An Average Curse (The Chronicles of Hawthorn, Book 1)

by Rue

  Flynn dreamed of having half the grace and power of her legendary grandmother. However, her brief existence had proven to be a great disappointment to Kapowai and she feared today would be no different. “What if I don’t get promoted, Nana?”

  “Nonsense. You are a Hawthorn—Priestess born. Have a little faith in yourself, my dear.” Kapowai loaded a plate with food and passed it to Flynn. “Now eat and I will give you some last minute pointers.”

  The overly casual tone of her grandmother’s voice gave Flynn more concern than the unusual breakfast. Something had happened in Dreamwood Forest and Nana was purposely distracting her.

  Flynn put her suspicions aside and gratefully devoured the hot meal.

  Nana’s pointers turned out to be comments like, “Always make eye contact with your instructors when they ask you a question,” or “Stand up straight when you answer,” or “You should tie a pretty ribbon in your hair.” Not exactly the great magickal secrets that would help Flynn succeed today.

  Hazel couldn’t get the tangles out of her hair, so she opted for tying it all back with one of Nana’s ribbons.

  “Witch’s pet,” Flynn teased.

  “We can’t all have perfectly straight, manageable hair like you,” Hazel huffed.

  The girls thanked Nana for the delicious breakfast and hurried off to find Po before the formalities got started.

  The sapphire-blue sky stretched wide overhead. Growing puffs of white and grey clouds in the north hinted at the possibility of a late afternoon rain, but for now the golden spring sun beat down with welcome warmth.

  “Did you hear the great news?” Po huffed, as soon as he saw the girls approaching.

  “They canceled the promotion tests?” Flynn joked.

  “Ha ha,” Po kicked the dirt under his foot. “Mistress Windemere had to leave to tend to a family issue in The Hagathorn and now my ma is overseeing the Divination promotion.”

  Hazel tugged on Flynn’s wrinkled sleeve and pantomimed a dangling hex bag.

  Po misunderstood the gesture and responded, “Yes, my fate is dangling by a thread. Don’t you think I know that?” He rubbed the scar on his cheek and tensed his jaw muscle.

  They walked to the large canvas tents set up on the Ceremonial Lawn in the center of the village. A Hapu banner fluttered in the wind on the front of each of the four tents.

  “Looks like you forgot the Spirit Hapu again, Po,” Flynn teased.

  Oddly, Po smiled in response to the jab. “The Spirit Hapu tattoo will let you enter any tent,” he said with a hint of superiority.

  “What do you mean, ‘let us’ enter,” Flynn asked.

  “Each banner is like a ward. If you bear the mark you can enter the tent. If not, you’ll be repelled. The Fire Hapu has an especially nasty rejection sting.” Po pointed to a small girl, with a Water tattoo on her arm, wandering down the row of tents. She approached the Fire Hapu and a green flame singed off her eyebrows.

  “That’s mean!” Hazel exclaimed.

  “I’m sure Anise thought that up all by herself,” Flynn said.

  “So now that you’ve seen what happens when you’re rejected, go up there and give it a shot.” Po pushed Flynn toward the entrance of the Fire Hapu tent.

  “No thanks, I like my eyebrows.”

  “You’ll be perfectly fine, I promise,” he said.

  Flynn walked slowly toward the door and passed through unharmed. She smiled and turned to beckon Hazel, when a snide remark interrupted.

  “I think you’re in the wrong tent, Watcher,” Anise snarled. Ino and Eva snickered in the background and glared at Flynn.

  Flynn spun around and pulled up her right sleeve to reveal her Spirit tattoo. “I think I can walk into any tent I like. Can you?”

  Anise exhaled as she turned to her followers, and threw her retort over her shoulder, “Like I’d want to.”

  Flynn ran back to her waiting friends and they all entered the Air Hapu tent. The shade offered a respite from the late spring heat.

  Despite the dull roar of excitement and the initial appearance of chaos, the trio quickly discovered that the initiates were all lined up by level and mercifully the Level Ones were getting to go first. Unfortunately for Po, Divination landed at the top of their list.

  Flynn and Po commiserated while Hazel went in to see Mistress Paitangi.

  “Where’s your shadow?” Po asked.

