Discovery of Magick (Dark Light Academy Book 1)

by Tabatha Stephenson

  Discovery of Magick

  Dark Light Academy 1

  Tabatha Stephenson

  Copyright © 2020 by Tabatha Stephenson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Simply Defined Art

  To my love, now and forever

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Want to keep reading?

  Prologue

  The fire crackled merrily in the inglenook fireplace. To the right of the hearth sat an ancient spinning wheel, a revered artifact from the family’s past. To the left, a wooden hooded cradle with a swaddled infant drowsing happily, chubby fist in mouth.

  The oldest of the three women present stepped forward. Usually the parents’ mothers bestowed their blessings, but one was human and magickless. The other, along with her husband, disapproved of her only daughter’s choice of mate and decried the child as unworthy of their notice. Lifting her hand, the woman called forth her wand. She drew a pattern in the air over the child, the bright yellow color of her magic lighting the patterns she wove. “I gift you the knowledge of always knowing right from wrong.”

  The runes dissolved and settled onto the babe, sinking into her being. The child’s father smiled, pleased at the offering and the mother clasped a hand to her mouth, overcome with happiness. The woman turned to them, hugging each in turn, before stepping back to allow the other godmother to give her blessing. She, too, drew a set of runes in the air, the magic this time shining blue. “I bestow to you the gift of intuition. Follow it and never be led astray.” She remained motionless until the last sparkle had sunk below the child’s skin, then also turned her attention to the third woman, the child’s mother..

  “She’s a beautiful child,” she told her.

  “You’ll both do her binding when she’s four?” the father asked.

  “But of course. And unbind her when she’s eighteen,” the other interjected.

  “It’s time for the photo,” another man said testily. He was there as the Winter Court’s witness, that the child was truly blessed and that the magic did not reject her, thus confirming she was indeed a child of magick. He’d begrudgingly agreed to take a picture for them as well. The four adults took their place before the fireplace, smiling gently off to the side at the infant.

  “I’ll have these back to you before you go,” the witness said. “You won’t leave before noon tomorrow, will you?”

  “If they do, I’ll see they get their copies,” the first godmother said.

  “I’m going to miss you so much,” the other godmother said to the child’s mother. “I’ll visit as often as I can.”

  The child slept on, unaware of it all and what it meant for her future.

  Chapter 1

  “What time you coming over?" Marla asked as we biked home from Dairy Queen.

  "I don't know. I promised Aunt Tillie I'd help pack up some more stuff this afternoon and move it to the garage. She wants as much stuff as possible packed before the house sells." I sighed. I hated packing and wasn’t looking forward to all the cleaning to be done afterward, either.

  "I'll ask my mom if you can come over for dinner."

  "Okay, sounds good."

  "You can stay the night, and we can look at apartment listings."

  Now that was a good plan. We'd graduated from Yardley T. Bowring High a week ago and hadn't made any definite plans for moving out of our folks' homes. Today we'd both applied for jobs at the DQ while getting ice cream, and yesterday we'd also applied to the local Dollar General. We needed to step up in that regard, too. No job meant no money to move out. Aunt Tillie had already let me know in no uncertain terms that while she hadn't pressed me to apply to colleges, she expected me to understand I had responsibilities. I knew full well what she meant by that. She was suggesting that I had to get off my butt, find a job, and move out. You know, the whole adult thing.

  I wasn't mad about it, either. Uncle Joe had snagged a new job with some start-up developing something they called Universal Energy. It used an antenna that pulled the coldness of space down to it and turned it into electricity. He showed me a news article about the idea. They called it anti-solar energy in the report. It sounded pretty cool, and it was green energy, so I was all for it. The downside was they had to move, which meant selling the house. I had told her I didn't want to move away yet because I'd miss Marla, which is when she gave me the whole having responsibilities speech. If I found a job and found somewhere affordable to rent, she could rest easy about leaving me behind. It was the least I could do for them. They'd raised me ever since I was four years old after my parents died in a small plane my uncle’s brother, my Uncle Josh, was piloting.

  "Okie dokie," I called out to her, "Call me if it's okay." I lifted a hand off of my handlebars and waved good-bye to her before turning down my street.

  "There you are!" Uncle Joe called out to me from the driveway. I knit my brows together. He was putting suitcases into the trunk of the car.

  "What's going on?" I asked.

  "You graduated, and it's your eighteenth birthday tomorrow," he said.

  "No, it's not. That's in three days' time," I replied. He was always getting days a little mixed up, bless him.

  He gave me a soft smile. "Anyways, we had decided to surprise you with a trip to celebrate them both, and we've been waiting for you. When you said you'd be right back, we thought you meant a lot sooner than three hours."

