The Dark Shadow of Spring (11 page)

“The restricted room of the library,” Nina said and Alex smiled at her, feeling his fear dissolve into the inklings of a plan.

“After school tomorrow,” Alex whispered. “Just the two of us.”

Chapter 10: Guild Rules

Alex tossed and turned beneath the down comforter of his bed that night, thoughts tumbling and cascading through his mind like an avalanche of rocks rolling down a mountain. The cave, the voice, the Shadow Wraith, the frost still on the window of his room and the valley outside, and in among them, one that was not at all like the others and which provoked a completely different feeling — Victoria. He wondered what she was doing. What she had done all day. If she would be at school the next day. If she was still interested in being a member of the Guild.

Exhausted, Alex finally drifted off to sleep, falling into a deep slumber filled with vivid dreams that were vanquished from his memory when the familiar voice spoke softly from somewhere within his own mind.

“I come…”

Alex opened his eyes to the sight of the morning sun streaming through the still frost-covered window. Not how he had wanted to wake up.

Downstairs, his mother had oatmeal waiting for a quick breakfast. He caught the headline of the
Runewood Gazette
lying on the table:
Freak Frost Frightens Town! Maybelle Meriwether Mystified!
Maybelle was the local weather witch and her predictions were usually extremely accurate, sometimes because she altered the weather to meet them.

After breakfast, Alex and Nina headed off to school on their bicycles. The frost from the day before still clung to everything in sight, but the Monday sun was stronger than the day before and by the time they reached the schoolyard on the opposite side of town, the frost had begun to melt away. They found the rest of the Guild standing near the entrance of the schoolyard talking to Victoria. Alex didn’t bother trying to suppress the wide grin that came to his face as she saw him and waved. Unfortunately, Dillon and the Mad Mages saw it as well.

“I see the Childish Conjurer’s League is assembled again,” Dillon said, waving his hand to indicate Alex and his friends. “Are you planning another adventure? I hear your last one was a smoking success.” Dillon’s friends laughed at his lame joke. They always laughed at his lame jokes. Particularly Mei, who had a high-pitched laugh that made her sound like a cat with its tail caught in a door.

“I still owe you for that,” Alex said, glaring at Dillon and glancing over to see if Principal Gillette was watching. Principal Gillette always stood near the doors of the schoolhouse greeting students and keeping an eye on them. Unfortunately, Principal Gillette always seemed to notice when Alex and the Guild got up to mischief, but was oddly blind to most of the antics of the Mad Mages.

“Thinking about adding a new member to your freak show?” Earl laughed.

“Make sure you walk in front of her and not behind her,” Anna teased in the sweet tone of voice she always used to cover her vicious words. “You know how some animals make a mess.”

“Stuff a rock in it,” Alex growled.

“Alex probably thought that was her perfume,” Dillon said with a snort.

“Did you bring your bag of oats for lunch?” Mei asked with a giggle.

“Did your mother pack your diapers?” Daphne retorted.

“You know, my dad’s got an old saddle,” Koji said with a wicked laugh. “Maybe you can give us all a ride after school.”

“Oh yes,” Anna said. “Please be a good pony and…”

Alex was about to shout a curse at Anna, but from the corner of his eye he could see Victoria’s perpetual smile replaced by something else, a look that he hoped she never directed at him. The air around Anna and the other Mad Mages crackled with electricity, cutting the caustic girl off in mid-sentence and tossing them all backward in a blast of electric blue light.

“Miss Radcliff!” Principal Gillette shouted from behind them.

Victoria’s face suddenly melted from fury to horror as she realized what she had done. Dillon and his cohorts were sprawled on the ground looking dazed, their hair flying in all directions from the fading electricity that still flickered around them.

“Flaming Fairy Farts!” Daphne exclaimed.

“That,” Ben howled, “was awesome!”

“You’ve definitely got my vote for membership,” Rafael said as he looked down at the Mad Mages shaking their heads and trying to get to their feet.

“Oh goodness,” Victoria said to Dillon and the others, her hands at her mouth. “I’m terribly sorry. Centaurs don’t have to speak the spells out loud, you know. Sometimes spells get cast if we think about them too hard.”

“Don’t worry,” Alex said. “They deserved it.”

