Alex and the others remained in silence, absently watching the television, until the squad of police had gone, their cars disappearing from the road outside. The detective was the last to leave, poking her head into the room, a look of displeasure on her face.
“I have informed your parents, Natalie,” she said. “There will be a flight booked tomorrow afternoon, with your name on it. You too, Ellabell, though we couldn’t get through to the number you gave us. Please, try not to go missing again before then, okay? They are worried sick,” she added, her tone spiky.
Natalie nodded. “Thank you, Detective. I won’t.”
With that, the woman turned on her heel and left, giving the door a good slam on the way out. It was evident she felt like Alex and Natalie had wasted her time, and had no doubt been off gallivanting somewhere, having the time of their lives, giving little thought to their families at home. Even from the interview, Alex could tell the detective hadn’t believed a word of their story, but what she had said was true—if they were going to lie, what else could the police do?
“I’m just going to go down to the station, see if I can help with any paperwork,” David said, rising from the sofa, a suspicious look in his eyes. “Let me know if you want me to pick up anything on my way home,” he added before disappearing out the door.
At last, the trio was alone with Alex’s mother.
She looked at them expectantly. “Well, where have you been then, if it wasn’t Alaska?”
Alex smiled, inhaling deeply, as he began his tale. Natalie and Ellabell chipped in bits and pieces along the way, though some of the things he said surprised even them. After all, they hadn’t both been around for everything he’d been through in the magical realm. Ellabell blushed when he mentioned her, and how they had met, but Alex’s mom seemed thrilled by the prospect of a new love interest for her son.
“And so beautiful too!” she chirped excitedly, smiling at Ellabell.
“She is very beautiful,” he agreed, embarrassing Ellabell even more. “Now, where was I?” he asked, before continuing with his story, running through the months he’d spent at Spellshadow, followed by their escape into the domain of Stillwater House. Running back a step, he told her all about Elias, and how the shadow-man had helped, in his own kind of way, from day one, before switching to the journey they had gone through with Helena. He explained what happened with Alypia, and all the things they had endured at the villa. He pressed on, recounting how they had escaped to a fearsome prison named Kingstone Keep, full of psychopaths and murderers. She didn’t like that part, a gasp of horror rising from her throat, but she was too enthralled to interrupt. He spoke of Caius, and how things had ended horribly for him, despite his best intentions, leading them to move swiftly into the world of Falleaf and through the gauntlet to obtain the Book of Jupiter. Ignoring another gasp from his mother’s lips, he spoke to her of the kind soul, Hadrian, they had met there, and how they had come to meet the people of Starcross. Finally, he told her all about Julius and the final battle, though he left out the part about his sacrifice, and how he’d spent a short while in recovery afterward, not wanting to worry her too much.
“And that is about it,” Ellabell said, finishing the story for him.
Alex’s mom sat back, absorbing all the information she had been bombarded with. For what seemed like an age, Alex was certain she was going to sit up and scold him for making things up, but then her expression changed from dubious to understanding.
“I knew you were alive,” she said softly. “I just knew you were out there somewhere, watching over me. I knew you hadn’t been kidnapped or killed and dumped in a ditch somewhere—they tried to tell me, but I knew I was right. It’s funny, sometimes it did feel as if you were walking in another plane of existence, looking down… and I suppose, in a way, you were.”
“Wait, you believe me?” Alex asked, dumbfounded.
She nodded. “You forget, Alex, you’re my son. I know you. If you wanted to lie, you would have come up with something far simpler,” she explained, a faint smile lifting the corners of her lips. A chuckle began in the back of her throat, growing louder and more infectious as it took hold of her body, shaking her shoulders, making her eyes stream with happy tears.
The others laughed with her, getting rid of all the bad energy that had built up inside them, for so long. It was good to laugh.
But, more than that, it was good to be home.
Epilogue
After that day at the house, Natalie and Ellabell had boarded their flights the following afternoon, the trio sharing a tearful farewell at the airport. Ellabell and Alex had stolen a private moment together, taking the opportunity to have one last kiss, before everything changed forever.
Alex had waved them off, returning to his home, with no idea what the future would hold. His mom had given Ellabell an open invitation to return whenever she wanted, and Ellabell had promised to keep her to that, but he didn’t know how long it would be until he saw her again. Natalie, too.
In fact, after returning home to find her parents away on business, with a message on the answering machine to say they’d heard she was back but they couldn’t be there to greet her, Ellabell realized she no longer felt like herself in the home she’d grown up in. Alex heard about it straightaway, as Ellabell called him as soon as she heard the message to tell him how lonely she felt in the big, empty house, and what had happened when she got back. Her parents had said they had just presumed she’d run away to do the things some teenagers did, and only realized it was something else when the police called. Still, they said they couldn’t come home just yet, promising to return when they’d finished their business trips. Saddened by their absence, and the thought of continuing to flit about the empty home, Ellabell had written her parents a note and boarded the next plane to Iowa, less than a week later. With her return, Alex’s life truly did change forever.
