Trios

Not all things that come in groups of three are bad.

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 2: Strange New School

George Green unfolded his newspaper and spread it out, leaning it back against the edge of the dining room table where he sat. Early morning sunlight gave him enough light to read by, though he mostly just skimmed headlines to keep from being late for work.

"Did you see this 'un, Sue?" he said, pointing out a story to his wife who sat across from him, quietly sipping her tea.

"See what, Dear?"

"Another explosion in London yesterday to go with ours. Terrible thing, that."

Sue furrowed her brow. "There've been loads of explosions down south. Makes a person wonder."

George silently agreed, wishing he had more time to talk about all the explosions. Yesterday's incident shocked and angered everyone in the area. They all demanded to know how a truck full of petrol could've ended up at the school entrance and exploded like it did, and why things like that kept happening all across the country.

"Well… time to make a move. Good luck with the boys." With that, the man of the house slurped down the remains of his coffee and slipped off to work, leaving his currently unemployed wife to watch over their sons. School had been canceled for the rest of the week to give everyone time to adjust and perform necessary road repairs.

Sue thought her sons might sleep late and tried to take advantage of it. She went back to the sitting room to finish her tea whilst watching Breakfast on BBC One. She loved that morning show.

~o~O~o~

Dan stubbornly stayed in bed, listening to his father drive off to work. He wanted to have a good lie in but he had trouble sleeping. He'd been one of the students stuck in a fissure and it didn't set well with his dreams. He'd never forget sliding down into the earth and seeing flames fill the narrow ribbon of sky above him. At least the details of his dreams mercifully eluded him. He just knew they were unpleasant enough to wake him up.

Something else bothered him more than just a little too. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone watched him last night in the bathtub. He'd never felt such a strong feeling and it blended into his vaguely disturbing dreams along with fissures and flames. He had to give up on sleep.

Looking around his small, cozy bedroom in the attic, he spied his fluffy brown bathrobe and sighed. It reminded him of baths and made him long for another good soak. Like his brothers, he couldn't seem to get enough time in water. Forget showers. He never spent less than an hour in the bath, and he loved swimming in nearby Askern Pool. He couldn't wait to harass his mother for money to go to the pool. Since they canceled school, he wanted to have a good swim.

He didn't think he'd escape without his twin brothers tagging along. He'd gladly let them come though. It would give him easy victims for dunking and splashing. They were a little less than two years younger than him and a good ten centimeters shorter. He'd have no trouble getting the best of them, even if they tried to gang up on him, something they'd been trying more and more lately.

The twins did get better at surprising him during awkward moments and they worked extremely well together. They seemed to share that peculiar link between identical twins where they knew what each other was thinking. One could and often did finish the other one's sentence those few occasions where they spoke at all. It was eerie, but not nearly as eerie as yesterday's incident.

The teen shivered and roused himself for breakfast, slipping into his bathrobe and slippers before opening the door to his room and walking downstairs.

"Hi Mum," he muttered as he passed by the sitting room. He paused for a little conversation.

"Hello Dan," she said. "You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep. Bad dreams."

Sue gave him a sympathetic look and turned back to the television.

He resumed his walk, scuffing his feet as he entered the kitchen. After a good rummage through the pantry, he settled for a bowl of cold cereal and ended up at the dining room table, surprised to see his brothers already there, currently eating their own bowls of cereal.

"You too?" Dan asked them.

They nodded. They knew exactly what he meant. They knew he asked if they got up early because of a night of bad dreams.

Sue chose that moment to interrupt, perfectly timed with adverts on the telly. She poked her head into the dining area on her way to get a refill. "Is that all you're having? Wouldn't you at least like some toast?"

"Yes, please," the three of them chorused, causing the twins to stare at Dan. All three brothers seemed to be on the same wavelength that morning.

"Hang on then," their mother called. "Toast is on the way." She went back to the kitchen and busied herself preparing toast as well as more tea.

The twins looked at each other and shrugged, turning to watch Dan as he ate his cereal.

Sue couldn't quite see her sons as she worked in the kitchen, but that didn't stop her from trying to have a conversation with them. She much preferred voices to silence. "Did any of you know any of the girls that died yesterday?" she asked them. "Such a shame. But at least it was over quickly. Right?" She talked as much to herself, not really expecting an answer and usually not getting one.

