Chapter 15

The following new characters make an appearance:

Mary Margaret O’Connell (Margie)

Katie’s twin Sister, Margie and Robert’s Daughter, Born on the 18 of September 1907, 7 pounds, green eyes, flaming red hair, Siberian Tiger cub

Mary Kathleen O’Connell (Katie)

Margie’s twin Sister, Margie and Robert’s Daughter, Born on the 18 of September 1907, 7 pounds, green eyes, flaming red hair, baby Dragon

Patrick Owen O’Malley O’Connell

Grace and Owen’s Son, Born on the 15 of October 1907, 7pounds 8 ounces, bright red hair, blue eyes, a strong Talent

September started on a Sunday, and Monday was Labor Day. It had started as a a national holiday in 1885 in the Fourth Reality, rather than in 1884, as it had in the then Reality of Less Magic. As those in the Third Reality celebrated Labor Day on a different date, they had no objection to moving the septic tanks and their piping to the Fourth Reality on that date. We were even finished in time to attend the parade in Statesboro that afternoon, though I took a chair with me to watch the proceedings.

I was very close to delivering these two little bundles of joy, and getting around was now a chore. Robert had been the perfect Husband doing everything that he could for me, and I really appreciated it, as I just didn’t have my usual get-up-and-go presently.

Uncle Aengus, Aunt Gale, and a number of my other Relatives also attended the parade along with Owen, Grace, Joe, Celeste, Frank, Robert and me. A number of people looked at my Relatives strangely, but there were a good number of strangers in town now, so there weren’t any problems. Uncle Aengus had been sure to invite Mayor Moore to the Ground Breaking for the Magic School at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, Tuesday the 3rd of September and to also invite a number of the other prominent citizens of Statesboro.

The prime contractor for the project, Roper and Strauss, had been moving people and machinery into town for the past week to ten days in preparation to start work on the first Tuesday of September. They were planning on hiring a number of local men to help with the initial work on the school. Those in town had already taken notice of this in addition to the other financial benefits that having a large construction company in town for over a year would provide.

Tuesday morning at the original O’Connell house was very busy, as we all prepared to attend the Ground Breaking. The twins had been especially active this morning, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to attend or not, but they calmed down just before nine o’clock, and we were able to transfer from the O’Connell’s house to the school site just after 9:30.

The Clan had decided that since we would be going public with the ground breaking of the Magic School, that it was now appropriate to reveal our ability to use Magic in the things that we did. The local people needed to become comfortable with the everyday use of Magic around them and that could only be accomplished by us using our Magic to do everyday normal things. Owen and Grace were well on their way to qualifying for Second Level, and even Joe could do some Magic. We would be doing our best to show them that Magic could be used for everyday things to accomplish them quicker or easier and sometimes both.

On arriving at the school site, the first thing that we noticed was the large painted sign near the entrance of the property. It read in large letters:

Coming Soon

The Kathleen and Margaret O’Connell

School of Magic

Across the open field behind the sign there were some chairs set up, but those arriving were still standing and talking together. Some were the contractor’s people, some were town’s people, and a surprising number of them were my Relatives! I wondered what so many of them were doing here. The Mayor and one of the City Councilmen arrived shortly after we had.

As ten o’clock approached, people began taking their seats, and Uncle Aengus stepped up to the small podium in front of them. When there was quiet from those gathered there, he began to speak.

“Good morning, ladies and gentleman. I am Aengus O’Connell, President of Clan O’Connell, and I am proud to welcome you to the Ground Breaking Ceremony for the Kathleen and Margaret O’Connell School of Magic. While the O’Connell Sisters here in Statesboro were a distant part of the Clan, we, the Clan that is, thought that naming the school for them was an appropriate tribute as it is being built on land that they formerly owned. Additionally, Mary Kathleen and Mary Margaret O’Connell were the founders of our Clan far away and a long time ago, so the name honors both pairs of Sisters.

“Ground Breaking Ceremonies are usually occasions for long speeches and a little shovel work by those sponsoring the project. However, this is a ground breaking for a School of Magic, and we didn’t feel that just a few shovels of dirt were adequate for the occasion.

“Behind me you can see where our contractor, Roper and Strauss, has driven stakes outlining the exterior plan of the buildings. If you look a little closer, you will see where an area outside of those stakes has been lined with a trail of lime. This is the area to be excavated for the construction of the basement of the administrative and class room building of the school, that is shown on the rendering over to my left,” and even as he said this a large rendering of the school some four feet wide and six feet six inches long appeared out of thin air. Each building was numbered and a list of the buildings had been added to the rendering, which was in full color. People’s mouths fell open in shock on seeing it suddenly appear from nowhere. Uncle Aengus resumed speaking when the crowd eventually quieted again.

“As I was saying, this is the area to be excavated for the construction of the main school building. Since we O’Connells are Magic users, or Wizards, we have decided that a small demonstration of our craft would be appropriate at the Ground Breaking Ceremony to show everyone here that we can, in fact, perform Magic. If you will direct your attention to the area outlined in lime, we will do our part,” Uncle Aengus told the crowd before leaving the podium.

He joined the rest of my Relatives who had been standing off to one side of the building site. The seven of us were staring at my Relatives wondering what they intended to do, when there was a call to us.

“Margie, would you and the others please join us,” Uncle Aengus asked as our other Relatives spread out along the back line of the building site. I quickly joined hands with those with me and transferred Owen, Grace, Joe, Celeste, Frank, Robert, and myself to join my Relatives on the far side of the building outline. This too caused quite a bit of surprise, and it was several minutes before the crowd of onlookers were quiet again. In the meantime, I had been asking questions.

