by C E Dimond
I could feel my pulse begin to race as they moved closer on either side, closing me in, both blocking any attempt of escape.
“We’ve been looking for you,” He spoke again. “I have to admit, I thought we’d have a bit more of a challenge tracking you down. I guess you just wanted to make our lives easier. It’s appreciated, really.”
They were getting too close and my instincts were in hyper drive.
I unfolded my arms, and drawing from my magic threw my palms out in either direction hoping to use its force to flatten them all onto their backs.
To my surprise, or rather, my horror, nothing happened.
A chorus of their laughter echoed around me as they continued to step closer.
They were about to say something more when a growl interrupted, it was resonating from behind the second man, the one I’d seen inside the bar.
This time they all turned and their eyes, and mine, flew in the direction of the dog in the shadows. It was big, in fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a dog quite like it.
Its white teeth were bared, glinting with danger in the dim street light. Its growl grew louder and in the night light its eyes seemed to glow blue.
In a matter of seconds, it broke into a run and I jumped back against a wall. It didn’t come anywhere near me, instead it made a direct hit for the leader of the pack. It jumped up knocking him down with ease and the others took off running.
I could feel my hands shaking and I pressed my palms firmly against the wall willing them to stop. I waited for it to turn on me, but it had his large paws on the man’s chest his teeth inches from his face.
I didn’t turn to me, instead it simply backed off of him, growling at the man on the ground until he too had gotten to his feet and run off after his friends.
I stood still, frozen like a statue against the wall hoping it wouldn’t notice me and it sat, waiting it seemed until it could be sure the coast was clear.
It finally turned to me, its glowing blue eyes watching me for a few brief seconds before it too took off running and just a soon as it had appeared, it had vanished into the darkness.
I gasped for air, realizing I’d been holding my breath and I could hear my heart beat pounding against my chest. The blood was pumping so forcefully that I could hear it ringing in my ears.
I needed a minute to let my brain catch up to what had just happened.
My powers hadn’t worked, whoever, or whatever those men were, they were immune to it.
I could have tried to fight them, but without my power, three to one odds didn’t exactly lean in my favor.
I had grown stronger in the last couple of months, but not THAT strong.
I looked up at the night sky as I felt the first cool droplet of rain hit my skin and it wasn’t long before a steady drizzle had formed.
“Perfect,” I muttered, closing my eyes for a moment just allowing the cool rain to stream down my face.
Pushing myself up off the wall, I opened my eyes and looked around me once more.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back into the bar, a group had followed me out there, who knew how many more were waiting in side.
So, I walked back the way I’d come until I reached the hustle and bustle of the bar once more. People were pouring in and out of the doors and I decided I was definitely not going back in.
From there, I knew how to get back to the hostel and if I kept to the main streets, I figured I could avoid another incident.
I shot Keilan a text, telling her I was heading back so she didn’t think I’ve just vanished into thin air and I left.
I was more shaken than I wanted to admit but adrenaline could do strange things to a body. I just needed to get back to a place that felt safe and familiar. I was a woman on a mission, and as I ran through the rain I tried to focus on my destination, rather than my journey.
By the time I got back to the hostel, I was soaked to the bone. Rain in Ireland was different than at home. It did just get you went, it seemed to penetrate your skin and the chill was deep within you, a cold feeling you couldn’t easily shake.
Once I got out of the damp clothes and had a hot shower I collapsed on the bed and curled up underneath the blanket trying to hold in my warmth.
I lay there, turning the evening over and over again in my mind. I was beginning to doubt my decision, going on the trip alone. My magic had been useless, but if I’d had the other members of the Coven with me, at least our numbers might have been even.
Still, if it had taught me anything, it was that someone definitely knew that I was here. I had a feeling, even just from the brief encounter with my sister, that it couldn’t have been her.
She already knew where to find me, she wouldn’t have had any trouble tracking me down, the games all seemed beyond her.
It begged the more frightening question then, if it wasn’t her, or seemingly my father since they were supposed to be working tether, then just who was it that was looking for me?
7
“You will not be able to hide here much longer. His armies are searching the Kingdoms. If you two wish to stay hidden you must keep moving.” The kind woman’s words reached the two young lovers and they nodded.
“Your kindness has meant more to us than you could ever know.” The man said.
His love nodded in agreement, offering the woman what little she could in payment, one of her jewels that she had packed with her before they had run.
“Just a warm abode for the night means the world.” They had been spending more nights in the woods. The warmth of a hearth, even for just one had been enough to banish the chill from her bones.
“No, you keep this.” The elderly woman pushed the jewel back, closing the young woman’s hand around it. “You may need it. No payment here is necessary. Stay this night, by the morning, your horse should be rested enough to carry you to the next town.”
The two lovers exchanged a look and no words passed but they both knew what the other was thinking. They couldn’t stay another night, their lives depended on leaving now, or risk getting caught.
