Excerpt: Healing Magic

Laura shook her head at Alex's antics. Despite the fact that she didn't want to and she kept trying to start arguments, she found herself liking Alex. It was nice to have someone to talk to. It was a good distraction from the voices. Even now as she started to put away the tools that they had used, she could hear them starting up.

'Laura, come and join us. We can be a family again.' They were coming from all around her.

She closed her eyes and tried to block out the voices. They started to fade away and Laura breathed a sigh of relief. She continued to put everything away then went into the cottage. She went over to the pump in the corner and filled a pot with clean water. She washed her hands and face then went over to the cupboard. Looking through the contents, she pulled out a few of the vegetables from earlier in the season. They looked as if they were starting to wilt. Eleanora's spell to preserve them must have been wearing off. She would be able to renew the spell if only she could remember it. She could always look it up tomorrow though. It wasn't as if one day would harm them any. If she couldn't find the spell in any of the books, she could always contact Eleanora via the journal to ask her what the spell was. She supposed that it was a fairly easy spell, though she could have been mistaken as she most often was.

Laura continued on with her musing while she searched through the cupboards for the rest of the ingredients that she would need for her supper. She wasn't making anything special just some vegetables but she wanted to find the right seasonings for them. She wasn't even paying attention when the voices started back up.

'We love you Laura. Come to us. It will be wonderful. All of us together. We can make it painless for you."

"Go away! I don't want to join you. I don't want to be a part of your family."

'But you already are Laura, we just got separated. You were suppose to join us. It's not too late, you can join us now. Come All Hallows Eve the veil between the worlds will be thin once again. All you will have to do is reach for us. We will do the rest.'

"No! How many times to I have to tell you? I like the life I'm living. I like helping Eleanora save people. I don't want to join you. I want to stay here with Eleanora." By the end she was screaming and her hands were clenched into fists. She kept turning around as if by turning fast enough she could catch a glimpse of them. Unfortunately while she could hear her family in the Shadow Glade she wasn't able to see into the Shadow Glade.

She stopped, they were being quiet. She couldn't even hear them whispering. Did it work? Would they finally leave her alone? She didn't trust them. They had never before left her alone just because she asked, or rather yelled at them. They were up to something. Did they think that she would suddenly change her mind if they left her alone? She wouldn't. She hadn't changed her mind before and it was the same thing all the time and it always grew worse before All Hallows Eve. That was the easiest way for her to join them, to just jump through while the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest. But she didn't want to join them. She could hardly even remember them. All she could remember of them was the night that they died and the voices in her head that they became.