  She didn’t mean to jump at the word, but after reading actual shadow magick from The Book of Light, the word had a whole new meaning for Flynn. “What?”

  “Lania. I haven’t seen her lurking around all day.” Po scanned the room again and shook his head. “Nowhere to be seen, eh?”

  Before Flynn could respond Hazel walked back into the tent, sporting a toothy grin.

  Po jumped up and ran to her. “How was it? Is she in a good mood?”

  “I did very well, thank you.” Hazel replied. Clearly avoiding answering any of Po’s most pressing concerns. “She said to send you in, Flynn.”

  Flynn paused near Hazel’s ear as she exited, “Lania AND Mistress Windemere are missing,” she whispered.

  “Looks like our plan worked better than we could’ve hoped,” Hazel said.

  Flynn walked into the Carving Hut and nodded to Mistress Paitangi. She finished up with a group from the Water Hapu. The little girl with the singed eyebrows walked out with a tear-stained face and the others did not look at anything but the ground. Po had not exaggerated his mother’s precise adherence to rules.

  “Flynn Hawthorn, come.” Paitangi motioned, with a strong calloused hand, to a mat in front of her stump of a chair. Her eyes searched the items on the table and she selected a small leather pouch with a finely braided cord. She picked up the item by the cord and dangled it in front of Flynn.

  She jumped back and looked in horror at the item, “What is that?” Flynn sputtered.

  “It’s your job to tell me, Flynn.” Paitangi dropped the item on the mat in front of the initiate. Her tight topknot pulled every line from her face. She waited, expressionless.

  Flynn leaned away from the bag. The cord looked exactly like the one holding the hex bag around Lania’s neck. Her hands clenched. She did not want to touch that bag and somehow fall under Magdelana’s spell. “Can I have something else?”

  “This is the chosen item,” Paitangi continued, stern and unwavering, “this is the item you will read—or fail.”

  She stretched her hand slowly toward the bag. Flynn pinched a tiny piece of the cord between two fingers. Nothing.

  Mistress Paitangi’s stained leather boot tapped impatiently.

  Still, Flynn felt nothing. Heard nothing.

  “Enough.” Paitangi snatched the bag from Flynn’s fingers and laid it back on the table. “You are dismissed.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” Flynn mumbled as she backed out of the room.

  “Send in my son,” Paitangi instructed the retreating girl.

  She did not shed a tear. Enough tears had been shed in her short lifetime. She had not expected today to go well. Pounamu’s initiation day tricks had only pushed her further into a place she did not belong. She hurried back to the Air Hapu tent and gave Po the news.

  “If I don’t return, remember me fondly, my dear friends.” Po bowed and swept his cloak behind his shoulder as he exited.

  “He’s too much some days,” Hazel joked. “So, how did you do?”

  “She picked a hex bag from the table of items and I didn’t get a single message, except my own terror. Total and complete failure.” Flynn flopped down on the ground.

  “Too bad Po didn’t tell her that you saved his life in Tamsin’s herb class. She didn’t even ask me to read an object. She thanked me for saving her distracted son from his inevitable death and told me I passed.” Hazel shrugged and leaned closer to Flynn. “What do you think about Lania, gone missing?”

  “Sounds to me like they both took the bait,” Flynn chuckled. “My guess is they’ll be madder than a cornered boar when the
y get to the Ruins of Manaina and find a huge crater filled with chunks of skymetal, and no wand.”

  “What wand?” Hazel asked.

  Flynn’s jaw sagged as she remembered they had never discussed the gifts they had received from Pounamu. She had worked so hard to keep the wand a secret and now she had simply blurted it out in the middle of a tent full of people. “We can’t talk about it here. Let’s walk up to Windemere’s tree house after we finish our Level Ones, all right?”

  Hazel nodded her head slowly. “We’ve never keep secrets from each other, Flynn.”

  “I think you’ve been suppressing your powers around me for almost, well, forever,” Flynn replied with a frown. “That feels like a secret.”

  “Only because you’re—you know. I was trying to be a good friend.” Hazel shrugged and looked away.

  Before Flynn could reply, Po returned, red-faced and sweaty.

  “Did you manage?” Hazel inquired.

