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I hated the snow. I hated ice. I hated sleet and flurries and cold weather in general. I was sick. I hated being sick. I would have taken being tossed through a dozen walls over having a stuffed up runny nose. I would have taken falling from a four-story building over my hearing being amped up. The fever, the cold sweats, it all pissed me off. I had enough to worry about without my body turning on me.

"You're sick?" Wes asked me from the other end of a phone call.

"I had to walk an hour through the snow last Friday," I informed him while I laid in bed under a mountain of blankets.

I missed school Monday and Tuesday, so I'm glad someone called me on Wednesday.

"Dude, you need to get some shoes," Wes added as I started to nod off.

"Only shoes I could ever fit were clown shoes," I said.

"Oh... Yea, I wouldn't wear those either. But why don't you go to The Tailor?" He asked.

"I can't afford a tailor."

"Not 'a' tailor, 'The Tailor.'"

"Who is 'The Tailor,'" I had to ask.

I struggled to keep myself awake, but I did it for Wes.

"Who do you think makes shoes for people tall like trolls, or people small like fairies?"

"I didn't realize there was a guy. why didn't you tell me sooner?" I argued lightly.

"I thought you didn't like shoes."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because you never wear them," he answered.

I hung up. But then I felt bad, so I called back.

"Where do I find The Tailor?" I asked.

"He lives in Canada," Wes said.

"Canada?!" I exclaimed.

Wes was my best friend. He was my boyfriend, even if I sometimes felt embarrassed about saying it out loud. I loved him, but some times he was better in small doses. "Sick Pitch" was far from a fun version of myself. "Sick Pitch" wasn't a tolerant person. "Sick Pitch" wanted to sleep, but "Normal Pitch" wanted to be kind to his boyfriend.

"If you call him and set up a meeting, he'll come to you," he added.

"And how much will that cost?"

I almost had to sit up just to keep my eyes open.

"I don't know; I have hooves, so I never needed him myself," Wes said.

"Do you have his number," I dug further for something useful.

"I think there's a girl in our Spanish class who might have it," he said.

"Never mind."

"I'll get the number," he continued.

"Don't worry about it," I said before hanging up again.

Being on the phone for a measly 5 minutes gave me a headache, but I was able to relax after that. I was on the cusp of sleep when I heard the doorbell. It was the afternoon, so we might have gotten a package. That's the thought that convinced me to get out of bed. I wished I had ignored the sound.

Opening the front door, I found Vista standing on the other side.

"Vista?, I said, confused.

She took me by the arm and tried to pull me away from the house.

"You need to come with me," she said, but I didn't go.

"I don't need to do anything. How do you know where I live?" I argued.

"Everyone knows where you live, and we don't have time for you to be a stubborn idiot," she retorted with just as much attitude as I'd grown to expect.

I stood in the doorway with my arms crossed and my shoulder against the doorframe. I was in no rush to run outside into the cold.

"I'm not going anywhere with you, I'm sick," I said.

She huffed, and she puffed, and she blew steam hard enough to flip her bangs.

"BJ needs your help," she informed me.

"Really?" I said sarcastically.

"We were practicing a new spell, and it worked, but it worked too well," Vista added.

"What does that even mean?"

"I can explain along the way, but we have to go," she said.

I could see she was authentically worried, so with agitation, I got my coat and followed her.

Vista lead me into a deep part of the Dead Woods. Nothing looked familiar anymore because of the one time I used a zero-gravity spell out there. Sure all of the trees were in the same spots, but trails, markers, dirt, and stones were mixed up. Regardless of the altered layout, I knew enough to know we were somewhere familiar. We were in what once was the clearing BJ and I would use to practice her new spells after school. I suppose she started visiting the spot with Vista.

"Rabbits, you needed my help because of a bunch of rabbits?" I asked.

"It was her spell. It made them go ballistic," Vista explained.

"They seem fine to me," I said as the previously mentioned rabbits hopped around us just as peaceful as animals could be.

"But where is BJ?" Vista asked.

To be fair, it wasn't freezing during the day, and my natural fur kept me relatively warm, but I was still sick. I didn't feel like going on a hunt. The last time I looked for someone in The Dead Woods, I got stabbed and sent to the hospital. But I couldn't forget when I was about to bleed out; it was BJ who called for help and likely saved my life in the process. I wanted to go home, but I stayed to help Vista look around.

We didn't have to look too hard. We found what had to have been the longest hole in the ground I had ever seen. It was big and deep enough to make a water well.

