by Vera Sparks
I needed to go home. I couldn’t just avoid this, I wasn’t a child.
“Great, you’re back,” Rose breathed as I reappeared on the couch. Her and Shane were standing before the couch as my father snooped around the kitchen.
“Where’d you go?” Shane whispered as he glanced at my dad.
“I needed a breather,” I stated as I stood up.
“It’s good you’re back, still trying to get my head around this whole ghost thing to be honest,” my father called out as he served himself some coffee.
Otis was still at home on the couch, perched on a cushion as he sat tall, watching us with interest.
“I’m assuming you’re here to help me with my powers then?” I said as I walked over and perched on one of the stools before my kitchen counter.
He leaned on the other side with his coffee in hand.
“That I am. And now that you know what you are, I no longer need to stay away to protect you. I stayed away because we’re still hunted, and I believed you to be like your mother, just a witch. Apparently you’re more than that, which now makes you a target.You need protecting here, not from afar,” he said as he sipped his coffee.
“Mom was a witch?” I murmured.
“Yes, a mid-range witch, a potions expert, nothing too fancy, but she was a good woman and a good mother,” he sighed.
Well, that was certainly something I’d never have thought. All my memories didn’t even suggest it. But then again, I didn’t have all my memories.
“If I’m going to accept your help, I need to know I can trust you again,” I cleared my throat, managing to keep my stare level with him as pain shot through his eyes.
“You can always trust me,” he murmured. “I did what I did to protect you. I love you, Ivy.”
My throat tightened, but I fought to remain composed and straight-faced.
“What was her name? The woman who… went after Mom,” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. The woman who killed her.
My father’s gaze dropped as he drummed an uneasy finger on his mug. A black mug Alex had given me and all the other employees one year. ‘Best of the best’ was sprawled across it in gold, fancy lettering.
But what caught my attention was something I hadn’t seen earlier. Something that made me soften.
My father still wore his gold wedding ring.
“We need to be honest and upfront with each other from here on out. That’s the only way I can learn to trust you, and maybe even forgive you,” I said softly. I knew the words would sting, but it was the truth, and that’s all I wanted in return.
His hurt, sad eyes dragged themselves back to me, and he nodded slowly.
“Of course. I can’t just expect you to trust me and for things to go back to the way they were after all this,” he agreed. “I hope they can though, eventually,” he gave me a hopeful smile.
I returned it, although I was cautious. As much as I wanted everything to go back to the way it was, things had changed dramatically in the space of less than an hour. So many revelations and truths coming to light.
“The Sorceress has been banished away so she can do no harm in this living world anymore, I got the help of another Warlock to deal with her. She was becoming unstable and power hungry. We had to stop her, and after your mother, well, I couldn’t risk her going after you. It took me two years after I left you to lock her away, strip her of her power,” he explained.
Two years. That left a few years to have come back to me, to make things right. I shoved the little voice in my head aside. I didn’t need to think about that; he was here now.
“Her name is Jasmine Whitehall.”
I felt the color drain from my face as Rose gasped.
“What?” he shot a distressed look between Rose and I. “How do you know that name?!” his voice rose, and I could sense the panic in him bubbling just beneath the surface.
“I’ve met her,” I mumbled as I fiddled with my hands, my mind crumbling at this. Jasmine. I knew there was something off with her. I sensed it the first time my powers activated and I would up in that institute in the middle realm. Where she’d told me I was an elemental.
“You…what?” my father’s voice was deadly low as he tried to make sense of what I’d just said.
I’d been in the same room as the woman who’d killed my mother. Why had she pretended to be like me? What was her end game? Why hadn’t she tried to hurt me?
“Ivy?”
I drew my eyes back to my father, who looked so lost and broken as he tried to understand.
“She said it was the middle realm. When I first discovered I could wield fire, I got drawn into this realm, and she was there. She told me I was an elemental, that the mansion place we were in was a replica of the elemental institute, and that I needed to learn about what I was,” I tried to remember my conversation with her over a month ago. I’d visited her recently too.
“How did you get into the middle realm?” he asked, but the tone in his voice, it scared me. The fear I could feel in it. How much danger had I been in?
“I don’t know, if I went into the ghost realm and activated my power, I ended up there,” I said, remembering how I’d gone there a second time. The time Jasmine had jumped and acted extremely scary. The time I’d felt like I could be in danger.
Little had I known then.
“Jesus Christ, this makes no sense!” he hissed as he rubbed his temples in frustration.
Otis oinked from the across the room as he jumped down off the couch, his feet tapping quickly on the tiled floor as he trotted over to join us.
“So you banished her to the middle realm then?” I asked.
“Yes, due to her power, we couldn’t just destroy her. She’s smart, knew how to protect herself. We ended up severing her spirit from her body and banishing it to a realm not in the dead or living realms. Somewhere we thought she wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone. She’d slowly fade away there until she fully disappeared. I just can’t figure out how she managed to draw you in,” my father groaned as he hung his head in his hands while he tried to get his mind around this. He’d set his coffee mug down on the countertop and leaned against it as he mulled it over.
