SOLVED. Fantasy - the youngest boy from a large family is magical and must keep it a secret [s]

[Stacey]

There was a series that I read in high school, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't very new at the time, so it couldn't have been published any later than 2003. The books were about the youngest boy of a large family - he has several older siblings (I want to say six but it could've been four or five). I want to say they were Irish but, honestly, the best I can say was that they were definitely from the UK. The boy was part of a mysterious, magical old order called the Word (it was commented on several times in the books that you could hear the capital when it was spoken). He has to keep it a secret but does his best to protect the ones he love. There is one other man from the Word that he's in most contact with. That man his mentor, although I don't remember him teaching the boy much, but more of guiding him through the journey.

In one book, he had to take his friends and an old man on an adventure with him, exposing his secret and having them face their fears. There was a scene where to find the next clue, the boy had to sing to some mountains at an echo point. The mountains sang back to him. One of the fears of his friends was drowning, so he literally had to be drowned but the only way to save him was for him to keep calm. At the end, they had to have their memories erased (the old man chose to have his memories erased), although this saddened him greatly, as all his friends had grown and he had a support group for a little while.

There was another one where a half-crazed man stumbled onto the family's property in the middle of winter. The parents immediately take him and nurse him back to health. But the boy is suspicious. And with good reason, as he turns out to be working for the evil side (which I don't remember any details about). This book was centered around Christmas, so the kids went caroling and the family decorated a tree out in the front lawn. The mother had made Christmas decorations with each of the kid's first initials and even though she's not magical herself, the ornaments ended up invoking a protection spell that helped his family stay safe through the season.

I remember part of another book where a man charms his way into the boy's family and the boy sees past the smile almost right away. The boy realizes the man's a mind reader and so starts thinking of how hungry he is to test how deep the man could probe. The man thought he was impressing/shocking the boy when he excused himself, saying that it was close to dinner time and the boy must be hungry. All it did was prove that the man didn't know who the boy was and that he could only read surface thoughts.

[Emlen]

This is the Dark Is Rising sequence, by Susan Cooper.

[SparksofEmber]

The Dark is Rising for the link.

[Stacey]

YES! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!

I am so happy I found this group! I've been looking for that book for years now! I'm kicking myself for not keeping a record of the library books I've read over the years.

[SparksofEmber]

Great! If you can, edit your first post to move this to solved & add the book to the group shelves. If you're using the app and can't, just say so and a Mod will take care of it.

[Stacey]

I'm trying to figure out how to do that right now. I'm on a computer but when I hit edit, all I can do is edit my post. I'm sure I'm missing the obvious...

[Stacey]

Figured it out! :)