Hearing talk about the girls suddenly triggered something in all three boys. The older twin, Patrick, turned to look at Simon, expecting the younger twin to look back at him. But Simon remained focused on Dan, while Dan paused and looked up at Patrick. All three then cocked their heads, listening to a contract play out in their minds. Their eyes widened as they were asked to join a very serious cause, and all three said, "Yes," agreeing to the contract.

Dan put down his spoon and leaned back in his chair, staring back at his brothers who stared at him. "You too?" he asked them.

They nodded.

The morning was getting seriously spooky. But being a growing boy, Dan's stomach gurgled for attention and he got back to eating his cereal.

Sue finished making toast and brought in a large plate full. She set it down on the table and all three boys thanked her.

"My," she said. "You're all so polite this morning. Are you sure you're all okay?"

"Yes, Mum," the three brothers chorused. Their timing amazed all four of them considering that the boys paused to make sure they didn't talk with their mouths full.

Sue shook it off with a chuckle. "Have fun. I'm going back to the telly," she told them, taking a sip of hot tea as she slowly made her way back to the sitting room.

"We have to talk," Dan told his brothers.

The twins nodded.

"On the way to the pool," Simon said.

They all knew where they'd end up later that day.

~o~O~o~

The three brothers cleaned their teeth and made a passing attempt to clean their rooms, the minimal effort required to get a little spending money out of their mother. Dan felt a little guilty about not helping his mum out a little more but he was anxious to get to the pool, especially after accepting the strange mental contract. Something about the pool drew him in more than just the usual fun to be had there. Patrick and Simon felt the same way. They couldn't get out of the house fast enough.

The teens grabbed their swimming trunks, a towel and goggles to protect against the chlorine in the pool and left the house. They quickly walked up High Street in silence, not trusting their conversation to be private enough, and turned left onto Campsall Balk a short distance before veering left along a public footpath that skirted a farmer's field. The triangular field opened to their right and a mix of small trees lined the path to their left. As they walked along the drier edges of the muddy path, they started talking, or at least Dan did. The twins mostly listened.

"Okay," Dan said. "I think it's safe to talk. Those forces of darkness mentioned in the contract can't be everywhere at once. Right?"

The twins looked at each other and shrugged.

"Yeah," the oldest brother agreed. "But I don't see anything around except plants. It should be safe."

Dan took the time to summarize his own contract, making sure it matched the twins'. It did. The voice in their heads gave a very brief description of the mission, a warning about those who would oppose them and then a simple question of acceptance. That left them with speculation, lots of speculation.

"I'm guessing that like me, you two feel a strong urge to go to the pool."

The twins nodded.

"I think I know what that means. I think we're trading one school for another today."

Simon spoke up. "The contract didn't mention anything about a school."

"No, but it was implied. We'll need to learn how to use magic if we're going to fight magical battles."

"Fight magic with magic," Pat said, with Simon nodding and adding, "Sounds like fun."

Dan shook his head. "I very much doubt it'll be fun. I suspect most of our battles will be to the death."

"Learning will be fun," the twins chorused. They all agreed on that much.

The three of them had the contract play out in their conscious minds and all three accepted. They knew it would be dangerous and they knew magic was involved. That got their attention. But they still weren't sure what to do next. They only knew that more answers waited for them at the pool.

~o~O~o~

The boys quickened their walking pace for the last hundred meters on the wide trail through the wood that lined the north side of Church Field Road. They carefully peeked from the side of the road and launched themselves across the two-lane road to the pool, playfully competing to see who would be first to the door of the building.

A short run up the front steps, they soon found themselves at reception, paying to swim, and then heading left to the boys changing room. In no time at all, they stood at the edge of the pool in their matching green swimming trunks, watching and waiting, still unsure of what to do.

There wasn't much to see. Four teen boys splashed about in the middle and were watched closely by a young man acting as the swimming attendant. The teens played a game to see just how far they could go without getting a warning. The only others in the pool were a young woman and her four-year-old daughter quietly playing in one corner at the shallow end.

"Well, Dan? What now?" Simon asked.

Dan shook his head and hopped into the shallow end on the opposite side from the mother and daughter. The oldest brother pulled the goggles up from around his neck and placed them over his eyes. He waited a minute or so to see if anything happened. When nothing did, he turned to wave the other two in.

"I don't get it," Dan said. "Something should've happened by now. We obviously need a teacher. So where is he? And why do I think he'll be here?"

