The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 14

Lucas? Jaylon had told me enough about his family for me to know that Lucas was the name of his older brother.

"How do you know my brother?" Jaylon hissed, on his feet in an instant and up in front of Thalia. I fell fully into the armchair, but pushed myself up, moving up beside Jaylon and placing a hand on his arm.

"Y-you're not Lucas." Thalia took a step back from him and seemed to shrink a little. "No, of course, you're not. You're... not as broad. Your hair's a lighter blonde. Your face is different."

"You knew my brother?" Jaylon demanded, grabbing her arm as she started to turn away and pulling her back round to face him.

She yanked her arm away, glaring. "He sent you, didn't you?" She hissed. "What does he want this time? My-?"

"I haven't seen Lucas in fifteen years!" Jaylon yelled, cutting her off. "But you definitely have seen him more recently. Where is he? Tell me!"

"I don't know where he is!" Thalia shouted back.

"Jaylon," I whispered, tugging gently at his arm. "Jaylon, you're freaking everyone out."

Jaylon looked around, and sure enough, he was met by the confused and slightly fearful faces of Charlie, Andrew, Danielle, and Noah.

"How about we all just sit," he said, and I could tell he was trying hard to control the emotion in his voice. "Just sit and talk."

"Sounds better than all this yelling" Noah muttered, for once not in a good mood. "Here, Thalia, take my seat." He started to stand, but Thalia shook her head. She waved her hand and a chair appeared out of nowhere. Everyone stared, including Jaylon and I. We had had no idea she knew how to do magic, and obviously, her siblings hadn't known either.

"How did you know how to do that?" Jaylon said quietly, sinking into the armchair again. I perched on the arm.

"Your brother Lucas found me nearly six years ago now," Thalia said. "It took some time, but he managed to prove to me who I was; what I was. He was teaching me. We met every day for... three years? Yes, that must be right. And then he just didn't show up one day. I haven't seen him since."

"Wait a minute!" Danielle interrupted. "What the hell was that, Thalia? And what are you guys going on about? What was this Lucas guy teaching you exactly?"

Lucas glanced at me, and we both looked at Thalia.

"Why are you all looking at me?" She snapped.

"They're your siblings," Jaylon pointed out.

"Not him." Thalia jerked a thumb in Charlie's direction.

"Charlie, come with me," I instructed, standing up. He followed suit, looking confused. "You explain to them," I said to Thalia, waving a hand vaguely at her three younger siblings. "Jaylon, just do whatever you want."

I started out of the living room, Charlie following behind me. When I reached the kitchen I turned, focused, and lifted a hand. The door swung closed and I grinned triumphantly. I may not have been doing this for long, and I couldn't say, summon a chair out of thin air, but at least I could use my power.

"Charlsie, do you believe in magic?" I asked, using my old nickname for him.

"Uh, I don't know," he said, looking at the door, completely gobsmacked. "After what I saw you and Thalia do... I think I just might."

"Come," I motioned to the chair beside the one I was sitting on and he came over slowly. "Okay, this is a lot to take in, but I swear it's all true."

"So, what, you're like, witches?" he asked nervously.

"Let me start at the beginning," I said, trying to think back to how the news had been broken to me. "There is an ancient bloodline," I started. "There were three groups of witches, three covens, that united to form a tri-coven. But stuff happened and they broke apart. There were twelve families in each coven though, and they remained, and over time the magic has been passed down the line and made its way to our generation."

"I'm trying to work out if you're making all this up, or you're actually delusional," Charlie muttered.

"It's true!" I insisted. "And our dad had magic too. Then it got passed down to us. There are loads of us in our generation, twelve families worth."

"So there's our family, and Danielle and Noah's family?" He asked, sounding very confused but a little more convinced. A little...

"Jaylon's family too," I said.

"Wait, so..." he trailed off, looking shocked. "I'm a... a witch?"

"A warlock," I said, smiling slightly. "Only girls are called witches."

"Do magic then," he demanded. "Prove this isn't made up."

"I haven't been learning for long but..." I lifted a hand and looked around, spotting a box of cornflakes on the counter. A moved my hand, envisioning what I wanted the way Jaylon had taught me, focusing, concentrating.

Little brown flakes rose out of the box, floating into the air. I moved my hand, spreading my fingers. The cornflakes spread around the room. I waved my hand, and they moved with it. I looked at Charlie, his mouth open and his face slack with shock, but I felt my concentration lessening. With a last burst of power, I sent all the cornflakes zooming at Charlie.

I laughed as he raised his arms to deflect them, but I felt... drained. Jaylon was right. He had said that the house, where we had been living and I had been learning, was the best place to learn because it was charged by magic and I could feel the magic I was using off the magic in the place itself rather than using so much of my own and having to stop and, what had he said, recharge?

"Awesome!" Charlie grinned, picking a cornflake off his jumper. "Can you show me how to do that?"

"What, make cornflakes fly?" I laughed.

"Well, yeah, but magic, any magic!" He had an excited gleam in his eyes, one I hadn't seen in quite some time.

"Well, I'm still learning myself," I said. "But we're getting everyone together and everyone's going to learn back at Jaylon's place."

"Sure, I'll teach you."

We both turned to look at Jaylon who was leaning on the door frame.

"Can we start now?" Charlie asked eagerly.

"I think we should get back home first," Jaylon said, looking amused. He straightened up and walked over to me, touching my arm. That single touch brought a feeling of so much comfort and safety that for a moment I felt like nothing could ever harm me.

"Right," Thalia said, coming into the room behind him. "You wanna go home and pack, Charlie? We're heading off tonight."

"Heading off where?" He asked, glancing from Thalia to me and back again.

"My place of course." Jaylon grinned. "And then we're going after some more little witches and warlocks that need training.