The Dark Shadow of Spring (12 page)

“You’re sure you couldn’t have taken just one more book?” Alex asked as they walked along the sidewalk of Tulip Street.

“She kept recommending really great books,” Nina said, shifting the pile she was carrying.

“You’re a book freak,” Alex said, meaning it as a compliment.

“Everybody thinks I’m a freak, anyway,” Nina said, suddenly sullen. “I might as well be a book freak.”

“Nobody thinks you’re a freak,” Alex said.

“Only Ellen and James and Karl and Larry and Dan and Sybil and Jesse and Carla and, well, it’s not everybody, but it’s enough,” Nina said, kicking at a stone on the sidewalk.

“Why would they think you’re a freak?” Alex asked, surprised that anyone would think his sister was freakish. A bit odd, maybe…

“Because I hang out with magical creatures instead of humans and I read books and I’m not interested in clothes or sports or talking about boys all day and a thousand other things,” Nina said. Alex realized for the first time how isolated his sister was at school and in the town. It occurred to him that she didn’t really have any friends outside the Guild. How had he not noticed that?

“Well, if you’re a freak, then what am I?” Alex asked, trying to make Nina feel a bit better.

“A bigger freak,” Nina said seriously. Then her face brightened. “That’s kind of cheerful, actually, knowing that you’ll always be a bigger freak than me.”

“Anything I can do to help,” Alex said with a frown.

“So, how do we get into the restricted room now?” Nina asked, changing the subject.

“I’m not sure,” Alex said. “I’m thinking about it.”

“I thought I heard the sound of gears grinding,” Nina said. Alex stuck his tongue out in response. “I wish I knew that spell,” Nina added, looking across the street to where Mrs. Splintwich, the town healer, was walking along with a bag of groceries floating behind her.

“I’m so stupid!” Alex exclaimed.

“You’re not stupid,” Nina said sweetly. “Just a little slow for your age.” Alex stuck his tongue out again. “And you have poor communication skills.”

Alex ignored his sister, pausing for a moment as he focused his mind and will and spoke the words for the spell he had used to raise himself and his father out of the cave. After a moment of concentration, the books in his arms floated up and followed him as he resumed walking home.

“That’s not fair!” Nina said, rushing to catch up with him. “I don’t know all those words yet!”

“Now who’s slow?” Alex teased. He made Nina carry the books another block, but was finally worn down by her constant pestering and added her books to those floating along behind him.

They dropped the books off in the kitchen, got a kiss from their mom and a plate of chocolate chip cookies to share with the Guild, and then headed out to the backyard. The Guild House was really an old horse stable that he and his friends had converted into their lair.

“Iridescent Snot Sandwich!” Nina said with a giggle as they stood before the door. As a concession for not being allowed to be a full voting member, Nina had been granted the responsibility of coming up with the weekly password that would allow them entrance to the magically protected doorway of the Guild House. She preferred the grossest possible phrases.

Inside, they found Rafael and Daphne lounging on the old leather couch the Guild had salvaged from Ben’s grandparents’ basement. Ben and Clark were sitting at an odd-shaped table playing a game of chess. The table had been assembled from scraps of six old tables found in various places around town, the legs as mismatched as the chairs that surrounded it. Watching over the chess game from above stood Victoria, the horse half of her body filling the open space near the old potbellied woodstove that heated the Guild House in the winter months. Alex grinned when he saw her. As he stepped into the room, he noticed Clark paying more attention to Daphne than the chess game.

Clark had a powerful crush on Daphne. Only two weeks past, Alex had come to the Guild House and accidentally overheard a conversation between the two. Alex had been about to speak the password to the Guild House door when he’d heard voices from within.

“Hmm, so what’d you do?” Alex had heard Clark ask.

“I punched him,” Daphne had said, her tone defiant.

“Well, why’d you do that?” Clark asked.

“Because we’re not allowed to use hexes on people,” Daphne said.

“Mmm, yeah, but he was only trying to be nice,” Clark said.

“Nice!” Daphne nearly yelled. “I’ve told him a hundred times not to call me pretty.”

