Lyra's Magic: Witches of Manhattan Book One

by Langley Keaton

  “Hello, mother,” Sybil said. She seemed annoyed, like a teenager who was being told that she couldn’t drive to the game or something of the sort.

  The vision just shook her head. “I am sorry. You know how busy I am.”

  “We don’t exactly have all the time in the world to be waiting around for you either, mother.”

  “You only arrived a few minutes ago,” the woman said. Then she looked at Peter. “I thought you were trying to discipline these girls?”

  I furrowed my brow. That whole thing seemed weird to me, come to think of it. Maddy and Sybil seemed to know Peter, and I had never seen him in my life. How was it that they knew him, and how was it that he had been around this whole time?

  “I’m sorry, I’ve tried,” Peter said. “You know how difficult it is with kids of today, though.”

  “Yes, I do.” The vision seemed to sigh and seemed suddenly weary. “I wish that things were easier, but, then again, it was difficult raising them during the 1st Century. Or the 10th century. And the 15th Century. And, well, there has never been a time that has been a good time to raise young girls. Of course, during those other times, the girls weren’t exposed to social media and blogs and cable television and things of that sort.”

  The vision looked at me, and smiled tenderly. “Lyra,” she said, “come here.”

  I went over to her, feeling eager to touch her, mainly because I wanted to see if she was real. After the way that she literally just appeared out of nowhere, I had my doubts.

  I ran over to her, found that I was able to float to where she was, and put my hand on her arm. I felt flesh and blood, and I looked at her blue eyes. There was a part of me that recognized her, that knew who she was. I struggled to place her face, though. It wasn’t just that she resembled the Venus coming out of the half shell, although she certainly did. She didn’t look exactly like that goddess, like those paintings that looked exactly like Sybil and me, but she looked similar enough. It was something else.

  As I smelled her scent, which was that of rosemary and lavender and jade and lilac, and touched her soft skin, a jolt went through me. It was as if I did know her, and I knew her very well. In fact, it was as if I had known her for thousands of years.

  She wrapped her delicate arms around me and held me for a few moments. “Lyra, I am so happy to see you. I haven’t seen you in years.” She seemed to have a lump in her throat. “I was so happy that you came back, although I always knew that you would. You and Sybil. And you did, of course.”

  I cocked my head as I looked into this woman’s face. This was my mother? She looked younger than me. Yet, as she held me in her arms, I knew that she wasn’t lying. She was my mother, and nothing in my life had ever felt so right as having her hold me like that.

  “I did?” I said, feeling bewildered. What was next? Was this woman going to explain it all to me? “Mother,” I said, “please explain what is happening.” All my bravado that I felt before – when I saw Peter in Hell, when he and I were escaping from that hospital, and when I saw my sisters for the first time after I came back from the dead – was flowing out of me. I suddenly felt like I was three years old, and clinging to her leg as somebody was taking me away from her. Now, now, Lyra, you have to live with this nice lady. Her name is Ruthann. You’ll be there with Sybil, too, and your cousin, Maddy. Don’t worry, Lyra, you’ll see your mommy again.

  “Yes, you did,” my mother said.

  I blinked my eyes, as more memories came flooding in. No, I don’t want to go. I want to stay with my mommy. Please let me stay with mommy. Then the crying and screaming as this strange man was taking me away from her. My tiny little red-headed sister, who seemed to be just slightly younger than me, was crying, too, but she didn’t seem nearly as bothered about it all as I was.

  “Don’t worry,” the little girl said to me. If she was Sybil, she was only two years old, because I was only three, and seemed extremely articulate for a young girl of her age. “Charlie said that everything is going to be good.”

  I looked over at Sybil, suddenly remembering Charlie, who was the imaginary friend that Sybil talked about, on and off, for years. I get to see into the future and you get to see dead people. Maddy’s words back at the apartment rang in my ears. Was Charlie a dead person? I used to think that it was weird that Sybil talked about Charlie all the time, as if he were really around. I never saw this guy, and I thought that maybe she was a bit loony-tunes. But was I the one who was loony tunes? Was there really a Charlie after all?

  “Sybil,” I said, “do you remember Charlie?”

  “Of course,” she said with a smile. “He’s my guardian. You have one, too. You just never got the chance to get to know her.” She looked over at our mother. “Mother told me that your guardian had to be invisible to you. I don’t know why. To tell you the truth, I’m just as interested as you are to hear what our mother has to say to you. I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for years.”

  “Guardian?”

  “Yes, guardian,” Sybil said matter-of-factly. “Charlie is a fairy. You have one, too. Her name is Helen.”

  I shook my head. Information overload was starting in, and it seemed like my brain was about to completely short-circuit. All at once, I regained my bearings and I pushed away from my mother. “What do you mean I have a fairy guardian?” I asked my mother directly. “And I remember now. I remember you. You gave us up, Sybil and me. You gave us up, even though I begged you not to. I begged you. All you could say was that Ruthann was a nice lady who would take care of us, and that Sybil was going to her too, and my cousin Maddy. My cousin Maddy. Yet, I grew up thinking that Maddy was my sister, too. And that we were all the daughters of Ruthann and George.” Poor George, who was so young when he passed. I cried at his funeral, thinking that I was losing my father.

