As Katy and Deen were blowing up Edgar’s office, Tony and Riley have reached Marcus’s Valley. They did not say anything as they went to the bank; Riley was shown to his new vault 2303 as Tony did his business at the bank. They went their separate ways after the bank. Riley went and purchased his school supplies, and some presents, he did not know much about Katy or her family, but he did know that they were good people. It was dark by the time he was completed, and he had told Tony he would meet him by the bank.
“Did you get everything?” Tony asked gruffly, as he saw Riley come into view.
“Yes…” Riley started then thought again. “Almost… I need a really good gift for Katy… do you have any ideas.”
“Well, Katy loves her books, and goodness knows she is going to have the Hepburns’ house burning down in flames with her little experiments. She and Deen are really advanced for any age.” Tony had a goofy crooked smile when he talked about Katy, something Riley noticed, almost as if he was a proud parent. “There is a book she wants, but she has said no, she wants more than just one book for five berries, of course she would say that after we all shopped for her, I was going to grab it anyways, but you can.” Tony did not really trust him, but it seemed he was trying to make amends.
“Great, what book is it?” Riley thought of the berries he had and thankful he had the ten extra berries in his bag.
“Well, it is not really a book; it is just an exceptionally large, very fancy, journal. Well, it is a journal she wants to change into a Book of Shadows. She and Deen have decided though their journals are great for prophecies and dreams, they need a Book of Shadows for their potions and spells. Katy bought one for Deen for Yule.” Tony told him as they walked to the bookstore. “It is on hold under my name, so just come on, we have to get back or my mom is going to have a fit, that we are late for making the Yule Log.”
Riley did not say anything, this was the first time, which he could remember, that he really cared about Yule. Sure, his father and stepmother gave gifts, but they did not do anything else. It sounded like a big thing with the people that took Katy under their wing. They walked into the bookstore and Tony went up to the desk and asked for the journal. It was large and a dark deep red with the symbols of the elements at each corner and “Katherine Lillian’s Book of Shadows” was imprinted in the center of the book. Riley said nothing but gave the berries and did a small spell to wrap it and put it in his bag with everything else.
“Thank you…” Riley did not know what else to say, here was the man he had tried to kill, who would destroy him if he even showed a twitch that he would try to hurt Katy. And Riley could not blame Tony that. It was his own fault that nobody trusted him. Only time would show his true intentions.
When they teleported back to the Hepburns’ they heard Edgar’s yells from down the street. “You know I think I will just go back to the school.” Riley said and would have teleported, but Tony stopped him.
“Oh, no you don’t. You want to be in Katy’s life you must be in ours as well, and deal with all the good and all the bad. Sounds like Katy and Deen figured out how to get into Edgar’s study.” Tony stated, as he went and knocked on the door then entered the house.
“Deen Joseph Hepburn! Katherine Lillian Fitz! How did you get in that office? And what bloody potion did you try to make? I can’t get this fog out of my office,” Edgar yelled. Katy and Deen however could not answer as they were on the floor, as they filled the house with laughter.
“Edgar, it is probably some prank potion, it will disappear on its own.” Antonio stated.
“Yeah sure, was that what you said when they did an exploding ink potion that got all over your papers? Oh, yeah, you had them serve four Sundays of detentions! I don’t get to do that, I get to yell and scream and ground them, taking away their potion set until school!”
That got Katy and Deen to stop their laughter. “It is a prank potion. It just creates a fog that you can’t see though, and it lifts with a reverse potion. Here” Katy said and handed over a small vile with a white potion inside.
“Thank you,” Edgar said and threw the vile into his office. There was big bang and a ton more bellows of smoke poured from the study. Katy and Deen fell in laughter once again.
“Umm… Edgar…” Tony stepped in before Edgar could start yelling again. “I would like to point out you fell for it,” Tony said with a chuckle.
“Now…Edgar…you know they are to rest…” Sandra got out, with barely contained laughter. Even Jane and Antonio laughed at the situation. Edgar could not help but break a smile, even Riley smiled but he kept back.
“Dad… if you want… the real… reverse potion… it is the black vial… over there on the coffee table.” Deen said as he rolled on the floor with laughter.
Edgar walked over to the table and grabbed the vial. “This better be it or you are two are not going to be allowed anywhere near potion ingredients until school starts!”
Katy jumped in and grabbed the vial before he could throw it in the study. “Edgar you don’t want to do that.” Katy took a red vial from her pocket and threw it in the room, and the fog lifted.
“Just out of curiosity what would this vial have done?” Edgar asked as he took the vial of black back from Katy.