The twins stared at their brother and shrugged.

The waiting and shrugging shoulders gave way to frustration. The older boy waded towards the deeper end, leaving his brothers behind. He kept going until the water level reached his neck before he stopped and cocked his head as if he heard something. Feeling his brothers' eyes watching him, he turned around to see them immediately shrug their shoulders for the umpteenth time. That did it. His brothers drove him crazy sometimes. He dunked his head underwater and right in front of him, he saw the translucent figure of a beautiful blonde girl who appeared to be about his age. He could just make out that she wore the girls uniform from his school. Though her body was mostly transparent, her face was clearly visible, and when she smiled at him, he almost levitated out of the water, gasping when he thrust his head out of the water.

The nearby attendant looked at him with concern but Dan held his hand up to show the man that he was okay.

The shaken boy quickly waded back to his brothers, certain that he'd just seen one of the girls who was killed by the explosion at their school.

"Are you okay?" Pat asked him.

"Yeah. But I'm not sure I like our teacher."

"What?" the twins said.

"Just follow me."

Dan led his brothers until they were neck deep, which wasn't quite as far as he went since he was taller. He turned to face them and couldn't help himself when they shrugged their shoulders. He dunked them both and quickly followed them under.

There, under the water, the three brothers saw an amazing sight. All three of their fellow classmates who fell victim to the explosion floated right before their eyes. Kate, the youngest with short, curly black hair paired with Simon and Emma, with long brown hair that seemed to flow naturally in the water, paired with Pat. That left Jenna with Dan. Jenna's long blonde hair also seemed to flow and radiate out as if she actually swam underwater. But that was impossible! They were dead! All three girls were dead. That's what the brothers were thinking anyway.

'You''re right,' Jenna said with her thoughts, reaching the three boys as well as her two dead friends. 'Our bodies are dead. But our spirits live on. And we're here to teach you. We have a lot of work to do so shall we get to it?'

'Wait a minute,' Dan thought. 'How is this even possible?'

'And how are we going to learn anything when we can only see you underwater?' Pat added before quickly turning to stare at his older brother. 'I heard you!'

'And I hear you!' Dan shot back.

'And I hear both of you, and the girl,' Simon said, sounding bored. 'She's right. Can we just get on with it? I want to learn some magic. This will be so cool!'

The other two brothers started to laugh and lost too much air. They surfaced for another breath and quickly submerged again.

'Good,' Jenna told them when they returned. 'Now can we begin?'

'Hang on,' Dan said. 'What is this, some sort of telepathy?'

'Yes,' Jenna agreed. 'It has to do with the high density of magic in the water. Water magic is amazing. I could try to explain it but we really don't have the time. We have a lot to teach you in a fairly short time.'

'Right then. Go ahead.'

Jenna nodded and, after everyone introduced themselves, she began her first lecture. 'Magic works best when witches work in trios. Each witch specializes in one part of spell casting so they can wield stronger magic than each could individually. First, there's what we witches call the font. The font specializes in connecting to and extracting sources of raw magic, which is pretty much everywhere to some degree. The Goddess has determined that Simon will work best as a font.'

'So mote it be,' the girls said in unison.

Simon held his finger up and rose to get more air. He dipped back down with a question. 'Do you have any water breathing spells?'

'Yes, but not yet,' Jenna replied. 'We don't want you to attract too much attention by staying underwater too long. Please be patient and let us figure out how and what to teach you. We're learning just as you are. The Goddess guides us because we've never taught before.'

The younger twin just shrugged to that.

'Next, there's the flow,' the girl continued. 'The flow specializes in gathering and amplifying the raw magic from the font and converting it to various forms that can be used by the third member of a witch's trio: the fetch.'

Pat interrupted with what they all knew to be true. 'Right then. I'm the flow.'

The girls all nodded and said, 'So mote it be.'

Jenna resumed her lecture. 'The fetch is the spell caster of the trio, taking the amplified magic from the flow and creating specific magical effects. Dan is the fetch of your trio.'

'So mote it be,' the girls repeated together.

Jenna smiled. WIth the background information out of the way, the fun could begin. She liked to think of it as fun anyway. She had a feeling of great satisfaction as her intuition told her they had an excellent chance of succeeding in their mission with the boys. She waited for them to get more air again before starting the lesson.

