Magic has a Price

Chapter 1

14 years later

Mandy woke with a start. It was the same dream again. The same guy again. A look at her bedside table showed it was 9:20 in the morning. This time he was chanting a spell. His triangles glowed blue and red. "The earth, the sun, the moon , the stars , bring to me what was mine once! The air, the water , the fire in me, bring to life the face I seek!"

Shoving aside any thoughts of the guy and his chanting to the back of her mind, Mandy got out of bed and ran a hand through her dishevelled brown hair which hung limply to her shoulders. A shrill piercing tone signalled a call from her best and only friend through life, Andrea.

"Hello?"

"Where the hell are you? We are due at college for our graduation ceremony at 10 AND it's already 9:30. "

"Oops! Can I like say sorry, would you spare me then? I overslept. I 'll be ready in 10 minutes and at your place."

"You better hurry; I don't want to miss your speech and trust me neither do you."

"Ok, bye! I'll be there." Saying so Mandy hung up.

Ten minutes later dressed in black and wearing her graduation attire Mandy was at Andrea's place. Driving like crazy they made it to their college. At five to ten they were ushered inside by their somewhat stern and disapproving Anatomy teacher, Mrs. Briggs.

The day flew by in a haze and they arrived at Andrea's place dog tired and dripping wet from the torrents of rain that had ambushed them halfway home. Mandy was happy to have graduated from college, indeed she was happy to be able to call herself a biology majo, but somewhere deep down there was a wistfulness in her, a sorrow that tore at her heart. She was sad to part from the people she had known all her life but more so afraid as deep down she knew her fate was round the corner to confront her. She would soon be meeting, not, the man of her dreams but literally the man who had starred in her dreams for as long as she could remember.

On the other hand, somewhere in San Francisco Krishna or better known as Kris to his friend , foes and family alike, was having a hard time figuring out this face's owner of which he had reccurent dreams of. He was born with power, had learnt to harness it, but on the contrary he also knew he was not alone on his upcoming quest, that this face belonged to the woman who had the potential to save the world along with him or let it get destroyed lest they failed. He knew what was in store for him, knew with a certainty that had prevented him all his life to form strong bonds, he wasn’t even close to his own parents who knew nothing of this war he was born to fight. Another thing he knew was that the battle would be fought on the most ancient of lands, his motherland, India. He was born in a small quaint little town of Rajasthan, a town near the capital city Jaipur. His motherland called to him, his blood called to him, but when he had left his home back in India at the age of three, even then he had known that the reason of him leaving his old granny behind was not only the big promotion his dad had got to go to San Francisco but that he had to go away now and come back a master of his powers. His magic had been passed down to him by his gran and he was taught to harness it by her when he went to India every year during vacations as a child. He knew despite spending 15 years in San Francisco he could call only one place home and that was his birthplace, Jaigarh.

He went back inside where his mum was calling him to have his breakfast. Mrs Sumona Mitra was a pure soul at heart and when I say so I mean it literally. She was a devoted wife, a loved and cherished daughter-in-law, a devout worshipper and a loving mother (not necessarily in the same order). She loved her son to bits and to her troubled mind Krishna’s aloof nature was a constant shard of glass to her heart. Yet she never questioned his ways and was proud to be a mother to such a son, a son she knew would go away soon as he was born to achieve greatness. She had always known that Kris was born with power and had watched enough Spiderman movies while Kris grew up to know that with great power comes great responsibility. Mr Arihant Mitra was like any other Indian father, loving but strict and a man of few words. He had instilled in his son a sense of responsibility towards what he was born with, even though he was not born with magic himself, Mr Mitra knew to have no bounds of respect for it and understood Krishna’s need to visit his grandmother every year.