The Last White Witch: Trilogy (Book 1)

By Joelle O'Neill

The Last White Witch begins to chronicle the life of a seemingly average British schoolgirl from South London, called Poppy, who possesses such weird magical powers that she is suspended from school.
She learns that her Aunt Emily is her biological mother and her mum is actually her aunt, and is double whammied with the news that she is a witch. Poppy leaves home, changes her world and starts a new school at the Three Sisters School of Witchery for Black Witches.
Poppy forges new friendships, comes face-to-face with her arch nemesis, experiences fantastical events and meets mythical monsters, like the Medusa, whom she must defeat on her first night at the boarding school. Blindly unaware that she is in fact the last White Witch and heiress to the White Witch kingdom, she will have to be the toughest young witch you have ever met. She will have to be the new female badass version of Harry Potter who’s more than willing to take on the bullies, ultimately save the White Witches from extinction and bring about a new world order. A big ask for someone who is just a geek-freak from Croydon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781528919784

Joelle O'Neill

Joelle O’Neill was born in Birmingham in 1976 and has a BA Hons degree in English Literature and Language, an MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing, TESOL certificate and MIFL. In her twenties, Joelle O’Neill lived in Barcelona, teaching English. On her return to the UK, she completed her Masters in Creative Writing under the supervision of the acclaimed writer and professor, Dr Lauri Scheyer, at Cardiff University. She then taught English at Further Education colleges and academies in the UK and was also an English examiner for SFL. Joelle O’Neill has performed as a singer/songwriter and poet at venues and events in the UK and abroad and is currently an English teacher in Spain and a mother of two young children who inspire her work as a children’s author.

Book preview

The Last White Witch

Trilogy (Book 1)

Joelle O’Neill

Austin Macauley Publishers

The Last White Witch

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information

Acknowledgement

Foreword

Part 1: The Beginning

Chapter 1: Edification

Chapter 2: The Three Sisters School of Witchery

About the Author

Joelle O’Neill was born in Birmingham in 1976 and has a BA Hons degree in English Literature and Language, an MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing, TESOL certificate and MIFL. In her twenties, Joelle O’Neill lived in Barcelona, teaching English. On her return to the UK, she completed her Masters in Creative Writing under the supervision of the acclaimed writer and professor, Dr Lauri Scheyer, at Cardiff University. She then taught English at Further Education colleges and academies in the UK and was also an English examiner for SFL.

Joelle O’Neill has performed as a singer/songwriter and poet at venues and events in the UK and abroad and is currently an English teacher in Spain and a mother of two young children who inspire her work as a children’s author.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my dad, Joseph O’Neill (Joe).

17/12/1947

He was the kindest, wisest, greatest dad imaginable. Dad, this is for you. And to my dearest mum, Joan, who must now live on without you.

This book is also dedicated to my beautiful daughter, Joelle Poppie, my very own last White Witch; and my darling son, Tomlin Flynn, my brave little Dragon Tamer.

Also for Mike, mo Grά, mo Stόr

Copyright Information ©

Joelle O’Neill 2022

The right of Joelle O’Neill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528911405 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528919784 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my parents for giving me my very own magical upbringing and my English professors, Dr Rosie Miles and Dr Lauri Scheyer, who both nurtured and encouraged my writing.

I wish also to give great thanks to ‘bullies’ (in all their guises over the years) who have ignited a sense of justice within my soul which propels me to pick up a pen and write.

And finally, I must thank Austin Macauley Publishers for publishing The Last White Witch and providing a platform for this work to reach a wider audience.

Foreword

The Last White Witch immediately enraptures readers by drawing us straight into this parallel world of witches and wizards. As with classic books for all ages in the style of authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, O’Neill weaves a brilliant tale spun by a wise narratorial voice. It’s easy to imagine this book as a holiday classic read aloud to the family or alone by the fireside in wonder. A book that will engage readers and listeners across lines of age and experience, this book mesmerizes with its imaginative creation of this once upon a time world while subtly revealing truths about humanity. As volume 1 of a trilogy, readers can look forward to exploring the next two books in this series of wonder, suspense, and revelation by an important new author.