“It was the ink exploding potion.” Deen stated, as he waved his wand, and cleared the broken vials. “Do you think any of our professors will fall for it, Katy? Maybe Professor Adair on our Archeology trip after second term?”
“Ohh… good idea… hey maybe we can get…” But Katy was cut off.
“Oh no you don’t, neither one of you will try these tricks on your professors.” Antonio stated, as he shook his head. Katy and Deen looked at each other, with mischievous smirks, they knew they would try and knew he did not say anything about other students.
“Why don’t you two go and get those items you found for the Yule Log?” Jane said and scooted them from the room. “Go and get your brothers as well, there are a few things the adults need to do.”
Katy grabbed Riley’s hand and ran up the stairs after Deen; they went to go grab Jerome. They got to the top of the stairs and were set to find Jerome, when Deen knocked his crystal ball off a hallway table, as it rolled to Katy’s feet; she locked her gaze on it.
Katy stood outside the school, she was older, but not yet out of Bridgett’s, as the pins upon her suit showed many things. It showed she was a student. But they also showed she was a general in this war. She looked down to see herself in a dragonhide outfit. She saw the blood drip from a sword she carried. She saw the blood on her hands. She saw her fighting a being that was blurry. She saw the being kill those on her side. She watched herself as she killed those on their side. She saw death. She called to Death. She could feel the darker side of Necromancer magic take over as she called to Death to be upon her side. To face the evil not only in front of her but the evil within. She watched as she continued to fight against being that was just a blur of white. Katy saw herself as nothing more as a blur of black. Colors of her Element gone, just black. Her hair was still long, but it was up in a tight bun, ever to release. Katy fought until the being of white ran. And Katy stopped and took deep heaving breaths and looked out at the fields in front of her. She saw lifeless faces of those she had come to love. She felt the pain as she slammed the sword into the ground and screamed with the pain of loss.
The vision let her go, she seen pain and heartache. She seen her heart destroyed, the pain that it caused, it would allow her to fight against someone, but she could not see their face, she had seen herself take lives, she had seen the other being kill. She saw destruction and she let out a gasp as if in pain.
She looked up and locked eyes with Deen and knew, as he was the only one, she did not block, in that instant he saw what she had seen. “Riley, stay here for a second.” Katy said and grabbed Deen’s hand and ran into his room. “What does that mean? We can’t tell anybody. Can we?”
“I don’t know. Who was it that you were fighting? Who was it that we lost? I couldn’t make out any faces. I could only hear your pain. You felt it didn’t you?” Deen asked and grabbed his journal and scribbled down what they had seen.
“Yeah, should we tell them?” Katy waved her wand that brought her, her journal, and a quill, she liked them for her journals, though pens and pencils were more practical; she scribbled it all down, she even made a note about the pain she felt, just as Deen did.
“I don’t know, maybe we can prevent it from happening. Or maybe it really won’t happen now that we know.” Deen said and set down his journal after he finished his entry.
“Let’s see what happens first term, and if things start getting fuzzy then we will tell Antonio, Sandra, and your parents.” Katy did not really want to say anything, because she was afraid if she acknowledged it then she might really have to feel her heart being ripped from her chest; she already had to suffer a shadow of the feeling, she did not think she could survive the real thing. She threw her own journal on Deen’s bed.
“That sounds like a plan. Hey, what should we do today? It is your birthday after all.” Deen said to change the subject. They walked back out of Deen’s room, as they talked about plans for her birthday. Since they had their older, soon to be seventh year brothers around, they figured some pranks were in order. They went off to find Jerome, who was now talking to Riley in the hall, his Alchemy book under his arm.
They went outside, to have an epic snowball fight; it was Deen and Katy against Jerome and Riley. Katy and Deen had a bunch of different potions they had mixed with their snowballs, one that hit Riley, had exploded on him that would make his skin orange for about an hour, Deen could not help but laugh when he hit Riley with that one. Katy got Jerome with one that made him see doubles, so he could not hit Deen or Katy. They all seemed to have a great time, until Sandra came out and called them for dinner. They trudged in dripping wet and the two older boys in different colors. As they passed Sandra, she waved her wand which dried each of them and rolled her eyes when she saw Riley and Jerome in bright orange and lime green.
Deen went up to his mom and dad. “Can we give Katy her gifts now? Please, please, oh please?” Deen jumped up and down at the thought, Katy ignored his thoughts, because she wanted it to be a surprise, and he was too excited to keep up his shields. Katy started to feel excited as well. She never received gifts before, and this was all new to her. She was happy just to have a place to call home, and someone to call her friend.
“No, we can wait until after dinner.” Edgar stated with a smile and started to walk back towards his office.
“Oh, come on dad, Katy never got birthday gifts before, why wait until after dinner?”
