The Hidden Place

• Charlie: Can you keep a secret?

I still can’t believe she figured out everything…, well, almost everything. Now I have to take her to the cave. 

The worst thing is, I don’t think there’s a better way to explain ‘it all’ than to go through the underwater entrance. 

How am I even going to tell my family..?

I will explain what happened: So, my family has been sort of linked to this cave for centuries, if not millenniums. There is a secret cave in Hawaii, where we are from. Right by Maui’s Dragon Teeth; well, more like under it. 

For many generations, and when I say many, I mean a lot, our ancestors have been guarding this cave, which one of them discovered B.C., and in that magical place, every night, the moon light gets through the rocks, as if they were made of crystals, and magical things happen. 

Since it was discovered, the moon allowed my ancestors to use magic, and as decades, and centuries passed, they were able to bring its force outside the cave.

Don’t get me wrong, we are not wizards who play with magic like it’s one of those Disney Channel series; we take it very seriously. Actually, since the 1900’s we are not allowed to make use of its magic other than inside the cave, or for very extreme emergencies. Witch hunts have been a real thing inside my family for as long as our stories can recall. 

Anyway, since it’s the 21st century, basically everyone posts everything on their social media. Only, because of this secret of mine, it is not that easy for me to share parts of my life. Luckily, whenever something gets in our way, we have the cave’s power to neutralize the damage. 

Normally, we just help mother nature do its job and try to solve all the catastrophes that happen. 

Everything seems to be under our control, but for some reason, out of all my friends, one of them doesn’t always go under the influence of the moon’s power.. I have never actually worried about that, because I am very persuasive and have never had issues convincing my friend away from her mysterious thoughts about my secret life.

I was wrong.. she just secretly kept her mind connecting all the dots to find out what I was hiding; or at least to try to find out. Not that she would ever come to the conclusion that I have supernatural powers coming from a magically hidden cave. 

Anyway, a few weeks back, I started noticing I was being followed. And it is not easy to follow me, especially when I go to the cave. 

Since that cave is hidden, and by hidden I mean there is no physical entrance because everything is covered by rocks, the only way to get in is through water; either by going underwater anywhere imaginable, and transporting myself magically through space, or to go for a swim at the Dragon Teeth, where the rocks open a path for blood relatives from the outside into the cave. 

Normally, we only swim there once a year, the rest of the year we just transport ourselves there. 

Since we get there by supernatural means, there is no way someone outside the family can keep track of where we are going.  

It all started to fall into place when my friend started asking all these weird questions. Where have you been? Why did you disappear for so many hours? How the hell did you get here so fast? Or even comments which led to me think she was the one following me. 

I finally got caught when one afternoon I went to the cave. This time I was at the beach and had to make an excuse in front of all my friends. 

When I left, my friend must have followed me to this part of the beach which was empty. I jumped into a puddle bro deeper than my arm’s length, which I used to appear in the cave. About an hour later, I headed back to the beach using the same puddle. Just then I screwed up. 

As my body was getting out the the puddle from literally nowhere, I started seeing my friend looking at me in shock. 

• Carey: What? What is going on?
• Charlie: Carey… wait! I can explain!

My friend almost ran off scared, but I managed to get to to stay and convinced her to follow me to the cave.

It wasn’t exactly the easiest way to get her to see what was really happening. Since I could get her into the cave through water, I had to take her to the Dragon Teeth, meaning we had to go for a deep swim. 

She was really scared, but also really frustrated and we both wanted to get her mind clear.

Normally, when someone swims by the cave, the walls don’t open, so I had to let her in. We were about to face the entrance rock, Carey ahead of me, and then her and the cave both surprised me as the cave opened the path just the moment Carey got in front of the wall. It was completely unexpected. Anyway, I wanted to get it over with, so I didn’t really put much focus on that. 

I was expecting to get there and because that is where all the power comes from, I would do a demonstration of what everything is about, because the moon wasn’t out, so I wouldn’t be able to show her it’s very own magic.

What really got me shook, is the fact that as we entered the cave, it lit up as if the moon was shining through the rocks, as if it were awake..

I didn’t know what was happening.

I quickly reached out to my parents who along with my grand parents got to the cave. 

My parents were also really surprised to see the cave react that way to Carey being there. 

My grandparents though, they quickly went up to Carey and realized she was a long lost member of the family tree. 

Now everything made sense, she was one of us.

From then and on, no one could even think of getting her to forget everything, she was one of us now.

Carey had to promise us she would keep the family secret…