When I woke up the next morning, I lay in bed a few minutes longer than average. The previous night’s events were playing over and over again in my mind.
Those men could have killed me, they could have done any number of things to me. I had been powerless against them. My magic had failed me for the first time since the night at the dance.
That dog had saved my life.
A dog.
I’d never had a pet, strange really to think of it. A dog, or cat, may have been the answer to my loneliness. Another presence at home when my mother couldn’t be.
Maybe now, once I found her, I’d have a good argument for it. Well Mom, you know a Dog saved my life on my insane solo trip across the ocean to find you so…it only makes sense that we get one for the house.
At any other time, she never would have bought it but now, maybe I’d actually have a shot.
The problem was, I knew that I’d have to find her first.
My rumbling stomach was what eventually pulled me out of the carousel that had become my brain. It told me that I needed to get up, I needed breakfast.
Sitting up, I made haste changing out of my pajamas and into something I felt was more suitable for public viewing. It ended up being jeans and a long sleeve black shirt, with silver snap buttons at the neckline.
Once I slipped my shoes on, I stumbled down to the hall to get food. Once I had, what I considered a suitable breakfast, I found a seat alone at the end of the table.
Sitting alone didn’t last long. Keilan, who must have gotten up not too long after I had, and her boyfriend joined me.
He hadn’t been out with us last night. I hadn’t had much time to talk with him at all really. In fact, this was the first time I’d even gotten a good look at him.
Up until that moment, I had only seen him from a distance, and listened to Keilan talk about him as this unseen entity. As I sat there listening to them talk, I stared,
trying to pay attention, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember his name.
“John,” Keilan spoke, interrupting him. John, right. I made a mental note stashing it in the back of my mind.
He was funny, a little out there and from his accent alone I could tell he was not from Canada at all. He was from England it sounded like. I wasn’t an expert on regional accents though, it sounded pretty familiar to me. If I had been put on the spot and made to guess, I would probably would have said London.
Visually he was stunning, distracting even. His grey-blue eyes were piercing contrast to the warm mocha colour of his skin, its sepia undertone making his eyes almost sparkle.
Staring at him, I realized, was becoming a bit too obvious. He had almost made me forget about the previous night’s events.
I tore my eyes away quickly, trying to play it cool like I hadn’t just been staring at his too beautiful face. Instead, I let my mind wander back to the place It had been stuck in all night and this morning.
Instead of listening to his jokes, I let my mind drift back to the night before. I still couldn’t’ believe that all of it had happened.
I knew now, that I had lived such a quiet, sheltered life back home. In only two short months, all of that ideal living had been shattered.
Now, I was a witch, running from faeries, hopping planes to foreign countries and bunking with strangers. It was probably safe to assume my mother would not be thrilled.
“Finn right? How much travelin’ you done?”
John was speaking directly to me now and I blinked. I pulled my mind back to the moment, turning my eyes back to him and taking a beat to let his question truly sink in. How much traveling had I done? None, though I felt as though I couldn’t exactly come out and say that.
“Oh, well, not a lot. I didn’t really do much travelling before this trip,” at least that was the truth. “What about you?”
“Just around The Continent a bit. To Nigeria once, see the extended.” Family, I assumed he meant, the extended family. “Keilan’s the real traveler.” He admitted nodding to his side where she was seated.
“Yeah, we have always travelled a lot actually,” she admitted. “We could never say in one place too long.”
“Army?” I questioned my voice brimming with curiosity.
We’d had a few kids come through Greyfell that were there one moment and gone a few months later.
It seemed like a pretty rough life. Especially for a girl who had never left Port Moyle. I couldn’t imagine trying to make friends when you couldn’t even get yourself settled.
Then again, I’d never been that great at making friends anyway. It seemed like being forced away from home, might have been starting to drag me out of my shell.
“Something like that.” She bore a small smile. “So do I get to come out with you on this wild daily adventure you go on?”
I raised a brow in disbelief before a laugh escaped my lips.
“Umm, I wouldn’t exactly call it wild, or an adventure for that matter, it’s mostly just research.”
Her face fell into the worst look of disbelief.
“You flew all the way across the ocean to do research?”
They both looked at me bewildered and my mouth fell open to answer with a simply ‘yes’. Somehow, the word caught on my lips. It did sound rather odd. It wasn’t like I was there on a research grant, or for school. I had told them I was travelling, backpacking.
“Well- not just for that.” I couldn’t even convince myself with the words. I offered a gentle shrug of my shoulders. “I mean, I guess so yeah.” I hadn’t really thought about how my quest would appear to others. It wasn’t like I could explain to them that there was a more pressing issue than running around being a tourist.
“No,” she stated firmly. “I do not accept.”
I laughed shaking my head slightly and John held up his hand.
“She’s actually being quite serious.” He assured me and I sighed.