“Because that is tradition, we will wait for after dinner, and give her the gifts with cake. After dinner.”
Deen sighed; he knew it was a lost cause. “Fine.”
“Now everybody upstairs, get cleaned up, dinner is in about ten minutes.” Jane said. “Come on Riley, I will show you were you will be staying until school starts.” Jane followed them up the stairs and showed Riley a room across the hall from Deen’s. Riley would share his room with Jerome, who had his face already in his new alchemy book.
“Umm… I don’t remember you.” Reilly unpacked and looked over to the boy reading his alchemy book.
“When we started seven year ago, I was known as Jasmine Hepburn.”
“Oh…” Reilly bit his lip. “You were the sad Fire, who was angry a lot.”
“Yeah. It took me a bit to figure out my thoughts. How to come out to my parents, that I was born in the wrong body.”
“They accepted you with no issues?”
“I got therapy, and I started T about three years ago now.”
“T?”
“Testosterone.”
“Cool. You are happier now. That darkness in your eyes then, it is almost gone. So… He/Him?”
Jerome smiled, “yeah, or they/them, I am a lucky one. My friends they accepted me.”
“A lot of kids aren’t accepted. It is more accepted in the magical world than the normal one, but there is still hate. I mean, I know I have it lucky, I am a straight guy, and even though I am mixed race and elements, it is easier for me than you. Not a moron, I gotta know it is easier for me. I mess up, you tell me?”
“Yeah. I will call you out. Don’t worry. And I know I had it luckier than some, it is why I want to be a medicine man so I can help kids like me.”
“Good goal. I don’t know what I want to do. Honestly, the only passion I have is elements and Archology. I think maybe I want to be a professor like Adair one day. Thinking military honestly, maybe the Marines or Army.”
“Well, you got time to figure it out. You are seventeen.”
“Yeah. So, what is so interesting in that book?”
Jerome laughed and tried to explain why he liked alchemy as a hobby. Perhaps, Riley would be a good fried to have.
For the most part the rest of the night was pretty quiet, they had dinner, made the Yule Log to burn tomorrow, and chatted about school. However, Katy and Deen did get a little rowdy after Katy opened her gifts. Sandra and Antonio got her a large potion set; Tony got her a giant spell book with spells in seven different languages; Edgar and Jane also got her some spell books, but they were older, from when Edgar’s parents were children, there are a lot of lost spells within their binds, and Deen gave her a charm. He had made two charms, and he wore one as well, they were made from his fire, to show they were best friends for as long as they lived. Riley decided he would wait until after all the events of the evening died down to give his gift. Katy ran off with Deen and started with the potion set; Sandra kept an eye on them to make sure they did not drain what energy that they had been able to regain after the ordeal a few days ago.
Katy had just gotten ready for bed when Riley knocked on her door. “May I come in?”
“Sure,” Katy yelled at the door she sat on her bed with about seven different books spread out in front of her, reading was her way to relax. Riley saw that she slipped her wand under her pillow when he entered. Starlight was curled up on Katy’s pillow, and even Cleopatra and Shadow seemed down for the night.
“I got you something for your birthday too. Well, it was mom’s, I think you should have it.” Riley said and handed her a small package.
Katy took the package and looked at it, smiled and then opened it. Inside was a charm bracelet, there were only four charms, one for Air, Earth, Spirit, and Water. Katy noticed the one for Fire was not represented, so she took the charm that Deen gave her for her birthday and placed it on the bracelet. Once she did that there was a spark and a warm feeling filled her. She knew the charm was home, as she put it next to the Air charm, and so was she. Or at least that is the impression she got, as the warmth spread through her. However, when it dangled near the Spirit and Water charms, her Fire charm seemed to bounce away from them. That gave her an uneasy feeling.
“I made the one for Air, mom made the one for Earth, making the charms are one of the only memories I can really remember about mom. I don’t know who made Spirit or Water, but mom said they were ancestors of ours, but I have traced our line and I can’t find a Water or a Spirit. But I hope you like it.”
“I love it! It is complete with Deen’s charm!” Katy jumped up and gave Riley a hug. He hugged her back, said goodnight and then left the room and went to sleep, nobody knew what tomorrow would bring.
Katy thought she had put the vision out of her head, but that night she woke the whole house with her screams, the visions, the nightmare, was so horrible, she cried. She fought, she had no choice, she threw everything she had at the white being before her, but a scream made her turn. She turned toward the scream, and in that moment the white being, who she could barely make out, took her shot and Katy’s chest filed with grief.
