The War of Odds (2 page)

“It’s just not fair!”
he fumed, tearing a slightly frozen buttercup out of the ground in a fit of frustration. He knew he was young, and that someone needed to keep the home fires burning and the house in order while his parents and two older brothers attended the fair.
But, why does it have to be me?

Pollo was so angry, he almost didn’t see the dark shadow that flew past, but he heard Ms. Rattle’s squawk of fear.
 
He looked across the small meadow and saw a human girl make her way slowly out the door of the old abandoned cottage that sat at the heart of his family’s territory.

His heart started pounding hard, because Pollo’s sire had always warned his sons and daughters to avoid human beings. Well, there was one now, walking directly toward where he sat by his favorite rock!

He hunkered down and watched as the girl set Ms. Rattle’s children on the ground by a stump, and then started walking slowly toward the house. An older man joined her and Pollo watched as the two humans held each other, weeping.

He was glad, now, that he had hidden behind the boulder. Squinting at the golden glow that surrounded the girl, Pollo knew that she would have seen him if he stood out in the open. She was… something… either a fairy or perhaps a witch. Regular humans could not see folk like him, or anything from his realm, but fairies certainly could and human witches could see the fey world as well.

The glow seemed to envelope the older man, sending tendrils of yellow and pink light into his darker, murky aura. Pollo could see peace and tranquility come over the man’s face and almost feel the energy and strength the young woman’s spirit gave him.
A good witch
, Pollo thought, and then he was falling over backwards as a large black wing caught him unaware. Picking himself up with as much dignity as he could muster, Pollo glared at Ms. Rattle.

“Did you see…did you?” The woodpecker jumped up and down, flapping her wings in agitation. “The witch saved my babies, she did! Help me sprite, please! Help Ms. Rattle move her babies!”
 
In her joy and enthusiasm, the woodpecker rapped her large yellow beak against a rotten stump, sending wood chips and evergreen mulch into the air and all over Pollo’s new tunic.

“Ah, Ms. Rattle! Look at what you did! My ma is gonna kill me!” Pollo grumped, brushing the red dust off his clothes, as Ms. Rattle regarded him with one bright eye.

“Sorry, young sprite, sorry… but will you? Will you help Ms. Rattle move her chicks?” The bird shook herself in a delirium of joy and dismay, sending feathers and leaves in every direction. Birds were known to be quite rude sometimes, but Pollo’s father had explained that they meant no harm.
 
They just did not understand the finer points of polite society.

“Okay, okay. Give me a second.” Pollo rolled his eyes and sighed as the bird cawed, saying, “But hurry, oh hurry, sprite. The foxes and the wolves, the chipmunks and the hawk…the cat, the dog…
 
CAW!”

The sprite, however, was already picking the baby birds up off the ground while their anxious mother fluttered overhead. One by one, Pollo lifted the hatchlings up and flew through the air to a stout branch, close to the tree’s trunk. Ms. Rattle flew here and there with twigs and pinecones, trying to construct a nest where her babies sat.

They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes, and then settled down on the branch together to rest. The babies slept and so did their mother as Pollo sat and stared at the cabin across the field.

He watched an upstairs window and saw the young woman comb the tangles out of her wild blonde hair. He saw the look of sorrow on her face and wondered if she knew what she was.

Pollo also wondered if his family would allow him to go to the fair if he were to bring a good witch back home to the village. A good witch was hard to find these days, or so his father always said.

Chapter 2

Sara pushed against the double doors leading into the high school. This would be the third high school she had attended in the last seven months and, as usual, her belly felt hollow with nerves and her palms were slick with sweat.

As the eyes of the students followed her progress down the main hall and into the office, Sara did a quick, mental checklist. Did she actually remember to put her clothes on this morning…check.
 
Was her hair washed…makeup on…check. Although she knew that her vintage clothes and Goth make-up would probably be looked down on and scoffed at, especially in this little redneck town, her style was uniquely her own and all the scorn in the world would not entice her to change.

Sara’s mother, Lynette, had always dressed in satins and lace, long colorful skirts and lace-up boots. She had dressed as if she lived in the thirteenth century and smelled like jasmine and sandalwood. Lynette held her daughter in her arms sometimes and said that when Sara turned sixteen, a new world of magic and mystery would open up for her, the world of witchcraft.

Sara’s mom would study her face and say, “The power is strong in you, Sara, I can sense it.
 
I won’t know until you’re older, but I think you will be either a healer, or a seer.” Lynette’s fingers caressed her daughter’s cheek and her large blue eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “Either way, I’ll be there to help you and guide you into the white,” she added.

Sara started, dropping the hand that touched her own cheek, when she heard the school secretary call her name. Stepping forward, she handed the elderly redhead her transfer papers and waited while the secretary enrolled her into school, assigned classes and found her an empty locker.

The secretary, whose name was Mrs. Targent, studied the new student for a moment. She saw the Goth clothing and heavy make-up, and sighed. “Sit down there for a moment, dearie,” she smiled. “I’m going to call someone in to show you around, okay?”

Sara shrugged and sat down. Staring out the hallway windows of the high school office, she saw many kids just lounging about. The gym, which was directly across the hallway from where she sat, was empty
. No big sports programs going on, right now,
Sara thought,
except baseball maybe, or track.

