THE SPLIT PATH SPARK

Easterwood Unfolding

Book 1

C. L. Van Liew

Copyright © 2020 Collins Van Liew

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to others. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Thank you for Reading!

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Chapter 1

Most grandchildren are not put into mortal danger by their grandmothers, and if Grace Gossamer had known that was where she would be before next summer, she probably would not have gone to the airport with her dad that evening.

It was just beginning to turn dark when Grace’s dad pulled into the covered lower level of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

“Bad day for a flight,” Grace’s dad said, turning the windshield wipers off and parking in one of the waiting areas, eyeing the traffic attendant with, from what Grace could see of his face in the rearview mirror, a mix of annoyance and uncertainty.

Grace scanned the faces of the waiting people, hoping to see her grandmother, but was disappointed.

“Dad, why doesn’t Amma visit more often?” Grace asked, calling her by the name everyone else did.

“I don’t know. She’s always been a pretty private person, like she’s more important or regal, higher than everyone else. I’m not painting her in a good light, am I?”

“Not really.”

“She’s always acted like she has a lifelong secret that no one else knows about. It’s how she is, mysterious. She’s also kind and loves us and—ah, would you just let me wait here for five seconds?”

The neon-yellow vested attendant was walking towards their car, waving them forward, when Grace’s grandmother, wearing all boring neutral colors with a large necklace of green sea glass, stepped through the crowd of other people waiting to be picked up and knocked on their window.

“Amma!” Grace said.

Her dad got out of the car, not bothering to hide his impish smile as he motioned with an apologetic shrug to the attendant. He gave Amma a hug and opened the back door for her. Amma slid in over to Grace.

“Hello birthday girl,” Amma said, her round face breaking into another smile.

“I missed you, Amma!” Grace said, leaning in to hug Amma and inhaling the floral scent of the shampoo she used on her styled, dirty-blonde hair.

“Amma! You’re getting old,” Grace said, noticing that Amma now had several more grey hairs than the last time she visited.

“Gigi, that’s incredibly impolite,” Grace’s dad said getting back into the car.

Grace sighed in annoyance. Everyone who knew her called her Gigi and she was tired of her little kid name. She was almost ten years old, but despite how hard she tried or how many times she asked, no one, not even her own parents, would call her Grace, except for the times she was in trouble. She had hoped Amma would call her Grace, but it looked like she was going to be Gigi from here on, probably for the rest of her life.

“How was your flight, Mom?” Gigi’s dad asked as he pulled out into the exit lane.

“Oh it was okay,” Amma said in her formal way of talking that made Gigi think of old movie stars from the black and white days.

“You know, you don’t have to keep flying out of Portland or Spokane. Seattle has a great airport,” Gigi’s dad said.

“I always get better prices flying from those two airports than I do from Seattle,” Amma said.

“You don’t though, Mom.  I’ve checked the prices when you say you bought the ticket and it’s pretty much always more expensive to fly the way you do,” Gigi’s dad said.

“Ah, well, maybe I like the four hour drive before the flight,” Amma replied with a little smile, “But you’re right Gigi, there’s been a lot going on the last few months. It’s been too long since I’ve seen you, and I could say that you’re getting old as well.”

Gigi frowned, leaning into whisper in Amma’s ear, “I don’t really like to be called Gigi. Can you call me Grace instead?”

Amma’s laugh was throaty. “Why do you want to be called Grace?”

“Ugh, because it’s my real name and nobody even uses it. I’ve been telling people forever to only call me Grace, I’m having a hard time convincing them.”

“Oh, I think you will be just fine. Give it a little more time, I have a feeling someone will start calling you that soon.”

Gigi screwed up her mouth in annoyance as she considered this.

“I don’t know about that,” Gigi said, “but can you tell me about how things have been for you? I feel like it’s been forever since we actually had a chance to talk.”

“Things have been quite nice, better than it has been in a long time,” Amma replied, as they left the airport behind.

“Yeah? How come?” Gigi asked.

“Life is quieter back home now. Though I am a little concerned that they’re going to get rowdy again sometime soon.”

“What’s that mean?”

“That I’m going to be too busy to visit you a dozen times every year like I want to,” Amma said, giving Gigi a little tickle in the ribs, “Oh, but still so skinny. You aren’t still a picky eater, are you?”

“Amma stop! I haven’t been since I was four!” Gigi said, laughing a little as she pressed herself against the car door, “It would be amazing if you came every month, but you wouldn’t have any money left if you just did that all the time.”

“Well, that might be true, but I’ve got more money than I know what to do with these days. I only get so much time with my wonderful grandkids. I think about you guys a lot!”

“What do you think about us?”

Amma gave a tight little smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes, “Mostly that you’re growing up so fast and I can’t believe how much you’ve changed.”

Gigi leaned back in her seat and smiled, glad that Amma could be there with her. They drove through the streets of Chicago at the end of the warmest summer anyone could remember since long before Gigi was born and Amma peppered her with questions like:

“Who is your best friend?”

“Carla McAndrews.”

“You mean the little one with all those braids?”

“Amma, she’s ten, she’s not little anymore. But yeah, Carla still has braids.”

“What do you like most about school?”

“History and recess. I like getting to read books too.”

“Who is your favorite little brother?”

“Mav, but I don’t have a choice right now and Mom and Dad told me that I can’t have any more brothers and so I asked for sisters and they told me that I can’t have any sisters and so I asked why and they said that...that...actually I don’t know what they said because whenever I ask they just look at each other and laugh.”

“I really hoped you were going to get another brother or sister sometime soon. I guess I’ll have to just keep waiting. Which stuffed animal do you like the most?”

“Ugh! I don’t really like stuffed animals anymore,” Gigi said, then leaned over to whisper in Amma’s ear, “Dad doesn’t know, but I really like Andy, the iguana you gave me last year. He’s so squishy.”

And so they went on for some time until Gigi's dad pulled off the freeway and they began passing the stores in Gigi’s neighborhood. First the Hungarian lady's smoked meat store, then the Indian man’s restaurant, the Syrian couple’s clothing shop, the Mexican family’s grocery store that sold churros that Gigi always begged her mom to stop and buy, until at last they pulled up to the parking spot behind their house.

Gigi and Amma cuddled on the couch while her parents inflated a mattress. Mav, Gigi’s little brother, was already asleep, because it was after even Gigi’s bedtime when they returned and their mom had given up wrestling a very energetic three year old an hour before. While they cuddled, Amma sang little songs to Gigi and she wished that the magical things she had believed about the world a few years before were true.

“I just want to go to all these places you sing about,” Gigi said, looking into her kind, toasted hazel eyes.

Amma looked down at her and smiled. “If you want, you can in your dreams.”

Gigi’s face lit up, “Really? I wanna go now!”

“Not now. You’re still awake, but if you really want, you can tonight.”

“Yes, tonight! But I don’t want to be a princess when I go. I want to be a witch!”

“A witch?”

“Yes, a witch,” Gigi said.

“Why do you want to be a witch?” Amma asked.

“Because then I can do magic!”

“Oh. Well, you can do magic and not be a witch.”

“No. I need to be a witch to do magic.”

“Very well. Would you be a good witch or a bad witch? Near the Emerald City, we have both.”

“I would be a bad witch. Isn’t the Emerald City in Wizard of Oz?”

“It’s Seattle, dear. Why would you be a bad witch?”

“I would be a bad witch because the bad witches have all the fun.”

“And the good witches don’t?” Amma asked.

“Nope.”

Gigi’s dad interrupted them. “Well, Mom, I think we’re in good shape. And Gigi, you’re not going to be a bad witch. You can be a good witch, or a unicorn tamer, or maybe a minotaur hunter. We have standards in this house and I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.”

