughter. His wife, Catherine, followed more slowly. Her smile, soft and happy, looked more authentic than Bud's boisterous one.

"Hi, Daddy," Pacifica said, flashing him a smile. She braced herself as Bud threw his arms around her (she even bounced off his round belly a bit) and made a supreme effort not to squirm in his grip. Moments later, a gentle hand stroked her hair. That would be her mother.

Pacifica tried to endure their touch, but she couldn't for very long. "Mommy, Daddy," she said; she pulled away from them but kept her smile. She grasped her mother's arm in one hand and her father's in the other. "It's so good to see you." Looking to Catherine, she added, "Grandmother sends her love."

Catherine's smile widened as Bud's deflated. Perhaps he found it unfair that Eleanor should send love to Catherine, her daughter-in-law, and not to her own son. Well, Grandmother had specifically sent her love to Catherine, and Pacifica couldn't very well extend that to anyone else. So she smiled back at her mother and ignored her father's pained look.

"Did you have a good trip?" Catherine asked.

"Good enough, I suppose," Pacifica said. She glanced back at the driver, who was hovering nearby and looking unsure of herself. "Well? Don't you have a trailer to set up?"

The driver scowled in return, but she climbed back into the truck. "Put it here," Pacifica called, pointing to a swatch of driveway.

"Darling," said Bud, looking confused, "what's this?"

Pacifica blinked up at him. "It's my trailer, of course. Grandmother bought it for me." Eleanor Pleasure, a well-to-do doctor with no thoughts of retirement, thought that a personal trailer was a good way to mark Pacifica as a child star. For that was the reason Pacifica moved in with Eleanor in the first place. With her amulet, Pacifica had created a psychic show here in Gravity Rises, and it had done so well that Pacifica had traveled to Portland to expand her stardom.

Of course, the amulet hadn't worked in Portland. Pacifica's show had flopped. Her routine had all the trappings of a regular, fake psychic show — audience plants, electronic communications, and so on — but Pacifica didn't have the same flare without her amulet as she had with it. So, after a year of trying and failing to make her big break in Portland, Pacifica was back here.

She hoped that she could still live in her trailer, though. It made her feel powerful to have an entire house — no matter how small — to herself.

The driver guided Pacifica's trailer into place. "Daddy, will you help her with my bags?" asked Pacifica. Bud moved to do as Pacifica suggested; she followed, though she had no intentions to help with her own luggage. "When's the interview?" she asked instead. Pacifica had dressed in her signature showgirl outfit this morning, and she refused to ride in a dingy truck for five hours only to not have a press release afterwards. She would need some time to touch up her look before the cameras, of course; but she was sure that there would be cameras. She'd decided years ago that the best way to get attention was to dress as if she expected it.

Bud, unfortunately, looked taken aback by Pacifica's question. "Interview?"

Pacifica stared at him with wide eyes. "Yes, of course! Are you telling me that, even though this miserable town only has one real reporter, you couldn't get her to come out and interview me? I'm a child star, Daddy!"

"Well—" Bud had lost his composure. "Well, sweetheart, I didn't—"

"Please tell me that you at least told Shandra that I was coming home," Pacifica said, her voice taking on a dramatic tone. She didn't much like Shandra Jimenez, who was the sole reporter in this backwoods town; but after a year in Portland, doing small television segments on channels that Eleanor had connections with, Pacifica felt she at least deserved a segment with Shandra to welcome her home.

Bud looked extremely nervous. "Tell you what, sweetie," he said, "I'll go talk to her right now. Why don't you get settled in?"

Pacifica couldn't believe this. Her parents seemed more incompetent than she remembered. Had her time in Portland muddied her memory? If Bud didn't tell Shandra about Pacifica's return until today, then the interview wouldn't be until tomorrow at the earliest. "Fine," she said, though she spoke in a wounded tone. "What about the preparations of the reopening of my show?"

Some relief crept onto Bud's fearful face. "The team should be ready to reopen next week," he said. "All they need is you, my darling."