Lauri Scheyer, PhD (The University of Chicago)

Xiaoxiang Scholars Program Distinguished Professor and Director of Creative Writing, Hunan Normal University

Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing and English, California State University, Los Angeles.

Part 1

The Beginning

There was once a time, in a parallel universe, just to the right of the Earth’s satellite, when there were only White Witches and Wizards. It was a time long before you would ever have heard about, an era which human history has failed to record, or even to recognise. Maybe it is an integral part of the human disposition to refuse to accept phenomena which the mind cannot or will not fully understand. But take it from someone who knows, there once existed magical, magnanimous creatures that traversed the skies on wicker broomsticks as their white satin gowns zigzagged against the skyline, like the wings of giant albatross.

The White Witch was an amicable soul in female form that only possessed the capacity of doing good in the world; they neither had the ability to do harm nor to kill, and they lived in an immortal state of perpetual existence.

The White Witches were direct descendants of Gabriel, the Archangel, and when the last of the Angels died, it was a White Witch who was at his side at the final battle, fighting against the Dark Angel himself – Satan.

The coven of the White Witch lived harmoniously with its White Wizard counterpart in a union of love and mutual respect; there was no pain, nor suffering, no sickness or jealousy, no war or insult – there existed only peace.

The land where the White Witch dwelt was on the other side of the Earth’s satellite; there the landscapes were verdant and lush, the rivers were filled with fresh water fish and the land inhabited by wild boar and deer, who lived without fear of the hunter nor the blood thirsty aggressor. The woods were thick with berry bushes and ripe forest fruit and the sky was perpetually teal blue and scalloped marble white and the darkness never came to envelop their land.

The White Witch and Wizard had neither quarrel nor qualm with any other species, neither Troll nor Dragon, and they busied themselves in the art of education and philosophy, edifying their minds in order to strive for intellectual and spiritual perfection.

This ancient universe long since forgotten by man was not to last in such an idyllic state for long. There was a young White Witch named Endra, who belonged to the third generation of White Witch, who once looked at her father, her grandfather and the father of the White Witch coven, and asked them why it should be that there was a father and not a mother as their leader, and why, in fact, should there be a leader at all?

The White Witch and Wizards looked perturbed, their harsh facial expressions and rigid body language caused Endra’s cheeks to redden with rushing angry blood and her words pushed at her willing tongue to release her thoughts in the form of spoken verse.

‘Why should any individual be greater than another if we are supposed to be living in a utopian world of mutual respect and understanding?’

The girl’s father, Anfroc, attempted to quash his daughter’s quixotic questions by turning his body away from her and towards the other males.

‘Endra, you are young and it is common for Witches of your age to begin to question the world around them. But there is no conspiracy, there is no hierarchy or deliberate separation of White Witch, female, or male. We live as one being, as the animals do in the forests and as the fish do in the rivers.’

Endra pulled at her father’s soft white satin gown, like a small infant pulling at its mother’s hem when seeking attention.

‘Father, tell me who cares for the White Witch young? Who tends to their every need, and feeds them and nurtures them? And who spends most of the day foraging for food for them to eat?’

Her father did not respond but looked at her with an expression of indignation.

‘Mothers, the White Witch mothers undertake such tasks.’ Endra added with an air of defiance.

The Wizards raised their wiry white eyebrows as the girl took another replenishing breath.

Her father held his hand up to his daughter’s face.

‘That is enough now Endra; you are getting yourself into a state again.’

The Elder, Callopia, left with an utterance which could not be deciphered from beneath his bulbous beard.

Endra could not, nor would not be muted; many a time she had planned this speech, she would say it all that very day or be forever boiling over like a burgeoning bubbling cauldron.

