The boy’s eyes widened in astonishment, as he sat up and wriggled to the far end of the sofa to be further away from Soone. “You’re an elf!”
“True enough. What gave it away? The big ears or the gray skin and fewer fingers? Or perhaps my fashionable green wardrobe? And you’re a human. My name is Soone. Who are you?”
“I’m Ben King. Elves aren't supposed to be real.”
“And humans aren't supposed to be real here either. I can't properly assess your condition. Are you injured, Ben King?”
“No. Why should I be . . .” His voice trailed off as fear and terror replaced astonishment. He looked around the room, searching. “Mom? Dad?” he called out. He ran about the cabin, calling for them, and then exited the cabin to do more of the same outside.
Soone could hear but not otherwise sense the boy running about outside, desperately searching for his parents as he called out their names. He tried to teleport the boy back to his cabin but failed miserably; all attempted spells to move the boy slid off him! The best he could do was to create a strong temporary masking spell completely around the boy so he wouldn’t be casually seen or heard by other elves, even though he seldom had visitors. He also masked some of the cookies from Sky to save them for the boy, for the sprite had retreated to the kitchen and was gobbling down cookies as fast as she could, which was fast indeed, for she had no need to chew them.
Finally, his eyes full of tears, the boy returned to the cabin to confront the elf. “I can’t sense them at all! I can’t sense anything anymore! What’s wrong with me? Where are Mom and Dad, please? What attacked us and where am I? And what is that blue thing?” He pointed at Sky, who had finished off all non-masked cookies in the kitchen and returned to the front room with a full round belly to stare curiously at the boy with her huge colorful eyes.
Soone shook his head sadly. “You won’t like most of my answers, young Ben King, what few that I have.”
****
CHAPTER 1
Homecoming
“Who is that?” Ann quietly asked her twin brother Mark, as the teens watched the large rental truck park in front of the house next door. “They can’t mean to move in there! That’s the King house!”
“It used to be, eight years ago. The Kings are gone forever. Get used to it, Sis.”
“Ben isn’t dead, I know he isn’t.”
“You’re the only one in Hope that believes he isn’t.”
“I’m the only one who knows he isn’t. Belief has nothing to do with it.”
Mark shrugged but did not bother to argue further. For eight years his twin sister had insisted that Ben still lived, evidence and Hope Wizard Council findings to the contrary.
True, after the powerful unnatural storm eight years earlier Ben’s body and those of his parents had never been found, but the Council logically concluded that they had all perished by means of magical misadventure. In the woods behind their home they had somehow evoked tremendous primal energies of Wild Magic that had gotten completely out of their control, killed them all, and completely obliterated their remains and the surrounding forest.
They weren’t the first and they probably wouldn’t be the last Wizards to die in such a manner. That’s why Hope existed, to protect and train Wizards and prevent such careless things from happening. Magic energies could be highly dangerous, especially Wild Magic. However, Hope training to prevent tragic magic misadventures didn’t always take. People were by nature curious, ambitious, and adventurous, sometimes to the point of getting themselves killed. The Kings were a case in point. The story of their untimely demise had become a cautionary tale that was now a part of the education of every young Hope citizen.
“Who’s that?” Ann asked again.
From the truck driver’s seat a tall, slim, dark haired, very light-skinned young looking woman emerged. She wore tight-fitting blue jeans that showed off her curves, a long sleeved black shirt, black gloves, black baseball-cap, and over-sized dark glasses, though the morning was mostly overcast and it was well over eighty degrees outside and uncomfortably humid.
“She’s not a Wizard or Norm, she's a vamp!” Mark exclaimed.
“Well dah! Of course she is,” Ann said. “Hope is at least five percent vampire, you know that! She’s alone, but she can’t be the only one moving in. She has to get invited to enter the house.”
"That's just Norm superstition," said Mark. "Dad says it's a Hope cultural norm that the Norm public at-large believes is a strict rule, but vampires don't really have to follow it, especially if they are of the Unaligned and don't follow normal Hope customs."
