Words for Wednesday - 17 January -- Unicorn Farm 15

This week's prompts are provided by Lissa at The Memory of Rain.

The first prompt is the sound of
Mountain Rain and Thunderstorm
I think it's the first time we have had 
an audio prompt.

The others are

1. it's going to rain today
2. chasing storms
3. umbrellas
4. charmed
5. a long journey
6. trains


Once again I wrote a small chapter from my mock autobiography, and once again I took up the additional challenge of using the prompts in the order they were given.

Some days have passed since Susan received the first letter of the year.

January was unusually wet and dreary, school was bad, even worse than usual, Susan thought. Her classmates had never been very nice to her, but after an epic fight in 4th form they had mostly left her alone. Now the teachers seemed to be after her as well, or maybe she had just begun to imagine things after experiencing how learning could be at The Unicorn Farm.
She made her homework dutifully each day, in a hurry to be able to pour over her magic books. She had now learned to send letters with magic, for Heidi's next letter had told her to read the note at page 114 in Spells and Cantrippes for Daily Use. The old anonymous tome had lain unopened in the bottom of her carpet bag, but it was actually quite a handy book. Susan was slowly beginning to rely more on her own powers and on her magic when faced with a problem. This earned her strange looks from her parents and sister, and only the fact that she DID NOT bring her wand to school had saved her from trouble there.
Actually the "DO NOT bring your wand into that other world"-rule was one the apprentices got hammered into their brain on The Farm.
But her growing confidence and new problem solving techniques; skills she had no idea of possessing, was what caused her problems.

This Tuesday was just as dreary as the rest of the month had been. After hurrying through her history lessons, Susan grabbed her wand and a few other things, bent on trying out a few cantrips somewhere outdoor.Even with rain coming and going "her place" would be fairly dry.
That place was not of that other world, at least not as Susan understood tit. It was an abandoned lumber yard with a humongous walnut tree and some decrepit, red buildings. It was also the place where Susan, Heidi, Lis and Tue had installed the portal in one of the hottest summers ever.

Her mother called her as she was leaving the house: " Susan! Are you leaving now?" Susan nodded, and her mother continued: "It's going to rain today. Again! If you have to go chasing storms, then at least dress for it.Umbrellas are no good in this weather. You've turned too many of them inside out lately."
"Sorry, Mum," Susan said. "I'm going to pull on my rain gear. I'll be home for dinner. Promise." Susan gave her mother a hug before she disappeared into her study again.

Susan locked her bike and quickly ran up to her place in the old lumber yard. Nobody could see her here, nobody ever came all the way here, except for late September when the walnuts were ripe. This was Susan's secret place. The portal was over in the far corner, invisible to all but fellow magicians. That made her feel safe and even more at home here. It was a charmed place in her rather miserable life. She sat down with her back to the long, red building. It was fairly dry here, the drops were pattering on the roof over her head and running thorough the old drain pipes, making rivulets meandering from the house. The thunder rolled now and then, but she was not cold. Magic could help in so many small ways.
She pulled some letters out of her deepest pocket. Heidi's newest letter had arrived only this morning, and she intended to study every word before it became too dark.

"Dear Susan!
We have looked more closely at the photo from the train station, and now we do not think it really is your father in the photo, even though I agree that it looks a lot like him. We suspect that Torben used the other half of the potion to look unsuspicious for a long journey, since we now know - or at least have a strong suspicion of - where he went. As you guessed, he used the trains to go to Copenhagen -  all the way to the airport even.
He went to the airport to pick up somebody. Who that somebody is, we do not know, but we got a glimpse of them in the news, as some foreign head of state came by that same plane.
Do watch he news in the coming days. We are all afraid what will happen next.
We sent you a newspaper cutting of the meeting in the airport. You can just see Torben and that other man to the left.
Take care of yourself and your family.
Your friend Heidi"

 Susan sat for some time studying the newspaper clipping in the murky daylight. The quality was not much better than the one from the security camera at the station. Susan got up and ran to her bike. She had an idea. The local library had all the newspapers for way back. Maybe some of the other ones had a better photo. She could always say it was for some homework.