“What are you going to do?” I asked Uncle Aengus in a confused voice, while those with me also just stared in confusion.

“Sorry, dear, we only decided on this last night, and didn’t have a chance to tell you,” Aunt Gale told me before Uncle Aengus explained.

“We are going to excavate the the area for the basement of the main building,” he told us.

“I don’t know a spell for that,” I replied.

“It’s alright, dear,” Mother told me. “I know the spell and will be casting it along with Aengus and Gale. Everyone else will just be adding their Magic to the spell,” she informed me. We all spread out then and joined hands. Mother and I were in the center of the line, while Aengus and Gale were each half way between us and each end of the line. When we joined together, I could immediately feel the Magic begin to accumulate with so many powerful Senior Masters present. We soon began to glow from the Magic and the crowd could see it as well as those of us in line.

After thirty seconds or so, the three of them began to recite the spell, which was in a very ancient dialect of Gaelic, and they drew its glyph in the air with large exaggerated strokes. On finishing the spell and its glyph, they paused for a few seconds to draw out the drama and to allow everyone to get a good look at what they had done before adding the Magic in their left hands to the glyphs held in the fingers of their right hands.

Magic flowed, and dirt immediately erupted from inside the limed area, and not just a little bit of dirt, but a huge wall of dirt erupted from the entire enclosed area. That from the side near us shot up into the air at least sixty-five feet, while that from the front part of the excavation rose even higher before all of it arched over to land some fifty feet behind us in a long, wide mound some ten feet high that was just a bit longer than the excavation due to the spread of the dirt at the ends of the mound. In less than a minute, there was a huge mound of dirt behind us, all of it having come from the hole now in the ground in front of us. Those in attendance at the ceremony were staring at us in shocked amazement, even the people from the construction company.

“But no one can do that!” one shocked construction supervisor said to another.

“Well, laddie, there you’re wrong. You just saw it done, so it must be possible,” the other man said in a laughing voice.

All of the O’Connells had transferred to the front of the excavation while the crowd stared in shock, and Uncle Aengus stepped up to the podium again to address them.

“We hope to have the buildings completed and the school open by the first week of January 1909. We will be testing and accepting candidates for the first classes in December of 1908. All candidates for the school must possess the Talent and be able to learn to do Magic. Thank you for attending the Ground Breaking Ceremony and this small demonstration,” Uncle Aengus told them before we all cast the transfer spell to return to the O’Connell Realm, leaving those there to wonder where we had gone.

“What was that!?” Grace asked excitedly when we all appeared in the Glen of the Eternal Flame.

“That was your first group working,” I told her, as many of my Relatives disappeared to return to their varied pursuits.

“I never felt that much Magic gathered in one place before,” Owen exclaimed.

“Yes, there was a lot more Magic used than was strictly necessary. That could all have been done in sections by just two or three Wizards. It would have taken a bit longer, and wouldn’t have been as spectacular, but Uncle Aengus is a bit of a showman and likes the spectacular,” Mother told him with a smile. I quickly turned toward my Mother before she could vanish.

“Mother, where did you find that spell? I don’t remember seeing anything quite like it before,” I told her.

“I found it in the library in the Otherworld. I was there several days ago doing some research for another project when I cane across a small rather thin book which was written in Celtic (P) in the Ogham alphabet and not in Gaelic. I was able to translate it into Gaelic and brought it to Aengus while he and the Council were making plans for the Ground Breaking Ceremony.

“The entire book was very interesting, and I brought it back with me. You should stop by and read part of it when you have a chance,” she told me before she and Father transferred to wherever they were going from the Glen.

Joe finally spoke up when most of my Relatives were gone.

“Where be dis place?” he asked looking around at the Glen with its many ancient oak trees surrounding it and the breaks in them at the east and west points.

“This is the Eternal Flame’s Glen in the O’Connell Realm,” I told him. “It is used for services, marriages, and as a meeting, arrival, and departure location.”

“How you be havin’ services here?” he asked looking around at the empty Glen again.

“We transfer the pews and other things here on Sunday or holidays. It isn’t good to leave the wooden pews, the altar, or the pulpit out in the weather all of the time, and they’re simple to move using Magic,” I told him.

“Where be dis Realm?” he asked next in a rather quiet voice.

“It’s located high above Grace and Owen’s property just outside of Statesboro, but you can’t see it or reach it except by Magic because it’s warded to keep strangers from entering,” I told him to a very confused look from Joe. Uncle Aengus reappeared right after that.

“I’m afraid that you will have a number of visitors at your house shortly after you return there,” he told Grace and Owen.

“Visitors?” both of them asked in surprise.

“From the construction company and possibly from the local newspapers. They will all want to know how we did that and whether we can do it again, and probably more than once, as it saves them time and a lot of labor,” Aengus told them.

“What can we tell them though?” Owen asked. “We don’t know what you did or how you created that large pit.”

“I have some other things to attend to, but I’ll be there to answer their questions shortly. Just have them wait until I can get there,” Uncle Aengus told them before disappearing again.

“How do we get home, we don’t know any spells to leave here,” Owen asked looking around at the Glen.

“I’ll take you home and remain with you until Uncle Aengus has his meeting with those who come to your house,” I told them. Robert, Celeste, and Frank went with us.

We arrived at Grace and Owen’s house in time for Grace, Celeste, and I to start dinner for all of us. We also made several large pitchers of sweet iced tea which I cast a preservation spell on to keep it cold. The men went to the parlors to straighten up for when our visitors arrived. We had finished dinner and started on the dishes when the first visitors knocked at the front door. The men met them at the door and invited them into the large parlor. We served them cool sweet tea and some small cookies that Grace had on hand.