Magick Light| |Book 1 of The Hands of Sorcery Series

6. Loralee Feels the Heat

After school, on my way to Uncle Sal's, Lyric told me that Jessi had thrown my bag in the trash. 

Great! I thought. My mom's gonna kill me when she finds out. I texted her that I would be going to a friends house for tutoring after school every day, every week so that she would know where to find me.

"I think the only benefit to not having a backpack is that I feel lighter." I said. "Well you do have a lot less weight to carry around now." Loralee responded. She and Lyric laughed. "The big disadvantage is that I can't carry my stuff anywhere." I scowled at Lyric.

Loralee had decided to come to my training session today so that she could see the kinds of things that I could do with my talent even though I told her that I still couldn't do much with it.

On the way to Uncle Sal's, Loralee was just a chatterbox whose lock had broken, and lost its lid. 

"What kind of things can you do?" "How many spells do you know?" "What's his lair like?" "What kind of things can Lyric do?" "When do you get to learn how to fly and stuff?"

When we finally got to Sal's garage, Loralee got silent and asked her last question: "Is this place bigger inside than it is on the outside?" I let out a sigh. "Nope." I replied. "And no, this isn't his lair, it's just his garage." I told her. 

Lyric leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Is she always such an earbasher?" he asked. I gave him a funny look. "What's an earbasher?" I asked. "Oh! Sorry mate. Earbasher is Aussie slang for chatter box." He smiled and adjusted his beanie. "Oh. She only gets like this when she gets really hyped about something." I said. Lyric nodded. "Got it."

Suddenly we heard Sal scream from inside.

We rushed to the door, Lyric fumbling with his key to open the lock. He shoved the key into the keyhole and wrenched the doorknob to swing the door open. "What's wrong? What happened?" Lyric demanded, one hand at the ready to cast a spell, his other arm out in front of me to protect me from any potential danger. 

My friends and I quickly realized that there wasn't any danger. I saw little Addie hanging upside down with plant vines holding her ankles, laughing. She seemed to be laughing at Sal who was looking quite flustered at the fact that he was being held upside down by another vine that was wrapped around his right ankle. He held a spark plug in his hand and waved it at Addie. "Ah still need to replace all of these thangs on that there car by Saturday, Addie." He pointed to the car that his niece was hanging over. "Now would you please put me back on the ground?" he asked.

Addie moved her hands around, making the vines toss Sal in the air and catch him under the arms, and finally setting him down on his feet. He brushed his clothes off and did a double take when he looked over at us.

"Is that your mentor?" Loralee whispered to me. "Our mentor." Lyric motioned to himself, Addie, and me. "Oh." Loralee said. 

Sal clomped over to us in his heavy work boots. "Who's this little missy?" he inquired. "This is my friend Loralee, Uncle Sal." I answered. Sal put his hand out to greet Loralee. "Nice ta meecha darlin'." Sal smiled. 

He stepped back and looked at Lyric and then at me. "Does she know about our talents?" he asked me. I pursed my lips and nodded. "She's my best friend Uncle Sal." I told him. "I couldn't keep a secret this big from my best friend." Sal let out a sigh. "I understand."

He started walking toward the door to the practice room. "C'mon then. We need to start practice." Lyric led us across the messy floor of the garage. "Watch yer step there Loralee. The floor's a bit scuzzy." Lyric advised. 

Sal held the door open for us and we walked down the stairs and into the practice room. "You can have a seat right here, Loralee." I patted the back of one of the chairs in the room. Loralee took a seat in the chair and looked at me expectantly.