The Daughters of Tomorrow

Lightning struck the night sky as Farah stepped onto the field, her sisters close behind her. For several days they have been preparing for this. They were now the last ones of their kind, and so it was up to them to stop him. As thunder rumbled and the storm drew closer, Farah’s hand fell to her stomach. She thought about her unborn child and guilt swept through her. She would be using both of their energy to stop this threat, meaning that not only were they the last witches at this point in time, but they would also be the last to exist for the rest of time as this spell would take all of their magic. Farah had wanted so badly for her son to have the same upbringing she had, but sadly this was not possible. “He approaches.” Said Destiny, breaking the silence and pulling Farah from her reverie “Wait! Are we ready?” Calliope asked. Yes, join hands now. Don’t let anything distract you once we begin. He won’t win this time.” Farah answered. They joined their hands and Farah looked at both of her sisters knowingly. “I love you”. “We love you” they answered. The sisters started chanting, they were determined for their spell to work. Now that the storm was close enough they drew from its energy, they would need all the power they could get. They needed to drain Hadeon of his power so that they could weaken him and damn him to a prison that he would not be able to escape from without his magic. As they chanted louder and louder the earth started to shake, and the ground began to open until the middle of the field was nothing but a giant endless pit. Hadeon was getting closer now, not even noticing that the closer he got to them the weaker he was becoming as their spell sucked the energy from him bit by bit until there was nothing left. By the time he realised what was happening to him it was too late, he was weak enough now for the spell to take him over completely and suck him into the abyss. Once the ground had swallowed him the sisters sealed the hole and sealed Hadeon’s fate, which unfortunately meant sealing their own as they would now be living a life without magic. A life that they had never known before. 400 Years Later London Henrietta was woken up by the sound of her alarm ringing. Today was the day. She got out of bed and headed straight for the shower, she would get ready and leave straight away. She didn’t think she could stomach eating any breakfast while she felt so nervous and excited. Her suitcase was packed and waiting for her by the door, once she was dressed and organised she put on her shoes and took one last look at her tiny home. Her parents had bought this place for her two years ago so that she would have a place of her own, they were truly amazing. They knew what her dreams were and they had done everything they possibly could to help her achieve them. They would take care of this place once she was gone, and most likely sell it. She would miss it, and she would miss her parents dearly even though she would be calling them every chance she got. She couldn’t believe that her application at Stone Publishing had actually been a success, and after a series of video interviews she was actually given a position. She had never even had a job before and now.. She would have her own office! The taxi she had called and organised the day before had arrived and a loud honk pulled her focus back to the here and now. She closed the door behind her and ran out to the car, she was now officially headed to the airport to start her new life. New York Evelyn had been cleaning for Magnolias since she was 17 years old. The boss, Carly, had taken pity on her after a while and actually took Evelyn in. It was the first place that Evelyn actually felt safe and she could never thank Carly enough for that. She couldn’t believe that three whole years had gone by already. Her mother had died when she was 12, and her father had decided that alcohol was the best cure for his grief. It worked for a while, but eventually it turned his grief into anger and then it became torture to live with him. By the time she was 14 she had decided that one day she would find a way to save up enough money and run away, but no one was willing to hire her until she found Carly. And after a short amount of time Carly had grown to love Evelyn. They have been bestfriends ever since, and so it was hard for Evelyn to move out. But she’d been engaged to Mark for 6 months now and had been putting off moving out for a year prior to that. She just didn’t feel ready to leave her safe space yet, not that Mark didn’t make her feel safe.. it was just that living with Carly had been her first piece of calmness. Evelyn was getting ready for work when she felt a headache come on quite suddenly. She thought for a second that the ground had shook underneath her, but she was sure it was just in her head. She brushed her teeth and tied her hair into a bun before leaving the bathroom and grabbing her bag from Marks bed. As she walked into the kitchen she was greeted by her favourite person, who was handing her a coffee. “Good Morning, my love” Mark beamed, before giving her a quick kiss. “Good