Jaci Dawn

Preface: I am starting this novel tonight, but since the idea was sparked by a writing exercise, I am including that bit as well. This could be a very long post as I’d like to get in 1700 words. I’ll post the word count total at the bottom every night. I will title the ensuing posts “The Magic Mice”, although I am not certain that will be the title of this “novel”. Feel free to leave constructive criticisms in the comments. I may not make immediate changes (in order to get to my 50,000 words), but I *will* consider every suggestion, grammar correction, and editorial comment.

Here goes (italic is from the original post):

She was a fool for it, of course. Magic was in everything she touched. Not believing in it was a rebellion on her part. She just didn’t want to be different, or set apart, from anyone at school. She could hide her parents, downplay magic, even disbelieve in it – her friends accepted her. Better: they didn’t believe in magic. Photoshop, yes. Magic: no.

Anything could be digitally reproduced. Anything could be digitally created. There was no god, no spiritual side of things, and certainly no magic. Everything had a logical explanation.

Except that there was Aric, her brother, two years younger, horizontal to the earth and three feet up from the floor, levitating. He was playing a video game and levitating. She walked by and pushed hard on his shoulder, sending him crashing to the hardwoods.

“Hey!!”

Ella ignored him. She opened the fridge, pulled out a carton of milk and poured it over a bowl of Lucky Charms. Weren’t her parents just quaint? She sat down and scooped a spoonful of wheaty health and sugary death. Crunch.

Aric appeared in the doorway. “That was rude, Ella.”

She shrugged. “It’s not normal to levitate.”

“Magic.” Aric sighed and retreated from the room, too old to be bothered with his sister’s odd logic.

She saw her friends coming up the long walkway and grabbed her bags, clicked on the security code, and uttered a dire warning: “Leaving now, Derp. better come with as I’m arming the alarm. School time, Boyfriend!”

Aric appeared at her right hand as she opened the door and smiled. “It’s still magic, dork.” He ran past her friends and down to the bus stop. Ella rolled her eyes before locking the house.

“Hey.” she said, smiling up at Dish, Gran, and Billie. “Bus stop or did someone drive a car?” She winked at Billie, who had just passed her driver’s ed test.

“Actually, Ella, none of the above. We really need to talk about your denial. You can’t keep this up.” Dish was the tall, lean, dark-eyed one. His face was usually pallid and his eyes looked sunken most of the time.

Gran had a more athletic presence: wiry, compact, and a member of the school’s track team. Tonight, he had an unshaven look about his face, and his eyes shifted from left to right. Billie held his hand in a death grip. “Look, Ella, we really need to just come in and crash. It’s full moon, you know. Gran and Dish are having a hard time right now. Can we just hang in your room upstairs?”

Ella blinked a couple of times, and then looked down toward the bus stop where Aric was waiting. “Sure, why not?” She locked the door behind her friends as the yellow bus stopped to pick up the junior high kids and Aric stepped inside.

“So – what is up. Exactly.”

“Ella, Sweetheart, we need to quit denying the pull of the full moon.” Gran wrapped his strong arm around her shoulder. “And you can’t fool your little brother. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“What??!!” Ella whirled before her bedroom door. Had everyone gone insane? They all looked at her with such utter innocence. Billie spoke first.

“I get that you deny magic, Ella, but you are denying the basic truth of yourself. And of your brother. And of your best friends. We haven’t said anything because it didn’t affect us until now. Now they are threatening to put practitioners in jail. Read the news. Your parents have been arrested.” Billie shoved a newspaper under Ella’s nose at the same time as the downstairs doorbell rang.

Everyone jumped, including Ella. Billie raised her hand. “I’ll check it out. It’s probably Aric.”

“Why would he ring the doorbell when he has a key?” Ella started toward the door. Billie stopped her.

“The paper. read it.”

Ella didn’t. She scanned the headlines, which were improbable and inflammatory.

MAGIC PRACTITIONERS HELD IN QUARANTINE

Use of Magic Deemed Illegal by State Governor

“What hogwash,” she muttered. Downstairs she heard Billie open the front door, and the excited jabbering of Aric. Billie was trying to keep their voices down, so Ella couldn’t hear what was being said, but she did hear the door lock click again and then the slap of tennis shoes as they ran up the stairs.A moment later, Billie and Aric rushed into the room, breathing hard. Oh, and Twerp. Great, Ella thought. Twerp.

Aric looked pale. “Did you hear the news, El? Mom, Dad, Deke’s parents…” Deke, or Deacon, was Twerp’s real name, a name Ella never used inside her head.

“You mean this?” She held the paper up.”

“Well… I didn’t see a newspaper, but it was on the bus radio.” Aric looked at Twerp, then at Gran, Dish, Billie and Ella. “El, it’s real. There was a squad car in front of the Hexton’s house and they were leading old Miss Sophy in handcuffs. That’s when Deke and I beat it off the school bus.”