It felt like five years had passed in the blink of an eye, as the group gathered together again at Stillwater House. A reunion was afoot, in celebration of Alex and Ellabell’s engagement. Much had changed, but the six friends remained as solid as they ever had been, regularly seeing one another, and keeping in touch through letters with those they couldn’t see as often.
Clinking glasses around the table that had been set up on the sparkling banks of the Stillwater lake, they toasted the happy couple, who kissed beneath the stars.
After realizing, in those first few months back in the real world, that it wasn’t for him, Alex had returned to the magical realm to take on the role of Spellbreaker teacher at Stillwater House. He explained to his mother where he was going, and though he went back home most weekends to make sure she was okay, his mother loved to visit the villa when the impulse took her. From time to time, he returned to Spellshadow to check on the colony of Thunderbirds that had settled there. They were thriving in the ruins of the manor, which had crumbled into dereliction without anyone to take care of it, and been reclaimed by nature. Alex trained a select few mages on how to ride the winged beasts, wanting to keep Storm’s legacy alive, even if there were no more Spellbreakers to uphold it.
Helena had taken up the mantle of Headmistress, in her mother’s stead, and had turned the place into a wonderful center for learning, producing some of the magical realm’s best and brightest mages, who never had to fear death at the end of their education. It was remarkable what she had done with the place, and they often had intercollegiate matches and competitions with Falleaf, to see who would come out on top. It was always friendly, and it was nice to see the arena being used for good, instead of evil.
Natalie returned from France shortly after her first visit back to the real world. Her family had believed the amnesia tale, but they had been a little reluctant to let her go and “study abroad,” which was what she had told them she was going to do. However, being the headstrong young woman that she was, she went anyway, though she kept in touch frequently, having to duck out of the magical world in order to call them. Th
ey’d gotten over the shock of it after the first year, knowing that she was safe and thriving.
Aamir and Jari remained in the outside world, both of them heading to Harvard to study engineering, where they shared a dorm for the second time in their lives. Aamir had never quite recovered from the mist that attacked him; his magic was always weaker after that, whenever he dared to try it, but in the real world he didn’t need it. Despite that, he visited the others often, usually with Jari by his side. Jari had simply never desired to come back to the magical world. He enjoyed his powers, but the realm still left a sour taste in his mouth. Alex could understand that, and though it was sad not to see more of his former dormmates, he was glad they were happy, out there, doing their own thing. By all accounts, Jari had been quite the hit with the ladies when they reached college, though Aamir had often had to rein him in when it came to wooing them. Even at college, a room full of kittens was too much—and way too expensive when they couldn’t be conjured out of thin air.
Ellabell, who was excitedly showing her sparkling engagement ring to Natalie, had taken an entirely different path. Knowing there might be young people out there, harboring magical powers, she had decided to take on the role of a kind of voluntary Finder, seeking out new recruits who might want to be taught in the ways of magic. Each time, she would lead them to the border between worlds, where she would make her pitch. Either Alex or Demeter usually went with her, so they could erase the memory of the potential student if they decided not to take up the offer. After all, they still wanted to keep the magical world a secret. Such a rare and wonderful knowledge would boggle the mind of an ordinary human being, and they didn’t want that on their consciences. If the student accepted, a scholarship letter was sent out, inviting the young person to study at a private boarding school for talented students, to ensure the parents didn’t worry. The parents were even invited along to visit, though Demeter and Alex usually stepped in at the pickup to make them believe they were traveling to somewhere else in the country, rather than a different realm. In just under five years, they hadn’t had a single slipup—a statistic the pair of them were hugely proud of, much to Ellabell’s amusement.
The friends talked long into the night, sitting around that table by the shore, discussing the memories that had brought them to this point. They talked of each other’s current lives, and how each of them had been shaped by the events they had endured. More than that, they talked about their friendship, and how it would live long into the future. An engagement brought people together, and it had certainly brought them all back to one another.
The path to get there had been a long, hard, brutal road, with so much loss and suffering along the way. Whenever they met at Christmas and Thanksgiving, they said a prayer for those who were no longer with them, wishing they could be. But there had been good times too, and with every year that passed, the bad faded, and the good pushed its way to the front.
Just as nature reclaimed beauty from dereliction, so life sprang from hardship… and love conquered all.
The End.
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for following Alex’s journey through to the end. It means a lot to me, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed the conclusion.
Love,
Bella
P.S. Turn the page for a list of my other Young Adult stories.
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Read more by Bella Forrest
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The Keep (Book 4)
The Test (Book 5)
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A SHADE OF DRAGON TRILOGY
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For an updated list of Bella’s books, please visit her website: www.bellaforrest.net
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The Secret of Spellshadow Manor 6: The Spell Page 29