This is my very first fantasy entry, and, I think, first fantasy piece I've written. This is only the first chapter and I'm thinking of extending this into a full novel, but haven't set it in stone in my mind to do so.
The Alliance of Fleetwood Lake
"We have found another one," she said to me over the phone in a serious tone. It being nearly twelve AM, the latest I allowed myself to have conversations on the phone.
"Another what?" I replied, hanging my head upside down from the foot of my bed while peering at an infomercial playing on my tv set as my hair, resembling the shade of dawn, and imitating the ripples of water after skipping a stone, layed on my carpet like a brunette mop.
"Another one of us," she breathed.
My heart quickly fell to the deep pit of my stomach. I must've not heard her correctly, for this could not be true.
"You're kidding," I said softly, worried.
"Not one bit, Seven."
I cannot bring myself to believe what she is telling me. My mind figgity and fogged, I am not able to compile words together to form coherent sentences to her ears.
"Well, um... w-we all weren't expecting this, Lacey." I said with a pseudo-chuckle.
"I guess I will see you guys tomorrow, as usual." I added, not being able to wait much longer to hang up the telephone and end the conversation.
"Yeah, as usual." she replied.
Wonderful thing she cannot read me over the phone, then there would be no way she would have let the conversation end this quickly with my mind being so at edge.
Hesitating to knock the large, maple door, I knew I couldn't stand outside for too long of a time, George would see me soon enough. My hands jittery, I turned one into a fist and reached for a tap on the door where they were behind, waiting.
"That took you long enough, Seven." George said. The door swinging open only miliseconds before I would have knocked.
George, Lacey, and three other members of the Alliance sat on the floor, with anxious expressions masked on their faces, and no one being directly behind the door.
"Wow, you look pale," Lacey said as I sat down next her on the beige colored carpet.
"Well, paler than usual," Geoge said laughing. His soft green eyes squinting from his own humor. Lacey then gave him a light nudge to the side with her elbow for making such a remark.
Unlike Lacey, I liked that he made a joke. For a split second, it made me forget about what, or rather who, is approaching.
For the atmosphere being undeniably thick in the room, it makes it quite tough for anyone to make light conversation.
"Seven, calm down." Lacey whispered into my ear, her voice soft and honey-like smooth while patting my hand.
I replied to her nicely intended command with a slight nod, but the truth remains; I cannot calm myself down. I am incredibly nervous and afraid of the unknown near future. I was supposed to be the final one to enter into the Alliance; number seven. Now, there will be someone else added to the equation.
The room become silent as George began to nod off, his blond head hanging forward. He is the one that supplies most of the rustle and chatter in highly tense moments like these, and Lacey is the one to order her boyfriend to quiet down and to take things more seriously.
"Can you see anything about the new comer?" I asked Chester, the closest thing to a leader our group has. He was sitting with his head down and concentrating until I provoked him to speak.
Raising his head at me, I couldn't see his eyes from under his raven-haired bang, making it impossible for anyone to see his expressions to predict what was going through his mind. Anyone but Lacey. One of her skills include reading peoples' thoughts and identifying their emotions, even while they could be deeply embedded within themselves.
"All I know is that the person is around seventeen or eighteen, that they haven't lived here for very long, and, of course, that Patrick is leading them back here as we speak." Chester said, exhaling deep frustration.
Everyone, minus the dreary George, stared at Chester with wide eyes, as though a light bulb would arise atop of his head and he will quickly figure out how to fix the difficult problem of an equation.
"I thought you said Seven was the last one left here," said a small, ginger-haired boy abruptly.
"She was!" Chester replied bitterly after the boy questioned his knowledge. "Like I said, this new person has not been here very long, Al."
After my first week of school here in Fleetwood Lake, which filled with the repetition of my embarassing first name, awkward lunch periods alone, and the constant wishing of going back to the place I called "Home," a short, curly blonde-haired girl bombarded me as I walked towards home in my neighborhood on a brisk winter afternoon. It was like she traveled faster than the speed of sound. I didn't hear nor see her approaching.
She told me that I was not like most people. Flushed with red and insulted, I and yearned to push the girl aside for me to finally reach home. The girl leaped behind me, as though she knew of my wanting to knock her out of my way, and pleaded. "I didn't mean it in a bad way! It's just-- you can do things."
"Things like what?" I asked, not knowing what to think of the strange, small girl.
"You are capable of special abilities, like me." the girl said. "I don't know which kind of skills you posses, that's for my friend to figure out, but I am able to know what goes through someone's head... and I know that you're becoming pretty skeptical right now, but I can also heal things." the girl brought her short legs to a halt, turning her head from side to side, she shouted "Where is a dead leaf?"
Puzzled, what for I thought.
"Because I can demonstrate to you what I am talking about."
Lucky guess. Anyone would have automatically thought that.
The curly-haired girl giggled. "You're funny," she said. "Lucky guess. Anyone would have automatically thought that." she repeated mockingly.
I was then convinced.
"Who are you?" I asked with extreme curiousity.
"My name is Lacey Twarby," she introduced herself. "I am your age; sixteen." she added, not needing an indication of how old I was. "No, I do not go to your school. I have a tutor that comes to my place and teaches me."
"Alright," I said, not knowing what else to say to the odd, witch girl.
"I would ask your name in return," Lacey said, nearing closer to me. "But I already know it: Juliet." she gave a sweet smile. "And you don't like that name very much."
Confused whether to speak with her telepathically through my inner thoughts or to communicate with verbal words, I then commented 'No, not really."
Lacey grinnded wider, saying "And I already know why."
After that encounter, Lacey and I conversed more, and she told me to meet her along with a good friend of hers at the local park a mile or so from my house. This friend was Chester, and he told me in more and better details about what exactly I was and how they, the Alliance, had been waiting for me. Not me particularly, but for the seventh one in the geographical area.
All of what he was telling me sounded like an arranged prank, but I was convinced of Lacey's powers from the previous day.
"Oh!" Lacey cried, happily. "There's a dead leaf."
She then showed me what she had intended to demonstrate to me the day before. She picked up the brown, crinkled maple leaf and hovered her right palm only centimeters above it. Closing her eyes, she concentrated, and within a few seconds the leaf unfoiled and reversed back to its living, healthy, green color.
"Wow, so in what amount of time will it take for me to learn how to do that?" I joked.
Looking back at me, Chester answered. "Soon enough."
"What will happen now that there is eight of us?" Marie, the most reserved one of the group asked, nervously pulling on a strand of her oak-colored hair.
"I'm not sure. I guess we'll have to accept another person, though it is tradition to have seven members in a Druid Alliance in a certain area." Chester replied, rising up his tall, lanky body in stance. " repeating some of the lines he told me the way he, Lacey, and I spoke in the park. "I guess we'll have to wait until Patrick arrives with the eighth one."
"I hope it's a cute girl, so I can, you know, reel her in and give her a ride on the Al-tastic Voyage."
"Ha!" George said, awakening. "Alfred, the day an attractive girl finds interest in you is the day Hell freezes over."
"Shut up," Al said.
"How about you make me, little kid?" he replied.
"My pleas--"
"Cut it out!" Lacey yelled, covering her ears with both hands. "Don't do this again, and definitely don't do this now."
George, looking pleafully at his girlfriend. "Sorry," he apologized in a whisper.
Suddenly, George became a dog, and his ears perked up the same way one's would when a door man or pizza delivery guy came to the front door. "They're here."
Acting more swiftly than anyone else, I stood up, demanding the door to open up by the power of my mind channeled through my opened right hand directed towards the knob. Obeying, the door swung open once again.
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