"Well if she was Unaligned she wouldn't have gotten that rental truck through the front gates to enter Hope, would she?" countered Ann.
The woman turned and looked directly towards the teens, smiled, and waved at them. “Good morning!” she announced loudly.
“Good morning!” Ann replied aloud in kind.
“You dummy!” Mark whispered to his sister in exasperation, as he pulled her away and towards home. “She didn’t see us or feel our presence you know; we’re cloaked so good that even Mom and Dad couldn’t detect us, at least not casually. She must have simply heard us talking quietly from thirty meters away, using her ultra-sharp vamp hearing. But you revealed yourself to her anyway, and broke the First Rule!”
“Did not!" Ann countered with whispers. "She is a vamp, we can both sense that fact, and she is obviously moving into Hope, so she’s not one of the Unaligned. So the First Rule doesn’t enter into it, does it? Anyway, we’re breaking rules already by cloaking ourselves while not being properly hidden and warded.”
“Which is why we aren’t supposed to be talking to folks!" Mark said. "She could turn us in for doing public cloaking!”
“Not if she’s Unaligned like you think she is. But she isn’t!”
“Wonderful logic, Sis. So if she’s an Unaligned outsider we broke the First Rule, but if she isn’t, she’ll report us for cloaking. Either way we’re in big trouble, and Evaluations are in only two days! What happens if we get banned from Evaluations? We could be put into classes for Norms or barred from school altogether!”
They dropped their cloaking as they stepped into their home, a large well-kept brick-faced Colonel house that reflected the high position of their parents in Hope society as Council Wizards.
“You broke rules and have news,” stated their father Red Eric, from within his study. "Come here!"
The red-headed twins exchanged knowing glances before entering their father’s favorite room. Reported to town officials or not, their father's stern tone of voice indicated that they were already in trouble!
In the study their father, a short but massive red haired man, sat behind a large computer screen, which he turned off when his children entered. He didn’t look much like a Master Wizard, except for perhaps the flamboyant bushy red mustache. With his out-sized shoulders and arms and wild red hair he looked perhaps more like an unusually short and muscular Viking warrior.
Red Eric spun around in his chair to face them and had to force himself from smiling, he was so proud of his twins and so very happy every time he saw them! They were growing up so fast! Both were already nearly as tall as him, though that was no great feat. They were both certainly highly gifted in magic powers, particularly Ann. Someday she would be a Master Wizard, of that he was quite certain. Much more important, they were good, sensitive, honest people. However they were teenagers and starting to push against parental authority, especially Mark. “You both know the rules about performing magic openly,” he stated firmly.
Ann and Mark exchanged worried glances.
“Cloaking outside again were you?” their father asked.
Ann and Mark’s faces registered surprise. How could he know? He shouldn’t have known, but then of course, he was a Master Wizard.
“I happened to look out the window just now and didn’t see anyone but I heard your voices. Seconds later, you both came through the front door arguing. Maybe I cou
ldn’t otherwise sense you outside but I can still use my eyesight, ears, and brains. And right now I sense that you’re so excited with news of some sort that you’re both about to burst.”
“We confess,” said Mark. “We cloaked outside.”
“I revealed myself to a stranger while cloaked,” Ann added.
“She only returned a 'good morning' greeting to someone who couldn’t have been an outsider anyway,” said Mark, in defense of his sister. “And cloaking outside was my idea in the first place; I talked Ann into it.”
Eric wasn’t surprised at that part of it. Mark was the usual suspect for any mischief. Nor was he surprised that Mark was trying to take most of the blame himself in defense of his sister. “Who witnessed your transgression?”
“A vamp,” said Mark.
“The vampire that’s apparently moving into the King place next door,” added Ann. “A stranger to Hope, maybe. We never saw her before.”
That news caused Eric’s red bushy eyebrows to rise. “Now that IS news. Tell me all.”
