It had been a month and so far the summer had been great for Josie.
They had been sending each other notes pretty much from the second Hope got home, when she got a piece of paper in her pocket from her saying,
‘We made it home safe now I gotta go find out what this surprise is about :)’.
It was only half an hour later when Josie had gotten a whole page of Hope just excitedly freaking out about how she was gonna have a little cousin.
Most of it consisted of Hope saying, ‘Oh my God, Josie this is amazing,’ and ‘I’m gonna teach them everything I know and how to get away with everything’. Josie had been very happy and excited for her and had admittedly mourned the fact that she couldn’t be there to actually see Hope be this excited in person.
She had written back, ‘Oh my god, that’s incredible, tell your Aunts Congratulations for me!’ which prompted Hope to tell her that now both of them were teasing her about finally having a friend and Josie had laughed out loud at that, causing her sister who had just entered their room, to look at her like she was crazy. Josie had just shrugged and then immediately gone back to answering Hope, to which Lizzie had rolled her eyes and taken whatever she had come in to get and left again.
Thinking about her sister now also made her remember the talk they had had when she finally gathered the courage to tell her about her research of offensive magic. Well, more like Lizzie caught her sending Hope a fire message with an uncommon fire spell and just like Hope, questioned her about how she learnt it. While they had a few shaky moments it had gone better than she expected.
Two weeks ago
“Where did you learn that spell? Did your pet teach you that one too?” Lizzie asked intrigued from behind her as she entered the room just when the letter disappeared.
Josie froze for a second not knowing what to do. She had wanted to tell Lizzie about everything but had been nervous that her sister would be upset with her for keeping it from her for so long, no matter how unintentionally. But now, after being caught almost literally red-handed, was as good a time as any she supposed. So after taking a deep breath she relaxed her shoulders and ignoring the jab about Hope she said, “No, actually. I um, found it in one of the books in the library… when I was doing some research.”
“What were you doing research for? I don’t remember any classes where we had to investigate new fire spells,” Lizzie said confused.
Josie cleared her throat before speaking again. “It wasn’t for a class… I have been researching offensive magic spells.”
She looked on as the confusion left her sister’s eyes, but instead of being upset as Josie had thought she would be, she just waved a hand in casual dismissal and said, “Oh you’re still on that? I gotta say Jo; I don’t see the point to all that. Sure, it would be fun to learn some new stuff but kinda unnecessary if you ask me.”
Josie was equal parts surprised, irritated and relieved at her sister’s response to the news but immediately pushed that aside in favor of defending her cause.
“What do you mean unnecessary? Lizzie this is very important knowledge to have that could one day very much save our lives! Sure we’re safe now and mom and dad are there but what happens if they’re not? And even if they are, what happens if they can’t do anything? We’re magic Lizzie! We have to be able to defend ourselves no matter the situation,” She paused and remembered to breathe, then continued. “Maybe if we lived in a perfect world it would be ‘unnecessary’ but the world is far from perfect and I’d much rather be as prepared as I can be instead of coming face to face with something and have no clue what to do because apparently, everyone except me and Hope are the only ones worried about it.”