  Turns out that I wasn’t losing my father. I was losing a random guy who raised me.

  “Lyra, I’m so sorry for all that you have suffered,” mother said to me. “And I can explain everything. I know that you will have a hard time forgiving me. You always have.”

  “What do you mean, I always have? This is the first time, the very first time, that I’ve ever laid eyes on you, so how could I have had a hard time forgiving you before?”

  She sighed. “Lyra, you have been born and reborn many times before to me. And it has always been the same. Our lives have replayed countless times throughout the years. I know what to expect, but hopefully you will not hate me for quite as many years as you have before.”

  I shook my head. Like everything else that had happened to me in the past 24 hours or so, nothing was making sense. “I don’t hate you. I mean, I’m pretty angry with you for giving me up the way that you did. I could almost see it if you gave me up as a brand-new infant – I understand, things happen. Maybe you never planned me, and you had to give me up to somebody who could take care of me. I get that. But mom, I was three years old. Three.”

  She looked sad, and I felt the need to go to her and feel her hold me. I hadn’t felt like that with anyone else, and I realized why it was that I had always felt just a tad bit lost. Yet I couldn’t exactly let on that this was how I was feeling, so I stood there with my arms crossed in front of me. “Lyra, my dear, all that I can say, all that I have ever been able to say, is that I’m sorry. There are reasons for this happening the way that it has. There are reasons why I could not keep you.”

  “And what reasons are those?”

  Mom looked at her other daughter, Sybil, desperately, but Sybil’s eyes wouldn’t meet hers. Sybil shook her head finally while her eyes were downcast, which spoke volumes to me. Sybil wasn’t going to help my mom out here, that much was clear. As for Maddy, I guess who really cares what she was thinking? She wasn’t my sister, and I had the feeling that she knew that all along.

  Mom finally caught the eye of Peter, and Peter turned to me. “Lyra, your mother had to go into hiding. Her magic is too powerful for the prying eyes of the world, so she’s been forced
to remain here as part of the Maleficus council. This has happened every time that you have been reborn, because she is only able to remain with you for your first three years.”

  I shook my head. “And why is that? Why is it that she always has to abandon me a the age of three?” I couldn’t even believe that I was talking like this. Reincarnation was one thing, this was another thing entirely. Basically, the story is that I’ve been born and reborn a bunch of times, always to the same woman, always having Sybil as my sister, and, from the looks of the painting of Sybil and me playing, I always looked the same as well. No, this wasn’t reincarnation. This was something that I had never before heard of.

  Mom chose this moment to finally chime in again. “After I give birth, my magic is diminished for three years. I can control it best during this period of time. After that three-year period, however, my magic grows powerful again, so powerful that I have never been able to fully control it. I have to have an outlet for it, and the outside world, unfortunately, does not provide me this. So, I need to stay here, on the Maleficus council, where I can practice my magic as much as I can. And I am needed here.”

  “Why are you needed here?” I felt annoyed. I guessed that I was about to be thrown into something that I wasn’t prepared for in the least, and I was going to do it without my mother. That was bad enough, but to know that my mother was this powerful goddess creature who could help me get out of jams, yet she was going to be nowhere to be found – that really rankled. I’d have to come here to Rome every time I needed her, and, from what Sybil was saying, I wouldn’t always have this super easy portal to get here.

  “I am one of the oldest witches in this world. My experience has reached back thousands of years. This council needs my wisdom. It is the same in the world, with the legal justice system – you want a judge who is wise and fair and experienced. This council demands all these qualities in their judges, so my work is indispensable.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.” I crossed my arms in front of me again. Okay, so my mother called me here to tell me what my lot was going to be in life, yet she wasn’t going to help me? Well, to hell with that. There was no way I was going to accept anything that she had to say to me.

  I looked over at my sister and my cousin – that was so weird to call Maddy my cousin now – and they both were standing there, looking at my mother, and not saying a word. “Hey, back me up here,” I whispered to Sybil. “I have this feeling that this woman is going to press me into some kind of really bad service, and I’m not liking it one bit. Stick up for me.” I narrowed my eyes at her when I saw that she was going to be a coward and just stand there.

  I turned back to face my mother, who was still standing there above us on the altar. “Lyra, I love you. I have always loved you, through all these thousands of years. And I know that you are angry. But I must tell you what you need to know. When you get back to your life in New York City, you have a very sacred and important job.”

  I looked over at Sybil, thinking that she might know what this “very important and sacred job was,” and I saw in her face that she resented me. What the hell? What did I do to piss her off?

  “Okay,” I said, looking at my watch. “Time’s a wasting. I mean, I know that it’s only going to take us about five minutes to get back home, but I got class at 10 AM, and I’ll be going in there on no sleep as it is. So, mom, out with it. Tell me what fresh hell I’m going to be facing when I get back into town and let us get out of here.” This temple was beautiful, but it suddenly seemed oppressive to me. It almost felt like the walls were closing in.

