Chapter 4
A young lady was in a chamber, holding up a sheer pink fabric.
A guy about her age looked at it. "No."
She zapped it and it turned into a blue velvet.
"Maybe."
She zapped it and it turned into sparkly, floral lavender flannel.
He tilted his head a little. "Hold it up a little higher."
She twitched her arm up a little.
"Higher."
She moved her arm up higher.
"No, I'm sorry lower."
She moved her arm back.
"That's good."
"That's where I started!"
"Are we interrupting something?" asked Carmen as she came in with Karen and Kelly and Ryan.
"Oh, no, you're perfectly fine," said the girl, "In fact, we could use a third opinion on this before the princess gets here."
"Uh, this is the princess," said Carmen as Kelly raised her hand.
The girl threw the fabric out the window. "What dress? I mean…hi."
"Please excuse my wife, she's a bit on edge when it comes to her work," said the young man.
"I'm very serious about this," said the girl, "I took a course on fashion magic in Witch U and took it to heart. I loved doing this!"
"There's a Witch University?" asked Ryan.
"Every Witch and Warlock goes there," said Carmen, "But that's for another time. Allow me to introduce you to Brad and Shaya, your steward and lady-in-waiting. They've been married a long time."
"They look 21," Ryan commented.
"Everyone here looks 21," everyone else said.
"Point taken."
"My comment," said Kelly, "is that Brad here has the same name as Arielle and Haven's brother."
"I am Arielle and Haven's brother!" Brad corrected.
Kelly's eyes widened [again] as she looked him up and down for the slight resemblance. She started seeing it. He had dark hair and bluish-brown eyes, but looked at lot like his sisters otherwise (except, of course, for the difference in gender).
Kelly then looked at Shaya, Brad's wife. Haven had said he'd fallen in love with a girl and married her. This girl was beautiful. She was well-aged (like all Witches) and didn't appear to weigh more than 120 pounds. Her height was fairly common and her skin was fairly dark, but her eyes were the main attraction, being extremely bright brown. Her shaggy brown hair, though, was also stunning. Her hair itself was mainly down, but there were a dozen miniature braids, held together by beads, in the untangled-yet-messy bundle.
"Wow," was all she had to say.
"We get that a lot," said Brad and Shaya at the same time.
"Do you say the same thing at the same time a lot?" asked Ryan.
"Oddly enough, no," said Shaya.
"Well, we better keep going with the tour," said Carmen, "A lot to see." She pulled Karen, Kelly, and Ryan out.
Shaya called back the fabric. "Alright, we're doing this right now."
"Are you sure I can't go with them?"
"Positive!"
Brad groaned. He should've married that cook's daughter instead of the seamstress.
Karen led the 2 coyotes and her sister down the hall. "Alright, bedroom, bedroom, bathroom, bedroom…"
"CAW!" A black-feathered bird swooped down on them. They all ducked just in time as it came back and flew into the rafters. "Hey, Karen! Carmen! How you doing? That the princess? She's pretty!"
"Is that bird talking?" Ryan asked.
"Yeah," said Karen and Carmen.
"You'd think I'd be used to this kind of thing by now."
"Actually, he's not really a crow," explained Carmen, "His name's Mars."
"Like the planet or the god of war?" asked Kelly.
"Both, actually. He tried to wage a war between worlds, ours and yours. He was caught before he could and the Witches' Council cast a spell on him to turn him into a crow for 750 years to punish him."
"So there's no prison in this world?" asked Ryan.
"Nope," Karen answered, "We use our magic powers to banish the bad guys in 3 ways: locked in the No-Man's-Lands of your world, stripped of magic forever, or turned into a random animal."
"Mark my words, KC, I'll get back to normal and get rid of you all!" With that said, Mars chuckled evilly and then started coughing. "Feather."
Karen rolled her eyes and walked off.
Carmen glared at Mars. "If you do anything against us now, your punishment will be extended. You don't have magic in your animal state, anyway, I might add. And we all know what's going to be the actual case after the next 700 years." She walked off.
Kelly hurried after her, Ryan following behind. "What's gonna be the case in 700 years?"
Carmen stopped walking and looked at her, Karen doing the same. "You're a psychic and you don't already know?"
"I don't know how my visions work."
"Well…"
"Car!" Karen snapped.
Carmen looked at her twin sister, who gave her a look, then turned back to Kelly and Ryan. "All I can tell you now is that something's going to happen in less than a century that will change everything for all of us. And Mars' punishment doesn't wear off for another 600-something years afterwards. But…"
"'But'?" Ryan asked.
