Spellweaver

by CJ Bridgeman

  Felicity was getting painfully familiar with those words.

  “She didn’t tell you anything,” the counsellor said quietly, partly to himself.

  It stung more than Felicity was prepared to admit. Before, when she had been so naive as to consider herself almost normal, she had just felt distant from her mother, as if Audrey Lucas simply didn’t have anything in common with her daughter or, perhaps, was socially inept. It would certainly explain where Felicity got it from. She had always thought, perhaps even hoped, that she would understand as she grew into adulthood - but she didn’t. Not yet, anyway.

  But things had changed since then. Audrey Lucas wasn’t just an unemotional, unattached and secretive person. She wasn’t just a mother who had taken her daughter to the countryside in order to give her a better life. She had been something else, something unbelievable and unimaginable and crazy. She had kept a book of magic spells and was apparently quite advanced in her use of them. She had hidden the birth of her daughter from those who claimed to know her. She was from another world.

  Felicity hadn’t thought it possible that she could feel any more apart from the woman who had given birth to her, but in that moment, she did.

  “Felicity.” Mr Oakley had been watching her as these thoughts cascaded through her mind. “Your mother, she... she was really important.”

  She didn’t respond. The counsellor paused, not knowing how to proceed. The girl couldn’t understand the weight of the words he was about to deliver. How could she?

  There was nothing left to do but tell her. “Your mother was the Spellweaver.”

  The Spellweaver. It sounded so alien, and yet so familiar. Felicity was certain she had heard it somewhere before.

  “She was the most powerful of us all,” the counsellor explained. He couldn’t stop now; the girl needed to know the truth - and he needed her. “She was the one who protected us.”

  “Protected you from what?”

  The question caught him off guard, for she had been so quiet. The answer, he realised as he opened his mouth to reply, was more complicated than he thought. He had never had to explain it to anyone before.

  “There are a great many beings that would seek to harm us, Felicity,” he said darkly. “Those who would abuse the powers given to them. Those in positions of authority. Wild creatures, evil creatures. The Spellweaver would protect us from everything. Or at least... she would try.”

  Felicity pushed her red hair behind over her shoulders and rubbed her forehead. “But she’s gone.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said, and Felicity could hear the sorrow in his voice.

  “Is that why you had her book?”

  “What?”

  “My mother’s journal,” Felicity replied. “Her... spell book.”

  “Ah.” A slight smile crossed the counsellor’s features. “Yes. Your mother left it with me for safekeeping. I suppose I let her down quite a bit, didn’t I?”

  “It’s okay. It’s somewhere safe,” Felicity reassured him, instantly surprised at her choice to do so. “I still have it.”

  “So you should. It’s yours.” He paused. “I’m sorry that I tried to take it from you. It’s a powerful item, very powerful, and if it fell into the wrong hands -” He stopped. “Had I known who you were, I would have given it to you myself.”

  “But what is it?”

  “It’s the Book of the Spellweaver,” he answered her simply. And then, seeing her blank expression, he tried to think of a more detailed explanation. “It’s the legacy of the Spellweavers. Each generation recorded their spells here.” He paused and looked directly at Felicity. “Your mother, too. Just like her ancestors before her. All of the most powerful spells in existence are written down inside that book.”

  Felicity nodded - Oliver had been telling the truth about one thing, at least. “That’s why he wanted it so badly...” she mumbled.

  “Who?” Mr Oakley said.

  “Oh, um...” Felicity shifted uncomfortably. “Oliver. He tried to take the book from me.”

  Immediately, the counsellor was on his feet. “Where is he?”

  “I - I don’t know,” she replied. “He was there in the fields, when the others came after me. But then he just - he disappeared. I don’t know where he is now.”

  It was several seconds before Mr Oakley spoke again, and when he did, his voice was low and serious. “And you’re certain that you hid the book safely?”

  She nodded nervously. “Of course.”

  Mr Oakley said nothing, but she had already seen his reaction to Oliver’s name.

  “What do you know about Oliver?” she asked.

  He sighed. “Not much, really,” he said, sitting back down on the armchair. “He’s one of the Tower neophytes - a low level magic user. Not very powerful.”

  “Not very powerful?” she blurted out. She couldn’t stop herself. “He almost killed me!”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Mr Oakley replied, his tone calm and reassuring. “Now that I’ve found you, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I can show you how to defend yourself, how to weave spells just as your mother did -”

  “But I’m not like her!” Felicity cried. “I can’t do magic or cast spells! I can’t even read that stupid book!”

  He stared at her. He was doing that a lot, Felicity realised, and it was beginning to annoy her. “You... you really don’t know, do you?” he said.

  Felicity suddenly felt a burst of anger that propelled her to her feet, forcing her to forget the aches and pains in her body. “I really wish everyone would stop saying that and just tell me exactly what it is that I’m supposed to bloody know!” she cried. “I’m so sick of being kept in the dark. My mother kept these secrets from me for all my life, and now you’re being all mysterious and cryptic about it. Can’t anybody just be straight with me? You’re just as bad as her!”

