Grown Enchantress (Book #2, Young Witch Series)

Chapter 8

Learning to fly was a little more difficult that Madeline imagined, and it took her a few months to even lift her feet off the ground. She was happy to hover not too far up there, but watching her teacher, Thomas, swoop gracefully around the beams in the rafters of the room, she was jealous of how easy he made it look.

Jessamine wasn't often at these flying lessons, letting Thomas teacher them, saying he had more knowledge of floating and flying than she ever would.

"What does Jessamine mean, when she says that you have more knowledge about flying?" Madeline asked one day. It was the first time she had managed to get herself up onto the crossbeam, and she was happy to rest there for a while.

"I was trapped in the ballroom here for about four hundred years in another form." Thomas said casually, coming to rest next to her, "I often spend my time in here now, when other things don't call me away. I find it peaceful."

"You're over four hundred years old?" Madeline asked in shock, almost falling off her perch.

"How old did you think I was?" Thomas asked in amusement, "Didn't Jessamine ever tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Madeline asked, curious, "She's only ever said you're older than she is. She and I don't talk much about it."

Thomas laughed, "She's always had a way of seeing things as unimportant. Sometimes she needs to explain things, just so people understand her thinking." He looked at her, "She freed me from a curse."

"You were under a curse?" Madeline loved stories, and if she wasn't a princess, she thought she would be a writer.

"A rather well crafted one." Thomas admitted, settling on a beam opposite her, "See, I was once a servant here. Back then, there wasn't much out here, except the mansion and a few tenant houses. Everyone worked in the fields then, even the master during the harvest, and then we'd all get together for a feast. Other houses made all then tenants do the work, but we didn't have enough people to do that, and the crops barely fed us all winter." He began, "One winter, a girl came to marry the master. Her name was Lorena, and she changed things. The first night I met her, I had no idea who she was. I had been out gathering crops, and I had been summoned for the party.

"I put on my good clothes, and set about serving drinks, and making the ladies smile. I used to pull roses out from behind their ears and saying it paled in comparison to their beauty. Many fell for it, and blushed like the roses.

"This night, I had been gathering rose as I was allowed to, and accidently picked a black rose unknowingly. When I got inside, I simply put them where I hid them to perform my trick, still not knowing that there was a single black rose amongst my supply of them.

"When I got to Lorena, I pulled the rose out, and she took offence. She cursed me then, but I didn't know it. It wasn't until I tried to leave the ballroom that the curse took effect. This was long after the ball had ended, and I was leaving to go to my bed.

"It felt like I was dying. I lay there on the floor, all curled up, and drifted off eventually. I thought I really had died when I woke up. I was floating, and then I got used to the view, and I realised I was up here. It took me a few hours to learn how to open my mouth, and then again to move. It took me weeks to learn how to go where I wanted, and each day, I watched the girl who cursed me fall in love with my master.

"Eventually, she realised what had happened to me. And came to see me. When she saw what had happened to me, she started screaming. After that stopped, she said it was a little more than she was expecting, but she wasn't disappointed by the results.