Time seemed to fly by as they studied and practiced and went about their days, they learned different spells, learned how to live in their world, that soon the Saturday of the Eleball game against Earth snuck up on them. Katy and Deen woke just like it was any other morning and went down for an early breakfast. As they walked back to the dorms, they heard something that made them even more nervous about the game.
“Look you took the Berries; if they play you are to squash them! Look, if you don’t want to kill the Guardian’s son then don’t but the little witch needs to be killed. I told you what will happen if she does not die. Don’t fail me!” With that Riley swept from the room, and behind him followed an Earth student, they did not know who it was but it did not stop them from turning around and ran to the potion master’s office.
“Professor MacCathmhaoil!” They both yelled as they ran into his office.
Antonio looked up from the papers he was going over. “What are you two doing? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the game; it is going to start soon, and I am sure Garret has a few words to say before you go down to the field.”
“We heard Riley talking to an Earth player,” Katy said.
“Yeah about killing me and Katy!” Deen yelled, inside he was furious, someone wanted to kill his best friend. “Doesn’t that prove he is the one behind this?”
“You heard what exactly?” Antonio asked as he stood up and walked up to them and knelt to look into their eyes.
They told him word for word what they heard, how they saw Riley leave the room, but they did not know the Earth player. They really did not a good look at him, but they got a good look at Riley.
“I will take care of it you go and get ready for the game.” Antonio said, as he ushered them out of his office as he walked to the door. “Don’t worry about it, I promise I will take care of it.” He said with a smile then walked down the hall one way as they went the other.
Katy and Deen went back up to the dorms and got dressed and then met the rest of the team downstairs. Their minds still full of what they had heard, but they know Professor MacCathmhaoil wouldn’t let anything happen to them, but they did tell Garret what was heard before he addressed the team.
“Okay team, I have some inside information that the Air team is trying to sabotage us. I am going to have to sit out this game, because Nurse Rice hasn’t given me the all clear from that last shot one of the Air members shot at me. But I am going to rotate Katy, Deen, and Jack. Now Isabella and Scorpio I am looking to you for leadership on the field. Derrick and Jackson you are the best at Earth besides Scorpio, use it, block their moves. George and Bailey, do what you always do, get that ball in the scoring zone. Jasmine, Keaton, Kloey, and Sapphire protect your team at all costs! Now let’s get out there and win!” Garret sure knew how to get the moral of the team up. Even Katy and Deen were not as worried as they were to begin with.
The game was going good, Katy and Deen played a bit of the first two periods with no issues and again the Fire team was up in the points. By the fifth period they were relaxed, Garret thought the Earth person had chickened out. Katy was not relaxed, she was worried because Deen and she were going to play the whole sixth period since they were up 47-29, and it would give that person an opportunity to do something.
It was going good, until the last few minutes, everything seemed to happen at once, a burst of light was flying toward Katy, it was green and jagged, she heard someone scream, she heard sharp intakes of breath, then the next thing she saw was a red bolt of lightning hit the green light of a spell and then another bolt hit an Earth player. She looked to her right and saw Deen, with a shocked expression on his face.
“I can’t believe… I did that… he did that… I can’t believe it.” Deen tried to speak, but he was too angry to complete a sentence.
Katy figured out the red lighting came from Deen, from what she knew about the Spirit elementals, they had the power to create lighting, it must have been red only because Deen was a Fire elemental. Katy smiled he had saved her from getting hit. “Yep you did that, hey look the clock has run out, why is everybody staring? They can’t be that shocked, your mom is a Spirit is she not?”
“That is not why they are shocked. It was the spell he did. I can’t believe he really tried to kill you. Didn’t you hear the spell?”
“No, I saw the green light then you shot the lightning bolts. I guess you are my hero.” Katy said with a smile but inside felt shaken, Deen was so close to her it could have easily hit him. “We are okay? Right nobody got hit by it?” Katy asked and looked around, she saw most of her team had landed only Katy and Deen remained up in the air.
