“I’ll come,” Claire said enthusiastically.
“Me too,” Harriett jumped in.
Good, Willow thought, as Claire slid her tall and gangly frame between Willow and Hugo and Harriett tagged onto Willow’s other side. Having them with her would make this tour that little bit easier.
As they walked down the corridor towards the stairs Willow couldn’t deny that school life was about to change – dramatically. On one side she had Claire, her relatively new friend, who had only moved to the area a year ago, vying for Hugo’s attention against Harriett, whom she had known since she was seven. And then there was Hugo, her long-time neighbour and childhood friend, upgraded to the status of ‘Helper’ and apparently a ‘heart-throb’ too. It was all too weird. She couldn’t stop thinking about how he had known the secret of the Sanctuary and their magic identities before she did! He would have known before he left for France, which was well over a year ago, and was why he had refused to give her any details about his new school. And now he was going to be her Helper and she had no say in it! Beings not even from Earth, it seemed, were making her life decisions for her.
Willow sped up suddenly, charging down the stairs and out towards the sports stadium.
“Hey, slow down,” Claire called, as she and the other two hurried after her. “What’s the rush?”
She slowed down a little, waiting for them to catch up.
“What’s up with you?” Claire asked in a low voice. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” Willow said through gritted teeth.
“Hardly!” Claire retorted.
“It’s nothing, really. I had a bad night’s sleep, that’s all.”
Claire gave Willow an offended look and resumed her position at Hugo’s side. She and Harriett hijacked the rest of the tour quite happily. After the stadium they looked through the doors of the new science labs that Mrs Guthrie was so proud of. The library was next. It had become Willow’s go-to place lately, where she could catch up on the homework she wasn’t getting through at home – the TriGamon was far more interesting and worthy of her evening study time. Wherever they went, girls glanced at Hugo and whispered things to each other that usually finished with a giggle. Willow moaned inside, but her ears pricked up when she heard Claire ask Hugo why he was coming to their school.
“Mum and Dad were a bit tired of travelling abroad most weekends,” Hugo told her.
“I know where I’d rather be. Anywhere abroad would be more interesting than here. France, wasn’t it?” Claire pressed.
“Yeah, one of those international schools – my parents thought it would be a good experience,” he said this as if a lie had never before passed his lips.
When the tour was over Claire and Harriett reluctantly departed for their next lesson while Willow escorted Hugo to the car park. They stood together on the gravel, watching several teachers drive in and briskly make their way towards the staff building. Hugo had his hands in his pockets and was kicking at stones, often raising his head to look out at the road, as if he couldn’t wait for his parents to arrive.
Willow took in a sharp breath. “Look – sorry for – sorry if I was rude earlier. I just don’t like everyone organising my life for me. It’s hard enough trying to adjust to this new world as it is.”
“I realise this has been sprung on you, but taking it out on me won’t help.” He raised his head and looked directly at her. “You’re not the only one to have something sprung on them. I was in the middle of my training when I left the Academy. I’m a trainee Helper – and you’re a – possible Light Keeper. For now, we’re stuck with each other. You don’t have to like it, but it makes it a hell of a lot easier if you just go along with it for now. And if you decide to wait until you’re older – I can go back to the Academy and you can forget all about me for a few years.”
A flash of heat rose to Willow’s cheeks. She had been so consumed by her own predicament that she hadn’t even given Hugo’s side of it a second thought. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“You can go now,” he said. “I just came in for the tour they all insisted on.” At the sound of a ping, Hugo pulled his phone out from his back pocket. “Dad’s on his way.”
“Okay.” Willow hesitated but Hugo had gone back to staring at the ground and kicking at the gravel. “Right. Bye then …” Feeling like a total idiot, she turned and left for her next class.
A Call for Help
Two days later, coming home from school, Willow stopped at the door to the kitchen.
Her parents were sitting around the table with John and Helen Babbington, and Hugo was there too. She hadn’t expected to see him again before the next school semester, especially given the way their last conversation had ended in the school car park. They all looked up at her with dark expressions on their faces.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Sit down, Willow.” Her mother pulled a chair out beside her.
“O-kay.” She glanced at her father as she dropped into the chair.
He smiled unconvincingly.
“The Keepers’ Council has been in touch again.”
“Yeah …? What did they want? Is everything okay?” She knew, of course, that everything was not okay. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. It wasn’t okay that the Protocol had changed or that the Light Stream was fading; it wasn’t okay when her parents said that only something “significant” could bring on her Awakening so young. For weeks now she had been wondering about long-held rules suddenly changing, and most recently about the fact that Hugo had had to leave his training because of her. Stuff like that only happened when things were not okay.
“They’ve called a Gathering. A situation has developed,” he said.
“What kind of situation?”
“Over the past twenty-four hours all Light Keepers returning from Thera have delivered a message from the Dream Keepers requesting our assistance. The Doorways are secure but it seems that direct communication between our worlds has somehow been compromised.”
“What does that mean? Are the Dream Keepers in trouble? What do they mean by ‘compromised’?”
