W.I.T.C.H. В поисках Меридиана (книга 3) ("Finding Meridian")

Пока только первая глава, но впечатление составить можно (честно взята с www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com). Кстати, она на инглише (скоро переведу и выложу русский вариант, хотя и так понятно ;) ).

Глава 1

I wonder if I'll ever get used to this? Will thought.
She felt the familiar quickening of her heartbeat. Thump-thump-thumpity-thump.
Then her mouth got dry. Her palms got wet. And finally, Will's vision went blurry. But when she blinked the haze away, she found that she was still witnessing the same incredible scene. Her friend, Hay Lin, had just snapped a huge cement pillar in two. The chunk of rock must have weighed five hundred pounds!
How had skinny little Hay Lin done it?
Simple -- magic.
Yup, Will thought. She gazed at all four of her friends, scattered around the abandoned construction site. We're all magic -- every one of us. I still can't quite wrap my brain around it.
Judging from her friends' expressions, they were a bit weirded-out as well. Taranee was gripping her pink satchel with clenched fists. It was white knuckles, trembling fingers time, all the way.
Irma was Taranee's complete opposite. She was giggling so hard that her shaggy, honey-colored pigtails were practically dancing.
Hay Lin's almond-shaped eyes were twinkling with a mixture of mischief and sheer determination.
And Cornelia was sticking out her bottom lip -- she was all skepticism and sulkiness.
That about sums it up, Will thought, as she took in her friends' wild range of emotions. These magical powers are both fabulous and awful, thrilling and scary. They're dividing us, but they're also bringing us together.
Magic was what Will and her friends were all about these days. When they'd planned to hang out today, for instance, it hadn't been to lounge around a coffeehouse, chowing down on scones and gossiping about the cutest boys at their school, the Sheffield Institute.
No, instead, they were hiding behind this construction site's tall, wooden fence, practicing their magic.
It was clear that Hay Lin, at least, was getting pretty good at it! Not only had she just cracked that chunk of cement off its base as if she were plucking a leaf from a tree, she'd also whipped the huge, craggy block into the sky on a mystical swirl of air. Finally, she'd plunked the block down onto a slab of stone with a tremendous crunch.
Then Cornelia had stepped in. She'd stared at the block, her arms outstretched and her blue eyes steely.
With waves of power that were almost palpable, Cornelia had cracked the stone slab on which the cement block rested. It splintered like a thin sheet of ice. Ropy vines poked through the cracks like mischievous green snakes. In the blink of an eye, they coiled their way completely around the block.
Then Cornelia's eyes got even squintier. Her mouth twisted into a stiff smile. She concentrated so hard her long, silky, blond hair stood on end. And then -- skrump! The ropy vines squeezed the cement block into smithereens! Shards of rock flew in every direction.
Taranee jumped, her round spectacles going askew on her nose. Hay Lin scowled. Cornelia had totally one-upped her. And Irma, who was always clashing with Cornelia, simply rolled her eyes and pretended to be bored.
Meanwhile, Cornelia just folded her slender arms across her chest and smirked.
"I bet you can't do that," she said to her friends.
Will shuddered at the memory.
The crazy thing, she thought, is that we can all do that. Or something like it.
Will looked around at her new friends. She'd only known them for a little while. She'd met them on her first day at the Sheffield Institute, right after she and her Mom had moved to this breezy seaside city called Heatherfield. The girls' friendship had started normally enough. They'd gabbed about crushes, complained about history homework, and commiserated about pain-in-the-butt siblings. But it hadn't been long before the five girls had discovered that they were anything but normal.
Cornelia could control the earth (as was obvious from the shattered cement block). Hay Lin -- who was so tiny she looked as if the wind could carry her away -- had the powers of air. Wishy-washy Irma was all about water. And Taranee could hold fire in the palm of her hand.
And me, Will thought with a shrug, well, that's the craziest part. I somehow ended up as the leader of our whole crew -- Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia, Hay Lin. Otherwise known as W.i.t.c.h.
She glanced with irritation at the heavens. That's where she imagined the mystical beings who'd given them their powers resided.
Nice work, Will thought. I can't believe you made me -- awkward, frog-collecting Will Vandom -- the leader of these girls.
But before Will could get too deep into an angstfest, Irma interrupted her thoughts. She was offering her opinion on Cornelia's feat of shattering the pillar.
"Oh, that's just amazing, Cornelia," she said sarcastically. "Actually, I've never seen anything so silly in my entire life."
Cornelia sniffed and turned her back on Irma.
Then Irma sniffed and turned her back on Cornelia.
And then Taranee looked expectantly at Will.
Uh, right, Will thought. I guess it's leadership time!
She stepped forward and eyed Irma and Cornelia nervously.
"Oh, come on," she said with a nervous laugh. "Would you two stop bickering? We're here to practice, not fight!"
"Will's right," Taranee agreed. "We should help each other. We're a team now. . . ."
"I guess you're right, Taranee," Hay Lin piped up. She was now sitting pensively on top of another cement block nearby. "But we don't know how our powers work yet! If only Grandma had told us something more before she . . . passed away."
Hay Lin's reedy, mournful voice trailed off. Will cringed for her friend. Yan Lin's death was still fresh for them all. And what was worse, Hay Lin's tiny, mysterious grandmother had died before the girls could ask her everything they yearned to know about their magical new powers.
