Evermoon

Chapter 15

Frankie wandered around the room, she fingered the books that were closest to her. There were many titles she didn't recognise, with the odd title she did popping up every so often. The library was full of books that Frankie had only seen at their store, which were usually kept hidden, locked away.

"Ok, so should we split up?" Celeste asked, organising them.

"Rose you and Frankie take the left side and Callum and I will take the right side."

They continued like that for a few hours, with Amanda popping in with snacks and to check in to make sure everything was okay, every so often.

Books and scrolls, they thought could be of help or use were placed on top of the empty table with the map and Callum volunteered to go through them. They came across titles such as 'Historical Tomes of continental magic', 'Magic: Histories, Prophecies and Revelations', 'Dark Magic: A Precautionary tale' and 'The Mysteries of Blairs Hollow' which looked half-completed. They decided to take a break and they all sat on the floor for a makeshift picnic, bringing the books and scrolls with them.

Frankie decided to flick through the half-completed 'The Mysteries of Blairs Hollow', it was handwritten and hard to decipher, but it began with the story of the invasion of the Mainland navy, similar to the play she saw the night before. As she flicked through it, she noticed a drawing, on first glance it looked like a scribble of a black blob, but as she looked at it properly she noticed it was more like a fireball, the thing that was distinctive to her was that it had eyes, it reminded her of a drawing she saw in one of her ancestor's diary, the drawings were similar. As she came to the last page of the unfinished book, she stared at the blank page, her eyes started to glaze over as the pages faded into the background and darkness overcame her.

Frankie stood alone eyes closed shut, as a nauseous feeling swirled in her stomach, when she opened her eyes, she was greeted with more darkness. Using her other senses she searched for sound, and begged for warmth as a cold chill creeped through her body – anything to bring forth what was to come. But Frankie knew how this worked, she had to let it play out on its own. Closing her eyes and breathing through her nose she calmed herself down into a relaxing state, she reflexively turned to the right and her body was lassoed forward, as she was pulled closer to what it wanted her to see, she began to hear a sound. It started off as a disturbing humming musical sound, the closer she got she realised she could make out voices, the voices grew louder and clearer and she knew now that they weren't singing, they were chanting.

The chill that once seeped through her body had disappeared and was replaced by a warming sensation, at first she welcomed the warmth but it began to become unbearable, a smokey smell mixed with burning wood wafted in the air, sweat sheened on her forehead and she wriggled her body fruitlessly, trying to get free of the invisible lasso, as she forced her eyes open to witness the scene. A roaring fire was burning in the centre of a clearing, surrounded by rocks which rose up to a tree-lined hill. Shadows flickered along the rocky hill, as 5 people stood in a circle around the fire chanting. They were all wearing long hooded-black cloaks with their backs facing Frankie - just liked the one Edeline was wearing she noted - with their arms raised and palms facing the fire, it was as if, it were their magic combined that was causing this huge inferno. They continued chanting, oblivious to Frankie.

Frankie strained to make out the words as they chanted continuously, the heat felt like it was going to consume her, sweat dripped from her forehead and ran down her arms as she floated a little higher from the ground, she was ready to give up and pass out but something in the middle of the fire caught her eye. An electrical vibration sparked deep in her stomach causing her to focus, she couldn't see through the thick black dome like fog that now surrounded whatever was in the middle. A longing in Frankie wanted to scream at these people to stop when she noticed, they had stopped chanting, all but one of the figures laid sprawled on the ground, not dead just exhausted from excessive use of power, the figure that stood standing started creating gestures, faint symbols floated into the air, one by one they floated and connected to form a perfect circle. The figure intertwined their fingers together, palm to palm, high above their head before swiftly bringing them down, as she done so, the circle made up of symbols fell onto the dome and flattened it to the ground, the force caused the ground to erupt sending a magical blast forcing the figure who cast the spell flying into the rocks, the ones that were unconscious also went flying in different directions. The force was so strong it propelled Frankie back to reality, with a concerned face looming over her – but not before she saw glowing eyes in the pit that was created.