“Thank you, Son. I just have one little surprise for Gigi before she goes to bed,” Amma said.

Gigi could not help the little gasp that escaped her thin lips.

“Sure Mom. Do you want to put her to bed?” Gigi’s dad asked.

“Oh, yes I think I do,” Amma said, “We should be fine from here.”

Not understanding that he had been dismissed, Gigi’s dad gave Amma some long and boring instructions on putting Gigi to bed and what to do if Mav woke up in the middle of the night.

When he had finally gone into his room and shut the door, Amma turned to Gigi and said, “Now, that surprise.”

“What is it?” Gigi asked again, still thrilled.

Amma pulled a small box of polished walnut from her purse, the wood’s beautiful grain flowed like a river across its length. Elegant script in a language Gigi could not read was carved along the edges and into the corners.

Opening the box, Gigi gasped as she saw the silver ring inside. It was beautiful and ornate, sparkling in the light of the lamp. Tiny leaves and branches were intertwined all around it. They ran up it towards a small dark stone with flecks of color glinting within it, set in the ring’s center.

“Amma, it’s beautiful,” she said, taking it out and slipping it onto her right index finger, “It fits so well. What kind of stone is that?”

“It is a black opal. Some people say that at night it’s the most magical stone in the world.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“You are welcome, sweetheart. I’m glad it fits well. I had to resize it. It used to be mine, you know.”

“Really? Wow. That is so cool!”

“Thank you, I think so too,” Amma said, kissing her forehead, “I hope you rest well tonight. I cannot wait to hear about your dreams in the morning.”

Chapter 2

Gigi lay in bed, unable to close her eyes to fall asleep. In the dark blue glow of her fish tank she inspected the ring Amma gave her. It reflected off the polished silver and made the stone in the ring glow with an inner light. It was an ornate piece of jewelry, its flourishes and lines subdued and worn with age, yet beautiful and breathtaking all at once. She could almost imagine that it carried some of the magic that Amma sang to her about. The stone, set by what looked like three tiny rose thorns, was the most interesting of all. She had never seen a stone quite like it before, dark as midnight, but shot through with flashes of color and light like pictures of a nebula in her science book.

Gigi lay in bed, gazing at it as her eyelids began to feel heavy. Mav snored a little in the bed next to hers. As she drifted into a peaceful sleep, her mind wandered to all of the wonderful adventures she would have the following day with Amma and her family.

***

Gigi awoke the next morning feeling like she just had the best night of sleep in her life. Rolling out of bed, she rubbed her eyes and walked from her bedroom, ready to cuddle with Amma on the blow up mattress in the middle of the living room floor. She was quite surprised, therefore, when she walked not into her living room, but rather into the main room of a house that looked similar to her home, if her home was a cottage built hundreds of years before.

Gigi blinked several times, trying to understand what she was seeing. Turning around, she found her bedroom behind her, except that Mav was missing from his bed. Looking down she found that she was no longer in her pink princess pajamas, but instead a loose cotton gown. When she turned back to where Amma’s bed should have been, she saw two chairs with elegant carvings on their backs and armrests next to a tall bookshelf laden with thick books. Gigi looked over to where her dining room table should have been and saw a dark wood table piled high with breakfast foods. A very rustic kitchen was on the other side.

Gigi looked up and saw that the roof was made of tied bundles of straw, all packed together to keep out the rain. A chimney ran from a potbelly stove and range in the middle of the kitchen through the roof. Gigi wondered if it might not set the whole house on fire and hoped that she would not be there when it did. She looked out the window where the front of her house should have been. Instead of her street, she saw a small yard and a dirt path leading along the edge of a thick forest that spread out in every direction.

Gigi turned back to the kitchen. While she was very hungry, it was not the table that caught her eye. For although there is nothing like a platter full of bacon, toast, jam, and eggs to capture one’s attention after a hard night’s sleep, there is something much more interesting about watching a meerkat cook that breakfast. This was not something Gigi had seen before, so she spent some time watching as the meerkat made pancakes, pouring the batter from a ceramic pitcher into a pan. Once the pancakes had cooked some it would flip them with its tail. When the last of the batter was on the pan, the meerkat ran across the counter to a large bowl of olives and selected several, juggling them like a circus performer while it walked to a smaller bowl, letting them all fall in at the same time. It returned to the pancakes, flipped them with its tail, letting them cook for a few seconds more, then scooping them up and onto a plate.

The meerkat picked up the plate and turned, seeing Gigi for the first time. It gave a loud bark and jumped a foot in the air, overturning the plate of pancakes and sending them flying across the floor.

“Bugs ‘n beetles you could’a told me you were here,” the meerkat said holding his chest with a little four clawed paw. His voice was a little rough, but it was his accent that caught Gigi’s attention. It was strange and she had a hard time understanding everything he said.

At hearing the meerkat talk, Gigi took a startled step back, tripping over the rug. Her arms cartwheeled a couple of times before she caught her balance.

“You scared me!” Gigi said, scowling, her arms crossed over her thin chest.

“I–I scared you? You’re the one who just wandered into me kitchen this morning and you’re saying I scared you?” the meerkat said. He spoke in what Gigi thought sounded like an English accent, but not the kind of English that fancy people used. The meerkat’s accent was much more course, sort of spilling out of his mouth in bursts, even while letting whole sentences flow out smoothly. Gigi was sure she had heard an accent similar to it before, but could not quite put her finger on it. She thought it might have sounded like the accent of someone she had seen in an old movie, but she was not sure which.

“I didn’t think you could talk!”

“Didn’t think I could–You were watching me make breakfast, how did you not think I could talk?”

“I–you know I’m not quite sure. I guess I just assumed you couldn’t.”

“Well, here you go, I can talk. Might as well help me with them flappers, make yourself useful,” he said, climbing down the cabinet to the floor and picking up one of the pancakes. Before Gigi could see how he intended to get the pancake back to the plate on the counter, she walked over and scooped several up.

“You know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you and I should have said something,” Gigi said, picking up one of the pancakes that had rolled under a chair. She cringed at the bits of dirt and fur clinging to it.

“Eh, that’s alright. Should’a known you’d maybe be in today. Kirkie’s been saying for the last week his little niecie’s coming into town. You keep an eye out for her Art. Saying it all week, he has. ‘She’ll just show up one morning in all likelihood.’ And here you are. Well, I suppose it’s you, I didn’t rightly ask. What is your name?”

Gigi opened her mouth to say Gigi and stopped herself. She had been introduced as Gigi for as long as she could remember. Everyone who knew her called her Gigi. She thought that some of her friends did not even know that her real name was Grace. If she wanted to grow up and for people to talk to her like she was a young lady and not a little girl, then she needed to start acting like a young lady, and a good way to do that would be to get rid of her little girl name.

“Grace, Grace Gossamer is my name,” Grace said, extending her hand for the meerkat to shake.

“Meh, good as any, I guess,” the meerkat said, extending his paw and letting Grace’s hand envelop it, “I’m Art, Oakton Lookout for the League of Historians.”

He had a little tuft of white hair sticking up on top of his head and dark rings of fur around his eyes. His sandy tan coat was striped through with several darker lines. He stood at about one foot tall and would have come to Grace’s knee if he had been on the floor. Grace still could not get over his accent. It was harsh and clipped, but still managed to flow smoothly.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Art. But, um, I’m a little confused. You said that someone was expecting me?”

“That’d be ole Kirkie. Kirkie the Turkey I call him. Okay, I don’t really call him that, least not to his face. But he said he wanted to know when you arrived, so I reckon I’d best let him know,” Art said, scampering to the back of the kitchen. He stopped in front of over a dozen copper pipes and slid a cover away from one of them. “Hey! Kirkie! You awake yet? She’s here! Your little niecie. That Grace one.”

