A Little Bit Like Magic

[A/N - largely for Miss Sharples because she wanted to see. Keep in mind it's still rough and probably needs a lot more description and stuff and, well... yeah. Happy writing and what not.

- Jayne]

Chapter 1

- A Little Bit Like Magic -

People will often insist that it’s impossible for a boy to be best friends with a girl, or a girl to be best friends with a boy. They, (‘they’ more often than not being parents, or the sort of slightly bonkers aunt that tends to smell of musty perfume), seem to believe that at some point, the boy will be presented with a dainty pinkish doll, or the girl with a rather dissatisfying handful of dirt, and the suitably offended child will wallow away from their former companion, vowing to never set eyes on them again. These people, of course, are idiots: idiots at least, by the standards of Jo Wringly and Oliver Moon. Jo and Oliver have been best friends since, well, forever, and they don’t intend to stop any time soon - especially not because a bunch of grumpy old adults tell them that things change as they get older. As far as they're concerned, nothing has to change unless they want it to. 

The summer holidays had always been Jo’s favourite time of year, because despite being free to do anything she liked, she was also perfectly content with doing nothing. That didn’t mean she didn’t daydream though – imagine the sort of pastimes that can usually only be done in storybooks, or on television. Jo was almost 12 years old, and people had started to tell her that she needed to grow up, and stop dreaming so much. The images in her head, of going on adventures and meeting wonderfully strange people in equally wondrous places, were, apparently, too far fetched for her to humor any longer. She needed to be realistic. 

Of course, Oliver never told her such mean things. He couldn’t care less whether or not people thought he was being childish - just because they were in high school now, he said, didn’t mean they had to suddenly start reading the paper or thinking about the future.
Oliver, though was the youngest of three boys, so his parents were quite content to let him be as childish as he liked, for as long as he liked. They didn’t want him to grow up either. Jo, on the other hand, was an only child and her parents would probably be rather pleased if she started talking about which university degree she’d like to take, or something equally far away and pointless.   

It was early evening, after an almost uncomfortably warm day in June, when Jo confided in Oliver just how very anxious she was about having to return to school.
“We wont be the youngest anymore!” She complained, “we’ll have more responsibilities and choices. We’ll have to look out for the younger ones, and do more homework. I just wish it’d all stop.”

“You worry too much,” Oliver said absently, far more concerned with running his hand along the wall that followed their current path, dislodging bits of loose concrete that rested there and flinging aside a few wandering insects.

“We’re barely 12 Jo,” he said, “we don’t even have to choose which classes to carry on with for a year.”

Jo pouted slightly and went back to kicking the dusty gravel of the road. She hated roads with gravel on – she almost always tripped, and got the unpleasant little stones stuck in her hands when she landed on the ground.

Olivers’ grandparents had just moved out here, to the part of Moorside that has always been more country than town – with the winding graveled roads, green and yellow fields, and the occasional stray cow that tended to appear out of trees or from around corners of it’s own regard, completely undeterred by the presence of humans.

Jo didn’t like the countryside, especially at times like this, when it was growing dark, and the trees on either side of the road were shrouded in shadows. Anything could be hiding in the shadows, she reasoned. And, as a rule, she tended not to like places where things, or people, could hide. It made her feel uneasy.

“Anyway,” Ollie said, as they turned a sharp corner onto an even longer stretch of even more uneven gravel, “you know you like school. The amount of time you spent last year trying to teach me fractions, it was as if you were personally offended I couldn’t do it or something. It’s not normal if you ask me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Jo sighed. “How much further is this house anyway? It’s almost dark already.”

Oliver gestured vaguely ahead of him, “Up ahead. There's another lane just up here, then about 5 or 10 minutes."

“What’s down the other lane?” Jo asked, spotting the path that led away between thickets of trees as it came into view.

Ollie shrugged. “I don’t know, haven’t been down there before.”

The trees leading to the lane stood taller than those surrounding it, casting long black silhouettes across their path.

Jo hesitated, drawn inexplicably towards them and peering down the little lane.

“Do you want to go and look?” Ollie asked, already marching with little care towards the tall trees.

Nodding, Jo followed.

           

“What is it?” she asked, for Oliver had stridden towards the mouth of the lane, then come to a standstill with no explanation.

“It’s…” But Ollie couldn’t finish the sentence. Speech felt inadequate, as if it might spoil it. Because this place wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen before. His grandparents new house was nice enough, but the tracks leading up to it were dirty and lined with a wonky brown fence and prickly bushes. This was different. It was…

“It’s like magic,” Jo whispered.

Oliver nodded.

