Young Writers Society

Looking back, it had all started when her father had been diagnosed, almost a year ago now, she thought, though in the wake of all the days since she couldn’t remember the very first day he had come home from the hospital looking grim. Or maybe it hadn’t started then. Maybe it had started when she found the loose picket in the tall, solid wooden fence that enclosed her tiny backyard, a single plank of wood that swung up on a single nail, creating a gap through which she had escaped to the dense Ohio woods beyond. Her woods.

Or maybe it was both beginnings. If either one had never happened, she, Madeline, would have never been perched in a crook of her favorite old ash tree by the creek, crying silently that spring morning. She would never have heard that twig snap, or the rustle of the honeysuckle bushes.

But she did hear it. And the moment she heard it, she bolted upright, swallowing her sobs in an instant and brushing the tears out of her eyes. Whatever was moving, it was big. Bears could climb trees, and if it was a bear she would have to —

The dark figure pushed through the bushes into full view, picking its way along the bank. It was a woman, not a bear, but Madeline still didn’t move. These were her woods. Nobody else came here, especially not this far away from any of the trails. So what was this woman doing here?

Whoever she was, she was tall and lithe, with stiff, straight black hair that just brushed her shoulders. Wearing a beautiful red dress made from a fabric unlike anything Madeline had ever seen, she looked completely out of place in the tranquil forest. But she moved with an unearthly confidence that made Madeline shrink back among the leaves of the ash tree.

Please don’t see me, she begged of the woman on the ground.

And although the woman paused for a moment, casting a sweeping glance across the creek, she didn’t look up before moving on.

Madeline watched her go, unable to tear her eyes away. Something was stirring inside her. Some awareness. It stretched out and seemed to find a link to something Madeline had never known was missing, a sixth sense completely different from what she sometimes thought of as her woods-instinct. It swelled in her, a dim but heady sense of… something. What?

It didn’t make any sense. But the woman was going, and whatever it was, it was going too, rushing away and leaving her emptier than before. Madeline bit her lip, breath drawn in thought.

Then she crept along the branch of the old ash tree and swung down to the soft ground.

She followed the woman for nearly half an hour along the bed of the stream, concealing herself behind bushes and moving silently. It wasn’t until they were nearly there that Madeline realized the woman was heading for Pirate’s Cove, a clearing where the stream spilled into a tiny pond and swirled around before being swept away again. Madeline called it Pirate’s Cove because of that pond, and because of the large rock formation that, if you looked at it from just the right angle, looked just like the wreckage of a pirate ship smashed up against the shore, with a scraggly tree growing where the mast would be.

There was no cover in the clearing, so Madeline pressed herself against a thick oak tree at the edge, peering out between the leaves of a young shrub.

At the sight of the pool and the rock formation, the woman smiled, sharp and satisfied. A shiver ran down Madeline’s spine. What does she want with my Cove? She gripped the trunk of the oak more tightly.

The woman stopped at the base of the rocks and stood very still, eyes closed in concentration. Once again, Madeline felt a rush of power, almost a presence gathering here, centered on the tall, striking figure, faint but building to a crescendo.

The woman’s hands snapped up, darting this way and that, moving faster than Madeline could follow as if in a strange ritual dance. Within seconds, she made a final slashing movement, then pushed down into the earth with both hands. A low humming rumbled in Madeline’s chest.

One moment, nothing was there — just the rocks and the moss and the strange woman standing in front of them — and the next it was as if a sliver of the void had opened beside the rocks, a jagged oval so black, it looked like an error in reality itself, gaping wide.

Despite herself, Madeline gasped.

The woman was smiling again. And then she turned her head and looked right where Madeline was hiding.

“I know you’re there, child,” the woman said. Her voice was low and percussively musical.

Madeline didn’t move. A hundred questions exploded in her mind, but also the knowledge that she was alone in the woods with a strange woman, with no one to hear her if she cried for help.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve known you were following me since the start. You’re curious. Come and see.” And she raised a hand and beckoned with welcoming eyes.

Madeline swallowed, fixed on the black void, the possibilities itching at her. She took a careful step around the tree and approached the woman. “Who are you?”

“My name is Nadra.”

“Are you human?”

She laughed at that. “Yes.”

Madeline hesitated, not sure whether to believe her. “What is that?” she asked, pointing at the void.

“A portal to another world.”

“How did you make it?” Madeline asked, although in her gut, she already knew.

“Magic.”

Magic. The word thrilled through Madeline. It put a name to what she felt, the tingling power radiating from the... portal.

"How?" And, unspoken, Can you teach me?

Sorrow and something like anger flashed across Nadra's face, so quickly Madeline couldn't tell if she had imagined it.

"Practice," she said shortly. "Go ahead, take a closer look, but I'm running out of time before it closes. Don't touch it."

With a backwards glance at the woman, Madeline took a step forward and around the portal, looking at it from every direction. It was so black she couldn't tell how thick it was, or if it was a flat plane. She closed her eyes, trying to sense the magic. There was a structure there, a pattern...

She took another step forward. Her foot came down on a loose rock and turned. A sharp pain shot up her ankle and she staggered, crying out, almost catching herself. For a split second, she hung on the verge. Her eyes flew open just in time to see her outstretched hand touch the portal. Then darkness rushed up and swallowed her.

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A/N - Hi guys! So this is the start of Draft 3 of Mixing Magic. I originally wrote this prologue for fun and don't know if I'll include it in the story proper, so telling me your thoughts on it as a story starter, what it makes you expect and all of that, will be really helpful. I don't think I'll post the whole draft here, but I'd love some feedback on the first few chapters, and if you want to read the whole thing just let me know and I'll send it to you when it's done. :)