“And it was hilarious,” Nina added, putting a reassuring hand on Victoria’s arm.

“Hmm, I hope Principal Gillette thinks it was funny,” Clark said, jerking his head to indicate the heavyset principle as he ran up to them, followed by Mrs. Peterson, the English teacher, and Mr. Fallowtooth, the teacher for Principles of Magic.

“Miss Radcliff,” Principal Gillette huffed, catching his breath, “we do not use magic on fellow students.” Principal Gillette was of average height, but exceptional girth, and his run from the school door had left him panting.

“Sorry,” Victoria said. “I’m very sorry.”

“In fact,” Principle Gillett continued, wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, “if it has not been explained to you yet, there is a law in this town prohibiting all citizens from using magic on each other, with the exception of healing.”

“Was this action unprovoked?” Mr. Fallowtooth asked, an innocent look on his face. Mr. Fallowtooth was a tall, thin man with a narrow face and long, wispy mustache that always looked like it might blow away in a strong wind. He was a firm disciplinarian in his classes and he was fanatical about seeing that justice be applied to all parties equally.

“Dillon and the others were teasing her about being a centaur,” Alex said quickly.

“Is that true?” Principal Gillette asked Dillon.

“Well…” Dillon began before Anna cut him off.

“We shouldn’t have to defend ourselves against raging magical creatures that are better kept out of town,” Anna said, brushing her hair from her face.

“All fully sentient magical creatures are equal citizens,” Mrs. Peterson said, sounding like she was reading from the Runewood Constitution.

“That doesn’t make them equal to us,” Anna said, tossing her head back proudly. Dillon was noticeably silent. Alex knew that Dillon felt the same way as Anna, harboring a deep hatred for non-humans, but since his father was Mayor, he couldn’t be heard spouting prejudicial epitaphs.

“I think detention all around is what’s in order here,” Principal Gillette said, staring down Anna until she dropped her gaze and glared at the ground. “While magic is not a substitute for verbal discourse, inflammatory language and narrow-minded intolerance are no replacement for sound values. You will all join me in my office after school. Now off to class! Everyone!”

Principal Gillette pushed them bodily toward the school doors. Alex had a moment to lean over and whisper to Victoria, “You were great.”

“Not the impression I was hoping to make on my first day,” Victoria said, still mortified at having lost control of her magic.

“Their heads made a nice impression in the school lawn,” Alex said and laughed at the memory of the look on Anna’s face as the lightning had knocked her off her feet.

“Yes, they did, didn’t they?” Victoria said with a small giggle. “Nasty people come to a nasty end, my mother always said.” Then she sighed and added, “Daddy will be so disappointed when he finds out.”

“I don’t think he’ll find out,” Alex said. “Principal Gillette hates talking to parents. He likes to handle problems himself. He almost never rats us out to our families.”

“Oh, that’s frightfully good news,” Victoria said with a swish of her tail.

The rest of the school day was painfully uneventful for Alex. Fortunately, he had most of his classes with the rest of the Guild, his sister, Nina, being the exception because she was younger. The school was composed of a series of small buildings added on to the original one-room schoolhouse that still stood after several hundred years. Each building housed a different classroom and each school grade was composed of between fifteen and thirty students, each year taking essentially the same classes, taught by the same teachers, rotated throughout the day, at progressively more difficult levels. Alex had taken writing and reading from Mr. Wilkes since the first grade, just as he had taken history from Mrs. Peterson and math from Mrs. Kim. Alex’s favorite class, not surprisingly, was Mr. Fallowtooth’s Principles of Magic.

Because rune-tongue, the language of magic, was remembered by each mage differently, it could not be taught like other languages. Pronunciation could differ so much that the words for
air
and
water
spoken by two people might sound like the word for
sky
to a third person. This meant that teaching magic was largely impossible. The most one could teach was a sense of how to will and manipulate magical energy for different spells. And, of course, the foundational principles upon which magic functioned. This was the purpose of the Principles of Magic class.

Because magical abilities did not tend to develop until age ten or eleven, it was also a class that was only taken by older children. Nina had only just begun taking the class this year herself, although she had learned a great deal by hanging around with Alex and the Guild. That was how most people really learned magic, from friends and family members. That was also one of the main reasons Alex and his friends had formed the Guild, to learn more magic by doing it rather than studying principles and precepts.

