“That’s why I had my fair share of hopes that you and Trevor might some day become an item—since he came from a powerful and respected line of sorcerers. I was sure that he would make a fine addition to the family—knowing him.”
“But I never told you that I had a fanciful girl crush on him since sixth grade at the Academy, but I never got the courage to ask him out on a date or anything. That’s why I didn’t pursue the matter much.” Tillie said softly.
Alicia nodded—the truth hitting close to him.
“Because you didn’t think he was the right guy for you?”
Her daughter chuckled then.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong: He’s got it when it comes to looks and stuff. A real dream boat to be sure. But he’s too…what’s the word I’m looking for—? Flamboyant for my tastes.”
“So he was just another pretty boy that you didn’t want to be tied down with.”
Tillie nodded. “I’m sure if we had sex, it would be over the moon, but—?”
“You wanted someone more close to home. Closer to your heart’s desires.”
“The right soul mate, mom. Just like it was with you and dad—before he was killed in the riots.”
“So how do you know it’s Charlie and not Trevor?”
“Charlie’s nice and not overbearing. Not pushy or demanding like Trevor is sometimes—not that I minded—it’s just…?”
Alicia nodded slowly. “He wasn’t right for you—is what you’re saying.”
“Charlie’s…well, he’s open and nice—”
“—you already said that—”
Tillie snorted dismissively. “Mom…”
Her mother relented some.
“Okay, okay. I can see Charlie made a definite impression on you. But may I ask you a question in return? As a concerned mother would?”
“Sure. Shoot. Today’s the day for it.”
“How does he feel about you?”
Tillie shrugged. “I dunno. I haven’t had the time to ask him since he rescued me from the ’bots that were trying to turn me to ash on the pavement last night.”
“Gen Ones?”
“A couple. But Charlie took one out with an RPG launcher. I didn’t see how he dispatched the second one. I had my eyes shut for that one. And I was playing dead at the same time, so no joy on that front.”
Alicia nodded, the worry leaving her face for a bit. At least it wasn’t anything serious. But she had often been amazed by how quickly her daughter was “smitten” with every boy she met over the years or an older guy friend who stopped by to pay her and her late husband a visit.
Love so fleeting…she mused to herself—trying to figure out why she didn’t have an equally easier time finding love and falling in love and keeping it close to her heart?
Especially with her late husband?
Or maybe it had something to do with her latent witch’s powers which came into being after she turned ten years old? That bit of a mystery never left her for the next six years as she watched her only daughter get stronger in the magical arts and her power only increased in the days ahead.
It was a thing to behold—having control over the storms and the elements and anything mechanical not nailed down. A true sorceress in her own right—even though she was just a child.
So where did the power come from in one so young? Her mother questioned silently for the millionth time in as many months.
Where?
“Mom? You there?” Tillie called out to her gently—shaking her a little in return.
Alicia nodded—gratefully for the sudden intrusion—and smiled just the same.
“Sorry, sweetie. I was just…remembering some things.”
“Good things?”
“Well, that remains to be seen. But I am sorry if I sound like I’m questioning you and your choices for personal relationships. I’ve just had a lot of bad experiences over the years since before you were even born. I worry about you a lot. More than I should. I know you’re growing up. I know you’re getting stronger as a witch with each passing day, but—”
“—is that what you’re worried about? That I will somehow turn out like Greta Freeman did in the end?”
Her mother shook her head, not wanting to think about the ramifications to that memory. And incident.
“No, honey. I’m not. I’m just—”
Tillie leaned over to hug her mother on the chair—still cushioned by her cloak and cowl.
“I’m not going to ever become like her. That woman was drunk on power. 100%. She reveled in her skills and her abilities and saw her only way up the chain of command from being a High Witch to being High Sorcerer. She let her own delusions and greed destroy her in the end. I can promise you…that won’t happen to me.”
Alicia nodded—shuddering just a bit. “But honey…she was so…powerful. Like you in your youth. But only her in the prime of her years. I just get worried when you do these…things with your spell incantations that I have never seen with another natural born magical familiar or even a witch. Not even your father—”
“—dad knew, mom. He knew. That’s who has been training me to keep a lock on my power levels. We were supposed to go another round when…he was killed two weeks ago. Out beyond the docks. The old oil rig that still floats in Grays Harbor.”
“That’s been your training ground? All this time?” Alicia echoed with genuine surprise.
“For the better part of the past couple of years—yeah.” Tillie admitted freely and out in the open.
“Even during—?”
“The storm season. Especially when a late season hurricane came blowing through. Dad thought that would be extra special training for me—to see how I could handle a bout with Mother Nature.”
“Did you win?”
“Not completely. No. The winds were much stronger than I realized. But I managed to eke out a modest victory.”
“I swear…” the woman mulled, shaking her head in disbelief and leftover anger at her late husband. “What was Arnold even thinking about—bringing you out there during such an event?”
