The Necromancer's Daughter

|| eighteen ||

Rebecca lay awake in the Padureani guest room. Lucille was sound asleep on the other bed and only the gentle rustling of leaves came from their slightly opened window. They have formed their battle plan earlier, after dinner, and Rebecca felt uneasy because of it.

We must use Rebecca's powers... She thought of the words Kaven said earlier. They have been training for days now and everyone regarded Rebecca as a full-fledged witch. Everyone except herself.

She thought about her other life, her real life as Rebecca, and not as this confusing girl that was a magical mix-up of different people. She remembered her mother, her father, her little brother. Where are you? How are you doing? She thought. A blanket of sadness enveloped her heart and soon, twin drops of tears rolled down the sides of her head. "I miss you," she whispered to the night.

Lucille stirred in her sleep and Rebecca quickly closed her eyes to pretend to be in slumber. After a few moments, she opened her eyes again and glanced at the mother witch. She was still sleeping. Rebecca turned to lay on her side, she clutched an extra pillow between her arms and held it tighter to her chest. I mustn't lose hope, she steeled herself, I must be strong so I can find them.

She decided sleep wasn't coming anytime soon so she recalled the battle plan outlined by Kaven and Lucille and tried to brainstorm points she'd like to discuss with them tomorrow.

It was simple. They would play with the Necromancer's ignorance about Lillian and Rebecca's mixed-up souls. They'll set a magical trap to capture him, using Rebecca's astral projection as bait – she has perfected being in two places at once – and once he's trapped, they'll hex him with a compulsion spell to make him release his hold on Masilda's soul, as well as correct the Resurrection Spell mishap. It was direct and fuss-free but there were a lot of obvious loopholes.

They didn't know how weak – or strong – the Necromancer was now. Even if the entrapment part of the plan worked, Compulsion Spells were difficult to control. If he was too weak, the spell could fry his brain and leave him in a useless heap of flesh. If he was too strong, not only would he be able to defend himself from the spell, he would also be able to reverse the effect and compel Lucille or any one of them to act against the others. Lucille and Grandma Vai have explained it to them clearly. They would all be sitting ducks if The Necromancer gets the upper hand.

Rebecca suggested using the Vision Room to find him and spy on The Necromancer for them to learn more about him and about how to defeat him.

"We can't do that, honey," Grandma Vai told her earlier. "Right now we are protected by the magick of the enchanted oak trees in the perimeter of the SoothSayer Town. That's why we can go about with our business here; that's why you can go out to the fields to train and practice, without fear of being found out by the Necromancer's Evil Eye."

"Think of it as being in a glass dome of magick," Kaven put in. "The magick that protects us goes both ways. He can't see us in here, and we can't see him out there, too. If we seek him out, though, we'd be opening up a window from that magick and he might be able to find us out here, too."

Rebecca understood how complicated things were for them right now. It didn't help that the next new moon was in three days, and if their theory of The Necromancer's powers being at its peak were right, then then they could no longer wait for him to get even stronger. They had to act now.

Are we ready? Rebecca couldn't help but wonder. Echoes of her past made her remember a quote about never being ready and still going head-on for the win, but those were for soccer matches, for sports. If they carelessly marched towards their enemy now they wouldn't only lose the battle, they'd get killed.