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Heart and Soul

Chapter Ten

So a quick round up. I now know what happened to me. I now know what the creature looked like. Most importantly I knew that my soul was trapped in some kind of glass container with a dancing girl inside of it.

Could be worse, I suppose.

I figured that as he’s obviously one of these soul-snatching vampires, he’d live in the Underlands, but I had no idea where, but the book that I clutched tightly in my hands could hopefully tell me. As part of Mr Leith teaching me to control my magic, he’d also taught me some basic spells that can be performed by pretty much anybody with magical knowledge. A tracking spell is what I’d need this time. For that I’d need a few basic ingredients that I’d hopefully have with me, but I’d also need the exact wording from a spell. This is why I was now heading to the magic shop, hoping to hell that they’d have a version of the spell. Mr Leith had been on at me for ages about learning simple spells off by heart and I had taken his advice to a certain extent. I had technically memorised some spells, though they weren’t exactly ‘simple’ and they definitely weren’t the kind of spells that Mr Leith suggested.

Rather than tracking spells, quick healing spells and simple things like colour transformation spells or weather prediction, I’d learnt how to change the weather, mimic other people’s voices and create fireballs. I’ll admit, even I was kicking myself at the moment.

The other aspect of a tracking spell was a piece of that person’s property. Be it an object, hair or drop of blood. I held the book tighter just as I rounded the corner towards the Magic Shop.
I could see it now, its bold green paintwork lining the glass fronted building. Hanging just above the door was a wooden sign, slowly drifting in the wind. Written in black the words “Sticks”, as it has always been called, was open although it never looked like it.

A movement to my left for a moment caught my attention. I turned and stopped, a shiver tingling up my spine, there was nothing but shadows down the alley way, well, shadows and a dumpster. Convincing myself there was nothing there I ventured on and into Sticks, the ding of the bell acknowledging my entrance.

Walls lined with endless bookshelves from the top to the bottom, the magic shop seemed to glow with the presence of magic. A confusing collection of books, spells and ingredients, anything you couldn’t find here you didn’t need.

The room seemed crowded, littered with mismatch tables, all piled to breaking point with an assortment of items. The air hung thick and heavy, scented with a mixture of herbs, some lavender, jasmine and if I wasn’t mistaken a hint of vanilla.

The shop appeared endless from the doorway as it disappeared into shadows and melted into bookcases in the distance, but the further into the shop I got, the more I could see.

At the very back, disguised by a large, solid wood barrier was a woman. Her blonde hair was heavily curled and had been pulled back and away from her face. A turquoise and silver band separated her blonde curls across the top of her head and from here I could swear it was moving.

Walking forwards I locked eyes with the Wiccan, her sparkling purple irises danced with the flickering candle light that illuminated this area of the shop. An old till sat heavily on the desk and as I walked up to her, she began punching numbers into its ancient system.

Her olive tanned skin glowed with an unnatural light, her eyes were following my every movement, and she was more than a Wiccan, that’s all I could sense though. “Hi.” I offered as I reached her.
She watched me for a moment before her face spread into a smile. "Hello Witch, welcome to Sticks. I've been waiting for you, you’ll need this book.” She announced as she dropped a heavy bound book on the desk. “You’ll also need some portal tokens before you can use it, you haven’t got your magic, and it won’t let you use it otherwise. That's the only way to get to the Underlands.”

“I’m sorry what?” I part shouted, part stammered. “How did you-“

“This is my magic shop. I’ve run Sticks since my Mother and she since my grandmother and she since hers, it’s in my blood. I know what happens in my magic shop, what will happen here. It wasn’t you’re fault by the way, don’t feel guilty.”

My eyes blinked and snapped to her, focused intently on the tiniest movements on her face, “What?” I asked, my voice low and vaguely threatening.

“Her death, it wasn’t your fault.” I flinched, my lips pulling back from my teeth just enough to expose a sadistic smile.

“You know nothing about me, Wiccan.” I snapped, blood rushing through veins. My empty hand had already formed a fist, the other clutched the glass filled book like a life line. The necklace on my neck began to burn my skin, the cool metal suddenly red hot.

I gasped and snapped out of the dark place I’d just been and picked the necklace up, off of my exposed skin. The Wiccan meanwhile had watched me quietly, learning from my every move.

