Chapter 1

A Chapter by Kelly Corcoran

One day I was digging in my garden. It was a spring day just like any other. The sun was shining, birds were chirping. My brothers’ blue truck was parked in the front. My dad was watering his ferns. I say they are his ferns because no one else waters them, and he is quite fond of them, watering them whenever he can.

So there I was digging to plant hydrangeas for me to take care of. My grandmother liked hydrangeas, so they had a nostalgic appeal. That and I genuinely find flowers like those to be beautiful. I found this trick online where if you hollow out a grapefruit and put soil in it and plant the seeds in that soil, the plant will grow better. I had high hopes for these seeds.

But I digress. Shockingly close to the surface, I saw a gold shimmer, to which I immediately alerted my father. He hardly ever reacts too much of anything with any emotion, and he didn’t break pattern as I started to unearth the gold. This gold was proving itself to be a rather large specimen as I unearthed it. I marveled as it showed itself to be bigger and bigger. When it was finally unearthed, it was roughly the size of my dad’s fist.

“Holly s**t”, I said for about the third time since it was discovered. My dad said something about trading it in for money.

“I concur with that assessment”, I said. That was one of my favorite things to say, even though it made me look pompous or vain or whatever you wanted to call it.

Little did I know that there were nefarious doings afoot.

I promptly called my boyfriend Kira and told him of our find.

“We’re going to be rich,” I told him.

“I wonder who buried it,” he responded.

“I have no idea.”

“So, are you going to turn it in?”

“That’s what we’re thinking of.”

At work the next day at the local Goodwill, I was trying to hide my excitement. But I was grinning like an idiot the whole time. I was giddy. But no one said anything because I was prone to mood swings anyway.

I’m not bi-polar or anything. I don’t need mood stabilizers. I just have three very different souls occupying the same body and mind. It’s not multiple personality disorder. That is when there is one soul with multiple personalities. We’re not unique. There are plenty of other people who have more than one soul. For all you know, you might have alternate souls, or you might know someone, or more than one someone who has multiple souls.

But I digress.

I will do what seems like more digression, but it is actually relevant. I am tele-empathic. Not to sound full of myself or anything, but that is very rare. Only three percent of people are telepathic. That is the ability to send and receive thoughts with other telepaths. Tele-empathic people can send and receive emotion as well as thought. They can also send and receive thoughts and emotion with non- telepaths. Only three percent of the telepathic population is also empathic.

I was contacted by Morgan Le-Fay. I’m sure you’ve heard of her. She is first of the rouges. And an excellent thief, as are most rouges. You’ve more likely heard of her grandfather, Merlin. He is the greatest wizard to ever live.

She must have somehow known, was told most likely, that the gold she had stolen from Merlin had been found. So she contacted me telepathically that night, as I slept with the gold on the desk next to my bed.

My awakening by her telepathic presence was rude and unceremonious.

“You have my gold and I want it back.”

“Uh... Who are you?” I asked with my thoughts. She introduced herself as Morgan Le-Fay, first of the rouges.