Dan and his younger twin brothers, Pat and Simon, live in a fairly ordinary Yorkshire village and enjoy a mostly quiet life. The only unusual thing about them is their strong affinity for water, which has something to do with the special cottage in which they grow up. The cottage just so happens to sit over a natural source of magic that saturates the three brothers and primes them to reach their true potential. All they need is a magical makeover and they'll have a chance to make a difference in the endless conflict between good and evil.

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Trios
by Terry Volkirch

Chapter 1: Tragic Birth

Rolling farmland and the occasional service area passed by in a blur from the window of the large tanker truck. Hedgerows and low, stone fences divided the land into a patchwork of greens, yellows and browns, and every so often, an old stone church peeked over the horizon to reveal the presence of a village. There wasn't much to see — or hear, with no electronics in the cab other than a GPS unit and an old mobile phone. Road noise replaced music and radio presenters to make for a very long, dull journey.

"Bollocks," muttered a short, bald man. "It don't make no sense, driving to Yorkshire. Middle of nowhere, it is!"

The man sat in the cab of a tanker, heading north on the A1 motorway, and he stayed as close to the speed limit as possible so he could stay on schedule. His electronic companion was a stickler for being exactly on time.

"Take the Pontefract, A639 exit," said a woman's voice with a perfect London accent. "Proceed east on towards Campsall."

"Bloomin' GPS, tellin' me what to do, where to go. It i'n't natural."

The man continued to mutter as he took the exit and wound around the curved off-ramp, passing over the A1 and heading towards his destination in the village of Campsall. It didn't take long for him to realize that something was off. The modest two-lane road offered nothing but an endless view of fields broken up by the occasional stand of trees.

"'ere now. I shouldn't be drivin' this here piss poor road in a tanker. Where am I supposed to deliver the petrol?!"

"You are twenty three seconds behind schedule," the feminine voice said. "Increase speed to fifty miles per hour."

The man laughed. "You must be jokin'?! Drive that fast on this road?!" Then he paused, wondering why he even considered arguing with a machine.

The voice didn't respond. Instead, the truck accelerated on its own. The man pumped the brakes to no avail and cursed. He also tried opening the door so he could bail out but the door wouldn't budge.

"Veer left on White Ley Road," the feminine voice said.

The man thought he detected slight irritation in the voice but he pushed it out of his mind. He was too busy trying to keep the large truck on the road.

The truck skidded a little and just managed to continue. It passed along Barnsdale Wood and flew down a small hill as it rapidly approached the next intersection. Several small birds nervously fluttered back and forth between hawthorn bushes as the truck passed.

"Turn right on Norton and Kirk Smeaton Road," the GPS said.

"You're gonna kill me, you bloody piece of shit!" he screamed at the voice.

"Stiff upper lip," it responded. "Be a man."

The tanker slowed just enough to make the turn without tipping over. The man nearly pissed himself but hearing a woman's voice telling him to be a man was just what he needed to keep going. His fear soon turned to anger.

"I don't need no work this bad," he growled. "This is it. I'm quittin' after this."

"What you need," the feminine voice said, "is a good and proper education. Pity it's too late."

"What the f…," the man tried to say but was interrupted.

"Turn right on Ryecroft Road," the voice said.

By that point, the truck had made up for lost time and slowed enough to easily make the turn. The man uttered a long string of curses under his breath as he drove down the road to his final destination.

"Pull over here and await further instructions," the feminine voice commanded.

The narrow road didn't have a shoulder so the man drove off into the grass and stopped, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. He unsuccessfully tried to open the door to escape and slammed the palms of his hands against the steering wheel.

The GPS voice remained silent.

With little else to do, the man looked around and noticed a sign that marked the entrance for Campsmount school on the other side of the road. He could even see a little of the school, hiding behind several small trees along the top of a small ridge. "What's this?" he complained. "You stopped at a school? I thought you said it was too late to get me educated."

The GPS voice remained silent.

The man wasn't known for his patience. And he didn't like being ignored, even if was by a machine. He saw a flaw in the machine's logic and had to bring it up. "I thought we were on a tight schedule? Why are we waiting? You almost get me killed and now we wait?!"

"Do shut up," the GPS said. "There are three students coming this way. Save your voice for them."

"I thought I just had to deliver this here petrol and drive back to London?"

The voice ignored the man, waiting until three teenage girls emerged from the school entrance. The girls turned to walk along the road towards the tanker. When they got close, the electric window lowered on the passenger side of the truck and the voice spoke to the man, "Call out to the three girls across the road. Tell them you're lost and ask for directions to Askern."

"GPS? Lost? Bloody hell. I'm not talking to no girls."

"Do it!" the GPS voice hissed. "Now!"

The man didn't like the sound of that. He slid over on the seat and called out to the girls, asking for directions to Askern like he was told.