“It’s the portal.” She assured as she walked around the desk with a sway in her hips. Her long, multi-coloured skirt barely slumped against the top of the carpet. Bangles jangled on her wrist as she picked the spell book up and walked me to the door. “The Underlands are laced with evil, they will do their best to bring out any darkness in you. You feel guilt for her death, it will feed off of that.”

I nodded and tried my best to squash the thoughts and images spinning through my mind. Our old house, her face, full of love and understanding. She wanted me to use my magic, she wanted me to be like her, she encouraged me, she-

“Take this book, free of charge and try page 92. Meanwhile you’ll also need to see the portal keeper, he’s a troll that works over at Mason’s Marketing. Have you heard of it?”

Still caught up in history I nodded absently and accepted the book she gave me. “I’ll see you soon, then?” The wiccan asked, obviously realising I wasn’t really paying attention. Mumbling a thank you I left the shop, the bell dinging above me.

It seemed to break my thought stream. As I reached the outside, air flowed back into my grateful lungs. Looking back at Sticks my whole body shuddered for a second, there was darkness in there. I hadn’t sensed it, probably a side effect of losing my soul. I should have cast a protection or light spell or something. Breathing heavily I shifted my bag up on my shoulder and walked in the general direction of the park.
Located in the middle of town I figured it would give me enough room and enough privacy to try the tracking spell. If I could find out where the creature was keeping my soul, then maybe I could get it back. I didn’t stop on the way to the park, other than to buy a cup of coffee and a donut from a passing street vendor.

My stomach growled in gratitude as I wondered along under the mid afternoon sunshine, it’d be dark soon. If I was going to track the creature, make it to the portal keeper and get back to Sticks today, it would need to be quick.

Reaching the park I dropped my bag to the floor and sat down on the soft grass and crossed my legs. Opening the big, dusty book to page 92 I skimmed my finger tip over the various entries until I reached the tracking spell.

Reaching into my bag I pulled out 3 little brown bags. One containing elderflower, another dried fairy tears and the last containing my last and only dragon flower. A powerful and rare ingredient, I knew that this would need to work.

Laying out the three ingredients and ditching the last of my coffee, I dropped all three ingredients into the empty cup. I lit the candle I’d brought with me and began to utter the few words the spell contained.

Picking up the shard of glass I added it to the coffee cup and when enough wax had built up I tipped the candle into the cup and watched as a pink flame began to plume out of the mug. Separated only by an occasional spark, the pink smoke formed a large rectangular canvas in front of me.

Normally when a tracking spell worked, it would create a map out of the smoke, sparks signalling the location. This time however the rectangle remained blank. I stared intently at the smoke, waiting for it to form the map it had every time I’d done this before.

Was my magic that off? Surely not. I’d followed procedure. Momentarily abandoning the spell I reached for the spell book and re read the words:

Tracking an object/entity:
To track something you will need an object that relates to it. Using a mixture of fairy tears (dried or fresh), two pinches of elderflower and either a lily head or if you have one, a dragon flower. Mixing the three ingredients, with the object will begin the spell. To complete it, add a candle that has been blessed by the three suns and pour the wax over the top. You should see a map appear in a cloud of smoke. Colour of smoke may vary depending on what you are tracking. If the tracking spell doesn’t work it could be because the thing you seek isn’t on your level or if you are in the Underlands, see below ‘Tracking an object in the Underlands’.


“Shit.”

“Excuse me?” My head snapped up, my foot instinctively knocking over the mug, ending the spell. I slammed the book shut and eyed the old lady staring at me.

With greying hair and wrinkled skin she looked at me through age old eyes that were creased into slits, “there’s no need to swear, dear. All I did was ask if you knew the time.”

Half blushing from embarrassment, the other from internal anger, I ignored the woman and her ramblings as I began shoving my belongings and the glass shard into my backpack. I jumped to my feet, grabbing the mug and pushed past the old lady, dropping the mug into the trash can as I went.

Internally I was kicking myself, I could not believe that I’d just wasted my time, I should have continued reading. I couldn’t track him because he was in the Underlands, I had to be there to track him, I should have known that!

Hiking my bag further up my shoulder I ducked my head into the wind as I headed towards the retail sector. I knew the wiccan had said ‘Mason Marketing’, I didn’t know exactly where it was, but I had a vague idea.
♠ ♠ ♠
Happy Friday Eve, people! <3

Hope you enjoy this chapter....more to come on Sunday :)

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