Kelpie

The purple texts are orientation helpers.

* * *  separates the blog-installments - I'm not sure this is meaningful, but there they are.

"Let the cat out of the bag!" Heidi's father yelled. Susan was once again visiting Heidi and her wonderful, if unusual family on her way to school.
Heidi's father was a magician in both meanings of the word. He earned his living as a stage magician, pulling coins and flowers out of peoples' ears and hair. As he used to say: "People expect a magician to be fake, a bluff. Well I'm the real thing, and nobody will ever suspect me. It's the perfect cover." Heidi's mother, Sandra, was working as a supermarket cashier in the busy seasons, and were a stay at home-mom the rest of the year. In the summer, when Heidi and her twin siblings, Tage and Carla, attended the wizarding school at The Unicorn Farm, she usually stayed at home and lend Kai a hand with his magic. The stage variety that is. Although Sandra was an accomplished witch in her own right, she was afraid of discovery. That's why she forbade Heidi and the twins any use of magic, except inside the house behind closed doors.
But now was the time. Susan had walked into a full blown family drama this Tagesday as she came over to tag along with Heidi and the twins. She almost left again, but Heidi called her over with a wave of her hand. Together they listened to Kai and Sandra. "It's time to show those demon-loving scoundrels that we're not afraid to fight them!" Kai said in a low, determined voice.
"But," Sandra said, almost as loudly, "haven't you learnt anything from history? We'll be persecuted, burned, hanged and quartered once again. Th non-magic society is not ready for the truth.."
"When will they ever be?" asked Kai in an exasperated tone. "But with a child dying every Thursday -- an innocent child, not having anything to do with magic at all -- we just got to intervene! The Police has no idea of magic monsters. No idea of where to look and what to do. They're still looking for a madman. We know the truth. We got to do something about it. We got to do something about that band of idiots or at the very least stop that Kelpie."
Sandra seemed to grow smaller. "Kai, even though I think you're over dramatizing you have a point. Those children ... My mind is reeling with implications. We are at a cross road in Time. What we do now will affect so much more than the life of a few non-magic children. But yes. Something has to be done. Not today though, the omens are bad. We must wait."
"Wait?" Kai yelled. But his voice had lost some of its force. "Always wait. Sandra, my dearest, when will be the right time?"
Sandra closed her eyes, her face went blank. Susan was afraid, she was going to faint, but a few heartbeats later, Sandra opened her eyes. Determined-looking she faced her husband: "Tomorrow is the time," she said. "And children," Sandra added, "I know you're out there, listening. Don't go and do something stupid. You are not prepared to meet black magicians, let alone a Kelpie at it's worst. Come back here after school tomorrow, bringing those willing to come and whom you trust unconditionally."

***

In the evening Susan, Heidi, Tage and their co-conspirators in Kai and Sandra's living room. They arrived one by one or in pairs, some of them walking there, but most appeared in the garden and hastily entered the house. Cakes and tea pots were placed everywhere in the living room, for once Kai's rabbits and other paraphernalia as a stage magician were cleaned away to give place for the meeting.
When they were almost certain everyone, including Helge from Sweden, had arrived, Kai arose: "welcome to out humble abode, we do not have much, but what is ours, is yours.  Please munch as we talk."
Kai looked around, he saw several of the professors, the Finnish twins, , Jon the coal black Norwegian, old Gilvi, golden haired Birgitta, gently smiling Thora minus her smile. Only Martine from Sweden and the tall, bearded Torben from Denmark were conspicuously absent.

"We need to go to the far end of this isle," Kai said. "The lake, where the Kelpie lives is down there. It's a artificial lake, part of an old hunter's lodge. The hut by the lake is still standing, decrepit and leaky, but we can stay inside, and see without being seen."
"But," Thora said, "we can't get down there. The police are controlling it. They have a heavily armed patrol with dogs and everything right where the road crosses the marches. You know that little dam. And we can't use any magic tonight. The enemy will sense it and be aware of us."
"We must all be inside the Old Hunter's Lodge by sunrise." Sandra stated. Her black hair seemed dark as the night itself, and her eyes were starry holes beneath the bangs.
"But how, The water has risen because of the storm, spring tides and syzygy." The marches are dangerous tonight. No moon and lots of water, bog holes, will o'the wisps and elven maidens galore.
All the faces turned bleak, despondent. Tonight at midnight Thursday began. A new victim would sure as as the sun rises find his or her way to the Stag Lake. .

Did you know that there once was a private railway between the Hunter's lodge and the manor house? Kai asked. "most of the trackbed was levelled to give way for summer houses, but the far end, near Hunter's lodge still exists. I'm not sure the tracks are there, but the embankment sure is. We can use it to cross the marches even by spring tide it will be passable."

In the early morning they crossed the swamp on the old railway embankment.
As they arrived at the other end of the embankment they followed the old trackbed. As they entered the woods, tracks appeared on the gravel. "They look as though they're used!" Susan exclaimed in a loud whisper.
"But we would hear a train going here, even as far as the Farm, it that was so" Tage whispered back. "Quiet!" Kai hissed.
The end of the tracks were hidden in mist. The brewing of Mother Bog rose almost to the tops of the trees. Everything was still.

***

"You did a veritable Sully," Kai said to Susan as they had returned home. "Much to my chagrin we could not save Torben." If I had been a funambulist and not a stage magician, I might have walked the rail out there. But he was too heavy as it was, and sank too fast." The lowering expression on his face told more than words how sad he felt at the thought of his shortcomings.

"I know you tried," Sandra said. "But even I could not have foreseen that the sand out there had turned to quicksand under the heavy rain."

Gilvi entered the room: "I've finished my ablutions, he said. "There's still plenty hot water in the pipes for the next man." He looked aged, almost as if he was wasting away. Carefully he sat down on the sofa and picked a saucy morsel from among the edibles collected at the table.

"This will be a night we'll never forget," he said slowly. "Our names will be written in the history books for perpetual perusal by coming generation. But I'm not so moonstruck with our success this time as to not realize that the worst is yet to come."

"Let's smoke that cigar when it's handed to us," Thora gently said. Tonight, or rather today - as the sun's about to rise - is a day for celebrating and making happy sounds."

***
 
Summer Holidays 2nd Year
"We bespoke professor Kuusisaari, the brother, again today. We mentioned our suspicions concerning David. You know, we've been noticing him before, and told you and the professor about it. On our way to school this morning, we saw him stand near the fence, and then suddenly he waved his wand and disappeared. Only, I don't think the professor believed us". Susan spoke rapidly and agitated. For once she was forgetting her manners and almost yelled at her best friends' mother. Heidi's mother listened closely, and Heidi pulled forth a poster from her pocket: "You know, as we all do, that teleporting and such is only for those who have taken their exams. David is, like Susan and me, going to take his exams come August." She pointed at the date written in big, red, comforting type on the poster.
Heidi's mother felt drained. How many timed had she not warned Heidi, not to speak of Lis and Tage, her older siblings and unruly twins, of the dangers of teleporting before you were a confirmed teleporter. The risk of a splice was very real, and not a matter any mother cared to dwell upon. She got up from her ergonomic chair and took her cloak from the hook behind the door.
"We're going to The Unicorn Farm at once. This nonsense has to be bridled before it is taken too far. We've no use for students, whose minds are bent and maybe even derailed from their insubordination."
Susan wanted to savour this moment, to wallow in the feeling of for once being taken seriously, but Heidi's mother had no time for such niceties. She called Lis and Tage from their room. "He must have lost his mind. Don't he realize what's happening. Before we know it, we're back to the Middle Ages, being stoned whenever suspicion arises."
 She told her husband to grab their meagre savings and come along. Then she went ahead of her little flock into the stormy June night.

***

 Second summer - end of Holidays -  and the time until Christmas Holidays 
The summer holidays were drawing to an end, and Susan had a hard time seeing her needle and thread. It was semi-dark in the small attic room at The Unicorn farm and the enclosing walls seemed to press down on Susan as she sat stitching, the tears in her eyes did not help any. Holidays had come to an end, it was time to leave the Unicorn Farm and her friends there. To what purpose was all the care of their cloaks and capes, Susan thought as she sewed yet another patch on Heidi's worn, green cloak. Jamming all their cloaks, capes and other dressing items into the suitcase, she hung her head in shame over her heavy thoughts. Heidi and her family had bent every rule in the book to make them all stay at Unicorn Farm this summer. And now Heidi and the twins were even going to visit her shortly.
She chuckled. Her mother thought The Unicorn Farm was a place for teaching bookworms like herself about nature and growing organic vegetables and fruits. If she ever found out that it was a school for magic, real magic, not the rabbits from a hat variety ...
Susan almost mangled her fingers closing the suitcase, it was full to the brim and over. "Oh bugger," she thought. "My textbooks." They were still down at the dining table, where she'd been studying before sneaking up to repair and pack their clothes. Gravity be damned, this was an emergency and the perfect excuse for her to try out the new levitating spell. "Bækur, lyfta" Susan said with determination, swishing her wand just so and fixing the textbooks in her mind. The books obeyed the magic of Susan's mind and wand and came dancing through the air. Surprised over how easy it was, Susan lost her concentration, and the books cascaded to the floor with a big noise. "Bugger and more bugger!" Susan said under her breath. She listened for a while, but nothing happened. Not a sound.
Susan pulled everything out from the suitcase once again, folded the green cloaks, the purple capes, all the green, blue, and yellow tunics, and their striped skirts and trousers in nice small mounds before carefully placing everything inside the suitcase with the books. Now there was even room to spare, and Susan tucked some of the pies and bottles of ginger ale into the corners. She had left them on a shelf as the suitcase had filled up too fast the first time, but Granny had been right, folding the clothes made for more space. Heidi and the twins would come by train, so Susan would have to bring home all the gear, they were going to need during their autumnal visit in her own suitcase.
She was ready to leave for home now.

***

Susan found it hard to peel off her striped witch's skirt and once again face the normal world. But on the other hand, she found it hard to justify her black mood. She was not bringing her wizarding dress home with her, just to hang them on the wall. Heidi and the twins Tage and Lis, were not supposed to use magic. But Kai, father of the twins and Heidi, and a temporary employee in Winther's Summer Circus - he was a stage magician as well as the real stuff - had told them that control with the apprentice magicians was quite lax during off times. Susan imagined Heidi's mother's reaction to this. The temperature rose in her cheeks. But luckily, Sandra was not her mother. Only her best friend's mother. And even if Heidi and her siblings claimed that Sandra could foresee the future, at least for a small amount of time, Susan was not the least afraid of her and she always just let her many words and admonitions roll over her head like so much noise. She suspected that the twins did the same.

Susan's mind touched the old volume of cantrips and minor spells that she had checked out for reading during normal school time. She would have her revenge on those teasing class mates during the coming term. But then she remembered the words of Thora, the ancient, but energetic and lovable Icelandic teacher at the Unicorn Farm from their first day ever at Unicorn Farm: "You are all apprentice wizards, but apart from this, you're all different. And that is normal. You are here on Unicorn Farm to be taught the use of magic. And by use, I mean USE not abuse." Susan remembered Thora's black piercing eyes. She felt as if they had looked right into her soul. Susan suddenly felt as a fraud. If she ever did any of what she had planned only seconds ago, she was sure that sooner or later she was going to have to explain her actions under the scrutiny of these black eyes. Her knees felt weak and she had to sit down.

After sitting for a while Susan got up again. She had a vague feeling of barely having avoided something very dangerous. She promised herself then and there that she would only ever use her magic to help and amaze, never to hurt.

***

The transparent excuse, that Tage and Lis needed some time for themselves seemed to go down well with Susan's parents. The truth was more convoluted. Their plan, assignment rather, was to make a portal at Susan's place, or somewhere near it, to the Unicorn Farm. So that all magicians could go there even if they were as yet unable to teleport, or resorting to mundane means like trains or cars.  In order to do this they had to solve a lot of problems. The theory was sound, at least. But the things needed to complete the portal sounded like an entrepreneur's shopping list. They felt that they'd have to loot a nearby hardware store to bring home that kind of stuff. But their pooled money did not buy them more than a fraction of what was needed, and stealing was out of the question, even though they could easily have done so, using their magic. They spend time after almost every meal discussing shovels and other digging implements. In the end, it was solved in the most unlikely way. Linda, Susan's younger sister, interested in horses, make-up and boys - in that order - one morning asked them if they could come and help at the riding school. Lots of old machinery and stuff was theirs to take, if they gave a hand. An old wing of the place was filled with stuff left there by the former owner, and had to be cleaned out to give place for more horses and an indoor riding arena.
Susan's mother had always tried to tell Susan that her sister was a useful person  not just a nuisance. She now took great care not to demonstrate her happiness that Tage and Lis seemed to like Linda better with each passing day.
Saturday morning they all awoke bright and early. They put on their oldest clothes, Lis and Tage borrowed some hand me downs Susan still had not grown into, and they all drove off with a boy from graduate school, who had borrowed his daddy's lorry for the day.
All day they worked hard to justify their stashing of odds and ends. They noticed the strain in the grad's eyes as they hauled yet another appliance into the stack for bringing home. He told them that if the appliances did stain his father's lorry, he'd be in for it. The twins promised to be ever so careful. They even borrowed an old tarp from the riding school owner to protect the lorry.
Finally the rooms were cleaned out, the old partitioning walls had been torn down, everything not salvageable hauled to the local dump, and all the stuff the twins needed for their work was safely stowed aboard the lorry meticulously covered by the tarp. Pizzas and soft drinks for everybody rounded off the day.
Linda, Susan, and the twins carefully climbed down from the lorry as they reached home. The pause while eating and driving had stiffened their muscles.
Linda took a bee-line for the bathroom, while The twins aided by Susan and Dan, the boy with the lorry, carefully carried all the stuff into an old playhouse-cum-workshed in the back of the garden.
"Tell me, Dan," Tage said, as they carried the last of the many items into the shed. "Do your daddy actually know that you took the lorry today? You seem so awfully keen not to leave any tell tale signs of use on it."
Dan's face went as red as a balloon, and he grinned nervously. "Got me," he said. "I don't know what made me say I could use it. Dad's in Sweden over the weekend. He's going to blackmail me 'til forever if he finds out. And he will. I'm sure, I forgot some little stupid detail somewhere."
"Come and have a cup of tea before going home," Lis said, winking to Tage behind Dan's back. They left for the house and Tage pulled out his wand.

***

Christmas Holidays 2nd year 

Susan and Tage are alone in the Heidi's family's house. Tage, Heidi and Susan have grasped the chance to try and complete a magic ritual to make a letter readable. Kai and Sandra (Heidi's parents) are away, Lis is too. They miss her, as she is the best of the bunch when it comes to writing and reading. They have copied a ritual from an old book at the Unicorn Farm, in the middle of the night, as some of the other teachers are staying there for Christmas. And they do not approve of the four children and their nosiness.

"Lend me a noose to catch a moose." Susan chanted.
"The man in the Moon came down too soon" Heidi answered.
Lis came through the door, bringing a whiff of cold, wintry air into the stuffy living room.
"It sounds like an old omen," Lis said. "Shh, you'll disrupt the ritual," Tage whispered furiously.
"One, two, buckle my shoe" Heidi said
"I give you an onion. It is a moon ..." Susan intoned, but in that moment the last grain of sand left the upper half of the hourglass.
"Bugger," Tage said "We did not make it."
"What are you trying to do?" Lis asked.
"Look into the fireplace," Tage answered. "You'll find the fragments of a letter, Susan found in Torben's dustbin the other day. Now we're trying to make them grow into the whole letter again with the aid of an old ritual. We just cannot say all those nonsensical rhymes fast enough, and now, as we thought we had it, you came and made us bungle it once again."
"Let me see it," Lis said, snapping the parchment from Tages hands. She studied the ritual.
"You know what, all those lines and rhymes come from old books, but I'm sure you got the last one wrong. That one is from Dante's Paradise. That might be why it does not work. Wait here."

Tage and Susan was left stunned. They looked at one another, then began discussing whose fault it was, that the wording was wrong.
"You told me, what to write," Tage said, "Yes, I did," said Susan "You must have misheard me, or maybe just plain written the wrong word."
"Furthermore" Tage said, "we were in a hurry, it was dark, the book was old and the candle was sputtering. I start wondering if that is the only word that is wrong. Some of it sounds quite meaningless to me."
"Old literature is often like that," Heidi said placatingly. She laid her hands on both their forearms: "Let's wait until Lis returns. She knows a lot more of books and literature than we three together. What a luck she returned early from that witches' Yule gathering."

***

Chapter 10 (Decmber 12, 2018)
After Lis had controlled the words of the ritual, and corrected several stupid and not so stupid mistakes, she strolled down the room to the bag where her belongings were stored. She shook her leather pencilcase, looking for her favourite pen, and sat down at the table. Carefully she copied the ritual onto a new parchment in her flowing and clear handwriting. Then she handed it to Tage and reminded him that she would not pull his chestnuts out of the fire every time. Not even out of sisterly love.

This time the ritual went smoothly. Susan triumphantly sung out: " ... the dancing ring of days!" just before the last particle of sand fell through the hourglass. There was a mighty "Puff" from the fireplace, ashes and sparks flew. When all was quiet, a piece of parchment lay on the fireplace burnt and frayed at the edges, with holes in it, but still, it was legible.

Tage took up the letter and started reading aloud. It began without any form of greeting or address. It went straight to the point: "I'm going to pedal down to the old, black bridge Friday after the apprenti ... returned to their digs. You have to take .... when joining me. There's a vigilant sheepdog ... Bring the sample and a .... You know the routine."

***

Chapter 11 (Decmber 20, 2018)
"Friday!" Heidi piped, "but ... that's today."
"Are we going to be at that black bridge today at nightfall?" Tage asked the other three.
"Yes, but how?" said Lis, "We're going home tomorrow, you know. We're supposed to be packing and throwing a good-bye party for Susan and her family.
"Eww." Susan said, are you going to invite my family over? That's bound to be a catastrophe. My father said something about your kind ... our kind -- she quickly amended -- being like a miasma to the society. It did not sound as if miasma was something nice the way he said it."
"Really!" Lis said. "Miasma is a word from the days of the plague. It meant the poisonous air or mist that caused the illness."
"That was not a nice word to use about other people," Heidi said, looking at Susan as if fearing she would begin using such words as well.
"No it is not." Susan said in a hard voice. "My father did not take well to the idea of witchcraft still existing in the world."

Tage suggested that they all packed as quickly as possible, then told their father that they had forgotten something down at the farm. Timing it in a way that they could be at the bridge at sunset, and so that Heidi and the twin's father would think that they would be home for dinner. "... and with just a bit of luck we might still be in time. Today is the shortest day of the year. The sun sets already at half past three. Dinner won't be until six or later. Let's just hope that Mom's not nearby. A bout of premonition is the last thing we need."
I'll take care of that," Heidi said. "there must be something, I 'll ask for her help with something. Then she'll be in my room as you ask daddy."

The ploy went as planned. At a quarter past two the four children stood at the old powerhouse by the black bridge, shivering in the last rays of the setting sun. They had their cloaks on, and their wands were hidden in an easily accessible place.

"Hey, what are you kids doing here?" A van pulled over, and a young man got out. " D'yo know, it's a bit foolish of you wandering around playing hide and seek near the road." It was a plain looking plumber in his twenties. Tage told him they were practising for a Christmas play, and were about to leave the road. One of his talents were that he could sound very mature and persuasive when he set his mind to it. The young plumber left after admonishing them one last time.
"We'd better hide," Tage said. "We don't want to attract any more attention. Yet the road was the best way of avoiding the vigilant sheep dog of that farmhouse."
They went into the abandoned powerhouse. The dam was broken long ago and power now came via cable from the mainland. The foyer looked as though is had been deserted only days earlier. The big palms had died, but still had retained all their leaves they criss-crossed intricately across the big windows. Lis told them it was called fronds, not leaves.
"Oh, whatever -- Susan said -- they're still big enough to hide us from people outside, and I'd like to wait somewhere out of the cold."
They opened the door and carefully moved some of the palms so that they could stand near the door without being seen from the outside. When everything was to their satisfaction, they crept up behind the wizened foliage and waited.
They did not have to wait for long. Shortly the saw Torben come pedalling down the road. His big body looked even bigger on the small bike and his midnight blue cloak billowing behind him. He leaned the bike at the railing of the bridge and tied his shoelaces, waiting for his partner. The children could barely contain their surprise, or was it lack of surprise as David too came pedalling down the road. "Him!" Tage hissed.

"Oh, nice to see you," David said. "Did you get the stuff?"
"Yes, Torben replied. "what about you?"
"Of course," David replied, "but let's get out of sight before we continue."
They both pushed their bikes to the monastic courtyard leading up to the foyer, and the children praised their luck.
Torben swished his wand and made a small fire in the middle of the yard. Torben and David both squatted, unfortunately facing away from the foyer. Small bottles changed hands and David pulled a small cauldron and a collapsible tripod from the pannier on his bike.
"Whoever penned this recipe -- David agonized --  sprawled and nearly illegible writing that is ..."
"It's mine" David said through clenched teeth, grabbed the recipe and began reading. Unfortunately in a very low whisper.

Soon the stench from the brewing potion reached the nostrils of the hidden children.

***

David poured the potion from the cauldron into several small flasks, careful not to spill any of the evil-smelling liquid. Tage and Lis took a sharp breath as David pulled a hair from Torben's head. He dropped it into one of the bottles and swirled the contents to help the hair dissolve.

 He listened to Torben for a short while, and then he left him to clean and put out the fire. With a swagger he walked to his bike, and pedalled resolutely towards the Unicorn farm.

"Wow," Lis whispered. "What on earth ... "

Does he think he'll put that one off, Tage whispered simultaneously.
Susan looked from one to another, totally clueless.
Heidi whispered - "Is that .. was that a .. I mean will he change into Torben now?"

Susan shot a glance at Torben, who was quickly and methodically scrubbing the cauldron and dousing the fire with flicks and swishes of his wand. He was finished in a very short time, Then he too jumped on his bike and set off in the opposite direction.
Tage and Lis looked at one another, and Lis bent her head.
"Susan and Heidi, you were right," Tage said in a shaking voice. "Those two are up to absolutely nothing good. I have no idea whatsoever quite what they're up to, but that potion is a lookalike potion ... at least that's what I think, and Lis too," he asked questioningly and looked at Lis who nodded.
"I think, I know a way to find out what they were planning," Susan said. "It's a very simple spell actually. A bit like the one making the parchment whole again, only this one can do the same with words."

"What are we waiting for, Heidi said. Let's move."
Oh, but we're not supposed to do any magic, did you forget what happened last time?"
"Let's hope their brewing and Torben's cleaning has loaded the place with magic, so that nobody will notice anything. They're not looking for us all the time, and they have not had our wands traced yet," Susan said.
"OK," Lis said, "go for it."

They went to where the fire had been, Susan swished her wand in small, neat waves and spoke a short command. They waited, Heidi had just opened her mouth to say that it did not work, when they heard Torben's voice "Here you are" it said from somewhere left of Lis' head. She jumped, but kept quiet.
Then Davids petulant voice rose from the other side of the fire: "Whoever penned this recipe, sprawled and nearly illegible writing that is ..."
"It's mine" Torben's voice responded, and began listing ingredients and instructions in a rapid, angry whisper. Then there was silence until Torben spoke again. "Fine, split it up, one for change, and one for return. Add one hair from my left temple to the flask in your right hand. ... Fine, and shake 13 times ... Wait, did it change?"
"Yes" David's disembodied voice sounded weak, almost afraid. "And when I drink this, I'll look like you for 24 hours, or until I empty that other one?" "Exactly. Your job is not much really. Just stay at the Farm, eat dinner with the teachers. And when Thora plays the concertina, you grab the candlestick with the pink ribbon and throw it into the fireplace. Now hurry and remember to take care not to be seen when you cross the causeway." "The next they hear was Torben murmuring scrubbing and scouring cantrips, and Susan drew a deep, shuddering breath, unaware that she had held her breath since saying the spell.

"I'm a wizard on a bonfire if they're doing this in a good cause," Tage said deliberately. He ran to where the trucks had paused to unload the coal when the powerhouse was functioning and dived behind the broken beams, that laid discarded in a big heap on the ground. He returned with a shaking boy.

"Helge!" Susan said, as she saw the lanky, bedraggled apprentice, "What on earth are you doing here?"
"Does any of you have something edible, he's starving," Tage said.
"I have a chocolate bar in one of my coat pockets," Heidi said. She pulled it out and handed it to Helge. He was shaking so hard, he was almost unable to unwrap it.
"Let's rekindle the fire," Susan said.  And suited action to words. A quick movement of her wand, and a short sentence had the fire blazing again. "In for a lamb, in for a sheep," she grinned.

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