The Raven's Apprentice - Chapter 21

"It was a couple of days before Gwen and I had a chance to get together," Cassie said. "She was busy with her advanced art projects while we were at school, and outside of school Bella was getting in our way. She was subtle about it. I mean, she didn't act like I was in trouble or anything. She just insisted that I come straight home after school."

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Foundry Cove, Willow Creek, 2000

She couldn't keep it up though. My father and Edwards were both on my side.

In the end Edwards just announced that, that afternoon after school, he was going to stop and see Mr. Brown. Since that would be right after picking me up, I had to go along. He'd bring me home straight after. My father had agreed that that would be fine. 

Whatever Bella thought of that, she'd clearly been outmaneuvered by my father the chess master.

"Hello, Cas," Mrs. Brown said. "Gwen's out back... being imaginative as Doug says."

I wasn't really sure what she meant by that, but honestly, I didn't care. I had lots of things I wanted to talk to Gwen about. Her being somewhere on her own, away from adults, would surely just make things easier. 

Walking around the Browns' house, I was more nervous than I was prepared to admit. Over the past few days, I'd been playing this conversation over and over in my head, imagining what I was going to tell Gwen. 

How was I going to explain to her that magic was really real? What could I show her to prove it (that didn't involve setting anything on fire... which I had semi-seriously considered doing)? What could I do to make her think I was girl she should be interested in? Was that even what I really wanted? Finally, what would I do if, despite all the odd things she said, she didn't believe me? 

As I rounded the corner, I heard Gwen's voice singing what sounded very like the magical words from my mother's Book of Shadows. (In fact, that was exactly what they were... she just had a better idea of how to pronounce them.)

She held a short, gnarled stick in her hand, and it moved in a graceful arc as if it was an extension of her own arm. Even as I watched, her enchanted song reached a crescendo and a shower of sparks exploded from the tip of the magic wand, like tiny fireworks.

The small, blue, glowing, winged figure hovering over her shoulder chimed in what sounded distinctly like approval.

"G... Gwen," I stammered. I was completely floored. Every part of my practiced conversations vanished from my mind, which was just as well as clearly most of them weren't important now anyway. 

"Oh, hi Cas," Gwen smiled brightly, as if magic wands and tiny, glowing winged people were just a normal part of her afternoon.

"I... what... who... how?" I stammered on.

"Oh, this is Bluebell," Gwen said, nodding to the tiny, flowing winged person. "She's an old friend of the family."

Bluebell chimed a greeting at me that I could almost understand, which did nothing to make me feel better.

"Hi," I replied weakly. 

"That's a... she's a... she's a fairy," I said. 

"Yes," Gwen said, nodding patiently as one might to a nervous child. 

"... and that was... magic," I continued, shock shifting into growing excitement. "You... you do magic."

"Yes," Gwen nodded again. "I thought I should get some practice because I really think we disturbed something..."

"Oh my God," I laughed, not really listening. "You can do magic! This is so great! I mean... I can too! My mother's book... the one the raven told you about... it's a magic book and I've been trying to learn the spells and I can do magic and youcandomagic and wecanbothdomagic! Real magic!"

I don't really know how long it took me to calm down, but it felt like either seconds or hours.

("It was probably a couple of minutes actually," Gwen offered).

In my defense, I wasn't the only one of us who was excited. Gwen was just as eager to have someone to really share things with. Anyway, once I did calm down, we actually managed to start talking.

Gwen told me a lot of her story and how she came to be in Willow Creek... which, since we spent the last few hours talking about that, I won't repeat in detail. I did have some questions about it, however.

"So, let me get this straight," I said. "You're a witch... from, like, one of the leading witch families... and your family were killed in a feud with vampires. Vampires are real? Like really real?"

"Really very real," Gwen nodded, "and not nearly as cool as Carmilla thinks."

"So, vampires, witches... are other... um, things, real?" I asked.

"Oh yes," Gwen said. "Fairies, obviously, and ghosts. Gnomes, mermaids, werewolves, svartalves..."

"Smart elves?" I blinked.

"Svartalves," Gwen corrected. "They're... artificers. Builders. Scientists and engineers, I guess you'd say. They're from another Realm, like witches were. In fact, in the old language, we were originally called alfar... so, when we encountered them, we called them svartalfar."

"Alfar... wait... you're an elf?!" I gasped. "You're an elf princess on the run from vampires?!

"I'm not a princess," Gwen scoffed. "I'm just the heir of one of the First Families... which I guess puts me in line for a seat on the Council and... oh, crap!"

"You're an elf princess on the run from vampires," I insisted. "It's like something out of one of Alexander's games." 

"Wait... am I an elf?" I added.

"Almost all born witches have some alfar heritage," Gwen said, "but our people have been intermarrying with madr... mortals... for centuries. From what you've told me, your mother was a witch, and your father has some witch ancestors, so you were born a witch. It's just taken until now for your powers to start to manifest."

