The Dumari Chronicles: Year Two

Hey, you’re back! Cool! Bet you hated how I ended the first book - leaving you hanging like that. One of the tricks of the trade. LOL. Don’t worry, you’ll find out more in this one. Can’t tell you how much though. Gotta keep the suspense going, ya know? So, have you figured out which one of us turns out to be the Dumari yet? What about Alex and Morty? Know who they are? And did you absolutely HATE me at the beginning? Can’t say as I blame you. I was SUCH a pain back then! But hey, I had “issues”. Hell, who am I kidding, I was just a pain! Needless to say, I’ve done a fair amount of growing up since then. Even Braidy admits I’m actually part human these days — now that’s what I call a compliment! What? What did you say? Who’s Braidy?! What’s a Dumari?! Are you telling me you haven’t even gotten around to reading Year One yet?! Well! The nerve! LOL — don’t worry, I’m just kidding. I know how it goes — you were planning to read it but you got called into work that night, you had to wash your hair, your dog ate the first three chapters...yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, at least you’re here now. Guess I’d better get you up to speed, though, or you’ll be kinda lost. Time for a quick synopsis: My twin cousins (Brody the Geek and Braidy the Blond Goddess) and I (Moira the Magnificent...*teehee*) were kidnapped one summer by this ugly old hag named Lorena Lewis. She was working for two ignorant evil wizards named Alex and Morty — more on them later. She took us to New York City and locked us up in a filthy attic (Braidy and I had a fight). Thanks to some brilliant thinking by yours truly, we managed to escape. Great. Just one problem — we were lost, we had almost no money, Braidy and I had another fight, somebody knocked out the phone service in New York (my money’s on Alex) so we couldn’t call home, and ol’ Lorena sent a couple of goons named Paul and Pete after us. Okay, that’s actually five problems. Never was good at math... So why did they do this, you ask? Simple — they thought one of us was the new Dumari. Oops! I forgot — you don’t know what the Dumari is because you didn’t read the book...that’ll teach you to procrastinate. All right, all right, I’ll tell you...the Dumari is a particularly powerful witch or wizard. There can be only one alive at any given time in history and sometimes there isn’t any at all... What’s that? Oh man! Didn’t I tell you? I’m a witch. That’s right — a real, honest-to-God witch. No, not one of those freaky old biddies like you see little kids dressing up as on Halloween. We’re not like that at all. In fact, we’re just like everyone else. We’re young, we’re old, we’re short, we’re tall, we’re pretty, we’re ugly...we’re absolutely, totally normal. We just have this...gift. Or maybe I should call it a talent. And no, we don’t use wands. We don’t brew up potions by the light of the full moon. We don’t even have to mutter a bunch of nonsense words. We just...do it. Magic, that is. Just like some people can sing and some can cook and some can hit homeruns. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah...the Dumari. Okay, traditionally the Dumari is believed to be not only incredibly magical, but immensely good and selfless. Not necessarily a saint (although one or two have gotten close), but someone who genuinely wants to use their powers for the good of everyone. However (knew there had to be a catch, didn’t ya), rumor has it that if this Dumari kid is subjected to evil influences before he or she becomes an adult, all that goodness can go right out the window. Hmmmm...I guess that could happen to any kid, couldn’t it. But when it happens to a kid who has phenomenal cosmic power, things can get kinda ugly. You get the picture... So, this Alex guy wanted to kidnap the Dumari in order to make use of all that super-duper magic for his own nefarious purposes. By the way, he was quite a magically powerful dude himself. But like most people who have a lot, he wanted more. Did I mention that in those days I hated magic and anything to do with it? I didn’t want to be a witch. I hadn’t done any magic in years. Needless to say, my loathing of witchcraft only served to make the entire scenario even more ignorant, in my opinion. Anyway, there we were, me and the Bobsey twins, wandering around New York City, hungry, tired, scared (Braidy and I were arguing again)...and the lovely Pete and Paul were still chasing us all over Queens. Not exactly my idea of a fun time. Luckily, we managed to hook up with some friendly magicals who helped us hitch a ride back to Boston (yep, you guessed it, another argument). We were less than a block from my house when Alex’s cronies reared their ugly heads once more, threw us into the back of a van, and took off with us. By that time, I was getting pretty fed up with those jerks. But since there were more of them — and they were bigger than us — we couldn’t do much about it. We spent the next couple of days, tied up and gagged, being dragged from one hiding place to another all over Boston as they tried to throw our family off the scent (one bright note: since we were gagged, Braidy and I couldn’t argue any more! LOL). As you’ve probably already guessed, we were eventually rescued. This really hot guy named Russ (LOTS more on him later!) turned up totally by chance at the old house we were being held at and got into a fight with the dorks guarding us. I mean an all-out, no-holds-barred magical battle. Pretty impressive stuff. His dad was my mom’s boss, so one quick call to him and the cavalry was on the way. The folks arrived on the scene, the bad guys made tracks, and the adventure was finally over. For the time being...