I nodded, wishing I had a notebook. I felt like she was going to give me a lot of information, and I hoped I’d be able to remember it.
“They’re dotted all over the world. You just need to know where to look. Come with me.”
She grabbed a shawl and her house keys from a small end table, and we headed out the door. Everything was happening so quickly, it was difficult for me to keep up with her.
I shook my head as we stepped into the sunlight. A gentle wind teased my tresses. Why was Alison acting so human?
“You take your keys everywhere?” I asked. “Don’t you just...” I waved my hand to indicate that she should use her magic.
She shook her head. “No way.” She said it as though it was obvious why she didn’t do that. “If you live in the human world, you need to appear human. Having keys that unlock doors is part of being human. Humans just can’t wave a hand and get into every room they want to.” She blew out a breath, looking over her shoulder at me. “Listen, Ava, there are a lot of rules in regards to our secrecy. And not just to our kind, but to the vampires and the animal shifters too. All of us must remain a complete secret to the humans in this world. It’s actually the one thing we all agree on, and that’s saying a lot. If you’re caught displaying your skills, the Council will execute you. You would pose a risk not only to witches, but to every supernatural entity. There aren’t second chances regarding this matter. Do you understand?”
We walked along the street, heading further away from the main road, and out towards more and more houses.
“Yes.” I curled an errant strand of hair behind my hair. For an old woman, Alison walked much faster than I anticipated. I was starting to get winded just trying to keep up with her. “Is that what the Council does? Police people? They execute people who don’t follow the rules?”
They sounded like the worse sort of government. Then again, who was I to make any sort of judgment when I didn’t know anything really about governments, what they did, and why. Mother didn’t teach us about that sort of thing. And she was a dictator; we had to follow her rules no matter what with no say in the matter whatsoever. Was the Council the same?
“Yes, the Council enforces all rules on paranormal individuals,” she said. A tree branch hung low into the sidewalk. She expertly dodged around it.
The branch nearly caught me in the gut, but I ducked around it, batting it away.
I already knew I didn’t like this Council. If someone like me was a threat simply because I was a bastard who had an important father—a father who probably didn’t know with certainty if I was alive or not—then what did that say about them? They sounded like bullies of the highest order. I highly doubted I would be given some kind of way to explain myself, my side, if they ever found me. They probably wouldn’t even care.
“So, where’s this...” I stopped walking as a magical breeze shifted through my hair. The skin on the back of my neck tingled. I closed my fingers over my palm again. I felt it tingle there as well.
Alison smiled, turning her body so she faced me. “You can sense it, can’t you?”
I nodded, shivering. “Yes.” I looked to my left and then to my right. “Where is it, though?”
I couldn’t see the magic anywhere, though I felt it everywhere.
She held onto her shawl and didn’t move. Her eyes narrowed, a challenge in them. “I want to see if you can find it.” She nodded at the space in front of me. “Go on.”
I grinned at her words and turned down the street. I rubbed my hands together. My skin tingled. I could feel my magic itch to be let loose, to be free in a world that wasn’t controlled by my mother. But I held back. I had to make sure I didn’t produce magic in public, even in an area as secluded as this one.
My gaze scanned over every surface, looking for a shimmer of magic. An altered wall. A magical mark. Something. My mother might not have taught me about the magic government or the human one, but she made it a point to teach us how to spot magic. She said we would never know when we needed to find a friend, and magic always had a tell if one knew where to look.
But I couldn’t see a thing. I looked everywhere. I was about to give up when my locket began to hum. To vibrate with energy. I glanced down, my mouth slightly ajar. I had forgotten it was even there in the first place. I reached up and carefully removed it from around my neck so I could hold it in my palm. My fingers curled tightly around it, and warmth radiated from the metal pressed against my skin.
I had no idea how to use this thing. I didn’t know what it was. And yet, I knew it would lead me to where I wanted to go. I breathed in and focused on the locket. I used it like one would a compass, holding it out in front of me. I took more steps down the long street, and the locket hummed to tell me if I was warmer or colder. Every time it was still, I moved in the opposite direction. When it thrummed, when it vibrated once more, I continued to head in that direction
.
It took another moment, but I finally narrowed where the portal to the magic realm was. I stood in front of an alleyway behind a row of houses. It was dark and non-descript, but the locket in my hand burned my skin. I slipped it back around my neck and the heat settled.
Still, I couldn’t seem to make out where the door was. I shifted my weight, tilting my head to the side, hoping to see it from a different perspective. The sun was going down soon. If that happened, finding this portal that glimmered its location was going to be impossible to find.
I turned to Alison. “Is it down there somewhere?”
“Yes,” she said, excitement flaring in her eyes. “Halfway down, there is a portal in the wall. Come, I will show you.” She beckoned me with her hand, brushing past me as she headed down the alleyway.
We stepped into the unnatural darkness and moved over to a huge bin, behind which was a witches symbol for travel. I lifted my hand, tempted to touch the wall. The way it glimmered, even in the darkness, was unnatural and yet, captivating.
“Is this visible to the human eye?” I asked, turning to look at Alison.
She shook her head. “Now, all you need to do is step straight through,” she said. “Simple enough. The portal will recognize your Witch blood and allow you passage. If you weren’t a witch, it would be a simple wall. You would be unable to cross it.”
My heart pounded harder in my chest. This was really happening. I found the portal. All I needed to do was walk a couple of feet and I would be in the magic realm, the same magic realm I had longed to visit ever since I first heard about it.