  I flushed. I hadn't meant to take so much time, but Marla and I had gotten to talking, then decided to ride out for ice cream, and while there at the DQ, got the idea of applying for jobs. The manager even interviewed us on the spot and said he'd call in a few days to let us know.

  "You mean we're going now?"

  "Well, we were about to get in the car and go looking for you so we could leave as soon as you hopped into the car, so yes."

  Well, that scuppered my plans with Marla, but I really couldn't say no, even if the surprise was rather inconvenient.

  "Can I go inside and get a cold drink first?"

  "Go ahead, and call Marla. I know you two are joined at the hip, so you best tell her you're going."

  "For how long?' I asked, opening the screen door."

  "It's a surprise," Aunt Tillie said, catching sight of me. "What kind of celebratory trip would it be if it was just overnight?"

  "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be funny. I just wanted to let her know how long I'd be gone."

  "Just tel
l her you'll call her when you get back." Aunt Tillie checked her lipstick in her compact before sliding it back inside her purse.

  "In fact, call her on that phone of yours and just go get in the car. We'll be late."

  "I was going to get a cold drink."

  "We'll stop on the way. Your uncle will need to get gas, anyway."

  I turned around and went back out the front door, Aunt Tillie right behind me, locking the door before she followed me down the steps. Uncle Joe had already put my bike in the garage, locked it, and was waiting for us in the driver's seat. Aunt Tillie climbed into the passenger's seat, and I slid to the middle of the backbench seat as always. I liked sitting in the middle, as I could see out both sides and through the front. I also could have both rear windows open without getting buffeted in the face, which was awesome as this old car did not have a working air conditioner. It was on Uncle Joe's list of things to buy with his bonus once Universal Energy made it to market- buy his first-ever brand-new car.

  We'd gotten as far as the stop sign at the end of our road when Aunt Tillie dropped another bombshell on me. "The house sold today. We got the full price, too."

  "You mean we got an offer?" I asked her.

  "Not just an offer. They are cash buyers, and after we accepted their offer, they wired a deposit to our lawyer. We just have to do the paperwork and have them wire us the rest," she said.

  Wow. Just, wow. I leave for a few hours, and all this happens. Unbelievable!

  "So, how was your day?" Uncle Joe asked me.

  "We applied for a job at Dairy Queen." Not that after having applied at the Dollar General, there was anywhere else to apply to, really. Not here in town, anyway.

  Bowring was what folks called a two-horse town. It had a Dairy Queen, a Dollar General, an Ace Hardware that was also the local feed and seed store, a sheriff's office, a volunteer fire station, and both a small elementary and high school that served the surrounding rural area for miles. It used to have a beauty parlor, but Lou Anne Phelps that ran it, she up and married a trucker who then joined the Army, so they moved away. Yup, Bowring, Kansas, was precisely what us locals called it- Boring. But it was familiar, and until Marla and I knew what we wanted to do with our lives, we didn't want to leave it. We had decided to take a gap year, work some, and live on our own, figure ourselves out. Maybe take some outreach classes from Deflores Community College, even, as they held some at Blufield Baptist on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

  "It'll work out." That was Uncle Joe, for you, but I had a hunch he was right. It was the same gut feeling that had led to me not taking the guidance counselor's advice and applying to colleges and for financial aid. I could just feel that I hadn't discovered my path yet, that it was right around the corner, and I needed to find it.

  We'd left the town limits now, and the flat landscape was looking a bit samey, all fields and telephone poles. Then a gas station appeared, the Texaco with the ancient sign and old school Coke cooler with the glass bottle opener to one side of the sliding doors across its top. Uncle Joe pulled in to get gas, and I hopped out. Uncle Joe handed me some money to go grab us some sodas, and I did, along with three bags of Fritos.

  Back on the road, I lazily sipped my drink and ate my chips, the wind from the open windows not quite cooling off the inside of the hot car, thanks to the unrelenting June sun. I found myself drowsing, as the fields whipped by. I woke up as I felt the car come to a stop, my bladder screaming blue murder from all the Coke I'd drunk hours earlier.

  I stretched and looked around to see where we were. I stared. We'd stopped to let a train pass, only it was unlike any train I'd ever seen before outside of movies. A large black locomotive hooted, belching steam into the air. No, I take that back. Not even the ones I saw in movies had colored sparkles in the steam. I don't know what they were burning, but it looked pretty cool.

  "Oh, good, you're awake," Uncle Joe said, noticing me as I leaned forward, trying to get a better look to no avail. All I could see now was the laden cars, though they seemed to be made of wood. Definitely some heritage thing, I decided, though didn't those usually have passenger cars?

  "Um, yeah. I need to pee."

  "We'll be there in about five minutes," Aunt Tillie said.

  "Yup, sure will. Soon as we can move, it'll be five minutes or less, "Uncle Joe agreed.

