Immortal Love Ch. 01

Just as he left the room the door slammed shut behind him causing him to jump. He scanned the house... his sister... nothing. Time to restore the curse... if he could.

He started chanting holding his hands out. At least restoring a curse was easy... requiring no object to bond to. It sure would be hard to explain how his energy had become joined with hers in the curse stone. That and the fact she could never use that stone to curse him again... or anything else without his permission.

"Delectoi, Nevato..." "Ow! Fuck!" He winced.

He scanned the door with his hands... the curse was back. And that meant... shit! His mom must have felt him. He spun around to run to his room when his body was consumed in an immense pain. If someone had poured boiling water all over his body and then stabbed each burn it would have hurt less. His mother stood on the bottom of the stairs, her face calm as if she was just looking, but her fingers glowing turquoise.

David collapsed to the floor writhing in agony. He let out a blood curling scream but nothing and nobody would help.

"Why were you countering my door?" His mother asked. If she was upset her voice betrayed no emotions.

"I wasn't." He groaned lying and crying because of the pain.

The pain increased a thousand fold. God kill me.

"So what were you doing?" His mother asked.

"I felt... I f-felt..."

"Yes?" She said dragging out the word.

"I felt the energy. I was just checking."

The pain cut off. No knives, no boiling water, no thousand pins digging into every fibre of his being.

"It's a powerful curse mom." He complimented eager to regain her favours and not be the victim of another pain curse. If she would have found him with the book she would have left it on him all day.

"Thank you. But from now on, never and I mean never, go near that door again. Do you understand."

"Perfectly."

Ashleigh cried herself into bed. Her brother was being tortured. It was all her fault... a couple of days back she wondered where mom kept her spell book and kept asking David, if she hadn't maybe he wouldn't have bothered looking for it. Why did that stupid book keep calling me in my sleep?

She heard David's scream and squeezed her eyes shut. She hoped he would never tell on her even though she knew he never would even if his own life were in danger. She sobbed unable to stop the pain he was in, he had helped her and now he was being punished.

"I'm so sorry." She sobbed into her pillow.

"So sorry."

Chapter 2: Spell lessons.

Ashleigh sat on one of the most uncomfortable chairs in the world. Ok... maybe not but it sure felt like it. It was a wooden chair made from one of the trees from the earl's woods. Their father had logged it, been caught and whipped for punishment. Luckily the earl was a nice bloke and set the lashing for only ten and then let their father keep the tree, he made the chairs for the table before running away.

She was sitting at table in the kitchen space, piece of paper on the top, trying to learn how to read and write. One of the many problems of being a witch's daughter was the schools banned you from attending. She always dreamed of becoming a powerful witch like her mother so that she could live a normal life without being punished for her parents' sins'.

She glared down at the foreign symbols on the paper -- what the hell does that mean? Just scribbles and nothing-ness, she thought.

Her mood cheered and at the same time saddened when she saw David come down the stairs. He looked cheery as if he was never personally tortured to crying last night, unable to look at him for guilt she smiled shyly and returned to the mess on the paper.

He skipped past her, leaned over her shoulder, looked at the paper and kissed her cheek.

"Morning." He sang.

"What's got you so cheery?" Ashleigh asked still unable to look at his face and not just due to the increasing blushing from her cheek.

"Last night could have gone a lot worse."

This time she spun around and looked at her older brother, her eyes as wide as saucers. "Gone worse!? You were pained."

"True, but at least we weren't caught with the book. And best of all, you weren't pained." He smiled as she turned away quickly blushing causing his smile to deepen. What the hell was going on?

For a man who was crying on the floor for death he liked to look on the bright side of life. She sighed shaking her head and continued with her work.

"Speaking of which, where is the wicked witch of the west?" He asked looking around the house.

"She popped out hunting. After all who is going to tell her 'you can't hunt earl's deer' when everyone is afraid of her turning them into a toad." Ashleigh replied.

David chuckled at her joke before joining her at the table and looking at the paper. "Still learning to write?"

"And read." She replied. She pouted sad about the fact she was still eighteen and unable to read or write when many of the girls her age were already on mathematics... don't even get started on that.

