His Dark Eternal

A high incessant ringing pulled Griffin out of dark abyssmal sleep and into the stunning brilliance of the new day. Annoyance seeped through him as he cursed the sound, noting that it came from his father’s room which was just next door. He was in the very least, pissed. He’d gone through the trouble of turning his alarm off the night before, because he was taking his holiday off from school early. It was hard for him to go back to sleep after he’d been disturbed, especially in the mornings.

His father was a heavy sleeper.

Shut that blasted thing off.

With every second that passed, Griffin felt his annoyance increasing until he went over the edge. As his magic swept from him, he heard the clock explode in the other room with a violent shatter as it clattered unto the floor. And then there was blessed silence.

His father woke up then.

“What the hell?” he heard him mutter as the bed squeaked under his shifting weight.

Griffin pulled the pillow over his head and tried to go back to sleep.

“Finn, what the hell did you do to my clock?”

Of course. His sodding clock...

He found himself yanked into the air so that he was hanging by his right foot. The sudden vertigo made him feel sick for a moment and he closed his eyes tightly as he willed the sensation away.

“Dad-” the word got caught in his throat as he found himself spinning like a marionette. From his flashing vision, he saw his father standing at the doorway and tried to grab on to the bed to halt his motion, but he only drifted higher to the ceiling.

“Upset about being awake?” his father rumbled from the door, “It’s the cycle of life. You get up in the morning and then you die. Rinse and repeat.”

He crashed unto the bed with such force, he bounced off and hit the floor. His father walked away as he lay there, groaning. He couldn’t go back to sleep now. He cursed under his breath as he got up begrudgingly and made his way to the bathroom. His father was going to let him have it the whole day for breaking his clock, even though it was easily repairable with a simple spell. It was better he was at school, sitting in boring lecture style classes and watching the wind go by outside the window.

After he’d showered, he slipped the familiar round, wooden pendant around his neck. It was enchanted to make the wearer inconspicious; he was forgotten as soon as he vanished out of sight and was not noticed until he called attention to himself. It was one of the most useful things he had made, although it had been extremely hard getting the correct balance of magic in. His father had it to say that he was a stronger warlock than he had ever been at his age. Efficient magic control was something only the best were supposed to be capable of.

As he stepped outside his home and into the slightly chilly December air, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pullover and began the slow, gruelling walk to school. He’d enchanted his bag to make it lighter, which was just as well, since he’d taken to sneaking his father’s grimoire to school. The odds of his father finding out that it was missing from the cupboard were slim, since he only ever used it when one of them was sick. He knew his dad would be upset he was studying it, especially since there were some pretty dark spells recorded there. But Griffin was a bored teenager. Between home and school, the grimoire fascinated and comforted him, giving him a sense of power that only it could. He spent hours poring over the brown pages, practising incantations under his breath. At school, no one gave him a second glance. He was left to practise his magic in peace.

There wasn’t a lot of his kind left though. The executions in the fifteenth to early eighteenth centuries had left few survivors. That, coupled with the fact that the gift could only be passed on if both parents carried the disposition, further reduced the numbers over the years. The grimoire he carried had had its pages preserved by magic and was probably over four hundred years old. No ordinary human could read it either. The witches and warlocks before him recorded their spells in Kaitune, an ancient language that was unique only to their magical bloodline. A child was born with the knowledge of this language, and it was only through it that spells could be enacted.

The wind blew his black hair out of his eyes as he turned into the town. Corland was a place known for its cold, rainy winters and countless waterholes in the bordering forest. In the summer, it was the perfect spot for bonfire parties. At this time of year though, no one wandered into the frigid reclines of the trees. People flocked to the cafes and ambled busily from store to store. Even though Christmas was not for another two weeks, there was the light feathered feeling of the holiday spirit floating around, adding colour to otherwise pale cheeks and pep in travelling steps.

People went by him without so much as a second glance. The necklace’s effects were active, so long as the pendant remained in contact with his skin. Griffin never tired of the absolute indifference others paid him. On more than one occasion, he’d taken a small pillow to class and slept through the entire period. So long as people didn’t look for him intentionally, he remained unoticed. Free to do whatever compelled him, which was more often than not, the studying of the ancient grimoire.

He managed to keep his grades average, doing just enough to not fall off the wagon completely, for while his father was impressed with his powers, he wanted him to go to college and get a job like a normal human being. But a mundane life was the very thing Griffin despised. There was no point in being different if he had to act like everyone else.

He ducked into Evan’s Parlor for his usual cup of tea. Inside was warm, like his living room back home and had soft ambient music playing from a stereo over in the corner. Christmas decorations were already up, with a large tree standing in the centre of the room. He had half a mind to skip school entirely and spend the rest of the day there, in his grimoire. After all, what was there to do at school? It was a Friday and if he missed anything, he could always catch up the other week.

He stepped up to the counter and smiled warmly at the barista, a young woman with conspicuously rouge-coloured lips, “can I have a medium black tea, please.”

“Of course.” Griffin noticed that her cheeks were reddening, in spite of the relative warmth of the cafe. She processed the order and handed him the receipt, her attention vanishing as soon as he moved away from her.

“Hello, how may I help you?” She greeted the other customer in line.

