In a magical realm, where one can Time-Linx between portals and bridge gaps in time, lives Persephane Pendrake…a young witch and general offender of the norm, with her dragonfly familiar, trigger-shy dragon, and best friend, wizard Thaddeus…
Excerpt
Chapter 1
It Begins…May, 2007
“Drat! Darn! A-g-g-r-r-r-r-r-h-h-h-h-h!” She shrieks and smacks her head down on her crossed arms, which are resting on her bent knees.
“Great…just great,” Persephane Pendrake says sarcastically to herself, slowly calming down. Persy, as she prefers to be called, sits on the back steps of the deck which encompasses the family’s two-storey, board and batten house.
Normally, the scent from her mother’s magical, medicinal garden wafts up to the deck filling Persy with comfort and pleasure, but not today.
Persy has lived with her secret for all of her twelve years and ten months of life. Even though she’s experienced numerous temptations to let it out of the box, Persy has kept it to herself. That is, until today.
Persephane Pendrake is an exceptionally talented young witch. Each week, as she grows closer to her thirteenth birthday, it’s clear that her powers are becoming stronger and more plentiful. This is also part of her secret.
This secret, according to her parents, is the one thing about her no one must ever know, otherwise she risks turning her and her family’s lives into a carnival act, or even worse, having them treated and examined like lab rats.
Today, however, Persy lost her cool…big time. Tim Ruddle, cause of this fiasco, lives on her street and goes to her school–Mannington Public. That he is two years younger than Persy makes it particularly galling that he got one over on her.
Tim is well known for being a tease and practical joker and for the most part, Persy ignores him. Persy admits that this particular incident probably didn’t warrant her overreaction, but his relentless, obnoxious taunting is accumulative, like toxic waste, just never goes away and yet he keeps pouring it on.
It happens after soccer practice.
Persy finishes on the field, hurries to jump into a quick shower. It’s getting late, about 4:45 pm and her annoyingly, over-protective Mom always wants her home by 5:00. Persy scampers half-dried to her locker; flings the door open, grabs her hair de-frizzer, globs a wad into her hand and smears it through her very thick, dark hair. It’s as if a light goes on…she freezes. Persy’s chestnut-coloured eyes enlarge to double their normally large size!
“What IS this stuff?” she shrieks. She looks in horror at her palms which are very rapidly stiffening up and turning white. Someone has replaced her hair product with white glue! And she’s pretty sure who that someone is!
Persy slams her locker shut, grabs her back pack and runs outside to the schoolyard to see if anyone is still around who may have seen anything. What a surprise, there’s Tim surrounded with a bunch of his friends laughing to the point of tears. She hears the words ‘glue’ and ‘hair’ bandied about and knows instantaneously that she is right about the identity of the culprit.
“Well! You’ll not be laughing for long. You are so overdue…” she growls as she charges down the steps at warp speed, definitely bent on doing some nasty.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tim catches her motoring in his direction and just knows by her look and speed that ‘glue in the hair’ may have been a little over the top. It looks like he could most assuredly suffer bodily damage on this round.
“Feet…don’t fail me now!” he yelps and belts down the street.
By the time Persy hits the street outside the schoolyard, Tim is a full block ahead of her. No problem, she thinks. Years of soccer have trained her into a lean, mean running machine.
Sure enough in short order she’s breathing down his neck. Then Tim takes a quick deek off to the left and hides behind a huge old oak tree. Of course, this means they are into “you go one way - I go the other” around the tree; it is too thick for Persy to reach him by standing in one spot.
Off to the right side of the tree she suddenly spots Mr. Hornby’s cranky bulldog, Gruesome. He’s sitting there, staring, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, slobbering on the sidewalk.
Persy jumps to the right and as she expects, her target veers to the left. And THAT’S when it happens.
