A Life of Learning

[Cara Marie]

The duty of introduction complete, now she had the task of finding her late Aunt's property. She headed away from the town center, toward the edges of the forest following a memory she hoped was still valid. Cara Marie had been just six winters old at the time of her Aunt's visit...the bright warm face of her aunt telling her of the town of Cork and the little shack by the woods, the memory its self was marred by her the vicious fight her Mother had started on finding her sister alone in the garden with her daughter. She pushed the memory aside not willing to recall those nasty words that had flown in the air that day.

The stray piece of hair slipped out from its place again, with soft mutters she pushed it firmly back under her shawl. She was close now...she stopped, that was no shack, was her memory wrong? She almost laughed but laughter was not something that escaped her lips often...ten winters had passed, no doubt her Aunt had managed to find time to turn the shack into what lay before her today.

Cara Marie stepped to the gate and froze as a tingle ran up her leg and seemed to slip into her very body as though searching her. Sounds filled the air, like confused musical notes...she thought the notes were people talking but she could not grasp the words. Fear swarmed though her.

"She felt the protection spell?" "Impossible, I made that spell myself" "You missed something if she felt it" "hmpf" "Stop it..." "She feels strong" "Oi what is she doing..." "Oh my...the garden" "She has no control...we must destroy her before she..." "No...she is blood. We must give her a chance"

The very air seemed to spilt and a sudden breeze whipped through the garden...the whirl wind started small but soon grew feeding off the girls fear. It laced through the garden, tearing out the flower plants. Cara shivered...'touched by the devil, you are' her mother's word screamed through her mind. 'I do not fear...nothing scares me...I do not fear...' she chanted the words over and over in her mind...the vision of the glen she had escaped to as a child filtered through her mind, the water, the rainbow, the trees. The whirlwind dissolved as quickly as it had appeared. Cara Marie dropped to the ground, her hands clasping her head as the pain bore though her. Though the haze she heard the musical notes again...then the blackness closed in.

"We must destroy her..." "She has control" "You call that control...luck maybe" "We cannot" "If we do not, we are fools" "Enough...we will discuss this at the family council of the past" "Oi, those fools? We should do it now" "No...we wait" "Oi as you wish"

If someone had passed by now...they would not see a girl lying on the ground with flower plants and garden dirt everywhere...the girl they would see but the garden protected by its spell had righted its self, with not one flower out of place

[Cara Marie]

Slowly the world began to close back in around her, Cara Marie groaned and slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. She expected to see dirt, debris and flowers scattered every where but that is not what she saw. 'what manner of place is this' "Magic" she spat the word out in a voice which was a mixture of sadness and hate, part of her wished this magic could have been in her home town when... Her confused thoughts trailed off she did not wish to recall that day. She wanted to run...but she had no where to run too.

Cara Marie sighed and it was a sigh that suggested she had well and truly given up any hope of a normal peaceful life. Standing she walked sluggishly to the house, turning the door knob she entered the house.