“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!” came the ear-shattering shout from the darkness. Jenny  half-strangled the cat in surprise, resulting in Icarus clawing his way out of her arms, over her back, and thundering out towards shelter, preferably away from the noise and the crazy humans. The lights flickered on, and all was revealed. Clinging to her legs, beaming up at her, was her little brother, Rory. Grinning apologetically, settled in her place at the table, was her mother, her delicate wire-rim glasses perched on the end of her nose, a faint wry half-smile on her face.

“Sorry ‘bout that”.

Jenny smiled wryly in return, winced, and then started laughing, thumping over with Rory still clinging to her legs to hug her mom. Her mother started laughing as well, and helped her settle down in a chair with as little pain as possible.

“Next birthday, could I have, oh, I don’t know, a little less drama, please mom?”

Her mother frowned in mock-thought, and then grinned at her.

“How about… no? You know you enjoy surprises, most of the time.”

Jenny grinned back at her, and peeled Rory off of her legs, plopping him in the chair beside him. He squirmed around in his baggy pajama pants, and handed her a small, rumpled and slightly torn package wrapped in tissue paper. He beamed proudly at her, as though he was presenting her with the riches of the world. She took it gently from him and ruffled his hair affectionately, as she slit it open with an ever-ready pencil from the table. A slithering cord slipped out from the package and into her lap, clanking against the hard wood of the chair.

 She reached down and examined it in her hands, her eyes narrowing.

“This... this can’t be…” started Jenny, before falling silent. Her mother reached across the table, and gently opened her hands. Nestled in Jenny’s hands was a bronze naval compass, on a sturdy chain. The body of the compass was faded and worn down around the edges, from years and years of wear and tear. Engraved into the case was a 5-part Jerusalem Cross, the single cross engulfing most of it, with four crosses etched into each of the four sectors cordoned off by the central cross. Opening it up, the four cardinal points of the compass were extremely old-fashioned in design, the north-most point touched in gold.

“This compass,” her mother began, “belonged to your father, when he was your age. He carried it all through the days of when we were courting, and told me the story of how he got it. You remember the story of the Tempest, yes?”

“The Shakespeare play?”

“No, but close. You see, your great-great-great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Steele Pond, was a captain of a merchant ship, the Tempest, near the start of the Revolutionary war. One evening, as he was making his way back to his home port, the mists parted before his ship, and before him lay the open ports of Baltimore harbor, but something was wrong. Something was desperately wrong, he could feel it.

“His ship slid into port with barely a shiver of a wave, but as his crew started to assemble on the middeck, to secure the main guns, the fog returned, bearing down fast on his ship from the open sea. Before they knew it, they were eclipsed in fog, drifting into a crowded harbor, with no visual guides, forcing him to turn back to open sea. And it was there that it happened. No history books can account this, save for the crew of the Tempest itself.”

Jen was entranced, her eyes intermittently switching from staring at her mother intently and looking down at the ancient compass in her hands.

“What happened next?” she asked, as she toyed with the compass’ chain. Her mother paused, and her expression was akin to a deer frozen in the headlights.

“You’ve got a busy day ahead of you, lil’un,” she said at last, taking her hands back and folding them in her lap. “I’ll tell you when you get back from school, alright hun?”

Jen saw a flash of uncertainty in her mother’s eyes, and knew that any further arguing would be pointless. She slung the cold chain over her head and around her neck, looking down at the compass. Soon, in time, its secrets would be revealed.

            A few hours after her impromptu birthday surprise, Jenny was more properly dressed, sans gladius, entirely awake, and slipped out the front door with her school pack on her back and a joyful gleam in her eye. She looked back at her home, and smiled. It wasn’t a very fancy house, just a simple 2-story home, built up of red bricks, with some white paneling around the front to break up the monotony of the brick. A low wall made up of rough-cut stones marked out the borders of the property. Standing in the doorway, smiling back at her, was her mother, still in her dressing gown. She waved one last time at her mother as she made her way down the street and around the corner, until her home was hidden from sight behind the grove of trees.

