The Shadows of the Mind

Chapter 2

Over the next week my father taught me the basic principles of being a magicker, mainly moral codes, and especially the secrecy we must provide since the military want to rid the world of magick. My skills had gotten considerably greater, and by the end of the week, my father though I was ready for Sarthe Gadhafi, according to my father, the greatest magick teacher in the city.

            An intricate map lay out in front of me. It traced the various roads and paths to find Sarthe.  My father also had labeled many roads that were way too dangerous to be walking down, since the military owned them.

            I’ve started to love my father again, us sharing this secret, strengthened our relationship. I finally felt worthy of being his son. That night was the last session with my father. Sarthe would be teaching me how to focus my powers and also the more complex parts of being a magicker.

            “Wow, son. I can’t believe you’re ready to be taught by Sarthe. You must be a great magicker. It took me almost a month to accomplish what took you only two weeks!” He said with happiness and proudness. These past two weeks have been the best of my life.

            “Thanks father. You must be the best teacher of all time, too, since it took me such a short time. You must’ve been better than grandpa.” I chuckled.

            “Actually, your grandmother was the magicker in our family. Grandpa still doesn’t know about either of us just like Grace must never know.”

            “Oh, I thought Grace did know. You were talking about how she hadn’t got the genes so I figured you talked to her about it.”

            “Yes, but just remember, don’t share the existence of your powers to anybody, at all! Only mother, me, and Sarthe may know of your true power, OK?”

            “Yes, yes. I understand father,” I mumbled. It would be nice to share this secret with somebody, especially somebody that would find it cool like Jeremy. He would never shut up about it.

            My father laughed, “Son, you know I love you right?”

            I smiled. “Yes, I do, and I lo-“ That’s when the world I knew ended.

            The windows bulged in and shattered in small shards of glass. The shards rained down upon the two of us. Screams came from downstairs.

            My father rushed out of the office and downstairs to where Grace and my mother had been. I followed suit.

            As I started down the stairs, I heard voices, voices that sounded very familiar.

            My father. “Why are you doing this? We have done no wrongs, we believe in the motto of the end of magick worldwide!”

            My mother sobbed. Grace cried. Another voice boomed.

            “We have been watching your house very closely, Mr. Waters. We have gotten many reports from your lovely neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, of odd occurrences like fire and odd flashes of light coming from this house.”

            My stomach twisted into a knot thinking about those “lovely” neighbors that were just sitting in our house celebrating my birthday. The same neighbors that stayed made sure they didn’t need to stay after to help clean up. The same neighbors that had watched us ever since we moved here three years ago.

            I peered around the corner to see who was talking and all I could see was his head that was covered in thin black hair combed over. A helmet dangled from one hand and a large, menacing gun hung from the other.