He’d decided to skip school after all, spending the duration of the morning reading from the grimoire. He was absentmindedly turning the colour of a penny from purple to brown in his hand, when the bell jingled over the door again and the smell of lavender wafted in. He looked up to see Karine, shaking a light drench from her umbrella. Her curly brown hair framed her cheeks which were rosy from the chill outside. She carried her knapsack casually with one strap hanging from her shoulder, and was toting a small pile of books in her hands. She greeted the barista, smiling as the two launched into a pleasant conversation. Griffin stashed the grimoire in his bag and removed the pendant from his neck, slipping it into his pocket.

There was another reason why he’d chosen to come here to spend the rest of the afternoon, that had nothing to do with the tranquility of the cafe. Karine’s grandfather was the sole proprietor of the parlor and she often came in the evenings to help out with the business. When she wasn’t busy serving customers, they’d sit together and talk, laughing together at some nonsense or another. She was the only person he felt comfortable around, albeit not comfortable enough to share his secret. He knew he had a crush on her but he was unable to help it. Afterall, how can you ever hope to control those mysterious things?

She noticed him sitting over at their usual spot and excused herself from the barista. As she came over, he was careful to pretend that he’d been busy on his phone, and not like he’d simply been waiting for her.

“Finn, Hi!”

He looked up and she was smiling at him, her face perfect in the glow of the shop. He reciprocated her smile, gesturing to the books in her hand, “don’t tell me you’re stealing books again.”

She laughed loudly, sitting down next to him, “would you shut up about that?” she said through her teeth, “I told you I don’t do that anymore.”

“Why are you getting so defensive?” he asked innocently.

“Where have you been all day?” she said swiftly, focusing her gaze sharply on him, “I’m sure Mr. Vay will be pleased to hear that his son’s skipping school again.”

Griffin gave a short laugh, and she mocked him in turn, but her laugh was cut short when he grabbed the books from her hands.

“Hey!” she whisper-yelled at him, trying to take them back, but he leaned away from her, dangling them out of her reach.

“Well well, well,” he said, tutting with a self-righteous air, “It appears that at least two books out of this pile have not been checked out.”

He looked at her, his eyebrows raised, “what do you have to say for yourself?”

She snatched back the books, glaring at him.

“I’m borrowing them. Just because they don’t have it written down, doesn’t mean that’s not what I’m doing.”

“A reasonable thought,” he agreed.

“Woud you like some tea?” she asked him with fake cheeriness.

“Sorry, but I’ll pass this one.”

“That’s too damn bad. It was on the house and everything.”

“Yeah it is,” he was saying, but her eyes had caught something.

“Hey, what’s this?” she asked curiously, picking up the penny he’d been playing with earlier. He looked at it, his heart slamming into his chest. It was bright purple.

“That’s strange,” he said, trying to contain his nervousness.

“Yeah,” she said softly, still scrutinizing it.

“It’s probably dyed or fake.”

“Who’d dye a penny?” she asked incredulously, raising her eyebrow at him. “Besides, it doesn’t feel fake.”

The bell jingled over the door again as a customer came in, and he took the opportunity to summon a mild gust that blew into the cafe. As she reached to brush away the hair that was blowing into her eyes, he called the penny to him and it slid from her fingers and into his own. He changed the colour back with a light tap and dropped it into his pocket.

When the gust died down, she looked about her in confusion, “where is it? I just had it.”

“It probably fell or something. What does it matter?” he said as she searched the seat for it.

“No, I can’t believe I lost it.” She said with true remorse, “It was kind of pretty.”

He stared at her for a while, a thought tugging at him.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “it was.”

They were walking home together from the cafe when he suggested they take the route through the park. It was shortly after five in the afternoon and the first glimmer of twilight was beginining to show its face in the sky. The trees sighed collectively on either side of the path as they walked together, laughing and shoving one another playfully. There were a few people lounging in the park as well, the occasional lamppost illuminating the evening.

“I’m telling you that old guy was checking me out!” Karine was saying as they went along, “he tipped big too. I feel so dirty, carrying this money around.”

“I can take all of it off your hands,” Griffin offered immediately.

“Oh, go away,” she pushed him, laughing as she did so,“If I’m parting with this, I’m giving it to someone who I actually like.”

“Dang, I felt that one,” Griffin said, clutching his chest like he was suffering from some unseen pain.

A car went by on the main road, playing Christmas carols out into the evening.

“I have an idea,” Griffin said with sudden inspiration, “you could buy your gift with the money, and then buy my gift and we just call it a happy Christmas.”

“Or,” she countered, “I could buy a carton of eggs to egg you for forgetting my gift. And then I’ll follow you around with a camera and laugh at you. Now that's an idea-”

A collective gasp went up into the air as something colourful flashed in the sky.

“What was that?”

As they watched, a dancing sheet of green light alighted in the sky. It swirled slowly and melded into a soft blue that gradually brightened and elongated.

“Oh my God,” she said, her eyes wide, “Is that the northern lights?”

“Seems like it,” he said quietly.

The world around them suddenly became a technicolour hue as the lights flashed above them. The sky became a mix of dancing pigments, raining down its colours like a disco ball. Everyone’s focus was trained to the heavens where the performance continued for at least five minutes, before it slowly ebbed away.

“Did you see what I just saw?” Karine turned to Griffin, her eyes wide with excitement,“did you see that? It was amazing!”

“Totally,” he agreed.

“But isn’t that only supposed to happen at the poles? Corland’s nowhere near that.”

“Guess it’s just a lucky night,” he said.