“Nobody got hit, he must have just learned that curse, and I didn’t think they taught us about that curse until the end of our fifth year.” Deen shook his head. “I can’t believe he tried to use the Abeo curse. And on you!” Deen was mad, Katy had never seen him that way. But Katy knew if the situations were reversed, she would be just as mad, she would have wanted revenge. Finally taking a moment to see Nurse Rice down by the student that Deen’s bolt had hit.
“He was the student that was talking to Riley. Professor MacCathmhaoil must not have been able to find out who it was. What will happen to him?”
“Expulsion only. If he is lucky, if he is over sixteen then he will go to one of our juvenile jails until he is twenty one, then after that they will review the case to see if he has learned from his faults and to see if he could be a valuable member of society. He will have to be home schooled or go to one of the minor schools. I hope he is sixteen, he would deserve going to jail for that. It is beyond horrible to use that curse.” Deen said as they slowly descended to the ground.
Once they hit the ground their team was upon them. All patted Deen on the back and gave their congratulations, and compliments on the lightning bolts. Katy smiled and said she was fine like a hundred times, before Antonio came up to the team.
“Okay Fire team, off to the main house with you, it is almost time for dinner, go get cleaned up and ready for dinner.” Antonio stated. Katy and Deen moved to follow but he grabbed them by the back of their uniform. “Not so fast you two, you are going to come with me.” They followed him back to his office, where he flicked his wand and two chairs appeared in front of his desk.
“Professor…” Katy started, but stopped when he put his hand up.
Deen and Katy stared at each other; they each knew the other was worried about what might happen now. “Professor…” Deen started this time, but again Antonio put his hand up, then sat down and they waited in silence. Katy and Deen wanted to know what they were waiting for, but they did not have to wait long, because a few moments later in burst Deen’s parents and Sandra.
“What is the meaning of this?” Edgar yelled, “I just talked to the headmaster and he said they warned you about an attack and you still let that Earth child play!” Edgar was mad, and from the looks on the faces of Jane and Sandra, he wasn’t the only one that was furious at their potions professor.
They waited for Antonio to speak. After a tense moment he stood up and walked around his desk and leaned against the edge. “The reason we let the child play was we didn’t know which child was hired by Solomon and we wanted to see what Solomon had really paid him to do. We never imaged that the child would use the death curse on a couple of first years. If I had even the slightest clue that was what he was going to do I would have put a stop to it.” Antonio stated.
“But he did do the death curse, if… if wasn’t a weak one and Deen’s bolt hadn’t stopped it then…” Jane started but could not finish.
So, Edgar finished for her “then Katy wouldn’t be sitting here right now, and goodness knows if he would have hit Deen!” That led to all the adults yelling at once at each other.
Katy and Deen looked at each other, they both thought the same thing. It was over it happened, everything is fine, they should be celebrating Deen’s very cool lightning bolts. And of course, the Fire win, that is two games, two wins, only two more, and they would be ready to take on Water at end of this term and Spirit at the beginning of next term. But instead the adults dwelled in the past. Katy knew it was important, but she really did not care anymore, Deen had her back and she his and that was all that mattered. “Excuse us!” Katy said loudly, getting the adults attentions.
All the adults stopped arguing and looked at Katy and Deen. “What?” Sandra asked, wondering what the children wanted at this time.
“We are fine! See nothing wrong!” Katy said as she swept her hand between her and Deen.
“Yeah we got each other’s backs, the Earth player made a mistake, he thought it would be easy to throw something like that at us and he was wrong.”
“Look, I know it is kind of dangerous for us right now. So, we will keep our guard up, and be vigilant. We won’t go sneaking around at night, and there is always a professor around somewhere in the school. That is probably why they waited to try to attack us on the Eleball field.” Katy said as she tried to escape with Deen, so they can go celebrate with their team and investigate on their on their own.
“Yeah! Katy is right! So, we just have to be careful!” Deen said as he agreed with Katy’s statements, now that he knew why Katy was so eager to leave the conversation and let the subject drop. Then Deen’s dad said something that made them both cry out in refusal.
“Fine, then no Eleball.” Edgar said and crossed his arms.