Some of the kids were watching her but no one seemed too hostile, at least, not yet. Sara hoped to get through the next four weeks or so, without making any enemies, and then have the summer to get settled in and maybe make a friend or two before school started up again in the fall. She sighed and let her head fall back against the wall. Sara had seen something inexplicable this morning, but the more she thought about it, the hazier the memory became. Now she wondered if she was just going crazy.

She had woken up feeling better than she had in years. Her dad, for once, wasn’t hung over and they had scurried around in the kitchen drinking coffee and eating toast, almost like a real family, before setting off on their separate ways.
 
The high school was only a mile and a half from home so Sara elected to walk instead of taking the bus.

It was a beautiful spring morning. Although old snow and dirty ice still clung to the dells and shady hollows, buttercups and wild iris turned their faces up to the rising sun. Birds sang and chipmunks bounded across the road, sometimes pausing to stare at her in wary appraisal. One bird, a showy specimen with glossy black, red and white feathers seemed to be following her. Hopping from one low branch to another, the bird stared down at her and occasionally tapped her yellow beak on this branch and that.

Sara wondered if this might be the same bird whose chicks she had tried to save.
 
Stopping, she asked, “Are your babies okay?”

To her amusement, the bird cawed loudly, puffed its feathers up and rapped the branch it sat on three times. Laughing, and feeling slightly foolish, Sara said, “That’s good. I’m happy for you!”

The gray and black tabby cat that followed the girl paused, staring at the witch and Ms. Rattle.
The young witch has vast power,
Hissaphat thought,
vast but unschooled.
He picked his way daintily through the tall damp weeds, chewing thoughtfully on the mouse clenched in his teeth.

“I wish you would either eat that thing, or spit it out,” Pollo grumbled.
 
He really liked the wise old cat, but sometimes Hiss’ manners were atrocious.

Hiss growled, “It’s not easy to carry a passenger and eat breakfast at the same time, you know.”

“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just…” Pollo shuddered as the mouse’s tail suddenly disappeared into Hiss’ mouth. “Look, she getting away!”

Both Hiss and Pollo watched as the girl walked briskly down the side of the road, paused at a crosswalk, looked both ways and crossed the street on her way to the school. Suddenly, she stopped, glancing back at where they stood, watching.

They were about fifty feet away from her but the girl’s eyes got big and her mouth opened at the sight of them. Pollo cursed, and the tabby melted silently into the underbrush. They watched as Sara stared around in confusion and then began her final trek toward the school parking lot and in through the double doors.

“She saw us, Hiss!” Pollo exclaimed. “Oh no, don’t tell my pa, Hiss, please?”

The tabby turned his wide yellow eyes on the young sprite and purred, “Pollo, that witch has great power… unrealized, I think, but still. She saw us, yes, and will see all things now that she has come into her inheritance. I do not see a guide, though. Do you know where her teacher is?”

Pollo shook his head and then paused. “I did see the girl and an older man, her pa, I think. They were crying. Perhaps the teacher has died?”

Hiss blinked and murmured, “Perhaps. A young witch with that much power needs guidance, Pollo. I think we need to go to your father’s home immediately. We’ll talk to Muriel and see if there’s a way to teach the girl, harness her power before the dark ones seize her for themselves.”

Pollo shuddered. He had heard rumors, lately, of dark powers rising up out of the depths. Senseless murders and horrid mutilations of creatures, fey and human alike had been reported.
 
He had even heard that a coven of black witches had moved to town and taken up residence in an old farm on the other side of town, up in the Stormking Mountains.

Pollo knew that a powerful young witch was a temptation too great to resist, especially one so vulnerable and without sponsorship. Black witches would not hesitate to seize the young woman, either to harness her power to their own nefarious purposes or to kill her outright for her blood, and the power locked in her soul.

“Let’s go then, Hiss. My pa will want to hear about this,” Pollo whispered.

Hissaphat, with young Pollo on his back, raced silently back to the sprite’s village.

*

Now, Sara rubbed her temples in dismay.
What did I see?
She wondered. A scruffy old cat staring after her as she walked to school, that is all. She shook her head. Why then, did she keep seeing a little brown man on the cats back, with a shock of red hair stuffed up under a jaunty pointed cap, staring back at her with green eyes that were just as shocked as hers were?

This was not the first time she had seen odd things. Since she turned sixteen, two months ago, Sara had been seeing things that did not belong in an ordinary, everyday landscape… horses in a snowy pasture with long spiraling horns sprouting out of their foreheads, tiny humanoid creatures with gossamer wings flying through the air with flocks of sparrows. Just yesterday, after the baby bird incident, she thought she saw a tiny figure lifting the hatchlings up into a tall tree. Her eyes had been blurry with tears, though, and she shrugged it off as wishful thinking.
 
There were no tears this morning, however. In fact, Sara felt like she was seeing things clearly for the first time since her mom died.

“Ah, here they are,” Mrs. Targent, cried.

Sara sat up straight and watched as a boy and a girl strode down the front hall toward the office. Sara stared. For a moment, a tiny fraction of a second, she thought she saw beautiful wings rise up behind the girl’s back. They were like butterfly wings only much larger and veined with tiny tributaries of black, red and gold. Then she blinked and the wings were gone.