Chapter 9

A Long Walk

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

-John Steinback

I stood on a dirt road in what looked to be an old village just…cleaner. What you would see in an old western movie. I wondered if they still had lights, there were no power lines, but then again why would someone with magic powers need electricity? I glanced at Annabelle, could she do normal spells? That got me nervous just how powerful did they expect me to be?

Annabelle tossed a smile over her shoulder as I began to grow more and more nervous and a feeling I identified as content, swirled through me. William made a suspicious grunt noise. I looked over at him to see him staring at Annabelle. She laughed and his eyes narrow. Then suddenly she stopped, William, Evelyn who walked at Annabelle's side, and I all stopped at the same time. She turned slowly staring at William. I saw Evelyn laugh and I finally knew what was going on. Annabelle was trying to make William smile. So far it wasn't working. I laughed which caused William to look over at me. The loss of focus gave Annabelle the chance she needed, he smiled only to stubbornly turn it into a frown, or at least try to not a second later. Annabelle laughed, "You can't fight it forever. You are strong though." She spun twirling back to where she was facing before, walking toward the town and she called over her shoulder, "better then Evelyn."

Evelyn hurried after her shouting back at her, "I just don't want push you too far."

Annabelle slowed down, "Yeah, right."

While they continued arguing I glanced at William. He was staring after Annabelle and we started walking towards her keeping at about the same pace, "She is powerful, we need to be careful."

"Yes, yes you do," said a blur beside me then Rosalia appeared walking beside Evelyn behind Annabelle.

"They all are powerful," I whispered watching the three of them. Annabelle seemed to be leading of them, almost like an older sister. Three powerful girls all together, I wondered if that was on purpose or not. Then I thought of Kelly and Joseph. What time was it on their planet? It probably already had been years if the time was so different. Could that happen? Was there a chance we would get back to the exact time we had left? I didn't like the thought of going back and Joseph and Kelly being older or…no, it hadn't been that long they would still be alive. What about the war? What if it already happened? My fear disappeared and Annabelle slowed down until she was walking beside me. She bumped lightly against me, "It is okay, knowing Audra if you just traveled away from home on accident she will help."

"And if it isn't that simple?" William said, giving nothing away.

"Then you have a whole world of mages, witches, and other powerful people, wanting to help you." I closed my eyes. A whole world of magic that could be gone any day now, a world who's magic was about to be drained. Still I couldn't stay afraid for long; Annabelle sent another wave of happiness over me, looking over at me worriedly, and then looking at William frustrated as if to say, "Do something". Of course he did nothing at first.

Then she sped back up and William looked over at me and whispered, "think happy thoughts, you shouldn't make Annabelle think that we are afraid. Scared people can be unpredictable and she won't want to help us." As angry as it made me that he was giving me order I immediately started try to think of something happy, anything. First I thought of my dad, but that only made me miss him and worry about my mom so then I tried to think about my new home, of course then that made me think about school and worry about how much I was missing. Finally I settled with just staying in the present, meaning I looked around at the houses. It was getting more crowded but it just looked like normal people, of course they wore thicker clothes but not exactly western clothes. It looked like normal clothes…kind of…some people wore clothes with weird patterns or clothes that looked as if it all attached. Then I noticed everyone was wearing symbols. I didn't notice it before but now I did, Annabelle wore a purple stone in the shape of a heart around her neck. Evelyn wore a green stone in the shape of a moon around her wrist and Rosalia wore a sparkly white stone in the shape of a lily flower on a string around her neck. I looked around. They had stones that looked cool but other people had shapes placed somewhere on their outfit or as jewelry. Some people had either gold or blue stars, others had what looked like an orange crystal shaped to look like fire, and then there was one person with a wolf shaped out of grey stone.

Everyone was staring at him, Annabelle slowed down to walk next to William, "He is a werewolf. Stars are witches, fire is necromancer, seashell is mermaid, hearts are healers and shaman, and flowers are mages with some unusually power. There is also a moon which is warrior, wolf is werewolf, and diamond is vampire. The Protectors shape changes with the group. Werewolves and Vampires tend to stay with their own kind so this boy is a far away from home. Probably just buying something to bring home, but I have to go make sure nothing bad happens, be right back."