"Good," Pacifica said. She watched as Bud and the driver unloaded her things into her trailer. "Mommy," she called over her shoulder, "will you unpack for me?" Her mother (who had been standing silently aside, watching the others with a blank expression) was useless in a lot of cases, but Pacifica knew she liked to organize things. Sure enough, she moved forward with an eager expression and soon disappeared into the trailer.

It was then that the driver turned on Bud. "Your darling daughter has made my day miserable," she said bluntly. "Could I at least get some food from you before I head back?"

Pacifica turned an affronted gaze on her. How presumptuous! "Greasy's Diner has an adequate selection, I'm sure," she said, before Bud could answer. "It was the log-shaped building, remember? Perfect for you. Off you go." She added a little dismissive wave to accentuate her words.

The driver's eyes widened. She looked to Bud, who offered her nothing but a helpless gaze. Then she looked to Pacifica, whose eyes sharpened with impatience. Finally, she took a deep breath and stalked away. Her truck grumbled to life and pulled onto the street.

Pacifica let out a breath of relief. "Thank goodness she's gone. Wasn't she in just a terrible mood, Daddy?"

Bud could only nod.

"Well," Pacifica said, "with Mommy taking care of my things, and you going to talk to Shandra, I think I'll go for a little walk." It wasn't like she needed to keep up appearances, since the interview wouldn't be today. Besides, what she really wanted to do was to disappear into the forest with her amulet and rediscover her powers. The purple stone sat quietly on her shawl, waiting for her to use it.

"Are you sure, sweetie?" asked Bud. "Aren't you tired after the trip?"

Pacifica turned a baleful eye on him. "After five hours in that pitiful excuse for a vehicle, don't you think I need some fresh air?"

Bud hesitated. It looked, for a moment, as if he would offer to join her — an offer which Pacifica would vehemently refuse. Thankfully, he only said, "There's some lunch for you inside, if you want to eat first."

She considered this but decided her amulet couldn't wait. "Later," she said decisively. Bud looked like he was about to protest, but she raised an eyebrow at him. "Shandra Jimenez? Interview? We have to get the word out about my show as soon as possible." Her hand waved in the same dismissive way that it had for the driver.

Bud looked disappointed, but he nodded and walked away.

Pacifica breathed a little sigh of relief that she was finally free of her parents. Sure, she loved them and all, but they could be so stifling. A year without their only child, and they got all sentimental. Pacifica was grateful for her trailer: If she had to be around her parents' affections all the time, she'd go crazy.

But, for now, she was alone. Alone with her amulet. Her fingers ran across the smooth stone as excitement pulsed through her.

She walked to the end of the driveway, where piles of pushed-aside snow barred her way to the forest. Her heeled boots would never survive her walking through snow, especially not the deep drifts that swept through the trees. It was frustration and frostbite just waiting to happen.

Pacifica, however, had no intention of walking through the forest.

Her amulet started to glow, and the purple light promptly spread all around Pacifica's body. Her excitement increased as she felt herself lift into the air. Her astral projection — oh, how she had missed her astral projection! — formed around her. It was a larger version of herself, made of swirling purple magic, and Pacifica floated in the center of it. She took a step, and the projection stepped with her. Pacifica's boots hovered above the ground, clean and dry, as her projection carried her safely through the snow.

A triumphant smile grew on Pacifica's face. She hadn't forgotten how to use her amulet, and its power seemed as strong as ever. The beautiful forest lay in front of her, ready for her to reclaim her territory. She knew she shouldn't take long — she needed to eat and visit with her team and make plans for the reopening of her show — but the purple glow of her amulet enticed her, and she wanted to spend some time alone with her powers.

Some of her powers, of course, required other people: After all, one cannot be a psychic without the ability to read people's minds. But, Pacifica could practice her telepathy later. (She could have practiced it with her parents, or the driver, but their thoughts were hardly worth Pacifica's time.) For now, she would work with her other powers: astral projection, telekinesis, flying, and who knew what else. Being back in Gravity Rises meant that Pacifica had her powers back; it also meant that she could discover new ones. The amulet was a wellspring of power, and that power was Pacifica's.

Her astral projection moved smoothly through the forest, and a serene feeling swept through her. She was back. Her power had returned.

Pacifica was home.