The Adventures of the Junior Phoenixes, Part 5: The Last Pendant

Chapter 1: The Gray

Chapter 1

     Tucked away in the green and patchy hills of western Pennsylvania was the quiet village of Slippery Stone. It was located between the outer corn fields around Grove City and the small town of Mercer. It was a little village of less than three hundred people. There were a few Muggle families that lived in the town, but the main population of Slippery Stone was magic folk. After the Salem Witch Trials and the First Great Awakening several families migrated west to the fertile hills of Western Pennsylvania. Since then, it became a safe and quiet community of witches and wizards who enjoyed the quiet life away from Muggle urbanization. The nearby Mennonite and Amish communities passed through every other weekend and held a farmer’s market in the town square, unaware that the folk they sold their wares to were of magic descent. The population was friendly; most of the magic folk worked for the Ministry in Boston and Salem and traveled by Apparating or by the Floo Network. Their children were sent by train to Salem and went to the Salem Academy of Magic (though some home-schooled their children) while others turned to farming and working alongside the Muggle farmers. There was a generally amicable camaraderie among the folk of Slippery Stone. They looked out for one another and kept to themselves, hiding from their Muggle neighbors the true nature of their magical abilities. Still, despite the façade of normality, there was nothing remarkable about the small village of Slippery Stone.

     It was why the Sandpipers had chosen to hide themselves in Slippery Stone.

     Along the outskirts of the village near the corn fields  that lined Mercer Road, which ran through the center of the village, a trio of strangely clothed people appeared out of thin air with a loud pop; two men and a woman. The men wore pointed hats while the woman had a hooded sweatshirt on. They held broomsticks in their left hands and a stick in their right hands: Flying brooms and magic wands. The taller of the two men had medium length brown hair and dark brown eyes. His hands were scarred and ashen. He had a fierce look about him. He had a rigid face and maintained an athlete’s physique. The shorter man had short, spiked blonde hair and tanned skin. He had bright blue eyes and was thin. He hadn’t shaved in a day; short stubble was on his face. He appeared nervous, scouring the area with his eyes as soon as they appeared. The woman was very pretty but also fierce. She had brown hair with a streak of burgundy in it. She had long bangs, blue eyes, and high cheek bones. Her brown hair was tied in a ponytail but her bangs were flared and bouncy. Her chin had a small scar on it, the remainder of a fierce fight in her not-so-distant past. She carried an air of bravado about her; she was not a shrinking violet by any standards. She was bold and brave. All three of them wore the symbols of the American Ministry of Magic, specifically the Aurors Office, upon their clothing: An Eagle before a star-spangled shield, a wand and an olive branch in its talons. The Aurors are dark wizard hunters, a special branch of the Magical Law Enforcement office of the Ministry of Magic.

     “Where to?” the dark-haired man asked his compatriots.

     “We go south of here,” the woman replied. “We’re a click north of the town square. The Sandpipers are holed up in a four bedroom house a few blocks south of the square.”

     “We should check out the square, Mared,” the blonde man suggested. “That way we can secure the area before we get them out of here.”

     “I agree, Griffin,” Mared Malone said to Griffin Thornback, “You and Talon can secure the square and then meet me at the house.”

     “I don’t like this,” Talon Mason said, “We get a tip that the Embers of Easter are gunning for the Sandpipers and they don’t send us any back up?” What the heck is up with that?”