Initium by Jamie L. Lalley (best novels for teenagers TXT) 📕

gave him a shrug in greeting.
"Ready?" Bobby pressed on feeling a tension building in the air. If his friends didn't want to address it right now then he would deliberately change the topic till they were ready to share. Phillip would for sure later tonight since he was staying the night.
"Yeah." said Phillip. He picked up his book bag and made his way to the street.
"Is everything okay?" Bobby mouthed to Kiki
"I'm fine," she gave him a grin. "Let's go!"
She hopped off after Phillip and Bobby just followed. Taking a left from Kiki's house took them onto the curving street where asphalt met dirt. The path was big enough for a car a mile out but then would thin into a path where it only fit two people walking side by side. It was the shortcut to Bryden Woods Park, the location where they would perform the Offering.
Bobby stole glances at his friends. Kiki kept her eyes down and averted away from them as if something interesting was trailing alongside them. Phillip had taken the lead and gliding through and over the shrubs that Bobby himself had to carefully step over as to not have branches and thorned vines sticking to him. Whatever his friends hadn't told him was now bothering him to the max.
When Kiki sighed for the fifth time he stopped in his tracks and bumped his shoulder. Phillip stopped a little ahead when he no could hear crunching footsteps behind him. "Did I miss something?"
Kiki blinked at him. Her chest was heaving and she fiddled with her bracelet with shaking fingers. She opened her mouth to tell him, oh, how she wanted to tell him but she didn't feel that it was her place to say anything on the matter so her mouth clamped shut and she looked away from him and her eyes fell on the back of Phillips head.
Was he going to say anything? If she was in his place she probably wouldn't be able to find the words either. All she wanted to do was go home. To make some hot chocolate, curl up on her couch with her favorite blanket and watch tv. It would keep her mind busy she knew. Although what she really wanted to do was forget what she knew now. All she could do now was wait till she could get to her comfort. For now mixed feelings settled like a rock at the center of her chest.
"I would like to know as to why you two aren't talking to me... or too each other," pressed Bobby. "What happened?"
To his question Phillip turned his head slightly and sad, "I will tell you about it later."
"Oh, really?" Bobby was now angry. "I'd like to know now."
Phillip turned to face both them but had eyes only for Bobby. "What's more important is to get this ceremony over with before it gets too late. Don't you think?"
This was true. Mrs. Tanner would not be pleased if he was late for dinner and he grimaced at the thought.
"Well... could you both be more of a talkative crowd?"
"Fine." Phillip turned on his heels and started to walk again. "Have you gotten the new issue of Beta?"
Bobby was quite surprised by the quick spin of attitude but didn't miss a beat. As he and Phillip launched into a discussion of their favorite comic book hero and his new fictional dilemma, Kiki stayed out of earshot. Her jaw locked up and hands balled up into fists in her jacket pockets, she fought a losing battle with large, hot tears that streamed down her face.

The young wizards have been planning their first Offering since they started learning from the book of Hocus in the final days of summer. The Offering itself is an optional but often practiced responsibility that any wizard is welcomed to perform. Kiki had convinced the boys to do one with her in hopes that they will continue to thank the very force that is the source of their power. The likelihood of that was slim but the once a month ritual was a sure thing if they wanted to learn from her book.
Kiki still couldn't thoroughly explain how she came across Hocus. The story she told her friends started with her going through her list of chores. She had cleaned out her attic bedroom, scrubbed the kitchen floor spotless, and went out into her backyard where she and her mother tended a small garden. With her mother busy with work and taking her brother and sister to various swim meets and soccer tryouts over the past few weeks the small garden had grown at an intense rate. With it being the first clear sunny day in almost a week she knew she had to take the opportunity and clean up the patch before she headed back to school. If high school was anything like her older brother had made it sound she wasn't going to have much time to dawdle.
She slipped on an old pair of jeans and a baggy gray t-shirt she wouldn't miss and braced herself for the excess amount of de-weeding she was in for. What was once a blooming and colorful garden was now a eyesore.
The football shaped patch of dry dirt was at the middle of the backyard with the sections of the low blue wired fence being forced out of the ground at odd angles by the weeds. Weeds had over taken the ageratum, bacopa, and angelica. They had chocked the blue daze's and gerbera daisy. Kiki also noticed that ivy had taken over the chalk-white bench and the tree that was rooted behind it. She would have turned away but she slipped on her gloves and dug in.
Starting at one point of the patch she pulled out the fence, section by section, and threw them in a towering pile to her right. The more noticeable weeds were easiest to take out so she tackled those first. It was quick work but then she had to uproot the smaller weeds around the blue daze and gerberas. Half an hour into it she had to get a hat. At noon she stretched and rubbed her back while wiping sweat from her face with the back of her arm.
"The things I do for you guys," she said. "I'm really sorry for neglecting you for nearly the entire summer."
It was true. She would pick a weed or too and water the flowers every other day. She smiled wryly at them. Petals drooped, leaves withered and stems bowed to the wind and this made Kiki's heart sink.
"I promise," she cupped one of the bacopas in her hands and leaned closer, whispering to softly into invisible ears. "to work harder to keep you all well and healthy."
The Bacopa responded by tilting its "head" up to look at her and the leaves closest brushed Kiki's hands.
She yelped and fell back on the hard dry earth. Was it the wind? Certainly. What else could it be? Even so she continued to stare, wide eyed, at that one bacopa. Moments passed until she was sure that it was just her mind playing tricks on her. It could be that I've been under the sun too long, she thought, that’s it.
She went back to the house and grabbed a glass and filled it to the brim with lemonade. The AC felt good and she already had the incident slinking out of her head. Taking large gulps from her glass she eyed her handy-work from the kitchen window above the sink with a triumphant smile.
That's when she saw it.
Something red was doing an awful job of blending in with the dusty, brown dirt. She placed her cup slowly onto the counter not taking her eyes off the object. Gradually she moved to the back door. When she stood on the deck it wasn't in sight. Was she imagining things again?
She hurried to the freshly de-weeded garden and she could see it again, there, underneath the bench.
A soft noise feathered her eardrums, filling them with whispers she couldn't decipher. So many delicate voices echoed like the wind but the wind was not blowing Kiki realized. She took a deep breath and the voices stopped. Hesitantly she kneeled close enough to the book and leaned it.
"It's yours."
Kiki's head turned so fast to her right that her neck cringed with pain.
"Who said that?" she said quickly, her voice high.
"I did."
The leaf of a bacopa raised one of its leaves as a young child would to eagerly volunteer for a task.
"What-"
"It's better to not question it," said the airy voice. "The book is yours. Mother has given it to you. But before you go running off to read it can you please finish here? It's really nice to be able to stretch my roots now that those pests are gone..."
Kiki's jaw had dropped. Now she knew she had lost it. She could hear the flower. Her mom did tell her that talking to plants helped them grow but this was absurd.
Too much sun. Too much sun...
"If you keep looking at me as you are doing I swear your face will stay stuck like that," said the bacopa.
Even when she told Bobby and Phillip the tale she had just the same amount of trouble believing it as they did. Kiki's story didn't stop there. Once she finished with the weeds she laid down fresh soil and watered the flowers and miraculously kept up a conversation with the various plants. She kept peaking over her shoulder incase the neighbors could be peaking from behind the garden fence.
After a quick shower she locked herself in her room and sat on the floor at the foot of her bed and stared at the book on her lap.
The cover was smooth but the binding had strange symbols running along the spine. She traced the designs and her mind raced with trying to decipher them. They appeared to be more complicated than even the Chinese characters she was used to. Even the Egyptians hydrographic she had seen on stone tablets in the museums were simple compared to what she was looking at. She was expecting the book to be filled with script like this but to her surprise the book was printed in plain english.
It was the opening of this book that began it all.
Not too long afterwards she told them and they wanted to see the book. Just like her they learned from the book without hesitation.
For weeks upon weeks they practiced the simple charms that Hocus presented to them in the first section. Kiki had managed to levitate objects about three feet from the ground, Bobby can hear brief fragments of people's thoughts, and Phillip had already sparked his elemental power.
He was granted to gift to dance with fire. After a couple more days of practice and a few coaching words from Phillip, Kiki plowed small craters into the ground and Bobby could make water droplets defy gravity.
They were happy with each other’s progress. Three friends tied together with their skill of magic. And yet, there they were. The air was thick with a tension that will soon tear them apart little did they know.
The narrowed path eventually emptied out onto one of the trails within the park and they walked right across into another section of woods. There was a clearing that they had been clearing away for days in preparation and to located it they placed charcoal colored circles at the base of the several trees. It was a good fifthteen minutes walk and upon arriving Kiki's eyes sparkled, like always, when she walked into the clearing.
Pine trees circled the