            As she walked, with a slight swagger from the weight of her pack at her side, her eyes constantly searched out the area around her, roving back and forth, close and far, looking for any irregularities, any unnatural patterns in the undergrowth alongside her, but there was nothing. Nothing to see or hear but the gentle waving of the grass, and the bristling of the trees, and the constant, near-subconscious drone of the cars going by on the road. Finally, her eyes locked onto something up the road, and her face broke out into a mischievous grin. He’s in for it now, she thought to herself.

            She slipped into the underbrush with barely a rustle of fallen leaves, and crept closer to the bus-stop further down the road. Clustered around the lonely bus-stop sign was a small group of people, either desperately trying not to talk to one another, or otherwise quietly conversing with one another in smaller circles. Jenny’s eyes were locked on one person in particular, however, as he lounged on a low, rough-stone wall encompassing the bus stop. He was just a little bit taller than Jenny, but even so wasn’t exactly lofty, with a shaggy demi-afro of curly brown hair, laughing green eyes, and a bristly soul patch. His back was turned to her, as she crept through the low-hanging tree branches, her eyes firmly fixed on him. She could have succeeded in her stealthy ambush, right up until she stepped on a buried branch, which snapped loudly.

            “Hello Jenny,” Jake called out, a grin breaking out across his face, as he looked back at her. Jenny sighed dramatically, and tramped loudly the rest of the way to the bus stop, abandoning all attempts at stealth. She plopped her pack next to Jake’s, and sat on the wall next to him, and scooted him over some for more room. Jake sighed dramatically, rolled his eyes, and wrapped an arm around her, shaking her playfully.

            “So kind of you to join us, birthday girl,” he said, as she finally settled herself.

            “So kind of you to notice,” she quipped back, smirking wryly, as she looked around the crowd at the stop, before noticing someone coming up the road. A small, one could almost say scrawny figure clad in a black wool coat lurched up the road, overshadowed by a backpack that practically dwarfed her. Her short black hair, highlighted with streaks of dull purple, hung in her face like a veil, in sharp contrast from her pale skin. She wore slightly over-sized, ripped up jeans, which bagged up around her heels. Even from where she was sitting, Jenny could hear the click-thud of her steel-toed combat boots shuffling along.

            The crowd at the stop grew dead silent as she drew closer, seemingly holding their breath in anticipation. Then the muttering began, in small pockets.

            “By the pricking of my thumbs, something witchy this way comes…”

            “Be careful dude, she might hear you. Your Sara would hate for you to be turned into a frog.”

            Jenny’s face flushed, and she started to rise to her feet, fists clenched, but Jake held her back, and pushed her gently down again to her seat.

            “It’s not your fight, Jen. Let me take care of it,” he muttered quietly, standing to his feet with an ominously calm look on his face. Jenny growled under her breath, but otherwise stayed still and watched the show unfold. She had seen that mask on his face before, and it wasn’t pretty in the end. As the girl finally arrived at the stop, two stockily-built young men peeled off from their group and lurched towards her.

            “Well now, the freak-show’s arrived,” one of them leered, with a face like a pug, and the acne to match it. “My, how that backpack looks heavy. Frank, be a gentleman and remove it for her, if ya would?”

Frank, a heavily built Asian with as much genteelness and grace as a testosterone-infused gorilla, grunted as his slow wit finally caught up with the times, and promptly ripped the pack from the girl, his piggish eyes gleaming in satisfaction. The girl murmured under her breath, and glared at the first.

            “What was that, witch-girl?” he smirked, snatching the pack from Frank.

            “Give me my backpack back, Leo,” she repeated a little louder, and tried to reach for it, but he held it higher, out of her reach. Leo’s smirk widened evilly into a grin, as he fiddled with the zipper.

            “Can’t do that, girlie. You might be carrying some spell book, and that might be a security risk,” he said, as he unzipped the pack and started to turn it upside down, when a hand clasped onto his wrist with an iron grip. He followed the hand up the arm to its owner- Jake, a steely glint in his eyes, his face a mask of placidity.

            “I’ll ask you only once, Leo Gutierrez. Leave. Her. Alone.”

Leo tried to struggle out of Jake’s grasp, but his grip was steadfast. Jake continued.

