The wooden girl froze, staring at Valerie.

  The girl had been using a stealth spell of some kind? What kind? Why? Why would someone be walking down the hallway hiding themselves? What would be the point!?

  "Oh my god you can see me that's SO amazing!" Valerie said. "Are...are you human? I'm sorry that might be kind of a weird question but you've got to be magical right? Only magical people can see me. And even then, NOBODY'S been able to JUST see me! I had to pester Kyle for HOURS before he could see me!"

  The wooden girl had completely frozen up, even as more mechanical parts of her psyche analyzed her situation. "Been able," she said. It wasn't a spell, it was an affliction. Possibly a curse.

  "You have to come with me!"

  Valerie grabbed her arm and pulled. The wooden girl made sure the spells that caused her to feel like flesh we're still intact and tried to pull away without using too much of her strength. She could be powerful enough to rip the school in half, if she needed to be, but she needed for now to still appear like a normal human.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Come on!" Valerie said excitedly. "I know, I know, I just wanna talk a little it's been so crazy! Come on!"

  Valerie tugged the wooden girl along. Finally, when they'd found a quiet, out of the way hallway, the wooden girl pulled a little extra strength and forced them to stop. A plan had formulated in her mind.

  "Wait!" She said. "Hold on! I don't understand what's going on! Stop for a second and talk to me!"

  "Oh! Right, right, okay." Valerie blushed. "I got a little overexcited."

  "It's okay," the wooden girl said. "Just explain to me what's going on."

  "Right," Valerie said. "Okay. Uhm...I'm Valerie. And I've got a superpower. No one can see me. Or hear me. More than that, it's like...like the world tries to erase the fact that I exist. I figure you've got powers too, right? So you understand?"

  The wooden girl took a quarter of a second to come up with a response, which was too long. Valerie started talking again.

  "Or maybe you don't, and it's just some random thing. Or maybe you do, but you don't know? Then this must be confusing, but you'll see when we talk to other people..."

  "I have magic," the wooden girl said.

  "Oh good! So you do get it! Anyway, look, there's actually a lot of people with magic at this school. Maybe with you helping, and my two other friends, we can find a way to fix me so people can notice me."

  "So right now no one ever notices you're there?" The wooden girl said slowly. "No matter what you do?"

  "No," Valerie said. "It's REALLY frustrating. But it's probably something we can fix, or I can learn to control, but the only ones who can see me don't know much about magic really. Unless you do, I really don't know what your thing is..."

  The wooden girl nodded as the overexcited girl prattled on. Then she raised her arm, sprouting a long wicked blade from the end, and plunged it through Valerie's heart.