Several thoughts collided in Ella’s mind at the same time. “Miss Sophy? Handcuffs? You got off the school bus? How? Noone tried to stop you?”

“Well, the bus driver did yell at us when we pushed open the back emergency door…”

“We ran through back yards…”

“I left my backpack on the bus with my keys…”

“Saw you guys go into the house to skip school when the bus stopped…”

“Yes, Miss Sophy! Can you believe it!?”

Billie raised her hands for quiet. She was the smallest of all of them, yet when she commanded a room, everyone listened. Her voice and presence were why she nailed nearly all of the starring roles in Drama. “HUSH. Everyone just SIT DOWN. Ella, you need to read the newspaper. Aric, Twerp – breathe in, breathe out. Gran, would you mind watching out the window? You should be able to see the street quite well from here.”

She waited while everyone did as they were told, except Ella, who couldn’t make the letters form into words, much less sentences, now. Snippets jumped out at her, but they were jumbled and confusing. Governor declared… magicians…wizards… witches… magic… illegal… arrested Dr. Pheonix Peabody… warrants for all… holding facilities… safety of our state… religious rights… protection

Dish was sitting on the edge of the bed, his soft voice speaking. Ella looked up and realized her eyes were full of tears. What was happening?

“So, in summary, we have to find a safe place and create a plan of action to rescue our families and friends. We’ll consider all ideas on the table, but before we start, Gran and I were up all night and we think we may have a plan.”

“I’m so confused,” Ella whimpered. “How is magic illegal? It’s … just… sleight – sli – hand. Science…”

Aric reached over and put his arm around her. “It’s OK, Dork. We’ll get them out.”

Billie leaned over and patted Ella’s knee. “You never pay attention, El. Always got your nose in a book or working the back code of a web program. We know. But you have to get a grip. We are ALL wizards and witches in this room. We possess magic, and it isn’t smoke and mirrors. You haven’t figured out your gift, but you will.”

Gran just shook his head. “El, just sit tight and listen to our plan. It’ll start making sense if you just cooperate. Dish’s parents have a cabin up off of Helmet Road. We just need to get there without attracting any attention to ourselves. It’s got food and water, a generator and gas.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard to get there,” Dish said. “It’s thirteen miles off of the highway. We can all walk that in a day.”

“We figure we can walk the seven miles out to the junction today, hunker down for the night at Crazy Sully’s, and then walk out to the cabin tomorrow morning.”

“Why walk?” Aric asked. “Can’t we just drive or something?” Everyone looked at Billie.

“Guys, my dad is – er, was – a police officer. I’m afraid to drive because they’ll run our plates or recognize me, and – besides – we’re supposed to be in school… We don’t want to attract attention.”

“Like a bunch of kids skipping school and walking down the side of the highway won’t attract attention?” Aric made a face and rolled his eyes. “I hate walking.”

“And we’ll get hungry,” Twerp added, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. “What if it gets cold or rains?”

Billie rubbed her temple. “I can drive. We’d need Mrs. Parker’s son’s van. It should be parked in the alley today because he worked last night. We could leave it at Crazy Sully’s so they find it and return it to him, so he won’t be too sore at us.”

“Forensics. Science.” Ella looked around the room. “Fingerprints, guys. You can’t just take a car and park it and hope noone knows who took it. They’d have our footprints. Dogs could follow our scent. Shoot, they could track us from here, if we tried to walk our of town – unless it rains. But we can’t steal a car.”

“Well, what other ideas do you people have?” Dish glowered. His mop of dark hair fell across his forehead, making him look almost sinister. You want we should just hole up here and hope the truancy officer doesn’t come around – or the officers who arrested Miss Sophy don’t make it down this street sometime today? We can’t go to any of our houses if our parents have been arrested. There’s no practical way out of this, except to get to the cabin. Unless one of you knows how to make a carpet fly and we can stay off of anyone’s radar.” Dish had a way with sarcasm.

Gran was staring out the window again, his profile unreadable. Ella thought he was frowning, a look that marred his perfect profile. He was flexing his fists.

“I have an idea,” Twerp began.

Aric interrupted him. “What about bicycles? Couldn’t we all ride our bikes out Clausen Way, and then take the cut-off to Coventry? Isn’t there, like, a BMX track or something out there we could get lost on. Who’s going to see us?”

“That might actually work,” Billie nodded. “But we’d have to all get our bikes, which would mean risking going back home. AND we’d have to get to Clausen Way without being detected.”

“Well, Deke’s house backs almost up to Clausen Way, and he and I go out there all the time. Most of the time, noone even sees us going, unless his mom is watching. And we have four bikes here.”

“Guys, I have a better…” Twerp began again. This time, Gran interrupted with a low growl like a grizzly bear protecting its food cache.

Everyone looked at him. He was hunched and leaning back from the window. “They’re coming. Long white van, guys in white jackets. Two police cars.”

Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

1,847 words