  “I managed to make her angry. I managed to break the item she gave me. I will definitely not be called up with the top initiates to lead the ceremonial blessing. But, somehow, I managed to shout one thing that must’ve been true, because she didn’t fail me.” Po plopped down on the ground and hung his head in his hands.

  Flynn patted him on the back and said, “At least you did better than me.”

  Initiates were being called in for their Grounding demonstrations in groups of three or four.

  Hazel raised her hand and said, “Three.”

  “This way.” A Level Six initiate with broad shoulders and curly brown hair led them to Master Sorrel’s. “Wait here. When that group leaves, you may enter.”

  “Thank you. I’m Hazel.” She made a fist and touched her thumb to her forehead in a gesture of respect.

  The Level Six initiate nodded and walked away.

  “I guess he’s too good to talk to a lowly One-r,” Hazel complained.

  “Or he’s incredibly busy and doesn’t have time for chit chat, eh?” Po replied. “Girls,” he muttered under his breath.

  The previous group, all smiles, exited through the arched doorway and the waiting trio entered Master Sorrel’s hut. The north facing windows kept the room cool and pleasant in the heat of the day.

  Hazel cast the owl-hearing spell on everyone and sat down.

  “Please arise, younglings.” Master Sorrel tapped his rimu wood staff on the floorboards and all the initiates flinched.

  “Initially you will draw energy up from Mother Earth, proceed to hold dominion over the energy, and when I strike my staff you will release all excess energy back to the Mother.” His clouded vision searched their faces, “Understood?”

  They all nodded.

  Po managed his own energy fairly well, and Hazel took care of herself and Flynn.

  Flynn had learned to act the part, but her mind wandered back to their disagreement about secrets and she wasn’t paying close attention. She didn’t notice when Hazel began the release of energy.

  Master Sorrel fixed her with a curious gaze.

  She looked at him. She looked at Hazel. Flynn clumsily swooped her arms downward and copied Hazel’s pose.

  Sorrel stepped back and sat down in his chair. “An encore, please. The same sequence.”

  Hazel frowned at Flynn and they all reset.

  Hazel pulled up the energy and Flynn experienced a shift, some new tingle that she had not experienced the first time. She looked at Master Sorrel’s stoic face. Flynn felt energy flowing through her and into Hazel.

  Hazel turned and looked at Flynn.

  Flynn opened her mouth, but no words escaped. Hazel had a flickering blue aura around her entire body, and it slowly expanded. The energy field enveloped Flynn.

  Hazel absorbed a kind of power she had only imagined. The sensation pulsed up her legs. The energy she pulled from the earth had no boundary. She felt limitless.

  “You must release it now, Hazel. Slowly, very slowly.” Sorrel tapped his staff.

  The humming sensation drained from Flynn’s limbs. She watched the color fade from the air.

  Hazel lowered her arms and touched her palms to the earth. “Tena koutou, thank you.”

  “You have all performed quite well, quite well indeed for Level One. I shall keep my failing eyes on you, Hazel Ivy Tetekura. You are all dismissed.”

  They hurried out of the hut and Flynn grabbed Hazel’s arm. “What happened, what did you do?”

  “I’m not sure. I pulled the energy for both of us, but somehow it circled back and it kept growing. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  “What about you, Po, did you feel it?” Flynn asked.

  He nodded. “I think I floated and I connected to Hazel or something.” Po’s eyes searched the sky for a better explanation, “The circle thing, like Hazel said, eh?”

  One the way back to the tent, a group of Fire Hapu initiates told them to go directly to Mistress Tamsin’s hut. As soon as they arrived, Tamsin shouted at them for failing to follow protocol and told them to go back to their tent until all other Level Ones had completed their demonstrations. They passed the Fire Hapu group on their way back.

  “Was Mistress Tamsin happy to see you?” Ino joked.

  “Yes, she told us we passed automatically because we aren’t eel-brained Fire Hapu failures,” Hazel sniped.

  “Where’s your scrawny leader, Anise?” Flynn added.

  Eva stalked over to Flynn and growled into her face. “None of your business, Watcher.”

  “I’ve got to watch them set up for the ceremony. I want to see if my repair job on the Chalice passes inspection.” Po ran off to watch the Level Nine initiates set up the altar for the promotions.

