Spellweaver (21 page)

There was nothing left
to do but tell her. “Your mother was the Spellweaver.”

The Spellweaver. It
sounded so alien, and yet so familiar. Felicity was certain she had
heard it somewhere before.

“She was the most
powerful of us all,” the counsellor explained. He couldn’t stop
now; the girl needed to know the truth - and he needed her. “She
was the one who protected us.”

“Protected you from what?”

The question caught
him off guard, for she had been so quiet. The answer, he realised
as he opened his mouth to reply, was more complicated than he
thought. He had never had to explain it to anyone
before.

“There are a great
many beings that would seek to harm us, Felicity,” he said darkly.
“Those who would abuse the powers given to them. Those in positions
of authority. Wild creatures, evil creatures. The Spellweaver would
protect us from everything. Or at least... she would
try.”

Felicity pushed her
red hair behind over her shoulders and rubbed her forehead. “But
she’s gone.”

“Yes, I know,” he
said, and Felicity could hear the sorrow in his voice.

“Is that why you had
her book?”

“What?”

“My mother’s journal,”
Felicity replied. “Her... spell book.”

“Ah.” A slight smile
crossed the counsellor’s features. “Yes. Your mother left it with
me for safekeeping. I suppose I let her down quite a bit, didn’t
I?”

“It’s okay. It’s
somewhere safe,” Felicity reassured him, instantly surprised at her
choice to do so. “I still have it.”

“So you should. It’s
yours.” He paused. “I’m sorry that I tried to take it from you.
It’s a powerful item, very powerful, and if it fell into the wrong
hands -” He stopped. “Had I known who you were, I would have given
it to you myself.”

“But what is
it?”

“It’s the Book of the
Spellweaver,” he answered her simply. And then, seeing her blank
expression, he tried to think of a more detailed explanation. “It’s
the legacy of the Spellweavers. Each generation recorded their
spells here.” He paused and looked directly at Felicity. “Your
mother, too. Just like her ancestors before her. All of the most
powerful spells in existence are written down inside that
book.”

Felicity nodded -
Oliver had been telling the truth about one thing, at least.
“That’s why he wanted it so badly...” she mumbled.

“Who?” Mr Oakley
said.

“Oh, um...” Felicity
shifted uncomfortably. “Oliver. He tried to take the book from
me.”

Immediately, the
counsellor was on his feet. “Where is he?”

“I - I don’t know,”
she replied. “He was there in the fields, when the others came
after me. But then he just - he disappeared. I don’t know where he
is now.”

It was several seconds
before Mr Oakley spoke again, and when he did, his voice was low
and serious. “And you’re certain that you hid the book
safely?”

She nodded nervously.
“Of course.”

Mr Oakley said
nothing, but she had already seen his reaction to Oliver’s
name.

“What do you know
about Oliver?” she asked.

He sighed. “Not much,
really,” he said, sitting back down on the armchair. “He’s one of
the Tower neophytes - a low level magic user. Not very
powerful.”

“Not very powerful?”
she blurted out. She couldn’t stop herself. “He almost killed
me!”

“That’s why I’m here,”
Mr Oakley replied, his tone calm and reassuring. “Now that I’ve
found you, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I can show
you how to defend yourself, how to weave spells just as your mother
did -”

“But I’m not like
her!” Felicity cried. “I can’t do magic or cast spells! I can’t
even read that stupid book!”

He stared at her. He
was doing that a lot, Felicity realised, and it was beginning to
annoy her. “You... you really don’t know, do you?” he
said.

Felicity suddenly felt
a burst of anger that propelled her to her feet, forcing her to
forget the aches and pains in her body. “I really wish everyone
would stop saying that and just tell me exactly what it is that I’m
supposed to bloody know!” she cried. “I’m so sick of being kept in
the dark. My mother kept these secrets from me for all my life, and
now you’re being all mysterious and cryptic about it. Can’t anybody
just be straight with me? You’re just as bad as her!”

“Alright, alright!” Mr
Oakley exclaimed, raising his hands as if to calm her. Her outburst
had caught him quite by surprise; he was used to dealing with a
shy, quiet and lonely teenager, a girl he had noted for being
somewhat conflicted and isolated, a girl who had never dealt with
the death of her mother and who hadn’t built up a sturdy
relationship with her father. She had been lost.

That girl didn’t exist
any more. Now, the Felicity who stood before him was determined and
much stronger than she used to be. She was starting to realise her
place in the world, which was something that only he could help her
with.

But it wasn’t easy.
There were so many things that she didn’t know, things that her
mother should have told her. Now that she was gone, the
responsibility was all on him, and he didn’t want to let either of
them down.

He took a breath.
“Alright,” he sighed. “Felicity... you’re the
Spellweaver.”

Now it was her turn to
stare. “What? But I thought - I thought my mother was the
Spellweaver.”

“She was,” the
counsellor said. “And now that she’s - gone, the title and
responsibility belong to you.”

Felicity managed to
emit a few croaks before: “H - how?”

“That’s... how it
works,” he explained. “The powers of the Spellweaver exist in the
blood. From mother to daughter, specifically. You’ve always had it
in you, Felicity. Except...” He hesitated.

“Except
what?”

“Except that you should’ve been born down in Deepworld. Not
here.”

Felicity felt the
knots tie in her stomach. It was a strange sensation; she felt
nervous, scared and confused all at the same time, and these things
were now manifesting themselves physically, making her feel
slightly dizzy and sick.

So she was from
another world - or at least, half of her was from another world.
She should have guessed it, really, what with all the strange
things that had been happening since her mother died. She thought
that this somehow explained things, such as her mother’s odd,
distinctly unmotherly behaviour or the reason why everyone seemed
out to get her, but she was missing so many pieces of information
that she couldn’t quite figure it all out.

“You’ve missed out on
all your training,” Mr Oakley continued. “You should’ve been born
inside the Tower. Your mother would have taught you everything you
needed to know, until it was your turn to become the Spellweaver.
But... things happened and everything changed.”

Still, there was one
thing that Mr Oakley had said that stood out. Felicity was the
Spellweaver. The one who protected everyone, who made spells and
wrote them all down in a journal to be fought over and sought out
by evil people from another world.

“But you said that the
Spellweaver has to protect everyone.”

“That’s
right.”

Felicity was
horrified. “And you expect me to do that?” she exclaimed. “I can’t!
I told you - I can’t do magic!”

The counsellor looked
genuinely baffled. “Of course you can. I saw you
myself.”

Felicity’s jaw
dropped. “What - what do you mean?”

“Back at the park,” Mr
Oakley said. “You conjured the shield that protected you and your
friends. I’ve never seen a spell quite like it.”

“But - I didn’t
-”

She
stopped.

It was with a strange
terror that Felicity realised that she had indeed cast the magic
spell that had sent light shooting from her palms and that had
enveloped her friends. She had thought - no, she had convinced
herself that it had been her mother sending her powers from beyond
the grave, but that just seemed incredibly silly now. With some
effort, she remembered how Oliver had recited the words from her
mother’s journal, words that had made her dizzy and weak. She had
tried to say them herself and thought she had failed, but when
faced with the very real prospect of losing her friends
-

She rubbed her eyes.
They were stinging a little.

“Felicity,” Mr Oakley
said softly. “You’re the Spellweaver. You have powers that you
could never have dreamed about. The shield was just the beginning -
your mother hid such secrets in her journal that she had to run
away from the world she knew just to protect them.” He paused.
“It’s all up to you now.”

That was exactly what
Felicity was afraid of. She didn’t want such responsibility. She
wanted to be normal, a thing that had been in her grasp for such a
short time before it began to evaporate before her very
eyes.

She shook her head
slowly, and when she eventually spoke, her voice was barely above a
whisper and contained a desperate sadness.

“But I’m just a
teenager.”

The words cut into Mr
Oakley’s heart. He was all too aware of Felicity’s age, and of the
fact that she was the youngest Spellweaver in history. Not only
that, but her lack of experience and training made her the weakest.
They had such precious little time to study the journal and reveal
its secrets, secrets that may well be the key to saving them all,
and Felicity didn’t even know the basics about
spellcasting.

But however much the
odds were stacked against them, he knew there was potential there.
He didn’t tell her, but the shield she had spun over her friends
had been magnificent. The energy the others had used trying to
break it had weakened them enough for him to fight them off. Blow
after blow she had withstood, and all without even realising that
she had conjured the thing in the first place. It had been an
astonishing sight to witness. Even with no training, she could do
great things when the need called to her. It was in her blood, of
course, as it was with every Spellweaver that had come before her.
Her mother had been the most powerful yet; she had woven magic with
such grace, delicacy and deadliness that he had never seen before,
and nor had the history books.

It hadn’t been enough
to save her, but he would make sure that her daughter would not
suffer the same end.

“You’re not alone,” he
said. “I’ll help you.”

She looked up at him,
her eyes filled with doubt.

“I mean it,” he
insisted. “I know I couldn’t save your mother, but I won’t let
anything happen to you. I promise.”

Felicity would have
loved nothing more than to trust those comforting words, especially
since they made reference to her mother, but she couldn’t shake off
the doubt plaguing her mind. So far, everyone who had harboured
these magical powers had had nothing but malicious intent towards
her, and she surmised that this mistrust would probably take a long
time to disappear.

She nodded to herself.
“I think... I think I’m going to go,” she said.

“Go?” He looked
surprised, and a little worried. “Where?”

“My dad will probably
be wondering where I am.”

“Ah.”

He watched her stand
up and trudge towards the door almost automatically, as if her legs
and feet were disconnected from her brain. Her shoulders were
slumped, as if the weight of not one world but two were hanging
invisibly upon them. He wished there was something he could do to
help lift the burden or even carry it for her, though he knew he
didn’t have that kind of power; but she was the Spellweaver. There
was nothing he could do to change that.

But maybe there was
something else he could do for her.

“You do understand why
she was never really much of a mother to you, don’t
you?”

She stopped at the
doorway and turned, an inquisitive look replacing her blank,
emotionless expression.

“She had to protect
you,” he said. “The others were constantly hunting her, and she
knew that if they found out that she had had a child...” His voice
trailed off and he paused before speaking again. “She kept you a
secret, even from me. She couldn’t even trust her closest friends
with the knowledge that you existed.”

Felicity
stared.

“What I mean is,” he
went on, “that she needed to distance herself from you to keep you
safe. To keep you close would have meant putting you at risk. Do
you understand what I’m telling you?”

Felicity didn’t know
whether or not she did, but she nodded anyway. Her head had taken
in far too much new information for one day.

But there was one
thing that she wanted to know.

“What was her name?”
she asked.

“Hm?”

“You said she changed
her name. What was her real name?”

Mr Oakley frowned, and
then he realised what she was referring to and nodded in
understanding. “It was Araya.”