I awoke to a beam of sunlight shining on my face. I groaned and rolled out of the line of light that passed through my curtains.

As I settled on my side I felt something dig into my arm, and felt around for whatever object that had somehow gotten into my bed. After feeling around and not finding anything, I finally felt something and wrapped my fingers around it and brought it up to my face so I could see what it was.

I opened my eyes and the second I saw the object, the memories that I had hoped to be false from the previous night came flooding back.

Magic: the only word that could describe the unusual events of the past night.

I gazed at my wand and saw that there were some intricate designs that were green and stuck out against the brown base. The green designs looked like vines wrapping around a tree trunk. It was thin and about twelve inches long. My eyes focused on a certain area and I squinted so I would be able to see the one spot on the wand that was different. Carved into the wood there appeared to be a word: morior. I shivered as I figured out what it meant: die.

I didn’t realize how on edgeI was until Nat’s quiet whisper filled the room. “Candace, are you awake?” I jumped and the tension slowly eased its way out of my shoulders. My knuckles were white from gripping my wand so tightly, but I slowly loosened my grip.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“What if the reason my parents are dead is because of magic?” I rolled over so I was facing Nat’s bed and saw that she was slowly turning her wand in her hands, which I had helped her get after we had discovered the mysterious note left for us on the closet door.

“Why do you say that?” I asked carefully, “I know Mom and Dad aren’t good at telling us things but I doubt they would hide something like that from you.”

“Well last night I couldn’t fall asleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. Whenever I can’t sleep I try to remember little things about my parents because it calms me down, you know? I tried to remember their deaths and I don’t know if it’s the magic in me or something, but suddenly memories came flooding back to me.

“I know Steve and Emma said that my dad died in the army during his term in Iraq, but I remember the day he left and he had said he was going on a business trip. I never remember him wearing those clothes that people in the army wear either. I don’t think he was even in the army, let alone killed in it. Then there’s my mom.  I know she had cancer and everything, but the doctors were pretty sure she would live. Then one day she was suddenly gone, even though she was being treated and had no signs of getting worse.”

Silence filled the room once again as I thought about what Nat had said. I wasn’t sure how true her memories could be, considering she was only four at the time, and I scarcely remembered the funerals of her parents, both happening in the same month. I hadn’t fully understood death at the time, and was happy that my best friend would get to live with us. I didn’t know that Nat would never see her parents again. “Nat, are you sure you’re right about those memories? It happened about fourteen years ago. Maybe your brain just made up memories to fill the empty spots so you could have something to blame,” I gently said. I didn’t want to hurt Nat, but giving her false hope was just as bad. “Then again you could be right; I wouldn’t say it isn't a possibility after everything that happened last night.”

“There’s only one way we’re going to know and two people who would know the truth. I guess we’re going to have to ask Steve and Emma to tell us the truth.” I glanced at the clock and saw that it was already eleven o’clock.

“Dad’s probably working and Mom probably has a client in the salon right now.” Despite being a Saturday, both of my parents worked since Dad’s schedule was just as unpredictable as any other lawyer and Mom’s busiest day was Saturdays since most people had off and came to get their hair done. I also didn’t want to disappoint Nat, because knowing that we had possibly been lied to for fourteen years didn’t reassure me that Mom and Dad would tell us the truth now.

“The one day we really need to talk to them they’re not home.” Nat sounded upset and guilt churned inside of me.

“Maye they are. You know how random Dad’s schedule is and Mom may have an open spot. Plus Mom has lunch break so we could talk to her then, and hope Dad will be home for lunch too.” It was nice that Mom had her own salon at the entrance to our house, at times like the one we were in.

“Only one way we’ll find out. We really need someone to explain something to us.” Nat threw off her thin white blanket that matched mine, and threw her legs over the side of her bed. She ran over to our closet and disappeared. She quickly reappeared with clothes in her hand.

“Nat, why do you think our…visitor left that last note for us on the closet door?” The question had been haunting me since the moment I had remembered everything that happened and it had been the last thought I’d had before I fell asleep.

“Well, he did say that he controlled his servants by fear, so he probably wanted to scare you so that you wouldn’t double cross him, and then maybe if you were scared of what he could do, you would help him, because you would be scared of the consequences that would happen if you didn’t.” I shivered at how accurate Nat’s words were. Alan was not someone to be double crossed. He was not a good person to mess with. I decided to put my thoughts to rest as I knew I would not be able to wonder much longer without driving myself mad with questions that would not get answers.

