Julia Lelieveld and the battle with the underworld
~7~

The next day the weather was gloomy, everyone ran onto the school steps. I locked my bike and followed their lead. Once inside everyone was in a good mood. And I saw why, there were big announcement posters for the upcoming party. The hall was already nicely decorated and the posters looked beautiful. That promised something. No wonder everyone was looking forward to it. The good mood was contagious. For a moment I forgot all the misery and went with the crowd. The teachers struggled to appease the student, it was all a buzz.

Eva couldn’t decide which dress to order, during chemistry she showed a few options on her phone. And as I looked at her phone, I should have looked at my test. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my bottle overflowing with foam. Shit! I quickly grabbed some tissues and put out the fire under the bottle, but alas, too late. I was already covered in foam.

Eva burst out laughing, as did the other students. Fortunately, the teacher could see the fun in it too. “Okay, everyone had a good laugh, now back to serious work. Julia, you’d better freshen up.” And he nodded at my shirt. I nodded, grabbed my bag and said goodbye to Eva and walked towards the toilets.

When I saw myself in the mirror I couldn’t help but laugh. Just at the height of my breasts were two large foam bubbles. I quickly grabbed the wipes and wiped off the foam. Oh, how that stuff smelled. Fortunately, on the advice of the circle, I always had an extra set of clothes in my bag.

I put on my clean shirt and as I pulled my shirt over my head, I suddenly felt a frightening feeling in my stomach. I turned around and there he was.

Lucas.

I felt the anger growing inside me, oh, how I hated that boy. If it had been up to him, I wouldn’t have survived the fall from the roof. I felt my powers pressing against my palms. I moved my fingers to spread the force well.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said.

I looked at him in disbelief. “Lucas, surely you don’t believe I’ll trust you just one more time.”

“It’s true, you know what Evil has ordered me to do.”

I nodded, I knew that all too well. But that didn’t mean he would comply.

“That means nothing. You pushed me off that roof without any emotion. Who says you won’t do it again!” I am starting to get really angry now.

“I have orders.”

I didn’t believe it, but then again, his father thought he was changing. But these thoughts quickly disappeared now that I saw him again. And what on earth was he doing here? I should destroy him or at least give him a good scare. With those thoughts I could feel the power flowing from my fingertips.

Lucas saw it. He held up his hands as if surrendering.

“For the second time, I’m not here to fight.”

“Should I care? I should destroy you right away!”

But when I said that it didn’t feel right. I didn’t know if it was my instinct or my values. I have never used violence or hurt anyone. I was even vehemently against violence. If only I saw it on the news, all the unnecessary violence and pain, it made me sick.

“You don’t do that, that’s not how you work. How do you think I felt about it in the beginning?” He had a painful expression on his face.

“It takes a lot to become as bitter as me.” Now he just looked sad.

I had never seen him like this.

“Lucas, what are you doing here?”

He sighed. “I wanted to ask if you’d give Lorenzo a message.”

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”

“You know why not, Lorenzo can’t hold back, not like you. Make no mistake. Lorenzo has already crossed the line to actually hurt someone.”

I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I didn’t want to know this at all. I trusted Renzo. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew Lucas was right.

“Would you tell him his mother called?”

I looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“We have different mothers, the same father.”

I nodded. “Is that it?”

I didn’t know what else to say. Of course I would tell Renzo, it was family, his mother.

Then he can know for himself what he would do with this information.

Lucas nodded and walked away without another word.

For a moment I stood transfixed to the ground. To process what had just happened. I shook my head, as if everything would fall into place.

I picked up my dirty shirt and went back to class.

As soon as I entered the room, I immediately saw Renzo looking. He knew something was up, he had the feeling for it. I smiled at him, hoping he would be reassured. But judging by his expression, that wasn’t the case.

As soon as chemistry was finished and I was walking in the hallway, Renzo immediately took me aside. Without saying a word he led me to the stairwell, closed the door and looked at me intensely.

“What happened?”

I had better be honest with him right away.

“Lucas has a message for you.”

I saw his expression darken, his eyebrows drew together and his jaw tightened.

“Did he hurt you?”

I shook my head.

He nodded and seemed to relax slightly.

“What message did he have?”