Grace and Art waited in silence for several seconds and just when Grace thought that Art would not get a reply, she heard a high, refined voice echoing back through the pipe, “Thank you very much, Arthur. I am afraid I am indisposed for the rest of the morning. Please give her my sincerest apologies and explain that I will see her later in the day.”

“You got it, Kirkie. We’ll see you when you got time for your long lost niecie,” Art said, slamming the cover to the pipe shut and muffling the reply. He ran back to the counter and stood on his hind legs, looking Grace in the eyes and cocking his head, “Alright then, sounds like we got the morning to ourselves. How does a nice breakfast sound and then we take a stroll around the lake?”

“Um, sounds great?” Grace said, shrugging, “But who were you just–”

“Oiy! You have a very nice ring. Where did you get it?”

“I have a nice what?” Grace asked, looking down at her hand. She realized that the ring Amma gave her was still on her finger, but instead of a mysterious dark opal, the stone was now white and shot through with many flecks of green.

Grace looked back at Art, “My ring? My grandma just gave it to me for my birthday. Do you like it?” she asked, holding up her hand so he could see it better.

Art inhaled with a hiss, drawing back.

“What? What’s wrong with it?” Grace asked, but did not get an answer. Art was already back off the counter and scurrying past her towards the bookshelf where he pulled off a book that was larger than he was. He set it onto the floor and Grace caught a glimpse of the title, A Field Guide to Ancient Artifacts and Their Supposed Uses. Grace could hear him muttering to himself as he began to flip pages.

“That’s not the Larchie ring, is it? No, it couldn’t be, the stone’s all wrong. Supposed to be a sapphire. The stone could’ve changed, right? Aha, here it is,” Art said, stopping on a yellowed page, its edges word with years. Centered on it were two hand-drawn pictures of a ring that looked like a twin to Grace’s own. There were notes all around it and across the top, Grace could see the ring’s name, Heart Seeker.

“Does your ring have two leaves or three on the right side?”

Before Grace could answer, Art was in front of her, producing a leather bound notebook, fountain pen, and jewelry loop from what seemed like thin air. He set to work examining the ring, taking notes and murmuring to himself. After about half a minute he ran back to the book, referencing his notes and drawings before coming to a quick conclusion.

“I have some good news. Your ring did not belong to Queen Jezel, Last Queen of the Larchill Dynasty.”

“Well that’s, good?” was all that Grace could think to say.

“But,” Art continued, “Your ring’s a pretty powerful magical artifact and whoever made it used Heart Seeker to design it. If it’s like Heart Seeker, it should tell you if you’re where you’re supposed to be.”

“What’s that mean?” Grace asked.

Art cocked his head for a moment then looked down at the ring. “You see how it’s mostly green right now? That means you’re exactly where you need to be. Go outside and see what happens.”

“Go outside?” Grace asked, straightening herself, unsure of what would happen if she did. She did not want to get locked out of the house and left in the middle of a forest with no one around her that she knew.

“Ain’t nothing the matter, love, you just head on to that door. We’ll have a nice breakfast right after,” Art said.

Grace nodded once and walked across the room to the front door. She paused for a moment then turned the heavy iron door handle.

A rush of warm air kissed her face followed by the scents of pine and wildflowers floating on the breeze. Grace inhaled through her wide bridged nose, closing her burnished chestnut eyes to take in all the sensations. It reminded her of the one time she had gone hiking in the mountains outside of Seattle, crisp, clean, and pure. From outside, Grace could see more of the cottage she woke up in. It had a thatch roof on the outside and plastered, white walls. It was small, much smaller than the houses in Chicago, but its yard was much larger and better tended than most of the yards of the homes in her neighborhood. Someone had even planted beds of colorful flowers along the side of the house.

She looked down at her ring and noticed, with a start, that some of the green flecks in the stone were turning yellow and orange, with more changing color the longer she stayed outside. Turning back in, Grace watched the ring return to its green color as she crossed to the kitchen.

“You see?” Art said, “Changes to yellow when you’re moving away from where you’re supposed to be. Prob’ly all the way to red when you get to where you’re not supposed to be.”

“But how does it know?” Grace asked.

“Magic,” Art replied, waving his little paws in front of his face.

“Oh. Can it do anything else?”

Art ran back to the book that still lay on the floor and consulted it. “Perhaps. It’ll mostly depend on how much magic you got.”

“Well, I can’t do magic, so I guess that answers that question,” Grace said.

“Listen here love. Not a human in the world that can’t do at least a lick a magic. You’d be something right special if you couldn’t.”

“Well, I don’t think I have any magic” Grace said, “So it doesn’t matter, and I am getting pretty hungry, can we eat now?”

“Bugs ‘n beetles, I’m starving. Yeah, let’s dig in,” said Art.

“Great,” Grace said, as she picked up the plate of pancakes and put them onto the table. She scooped up the butter, now quite melted, and the bowl of olives. Setting them down with finality she took a deep breath to compose herself. She was not at all accustomed to talking meerkats who made breakfast and were experts on rings that once belonged to queens, so she wondered what kind of affair breakfast would be.

It turned out to be a rather wonderful breakfast. Within moments of them taking their seats, Art began to regale Grace with stories of adventures of other lookouts for the League of Historians. Grace heard about such League of Historian greats as Gene the Machine, who wrote a hundred pages of history without sleeping, and Joe the Remarkable, who not only wrote history, but also lived it as he struggled to prevent the fall of the great Gaian Empire.

Art talked until Grace could not tell ancient history from what happened last week before she interrupted and said, “So what do you do exactly?”

“Who me? Well, I’m supposed to keep a lookout, record any and all goings on, report back to the League Headquarters, write a book here and there. Make sure we’re capturing history,” Art said, making a grand gesture and waving his hands in the air, “Oh, and I teach for Kirkie the Turkey.”

“What have you written?” Grace asked.

Art looked down, suddenly very interested in the food on his plate. He pawed a little oyster around, before stuffing the whole thing in his mouth.

“I ain’t ‘ot no’fin’ writ yet,” Art said, then swallowed, “But that geezer who came before me, Mort, had a mighty fine work, it’s there on the shelf.”

Grace got up and walked over to the bookshelf. It was stacked full of huge books, many larger than the one Art had chosen earlier. She saw strange titles like An Olde Wive’s Tail: A Tale of Tails, Why the Hobgoblin Uprising Has Made Us Question Everything, and The Unconventional Guide to Unicorn Hunters. Grace picked one authored by Mortimer Huxleberry Aldacious III titled 11 Myths Uncovered About the Last of the Elven Royalty. She opened it to find hundreds of lines of text on each page, written in a microscopic, flowing hand.

“Yep, that’s his book alright. One of the best historians alive, I say. And married to me Aunt Elsie. That’s how I got his old post and to be the lookout here at Oakton.”

“What are you working on writing?” Grace asked.

“Well, that’s just it. See there’s a lot of going’s on these days. More than there’s been in fifty years what with the queen going to Ironstone and all. But I’d better not say too much, Kirkie’s gonna wanna tell you all that himself.”

“Oh, I’d really like to hear about it though,”

“And I’m sure you would, but I’ve said too much already. Better if we talked about something else. Kirkie’ll tell you, I’m sure of it.”

Grace was annoyed and narrowed her eyes to examine Art, “What aren’t you supposed to tell me?”

“I promised Kirkie and if I break my promise again, he’ll have me sent back to Redwood and I’ll have to report back to the League of Historians and I really don’t want to have to do that.”