Two teenage girls, one with long, straight brown hair, the other with a short, dark curls, walked down the narrow road that led up a small hill to their school, chatting about schoolwork and boys and various other subjects. They trailed behind a third girl, a tall blonde with dark green eyes. All three wore the same navy blue skirts and matching blazer with a white blouse as required by their school.

As usual, the three active girls managed to be the first to leave the school after classes ended. They led a short line of students who all began their walk home. After the previous week of early spring rain, the current nice weather had everyone in a good mood. None of them were in a hurry to get out of the sun.

When the three girls rounded the front iron gate, the blonde's two friends seemed confused when a dodgy little man poked his head out the window of a large tanker and called to them. The blonde girl was a little confused too, as well as a little wary. Still, she couldn't in all good conscience bring herself to ignore a request for help, no matter how odd it looked.

The blonde wanted to ask her friends to stay back, far from the truck, but the three of them were normally inseparable. They'd fought several fantastic battles against dark creatures of legend and only managed to survive by staying together. When a fifty foot serpent with wings attacked them the previous weekend on a shopping trip to York, they had to stand close and protect themselves with a dome of ice while they pulled down a rock wall to crush the serpent. They were lucky to have the River Ouse nearby to supply enough water for their ice dome. The serpent would've gobbled them up otherwise. It was certainly large enough to swallow them whole and it took a large amount of magic power to dispose of its body to prevent any awkward questions by the authorities.

The leader of the trio carefully looked both ways to make sure no cars were coming and led her friends over to the truck. When she got there, she stepped up on the running board and started giving the man directions.

The man scooted back to the driver side and sulked, not giving her much notice. He acted as if he didn't really care, like he didn't want directions.

The girl stopped to ask him, "Are you even listening to me?"

A feminine voice interrupted, causing the girl to jump. "No, he's not, Jenna."

The girl immediately knew she made a mistake, a fatal mistake. However, she did have the presence of mind to stall as she shouted at the person who remotely spoke through the GPS unit. "You! I know you in spite of that voice. Give up! Pack it in! Whatever you're planning won't work." At the same time, she telepathically communicated with her two friends, preparing them for battle.

The GPS voice tutted and responded with the last words that the man and three girls would ever hear. "My dear girl, it's already worked. Good bye and good riddance."

The girls wasted no time. Jenna, ever vigilant to protect innocents, spent just under two seconds, drawing on an amplified burst of magic from Emma to open large fissures in the ground. The fissures swallowed all nearby fellow students, gently wedging them deep in the dirt and protecting them from harm. The earth-based spell barely gave her enough time to cast her second spell. She finished just as the back of the tanker erupted in flame.

The leading edge of a huge fireball slowed to a crawl as the new spell began to take effect. The girls appeared to swim through a pool of flames, flames that singed hair and blackened clothing as everything froze in place. Out of reflex, their eyes tightly shut, squeezing out a few tears just on the verge of evaporating from reddened cheeks.

The time stop spell was the best that Jenna could do. There were no significant sources of water near the school and the fire had gotten too close anyway. Any water would turn into a deadly cloud of steam.

As part of the spell, Jenna's spirit left her body. She looked back at herself and her friends, engulfed in flames and nearly lost her will to fight. She had to force herself to continue, knowing that she had no way to move her body or the bodies of her friends. When her last spell ended, time would resume its normal course and she and her friends would die. But before that could happen, she had one thing she could do, one thing she had to do. She had to look for a successor. She floated up and called on her intuition and divine guidance to help her find a person with the potential to succeed where she had failed.

Time hadn't exactly stopped, more like Jenna moved incredibly fast. From the girl's current perspective, the flames still slowly crept up on the bodies and would eventually burn the girls to death. The spell would end long before that happened though. She required a tremendous amount of energy to maintain the spell and her two friends were trapped in normal time so they couldn't continue to supply her with magic. She had to hurry to find her successor.

The girl's spirit floated high over the blossoming flames directly below her. With no flashing light, no beacon appearing to show her where to go, she hovered with indecision and worry. She had no idea what to do. Again, she appealed to the Goddess.

Inspiration struck then, as it often does, without reason or warning. She suddenly wondered if perhaps her successor might be from the very same school that she attended. A powerful magic user might be tucked into one of the fissures below her, or might still be in the school, well beyond any threat. Her lack of clear direction could only mean that she wasn't meant to move.

Jenna looked down, wondering where to start. She directed herself toward the closest fissure and stopped halfway down. She couldn't hear anyone's thoughts. They didn't register. They couldn't. Their minds were frozen along with their bodies thanks to the time stop spell.

Despair overtook the girl. She felt so close yet so far. The person she sought was near. She could feel it with a strange certainty. One last chance, one last appeal to the Goddess and she found herself back near the tanker as the spell ended. She thought she detected a single word that formed in her mind just before she snapped back inside her body.

Endure.