Morning and thank you for the coffee” she replied. “Are you staying here again tonight?” He asked, hopefully. “I think so, but I’ll be popping home after work to see Carly. I’ll be back by 6 and we can have dinner.” She said. And with that Evelyn gave Mark another kiss and headed out the door to walk to work. Her first job of the day was at Stone Publishing, which thankfully wasn’t very far from Marks place at all. Two blocks at most. As she walked, Evelyn noticed her headache worsening. She stopped on the sidewalk for a moment to - hopefully - dig some aspirin out of her bag, when suddenly she thought she felt the ground shaking once more. She looked at her surroundings and everyone else was going about their day as normal, she thought maybe she was just dizzy. Forgetting about the aspirin, she continued walking to work. She planned on napping today on her lunch break, hoping it would make her feel better. Ten minutes later, Evelyn approached the doors of Stone Publishing. When she arrived she headed straight for the janitors closest so she could get the things she needed in order to start her cleaning. As she walked down the hallways and approached a corner, someone bumped into her. They both fell to the floor and locked eyes, and all of a sudden they were caught in a trance. There was a man. There was a man with pale skin and red eyes looking out in the distance. He seemed distracted. His lips were dry and flaky as if he was dehydrated. He moved his head an inch to the left and suddenly his eyes met the girls. He smiled a cruel, evil smile. The vision disappeared and the girls came to, looking at eachother in shock. Evelyn noticed that the other girls nose was bleeding, and touching her upper lip she realised that hers was bleeding too. Henrietta was in shock. “Oh my god, what was that!?” She nearly shouted. “Wait, did you see him too?” Evelyn asked, urgently. “Who was he?” Henrietta said. They stared at eachother for a moment and then all too quickly, Evelyn decided that this was too weird for her. “Look I’m sorry about bumping into you, I’m not sure what that was but I think we should just forget about it. I’m sure it was just nothing.” Henrietta did not know how to respond, she wasn’t sure what happened either and she didn’t know if she wanted to find out. So she let Evelyn walk away and they both hoped that they wouldn’t see eachother again. Besides it was Henriettas first day at her dream job and she had been suffering with an awful headache all morning. She wanted to take some aspirin and finish settling into her office. She would pretend that she had never bumped into that strange girl and go about her day as normal. Henrietta had a horrible first day. She was so distracted by what happened earlier that she could barely focus on any of her work, causing her to make mistakes left, right and centre. What had happened? Why had she seen a frightening man? Who was that girl she had run into? When the working day finally came to an end, Henrietta was glad to be heading home. When she had gotten the job at Stone Publishing her parents had stayed up all night with her, helping her find the perfect apartment. They had bought it for her. Her family was very wealthy and they had always been very generous when it came to helping Henrietta with whatever she had needed. Once she was inside she decided a shower was exactly what she needed to calm her nerves, and then she would have some dinner and go straight to bed. Grabbing a towel from her suitcase and an oversized t-shirt, she made her way to the bathroom. Once she had adjusted the water temperature and stepped inside she decided that before dinner she would unpack a few of her things. She had only packed one very large suitcase, but her parents had previously shipped over everything else she would come to need. However, Henrietta had not felt like unpacking any of it after her 8 hour flight and so she had just been taking what she needed from her suitcase in the meantime. She would have to do something about that. Once she had washed herself she stepped out of the shower and began drying herself, and as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror a flashback of that cruel mans face shocked her and she tripped over her bath mat, grabbing the towel rack and stopping herself before she could fall completely. Who was that man and why was he haunting her mind? She put her t-shirt on and called to order Chinese for dinner, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Then instead of unpacking, she decided that she would try her best to find answers on google about visions and nosebleeds, even though she thought the whole thing was ridiculous. She couldn’t help but feel like someone had to know something.. Evelyn arrived at Marks place at 5:30pm after a long day of scrubbing toilets and mopping floors. Her head still ached despite having taken aspirin multiple times throughout the day and she had only given a small amount thought to the girl from earlier, and to the strange vision she may or may not have shared with said girl. Evelyn had pushed any thoughts in regard to those things to the back of her