Settling into the hard chair as best she could, Grace pursed her lips and jerked her head towards the window, “Well, if you can’t talk about everything that’s going on, why don’t you tell me what’s out there in those woods?”

Grace could see Art relax as he said, “Everything.”

“What do you mean, everything?” Grace asked.

“I’m not quite sure how to explain it,” Art said, speaking like he was addressing a child, Everything that’s not here is out there.”

“Well what’s in it?” Grace asked.

“Um, trees?” asked Art.

“I figured that much, but isn’t there anything else?”

“Oh, lots else, but beyond the school and Oakton, I don’t care too much.”

“Wait, you’re a historian and you can’t tell me what’s outside your own house except for trees?” Grace asked.

“I said historian, not geographer. The geographers are chipmunks and they have their own league. Don’t rightly like them much.”

“But if you don’t know what else is out there, how do you know what’s happened?” Grace asked.

“I didn’t say I was a good historian. I mean, I can tell you what happened before, I’m just not very good at writing down what’s happening now.”

“Does that make you a bad historian?” Grace asked.

“No, but it does make me a bad lookout.”

“Oh, well, I don’t think you’re a bad lookout, I mean, you found me.”

“No I didn’t, I didn’t even notice you were in me kitchen until you scared me out of me fur.”

Grace considered, and while that was true, she did not want the little creature to feel like he was doing such a poor job at being a lookout. “You said that you would take me for a walk around the lake, did you still want to go?”

“That’d be nice, love. Let’s get ready. I think that the Turkey left you some clothes back in your room.”

Grace returned to the room she woke up in. Stepping inside, she felt like she was in a version of her normal bedroom that was only a little different from what she was used to. The furniture was handmade and elegant, the floors were thick planks rather than hardwood boards, the walls were made of actual wood rather than the rich brown Amma had suggested they be painted the year before.

Grace found three outfits hanging on hooks inside the closet. The clothes were unusual and reminded her of the kinds of things she had seen on cartoons set hundreds of years before. There were two dresses, one elegant and one simple, alongside a pair of billowing pants and a blouse. She opted for the pants and blouse, feeling like she was one of the three musketeers. She searched the room for a large hat with a feather in it, but could not find one. Beneath the outfits were a pair of thin, high boots and silk slippers that matched the elegant dress well. Grace tugged on the leather boots and laced them, finding that they fit her feet just right.

Ready to see the woods around the cottage, Grace walked back into the living room and saw Art reading a book, his little black nose millimeters from the page and his head following each line as he read. Grace looked closer and saw that it was 11 Myths Uncovered About the Last of the Elven Royalty.

Grace watched him for a little longer before Art noticed her and jumped. “Oiy, Gracie. You can’t go around ‘ere not announcing that you’re in the room. Scared me out of my whiskers this time. All ready then?”

“Yep,” Grace said as Art scampered across the room. She checked the ring just before opening the door and saw that it still glowed its bright green. She pushed the door open and halted in her tracks, unable to move for terror.

Before her in the yard stood a massive bear.

Chapter 3

Of Bears and Bees

“Oiy! What’s wrong? Why’d we stop?” Art was asking as he clawed his way through the billowy fabric of Grace’s pants.

Grace did not move, hoping that the bear would not see her if she stayed still. The bear was frightfully large, larger than the Kodiak bears in the National Geographic magazines that she had gotten from school. It swung its head from side to side, inhaling great, deep breaths as it did. It made Grace think that it was smelling the air for something, and she very much hoped it was not for a little girl. It rose to its full height of well over ten feet. Its brownish gold fur, matted with honey, gleamed in the sun. It took one more deep breath in and dropped to all four paws before letting it out.

“I said, why did we–Oh, it’s Big Bear. How are you, Big Bear?” Art said as he ran between Grace’s legs.

The bear let out a great sneeze and sniffed a little. He then spoke in a voice that reminded Grace of a lovable redshirted bear from one of the story books she read as a child, “Art, is that you? It does not smell like you. It smells like a little girl.”

“It’s a little girl alright, that one Kirkie was telling us about. She turned up early,” Art said, walking out into the yard, “Where you been the last few days?”

“Oh, I was talking with Mr. Kirke today and before that I was with the queen and her entourage. They are quite slow. I did not enjoy walking with them.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great and all. I’m about to walk Grace here, you wanna come?”

“Yes, that would be very nice. But where will you be going?”

“Grace got bored with me house I think, so I just need to get her out to stretch her legs. Was about to take a turn around the lake.”

“That sounds like something I would enjoy, thank you for the invitation,” Big Bear said.

“Art,” Grace whispered, leaning to the side, but not taking her eyes off of the enormous bear that still stood in the yard, “Who is this?”

“This guy? That’s just ole Big Bear. He’s one of our security,” Art said, then tugging on her sleeve so she had to lean in closer, he whispered, “Not that we really need security around here, but Kirkie likes to keep him around. Gives the ole fella something to do with his time.”

Grace was not sure if the last part was about Big Bear or Kirke, but she nodded and asked, “Is he safe?”

“Safe? Well, if he likes you and doesn’t think you’re lunch, yeah, he’s safe.”

“And if he gets hungry?” Grace asked.

“When I get hungry, I like to eat delicious foods like bacon and truffles and extra fudge chocolate cake and, of course, honey,” Big Bear said.

“Oiy, keep on forgetting he’s not deaf,” Art muttered.

“Not deaf at all, Art,” Big Bear said, his voice a deep rumble that was not at all unkind.

“So I can trust him?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, I mean, for a bear, sure,” Art said.

Big Bear growled and dropped down. Grace thought that she could feel the earth beneath her shake as he did. “I liked Mort better. He at least knew how to treat his elders.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what everyone keeps saying. But listen, Kirkie’s gonna expect her over at his place soon and Grace here’s got ants in her pants, so are you coming with us or what?”

Big Bear grunted again and stood back up. It was a laborious process and Grace watched his bulk shift from side to side in rippling waves of muscle as he did, “I am ready. And Art, if you continue with this cheek, I will need to have words with your Aunt Elsie.”

Art gave a little bark of annoyance and made his way towards the path that cut between the yard and the woods beyond. It was a sunny day. The air was warm, but had a biting crispness from the last vestiges of winter whenever a breeze rustled through the trees. It was not at all like Chicago, which had been warm and cloudy the day before, getting hot only when the sun shone through.

They walked in silence for several minutes, enjoying the weather. Big Bear lumbered next to Grace, his massive body swaying from side to side each time he took a step. Even on all four paws, he stood much taller than Grace’s four feet, seven inches. As she walked, Grace could hear her heart pounding in her ears. She was terrified of this bear, far larger than any she had ever seen in a zoo, and those always behind a wall of reinforced glass.

Big Bear seemed to sense her discomfort, because he said in his deep, gentle voice, “Mr. Kirke is very excited to meet you.”

“To meet me?”

“Yes. He has talked about you since you were born. I think he has waited for today for a long, long time.”

Grace thought it was strange that if he had waited for today for so long that he would not invite her to his house right away, but decided not to say anything. The longer they walked, the more comfortable Grace became with Big Bear. She found his simple nature and calm voice soothing. She felt herself begin to breathe a little more easily as they made their way down the wide trail.

Soon Grace began to hear a low hum in the distance that grew louder as they walked. Grace could tell something was bothering Big Bear, because he kept swinging his massive head from side to side, looking for something. At last, she asked him, “What’s the matter Big Bear?”

Before she could get a reply, the humming ceased and was replaced by a low throbbing chant, “Get him, Get him, Get him.”

