SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA 2000

When he opened his eyes, the world was reversed. His back was against cold hard earth, and his nose tingled. Looking up, the Aryan football jock's face glared at him with a mouth worn upside-down like Bette Davis in The Little Foxes. Josh giggled inside his head. Here he was getting bashed for being gay, and all he could think of was a Bette Davis movie. Bruce had probably never heard of the divine Bette and might have killed Josh if he understood the reference. Josh curled himself into a ball in an instinctive move to protect soft inner organs from further damage. This move also saved him from seeing the tennis-shoe-clad foot of Bruce being lifted and reared for a good solid kick. Josh also never saw that foot continue rising to an impossible height as Bruce himself joined Josh on the unyielding topsy-turvy earth.

"Did I do that?" Buffy Summers asked innocently. The small group of UC Sunnydale students that had gathered couldn't help giggling at the situation. Buffy, smart as ever in a cream top, mid-length gray skirt and shiny, black Prada boots, had flipped Bruce with one hand simply by using the two-hundred-pound football player's ill timed kick against him. Buffy just smiled and let the humor build until every giggle had turned to a laugh at the tiny girl's upturn of the brawny butt-head.

Josh was quick to realize that the situation had just changed, and he was able to uncurl enough to take stock.

"Hey, Bruce, wanna go to the prom?" He managed to wheeze out. "After all, the principal said I was only allowed to bring a girl." This caused a fresh wave of laughter. Josh rose slowly, leaving the supine Bruce behind. Josh nodded a little thanks at Buffy, who had saved his ass more than once in the time he'd known her since high school. Buffy nodded back with a grin and continued on her way with her best chum, Willow. Josh and Willow had been friends in high school too.

As the two girls walked off laughing and chatting, Josh's little smile of triumph quickly faded. Thankfully, Bruce was too occupied nursing his wounded ego to pay attention as Josh limped quickly away. It was just beginning to get gray with that odd Sunnydale twilight. Josh faded into the crowd and made his way back to his dorm.

An hour later Josh sat in his darkened dorm room nursing his nose. How much could he take? His thoughts were as dark as the early black outside. It was 2000! A new century! But Sunnydale was slower to get on the progressive bandwagon. Josh had just successfully negotiated with the campus authorities to organize a Gay/Straight Alliance meeting. He was just putting up the first flyers when Bruce had sauntered by with his little gaggle of geesey girls and gassy guys. As ever, spotting Josh was the perfect excuse to macho it up for the crowd.

Of course Josh knew, even back in high school, that he had done a lot to draw the jeers on himself. Like most kids at that rebellious age, Josh had tested the waters; it was just that his waters seemed a little more tropical that everyone else's. It was easy for everyone to spot the fag when he was wearing white makeup, lipstick, and black nail polish. It was a Goth period. Not the best makeup application; those skills would come with practice. Josh laughed to himself.

Well, that was years ago. Josh had tested those exotic waters and being gay was the right fit. He'd actually always known he was gay, and coming out to his parents had been easy; what a surprise that had been!

"Hey Mom, I've got something to tell you...."

"That's okay dear. We knew already. What would you like for breakfast?"

Home was cool, and Josh realized how lucky he was to have such rare and wonderful parents. Of course they had tried to tell him the Goth look might exacerbate any trouble he was likely to encounter, and they'd been right, of course. More than one bully had moved in to make Josh's life a little tougher. But support at home and from friends he made along the way had eased things. Most everyone else seemed to be more interested in his or her own life than in Josh's sexual preference. Almost everyone; Bruce was the leader of that other constituency, and had been a thorn in Josh's side ever since the first day of junior high. Today's fight had only been one in a long line of confrontations, but somehow to Josh this had been different. This time Josh was really fed up.

Naturally Josh had already noticed that Sunnydale wasn't your usual small town. Of course most small towns had their demons; it was just that Sunnydale's were somehow just a little more Demon, with a capital D. Like the kind of fishy high school swim team that Xander had joined or principal Flutie's disappearance. Willow was the one who had first brought to Josh's attention all the supernatural stuff going on around them. At first Josh didn't believe her. Who would? But little by little he started to see evidence of it himself. There was the time the whole town went on a witch-hunt. Willow and Amy had been the focus of a lot the town's anger, and Josh himself had almost been expelled because of some herbs found in his locker. That his parents had been angry about! And the same night, Amy had vanished, just like her mother before her. No, Josh knew something was going on. It took very little to make a malodorous flower blossom in quiet little Sunnydale.

How long would it be until Bruce sprouted claws, or hair in some less attractive places? How long before a little scuffle over a Gay/Straight Alliance poster became a nocturnal feeding of the wolf pack? And who might be the first meal that pack set out to find? How about the tasty, teensy, and toasted fairy in cell block Kappa Kappa Gay?

Josh paced his room much like a caged wolf himself, working himself into quite a state. In Sunnydale a simple baseball bat didn't do the trick. If you weren't Buffy, you had better be her friend. And although Josh felt protected by Buffy, his own macho pride was a little hurt by that.

"Funny. Perhaps Bruce and I have a little more in common than I thought! Well, damn it. How do I protect myself when Buffy's not there?" He muttered to himself.

