“What else I can do?”

Persephone frowned. She had no idea how to explore her power further. It had become pretty apparent to her that the ability had a very broad reach across the different plant species within her apartment and that it was probably applicable to literally any plant she could possibly encounter. But whether she could actually do anything more with this new understanding, or whether there was another ability still locked up in her head somewhere, she had no clue.

“I’ll experiment and report back,” she said quickly, hoping the doubt hadn’t crept too far into her voice.

Spiderman? Persephone knew of it, had seen posters… But she wasn’t much of a movie-goer and was definitely not aware of any blue-faced supervillains. She could admit to her ignorance, but she was already feeling quite vulnerable so decided against it.

“Ah yes… How’s that working out for you, redecorating needs aside?”

She made a mental note to google the latest Spiderman movie if Dominic’s answer failed to clear things up.

The fact that he was exhibiting an ability on the same level as that from a movie though? Persephone could only assume that it was something remarkable.

“I can meet tomorrow morning, but I need to be at work in the afternoon…” One of her bosses had been utterly sympathetic about her recent absence and demanded that she take the rest of the month off to recover. The other was, quite simply, an asshole and perfectly content to send her back to work the day after being discharged. It was that or her future shifts were sure to be cut.

Meeting the others again would be interesting though. Perhaps they would actually prove useful. So far, she hadn’t been impressed, except by Dominic of course. Will had gone up in her estimations recently too, but how highly would depend on his progress in the investigation. She hoped that he’d at least made some – that shadowy stranger who had saved her life was hovering in the back of her mind like a ghost, as though any second now she would appear and demand her payment.

She smiled and shook her head, chiding herself. No need to be so paranoid, it served no purpose.

Thanking her lucky stars that her keys were still intact, Persephone let herself somewhat hurriedly back into her apartment. The crippling pains she’d been experiencing in the hospital hadn’t returned, having faded to the faintest of simmers over the course of her journey home, and now the overwhelming feeling in her mind was one of relief. Finally. She was home. She hadn’t realised that she’d been missing it until the door was locked and bolted – revelling in the comforting solitude like wrapping up in a favourite blanket.

First on her agenda was a shower – quick, efficient, thorough – and a change into familiar clothing. She sat for a few minutes at the top of her stairs, closing her eyes and enjoying the silence. The strange, knowledge-hungry sensation that had replaced the pain was a minor irritation but not by any means unbearable. It was oddly meditative; gave her something to focus on. Occasionally she would get the same bursts of intense, aimless curiosity she’d experienced in the hospital but she couldn’t quite understand what they meant yet.

There was no rush. She’d get some food, maybe even try and sleep. She could solve this problem in the morning when she was back at her best.

When Persephone finally opened her eyes, another opened within her.

The first thing that she lay this new eye upon was the collection of miniature succulents assembled in an orderly manner beside her bed.

Something was very, very wrong. How could she have been so stupid? The soil was so heavily nutrient-imbalanced that it was practically a crime against horticulture. The solution was obvious, of course. A rescue plan had already mapped itself out in her head before she could even begin to question where that intuition had come from. It felt right though, somehow. Perfect.

Her eyes snapped to the next plant, and the next, and the next, mind whirring.

Sometimes the solutions were at least partial quick fixes, which Persephone acted upon instantly, and sometimes they were added to the end of a very long mental to-do list. She rushed down the stairs, almost hypnotised by the blur of information, and began working her way through the jungle of plants that swamped her living area. Eventually she had even completed a full circle of the balcony and corrected the positioning of her… recreational section.

Even with most of the plants still requiring some improvements, they appeared healthier just as a result of her attention. Once the smugness and satisfaction of a job well done wore off, Persephone began to realise that something was wrong.

Sure, she was good at gardening, but not quite at this level of meticulous detail and precision. She wasn’t sure she’d ever read any books that had suggested even half of the techniques she was going to be putting into practice and when she tried to put her ideas into writing… nothing. The information was stuck securely in her head.

All traces of pain were gone, at least. Even that curiosity seemed sated for now.

What was going on? This had never happened, not before the accid-

Ah.

Persephone plugged her phone in and waited impatiently for it to turn on. Sleep could wait, she needed answers. She needed to know if she was alone in the weirdness continuing to seep into her life even beyond the ward.

Her fingers fumbled shakily for the business card tucked away in the jeans she had discarded earlier. Will may have made some progress in his investigation, she could have rung him, but something drew her to the little black card. Part of her still regarded Dominic as the leader of their ragtag group and reporting back to him seemed both the logical choice and the comforting one.

“Dominic, hi, I think that doctor’s magic medicine comes with a few potential side effects, and not just your standard nausea, headaches and dizziness…”

There was a lingering shaky feeling in her body. Adrenaline. It was a far more pleasant feeling than whatever had erupted between her temples, but Persephone still hated it. There was no way she could control her muscles so finely as to suppress the shivers running down her fingers. Her weakness was on full display.