Night had long since fallen before the police finished picking over the scene of the explosion. Too many suspicious circumstances convinced the police that the four charred bodies they found were murdered so they took a long time searching for clues. They found it impossible to prove it though. They didn't believe in magic.

Rescuing the students from the fissures and cleaning up all of the fire suppressing foam took the most time and energy. Multiple professionals paid special care to the students, trying to piece together the chain of events but frayed nerves kept any of the victims from noticing that the fissures weren't caused by the explosion. The fissures erupted close enough in time to the explosion that it was blamed for them. Again, so few people believed in magic.

The last of the emergency vehicles drove away, leaving the first quarter moon to cast everything in an eerie glow. Jenna's spirit had been joined by the spirits of her two friends, and the three of them had watched all of the examinations and cleanup, trying to lend support and encouragement to everyone. It didn't actually help any of the living but it made the three girls feel better. Being together helped the girls as well. They supported each other.

Jenna didn't exactly need any help. She felt a clear duty to find a successor, knowing the importance of the mission. The other two girls were the ones needing help. Kate, the youngest of the three, wailed at the injustice — she'd never achieve her plans for a perfect life — while Emma fumed. She wanted revenge.

They communicated to each other by thought, and when they all calmed down enough to think things through, they all agreed that they must have unfinished business to tend to before they could move on to wherever good spirits went. That encouraged them enough to keep going.

When all of the chaos and excitement died down, the students settled in their homes and Jenna once again received some divine assistance. Her two friends followed her as she felt her spirit pulled along High Street in the neighboring village of Norton, seeing cottages and buildings with small signs that displayed their names, names like Rose Cottage and Ivy House. When she got to a small, white cottage with the name, "Water Works," she phased through the wall and found herself in a small bathroom with a single teenage occupant, soaking in the tub. Kate and Emma waited just outside.

'She's kind of plain,' thought Jenna, studying the oval face and short, brown hair. 'Not well developed either,' she continued, referring to the person's flat chest. Then a terrible thought occurred to her and she looked farther down the teen's body to confirm her worst fear. 'She's a boy!'

A boy wouldn't do… wouldn't do at all! Males couldn't handle water-based magic very well. But he was all she had to work with. She'd asked for help and a higher power had led her to this boy.

The other two girls entered the bathroom, sensing their leader's distress.

'What's wrong?' Kate asked.

'My successor is a boy,' Jenna replied.

The two girls looked horrified.

Jenna gave an ethereal sigh. Something else troubled her too. She felt a strong compulsion to return to her dead body, and she correctly assumed the same held true for her two friends. The longer and farther away they were from their bodies, the stronger the pull. She worked out that they had to complete three tasks and hoped they all had enough time to do so before they had to leave.

'What about you two?' Jenna asked her friends. 'Do either of you feel your successors nearby?'

Finishing the first task required the discovery of a new trio. The boy in the tub needed two others to join him. Throughout the recorded history of witches, only a trio could effectively wield the strongest magic.

'Actually, I do,' Emma told them in as few words as possible, her eyes still smoldering with anger over her death.

'Me too,' Kate added. 'Now that you mention it, I suddenly feel a compulsion to peek into the adjacent room.'

The two older girls moved forward and Jenna noticed that Kate lagged behind. She caught the girl peeking at a certain someone in the tub.

'Kate," the older girl warned.

'Coming!'

The three girls poked their heads through a cream-colored side wall of the bathroom. The neighboring room held two beds with two more boys lying in them, slightly younger twin brothers of the boy in the tub. The girls knew they were boys by the clothes that littered the floor of their room.

'Not more boys!' they thought.

Jenna quickly pulled her friends together for a group hug. 'Come on, girls. Accept the will of the Goddess and move on. We still have more to do.'

With the first task out of the way, they started on the second. The second task involved an extremely important rule in their teachings. They could do no harm, which included forcing the boys to take their place. The boys had to freely accept their role in the battle against evil, no matter what that entailed. All the girls could do was leave each of the boys with a thought, a mental contract that gave him the choice of accepting or not accepting. The contract would play out in their dreams and give the boys a chance to think about what it would mean to accept the contract.

Being the oldest, Jenna moved back to the bathroom and subconsciously planted the contract in the mind of the oldest boy in the tub. Emma instinctively chose the older identical twin boy — older by about ten minutes — in the bedroom and Kate, the youngest of the three girls, was left with the younger twin.

They finished the second task. That just left one more. The third and final task had the three girls asking for divine assistance to ensure that the new trio would have a teacher. Immediately after that, the three of them snapped back to the charred remains of their bodies.

None of the girls were sure of their current location. All they knew was darkness and a profound sadness when they realized that they couldn't move on. Each of them floated alone in the dark, only half-aware of their surroundings, wondering about what other unfinished business they might have.

 © 2013 by Terry Volkirch. This work may not be replicated in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder). All Rights Reserved. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental.