Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Chapter 16 - Magic Carpet Ride
Author's note: Thank you guys for all the feedback! Y'all are the best! :)
Shout out to Saphire01 (SellyGregg via twitter) for coming up with the most creative ending! :)
Hannah's POV
"Do you know anything at all about the trial?" Mason asked me, interupting my daydream as I stared off into space. I snapped out of it instantly. I was sitting at the Russo's bar between Will and Justin while everyone else sat at the table. Besides Mason, who was pacing in a circle. Bastion was keeping Leah entertained with a card game on the couch.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Did you have access to information on us or the trial?"
I gave him a skeptical glance. "I was a volunteer junior officer, not a Russian spy. They don't tell us these things! Apperently, teenagers are too talkative and easily distracted to handle information- did you know that if you hook up your wand to your iPod, it works as a speaker? I didn't!"
"Uno!" Leah cried joyfully, waving the back of her card in her sighing opponent's face.
"Is it even possible to be beaten this many times by a five year old?" Bastion groaned, hitting his head on the side of the couch.
"Calm down, Bazzy. You haven't lost yet!" She glanced at the lopsided pile. With an evil grin, she slapped her card on top. "Now you have!"
"Whatever," he scoffed. "Rematch!"
"Fine. But we're playing Slap Jack this time."
"You can't play Slap Jack with Uno cards, Leah," he informed her.
"Watch me," she grinned. She placed all the cards in her little hand, squeezed her eyes shut, and with a flash of light, they magically transformed into standard playing cards. She smiled and proudly offered them to Bazzy.
"Leah," Alex began, resting her hands on her hips.
"I know, I know: no magicoutside the lair unless there's an emergency." She sighed.
"Good. Where were we, Mason?"
Mason turned to Justin. "Do you think there might be a loophole? Somewhere? Or a way to bend around the rules?"
Justin Looked up from his spellbook. "A loophole? In Wizard court? Ha!" He laughed a sarcastic laugh, then turned serious. "Believe me, magic is very strict and serious, not as free and willy nilly as someone made it seem." All eyes imediately turned to Alex.
"What? What's everyone looking at me for?" she demanded, then shrugged. "Okay, fine. Point taken. But still; there's still got to be a way out of this."
"I don't know. I just wish we knew what was going on over there. I really think Crumbs overreacted," he sighed.
"The man with the beard is mad." Leah said softly as she dealed her cards. Justin's head snapped up.
"What did you just say?" he asked her, climbing out of his seat.
"I said the man with the beard is mad," she repeated. She paused. "And now he broke a pencil."
"What man with the beard?" Mason asked concerningly.
"I don't know his name." She stamped her hand on the deck. "Slap Jack!"
Alex toppled off her seat and dashed to her daughter's side. "What does he look like?"
Leah organized her card stack. She stared down, like she was trying to remember something. "He's got wrinkles, like my hands after I've been swimming all day. Those are all over him. He's got on a purpleish robe, and he's got crumbs in his beard. Brownie crumbs, I think- Slap Jack! Ha!"
Mason and Alex exchanged glances.
"Proffessor Crumbs," we said in unison.
"Could she be making it up?" Will asked, "She's in kindergarden, after all." Hmpf. Obviously he didn't know her well enough. True, I met Leah just a day before he did, but they're relatives, after all.
"What does the room he's in look like?" Mason asked.
"Slap Jack!"
"Leah!" Alex demanded. "What does the room look like?"
"One second!" She flipped over a seven. Bazzy flipped over a Jack, but didn't even flinch.
"No fair! Your let me win!"
Alex spun her daughter around to face her. "Leah Nicole Graybeck." she grabbed her wrists and met her at eye level. "This is very important. What does the room the beard man is in look like?"
Leah froze. She silenced the whole room without a single word. Her face read concentration. She remained completely motionless, unlike her typical bouncy and happy self. It was as if she was someplace else.
"The room is a dark wood, but its shiney and glossy. It's got three tall windows: ceiling to the floor. Stained windows. They are night sky blue with yellow stars. The sun shines through the stars, like a glow stick. There's a big blue desk in the middle of the room, in front of a big blue and gold chair. And there's a big painting on the wall; it looks like beard man, only there's less wrinkles." She snapped back to earth and glanced at Alex.
I think my mouth was dropped lower than anyone else's in the room (and Justin's was like, to the floor!). I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed.
"There's no way she's making that up, I told them. Everyone turned to me. "She just described Professor Crumb's office, perfectly."
Mason leaned on the couch, glaning in unison with Alex at their daughter.
"Leah?" Mason asked, taking her hand. "Where do you see the beard man?"
"In my head."
Everyone exchanged glances with the person next to them. Alex turned white.
"What's he doing now?" Jerry asked her.
She studied the ceiling for a minute. "Another man is there. He's wearing a dress!" she laughed.
"What does it look like?"
"Its long and blue with gold stars." she twirled her long braid around her finger. "And he has weird brown hair and glasses."
I snapped my fingers. "Chancellor Tootietootie!" I told them.
"What are they doing?" Mason asked.
"They're just talking. The dress man opened a drawer in the desk. It has our last name on the front."
Alex, who looked about ready to faint, snapped her head up. She glanced at Leah in astonishment. She turned to Mason.
"Can you see what it says?"
She froze solid, as if she were a statue. She was competely still and silent. Her mouth was moving slightly, like she was mouthing something. Her eyes, which were open, zipped back and forth rapidly fast, like she was searching for something.
"Graybeck, Mason; Russo, Alexandra; Graybeck, Leah." I noticed that Alex tensed up at Russo. Nobody seemed to be able to get that right. "Charged twice. Wereolf/mortal relationship and severely crossbred offspring."
"How on Earth can she see that?" Harper asked.
"I think I know." Jerry realized. "Alex, Mason, do you remember when I told you about great wizards getting their powers early?"
"And that the greatest wizards have special gifts?" Mason finnished.
"Right. I think Leah might have the gift of astral projection."
"What's that?" Leah asked.
"Astral projection is where someone can see things at a different location perfectly as if they were actually there, like they left their bodies temporarily." Justin explained. "I think you might be right."
"Lets test it." Jerry replied. He turned to his younger son, who was counting the freckles on his arm. "Max, quick. Go hide somewhere upstairs, make it as difficut as possible!"
"Done," he jumped out of his seat. "Don't know why, don't care why, going with it." He started off at the stairs.
"We're testing out Leah's-"
"Dad, I really don't care why." We waited in silence for about five minutes, until we heard a faint: "Ready!"
"Okay, Leah, see if you can find Uncle Max like you did beard man!" Alex told her.
Leah looked at the ceiling again. We waited until she spoke up.
"He's in Momma's bathroom, crammed under the sink," she said.
"Dude! Where are you?" Alex shouted.
"Under your sink! And there's a rubber spider next to me!" He replied remarkably. "Now it's moving! WAIT. Rubber doesn't move. GUYS!"
"Am I done now?" Leah asked. "My head's hurting a little."
"Sure, sweetie," Alex pulled her into her lap and rested her chin on her head.
"She definately has a gift," Jerry smiled. "Limited, but that might just be her age."
xXxXxXxXx
Alex's POV
"What if Plan A doesn't work?" I asked Justin as I ran my fingers through Leah's hair.
"Then we use Plan B," Jeremy answered for him with a smug smile.
"Do we even have a Plan B?"
"Sure we do. When all else fails, B stands for a good old fashion Butt-kicking!" he punched the air with a snicker and propped his feet on the coffee table. Dad pushed them off with a sigh.
"Okay, as much as I'd love to see that," I pitched, "I don't think violence is the best idea in Wizard court."
Hannah snapped her fingers. "I've got an idea for plan C!" she hopped off the bar stool. "We need to keep Leah as safe as possible. We wouldn't want anything bad to happen, or for A to backfire, right?"
"Didn't we just have this conversation?" I rasied an eyebrow.
"What I'm saying is that we need to make her so irrisistably innocent that they'll bend the rules. I mean, who can resist this face?" She squeezed Leah's cheeks together with a grin.
"Ohh, I think I'm following you. I like Plan C; what else do you got?"
Hannah released my daughter's face and placed her hands on her hips. "Okay, kiddo, lets see a pout." Leah gave me a blank stare.
"What do you do to your daddy when its bed time and Spongebob's not over yet?" I asked her. Leah looked at Hannah with pleading eyes. She stuck out her bottom lip, making it quivier as if she was about to cry. She let out a pitful wimper as well. I laughed. My child was so dramatic; I've taught her well.
She stared back at Hannah for not even a minute. "Okay, that's really convincing. I almost hugged you." Leah looked back at me with a smile.
Mom snapped her fingers and slid out of her seat. "I think I have an idea." She picked up her purse off the couch. "C'mon Leah. We'll be right back."
"Were are we going, Nonna?" Leah asked as she wiggled out of my lap.
"Somewhere," she smiled. That worried me.
"I think I'm gonna tag along, just in case," I informed her. I hesitantly followed them out the door. There was no telling what idea my mom had in mind.
xXxXxXxXx
"Momma! Momma! Look at my hair!" I heard her squeal from the other room. I spun around, bracing myself for the worst. Leah skipped around the corner into the room I was seated in. My jaw dropped, and so did my heart. Leah had left the room with beautiful wavy hair down to her waist, (Which, by the way, took five years with an occasional trim to grow out) and came back in with bouncy dark curls that came down about an inch past her chin. A tiny light pink streak was twisted into one of the big curls around her face.
"The pink strand is fake," Mom informed me, noticing my dumbfoundedness. (Ha. That's what she thought I freaked out about!). "She cut ten inches off. After it dried, it curled right up! Cute, huh?"
I looked at my mom, then at Leah's excited face. She was happy, obviously. She couldn't stay still!
"Turn around; let me see the back," I told her. She twirled around, making her pink puffy shirt whirl in a circle. I had to admit, as much as it hurt me to cut off her long locks, the short curls really suited her bouncy personality.
"I like it," I finally spoke up with a smile. "The pink totally ties it together."
"I wanted to be like you, Momma!" she laughed. She stretched out her pink curl, then compared it to one of my faded purple streaks. "See? We're the same!"
Review? :) Chapter 17 coming soon!