The Hunt of the Grimalkin (Erresuma Book 1) by Dani Swanson (read aloud books txt) 📕

at the earth like she saw Robin do in the market. The ground began to tremble under their feet.

“Work!” Thea yelled at the ground. She had tears running down her face as her body shook. Robin and Fig watched in awe as the roots started to come up through the dirt and the ground started to form into little trolls; just as Robin had done before.

“You’re doing it! You’re doing it!” Robin was jumping up and down with excitement. “I told you that you were powerful enough!” The little mud trolls were marching towards Thea.

“This is amazing!” Thea yelled as she directed the trolls to march towards the field.

“I told you that you could do it.” Robin said as she folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the post of the porch.

After much practice, they were now covered in filth, and were wet from head to toe. They headed back into the cabin to get cleaned up, and find some dinner.

“What did you do with that necklace?” Robin said as she was digging through Thea’s jewelry box.

“What necklace would that be? I doubt I remember.” Thea said with a giggle at her own joke.

“That one.” Robin said as she pointed to the painting on the wall. “We need that.” She said in a mumble as she continued to dig through the stuff on the bookcase.

“We need that?” Thea questioned with a raised eyebrow.

Robin stopped digging and looked up at Thea. “Huh? Oh, well, you need it. You always said that it was something important, and you shouldn’t take it off.” Robin was speaking slowly as if she were trying to think of how to phrase what she wanted to say.

“Good thing I have it on then,” Thea said suspiciously as she pulled the necklace up from the collar of her shirt.

“Oh good! You do have it. Let’s get dinner started.” Robin hurried off to the kitchen. Thea looked over to Fig, and then watched her friend with a twisted look on her face.

That was weird. I wonder why this would be so important to her? She thought to herself as she felt the cool touch of the jewel against her skin.

 “I wish that I could influence more elements too.” Robin said as they were eating their dinner. Thea looked at her sheepishly

“I’m sorry, I’m sure…”

Robin cut her off, “No, I can’t. I’ve been trying ever since I found out that I have powers. It’s okay, kiddo. We all have different levels of powers and can do different things. I’ve always been better at brewing spells, anyway.” Robin was pushing her food around on her plate with her fork. “If you want to get better training, you should go to Sorgin’s place. She has been teaching witches how to control their magic for years. We can go to her school to visit her.” Robin was studying Thea’s face as she offered up the information.

“Where is her school?” Thea asked self-consciously, wiping at her face under the scrutiny.

“The north side of the lake in Evertree Forest. Not far from here.” Robin said as she pointed towards the way that Thea had originally come from when she followed Fig to her cabin.

“Well it sounds like we now have plans for tomorrow.”

  The girls cleaned the house and Robin went through Thea’s stash of herbs and magical items for making potions and tonics.

“You have banshee tears? Too bad you can’t remember anything, I bet that’s an interesting story on how you obtained these.” Robin slipped the bottle into the bag she was packing for the road. Robin was in the kitchen for the majority of the night as she made a potion for everything from sleeping, to holding your breath longer, and even to make you run faster. Thea was very astonished by the amount of knowledge Robin had for potion making. She didn’t even need to look in her books for a majority of the potions she had made.

“Now see, I wish I could do that.” Thea said. She was leaning on the table watching Robin drop sprigs of rosemary into a couple of bottles. “Why are you making all of these potions anyway?” Thea looked confused. “Aren’t we just going to a school?”

“Oh, you know, you just have so many great ingredients lying around. This can be learned. It doesn’t take any special power to do. If you can read and measure out ingredients, you can make a potion,” Robin said as she started to slice up an apple for some other mixture she was making.

“I beg to differ.” Thea said. “People can try to bake and never have their cake rise in the middle. You have to have the gift to make it all work.”

 The girls cuddled up in the only bed in the cabin, and settled in for the night. Fig seemed annoyed that he didn’t fit on the bed, and settled for the big blue chair, with dingy gold buttons on the edge of the fireplace. The wind howled outside the cabin as the fire was crackling across the room. Through the darkness, a crow’s cry echoed outside. Both girls opened their eyes and looked at each other.

“There’s got to be more than one crow in the woods,” Robin whispered.

Thea rolled out of bed and peered out the window. There she was. Thalia was standing in the middle of the field blindly stumbling around in the moonlight. She had bandages wrapped around her head where her eyes use to be. She stopped and pointed straight ahead and started walking towards the cabin.

“Thalia,” Thea whispered as she closed the blind. Robin got up and looked out the window on the other side of the door.

“There is nothing out there.” Robin said, annoyed as she staggered back to bed. Thea looked back out to the field to see nothing