‘And who is it that concerns himself in traversing the land for days and weeks on end, contemplating the will of the world, whilst his counterpart stays put to continue the daily chores that everyday existence demands?’

Endra’s shoulders lifted as she took in a deep breath and she began to rub the dry skin on the edge of her thumbnail, as she often did when she was anxious.

‘It is the White Wizard who chooses to merry himself, whilst the female has no such election. And, and who makes our rules?’

Her father’s mood was blackened for all to see and Endra knew she had finally brought forth his brewing temper.

‘We have no laws here; we have no need for them.’

‘So if Mother is in need of more satin to fashion little Delphi a new gown and you are away on edification, who does she seek out?’

‘Endra, you know very well the answer; why do you waste my time on such nonsense?’

Endra’s heart pounded so hard she could feel its beat somewhere in the depths of her throat.

‘The Elders. And tell me this, dearest Father – are the Elders female or male?’

Her father turned his head towards his bumptious daughter.

‘The Elders are the Elders and one does not think of them in such a way. They are our advisors because they are the first descendants of Gabriel.’

Endra drew her breath hard and fashioned her body tall, leaning close towards her father’s torso.

‘Ah, and Gabriel, tell me, was this angel female?’

Her father became so angry that he raised his voice to a level he had not ever imagined himself capable of.

‘That’s enough! You cannot take His name and use it as some sort of example! You are argumentative and disrespectful!’

The White Witch youth looked at her father in disgust.

‘I am indeed argumentative and to you, I may seem disrespectful, but you are angry Father and all such emotions are meant not to exist in such a paradise as this, are they not?’

From that day, the white adolescent witch grew more disillusioned with the world she knew, and grew to hate the way she could not be her true self, and despised the hypocrisy she had witnessed on her father’s part.

So it was, that many years later, after which she had experienced her first heartbreak with a fellow White Witch son, she set her mind to leave the White Witch universe for one where she could be bad, and experience emotions of self-doubt, misery and disgust. She asked her parents if she may leave, to which they denied her; she went to her forefathers and she was also denied passage.

One day, Endra took it upon herself to plead with the first descendant of Gabriel, who told her to repent in the seas of Marmoon. With this, the young witch grew so enraged that she plunged for his throat, throttling him to a state of unconsciousness – if she had had the ability to kill, she surely would have.

She was not the only white witch who had come to think the same as she and at that moment of aggression in its purest conscious form, there were three others who encouraged Endra, as she attempted to squeeze the last immortal breath from Callopia’s throat.

The four white witches used their magic wands as weapons and chanted spells of evil which never before had been so uttered. Morgan and Myrtle, daughters of Ungrell and Caspar, and Cathoril, daughter of Borth and Tarthwe, made the earth beneath the White Witch Elder’s feet burn with a fire as red as dragon flame and Endra bound his hands with self-conjured rattle snakes.

Endra’s father galloped over the smoke-infused skies, mounted on Arco Iris, his trusted unicorn stead, and attempted to cast magic spells to pull Endra from her madness. But she would not stop; the four of them would not withdraw, in their rage and frustration they could not stop.

The Elder was so frail he could not muster the power to disarm the witches.

Endra’s father raised his wand to their heaven and uttered an ancient curse upon the young witches and banished them in one foul explosion, forever from the gates of Redovan. Endra’s mother looked on helplessly from behind Dove’s Mound, and where her tears are said to have fallen, the first willow tree grew.

The fallout from such an event was catastrophic and the part, for which we are concerned, is when the four once White Witches found themselves a new land, similar to that of the Earth, and fashioned a new magic so dark that it deformed their once fair faces and twisted their noses like old oak branches scattered with giant withered warts.

Such was the strength of their newfound evil power, that their once white luminous gowns turned black as coal and their pearly peaks to ebony points. Where once they could only do good, now they could only act with evil intent and pure wicked thoughts of insane power led them towards enacting feats of wrongdoing and tyranny.