She could always communicate telepathically with animals. Persy and her mother, Angelica are witches of the ‘Order of Silent Speech’ and even short-tempered Gruesome is always up for a chat. After all, how many options does he have? Communicating with human-kind is extremely rare! The only problem is that whenever Persy does this, a small stream of coloured sparkles arc through the air. Usually, she can choose her times, so that no one notices, but not today.
‘Grues, ol’ boy,” she projects. “I don’t suppose you could somehow nail this ninny in one spot, while I show him a thing or two about hair styling?”
Unfortunately, just as the conversation starts, Tim leans to his left and looks directly between Persy and Gruesome. “What are those spark-..?”
He doesn’t finish because in a heartbeat, Gruesome springs at Tim and takes a whacking great mouthful of Tim’s jeans, shorts and little of what’s underneath!
“O-w-w-w-w-w-w,” yells Tim, horrified at what parts could be permanently damaged.
Persy whips around the tree, grabs Tim by the scruff of the neck with her left hand and from behind her back, shoots her right one out; in it she holds a nauseatingly, smelly wad of rotten egg and pine resin mixture, the size of a baseball; Persy smunches the mess down on Tim’s head.
“There!” she shrieks. “Style that…you little sidewinder!”
She lets him go and he takes off in a small cloud of dust.
“Thanks, Grues,” she throws back at the dog as she too, runs home.
“Anytime,” the dog mutters, “only excitement I get.” And he waddles off.
So here she sits, mulling over her options. Persy knows Tim has seen the sparkles; how is she going to explain that away?
Persy sighs deeply. “Cripes! What a muddle,” she groans.
B-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z, B-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z…Persy glances up.
“Hi Benson,” she says quietly, turning her eyes down again.
“I say, Perse,” Benson says. “You telling me ‘the hedgehog look’ is in for hair styles this season?”
Persy reaches her hand up and touches her hair. To her horror it’s sticking out in pointed clumps where the wind caught it and the glue dried as she ran.
“Oh, great, on top of everything else I probably look like I’m auditioning for the role of Medusa in some pathetic Greek play,” she cries.
“Not such a good day, sweet’ums?” Benson, being sympathetic, is highly suspicious.
“Not one of the best,” she mutters.
Benson is her dragonfly familiar. Familiars are life time sidekicks. They show up at birth and attach to you for the duration. Benson’s always claimed he’s actually a dragon. Some fool bunged on the “fly” bit when he wasn’t looking. How true that is Persy doesn’t know, but he certainly does have the attitude and arrogance of a dragon.
He’s a gorgeous little fellow although Persy never lets him know that; all glittering deep greens, turquoise and silver. And she loves his silvery-white brush moustache and crazy matching eyebrows, all in all the epitome of ‘cute as a bug….’ But the last thing Benson needs is something else to be swelled-headed about. He can fly faster than the speed of light, making him a very handy, invisible spy when needed. He’s also a veritable fount of information on just about anything. Amazing, really. He’s lived for centuries, being a familiar to countless witches and wizards before Persy, which she supposes accounts for the flying database that he is.
“So why so glum, chum?” asks Benson.
Persy gives him a summation of the end of her day, post-soccer practice.
“Great Scott, Perse! What ever were you thinking?” His voice is creeping higher by the moment–something Persy hates. It usually heralds some long drawn out lecture.
“There’ll be phone calls, my dear–many, many prying, prodding calls - mark my words!” Here we go, thinks Persy as Benson’s voice continues to climb.
“How do expect your parents to explain this one? You know people suspect you of being a tad odd. Now, that Tim kid can actually say he saw something weird and ah, that will be another adjective frequently aligned with your name!” Benson is now shrieking.
“I know, I know,” sighs Persy. “I really mucked up this time.”
“AND!” Benson’s on a roll now. Persy knows stopping it would be like trying to stop a tidal wave with a slotted spoon. “Where did the gob of rotten egg and pine resin come from?”
“A silent Appearance spell.”
They both know that silent spells are very tricky. This is the first Benson knows of her ability to throw one. She’s maturing very quickly, much faster than he suspected—a bit of a shock to him.