Josh slumped onto a pile of pillows on his floor-height mattress. The room was a little too residual Goth and a little too cluttered with homework. Books piled everywhere, on top of black stuff also piled everywhere. He lay back on the bed and allowed the pillow to rest under his back and stretch his spine. Looking up at the ceiling he let his mind wander over high school memories, things that had happened since he'd first been rescued by Buffy. He liked Buffy, but he adored Willow. She was so cool. Sometimes he thought Willow might be gay too. Way back when Josh had first met her he remembered sensing something.

Willow and Josh had spent a lot of time together back then. They started as study partners. Another stereotype: the studious mama's boy. He couldn't help it if he liked learning! And Willow was just great. She had a wonderful, intuitive mind, able to jump from idea-spark to another spark, making connections that left Josh bewildered, but caught up in the excitement of learning.

What a great teacher Willow would make, he thought.

Josh remembered too how they would get off track with their studies and start talking about all the weird stuff happening in Sunnydale, and with Buffy and Xander, too. That's when they had started to research magick. Not magic like on stage, but real magick like witches practiced. They borrowed books from the reserved and tight-lipped librarian, Mr. Giles, and really got into it. Sometimes Josh got the feeling that Willow didn't actually check out those books. In fact maybe Mr. Giles didn't even know she was "borrowing" them. Anyway, the two of them spent a lot of time together reading, then later trying out the things they had read.

Josh remembered the last time that they had worked a magick spell. It had been an ordinary night -- a school night -- and he and Willow were in her bedroom studying for some class or another. In fact the ordinariness of the room with its girlie decorations, and the mundane task of learning facts they both knew they would never use in their future lives, made the results of their spell seem even more dangerous.

Willow had said that it was a perfect night for a conjuring. The planets were in a specific configuration that was conducive to bringing entities over from other dimensions. Josh was more than a little fearful about this. Conjuring was pretty serious stuff. He had read enough to know that Willow was suggesting a dark magick working -- way beyond floating pencils! In fact Josh had once read a story about two witches that had conjured the god Thor to come down into a statue of the God that they had placed outside their circle. Then the statue blew up -- shattered into little pieces. The power the witches were playing with was too strong for them. No one was hurt, but the potential for evil was always there.

Despite his misgivings, Josh gave in to Willow's enthusiasm. He trusted that she knew what to do. They darkened the room and assembled the ritual ingredients. There on the floor, by the light of a single candle, Willow began her chant. She had memorized the Latin words and had given the book over to Josh so he could follow along. Willow's voice became louder (but not loud enough to disturb her mother downstairs), and her chant became faster. Josh could feel the energy they were raising. Now he began his part of the chant, faster and faster until at the height of speed they both shouted "Come!" as loud as they dared. For a few minutes it was silent and they thought they had failed. Then everything got darker. That was all. An already dark room just got darker, like someone had turned off another light. Josh and Willow stared at each other in the smothered light of their candle. They began to shiver, then to sweat, then to shiver again. It was cold and dark and just as surely as Josh knew that there were things that lived outside of our reality, he knew that one of those things was there in the room with them. Willow stood up very abruptly and commanded in perfect Latin, "Be gone!" She grabbed a little pinch of sulfur from their altar and sprinkled it into the candle flame; a nasty smell followed.

"Sulfur burns and fire cleanses! No evil things can stay here. Be gone!" she commanded. Josh was surprised to see how forceful the usually mousy Willow was in that moment. He would always remember that image of her. As soon as the smoke of the burning sulfur had filled the room, they felt the light return. It wasn't physical light, but it was a light-ness. A lessening of the dark.

Josh quickly gathered up his schoolwork and they made awkward good-byes, both knowing that something had been left unsaid. Josh felt he knew what that unsaid thing was. He now realized that the missing piece was the acknowledgement that Willow had been doing much more magick than the little experiments they had tried together. She was playing with magick way beyond the benign wicca they had been studying together, and even though Josh knew her intentions were innocent, he wasn't sure where her practice was headed.

That night had marked the end of their friendship. Not with any harsh or final words, but little by little Willow and he had drifted in opposite directions. Willow was seeing Oz then, and that relationship took up most of her free time, along with the tight little group of friends that revolved around Buffy Summers. Then they had become freshmen and recently Willow had begun to hang with Tara. Josh was happy for them, because he suspected they might be more than just friends, although she hadn't really said anything yet. He saw the way they looked at each other and the way that they were always so close. He was envious of what they had. If his suspicions were correct, Willow was in her second full-blown relationship and was accepted everywhere on campus, and he was still the geek being beat up by the campus jock! He hadn't even had a boyfriend yet! And that was exactly why he had to find that book he had taken from Willow's room that night. Now.

A fierce rummage around the room produced no results. Where was it? Josh remembered unpacking it when he had moved into his room. He stopped and surveyed the tiny area again. There! He had used the thick volume to prop up his computer monitor! He looked at it every day and never even gave it a thought. Josh extricated the book from the wires and connections of his computer and sat cross-legged on his black sheets to read. With the help of this ancient tome perhaps Josh could find a way to protect himself. Willow had used these powers without hurting anyone, so he could too.

Copyright © 2003 by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation