Call to Arms

One

“Happy birthday Ella!”

I shake my head to see my father sitting at the breakfast table with my three best friends of ten years, Raegan, Emma, and Kait, where my father had made my favorite meal: banana bread French toast with scrambled eggs. A small smile forms to my face; I couldn’t believe I was finally twenty-one.

“Thanks everyone,” I smile, turning a bit red all in the midst of feeling a bit light headed.
“Are you feeling okay Ella?” Kait asks me.
“Yeah, you don’t look excited to be turning twenty-one,” Emma finishes for her.

To be quite honest, I felt different this morning. It was a weird kind of different. For one thing, no one should be waking up in the morning with static and lightning bolts coming out of their hands while grabbing their toothbrush. “Yeah, just feeling a bit…weird.”

“Well yeah, you’re finally legal legal!” Emma exclaimed.
“Not that kind of weird, just…its nothing.”

I catch the look on my fathers face as soon as I end that setence. I knw that kind of look he made, it was the look that translated to he knew something that I didn’t know, but he was refusing to make a big deal out of it. I shrug the notion of the look off and take a slice of French toast.

“Well, I have a gift for you Ella!”

My father exclaims as I take the little bags from the girls. I look over at my dad as he hands me a box. No one really had to get me anything, to be quite honest, I hated receiving gifts from my friends and father, I’ve always had ever since I would remember. I open the gifts from the girls, each gift was a charm for my Pandora bracelet. I thank the girls and take the box from my father. “I’ve been waiting to give this to you for a long time,” he smiles.

I look up at my father and examine him. He always reminded me of Chandler from friends, the look and somewhat of the personality. I open the gift and see lying in the box that there was a key necklace lying there. It was silver and not flashy of any sorts. “Daddy,” I begin as I put the necklace on.

“It was your mothers. She told me before she left that this was meant to be yours when you turned twenty-one.”

I wish he didn’t bring up my mother. From what he had told me when I would ask about her, which was a lot of the times, that she was offered a position in England to sit on the royal court but we weren’t allowed any contact with her until she was done. For whatever reason, I didn’t believe this was the case. The only other thing I knew about her was that her name was Veronica and that she was a beautiful woman. In fact, I had never even seen a photo of her, I just knew she was beautiful.

“I love it daddy, thank you, and thank you to everyone, I couldn’t ask for a better twenty-first birthday,” I smile as I give my father a hug.
“I mean, you could, if you actually wanted to drink,” Raegan jokes.
“Raegan, I have a gut feeling that we shouldn’t drink tonight.”

I look over at my father, who is now making a face that I also knew quite well. It was almost as if he knew that I knew about something, but the thing was I didn’t know. He was quite known for making these faces, but my father was a hard man to read sometimes, it was almost as if he didn’t want me to know what was on his mind.

“Girls, why don’t you get going, I’ll clean up!”
“Thanks again daddy, I love you,” I say as I give him a hug.
“I love you two princess, be safe!”
“Daddy, we always are.”

And with that, my best friends and I were out the door, leaving my father with the dishes.

“Well, its finally good to see you again Michael!”

I hear after a somewhat loud explosion went off in my house. I look up once I realize I was lying on my ass to see a woman with short dirty blonde hair and dirty green eyes. I watch her dust off her black scoop short sleeve shirt and fix her jeans. I realized why she was here; the prophecy was about to happen.

It was my sister-in-law, Jocelyn.

“Oh my god it really is you…in jeans and a normal shirt!”
“What, did you think I was going to come into your…common room I guess you could call it, in what we wear in our land? Plus, I may need to get another pair of these…what you would call flip flops, they are quite comfy!”
“It’s good to see you again Jocelyn.”

I tell her as she helps me up and embraces me into a hug. I examine her; she looks confused as to what everything in our world is. She points over at the leftover French toast and then turns to look back at me. “What is that?”

“Its what we call French toast, are you hungry?”
“I suppose we can discuss the prophecy involving Ella over food.”
“Want coffee with that?”
“What is coffee?”

I sit back down after making her a plate of eggs and French toast while she examines the bottle of syrup. “It goes on your French toast…it won’t kill you Jocelyn.” She nods and pours half the bottle on her French toast. “So, I think I know why you’re here,” I begin as she sallows her food.

“God this is good…but yes, we need to talk about the prophecy…Maleficent is on the hunt for the book and Ella…that I take it you don’t have.”
“The book never made it over.”
“Oh no, that book did.”
“Well…we don’t have it. Ella said she felt weird this morning.”
“She’s developing her power…I really thought she wouldn’t get the power.”
“Well your one sister had to turn evil now didn’t she?”
“Please, we thought Ella wouldn’t get her power since Veronica gave hers up to be with you…anyways we have a problem with Ellas power.”

The way she said that there was a problem didn’t sound good. In all honesty, I wasn’t looking forward to this day. Don’t get me wrong, I was excited that Ella was finally twenty-one, but the fact that now I have to tell her that her whole life is practically a lie was not something I was looking forward to. In fact, I don’t think any father in their right mind would look forward to tell their daughter that not only is Maleficent alive and real, but why she still is alive. Last I checked every child in this land believed my sister-in-laws daughters husband killed Maleficent, however, that was not the case.

“Ella is going to have a weakness, that maybe a problem to try and destroy Maleficent.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maleficent wants Ellas power to take over our land, meaning she has to kill Ella in order to do so. However, we all know Ella is capable of killing Maleficent, but she’s going to have a weakness that may get in the way of this and Maleficent can use this to her advantage.”
“And what would that be?”
“Has your child ever fallen in love?”
“No.”
“There you go.”
“Well…what do we do?”

I watch Jocelyn set down her fork as she lets out a belch. I give her a look of disgust as she sticks her tongue out at me. “What, we don’t have this good of food in our land,” she begins as she picks up a glass of orange juice and takes a sip of it. I watch the look on her face change as she sets down the glass of juice. “What are you trying to do, kill me?!” She yells at me.

“Oh you missed me Jocelyn, admit it.”
“Please Michael, trying to keep our family in one piece is time consuming, I needed a break from them all. Anyways, where is your daughter?”
“Out with her friends for her birthday exploring the city.”
“Well, she’s going to be bloody confused when she sees me in your…whats this room called?”
“My dining room, anyways, were going to have a lot of time to kill…lets watch ESPN.”

The thing I had to say about Jocelyn was that she was about business, but could take a step back when she needed to. She looks around the room after that sentence came out of my mouth. She has no idea what ESPN was. I let out a sigh as she looks at me.

“Well…maybe I should explain what ESPN is before we do anything.”