That was about the time Edwards interrupted us. "Cas, it's time to... what in Heaven?" 

"Hello, Edwards," Gwen said, standing to greet him. 

Behind her, Bluebell streaked off like an errant blue bottle rocket. Whatever lack of concern the fairy felt about being discovered by me clearly didn't extend to Edwards.

"Is it time to go?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. 

"What was...? Um... yes," Edwards stammered. "Yes, we don't want to make your mother too cross."

"Good point," I sighed. "This has been... amazing, Gwen."

"We've got lots more to talk about," she smiled at me, "but we can do that another day."

Another day. 

After all, we had time.

It wasn't like anything bad was going to happen.

The Raven's Apprentice - Chapter 20

"Fortunately, in the history of the world, four scantily glad teen girls trying to call up a ghost has never ended badly," Cassie said sarcastically. "What the Hell were we thinking?"

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Duplantier House, Willow Creek, 2000

I'm sure it says something that Duplantier House had a seance room, albeit one smaller and brighter than Ophilia Villa's. Honestly, I think it says a lot... both about our families and about the wealthy of Willow Creek in general.

We gathered around the table. Carmilla was plainly eager to make a foray into the Netherworld. Molly was, as always, willing to go along on whatever ride Carmilla and I had in store. Gwen... I remember thinking that Gwen seemed perfectly at ease with the idea of a seance. The panic that had plainly filled her earlier was nowhere to seen now.

This may have been Carmilla's slumber party, but we both knew the seance was all mine.

"Clear your minds," I said. "Focus on the sound of the rain, the wind, the smell of the dried flowers. Open yourselves to the Netherworld."

As I said the words, I recognized the similarities between my father's seance incantation and Gwen's centering exercise... but in that moment I was swept into the trance of the ritual.

"Claude René Duplantier Guidry, we call you," I chanted. "Here, in your house, in the company of one who is your family, we call you."

I could feel the spiritual energies, like I had never before. I felt the rush of shivering energy, like my mother's magic but also different. Colder, darker... hungrier.

I was distantly aware of those energies wrapping around me, lifting me up. 

"Claude René Duplantier Guidry, we call you," I repeated. "Come to us. Come to us. Come to us."

I could feel the Veil... the border between our world and the Netherworld. The rushing energy inside me seemed to throb in time to my heart, echoing against the cold, dark power beyond the Veil. I'd performed seances many times with my father, but I had never felt things so clearly before. 

Without really thinking, I let the energy inside me reach out and push against the Veil, forcing it aside. 

Somewhere, as if far away, I heard Gwen's voice whisper my name. "Cas?"

"Claude René Duplantier Guidry, we call you," I called a third time. 

There was a sound, like a deep, loud bell tolling once, and a rush of cold wind.

"What was that!" Molly fairly shrieked, leaping to her feet. 

I felt the circle break and as it did my awareness of the energies around me vanished, like a soap bubble popping. 

"That was awesome!" Carmilla said.

"No Guidry though," Gwen said softly. 

"Good," Molly insisted. "That was... really weird."

"Come on, Mol," Carmilla said, still smiling. "Let's go downstairs. Gramma D made peanut butter cookies."

"Cookies?" Molly said. "Yeah, cookies sound good and... hey, you're not trying to calm me down with food, are you? Because I'm not freaked out... and I don't, like, comfort eat or anything."

"Peanut butter cookies are very grounding," Carmilla said. "They're just what we all need after touching the Netherworld. Everyone knowns that."

"Ok, cool," Molly said.

"That was pretty intense," I said to Gwen as the others left. "Though I guess it didn't work..."

"It definitely did... something," Gwen replied cautiously.

"Well, like you said, no Guidry," I smiled. "That would have been cool, though."

"I don't mind ghosts," Gwen said, "but we should be careful. I think we might have disturbed something. The house feels... unsettled."

"Well, at least we didn't start any fires," I said.

I ignored Gwen's look, which said 'yet' so plainly she didn't need to speak.

After sharing a plate of Mrs. Duplantier's delicious peanut butter cookies, I more or less set aside the strange power of the seance. If Gwen's concern that we had disturbed something nagged at the back of my mind, I set it aside too. After all, my father's seances were always perfectly safe. What could possibly happen?

So, I put the whole thing behind me, and we carried on with our slumber party. As we had promised Gwen, there was no actual slumber involved.

We quite literally danced the rest of the night away.

Mrs. Duplantier made us all breakfast, and, with that weird mix of tiredness and energy that comes with staying up all night, we said our farewells.

I did suggest to Gwen that we should meet up again after school, soon. After all, I hadn't told her any of the things about my mother's book that I really wanted to. I wanted to tell her everything... about my mother, my magic and the strange new awareness during the seance.

Maybe, I thought, we could talk about other things, other interests, too.