The second I saw who had been holding the bizarre sign I grabbed the curtains and quickly shut them. I grabbed Nat’s, who was very shocked by what had happened, hand and pulled her away from the window. We bolted to the closet and I slowly and quietly pushed the door closed.
I listened in the silence for any footsteps, but no noise rang throughout the air. My tense shoulders began to relax, but that didn’t last long. An intense banging sound began and I knew what was happening; the monster of a man from my dreams was trying to break into our house.
I didn’t bother putting anything heavy against the door, because that would just make it that more obvious as to our hiding place, and if the half dead man believed magic was real, well I didn’t want to take my chances.
I looked around our small closet. The light brown wood flooring helped eliminate any sound that was made, but would not provide cover for us. We had our fancier clothes hanging up on a metal bar that was to the left of the doorway, and it would give us the best place to hide, but there wasn’t much space and it was very predictable. Underneath the hanging clothes, there was cubbyholes for shoes, but most of the shoes littered the closet flooring. To the right of the clothes that were hanging up, there was a small desk, but you could easily spot a person hiding under a desk. Beside the desk, there was a mountain of clothes that met the back wall. I knew that would be our best place to hide and I grabbed Nat’s arm and shoved her into the pile.
Just as she landed on the clothes, I realized the banging had stopped. I had no idea what the man had done, but we had to move faster in case he had found a way inside. Nat and I buried ourselves in the mountain of unfolded clothes, and just as I covered the top I heard the shattering of glass. I didn’t know how it had broken because there had been no banging or anything that could’ve broken the glass, but I had no time to think about it.
I sat on the floor, covered by clothes and hoping that the man that’s face was half gone would not find us. I felt Nat’s hand grip my wrist and her nails dug into my skin, but I barely felt the pain.
I couldn’t see what was happening, and for all I knew the invader could’ve been in the closet two feet away from me. Then the noise came, it was quiet at first, but got louder and louder as someone approached the closet.
The door quietly creaked open and small beams of light seemed to squeeze through the pile of clothes. I slowly felt around for anything that I could use as a weapon and I wished I had thought of that earlier.
“You two can stop hiding and come out. I know you’re in here,” the familiar voice from my dreams filled the room, “I’m not going to hurt you….not this time.” A shiver ran up my spine and the room seemed to be colder. I knew that the man who was half dead would hurt us, he had recently tried to kill me and somehow had come from my dreams to real life. He might as well have been a murderer holding a gun to my head saying he didn’t want to hurt me.
“Stay here,” I whispered directly into Nat’s ear, so not a sound could be heard from anyone. She seemed to have heard because she let go of my arm. I slowly picked up clothes on the ground and placed them around Nat without moving the pile. She soon was covered to the best of my abilities and I was ready to make my move.
I leaped out of the pile, and unfortunately the half dead man, who I decided to give the name Alan for simplicity sake, was right in front of me. I accidentally hit him and we both fell to the ground. I scrambled away from Alan, but soon found myself at the back of the closet with nowhere to go.
I jumped to my feet and hoped I could lead him out of the closet, but he was blocking the doorway. “I just want to talk.” He raised his stumps as he spoke. I found it hard to believe that he didn’t want to kill me after what had happened earlier, when he had said that I could be his downfall.
“What do you want? Why can’t you just leave me alone? Why did you want to kill me in my dreams, but not hurt me now?” I shot question after question, because I desperately wanted him to leave and I wanted answers.
Alan tried to smile, but he couldn’t due to his lack of teeth. “I’m not going to hurt you Candace. I can’t leave you alone, because I need you to help me. The reason I attempted to kill you is because I didn’t know how much you would help me in the future. I knew you would help me, but I figured I could use someone else to do the job, but you are the only one who can do it. How you survived the fall is beyond me. I imagine you awoke your powers, and they somehow saved you or Magic intervened.”
I just stared at him, unable to comprehend and believe his words. “I also control my servants by fear. You need to know my powers and I am willing to kill someone who crosses paths with me.”
“I am not your servant,” I snapped. I didn’t know who Alan was, or what he was talking about, but I knew I would never work with him, or ever help him. “What makes you think that I will help you anyways?”
A wicked glint filled his eye. “That will remain to be seen.” Silence filled the air and I sighed to remove it. Silence was not something that I enjoyed.
“How could you have been in my dream, that seemed so real, and then now here?”
Alan grinned again, and I couldn’t get over how strange his grins were. “Magic, my dear.”
