My day began with Natasha frantically banging on my door. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and slowly got dressed. I was trying to forget the events of yesterday. I had shoved the sword underneath my bed after I had finished my breakdown. I wanted to use it, yes, but what could a stick of iron do against a magic spell?
I opened the door and Natasha beamed at me.
‘Did your parents get here last night?’ I asked tiredly.
‘Yeah, I did knock to say goodbye but you must have been asleep,’ she said, almost confused.
‘What time was that?’
‘Four o’clock.’
Oh. So I’d passed out after shoving my face into my pillow. Great. I really was pathetic.
‘Anyway,’ Natasha said, starting again, ‘Steven said to come get you, we’re going shopping.'
I felt like I wanted to groan and jump up and down in excitement at the same time. Shopping with Grandad. Like a normal family.
‘Wait,’ I said abruptly, ‘so this is the day we get our wands?’
Natasha’s eyes noticeably lit up. ‘Yeah!’
The two of us took the lift down to the lobby, and we found Maltor and Grandad waiting there for us. Maltor and I stared at each other darkly. A horrible feeling swept through my body, and for a moment I saw a dark figure hovering over me, holding two swords. I shook my head frantically. Please don’t let these vision things become a regular occurrence.
‘First of all,’ Grandad started, quickly glancing at me, ‘we need to get the three of you wands. There’s a road not too far from here for magical equipment so that’s where we will get you your things.’
He smiled. The three of us smiled back. Now was our time to complete our integration stage. We would buy our wands and finally fit in.
We filed out onto the main street, where Grandad wordlessly turned right, and Natasha, Maltor, and I followed.
‘Are you okay, by the way?’ Natasha asked quietly, but not quietly enough for Maltor to not hear. I heard him scoff lightly.
‘I’m fine, don’t worry about me,’ I replied, scowling. ‘Just adjusting to…everything.’
The four of us walked purposefully down the road, making a few turns until we reached what originally looked like a normal street, but was definitely the strangest looking road I had ever seen. The buildings were all of different shapes, sizes, colours, and materials. One building seemed to literally just be a triangular prism made of grey wood.
The sky looked glossy here as though we were looking at it through a dirty window. Everybody else hurrying about didn’t seem to notice, but it made me feel trapped, almost as though I were a spider looking at the world through a glass. The street did have quite a few people on it, but not as many as the main street that The Tower was situated on.
They were mostly wearing normal clothes, but the odd few were wearing cloaks, and even fewer were wearing pointed black hats. I had to stifle a few giggles. One woman was carrying an entire cauldron in her arms. Another was yanking a strange pink dog on a lead towards ‘Mary’s Magical Remedies for Pets’. I take it the dog was not supposed to be pink.
The road itself, if you could even call it that, was made of cobblestone, like some sort of medieval path. A singular car wheeled along towards us, and we stepped to the side to not find our demise under the wheels of a magical vehicle.
‘Well, welcome to Wizards’ Haven,’ Grandad said somewhat awkwardly.
Maltor, Natasha, and I were gazing around in amazement. A strange gleam had come over Maltor’s eyes. Just like when he was killing the- No.
‘The only thing you all need is wands,’ Grandad said. ‘And once we’ve got those, Maltor, Natasha, you’re welcome to go back home whilst I continue with Albert to get his things.’
‘Nah, I think I’ll stay,’ Natasha said excitedly. ‘It’ll give me a chance to see this whole street.’
Grandad noticed me staring at the sky.
‘Enchantment,’ he said, following my gaze. ‘From the outside it looked like a normal residential street, right? We put the enchant up as a hope that Amy wouldn’t attack civilians. The longer this war goes on the longer I doubt that plan.’
‘Surely she has some heart,’ I said quietly. ‘Killing civilians would be too far for- Oh wait. She killed a lot of civilians.’
Grandad grimaced. ‘Nothing is too far for a woman like her.’
We all walked in silence after that. Occasionally, either Natasha or I would exclaim in shock at one of the shops, but after a while, we got used to those sorts of places.