  “Alright, alright!” Mr Oakley exclaimed, raising his hands as if to calm her. Her outburst had caught him quite by surprise; he was used to dealing with a shy, quiet and lonely teenager, a girl he had noted for being somewhat conflicted and isolated, a girl who had never dealt with the death of her mother and who hadn’t built up a sturdy relationship with her father. She had been lost.

  That girl didn’t exist any more. Now, the Felicity who stood before him was determined and much stronger than she used to be. She was starting to realise her place in the world, which was something that only he could help her with.

  But it wasn’t easy. There were so many things that she didn’t know, things that her mother should have told her. Now that she was gone, the responsibility was all on him, and he didn’t want to let either of them down.

  He took a breath. “Alright,” he sighed. “Felicity... you’re the Spellweaver.”

  Now it was her turn to stare. “What? But I thought - I thought my mother was the Spellweaver.”

  “She was,” the counsellor said. “And now that she’s - gone, the title and responsibility belong to you.”

  Felicity managed to emit a few croaks before: “H - how?”

  “That’s... how it works,” he explained. “The powers of the Spellweaver exist in the blood. From mother to daughter, specifically. You’ve always had it in you, Felicity. Except...” He hesitated.

  “Except what?”

  “Except that you should’ve been born down in Deepworld. Not here.”

  Felicity felt the knots tie in her stomach. It was a strange sensation; she felt nervous, scared and confused all at the same time, and these things were now manifesting themselves physically, making her feel slightly dizzy and sick.

  So she was from another world - or at least, half of her was from another world. She should have guessed it, really, what with all the strange things that had been happening since her mother died. She thought that this somehow explained things, such as her mother’s odd, distinctly unmotherly behaviour or the reason why everyone seemed out to get her, but she was missing so many pieces of information that she couldn
’t quite figure it all out.

  “You’ve missed out on all your training,” Mr Oakley continued. “You should’ve been born inside the Tower. Your mother would have taught you everything you needed to know, until it was your turn to become the Spellweaver. But... things happened and everything changed.”

  Still, there was one thing that Mr Oakley had said that stood out. Felicity was the Spellweaver. The one who protected everyone, who made spells and wrote them all down in a journal to be fought over and sought out by evil people from another world.

  “But you said that the Spellweaver has to protect everyone.”

  “That’s right.”

  Felicity was horrified. “And you expect me to do that?” she exclaimed. “I can’t! I told you - I can’t do magic!”

  The counsellor looked genuinely baffled. “Of course you can. I saw you myself.”

  Felicity’s jaw dropped. “What - what do you mean?”

  “Back at the park,” Mr Oakley said. “You conjured the shield that protected you and your friends. I’ve never seen a spell quite like it.”

  “But - I didn’t -”

  She stopped.

  It was with a strange terror that Felicity realised that she had indeed cast the magic spell that had sent light shooting from her palms and that had enveloped her friends. She had thought - no, she had convinced herself that it had been her mother sending her powers from beyond the grave, but that just seemed incredibly silly now. With some effort, she remembered how Oliver had recited the words from her mother’s journal, words that had made her dizzy and weak. She had tried to say them herself and thought she had failed, but when faced with the very real prospect of losing her friends -

  She rubbed her eyes. They were stinging a little.

  “Felicity,” Mr Oakley said softly. “You’re the Spellweaver. You have powers that you could never have dreamed about. The shield was just the beginning - your mother hid such secrets in her journal that she had to run away from the world she knew just to protect them.” He paused. “It’s all up to you now.”

  That was exactly what Felicity was afraid of. She didn’t want such responsibility. She wanted to be normal, a thing that had been in her grasp for such a short time before it began to evaporate before her very eyes.

  She shook her head slowly, and when she eventually spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper and contained a desperate sadness.

  “But I’m just a teenager.”

  The words cut into Mr Oakley’s heart. He was all too aware of Felicity’s age, and of the fact that she was the youngest Spellweaver in history. Not only that, but her lack of experience and training made her the weakest. They had such precious little time to study the journal and reveal its secrets, secrets that may well be the key to saving them all, and Felicity didn’t even know the basics about spellcasting.

  But however much the odds were stacked against them, he knew there was potential there. He didn’t tell her, but the shield she had spun over her friends had been magnificent. The energy the others had used trying to break it had weakened them enough for him to fight them off. Blow after blow she had withstood, and all without even realising that she had conjured the thing in the first place. It had been an astonishing sight to witness. Even with no training, she could do great things when the need called to her. It was in her blood, of course, as it was with every Spellweaver that had come before her. Her mother had been the most powerful yet; she had woven magic with such grace, delicacy and deadliness that he had never seen before, and nor had the history books.

  It hadn’t been enough to save her, but he would make sure that her daughter would not suffer the same end.

  “You’re not alone,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with doubt.

  “I mean it,” he insisted. “I know I couldn’t save your mother, but I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

  Felicity would have loved nothing more than to trust those comforting words, especially since they made reference to her mother, but she couldn’t shake off the doubt plaguing her mind. So far, everyone who had harboured these magical powers had had nothing but malicious intent towards her, and she surmised that this mistrust would probably take a long time to disappear.

  She nodded to herself. “I think... I think I’m going to go,” she said.

  “Go?” He looked surprised, and a little worried. “Where?”

  “My dad will probably be wondering where I am.”

  “Ah.”

  He watched her stand up and trudge towards the door almost automatically, as if her legs and feet were disconnected from her brain. Her shoulders were slumped, as if the weight of not one world but two were hanging invisibly upon them. He wished there was something he could do to help lift the burden or even carry it for her, though he knew he didn’t have that kind of power; but she was the Spellweaver. There was nothing he could do to change that.

  But maybe there was something else he could do for her.

  “You do understand why she was never really much of a mother to you, don’t you?”

  She stopped at the doorway and turned, an inquisitive look replacing her blank, emotionless expression.

  “She had to protect you,” he said. “The others were constantly hunting her, and she knew that if they found out that she had had a child...” His voice trailed off and he paused before speaking again. “She kept you a secret, even from me. She couldn’t even trust her closest friends with the knowledge that you existed.”

  Felicity stared.

  “What I mean is,” he went on, “that she needed to distance herself from you to keep you safe. To keep you close would have meant putting you at risk. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  Felicity didn’t know whether or not she did, but she nodded anyway. Her head had taken in far too much new information for one day.

  But there was one thing that she wanted to know.

  “What was her name?” she asked.

  “Hm?”

  “You said she changed her name. What was her real name?”

  Mr Oakley frowned, and then he realised what she was referring to and nodded in understanding. “It was Araya.”

  She tilted her head to one side as if processing this information, and then she looked back at Mr Oakley. “I guess you have a different name, too.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s Seth.”

  There was a pause.

  “I think I prefer Mr Oakley,” she said, and then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

  14.

  She found Hollie and Jamie sitting outside on the front porch as she left the house. Hollie was holding a vanity mirror, inspecting the various cuts to her face, but upon seeing her friend she immediately jumped up to greet her.

  “Fliss!” she exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

  “We heard everything,” Jamie said, and then, upon being hit by Felicity’s surprised and slightly annoyed glance, he added: “The lounge window was open.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Hollie asked, her voice overflowing with concern.

  “Not really,” Felicity answered quickly, and the three of them sat back down on the stone steps.

  The sun was setting beyond the leafless trees that circulated the park opposite Jamie’s house, sending red and golden rays across the scattered clouds. It was hard to imagine that only a few hours earlier the others had been there, manipulating the weather and spreading chaos with their magic. It would have been easy to imagine that the whole thing had never taken place at all.

  The three friends stared out onto the peaceful horizon, each of them with their own contemplations on recent events.

  “So... what now?” Hollie ventured.

  “School starts soon,” Jamie replied. “Did you do your history project?”

  Hollie raised her eyebrows and gave a little chuckle. “Of course not. Did you?”

  He smiled. “Of course.”

  The two of t
hem looked at Felicity expectantly, and she glared back.

  “What?” she asked. “I’ve just been told that I’m the world’s only hope against evil and you think I should be doing my history homework?”

  “That won’t be a good enough excuse for Mr Taylor,” Jamie warned. “We didn’t even get any special consideration when mum and dad split up.”

  “Well maybe I won’t save him then,” Felicity replied.

  The three of them laughed, a harmonious and joyous sound that for a tiny moment eclipsed the fear that Felicity was harbouring. But it appeared that none of them could divert from their most pressing thoughts for long.

  “I wonder what happened to Oliver,” Hollie sighed.

  “He’s gone,” Felicity answered confidently. “I’m pretty certain of that.”

  “But what about...” Hollie lifted her eyes to the sky.

  Felicity followed her gaze. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Hey,” Jamie said soothingly, putting his arm around Felicity. “Don’t worry. We’ll look after you.”

  “Yeah,” Hollie agreed. “We’re BFFs, remember?”

  In spite of her anxiety, Felicity felt a smile form on her lips. She knew that Hollie and Jamie lacked the mystical powers that they had all seen Mr Oakley use, but their promise still meant more to her than his. She felt suddenly and overwhelmingly grateful for their interference in the park. She had wanted to do things alone, to protect her friends by sacrificing herself, but she knew now that it was a much better thing to help each other and work together. It wasn’t what she was used to, but however difficult it was, she was learning that change wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. With Hollie and Jamie at her side, she felt as though she could handle being the Spellweaver, whatever that meant.

  With a sigh, she wondered about all the things she could have missed out on had she let herself be killed, and then shook the thought away. That didn’t matter now, because she was going to live.

  She hugged Hollie and Jamie goodbye.

  “You don’t have to do this alone,” Jamie assured her.