With their new found power came mortality, for when the four Witches were expelled from Redovan they were no longer protected from Death’s grasp. And so it was that the Witches became susceptible to sickness, injury and death itself and one day as Myrtle was fishing for food in a small boat, she fell into Hell’s River and burned to the bone, leaving behind a stench as awful as a baby troll’s soiled nappy, rotting raddles and dragon’s vomit.

After their now Black Witch sister had met with such a dreadful death, the other three began to panic and set to a plan of eradicating water from their environment. This was not an easy task and took years to accomplish. The witches used their sorcery to divert the rushing rivers, quell the springing spas, silence the welling waterfalls and push the oceans back to the very corners of the planet.

Although their magic was immense it was still not strong enough to defeat the autonomy of Mother Nature, and the falling rain could not be separated from the forces of gravity, however hard they tried.

For many moons the three witches lived in fear of simple rainfall; they fashioned themselves gabardine cloaks and huge umbrellas, and they never left their waterproofed towers if rain clouds were overhead.

Their greatest irritation was encountering rain whilst in mid-flight as rushing rain against their unprotected faces burned their flesh and left behind deep porous indentations upon their forehead, cheeks and chin.

It was not until Endra’s first daughter was caught in a rainstorm and burned out like a firework on a wet November 5th, when Endra possessed by rage and grief, commanded the rainclouds to leave the land, which they had come to call Haven’s Hold. The clouds rebuffed such a request and as they had no ears, pretended they had not heard.

Endra mounted her trusty broomstick, Engrid, and flew up to the elder of the rain cloud clan and uttered a chant which she had learned as a young witch when she had stolen a glance at the Book of Satan.

The rain clouds collapsed like giant imploding chimney stacks and within only a matter of moments, there was only a vast expanse of bright azure sky remaining, as if a child had drawn a horizontal line of bright blue Crayola from corner to corner of a blank page.

‘All that is left to conquer now are the dragons,’ said Cathoril, as she was dousing the newly fashioned hollows on her sister’s cheeks with woodworm drool and moth’s blood.

Dragons’ Doom was a region untraversed by any living soul, even after three hundred thousand years, for there dwelt the Snow Dragons, a species of creature that the Black Witch was mightily afraid of, as these dragons, unlike any other you may have encountered in school lessons, legend or bedtime tale, spewed forth water instead of fire flame.

The constancy of attempting to defeat the forces of nature in order to survive caused the sisters much physical suffering and after many years, their bones began to ache and their backs slowly bent like molten iron in furnace flame.

Reminded by their ever-decrepit ageing bodies, the three malign mistresses turned to thoughts of having offspring so that they would ensure the continuation of the Black Witch species. They still had the anatomy of the White Witch and as such, they needed to be fertilised by male seed. So they conjured a magic so complex, so intricate and so ripe with the genius that they were able to reproduce parthenogenetically by taking a common stick insect and crossing its genetic make-up with their own, via cauldron, flame and sorcery.

Via some sort of dizzying alchemy, the three once White Witches transformed their very own female reproductive system into that of their unwitting long-limbed insect friend. Such a metamorphosis enabled the virgin mothers to procreate autonomously, without the need for male intercession.

So it was that every full moon which passed, another Black Witch clone was born if born be the right word to use.

The Black Witch coven grew so fast that soon the three Elder Witches found themselves conjuring more towers to accommodate their ever-increasing offspring, and with new homes soon followed new beds, tables and chairs, gowns and hats, broomsticks, wands and of course food supplies.

As the new Witches soon grew into adolescents, they began to demand entertainment facilities and places to shop, for even Black Witches enjoyed the pursuit of diversion. Endra founded a Witches’ school where the new spawns of Black Witch could be educated in the art of magic.

The original three became the inventors, constructors, engineers and educators of their self-made society and with each passing year, the terra firma where they had set up home became unrecognisable.

And when the time came when the three founders had met with Death, one through old age, another through