Birch Manor 4 - Return to Unicorn Farm 4

I still have lots of words from the last two Wednesdays. To the best of my knowledge (I lost count) I have those still unused. And I only used Yew for this chapter.

Heft, Yew, Pergola, Myth, Visualise
AND
Wafer, Haggard, Procession, Drips, Disdainful, Stream, Chalk, Treasure

Umm, rewriting the last few lines of Birch Manor - 4 - Return to Unicorn Farm 3 because it did not work that way. We still need to know more of Teresa (not her real name) and what and why she did what she did - if indeed she did anything at all!

"Teresa!" Knud exclaimed. "Fiona told us about her."
"No, she was not called Teresa," Lis said.
"And any old how," Susan added. "She is probably dead as well. All the apprentices who died, did so in the first 8 years after the magic left us - David as the last of those. Only Kalle died later, 7 years after David, and that might very well have been a genuine accident. We've found almost everybody - yes including you, she said with a wink to Heidi. "You once told me you would have liked to be called Tania. The only one we've found no trace of is Aamu,"
"And I can solve that," Sandra said. "She married someone in Germany and took a new first name as well. I do not remember, but I have it somewhere in a note book at home. You know Thora tried to find the apprentices as well. She never did well, but now with internet and so on, we should be able to fill in the holes."
"Yes, we'll have to meet again all of us, and puzzle together all the small pieces of this riddle. I think we have to ascertain what really happened," Knud said. "But we, Susan and I - and Fiona and Martine as well - think that we have no more reasons to be afraid. As Susan said, no apprentice have died in the last 41 years. So for today, let's celebrate,  let's eat, drink and be merry."

"But first. I think I have a job." Susan said. "Percy, are you still willing to go on the way a soul should go, and not be hanging around here any more?"
"Oh, yes," Percy said. "The next time you come here - and for me that would be both an eternity and only a short while - you'll come to bury Sandra, or one of you younger ones. I am lonely. I would stay lonely forever here. I've had my revenge, Tristan, Torben, and David, are all dead. And that lady you call Teresa  She was Eileen, Tristan's sister, not his wife." Sandra nodded. "That was what she was called!"
Percy continued: "I can do one last thing for you. I can find her - if she's still alive, I can get
to her, and if she has died I can tell that too. Only I NEED MY MAGIC BACK!" This last was almost a roar, and they all backed up a couple of steps.
Susan pulled herself together and opened the brown suitcase. "Come here, Persephone. Touch this piece of cloth and be a witch once more!" She held out her old skirt. Percy drifted towards it, and at the touch of it turned totally solid, then transparent. Then she re-appeared and with a jubilant sound flew over their heads and teleported off so fast that the incoming air made an exploding sound momentarily deafening them all.

When the twitter of birds once again could be heard Susan spoke again: "Let's awaken your magic, too, now we're at it. The secret is to touch my old skirt, or for that matter Helge's old pants, that were left in my suitcase for so long. They are a source of magic somehow.
As if they had discussed it, they all gave way for Sandra. As she touched Susan's old skirt the colour returned to her cheeks, her back straightened and she looked younger.
"Ahh," she said. "I never realised just how much I have missed!"
The changes in Lis, Tue and Heidi were not as marked, But still they looked younger, healthier for having their magic back.
They tucked in and let the good homemade food serve its purpose. Not long after the last bite was eaten, Percy returned. The thunderclap made by her arrival was not as bad, so that they were still able to hear what she said. "Eileen/Teresa is no more among the living," she bugled triumphantly. "She died 40 years, 3 months and 27 days ago in Paris." Percy then hugged all of them; if you could call her misty, chilling embrace a hug. They all cried and said things like "We'll miss you," "Take care." And even a soft spoken "We'll meet again!" from Sandra. Then Percy seemed to shrink, she grew smaller, or maybe further away, and the second before she disappeared, peals of laughter and a great feeling of joy filled the air.

They all stayed still for some minutes, filled by the intensity of the emotions, then Sandra spoke: "Much as I'll miss Percy, both as the girl she once was and the ghost she turned into, I miss my magic more. Susan, Pray tell, where did you get that wand of yours? Thora and Tähti are no longer among the living. Did you travel to Germany, or maybe somewhere else?"
"No," Susan said, almost unable to contain her mischievous happiness. "I took a walk in the village, where I live." She looked at their confused faces. and then she could not keep her good news to herself any more: "Thora taught me the art of wand-singing. And I'm sure that the old trees of the Unicorn Farm will be delighted to give you new wands."
Heidi ran to the trees, still so much the young girl she once was. "My tree is over here, Susan," she called. "That alder over there. My, it has grown, but I can still recognise it."
Susan well remembered the tree, and the beech tree that had given the wands to the twins. "Sandra, what was your tree?" Susan asked, "and what colour were your sparks?"
"My wand was made of yew, and my sparks were smoky grey and mysterious like the oracle in Delphi," Sandra answered, looking at the row of trees. "I can see one a bit further down the line."
Susan could too, and while Knud, Sandra and the twins sat and nibbled the last bites of cake and just basked in the sun and their magic, Susan was hard at work singing wands for them. Then they of course had to try the wands and put out a myriad of small fires from the resulting sparks. Soon the yard was pockmarked like an old battlefield.

"This has been one of the best days of my life," Sandra said. "But what about my grandchildren, We ought to open a new school of magic."
"Actually we have thought of doing just that. But we miss books," Susan began explaining.
"BOOKS!" Knud exclaimed and jumped up so quickly that he overturned a stack of cups and four bottles and had to catch his equilibrium for a second before continuing. "Percy said that Gilvi magicked all the books and so on down the old well. I do not remember a well at all, it must have been dry even then. We always used one of the pumps." They all looked at Knud as if he had fallen from the moon, but he just continued thinking out loud: "Now where would a well be placed. They are almost always outside the farm, and here I would guess away from the water, so as not to have any salt water come into it. Let's go searching for it. But carefully. The old cover may have rotted away over time. Don't fall in."
Armed with branches and Knud's walking staff they first marked the outside walls of the Farm, and then searched the area west of the Farm buildings.
"No," Heidi said after half an hour's unsuccessful searching. "We ran too much on this side of the Farm. We would have remembered a well here. I'd say North of the Farm. Only the broom shed was in that direction, and the meadows, and we always followed the paths going there. I dare bet that old well is somewhere on that side of the Farm."
"Smart thinking, a lot of bushes and so on grew there. They might have been left there on purpose, preventing people from falling in. Let's get over there, searching." Knud said. "Let's tackle the North-west corner first. It's still far from the beach."