“Yeah, well, but he probably meant it in a nice way,” Clark said. “I mean, you are pretty…sort of. I mean, at least I think…That is, if I were going to…What I mean is…”

“I don’t want people to think of me as pretty, Clark,” Daphne said in a near moan. “I hate being pretty. Because that’s all anybody ever sees. All the pretty girls spend their time trying to remind people that they’re pretty, until one day they wake up and they’re old and no one is telling them how pretty they are and then what do they have? I want people to see how smart I am or how talented or, or…” Daphne’s voice cracked and she sniffled.

“Or how brave,” Clarke said. “You’re the bravest person I know. Even Alex isn’t as brave as you. You always volunteer for the crazy things he comes up with and you’re never afraid.”

“That the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Daphne said. “But I am afraid sometimes.”

“Hmm, that’s okay,” Clarke said with a laugh. “I’m afraid of you sometimes, too.”

Daphne had laughed as well and Alex had known that was the moment to finally make his entry. They were still laughing when he entered the Guild House, Daphne seeming happier than he had seen her in ages and Clark seeming suspiciously shy about his laughter. Alex could tell by the look on Clark’s face that he was deeply smitten with Daphne. And he could tell from the look on Daphne’s face that she was completely oblivious to Clark’s affections. Two weeks and hundreds of subtle stolen looks from Clark later and Daphne was still unaware of how Clark so obviously felt. Alex wondered if it was as obvious to everyone else. Then it occurred to him to wonder if anyone had noticed how often he looked in Victoria’s direction. It was a thought that snapped his attention wholly back to the present.

“Cookie?” Alex asked, offering the plate to Victoria.

“Oh yes, thank you,” Victoria said, delicately selecting a chocolate chip cookie from the plate. Alex noticed how precisely she picked the cookie up and wondered if she, like Clark, was constantly aware of her movements, trying to make them small and exact to compensate for her size.

“How was detention?” Alex asked, taking a cookie and passing the plate to Ben and Clark, who each snagged cookies before handing it off to Daphne and Rafael.

“It would have been fine if I hadn’t been stuck in the room with the Moronic Mages,” Victoria said. As Alex and others laughed, she continued. “That monstrous Anna girl kept glaring at me the whole time we were supposed to be writing sentences and that Dilbert or Dillweed, or whatever his name is, kept shooting spitballs at my hindquarters. It was all I could do not to think about blasting them all with a bolt of lightning again. At least I’m getting better at controlling my magical thoughts. How was your trip to the library? Did you find the book you were looking for?”

“No,” Alex said, turning to the others and seeing that they were looking at him expectantly. “I couldn’t get anywhere near the restricted room.”

“There’s a reason they call her Argus-eyed Yaaba,” Daphne said. “I swear she’s got eyes hiding in that tangled hair of hers.”

“What was the book you were looking for?” Rafael asked.

Alex was about to answer when Clark interrupted in a mumbling rumble. “Um, well, we can’t discuss that just now, can we? I mean, there are rules and such.” Clark nodded his head toward the paper pinned to the wall above the couch. The paper read,
The Young Sorcerers Guild: Rules for Members
. Above the rules hung a banner that held the Guild Motto:
Adventure, Magic, Friendship
. Alex glanced at the paper and the motto. The motto had been his idea, but the rules had been Daphne’s. She was always more practical. But he knew the rules by heart. They were simple:

Rule One:
Guild members must be at least twelve years old
.

Rule Two:
Guild members must keep all secrets of the Guild
.

Rule Three:
The business of the Guild may only be discussed with Guild members
.

Rule Four:
Guild members must be loyal and honest with each other
.

Rule Five:
All decisions of the Guild are made by vote.

“Right,” Alex said to Victoria. “Do you, Victoria Radcliff, swear by the Runes of the Runestones to always abide by all the rules of the Young Sorcerers Guild?”

Victoria looked at the rules posted on the wall for a moment, reading them over, and then said to Alex and the others, “Yes, I do.”

“All those in favor of Victoria becoming a member of the Guild say ‘Aye,’” Alex said.

“Aye!” everyone shouted together. Alex frowned at Nina, who had added her voice to the chorus of approval. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Unanimously approved,” Alex said to Victoria. “Welcome to the Young Sorcerers Guild.”

“That’s it?” Victoria asked. “I don’t have to pass some test or something?”

“You passed the gorping test today at school,” Daphne said.

