Lights - Part Four and Five

Chapter Four

After sleeping in an unfamiliar barn, we are violently woken up by the sound of the two giant barn doors being kicked in by an older man in overalls missing almost all of his hair.

"What the hell is this?" Yells the old farmer. "I'm gonna kill you little brats!"
He races toward, I look at Jordan trying to use her power and realizing she can't.
"Run!" Erika says getting up and running to the backdoor which we came through.

The rest of us stand up and run like the wind, we run for what feels like miles, until the barn and the man are out of sight before stopping to catch our breath. Emily sits down on a pile of pine straw leaning against a tree.

"We really need some faster way to get around," Erika says sitting down facing Emily. "Because I'm not used to all this freaking running."
"Wait," I say holding up my hand. "They have brooms in this time right?"
"Stephen, why couldn't you think about that before?" Emily says reaching to hit me, but I step out of her way.

"He's right though, they do have brooms," Erika looks towards town. "Two people need to go and get four of them, the other two need to stay here and try to write a spell to get home."
"I'll go!" I say quickly.
"Me too," says Emily just as fast.
"Wait, you both can't go," Jordan looks at us. "You're the two with powers, one of you has to stay."
"She will," I point to Emily. "Because she's the reason we're here anyway."

Emily turns her head away from me making no noise, Erika comes up to me.
"I'll go with you," Erika says turning to look at Jordan. "Don't let anything happen to her." She looks to Emily. "Same goes to you."

Emily waves her hand telling us to go away. Jordan looks at us and rolls her eyes.
Erika and I start towards town, going the long way to avoid the barn we slept in last night.
"Stephen, what if we can't get home?" Erika's eyes not leaving the path in front of us.
"We will, don't worry." I say holding her arm.
"But, if we don't..."
"We will, don't talk like that."

She walks in silence for the rest of the distance. We reach the town and wonder around for what feels like an hour before wandering into the local "House Store" which is filled with things for houses I've never even seen. Luckily, towards the back we find brooms.

"There's only three," Erika says grabbing one of them. "Someone's gonna have to double-up."
"It's okay, I'll ride with one of you." I say grabbing the other two.
We walk to the front of the store to the clerk, young girl maybe 14 or 15, she's in a long gray gown but has the most beautiful hazel eyes and brown hair.
"Those three brooms are everything?" She says gesturing towards the brooms.
"Yes, how much?" I say calm with a steady voice.
"15 cents," She holds our her hand.

I flick three nickles into her hand. Her face goes into a look of confusion, we don't wait to see what she has to say, we just walk out. Before we can even get 10 feet from the door, Jack and Raul are walking towards us, clearly sober.

"Well, well, where are your friends?" Raul says pointing to me and Erika. "What's with the brooms you little housemaid," He directs the comment at me.
"Do you want to mess with us again?" I say trying not to sound too worried.
"Actually, we figured that the girl who done that magic or whatever isn't here to stop us this time." Jack says looking around us.

"What makes you think we can't stop you?" I say narrowing my gaze on Raul and Jack.
They quickly share a worried glance.
"I don't think that's going to happen today," Raul flashes us his gun.
I look at Erika and almost whispering, I say "Run, fast!"
We turn and run towards the opposite side of town. I hear a loud gunshot, then my leg starts burning with searing pain, I scream.

"Argh! He shot me!" I scream to Erika.
I raise my hands and the two, a ripple flies out of my hands, the bullet flies out of my leg and into Jack. In the middle of turning back time, I feel a part of me just vanish, the part where my gift comes from. Time doesn't finish turning back, so my leg doesn't heal completely.
"You bastard!" Raul yells falling to Jack's side.

Erika and I run as fast as we can to cover, she throws me one broom and holds the other two, taking off, but stopping to wait for me. I get on my broom and zoom up after Erika. We fly towards Jordan and Emily as fast as possible.

After about five minutes we zoom down, I crash into the ground holding my leg.
"What the hell happened!" Jordan yells running over to me.
"He got shot and used his power!" Erika says checking on Emily.
"Shit!" Jordan says ripping off a piece of her faded orange dress to wrap my left leg to stop the bleeding.
"Where's the fourth broom?" Emily says after everything gets quiet.
"They didn't have a fourth, so someone is going to have to fly with Steven." Erika says holding a broom to Emily and Jordan.

"We're not going anywhere right now, we've got to find food." Jordan says standing up.
"Did you get anywhere with the spell?" I ask quietly.
"Not really, we can't think of anything." Emily says before Jordan can answer.
"Wait, Steven, doesn't your family live here in this time?" Erika says looking at me.
"Oh my gosh, you're right!" I try to stand up, but the pain has gotten worse since the adrenaline wore off.

"We'll find them." Emily says trying to start a fire with two rocks.
I look over to Erika and Jordan walking into the forest to find food, but my vision blurs, as I fall asleep.

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Chapter Five

I wake to the smell of meat, Erika and Jordan had found some creature in the woods, I don't even bother to ask.

"Give me some food, selfish people," I look up sleepily.
Erika grabs some in a big leaf and hands it to me, I sit up and cross my legs. I instantly notice that I feel no pain in my leg.
"Guys!" They all spin around. "My leg doesn't hurt!"
"Yeah, I found some mugwart." Emily says getting the last bit of food onto her leaf.
"Thanks!" I look at my leg. "It feels great!"
We all finish eating and grab the brooms. I get on behind Erika.
"Where do they live?" Jordan says lifting slightly off the ground.
"Exactly where my house would be if this was our time."

We all lift into the skies and fly over huge beautiful valleys that don't exist in our time. The smell of pine fills the skies, zipping past all these unfamiliar places, that I know in my time. Finally we come to my large house, only this one is so much newer than mine, we land just outside the small white gate surrounding the house. We all approach the door, three knocks.

A tall woman with grey-purple eyes and faded blonde hair opens the door.
"May I help you, children?" She says looking between the four of us.
"Yes, actually," Jordan starts pushing me aside. "We need your help."
"With?" She looks sympathetic. "I've already paid my dues."
"Actually, we're from the future, and we need help getting home, since we've lost our powers." Emily says bluntly.

"I was trying to lessen the blow, Emily." Jordan elbows Emily in her side.
"From the future you say?" She touches her chin. "You've lost your powers."
"Yes." I say.
"What coven do you come from?" She narrows her gaze on me.
"Yours," I wave my hand over Emily, Erika, and Jordan. "We're all distantly related to you, me more directly."
"So you've got a gift." She takes a step backward into her house.
"Actually I'm the only one with a talent right now, we only get to use it once in this time, because technically we don't exist yet, so neither do our gifts." Emily sighs.
"Oh, I see now." Her hand reaches and touches Erika's head and she falls down bleakly.

"What did you do to her!" Jordan drops to her knees checking her pulse.
"Well, I didn't kill her, I checked her memories to see if you were telling the truth, and you were." She blows white dust that goes onto Erika's body and absorbs into her.
Erika's eyes fly open.
"I'm okay." Erika says instantly.
"So you'll help us?" Emily says stepping in front of me.
"Yes, I'll help you." She motions for us to come inside.

We walk in, the house almost exactly how it is in my time except for her furniture isn't as nice as ours.
"Sit down anywhere." She walks into the kitchen.
"Do you guys trust her?" Erika says looking to the kitchen.
"We have to," Emily says sitting down on the big fluffy one-person seat.
"We don't." Erika says narrowing her gaze on Emily.
"If we want to get home, we do." Emily says blinking twice quickly.
"Don't forget it's your fault that we're here, you little witch!" Erika raises her voice.

"Yeah, yeah -" She's cut off by the woman re-entering the room with two men.
"These are my kids, Rod and Char, they have a spell that can send you back, we just need you four to chant the spell with us around the alter."
She motions to the backyard."
"Let's do it." I say eagerly.

I hop up and swiftly move to the alter sitting exactly where I usually stand when we've got the whole coven. Everyone else quickly moves around and places themselves exactly where we should be. Emily, Jordan, Erika and I all move closer so that the woman, Char, and Rod could surround us.

"Take hands you four!" Char yells.
Our hands link with one another and listen for the words of magic.
"Blindly send forward through time has taken," the wind spins counter-clockwise around us. "To return the gift of knowledge and reverence. Our destiny is intertwined with life that will come to our family's line."

Slowly the three fade and the feeling of earth shifting things growing animals returning to the habitats that they've created over the years finally coming to a halt.

I'm the first one to break the circle standing up feeling a sharp pain in my chest, followed by Erika, then Jordan. We're all grunting in pain, Emily stands up and takes a step backward.

"What's wrong with you guys?" Emily says putting her hands in front of her.

The air around us starts glowing pushing Emily to the ground. We're lifted off the ground into a suspended state where all the magic around us is shot into us like gasoline into a fire. My heart burns from pain, cooled by the sweet sensation of magic re-entering my body. The air drops us all one by one. Me, Erika, then Jordan all laying on the ground.

"I feel amazing!" Jordan is the first to say, standing up. "So much power, I didn't feel this before!"

"Same here!" Erika yells with me.
Jordan's eyes light up bright green, wind picking up with the same familiar vanilla scent, before twisting the ground into a tornado figure with almost no effort.

"Everything is, easier!" Jordan says shifting it back.
Jordan levitates up into the air with no broom.
"I couldn't do this before!" She looks down at the ground. "I can make the Earth repel me!"

Erika quickly flashes out and back.
"I can go further quicker than before!" Her face lights up. "Now all I need is new cell phone!"
Before she can start another sentence, her words summoned up a brand new iPhone into her hand.
"I can summon!" She screams.
They both look at me.
"Well, what about you, Steven?" Jordan says lowering back to the ground.

I raise my hands, and time freezes. I walk around, but something is different about this, my gift, it doesn't feel like it used to. Something about it has changed. I look to Emily and she unfreezes while the others stay unmoving.

"What happened?" Emily says looking at Jordan, then Erika.
"I unfroze you?" I say looking around again. "How? I never could do that before, I tried."
"Maybe that's the extension you got?" She suggests.
"You're right, so now I can do things different with time." I smile. "We're going to have fun with this, Emily."
I smile at Emily and walk towards the house leaving Jordan and Erika completely frozen.