It was the next day after that dream. If you could call it a dream. Shawn couldn't help but think of Bradford's face and the discussion of the Fortune Teller. The accusations of being a liar, the truth of the things he had done, the things he had to do.

The pot of water was ready to receive the macaroni. Maybe eating would take his mind off of things.

Shawn looked around for Feddler before he started pouring. Boiling water was probably a little extreme for him, but better safe than sorry, right? He poured in the noodles.

Shawn expected to find Feddler behind him or to the right of him. Just when he thought he checked every space, he took time to look above him: Nothing. The imp wasn't anywhere to be seen. Probably off planning Shawn's demise through a series of infinite tricks that ended in inconvenience.

The boiling water began to froth along the sides, just about ready to spill out onto the hot stove-top. Then Shawn poured the macaroni in, settling it down. He waited for a while, as Mom had taught him, and then he knew, as if by instinct, that the time was right to give it a stir. The sooner it was done, the quicker lunch could begin.

Shawn went to one of the drawers and grabbed a spoon. Mom always used a wooden one for pasta - he wasn't sure why, but there was probably some reason. He dipped the spoon into the boiling water and started to stir.

The macaroni stirred and there was that tell-tale familiar smell of dry pasta that came up from the pot. Off in the Family-room, as Mom called it, the faint sound of infomercials came through towards the kitchen.

That's when Shawn did a double-take.

The stirring macaroni slowed as he pulled the spoon out. Strange thing. The way the macaroni reformed itself as it settled. The way the bubbling foam, ever so slight, matched the alignment of the noodles, adding to the image as it unfolded:

An Old Woman's face.

The tendrils of the loose noodles helped form the nose. The bubbling foam of the boiling water adding to the outline of the eyes. Three eyes, Shawn noticed. One on the forehead. The face stared back at Shawn from the center of the pot, outline undulating rhythmically as the water boiled, soft noodles bobbing, bubbling hot water moving.

Shawn's double take was all wrong for a performance - he glanced back and forth, blinking rapidly, which would've been ambiguous to a hypothetical viewing audience. Still, once he recovered from the surprise, he knew better than to dismiss it as coincidence. He didn't have that kind of life anymore. Instead, he leaned over the pot, and spoke quietly so he wouldn't be heard in the other room. "Hello?"

Shawn couldn't have known the reason why this was happening and wouldn't find out until sometime later. Sometime after certain questions had been answered and some of the finer points explained.

He wouldn't find out, until later for example, just how much all of his poking around at the Circus and his constant interactions with the Book of Babble had changed things. Had changed him. Tinkering with the Numbers Game and interacting with Cherrywinks, Gaggles and the other members of the Circus. All of these actions were drawing him closer and closer to the other side. Actions which were starting to have a greater affect, and over time, would change his own world.

"Shawn." The macaroni-voice said. An old woman's voice. A strained voice.

"Keep stirring." It commanded.

Shawn straightened up, looking around to make sure no one else was listening. Then he did what the macaroni woman said and kept stirring. In for a penny, right?

The fizzing and bubbling filled the air with a wet, pasty smell. Looking down, a greasy brown fluid began to collect on the edges of the iron pot. The edges of the noodles took on a yellowish, orange smear. The macaroni was decidedly less appetizing than it was before.

"Tell me what troubles you." the face of now-saggy noodles said. It looked with a worried grimace at Shawn. Shawn had to blink, almost as if it was leaning outwards from the pot, extending itself to listen. To hear all of Shawn's wants. All of his desires. All of the things he need to go right. The things that might go wrong. The things that made him happy. The things he appreciated. And the things he had long taken for granted. It wanted to hear these things. Not because it wanted to take them and use them against him. Because it wanted to understand.

"There's lots of things." Shawn had to lean back a bit, not just because the macaroni noodles were talking to him, but because he was on the verge if catching a cloud of boiling steam in his face. "Right now I'm worried about what you'll want from me..."

The macaroni realigned itself, drifting into a face that seemed to shrug somehow. "I did not call you Shawn." it said softly, steam bubbling upwards, drifting into Shawn's face, making him sweat a bit.

"You called upon me. You called upon me when you chose me in your dream. You chose me to teach you about the Numbers Game. Ismad el-Rasul of the Hundred Words. The man who created several of those cursed games long ago during the Old Times."

"I cannot accept you as an apprentice until I understand the full nature of your character. I have been burdened too many times by enemies seeking to know of my secrets. And I am very jealous of my secrets."

"Oh." The absurdity of having this conversation with a pot of was beginning to dawn on Shawn. It hadn't overwhelmed the fear or worry he was feeling, but it was certainly present. "Umm, I'm not sure if I can just tell you; I don't even know if I understand my full character. Is there anything specific you want to know? I promise I'll be honest."

