Chapter Eleven: Spellcasting and Sulani

 Narrated by Erytheia Masterson

When Dad told Xanthe and I that he wanted to take us somewhere, I was excited. He told us to grab hold of his arm. With his free hand, he took a weird blue stone out of his pocket and shouted "To the Realm!" And, before I knew what was happened, we were whooshing through the air, everything blurring in front of my eyes. Then, just as suddenly, we landed on the ground. 

I had absolutely no idea where we were. The sky was a pretty mix of blue and purple, there was a giant building just in front of us, and we were standing beside an archway filled with a colourful, swirling mist.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"This is the Magic Realm," he explained. "We're all Spellcasters in our little family."

"Wow! Does that mean we can do magic?" Xanthe asked.

"Yes, but - "

"COOL! I wanna turn people into frogs!" she exclaimed.

"Not so fast," Dad smiled. "You can't actually practise magic until you're a teenager."
"Why not?"

"Magic can be very dangerous," Dad explained. "It can go wrong if you're not careful, and have serious consequences. So you'll have to wait, I'm afraid."
"So why are we here?" I asked.

"You can still learn about Spellcasting," Dad said. "I'll tell you more when we get home."

So, when we got back home, Dad sat on one of the sofas in the living room, and we sat in front of him.

"There are four schools of magic," he explained. "Practical, Mischief, Untamed and Alchemy. Practical is for things like instantly cleaning up mess and summoning a plate of food, Mischief is for things like making two people fight or fall in love, and Untamed is for things like setting stuff on fire or even bringing someone back from the dead. They're all spells you can cast, and then Alchemy means potion-making. You can craft a potion to make someone sick, and if you're really advanced you can make a potion that'll make you immortal."

"Sounds fun!" I replied.

"It is, but spells don't always work," Dad explained. "Sometimes you can make mess worse, or a fire might get really out of control before you can extinguish it properly. So that's why the Sages have decided that you're only considered mature enough when you're in your teens."

"Who are the Sages?" Xanthe asked.

"They're experts in their chosen field of magic, although there actually isn't an Alchemy sage," he replied. "Right, it's getting quite late and I'm going to go to bed - you should too," he added, standing up.

"Isn't it cool that we're Spellcasters?" I grinned.

"Yeah," Xanthe said sadly, "but we can't actually do anything."

"I know," I sighed. "It's still fun to know, though."

The next day was Summer Festival day, and Mum announced that she was taking us all on holiday to Sulani. After unpacking, we went over to Ohan'ali Beach. I was intrigued to see another kid with ginger hair there - the only redheads I'd met so far were my own family.

"Hi," I said. "My name's Erytheia. What's yours?"
"I'm Alexander," he replied. "Nice to meet another kid with ginger hair."

"Yeah, my whole family has it," I laughed. "What about you?"
"My mum and little sister do, but my dad has black hair," he explained.

"Oh. Are they all here?" I asked, looking round.

"No, it's just me and Mum. Helen, my sister, wasn't feeling too well so Dad's at home with her. Mum and I are just here for the day."
"Oh, that's cool. We're on holiday until Saturday," I said. "Umm, whereabouts do you live?"
"We just moved to San Myshuno," he said. "We used to live in Willow Creek."
"Awesome! I live in San Myshuno too!" I grinned. "Maybe we'll see each other around."
"Yeah, that'd be fun," he smiled back. "You can show me round."

Just then, a woman with wavy red hair, who I guessed was Alexander's mother, came over.

"Hello, looks like you've made a friend, Alex!" she smiled. "I'm Alexander's mother."

"I thought so," I smiled. "Nice to meet you. My name's Erytheia Masterson."

"Masterson?" she asked. "Ooh, you wouldn't happen to be related to Caroline Masterson, by any chance?"
"Yeah," I replied. "She's my mum."

"That's amazing!" the woman said. "I love her TV shows."

"Maybe you could meet her," Alexander said. "They live in San Myshuno like us."
"Ah, I'm sure she doesn't want to be harassed by fans," the woman smiled. "But maybe, if you two are going to be friends, then it wouldn't be a problem."

Once Alexander and his mum had gone home, I got chatting to Xanthe.

"Who was that boy?" she asked.

"He's called Alexander," I said. "He's just moved to San Myshuno with his family."
"Oh right," she replied. "Maybe we could set up some kind of kids' club so we can meet other kids and hang out with them outside of school. You can be the leader, I don't mind."

"Alright then," I said, getting out my phone to create a group.

The next day was really warm, and I ate breakfast on the back deck. Then I put on my swimming costume again and waded into the sea, hopping onto a floating lounger. The view was amazing! The busy-ness of San Myshuno was fun, but it was also nice to get away from it all and be somewhere peaceful.

That evening, the stars came out, and I admired them on the back deck. Mum had told me about constellations, but I didn't recognise any, so I had fun finding my own shapes in the stars.

That bit there looks like a man with a long beard, I thought, and then that looks like a saucepan. Actually, didn't Mum say there was a famous one that looked like a saucepan? I'll have to check which one it is.

Friday was our last full day in Sulani before heading home. Xanthe and I thought it'd be fun to try out the Don't Wake The Llama game, which we'd never done before. 

"Hmm, which stick should I remove?" I muttered. 

"Yeah, it's tricky," Xanthe said. "I feel like any one of them could make the llama fall."
"Well, I guess I'll have to move one, or we'll be here forever," I said. 

After a couple of rounds, both of which I won, I could hear Mum telling us to pack our suitcases.

"I'll miss Sulani," I said. "It's so much fun here."

"School soon," Xanthe replied. "It'll be fun meeting new friends and learning fun things."

"Yeah. There's always next year," I sighed, getting off my chair and heading towards our room.