Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling (9 page)

Emmanuel treated Amanda very much as if she had been her own daughter, and Amanda looked to Emmanuel for love and guidance when she needed it. As Amanda grew, she became more curious and carefree, and started to be a bit of a handful despite the Sisters doing their best to raise her with Christian values. Amanda had other ideas though, as she grew up, she came to know her own mind more, and while she paid lip service to Catholicism in order to avoid punishment, she went about carving her own path, and didn’t really consider herself religious at all.

During her early years, she had found it difficult to make friends in the Orphanage, they kept getting adopted and disappearing, but Amanda didn’t want to be adopted, and so acted up whenever it seemed there might be a threat of adoption. The Nuns soon gave in and Amanda became pretty much a permanent resident, attending the Boarding School that adjoined the complex of buildings.

It was here that Amanda would meet her first true friend before Georgina, but not straight away. At first, Amanda, being the rebel of the school, attracted a motley bunch of characters, the tearaways of the school, who found her way of doing things more attractive then following the rules. They were never really her friends though, she realised looking back on those early years, not like Alicia had been.

As she reminisced about her early years, Amanda veered off the track that led from her cottage and through the wild grasses that brushed past her bare ankles above her trainers and headed towards the tree line a short distance ahead. Amanda had done her best to keep up with her exercises these past few months, picking her time carefully to go for runs. These sessions often took her up and down the sides of steep valleys and Amanda felt in as good a shape as she had ever been in New York, perhaps better then New York with all this fresh air she had been getting. A run round the countryside here turned out to be much more demanding than a run round Central Park could ever be.

Thinking back, as a child, the way Amanda became friends with Alicia had been quite different to how she had befriended Georgina much later on in New York. With Georgina, the friendship had just blossomed from nothing, the only similarity had been that Georgina had been keen to get to know her, just as Alicia had been.

Alicia joined the school after Amanda had been there a good while. Primarily Saint Mary’s worked as a boarding school which wealthy parents sent their children too to give them a good education and a good moral foundation. Alicia had been a child such as this, devoutly religious, good and kind, and a high flyer academically.

She had been a small girl, scrawny with long black hair and fair skin, and a bit of a loner. Amanda didn’t really notice her at first, until Alicia had for some reason chosen to become Amanda’s friend.

The first Amanda knew of Alicia had been when she noticed her watching her and following her about the play area, at a bit of a distance. Amanda found it a little odd at first and it freaked her out a little bit.

By now Amanda had become a bit of a handful, and her normal response to someone doing something she didn’t like to her was to punch them, but something about Alicia stopped her. As the days went on, Alicia followed Amanda about and started to sit next to her in class and even trying to talk to her.

Amanda did her best to put Alicia off and drive her away, although she couldn’t bring herself to hit her or to be really mean to her. Nothing she did worked though, and as the days went on, she soon found herself talking to Alicia and eventually laughing together.

Alicia had always been very patient with Amanda, seeming to understand that Amanda strained under the strict rules of the Convent School. She never chastised Amanda in those early months while Amanda had still very much been a trouble maker. She accepted Amanda as she found her, and it became something that Amanda grew to respect about her new friend.

As the months rolled on, and the pair grew closer, something of Alicia rubbed off on Amanda, just as Georgina’s loves had rubbed off on Amanda later on in New York.

Amanda calmed down and the old friends who flocked to her because of her rebellious ways began to drift away until Amanda didn’t consider them friends any more. Amanda wasn’t the trouble maker she used to be, and although she would never be a Catholic, she knew she didn’t need to be naughty any more either.

She remembered she once asked Alicia why she had chosen to become her friend, and Alicia had said, ‘You looked like you needed one.’

‘But, I had friends,’ Amanda had replied.

‘No Mandy, I don’t think you did. You had a…’ Alicia had paused, apparently searching for the right word or term, eventually she settled on ‘…a Gang. They weren’t your friends Mandy. Not like I am.’

Amanda knew she had been right. Back then, Amanda had not really grasped the full extent of Alicia’s wisdom, a wisdom far beyond her years. Those other kids weren’t really her friends, they had hung out with Amanda because Amanda had been a rebel, but in Alicia, Amanda had found someone she could actually call a friend in the true sense of the word, someone she respected and came to care for. Her ‘Gang’ had quickly dispersed and Amanda found herself left with only one person to hang out with, although she felt happier with one friend then she had ever been with a group of sheep following her around all day.

As she walked through the long grass, thinking of her past, she wondered what Alicia could be doing now, where was she and what might she be doing. Had she become the Nun she had once said she wanted to be? One day she would need to find out, but not yet.

Before long Amanda had reached the edge of the tree line and she paused to glance back at the cottage that sat there, a brown and white building in the midst of all this green. It held so many memories, and so many of them painful ones, it almost seemed to be filled up with the essence of death. Amanda gave a little sigh, knowing she would have to return there later on, she hoped she felt better about the cottage when she did return.

The woods were as magical as Amanda thought they would be in this weather, the dappled light of the sun fell through the canopy and hit the forest floor, falling onto Amanda’s bare shoulders and ruby hair, warming the cool air here. A passer-by might have thought she was some kind of woodland fairy the atmosphere felt so filled with mystery and wonder.

Long grasses rose and fell in arcs on the forest floor while birds sang in the trees to warn other wildlife of Amanda’s passing. Bees and Midges filled the air, lit up like tiny glow flies as the constantly shifting shafts of light hit them here and there all about her. Amanda’s mind had mercifully left behind the thoughts of the cottage and the memories it held, just as she had hoped it would, the walk had seemed to have swept those thoughts away and she concentrated on the terrain ahead of her and of finding her way to the clearing ahead.

