About your Book:
Mortal Realm Witch: Learning About magic follows the adventures of a young witch, DWW, as she learns about magic, and responsibility. Book One in the Mortal Realm Witch series, Learning About Magic is told as six individual short stories. Throughout the book, not only do you learn the story behind how DWW became a witch, but get to know her through the point of view of her familiar; the talking Golden Retriever, Trillman, and the Head of the Witches Council, Trom, each of which have a different way and a big role in teaching DWW. DWW also learns a lot about herself and grows up the most when she spends a year teaching magical wolf pups how to use magic and how to hunt and fight as normal wolves, then when she returns to the Mortal Realm once again, she is faced with her biggest challenge and her final test to see if she is ready for something much bigger. Also in the book is the story about a young witch called Ally who wants a dragon called Air Raid to be her familiar. When Trom tells Ally that dragons don’t make good familiars, Ally decides that she is going to prove him wrong.

Targeted Age Group: 8-12
Genre: Fantasy, Childrens Fiction, Short Stories

The Book Excerpt:

This first excerpt is from story 4 in Mortal Realm Witch: Learning About Magic and is called: Wolf Magic.

The wolf was alert. Her ears were listening to all the sounds surrounding her. Her nose was sniffing constantly for danger. She was on a mission: to protect two wolf pups.

These wolf pups are no ordinary wolves, for they have magic. They have magical powers in their paws. Specifically, they have magic paws.

Their power is very limited at this point, but over time it will increase rapidly.

The wolf herself also has magical powers. She knows she must teach them to use their magical powers well. The pups are not her own, but she is in charge of them because their parents have no magic.

The pups call their protector wolf Demon because it is what her enemies call her. Like any wolf, she avoids enemies as much as possible and has taught the pups to do the same.

This is another, later part of the story: Wolf Magic. There were things I didn’t want to give away so I decided to create two exerpts from different parts of this story. (DWW is the main character of the book and this story. In this story she is in wolf form and although I mention that the wolf pups, Witch and Warlock, call her Demon, throughout this story I still call her DWW.)

DWW started sniffing the ground searching for a strong scent of rabbit. Witch and Warlock copied her. As soon as DWW found fresh rabbit scent, she gave the pups a low warning growl.

Witch knew that this meant that they would have to start paying extra careful attention to how they moved and how much noise they made.

But Warlock, even though he had heard DWW and knew what the growl meant, was so involved in tracking the rabbit that he stepped on a twig. The crackling of the twig scared him and he jumped backwards right into Witch.

Witch growled at him and the two pups started play fighting with each other. DWW growled at them and immediately they stopped fighting and looked at her guiltily.

After this they resumed the hunt. Warlock was now paying attention to the rabbit scent as well as where he was putting his paws.

It wasn’t long before a rabbit was in sight of the three wolves. As soon as Witch spotted it she yipped excitedly scaring the rabbit. The rabbit took off and jumped into its nearest burrow.

DWW chased after it with the pups following closely behind her. She knew that the rabbit wouldn’t come back out for a while so she decided to use this time to teach the pups some patience.

The wind was also beginning to blow a little at this time so she also decided to teach them how paying attention to the wind can help them to hunt successfully.

DWW positioned the pups near the burrow, but not too close to it. She also made sure that the wind was blowing the scent of the wolves away from it.

There was tall grass surrounding the burrow which DWW and the pups used to hide themselves from view. Now all they had to do was wait for the rabbit to come back out.

After what felt like hours, a rabbit began to appear. It started to come out of the burrow, but then it stopped and sniffed the air before coming out.

Next it began to hop slowly away from the burrow, stopping to sniff the air every once in a while. Finally it began to feel safe and relaxed. It hopped towards a very green patch of grass.

DWW gave the pups a low, firm bark to tell the pups to stay and watch her as she slowly crept towards the rabbit. As she did this, she moved around, using trees and tall grass for cover. She wanted to move around to the front of the rabbit knowing that directly in front of the rabbit was its blind spot.

All rabbits see around them better than directly in front, so DWW knew that she was less likely to be spotted by approaching from directly in front of it.
DWW crouched as low as she could get in some tall grass and froze. The rabbit was still relaxed and too busy eating to notice her.

She waited for the right moment, and then rushed it head on. At the last second, the rabbit noticed her and tried to run away, but it was too late; DWW had caught it.

After DWW returned to the pups, she told them that next time a rabbit came out of the burrow it would be theirs to catch. But this time they would use a different strategy. DWW explained what they would do. Then she and the pups returned their attention to the burrow.

When the next rabbit emerged, Witch and Warlock were ready. They watched until the rabbit made its way to the same patch of grass as the previous one before acting.

Warlock moved to just in front of the burrow and crouched as low as he could get. Meanwhile, Witch crept around to the front of the rabbit in the same area as DWW had been.

As soon as she was in position, instead of waiting, she rushed directly at it. Almost immediately the rabbit saw her and took off towards its burrow with Witch almost on its tail.

The rabbit was so scared that it didn’t see Warlock waiting for it. When it was close enough, Warlock ran towards it.

The rabbit was now in between both pups. The rabbit quickly turned around, but not before Warlock managed to grab onto the back end of the rabbit. Witch used this moment to kill it.

The wolf pups ran back to DWW and she praised them on their catch.

DWW explained that all animals had to hunt to survive, and that it was part of the laws of nature.
After the hunt, the wolves ate the rabbits where they were before returning home.

The next night DWW decided to show them how to hunt bigger animals as a pack, although they weren’t a big enough pack to actually catch anything in the usual way.

DWW found a small doe, and with the pups watching, she created five duplicates of herself so that it would look as if a whole pack of wolves were surrounding the deer.

After doing this she explained to Witch and Warlock that wolf packs would usually work as a team to hunt deer and other large animals.

Before demonstrating how they could use duplicates to hunt, she tells them that the duplicates have no attack power.

This is becasue they are more like ghosts than anything else. They are used to scare only because the animal being hunted can run right through them, and each duplicate could only be controlled one at a time.

She also warned them that until they are more experienced hunters they can’t try this method on deer or any other large animal.

DWW then began to move towards the deer. She did her best to creep up on it. As soon as the deer was almost in her reach, it noticed her and started running.

DWW observed what direction it was moving in and chased after it while moving the duplicate that was in the direction the deer was heading forwards. The deer saw this and turned left.

DWW then moved another duplicate to rush it from the front. The deer then ran to the right.

DWW did the same thing again. The deer now was unsure of where to go and turned around to face her, ready to fight.

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