Chapter 5: Sky - House of the Hidden

I sat down on the bed and collected my thoughts. Was this really my new home? Leaf had said that I was free to leave if I wanted to. Maybe I should just go back home? I had been crazy to follow a dream, however I could not shake Leaf’s words that echoed in my head. ‘The fates led you here for a reason.’ Maybe I should stick around and find out what that reason was.

I got up from the bed and walked out of the room to search for Leaf. I found her stirring the pot in the kitchen. When she saw me, she put down the wooden spoon and turned around to face me with a smile on her face.

“Let me show you the rest of the house.”

I followed her as she walked to the other side of the kitchen and opened a door leading to another room. When we entered the room, two girls looked up and gave us a smile, before going back to the books in front of them. There were several tables and chairs placed around the room.

“This is our dining room, but we also use it as a study in between the meals.”

I followed her out of the room and back into the hallway. We walked up the staircase.

“This is the library,” she said as she gestured towards a room on the left.

“I have tried to collect as many books as possible and written down as many parts of the spell as people can remember. The people that are in there at the moment are working on figuring out how to reverse the spell that took their magic.”

I peeked through the open door, I wanted to go inside the library and take a closer look, but Leaf had already moved on.

“This is my bedroom. If you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to come and find me,” she said as she pointed to a closed door opposite to the library.

We walked back to the lower floor and continued out the front door.

When I looked around, I realised that there were people out here too. How had I not noticed them before?

Leaf walked towards the stable and I followed her questionably. Surely we weren’t going to walk into the stable?

“It’s sturdier than it looks,” she told me, before walking inside.

When we got inside, I was speechless. There was a long corridor branching off to several rooms. It looked clean and fresh, with no signed of the decay that was seen on the outside. As we walked down the corridor, I stopped and peeked inside a room where the door was left ajar. A guy in his late twenties was lying on a bed, he had several fluids attached to him. He didn’t look well. Leaf must have realised that I had stopped as she walked back up to me.

“Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do to help him,” she said, her voice defeated. “Without magic flowing around in the body, it slowly shuts down. Over the years, I have tried several things. I even attempted to infuse some of my own magic into them, but their body seemed to reject it. The only way I know how to stop the bodies from deteriorating is to somehow reverse the spell that Hecate did to take the magic away from you in the first place. So far I haven’t had any luck.”

It was heartbreaking hearing her talk about it. It almost sounded like she blamed herself. I looked up at her and she seemed lost in thoughts for a moment before she took a big breath. “I believe dinner should be ready. Let’s go back into the house and I’ll answer any questions you may have.”

I followed her back into the house, my head full of questions. After she had sorted us both out with a bowl of stew, she sat down at a table and gestured for me to still down too. Some other people joined us at the table. But they remained quiet, eating their food.

“How come you have magic when everyone else here doesn’t?” The words left my mouth before I knew what was happening and I placed my hand over my mouth, embarrassed with my lack of restraint. I held my breath, worried I had offended Leaf, but she just laughed at my reaction.

“No need to feel embarrassed. It’s a fair question to ask. It’s hard to explain, but I ended up here by accident. Hecate and the High priestess at the time, placed me in a ceremony, much like the one you went though, only I was much younger. It scared me, and I somehow transported myself here.”

She took a deep breath before she continued. “A lovely old man took me in and looked after me. I was lucky. The old man took great care of me and showed me how to survive. He wasn’t afraid of my powers and used to tell me stories about his friend Jax, who used to live here with him. I thought about going back to my parents, but every time I did, something inside me knew that if I went back, they would only try to take my magic again.”

Leaf’s laugh and honest answer made me feel safe asking more questions. “So how did you end up looking after everyone here?”

“After the old man passed away I was lost, but the goddess in my dreams told me to stay and not long after, others joined me here, however they had not been as lucky as me, and their magic had been taken from them.”

It was a lot to take in, I continued to eat my stew, while I thought over what Leaf had said.

“Why me?”

“I believe you know that better than me,” Leaf said thoughtfully. “I don’t know why people turn up here, I just know that it is my responsibility to look after the ones that do.”

We continued eating our food in silence. When we finished, Leaf excused herself.

“It is time for me to retire to my room, Astrid and Eva will look over you and answer any questions you may have about this place. For now, make yourself at home and I will see you in the morning.”

She got up from the table and left us alone.

“Did you have a dream too?,” Astrid asked excitingly.

“I think all of us did,” Eva replied calmly. “Common lets get you settled in. Did you bring anything with you?”

The question caught me off guard. I hadn’t brought anything with me, because I didn’t know I would need to. I hadn’t thought things through.

Eva must have realised. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you sorted.”