            “Just because a girl has dyed hair and wears dark clothing, mate, does not mean she’s a witch. Nor does it give you any authority to torment her. Besides, Kat’s a friend of mine. Now, give her back her backpack, and walk back to your little crew, and I’ll just forget this all happened. Okay?” Leo hesitated.

“Frank, get him!” Frank swung wide, but Jake dodged, and clipped Frank’s jaw with the heel of his other hand. As Frank stumbled back and swung a wild roundhouse punch, Jake threw Leo in front of him as a shield, and Frank’s flying fist smacked into Leo’s jaw with a horrendous crunch. Jake took advantage of the confusion and scythed their legs out from under them with Kat’s dropped backpack, sending them to the ground in a painful huddle. Jen stared on in awe. The entire fight, from start to finish, had lasted less than a minute. Jake handed the backpack back to the silently astonished Kat, and pinned the two thugs to the ground with one sneaker-clad foot, leaning over them.

            “Now that I have your attention, gentlemen, let me say this one more time. You try to mess with me, or anybody that I care for, and I won’t be so nice. You stay away from me and mine, and I won’t let your Sara know what you were doing last weekend, Leo, or yer ma, Frank. Deal?”

            Before either of them could reply, the ancient poster-covered bus rumbled around the corner followed by a sputtering cloud of smog from the engines. Jake reached down and hauled the two to their feet, nodded to Kat, and sauntered back to where Jenny was still sitting, staring in shock.

            “How- Where did you learn to fight like that?” she asked, as he scooped up his pack and helped her up.

            “A friend taught me,” he said vaguely, as the bus pulled up to the stop. “He was quite persistent in teaching me how to fight back with as little lasting harm as possible.”

“But you broke his jaw!” she exclaimed.

“No, that was Frank doing the breaking. His jaw can be reset and healed, and he isn’t permanently inhibited,” Jake replied calmly, slinging his pack over his shoulder. A line quickly formed up, in a vague shape, as the bus doors opened and the huddle of people started piling on. Kat silently materialized next to them, smiled shyly up at Jake, and muttered a quiet “thank you”. Next up the steps were the staggering duo of Frank and Leo, and as Leo looked back, a distinctively malicious look flashed across Kat’s face. For a second or two, her eyes were swallowed by darkness, with a wicked grin across her face. Moments later, her visage was normal again, calm and contented, as though nothing unusual had happened. Jenny stopped in her tracks, her memory flashing back to… something. Kat boarded, and Jake was next, when he looked back at Jenny, lost in thought.

“You coming?” he asked, stepping out of line and giving her shoulder a shake. Jenny snapped out of it and nodded, and as Jake wrapped a guiding, brotherly arm around her, she leaned against him, as the two walked back for the bus. As she stumbled onto the bus and walked down the aisle to grab a seat, she happened to take a look outside the window, and noticed something different, something that wasn’t there minutes before. Leaning against the bus-sign post, as casual and nonchalant as could be, was a young man dressed in an old-looking overcoat, patched over in places, with a few burn marks along the hem, and a battered leather cowboy hat on his head. For all appearances, he could have stepped out of a western, but for the slightly rusted railroad-spike cross hanging from his belt, and the mechanical pencil he was fiddling with in his fingers. She could see his long rust-red hair bristling slightly in the morning breeze, and as she looked at him, his eyes met hers. When she saw the scar, and his grim, pained smile, realization slapped her across the face.

William McGordon…It was the very same man from her dreams. A little bit more battered, and he looked more like he had been to hell and back, but doubtlessly the same.

“Jake,” she whispered, scarcely daring to take her eyes off him, for fear he would disappear instantly. “Who is that guy?”

“What guy?” Jake said innocently. Jenny turned to him incredulously.

“That guy! The guy who looks like Clint-” as she turned back, Will had disappeared entirely, as though he were never there. Jake smiled wryly and ruffled her hair affectionately.

“Late night, Jen? It was probably just a memory glitch or something, like a projection from your dreams,” he explained, turning back to shoving his pack below his seat. Jenny took one last despairing look out the window, scanning where he was standing. He was there… I know it.