Yan Lin would have been able to explain everything, Will thought. After all, she was magical once, too. She was the one who informed us of our magical destiny.
Will was still trying to grasp the things that Yan Lin had told them over tea and cookies in Hay Lin's cozy kitchen.
For starters, Yan Lin told them about worlds that existed somewhere in the universe, far away from earth.
In Candracar -- which was a sort of otherworldly temple -- benevolent, mystical beings kept watch over all things good and just.
Then there was the land of Metamoor. Evil creatures from Metamoor wanted to take over the world. And only one thing was stopping them -- the Veil. The Veil was a supernatural barrier, placed around the earth to keep bad things out.
There was just one catch, Yan Lin had told the girls. The dawn of the millennium had weakened the Veil. Twelve portals had opened in its invisible fabric. And now, terrifying, evil creatures from Metamoor were beginning to break through those portals into Heatherfield.
One of the girls' friends, Elyon, had even gone through the portal. Elyon had been missing for a while now. Just before she'd disappeared, she'd asked Will, Hay Lin, and Irma to accompany her on a date at the school gym. But when the three girls had arrived, Elyon had been nowhere to be seen. There were however, a couple of murderous creatures waiting for the girls. And they'd almost managed to toss the girls into a bottomless chasm!
Later, Elyon -- or some evil ghost of Elyon -- had drawn all five girls into the basement of her abandoned house. There she'd tried to pull Hay Lin into a portal that had opened up in the basement wall.
Both times, the girls had been transformed into Guardians of the Veil. It had started with the Heart of Candracar -- a shimmering, magical orb that Yan Lin had given to Will. The orb lay inside Will's body. Usually, it was dormant. But if Will and her friends needed it for any reason, Will could call the Heart. Then it would> appear in her palm. Its power transformed the girls into their magical selves -- young women with long legs, mature faces and bodies, and fabulous outfits.
And, best of all, Will thought with a giggle, we have magical powers and strength enough to kick any bad guy's butt!
Still, the girls had far from mastered their magic. Will didn't know how much power they were capable of.
She also didn't know how much they'd need. The girls had fought off a hulking, blue lug of a creature and a vengeful, dark-voiced snake man in the gym. In Elyon's basement, they had conquered brick walls that had come to life and tried to bury them alive.
But Will had a feeling that she and her friends hadn't yet seen the worst of Metamoor's evil soldiers.
And that's why they were at this construction site, training for battle.
And arguing.
Will turned to Hay Lin. Her face -- usually so sunny -- was clouded with grief for her grandmother.
"We'll have to do this without her," Will said to Hay Lin softly. "That's all."
"Do you really think that's enough?" Cornelia broke in. She kicked a cement shard across the grass.
"I mean," she continued angrily, "look around you! We can do magic! We can transfigure things! We can command water, air, earth, and fire. But we don't know why!"
"Well," Hay Lin said wanly, "we're the Guardians of the Veil."
"I know that," Cornelia snapped. "But why? Why us?!"
Irma's scowl turned into a flirty smile. She cocked one round hip and wiggled her eyebrows.
"Because we're so pretty," she cooed. "Don't you think?"
"I'm not joking, Irma," Cornelia said with a glower. Then she turned her back on Irma, Hay Lin, and Taranee and glared straight at Will. "Our lives have changed, Will. But we didn't choose it."
"You're right," Will responded with a shrug. "But I don't know. I'm as confused as you are."
Cornelia's hands scrunched up into frustrated fists.
"I thought our leader always had the right answer," she said. Her voice was full of sullen bitterness. Full of challenge.
Will's temper flared. Normally, she was a bit deferential to Cornelia. After all -- Cornelia was the true leader in the group. She was tall and willowy and effortlessly popular. She had mega-confidence and she was usually pretty nice, to boot.
But now she was being unfair. And Will wasn't going to let her get away with it.
"Well, you know what, Cornelia? I don't have the answers," she blurted out. "As a matter of fact, I'm not even sure I'm meant to be your leader. As you said, Cornelia, we didn't choose this!"
Hay Lin huffed in frustration and grabbed her pink-and-purple backpack. She'd stashed it next to the cement block she was using as a stool.
Unzipping the pack, she pulled out a weighty, dusty, blue book. They'd found the book in Elyon's basement, right after they had chased Elyon and her Metamoorian thug back through the portal.
"I'm sure the solution to all our problems is in this book," Hay Lin said. She held it in her lap and gazed at her friends hopefully.
"You're wrong, Hay Lin," Cornelia said with a sneer. "This book is just another of the problems."
Taranee gave Cornelia a furtive glance and then joined Hay Lin in examining the book. The edges of its pages were scuffed and ragged. But its spine? That was unbroken.
"Did you manage to get it open?" Taranee asked Hay Lin.
"Not yet," Hay Lin sighed. "And I tried everything!" To demonstrate, she grabbed the front and back covers of the book and yanked at them with all her strength. But the book remained firmly closed.
As Hay Lin struggled with the book, Will felt the back of her neck prickle in a familiar way. Then a wave of dizziness washed over her. She could almost feel her freckled cheeks go pale. And when she lifted a hand to her forehead, her fingers were trembling.
"There's . . . there's a spell on that book," Will gasped, staggering away from Hay Lin. "Put it away!"

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