Craft (17 page)

BOOM!

Everyone except for Ellie moved at the
sound. Careen, Neveah, Cousin and Eugenia hit the floor at the
explosion, their reflexes geared toward violence. Ellie turned at
the sight of a massive fireball boiling upwards in the sky. It was
just as she imagined it. The craft was perfect.

Neveah and the others rolled back to
their feet and moved to the windows, to peer out of the blinds. The
family stationed outside had also hit the ground with the
explosion. Their casualness was gone in a moment. They stumbled to
their feet and moved toward the road, to search out the owner of
the powerful craft. They held their hands at the ready, prepared to
fight the good fight.

No one looked at Ellie. Her diversion
was working. She focused again. Another fireball surged after the
first. It was massive and overdone. It was close enough to the
family to scare them but far enough away that they could escape it.
A patch of green grass blackened as the fire hit the earth. Neveah
had seen enough.

“Coopers!” Neveah yelled through the
open window. “Get 'em!”

Neveah, Careen, Cousin and Eugenia ran
out of the front door to face the imaginary Cooper threat. Their
appearance in the yard brought order to the chaos of the family.
Neveah sent craft across the road, to the same field the Coopers
had first attacked their house in, assuming the Coopers were hiding
there. Her taunts and cackles were loud over the sounds of the fire
roaring to the heavens. Dark craft bound the space between the
field and her house.

As soon as Neveah and the others were
outside, Ellie hurried over to the woman and lowered her
gag.

“My family will kill the lot of you!”
the woman yelled as soon as the gag was gone. “They’re going to rip
your heads off and feed you to the crows! They’re going to make you
pay for this! You’re all dea-”

Ellie put the gag back over the
woman’s mouth. She put her hands on either side of the woman’s
shoulders and looked her in the eyes. Ellie’s gaze was stern. She
wanted the woman to understand that her life depended on what she
was going to say.

“Thane is outside waiting for you. If
you don’t run away now, you’re gonna die by my sister’s hand,”
Ellie said. “I reckon no one wants that.”

The woman looked at Ellie with daggers
in her eyes. Ellie was not offended by the look. She did not need
the woman’s appreciation, just her cooperation.

“Will you behave long enough for me to
free you?” Ellie asked.

The woman’s glare faded. She thought
about what Ellie was suggesting. Ellie was her only chance at
escape. She nodded curtly.

Ellie undid the rope from the woman’s
hands and legs and helped her stand. She took the woman’s hand
without thinking and pulled her over to the door. The woman gave up
on looking tough in front of the enemy and quietly followed Ellie
out of the house. She had experience going unnoticed, almost as
much as Ellie had.

Ellie looked around the yard and saw
that her family was throwing craft around the yard with dangerous
disregard to other members of the Bumbalow clan. Their chaotic
craft was more dangerous than if the Coopers had really been
attacking her house. Everyone was too distracted with the imaginary
fight to notice Ellie and the soon-to-be ex-prisoner.

Ellie pushed Thane’s aunt toward the
road and allowed the aunt to pass through the ward with a wave of
her hand and the words Eugenia had told her to say. The aunt had a
brief moment of doubt. Ellie thought she was contemplating using
her craft on her family. She wanted to punish the Bumbalows for
abducting her. Her common sense finally won out. There was no way
she could fight thirty people all by herself and live. Thane’s aunt
bested the impulse to fight and ran down the road toward Thane’s
waiting car.

When the woman was safely away, Ellie
ran to the chaos, figuring Neveah would expect her to act stupid
during a fight. It would not take them long to realize the woman
had help escaping, that the fireballs were nothing more than a
diversion. Ellie was not eager for them to come to the right
conclusion. She wanted them to blame the Coopers, as they always
did.

Neveah was casting whips of darkness
across the yard with wild glee. Her chortles of delight made her
craft appear all the more dangerous. Careen was next to her, not
quite as happy as Neveah but certainly enjoying herself as she sent
darkness toward the imaginary enemy. Careen’s craft was strong
though not nearly as dark as Neveah’s craft. Ellie joined them. She
was careful to make sure Neveah saw her. She tried to craft her own
magic with an obvious flick of the wrist. Neveah caught Ellie’s
hand with a fierce grip.

“Go to your shack!” Neveah
commanded.

“But-” Ellie said.

“Go!” Neveah said.

Neveah flung Ellie away from the
direction of the fight. Ellie stumbled but managed to keep her
feet. There was no arguing with Neveah’s command. Ellie did not
try. She ran through the tall grass toward her shack, hoping
Thane’s aunt made it back to the car. She hoped that Thane would
get back to town with enough time to stop the real attack on her
house. She had to hope.

Ellie’s shack was unchanged. She
breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her small home. She had
worried something would happen to it during her absence. She feared
Neveah had tampered with it when Ellie had not answered her calls.
The vines would have kept them out and that would not have set well
with Neveah’s temper. The intact walls of her shack made Ellie
think that Neveah had not looked too hard for her. She had settled
on the truth of Ellie’s supposed abduction easily.

Ellie waved her hand and the vines
peeled back to reveal her door. Another wave and the door opened
and candles lit up the interior. There was warmth and a feeling of
familiarity as she walked inside. It was the first time in days
that she felt truly comfortable with her surroundings. There was
comfort in the world she had always known.

Ellie collapsed on her sofa with a
long exhale of mixed worry and relief. It took her a moment to
realize she was still wearing her shoes. It was a small miracle
that her sister had not noticed them. They would have been a dead
giveaway to the fact that she had not been kidnapped. The Coopers
would not have crafted her shoes. Instead of dissolving the shoes
back to the chaos she had formed them from, she placed them next to
the sofa as a reminder of her adventure. They were her first and
last pair. They were proof she had done something brave and had
faced down the consequences of that bravery.

