Shattering Crystals

"Press rewind."

Obediently, I press the button with the little backwards arrows. After ten seconds, I hit play again and hand the silver laptop to Lorraine.

We watch the computer screen for a few seconds and Lorraine quickly hits pause. She points to the screen.

"Do you feel that?" she asks me. I nod, indicating that a magical force is definitely there. "It's her."

On the screen is a fashion show. I never liked watching these, claiming that fashion isn’t really my thing. But honestly, the models just made me feel, well, ugly.

Lorraine never had that problem. When we found her watching the video, Lynda yelled at her about wasting battery, but Lorraine had said that she felt a magical pull to someone. We thought it was an excuse, but it turns out that she was right.

"Yeah, I feel it," I say. "But it's weird."

"How so?"

"I always thought that we would only have a magical pull with actual people."

"You had the map, and that worked," Lorraine points out. "Not much of a difference."

"Guess not," I say, not wanting to argue with her. But Iknow there is a difference here. "So who is she?"

"Katalina. I recognize her, but I don't know her last name. Which makes it harder to track her down." She examines the pretty face of this girl.

"Well, we haven't known the rest of these peoples' names, and we still found them," I say. "But... she doesn't show up on the map. Not as a magic spot."

"Which means she's not in North America."

I had never thought that we would have to leave the continent. But maybe I should have known it wasn't going to be easy. Especially after what happened to Aaron.

Someone knocks on our door and I go to answer it for once. Looking through the glass, I see that it's Dean. I open the door.

"Hi," I say.

"Hey, can I come in?" he asks. I nod and he walks in. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Lorraine motions for us to come. We walk over to the bed and sit down on either side of her.

"I found her," Lorraine says. On the screen are a hundred pictures of the model, in all different outfits and poses. "Her name is Katalina Eltsina."

"So we know her name..." Dean says. "Now how are we going to find her?"

"Well, she lives in Russia," Lorraine says, after doing another quick search. "I guess we'll just have to go there."

We're all quiet as this sinks in. I've never even left the country - the first time is here, in Canada - and now we have to leave the continent. Going to Canada wasn't hard - it's not much different from the US, and not very far in distance. But Russia is a whole different continent, halfway around the world. And we don't even speak Russian!

Sometimes I still wish my mother was around to take care of everything.

"Maybe we should go get everyone," Dean says. "Maybe someone has an idea of what to do."

"Makes sense," Lorraine says. "Go do that."

Dean leaves the room to go find everyone. It shouldn't be so hard, since everyone should be in their rooms right now, at ten PM.

Lorraine gets up places the laptop on the comforter. She walks over to the mini-fridge and pulls out a water bottle.

"I shouldn't really be drinking this..." she says, taking a big gulp of water. "I mean, Lynda can't really get any more money, and everyone else is broke. And we have to pay to fly to Russia."

"Then why are you drinking it?"

"Because I want to."

Waiting for everyone to come back, I take a look at who this Katalina is. I find out that she is fifteen and currently living in Moscow - the capital of the country. And yes, she's gorgeous.

It makes me feel that twist of jealousy once more - but at this point it doesn't hurt as much. Because I know that my own face is changing... and soon I will be the most beautiful in the group.

As I examine a picture of Katalina standing beside a beautiful pond, people start arriving. They come in twos - roommates arriving together. First comes Connor and Cody, since they were in the room next to ours. Then Elise and Ashlee, Sarah and Lynda, and Dean comes back with Wessley. Strange how the roommates thing actually worked out. There isn't anyone left over, or anyone who dislikes each other. Andrew is at his house, I guess it just sucks for us if he has any ideas.

"So why are we here?" Sarah asks, examining her fingernails. It doesn't look like she is very interested in anything we do.

"We're going to Russia," Lorraine says. Ever since I met her, I always wonder how she can state things so simply. "So... can anyone here speak Russian?"

"I can... kind of," Lynda says. "My mom made me learn it. Her family was Russian. I'm just not very good at reading it, that's all."

"I kind of know it too," Wessley says. "My family traveled a lot, so I had to learn the basics in a lot of languages."

Lorraine raises an eyebrow, clearly not expecting that anyone would actually speak the language. But she nods and continues anyway.

"I don't know when we should leave," she says, "but my guess is that the sooner the better. First of all, how are we on money, Lynda?"

“Pretty good. Enough to get by for a while, but no luxuries anymore.”

"What happens if we run out?" Elise says, biting a fingernail. I thought that she had gotten over that habit a while ago.

"We won't, if we find this Katalina girl," Lorraine says, pointing to the screen. "She obviously has money. We all have our passports and stuff, so getting past security won't be a problem either."

"But we need a passport for Andrew, don't we?"

"Well... I guess we can try to replicate it by magic. Shouldn't be so hard."

"I'm tired," Cody says suddenly. "Can we like, go to sleep now?"

Connor says, "That's what you get for staying up all night and-"

"Okay, we're leaving," Cody says, dragging his younger brother out of the room. Everyone follows, although not in the same fashion. Lynda and Sarah are the last to leave.

"Wait," Lorraine calls to them, and they stop in their tracks. "Need your help."

Lynda immediately comes back, but Sarah only looks at us and stays where she is. After debating with herself for a few seconds, she decides to come back into the room.

"Lynda," Lorraine says. "I know you're good at looking for flights and all, so can you do that? Here's your laptop back, by the way." She hands the silver laptop back to Lynda and then turns to address Sarah. "Sarah, I know you're good at magic. Don't deny it, because I've seen you practice. You have to help me and Dana in duplicating the passport for Andrew."

They both nod (Sarah with an eyeroll) and then turn to exit the room. "Thanks, guys," Lorraine says. It's amazing how Lorraine can give out orders, and people actually follow them. Another reason she's a better leader than I could ever be.

"So... what now?" I ask.

"Now?" she says, jumping on to her bed. "Now, we sleep."