Chapter 67.2
Sleek black wheels with matching hand rims sat on either side of the chair, angled slightly inward for convenience. Thick, plush padding lined the seat and backrest, which also sported a pair of handles. The front wheels and footrest were attached to the main chair by a frame made of deep, royal blue that matched Chloé’s favorite coat perfectly.“Tess, this is your project?” Chloé asked excitedly. “The thing you were making for me?!”
With an unusually shy smile, Tessa turned away slightly. Chloé even caught her blushing for a moment. “It is! Now sit your butt back down and tell me how it feels!”
Now that she understood the surprise, Chloé quickly sat down and interrogated how she felt. “I mean, do I need to bother? You all know what my life is like, I’ve talked about it with each of you multiple times.”
“Okay, yes, but that’s not what we’re asking,” Vee clarified. “How does it feel compared to the Lysander Circle?”
“Oh, right. Um…” Chloé paused to try and gather her thoughts. “It’s weird. It feels exactly the same, like I no longer need to strain myself just to engage my normal senses, but it’s also kind of different? I’ve spent so much time in that stupid Circle that I got used to only seeing real vibrancy in that one spot. Sitting down in this chair, it’s like the whole world is in color again. I can smell that candle, I can hear cars beeping in the distance, I can feel the tiny draft coming from the window.”
Sinking further into the chair, a thought crept into her mind. She released every bit of tension in her body, half-expecting to scatter into a vague suggestion of a consciousness, but she didn’t. Her body stayed perfectly still, comfortably seated in the chair. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, and she laughed. “I… I can let go. I can finally relax while I’m with you guys!”
Powerful emotions threatened to overwhelm her. She thought of all the times she’d felt isolated from her friends because of her exhaustion. How miserable it was to test the limits of her manifestation just because she needed to stay visible during classes. Night after night of endless boredom, not needing to sleep but unable to do anything with that free time. She would have been happy with even a partial solution, but this chair seemed so much more than that.
Flying out of her seat, Chloé tackled Tessa with the biggest hug she’d ever given someone. She squeezed her friend as hard as she could, even picking her up and spinning her around as she buried her face in the witch’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Tess… this is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” she whispered.
“I’m happy you like it, Chloé,” Tess said. After a bit of awkward silence, she quietly added, “It wasn’t entirely me, by the way. Imani helped out a bunch, and believe it or not, Nick also chipped in a couple times.”
Chloé pulled away from Tessa, quickly wiped the tears from her eyes, than eagerly hugged Imani and Nick as well. Before long, her excitement had returned, and she flew back to the chair. “Okay, I want to know everything about this! How does it work? Are there limitations? What made you pick a wheelchair? I never would have thought of something like this!”
“Alright, one thing at a time, girl.” Tessa pulled out a pair of leather fingerless gloves and handed them over. They had stylish pink accents on the sides, and Chloé giggled with delight as she slipped them on. While she fiddled with the fasteners, Tessa continued. “So, one of the biggest problems with magic is that runes take up space. Witches, for example, only have so much body on which we can apply tattoos. When I first started this project, the first issue was picking something to apply the runes to.”
Imani spoke up next, continuing the train of thought. “At first we thought about using clothing, but fabric can be a little finicky when it comes to runes. In order to be thick enough to support this level of magic, and hide any potential glowing, whatever clothing we made would have needed to be uncomfortably thick. We didn’t feel great about asking you to wear the magic equivalent of a bulletproof vest everywhere.”
“I guess that makes sense, I pretty picky about what I wear,” Chloé muttered. With her gloves secure, she started pushing herself around the living room. As she did so, Nick joined in with a quick bit of advice.
“Try moving your hands further back,” he said, gently guiding Chloé’s hand with his own. As excited as she was for the advice, it was equally exciting to see how effortless their touch was. “Grab the hand rim here, then start by pulling the wheel forward.”
“Okay, gotcha. That makes sense!” Chloé nodded.
“Eventually, Imani and I decided that something with a rigid base would work best. Runes would be easier to apply, and we can even pack them a little closer when the material isn’t flexible,” Tessa said. “This particular model has thick pads on the seat and the backrest, which was the perfect solution. We applied the runes to the base, then affixed the pads over them to keep everything hidden. Plus, we ended up with more space than we anticipated. If we notice anything weird in the coming weeks, it’ll be really easy to tweak the magic.”
It only took a few minutes for Chloé to feel somewhat confident in her mobility, at which point she immediately looked towards the front door. “I want to go outside! Can we go for a walk? Wait, I mean… a wheel? No, that sounds stupid…”
Vee giggled. “We all cleared our schedules for the next few hours for exactly that reason. We figured it would be fun to stroll around campus with you, but it’ll also give us a chance to troubleshoot any potential problems. I hate to admit it, but I’m not entirely sure which buildings are the friendliest for wheelchairs.”
“Ohh, I hadn’t even thought about that. Huh,” Chloé said. “It’s been months since I’ve walked anywhere. Normally I just fly through walls until I can manifest in a bathroom or something. I’ll need to figure out where all the ramps are, and which buildings have elevators. They should all have elevators, right? Aurelius is totally the place to be fully ADA compliant, but then again, a lot of these buildings are super old… Still, this is exciting! It’s like a puzzle!”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Amara asked, changing into a more weather-appropriate outfit in a quick flash of hellfire.
Everyone seemed to agree with her and started getting dressed themselves. Chloé spent the time examining the details of her wheelchair; it had a small pouch on the back for storage, and a few additional compartments to her sides. After tucking her phone into one such pocket, a stray thought popped into her head.
“We should probably have a cover story ready, shouldn’t we?”
“You think so? Why?” Tessa asked.
“People get weird about wheelchairs, I’ve seen it happen before,” Chloé said. “It’s easy to assume that people need them because they’re completely paralyzed, or that some terrible accident just happened. It’s not exactly common knowledge that many people simply use wheelchairs as occasional mobility aids.”
“Huh. That makes sense, and now I feel silly for never thinking about it. Any ideas?”
Chloé leaned back in her chair, tapping the edges of its hand rims as she mentally skimmed through possible options. “There’s something called myalgic encephalomyelitis, that might work.”
“Uh… what?” Amara asked.
“Doctors typically call it chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS. I highly doubt anyone is going to ask for an exact diagnosis if they see me in a chair, but the idea is simple enough. I can just say that I’m struggling with chronic pain and fatigue. Heck, Sam probably already thinks that. He saw me struggling to stay corporeal a while back and I had to pretend like I was running to the bathroom to take some pain meds.”
“Pain and fatigue, got it,” Amara said. “Much easier than myopic encephopotamus or whatever.”
Feeling prepared to head out into the world, they left the apartment.