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WHAT, WHO, WHERE AND WHY...
by Abigail Whistler
(Aged 1o and a bit).
My name is ABIGAIL WHISTLER and I swear, on the lives of every teddy bear that I’ve ever owned, that I never, ever, EVER believed in Witches…
UNTIL ONE APPEARED IN MY HOUSE!
They weren’t what I expected; no broomsticks or cats, no pointed hats or cauldrons, just large and terrifying monsters who appear in your house, quite uninvited and do terrible things.
I mean, honestly, what would you do if you were woken up one night by the sound of a giant, tentacled, THING stealing your parents???
Well, that’s what happened to me and that, I’m glad to say, is how I met these guys…
THE 11:59ERS!
They were a group of misfits (like ME!), scattered through time and brought together to stand against all evil things (especially stinky Witches)!
GILBERT, a child of THE DRIFT with the ability to travel anywhere!
BRIAR, a scarred orphan who is able to cancel DARK MAGIC and once faced down HARRIDAN, THE QUEEN OF ALL WITCHES!
ALBERT, who is time locked, meaning that he never ages, and nothing can ever hurt him!
Oh, and don't forget his adorable (but really ugly) dog, HEIMLICH, who was time-locked along with his master, but is far more pleasant about it.
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But these guys didn't just come across each other by accident. Oh no. They were brought together by a woman (at least i think she's a woman) called MS CROW.
I don't know where Ms Crow comes from, but she's really powerful and can do really cool (and really scary) magic stuff.
I'd like to write more about her, but my parents always told me that if you don't have anything nice to say about someone, then you shouldn't say anything at all.
So... uh.... yeah.
That's Ms Crow.
(I sooo hope she doesn't read this and if she does, it wasn't me that wrote it! It was Arthur!)
Together, they all live in a place, somewhere between dreaming and waking called, THE VALE OF THE HIGH QUEENS.
Once there had been FIVE REALMS, each as beautiful as the other, but they had been destroyed in THE GREAT WAR; a terrible battle which went on for 50 YEARS!
Now, The Vale Of The High Queens acts as a refuge for all the folk who remained and at its centre stands its beating heart; THE SOVEREIGN TREE. The tree was made from pure magic, stands larger than imagination and Ms Crow and The 11:59ers lived inside it!
I KNOW, RIGHT! Imagine, like the coolest tree house in the world and then times that by, like, A MILLION!
The Vale's opposite, its ugly and smelly twin sister if you like, is SOMBRE, THE LAND OF NOT!
This was where the Witches lived.
It is a realm without sun or hope, without life or love and without TV or even basic internet.
It is from this dead, terrifying land that HARRIDAN, THE DREAD WITCH QUEEN sends her minions to our world, each one carved in her own twisted image. Once here, they feed off and steal sleeping children before taking them back to Sombre, where they are locked in the BLACK SLEEP, a terrible prison where the Witches can feed on the WILD MAGIC that lives within them.
Witches LOVE Wild Magic, it powers their darkest fantasies and only children have it within them.
Luckily, even with my parents kidnapped by the most awful creatures in creation and trapped in the most terrible place imaginable, THE 11:59ERS and myself are not alone in trying to rescue them.
We've got MS CROW to help us and the last Witchfinder, POMUS GREENE dedicating their great (and incredibly grumpy) powers to help us...
Which is good, because just yesterday, I was a normal kid with a normal life, but now...
Now, I'm an 11:59ER!
I don't think life is ever going to be the same again.
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