The lane that stood before the children looked, to them, almost as if someone had taken a pot of black ink and created it straight from their imagination. The towering trees on either side of the track blocked out the remaining daylight, making a canopy of dark green above their heads. Jo however, didn’t find it scary. In this case, the darkness seemed to bristle around the two of them, speaking of something far from normal, but far from frightening. The leaves above them appeared to twinkle with a silver glow and when the pair instinctively took a step forward, their feet didn’t crunch down on hard gravel, but instead came to rest on a soft, sand-like substance. To their left, there even ran a small stream, filled with the soft trickle of water, just audible in the stillness of the night. Further down, the water gathered in a small, gushing waterfall, before disappearing neatly under the earth.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Oliver said.

“But… we might as well look, now we are here.”

Jo looked at him pleadingly, but it didn’t take much convincing, he was just as entranced as her.

They walked forwards a few more steps, but jumped violently when a large toad hopped out of the grass at the side of the lane and straight into their path. Ollie bent down to try and pick it up, but before he got halfway to the ground the toad turned towards him indignantly, gave a loud ‘ribbit!’ then bounced away, disappearing with a gentle splash into the river.

Jo couldn’t help but laugh then, both at the shock on her friends face, and the absurdity of the situation: the fact that they were acting as though they were honestly about to stumble upon a real witches house, or some other magic realm; because those things didn’t happen in real life, and certainly not to two regular almost 12 year olds.

“This is ridiculous,” she said out loud and turned to grab Ollie, before guiding them both towards the foot of the lane with an air of confidence.  

Upon reaching their destination, Jo and Oliver were confronted with a rather bland looking house. It may have once been grand, but now the white washed walls of its exterior were flaky in patches, the garden was overgrown and heavy curtains blocked anything of the interior from view. In a place that hummed with life, the house looked strangely derelict and not at all like it belonged.

Despite not really believing they’d find anything spectacular, Jo felt a surge of overwhelming disappointment.

“Come on,” she said, “this is stupid. It’s just a regular house. I don’t think anyone even lives here.”

She turned to leave, but the sound of Oliver crying out forced her to spin back around. “There!” he gasped, pointing at the house, “There was someone there - a woman. She looked through the curtains at us than shut them again, quick as anything!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course!” Oliver said. “I’m not daft. She was right there!”

“We should go.” Jo replied, a strange feeling of panic washing over her. “We can’t just stand around at the bottom of someone’s garden.”

Jo and Oliver retreated back to the road in a heartbeat, walking the rest of the way towards Ollie’s grandparents house in near silence, each lost in their own thoughts about what had just happened.

Eric and Flora Moon greeted Jo the same as ever, with many “haven’t you gotten tall Joanna!’s” and “would you like some sweeties dear?” But despite their kindness, Jo couldn’t wait to get away from them, and speak privately to her friend about the thoughts whirling around her head.

Eventually, Oliver managed to convince them that he and Jo were worn out, and would really just like to get to bed. A claim which they thankfully, didn’t question.

The airbed that Jo slept on whenever she stayed over with the Moons was already made up next to Oliver’s, in the spare room, and she collapsed down onto it rather dramatically when the door was finally shut.

“What are we going to do?!” She demanded of Oliver, who had perched on his own bed, and was currently looking quite lost.

“Who was that woman?” He asked.

“How on earth would I know? I didn’t even see her! But there’s something funny about that house, I’ll tell you that much.”

“The lane,” Oliver agreed, “it was like… it was like we’d stepped into Narnia or something. Couldn’t you just feel it?”

“Like magic,” Jo said, for the second time that day. “But, it’s impossible Ol! Magic, stuff like that, it isn’t real. It’s probably just some crazy old lady who lives in a run down house.”

“You think we’re making this up in our heads?”

“Maybe.”

“Still,” Oliver grinned, “doesn’t stop you wanting to go back there, does it?”

“No.”

Oliver stood up and moved towards the bedroom window, looking out over the now completely black sky outside. He’d often peer out of his bedroom window at home, onto the streets in the evening, watching people hurrying to and fro under the glare of the streetlamps. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d wished that something, anything exciting would happen to cure his boredom. Now, it seemed that something interesting might finally be happening to him.

He hoped so, anyway.

           

“Tomorrow.” He stated, turning back around to face his best friend. “Tomorrow, we’ll go back, in the afternoon this time, and we’ll knock on the door.”

“But what are you planning on saying?” Jo asked, frowning. “You can’t just go up to someone and ask if they’re a witch, or if they have a magic house.”

“Well obviously!” Ollie said, “I don’t think she’s a witch! I’m just going to ask her if she needs anything. Offer to mow the lawn or something. Then when she’s invited me in I can have a snoop around, see if there’s anything in there.”

“And what do you think you’re going to find? A nice bubbling cauldron by the fire? You’re crazy.”

“You’re coming though?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m coming.”