Carmen smiled. "We can show you the people who gave us the message from the future…" She ran off.
Karen stared after her, openmouthed in angered shock. "Carmen!" She ran off after her.
Kelly and Ryan looked at each other and then quickly followed.
In a dark room lit by candles emanating a radiant blue light, there sat 4 Witches and a single Warlock. They were collected around a fire in the center of a circle of books. They continued chanting until the fire turned blue as well, joining the lights of the room, and then went out completely, lighting up one of the pieces of paper and throwing it at one of the Witches.
The Witch took the paper and read it. "OK, problem resolved. We're having pizza tonight."
"Yay!" cried one of the Witches, taking down the hood on her cloak to reveal her fire red hair and electric blue eyes.
The Warlock took down his hood to reveal his dark hair and teddy-bear-brown eyes. "Joy, calm down!"
"I can't help it, Eric, it's my namesake!"
The Witch who'd grabbed the paper took down her hood to reveal her honey-colored hair and eyes. "You 2 are pathetic."
"Stay out of it, Amanda!"
Amanda threw her hands in the air and tossed the paper aside.
About that time, Karen and Carmen and Kelly and Ryan all came in.
Another Witch took down her hood to look at them, this one a redhead as well but with yellow-tinted green eyes, and ran over to them. "Oh, good! Karen, Carmen, you've gotta get me away from these guys! When they're not boring me to tears, they're annoying me to a point where I think my head's gonna explode!"
"Can we get that pizza now?" asked Eric, "I'm hungry!" The Witch zapped a tray of pizza onto the spot where the fire had been and the other 4 all immediately dived for it.
"You see?" she asked, calling forth one of the slices.
"Saffron, cool it!" Karen said, "We just came by the introduce you guys to the prince and princess."
"OK, where are they?" asked Saffron, taking a bite from the pizza.
"Right here," said Carmen.
The last Witch started choking. Amanda elbowed her and she was fine. "What?" She pulled down her hood to reveal her long brunette hair with bangs almost covering her whitish-red eyes. "I thought you said the triplets were going to take the throne."
"They were, Penelope," said Carmen, "But they all married. So Sophie's 2 eldest children decided to take the throne in their places."
"Oh," said Penelope. She forced a small smile and gave a thumbs-up. "Good." She turned her back to them and her expression changed to one of lethal terror as she returned to eating her pizza.
"So who's who here?" asked Kelly.
"Kelly, Ryan," said Carmen, "this is Joy, Eric, Penelope, Saffron, and Amanda, the Coven."
"The Coven…" Ryan thought out loud, "Oh! Aunt Danni told us about this! The group of Witches that keep watch over the realm, keeping the balance of good and evil in magic?"
"Correct," said Karen, starting to walk towards the group of 5, "and this generation is special because of one very powerful Seer." She gestured to Joy.
"Yeah, don't remind us," said Eric.
"She's a Seer?" asked Kelly.
"Yeah," Karen answered, "like you, except…different."
"Uh, I'm a Psychic and a Whisperer, my dad's the Seer."
"Oh!" Joy caught on, "No, not 'undead' Seer, 'danger' Seer. Vision stuff."
"She's the one who catches us up on the prophecy stuff around here," said Karen.
Joy nodded. "You didn't tell them about my last outburst in the plaza, did you?"
"No, only the ones that were there can know exactly what you said," said Carmen, "We made sure not to tell them what you predicted. But since you and Kelly have some stuff in common, we figured you'd wanna meet. Your powers joined together could help a lot in a grave situation."
"Well, is that everybody, then?" asked Ryan.
"It's a huge castle, Ryan," said Carmen, "You could be here a year and wander around every night and not meet everyone."
Kelly smiled at that thought. She'd never really had a chance to be connected to the magic world, let alone live a big place that was actually filled with people (the tower had only ever held her family and Zadavia).
"Oh, well," said Karen, "We better keep going." She pulled them out.
"Do we really bore and annoy you that much?" Amanda asked Saffron.
"Well…"
The twins and Kelly and Ryan were now walking up a staircase in the East Tower (yes, there were 4 towers in the castle), which was filled with staircases.
"And you might want to be careful with the staircases," Carmen warned the 2 coyotes, "They tend to change."
"What?" Ryan asked. Before either twin could answer him, all 4 of them felt movement beneath their feet and grabbed the banisters. The staircase was moving!
When it finally settled, Karen sighed. "Told you. Come on." She and Carmen continued walking.
Kelly and Ryan looked at each other again. It was gonna be weird here, but they could get used to it.