The twins excitedly told him about their brief vampire encounter.
Eric shook his head when they had finished. “I’ll have to check it out. There shouldn’t be anyone moving in; the King house isn’t set to be confiscated and auctioned off until next month, after seven full years have elapsed without occupancy.”
“Maybe it's Ben,” said Ann.
Eric gave his daughter a quick hug. “I wish that could happen too, Pumpkin, but you know he’s gone forever.”
“People keep saying that, Daddy, but it isn’t so. He’s alive somewhere, I know it! I feel he is alive and now near, more near now than I’ve felt since the day he disappeared!”
Eric shook his head. “Don’t you worry; I’ll go see who it is. In the meantime the two of you have permission to practice all of your powers in the family rec-room downstairs. I know that’s not as exciting as doing it outside, but the basement is the strongest warded part of the house.”
“Cool,” said Mark, with a grin.
“But it’s still breaking the law,” pointed out Ann. “Only official Wizards can do magic outside of warded school practice areas; we need to pass Evaluations and be officially training as Apprentice Wizards first.”
“But we have to practice for Evaluations someplace!” argued Mark. “Since school let out for summer we haven’t had much opportunity.”
“True on all counts,” agreed their father. “Technically your practicing magic is breaking the letter of the law, but it’s being done in every household in Hope; or at least all those with kids undergoing Evaluation at the start of school. In truth not even the Council cares, as long as the practicing is discrete. You and every other kid with powers sneaks in some practice in the woods and so forth, I’ll wager, but you need someplace you can relax and focus. Relax and focus in our basement. Help each other like I’ve taught you and stay in the house, and you should do fine at Evaluations.”
“Some of us don’t really need to practice,” Ann said smugly.
Mark rolled his eyes. “And some of us aren’t naturals like you. Come on Sis, you can at least help me! I want placement as an Apprentice Wizard too! I can't imagine being stuck in classes with all Norms.”
"Untrue!" said Ann. "Most classes will be mixed just as they were for grades one through eight, and some of our best friends are Norms!"
"That better not be bigotry that I just heard, young man," said Eric.
Mark shrugged and headed for the basement family room, with Ann following close behind.
Meanwhile Red Eric, Master Wizard, walked outside and next door with caution. A vampire moving into the King house made no sense whatsoever. First, any vampire would know what Hope was and that an Unaligned vampire would not be tolerated. Second, the King house was still technically owned by the King’s old friend Moco the werewolf until next month, and for her to use it Moco would by custom and law have to personally grant her admittance to the house.
But that could never happen! John ‘Moco’ Richards had abandoned the house and forfeited his right to live there or anywhere in Hope when he moved away to live among the Unaligned almost seven years ago. It was nearly inconceivable that the Wolf would return. Nearly. But then again, Moco was Moco: a very strong-willed alpha male werewolf.
Eric reckoned that the vampire woman would probably be sitting in the truck, unable to enter the house since there was nobody with the keys to let her in, and needing a shady place out of the sun to stay. In that case he would politely ask her to leave. The alternative was that he would find that Moco had returned with her and he would kindly advise them both to leave. Without a full Wizard or a plausible student-Wizard in the house to sponsor them they couldn’t legally stay in Hope.
Rounding the patch of bushes and trees that had been blocking his view of the King house, Eric noticed that in addition to the truck the kids had mentioned, an old green jeep was now parked in the driveway. He recognized the jeep immediately, and therefore wasn’t surprised to next see a massive hairy man carry a huge reclining chair from the truck towards the house. The big chair, which was made of leather-covered wood that was shredded nearly to bits as if it were a tiger’s favorite scratching post, was carried with one hand, almost as though it were weightless. The Wizard recognized both the ragged chair and the rugged man.