“Don’t call me your dear,” I snapped. “Why do you keep mentioning magic anyways? I’m not five and I don’t believe in magic.”
He attempted to raise the area where his eyebrows should’ve been, but due to his face being half gone, he seemed to have a hard time controlling some muscles. “Ah, see there’s your problem. You need to believe in magic, it is part of you.”
“I’m sure you could prove this to me,” I sarcastically suggested, but Alan took it all to seriously.
“Yes, you magicians always have such a hard time believing. Back in my day, someone appearing in a dream and then coming to life was enough evidence for magic.”
“Well, times have changed and magic never has existed and never will.” “
“I will let the magic do the talking.” He raised his stumps above his head and had them about an inch apart. Suddenly a straight stick appeared in between his stumps. His eyes bore into mine and I stared right back.
“You think that will make me believe in magic. For all I know you’re some illusionist who pulled something from midair, big deal.” He sighed as if that should’ve been enough proof.
“I need a piece of clothing from you, something you do not like.” I sighed, but did as I was asked to do and grabbed a green shirt that didn’t fit me anymore from one of the hangers.
He flicked his stick and my green shirt was no longer green. I blinked a few times, hoping that I was seeing something, but the sweater didn’t change; it remained pink.
“Big deal, you changed my sweater to another colour, probably another illusionist. By the way, I hate pink.”
Alan didn’t react to my comment, he only flicked his stick and the shirt became a light blue. “Do you velieve me yet?” I shook my head and he shook his head. I was having a hard time getting used to talking to someone who had tried to kill me, and who was missing half of his face. “Magicians these days," he muttered.
“Why do you keep mentioning magic and magicians? You’re just some good illusionist who can do these tricks, and you expect me to believe in magic? Do you think that I’m some magician or something, because if that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong. I have never even attempted a magic trick in my entire life.
“That’s where you are wrong. I know that you’re a magician. Your power is radiated to the trained eye. Whether you like it or not, you’re a magician. Since you don’t believe me yet, then I have no choice but to do this.” He flicked his stick again and my shirt seemed to explode. Pieces flew up in the air and fell to the ground, looking like feathers.
“Big deal, you can break a shirt.” I crossed my arms and waited for him to do another magic trick.
He slowly shook his head. “The world really has changed. Tell me, have you ever seen an…illusionist or so you say, break a shirt like that?” I thought about it, but hadn’t.
“No, but I have seen them do much more complex tricks.”
“I will do this, and if you do not believe yet, then I don’t know what to do, besides take it a level up.” I didn’t want to know what the level up was, but magic was impossible to believe in. He had proved nothing to me. He flicked his stick again and the pieces that littered the wood flooring came together again and reformed my shirt. Looking like a puzzle at first, but then all the crevices disappeared.
I felt my jaw drop, and my mind raced to find a way to prove Alan wrong. He smiled again, but I needed to prove him wrong; magic couldn’t exist.
As if he could read my mind he said, “I see, so you are one of those who don’t want to believe that magic is real. I just proved that it was and there’s no way that I could get another copy of your shirt without magic. It is real.”
“No, it can’t be,” I refused.
“You need to believe. Your parents knew about this for your entire life, they knew you were a magician. I need you to belive because if you don’t then you will not be able to help me at the right time, which result in your death. I may not be a good person, but I do not find joy at killing magicians who do not even know what they are.”
“Oh, so you don’t mind killing magicians who do know who they are?”
“No, I do whatever I can to maintain my power.”
I shook with fury and glared at Alan. “You are a monster, I will never help you.”
“I don’t care if you want to or not, things change with time and anger disappears. The only thing I care about is if you believe in magic yet.”
“What is that stick that you are holding between your wrists?” I tried to get off topic in hopes that he would think that I did believe in magic, and then he would leave.
He flipped his wand with his stumps so it landed on his forearms. “This is a wand. It is the source of a sorcerers or magicians magic. Only powerful magicians can cast spells without a wand, and that is almost unheard of.” He winked at me with his left eye, but I wasn’t even too sure if he had winked at me or not considering he only had one eye.
“I guess since I don’t have this wand thing, I can’t be a magician.” I smiled as I thought I had finally outwitted Alan, but I was quickly disappointed.
“That’s the only spell that all magician’s and sorcerers can cast without a wand,” He triumphantly said.
“How do you know I’m a magician?”
“You and your friend Natalie, who I can see under that pile of clothes, are known throughout our entire world, all my allies know of you, yours do not, but mine are fully aware of your powers. Most would frown upon me for trying to help you into discovering your powers.”
