“Yeah…” I rub my face again. “But it still hurt like hell, Jeep.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “But this is the best way for you to train your skills.”
“It’s not fair. You’ve had your power for ages and you have much more experience in fighting than I do.” I know I sound like a five-year-old complaining about not getting a second cupcake, but sometimes I feel so useless.
“Most of our enemies are better trained than you are, master,” Jeep answers, twirling his hat around on the tip of his finger. “That’s why you need training. We all do.”
“I know that. But it just seems so hopeless.” I swallow the lump that has been rising in my throat. “I’m not sure we can ever win this battle.”
Jeep places his hat back on his see-through head and smiles. “According to the prophecy we will win, Dante. Stop worrying, and focus on becoming a better fighter.”
I cock my head. “I thought I was supposed to give the orders around here.”
“Well, sometimes even a leader needs a kick in the butt.” He winks, steps back and takes on a fighting position. “Are you ready to try again?”
I know he’s right, so I poke my power core with my mind. “Absolutely.”
As he starts moving his hands again to control the skeleton lying on the ground in a heap of bones, I conjure a bolt of lightning in my hand and hit him with it. While he tumbles backwards, I turn to strike the skeleton with a second bolt. The bones turn to dust and the wind spreads it over the grass.
When I turn back to Jeep to attack him again, his fist is only inches from my face. I release another bolt and raise up my other hand defensively. Half of Jeep’s transparent body is immobilized by a thick layer of ice.
“Nice job,” he mumbles, only one corner of his mouth moving.
In my head I picture hail stones the size of tennis balls dropping down from the sky.
To my surprise that is exactly what the clouds above us release, but while I grin at my success, Jeep frees himself from his ice prison and knocks me down. We tumble through the grass and I try to hit him with more lightning and hail. Over and over I miss him, until one of my bolts bounces against a wall of grease, several paces to Jeep’s left. The wall melts and the slimy substance washes over us like a tidal wave. Something hard hits my temple and when the black spots around me dissolve, I realize it was Vicky’s head I collided with.
“Thanks for freeing me,” she says with a smile, before kissing me on the lips.
I try to look over her shoulder, while she wipes the grease off my arms. “Did Charlie trap you in there?”
An irritated frown wrinkles up her forehead. “He did. I thought I had him hypnotized, and then this icky stuff enveloped me.”
Charlie’s grinning face comes into view. He holds out his hand to Vicky, but she ignores it and pushes herself up.
I give Charlie the thumbs up behind her back and his grin grows wider.
“Hey, do you guys want to switch?” he says, when Jeep and I rise from the slowly dissolving grease.
My heart yearns to stay close to Vicky, so I nod. “Sure, you have a go at Jeep’s skeletons for a while.”
He wipes the sweat from his forehead. “Actually, I thought it would be nice to fight you, you know.”
The disappointment must be visible on my face, because he plants his hands on his hips and says, “Come on, you can survive another ten minutes without your girlfriend, can’t you?”
My mouth opens to answer when a frightened voice interrupts us. “Dante? What’s all this?”
I turn around and my heart almost leaps out of my chest. “Mom? You’re awake!”
A second later I’ve reached the doorway to the kitchen of Darkwood Manor. I wrap my mom into a tight hug. “Are you okay? I’ve been so worried.”
She hardly reacts. Her body is stiff and when I hold her at arm’s length, she doesn’t meet my eye. Her gaze is locked on the circle behind me. “What is this?” she repeats.
I swallow. “Well, eh… these are my friends.”
With one arm still around her shoulder I turn back to the others. Charlie, Vicky and Jeep smile shyly at Mom. The rest hasn’t noticed her yet. They’re all too caught up in their training.
Charlie’s crush Gisella is trying to cut off Maël’s head. She manages to scrape off a couple of black curls before the African ghost queen raises her staff and puts her in slow motion.
Meanwhile D’Maeo and Taylar are entangled in a sword fight that would make a bunch of Samurai look like amateurs. They move around each other like acrobats, their swords colliding with force.
Mom tilts her head and taps her fingers against her upper leg. “Are they actors?”
I imagine her brain whirling and clicking to find the most logical explanation for what she sees. Maybe I should just say yes. It might be safer for her if she doesn’t know about magic.
But I shake my head. No, that’s crazy. The fact that she didn’t know about magic is exactly what got her into trouble. It made it easier for a demon to take her. She had no idea what she was up against, and it almost startled her to death. Not knowing makes her defenseless.
“It’s okay, you can tell her.” Mona steps from the hallway into the kitchen, her hands full of groceries and a relaxed smile on her face. There’s a blush of excitement on her cheeks as she puts the groceries on the kitchen table, walks over to us and takes Mom’s hand in hers. “I’m so happy you will finally know.”
Mom’s eyes grow even bigger. “Know what? You’re scaring me, Mona.”
“Let’s go inside, I’ll make us all a cup of tea.” She pulls Mom with her into the kitchen and pushes her into the chair where Vicky normally sits.
I beckon the others before I follow them in.
Gisella is the last to enter the kitchen. She whips her long, bright red hair over her shoulder. “I have to go home, I’ve got siblings to take care off. Let me know if you need me, and when the next training is. Charlie has my number.” With a wink at him she turns on her heels and disappears around the corner.
Vicky sits down next to Mom and sticks out her see-through hand. “Hi, I’m Vicky.”
Mom doesn’t react. She’s still gaping at the spot where Gisella was standing a second ago. “That was a great costume. Creepy eyes!”
“Hey!” Charlie calls out indignantly. “She is not creepy.”
Vicky drops her hand and I shoot her a pleading look that says, ‘please give her a moment to adjust’.