I swallowed. “It was about your mother. He said she called and asked me to pass it on to you.”

Renzo probably knew enough about this message. And I was right. His look changed, I didn’t know what. I couldn’t read his emotions at the time.

He looked down for a moment, took a few deep breaths.

I stepped over to him and held him, he looked at me.

“Are you okay?”

He raised his shoulders. “Yeah, it’s just that when my mother calls it always causes problems.”

I looked at him uncomprehendingly. I had no experience with this. Those difficult family relationships.

“What could it be then?” I asked him.

“I don’t know, she may be out of a job or have the wrong boyfriend.”

“Don’t you have any contact with her then?” I asked, uncomprehending.

“Unfortunately, not everyone has a sweet mother,” he said bitterly.

A stab went through my heart. He still had a mother, but he just had no contact with her anymore. And I would give anything just to spend a few more minutes with my mother. Hold her for a while and talk to her.

He probably saw my inexplicable emotions.

He grabbed me by the shoulder. “Hey, it’ll be okay. I’ll call her back later and then I’ll know.” He nodded as if he had yet to convince himself.

“So it was her who called on Saturday?” I asked cautiously. “Yes.”

The loud buzzer rang through the stairwell.

We rushed to the next lesson and it just kept running through my head for the rest of the day. Poor Renzo, it wasn’t for nothing that someone could talk so distantly about their own mother.

What would have happened in his youth? And Lucas’? That he could be that bad? And what had happened was that Lucas and Renzo were so very different? That Renzo had turned his back on his faith?

With my head full of thoughts I walked down the platform towards the bicycle shed. Eva had been training and I saw her earlier walking towards the gym. She really enjoyed playing volleyball. If she know what was going on in my life right now. She would think I was crazy.

I walked into the garage and immediately saw Renzo standing, leaning against his bike with his hands in his pockets and his eyes fixed on infinity.

I got a heavy feeling in my stomach from this face. Why did he stand there so alone with his soul under his arm? This couldn’t be good.

I walked over to him and as if he was only now hearing me, he looked up. He smiled, but had a pained look.

“Did you call?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to her for the weekend after school on Friday.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shrugged, his hands still in his pockets. “I don’t know.”

It hurt me to see him like this. “I am here for you.”

He nodded again and looked at me intensely.

And with one movement he took a big step and held my face and pressed his lips firmly to mine as if this were our last kiss. My body responded immediately. I grabbed him and pressed myself against him. I took another small step towards him so that there was no more space between us. We were so close I could feel his chest rise and fall under his coat. The fire that sparked the kiss in me burned through my entire body. Despite the unpleasant situation he was in, this felt so very good. And I think he felt that too. Because this moment felt so intense.

Suddenly I heard the buzzer from school. Oh shit, we were still in the bicycle shed. As if he thought the same, we separated ourselves, said goodbye and went home.

Wednesday and Thursday were fortunately quiet. Because my head was running over. Wednesday afternoon I went to the library, where the rest of the circle was. We had talked about last Thursday and that we had to start training again. Rob had taken me aside. He had said that the teachers had a study day on Friday, so we had no school. And the Elders were able to receive us on Friday morning. Thursday to Friday night I was afraid to sleep badly, but to my surprise I had actually slept very well.

I felt relaxed all morning. But now that it was, I started to worry. What should I expect? What was going to happen?

Renzo and I were standing in front of the porch of Rob’s house. Before we could ring the bell, Rob came out. He led us to the car where all three of us got in. I could tell by Rob that he was nervous, because there was a tense atmosphere in the car. I grabbed Renzo’s hand, at this point I didn’t care if Rob saw it.

He gave me a reassuring squeeze in my hand.

Leo had asked if he and the other members of the circle could go to the Elders, but Rob had said no. They had already made a very big exception that Renzo was allowed to come along. That was actually against all the rules that the practitioners stood for. But apparently they wanted to see me.

Something that only made me insecure about the whole situation.

We drove into the woods instead of town. After what seemed less than 3 minutes we already stopped. I looked at Renzo questioningly and he shrugged.

“Are we there yet, Rob?”

He nodded.

“You can only approach the Elders where the Earth’s borders meet, so my house is the closest. I just didn’t want to leave on foot so that the others would know where the entrance would be. So you understand that you should keep your mouth shut about this.” We both nodded.