“Grace, Art,” said Big Bear in a dejected tone, “I think we have a problem. Well, I don’t have a problem, those bees can’t hurt me, but there are a lot of them and if they see you with me they might decide to sting you as well. I think we should split up. You walk around off the path a ways and I will distract them so they don’t see you two.”

“Aye, what’d you do to make them so mad?” asked Art.

“I may have destroyed their home earlier today,” Big Bear said, “I was after their honey and it did taste very good, but I am afraid that I tore their hive to shreds.”

“Big Bear, if you destroyed their home, you need to apologize to them,” Grace said, “They sound really upset. I know I would be if my home was destroyed by a giant bear.”

Grace had never had much experience with bees or beehives and had never in her life met a beekeeper. Had she met a beekeeper, they would have told her that trying to apologize to the bees was a bad idea and that she should instead be running for her life. While Grace was telling Big Bear to make an apology for the fall of one of the great bee colonies in the area, the bees had closed the distance between the tattered remains of their oncegreat hive and the trio, still talking on the path, to a few dozen feet.

“Enough talking,” Big Bear said as he clamped his jaws around the collar of Grace’s blouse and swung her over his shoulder with a toss of his enormous head. She landed squarely on his back, an easy thing to do considering his size. Big Bear stopped for a moment to give Art a paw to climb up and then charged down the path at a dead run.

If you have ever seen a bear running as fast as it can you would know that it is a very fast animal, particularly given its size. Not greyhound fast, or even deer fast, but faster than your garden variety hippopotamus, which is quite a lot faster than you are.

Grace experienced the raw speed of a charging bear from the most exhilarating vantage point possible. The bees, expecting some kind of a charge, gathered into an attack formation. Just before the trio and hive collided, Grace buried her face in Big Bear’s thick fur. It was a good decision, and she avoided half a hundred stings on her face, arms, and throat. Instead, she received most of the stings on her back, neck, and legs, which was still quite painful. For a brief moment Grace was surrounded by the high pitched whine of angry bees, in the middle of the swarm. She could feel them stinging her, angry needle pricks that came on hot and faded away just as quickly. Then they were through the swarm and the menacing buzz that was all around them began to fade. Big Bear ran for several hundred yards until he was out of breath and the bees far behind. His tongue hung loose from his mouth and he was panting when he came to a stop.

“That was, I think, the most I have run in a long, long time. It was quite good to have a stretch like that one. Thank you Grace and Art, you have been most obliging,” Big Bear said between gasps, “But Grace, I think suggesting that I apologize for ruining the bee’s home is like combing one’s fur during a battle. Good hygiene is important, but not when you are facing a thousand poison tipped darts. Next time we will run first.”

“Next time? You think she wants to do that again? You ruined their house and you knew we were going back that way, what were you thinking? You could have at least warned us,” Art said.

Grace did not hear Big Bear’s reply as she slid off of his back, spots all over her body burning from the stings she had received. In the excitement of the escape she barely noticed the actual sting of the bees that had pierced her. Now, however, the heat around each one was setting in and she began to cry. While Big Bear rarely felt the pain of a bee sting, several of his friends had been stung in the past and he knew what always seemed to make them feel better. Big Bear picked Grace up by the collar like his own mother did when he was a cub, and walked into the woods to the edge of the lake. He placed her in the water.

Though the cool water was an instant relief to Grace’s growing pain, she continued to cry. Big Bear and Art watched her as she rubbed her eyes and sat down in the water.

“Grace,” asked Art, “Are you alright? You look a little sad. Would you like a piece of my cheese?” he said, producing a tiny piece of cheese from behind the tuft of fur standing up on his head.

Grace sniffed and shook her head.

Big Bear lumbered closer and sat down in the water next to her. He towered above her by several feet.

“Grace. Are you afraid?” Big Bear asked, his voice now gentle.

Grace nodded her head.

Big Bear took her in his massive arms and gave her a gentle hug that lasted until Grace did not want to cry anymore, then he set her down in front of him, “Sometimes, I think that a hug helps make me feel like the sun just came out, even when it is still behind the clouds. I can give you another if you would like.”

“Thank you, Big Bear,” Grace replied and wiped her eyes one more time. The places she had been stung burned as she moved, but not nearly so much as they had moments before, “I was so scared. I’ve never been attacked by anything like that before. And those bees were so mean.”

“Oh, you must not be at all like a bear. I have been attacked by bees more times than I can remember. I eat their honey, you see, and they do not seem to like it when I get into their hives,” Big Bear said.

“Alright that’s enough, let’s keep moving. We’ll never get around to seeing ole Kirkie with you two yammering on this way,” Art broke in between bites of the cheese he had offered Grace moments before.

The three returned to the trail and resumed their walk together, making their way down the path much slower than before due to Grace’s stings which soon turned into nasty, painful welts. The path veered towards the water’s edge and they stopped for a while to rest. Grace stepped into the lake again and cooled the stings again. It felt wonderful and soon her pain was down to a manageable throb. They continued on, finding things to eat along the trail as they did. First some blackberry briars, then an apple tree, and later another beehive. It fell upon Grace to explain that another stop for honey by Big Bear would likely prove to be “as disastrous as the last time,” and “hadn’t he ruined enough homes for one day?” Hearing this, Big Bear relented on the condition that if he saw some trout swimming in the lake that he would be allowed to try to catch a few for their dinner.

It was altogether a very wonderful day, aside from the thirty-seven bee stings. However, Grace could not get Big Bear and Art to stop talking about food. During what had to be the fiftieth time Big Bear and Art began talking about bacon, Grace sighed and muttered, “Boys,” to herself then, to get their minds off of the much loved meat, she asked, “Where are we exactly?”

“We are here, you can not ever be anywhere but here. And do not let anyone ever say to you, ‘I’m not here,’ it is the only thing someone can say that is always a lie,” Big Bear replied after thinking through her question for far too long.

Art did not understand the question either and said, “Eh! We’re on the trail, walking in the woods, we’re passing by this pebble, and that pebble, and that one...oiy! There’s a lot of pebbles on this path. Maybe we should use them trees to know where we are as we pass. That one there’s a hemlock, and that one’s an aspen, and that one there’s a white pine. And, you know,” Art said standing on his hind paws and sniffing the air, “I think we’re in a badger’s territory. Badgers always have the strongest smelling marking scent, it’s like they’re always eating asparagus and–”

Art’s monologue was cut off by a growling, muffled voice not so far away, “You wouldn’t know a badger’s mark if it hit you in the face.”

Art jumped, then considered for a moment before saying, “Great guys, those badgers. Just sterlin’ chaps they are. Alright then, we’d best be off now. Yes, now Big Bear.”

Grace laughed as she watched Art push Big Bear’s back paw. “No, I mean where are we, you know, compared to everything.”

“Oh! That’s what you meant, is it?” Art said, stopping long enough to give her an intense gaze, “Well, being of the League of Historians, I’m sure I can paint an accurate picture of all the goings on of these here woods,” replied Art, his little paws tugging at the fur around his shoulders like it was a set of suspenders. Grace thought about mentioning that Art had just told her that morning that he knew nothing about the world around them, but decided not to, curious about what he would say.

“You see, it’s like this. These forests are Easterwood. They used to be a part of a much bigger country called Gaia until really not very long ago. And by not very long ago, I mean about the time that Big Bear’s daddy was probably still a cub.”

Big Bear rumbled his agreement and Grace asked, “What happened then?”

“Well, what had been one big country all split into three or kinda four little ones. This whole part of the world was once ruled by a few fairy families, everything west of the Hope Sea. They ruled Easterwood, where we are now, Ironstone up north, the Sapphirelands down south, where the capital used to be, and the Great Waste between them all. The Waste went all the way to the Western Sea, a good ways past the Hall of Towers,” Art explained.