"She must be down there," Vista exclaimed as I leaned slightly over the hole to see if anything or anyone was in it.

"I don't see anything," I said before stepping away from the hole in the earth.

The pit seemed to taper off into a slope that made it difficult to see the actual bottom.

"Someone help," BJ yelled from the bottom of the pit.

I stopped dead in my tracks to hold my face in the palm of my hand.

"Fuck," I said to myself.

I looked back only for a moment, and Vista was standing by the hole subliminally begging me to help.

"Call a fireman or something," I said.

"Save her," Vista exclaimed

I started to walk away, but Vista stepped in front of me.

"With my luck, I'll probably make things worse," I debated.

"So you're willing to let her die down there," she argued as she stepped closer, putting her face too close to mine while she scolded me.

I took a step back, but once I started backpedaling, she started following me.

"You are going to save her," she said.

"Why don't you save her?"

"Because you're here," she answered as I realized my heels were at the ring of the pit.

"Don't," I said, but she had already pushed me in.

It was an extended tumble, but the dirt was soft. I was lucky enough not to hit rocks on my way down. When I finally met the bottom floor, it was a level five out of ten impact.

"Fuck you, Vista," I exclaimed as I got up and dusted myself off.

"Pitch? You came to rescue me?" BJ asked.

There wasn't a lot of light, and it was going to get dark soon. Still, I was able to see BJ was sitting on the ground to keep pressure off one of her legs. I couldn't tell which one was hurt. For all I knew at the time, it could have been both.

"Right..." I said.

"Do you have a rope or something," she asked.

"No," I answered.

"Then how are we going to get out?" she said.

"I don't know, ask Vista, she pushed me down here."

"Do you have a spell?"

"Where's your spellbook? Shouldn't you have something to get us out?" I asked.

"The rabbits ate it," she said.

"Rabbits ate your spellbook?"

"It's the truth. They didn't stop coming until they ate the spell that upset them," she answered.

I tried to climb up, but the dirt was too soft. I kept slipping back down. It wasn't the best plan anyway. Had I been able to climb out, BJ would have still been stuck.

"Look, I have my phone. I'll just call the police," I said.

"No! Don't!" She exclaimed as I started to push numbers.

I froze.

"I was using battle magic unsupervised and without a permit," she explained, but it didn't seem like a big deal to me.

"We're stuck in a hole, so unless you have a better idea..." I said before making the call.

In hindsight, I could have called Wes, Velmer, or even my mother. I didn't feel like burdening them with yet another rescue request.

"They'll be here in 5 to 10 minutes," I said before taking a seat beside BJ.

It was warm in the pit. The cold air was probably cut off by the hole's tapered slope. I still sneezed, and I longed to get back into my bed.

"Why so long," BJ asked.

"There was an accident at school," I answered.

"And you weren't involved," she joked.

I couldn't remember the last time she made a joke around me.

"So Young Prince didn't offer you a permanent job, "I asked, but I already knew the answer.

"I told you the internship was temporary, and no one wants second best," she said.

"So you admit I was the best," I teased.

There was a mutual chuckle shared between us. I could hear the wind howling overhead, but the ice couldn't reach us.

"Why did you give up?" she asked.

"I had to."

"No, you didn't, and you were good," she went on.

"You hated me for being better than you."

"I hated myself for not being better. Now I hate knowing you have potential, but you're squandering it," she corrected me to my surprise.

"Magic isn't right. Do you know where it comes from?"

She made me wait for an answer.

"We eat cows and chickens, cut down rainforests, and bomb the weak. Harvesting what we need from the dead to keep magic alive hardly seems worth mention," she answered so cold and sure of herself.

It took me off guard and made me question who I was sitting with.

"Do you hear yourself?" I asked rhetorically.

"You were good. You were so good. At least when you were trying, I could call you my rival. Now you're just sad," she added.

"I'll remember that the next time you need saving," I said.

Those were the last words we exchanged before help came.

Officer Graham, and his partner, Hugo, were more than familiar with my classic brand of accidents. They were always called in when I was involved. No one else at the police department seemed to have it in them to come near me. It was better that way. Graham and Hugo understood I didn't have control over my luck, so they usually let me off with a warning rather than giving me a ticket for collateral damage. I hadn't seen them all summer, so that day was almost like a reunion.

They asked me what happened, and I could have sold BJ out. She already had a broken leg and lost her spellbook, so despite our disagreement, I told Hugo it was my fault. It was better to move on than to be petty, at least for the moment.