Give Me Hope ~ Stefanie Salvatore

~chapter 10~

"She was making out with Jed on my bed!" Hope yells in aggravation.

"I mean, it is Alyssa we are talking about here. Is it really that surprising?" I smile slightly. Hope glares at me. "Okay, sorry" I put my hands up in surrender but still smirk when she looks away towards Josie, who is walking towards us.

"Hey guys, I was wondering if you can try and help us out with figuring out how to get rid of the sand clock?" Josie asks.

"Help how, exactly? I mean, from what Hope said before I thought black magic was indestructible" I say.

"Well, luckily there's one, annoying at times, but mostly helpful thing about magic: there's always a loophole. And the sooner we find the loophole to get rid of the black magic, the better. We are on a time clock here, the protection charm to prevent it from breaking can only last so long" Josie explains, she seems pretty stressed out when talking about the ticking time bomb part of the situation.

"This seems like a witch thing... so I'm gonna catch you guys later" I say, slowly backing away.

"Stef what are you talking about? Since when have you backed out of helping?" Hope says light heartedly

"Since I realized that there is nothing I can do to help" I say plainly

"Actually, I kind of was hoping you would come. Even if you can't do magic, you know so much about it, maybe you'll open up an idea that we can't think of" Jo asks desperately

I pause for a moment and stare at them, both pleading in their eyes for me to join.

"Fine, yea, okay. I'll help" I sigh and smile tightly and follow them to Alarics office.

"Hey uncle Ric," I say once we walk in "hi Lizzie" I say once I see Lizzie next to her father.

"So, any ideas?" Ric asks us.

"I have one... just an experiment, really" Lizzie says.

She grabs the sand clock and from what it looks like, attempts to use her powers to freeze the black fog inside the sand clock, but that fails. The black fog comes back almost immediately and swirls around even more aggressive than before.

"Okay! That's enough," Ric stops Lizzie from continuing, "we are trying to stop it from exploding, not speed up the process" Ric says cautiously. "We've already tried twelve different spells, so I'm assuming this is not a problem that magic can fix" Ric says.

"Why not... bury it in concrete and throw it in the ocean?" Hope tightly smiles and says.

"With magic of this power, unfortunately concrete isn't gonna hold it. And anyway, dad already suggested that idea" Lizzie says, annoyed.

"Maybe I deserve the black magic to just boomerang back to me" Jo sits down and states sadly

"Cut yourself some slack okay? It was a mistake. You thought the black magic you were doing was okay. Clark, or who you thought was headmaster Vardimus, tricked you into thinking it was okay" Hope says, trying to comfort Josie.

"Wait a minute... Ric and Hopes idea is on the right track though. We just need to trap the sand clock where magic can't escape..." I say and look around at everyone, who are staring at me confused.

"Doesn't it make sense guys? We need to put it in a prison world" I sigh in relief. However everyone else seems to get tense.

Back before Hope jumped into the pit, I remember Jo and Lizzie discovered an ascendant. After talking with their dad, Ric had told them that it was a prison world. It was basically a replica of our world from a different year, and it had one day repeating itself for, well.... Eternity. Ric said that a relative of Josie and Lizzie's, the leader of their coven named Kai, was trapped inside it because he wanted to kill Josie and Lizzie, since they put him at risk of no longer being the leader.