This week's prompts - the first of 2019 - are provided by Lissa at
The Memory of Rain.
1. beginning
2. new year
3. wonder
4. ritual
5. kiss
6. faith
and/or:
1. seven
2. remember
3. adventure
4. miles
5. 88
6. heart
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 we left magical me and friends in the old powerhouse.
Just after the beginning of the new year Susan began to wonder if they actually did the right thing concerning that darned ritual. It had begun all right. The fire had dome a lot for Helge, who had been cold all over, but not hurt apart from a sprained ankle. He had been on the way home, for once walking to the train station in the near by town, not wanting to hurry home for Christmas in his dreary home. He had happened to pass by the farm with the angry Sheepdog, who had chased him into the powerhouse. When he had tried to climb the discarded logs, some of them had rolled over, catching his leg and knocking him almost senseless. He had observed Torben and David meeting, but had not been able to understand a word of what they said over the buzzing in his head. Now he felt fine apart from being cold and his ankle, which Lis mended. While he was thawing Tue told him what had happened. He ate all the chocolate and declared his willingness to participate in the hunt for Torben and David. He and Heidi stayed in the old powerhouse, volunteering to do the cleaning and act as a communication centre. Susan felt like giving him a kiss, she was so happy someone else seemed to understand their misgivings about Torben and David, but she was not sure he would not misunderstood her, so she refrained.
Lis went after David, heading for the Farm. It had been easy tracking his bike in the newly fallen snow, and he had had no reason to suspect he was being followed. As she arrived at the farm she was still able to see faint tracks leading into the barn. She looked through t a window and found the place deserted. A quick search inside revealed a smallish bottle in a dustbin and Torben's cupboard with the doors wide open. She took one of the great white winter-cloaks from the apprentices' cupboard, then she said the words connecting her wand to Heidi's and said: "He is at farm. Watching!" And then she followed David's tracks to the house proper, where she found a place to look through one of the windows and follow the professors' party. She put her faith in the winter cloak's camouflaging abilities should anybody chance to look out.
Tue and Susan had had the harder job of following Torben. He was in a hurry, and his long legs and new bike ate the distances in a hurry. Only the snow, falling lightly but steadily had enabled them follow his tracks to the nearby town. There they lost him at the train station. The train for Copenhagen had left seven minutes before they arrived, and as he was nowhere to be found, they suspected that that was where he went.
Tue went to the men's room, contacted Heidi and heard Lis' message. He and Heidi agreed that they all should probably go to the farm, as they had no idea where Torben was going.
They took a bus to the stop nearest the black bridge and joined Helge and Heidi outside the powerhouse. By now they were all rather hungry and miserable. They were quite sure, that David would have done whatever he was to do before they reached the farm.
But as they arrived, Lis was there to greet them, she sent them in to get winter-cloaks as well and then they all took position around the window. They saw the teachers finishing a mouth-watering dinner, drinking mulled wine and having a good time. Then Thora began to play the concertina, and David-Torben picked up the rose-ribboned candle. As he threw it into the fireplace, a thick smoke billowed out. It hit the teachers, and one by one they dropped where they stood. It all happened very fast, and Susan doubted that anybody had even seen what happened. David had crumbled too.
"Why did he poison them all - and himself as well?" Tue asked.
"Shouldn't we do something?" Susan asked.
"Let's get them out of there," Helge said and ran to the door. Susan and Heidi followed him, Tue tried to stop them, but to no avail. As Helge opened the door, the smoke hit them, and they went down as hit by a club.
Tue and Lis looked at one another. They dared not go near the smoke, gas or whatever, but they had to get their sister and their friends away.
Susan awoke some time later, Tue and Lis had pulled them away from the door, dragging them along with magic, and now they sat in the little room behind the kitchen. Lis came back from the kitchen, carrying a large, steaming teapot and a handful of mugs. They drank and got their colour back. None of them felt any worse, but they did not know what to do.
"How much do you remember of your adventure?" Lis asked.
Helge had lost all memory back from when Susan and Tue joined him in the old powerhouse. Susan and Heidi remembered the cold and miserable hike to the Farm, and then a blank wall. Lis filled them in with their arrival to the Farm and their stupid show of heroism.
As she reached the present Tue came in, grabbed a mug, and drank the tea in great scalding gulps. He told them that the teachers were stirring. He thought they'd better get away before they were discovered and accused of doing whatever it was that David had done.
They all agreed, they were in a bad position, should they be discovered, and with David still looking like Torben, they'd have no way of justifying their presence at the Farm. The professors would just think the had pulled yet another prank on them. Susan found a crate of cookies left on a shelf, She gave those and the bag of tea they had broken the seal on to Helge.
"Take these and get off, there's no reason for you to become involved and possibly expelled from The Unicorn Farm."
Tue handed him some money: "Susan is right, Get home in a jiffy, and take good care of yourself."
Helge gave all of them a quick hug, placed the cloak on a chair and ran out the door. He remembered to obliterate his tracks with a spell, before he jumped through the portal that would take him to back Stockholm.
Lis and Tue quickly cleaned the kitchen, while Susan hung the winter-cloaks back again.
Heidi kept a look out and as Tue put the last mug in the cupboard, she came back with a warning: "Somebody's coming," she whispered urgently.
Tue and Lis Pulled their wands and held onto Susan and Heidi's hands. Susan and Heidi had both flunked their teleportation tests in August, as had almost a quarter of their fellow apprentices. Tue and Susan quickly said the words that brought them to The Magicians' house.
The party following these dramatic events had been a just a bore, nothing dramatic happened. Susan's parents and Linda, her younger sister, had been less of a problem than they thought. Heidi's father could be real charming, and he did his very best while Sandra served delicious tidbits for everybody. The children were ravenous and ate a lot of everything, but luckily Sandra was of the kind that saw clean plates as a compliment to the chef. Heidi and Susan tried to talk about the afternoon's happenings, but they were disturbed every time they began. Tue and Lis withdrew early under the pretence of packing. Susan hoped they went back to the farm to check out what had happened.
During the long drive home to Elsinore, as the humming car ate mile after mile, she began worrying about Thora. The spunky and resourceful Icelandic witch was to Susan like the grandmother she did not have, and even though Thora was miles away in snowbound Iceland and all of 88 years old, she was close to Susan's heart.
On the first day of the new school year she found a letter on her bed. It was from Heidi, Tue and Lis.