The pot bubbled up again, water coming close to the sides, a hissing sound as some spilled over onto the stove-top. "Magic comes forth into the world once again as the Circus opens a small portal between the depths of other places. Worlds that exist between your own. You must uncomfortably fix your gaze upon yourself, and tell me what is the darkest thing that you have done. Once a man has seen dark work be done, he sees a reflection of that work in himself and his soul begins to harden. What things haunt you and follow you to the visions of your sleep?"

Shawn took a deep breath, and once again checked to make sure that no one else was looking or close enough to overhear. "I...I betrayed people who trusted me. I wrote the names of other kids in the Book so that Mr. Cherrywinks could claim them. I did it to save myself, and I killed them to do it..."

There was a pause as the words sunk into the air around Shawn. That part, he knew, wasn't magic. It was the verbal realization of what he had done. It was the first time that he had discussed it out loud since Bobby had said that he understood why Shawn did it. Why it had to be done. Still, the words and an unsettling affect on the mood of the room, even if they came from his own voice.

"Good." The macaroni said. "Now. Tell me what the most important thing to you in the world is." It said, the phrase coming in a wave of sympathy for what Shawn had done. As if it understood and didn't judge him.

"It's my family, I..." Shawn trailed off as he started to say those words. They sounded wrong even as he said them. Maybe it was the odd atmosphere in here, but he felt somehow that falsehoods, even unwitting ones, would be a dangerous thing. He contemplated this, trying to find the words that would ring as truthful. "No, that's not right. I...don't want people to hate me. I don't want them to be disappointed in me. Sometimes I wonder if that's why I cared so much about Bobby, because he didn't hate me, even after what I did."

The macaroni-face in the pot remained unmoved, aside from the gentle percolation from the water underneath. The small cracks and pops of bubbles that made their way to the surface. The face was impassive. It did not judge Shawn. But it also did not seem to care. A face that had seen a thousand stories before hand, perhaps similar to Shawn's own tale.

"Make new friends and keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold." the macaroni refrained, its voice flat and without emotion.

"What would happen, if they were all disappointed in you? All of them at the same time?"

"I don't..." Shawn tried to consider the question, but the prospect terrified him to even think about. "I don't know what would happen. I don't even know if there'd be a 'me' any more..."

There was a long silence as those words sunk in. For a long time, it had been about not being judged by others. And that was certainly part of it. Perhaps even most of it. But even during the silent minute that followed his answer, Shawn's mind kept returning to that question the macaroni had asked. The way the tongue is drawn to an empty space left by a tooth.

It was a nagging feeling that seemed to creep into his mind. A rock in Shawn's mind that had appeared to be strong and solid had now been overturned to reveal a buzzing flurry of ants running this way and that in total confusion. And in the midst of that confusion, was a question: Did Shawn even know who he was?

"An apprenticeship then." The macaroni's flat and uncaring voice chimed in, snapping Shawn back into reality. "If you are to be my apprentice, you must never betray me." The voice said. There was a promise of a threat in there, somewhere. Shawn was sure. But not in the tone of the voice. It wasn't angry or foreboding the way Cherrywinks appeared and spoke. It was more calculating and disciplined. A mask of shadows and promises. Of untold secrets and unknown, unknowable forgotten knowledge and forbidden lore.

Shawn was silent for a moment or three as he contemplated the questions the macaroni had raised. But he shook it off and nodded his assent to her question. "I've picked my side."

Without skipping a beat, the macaroni spoke with a sense of purpose and intention.

"You are now my apprentice. The fifth apprentice in the order of Sybil, for there were four before you. In order for your apprenticeship to begin, you must use the Book of Babble to travel to the Circus and find a the Bearded Woman. She is my snake in the grass She owes me a favor. You will go to her, and you will ask her for soul rock. She will help you smoke it. And when you do, you will 'wish' that I reappear as a member of the Circus. The proprietor will accept your wish, and then we will begin."

"You must understand, that Cherrywinks does not want me to appear. He trades you to me knowing that I have not materialized into the Circus yet. He hopes to placate me, so that he may keep souls for himself. Until I am released, he will do so. He hopes to run the Circus, and reap the most amount of souls possible."

It was a lot to take in, but Shawn had heard of soul rocks before, as well as the political infighting from Bradford (had Bradford also become an appprentice? He didn't want to ask, lest the answer disturb him). He committed the instructions to memory as best he could. "I understand."

OOC: Shawn Joins Thread

Shawn: Looking for the Bearded Woman