Big Bear growled, “The Hall of Towers is haunted.”

“Now look here, Bear, my Aunt Elsie had it on good authority that the Hall of Towers is one of the most magical places there is in Gaia,” Art said, wagging one tiny claw in front of Big Bear’s nose.

“My grandbear said it was just a lot of old haunts and ruins,” Big Bear said with more passion than Grace had yet heard him.

“You two, I don’t really care about the halls of the desert, I want to know about where we are now. And if you two don’t stop getting sidetracked you’re never even going to get to the part about that Queen Larchkill. At least she sounded interesting,” Grace cut in, already a little exhausted by their answers to her question.

“Queen Jezel, Last Queen of the Larchill Dynasty!” both Big Bear and Art shouted back at her.

“So tell me this, why does everything need a funny name? Queen Jezel, Last Queen of the Larchill Dynasty, Sapphire Island, or whatever you called it?” Grace asked.

“You know, come to think of it, I don’t rightly know why these names are what they are at all. I mean, Queen Jezel, Last Queen of the Larchill Dynasty was actually not really a queen at all. I mean she called herself one, but she really wasn’t, but she musta gotten her name from somewhere. You can’t just go about making up names that have no meaning. No one would know what anyone else meant if we did that,” Art said, twirling the tuft of fur on top of his head as he walked.

“But some names have no meaning when they are given and mean something after the person or thing gets comfortable with them,” said Big Bear, which made Grace wonder if he was born with that name.

“Alright, enough about names. How did we get where we are today? That is what Grace wants to know, I think,” Art said, and without waiting for a reply, began:

“Alright, a long time ago there were really just the elves running around, mostly ruling everything, doing a bang up job, near as anyone can tell. They didn’t have no proper government, but there was one family that all the rest deferred to. Not sure who they were, and I don’t rightly care. Uncle Mort does, you can read his book if you want.

“Well, long comes these families of fairies, better with magic and organization than the elves, and they got together and made an empire called Gaia. It was probably a lot bloodier than everyone just getting together for tea one afternoon and saying, ‘Oiy, we should start an empire,’ knowing how they were, but it was almost two thousand years ago, so it doesn’t matter much anymore. The elves weren’t too happy about it, but no one asked them.

“As you know, every good empire needs an emperor, of course, so dynasties started. Hemlocks came first, then Aspens, the Pines, who were just boring, and Holly next. By then Gaia pretty much covered the whole continent, but the last Holly emperor didn’t have no kids so he gave Gaia up to the Locusts.”

“Oh, wow. Giving the whole empire up to locusts seems like an overreaction to not having kids,” Grace said.

“Wh--what?” Art said, confused, “No, Grace. Locust is a kind of tree. Anyways, the Locust family, they were just terrible and everyone in Gaia got tired of ‘em and all decided to go out and start a war. And it went pretty well because the Locusts got kicked out and things kept moving along like they always had with the Oaks. Gaia started trading with the people on the other side of both seas, everyone was making money bum over teakettle, the roads were safe to travel alone unless you met a bear, people didn’t go hungry even when there were locust plagues. Bug locusts, not trees. Wizard healers, farmers, builders, whalers, everyone helped make it a place the world envied.”

“Whalers? You mean like people who kill whales?” Grace asked.

“What? You don’t know about whalers? Best lot you’ll ever meet. That’s beside the point. Anyway, wouldn’t ya know it, it all went bad. There was one family, the Larchills, they got the whole of Ironstone, see. Took them generations, but they bought, married, stole, did whatever they had to get the other nobles’ estates. Got richer than anyone could imagine, then closed themselves off from the rest of Gaia.”

“What happened next?” Grace asked.

“They went bad, rotten to the heartwood. Before them, there were no evil or dark magics. I mean, there were plenty of magics to do bad things like kill or hurt or whatever, but what the Larchills did was different. They unlocked the secrets of necromancy and pnuemamancy.”

“What’s that?” Grace asked.

“They’re both magics of the dead and there’s lots of different kinds of them, but basically necromancy brings dead bodies back without a soul and pnuemamancy brings souls back without a body. The Larchills made the first ever lychgates, used them to raise the dead and call their souls. That may be the worst, but that’s not all they did. They made the death touch, learned how to control other people’s minds–niyan charms and what not, made time control, entropy curses, and loads of other things. Of course, they was planning for a long time to try to take over Gaia, and they did. With an army of raised bodies. Worst army there ever was. Only good thing about it is that the bodies don’t last long, especially in the summer. So they took over the whole place, knocked off all the Oaks, and that was that for a while.”

“Wait, you mean that they had an army of dead people that were like, alive or something?” Grace asked.

“Well, I mean, as alive as you can get for being a reanimated corpse,” Art said.

“Reanimated, like a zombie?” asked Grace.

“Yeah, that’s one kind of ‘em. There’s lots of different ways they’re reanimated, mostly depends on what the lychgate that brought them back’s meant to do.”

“What?” Grace asked, her voice now rising, “You mean there’re dead people walking around here? Wha–What kind of a place is this?”

“No, love, this was ages ago. No one really knows how to do that anymore. As of the last big war with Ironstone, all the known lychgates are gone. Sent to the bottom of the ocean, dropped into a volcano. You know, the usual when you’re trying to get rid of indestructible old stuff.”

“Yeah, but how do they know they got them all?” Grace asked, glancing over at Art before surveying the forest around them.

“Oh, they don’t, just did the best they could. There are still loads of those artifacts that no one knows how to use or what they do. Any one of them could turn out to be a lychgate.”

“It will be okay,” Big Bear said, “I will fight any living dead who come here. But Art is right. I do not think you have anything to worry about anymore.”

Grace was not so sure. Looking into the forest, she began to imagine the trees around them hiding any number of zombies.

“Anyways, you know why those Larchill’s did all this new magic? They wanted to live forever,” Art said, gesticulating like a conductor, “and for a while, it was working for a lot of them. They got really good at killing other people and staying alive themselves.

“Problem with having more than one person like that in a room at a time, is that if anything goes wrong, a lotta people get hurt. The Larch dynasty lasted for a hundred years and ruined Gaia. They invented a bunch of different kinds of magic, some pretty good, and others, like I said, really bad. But, they also started limiting the kinds of magic people could do. You know, not letting anyone get too good at any one kind of magic. So, a lot of the magic that people figured out during the Oak dynasty got lost, forgotten. It’s not been rediscovered since. Sure, people are starting to figure it out now, but we don’t got anything as good as what they had back when the Oaks were around, and even most of the stuff the Larchies did is gone now too.”

“So are the Larchies still around or did they go somewhere?”

“Eh, they’re kinda around. Not the full blooded Larchies, but their cousins and what not. The last full blooded one was Jezel, she’s the one that your–”

“Art, that is something Mr. Kirke will want to tell her,” Big Bear interrupted.

“Oh, yeah, so, with the Larchies in charge, the people died, but they were raised from the dead with their own soul if they were lucky and someone else’s if neither of them were. The Larchies built massive armies to fight the rest of the world and started to, but pretty soon they started fighting and killing each other because they couldn’t figure out who was in charge. They left behind all kinds of evil all over Gaia, making it much easier for anyone who wanted to hurt someone else to just pick something up and start using it. You still hear stories of little kids finding something from those days and blowing up their whole town or starting to go into other people’s minds,” Art said, taking a moment to breathe.

“Yes, it is very sad to hear these stories,” Big Bear confirmed, “But life in Gaia did get better, or else I do not think either you or I would have been born.”

