Autumn Rose. Abigail Gibbs

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the low, whitewashed garden gate behind me I stepped out onto the oak and maple tree-lined pavement, leaves already surrendering to my namesake. I paused as the latch dropped and clicked shut.

      ‘My name is Al-Summers, not Summers.’

      She disappeared behind the maple tree in our front garden, the slam of the door telling me she had heard me.

       Your mother is not like us, Autumn. She is human. Sagean blood does not run in her veins like it does in your blood, or your father’s blood.

       But Father cannot use magic, Grandmother.

      Carrying on along the pavement, I felt my spirits drop. The prospect of the first day back to school was not a happy one.

       Magic sometimes skips generations.

      Castigation was the name of the game at Kable, and it had left me despising every jibe-filled hour, flourished and garnished with stares, whispers, and an aura of fear that followed me like the wind chases the rain.

       But why, Grandmother?

      The curriculum was slow too, but I had learned one thing: adaption was a means to survival.

       It has good reason, child.

      ‘Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning!’ my batty neighbour Mr. Wovarly called over his fence, gesturing to the peach-tinted sky. ‘It’ll rain later. Be careful you don’t catch a chill, m’dear!’

      I forced a smile and nodded my head with unneeded exaggeration. ‘I will, Mr. Wovarly.’

      I dodged his tiny terrier, Fluffy, who was leaping at the gaps in the fence, barking his small head off. Letting the smile fade, I ran the last few steps of the street and leaped into the air, feeling the familiar thrill of taking to the skies. Gaining height, wind whipping my hair back into a mess, I soared higher and higher, leaving the trees of my road far behind.

       CHAPTER THREE

       Autumn

      Dropping into a crouch I steadied myself as I made a less-than-graceful landing in the school car park. I straightened up, brushing myself down, gazing towards the entrance. I must have made good time; the school seemed to be quiet. Deciding I had better go examine the damage done to my hair I set off in the direction of the girl’s toilets. Astounded stares followed me, from a few of the new students – judging by their height and white socks, still adorned with frills, hair pulled back into regulation buns. They gawked as I walked past, shuffling back as though I carried an infectious disease, but I knew better: if they weren’t local, this could be the first time they had seen a Sage, let alone seen one fly.

       Bless their oversize school jumpers.

      Yet as I skirted the edge of the school, I began to feel uneasy. Pent up nerves I had stifled all summer began to surface, reminding me of just what I was returning to. I was also drawing more unwanted attention. Girls, almost always girls, were watching me with disdain as I passed by, their lips curled until they turned and muttered furiously to their friends, glancing at me when they thought I was not looking.

      Feeling self-conscious and a little sick I wrapped my arms around my middle, knowing that the sword balanced on my hip and the barriers around my mind and the magic in my blood couldn’t protect me from the words that would come.

      Spotting the toilets I dived into them, noticing that for once they did not smell like an ash-tray. Neither did they smell of blood, although only a Sage would ever be able to detect that scent. Instead, they reeked of bleach, an aroma that was not much more pleasant.

      I gripped the sink tightly, staring into the mirror, endlessly analyzing my hair and make-up. If it wasn’t perfect, they would notice. They always noticed. They would not notice the spots on Christy’s forehead, or the sunburn across Gwen’s collar, but they would notice my fallen eyelash, or the chipped nail polish on my right thumb, or the scent of the cheap perfume I was now using because I had spent the money I had saved up from work in London.

      I sighed. I had to get a grip, and fast. The new school year was beginning and it was my duty to protect all the humans in this school, even if the dislike was mutual.

      I needed to be vigilant: I had heard the whispered rumours while I was in London. We all had. The Extermino were getting larger and bolder, and their attack on my town had proved it … why else would they bother with a tiny rural outpost?

      And then what of the rumour about the dark-beings of the second dimension: people were saying the Vamperic Kingdom had kidnapped a human girl. The second dimension was the only one where the existence of dark-beings was kept secret from the humans … keeping a human hostage threatened to reveal us all, and then what? Even in the other eight dimensions, the dark-beings lived uneasily. The Damned had lived through years of genocide by the humans just because they used blood magic and there were hardly any of them left; the elven fae suffered because of the climate change the humans were creating; and we, the Sage, were constantly having to negotiate other dark-beings out of difficult situations because a diplomat had said something stupid.

      Yet at the moment unrest gripped the dark-beings in a way I had never known in my short life.

      I sighed once again, pressing my forehead to the mirror that on this rare occasion was not covered in lipstick graffiti. Things were changing; any dark-being could feel that. We were losing ourselves, drowning in velveteen tradition and microchip technology, caught between one world and another – figuratively, of course, because each kind of being firmly belonged in their own dimension, whether the humans liked sharing or not.

      Change was brewing, and I feared this was just the calm before the storm. If things did get bad, no amount of treaties could protect us from our enemies … ourselves, the Extermino … the humans.

      Shaking my head I realized what I was doing and pushed aside all depressing thoughts as my grandmother had taught me to do. Dwelling on what has and will come to pass is as good as kicking the stool from beneath the future, she always said.

      Assuming that the buses would not be far away, I made my way back out after sweeping one last coat of mascara over my lashes. I cursed myself as I left, wishing I had kept my phone with me rather than casting it to school within my bag – now locked in my tutor room. At least then I could have texted one of the others.

      Wandering around, parting the crowd and doing my best to ignore the stares of the younger students, I did not notice when my feet came to rest at the foot of a dull bronze plaque. It stood beneath a large cherry blossom tree, planted in the centre of the concrete and plastic clad courtyard we called the quad. The words on it were clear for all to see and each and every letter reminded me of why there were no Sage in the area.

       This tree is planted in loving memory of Kurt Holden,

       Who died on the 23rd April 1999.

       Student, friend and brother.

       Taken too early by magic.

      I

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