After school, Alex met up with the Guild and Victoria in the schoolyard and told them that he and Nina would meet them all at the Guild House in an hour.

“Where in the name of Poseidon’s pimples are you off to without us?” Daphne asked with a frown.

“We have a little mission to accomplish at the library,” Alex said.

“You’re taking Nina on an adventure without her begging?” Daphne said incredulously.

“We’re going to the library,” Alex said. “I need someone to keep Mrs. Yaaba busy while I sneak into the restricted section.”

“I’m your girl for distractions,” Nina said enthusiastically. “I could distract you right now if I wanted to. I’m more distracting than anyone I know.”

“You certainly are,” Rafael said.

“Distractions?” Ben said. “We can cause a distraction.”

“Yeah, like that time at the Town Museum,” Clark offered with a deep chuckle.

“I don’t think we need to burn the library down,” Daphne said.

“Smoke,” Ben said with a pout. “There was only a little smoke damage.”

“We’ve got this covered,” Alex said, laughing at Ben and the memory of the Guild trying to extinguish the flames in the Founding Families exhibit before the museum curator could smell the smoke.

“What book are you looking for?” Victoria asked.

“Not more books about dragons, I hope,” Rafael sighed.

“I’ll explain later,” Alex said, glancing around the schoolyard to make sure no one was close enough to hear, especially none of the Mad Mages. “It’s about the cave and the voice.” Silent stares greeted that statement. “We’ll meet you at Guild House. Come on, Sis.”

The library was nearly empty, with the exception of Ms. Mapledown, the local carpenter, who sat paging through a large book about Roman architecture on the main table near the wide front window. Mrs. Yaaba sat at the front desk, her mass of curly black hair streaked with gray, a hint of age at odds with the wrinkle-free skin of her dark African features. Alex had always wondered exactly how old the librarian was. She had been the librarian as long as anyone could remember and his father had assured him that Mrs. Yaaba looked just the same, agelessly suspended between youth and antiquity, when he himself had been a small boy.

The door to the restricted room was behind the main desk. It was slightly ajar and Alex eyed it surreptitiously as he and Nina approached Mrs. Yaaba. She had a reputation for being as sweet as an apple pie, but as tough as an old leather shoe. She smiled broadly as Alex and Nina stepped up to the desk. Alex suddenly remembered the time she had tossed four older boys out the front door by the scruff of their necks for laughing at a smaller girl struggling to read and whispering the words of a picture book while pointing at them with her finger. Alex desperately wanted to see if the restricted room held the books he had read about, but he certainly didn’t want to get caught by Mrs. Yaaba trying to do so.

“How is my favorite reader and her brother today?” Mrs. Yaaba asked. Nina loved to read and, as the book collection in their house only had a handful of books of interest to an eleven-year-old girl, she was a frequent visitor at the library. “What sort of book are you looking for today?”

“I’m not sure,” Nina said, cocking her head in mock consternation. “Something with adventure and magic, but maybe a little romance or maybe something that has horses and knights in it or maybe something about the Outside, like something that Outsider kids read, or maybe an Outsider adventure. I don’t know.”

“Well, let me see if I can suggest a few things,” Mrs. Yaaba said, standing up and walking around the desk. “And what are you looking for, Alex?”

“Nothing in particular,” Alex said, trying to seem casual. “I’m just here to keep Nina company.”

“Well, aren’t you the gentlemanly older brother,” Mrs. Yaaba said with a look that took a little too long to leave Alex’s eyes for his comfort. “Follow me, Nina.”

Mrs. Yaaba led Nina on a tour of the library shelves as his sister continued to spout possible suggestions as to what she might like to read. Alex stayed near the front desk, pretending to peruse the books shelved there, but no matter where Mrs. Yabba led Nina through the shelves, she always somehow managed a direct sightline of Alex. He got no closer than a few feet to the door of the restricted room and, after twenty minutes, he conceded that Mrs. Yabba was on to him somehow. Maybe he had misshelved a book in the restricted room when he snuck in before. Maybe she had seen him sneaking out. Whatever the case, she wasn’t going to allow him anywhere near it that day. Alex’s reward for failure was carrying home the stack of books that Nina had checked out.