“That’s true all right, but you couldn’t really call it Gaia after all that. The empire split into four parts after one of the emperors died and three of his sons and one of his generals couldn’t make up their minds on who was going to rule next. So instead, they all took the land that was closest to them and started fighting everyone else. That’s how they ended up dying off. All but one of them died in a great big battle in the Waste. Then that last one who thought he was gonna be emperor, he goes and catches pneumonia right after the battle, and there wasn’t a healer strong enough to save him. So then Ironstone, Easterwood, and the Sapphirelands all became their own kingdoms, kind of like little versions of Gaia. The Great Waste tried, but no one really wanted to live there, so now it’s just a big space between the three kingdoms that no one really likes walking through.”

“And that’s how we got to today?” Grace asked, “That’s all very interesting, but what I really wanted to know was how people got here to whatever you had before Gaia in the first place.”

Art stopped and looked at Grace in dumbfounded silence for the space of about three heartbeats before saying, “You let me talk for fifteen minutes and didn’t think to interrupt me to tell me I was answering the wrong question?”

“I thought it would be rude,” Grace said, swaying from side to side with a little shrug of her shoulders.

“Thought it would be rude. She thought it would be rude to interrupt me,” Art said shaking his head, “I don’t rightly know how people got here and I don’t reckon anyone really does, though some folks in at the League of Historian Headquarters would try to fool you into believing they do. What I can tell you is that for almost as far back as anyone can remember there were all kinds of different people here in Gaia, fairies, elves, you humans, gnomes, centaurs, dwarves, goblins, fawns, giants, other stuff, you know.

“Now, I say almost as far back, because there are a few of us that were here just before the lot of you started showing up, but Gaia was wild then, untamed like, waiting for the elves to come in and turn it from the wilderness it was into the garden it’s becoming. And us folks that was here before the rest of you were us animals, the dryads, the naiads, nymphs, and the like, call them Nattys we do, short for Naturals.”

Big Bear grumbled, “No one calls them Nattys or Naturals. Do not listen to Art. When you meet them, call them by their proper name or just call them all nymphs when they are not around. Natty. I have never heard such disrespect in my life.”

Art twitched his nose in annoyance. “Like I was saying. The Nattys taught the rest of those that could learn magic to tame the wilderness and that’s what you folks started doing, and doing it well.”

“Maybe she would like to know more about the nymphs, they are very important for anyone who wants to know about how Gaia became the place it is,” Big Bear said.

“Well, yeah. That's true. They're always helping the rest of us blokes make things from their land, rivers, rocks, and trees and the like. Here in Easterwood it’s mostly dryads, you know, tree folk, though we do have plenty of the rest. The dryads have always wanted to tame the land so they’ve been teaching folks how to make things from wood. You know, like tree houses, swings, wooden spoons for paddling the young'uns, things like that,” Art said with a nod of finality.

“They make stuff out of wood? Like fires?” Grace asked.

Art gave Grace a sidelong look before saying, “No. No not fires,” he paused for a moment to shake his head and say something under his breath that Grace could not hear.

Art continued, “Anyways, you got all these different kinds here in the woods, there in the Ironstone mountains, and what not. Turns out, the Nattys they can make magic but can’t use a drop of it. So they go and start teaching the rest of you lot how to use magic. Everyone sees that it works pretty well. You lot can do it, either with the magic inside of you or with some kind of an artifact, like that ring you’re wearing.”

Grace looked down at the ring and saw that it still shone bright green, “What do you mean, artifact?”

“Oh, that’s just anything that’s used to make magic. It’s got magic in it, made special by someone who’s already got magic in them, like a dryad, fairy, elf, you know, that kind. Those that ain’t Nattys can do the magic without an artifact, but it’s easier for them if they use one. Your kind, that can’t make magic but can use it, you can’t do anything without an artifact. Usually, though, humans are the best at magic at the end of the day. Not sure why.”

“So can I use any old artifact to make magic?” Grace asked.

“No, not really. Some are great for lots of different things. Others only do one or two things,” Art said.

“So, like my ring. It only tells me when I’m in the right place?” Grace asked.

“Eh, maybe. Hard to tell. We’d need a right professional to have a look at it,” Art said, “Turns out, Kirkie the Turkey is what most people call a right professional. He’ll tell you, but near as I can tell, it’s something special.”

“I wish you would stop calling him that. He is not going to be happy if he ever finds out,” Big Bear said.

“Wait, what do you mean, something special?” Grace asked.

“What do I mean? Look at that ring. Can’t you tell it’s got power in it? Who gave it to you?”

“My Amma did.”

“Oiy, your Amma? That’s just her name, right? Amma.”

Grace thought about it for a moment, “Well, yeah, but how do you know her and what’s she got to do with anything?”

“What’s she got to do with–wha? You mean you don’t know? Love,” Art said, going from his casual way of talking to something far more serious than Grace had yet seen, “love, Mr. Kirke is her great uncle. She’s the strongest magestra there was,” said Art, “She was so strong she was a legend when she was alive, well kind of. But, I mean Easterwood pretty much retired her name. No one names their daughter Amma anymore, she’s just that famous.”

Grace thought this sounded strange until she realized that she had never met anyone named George Washington or Michael Jackson, even though those were perfectly common names. But something else Art said also stuck in her mind.

“You mean is,” corrected Grace, “Amma is the strongest person there is, not was.”

“No, love, was. She’s been gone for loads of years. Most people think she died, not me or Kirkie though, we think she’s still around somewhere, not sure where though. But as for everyone else, they all still know her name, Aunt Elsie says she’s practically the mother of modern Easterwood. You can just say Amma and most people know who you’re talking about,” said Art, “But she’s long gone.”

“I saw her once,” said Big Bear, “Strongest Magestra of the Royal Fairy Guard. You should have seen…”

“No, she’s still around. She’s in my living room right now,” Grace said.

Art and Big Bear exchanged glances.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grace asked.

“Hmm? What? I can’t look at Big Bear when I want?” Art asked.

“You know what I meant,” Grace said, annoyed at them for brushing her off. She decided to change the subject though, hoping that she could get more out of them later, “Why was Amma in the Royal Fairy Guard?”

“Oh, I mean there was a war on with Ironstone when she vanished. Someone’s gotta protect the king,” Art said.

“Royalty deserves a guard, not always to keep them safe, but because of their honor, even if they do not deserve it,” Big Bear explained.

Grace’s Midwestern constitutionalism kicked in at this, “I thought all people are created equal and we need to treat them that way.”

“Grace, the friend of a wise pig once said, ‘All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.’ If you were not as smart I think you are, I would tell you this. But you will know it is a lie, and lies to your friends are unkind. Some things are made to rule and some things to serve. For example, Art will serve as a tasty morsel one day when I become tired of his chatter,” Big Bear said.

Grace glanced at Art who appeared to be doing sums with his tiny mouse paws, trying to work out what Big Bear just said.

“Some people are meant to rule. Others, the animals, the nymphs, are meant to serve,” Big Bear said.

“But if people rule, don’t they sometimes become bad like the Larchills and want to use too much of their power? I hear about these guys called Dic-taters that do that. I think they live in Idaho and control all the people who grow taters.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Dic-taters, though I do love taters. If Dic-taters are making people work harder to grow more taters for me to eat, they cannot be very bad. Are you sure they are bad?” asked Big Bear.

“No,” said Grace, “I think they make people grow the taters for only the Dic-taters to eat.”

“Oh, then they must be very bad indeed,” said Big Bear, “There are people like this who are in Easterwood too. Dic-taters are not only in this magical land of Idaho.”

Art chimed in, “Oiy! We don’t even have taters in these here woods. We got things like berries, apples, and walnuts. For those guys around here, you should call them Dic–”

“We’re here,” Big Bear said before Art could finish his sentence.