“What does your wand say?” I randomly asked as I grabbed a pair of shorts and a tank top from the closet.

“Vis, which means zap as you probably know. What that actually means, I have no idea, like zap as in like shock or electrocute? What’s yours say?”

“Morior, which means die. I think mines pretty clear, but your sounds a lot better than mine.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” I pulled my shorts on, tucked my wand under my pillow, and walked over to the door. Just as I was about to turn the knob someone knocked on our bedroom door.

“Girls, can I come in?” Mom’s voice called through the door.

I turned the knob and pulled open the door. “Hi Mom,”

“Hi Candace,” Mom frowned as she peered into our room. “You two need to clean your room.” I quickly stepped in front of her so she couldn’t see much. She tried to look over me, but since she was only five four, and I was five seven it was hard for her to see over me and with Nat behind me, who was five six she would have a hard time seeing how bad it actually was.

Unfortunately we had beige carpet, and trash and clothes littered the floor, and with so many colours covering the carpet it was hard to miss the mess no matter how little a person could see. Plus we had dark blue walls so any light shirts might as well have been neon lights.

“Sure, Emma, we’ll do that later, but is Steve home right now?” Nat quickly asked. 

Mom frowned, “No, he is going to be home for lunch, why?”

“Candace and I really need to talk to both of you. Will you be available to talk at lunch too or do you have appointments for the rest of the day?” I figured she would have appointments from eleven thirty to eight at night, but I was surprised.

“I took the day off today. Steve was going to too, but a client needed to speak to him so he just went to work for the morning.” I frowned. Mom hadn’t taken a Saturday off for as long as I could remember. Even when she was sick she didn’t cancel appointments.

“Why did you do that?” I quickly looked down at Nat’s hands and was flooded with relief to see that she didn’t have her wand with her at the moment, because I knew that would make everything much worse, and it already didn’t sound too promising.

“We need to talk to you about something and we don’t want to wait.” Butterflies entered my stomach, who seemed to be ADHD.

“What do you need to talk to us about?” I asked in my most innocent voice.

“Don’t use that voice with me, young lady. You know that you won’t get anywhere talking like that. You will have to wait until eleven-thirty. Until them clean up this mess. It looks like a tornado went through here and I will not tolerate your messiness anymore. You girls are eighteen now so act like it.” With that Mom walked down our long, narrow hallway, while her heels clicked against the hardwood floor. She knocked on my brother Brent’s door and disappeared.

I quickly shut the door and looked at Nat. “What in the world was that about? I’ve never seen her get so angry over a mess. She knows we can’t keep anything clean.” I wasn’t scared of much, but when Mom got mad I panicked since she was normally a fairly calm person. Nat’s eyes were wide and her breathing was faster than normal so I knew she was also worried about what was to come and why Mom was so mad.

“Maybe she figured out everything that happened last night and our discovery of magic? If they’ve been hiding it from us then it sure wouldn’t make them happy to know that we discovered their secret.”

“This is not going to end well; I just have a bad feeling about this whole thing.” I shook my head and tried to comprehend Mom’s sudden lack of control over her temper.

I looked over at the clock and saw that it was only five after eleven. I groaned, “Could time move any slower?”

In hopes of speeding time up, and since we appeared to quarantined in our room until eleven thirty, we decided to clean up our room in hopes that Mom’s attitude would get slightly better.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, eleven thirty rolled around and we heard the garage door opening just on time as Dad pulled in right on time, shortly followed by Mom’s yell to go to our living room.

We didn’t protest and went down the steps until we reached the little room that broke off from the stairs about half way down to the kitchen. Once we walked over we saw Mom and Dad already sitting on one of the couches.

I looked around and realized someone was missing, which sunk my hopes even further. Brent was not there and I figured it had to be about what happened the previous night. “Where’s Brent?” I squeaked.

“At a football party,” Dad briefly said before going right to business like any typical lawyer. “Please sit down now.” He gestured to the black leather couch that stood parallel to the one he and Mom were sitting on.