Ellie pulled the necklace off her neck
and looked at it for a moment. The black diamonds of Caw’s eyes
twinkled at her as if saying hello. He was ready to leave his
prison. She wondered if freeing him was a good idea. Would he be
safe? If Neveah found out about him, she would kill Caw without a
second thought. Ellie did not want to face that pain. She knew she
could not keep him in a prison, however. The thought was
unbearable.

She waved a hand, and the necklace
morphed back into Caw. He shook out his feathers and stretched his
wings wide. He jumped onto her coffee table and looked at her with
his steady gaze. Ellie thought he looked happy to be bird once
again. He cawed once and looked toward the door. He wanted to use
his wings again; he wanted to fly.

“I’m sorry but you can’t go out right
now,” she said. “No telling where my family’s crafting will end up.
No sense putting yourself in the line of fire.”

Caw clicked his beak at her in
understanding and started preening his feathers in an attempt to
smooth the effects of the change. Ellie smiled at him and focused
on the feeling of the others’ craft in her yard. They were still
tossing craft around, oblivious to the fact that the threat was not
real. She paid special attention to the individual feeling of the
craft. She thought she would know it if Thane or his aunt were
forced to craft in defense. She would know if a real fight started
between her family and Thane’s. She was not certain there would be
a whole lot she could do under those circumstances but she wanted
to know what was happening. She could not turn off her interest.
She did not relax despite being in the comfort of her home
again.

Finally, she felt the craft of the
others die down. A disappointed lull of silence filled the air. No
Cooper had paid for the attack with blood; no Cooper had been
injured or killed. Ellie could tell the others were not happy with
the turn of events.

It was not long after the craft
stopped that Ellie heard Neveah call her name with her
long-distance shout. Neveah’s voice was full of irritation. Ellie’s
heartbeat increased automatically at the call. She could not help
the fear that her lie had been discovered with the lack of Cooper
response. Her betrayal of the family would not be taken lightly.
Ellie hurried to leave the shack, so Neveah would not call a second
time. Calling twice would not improve her anger. Caw hopped up on
her shoulder to go with her, but Ellie knew it was likely Neveah
would take her vengeance out on the bird. She put Caw back on the
table.

“You can’t go. Neveah will hurt you,”
she said. “But here…”

Ellie waved her hand, and a pile of
seed appeared on the table next to him. He cawed at her in
appreciation and immediately started eating the food. It would keep
him occupied long enough to see what Neveah wanted. It would keep
him safe from her wrath.

Ellie ran through the grass. Eugenia
was making her rounds through the family that was milling around
the yard, talking about the woman’s escape and the lack of Cooper
response. Many of her family had come to the conclusion that their
last fight at the house had scared the Coopers out of a real fight.
Ellie did her best not to look guilty.

Neveah, Careen and Cousin were waiting
on the steps near the kitchen. Neveah had her arms crossed as she
waited. When Ellie saw them looking at her so seriously, she
trembled. She tried to keep her expression neutral as she stopped
in front of them but she felt as if they saw through every awkward
shift.

“You need to tell us the truth,”
Neveah demanded.

Careen and Cousin maintained their
serious expressions from behind Neveah, and Ellie’s body started to
hurt just thinking about the beating she was about to get. They
really had figured out the truth. It was a miracle she was still
standing. She usually did not get a warning to the beatings. They
just came, swift, fast and without mercy. Neveah leaned forward.
Surrounding her was a veil of anger and irritation. It made the
moment feel darker.

“Did they…touch you?” Neveah asked,
still serious.

Ellie stared at Neveah. She was
shocked at the question. It had never even occurred to her that
they would think such a thing. She found her words around her
shock.

“No!” Ellie exclaimed.

Careen lost her serious expression.
She laughed at the look on Ellie’s face. She was enjoying the
moment, more than she should have.

“You made her blush, Nev!” Careen said
around her chortling.

Neveah laughed as well. Some of her
anger disappeared as they returned to their normal practice of
teasing Ellie. The normalcy of it was a good distraction for their
disappointment.

“I think I did!” Neveah agreed. “Good
thing, though, that they kept their hands to themselves. Best that
you’re not spoiled by a Cooper...then you really would have no
purpose.”

Cousin did not laugh. He was
contemplating the torture the Coopers were rumored to have done to
the Bumbalows over the years. Taking a person’s skin off with craft
was not the sort of thing to joke about, and that was just the
craft they could see on the surface. Cousin knew that the Coopers
could mess with a person’s mind. They could leave scars that went
beyond the superficial.

“If they hurt you with craft, you best
tell us. We know how to reverse such a thing,” Cousin
said.

“They didn’t hurt me,” Ellie
said.

“You sure, girly?” Cousin
asked.

It was the first time he had ever
sounded worried about her. Ellie thought the difference might have
been her direct involvement in the fighting. Most of the family
measured a person’s worth by their fights with the Coopers,
particularly the older members of the family. They were not really
a Bumbalow until they had faced down a Cooper.

“I’m sure, Cousin,” Ellie
said.

Neveah cut through Cousin’s questions.
She was more concerned what Ellie had learned during her stay with
the Coopers. She was focused on how the abduction changed the feud,
not if Ellie had been tortured.

“Grandpa and Grandma Bumbalow are
coming over,” Neveah said. “They wanna ask you a few things about
where the Coopers kept you. We could use the information for when
we pay 'em back for abducting you.”

“They kept me blindfolded and wrapped
up in dark crafting to where I couldn’t see nor hear nothing,”
Ellie lied. “I can’t tell the grandparents more than I could tell
you and that’s a whole of nothing.”

Neveah was not pleased with Ellie’s
answer. For the first time, she doubted Ellie’s story. “You must
have seen something,” Neveah said.