Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  After a while, as she relaxed, she could feel the tingles around her forehead and temples grow again. She ended up just sitting there, watching and enjoying the show as the tingles moved through her hair and over her neck. She wasn’t sure how long it went on for and she didn’t care, but after a while he stopped. She was so chilled out, it took Amanda a few moments to realise that his routine was over. She watched as he picked up a towel from the grass and walked off towards the far edge of the clearing.

  As he went he glanced back once, looking right at her, before continuing on his way.

  Amanda half-smiled at him as he looked, before suddenly realising she was still topless. She laughed to herself. She’d probably scared him off. She lay back down a little while longer before pulling clothes back on and making her way back home, feeling completely relaxed and calm.

  Before she’d left the cottage this morning, she’d found it tough to think of anything other than Georgina and she’d found herself thinking that the cottage kind of represented her death. There was almost a miasma of sadness about the place.

  But on her return, that had gone. Now, she looked at the small white building with its thatched roof and saw something that was hers. She saw her home. A place she could live in and enjoy. There were some sad memories attached to it still, but they no longer dominated it. They were there should she need to remember her friend, but there were new feelings associated with it now, the main ones being hope and love.

  The Chinese man had fascinated Amanda, and she wondered if he would be there again the next day. So, she returned and waited, and sure enough, he came back and went through his routine once more.

  This time, Amanda sat on the tree stump to get a better look. Again the man’s slow, measured movement served to relax her so she could feel those pleasant tingles, but this time, she also saw the golden mist. But what was curious and wondrous was that as the man moved, he seemed to interact with the mist, and there were times when she felt sure that the man himself appeared infused with it and glowed slightly.

  As he left that day, he looked back at Amanda again and actually smiled at her. His face was friendly and kind.

  Later on that night, as she sat before her open fire, she decided she’d go and speak to him the next time she saw him. She didn’t want to scare him off by being there every day and watching him like some kind of silent stalker. It seemed only right that she introduce herself and say hello.

  The man returned again on the third day, and after watching him run through his routine, Amanda got up and walked over as he wiped his brow with his towel. The man was short, easily under five feet tall, and it seemed odd to be looking down at a grown adult to talk to him. She was usually the one looking up. He was quite a handsome man with his bald head, moustache, and small beard at the end of his chin. He looked up at her as she approached.

  “Heh, Hi,” she said. “How are yeh?”

  He smiled. “I am well, thank you,” he said in heavily Chinese accented English.

  “So, um, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but was that Tai Chi you were doing?” she asked, feeling much more nervous than she thought she would.

  He smiled. “I see why you think that it Tai Chi,” he said with his pleasing accent. “But no, it not Tai Chi. I practice Art of Phoenix.”

  Amanda liked him right away. His voice had a calming quality to it, and she found the way he left out words—probably because English wasn’t his first language, she guessed—rather cute.

  “The Art of the Phoenix? That’s grand, I’ve not heard of that before,” she said.

  “It from Tibet, deep in mountains. I learn it from my master, Graceful Phoenix at Red Monastery.”

  “Well, it’s beautiful to watch, so it is.”

  The man bowed slightly with a smile.

  “I hope you don’t mind me watching you,” Amanda added.

  “No. I don’t mind,” he said.

  “So, have you been coming to this clearing for long?” she asked, wondering if she’d missed him during her previous visits before seeing him the other day.

  “No, not long. But it very relaxing, yes?”

  “Very,” Amanda smiled.

  “You know Tai Chi?” he asked.

  Amanda smiled. “I don’t. I’ve learnt a little self-defence in my time, so I have, but not Tai Chi.”

  “You want learn?”

  “Maybe, one day,” she said.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “You learn Art of Phoenix with me tomorrow. Yes?”

  “You’re offering to teach me?” Amanda asked, incredulous. She couldn’t quite believe that he was asking her if she wanted to learn from him.

  “Yes,” he said, nodding with a smile.

  “Well, I…” Amanda hesitated.

  “You say yes. You learn from me.”

  “Okay, well, sure, why not?” Amanda said, not wanting to disappoint him.

  “Excellent,” the man answered.

  “Oh, um, I’m Amanda, by the way. Amanda-Jane Page,” she said, offering her hand.

  The man took her hand in his and bowed to her. “I am Gentle Water.”

  Amanda cocked her head slightly to one side and couldn’t help the brief frown that crossed her face. “That’s an... unusual name,” she said, hoping she didn’t offend him with her choice of words.

  “Yes. It not my birth name, but it my name from Red Monastery. I like.”

  Amanda nodded. She liked it too and thought it suited him well. She could already tell that he was a calm and methodical man. She liked him.

  “I see you tomorrow at same time?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She smiled and said goodbye to him. She watched him walk off before turning and setting off back to her side of the clearing and the cottage.

  She couldn’t help the smile that played over her face as she walked. For the first time since she’d returned to Ireland, she not only felt hope for the future, but she felt like she had some kind of direction. Meeting Gentle Water had come at just the right moment and she was looking forward to seeing him again tomorrow and maybe becoming his student.

  Meeting him like that reminded her of meeting Alicia, her childhood friend from her days in the orphanage.

  She’d never known her parents, having been found as a baby on the doorstep of an orphanage and convent school, not too far from where she lived now. She’d been taken in by the nuns there and named Amanda-Jane, after the two sisters who found her and given the surname of Page, which was the surname of the Mother Superior, Emmanuelle Page. She’d grown up within the walls of the orphanage, raised by the nuns, but she’d always been something of a free spirit and a little wild. As she grew up, it only got worse, though. She was forever getting into trouble for disobeying the nuns. Their punishments could be harsh, but Amanda didn’t care. In fact, it only drove her to do worse or more daring stuff. Looking back now at the child she’d been, she saw a young girl she didn’t like very much. Someone who really should have known better, but at the time, she’d felt trapped in a cage. She’d spent her whole life in that place, and she longed for release.

  She’d run away a couple of times, but the police had always found her and brought her back and yet, she was forever planning her next attempt.

  Having lived there since she was a baby, Amanda knew the building very well, better than most of the nuns, and she’d found several places she could hide or sneak into to be by herself. One of them was a roof space that she could reach a couple of ways, the main one being up a disused chimney and through a hole partway up.

  If the sisters knew of it, they’d have had it blocked up, so she’d kept it to herself.

  She spent her time up there daydreaming about the places she’d visit one day when she could get out of the orphanage. The place she dreamt about most often was New York. She loved the look of the big city and collected photos of it that she pinned to the rafters up in her roof space.

  She’d spent hours lying up there, star
ing at those images, imagining walking the streets and looking up at the towering skyscrapers.

  Looking back, she wondered how her life would have gone had Alicia not joined the orphanage. She’d been on the road to self-destruction, she thought now, but Alicia had seen something in her. She’d seen that this delinquent red-headed girl was acting out and chose to take it upon herself to change things. She couldn’t know for sure, of course, but Alicia must have had thoughts along those lines.

  Alicia was a model student at the school. Diligent in her work, she followed the rules but was friendly and open. She was a popular girl and seemed to befriend anybody. Amanda disliked her from the moment they’d met and made a point of avoiding her, which was somewhat ironic, really.

  Maybe she’d sensed that Alicia would rein her in and so she kept her distance. But once Alicia had made up her mind to befriend Amanda, there was no stopping her. No matter how horrible she was to Alicia, she always came back, and in the end, Amanda couldn’t resist any longer.

  The thing was though, that once she let her barriers down and let Alicia get close, she found that she actually really liked the girl. She was friendly, bubbly, and against everything that Amanda had previously thought, they quickly became very close friends.

  The effect Alicia had on her was profound, and within weeks her grades were up, and she was no longer causing trouble. The wild side of Amanda was still there, of course, and despite the best efforts of the nuns and Alicia, who was a devout Catholic, Amanda was never interested in all that God stuff. She found it boring and tedious. She wanted to live, to enjoy life, and not spend it on her knees.

  She did, however, respect Alicia for her unshakable faith. It clearly had a positive impact on her and her life. In turn, Alicia herself then had a positive effect on Amanda, and for that, she was eternally grateful.

  When she did finally run away from the orphanage after the pressure of living there got too much for her, the one regret she had was leaving Alicia. She hadn’t told anyone about her plans, not even Alicia. She didn’t want to jeopardise her chances. Alicia probably had guessed where Amanda had gone, though, as she knew about her obsession with New York City. Amanda had shown her the roof space with all the photos she’d cut out of books and magazines, but only after Alicia had promised never to show or tell anyone else about it.

  One day, she hoped to return to the orphanage to find out what had happened to her friend. But not yet. She wasn’t ready yet.

  - Diary entry of Royston Kendrick, Spokesperson for the Legacy Coven.

  Gentle Water reported in today. He’s made contact with Amanda in Ireland. Met her a few times over the last few days and is starting to teach her the basics of his martial arts style.

  At least we can relax for a bit now. The meeting was always going to be touch and go, despite the reassurances of our friend.

  I must keep in regular contact with him.

  Revelation

  Donegal, Ireland

  The summer had turned out to be a rather nice one with plenty of warm weather, which made a nice change to the usual rain and clouds that Ireland was known for. Amanda lay in her bed, enjoying another lazy morning, watching the sunlight play through the gap in her curtains and create patterns on the wall. As she lay there, she heard the door to the cottage open and close.

  It was Gentle Water, heading out as he usually did in the mornings. He wasn’t one for lying in his bed. It had been nearly two months since she had first spoken to him in the clearing, which had become their primary practice area for the martial arts he was teaching her. They’d spent more time together as he taught her that the Art of the Phoenix was more than just a relaxation tool, it was a whole martial art that could be used as a weapon as well.

  She’d soon found out that Gentle Water was staying in a hotel in the next town over, and after some thought and several weeks of training, Amanda decided to offer him the second bedroom in her cottage.

  Apparently, Gentle Water had been travelling and liked the area, so he was staying locally to get a feel for the place before he found somewhere more permanent. But they were spending so much time together now, it seemed to her to just make sense that he live with her for a while.

  Gentle Water was unsure at first, but eventually agreed to move into the cottage for the short-term, at least. As the weeks wore on, they became fast friends, with Gentle Water taking on something of a fatherly role for her. She’d never had a dad or a male role model in her life. All she’d had were the nuns and the girls in her dorm. There were boys at the convent school, but they only saw each other during lessons and breaks, so she’d always been somewhat starved of male role models.

  She didn’t regret the way things had been back then, but it was nice to have someone like that in her life now. Gentle Water remained somewhat aloof, however. He was quiet and kept to himself, generally staying out of Amanda’s way as much as possible. She wondered if he felt that he was imposing on her, because she didn’t feel that way at all. She’d invited him to live with her, and she actually really enjoyed having him around.

  But she had a feeling that he was holding something back from her. Hiding something, but she had no idea what it could be.

  Maybe he’d open up to her at some point, once he was ready. She didn’t want to pry, everyone had secrets after all, and they’d only known each other for a few weeks. She felt she knew him well enough now, though, that she had no issues with him being in the house with her. He was kind, respectful, and very gentlemanly, always going out of his way to help her and do what needed doing around the house.

  Amanda reached out for the glass of water by her bed and out the corner of her eye, saw it slide across the top of the bedside table and into her hand. She looked at it properly, squinting at it.

  Had it really just done that?

  It wasn’t the first time. In fact, strange things had been happening to her for years. Things she couldn’t explain, but were always subtle and often—like just now with the water glass—she’d catch it out of the corner of her eye so she was never sure if it had really happened or not.

  However, since the attack in New York, the frequency of these oddities had changed dramatically. Before that day, they were sporadic, maybe two or three times a year, four or five occasionally, but they were always subtle, and she was never sure if she’d just imagined it.

  Now, though, they were happening daily, often several times a day, and they seemed to be growing in frequency. Just last night, she’d seen the gold mist again and had moved a coffee mug to her hand, right next to Gentle Water. She was sure he must have seen it, but when she asked, he said he hadn’t seen anything and brushed it off.

  Sometimes they freaked her out, but they were becoming so common now that she’d actually started to accept them.

  Sitting up, she took a gulp of her drink then got up and padded around to the bathroom. Pulling off her nightclothes, she jumped into the shower and enjoyed the soothing feeling of water hammering against her skin.

  Getting used to Gentle Water being in the house had been interesting. She’d been so used to living alone both in her New York apartment and now here, that she would often walk about either nude or just in her underwear, such as from the shower. She’d only forgotten herself once and probably given Gentle Water something of an eyeful as she stepped out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel on her head. He’d been so quiet that morning that she’d forgotten he was living with her.

  She apologised, of course, but he’d laughed it off.

  Finishing up, she reached for the towel and once again felt sure that the thing had just leapt into her hand. Blinking the water out of her eyes, she frowned at it.

  This was getting silly.

  Exiting the shower, she dried herself and got dressed, pulling on a pair of cropped leggings and a sports top.

  A drink, a slice of toast, and two more instances of objects moving on their own later, and she was out the door, jogging up the slope towards the tree line.


  She soon made it through the woods to the clearing and wandered into the open space, spotting Gentle Water up ahead. As she walked towards him, something looked odd. His position on the ground looked a long way away and yet she knew he was closer than that. The perspective of the whole scene seemed off and wrong. She continued forward, and suddenly her brain made sense of what she was seeing. She stopped, frozen in place, struggling to fully comprehend what she was looking at.

  Gentle Water was sitting cross-legged and floating several feet off the ground.

  “What the feck?” she whispered.

  Gentle Water opened his eyes and looked at her. He smiled a warm, friendly smile that softened her shock. “Don’t be afraid. I explain everything,” he said as he put his feet down and stood.

  “What is going on?” she asked. “What are you?”

  Gentle Water smiled. “We are Magi,” he said, pronouncing the last word with a hard G so it sounded like Ma-Guy.

  “We?” Amanda asked.

  “That is right. You can use Magic. Real Magic. Not card tricks or stage magic, but real-life Magic.”

  “Feck off,” Amanda said. “That’s rubbish.”

  “I have seen you use it. I know you see things. I come here to find you, help you because you are Magi.”

  Again with that strange word, she thought. “Magic?”

  “You know what I speak of. You can move things with your mind. You see things. Like glowing mist, yes?”

  Amanda nodded. “Well, yeah, I suppose…”

  “Magic,” he said.

  “It’s just… I can’t believe it. It’s not possible. Magic can’t be…”

  “Real? But it is. Search inside your soul. Find truth. You know I right. I know what you have seen. I know about alley in New York. I know about attack there. You are Magi, Amanda. So am I. Let me show you.”

  There was a brief rush of air and a flash of light behind her eyelids as she felt something, some kind of energy surge within her. A simultaneous rush of dislocation and the feeling that up was down briefly made Amanda crouch, scared that she was about to tip over, but the sensation was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, and suddenly they were on top of one of the turrets of Edinburgh Castle.