'Since Kate was the font of our trio, she'll work with Simon. Emma will train Pat to be a flow and that leaves me to work with Dan.'

Dan looked pensive and Jenna quickly cut him off before he could say anything. 'No more questions. We don't have time. We'll lead by example and direct application. I'm not sure exactly why things worked out this way. I've never been dead before. I think the pool helps us though. The water seems to reduce the tendency to be pulled back to our bodies. I think it might also help you learn more easily. We shall see.' The tall blonde looked at the other two girls and they nodded before pairing up and separating a little to help them focus on their individual lessons.

Normally, a new student of magic would have to start in small steps using meditation to seek out the ambient magic around them. Once a student could sense the magic, they could then work on detecting stronger sources of it and tap into those sources. They all start out as fonts that way, and they move on, learning how to be a flow or fetch if they have the aptitude. However, the girls didn't have time for the usual teaching methods.

They explained that they themselves couldn't use magic as spirits but they could bend the rules. They'd have to bend the rules to sensitize the boys to magic and get them started right away. As directed by the Goddess, and with the permission of the boys, the girls took over their pupils' magical power using a form of partial possession. Through their thoughts and actions, they showed the boys exactly how to feel for and draw in the magic around them. It worked well.

Simon noticed immediate results and remarked on how much more concentrated the magic seemed to be in the pool water than in the air. He could also see differences in the magic itself, depending on its environment.

'That's awesome!' Kate told him. 'I can't believe you picked up on that already. You're right of course. Magic comes in many forms with elemental magic being attracted to its like element of water, earth, air and....' She understandably hesitated on the last element since she was so recently a victim of fire magic.

Simon gave her a sympathetic look and didn't finish her sentence for her like he wanted to.

The younger twin did make the best font of the new trio. That much was clear since he detected and redirected magic so easily. Redirecting came just as naturally as detection did. Kate showed him how to create a magical hose that drew in magic from the water and sprayed the magic in a tight stream towards the deep end of the pool. The magic gave the water a slight blue glow as it shot through it, not quite bright enough for the other swimmers to notice unless they knew to look for it.

The other two brothers weren't quite as quick to pick up on the different magic types but through their special brotherly bond — now enhanced by magic — they learned it anyway. Their learning continued to accelerate that same way. Whenever one brother had any kind of epiphany, the other two would share it.

The girls noticed the bond between the brothers and occasionally gave each other a knowing look. The Goddess chose their successors well. Not only did they share insights, the brothers also seemed to share an affinity for water. That boded well. If only they were girls. Boys couldn't wield strong water-based magic. It just didn't happen. Something had to change, and the girls wisely kept quiet, waiting and watching for the coming changes.

Once Pat and Dan understood the basics of the font, they moved on to their own specialties while continuing to absorb new details that Simon shared with them. They didn't practice the same things that Simon did, but their new font knowledge still helped them learn and understand their own specialized skills.

Emma showed Pat how to harness strong emotion to force magic into patterns. She soon had Pat creating a vortex of magical energy from the pool water, surprising both of them by the strength of the vortex as it carried water along with it to create a slow moving but significant whirlpool. Other forms could be used but the vortex was both the simplest and most powerful as it funneled magic into a small, concentrated area.

Pat continued experimenting with both the size and shape of the vortex. He reduced its diameter, thereby increasing the density of magic and then expanded its height a little, changing it from a disk into more of a donut shape. He kept shrinking it and as the density increased, it caused the water to spin faster and glow blue, just as Simon's magic hose had done. The magic looked like a giant blue glazed donut about one meter in diameter, earning a nod of subtle praise from Emma.

If the four boisterous teens didn't move to the deep end of the pool and keep the swimming attendant occupied, the young man might have notice a slight dimpling on the surface of the pool. The whirlpool spun fast enough to create a visible effect.

The oldest brother of the trio benefited from Pat's successes as much as Simon's. Even without practicing, he could easily imagine himself creating the same effects. Jenna didn't give him a chance to prove it though.

The blonde spirit relied heavily on her intuition and creativity for teaching her lessons and progress was remarkably fast. Casting spells took a lot more mental skill than the other two magic disciplines, and specific magical effects took a lot more control to create. After giving her lesson some serious thought and letting some of the twins' experiences sink in, she sent Dan something that she liked to call a thought form. A thought form represented a spell template, showing the boy how to use his thoughts to form a spell. Words were unnecessary. In the case of spell casting, it truly was the thought that counted.