"Need any help?" David asked. Please say yes.

She stared into his eyes. How were they even related, she had hazel eyes yet he had deep brown, she had blonde hair yet he had brown. Still in the morning light he looked devilishly handsome.

He flashed a grin and her heart fluttered... what the fuck was that?

"You know how to write?" She asked sarcastically raising her brow;

"Yep, even know how to read, I'm learning maths at the moment but can't get past division." She had no idea what 'division' even meant but was surprised he knew as much. He never went to school like her.

"What!? How?" She asked, embarrassed her brother knew more than she does.

"I like to spy on the school." He winked, again, her heart fluttered -- again -- as she blushed.

"Again... what!? The school is like four towns over and even then I never see you leave the house." She replied.

David shrugged his shoulders and leaned over her work to get the apple sitting on the table besides her. He bit the apple and gave her another smile. "No need. All you got to do is cast a 'hear more, see more' spell. You can look wherever you want and hear what you want. It's like I'm sitting in those classes anyway."

Ashleigh was shocked. He was studying magic too? Mortal stuff like this she could understand but magic, even magic involving improvement to a person -- that's hard stuff.

"Where did you learn magic?" She asked tilting her head to the side...adorable, he thought.

Again, he shrugged his shoulders, took another bite of his apple and chewed slowly before speaking. "I don't really know. I mean no one taught me I sort of just learned by playing with energy."

Okay, now she was seriously impressed. No one had taught him how to control energy he learned by playing? Yet last night he checked the curse and stopped her like he knew all about it. Was he lying? Trying to stop her from learning magic too?

"Can you teach me sometime?" she asked, pouting her lips so she looked adorable. And she did.

He flashed another grin, he had to stop doing that or her heart was going to stop completely. "Sure, I'd love to help you."

She flashed him a grin. Yay.

"But first you got to learn this." He said sternly tapping the paper with his finger.

She blew out an exaggerated sigh. "But I'm never going to understand it. Please can't we just go learn magic?"

"Nope, you're going to sit you butt down and learn all this mortal rubbish before all the good stuff." He gave her a wink and finished his apple.

5 min later

He was in the kitchen boiling water when he heard his sister shouting from the other side of the joined rooms.

"Can you help me please?" She shouted.

He sighed, good luck to any man who tries to court her. But nether less he went to help her sitting by her side.

"What do you need, sis?" He asked.

"I don't get this reading, there's a sentence here, I think, but I can't understand it. I tried matching the symbols to the sentence but I don't get it."

He smiled at her. "Ok here is what you do. Like you said you match the symbols so you got that part right, here..." He leaned over and grabbed her 'cheat sheet' -- the alphabet on a piece of paper.

"Each of these symbols has a sound, like how we speak. Got it so far."

She nodded.

"Good, you have to remember the sounds to each one and then match them. Creating a sentence." He took the blank paper off her and the pencil before scribbling something down. "Ok try this." He handed her the new sentence.

She gave a frustrated sigh before slapping her hands to the side of her head. He chuckled and kissed her cheek -- her heart literally did a backflip in her chest.

"Calm down, here" he pointed to each of the symbols in the sentence and then to the 'cheat sheet'. "M-y: my, n-a-m-e: name, I-s: is, A-s-h-l-e-i-g-h: Ashleigh. My name is Ashleigh."

"So... that's my name?" He looked into her hazel eyes and got lost, but only for a second.

He flashed another grin. Please stop doing that, she thought but hoped he would never. "Yes, Ashleigh."

He wrote another sentence and gave her the paper. "Try this."

As he did she tried methodically working through the sentence. "My name is David."

"Congrat's you can now read and write." He said kissing her cheek causing it to burn in a nice way where his lips touched her.

"Good, can we practise magic now?" She asked.

"Nope, not yet, we still have to learn you symbols."

"I thought we just learned that?"

"Nope, you learned the alphabet; symbols are used for creating sentences."

She sighed. But as much as she hated learning all this she was glad it was with her brother and he was the one teaching her.