We walked a bit back to the house. We stopped at a small stone shed. He unlocked the door and let us in. Despite the shade of the trees you could still see what it looked like inside. It was indeed furnished as a shed. But if you looked closely, you also saw that everything was so covered in dust that it was never used as a shed.

Rob walked to the center of the shed and bent down and pulled up a lever.

It’s that he walked right up to it, otherwise I wouldn’t even have seen it.

Near the lever was a small iron circle. Rob pulled a chain from under his sweater that had a key attached to it.

It was a big old key. From above in a circle. The circle was divided into four parts by means of a fiery sun.

The key easily fit in the lock that was in the iron circle.

A hatch in the floor opened with a loud crack.

“We can reach the Elders through these stairs.” Rob nodded toward the open hatch where an ancient stone spiral staircase led down.

Rob led us downstairs and Renzo and I followed suit.

Behind me I heard the hatch squeak. It was dark, I grabbed Renzo’s shoulder so I knew where to go. I heard Rob say something in a foreign language and suddenly torches lit on both sides of the narrow stone corridor. I looked around in shock. What was that? Renzo looked at me to see my reaction. I saw a small smile on his lips.

“Did you know this was possible?” I asked him incredulously.

“I felt the magic as soon as the hatch opened.”

Huh? He didn’t mean that, did he? His smile widened and he turned again. As if this was the most normal thing in the world.

We walked down the old stone spiral staircase. Once down, we entered a large, cold stone corridor. He went both ways, and both sides ended in darkness. A shiver ran down my spine.

Rob turned left, walking quietly towards the darkness. Renzo followed behind him. I looked the other way for a moment. I didn’t feel comfortable about it, but why not? Surely the Elders should be in a safe environment? Maybe the magic made me feel this way?

After a few minutes and a few turns we came to a large door. Again Rob spoke softly in an unknown language with his hands folded and after speaking the words the door opened slowly but smoothly.

Renzo turned and held out his hand to me, grateful I took it. We walked hand in hand.

“We are almost there. We are now under my house, soon we will come to a portal and through the portal we will reach the Elders.”

“Portal?” I asked him.

“Yes, a sort of gate that can take us to the Elders. There are several portals that are connected to each other, you can travel via the portals to the different locations, including to the Elders.”

“Is that always possible?”

“No, the portal on the other side must be open. The Elders know we’re coming, so their portal is open.”

I nodded. Rob talked about it as if this was the most normal thing in the world. I think he forgot that I only had powers for a week.

“Have you traveled through a portal before?” I asked in a whisper to Renzo.

Renzo shook his head. “No, I’ve heard of its existence. But e-warriors are also enemies of witches and this is ancient magic.”

Geez, what else would he know? As soon as we got out of here, I’d ask him about it.

I noticed that the big door behind us was closed again.

Rob stopped and looked ahead and spoke again in the unknown language with his hands folded and when he finished talking I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The wall in front of him began to change. In the shape of a door, a kind of reflective liquid formed. Rob nodded.

“This is the portal, if we go through this we will arrive at the portal of the Elders.”

“Is it dangerous?” I asked Rob.

He seemed to think for a moment. And then shook his head. “No, but you have to use it wisely. It can be very dangerous. If the gate on the other side isn’t open, you run the risk of getting lost between the gates. And no one can retell that as far as I know.”

I just nodded. Okay, then I knew that too. Do not use a gate if you were not sure whether it was also open on the other side.

“I’ll go first and you’ll come after me, first Julia and then Renzo, understand?”

We both nodded and looked a little unsure. Somehow I still didn’t feel right about it. It wasn’t the magic was it? It seemed strong to me, because the magic was on the right side, wasn’t it? Or not?

Rob turned his face to the black shiny liquid and before I knew it he stepped in and was gone. I looked at Renzo in disbelief. Did this really happen?

“Go on, you’ll be fine.”

I took a deep breath in and out and now stood in front of the black, shiny liquid. There was something intriguing about it, as soon as you stood in front of it you were drawn to it. I glanced back at Renzo and he nodded in agreement. That was the last push I needed and I stepped into the black darkness.