The Dark Shadow of Spring (8 page)

“We’re a relatively new guild,” Alex said with a cough.

“We’re kind of like a club,” Daphne said, a sheepish tone in her voice.

“Oh, a club!” Victoria said. “What sort of things does your club do?  Is it an open membership? Could I apply? As I’m new in town, it would be ever so nice to able to meet people in a club.” Each member of the Guild seemed to answer a different question at the same time.

“Adventures,” Ben said. “We have adventures.”

“And, um, practice magic,” Clark added.

“Like waking the dragon,” Rafael offered.

“And membership is gorping easy,” Daphne said.

“As long as you’re not me,” Nina quipped with a pout.

“And you’re looking at the whole Guild,” Alex said.

“We’re very selective,” Rafael said.

“Oh,” Victoria said, her facing falling as the excitement drained out of her. “Naturally. You can’t just accept anyone. Particularly if you don’t really know them.”

“What Rafa means is that we only accept kids who don’t fit in,” Alex said, oddly uncomfortable with the idea that Victoria’s feelings might be hurt.

“And you have to be at least twelve years old,” Nina said, glaring at Alex. “I’ll be twelve this summer, but until then I’m an honorary member, which means I can’t vote, which is fine because they usually all vote for whatever crazy scheme my brother comes up with.”

“I’m nearly fourteen, actually,” Victoria offered. “I know it’s hard to tell with centaurs.”

Alex gave Nina a dirty look before turning to Victoria. “Seeing as how you saved my life, I’d be happy to recommend you for a membership vote.” Alex wasn’t sure if that was what he had intended to say or if it had just popped out when he saw the renewed look of excitement in Victoria’s eyes.

“That’s awfully kind of you,” Victoria said.

“We can hold a vote Monday after school,” Alex said, walking down the deer path and hoping that the conversation would bend away from what had happened to him.

“You saved his life?” Daphne asked, squinting as she started after Alex, the others all beginning to follow as well.

“Oh yes,” Victoria said. “I pulled him from a sunken cave he had fallen in.”

“You fell in a cave?” Nina said.

“Mmmm, did you hurt yourself?” Clark asked.

“Mad Mages,” Ben said. “What happened to the Mad Mages?”

“Did they push you in the cave?” Daphne asked. “That gorping Dillon deserves a hex the size of, well, the size of Clark.”

“I tried to track you, but I lost your scent somehow,” Rafael said. “You must have gone off the deer path.”

Alex fell silent for a moment. He wasn’t sure how much to tell them. He wanted to tell them everything, but he was afraid they might not be as quick to believe him as Victoria seemed to be. But whatever the voice was, it was dangerous. If something or someone was coming back for revenge, it could be perilous for the whole town. And what if it was coming for him? He was still pondering what to say when Victoria made it unnecessary.

“It was easy to find him,” Victoria said. “He was screaming so loud, you see. Seems he heard a voice in his head. Which I think is a sign of Spirit Magic. Alex says no one in the Valley has had the ability for Spirit Magic in quite some time, but I think that makes it only more likely that it was Spirit Magic because it would seem the Valley is due for another Spirit Mage.”

Alex remained quiet as the others erupted into questions on what he had heard and what had happened. He looked at Victoria and couldn’t resist returning her wide smile. He shook his head. He really liked Victoria. She was interesting in a way none of the girls of the valley were. She was a centaur, after all, and she was beautiful as Daphne in a completely different way, but he suspected that she had a tendency to say things before she had really thought them through.

Alex kept walking, but he slowly explained what had happened. How he had chased the Mad Mages. How he had planned to ambush them and instead fell into the cave and hit his head. Then he told them about hearing the voice. The voice in his head. What it had said. The searing white pain in his mind when it spoke. He was afraid to tell them what he thought it all meant.

The others were silent. That worried Alex. He had expected more questions to come pouring forth. To be grilled or called a fool or accused of making it all up.

“There were insane wizards in the woods?” Victoria asked Ben, changing the direction of the conversation completely. Alex caught her eye and thanked her silently.

“What?” Ben said, before understanding her question. “No. The Mad Mages Club. They’re like us, only evil.”