In that moment she had seen who she lost and why it felt like her heart was ripped still beating out of her chest. She tried to wake up; she knew this had to be a nightmare. She was trapped in the nightmare; she saw all those she loved in pain, she watched the faces of her loved ones as the life seeped from their eyes, the white of death spreading, and the world was being drained of its color, of its life. She wanted to wake up from the nightmare, but she felt stuck, trapped within her mind.
“Katy!” Deen was there first, as he was next door. “Wake up!” He shook her to wake her up.
But Katy could not hear him, his voice was drowned out by her screams and sobs and she cradled the one she loved the most in her arms; in the nightmare that seemed never ending. She clung to this person and just sobbed, she tried to wake up, she whispered to herself ‘wake up, wake up, this is nothing but a nightmare. You have not lost them, wake up!” But she felt trapped as if the pain were planting her here, as if a dark curse was laid upon her.
Before she could be awakened, the rest of those she loved filled the room, worry in their eyes that she was screaming their names and that she was not waking up from the nightmare.
Sandra thought of something, she sat on Katy’s bed and started to sing, an old Welsh lullaby that she use to sing to Tony and her own mother sang to her, Suo Gân.
“Huna blentyn ar fy mynwes
Clyd a chynnes ydyw hon;
Breichiau mam sy’n dynn amdanat,
Cariad mam sy dan fy mron;
Ni cha’ dim amharu’th gyntun,
Ni wna undyn â thi gam;
Huna’n dawel, annwyl blentyn,
Huna’n fwyn ar fron dy fam.
Jane started to sing the song but instead of in Welsh, she sang in English.
“Sleep my baby, at my breast,
’Tis a mother’s arms round you.
Make yourself a snug, warm nest.
Feel my love forever new.
Harm will not meet you in sleep,
Hurt will always pass you by.
Child beloved, always you’ll keep,
In sleep gentle, mother’s breast nigh.”
Sandra continued, and so it went Sandra singing in Welsh and Jane in English.
“Huna’n dawel, heno, huna,
Huna’n fwyn, y tlws ei lun;
Pam yr wyt yn awr yn gwenu,
Gwenu’n dirion yn dy hun?
Ai angylion fry sy’n gwenu,
Arnat ti yn gwenu’n llon,
Tithau’n gwenu’n ôl dan huno,
Huno’n dawel ar fy mron?”
“Sleep in peace tonight, sleep,
O sleep gently, what a sight.
A smile I see in slumber deep,
What visions make your face bright?
Are the angels above smiling,
At you in your peaceful rest?
Are you beaming back while in
Peaceful slumber on mother’s breast?
“Paid ag ofni, dim ond deilen
Gura, gura ar y ddôr;
Paid ag ofni, ton fach unig
Sua, sua ar lan y môr;
Huna blentyn, nid oes yma
Ddim i roddi iti fraw;
Gwena’n dawel yn fy mynwes
Ar yr engyl gwynion draw.”
“Do not fear the sound, it’s a breeze
Brushing leaves against the door.
Do not dread the murmuring seas,
Lonely waves washing the shore.
Sleep child mine, there’s nothing here,
While in slumber at my breast,
Angels smiling, have no fear,
Holy angels guard your rest.”
Katy heard Sandra’s and Jane’s voices through the pain, she heard the words, she heard them and their voices somehow broke through the dark curse that trapped her here, she looked down at the body of her loved one and the image began to fade. She felt the pain fade, it become bearable, and then it became easier to breathe. It still took some time, but slowly Jane and Sandra helped her mind wipe away the images of her loved ones dead, broken and white with death.
By the time Sandra and Jane ended their song for a third time Katy was able to wake up, she sat up quickly as she opened her eyes, she took a deep breath.
“Katy!” Deen jumped on her. “You woke up! We were so worried.”
“Katy…” Sandra started, as she gave Katy a once over. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No…” Katy did not know how they did not see the images, but she could tell from their thoughts, they wondered what made her scream as if the world had ended. They stayed silent while they waited for Sandra’s verdict. Katy knew somehow, she was able to block them in her sleep, even as the pain wiped everything else from her.
“Fine. She is okay, just a very vivid nightmare, everybody to bed, and let her go back to sleep.” Sandra said and ushered everybody out the door and left her and Deen alone.
“Katy…”
“Not now, Deen…”
“It was about the vision in the crystal ball wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but so much worse…” Katy thought about continuing. She thought about telling him what she had seen. But why cause Deen that grief? She laid down, she just wanted to block the pain she had felt from her body, but she knew she would live with that pain for the rest life.
Deen followed suit, as he laid next to her. “We will stop it Katy. We will not allow darkness to win.” Soon they were both asleep, however the nightmare still hung in the air.
Kris Charles - Author 