Spellweaver (22 page)

She tilted her head to
one side as if processing this information, and then she looked
back at Mr Oakley. “I guess you have a different name,
too.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s
Seth.”

There was a
pause.

“I think I prefer Mr
Oakley,” she said, and then she left the room, closing the door
behind her.

14.

She found Hollie and
Jamie sitting outside on the front porch as she left the house.
Hollie was holding a vanity mirror, inspecting the various cuts to
her face, but upon seeing her friend she immediately jumped up to
greet her.

“Fliss!” she
exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

“We heard everything,”
Jamie said, and then, upon being hit by Felicity’s surprised and
slightly annoyed glance, he added: “The lounge window was
open.”

“Do you want to talk
about it?” Hollie asked, her voice overflowing with
concern.

“Not really,” Felicity
answered quickly, and the three of them sat back down on the stone
steps.

The sun was setting
beyond the leafless trees that circulated the park opposite Jamie’s
house, sending red and golden rays across the scattered clouds. It
was hard to imagine that only a few hours earlier the others had
been there, manipulating the weather and spreading chaos with their
magic. It would have been easy to imagine that the whole thing had
never taken place at all.

The three friends
stared out onto the peaceful horizon, each of them with their own
contemplations on recent events.

“So... what now?”
Hollie ventured.

“School starts soon,”
Jamie replied. “Did you do your history project?”

Hollie raised her
eyebrows and gave a little chuckle. “Of course not. Did
you?”

He smiled. “Of
course.”

The two of them looked
at Felicity expectantly, and she glared back.

“What?” she asked.
“I’ve just been told that I’m the world’s only hope against evil
and you think I should be doing my history homework?”

“That won’t be a good
enough excuse for Mr Taylor,” Jamie warned. “We didn’t even get any
special consideration when mum and dad split up.”

“Well maybe I won’t
save him then,” Felicity replied.

The three of them
laughed, a harmonious and joyous sound that for a tiny moment
eclipsed the fear that Felicity was harbouring. But it appeared
that none of them could divert from their most pressing thoughts
for long.

“I wonder what
happened to Oliver,” Hollie sighed.

“He’s gone,” Felicity
answered confidently. “I’m pretty certain of that.”

“But what about...”
Hollie lifted her eyes to the sky.

Felicity followed her
gaze. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Hey,” Jamie said
soothingly, putting his arm around Felicity. “Don’t worry. We’ll
look after you.”

“Yeah,” Hollie agreed.
“We’re BFFs, remember?”

In spite of her
anxiety, Felicity felt a smile form on her lips. She knew that
Hollie and Jamie lacked the mystical powers that they had all seen
Mr Oakley use, but their promise still meant more to her than his.
She felt suddenly and overwhelmingly grateful for their
interference in the park. She had wanted to do things alone, to
protect her friends by sacrificing herself, but she knew now that
it was a much better thing to help each other and work together. It
wasn’t what she was used to, but however difficult it was, she was
learning that change wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. With Hollie
and Jamie at her side, she felt as though she could handle being
the Spellweaver, whatever that meant.

With a sigh, she
wondered about all the things she could have missed out on had she
let herself be killed, and then shook the thought away. That didn’t
matter now, because she was going to live.

She hugged Hollie and
Jamie goodbye.

“You don’t have to do
this alone,” Jamie assured her.

She nodded. “I know,”
she said softly, and then she looked at both of the twins in turn.
“Thank you... both of you.”

After promising that
she would see them tomorrow, Felicity left the house. It was
difficult to go back to her father’s flat and allow the two of them
out of her sight after all that had happened, but there was
something else that she needed to protect.

Her father stood up to
meet her when she arrived.

“Have you been out all
day?” he asked her as he stood up from the sofa. The television was
blaring behind him.

Felicity tensed,
instantly on her guard. She was in no mood for an altercation like
the one that had taken place after her misdemeanour in going to the
Talk against his permission.

“Yes,” she answered
him. She couldn’t lie.

“Oh.” Her father
nodded. “Are you back for dinner?”

It was then that
Felicity noticed the scent of chicken filling the flat, and when
she turned she saw the oven light illuminating the roasting meat.
It both looked and smelt delicious.

She instantly relaxed.
“Yes,” she said, her voice filled with a relief her father couldn’t
possibly imagine. “I’m back for dinner.”

“I’m
glad,” he replied, and then he smiled.

As she looked at her
father, Felicity briefly wondered whether or not he had any
knowledge of her mother’s true identity, but then she remembered
the things he had said and the way he had said them; there was no
way he could have known. He wasn’t that good a
pretender.

His smile was an odd
sight, one that Felicity was not used to. Her father was not a
cheerful man; in fact, Felicity found it hard to decide exactly
what kind of a man he was, emotionally speaking. He never seemed
particularly happy, but on the other hand he didn’t seem to wallow
in sorrow and misery. But the smile changed her opinion; for the
first time, he seemed happy to see her, and not only that but he
had admitted it, too.

She returned the
smile, if a little awkwardly, and then moved past him to her
bedroom. When she closed the door, she realised that something else
had changed. With her father’s smile had come the knowledge that
she was home. Not just at her father’s flat, a place where she was
living for the time being, but home, a place she belonged. She had
family here, and friends that had been with her through the most
difficult of times. Finally, she felt as though she belonged
somewhere.