“They’re not evil,” Daphne said. “They’re wicked. They know better, but they do bad things anyway.”

“Same thing if you ask me,” Rafael said.

“Yeah, well, they nearly got us killed today,” Clark groused in a deep rumble.

“Oh,” Victoria said, her eyes lighting up, as she brought back a statement made long ago. “When you were waking the dragon.” Alex made mental note that not much escaped Victoria’s notice and that she was much smarter than her effervescent personality seemed to imply.

“You never know when to keep your mouth shut, Rafa,” Daphne snapped.

“Sorry,” Rafael replied. “It slipped out.”

“Daddy said there was a dragon living in the Black Bone Mountains,” Victoria continued, “but I just assumed he was pulling my hind leg. I’d love to see a dragon. It’s not very much like a snake, is it?”

“It’s nothing at all like a snake,” Alex said, remembering the flames chasing them through the rocky tunnel.

“It must have been fabulously annoyed at being woken up,” Victoria said.

“It wasn’t gorping happy about it,” Daphne said, with a slight shake of her head.

“We hadn’t been planning on waking it up all the way,” Alex added a bit defensively.

“Yeah, the Mad Mages followed us and woke it up to see the flame,” Clark said, grinding his teeth.

“Fire,” Ben added. “Lots of fire.”

“Well, why do you call it ‘waking the dragon’ if you weren’t trying to wake the dragon?” Victoria asked.

“We were waking it just a little bit so it would tell us our destinies,” Daphne said.

“That’s brilliant,” Victoria said, her voice nearly squeaking. “I’d love to know my destiny. What did it say your destiny was?”

“Only Alex got to ask before the Mad Mages showed up,” Nina said, looking at her brother, concern in her voice.

“And what did it say?” Victoria asked, barely containing her enthusiasm. “It must be ever so exciting to know your destiny.”

Alex remembered it all too well. “It said ‘
You have fought the Dark Beast in all your lives. The Dark Beast marks you again. Always and forever.
’”

Everyone fell into silence again as they walked. Alex hoped for more silence. Silence all the way home. Hoping no one would say anything. That no one would voice the thought rattling loudly in his head ever since Victoria had pulled him from the cave. If he possessed any powers of Spirit Magic, they clearly weren’t strong enough for Victoria to sense his desires, no matter how hard he willed them.

“Do you think the destiny the dragon gave you has anything to do with the voice you heard in the cave?” Victoria asked aloud.

Chapter 7: Late for Dinner

Once again, everyone burst out with questions and statements all at the same time. The only one Alex paid attention to was the one his sister had uttered.

“Are you crazy?” Alex said. “No way.”

“You have to,” Nina said, the tone of her voice emphatic. “You have to tell Dad. He’s the town warlock. He needs to know if something evil is loose on the mountain.”

“I can’t tell him how I found the cave,” Alex said, frowning over his shoulder at his sister. They had reached the edge of the mountain forest and were walking along a path that headed toward the North Road and back to the town of Runewood. Alex could see the lights of two farms off to either side of the road and the dim glow of the town up ahead. They recovered their bikes from where they had stashed them and headed toward town.

“No one said you need to be stupid,” Daphne said. “But we should tell someone.”

“Yeah,” Clark said. “You know, in case it’s not all in your head.”

“It’d have to be a very small evil if it were,” Rafael quipped.

“Thanks, Rafa,” Alex said.

“Crazy,” Ben said. “You’re crazy, but you’re not that crazy. I believe you. But you should tell your dad.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Alex said, thinking it through. Whatever the voice was, it felt like it was far too powerful for him and the Guild to deal with alone. And his father was the town warlock, after all. If there was a chance that anyone would believe him, it would be his father.

“What do you think, Victoria?” Nina asked, looking up at the young centaur’s face.

“I tell Daddy everything,” Victoria said. “And I only regret it half of the time.”  Seeing Alex snap his head around to look at her, she continued, “But I would never tell him about dragons and such. Although I might mention that I found a boy in a cave. I don’t necessarily need to say that the boy was screaming and hearing voices.”

 “I was yelling,” Alex said.

“That’s what I meant to say,” Victoria said with an apologetic look. “It’s very difficult to tell the difference between a human yell and a scream.”