Strangely, people seemed to be giving me more weird looks than the shops, or the dirty glass sky. Like I was some sort of wonder. Some sort of freak.
Grandad stopped in front of a shop. The huge sign above the door said ‘SAUNDER’S WIZARDING WANDS – SINCE 1856’. I should add that this sign was written in big yellow letters.
‘1856?’ Maltor said, puzzled. ‘Just how old is this guy?’
‘He’s 96, I believe, the company has just been passed down through the family,’ Grandad replied. ‘But despite how he looks, this is the best place you can get wands in RoCity.’
When we opened the door, a bell chimed, signalling to Mr Saunders that somebody had entered his shop. The shop smelled oddly like fresh paper, which is definitely not what I expected a wand shop to smell like. What seemed like thousands of shelves cramped the small store, and they were all lined with dozens, probably hundreds by the looks of it, of wands. The aisles between them were narrow, just about wide enough for us to walk through in pairs.
That’s when an old man glided over to us. Yes, glided. He hovered about three feet above Grandad’s head, and he was at least six feet tall. He had medium-length straggly grey hair that fell to his shoulders, and he was wearing a sort of olive green trenchcoat. Underneath that, his buttoned-up shirt was almost a perfect white, and his trousers contrasted by being coloured jet black. For a 96-year-old man, he dressed very snappily.
He looked at each of us in turn, and his eyes stopped on me. Of course they did.
‘My…you’re here at last…Mr Santrrer,’ he whispered. ‘They call you ‘The Unkillable’ around here, did you know?’
‘I didn’t, no, sir,’ I said trying to sound intrigued.
‘I’ve been waiting nearly twelve years to see you in my store, I knew you weren’t dead, you just wouldn’t be,’ he said, a grin beginning to form on his wrinkly face.
He stopped hovering and dropped to the floor in front of us. I heard him wince, which I didn’t even know was possible, the moment his feet hit the hardwood floor.
‘And Steven,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s been a while!’
‘It has indeed,’ Grandad said, smiling back.
The two of them hugged like brothers, and they both started laughing after untangling from one another. I kind of wanted a friendship like that.
‘I think we’ll start with you,’ Mr Saunders said, looking down at Maltor.
He hurried off to an unknown aisle to look for a wand for Maltor.
‘Richard is a nice man,’ Grandad said to the three of us. ‘Even outside of his profession, he’s just a nice guy. The world needs more people like Richard.’
I’d spoken to Mr Saunders for no more than a minute and I felt like agreeing with him. He did genuinely seem like a really nice old gentleman. Similar to how I felt towards Grandad just four days ago.
‘How do you even find a wand, sir?’ Natasha asked, staring up at Grandad. ‘Can’t we just pick a random one up and it’s all over and done with?’
‘Well, you see, Natasha, the wand chooses the wizard, or witch,’ he said, smiling again. ‘The process of finding the right wand can be over almost instantly. But in some cases, like in my-,’ His voice broke. ‘My brother’s case it can take a few weeks.’
Mr Saunders reemerged from behind a shelf. He was holding a think cardboard box. He opened it and revealed its contents to us. A long, thin black wand was sitting there. It was just that. A black stick. No finer details, nothing.
’12-and-a-half-inches,’ Mr Saunders said. ‘Mahogany wood, phoenix feather core.’
He gestured for Maltor to take it. Maltor looked at him suspiciously before slowly stretching out his hand. He hesitated just before grabbing it. His face slowly morphed into a strange sort of grimace; it was not the right wand.
Still, Mr Saunders instructed him to give it a wave to double-check. Upon jabbing the wand forward, an entire row of wands in the aisle in front of us flew out and scattered all over the floor. One of the boxes snapped open and revealed another wand. It looked menacing. The base was a strange colour, like acacia wood, and the rest was the same but striped with black. A ring of spikes decorated the end of the wand. Who would’ve thought that a magical wand needed spikes at the end?
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‘Ooh, definitely not that one then,’ Mr Saunders said awkwardly.
He took the wand from Maltor and placed it back in its box. He scuttled away to put it back, and of course, to find a new wand for Maltor.
