Chapter 19

We instantly reappeared in a large grove of ancient Live Oak trees. We were on the crest of a large hill with a fantastic view across miles of fields with other groves of trees, plus a few hills, a river and several lakes were in view. The sky was a deep blue and there were large fluffy white clouds in it. Sunlight sparkled everywhere.

“WELCOME TO THE O’CONNELL REALM,” a deep male voice said from the flames that leapt and danced in the center of the grove. “THIS IS THE PLACE THAT HAS BEEN PREPARED FOR YOU AND YOUR DECENDENTS PLUS ALL OF THOSE THAT WORK FOR YOU, OR WHO YOU CHOOSE TO TAKE INTO YOUR FAMILY CICRLE.”

“It’s breathtaking!” Mother Margie said in amazement at the view.

“Yes, we will be moving all of our houses here, as well as the building with the printing plant,” I told them.

“Plus the houses that the Stuarts own and the one that the other printers are living in, and our other employees also,” Sean added.

“We’ll need additional houses for our children in the future also,” Annie added.

“And stores for a market,” Sara added last.

“We’re going to need more tractors to plow all of those fields,” Dad told us.

“How are we going to do all of that?” Mother Katie, always the realest, asked.

“We’ll be using the Marker Plates that we created earlier this year to do the moving and that will require the use of a lot of Magic. We’ll begin moving the houses tomorrow,” I told her.

“Weren’t those what you made when there was all of that bad weather earlier this year?” Gale asked.

“Yes,” Annie told her.

“Move the houses where?” Tara asked, confused.

“That’s what we need to decide,” Sean told her.

“Could we move them here to this grove?” Edana asked excitedly, looking around.

“THIS GROVE IS MINE,” the voice from the flames stated firmly. “YOU MAY NOT BUILD ANYTHING HERE, BUT YOU MAY USE IT TO HOLD RELIGOUS SERVICES IF YOU DESIRE. YOU MAY EVEN LEAVE THE FURNITURE THAT YOU CALL ‘PEWS’ HERE FOR THOSE SERVICES. I HAVE OBSERVED THAT ALL OF YOUR RELIGIOUS FACILITIES HAVE THEM.”

“Where should we move the houses to then?” Gale asked, perplexed.

“THERE IS ANOTHER HILL THAT WILL BE PERFECT. I WILL SHOW YOU,” the voice told us, and instantly we were on a broad plateau that also had Live Oaks and a large mostly clear field dotted with huge old trees.

“THIS WOULD BE BETTER,” the voice told us.

“How long has all of this been here!?” Mother Margie asked in amazement, “All of these trees look ancient.”

“I HAVE KNOWN THAT THIS WAS COMING FOR A LONG TIME, AS YOU HAVE NOTICED. I PREPARED THIS REALM BEFORE YOUR COLUMBUS SAILED ACROSS THE OCEAN,” the voice told us.

“That was over five hundred years ago,” Muriel said in shock.

“YES, IT WAS ABOUT FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY OF YOUR YEARS AGO WHEN I PREPARED IT,” the voice told us. “LOOK AROUND AND DECIDE WHERE YOU WISH TO LOCATE YOUR HOUSES. YOU NEED TO START MOVING THEM VERY SOON,” the voice told us, and then it and the flames disappeared.

“We need to site our parents’ house and property first,” I told everyone. “Because it’s the largest.”

We soon located the perfect place for their house and its property. It would give them a fine view to the North from the rear of the house and the herbal garden, and it overlooked a drop from the plateau to the valley floor and an area that wasn’t readily visible from the grove where we had appeared. It would also allow the entrance road to descend a gentle slope to the floor of the valley and the other fields.

“Can you move our houses next to each other?” Gale asked, expectantly.

“Sure if one of you can live without water or electricity,” Sean answered.

“Without water or electricity?” Tara asked, shocked.

“Yes, the utilities won’t line up if we move the houses around to different locations,” Sean told her.

“No, that wouldn’t work at all,” Muriel told him.

“We could change houses, if you really want to live next to each other,” Sara suggested.