  Mom looked over at Peter, and I shook my head. These two were in cahoots somehow. In fact, mom seemed to be in cahoots with everyone but me.

  “Yes,” mom said. “You have always been one who has little patience. This incarnation is no different.”

  That was a dig, and I didn’t like that. Yes, I was impatient. I had been on an absolute roller-coaster these past few days, and, quite frankly, I was tired. I wanted to go home and get into bed, but I knew that, by the time I got back into town, I was going to have to go right to class. Then, after class, I had to work on the documentary short that I was going to have to turn in by the end of the semester. Mom was beating around the bush, which wasn’t a good sign, because I figured that her assignment for me was so heinous that she couldn’t just come out with it. Her behavior was causing alarm bells to ring in my head, and Peter’s expression, which was downcast, as his eyes wouldn’t meet mine, didn’t help matters any.

  “You’re right. I am impatient. I’ve gotten nothing but half-answers, if I’ve gotten answers at all, ever since this whole nutty scenario began. So, I need for you to tell me, and tell me straight. Tell me straight and let me get out of here. I might actually be able to get at least a couple hours of sleep before class tomorrow, but only if you just come right on out and tell me what’s going on.”

  She finally nodded. “Okay. I will tell you everything that you need to know.”

  11

  Finally. Geez Louise, getting important information out of this woman was like pulling teeth. “Thanks mom. Now, go on. I’m all ears.”

  She drew a breath and floated down to where I was on the floor. She didn’t walk – she literally floated. Show off. I was quite sure that she knew how to walk just like a human being – after all she had two legs – yet she was going to show me how magical she was by floating through the air. It was all I could do to not roll my eyes.

  “Let me begin with some of the things that you will find positive.” She motioned to Sybil and Maddy. “Like your sister and your cousin, you have powers that you will find to be advantageous. Sybil has the gift of communicating with the dead, and she has the power to heal. She even has the power to resurrect the dead, under certain circumstances. Maddy has the power to see into the future, and she, too, has the power to heal and to resurrect. You will have all of those powers.”

  I looked over at Maddy and Sybil, both of whom were glaring at mom, and then shooting the stink-eye at me as well. I suddenly knew why they were looking at me like that – it was a flash of insight that flew through my brain. They were mad because they wanted to have all the powers that the other girl had, yet I was going to have it all. Maddy wanted the power to communicate with the dead and Sybil wanted the power of foresight. I was going to have a combination of the powers, and they were jealous.

  I wondered if reading thoughts was going to come along with all of this.

  “Great,” I said. “Sounds like a lot of fun. At least, it sounds like fun if I don’t suddenly have a bunch of spirits trying to talk to me all day, every day. Plus, from what I understand from Maddy, having the gift of seeing into the future isn’t all that great, because you can’t do anything to stop whatever it is. I think that particular power would be more frustrating than anything, but thanks. I’m glad that I suddenly get to have these powers. How will I get them, though?”

  Sybil cleared her throat. “Um, remember, Lyra? You can change the future. Maddy can’t because she doesn’t have clearance to. Right mother?”

  “That is right,” mom said, looking over at Maddy. “I am sorry, my dear Maddy, but, for now, that rule still stands for you. I am working with the Council to get it lifted, because I know how much it frustrates you to see things that you cannot change.”

  “Thanks mom,” Maddy said. “I would appreciate it if you could keep trying with that, because you’re right – seeing tragedies before they happen is no fun if I can’t change it. I mean, what’s the point? Unless you want Lyra to change what I see.”

  I looked back at Maddy and saw her rolling her eyes after that last sentence. Still jealous. They wouldn’t be if they knew what was in store for me every time I died.

  “Okay mom,” I said, hands on my hips. “Now that that’s out of the way, again, how am I going to get these wonderful powers? So far, I don’t have any powers at all.”

  At that, she showed me a necklace. It was a shape that I didn’t
recall seeing before, yet there was something that was very familiar about it. In the middle of the shape was a perfectly round circle. Interwoven with this circle were three figures that were entertwined and resembled footballs or flower petals. This figure was beautiful, for it was encrusted with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. I examined it, even though she didn’t allow me to hold it.

  “What is this?” I asked her.

  “This shape is called a Celtic knot. As you can see, there are three figures that are intertwined throughout. This represents the trinity. It’s symbolic of the interconnectedness of all life throughout the universe. This is the necklace that will give you protection and will also be a source of your power. Once I put it on your neck, it cannot come off. It will not come off.” Then she looked over at Peter, who looked back and nodded his head. “There is a certain class of demon, however, that you will encounter. This class of demon is more powerful than the others. If you encounter this demon, he will have the ability to take off this necklace, which will leave you completely vulnerable.” She raised her hands. “Be exceedingly careful if you happen upon one of these creatures.”

  I shook my head. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean, I’m going to maybe come in contact with a powerful demon who can take this necklace? Who said anything about my finding demons at all, let alone a powerful one that can apparently destroy me?”

  Mom had gotten ahead of herself when she started popping off about this powerful demon thing, and she looked slightly embarrassed. “You are right. I need to explain to you more about what you are going to do, what your mission is, and then it will all become clear.”