“Red Eric!” Moco rumbled, in more joyful a tone than Eric had ever heard from the Wolf before, as he put the chair down gently and rushed to meet the Wizard with a too-firm handshake. Eric managed to augment his strength with much of his powers to save his hand from being crushed outright. “I heard you’re a Master Wizard now, and on the Council! Both you and Elizabeth! Much as I detest the Hope Council it's great to see at least a few good people are a part of it!”
Except for a few new gray hairs among the black, the big wolf-man hadn’t changed a bit in seven years Eric noted, but then werewolves aged very slowly. “All very true. This is totally unexpected, my old friend! Very much unexpected and unprecedented, I’m afraid, if you catch my meaning.”
Eric was next going to inquire of the big man-wolf by what right he had returned, but at that moment the front door of the King house opened and two others emerged, a tall, dark haired, pasty skinned, over-dressed for summer, slim but shapely woman, obviously the attractive vampire woman mentioned by the kids, and a teenage boy. The woman was at least a century old, Eric sensed, though she looked no more than thirty. Her eyes had the vacant look of the dead, but the Wizard could empathically sense no overt hatred in her. Vampires and wolves, like Wizards, were rarely antagonistic. He wasn't surprised to sense that she was in turn strongly probing him empathically. She was after all a vamp.
“My wife Amanda, Wizard,” said the still beaming Moco. “And you know the young man already.”
Astonishingly, Eric could read absolutely nothing of the boy except his visual appearance; obviously he was incredibly cloaked. More astonishing yet, the boy had the black hair and facial features of both Greg and Elaine King!
The boy stopped in his tracks and stared open mouthed at Eric before smiling and walking up to him to also shake his hand firmly. “Mr. Tuttle! It is so very good to see you again, sir!”
“Ben? Ben King? Is it really you? By damn it is!” He pulled the boy to him and hugged him tightly. “Ann always said that you were still alive! But how? What’s going on here?”
“Let’s you and my wife go inside and talk about it, Eric,” suggested Moco. “I’m in no particular hurry to make our return public knowledge, though that’s bound to happen pretty darn quickly in this town full of nosey telepathic Wizards. Ben can help finish the moving if he wants, or look around the old place some more. After all, it is his property. He and I filed the legal paperwork a few minutes ago at City Hall. It's a good thing that Ben's finger-prints were still on file! Raised a few eyebrows, we did!”
“I bet you did!” Eric shook hands with the attractive vampire and followed her and the Wolf inside, leaving Ben standing alone i
n front of the King house, staring at it.
Ben’s head spun as he surveyed the house. Though he and Moco had planned their return for years, the teenager was overwhelmed by the actual experience. From the perspective of a fourteen-year old the house now seemed much smaller, but it still felt more like home than anyplace he had been these last eight years. Here he had lived with his loving parents for his first six years, but very near here they had also been brutally murdered. Unbidden, his eyes formed tears that ran down his cheeks.
Ben decided that there were more important things to do right now than finish unloading the truck. Besides, a rendezvous with an old friend was scheduled to occur soon. He walked around to the back of the house and slipped into hauntingly familiar forest.
****
Half an hour later Eric had just returned to his own home when his wife arrived. Of average height and therefore merely a head taller than her husband, Elizabeth’s red hair matched that of Eric and their children. Mutually red hair was one of the many things that had drawn the couple together. She found her usually calm and subdued husband pacing in the living room, clearly very worked up over something.
“Did we win the state lottery?” she asked.
“More improbable than that by far, my love! Guess who’s coming to dinner tonight?”
“You invited dinner guests without consulting with me?” Her tone reflected more surprise and amusement than anger.
“We have new neighbors; or rather, mostly we have older old neighbors.”
“What on Earth are you talking about? Is someone we know planning to buy the King house at auction?”
“No, they already own the King place.”
Her jaw dropped open in surprise. “Moco is back? That’s illegal. When he left for all those years he abandoned any rights to be here! I don't know how the Wolf weaseled his way past the gate keepers, but the Wizard Council will boot him out! With prejudice!”
Apprentice Wizards of Hope Page 3