Their mom came home roughly half an hour later kicking open the door as if she were SWAT and carrying a hefty antelope over her shoulders. Magically enhanced it weighed next to nothing.

David got up and helped her carry it through to the back yard where they would cut it later and cook it.

As their mother looked at him a tidal wave of fear stuck his being, ever since last night he had become increasingly aware of the red line of energy linking a ball from his heart to that of his sisters. Could their mother see it? Even lying in bed he could see the line in the near pitch blackness; it emanated a soft glow that illuminated everything. And trouble was it was always there, even then it joined their hearts.

But their mother said nothing. Maybe she couldn't see it? Maybe she thought not to say anything? Maybe it was natural magic and would fade?

With the dead animal out back he settled back to his sister, the red line of energy shortening when he got closer and longer the further he was from her, would it snap if they went too far? He pushed the thought out of his head.

Just before their mother had returned he had told her all the symbols he knew and what they were for; from: exclamation marks, question marks, speech marks, apostrophes, brackets, everything.

He wrote a new grammatically correct sentence on the paper and handed it to his sister aware of their fingers touching as she took the paper.

She tried to read the paper and the new 'cheat sheet' her brother made for her. "My brother's name is David." She read.

He kissed her cheek, "See you're getting better." "Few more and we'll head off."

And so it was like that; while their mother skinned the antelope -- much to David's persistence that he should do it -- he wrote various sentences on paper and gave them to his sister who tried to decode them. And then he taught her to write her own sentences.

She was a quick learner and she handed him good enough pieces of paper with near correct sentences.

She handed him a new sentence.

Do yu forgiv me?

He looked into her eyes. "Okay here is what's wrong..." He gave her the paper back and the new mistakes she had made: no o, no e, space before the question. "Try again." He said.

She frowned. Maybe he didn't forgive her. Maybe he doesn't know what he was supposed to forgive about.

She tried the new sentence again.

Do you forgive me?

"Perfect." He said.

"Well?" She asked looking into his brown eyes.

"There is nothing to forgive."

He flashed her another smile and she clung to his chest in a loving embrace. He rested his head on her shoulder and smelled her hair -- strawberries. She closed her eyes and smelled him: kind of like a forest natural smell. They both could stay like that forever but remembering that they shouldn't they both pulled away quickly in an awkward fashion, she brushed her hair over her ear and smiled meekly.

They ate dinner later in the day when the meat had been stripped of skin and cooked in boiling water. It was a nice meal consisting only of meat; they couldn't get any green vegetables.

Later at night their mother settled down at the table and read a spell book to herself. David took his sister's hand and rushed upstairs. It was like she was the damsel in distress and he was her knight in shining armour. He took her to his own room, said an incantation against the door and sat on the edge of his bed. She stood near the door.

"You can come in, vampire." He said grinning. "I cast a 'no-spy' spell. No one can hear or see us."

She came in fully and sat on the edge of his bed besides him. She was immensely aware of their arms brushing against each other's. It was a wondrous feeling, his touch became hot against her skin and she loved every minute.

"So you want to learn magic; what do you know so far?" He asked.

Ashleigh shrugged her shoulders and stared at the floor. For one living in a house full of magic and being part witch herself she knew actually very little about magic. She understood the universe and energy, spirits and nature but knew nothing about how to use them all.

David stood up and looked down at her, she was timid. Almost as if she didn't actually want to learn. "If you're uncomfortable with this, we can stop." He said sympathetically.

She shook her head. "No, it's just I don't know what to say or do." Especially around you.

"Okay, come here; sit on the floor and cross your legs." He instructed as he did the same.

She followed his instructions, he held out his hands and she held them. The cold wooden floor sent shivers down her spine, or was that the reaction she was having for holding her brothers hand?

Either way the cold did not stop the pleasant heat she felt radiating from her hands and his, and nor did it stop the weird feelings her whole body was going through. She stared mesmerised into his dark brown eyes.

"Okay I'm going to start with something pretty basic. Calling energy to use." He said.

She closed her eyes trying to feel the energy in the room.

"No, no, open your eyes. You need to see."