I slowly lowered myself to the couch, pulling my wand out of my shorts on the way down, so that it just was pressed between my back and the couch. Nat and I had decided to take our wands with us to our ‘meeting’ so we would be able to ask about magic and we would have something to back up our argument. We had decided to tuck it under our tank tops and pulled a loose t-shirt over so that the wands would remain unseen.

“So?” I asked, curiosity once again getting the best of me.

“We don’t like the way you acted towards me last night after your dream and I came to your room. Both of your attitudes have to change.” I felt relief flood through me as if a dam had broken and the water came pouring through. I let the tension out of my shoulders and relaxed a little more.

“You took a day off of work to talk to us about our attitudes?” To me our ‘attitude’ problem was definitely not something that deserved a day off of work, but Mom and Dad had strange logic and non-important things to me seemed to mean the world to them.

“Your attitude especially, Candace, has been progressively worse. You kicked your father out of your room, and that is not something you can do. We pay for this house, we pay for the electricity to go into your room, your beds, furniture, lighting, heating, and air conditioning, so you should show some more gratitude sometimes and make plans to smarten up or there will be serious consequences,” Mom started to argue.

“Mom, I told him to get out of my room and he willingly left without a fight. I told him to get out and he didn’t breathe a word back, how is that an attitude problem?”

“He did?” Mom asked, but she sounded unconvinced as if Dad had told her a complete different story. Then she turned to Dad. “Steve, what exactly happened?”

Before Dad could speak, Nat interrupted. “Sorry to interrupt, but why am I here if this has to do with Candace’s outburst last night? I was just wondering though.” She quickly added as I glared at her.

“You said you needed to talk to us and your attitude needs some adjusting too. We have gotten far too many calls from the principal’s office over your grade twelve year.”

That made Nat go quiet, her violence issues were a sore spot for her. After getting in too many fights, she had been suspended and threatened with expulsion, but luckily she was out of school now and done for good.

“What I remember happening last night is that Candace pushed me out of the room and slammed the door behind her.  I just left because I knew talking to you that early in the morning would not work.”  I felt my jaw drop and there was so much pressure on my eyes that I felt like they were going to pop out of my head.

“Dad, that’s not what happened. I promise I’m not lying to you. Ask Nat, she was there and she knows what happened.” Everyone turned to face Nat and she willingly told her story of what happened.

“It happened just like Candace said. She told Steve to get out and then he left without a word. He even looked happy.” Silence followed Nat’s statement and I waited for an apology, but no one said anything so I finally spoke up.

“Look Mom, it’s our word against Dad’s. I know I shouldn’t have told him to leave, I should’ve asked him to, but I was angry and I think that you know more about my dreams than either of you are saying. You know how much they’ve tormented me and you told me you would do anything you could to help me.” Nat gave me a quick smile and I knew I had introduced our side of the argument, or at least the beginning of it, well.

“Why would you say that? You know we’re doing everything we can to help you, hon.” Mom said. I held back a comment, and found it funny how she was calling me hon again.

I could feel an eruption of anger coming like a volcano’s lava beginning to bubble and rise, but I bit my lip and forced myself not to say something I would regret. “I told Dad last night about how my dreams have something in common all the time. Every dream magic has been mentioned.” I paused to watch Mom’s reaction, but I was disappointed. She kept a calm poker face, so I continued on. “I don’t think that either of you realize how serious these dreams are. They are more than dreams and I almost died last night because of it.”

Mom quickly got to her feet and rushed to sit beside me. “Candace, honey, I know these dreams scare you, but they are not real.” Finally the lava spilled over the volcano, I'd had enough with their lies.

I jumped to my feet and grabbed my wand. My knuckles were white, but my hand was surprisingly steady as I pointed it at Mom, but kept my eye on Dad too making sure he didn’t make any quick movements. “They are real and you are lying to both Nat and I! Can you explain this wand in my hand? How do you think I discovered magic? How do you think I got my wand? From my dreams that are all too real. You don’t even know the half of it. Have you ever felt something or smelt a scent in a dream? Have you ever remembered it as if it was as clear as day and happening right before your eyes? It’s more than a dream and you know that. If you don’t stop lying to me than I’m going to use magic on you, I am done with being lied to.”

I bit my tongue to stop myself from telling them about Alan, I knew telling them about him would only do more damage than good.