mind, as best as she could. As she approached Marks front door the most wonderful smell was emitting from inside the apartment. Evelyn already knew that he was cooking her favourite meal. She hoped he would be able to distract her from everything that had happened today, and he was already off to a good start. She opened the door to find Mark standing at the stove, and he quickly turned to greet her with her favourite smile. “Hi gorgeous! How was your day?” “Much better now, how did you know I was in the mood for beef stroganoff?” She asked, while walking over to wrap her arms around him. As she rested her head on his chest and he pulled her closer to him he said “I just wanted to do something nice for my special girl”. She didn’t know what she would do without Mark. He was her rock, she felt immediately calmed by his presence. And Mark felt the exact same way toward her. “I have to go and shower after cleaning all day, then we can eat. I’ve missed you.” she pecked Mark on the lips before heading towards the bathroom. “I’ve missed you. Dinner will be ready by the time you are done, sweetheart” he answered. As Evelyn entered the bathroom she felt a sudden wave of anxiety wash over her. She looked into the mirror expecting to see herself, but instead she caught a glimpse of the man she had seen earlier. She leaned against the sink, using it to hold herself up while she took deep breaths to calm herself down. She did not know what she would say to Mark if he had asked her what was wrong, so she was determined to collect herself before she left that bathroom. She turned on the shower and got in. She decided she would wear one of Marks shirts once she was done, that would make her feel so much better. Then after a good nights sleep she would revisit today’s events in the morning, and decide whether she was being crazy or not. There was a knock at the door, “Is everything okay, my love?” Mark called as if he had some sort of psychic link to her and knew she was upset. “Yes, I’ll only be one more minute!” She said as she turned off the tap. Henrietta woke up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle her second day at Stone Publishing. She had arrived an hour early so she could get a head start on her work, but as she entered the building her throbbing headache returned and as she made her way down the hallway she saw a familiar face. The girl from yesterday was vacuuming the hallway. Henrietta started towards her, just as the girl looked up and jumped in surprise. “Hi, I was hoping we could talk?” She asked. And before the girl could respond Henrietta continued “my name is Henrietta, we bumped into eachother yesterday. I’m not sure what happened with that and google wasn’t much of a help to me, but I’m new here and I don’t want people thinking I’m weird before I’ve even started. So I was hoping we could just put it behind us?” A small smile started to pull at the girls lips, followed by a giggle. “Did you really google yesterday’s events?” She responded cooly “Well yes, I know it sounds ridiculous. But I rarely get headaches and my nose never bleeds so I guess I tried to connect them to that weird vision thing that happened.” “Wait,” said Evelyn “you’re having headaches too?” “Yes, and strangely enough they get worse when I enter this building.” Henrietta laughed “I’m sure it’s just jet lag, I flew in from London two days ago.” “That’s strange. I’ve been having headaches since yesterday aswell, completely out of no where. Let me ask you, does it sometimes feel like the ground is shaking, but when you look up no one else has noticed it?” Evelyn said, almost whispering now. “Well..” Henrietta started and then paused looking down.. “actually, yes.” “Okay, I wasn’t going to read anymore into this but now I’m curious. What did you find on google?” “I didn’t find much, but just as I was about to give up I found something about a something or someone called ‘The Keeper’. Apparently he’s some kind of being that knows everything and keeps the secrets of the universe. But I figure it’s just some kind of Myth or story, I normally wouldn’t think twice about this sort of thing but nothing so strange has happened to me before. And I swear the man we saw came to me in my bathroom mirror last night!” Henrietta answered, surprisingly calm. Evelyn was shocked. She had experienced the same thing. After a moment of silence Henrietta spoke. “Do you think I’m crazy?” “No, oh god, of course not. I was just taking what you said in, listen last night that man came to me in my bathroom mirror too. I know this is all strange and I have no idea who he is or why we’ve both seen him. But maybe we should do some more research about this ‘keeper’ person. Are you free tonight?” Evelyn answered. “I guess I could make some time.” “Okay, I’m Evelyn by the way”. And so the girls made plans to meet at Henriettas apartment, Evelyn she thought that best since she lived with Carly and didn’t want Mark to overhear what they were talking about before she knew what was going on herself. They decided that they would try and find The Keeper, and hopefully they would get some answers. In the meantime they went