Jenna's thought form started with the simple displacement of water. She showed her pupil how to literally dent the water with the mind, simulating the act of throwing a rock into the water. The rock would splash and send out ripples in concentric rings that radiated outward from where the rock entered the water. The ripples could come naturally after the splash. Only the splash was necessary.

There were different ways to do the same thing with magic. Air magic could blow directly down into the water. Earth magic could control the movement of an actual rock to create a splash. However, the girl wanted Dan to focus on water magic for the first lesson. Like the boys, the girls shared a bond, and they noticed that not only did the boys share a love of water, their water-based magic effects were unusually strong. The girls wanted to see just how strong those abilities were.

Dan started with the image of a single drop of water and pushed it straight up out of the water above his head. The drop levitated a few inches and then dropped back into the pool, creating an almost imperceptible splash. It was a start.

After lifting a drop of water, he then imagined a single drop of water jerking down into the pool to create the same effect. It worked, and he built on his success by slowly increasing the volume of water until it was the size of a small rock. He pulled the water down and suddenly let go to create a small splash.

Jenna would've squealed with joy if she still had lungs. She didn't normally have such outbursts but the progress of the three brothers astounded her, and she couldn't help herself. She tried to imagine what they could do as girls and soon wondered if she might have gone too far. She knew she didn't have any magic ability in her current form. However, she did have a direct link to the Goddess and She could work wonders. As soon as the girl connected her imagination to thoughts of the Goddess, the three boys very suddenly and violently doubled over as if they experienced severe cramping. The boys barely made it over to the side of the pool where they managed to pull their heads above the surface with one arm. Their other arm remained tightly held against their abdomens. After several minutes and only a single slightly concerned look from the swimming attendant, they started breathing more easily. The worst of the cramping stopped, with only minor twinges that hit periodically. They were soon able to continue their lesson.

The girls pretended not to notice and waited for their pupils to return. They still had so much more to teach, and most likely, no more than a few months in which to teach it. The number of magical explosions and fires increased every week and had to be stopped.

'What was that?!' Dan asked when he approached his teacher. 'What just happened to us?'

'I'm not really sure,' Jenna said, carefully. She really wasn't sure. Her intuition could make a good guess but she decided that the time for such speculation might be a little early so she tried a half truth. 'Something to do with learning magic so quickly I'd say. Are you okay to continue?'

Dan turned around to check with his brothers, who nodded. Like good little soldiers, they carried on.

~o~O~o~

Simon and Pat kept up their magical effects to test and strengthen their endurance, while Dan learned several different spells. Everything went well until a last short lecture from Jenna.

'You're all doing extremely well,' she told the boys, with the twins still working on maintaining their magic. 'There's just one last thing to teach before we end today's lesson. I want you to think about how your effects might overlap and connect to each other.'

Dan had been only half listening by that point. He wanted to run through his half dozen spells to make sure he remembered them all. So when Jenna mentioned connecting to his brothers' magic, he changed focus and did just that, before Jenna could warn him. He aligned Simon's magic hose to Pat's vortex, rapidly filling and expanding the vortex. Then he tapped into the magic and created his splash spell.

The magic vortex quickly built up to an extremely large amount before Dan could cast his spell, and when he finally finished, the splash he created exceeded his wildest expectations. A very large wave fanned out from a central point and slopped over the sides of the pool by several feet. The mischievous teens in the deep end saw it in time and dove under it. The alarmed swimming attendant didn't fare as well. The initial wave slapped him against the nearby wall behind him, stunning the poor man. The mother and daughter had mixed results. Neither female was hurt but the monster wave scared the mother, who mostly feared for her young daughter's safety. Through a nearly superhuman effort fueled by adrenalin, the mother stayed close to her daughter. The young girl bobbed up and down, staying on the surface and dropping into her mother's arms when the water washed away as quickly as it appeared. The little girl laughed. "Do it again!" she squealed.

The three brothers stood in the much shallower water, stunned at what had happened. Being so close to the center of the splash, they escaped any injuries.

The girls continued to float nearby, invisible to all but the boys. No words came to mind for a good minute until Jenna excused them for the day. The boys dunked their heads underwater to hear Jenna tell them, 'Lesson over.'

~o~O~o~

 © 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.