“For training, mom. That’s what the Academy has been teaching me—remember? All magical familiars by law are supposed to be enrolled upon the first indication of magical ability. That’s why you always thought I was human until that unspoken moment. Then you saw what my magical aura was like—remember? How powerful it resonated with the elements? And around machinery?”
Her mother nodded. “I remember. You doused yourself with rain when you got overexcited with the prospect. Then you made that old crank lever move on its own—through your magic—even though you hadn’t mastered any incantations yet.”
“You told me then I was special.”
“Yes, I know. I remember that. But I just…naturally assumed your abilities were more potent as someone who just awoken in their gifts as a magical familiar. I never once thought to research any other possibility because—the same thing happened to me. But when I was eighteen. My mother positively freaked out over that revelation.”
Tillie giggled.
“You did no less. You looked like you were going to go nuclear when I showed you what I could do that one night—alone—without dad in the picture.” Then she got serious for a moment.
“I’m sorry if I scared you. That wasn’t my intent.”
Alicia returned the late hug that her daughter gave her.
“I wasn’t scared then as I am now, sweetie. I almost lost you to the chaos that was going on in the city. But here you are—in the company of new friends and potential allies in the fight against the Regency Council and the Supreme Chancellor. And you’ve acted more grown up in the years than I have ever known you.”
Tillie nodded somberly. “I just…want you to be proud of me, mom. That’s all I will ever ask of you.”
“Oh, you’ve made me more than proud of you, sweetie. You’ve accomplished so much in a short amount of time. And I think the world needs you more now than ever before.”
Til
lie grinned impishly. “Does that mean I am a High Witch now?”
Her mother laughed.
“Don’t get your hopes up. There’s a lot that goes into being a High Witch. Ask Sarah over there what it entails sometime. She’ll tell you.”
“Why don’t you fill me in on some of the particulars over breakfast?” The girl proposed—just as a quiet knock on the door interrupted their ongoing discussion.
Sarah perked up. “There’s breakfast?” She echoed with growing hope.
“Yup.” The girl confirmed easily—going over to answer whomever was there.
It was the male attendant. With a lunch cart and four trays of food, two bowls of fruit and a stack of glasses with a pitcher of ice lemonade in tow.
“Room service,” he said with a pleasant smile of his own.
“Perfect!” Tillie squealed, clapping her hands. “I called it right on the money!”
The attendant laughed in that moment, before taking the first trays and entering the room—placing each on the table in front of Sarah.
Sarah could only stare at what was in front of her like a dream come true.
“Gods…” she breathed in wonder. “I haven’t eaten anything in the past couple of days. Is this…for me?”
“Any tray is yours. You can eat to your heart’s content. It’s on the house. Old Man Felix’s orders.” The attendant said, before going back out for the rest.
Tillie made room for more trays while her mother took the chair she was sitting in and parked it next to the bay window looking out into the empty parking lot across the way.
“I’m starving actually.” Alicia said in a most conversational tone of voice. “Blowing that hole into the wall of the northern tunnel all but tapped me out.”
“That’s because you were running for most of the way. You over did it—again.”
Tillie snagged an orange from the incoming bowl of fruit and bit into it. Then she started to peel it slowly.
“Mom’s been known to do it more often than I can count.” She revealed to the table at large. “I’m not surprised that she would go nuclear this time either.”
“That’s because I already told Sarah here that I could sense a magical aura nearby. Yours to be precise. That’s why I was in such a blasted hurry.”
“Blast being the operative word here,” her friend opined with a bit of humor. “I think my hair is still caked in rock debris and bits of shattered concrete.”
Alicia looked. “It’ll wash out. Now, let’s eat. We still have some unfinished business to attend to.”
Tillie couldn’t argue with that logic. Not if she had any hope—or chance—of seeing Charlie again. The thought of him sent her already overworked imagination into orbit and she had to remember that she just met him only the other day through chance and fate.
Try telling that to her dreams though. The ones where Charlie and her were—
But then her mom asked her a direct question then—cutting into her most private thoughts; forcing her to abort quickly just to save face.
Oh well.
There would be other times…
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bitter Memories
The meeting with Old Man Felix was a bit delayed on the account of the new arrivals and breakfast. Add to the fact that all affected parties involved had to be there in order to give some kind of cloak and dagger deposition that was recorded on one-time memory thumb drives which could never be altered or destroyed.
Paper records were heavily discouraged from being used because of the immediate living environment and rats or other vermin.
But even still…
It gave Tillie a chance to see Charlie again—though he looked like he had just finished a marathon and was about to fall asleep on his feet.
The elderly gentlemen at the conference table took in the new arrivals as they were escorted to the front bench of what used to be an old court house from years ago—but later converted into a meeting hall.
Like her mother and her friend, Tillie was amazed by the simple ingenuity of the operation. Of something this grand in scope and large. Clearly this was no two bit front with just a handful of people.
From the old charts and maps that were tacked on faded bulletin boards and cork boards outside the room, the teen girl could see that this had been going on for far longer than anyone in her immediate family had been alive.
The elderly gentlemen nodded to Charlie—who looked relieved at being able to go.
“Get some sleep. You’re next shift won’t be until the day after tomorrow. So you’re free until then.” He was being told. The older boy nodded, his eyes clearly bloodshot from where Tillie was standing, but she made no effort to move or block his pathway.
“I’ll see you later,” she heard him say softly—causing her ears to go pink. Then he left and only three other people besides them were still in attendance.
Alicia and Sarah continued to look around—even after they were seated—but neither chose to say anything of substance or value. Not while the ongoing discussion was still in play.
And that ended exactly seven and a half minutes later after they had come in.
The remaining party picked up their manila folders and clipboards and left the conference table where it was at. Chairs too.
Tillie started to fidget a bit before her mother put a calming hand on her knee.
That worked for a spell, before the girl started to notice that she was beginning to sweat a bit from the stifling heat inside the conference room.
The elderly gentlemen rose from his seat that moment and moved over to a small panel and made some adjustments to the ambient temperature in the room.
Things started to cool down a tad as the sweat running down her back went to ice and now she itched like crazy.
Gods…she breathed in mild annoyance, thinking that the world had it out for them in that instant.
Hard not to—considering the role humanity played in the run up to the last Great War and the fallout afterwards.
“Give me another minute, ladies and I’ll be with you in a moment. I’m just writing down today’s little incident report compiled from three different sources. It’s a bit more time consuming than you can imagine.”
Alicia nodded. So did Sarah Winters.
And that left…?
Tillie Gunderson.
“So…are you the boss around these parts? The head of the Resistance? The leader of the Underground?”
The elderly man looked up from his paperwork and shook his head.
“No, no, and definitely not.” He returned evenly.
“But everyone says that you are in charge here?”
“Only for Level One. I still have to answer to a higher power in any respect. That’s why you’re sudden…arrival surprised us. We weren’t expecting any magical familiars to pop up in our general neighborhood—having believed the majority had been wiped out by the army’s brutal incursion from the night before.”
Tillie scowled a bit. “More like an invasion.”
The old man nodded. “Technically speaking…? You’re not too far off base, young lady.” He said as he continued to make last minute notes in the margins of his open folder.
Then he set the pen down and closed the folder. After doing that, he reached down on a chair open to him and pulled out a mini-cam and set the boxy looking device on top of the table with a noticeable thumping noise.
Turning it around, he aimed the lens towards his new arrivals and then pressed the button on top of the device and a small red light started blinking.
“Okay…for the record please. State your names and places of residence.”
Sarah Winters looked at her friend for a moment—whom nodded.
In a clear voice, she recited her name and residency.
“Good. Good.” The old man said with quiet approval. “You’re next, Miss.”
Tillie looked at her mother whom looked back at the old man in question.
“I’m her mother,” she
said—reciting both their names for the record and place of residence.
“Excellent. That’s’ very good. Everything is recording perfectly so far.” The old man consoled the small party in question.
“What’s this for?” Tillie wanted to know. “Are we…in trouble?”
“Honey…” her mother interjected smoothly. “It’s not like that at all.”
The old man confirmed her mother’s statement with a warm smile of his own.
“No. You’re not in trouble, Miss. In fact, we should be the ones thanking you for coming to us.”
Alicia looked at him appraisingly for a moment, but held her tongue.
“How so?” Her daughter inquired impatiently.
The old man looked at both women in turn, but didn’t say anything for a whole second.
“Sweetie? That’s enough questions. Let the nice man do his work.” Alicia motioned with a free hand.
“That will come soon in a few minutes. I just need to work past the preliminaries here. It’s been many months since we had any magical familiars drop in unannounced. The last group was purely by accident.”
The teen girl perked up. “You mean those other entries in the hotel ledger?”
“Correct. They were refugees. Came in on a tramp steamer of all things. We made sure they had a home amongst us here on Level One.”
“How many levels are in this part of the underground city?”
“Six.” The old man revealed. “Now, onto other questions of grave importance. Keep in mind, some of them may be personal, so you may choose to answer those questions directly or have your mother submit them in written form. The choice is yours.”
Alicia glanced over at her daughter—seeing something of herself in her determined face.
“I think she’s old enough to make that decision on her own. With my blessing of course.” She vouched with pride.
“Mom?”
Alicia shushed her quietly. “Sweetie…it’s time you grew up just a little bit more in the here and now—especially in the now.”
“But I’m only sixteen!”
“Age has very little distinction around these parts,” the old man supplied helpfully. “Everyone—young or old—pitches in to the best of their ability. That’s how this city has prospered and thrived for so long.”
Generation Witch Year One Page 6