“Didn’t Zelda want the store to stay open even if there was a power outage?” Stephanie asked when she saw Melasuna and Elyse walk through the front door.
“Yeah, but... Well...” El didn’t know what to say.
“Is Zelda home?” Melasuna asked.
“She might be. Check upstairs.”
“I’ll tell her.” Melasuna put her hand on Elyse’s shoulder to reassure her. Once they talked to Zelda things would be okay.
Zelda was just stepping out of her room into the darkened hallway when Melasuna arrived on the top floor. “Mel? Is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“Is something up? Isn’t it your shift down at the store?”
“Uh... yeah. That’s kinda what I’m here about.
“Uh-oh, what did you do?”
Melasuna took a deep breath and began to tell the story of what she did.
Zelda’s mouth hung open in shock. “You performed an ice spell? Was it an Ishnar icespell?”
“Paaaawsibly....”
“And you’ve never done anything like this before?”
“No. I- I didn’t think it would work.”
“Are you sure it was Ishnar?”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what kind of spell you did.”
“I told you I didn’t know. The book’s still on the floor, you can go look if you want.”
“Alright. Lets go.” They started walking down the stairs. “I was gonna go to this blackout party, but I guess I have to take care of this. Who else did the spell with you?”
“What? No one.” Melasuna didn’t want Elyse to get in trouble because of something she was against in the first place.
“Don’t lie to me. You can’t do any Ishnar spells by yourself.”
“Elyse.”
“Who else?”
“Nobody! Just Elyse.”
Zelda was quiet. “Are you sure? Just you and Elyse?”
“Yes! Positive!” They had reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Alright. Go get her and wait outside for me. We’re taking my car. I’ve got to make a phone call.”
Mel began her search for Elyse, and found her in dining room. Elyse went outside, but Mel stood outside the kitchen door and listened to Zelda:
“...from what it sounds like, its the same Ishnar ice spell we did a while back. ...That’s what I asked, and she said that it was just her and Elyse. I don’t-.... I don’t know, Trista. Apparently the temperature difference was significant enough to notice. I’ll ask. ..Uh-huh. Yeah, I know. It took 10 of us just to get the temp down 5 degrees, so I don’t know what they did... Look, I’m gonna take them down to the shop, can you meet me there? ... Yeah. Okay-”
Melasuna could tell that she was wrapping up the call, so she left her spot at the kitchen door and went out the front door. Elyse was sitting on the front porch railing. “El, I think we did something big.”
“What do you mean we? I’m not the one who got the funky eyes and stuff.”
“Yeah, but Zelda said that its something that you can’t do by yourself.” Mel saw the worried look on Elyse’s face. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want to get involved in it all. It’s just that-”
She stopped speaking when she heard the front door open. “Okay. Let’s go.” Zelda led them to her car.
Elyse and Melasuna both sat in the backseat and didn’t say a word the entire time. It was a slightly difficult drive because none of the traffic lights worked, and nobody knew what to do when they came to a stoplight that didn’t work. The three of them had been waiting in the parking lot of the plaza where Zelda’s shop was for less than two minutes before they saw Trista’s car pull into the parking lot. “Alright,” Zelda said once Trista had joined them. “Let’s go in.”
Melasuna took a breath as Zelda put the key in the gold knob.

Why are you so nervous?
I’m worried about what she will say and do when she sees what I’ve done.
You don’t need to worry. You created it, you can destroy it.
Are you sure?
Yes. Now breathe.

Melasuna let her air out as Zelda turned the key. She pushed the door open and a cold rush of freezing air flowed out to greet them.
“Good lord...” Trista gasped.
Mel peeked in through the doorway. She saw the circle of candles still in the middle of the floor, and where melting ice cubes used to be, there was a small coating of ice on the floor. It felt like winter inside.
“I’m going to go home and get our winter coats. In the meantime, I think you two should explain exactly what happened to Trista,” Zelda instructed.