“How about some chocolate cookies?” Mona says, holding out a plate to Mom.
Charlie’s stomach rumbles loudly in response and he gives Mona a crooked smile. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine,” the fairy godmother says. She turns and throws him a new package of cookies. “I brought one just for you.”
“Don’t eat that all at once, Charlie,” Mom says motherly. “You’ll get sick.”
Charlie is already munching on the first cookie. “No, I won’t. I need fuel for my power.”
Mom frowns. “You need what for what?”
I hold up my hand. “Okay, okay, let’s take this one thing at a time. We don’t want to overwhelm my mom. It’s all crazy enough without the details.”
Mom turns to me with a smile. “What is, honey? Did you join an acting group? That’s wonderful!”
For a moment a thousand thoughts scream at me in my head. How do I explain all of this without scaring the crap out of her?
An image of her being dragged through a hole in the floor by a tar-covered demon flickers before my eyes.
I take her hands again and look her in the eye. “Do you remember that monster that attacked you back home?”
Deep wrinkles transform her smooth forehead into a landscape of confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“It looked like a giant spider. At first you didn’t see it. It created a hole in our living room floor and took you.”
Her fingers almost crush mine. “You’
re describing a nightmare I had. How do you know what I dreamt?”
Mona walks around the table and places a hand on Mom’s shoulder. “I’m afraid that was real, Susan. I failed to protect you.”
Mom blinks several times. Her eyes dart from me to Mona, and back. “Protect me? What on earth are you talking about? What is going on here?” Her voice rises with every word.
Mona and I exchange a look before taking a deep breath. Simultaneously we spit out the truth.
“Magic is real.”
“So are monsters,” I add.
Taylar leans over the table across from Mom. “And ghosts.”
Mom’s gaze travels from Taylar to the others around the table. She takes in Jeep, D’Maeo and Maël sitting at the other end, and then Vicky, who is smiling broadly from the seat next to her. Then her head turns back to me and Mona. “I’m still dreaming.”
Mona walks back to the kitchen counter to pour the tea, while I squeeze Mom’s hands harder.
She lets out a startled cry. “Ouch, that hurts, Dante!”
I pull her closer to me. “You’re not dreaming, Mom. I know it’s hard to believe, it was for me too, but magic exists. It flows through my veins.”
Mona puts a steaming cup in front of Mom. “Just show her, Dante. And show her your father’s notebook.”
At the mention of Dad, Mom flinches a little. She doesn’t want to know anything about him, I know that. It’s not surprising either, considering what it looked like when he left. But after reading parts of Dad’s notebook, I know that he left to protect us. He was caught up in the same battle that I am now in. He fought the Devil before me.
Mom pulls her hands from my grip and sips from her tea. “You can do a trick? Show me.”
It’s hard not to get impatient, but I understand her unwillingness to believe in magic. It’s a stretch, even for people who are magical themselves. Eventually I felt magic flowing through me, so I had no choice but to believe. For Mom it’s different, she’s non-magical.
“Not a trick, Mom. This is all real,” I tell her.
It takes me only a second to conjure a lightning bolt in my hand.
“That’s pretty,” Mom simply says, and I shoot Mona an exasperated look.
“Charlie?” I plead, “can you please show her what you can do?”
My best friend has munched through half of the pack of cookies already. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, forms a couple of greasy, brown balls in his hand and builds a wall with them in the middle of the table.
Mom claps enthusiastically and I slap my forehead.
“Jeep?” I say.
He nods and starts moving his hands around, like the choir director of a very incoherent musical composition.
After about half a minute, there’s a knock at the back door that’s still half open. A skeleton peeks around the door. It waves at us before trotting inside, its bones clicking and clacking slightly with every step.
The tattooed ghost makes it walk around the table and stop in front of Mom. It performs a strange dance and takes a bow.
Mom claps again. “I love it!” she exclaims. “It’s better than the circus!”
“It’s not a trick, Mom,” I repeat. “Try to find a string.”
She shakes her head. “Strings are old school. So much is possible these days and it all looks so real!”
I place my elbows on the table and bury my head in my hands. “I give up.”
The legs of a chair scrape the floor. “Let me try,” Vicky says.
D’Maeo speaks up before she can hypnotize Mom. “No, it’s no use. We should show her a memory.”
“How is that going to work?” Taylar asks. “She’ll just think it’s a trick again.”
The gray-haired ghost shakes his head. “Not if it’s a memory of hers too.”
Taylar’s eyes grow wide. His mouth forms a perfect ‘O’. “You want to show her the moment John left?”
“It might be the only way.” D’Maeo turns his gaze on me. “You can join your mother, if you want to.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tamara Geraeds was born in 1981, in a small village in the south of The Netherlands.
When she was 6 years old, she wrote her first poem, which basically translates as:
A hug for you and a hug for me
and that’s how life should be
She started writing books at the age of 15 and her first book was published in 2012. After 6 books in Dutch she decided to write a young adult fantasy series in English: Cards of Death.
Tamara’s bibliography consists of books for children, young adults and adults, and can be placed under fantasy and thrillers.
Besides writing she runs her own business, in which she teaches English, Dutch and writing, (re)writes texts and edits books.
She’s been playing badminton for over 20 years and met the love of her life Frans on the court. She loves going out for dinner, watching movies, and of course reading, writing and hugging her husband. She’s crazy about sushi and Indian curries, and her favorite color is pink.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lots of thanks to my valuable beta readers William Case and Jolena Foster.
Thanks to you, the reader, for reading the figments of my imagination.
Thanks to everyone who took (or is going to take) the time to leave a review and/or recommend my book(s) to other readers. If I could hug you, I would.
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