“The whys and hows will have to wait,” her father said. “We leave in two days. Whatever’s going on, we’ll find out more when we get there.”
Willow’s head felt suddenly heavy. “So you and Mum are going to France?”
“We’re all going to France,” her father told her.
For a few short moments, Willow’s mind went quiet, and then the thoughts rushed in. She was going to a Light Gathering! This was big! Just how bad was this situation? This wasn’t how she had envisaged her first visit. Going to the Keepers’ Council at the Academy had been high on her ‘can’t wait to do’ list, but now her stomach was churning and her heart was racing – and not because she was excited to be going but because this was definitely another “not okay” situation.
John Babbington looked at his son, then at Willow. “All Keepers and Helpers have been called from across the world, including those who have been newly Awakened and their Helpers.”
From the corner of her eye, Willow caught Hugo studying her with a lowered gaze. She quickly looked the other away.
“You’ll both undergo training there,” he said. “What happens beyond that is yet to be determined.”
“Training? Isn’t this just a Gathering, a meeting?” Willow asked. She hated being the only who didn’t know. “I’m not even …”
“The training is what we all do in the service of being Light Protectors,” her mother added. “Whether you choose to be a Light Keeper or not, it would have taken place eventually, but obviously much sooner now.”
Thomas breathed a heavy sigh. “It seems all Protocols have changed …”
“Yes, it does,” John agreed.
“We’ll organise all the flights and accommodation,” Helen Babbington broke in, giving a nod to Audrey. “I expect we’ll be there the entire weekend.”
The Babbingtons rose to leave. Hugo gestu
red for Willow to follow him outside ahead of the parents. They stood in the driveway, waiting as his parents donned their coats and finished talking. “Looks like we haven’t got much time,” he told her. “Where are you in the TriGamon?”
“I’ve got another fifty pages or so.” She eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
“Like it or not, you’re going to need my help to get through the rest of it before we leave.”
“Why?”
“If you want to help out at all with this crisis,” he said, “you need to finish the TriGamon. You know how it works. If you don’t get it – it doesn’t translate.”
Willow knew only too well how the pages worked. Sometimes it would take hours for her to progress just a few pages. The TriGamon somehow knew when she understood the page she was reading, and when she didn’t. And it wouldn’t unravel the secrets on the following page until she did.
“I’ll tell the folks I’ll be over in the morning to help you.”
“I can’t,” Willow said. “You might not have school tomorrow, but I do.”
“With something like this? I doubt it,” he said. “You just got the flu.”
Willow was eating toast when Hugo walked into the kitchen the following morning. She glanced at the clock on the wall. “You don’t waste any time,” she said. “It’s barely eight-thirty.”
“We don’t have time to waste,” he replied. “And this way Mum could drop the twins off at school on the way.”
“Fair enough. Haven’t seen the terrible twins in ages. How old are they now?”
“Eleven. And they’ve got no clue about any of this stuff yet, so don’t say anything when you see them.”
Willow smiled. “Nice to know I’m not the last to know. Why don’t you go to the library, I won’t be long.” She took another big bite of her toast and watched him walk down the hallway. It felt like it was only last week that they were running around the house chasing each other or playing hide-and-seek or some game for kids. She had worked out that he’d gone silent on her shortly before he left for the Academy. It all made sense now, though she had been sulky at the time. And here they were, partners in some crazy cosmic adventure.
She found Hugo standing with an open book, head down, reading. “Anything interesting?” she asked, her TriGamon hugged to her chest.
“Yeah, if you find history on the Dark Forces interesting,” he said, looking up.
“Sounds like fun.”
“Laugh a minute.” He snapped the book closed and sat down in one of the armchairs.
Willow placed the TriGamon on the coffee table and sat in the chair next to him. She still felt awkward about the whole Helper thing, and now she had to finish the TriGamon in two days – with Hugo breathing down her neck.
He leaned in for a closer look. “Still blows my mind. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it.”
“I know.” She placed her hand lightly on the cover.
“You’ll love the Academy,” he said. “It’s a whole school filled with people doing all sorts of magic. I’ve only learnt to do basic spells so far; like fixing Sanctuary fields and making myself invisible.”
“What! You can make yourself invisible. Show me!”
Hugo smiled. “Virtually. It takes practice. And no, I can’t show you. One, the Council at the Academy can track magic, so they’d know that I was using it outside of an emergency. And two, our Council aren’t the only ones that can track magic.”
Willow remembered the conversation she had with her father about the Dark Forces and why they had a Keepers’ Safe. “Fair enough. So do you learn how to turn your teachers into mice too?”
“Err, no. But you do learn fun stuff like making clocks fly – or even your friends’ shoes. Mostly though, it’s things to do with Light Keeper duties. In the higher year levels you learn to project three-dimensional images around you as tactical manoeuvres against the Dark Forces. And there are more heavy-weight spells too; like binding someones’s dark energy field so they can’t move, or reversing their dark magic spells back at them.” Hugo paused for a moment before continuing: “What you have to understand, Willow, is that the Keepers Academy is all about maintaining the balance. We only use magic if we have to, and we avoid as much as possible inflicting any harm. That’s what distinguishes light magic from dark magic.”