“What! You can’t do that we are the youngest players on the Fire team in decades! One of us will be captain one day if we continue!” Deen yelled, Katy was so shocked she just shook her head and pointed at Deen.
“I can’t speak for Katy, but you won’t be playing Eleball until Riley Solomon is out of this school!” Edgar yelled back, he would not lose a son.
Katy took a second and then spoke up. “Wait he has not been expelled? Why?”
“Because the Earth child won’t give him up, he keeps saying he acted alone. He had just learned the spell and wanted to try it out. Since he hasn’t yet turned sixteen and he is only a fifth year, they want to give him a second chance, his name is Adam Harkin. He will be expelled, his parents are here as well, at first they were trying to get him to give up Riley Solomon, so their son could stay here at this school, but then they found out who it was we were trying to get him to spill his guts about, and it being a Solomon, they froze just like he did, and told him to keep his mouth shut.” Edgar said, he had finally calmed down a bit.
“But you just can’t take Eleball away from us! It is like punishing us!” Katy exclaimed.
“We don’t want to take it away from you it is just that Riley is tying our hands, we can’t prove it was him even if you two heard him say that to the child, since you didn’t get a good look at Adam we can’t prove it was Adam that Riley was talking to, so that means you two are going to be watched very carefully.”
Katy and Deen looked at each other and thought they both wanted to argue their point, they knew they could not win. Everything looked grim for them and their future on the Eleball team. Then the headmaster walked in, before they could admit defeat.
“Ahh… It is good to see you all here. I have just talked to young Adam and he says Riley is following orders from someone else. I think it would be wise to keep Riley where we can see him. Here at school.” He stopped and looked at everybody. “Wow it is tense in here.”
“They want us to stop playing Eleball. Just because some stupid kid listened to some other stupid kid!” Deen exclaimed as he plopped back down in his chair.
“I don’t see why the children have to stop playing we will just have to keep a closer eye on them while they play. They don’t play that much anyways.” The headmaster said with a smile and a wink.
“Riley just paid off another player to kill Katy and Deen. We can’t let that happen again!” Sandra and Jane said at the same time.
“That is why we are going to keep a remarkably close eye on Riley. I doubt he will try that route again. Now, if you excuse me I must meet with the Elders, I am giving a testimony today on something very important to all in this room.” With that Headmaster O’Cuinn swept from the room, he left behind six very shocked faces.
“Deen and Katy I am sure your team members and the rest of the Fire house are waiting for your return. You don’t want to disappoint them. You two may leave, but don’t tell anybody what was talked about here. We can’t risk Riley finding out that we are on to him.” Antonio stated, and pushed them gently out of his office.
Katy and Deen walked in silence for a bit then; right before they were to turn to go back to their dorm, they went the opposite way. They walked right back down to the Eleball field. Katy handed Deen a small potion vial.
“Absconditus!” Katy said; she pointed her wand at Deen and then pointed it to herself “Absconditus!” As soon as she said it, she drank her vial and turned to look at Deen. “We have got to find out what is going on. If we want to continue playing on the team, if we want Riley to stop trying to kill us we have to figure out why. I am sick of everybody knowing my past! I want to know; I need to know! First, we will try your parents before they leave but if that does not work then I am going to sneak into the Air dorm. I am not going to tolerate this any longer!” Katy yelled and she did not really want to yell at Deen. “I don’t mean to yell at you Deen.” Katy said as she slouched her shoulders, feeling defeated. They had continued to walk around the field; finally, they stopped in the center.
“I know, I think maybe we shouldn’t sneak into the Air dorm until next term, after all it is already the end of July, and our classes are getting harder. Maybe during break, I can get some information from my dad.” Deen said as he sat down on the ground.
Katy sat down next to him and crossed her legs. “Maybe, I will watch and see what happens if something happens then I am going, no matter how many good arguments against it.”
“I agree,” was all Deen responded. Katy and Deen sat there on the field and talked about what happened, today and before. They knew there is a lot of power in them, and then the dagger chose them. They talked but could not figure out why Riley would hate Katy so, so much that he would kill anybody close to her. They sat for a few more minutes in silence then went and joined the celebration in their dorm.
Kris Charles - Author 