“You already took me out last night!” I reminded her. That hadn’t gone well at all. “Plus, I have some family research to do. I’m trying to track down an ancestor. That’s kind of the whole reason I’m here.”
I watched as she narrowed her eyes at me but then seemed to relent.
“Fine, but I won’t sit by while you spend your entire vacation in a library.”
That seemed fair.
I didn’t want to have to explain much further. The last thing I needed now was to argue that my research was personal and pressing. I didn’t want to start drawing too much attention to it than I needed to.
“I promise, once I know what I need to, you can drag me wherever you want to.” I assured them both with a smile.
I tried to be positive, but I knew it wasn’t exactly a promise that I could keep.
After all, once I knew what I needed to, they might be in more danger than they could ever have imagined.
8
That evening back in the dorm, Keilan was telling me all about their day.
She and John gone to the Guinness Brewery and done the tour. They had even learned how to pull a perfect pint. She pulled out the certificate with her name on it to show me.
Then she talked about how they’d wandered around the city for a while, seeing the sights and grabbing some souvenirs and the like.
“What about you? How did your research go?” She’d said the word research with such disdain. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
“It went fine. I didn’t really learn much more,” I confessed.
I hadn’t found what I was looking for and the longer I searched, the more I wondered if I would even find it here.
Had this trip been wasted? Had I played right into my father’s hand by coming here?
All my self-doubts were growing with each day.
When I’d first made my decision to hop on the plane, it had seemed like the right one. I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Well I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You haven’t even been looking that long.”
That was true, it was a bit of hope in the darkness.
I had only been searching for a few days, I’d barely scratched the surface of the archives. What I was looking for was out there somewhere, I just needed to find it.
I looked over at Keilan and realized she had sunglasses poised on her head. My eyes glanced at the clock on the wall and then back at her.
“It’s it a little late to be sporting sunglasses?” I asked.
“Never, it’s a look you know, Sunglasses at night.”
I laughed and shook my head in disagreement. She wasn’t exactly a celebrity so I wasn’t sure how it would be a look.
“Maybe in the 80’s, if you were Corey Hart.”
She stared at me with a blank expression that told me the reference had gone straight over her head.
“Because he sang Sunglasses at Night…” I began and then just laughed and shook my head. “Never mind.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
I smiled shrugging my shoulders at her. The things my mother subjected me to obviously hadn’t been gifted to all of my generation.
“Are you guys going out tonight?” I asked, “I looked like it was going to rain again earlier.”
I pulled back the curtain to check and found I was proven wrong, as I saw full, rising moon in the now clear evening sky.
“They say it’s going to be a full moon tonight,” I mused.
I wondered if that meant anything at all for my powers. There were so many legends and stories about witches and the moon.
The waning and waxing of the moon cycle could affect the tides, it only made sense that it could also affect spells, powers. No one had ever mentioned it to me before, so I wondered if it just all nonsense.
It was times like now, when I had these random questions about magic, that I missed being at Broadhaven. Before it had been simpler. Anytime I’d had a question, stupid or not, there had been Coven members to ask and answers to be had.
Here, I was completely on my own and you know, Google could only be so helpful in matters of ancient prophecies.
Keilan had gone quiet, which in itself was a magical occurrence and I glanced over my shoulder at her. She was staring past me now, out the window, her eyes focused intently on the rising moon. In that brief second, her once chocolate brown eyes changed to a glowing blue.
An uneasy feeling churned in the pit of my stomach and my own blue eyes widened in shock.
Those glowing blue eyes looked familiar.
“Did your eyes just-" My voice was weak, the words sounded almost like a croak. I didn’t even get to finish my question.
She quickly turned her back to me, throwing her sunglasses down over her eyes, muttering something about having to meet Katie at a pub.
Then, she took off with unnatural speed and was gone.
I snapped out of it and sprang into action.
“Kei, wait!”
Taking my steps quickly, I tried to catch her.
It felt hopeless. With her long legs, she was gone and out of the hostel before I could even get to the front door.
Normally, I might have suspected that I was seeing things, but given everything that I’d learned, I knew that probably wasn’t the case.
I hesitated at the door for a moment wondering if I should continue to go after her or not.
I didn’t know what this meant. Was it all part of the setup? Was she another witch? Had she been placed here by my sister, or my father to try and lure me into their trap?
After debating, I soon enough I found myself hurrying outside to catch up to my new friend.
Despite all the doubts that were plaguing my mind, I knew that I wouldn’t be satisfied without an answer directly from her.
Out on the road, I could see her thick mess of curls in the distance and I moved to a jogging pace to catch up.
When it was clear jogging wasn’t going to cut it, I broke out into a sprint. I wasn’t always the strongest, but speed was always on my side.
A few months earlier, I might have given up chasing after her, but training had more than one advantage. While I had always been fast, I now had the endurance to go along with it.