“And WHERE did you learn to do that?” This is not good–his voice is at least three octaves above normal.
“Well, I know about them and I found Mom’s Book of Shadows and kind of, um, read up on them. As they are silent, I thought they can be darn handy without getting me into too much trouble–no one can hear me, right?”
“Blimey, Perse,” Benson sighs, his British background rising to the surface. “Ah, well, I don’t think the egg and resin thing is the hot tamale; it’s the visual fireworks that you’re going to have to explain.” He’s calming down now, voice at level one+ octave.
They sit quietly together. Slowly gliding back and forth, Benson lights on Persy’s left wrist, both are deep in thought.
“PER-SEPH-AN-EEEEEEE PEN-DRAKE!” the bellow comes. Uh-oh! When you got the full nine yards of your name from Angelica…you’re in deep doo-doo!
Persy jumps up from the step, launching Benson off into the ethers, and runs into the house.
“Yes, Mom?” says Persy, trying, but undoubtedly not succeeding to impart an air of innocence.
“Persy, I just got off the phone with Mrs. Ruddle. I don’t think I have to tell you the details of that conversation - do I?” Angelica sputters.
“No, Mom….But…..”
“No buts. You know how critical it is that we hide what we are. Didn’t our family suffer enough in the Witch Trials in England? You know that as soon as anyone here suspects we are of the Magical Folk that we’ll be turned into “paparazzi feeding frenzy”? We’ll be hounded for the rest of our days…Persy…honestly!”
“I’m so sorry Mom…but Tim put glue in my hair product container. I guess I just lost it and Gruesome was right there.” Persy grins a little. “He likes when I talk to him, so he was glad to help. Also Tim is pretty mean to him, so it all kind of fell together. What about a Memory Erase?”
“My problem with that is…who has Tim and even more critically, his mother, told? It’s really hard to trace that, but I believe if I check the Book…there is a ‘Threading Charm’ which will link all the conversations, and then I can throw the Memory Erase. I want you to help collect the magical objects I’ll need,” Angelica states.
Persy, Angelica and Benson go up to the secret attic, where all this type of work is done. They all know it’s best to get this done before Dad comes home.
Chapter 2
Persephane Looks Back
Angelica and James met just after she, Persy and Benson Time-Linxed from Britain in 1666; Persy was about ten months old. Persy was told was that she was brought through the Time-Linx by Angelica with Benson in tow, for safety reasons. They arrived in Muskoka close to thirteen years ago, on the river bank after finding their way through a pristine waterfall.
James is there fishing and astounded when they pop into his vision on the bank across from where he’s frustratingly floating fish bait around, only to see it being taken with nary a fish caught. He’s about to throw in the towel on fishing. Hamburgers really don’t sound that bad, after all.
“What in the blazes?” His chin drops and speech is a forgotten skill. The most gorgeous woman he has ever seen just walked through the falls with a baby in her arms! Holy Crow!
Angelica’s afraid they might meet someone right away, so is ready.
“Hello, my daughter and I are camping…completely lost our way and somehow wound up under the falls. I’m wondering if you can direct us to the closest town?” she quickly queries.
James sputters, “Well, of course…I mean, sure…the town is not far…well, goodness…town, yes…..u-m-m-m-m….I’d be happy to take you.” He fumbles with his fishing rod, or rather his ‘not so fishing-rod’. James pulls it out of the water, takes it apart, and packs it into its case. He throws it in the back of his SUV after he opens the front passenger door to let Angelica in, holding baby Persy. Strange how the dragonfly flies in the door and rests on Angelica’s shoulder, James thinks.
James drives them to Rockmanor, where he knows there’s a twenty-four hour restaurant, figuring they’re likely hungry. One huge problem is there’s no hotel in Rockmanor and it’s more than obvious that Angelica and her babe have nowhere to go.
After a home-cooked meal, although James isn’t sure Angelica enjoyed it; James asks if her camper is near.
“No, and it really isn’t in good shape, anyway. I’m hoping to rent something in town. Is that possible?”
“Well sure, rooms can be rented in the daytime but right now, everything is closed. What do you plan to do for tonight?”
“Have no idea what I’m going to do. My first concern is getting ‘un-lost’ and then going from there. Any thoughts?”
Persy’s out cold in Angelica’s arms. The little strange dragonfly sits on Angelica’s shoulder, his wings slowly fluttering up and down, obviously asleep as well.
James opens his mouth to speak, when both of them hear a low pitched growl outside the window beside them.
Without saying anything, Angelica quickly places Persy in James’ arms, and rushes up the aisle to the front door.
Looking outside, she sees a smallish black bear sitting under the window. Bears, where she comes from can be a bad omen, or a protector. This one definitely has an agenda and Angelica wonders what it is. She stands there for a moment; the bear looks up, and eye to eye, they speak. Fine, thinks Angelica, all’s well. The bear’s a protector, but it blocks any further details from being revealed.
When she returns to her seat, James is holding a very content Persy. “You okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” Angelica answers, knowing a lot of explanations are in order, but please, she thinks, not now.
“Everything is fine. I just need to find somewhere for the night for my daughter and I,” Angelica says, looking out the window.
“I don’t suppose you, bear lady, have any answers?” she utters to the bear in Silent Speak, when James’ head is turned, keeping the sparkles out of his sight.
Then it comes to her; the bear’s name is Orsina and will be watching over her and Persy as long as they live in this world. Angelica sighs with relief, but her lodging situation is still not solved.
“Well,” says James. “If it’s okay with you, I have a guest house on my property. It’s not far from here and I’d be happy to let you stay there until you find what you need.”
He’s so afraid of offending Angelica but she gladly accepts. Unbeknownst to her new friend, Angelica has scanned his energetics and detected not one iota of harmfulness in this man. She’s satisfied that he’s offering shelter strictly as a Good Samaritan.
Now, twelve years later, they still live in Rockmanor with James, in the house because within a few months, James and Angelica were married; just after Persy was a year old.
James is the only Dad Persy has ever known and she loves him deeply, probably as much as her Mom. James more than any of them, fears the unveiling of his wife and daughter. He’ll be out of his mind with worry if this Mind Erase isn’t done immediately.
Mom home-schools Persy in White Magic but doesn’t include much about life back in Old Essex. Persy does know, however, that her name was chosen by Angelica because: 1) Angelica likes the name but more importantly 2) it has a resonance with her future, although Angelica won’t elaborate. It’s purposely misspelled from the mythical goddess “Perseph-o-ne” so Persy won’t have to endure a lifetime of associations with the underworld queen.
Benson sometimes talks a little about the ‘British Times’, but not often; mostly after evening tea and a couple of wee (dragonfly sized) snifters of eighteen year old snapdragon wine.
“Ah, lassie,” he’ll say, “Ya kin feel the fairy folk dancing around the flowers!”
Yes, well that’s Benson in his more mellow times and when he becomes too relaxed, he tends to speak his words backwards. She’ll never forget the time after many snifters; he turns to her and says, “Used to go out with this ladybug…trouble was…she always wanted to sit on my ‘pal’.”
Problem for Persy is, she’s visiting a friend who, of course, can’t hear him and finds Persy’s raucous laughter somewhat misplaced, as the friend is telling her about the death of her favourite parakeet!
Angelica has told both her and James a little of what it was like back in England during the 1600’s. Although witches and wizards cannot be killed by fire, the officials would round up anyone they thought was practicing magic and decide whether they were witch or wizard, sentencing the guilty to be burned.
The difficulty was that no real witch or wizard can work under these conditions of constant fear of exposure. If they weren’t charged, and of course they have spells to slant the odds that they weren’t, then anyone who worked with them or were associated with them in any way were arrested, interrogated, examined and often burned. It was a horrible time for all, magical or not.