“What happened to her body?” Shane piped up from his seat on the couch once more. Rose was standing and tapping her foot restlessly. I knew she felt out of place and awkward, whereas Shane had tried to make himself comfortable.
“We burned it. Without her body, she can’t return to this world. She’ll remain trapped there and eventually fully pass,” my father muttered as he stared hard at the bench top.
“Ivy, you said she was like you though, with the same sort of abilities?” Rose spoke up.
“Yeah, she could do my jumping and such,” I nodded slowly.
“It’d make sense as she’s all but a ghost now,” my father said as he frowned at me. “But you still have a life essence, which is extremely confusing.”
“What if Ivy’s body is still… I don’t know, alive, somewhere?” Rose mused. “Could that explain why she can still eat and be solid and do normal stuff.”
“Possibly,” my father’s face softened as he considered this.
“When I was drained, apparently I vanished into thin air. When I returned to the living world, I was like this,” I murmured.
“So you’ve just become separate from your body, but still connected enough to function in some normal ways,” my father murmured as he drummed his fingers on the counter. Something I noticed as an old habit of his. Usually when he was thinking or distressed, even I did it a bit.
I tried not to fiddle with my hands as I waited for him to say something else.
“I could try to track it down. See if your body is tucked away somewhere. Being a Sorceress would explain why you’re still connected to it and it hasn’t perished. Somehow, you’re using your powers to keep it, therefore you, alive. Impressive, but not something I can explain just yet,” he pursed his lips as he looked out the wall length windows at the city a
round us, bathed in the morning sun and bustling with life.
“If you find it, what then?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. If my body was out there, could I become normal again? Could I feel the sun on my skin and the cool breeze? Could I sleep and dream once more?
“Theoretically, if we find it, we can bind you back to it properly, bringing you back to life,” he gave me a soft smile, one that sparked a glimmer of hope in me.
Life. Being properly alive again. The thought thrilled me, all the minor things I missed that I wanted back.
“It’ll be a bit of a complex tracking spell, could take most of the day,” he said as he stood up tall. “While I do that, I’ll leave you one of our books. A book explaining what Warlock and Sorceresses can do, some minor spells. Pretty much an introduction to what you are and what you can do,” he smiled.
“Damn,” Shane was on his feet now as he came over to join us with Rose in tow.
“Sadly, neither of you can read it. I’m not saying you’re not allowed, but that you physically can’t. Only Warlock’s and Sorceress’s have enough power that they can actually decipher the words. To you, it’ll just look like gibberish,” he said as he gave them an apologetic look.
He snapped his fingers, and I flinched as an old leather-bound book appeared on the counter before me. The strange glyphs and runes imprinted into it were like nothing I’d ever seen before.
I traced them, shuddering as I felt the power pulsing though me from the book. It filled me with exhilaration and excitement.
“Rose, can I get yours and Ivy’s numbers? I’ll call as soon as I’ve got something. I’m assuming you’d be a good emergency contact for her if needed?” he turned to Rose with a bright smile.
“Um, of course. And yes, I guess so,” Rose shot me a look, and I just nodded as I opened the book.
“I’ll give you Alex’s number too, he’s my boss,” I muttered as I dragged my fingers down the first page. A quick summary of the book, about how it would give me the history of the Warlocks and Sorceresses and some minor spells and abilities to practice.
I focused on the book as Rose and my father exchanged numbers while Shane peered over my shoulder. He grumbled about it looking like alphabet soup and gibberish before climbing onto the stool beside me.
“I’ll call when I’ve got something, have a good day,” my father sung out as he headed for the door. “Come Otis.”
I waved him off, immersed in the book already. I listened to Otis’s frantic little footfalls as he trotted after my father. I’d have to ask more about him. Such a unique pet to have.
“Well, I guess we’ll stick around then, can you tell us what it says?” Rose asked as she circled around to stand across from me where my father had been.
“Right, of course,” I nodded. They knew only minor things about the Warlocks and Sorceresses, this would be something that fascinated not just me but all of us.
The writing on the old, yellowed pages was easy to read, as if it’d been written much more recently than the withering pages suggested. Probably spelled to make it an easier read I imagined. None of this ‘ye must know thyself and thus thy discovers thyself,’ old world words.
“It is said that in early years of humanity, a God of magic and power rose from the earth, a being connected with all of life and nature around us. This God chose one mortal man to gift magic upon, in order to allow mankind to begin its transition into a new era. A man dying in the snow, so close to death. This God taught the man how to wield fire, but instructed him to never divulge the truth, for others would fear him and kill him.
“The man survived the frost by wielding this power, and thus the first line of Warlocks and Sorceresses came into being,” I said aloud as I read the text.
“It’d be awesome if they actually gave a timeframe, how old are Warlocks anyway?” Rose questioned as she rested her elbows on the counter and held her chin up with her hands.
“It doesn’t look like they say anything about a time,” I said as I skimmed through the next few pages.
“Don’t skip ahead, keep going!” Shane grumbled at me.
“Right, okay, continuing,” I gave him an eye-roll before continuing. “This man bore many children with many women, in hopes of having a child like himself that he could teach and learn with. This breeding created a string of Warlock and Sorceress lines, however, not all would be activated. The magic can lie dormant and never awaken in the carrier’s lifetime, but it can be passed on despite this.
“The man eventually had a child who could manipulate air when he reached adulthood. They began the task of writing their learnings and history down to pass on to future generations.”
“Is that it?” Shane asked as I stopped.
“Well, the writing changes on this next page, as if another author wrote it,” I stated. “It changes from this piece.”
“And it says?” Shane coached me onwards.
“Warlocks discovered they could wield more than one element, and when they mingled with witches, they also learned they could cast the most powerful of spells. Witches began helping the Warlocks to write their own spells, and thus the most powerful of all spell-casters were born. Able to control numerous elements, from fire, earth, electricity, to water, and air. Able to conjure up magic and use it as either a weapon… or to heal,” I frowned at this. So my father had tried to help my Mom with everything he had. But he couldn’t save her. I shook my head and cleared my throat before continuing. “It just goes on to explain more of their history, the secret institutes, the books that were shielded with powerful magic so only Warlocks and Sorceresses can read them. That they have one element that is their affinity, an element that comes naturally to them, the others need to be learned and mastered. There is even a comment here that there was once a Warlock who could wield time. But the Council deemed him too dangerous and put him down. It was the start of the Warlock hunt,” I murmured as I scanned the text.
“Wield time? What does that mean?” Rose leaned closer, as if she could magically read the text now.
“Um, ah, here, he could slow down time, even freeze everything around him. He couldn’t go back in time though. The darkest of Warlocks practiced black magic, and would try to raise undead armies. I can see why the Council put out a hit,” I scoffed, “These guys gave us a bad name. Trying to rule the world with their powers.”
“Can you imagine an undead army,” Rose shuddered. “I’m kinda glad they put those bad apples down, no offense.”
“None taken, some of these paragraphs go into detail of some of the bad magic that was done. The same Warlock who tried to summon an army of the undead wiped out whole towns, flash floods, wildfires, strangulation by plants. He was a nasty piece of work, set out only for power.”
“Warlock Hitler,” Shane muttered.
“But there are others. There’s one here, a healer. A sister in a church who became known for her abilities to heal others. She was eventually burned at the stake though for witchcraft despite her good deeds,” I sighed. My history, my ancestors’ lines, they were filled with so much bloodshed and death.
“Sounds about right, humans don’t take kindly to things they don’t understand,” Shane said.
“Another woman who used her affinity for earth to restore forests burned down. And there was a nurse in the first war, healed soldiers and even helped in the war in secret. Setting enemy barracks on fire and using her air element to make their bullets miss. She was one of the most renowned Sorceresses because she mastered the art of shielding herself from enemy fire. An apparently rare magical ability that very few Warlocks or Sorceresses gain. She also healed people in her camp, hence being a nurse. She was able to manipulate many of the rare abilities, making her one of a kind.”
“Damn, you’d never have to worry again about getting hurt,” Shane whistled. “Imagine being able to summon a shield whenever you wanted. Especially if you could shield others too. And healing? Damn.”
“She did, she shielded her refugee camp
when it came under fire. The sheer power needed to do such a thing drained her and weakened her. She died in the second wave of attack on the camp,” I breathed. There were so many abilities that Warlocks and Sorceresses could learn and use.
Things I could learn.
“Well, as interesting as this is, I’m sure you’d probably want some time alone to read all this,” Rose sighed as she pulled back.
“What she’s saying is, you’re out of food in the fridge, so we’re going to go get breakfast,” Shane grinned as his stomach growled.
“Right, of course,” I nodded, unable to draw my eyes from the book.
“Tell us all the new, cool stuff you find out about though,” Rose tossed in as Shane stood up.
“Use my card,” I reminded her. I had more money than I needed, and they were my guests. I’d given her one of my keycards when she’d first come to stay while helping find my work friend’s killer.
“Right,” Rose said.
I barely even noticed as the door shut behind them.
There was so much to learn.
2
Rose and Shane returned after breakfast while I was still reading all the interesting lore and history of my kind. We were utter badasses. The longer we were around, the more we learned. It was like we grew stronger with each new generation. Evolved.
I put the book down despite how badly I wanted to continue to fill in my two friends with any highlights.
Maurice had met them in the hall, and in upon hearing they were my friends, had passed Axle on to them to be returned.
Axle enjoyed his werewolf friends, his icy blue eyes ecstatic as he sat before the couch as Rose fussed over him. Even Shane enjoyed tossing a tennis ball for him. Axle always loved to play fetch. He’d nosed around the area first, obviously smelling Otis before focusing on our guests.
“What is he?” Shane asked as Axle barked in anticipation for the ball.
“German Shepherd/husky mix. I picked him up from the shelter around three years ago,” I informed them. Axle looked like a pretty typical Shepherd, except for the tinges of grey in his fur and his icy blue eyes.