Mom laughed, but I could tell it was fake and forced. Her eyes held fear in them, not happiness. She was scared at what I would do, but she would do anything to cover up all the lies that had been told. “Candace, that’s a stick.” Dad jumped to his feet and I was about to point my wand at him, but Nat was ahead of me, so I kept my wand trained on Mom.”

“You think it’s just a stick huh? Then how could a stick do this?” I allowed my magic to fill me up and I suddenly felt stronger, unstoppable. Magic sparked inside of me and I instantly knew the spell that I needed. “Disputatio,” Talk, I said and a bolt of magic shot out of my wand and hit Mom.

I watched the bolt hit Mom, but she did not move. The only thing that changed was her eyes. They filled up with white fog so her pupils were barely visible and her eyes were almost completely white.  “Nat, I would appreciate a little help here.”

“Okay,” Nat instantly went to work and she almost sounded angry for all the times she had been punished, as if this would be her revenge. “Disputatio,” Talk. I stole a glance at Dad and saw he had the same ghostly eyes and blank face that Mom had.

“What do my dreams mean?” I demanded through gritted teeth as I could already feel the strain that the magic had on me.

“We do not know about most of it, but we do know that someone is trying to tell you about magic and that it is real.” Mom said in a monotone voice.

“Why didn’t you just tell us that?”

“Magic is dangerous and has caused many young magicians to have early deaths. We could not loose either of you, not after Luke.” I felt a pang of sadness as I remembered my brother Luke’s death, but that was not the time to dwell on it.

“Did you know,” I paused to take a breath, “That my dreams could have killed me?”

Mom nodded and my heart dropped. “We knew that your dreams could lead to a possible death, but it has not happened in over ten years. Knowing about magic would lead you to a probable death, and we had to make a choice. We did it to protect you.” I felt like I had been punched in the gut. My parent’s had thought that lying to me and making me feel so hopeless and scared was the way to protect me. They had put my life on the line to avoid telling me about magic. I couldn’t make sense of anything that had happened, but thankfully Nat took over with the questioning.

“Did my parent’s death have to do with magic?” I glanced over at Nat who was on my left and saw her shoulders were straight and much higher than normal. I was dreading the answer that would come.

“Yes, your father went on a mission and was killed. He was ambushed by our enemies and never stood a chance. By the time help arrived it was already too late. He knew the risks though and gave his life up to help the magical world. A month after your father’s death, your mother was getting treatments for her lung cancer and she was found dead in the hospital one morning. Only magicians know what really caused her death,” Dad answered.

“No, you’re wrong. That’s not right! Why would you keep something like that from me if it’s true?” I had seen Nat get in plenty of fist fights and beat someone to a pulp, but I had never seen her so angry towards my parents. I worried I would have to restrain her before she did something she would regret.

“We needed to protect you. It was the only way.” All the colour from Nat’s face was gone and she looked as if she had just been shot. I knew she wouldn’t be talking for a long time.

“What do the words…on our wands…mean?” I asked between breaths, trying to change the subject as quick as possible.

“They are your strongest spells. You can only use that spell once when you need it most, for it to have as much power as it will. After you have used it once, it will have the same strength as your other spells do,” Mom replied.

“Great,” I muttered. Suddenly Mom began to shake and her eyes turned from a foggy white to red. I backed up and dropped the spell, but the shaking continued.

Just as I got really worried the shaking ceased and Mom’s head went limp. It stayed down for about five seconds but then slowly rose again. A voice that definitely did not belong to her filled the room. “Candace Brown and Natalie Genstine, your time has come.”

“Who are you and what are you doing with my mom?” I tried to ask bravely but it came out a lot quieter than I had hoped.

“I am Magic, the protector and guide of all magicians. I have come to deliver an important message. The magical world is in great need of your aid. You must go on a mission to Cairo, Egypt. From there you must go to the Great Pyramids of Giza. Your mission will have the theme of Improvisus, unforeseen, for not even I can see who you must stop. All I can tell you is that you must stop the leader of our enemies, whose power is significantly growing. If he is to live then no magicians will stand a chance. You must kill him. Take your brother Brent, but I cannot help you find the other magician you need. You must take four magicians, because three will result in a certain death. Now go, save us all before it’s too late.”