a serial story written by the Creative Writing Club.
Finally. Finally, she could do it. Finally, she could bring back her father.
Lia Elwood—the name she currently went by—was a witch. She stood at the rail of the cruise ship, carefully out of the view of the crew. She was a stowaway, and if they found her she was afraid of what they’d do to her. Lia learned long ago to not trust anyone.
As the sun set, she checked behind her one more time, her long black braids whipping wildly after her.
Lia cast her enchanted medallion over the edge of the ship. Whispering words of her ancient ancestors, the druids, the medallion glowed once and then was swallowed by the water. She watched the waves intently and impatiently, resisting the urge to tap her foot. Hurry up! she thought, blowing her obnoxious, black bangs out of her eyes. Lia knew the day the volcano would be under the ship was today, but she needed to know exactly when they’d be over it. The medallion would tell her.
Suddenly, there was a glow in the water. She nearly jumped for joy and had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from making noise.
Pulling up her hood, she knelt down, pried up the wood she had magically slit open and flipped it behind her. Glancing around one more time, she dropped into the darkness below.
Like a cat, Lia landed on the second deck of the ship—where she’d been staying. She telekinetically moved the wood back into place. She swept the floor with the broom that lay next to the chest—the room was actually a broom cupboard—and cast a protective circle. Then she went to a small chest of drawers, opening the top drawer. She pulled out thirteen votive candles which represented every year her father had been in the ground, placing them in a wide circle and lighting them one by one.
She physically made a hole in the ceiling above, letting in the wind. Element of air.
The ship was in the ocean. Element of water.
They were over an underwater volcano. Element of fire.
Then she opened the middle drawer of the chest. Lia pulled out a small sachet and small ornate bowl. Trembling, she walked to middle of the circles and the cloth, placing the bowl in the exact center and then opening the drawstrings of the sachet and emptying the contents into the bowl.
Dirt from her father’s grave. Element of earth.
She carefully returned to the chest of drawers and opened the bottom drawer, pulling out an ancient spell book. Then Lia noticed something else in the drawer…a hat. An engineer’s hat to be exact, with goggles that sat on top of the front brim. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands. How strange. When did that get there? she wondered. But then again, she was too busy quickly hiding her spell book and supplies before hiding in the shadows when the crew opened the door to retrieve something. She set it on top of the chest of drawers, thinking nothing of it.
The witch returned to the circle and opened the spell book carefully. The spell was written in very strange language. She placed a photo of her father over the bowl, remembering him.
A ghostly white light appeared in the air above the bowl and began to take shape as Lia read the words. Then, just as the shape began to look like her father, something happened. One of the words was smudged so she could barely read it. The ghostly shape then collapsed, whorled around the room and disappeared into the hat. The candles went out.
Lia screamed, tears running down her cheeks, dropping the book. Everything began flying around the room in her uncontrolled rage of chaotic telekinetic power. Things broke, splintered and the door of the cupboard flew off its hinges. The hat ended up in the hallway in the process.
Exhausted, the grieving witch collapsed in a curled up heap and lay sobbing.
In the hall, the hat glowed brightly, then became normal. It sat there, almost like it was waiting for someone to happen upon it.
