Wellspring of Magic, page 1
Wellspring of Magic
Copyright © 2014 Annie’s.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. For information address Annie’s, 306 East Parr Road, Berne, Indiana 46711-1138.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
Library of Congress-in-Publication Data
Wellspring of Magic / by Jan Fields
p. cm.
I. Title
2014915927
AnniesCraftStore.com
(800) 282-6643
Creative Girls Enchanted Adventures™
Series Editors: Shari Lohner, Janice Tate, and Ken Tate
Cover Illustrator: Kelley McMorris
10 11 12 13 14 | 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my daughter Rachel,
whose imagination is filled with magic.
Contents
Alysa Cohen
Rachel Cohen
Marisol Marquez
Kaida Jordan
Shaylee Ballard
Larissa Delany
CHAPTER ONE: Mysterious Presents
CHAPTER TWO: The Secret Portal Opens
CHAPTER THREE: The Guardians
CHAPTER FOUR: The First Spell
CHAPTER FIVE: The Mud Shapers
CHAPTER SIX: Where Dragons Lurk
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Princess of the Living Waters
CHAPTER EIGHT: Full of Surprises
CHAPTER NINE: Speed Boat
CHAPTER TEN: A Whale of a Tail
CHAPTER ELEVEN: A Walk in the Woods
CHAPTER TWELVE: Dark Magic
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Restoring the Magic
Aly held Shaylee’s hand for courage when it was their turn to crawl up onto the table and slip down through the hole. It required some undignified wiggling to get through the hole, but soon they all stood in a small, mysterious wooded clearing.
“Where’s the hole?” Rachel yelped. It had vanished after the last girl was through.
“There isn’t enough magic to hold it open on this side,” Eidermoss said. “And now that you’ve left your world, there isn’t enough magic to hold it open there, either.”
“You mean we’re stuck here?” Shaylee wailed.
“Oh, no, Princess. Once you find the Wellspring and release the magic, you can open the hole in this world or the door in your world, again.”
“So we can only get home again if we succeed?” Rissa asked.
Eidermoss opened her eyes very wide. “Yes, I think so.”
Alysa Cohen
Hello. My name is Alysa, but everyone calls me Aly. I have an identical twin sister, Rachel. It’s funny to think of Rachel as my identical twin because we don’t have much in common. She’s always racing to do something, while I like to take my time and think things through. I tell Rachel that she uses so many more bandages than I do because she’s always in a rush. I love plants and painting because plants and paintings rarely move, while she prefers animals because they’re always on the move, just like her. I spend a lot of time painting plants—you should see the mural I just started painting on my bedroom wall. It’s going to be a painting of the most fantastic, magical garden you’ve ever seen!
I like the idea of gardens being magic. Mom and I are going to plant a garden in our backyard, and I want to make it the kind of garden where you can imagine fairies hiding in the flowers. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? I know I’m probably going to have to do a lot of the work in the garden, but I don’t mind. My mom says she’s planning to be home more now that we’ve moved out of the city, but I’m not holding my breath. She loves being a lawyer, and I figure she’ll be back to a crazy schedule before long.
My dad is a teacher and a great one at that. It didn’t take long for him to snag a job at the high school here. So we’re already getting settled in.
Rachel and I have met all the girls in the neighborhood, and we like them a lot. We get together in this little old building in the middle of the park that’s at the center of our neighborhood. The park is very overgrown and totally magical looking with lots of ivy-covered statues. Dad said something about getting folks together to clean up the park, but I like it so full of wild vines and flowers. I just love flowers and plants—even my club token has a flowering vine on it. So, that’s me, Aly the Magical Flower Girl!
Rachel Cohen
Hi, I’m Rachel, and I’m wild about animals, especially bears. When we lived in New York, I had to share a room with my twin sister, Aly. She’s really not into animals, and sometimes we thought we were going to go nuts sharing the same room. Lucky for us, we moved out of that dinky apartment in the city, and snap!—did everything change! Now I have my own room, so I’m going to go animal crazy with the decor. My dad said I can even paint leopard spots all over my dresser if I want to. I’m not really an artist like Aly, but I love animal craft projects so I can definitely turn my room into a wildlife sanctuary.
Our new house here in Connecticut is huge and sometimes a little spooky, but Dad says he’ll work out the creaks and moans a little at a time. My dad loves a good DIY project, and I don’t mind swinging a hammer sometimes. Aly and Mom have already scoped out the yard for a major gardening project. I just hope they leave it wild enough to attract some animals. I saw a deer standing in the backyard on the night we moved in—you don’t see that in the city!
One of the coolest things about our new neighborhood is that all the houses in the neighborhood have girls my age living in them—isn’t that cool? So, Aly and I not only have new friends, we’ve even got a clubhouse where we hang out and make things. All the girls are super creative. We even have club symbols! They came in the mail—and it was a big mystery. They’re little metal triangles engraved with our favorite things. Mine has a bear on it, which is just one more reason to believe that this place is going to be totally perfect for us.
Marisol Marquez
Do you like jewelry? If so, we should hang out together because I love jewelry. That’s what I mostly make at the clubhouse with the other girls. Oh wait, I’m not doing this right so let me start again. Hi! I’m Marisol and my family just moved to Portal, Connecticut, where weird things happen. Not “creepy weird,” though. Everything is totally wonderful—but definitely unusual. The best part is having five new friends really fast—and that isn’t weird at all. Moving hasn’t been so bad because of that.
Do you believe in magic? I didn’t until recently, though I liked thinking about it. Now I totally do, and I love it! So, I love jewelry and magic and swimming. I’m a great swimmer. Like a fish—oh, that’s really funny because my club token has a river dragon on it. “What’s a river dragon?” you ask? You’ll find out soon enough.
But, um, where was I? Oh right, we just moved to Portal from Florida, and now we live in this really big, old house. I like it, though I kind of miss the beach, but my mom says we can put in a pool as soon as the twins are a little older. We adopted twin babies from China—isn’t that the absolute coolest? They’re two now so I’ll have to wait awhile on the pool because pools are not the safest thing to have with toddlers around.
So, my family is me and my little brother and sister, and my parents. My dad is a chef at this really fancy restaurant in Hartford. That means we eat some strange things sometimes, but that can be interesting too. Before we moved, my mom worked in an insurance office but she stays home with us now. She says that having two-year-old twins is work enough.
Kaida Jordan
Hi, I’m Kaida, and I’m almost thirteen so I’m the oldest member of our new club. I’m a little old for the whole “let’s form a club” thing, but I really like hanging out with the girls in the neighborhood. Sometimes I feel like an older sister to the other girls, but that’s totally cool. Another thing that’s totally cool is the small building in the middle of the park. After we started our club, we kind of took over the building and made it our clubhouse.
We do crafts in the clubhouse. I really like crafts, which is kind of surprising because I’m not real big on just sitting around. I do like to try new things, so I’ve learned how to do a lot of different crafts. I’m thinking of doing some kind of craft using the picture from my club token—it’s a winged unicorn, and it’s totally awesome. Anyway, I guess I get my creativity from my mom. She makes really gorgeous pottery using traditional Korean designs and techniques.
My mom says it’s good to be well-rounded, which is her way of saying I don’t always have to be looking for some new way to break a bone. I love sports, but my mother tries to encourage my creative side. My dad is adventurous like me even though his day job is designing computer software. He and I love going rock climbing, camping, skiing, white-water rafting, etc., together. He even promised to take me hang gliding someday. Mom says she can feel gray hairs growing just thinking about it. Another way I’m well-rounded is ethnically. Mom is Korean, (I bet you guessed that) and Dad is African-American. Our family reunions can be a little weird.
Speaking of weird, our neighborhood is full of mysteries. There is a spooky old park right in the middle of a circle of five totally ancient houses. And, we—my family and our new neighbors—are supposedly the first people who’ve lived in these houses for years and years—even though they’re gorgeous and in perfect shape! M
Shaylee Ballard
Bonjour! Je m’appelle Shaylee. That’s French. Don’t tell the other girls, but one of the reasons I love French is because it’s the language of dance. At least, that’s how I think of it. So many ballet terms, like plié and relevé, are French, and I think they make ballet sound so pretty. I love dancing, and not just ballet (though that’s my favorite)—I love everything about dance in general. My dance teacher says it’s important to get a taste of many different forms. So, I want to taste as many forms as I can! I even make up my own dances.
I’m the only one in my neighborhood who likes to dance. I think Kaida would be an awesome dancer, but she’s way too busy with sports. Still, my new friends have gotten me to think about something besides dance because they’re all into crafts. And I found out I love crafts and creating stuff. I especially like making dance stuff—no surprise there, right? Everyone in our group has a club token. Mine has some kind of fairy on it. I don’t think a fairy matches me exactly, but when I look closely—I’m pretty sure she’s dancing.
I’m the youngest one in our girls’ club, but nobody treats me like a baby there (not like some brothers I could mention). Our girls’ club is still pretty new because we all just moved to Connecticut. My family used to live in North Carolina. Of course, we used to live with my dad too. Now we don’t, which is still pretty sad. So, it’s just me, my mom and my two teenage brothers. If you ever wish you could have a big brother, let me know. I could be talked into giving you one of mine!
Larissa Delany
Just call me Rissa!
My dad used to be a police detective in Indianapolis, but now he’s the Chief of Police here in Portal. At first, I thought I was going to hate moving from a big city to Outer Nowhere, but this place is awesome. Our house is huge—all the houses in the neighborhood are huge, but they aren’t like all the boring McMansions you see in new housing developments. These are really ancient and kind of spooky. I love them.
I also love my new friends. Would you believe a girl my age lives in every house in this neighborhood? Yeah, like that’s a coincidence—not! Plus, we’re all really creative and we get along great, well, when we’re not feeling snarky. Friends hardly ever get along all the time—right? But we’re BFFs, I know it. Plus, they never tease me about important stuff like how much I love color. I know it sounds kinda weird, but I can’t get enough of it—color, that is. I would live in a rainbow if I could. Luckily, my dad says he’s fine with my unique style too—as long as I don’t do anything permanent! So, I cut my own hair and sometimes change its color on a daily basis. And all of my clothes are decorated with lots of color. I don’t want to look like anyone but me.
We, the neighborhood girls and I, have a club now—mostly we do crafts. Each of us also has a club token, which is totally mysterious. We don’t even know where they came from. Mine has a book on it. That probably seems like a weird thing for someone like me, but I love books. So does my dad. One of the coolest things about our new house is that it has rooms full of built-in bookshelves. I told Dad that I think that’s just a challenge! Someday, I might even fill some of those shelves with books I write about my adventures and the adventures I have with the other girls. ’Cause we have adventures that will blow you away!
CHAPTER ONE
Mysterious Presents
“Are you ready to go?” Rachel poked her head into her sister’s room and shuddered at the number of plants hanging from the ceiling. They reminded her of an Amazon expedition on the Discovery Channel. Aly (short for Alysa) turned from where she was sketching flowers on the wall.
“Hey, does Mom know you’re drawing on the wall?” Rachel asked.
Aly sighed. “Yes, of course Mom knows. I’m going to paint a mural.”
“Cool.” In their tiny apartment in New York City, they hadn’t even been allowed to push tacks into the walls, much less paint pictures on them. It seemed everything had changed when they moved to Portal, Connecticut.
“What’s it going to be?”
“A garden with a fountain,” Aly said. “I’ve been dreaming about it.”
Rachel glanced at her watch. “You need to dream later. We’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up.” Rachel turned and dashed down the stairs, knowing her sister would follow eventually. She’d given up on getting Aly to live life at more than a snail’s pace. They might be identical twins, but they were totally different in many ways. “Mom, we’re heading to the clubhouse!”
“Check the mail first,” her mom called from inside her office. Just then, Rachel heard a crash that sounded like another pile of books toppling over. Mom’s home office looked like she built models of the Leaning Tower of Pisa out of 10-pound law books.
“OK!” Rachel headed for the mailbox at top speed, opened it and scooped out the contents. To her surprise, there were two small packages—one addressed to her and the other to Aly. She glanced toward the house to see Aly stepping out the front door. She held up the boxes. “We got presents!”
Aly frowned. “Like what? Soap samples?”
Rachel shrugged and tossed Aly her package, then began tearing open her own. She reached into the box and pulled out a small metal triangle. It was a little bigger than a quarter and had a picture of a bear engraved on it. Rachel looked up to see Aly holding a similar triangle. “What do you suppose they are?”
Aly shook her head and shrugged. “Paperweights? They’re kind of heavy.”
“The bear is cool,” Rachel said, rubbing her thumb across the engraving. The grizzly was frozen mid-step as he lumbered across the triangle. She could almost imagine him turning to look at her. Rachel was wild about bears. In her huge stuffed animal collection, she had more than a dozen bears. She had even made a cute bear family out of polymer clay.
Aly held her triangle up. “Mine has a flower.” Rachel rolled her eyes.
Just then their mom stepped out onto the porch. “Are you girls going to bring in the mail or just stand around until I come get it?”
The sisters held out their triangles. “This is all there was,” Rachel said.
The twins’ mom squinted against the sun and walked across the front yard. She looked at the odd triangles, running her finger over the cool metal. “They’re pretty. Whoever sent them sure seems to know what you girls like best. Maybe they’re something Grandma found on her vacation.”
“Grandma would put in a note,” Aly said. “Wouldn’t she?”
Mom nodded. “Probably, but you never really know with Grandma.” She looked at the twins. “I thought you girls were going to the clubhouse.”
“Oh no!” Rachel screeched, shoving the metal triangle into her pocket and dashing down the sidewalk. “We are so late!” For once, even Aly ran to keep up.
The clubhouse was the place where all the girls in the neighborhood met to swap magazines, gobble snacks, work on craft projects, and just hang out. It was a small stone building in the middle of the tiny park that sat in the exact center of a ring of six houses. The park was filled with strange statues and surrounded by a high iron fence, and that was just one of the weird things about their new neighborhood.
All five of the houses in the circle were ancient. Rachel’s dad said he thought the houses might be more than two hundred years old. Until a couple months ago, all the houses had been empty, maintained for years by some mysterious foundation, and then, bang! they’d all been sold to families with kids. Aly and Rachel’s parents had bought the last house in the neighborhood at the beginning of the summer.
The foundation still owned the weedy, overgrown park. Anyone who lived in the neighborhood was welcome to use it. All the families had daughters close in age; the girls had taken over the small building in the middle of the park and made it their clubhouse.