She turned leaving William and me standing there watching Annabelle. Rosalia and Evelyn were already standing near Annabelle as she yelled for everyone to calm down and immediately all attention went to her necklace then to her. Once it seemed she had everything under control Evelyn and Rosalia walked towards us. Evelyn was quiet Rosalia acted hyper and ran around in circles. I ignored them, I hated standing here.

"How much further do we had?" I asked William.

He turned slightly towards me away from Annabelle, "I don't know but I don't like it here. Do you think we should trust her, I mean she is powerful enough…" he said letting me fill in the blank. He was right we shouldn't fallow someone we don't know but it was really either that or walk around blindly just asking to run into trouble. I had already told Annabelle William's power, if she really wanted to use us as solders or whatever, knowing that and that I was the air mage of a group of protectors, was just too much for her to know.

I looked around, "where do you think we should go? We are kind stuck with her." I looked up at William, "it is fallow her and hope we can get away if anything really bad happens or walk around clueless as to where we are or how to get to the portal fields." He nodded then looked over his shoulder as Annabelle walked up with a girl who had black hair and read highlights who also looked to be about our age. How many teenage mages were walking around here? She wore a seashell shape on a bracelet. I already forgot what a seashell meant; I would guess it meant a water mage or mermaid.

"This is Alexis, as you can tell by her seashell she is a mermaid with the power of healing," Annabelle said gesturing towards the girl's seashell necklace, then turning toward us she said, "Alexis this is William and Claire." I smiled a greeting and William ignored it, we both wanted to keep moving. "Alexis will come with us for a short while; she needs to go over towards Moon Lake." She turned towards an adult who was walking towards us, I immediately noticed his spiral pin, "to Moon Lake please." He nodded taking Annabelle's hand, she took Alexis's hand and Alexis reached out for mine. I took it and I grabbed William's hand quickly before he had time to pull it away. And as I still stood clueless as to what was going on, for the third time today the land slipped away from me and I landed, this time lightly, back on my feet.

"I think I am getting good at that," I muttered as I brushed myself off. William walked up to me.

"Do you know where we are?" He asked. I just shook my head. He said, "We are at the great lakes."

"Wow, longest walk ever," I laughed. At least that seemed to be one good things about this magic stuff, I would probably never have to walk a long distance again. Of course thinking about that made me think about Kelly and I quickly tried to cover up my pain by looking around for Annabelle. Did we all get separated…again? But then I saw her down by the water with Alexis. Alexis's eyes were a different color, I couldn't remember what color they were before but now they were a light blue and I remember her eyes had been a different, darker color earlier.

William was looking around too, "now we really are stuck with Annabelle," He growled and trust me, I was no happier about that then he was. Annabelle was nice but much more of this and we would never get there. She waved for us to come over to her. And I noticed two things at once; Alexis was now heading straight into the water and I noticed her legs seemed to be slowly transforming into fins and Annabelle was standing with a guy who had to be at least 22. He looked impatient. I walked over to her with William fallowing cautiously behind me. "William, Claire this is James. James these are the travelers," said Annabelle when were within hearing distance. That is when I noticed James had red eyes. My mind flashed back to the other night, only yesterday actually (well actually it is in the future, but I already experienced it. Wow, time travel is confusing) when I saw the man with red eyes. That made me wince, that was not a time I wanted to remember. Jane's voice still echoed in my ears, was I really doing this completely wrong? Perhaps when, if I got back to my time and got Kelly and Joseph and went back home then I could stop this. Perhaps William and I could even go back in time before everyone had transported and stopped us…

A flash of light reflected off of something hit my eyes bringing me back into the present. I blinked focusing on what the light had reflected off of. I noticed a diamond shape on a black sting around James' neck. I tried to remember what that meant he was but I met his red eyes and knew. I stepped backwards, bumping into William.

"Vampire," I said under my breath.

Another chapter coming soon. I am getting to the better part.

Claire: You are moving really slowly with this story.

I plan on after I finish to take it off of the internet completely and take out some of the more boring parts.

William: So this is basically the bad unedited part.

Yepz. But I would really like reviews. I so far have only one (thank you!) but I would find them very helpful.

^..^*Crystalpath*^..^