“Electrocuting the Mad Mages in front of Principal Gillette is far better than the test we usually have,” Rafael said.

“Yep,” Ben said with a snort. “Got my vote.”

“So, then, well, what book were you looking for?” Clark said, blinking as he got the conversation back on track from the point where he had derailed it.

“Two books, actually,” Alex said. “
A History of the War of the Dark Age
and another book called
Radiant Spirit: Ka’Neff Magic Uncovered
.”

“I can look through Daddy’s books,” Victoria offered. “He has a lot of books on magic for his inventions. But I’ve never seen either of those books in the collection.”

“Thank you,” Alex said.

“The Dark Age?” Daphne said, leaning forward on the couch. “What in the name of Hades’ hangnails do you want to know about that for?”

“Oh!” Victoria said, her hand going to her mouth and her tail flicking from side to side.

“Oh what?” Rafael asked, his face falling in expectation of what was coming.

“My brother has a crazy idea about what’s in the cave,” Nina said.

“Crazy ideas.” Ben snorted again. “And Alex. Who’d ever think?”

“Well, um, so what’s in the cave?” Clark asked.

“The Shadow Wraith,” Victoria blurted out before Alex could speak, her voice gaining an octave in her excitement. “At least that’s what I assume you’re thinking with books on the history of the War of the Dark Age and Spirit Magic. The Fiend of Shadows was said to work mainly with Spirit Magic. It was said to be cast from this realm, but not from all realms, so it must still be in some realm somewhere. If that realm could touch this realm through Spirit Magic, then the Shadow Wraith could affect things in this realm. Like the frost.”  She stopped suddenly, realizing that she had talked right over Alex’s answer. “Sorry.”

Alex looked at her and thought to himself again that she was much smarter than she let on, and since she gave every appearance of being wickedly smart, it was almost a little intimidating. To the others, he said, “She’s right. I think the Shadow Wraith is coming back for its revenge.”

“We don’t even know what the gorping Shadow Wraith really is,” Daphne said.

“It almost destroyed the world before it was banished, burning the magic from nearly all the lands,” Rafael said. “That’s more than I really want to know.”

“This could be all your fairy-headed imagination,” Daphne said.

“Well, you know, the frost wasn’t his imagination,” Clark said.

“A fluke,” Ben said. “It might have been a fluke.”

“It worried our dad enough that he made Alex promise to have a bodyguard,” Nina said. “I’m supposed to stay with him at all times. Like a babysitter. Only I don’t get paid.”

“You told your dad about the gorping Shadow Wraith?” Daphne asked.

“No,” Alex said. “But I took him up to the cave and, after he had sealed it up, he said to make sure someone from the Guild was with me at all times. He thinks whatever it is might have made a link to me with Spirit Magic.”

“The Shadow Wraith has marked you!” Victoria said with alarm.

“I didn’t say that,” Alex said, seeing real concern in her eyes and realizing that it only made the seed of fear he had ignored in his gut sink its roots even deeper.

“Coincidence,” Ben said hopefully. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

“Have we ever been that lucky?” Rafael asked.

“Well, um, then what are we going to do?” Clark asked.

Silence. Alex looked around the room. He had hoped one of the others would have a good idea.

“We could always ask the librarian for the books you mentioned,” Victoria offered. “Or you could tell your father and maybe he could ask for them.”

Alex and the others looked at her for a moment and then they all burst out laughing. Victoria blushed.

“Sorry,” Alex said, still laughing. “But the idea of Mrs. Yaaba letting anyone in the restricted room, much less us, is pretty funny. And I don’t want to tell my dad anything. If he even suspected that the Shadow Wraith might possibly be breaking free, he’d have me locked in my room, and then we’d never find out what was going on.”

“He’d have us both locked up,” Nina frowned.

“Once we have proof, then we can tell him,” Alex said.

“You would want proof,” Rafael said.

“I still think it might all be something else,” Daphne said. “Something less…”

“Dangerous,” Ben said, finishing her sentence.

“Well, I believe you,” Victoria said, to which Alex smiled thankfully.

They continued to talk about the Shadow Wraith, sharing what little they each knew, speculating about what might happen next and debating how to get past Mrs. Yaaba and into the restricted room at the library. Eventually his mother’s call from the house announcing dinner forced them to break up the meeting.