Free The Moon Stealers and The Children of the Light by Tim Flanagan

inviting for him to take. Hesitantly he placed his rough dry hand in
hers. She folded her palms over his and closed her eyes. With a force that
nearly knocked him backwards, Flora projected herself into Edgar’s mind. He
closed his eyes. Images from Flora’s life were rewinding at a tremendous speed
inside his head. He was whisked from a scene of Flora talking to a Dragon in an
underground cavern to an elaborately decorated hall and a king sitting on a
throne. As soon as Edgar recognised the king, the image had changed; Flora was
now kneeling in a meadow surrounded by a blue carpet of forget-me-not flowers.
Lying on the floor was a young deer, its foot wounded and lame from a rusty
hunters trap. Magical golden lines traced from Flora’s fingers along the deer’s
arteries towards the wound, healing it in a glow of light. The image quickly
morphed to a darker scene and a younger looking Flora. In it she was walking
through a burnt forest. White smoke still hung in the air but behind her ants,
beetles and other insects buried the charred remains of scorched plants.
Pushing out from beneath the blackened surface, small green shoots burst with
life once more. Scene after scene changed until finally Edgar sees Flora as a
young child. An elaborately dressed man presents her with a beautifully
coloured paradise bird inside the most elaborately decorated gold cage. As soon
as her little hands touch the cage a tear wells in the corner of her eye. She
unlocks the cage door and the bird flies out sweeping high into the sky. The
tear dries and is replaced by a smile.
    When Edgar opens his eyes he finds himself staring
directly into Flora’s, seeing a deep mossy green colour flecked with rusty
orange for the first time. He knew that what he had just seen were moments in
Flora’s life and he realised there could not possibly be anything evil inside
her.
    ‘Thank you for leaving your home,’ he said. ‘You knew
the suspicion and mistrust that surrounds witches in our world, but you came
anyway.’
    ‘And,’ added Scarlet, ‘if it hadn’t been for you
hiding us amongst the tree roots last night, we wouldn’t be here now.’ When
Scarlet had been in the Underworld, Ralphina, the Caniard, and her wolf Raelyn,
had shown her how to talk to animals in a way she could never have imagined.
Scarlet understood Lady Flora's ability to communicate with nature.
    Lady Flora smiled. ‘When we were in the council
chamber of King Conroy The Enlightened, I agreed to help you rid your world of
those black creatures we met last night. Our worlds are more closely bound than
you realise. We are like twins that had been separated at birth. Both worlds
possess magic in many different forms, but one of them has forgotten how to use
it. At the core they are the same, but the landscape is different and the
people who live here have forgotten who they are. When Arthur sealed the
portals, the two worlds divided. To use magic in this world became a dangerous
skill which became so suppressed that over the years you forgot it was
possible. But you are all blind to the magic that you see all around you: the
birth of a child, the visions in your dreams and the unspoken connection
between two lovers. If you are to survive, the magic that exists in this planet
needs to be woken once again. There needs to be unity between every human
survivor and between humans and nature. Edgar, you possess one of the most
powerful magical weapons that still exists in your world. Made by the magic in
Avalon, Ethera can cleanse this world and ignite the magic once more.’
    ‘I don’t know if I am strong enough, my blood has been
poisoned by the creatures,’ said Edgar as he rolled up his sleeve and unwound
the green sash that Lady Flora had used to bind it following their encounter
with the Moon Stealers the previous night. The children watched as he revealed
the blackened network of veins that traced their way up his forearm.
    ‘It happened the night we left Parsley