Chapter 4: Places I Never Imagined

When I woke up, everything turned out to be real and not, as I very reasonably might have suspected, a dream. I lay in an unfamiliar bed beneath a dark wooden ceiling. Natural light spilled through a marbled glass window. At my side, asleep in a chair, was Imogen.

She looked different while asleep. Still stunning, but softer and a touch sadder. A mask had fallen off her features, replaced instead by a weary, innocent look. I had guessed she was two or three years older than me, somewhere in her late 20s, but now I thought she might be younger by the same margin.

I shifted to look at her better and the weight by my feet changed unexpectedly. Aurelia, Imogen's familiar, had been curled up beside me. She yawned and stretched her back in that immensely satisfying way that only cats can. Imogen woke up.

"Ophelia, you're awake!"

I smiled and yawned myself. "Were you worried about me?"

"Of course." Imogen seemed to miss my meaning. "You fainted, I thought one of the rats might have gotten you, but Rosalind said you were fine and it was probably a preexisting condition or just a symptom of the shock."

I nodded and pulled myself up into a higher sitting position. "Rosalind is..."

"Technically my cousin?" Imogen shrugged. "She's the best healer we have. You're in the Magnolia glade, by the way."

"Your home? Did you bring me here?" I imagined Imogen carrying me, cradled in her strong arms and kept safe from the dangers of the world. It was an unfortunate thing to have been asleep for. Perhaps I could engineer a repeat situation by pretending to... focus. Witches. Magic. Deal with attraction to a pretty girl later.

"If you're feeling well enough," Imogen smiled at me. I tried to stay focused. "I could show you around? I know my mother wants to talk to you, but... this place is really cool and I don't get to introduce people to it often."

How was anyone in the world supposed to deny a proposal like that? I looked at Imogen's excited, hopeful expression and acquiesced. She led me out of the bedroom and into a world entirely unlike anything I had ever seen. Perhaps anything I had ever dreamt of.

The doorway opened up onto a balcony overlooking a giant circular chamber. The far wall must have been two or three hundred yards across. The ceiling was out of sight. The walkway clung to the wall, snaking down to our left and climbing steadily to our right in one giant spiral staircase. More suspended bridges and pathways crisscrossed through the chamber, connecting different sections of the balcony to each other.

And then there was the tree.

Growing through the chamber's center was a magnolia tree of tremendous, impossible size. Towering and gnarled, it twisted up through the space, its branches bending around and over the various suspended walkways. It might have been several trees woven together, for the branches were covered in flowers of all colors, many of which glowed with a soft, pale light.

I could see people walking, chatting, going about their daily lives as they moved from one section of the glade to another. Animals walked with them, or flew by their side--Familiars, I guessed.

"This is... wow." I opened my mouth and closed it again. "Wow."

"Yeah," Imogen leaned against the railing beside me, smiling up at the tree. "I'll never get tired of it."

"And you, like... you all live here?" I was struggling to find the words. It was a similar feeling to being told that your new friend lived in the Eiffel Tower. Or on the top of Mount Fuji.

Imogen nodded. "My family. Our relatives. The people who make money off of my family."

"Do the other witches... are they all witches?" I didn't really know where to start asking questions and where to stop.

"Yeah." Imogen turned to face me, leaning her elbow on the balcony railing. "Mostly everyone. We're one of the seven largest families. And like I said earlier, we're the oldest. The Magnolia Family."

"Because of the tree? Or the other way around?" I asked.

Imogen laughed. "We're not THAT old. The tree came first. Specifically, this tree came first. This is where every Magnolia in the world came from, originally."

"Wow." I didn't know what else to say.

"Let's walk a bit," Imogen waved for me to follow. "I can take you to see my mother, she's our Matriarch, and can answer a lot of your questions for you."

I hurried to keep up with her. "Do I get... I mean, since I'm a witch and all..." I trailed off, the words still didn't sound real, even coming out of my own mouth.

"You'll get a Familiar and an Implement." Imogen bent down to scoop Aurelia off the floor. The cat nestled into Imogen's arms, held close against her breast. I had to actively try not to be jealous of an animal. "Your Familiar is out there somewhere, though we don't know what it will be or where it is. And the Implement comes from one of the trees."

"An Implement is..." I paused to admire a hawk as it soared by, almost close enough for me to touch it.

"Like a wand." Imogen tapped her wooden ring with her thumb. "Or a ring. Or a staff. It'll be made of wood, and you'll be able to work magic of the second degree through it."

"Yeah. Okay." I sounded weirdly confident. I did not feel it.

Imogen turned onto one of the crosswalks. "Don't worry if it's overwhelming. You won't be alone. Especially once you find your Familiar, they make for excellent advisors."

"Yeah, of course." The reality of what she had said hit me. "Wait. What? You can talk to them?"

"Here we are!" Imogen had stopped mid-walkway, where a particularly giant branch of the Magnolia brushed against the wooden railing. In the tree's embrace, there stood a small building built of wood and stone. Its door was ajar, but a sign above it read: 'Matriarch's Study. Please knock before entry.'

Within waited the answers to my questions. And the choice that would define my life from here onward.