‘We’ll find one,’ Grandad said reassuringly. ‘It might just take time.’
Natasha asked him another question, but I didn’t quite hear what she said, or how Grandad responded. I had become distracted by what Maltor was doing. He had slowly begun to walk over to the wands that had flown onto the floor as a result of his spell. He crouched down next to the opened box, with the wand that looked to be made of acacia wood. He stared at it for a brief moment before lifting it out of the box. The moment it made contact with his hand it gave off a bright golden glow. So bright that I had to cover my eyes, even with Maltor being situated between me and the source.
Grandad and Natasha turned, their eyes full of shock. I heard a few things get knocked over in the distance, and a second later Mr Saunders emerged, and his eyes widened. The glow slowly faded out of existence and Maltor stood up. He turned to face us, his face indifferent.
‘The wand chose you, young man,’ Mr Saunders said, seemingly in awe. ‘My Gods, I haven’t had a wand react so strongly in twenty-five years.’
Grandad chuckled. ‘That was quite the spectacle.’
Maltor was still staring at the wand. He was trying his hardest to appear as though he did not care, but I could recognise the faint glimmer of joy somewhere in his blue eyes.
‘That wand is 11-inch, acacia wood, and a dragon heartstring core,’ Mr Saunders said wearily. ‘The length doesn’t mean much, but the wood…your wand will produce magic for you and only you, and will not show its full power unless it sees you as gifted. Some spells you might find hard to produce, but that wand must be right for you.’
Maltor seemed to have a mixed reaction to this.
‘So, I can’t do certain magic, but it’s loyal?’
‘It’s not that you can’t perform certain magic, my boy, but some spells will certainly be easier to produce than others,’ Mr Saunders said softly. ‘But it must be right for you, otherwise, it wouldn’t have chosen you.’
Maltor’s eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at the wand in his hand.
‘I think we’ll do you next, Mr Santrrer,’ Mr Saunders said happily.
He hurried off to another aisle, but a peculiar feeling came over me. I, too, felt strangely drawn to the wands scattered across the floor. There was a beige box next to the one that Maltor’s wand had been lying in. Its edges seemed slightly charred, as though Mr Saunders had rescued it from a fire.
It was that moment where I again acted without thinking, and only realised what I was doing after I had done it.
‘Stop, Mr Santrrer!’ I heard Mr Saunders’s voice shout. ‘Don’t touch that wand!’
Shaking my head as though trying to drag myself back into reality, I looked down at my hands. I appeared to be trying to pry the box open. My hands felt warm, like I was sitting beside a campfire, and stretching my arms out to feel the heat.
‘There’s no chance…’ he whispered.
‘What?’ I said, confused, still not moving my hands from the box.
‘That wand…that was the wand Amy Wright first tried when she came here thirty years ago…’ he said, continuing to whisper as though somebody might be listening. ‘Eleven inches, oak wood, with a dragon heartstring core. The wand is ideal for the quick, instinctive few, and it will produce powerful spells and learns quicker than any other wand core.’
He came over and picked up the box that Maltor’s wand had been in. He read whatever it said on the side, and then cautiously pried the box from my hands and studied it. He gasped, dropping the two boxes.
My interest had peaked. I quickly grabbed the box, prying it open, ignoring the light burning sensation running through my fingers. The wand inside was brown, but it appeared to have been painted that colour. The base was grey and wider than the rest of the wand and had a rough texture to it, like gravel.
I snatched the wand from the box and it immediately grew hot, dangerously so. Wind seemed to pick up inside the shop, and I felt my hair lift from my head. The wand gave off a glow similar to Maltor’s, but this glow was dark, black almost. It cast a shadow across the entire shop for no more than three seconds before the light returned.
A deafening silence crushed the store. I could just about hear the terrified breaths of Mr Saunders.
‘Whoa,’ Maltor murmured.
‘T-that wand!’ Mr Saunders exclaimed, horrified. ‘It shouldn’t- It simply can’t be! There’s no way that wand should have worked!’
I stared at the wand in my hand. Unlike the spare I had been given in class, this wand felt right. It didn’t feel like a burden, or something unnatural. It just seemed to fit onto the end of my arm like a puzzle piece.
‘Your wands,’ Mr Saunders began.
‘Wands?’ Maltor inquired. ‘As in mine and Albert’s?’
Mr Saunders shakily nodded. Even Grandad seemed intrigued. ‘Your wands…their cores are heartstrings from the same dragon. In a sense, your wands are twins, one and the same.’
I tried not to show any form of shock. On the inside, I felt both surprised and confused. What did he even mean? Was it really that uncommon for wizards to take two heartstrings from the same dragon? Wouldn’t it just be common sense if there are multiple? And I was still struggling to comprehend the fact that dragons existed.
‘I’ve only ever seen that happen once before,’ Grandad added.
‘With who?’ I asked.
He avoided my eyes and hesitantly said that it was two unimportant people.
Mr Saunders, too, seemed to want to change the subject. ‘And Miss Acclere, correct? I’ll find you a wand in a jiffy, just stay right here.’
I wondered why it was my wand that had given off the black shadow, whilst Maltor’s had produced a golden glow. It sounded stupid, but part of me worried that I was destined to become a villain. Was this my destined path? To become some evil lunatic like Amy?
I stood up and looked at Grandad. He didn’t even seem fazed in the slightest, but he was determinedly staring at the shelf on his left. His jaw was tight, but I could tell that he wasn’t annoyed or angry at me.
‘Well that just happened,’ Natasha said a second before Mr Saunders re-emerged from behind a shelf.
Natasha’s wand was the calmest of all. It gave off a faint orange glow the moment she held it. It was beige-ish and ten and a half inches long. It had a golden spiral of a jagged material going from the base to the end.
She beamed the moment the glow began, but we hurried out of the shop after that. Now that we all had our wands the mood was noticeably lighter, and both Maltor and Natasha chose to stay with me and Grandad whilst we got the rest of my things.
‘So,’ Maltor murmured to me. Grandad and Natasha were walking a few feet ahead, and they were engaged in conversation so they couldn’t hear us. ‘Our wands are twins, huh? Kinda poetic.’
‘Yeah,’ I replied somewhat glumly. ‘Like everything’s come full circle.’
However, I was less concerned with the fact that mine and Maltor’s wands were connected than I was with the fact that my wand had been the wand Amy had first tried. Were the two of us connected somehow? Did her spell that night create a link between the two of us? Or was I just destined to be a villain.
There were certainly times when I felt like a villain. Felt like I wanted to kill all life on Earth. Felt like that would be better than anything else. But, of course, most of the time, I felt nothing like that. I felt like I wanted to save people. Now, I felt like I had to save people from Amy’s wrath.
I stared at my feet as we continued our slow walk down the street. People were gawking at me from all directions. One crowd of teenagers followed me with their eyes, and I could hear what they were saying.
‘So that’s him, yeah? The Unkillable? That little scrawny one?’
‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Look at how he’s walking, like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders.’
‘Thinking he’s some sort of main character.’
I tried to drone out their words.
I saw Maltor scowl at them, and he looked at me to see what my reaction was. On the inside, I was full of a strange sense of calm rage. On the outside, I tried to appear as though I could not hear them. I may have been a tough survivalist kid, but I certainly would not stoop down to their level. Murder people? Maybe I could do that. Argue with teenagers? No.
We stopped again in front of Wizarding School Supplies. Upon stepping inside I found that it was pretty much a normal shop. It was a lot more spacious than Mr Saunders’s wand shop, however. The walls were a pretty beige colour, and numerous school supplies ran along the aisles.
‘Stick together,’ Grandad said sternly. ‘I know you must be dying to run around and see what this place has to offer, but stick together.’
The four of us walked over to the bag aisle and began to look for a suitable bag for me. Natasha pointed at a bright pink glittery bag and joked that it would be perfect for me. She stopped joking at the look on my face. I was not amused.
This was when Grandad bought up something that made our days.
‘Ah, I forgot to mention, I’m going to give you all £10 a week in a pocket money fashion of sorts. Cash or card, I don’t really mind. Just as an integration gift.’
Maltor, Natasha, and I all stared up at him in disbelief. I mean, I figured that the Prime Minister would have some spare money, but £10 a week for us all? That would surely rack up, even if he only did it for a little while.
‘I’ll buy whatever I think is necessary for you today, but then tomorrow you, and all of your other friends, will receive £10, and it will continue that way for a while. £10 at the end of every week,’ he smiled.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Maltor and I said at the exact same time before glaring at one another.
‘Thanks so much!’ Natasha exclaimed. ‘A tenner a week is so much, especially for kids our age!’
She always knew exactly what to say.
Grandad picked up a grey school bag. It looked like your standard school bag; it was grey with black lining around the edges and had one main pocket and about three smaller pockets, as well as two on the sides.
But a faint gleam appeared in Grandad’s eyes. He opened the main pocket of the bag and stuck his arm in. His entire arm. The whole thing. Inside that tiny little school bag made for an eleven-year-old.
‘What?!’ I exclaimed.
‘Undetectable Extension Charm,’ he said proudly.
Then he looked at the price tag. £34.99. Ouch.
‘I don’t mind not getting my share of money for a month to cover it,’ I said earnestly.
‘You remind me so much of myself when I was your age, Albert,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay for it, don’t you worry.’
He continued to carry the bag even after I had offered to shoulder it until we went to the till. We looked along the books aisle, and after Natasha and I had failed to show our interest in a Charms book, he picked up two of them.
The total cost of the bag and the two Charms books was £54.97. Another ouch, but Grandad didn’t seem to mind.
The general mood of our group was exceptionally brighter than when we had set out. Natasha was practically skipping down the street, and even Maltor was struggling to maintain his usual dark atmosphere.
Once we turned off of Wizards’ Haven I glanced behind me. Sure enough, it looked like a normal, quiet residential street. I squinted up at the sky, it had returned back to its usual clean look. No more looking at it through a dirty glass dome.
After arriving back at The Tower, Natasha said goodbye and took a car with Grandad back to her house. Maltor and I glanced at each other awkwardly.
‘Still think a sword would be better,’ he said. ‘Don’t need to practice. You could swing blindly and kill three people.’
He was right, in a sense, but a sword’s deadliness mattered entirely on the physical strength of the user, and magic…well, I didn’t know how strong you had to be to produce a spell from a wand.
‘You reckon you can do it?’ Maltor asked, surprisingly gently. ‘Kill Amy?’
‘Huh?’
‘Do you?’
I stared at him blankly. ‘Of course, I can, why is that even a question?’
He smirked. ‘Maybe if you didn’t start shaking at the mere memory of what we did at The School then I wouldn’t ask things like that.’
‘The Whitecoats didn’t kill my family,’ I said firmly. ‘Amy has.’
‘Amy hasn’t tortured you for seven years,’ he argued but kept his voice level.
‘She’s tortured me for eleven.’
That stumped him. ‘Mentally.’
‘Some people would argue that that’s worse.’
I looked him straight in the eye. He stared right back.
Wordlessly, the two of us marched over to the lift and stairs. He entered the lift, and I began my ascent up the stairs.
He didn’t believe in me. He didn’t think I could do it. He didn’t think I had it in me. In fairness, I wasn’t too sure either. All I could do was hope that when the time came I would have it in me. Surely when I got the opportunity it would be as easy as cutting butter. Once I saw her dark, twisted face again I was certain that it would enrage me to such an extent that taking her life was as simple as squashing a bug.
Some nagging voice at the back of my mind was telling me that I couldn’t do it, but I knew I could. There was no way that I would screw up the next chance. I would have ended her four days ago if her bodyguards hadn’t been there. If it weren’t for their brute strength I would’ve been clutching Amy’s lifeless body in my own hands.
I could do it. I was sure of it. And now with a £10 income every week, I could buy books to help me learn magic so that I could fight. Because that’s all we had to do, right? We just had to keep fighting.