  Flynn and Hazel went for their walk. The heady aroma of spring flowers floated on the breeze and a few wayward water droplets warned of the coming deluge.

  “Do you think we’re supposed to talk about the gifts Pounamu gave us?” Hazel asked. She retrieved an unfinished flax bracelet from her satchel and continued her knots as they ambled.

  “She didn’t tell us not to,” Flynn offered.

  “I know, but she put us in a trance or something so we didn’t hear what the other one got.” Hazel paused her handwork.

  “She also knows we’re best friends and we tell each other everything, so I think it’s all right.” Flynn slowed her walk and waited for Hazel to turn toward her. “Don’t you want to tell me?”

  “She gave me a small glass bottle. She wouldn’t tell me what it was, she just said that Tangaroa is my guardian,” Hazel rushed through the sentence without taking a breath. “Now you.”

  Flynn’s hand instinctively touched the edge of her cloak. She felt the shape of the hidden wand. “I have the wand of Temarama.”

  Hazel dropped the bracelet, clapped her hand over her mouth, and her eyes flew open wide. “How? Where? Did she—”

  “It’s what Magdelana is looking for, the tree branch told me.” Flynn shuddered when she said the name of the shadow witch.

  “Flynn, you’re in terrible danger. You have to tell your mother. She’ll get the whole Grand Coven to protect you.” Hazel’s fingers were tapping wildly against each other and she paced back and forth in front of Flynn.

  “We can’t trust everyone in the Grand Coven, Hazel, and I think Pounamu knows that.”

  “Windemere! I forgot—and there could be others.” Hazel stopped and looked at Flynn, “Is that why she gave it to you instead of the High Priestess?”

  “Why else would she give the wand to a Level One—Watcher?”

  “You’re more than that, Flynn. You’ll see,” Hazel rubbed her friend’s arm. “Can I see it?”

  “What?” Flynn looked puzzled.

  “The wand, you silly moa. Can I see it?” Hazel repeated.

  “I suppose, but not out here. Let’s go down into the trees by the river.” Flynn turned and led the way through the branches drooping with kowhai blossoms to a small mossy depression in the earth below a large willow tree, thick with bud
s and new leaves.

  They hunkered down and looked all around several times.

  Flynn took both of Hazel’s sun-browned hands and squeezed them tightly. “You have to promise, on your life, never to tell anyone about this wand.”

  Hazel nodded.

  Flynn reached into her satchel and pulled out her boline knife. She slipped it from its sheath and cut a lock of her own hair. She passed the knife to Hazel, who did the same. Flynn braided the black strands with the curly blonde strands and poked her finger sharply with the point of the curved blade. A drop of her blood fell onto the braid.

  Hazel inhaled nervously. “I can’t prick my finger, Flynn. I can’t.”

  Flynn passed Hazel the braided hair and caught her friend’s finger fast. “Hold it over the braid and say you promise to hold this secret—on your life.” Flynn quickly pricked Hazel’s finger.

  She yelped out a muffled scream and let her blood drop onto the braid. “I promise to keep the secret of the wand of Temarama—on my life.”

  Flynn turned and dug a small hole at the base of the willow tree, she pressed the promise braid deep into the earth and covered it with the Mother. “So it will be,” she whispered.

  “So it will be,” Hazel echoed.

  Flynn cleaned the blade on the moss and placed the sheathed knife back in her bag. Reluctantly, she pulled the wand from its hiding place.

  Hazel’s eyes traced every inch of the fossil. The two types of wood were woven together. Someone had lovingly trained the trees to grow in-and-around, supporting each other, but separate. In each place where the saplings had crossed, a stone had been pressed into the bark—becoming part of the tree itself. She could see a moa stone, a black stone she thought to be obsidian, several stones she could not identify, and a clear quartz tip. Her hand reached for the wand.

  “Hazel, what are you doing? You know better than to touch someone’s wand without permission.” Flynn pulled the wand back protectively and stared at Hazel.

  “Sorry. It’s so breathtaking, I guess I forgot myself.” Hazel folded her hands in her lap and made the request, “May I hold the wand of Temarama?”