She had hidden her
mother’s journal in the gap beneath her floorboards, where her
mother’s other belongings had lived until she moved them into the
box her father had given her for Christmas. It wasn’t the safest
place for it; she knew that now, after she had witnessed the kind
of power that she was up against. Slowly and carefully, she pulled
back the floorboard and removed the book.

She felt her hands
tingle as she did so; did that mean anything? Was the magic pulsing
in her veins reacting to the book’s power, or was it just nerves?
Did she feel anything at all? It had been so fleeting, it was
entirely possible that she could have imagined it
altogether.

Her hands swept across
the worn cover. She wondered briefly how many times her mother had
sat in a similar position, huddled somewhere with her back arched
over the book protectively, dragging her pen to form those
intricate, swirling letters that Felicity had always admired so
much. It was strange to think that words written down on a page
could be so powerful, but then she had seen it for
herself.

The words looked
different when she opened the cover and her eyes met the first
page. She had been expecting to see the loops and squiggles of an
incomprehensible, alien language that meant nothing to her; that
was all she remembered from the last time she had attempted to read
it. Oliver had had to recite the words to her. But now, even as she
stared and concentrated, she found that certain parts of the
writing were beginning to make sense to her. It didn’t happen all
at once - so much of it was still completely out of her grasp - but
looking at the page certainly didn’t give her the headache it had
before.

A rush of excitement
flooded her veins, pulsing its way to her heart. It pleasantly
surprised her, the way in which it incited such a positive feeling
rather than the fear she had become so accustomed to. The thought
of the powers she had and the things she had to face seemed so
frightening - but now, as her eyes moved from word to word,
absorbing them one by one, she felt a confidence and determination
that she had never before experienced.

Felicity gasped as the
words on the page began to glow with a pale red light. It was
beautiful; they began as a shining frame for each of the written
letters before rising into the air in front of Felicity’s face.
They danced and skipped as if filled with joy, and the sight both
amazed and delighted her.

And then the lights
completed their parade and began to dim, fading into nothingness as
quickly as they had emerged.

The excitement died
with the lights, leaving Felicity with nothing but an open book and
a heart filled with a stunned realisation.

It was like a
revelation. As she had watched the dancing lights, the others
hadn’t scared her. Oliver hadn’t scared her. Now her fear was
slowly returning to her, but it was different now. Before, it had
been the paralysing terror of knowing that she and her friends were
probably overdue some kind of horrible, painful end and there was
absolutely nothing she could do about it. The helplessness only
magnified how hopeless her situation was, however much power Mr
Oakley insisted that she had

Now, after witnessing
those sparkling lights dance in front of her vision and
experiencing the elation of finally understanding some of her
mother’s words, she felt as though these people, creatures and
powers from other worlds could try their hardest to harm her and
those she loved, but would face vigorous resistance when they did.
She would fight them with her last breath, because that was what
she was meant to do.

In that moment she
knew the power that she had. She recognised it and accepted it in a
way that she never thought she would. Once the pace of her heart
began to slow and her breathing became under control, she said the
words for the first time.

“I’m the
Spellweaver.”

They came out as a
whisper, for that was all she could manage.

She thought of her
mother.

How hard had it been
for her? Had she suffered the same fear and confusion upon being
told of her responsibilities? What help had been given to her in
that other world that Mr Oakley had told her about, the
Deepworld?

He had been there for
her; that much was certain. He spoke as fondly about her mother as
her father did. Felicity wanted to be angry about that but felt far
too drained for such emotion. Instead, she found herself imagining
what the Deepworld was like. She knew so little about it, but the
name and the nature of those who resided there made it sound dark,
miserable and dangerous. It didn’t sound like the kind of place
that she wanted to visit, and even less so the kind of place that
she ought to be calling home.

It must have been
difficult for her mother, Felicity thought as she closed the book
and leaned back on her bedroom door with a long sigh. She had had
so many secrets, things that she couldn’t even tell the father of
her child. She wondered how her father would have taken the news
that his girlfriend and daughter had mystical powers that were
causing them to be hunted down by some magical maniacs, and then
she felt an almost overwhelming urge to burst into the lounge and
tell him everything.

He wouldn’t believe
her, of course. A part of her wanted the comfort of a parent, even
one who was almost a stranger to her, but another part convinced
her that telling him would be a mistake; such knowledge could put
him in danger.

It was this thought
that prompted a realisation that would shape Felicity’s actions for
the rest of her life.

Just as she had
endeavoured to keep her friends safe and just as the very thought
of them coming to harm both angered and saddened her, she knew that
her mother had been trying to do the same. Not just for her only
daughter, but for her father, too.

She remembered what he
had said to her when she had asked him why the two of them had not
stayed together. She hadn’t wanted him, he said. She had taken
their baby to the countryside to raise her in what she considered
to be a better place and didn’t want her father to go along. He had
thought that she had fallen out of love with him, if she had ever
loved him to begin with, but that wasn’t the reason at all. It was
because she had been trying to protect him.

Felicity felt an
intense sadness as she realised her father would never know how her
mother truly felt. In truth, even Felicity didn’t know it for
certain. But she understood the pain that her mother must have
felt, because she had felt it too when she had left Hollie and
Jamie behind to face the others alone. At least she had managed to
keep hold of her friends - her father had lost her mother forever.
Not only that, but he would spend the rest of his life thinking
that it was because she didn’t love him any more.