The craziness started in the late 1400’s when one of the human Popes, Pope Innocent VIII declared that the Devil was doing his work on earth through his minions, the witches and wizards. For more than two centuries, people were accused of witchcraft, mostly women, and hanged or burned.
Although it was most prevalent in German-speaking countries, France and Scotland, by 1645 Witch Hunts became the ‘flavour of the month’ in Angelica and Persy’s Essex.
Persy’s biological father, Andreas was taken one night when Persy was just over a month old and never heard from again. Angelica has an aunt who was arrested and although the officials think they burned her, she simply did a Vanishing Spell in the middle of the fire and now lives quietly in Argentina.
It’s extremely difficult for ‘burned’ witches and wizards to communicate with left-behind family, as believe it or not, the Magic Hunters have a few witches and wizards working on their side and these traitorous Magicals can pick up the energetic of communication between family members. Therefore, it’s a given that if you’re arrested, you don’t try to connect ever, with undiscovered family or friends. They can only hope Andreas is all right wherever he is…knowing that he is living under these constraints.
Angelica gathered what she needed and in 1666 their time, and 1994 here in the present, she crossed through the Time-Linx with her baby daughter and Benson to start a new life.
“Persy? Are you down there daydreaming? I need a black candle brought up here. Remember?” Angelica calls.
Persy grabs one out of the pantry and sprints up the stairs to the attic. Persy loves this room with all the magical herbs tied and hung upside down from the ceiling beams, precious oils in decanters on the shelves along with dried anatomical parts, poisons, flowers, gems, crystals and umpteen coloured candles.
Angelica opens her Book of Shadows which rests on its wooden stand. She holds a paper in her hand with the words ‘My Secret’ on it, and on the other side of the paper, the actual secret, which is that Persephane Pendrake is a witch.
Angelica lights the black candle and chants as she rubs out the letters of ‘My Secret’ one by one:
As I erase each letter away
Your memory will lose my secret (the list of people who were told) today,
And after the last letter is erased and paper burned
My secret in your mind–will never return
As I say, so mote it be!
She did the Threading Charm beforehand and finds the list of busy bodies that are told of the day’s events, so she can fit the names into the spell.
It’s done and Dad’s still about fifteen minutes from getting home. He works as the curator in the Alexandrian Museum in Willington, a small city, about three quarters of an hour away.
Whew! With Mom’s help, Persy certainly dodges a whole mess of trouble. She feels a very quiet Friday evening is in order. And while Friday evening is quiet, this isn’t the case on Saturday.
Chapter 3
Orsina Reveals Herself
Saturday morning begins blindingly bright. Persy finishes breakfast and with Benson on her right shoulder, strolls outside to the front porch. After yesterday’s events, she’s glad she isn’t going to be faced with school and Tim Ruddle for two days.
The sun and warm spring air seem to beckon her, as she walks down the steps and onto the road. It isn’t very far at all to the woods and this is most definitely the day for it.
Five minutes into the woods, there’s the crystal waterfall, about ten feet high, and it drains into the clear river, bordered by moss and flower-covered banks. Persy loves it here. However, she doesn’t venture too close to the falls, as more often than not, there’s a small black bear and her cub drinking from the river or catching fish. They never bother anyone, and don’t seem to mind if you sit quietly on the banks.
On occasion, Persy has tried to communicate with the bear, but animals have the right to refuse Silent Speak conversations, and that is the case with this private bruin.
Persy slides partway down a bank and sits on a clump of moss. Benson lands on her forearm and looks up at her face.
“Lovely little walk down the frog, eh, what?” he quips. Persy grins and rolls her eyes. “Yes, that it was.”
Note from Lady Ellen: Here’s the deal. Benson has definitely spent a lifetime or two, too many, as a familiar of witches and wizards in London, England, particularly the east end, fondly referred to as the home of the “Cockney”.
This small area of London has a very particular accent and one of their more charming and fun habits is the use of “Cockney Rhyming Slang” (CRS).
It’s an idiom of speech wherein pairs of words such as ‘frog and toad’ are used for common words, in this case ‘road’. You’ll see that the second word of ‘frog and toad’ rhymes with ‘road’.
To confuse things more, cockneys won’t use the rhyming word and say ‘going up the toad’ they’d use the non-rhyming word ‘frog’. So ‘going up the road’ becomes going up the ‘frog’. It’s their secret way to communicate. Here are some other examples:
“Apples and pears” is used for ‘stairs’. So ‘going up the stairs’ becomes ‘going up the apples’ (not using ‘pears’ which is the rhyming word}. Clever, eh? Sometimes the whole rhyming couplet is used, though; going up the apples and stairs.
Son and Daughter = Water (“drinking a glass of son” – not daughter or maybe “give me a glass of son and daughter”).
Adam and Eve = Believe (“you wouldn’t adam it” or maybe, “you wouldn’t adam and eve it”).
Al Capone = Phone
Almond Rocks = Socks
April Showers = Flowers
Pen and Ink = Stink
Butcher’s Hook = Look
Push and Shove = Love
Cat and Mouse = House
Baked Beans = Jeans
Maurice Gibb = Fib
Stewart Granger = Danger
Jurassic Park = Dark
After Eight = Date
So you get it now?
There a ton of these…some classic…everyone knows them…some newer, and some you’ll be told are out-right rubbish.
So have fun with this. Benson will let them drop throughout the Persephane Pendrake Chronicles, see if you can figure them out. You can also come to our official website http:// HYPERLINK “http://www.lady-ellen.com/crs” www.lady-ellen.com/crs.html and we’ll be talking about them there!
Don’t forget to try and make up your own with your friends. Ah-Ha! A new secret code that only you kids will know…lovely!
Now, back to Persy…
Persy sits back on her elbows and within a few minutes the bear and her cub show up. Both bears glance up at her and then bend their heads to the river to drink.
Without warning, Persy hears a voice talking to her, a woman. “Persephane Pendrake, my name is Orsina, we need to speak,” she hears.
Persy’s mouth drops open and she bolts up straight. Benson shoots into the air. “What the…?” he snaps.
“Quiet, Benson, the bear is talking to me!”
“I know that love, I can hear her! No need to get all batty about it!”
Persy shushes him and looks back over at Orsina. She continues to talk to Persy.
“For many years I have been watching over you from a distance. Now that you are within range of the time of knowing…it is necessary I make contact with you. You are aware that you are a witch, but what you probably don’t know is the depth of your power and the power you are about to gain in the upcoming years. This information, when appropriate is always passed to the individual witch or wizard by an animal spirit because we have proven ourselves as very reliable keepers of secrets, and also as guardians of young, talented Magical Folk such as you.
Your mother knows I’m here, but has taken a vow of silence on this matter, allowing you to evolve properly. It is up to me to tell you more of your past, so listen carefully, Persephane Pendrake, this is very important for you to know, in order to understand your fate in this life.
The portal your mother brought you and Benson through under that waterfall is a part of the Time-Linx. The Time-Linx does just that; links all things throughout all of time. Albert Einstein of this world once proposed that time is not linear; that all is happening at the same time and he was right. It’s through the Time-Linx that talented Magical Folk can travel to anytime, from 10,000 years ago… the times of Atlantis; or to Ancient Egypt, at the beginning of their belief in gods, which was some 6,000 years ago, to eons into the future, and of course everything in between. There are situations in many eras which will need your help Persephane Pendrake, and these will be made known to you when the time is right.
When you warp from one world to the other you have the ability to land at the exact point you left when you return, so you will never be missed by the humans around you.
It’s time Persephane Pendrake, very soon. You are two months from being thirteen years of age which is close enough to time travel. Your mother knows how to prepare you for Time-Linxing. I will contact you again in exactly one month’s time and we shall meet here. Until then, grow well.” The conversation stops as quickly as it began.
Read more about Persephane Pendrake and the Cimaruta and Lady Ellen HERE.
Copyright 2008 Lady Ellen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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