“Our world? Are you talking about some other planet?” The conversation seemed to be taking a turn for the worst as things only got more confusing and less believable by the minute.
“No, not like a planet. It’s technically not even another world, but we abide by different laws then most countries. We have a different stye of living than most humans.”
“Okay, so you’re telling me that we live in a hidden world that’s on earth, but it isn’t really a different world, it’s just a different way of living?”
Alan nodded, “That’s exactly what it is. We have many different things, but magicians and sorcerers are spread all throughout the Earth.”
My mind was swimming and felt like it was about to explode. I didn’t understand anything he was saying, since it was all fake. “Look, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t believe in magic and I never will. I don’t know how you were in my dreams and then appeared at my house, and I don’t know how you did that stuff with my shirt, but I can’t believe in magic. I can’t evlieve that I’m apart of another world, that would mean my whole life was a lie. Please just leave and odn’t come back.”
Any light that had been in Alan’s eye quickly left and it narrowed. His attempt of a smile disappeared. “You know how I did those things with your shirt; magic. You want to know how I appeared in your dreams and then before your eyes: magic. I am no illusionist, I am a sorcerer. I will abide to your wishes, but you must do something for me before I go. You need to do your best to try and get a wand.”
I strained not to roll my eyes, not when he was so close to leaving. I stared at him, but his eyes were full of determination. I sighed, “Fine, what do I have to do?” I couldn’t believe that I had let myself give into his wishes, but since nothing would happen, I didn’t have to worry about it and then he would be gone.
“All you must do is concentrate and think of a word that is not English for wand. Latin is built into all magician’s and sorcerer’s brains. You will know the spell, because your brain knows the Latin language. When you know what the word for wand is then you just say it, and it will come to you.” I sighed again, and figured that it was all a prank somehow. Someone was just trying tom ake me look like a fool.
“Why can’t you just tell me the word that I need to say?”
“Because you already know the spell, and there’s no sense in saying something that doesn’t need to be repeated.”
“Whatever.” I decided to just do what Alan wanted, because the sooner I did it, the sooner he would leave.
I closed my eyes and thought about the word wand. I tried to reach into my brain to see if anything could trigger the word. At first, nothing came to mind, but suddenly a word came to my mind and before I could resist saying it, I said it. “Baculum,” Wand. I looked down as I felt something drop into my hands.Unfortunately there was a stick shaped figure in my hands and I almost dropped it in disbelief.
“Excellent, I told you that you were a magician.” His eye had a happy glint to it and he had a large toothless smile plastered on his face, but that all disappeared quickly and he got right back to business. “I must be going now to honor your wishes. I must warn you though, next time when you realize that you have seen me, we will be enemies. You must know that I have taken a great risk in helping you, for my future that is later to come, but for the future that will soon be here I have done myself a great deed.” He began to walk out of the closet. “Just remember that because of this one time, we are not allies. I like to repay those who help me, so I have helped you and I will also fix the window that I broke.” I watched over his shoulder and he flicked his wand, and the broken pieces of the window flew back together and became whole. The next time I looked to ask him questions, he was gone.
I looked around my bedroom to make sure he hadn’t just hidden, but he was gone. I glanced down at the wand that was still in my hands again, but couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I walked back over to Nat’s hiding spot and realized that her foot was sticking out. I brushed the clothes off and grabbed her hand to help her to her feet.
She looked down at my hands and saw my wand. Her eyes widened and I just shook my head. She ran out of the closet and I ran after her. Once we reached the window, we looked around and I realized that the street lights were back on. The lights almost danced like fire as the wind blew the few trees that were on our street.
Nat leaned over and tried to look directly below us. “Where did he go?”
“He disappeared into thin air. I don’t really know what happened.” Nat’s eyes scanned the room and settled on the closet door again. I thought we had left it open, but when we looked at it, it was closed. She crept over to it and grabbed something off the door. Through the light that escaped the cracks in the closet, I could see how pale Nat’s face was.
I ran over to her and saw that she was holding a paper with writing on it. I squinted at the paper and saw several words on it. I wasn’t sure what Alan had with signs, but he never seemed to leave good messages. The paper said: Remember what I said about us not being allies, we will be enemies next time you know you are facing me, and I will kill you.
A/N: Just so you know Chapter 3 is going to begin weird, because I have changed Chapter 1 and 2 significantly so sorry for the strange ending. Thanks for all the votes and comments! :)