Some people turn away and say nothing... unless you get to know them well enough for them to warn you against dark magic.

Midway up the road from the bus stop to Bridgbury, Ian Tirwinnin lets his rucksack slide from his shoulders, sits back against the fence, and reaches into his sack for the bag of cookies Cousin Sara - out of all his cousins, the closest he's had to a sister - had packed him.

Ms. Cooper wrote that she'll have a pot of soup ready for supper... and if it's anything like what she cooked the last time she visited the Tirwinnin clan, it'll be perfectly filling and maybe a bit magical, but not much more.  Just the sort of thing Ian doesn't want for the start of his First Quest.  Or the middle or end of it, really... and who knows how long that'll be, till he does something that he'll be sure his aunts and uncles will accept is worth making him a full Practicing Mage of Clan Tirwinnin.

He's known all his life this would be coming some day if he chose it; he's never imagined not choosing it.  But now, nibbling Sara's delicious cookies, he feels he's still waiting for something else before he walks into Bridgbury and starts it.

With the cookie mostly eaten, Ian decides to take a look ahead.  Glancing up and down the road, and seeing no one, he holds out his other empty hand to a small puddle next to him.

He murmurs, "Show me Vera Cooper and her surroundings."

The pool obligingly quivers and turns into a small image of a kitchen.  It's the perfect rustic English kitchen, with modern plumbing and gas stove and a few such things shoved in the middle of a room that otherwise might almost be from the nineteenth century or earlier.  Peeling wallpaper and an outset fireplace are surrounded by bacon and herbs hanging from the ceiling.

In front of the stove is Vera Cooper herself, stirring a pot of her promised soup.

And next to her, grinding one of the herbs, stands...

"Huh," Ian says.  He hadn't heard Ms. Cooper had taken in any young witch.

Well, that's as much a spark as he's likely to get now, and he does want to get settled before suppertime.  Standing, he slings on his rucksack and waves at the puddle for it to go back to being a normal puddle again.

Up close, Bridgbury looks like a charmingly quaint English village...

...until Ian flares his aura-sight.  Too many of the villagers look drained.  It's worse than he's seen since that time Cousin Pat dared everyone to lend their power to his illusion spell.  He didn't even know plebbs could be drained this badly without being dead!

He shudders.  His aura-sight slips; he grasps to flare it again in fear but loses it again.

Vera Cooper looks like the epitome of a country grandmother:  grey hair kept back in a bun so tight not a single strand escapes, a shawl and skirt that look a little threadbare but not with a single stain, and hands that look like they've been busy gardening and carrying heavy pots every day.

She smiles at Ian and waves him in - he's right on time by sun-time, and she doesn't care about clock-time unless she has to.

"Hello, young Ian; guest-welcome to you!  Your room's ready; I've already told the local brownies you'll be staying a while, but just let me know if you're having trouble getting along with them."

Ian flares his aura-sight for just a moment before his worry subsides at her sheer friendliness and ordinariness.

"I saw some of the plebbs outside are drained - what happened?"

Vera purses her lips and stares over at the window behind Ian.

"They really are?  I was afeared of that, but I can't just see auras like you can...  I've got a lot of guesses, but nothing more.  Maybe those plebb writers have it right and it is the bog.  Maybe it's a curse from some old grave; I've heard enough stories.  Maybe it's the Maying..."  She shakes her head.

"You didn't know?  But you'd seen enough to be afraid --"

The thought had crossed Ian's mind that maybe it was simply some overhungry mage that his aunts and uncles had sent him to hunt down for his First Quest.

But it looks like it's a lot harder and darker than that.

"Let's not talk of it your first hour in town.  Wait till tomorrow, maybe.  Or at least till you've set down your pack and said hello to your sister."

He doesn't have a sister.  

"My - sister?"

Ms. Cooper isn't one for metaphor, but that has to be it?

"Why, Lily's been eagerly waiting for you all week!  She's around back in the garden, I think."

Something's up between Ian and his sister... and Vera's memory must be slipping; she doesn't quite remember how they were getting along the last time she visited.

Best she can do now is just push them to talk it out whatever it is.  "Go ahead; just leave your bag here.  Go talk with her."

"No - who is she?  Where'd she come from?"

He frantically tries to reach out his magic to look into Ms. Cooper's mind and see what spell she has on her, but the spell slips.

"Ian, she's your sister!  Don't be so upset, whatever's up between you.  If you want to talk with me, I'll be here."

Vera considers squeezing Ian's shoulder, but then thinks better.  That might help a young lady, but probably not a young man.  Instead, she steps over to the door to beckon him toward the garden.

Just then, Lily bangs the door open and races in.

"Hello hello big brother you're here!  So happy to see you come on let's go!"

Talking at top speed, she grabs Ian's hand and pulls him toward the door.

For a moment, things feel weird, like he's moving in two worlds at once -

- and then things clear, and Ian grins at his sister.

(He was somehow just saying bad things about her?  Doesn't matter.)

"Sure!  Where to?  I don't know Bridgbury yet - what've you found here?"

Lily, wearing an even broader grin, pulls Ian out to some thick bushes behind Ms. Cooper's back garden, asking after Mum and Dad and the cousins as they go.

The bushes are almost growing up against an old crumbling rock wall, but there's a spot where they can sit on some of the crumbled rocks with the bushes shielding them from view from the garden or the houses... not quite everywhere, but most everywhere.

"Here!  Isn't this spot great?  I can't Bless it myself, but it's the sort of spot that should be, you know?"

"Could you Bless it?  Please?"

"Yeah," he says, with a sigh.  He can't deny that look from Lily - even if it wasn't a good idea in itself.

"Bridgbury could use places like that... did you see their auras?"

He holds out his right hand - his left still holding Lily's - and starts murmuring the spell: "I bless this place and call on all goodness that this place be a blessing..."

^{"Yeah. We do need it."}