“No, we like our houses, and are used to them,” Edana said. “We’ll just keep them the way they are.”

“What will we need to do for the move?” Mother Katie asked. “And what about our plants and herbs?”

“We won’t just be moving the houses,” Annie told her. “We’ll be moving the fields, lawns, and fences as well. Everything!”

“Everything?” Dad asked in shock.

“Yes, everything, and it will be replaced with what you see here,” I told him. “We need to go lower than the roots of these trees or they would all die. Also lower than the basements and the utilities that serve our houses.”

“That’s unbelievable,” Ed said speaking for the first time.

“We’ll have to move our parents’ property in three parts. For the rest, we can move each property whole, also the entry road,” I told them.

“And you are going to start when, again?” Dad asked.

“Tomorrow morning,” Sean told him. “We’ll have you moved by tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow or maybe Friday, when we have a vehicle here, we need to spend some time looking for a site to locate the printing plant and whatever other commercial buildings we will eventually have here. We’ll also need to bring the Stuarts here to decide where they want their houses,” I told the others.

“How do we get back here?” Mother Katie, ever the practical one, asked.

“It’s a simple spell and you can reduce it to a trigger word and a sign once you know it,” I told her, and then we went over the spell, and the sign and trigger word to activate it with all of them. They could instantly travel back and forth with a little practice. We all returned to our parents’ home for another come-as-you-are dinner.

We were up early on Thursday morning after a quiet night with only a little hugging and kissing. After a hearyt breakfast, as we would be doing a lot of work today, and finishing our schoolwork, we went to collect our Moms.

“We need you to go with us so you can pick the exact site that you want the house to occupy,” Sean told them.

“I thought that we had already agreed on that!” Mother Katie said.

“We want to refine the placement so it is exactly where you want it. We are only going to move all of this once,” I told her.

“All right,” Mother Margie agreed. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as you are ready, Mother O’Connell,” Sara told them. We joined hands when our Moms were ready and transferred directly to the plateau where our houses would be located.

“This is where we agreed upon,” Mother Katie said looking around at the area.

“Yes, this is the general area, but exactly where do you want the house located, Mother O’Connell?” Annie asked.

“Oh, I see what you mean!” Mother Margie answered, as she scanned the area.

“Oh look, Katie,” she said after a few seconds and pointed. “There is a nice break in the trees that would give us a fine view of the valley from the window at the end of the upstairs hall.”

“Yes, Margie! That would be just right,” Mother Katie agreed after looking at it for several seconds. “Can you center the house on that break in the trees?” she asked.

“Yes, we can do that with no problem,” I assured her.

“How long will it take, and do we need to vacate the house while you are working?” Mother Katie asked next.

“Most of the time will be spent getting the Marker Plates adjusted to the correct position. When they are located satisfactorily, we’ll begin the spell to activate them and move the houses,” I told her. “It would be best if you were elsewhere when we begin the spell, as it is a very powerful one.”

“All right. We’ll visit your Sisters for a while, and take your Father with us,” Mother Margie told us.

“Yes, once the house is moved, the fields will be somewhat easier. But first we have to get your house located exactly right, as everything else will be located from it,” I told them.

“There is one other thing,” Sean said then surprising all of us. “I’ve thought about this a lot. We are going to need to create a glamour showing all of the houses before we move any of them. That way no one will be aware that we aren’t actually living there anymore.”

“A glamour?” I asked.

“Yes, and it will need to be on all four sides of our property to really fool anyone, like the Government for instance,” Sean told us.

“A glamour?” Mother Margie asked in confusion.

“Yes, Mother O’Connell,” Sara answered. “It uses a spell to create an optical illusion of someone, or something, that you want others to see rather than what is actually there.”

“You two have really thought about this!” Annie said to her sister, somewhat shocked.

“Yes, we don’t spend all of our time thinking about sex,” Sara said with a giggle. “Only most of it,” she added with a huge grin.

“Okay, let’s get back and get this glamour set up. We still have a lot of work to do today,” I told them.

Back at home, our Moms soon collected Dad, and they all set off in the SUV. Apparently they had changed their minds and were going shopping instead of visiting our sisters who were busy with their college classes at this time.