“I never thought about it like that.”
“There’s a lot that the Academy teaches you about spells and consequences. Just sucks that we have to do all of the normal subjects too.”
“I wouldn’t mind – better than having only normal subjects.”
Willow now fully realised what Hugo had given up. “Sorry you had to come back because of me.”
Hugo didn’t respond straight away. He sat back a little deeper in the armchair. “To be honest, I was really peeved when they first asked me. Took a few days before I agreed to leave.”
Willow stared at him. She had assumed that he’d been instructed to return home. “You chose? They didn’t make you?”
“Of course not,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Everyone gets to choose in the Keeper world. But I figured that since I was training to be a Helper it would be pretty cool to do some field work.”
Willow gave a heavy sigh. How could she have got it so wrong? Her mind had kept telling her that she was entitled to whinge and whine about Hugo being her Helper, and how unfair it was when actually the complete opposite was true.
“I can’t believe what a spoilt brat I’ve been,” she said. “Sorry about the way I acted.”
“I’m pretty thick-skinned.” Hugo pulled his chair in a little closer. “We should get started.”
She put her finger on the crystal then opened the TriGamon to the last page she’d been reading. The words unraveled in front of their eyes. “Here – this is where I’m up to. Just finished the incantations.”
There were spells and charms for all sorts of things, Willow had discovered, including repairing the security fields around the Cottage. Her parents would use those for sure. All of her life she had been living in the Cottage protected by an invisible force that she never knew existed.
“Give them the once-over and then I’ll test you,” he said.
“Test me! You’re kidding – right?”
“It’s part of what a Helper does – I help you,” he said. “I help you to be ready.”
There was no point arguing with him. “Okay, okay. So test me.”
“Don’t you want to go over them first?”
“No, I’m good,” she told him.
“Right then,” Hugo said, shielding the relevant page in the TriGamon from her sight. “Let’s start with – the Activation Spell.”
Willow sat back and recited the Activation Spell for the TriVrata, followed by the Closing Spell, the Sanctuary Spells, and the Light Stream incantations. All without hesitation. She could see Hugo’s eyes widen the longer she continued. “And then there’s Ixana Domeni, Gimentus Nomina …” When she was finished, she folded her hands in her lap, repressing a smirk. She met his stare. “What?”
“Don’t need any help with incantations then!”
“It’s a thing I have,” she said. “I should have told you before, but I couldn’t resist. I try not to use my photographic memory very often – after a while the stares are a bit uncomfortable.”
“Aah – sorry I stared,” Hugo said. A curious look crossed his face. “So can you remember things that you’ve read years earlier? Word for word? And pass school tests without studying?”
Willow nodded. “Almost. And I do still study because I have to actually understand and not just recall all the things that I’ve read in each subject. But it’s different to how most other people do it.”
“Handy ability.” He placed the TriGamon back on the coffee table. “Best you keep reading. I’ll just hang – your parents have good books. Remember, if you have any questions …”
“You’re here to help,” she said, finishing his sentence. “So you said.”
“It’s hard to believe this ‘Dark’ stuff is real,” she said, without looking up.
“I know what you mean.” Hugo was leaning against the window sill, skimming through one of the books he’d chosen. “You have to not let it creep you out.”
“Easier said than done,” she said. “So what about the evil dude, this Dark UnderLord, Maliceius?” Her skin prickled just saying his name. “Think maybe he’s got something to do with us going to France?”
“No maybes about it. From what I know, a Gathering like this hasn’t been called in a long time. They have their annual get-together and that’s about it. And the Keepers’ Council usually deals with Earth-based stuff. Getting messages from the Dream Keepers asking for our assistance – well, that wouldn’t happen unless the evil dude was involved.”
“O-kay, nothing to freak out about then.” Willow turned the page and the sketch of a gnarly looking beast with long dark claws began to form. “Great. A friendly creature I need to know about,” she said under her breath. “What the hell are these ‘Vraag’ things? And why hasn’t it got a face?”
“Read on,” Hugo told her. “They’re Maliceius’s top dark minions. He has a few varieties. And the Ancients don’t show their faces because they don’t want us to have a full image of them in our minds.”
“Why not?”
“Because when you recall their image, you give them power – strength – through your fear. The more clearly you recall their image, the more they feed on your fear.”
“So why even show a bit of them? Haven’t I just given it – them – power?”
“Guess the Ancients felt we needed to have some idea of what could be lurking out there – just in case. And you’ve probably only donated a miniscule amount of power. Not enough to cause harm,” he assured her. “Don’t worry, you won’t see an image of Maliceius in there because he can shape shift, so he takes on pretty much any dark form. And there’s no coincidence with his name and the word malice either. The word is actually derived from him. Words have history.”
Willow Bloom and the Dream Keepers Page 7