“I’ll talk to Dad,” Alex said, desperate again to change the direction of the conversation. “I’ll tell him as soon as I get home.” Maybe it was the tone of his voice or the knowledge that an adult, the town warlock, would know at least some of what they had been up to, but the rest of the journey back to town was accomplished in near total silence.

As they rode their bikes, Victoria galloping gently beside them, Alex thought about what to tell his father and how to phrase things so that no hint of their adventure with the dragon could come up. Alex never lied to his parents. His father, as a warlock, was too good at sniffing out untruths. But Alex did find that if he omitted details skillfully enough, he could avoid the worst punishments when he needed to confess some misadventure or indiscretion. He needed to figure out exactly what to say and what not to say. The problem consumed him all the way into town.

They stopped where Magnolia Street crossed Main Street to become Tulip Street, on the east side of town, near the Town Hall. This was the street Alex and Nina lived on and they said their goodbyes to the others. Alex had wanted to walk Victoria home, although he couldn’t explain to himself exactly why. To thank her again, he finally convinced himself. That was it. But she lived in the opposite direction, and farther into town, on Raven Street. He was forced to say goodnight to everyone together and the only words he managed to offer Victoria were, “Thanks again.”

“Any time.” Victoria smiled again. Alex smiled as well, although he hoped there would never be another occasion where she would need to save him.

Alex’s family house sat in the middle of the street with a wide front lawn and two huge oak trees standing like sentinels near the picket fence that enclosed the yard. As they walked along the driveway to the covered front porch that wrapped back along one side of the house, Nina spoke up. “So what are you going to tell Dad?” she asked. “Don’t tell him too much, because you know how he wheedles things out of you, and don’t look at his eyes too long, or if you look at them, don’t look away too fast, and be careful of Mom, because they work like a team, with her playing all understanding to trip you up.”

“Relax,” Alex said. “I’ve done this before. I’ve got it all figured out.”

Events, however, did not unfold as he had planned. For once, his mother had made dinner at dinner time, which meant that Alex and Nina were late and, to make it worse, his parents had both waited for them to arrive before beginning the meal.

As they stepped into the kitchen, Alex’s stomach rumbled in response to the smells of the food. His mother’s cooking reflected her Italian birth and heritage. A dish of baked ziti sat in the middle of the table, surrounded by smaller plates with buttered asparagus and steamed broccoli. A basket of fresh-baked bread beckoned to him, its aroma mixing with all the others and making his mouth water.

“Where have you been?” his mother asked, her midnight black hair curling around her heart-shaped face and down to her shoulders. Her deep brown eyes pinned him into place as he stepped into the room. “And don’t think about sitting down at this table before you’ve washed your hands.”

“Sorry,” Alex said, as he and Nina quickly scrubbed their hands in the kitchen sink. “The hike took a little longer than we’d planned.”

“We’ve been waiting nearly an hour,” his father said, the tone of his voice unreadable. His father was a large, well-muscled man, with jet-black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a handsome, if somewhat too angular, face. But it was his eyes that caught most people’s attention. They were gold-flecked grey. His father’s quiet, intense presence was enough to unnerve most people, even when he wasn’t staring at them. Alex shuffled his feet and glanced over his shoulder.

“Alex fell in a cave,” Nina blurted out, gesturing wildly with her arms, even as Alex tried to nudge her with his foot. “And he got knocked unconscious, but he was saved by this centaur girl and she’s really beautiful and really cool and he heard a voice in his head.” Nina gave Alex a sheepishly apologetic look, realizing that she’d babbled everything out all at once.

Alex couldn’t help himself and sighed extravagantly.

“Are you alright?” his mother asked, getting up and coming around the table to poke and prod him with her hands.

“I’m fine,” Alex said through clinched teeth.

“Victoria healed him,” Nina said. “She’s the centaur.”

“So I surmised,” his father said. “The Radcliff girl, I assume. They just moved in to town.”

“Well, we’ll have to thank her properly and invite her to dinner some night,” Alex’s mother said, much to his horror. The thought of having Victoria over for dinner to meet his parents made him uneasy in about seven different ways. Things were happening altogether too fast and he realized he had totally lost control of the situation.