I watch my hand glow, as it forms a green mystical ball of light. My eyes widen with awe. It’s never gotten this powerful.
“Now, hold it there,” my mentor, Sage says. “Focus all your energies into the sphere, then when you’re ready, picture what you wish to see.”
I close my eyes and imagine the image in my head. Concentrating on the location of where I desire to travel. Like a roadmap, the lines begin to appear in my mind.
“Great, you’re doing well,” Sage says. “Now open your eyes.”
“Maura.” I hear my mother call, interrupting our magic session.
My magic ball disappears. “How did she find us?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Quick, you need to go. She mustn’t see you here or she will tie me to a stake,” Sage presses. My mentor’s face shows fear. An expression I’d not ever seen before.
“When will I see you again?” I ask, now concerned this will be the last time, for lessons.
“Never mind that now. I know where to find you.” I watch Sage cloak herself invisible. She blends in with nature; an elemental ability given from both water and soil. Each light witch is born with one trait.
I rush up the riverbank getting my boots and the rim of my skirt both dirty. She’s going to be angry; I know it.
I run out to a clearing, where I see my mother pierce a glare. “What are you doing over there?”
“I was picking flowers.” A bouquet appears in my palms that I conjure behind my back. It was one of the first things Sage taught me to do. “I grabbed these along the trail near the riverbank,” I say, pulling the flower arrangement into view, showing her. Will my attempts to deceive her, work?
She sends a dubious look lifting her chin. “I see.”
I know full well she doesn’t buy a single word, yet I double down, saying, “It’s a hot summer’s day and I wanted to dip my feet in the river.” Will she buy this next lie?
I hand her my conjured daisies, lavender, and yarrow, hoping she doesn’t sense they aren’t real, but made of light magic.
She grabs them from my hands. “Is this what you have wasted your day on child? Picking flowers, and playing in the riverbed?”
My breathing eases. She doesn’t suspect the conjuring.
She squints, inspecting the plants, then drops the bouquet at our feet. “These flowers are used for white magic. What have you been doing? Maura, have you gone completely mad? Yarrow and daisies? I can deal with the lavender. We use it in several spells, but the others?”
Oh no, she knows.
She peers around the meadow. “Come. Take my hand. You’re missing your lessons, and it appears you need more studies.”
The white magic as mother refers to, is magic made from the light witches. But, I’m a dark witch, and therefore it is forbidden to learn anything other than black magic.
I don’t want to do the magic mother insists I learn, although I’m quite good at it, I don’t wish to harm others.
My father wouldn’t have approved of her tactics. But he’s dead. She killed him, although I can’t prove it, something inside of me knows.
The day the wraith in the mirror possessed my mother’s soul was the beginning of the end. My life forever changed and the loving, kind mother I remember, gone, trapped inside her own mind, locked up. The wraith possessing her soul doesn’t know, I know. That’s why I see Sage. She knows how to save my mother.
Emmy R Bennett 