Arabelle

Chapter 21- Ian II

Ian’s POV

Long after mum had told me I was a witch, I was still looking at her like she was a crazy loon, the only reason I had told her that was because I had seen everything for myself, I had seen the crystal ball glow when it came close to me and I had seen the glow intensify when I had picked it up and I had felt the energy within me,

“I know this is hard for you accept and process but the sooner you accept it the easier it will be, this is something that is going to part of you for the rest of your life” Mum said to me,

I looked at her like she had completely lost it, she was telling me to accept that I was a witch and I will remain so for the rest of my life, it’s not like she was telling me to accept that I was grounded for a week or that I was not going to have a birthday party this year, she was telling me to accept that I was a witch, this was mind blowing,

She stood up and walked over to me, she placed her hands on my shoulders then she looked into my eyes, and in those eyes that held sincerity, I found comfort.

“I am sorry Ian, this is happening to you because of me, it’s all my fault that you will have to live with this burden for the rest of your life, you don’t deserve to live like this and for that I am sorry” she said, her eyes misted and she looked like she was going to cry,

I felt my heart break for her, I didn’t want my mother being sad, she was the woman I loved the most in the entire world and her happiness mattered to me a whole lot,

I managed a smile and said “Well having magic isn’t all so bad, I get to be like Harry Potter only way more handsome than he ever was”

Mum smiled and said “What did I ever do to get a son a great as you?”

I shrugged casually and said “Just being you I guess, no one is as cool as you in my books” I gave her one my dashing smiles which I knew she loved so much,

Mum smiled and pulled me into a hug which I gladly returned, we remained like that for a few minutes before we finally pulled away,

“I have a lot to tell you and you also have a lot to learn” Mum said, a beautiful smile on her even more beautiful face,

“I am ears and I always loved to learn new things” I said with a smile.

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“Magic is another form of energy, it’s not something that you should treat as something foreign, as for you that was born with magic, it is a part of you just like eating, sleeping or any other everyday task you carry out, it flows in your blood and your magic is connected to all those who had magic before you, you can access the magic of your ancestors because the blood that flows in your veins is the same as the one that flowed in theirs.

Magic is something that you must learn to control because if you fail to control it, it spirals out of control and it can destroy even the one that wields it, so you must gain control before you can master any spell or any other form of magic, today you will learn to control your mood, temper, feelings, emotions and even heart rate, all these things affect your magic, the magic of our ancestors depend solely on these things, you have to always be in control of the things you feel at all times, this is the most difficult type of magic to use because your feelings are the most unpredictable thing in the world, so this will be the first thing you learn, once you can control your magic under any situation then you won’t have a problem learning magic.” Mum said,

I was standing in one the rooms in our house, it was the room that was farthest to the others, it was secluded from the rest and it was located on the top floor, no one ever came here, not even the maids, mum had always asked that the room be left alone, I now understood why, it was filled with strange things, things that looked supernatural at first glance, I was wondering for how long they had been kept in here, and for long mum had dabbled in witchcraft.

“Can I ask you a question Mum?” I said,

“Sure darling, go ahead” she said,

“How long have you had all these? It doesn’t look like you got them recently, it’s like you had them in anticipation of something like this” I said,

Mum smiled, it was a smile that looked like it had many stories behind it, stories that I was dying to hear, I felt they all had a connection to the bedtime story she had told me many years back, the same one she had once told me was not just a story that night when she had that nightmare many years ago, after that night, I had not heard her cry or call out to anyone in her sleep anymore so I just figured the matter was done and dusted but it seemed like it was just the beginning.

Mum sat down on one of the chairs in the room and gestured for me to sit down as well, which I did “Remember I said I have a lot to tell you, well perhaps I should tell you now, and it’s a very long story, better to start somewhere” she said with a smile,

I simply nodded and waited for her to begin her story, the curiosity I felt was maddening, I had never felt so curious about anything in my whole life,

“Well, my story started 400 years ago, back then I was known as Lady Samantha Highwater, but only became that when I married my then husband, lord Albert Highwater, I was born into one of the high class families back then, the Melrose family, my family had a long history of witches and witchcraft but of course this part of our family history was kept secret from outsiders, back then when magic was practiced freely, my family was famed for our great magical skills but as time went on, magic became a thing people feared and witches were hunted and killed or burnt at the stake, so we learnt to hide what we truly were, the magic was usually passed from one generation to the next, it was usually more common in the females and it did manifest in the males, that turned to be very powerful just like you, there have not been a male witch in our family for centuries, it usually passed on to the females of our bloodline but when it came to me, my mother found out that I was born without magic, she was grateful because she didn’t want me to live all my life hiding like she had, she wanted me to live my life just like everyone else without having to live with the fear of being hunted and killed but I was stubborn and drawn to magic, I may not have been able to actually do magic but I was born with the ability of knowing magic, my mother hid all the books on magic away from me but somehow, I always ended up finding them, from a very young age, I knew what spell to use to perform a particular magic, when my mother saw that it was hopeless trying to hide the books from me, she finally let me have my way and even taught me everything she knew about magic, so you could say I knew the theoretical part of magic and had no idea on the practical part” she smiled,

I remained quiet and listened attentively as she continued her story,

“Then it was time for me to get married, I got married to a man I loved and we were happy, a year into our marriage, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, she was beautiful and perfect, she had the most beautiful eyes, even as a child, she was always smiling, we called her Arabelle”

I finally understood who Arabelle was now and why she affected mum so much, even now as she was telling me this story, her eyes were beginning to fill up with tears, whatever happened to Arabelle must have been very bad, because mum was always sad whenever Arabelle came up,

“Arabelle grew up to be a very beautiful child, her beauty was almost otherworldly, she looked more like her father than me, she had his blue eyes and ebony black hair, I loved her dearly, then my husband passed away in a hunting accident, Arabelle was just 9 years old then, I was devastated and very sad, but I had to stay strong for the sake of Arabelle,

A few months after Arabelle’s father died, I noticed that Arabelle was beginning to show signs of having magic, I couldn’t be sure so I decided to prove my theory just like I had done with you, that crystal ball I had used to check if you had magic or not is called kyzec, it is used to verify if a person has magic or not and how strong a person’s magic is, in your case was the second most powerful magic I have felt in my own lifetime, Arabelle’s magic was the strongest I ever felt, her power had broken the kyzec apart and that was when I knew I was in trouble, Arabelle’s power was not one that could we could just leave lying dormant, the magic would have  consumed her, it would have become too much for her to handle so I had to teach her, I taught mostly how to control her magic just like you will learn, for people with strong magic you must learn control first and that was what Arabelle learnt, I didn’t teach her much, just basic spells that could keep her safe, I didn’t want her getting caught and killed, from a very young age Arabelle learnt that she must keep her true identity secret and she hid it very well.

As Arabelle grew older, she became even more beautiful and I feared that this will attract people to her and this will inevitably result in her true identity being found out but Arabelle was not the type you could tame, she was as wild as she was beautiful, when it was time for her to be introduced into society, she was welcomed warmly, she was a topic of fancy among the  men and a topic of jealousy among the women but Arabelle didn’t care about them, only one caught her eye, lord Richard Blackwood, Richard was the heir to Blackwood back then, a handsome young man, he was considered a prize to anyone woman who ended up marrying him, but he also only had eyes for one woman and that was Arabelle, they had loved each other dearly but I always feared if he found out the truth about who Arabelle was, he would reject and scorn her, but for the sake of Arabelle’s happiness, I kept my fears hidden.

One day, Arabelle came to me and told me that she wanted to tell Richard who she was, I was surprised that she could say such a thing after all the warnings I had given her, I tried to talk her out of it but she told me that she could not go lying to Richard since he had been nothing but honest with her and that if he truly loved her as he claimed he did then he will accept her for she was, I tried convincing her but as a said, Arabelle was a girl with her own will, she could not be tamed, so as she left home that day to go and see Richard, I sat home in fear and awaited Arabelle’s return, the moment she returned, I rushed over to her and found that she was smiling, she hugged me warmly and told me that Richard had accepted her and still loved as she was, I was glad because I really felt that Richard was a good boy and that he will take care of my dear Arabelle, but I was wrong, never had I been so wrong about anything in my whole life, till this day, I wish that I had stopped them from getting married, maybe just maybe things would have turned out differently”