She opened her eyes and resumed looking into his.

"Energy is all around us, everything has it, living or dead. Try to look at it. Don't just look at the material world but look beyond at the energy of the material. Let it seep into your vision." He instructed looking at her eyes.

She tried his instructions. Nothing. Everything still looked the same.

"Try again." He said. "Feel it, believe It; don't just try to do it, you have to want it."

She tried again. Nothing.

She sighed. She was a witch and not even one that can use energy. She frowned and felt tears brimming beneath her eyes, she had failed. He won't want to teach me again.

Her brother broke their connection with his hand and wiped her cheek, the cold tears stopped. He smiled sympathetically and from behind her head brought out a leaf as if he was a magician at the circus and that was his trick. She giggled.

Placing the leaf in the middle of them both he stared down at it. "Focus only on the leaf, nothing else matters; there is only you and the leaf. Try to see the energy of the leaf, not do anything with it, just look."

She tried. She really tried. A faint glimmer of hope filled her eyes when she spotted a flicker of blue light circling the leaf, but it vanished as soon as she saw it.

"Is it blue?" She asked.

He grinned. "You're doing it."

She tried again. It took time but slowly the circle of blue returned. It was a light blue colour -- Cyan.

Never touching the actual leaf it was like an invisible force field surrounding. She looked at the field closely. It was like millions of tiny lights constantly moving around always following the same path around the shape of the leaf.

"I can see it." She said more confidently.

"Good now try to look at something different."

She looked around the room, something different.... She stared at the floorboards surrounding the entire room. Like she did before she tried finding the energy. Again, it took time but eventually she saw what she wanted. This energy was dark, muddy and looked rather sick. David saw her look and realized what she was thinking.

"It's because it's dead. Material energy darkens with death, the more dead the material the worse the colour. Just don't ever look at a corpse, completely black with brown...Urgh." He explained with a shudder at the end.

She looked around the room more; the energy colours came more quickly each time she stared at something. She looked at her brother, trying to see his energy. Red.

"You're energy is red." She stated.

David frowned. Red... shouldn't his be green, it always was. He focused on the field around his body trying to change the colour back. But with each attempt he got stopped. Like hitting a brick wall something wouldn't allow his colour to change... weird.

Ashleigh gasped.

David quickly snapped out of his spell and looked at his sister alarmed. "What is it?" He asked.

"There was a line between me and you. It was pink and came from me to you; or you to me. There was a ball in your chest and it came from that." She said, quizzically as if she must have been mistaken.

"Can you still see it?" He asked.

She shook her head. No.

But he looked down and as clear as day there was the glowing red line and ball linking their hearts, but it was no longer red as it had been but was a more light pink now. Two energies, two colours... he looked at his sister -- surrounding her now was an almost clear field of energy, weak and not been used much but it was growing. She finally could use magic, he smiled.

"Ignore it for now, I'll explain another time." He said. "Keep trying."

And so for the rest of the night she looked around the room, all the bright and wonderful colours surrounding even the most basic of objects, a feather for writing in ink was yellow, a pencil besides it was maroon. Even his brown leather shoes were a muddy red, but he himself: a brilliant red.

She tried reading herself -- nothing, no colour, no lights, nothing. Maybe you can't read yourself, she thought.

"Want to try something cool?" David asked. "But you got to swear never to tell mom I taught you."

"Is it dangerous?" She asked.

"Sis, I would never teach you something if I thought you were going to be hurt." And she believed him.

"So what are you going to teach me?" She asked cocking her head to the side in an adorable manor.

David held out his hand palm facing the ceiling. Never closing his eyes and never looking anywhere else but into her eyes she gasped when a bright, brilliant and colourful red flame ignited in his palm, centimetres away from his skin, hovering in the air.

"How to create nature from nothing, well not something more like energy all around us -- but only use a little." He said with a grin and a wink. She melted into his eyes, his looks...

She snapped out of her hypnotic state, "So why can't I tell mom?"

"Because... you can never upset nature or it can have disastrous consequences. Maybe not here but somewhere else." He saw her confused look; she was really, really pretty. He smiled.