“What about this glamour?” I asked Sean while they were preparing to leave.

“The basic spell is a fairly simple one that witches and others use. For our purposes there is a much more powerful spell that we can use to camouflage what we have done,” Sean told us.

“How are we going to keep it effective? It’s usually wrapped around a person or object,” I asked.

“Simple, we’ll weave it into the outer property wards,” Sean answered.

“That means that we have to activate those wards, and keep them activated,” Annie told him.

“Yes,”Sara told her. “But this close to the troubles, it won’t make any difference.”

“All right, we set those wards just outside of the property lines so it will work, but that means that we’ll have to leave the wards here,” I told them.

“Do you think that we’ll actually need wards in the O’Connell Realm?” Sara asked, seriously.

“Ah ... no! Probably not,” I confessed. We activated the perimeter wards after that, and Sean went over the powerful spell for the glamour that we would be using. We all sat in the entry road just outside of our parents’ entry gates facing in the four directions of our property lines and cast the spell and then locked the illusion into the outer wards.

Once we had it set up, we checked all four sides of our property from outside and were amazed at how real the illusion looked. When satisfied with the glamour, we called up the Master Set of Marker Plates. The surveyor had determined the dimensions of the central six acres of our parents’ property and had placed stakes at the four corners. Now we each placed one of the Corner Plates of the Master Set by each one of these stakes and allowed the Center Plate to find the center of the area.

Next we called up the Slave Set of Marker Plates and returned to the plateau in the O’Connell Realm with them. I placed the Center Plate of the Slave Set in approximately the correct location and we were able to see where the Corner Plates settled. Since the Plates of the Slave set took up the same position relative to the Center Plate as their counterparts in the Master Set, we were able to adjust their location simply by moving the Center Plate.

“Those outer Corner Plates need to be inside the tree line,” Annie reminded me, and I adjusted the Center Plate to move the Corner Plates back inside the tree line.

“Move the Center Plate a little more to the right,” Sean suggested, “So it’s centered better on the opening in the trees.” I moved the Center Plate a bit to the right, and we all checked its location and the locations of the four Corner Plates.

“It looks good to me,” Sara declared when we had finished our inspection. We transferred back to our original property then.

“Is everybody ready?” I asked after we had taken a short break. We sat then facing the entry gates of our parents’ property and joined hands. We could feel the Magic Force start to build around us, and allowed it to accumulate for a considerable time. This was going to be a major work of Magic and would require all of the Magic Force that we could command. Finally, we glowed brighter than the sun.

“Let’s begin,” I said, and we all began reciting the relocation spell that the ‘Book of Dreams’ had taught us. Sean and I on the ends of our line used our free hands to trace the glyph for the spell in the air, as we all recited the long powerful spell.

By the time that we finished the spell, we were no longer glowing, but were all tired and cold. The spell had sucked every bit of the Magic Force that we had accumulated out of us and left us cold, tired, and shaking, but the house and its surrounding six acres had been replaced by the grassy fields and ancient trees of the plateau in the O’Connell Realm.

“I think that we need to have lunch,” Annie said, as we got shakily to our feet.

“Yes, and we need to accumulate more Magic Force before we start the next time,” I told them.

“Yes, definitely!” Sean agreed. “I’m wasted.” We had a very high calorie lunch at Sean’s house and then rested for an hour or so before we transferred to the plateau to inspect our parents’ house in its new location.

“This looks just about perfect,” Sara said looking out the second floor hall window after we had checked the entire area.

“Right,” I agreed. “Annie and I will go back and set up the Master Set on the fields east of the house. You two stay here and get the Slave Set started in a few minutes.”

“Okay, that should speed things up some,” Sean agreed. Annie and I returned and quickly set up the four Corner Plates on the fields east of the house’s former location, allowing the Center Plate to find its own position. We made sure to stay inside the wards to preserve the glamour. We were soon joined by Sean and Sara.

“Everything set?” I asked.

“Yes, we set the two corner plates next to the transferred property and the others took up their positions when you positioned the Master Set,” Sean told me.