Within the Pages

Chapter 24

A/N: Hey guys. Make sure to vote if you like it and comment anything you have an opinion on!

Chapter 24

Ugh. I've tried for the last five minutes to do something magical but this place doesn't seem to have the amount of magic in the ground as the forest did. I keep grasping on to it but then releasing it.

"I can't manage to do it." I say fairly quietly. Tin Man manages to hear me though.

"You don't know your magic yet?" His eyes grind together as they widen. "Well I guess that makes sense if they put you in a cage. Just use your mother's magic if you can't use your father's."

He knows who my mother is? "Who is my mother?"

His eyes grind open again. I'm getting a bit more used to the sound of it as every time occurs. "You really don't know your mother? Oh boy have you been left out. Your mother is the good witch of the North."

I guess that makes sense. "Wouldn't she get her powers from the ground as well? From the power under the ground level?" Isn't that how everyone gets their power?

His up tin lip grinds against the lower one as he chuckles again. "You are such a clueless boy. Your mother's the most powerful witch in Oz. She had such a skill with magic, she didn't need to have a connection with the land. She could probably use her magic anywear."

Anywhere? Well then I wonder why she didn't escape Morgana? Or maybe the Tin Man didn't take into account other worlds. "Do you know how her magic worked?"

"I'm afraid I don't Charlie. If I did I would tell you so we could get out of this mess."

"It's alright." I guess I'll have to keep trying to use magic from my dad. I might not even have received any magic from my mom anyways. I force my eyes shut again. I have to keep trying the magic. I have no idea when the witches will be back.

I feel the magic but just can't grasp it. I really wish I could. It's not just my life that's in danger. It's everyone's life. Goldilocks, the Tin Man, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Lancelot, even my dad's life. He wouldn't be able to take on both my the witch of the East and the witch of the West. I grasp at the magic again and this time, manage to hold it. I push the magic up out of the ground and have it hovering in the air. I open my eyes and see a ball of bright white light hovering next to me where I placed the magic. Cool, but now what. Melt the metal? No that might hurt me as well and attract the witches from the smell. Bend it? That shouldn't make too much noise.

I imagine placing the ball of magic between two of the bars and expanding it, pushing the metal aside. As I think, the ball does what I imagine, going in between the bars and pushing the metal to opposite sides. I keep imagining it until the gap is big enough for me to fit through.

A big grin comes across my face.

"Great job Charlie! Now uh. Could you let me out too?"

Oh. I feel bad now. I forgot about the Tin Man. "Of course I will. I just had a momentary moment that I was happy I could actually perform magic." I hurry over to his cage. I imagine the ball coming up from the ground, going between the bars, and spreading the bars apart so he can get through.

That's when I notice the problem though. He is a bunch of parts. No part is connected. His arms, legs, head, and torso are all separated. "Um. We kinda have a problem."

He looks over to his other parts. "Oh yes that might be a problem. The wicked witch broke me and made it so I was still alive but I can only use my head. Could you put me back together again?"

I look hesitantly at the pieces of him laid out on the floor of the cage.

"If you are going to try please be quick. We don't know when the witches are going to come back."

"I'll try." I bring forth power from the ground again. This time I move the light toward the Tin Man's parts. He keeps staring at me as if he can't see the orb of light. Maybe he can't.

I strain and I can feel my forehead wrinkle as I separate the orb into 6 smaller orbs, each one going to push the body parts together. When they are touching, I imagine sticking them together as if I just superglued them.

I take a step back to see if it worked.

The Tin Man slowly starts to get up to a crawling position then crawls through the gap I made in the cage, his knees scraping along the ground, doing more damage to the ground then himself. When he is outside of the cage he stands up and I see that he is almost the same height as me. "Thank you Charlie. Now let's get out of here. Can you teleport us out?"

I stare at him in disbelief. "You want me, a complete beginner, to teleport not just me but you as well out of here, a place that you said had a low magic level? Impossible!"

"Charlie. I lied to you. The cell that you were in, it cancels out magic."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," he says. "That you used magic in a place that magic should not have been able to be used. You are a very powerful wizard. And if you can do that in the cage, you can get us out of here when you aren't in it. Now think about where you want to go and imagine us traveling through the journey we had an arriving there."

I close my eyes and imagine the forest right outside the forest, then imagine us traveling through the castle and out to that spot.

Immediately I hear the Tin Man cry out. I open my eyes and notice that we are hovering a meter above the ground.

"Charlie! I meant teleport us their, not fly us there!"

"Sorry," I blurt out quickly and imagine us on the ground again. This time, when I close my eyes, I imagine us traveling through the air as quick as lightning to the spot outside of the Emerald City. I want to be able to intercept my dad when he comes to save me.

We are surrounded by a huge whoosh and I open my eyes the millisecond before we are in the spot of the woods to see the witches storming into the dungeon room, with wide eyes.   

A/N: Hey guys. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I welcome any predictions you might have. Is Charlie ever getting used to his abilities. What do you think he should also be able to do. Any suggestions you have about what you'd like to see going forward I will definitely take into consideration. Is there a specific fairy tale or classic you'd like me to dive into? Leave your opinions in the comments. Thanks for reading so far. More soon.