about their day normally, Henrietta went straight to her office and put all of her focus into her work and Evelyn moved onto her next Job at a restaurant a few blocks away. They both noticed their headaches easing up, and while Henrietta wondered if Evelyn was the source of her headache, Evelyn wondered the same thing about her. It was now 3 o’clock in the afternoon and Evelyn had forgotten to tell Mark that she might not be back in time for dinner, she sent him a quick text message promising to see him tomorrow and headed home to shower and change before her rendezvous with Henrietta. Carly was on the couch when she arrived. “Well hello there stranger, funny seeing you here” she said with a grin. “Hi! Where were you yesterday? I stopped by to hang for a while before heading back to Marks.” “I had to stay back a bit and do some paperwork at the office, did I tell you we let Abby go? Now I have some extra work to do until I find a replacement.” Carly answered. “You could of called me, I’m happy to take on some of the extra work. You shouldn’t do it all yourself.” “I’ll keep that in mind, so are you home this evening Evie?” “Yes, but I am ducking out to see a friend for a while. Don’t wait up!” “I never do.” Evelyn headed to her room to grab a change of clothes before starting the shower, her body was sore from work today and she was feeling stressed. As she entered the bathroom her phones buzzed, it was a text from Mark. I will miss you. See you tomorrow. She would miss him too. She decided she would linger in the shower for a while before she made her way to Henrietta’s place. Henrietta arrived home at 4 o’clock, Evelyn had said she would be here for 4:30 which gave her some time to shower and change beforehand. She hurried herself, quickly washing, drying and dressing and then she made her way to the kitchen to prepare a couple of snack for her guest, but she quickly realised that she had not yet been shopping. She grabbed her phone to order a pizza, not long after she hung up there was a knock at her door. Evelyn was here and Henrietta couldn’t help but feel a tad nervous. She opened the door to find Evelyn holding a pizza, and her mouth fell open. “Oh, do you not like pizza? I’m sorry I just thought the least I could do was bring something” Evelyn said after noticing the look on Henriettas face. “No, I love pizza! It’s just that I already ordered us one and it’s on its way” she laughed. Evelyn couldn’t help but join in the laughter, “they say great minds think alike”. “Exactly! And at least we won’t go hungry” Henrietta breathed. “Anyways, I guess we could get started on this research. I’m not sure that we will find much. You would think that an ancient being with all the answers would be hard to track down” Henrietta exclaimed. “Yes, well, all we can do is try” They researched for hours, reading about witches, demons, The Keeper and the power of storms. They got to know eachother a bit inbetween searches, Evelyn was surprised to hear that they actually had several things in common. She was also surprised that Henrietta had never had a boyfriend or even a first kiss. Henrietta was beautiful, she was kind and so far she was very funny. Evelyn found it hard to believe that no one had shown any interest in her. Eventually they decided to give research a rest. They had come up empty handed when searching for ways to find The Keeper, and how to get in contact with him. “This was a long shot anyway, I think with all the strange things that happened we were just hoping for any kind of explanation. We knew he might not be real” said Evelyn “I know, but I can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed. We didn’t get any answers about our problems at all.” “You’re right, but the night wasn’t a total loss. I had fun hanging out.” Henrietta smiled at Evelyns words, she was right. They had sort of become friends. They exchanged numbers before Evelyn left, and Henrietta smiled as she got in bed and thought about the fact that she had made her very first friend in New York. Evelyn smiled on her way home, and she realised that she hadn’t had a headache since earlier that morning. Maybe they could put that nonsense behind them now and just focus on being friends, after all the man had not shown himself to them again and the whole thing was just seeming crazier and crazier the more Evelyn thought about it. When she got home and into her pjs, she climbed into bed and opened her laptop. She decided she would do one last bit of research about the keeper, and when she found nothing she would put the whole thing behind her. She typed ‘The Keeper’ into google search one last time. Several links showed up, all links they had previously clicked on and read through so she scrolled until she noticed one that she hadn’t already looked at. Once she clicked on the link it took her to a brown page at the top and bottom of the page were different numbers and in the middle there was a riddle. What has roots that nobody sees, Is taller than trees, Up, up it goes And yet it never grows? She decided she would ask Henrietta about the riddle in the morning. For now she would get some rest.