Amazingly, Will was reacting exactly how she needed him to. More accurately, Will had barely reacted at all.

She was extremely grateful that he had chosen to focus rather than to pry. Something felt different, not wrong… just different, and Persephone was feeling an urgent need to figure out just what had happened to her. They needed a little progress, just a scrap of a concrete lead, and then she could make her excuses and leave. Her face burned at the idea, but it was one she could not ignore.

Persephone hung awkwardly at the desk while Will made his call, glancing lazily around the room. For some reason her eyes were heavily drawn to the entrance. Specifically a couple of potted areca palms which looked a little under-watered.

The pain struck again, this time forcing her to her knees.

It wasn’t leaving – why wasn’t it leaving?

While the clothes that had been provided for her were stylish in an understated way and the kind of comfortable that only comes with a price tag, Persephone was feeling quite ill at ease in them. She normally wore exceedingly plain clothes and even had three pairs of identical jeans, so to be wearing a full outfit of strange new clothes was a huge derailment from normalcy – and it was throwing her off. Maybe Will had been right to send her home.

Except, arriving in a flurry of hurried footsteps, it appeared that he hadn’t. Her simmering temper dissipated instantly, curiosity getting the better of her. Then, as he continued talking, she allowed a real smile to creep onto her face. Not all of it, but enough to show her gratitude. He seemed a little enthusiastic with his final line of flattery but she was mollified that he was even trying at all.

“Please, it’s nothing. I’m just happy to help.” She attempted to thrust her hands into her pockets– forgetting that she wasn’t in her usual attire – and grimaced as her hands swiped at the unfamiliar fabric. It was bothering her more than it should, but pursuing the “doctor” with Will was sure to be a welcome distraction.

“So, to the hospital? I hope you’ve got a plan.”

Persephone nodded silently in agreement as she listened to Will’s rant before sitting back, eyes wide, to absorb everything he’d just said.

To start labelling things that had actually happened as “impossible” was worrying, but Persephone could see his point. They’d have to discard the idea that this was a plain and simple medical feat and explore other options that fit the bill of impossibility more snugly.

Another worry Persephone had was that she still had absolutely no memory of the crash. She’d had a nurse help decipher the hospital notes about her condition upon entering the hospital and it seemed that she had been most likely on the path to permanent, life-altering brain damage. It was hard to trust that everything was in working order when her brain was failing to conjure up memories even now, when she felt beyond recovered in every other part of her body.

Then there was the fact that Will had confessed to being very, very qualified and even he was lacking in confidence that they’d find any answers to the never-ending pile of questions. Things were feeling very big and Persephone was feeling very small – which was not a feeling she entertained often.

The office was perfect. No useless diversions save a couple of arbitrary landscapes on the wall which weren’t offensive. The room could have used a potted plant or two… but each to their own.

“We were all travelling on the same road on the morning of June 3rd,” Persephone began. “Each with our own separate destination and purpose – there’s no link there. There was an accident involving a car drifting into the side of a coach which led to a lethal, three-lane domino effect and the six of us were caught in the middle of the pile-up.

“Emergency services were swamped but we were all fortunate enough to make it to Zuckerberg General in various terrible states – I don’t think any of us had exactly the same injuries…

“Cue the witchcraft,” she finished, rubbing her neck. “We don’t know much except that the curtains were drawn and no one witnessed her work. There’s a potential our saviour has been caught on camera somewhere though, and we can work out where she went afterwards…”

It was interesting talking to Will alone. There was a ferocious intensity to his expression that she hadn’t really picked up on before. She’d noticed that he could be useful, certainly, but he was positively fixated by the case at hand. Maybe they had more hope of solving this mystery than she’d initially thought.

“We could get a cab…” she mused. “Dom called some for all of us. I bet we won’t get charged.”

There was quite the internal battle going on as she said this. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful to Dom by rejecting one of the many taxis he’d phoned for, especially after Claire had opted for public transport. Yet she was already trying to escape being in debt to one “kind” stranger, to be in debt to another virtual stranger was not an ideal position.

Then again, she’d been perfectly happy to accept lifts from work colleagues in the past, and that was a pretty similar situation. Persephone reluctantly concluded that there was a distinct possibility that she had grown a little paranoid over the course of their hospital stay.

Will was valuable to her for the time being. Accordingly, Persephone was going to have to get on his good side. He at least tolerated her – she’d been perfectly pleasant in the hospital – but a little subtle fawning never hurt.

“I trust your judgement,” she said smoothly, trying to appear unquestioningly earnest. People liked to believe they were trustworthy authorities, in her experience. “Wherever you think is best; we’ll go.”