Time's Tragedies- The Books Of Beginning [2]

2. A Family Outing

"I crave the chance to prove that I am clever, brave and true. But most of all I crave a forever where I'm with you. Now I know have proven time and time again that I don't always have a clue. However, I can promise you we will never say adieu."

Lili looked at the words with narrowed green eyes, feeling skeptical about the start to her poem. It was too neat, too lyrical, it just felt, too, well, basic and cheery. Nothing about it truly touched her, which was how she knew her words were failing.

Lili sighed and picked up her pencil, scribbling out the words so she didn't have to look upon then again. She had been trying to challenge herself by writing a sweet and optimistic love poem, but it had just been too happy. Not that Lili didn't like happy. She was a relatively happy girl overall actually, but her best poems took on a darker theme. She had always been fascinated by the darker stories, perhaps because of all her family had to overcome to gain their joy. After all, some people grew up with fairy tails, while she and her younger siblings grew up with stories of epic adventures and battles of magic, near death experiences and time travel. And all of it was true. It definitely inspired Lili's creative side.

"Lili, put the pencil down and come have fun!" Her eleven year old sister, Abby, called enthusiastically.

Lili complied, since she had no inspiration at the moment, and an uninspired poet just sitting and sulking never did anything useful. So she strode over to her siblings, who clearly had plenty of enthusiasm for their activity, namely skipping rocks.

The Wibberly family lived in a small and peaceful, but progressive and open town called Westport, that happened to be just across the lake from Cambridge Falls. Kate and Rafe had chosen to make their home there because it was safe and the residents were a group of people who kept their noses out of other peoples business, easily accepted strange occurrences (they did live across the lake from a magical town and were used to a little weirdness) and were generally friendly. It was close enough to the magical world that the family primarily lived their lives in, but provided a bit more peace and security. Plus, it was a nice area. 

The geography, specifically the nearby lake, meant that the family could spend their time by the water, which was what they were doing on this surprisingly warm, cloudless April day. Of course, the water was too cold to get in, but there was still lots of fun to be had, plus they were together in the fresh air.

Abby and Jake were working on a way to make skipping stones a lot more interesting with a little bit of magic. They were in a debate over whether it would be better to push magic into the rock itself, or use magic on the air molecules around the rock. That was Abby and Jake, always experimenting. The two of them wanted to know everything about magic. They had a list of mysteries and questions, ranging from small ones like this to surprisingly existential ones. They constantly searched for information to fit into these puzzles, calling themselves detectives.

It was rather amusing, actually, to watch people react to this. Particularly their aunt and uncle. Michael appreciated their brains and their devotion to asking questions. Their recklessness and love of using skills they learned to get into mischief, not so much. That was more of Emma's thing. Lili once heard her mother describe her siblings as, "partly as studious as Michael, partly as daring as Emma, and somehow managing to get along with each other, which they definitely did not learn from my siblings."

It was true, Abby and Jake were a good team and best friends. They had other friends, both in Westport and in Cambridge Falls where they went to school for both academics and some magic lessons (though they were learning magic at home too). But their closeness in age and curious natures made them gravitate towards each other's hobbies until they had somehow become friends as well as siblings.