Hold of the Black Rider (Preternatural - book #1)

17: Time for Plan B

Daniel came home and tossed his backpack onto one of the chairs in the waiting area. He knew no one would steal it so he left it there. Instead of going into the kitchen and greeting everyone, Daniel went to the basement to ask questions about the Black Rider.

Zainab hardly went downstairs, but when she did she'd stay there for at least half the day. The immigrants, or the undocumented, who lived in the basement loved it when Daniel visited.

They were mostly women and young girls with few boys here and there all younger than him. The one in charge of them, the woman who was like a mother to all of them (besides Zainab of course), always had time to talk to Daniel even though she had a busy schedule keeping everyone in line and keeping record of everyone in the basement and everyone leaving the basement.

The ones leaving the basement were the ones either returning to Gumoldur of they've finally found a home on Earth they can finally call their own.

As he entered the basement and headed down the passage further, Daniel came into a corridor where more than twelve rooms were built beside each other. Sometimes he wondered how Zainab managed to build all of the rooms underneath The Crow's Nest.

The walls were all painted syrup-brown with the inside of the rooms decorated with different coloured wallpapers, each with a divine pattern of their own. In each room were three beds, two cupboards and four chairs with a small table in the middle.

It surprised Daniel how Zainab could afford all of that, but then he realized that she was a witch. She could have hexed people into getting the furniture.

Hendrietta, the mother of them all, stayed in the tenth room with her daughter Willamina. As Daniel passed all the rooms he greeted everyone. Most of them had pointy ears. Daniel thought they might be elves but Zainab explained to him that most Enchantants looked human with pointy ears. Elves, on the other hand, were an entire different breed.

"Good afternoon, Hendrietta," Daniel greeted as he poked his head through their doorway. Hendrietta was seated on the floor enclosed within a circle she'd drawn using a thicker piece of chalk.

For most it'd look like she was summoning something, but in reality Hendrietta was actually just meditating. The symbol drawn in the circle underneath her was a hex drawn to sooth the spirit and to relax the muscles of the person who drew it.

Willamina sat on her bed reading one of the books Zainab had left for them. "Good afternoon, Daniel." she greeted him; she took her eyes off of the pages.

Hendrietta was too busy controlling her own inner-energy to greet Daniel. Now she was exactly how Daniel imagined a witch-guru. Like any natural guru, Hendrietta relied on natural herbs and plants for medicine. She was a registered doctor — or she used to be. During an accident back in Gumoldur she became a self-help guru that would share tips on how to doctor yourself at home with just your random household objects, plants, etc.

She didn't like talking about what happened back in Gumoldur and Daniel wasn't one to push her into telling him. Hendrietta was already giving him some private information on his ancestor's world which Zainab refused to share with him.

"How was school?" asked Willamina, closing the book on the bookmark she left in between the pages.

"As awful as it can get." replied Daniel, carefully walking around Hendrietta as to not disturb her. "At least I didn't burn the classroom this time."

"You're getting stronger and too curious for your own good." said Willamina with a placid smile. "The fact that these rituals are working for you means that you're slowly becoming a warlock like your father. In a way, it shows growth that you're becoming who you're destined to become, but it's also dangerous seeing as you didn't grow up with magic and won't know how to tame it as easily."