The first test of Amanda and Alicia’s friendship had been one evening when Amanda thought it would be a good idea to try and use a Ouija Board.

Amanda had always been fascinated with Mythology and the occult. Anything unknown was of interest to her, and the secrets of the dead were certainly unknown. The mythology of Angels and Hell and other such aspects of Christianity, these things were of interest to her, but she put them on a level with things like Lord of the Rings and other works of fantasy.

Amanda had been in the middle of using the Ouija Board when Alicia walked in on her, and she promptly freaked out on the spot, she started to shout, asking how Amanda could bring a tool of the Devil into a house of God? The commotion brought the Sisters, and Amanda quickly found herself in a world of trouble.

Later, Amanda found Alicia wouldn’t talk to her, but Amanda wouldn’t give up on her one friend, not now. She apologised to Alicia every time she got a chance, and in time, Alicia relented. She even said sorry to Amanda, as she now thought she had over reacted to things and didn’t mean for Amanda to get into so much trouble.

It made Amanda smile to think back to these times, remembering her friend, and how they had perhaps become even closer as friends after this event. Recently her mind had been so preoccupied with Georgina that she had thought of little else, understandably so, but now that burden had been lifted somewhat, she could afford to daydream once more.

It wasn’t far, perhaps a ten or fifteen minute walk through the trees at most, and sure enough, before long she saw the trees thinning and the clearing came into view. Although the trees provided plentiful shade, it was still warm and Amanda had begun to perspire a little bit. She wiped her forehead with the back of her arm as she approached the edge of the clearing, only to look up and see she wasn’t actually alone.

Towards the centre of the clearing a little man stood amongst the grass he moved about in an odd way, with slow sweeping movements. Amanda blinked a little bit and stared out at the man, who had not yet seen her, and felt more than a little shocked that she would find someone here. She had come to see the clearing as her place, and she now felt like it had been violated somewhat, she felt a little confused and offended that someone else would have the gall to trespass. These thoughts only lasted for a moment though it being just as much his and anyone else’s clearing, as it was hers. She had no idea how long this person had been coming here anyway. He might have been visiting this place on and off for years for all she knew, which would certainly make it more his clearing then hers.

For the moment, Amanda looked out over the grasses to get a better look at him and what he seemed to be doing.

To Amanda, the man looked old, perhaps in his fifties or sixties, bald but with a small silvery white goatee beard and moustache. He looked far eastern in appearance, Amanda would guess Chinese maybe, he wore a loose fitting shirt and trousers that also had an oriental air to them. Upon closer inspection it also became self-evident that the man had been going through some kind of Tai Chi routine, or something similar to it anyway. His movements were slow and sure, and incredibly graceful, he moved with the fitness a man half his age might possess, and it became fascinating to watch.

Amanda soon relaxed as she watched the gentleman’s movements, and felt the tension of the walk and of finding someone here in her secret place fall away from her. His steps were slow and purposeful as he crunched down into the golden grass, his hands and arms swept gracefully this way and that, in sweeping movements that looked like some kind of mystical dance full of obscure and esoteric meaning. She felt captivated, and before long Amanda had stepped out from the trees and perched herself on the edge of the tree stump she had first found here to watch.

Amanda had first learnt how to defend herself from Howie back in New York before enrolling in a self-defence class she paid cash for once she had moved out of Howie’s. It had been at this class that she had first come across other forms of Martial Arts and self-defence. The teacher there had known a few forms of Martial Arts and had employed a few other teachers of other forms to come in and give the students other moves they could use. By stealing the best bits from different forms of Martial Arts, so the theory went, it gave the student a more flexible base from which to draw from.

From this beginning that Amanda had begun to take a little more interest in self-defence and Martial Arts in general, although she had never really found time to pursue this interest and their histories other than to buy books that never got read.

It had been months since she had done any Martial Arts, the last time had been back in New York, and since Georgina had passed away, she just didn’t return to it.

Before too long the man came to the end of the routine and finished up. He gathered up his things and headed off away from Amanda towards the edge of the clearing. As he reached the edge, Amanda watching him go, he glanced back at Amanda briefly without stopping before disappearing into the woods.

Amanda blinked, he’d gone, and she felt utterly relaxed and at ease. She had a warm feeling in her chest and forehead and felt like she could just fall right off to sleep. She stood up and stretched herself out, bathed in the warm sunshine and breathing in the clear warm air, it felt like as good a time as any to top up her tan. She wandered out into the clearing a little bit to get into the sun proper and found an area of shorter grass before stripping off her top, shorts and trainers leaving her in a fetching white Bikini. Sitting down, she made a makeshift pillow from her clothes and laid in the sun.

She wondered who that old man could be, it had been an odd thing to find in this rather out of the way clearing. She wondered if he lived in one of the local villages in the area or if he might be a tourist just passing through.

As her thoughts meandered through various passage ways she dozed a little bit but never really fell asleep.

In time, after both her front and back had been suitably baked, she pulled on her shorts and trainers, threw her top over her shoulder and walked back through the woods towards the cottage.

Twenty minutes later she broke the tree line and saw the cottage waiting for her, and gazing upon its low dark form she didn’t see the memories of pain and death she had seen on her way out, instead she saw a warm cottage that had been filled with love and care between two friends who would have done anything for each other. Amanda suddenly felt like the cottage was a home, her home, for the first time since she had been here things felt right. She felt good as the low sun bathed her in its honey glow and she lazily wandered back to her home, a satisfied smile on her lips. She’d do some cleaning up when she got in.