You gonna be able to fix this?
What? Two seconds ago you told me that I can destroy it since I created it!
But you don’t truly believe that.
I didn’t think I’d even be able to create it in the first place.
You called upon Ishnar. He doesn’t take being summoned lightly. Especially not by someone like you.
What do you mean someone like me?
You’ve got it, kid. It runs in your family, but you’ve got it the strongest.
Got what?
Just explain to your sister what happened.
Melasuna explained everything that she could remember. Elyse had to take over when Mel got to the part about reading.
“She just like... I dunno! Her eyes glazed over or something. And she started chanting in this weird language. At first I thought it was part of what it said in the book, but the book was totally in English so i-”
“Wait a minute, you didn’t tell me this part earlier!” Melasuna innerupted.
“Yeah, I know. I just kinda wanted to get out of there. It was so creepy.”
“You don’t remember any of that?” Trista asked.
Mel shook her head. “All I remember....” She thought back. What did she remember? She was reading from the book, and then- Then what? Then something happened. She couldn’t remember what. Was someone talking to her? Or was she just concentrating so hard on her thoughts and the words in the book that she couldn’t remember what was going on outside of the words? She did remember feeling a little dizzy, and maybe her vision blurring a little bit, but nothing too bad. But the next thing she could recall was El trying to wake her up.
“So you like blacked out during it?” Trista asked.
“I guess so.”
“And you don’t remember anything during that time?”
“No. I was like totally out of it. That’s why they call it a black out. Just like the lights.”
“Ok. I’m gonna run in real fast and get the book. I’m pretty sure its Ishnar, but I want to make sure.” Mel and El watched as Trista quickly ran in and grabbed the book from the floor near the candles and ice. “God, it’s freezing in there! Here, find the spell you used.” She handed the book to Mel.
She flipped a few pages. “This is the one.”
“Ishnar. Wow. And you say that you’ve never done anything like this before, right?”
“Never.”
“You either, Elyse?”
“Nope.”
“I can’t believe just the two of you invoked the power of Ishnar. Back when I was in school, Zelda and I tried something like this... but, it was minor compared to this one. And there was a whole crowd of us. It barely worked. And then you two just casually invoke, like, the full power.”
“Um...” Elyse spoke up timidly. “What is Ishnar?”
“Wow. You don’t even know who he is and you invoked him.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Maybe; more like amazing. Ishnar is the god of ice under this particular faith- Samhlaighism. It’s this kind of belief that this whole other world, Samhlaigh, exists in like an alternate reality, right? There’s... there’s so much to know about it, but the part that maked this faith so popular is that you don’t have to know everything about it. You don’t have to study a lot to become a Samhlaighist, like all of these other magical faiths. If we can ever get the store thawed out, there’s lots of books in there you could read. I think it would be a good idea since you invoked Ishnar.”
Both Elyse and Melasuna’s eyes were wide with shock, amazement... confusion.
“Here. This is a book that you used is one that follows Samhlaighism. Take a look.”
Melasuna looked through the book some. She didn’t have a clue what Trista was talking about. She had never even heard of Sam-log-ee-ism or whatever it was. “And you’re a member of this religion?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a religion. It’s a faith.”
“Is it a cult?”
“Nah. Cults require a leader. There’s no real leader to this. We have some priests, but there’s no one real leader.”
“Trista... I’m just really, really weirded out by this whole thing. I’m goofing around one minute, and then the next, I’m invoking the power of Ishnar- which, by the way, sounds like a sneeze.”
The entrie time that Trista and Zelda were saying Ishnar, Mel kept wanting to say “bless you.”
They stood around for a while, Elyse and Mel looking very awkward.
“Okay, Elyse, you said that Melasuna had glazey eyes, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Mel, did it feel at all like you were... channeling a power or anything?”
“I told you, I don’t really remember what happened.”
“What about you Elyse? Did you feel anything?”
“I wouldn’t have, it was Mel who did all the work. She was all chanting and stuff.”
“You must have felt something, right? I think you’re making the mistake in thinking that it was Mel who did all the work. But in a poweful spell like that, and Mel getting that deeply involved, if you weren’t there, she might have gotten sucked right out of this plane.”
“That can happen?!” Mel and El both exclaimed.
“Well, theoretically. I’ve never actually seen it happen. And I imagine it wouldn’t be like, her body and all. I think it would be more like a mind and soul thing, right? So, for her to be in such a deep trance like that, Elyse, you’ve gotta have some major powers to keep someone in a trance like that grounded completly safe like this all by yourself.”
“Every second I stand here listening to you, I find out that I was in more and more danger. It looked totally harmless,” Mel sighed.
The three looked up as they heard Zelda’s car approaching.
“Okay,” she said as she got out of the car. “I’ve got my coat, and Trista’s.... I didn’t know where yours were,” she said to Mel and El, “but I brought you one of my spares.”
“W-wait,” Elyse protested. “I thought that you were going to be doing the- the.... thing.”
“The spell? You’re the ones who cast it in the first place, so now you’re going to have to help get rid of the results.”
They put on their coats despite the hot weather. Zelda opened the door and they all stepped inside. They immediatly began to shiver. “Oh, wow. It’s gotta be like 15 degrees in here.”
“Lets hurry up and get this thing started.”
They sat in the circle again, Melasuna and Elyse in the same spots they were in before and Zelda and Trista sat in between them to fill in the empty spots. The circle actually had the form of a circle. “Alright, Mel. Go ahead.”
“Me? I thought-”
“I already told you that you have to break it.”
“I thought we would just be like, sitting in or something while you did the work.”
“This is yours. Zelda and I are just support.”
“What do I do?”
“You have to dispell it. Just... focus on making it go away.”
“That’s all?”
“What, you thought it would be harder, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Just imagine it gone.”
Melasuna just envisioned it like it was a tape on a VCR and she was pressing the rewind button so that the cold spell wasn’t on the TV anymore. And just like that, it began to warm up.