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

24. Three Months And Six Days

Three months and six days.

That's how long passed between the day Eternity moved in with the Wibberlys and the hot July day that had them baking in sun as they bustled around like everything was normal. A lot of that had been done over the previous months - it was unusually still. No danger had chased them to their home, no evil sorcerers came for them in the night. Life simply went on, though everyone was on edge, the school year ended for the Wibberly siblings, and they continued carrying on with their lives. It was all they could do, at this stage.

The magical world had also been suspiciously calm. Oh, there were little pockets of destruction, of course, a tornado wrecking a Nebraska village of sorcerers, a suspicious cave in of a previously stable dwarfish tunnel in the Himalayas. A potions expert from France going missing. But none of these could be proved to be the subtle work of Robert Lloyd, so the magical council ignored the many petitions to do something that Michael put forward.

There had been a tension in the air, increasing as summer rolled in. Kate was constantly calling people to make sure that the world was not turning to chaos while she and her family stayed sheltered. She called Abigail, who had all the latest news but heard nothing of Robert, Michael and Wilamena, who remained protected in elvish lands but continued to correspond with the council, trying to spark action, and Emma.

It was Emma who's calls were most important, because she and Gabriel were the ones who had spent three months and six days trying to track down Robert, with no luck. The closest they had gotten was finding a knot of imps and ending them, and finding a hotel room in Italy potentially rented by Robert - over four months ago. 

She wasn't giving up though, she told her sister over and over. She wouldn't stop until Robert was caught and no longer a threat. Kate could count on her.

And Kate did. But she hated this. She hated waiting for the other shoe to drop, not knowing what was coming, what Robert would send after her siblings, her husband, her children.

She made sure to put on a brave face through it all. She didn't want her children to be afraid - they were, of course, but she wouldn't panic them farther until she knew what the hell was going  on. She wanted to protect and reassure them. So even when it was hard and she wanted to break down, she stayed strong.

It was with Rafe that Kate spoke the truth, because they hid nothing from each other. It was Rafe and Kate who held each other when the thought of their family in danger became unbearable. 

Then they went back to wearing their masks of calm, because getting the children panicked would do no one any good at all.

However, no matter how much their parents tried to shield them, the children felt the growing tension too. They whispered about it to each other, not wanting the adults to see how afraid they were. They threw themselves into other things to keep some semblance of normalcy.

Abby investigated. It was what she did when she was full of curiosity and anxiety. She looked up mysteries and solved them. Usually it was just a matter of reading a book to find out why magic worked the way it did, but it still made her feel better. She bought a cactus plant to put on her windowsill and tended to it. She messed around with the training bow and arrow her aunt had gifted her when she turned ten. It wasn't a real weapon, obviously, but holding it made her feel better.

Jake studied. He practiced magic constantly, even when school let out. He wanted to be prepared and defend his family if anything came to surprise them. He joined Abby as the other half of their investigative duo, because the more he understood how magic worked, the more he could perform it in a time of need. He also stress cooked, trying new recipes several times a week to keep busy and calm.