The Man in The Cave

Chapter 5

The emptiness of the corridor was the clear mark that most of the students were already enjoying their break. This wasn't entirely the case for the group of friends, that on the Tuesday morning they were near the staircase that led to the second floor.

Valerie was sitting on the stairs, head over one of her hands that was supported by her knees; Jonathan was relying on the wooden railing of the stairs, head over his arms, staring at Valerie; Gabriel was against the wall, and Audrey was pacing back and forth never going further than two steps too far than from the rest were.

"You guys realize how weird this is, don't you?" Gabriel raised his eyebrows earning everyone's attention.

"Of course not" Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Some dodgy bloke telling me I have magical powers and telling Ree that she is basically a princess and that her aunt is a thousand years old witch is consists on a regular Friday for me."

Valerie chuckled, but other than that Audrey and Gabriel limited themselves to glare at the boy. Valerie pulled out her cellphone to check the time, her aunt had finally bought her a new one after the one she used to have broke down. When she had gotten it in her hands, she had given the woman an awkward thank you, and had to give Merlin an explanation on what a cellphone is and how it was supposed to work.

"How are the things with your aunt?" Gabriel questioned, all eyes turned to Valerie, who simply shrugged.

"As good as you could expect, she is trying to live life as we always had, plus adding Merlin into the house," Valerie explained. "At least Jonathan was there yesterday, so I don't have to hear Merlin giving me lessons on etiquette"

"Etiquette?" Audrey tilted her head and furrowed her eyebrows. Valerie took a deep breath.

"Your highness you should not be slouching, the wizard boy should be bowing to you, you need to be more articulated, language! A lady, even less a princess should not be speaking such awful words" Valerie did her best imitation on Merlin's voice, this time, both Gabriel and Audrey chuckled. Audrey then stared at the Gabriel's shoes and lifted her eyes in sudden realization.

"What have you been going to Valerie's house for?" she turned to Jonathan who lifted himself from the railing and scratched the back of his neck. Valerie found herself weirded by the question. It wasn't an oddity for him or for Valerie to go to each other's house.

"Merlin wanted to teach me how to use magic" Jonathan admitted, glancing at the floor, his mouth on a thin, tense line.

"Why?" Gabriel tilted his head, a tone of amusement in his voice.

"I don't know. It might have been the idea of my nightmares crawling out of my dreams and invading my everyday life." he sighed, "He fucking teleported me to the woods to train for like an hour. And in case everyone is curious, his lessons consist on showing me how to blow a dandelion using the wind"

"And how is that going?" Audrey questioned.

"There has been a lot of unpeaceful yelling" Jonathan gave a single nod and the sighed, "He is still trying to teach me the way to properly channel my inner power, whatever the fuck that means, so there's that. How does it feel to know your ancestor was a knight of the round table Audrey?" He turned the attention to the girl.

Audrey's face perked up, "What? Oh, yes. It's nothing memorable, I suppose, it's not like I'll ever meet him anyways"

"If what your aunt said it's true" Gabriel began "Shouldn't we have already seen any sign of it?" He looked for the reactions of his peers, who stared at him confused

"Like what?" Valerie questioned, eyebrows furrowed.

"Kids vanishing, lights flickering, weird weather, who knows" Gabriel shrugged.