  The last train car rumbled past, and the crossing barrier lifted up. Somehow, knowing it was five minutes made it seem even more urgent. I couldn't even fully concentrate on the weird place I found us driving into, though I did notice enough about it to realize the train probably had something to do with the place. It had an Old World look, like someone last century had gone crazy, built an entire European village, plonked it down, added a train station and tracks for good measure, and the train to go with it.

  Then we were pulling up to a cottage on a narrow lane lined with honest to God cobblestones that had me squeezing my legs shut and praying it did not jolt me and my too-full bladder any harder. When he put the car into park and shut off the engine, I was ready to run to the toilet. I had a sneaking suspicion that we had to check in first, and from the size of the B and B, they didn't have a lobby with a public restroom I could use while I waited.

  The door to the cottage flung open as we got out of the car.

  "Tillie!" the woman called out.

  "Lisanne!"

  I watched in astonishment as the two women fell into each other, becoming a mass of hugging arms, tears, and kissed cheeks.

  Uncle Joe scratched the back of his neck with one hand. "Been a while since they last saw each other," was all he said.

  "Who is she?"

  "That's your Aunt Lisanne," he said as if it explained everything.

  My two aunts finally broke apart.

  "Oh, my, is that?" Aunt Lisanne asked, looking overcome as she gazed at me.

  I gave a small wave. "Hi, I'm Tuesday," I told her.

  "You look just like your mother," she said.

  I'd seen a few pictures of my mom. I did look a lot like her, though I'd gotten my dad's nose, and my blonde hair was closer to his than to my mom's.

  "Let's get you inside. You must be famished."

  "Could I use the bathroom?" I asked, following her.

  "There's a cloakroom just off the hallway, by the kitchen," she informed me.

  I had no idea what a cloakroom was, but I was good to go if it had a toilet. I found it easily enough, as the downstairs only had three rooms. One large living room/diner, a short hall that ran the width of that room, with a kitchen and what turned out to be what a realtor would call a half bath. That is, a room with a toilet and a sink, but no tub or shower. No cloaks anywhere or places hang them, so I had no idea why she called it that. Never mind, I got to pee, and that was the main thing.

  I came out to find Uncle Joe going up the stairs with the suitcases. Aunt Lisanne and Aunt Tillie sat at a wooden table tucked under the stairs. The table was laid with small fancy sandwiches that had the bread crusts cut off, little fruit pastries, and a pot of tea. Aunt Tillie had a plate in front of herself, laden with sandwiches and two pastries. She was sipping from a cup of tea from the pot.

  Aunt Lisanne looked over at me. "-do very well," she finished saying to Aunt Tillie. "Would you like some tea, dear?"

  "No, thanks."

  "Something to eat?"

  The food looked appealing enough to look at, but I wasn't feeling hungry. "Not just yet," I replied.

  Uncle Joe came down the stairs. "Come on, I'll show you your room."

  Now that I could get on board with. I could settle in my room and call Marla like I'd meant to earlier. I followed him upstairs to a small bedroom barely big enough for the twin bed that sat under the window. A set of drawers was under the bed, the only place I saw storage for anything. No closet or anything, but that was okay. We were just here for a short visit, it's not like I needed to unpack my whole life here.

  It was beginning to grow dark, so we must have been driving for longer
than I thought. I yawned, still feeling a bit sleepy. It was the bone tiredness you get from sleeping too much at the wrong time and needing to sleep off the grogginess you get afterward, so I knew the best thing to do would be to call Marla and then see about getting to bed early. Tomorrow, I could get to know this new aunt I'd never heard of before and do whatever touristy stuff Aunt Tillie and Uncle Joe had in mind.

  I pulled out my phone, dismayed to see there was no service. Crap, I was on the last three percent, too. I needed to look through my bags to see if a charger had been packed.

  A small knock on the door interrupted my search.

  "I thought I'd check to see if you wanted a bath," Aunt Lisanne said.

  That sounded good. "Yes, please." The bathroom turned out to be tiny, too, and it was also a half bath of a sort. It had a tub with a shower and a sink. That was it except for the medicine cabinet and a towel rail. No window, but there was a skylight.

  "Now, the plumbing might be a bit different than you're used to. It's very old. First, you have to turn on the hot water tap on the sink. Then once the water gets hot and turns that whitish color, you can turn on the hot water for the bath or shower but only halfway. Wait for that to get hot, then slowly turn it on all the way and turn the sink off." She began demonstrating. Once the sink was off, she added bubble bath to the tub, pouring under the faucet for maximum foam.

  "I'll just go grab my PJs," I said to her, excusing myself. I could look for the charger later. It's not like I could do anything without a signal, and by now, my battery had no doubt died.