Grace realized that they had arrived just in time, the sun now hung low in the sky.

Big Bear nudged Grace forward with his paw, “You go knock on his door.”

Grace looked around, “Why should I go? I don’t even know him. I don’t even know if he really is Amma’s great uncle.”

“He has been waiting for this day for many years. A bear or a meerkat should not just go up to a great wizard and ask to have tea, but his niece can,” said Big Bear.

“Weren’t you just there earlier today?” Grace asked.

“This is different,” Big Bear said.

“But I don’t see a door.”

“What do you mean you don’t see a door? Just go on past to that big ole tree, that’s Supreme Squirrel’s house, these days it’s grown to more of a mansion. Step over the wolverine’s burrow just behind it. Remember, what we told you about wolverines and their mark, and knock on that big stone over there,” Art said.

Grace thought it had been a badger earlier, but still took care to avoid the large den burrowed near the base of the tree in front of them.

Grace looked down at her ring one last time, seeing that now it glowed the brightest green yet. She took a deep breath, steadying herself as she walked up to the smooth, round stone. It was large, about the height of the one-story brick house next door to her home in Chicago. Thick moss grew in patches around it, but in the places it did not, the dying rays of sunlight reflected a golden glow on the surface. Grace could see two large sticks standing up from the top of the stone, like skinny chimneys. The bottom part of the stone was buried in the ground, and when Grace walked to one side of it she could see several more stones, all of about the same size and shape forming a line behind the stone in front of her.

Grace could not see a door anywhere, but there was a seam in the stone that could have been one. She found herself nervous, thinking about all the kinds of people who lived in Easterwood and Gaia. Any of them might behind the door. For all she knew, the Larchie Queen Jezel was in there with a horde of flesh eating zombies just waiting for her to invite herself in for dinner. What if Mr. Kirke was mean or actually an evil wizard in disguise? She started to feel like a little girl again, cringing as she realized this.

Grace swallowed the lump that formed in her throat and put that thought behind her. If she wanted to grow up, she would need to face the things that made her afraid. She looked back at Big Bear and Art one last time, hearing Big Bear rumble as she did.

Grace raised her hand and knocked on the stone. She was not at all confident as she did, and she wondered if anyone could even hear it. After the third tap, a portion of the stone slid down and a surprisingly high, gentle voice came from inside a cozy, well-furnished cave, “Gigi, it is so good to finally meet you. You’ve arrived just in time, it seems.”

Chapter 4

The Call of the Mild

It was her birthday, Gigi’s honest to goodness tenth birthday. She thought it before her eyes even fluttered open. She was back in Chicago, waking up in her own bed, and on her birthday. The window unit air conditioner had stopped sometime in the middle of the night and the room was sweltering. Gigi breathed in the thick and stale air that hung heavy in the room. She looked over to see Mav glistening with sweat, splayed across his bed in just his underwear.

“Gross,” Gigi muttered as she got out of bed, hoping the rest of the day would be better.

She wiped her brow, feeling it come away slick with sweat, and slipped out the door without waking Mav up. Amma was sitting at the dining room table on her laptop, tapping individual keys with her index fingers. She was wearing a sand colored jumpsuit that hung loose around her joints, but had an elaborate knot of wide lime green ribbon tied at her waist. She stopped her hunt and peck routine on the keyboard to drink from her steaming mug of tea, seeing Gigi out of the corner of her eye as she did.

“Good morning, sweetie, happy birthday. How did you sleep?” Amma asked.

Gigi yawned and rubbed her eye again. “Good. Why are you up so early?”

“It’s not early at all. You guys just slept in. I’ve been up for an hour,” Amma said, pulling back the chair next to her and motioning for Gigi to sit.

Gigi slid into the chair and yawned. “What've you been doing?”

“Oh, trying to get some things back home taken care of. I have always found that I get my best work done first thing in the morning. And I had some emails to write,” Amma said, stressing the “e” in emails a little too much.

“What’s so important?” Gigi asked.

“Just checking in with the academy. I might have sold it off, but they still pay me a nice check every month and I want to make sure they’re running it well.”

“What’re you worried about?” Gigi asked.

“Nothing in particular, they've actually been doing a very good job, but I don't want them to get lazy. I do have some fun plans for us today, I’m very excited to spend the day with you.”

Hearing this, Gigi perked up. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I wanted to get down to the zoo, then the Nature Museum, and maybe finish up with Carlysle’s.”

“What’d you want to do between now and when the zoo opens up?”

“I am not sure, I thought I would talk to you. How did you sleep?”

“Meh, I had a really crazy dream, talking animals, magic, you know, like stuff out of a movie. And I got stung by a lot of bees, that was really scary. Then we finally got to some old guy's house who the animals told me was your uncle but also a wizard. And the wizard let us in and fed us dinner, but that lasted so long, I couldn’t believe it, and none of the food was very good. By then I was exhausted, so I told him I was tired and his goat led me to my room, which was a little weird. I mean, weird that a goat would lead me, not that I had a room, the wizard was expecting me.

“And the room had all these really strange things that looked like they’d be great for making magic with, but I couldn’t really see them because the room was pretty dark. It was made out of a hollowed out round stone and it didn’t have windows and there was only one candle burning. When I got there, the goat said, ‘The wizard says you need to rest. But before you do, there’s a salve on the nightstand for your bee stings,’ ” Gigi said in her best goat voice.

“So I took the lotion stuff and put it all over me and the bee stings I got while we were on our way to his house stopped hurting just like that,” Gigi said, trying to snap her fingers, but managing only to make a slight brushing sound, “and then I got into this really, really soft bed and I fell...well, I guess I fell asleep, I don’t really remember. All I know is that I woke up in my normal bed after I laid down in the bed at the Wizard’s house. That’s a really weird dream isn’t it? Oh, and one of the animals was a meerkat and the meerkat called the wizard Kirkie the Turkey."

Gigi stopped to take a breath and give Amma a chance to respond. She was not sure, but she thought Amma looked sad for just a moment when she said Kirkie the Turkey. It was only there for a moment before it vanished and Amma was taking another drink from her mug. “Well, it sounds like you have had a very adventurous night. Did you get enough rest?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I feel fine. Maybe better than I usually do, you know, except for waking up so early.”

“Well I want to be sure you have plenty of energy for the day, it should be a fun one. Let me make you a cup of tea. It’s my own blend of herbs. There’s an old hippy lady who lives down the street from me. She sells just about every plant in the world.”

Gigi took a sip from Amma's mug. The tea was delicious, rich and floral, reminding Gigi of freshly cut grass, roses, and shaved carrots. Gigi inhaled the aromatic steam.

“It’s good isn’t it?” Amma asked, “It’s not an easy blend to get exactly right, but when it all comes together, it’s a sliver of paradise. The brew master my father hired first blended it when I was about your age.”

“It’s really good, I almost think I could drink it without sugar,” Gigi said.

The sound of pattering feet disturbed them and they looked up to see Mav still in his underwear, running across the living room towards them, “I want sugar for breakfast!”

“Mav, I think that sounds like a terrible idea, but it is so good to see you this morning!” Amma said, catching him with one arm around his belly as he tried to run past.

“But Amma, I really want sugar for breakfast, Daddy let me have it one time,” Mav said as he squirmed to get free.

Amma looked at Gigi who shrugged and said, “Yeah, Dad did one time. He’s really regretted it. Good luck with this one. I’m gonna go get ready for our day together, I’m so excited!”

The rest of the morning was spent getting everyone else out the door to their respective jobs and daycare, no easy task on any day, but made a little lighter with Amma’s help. Four hours, two mugs of tea, and no bowls of sugar later, Gigi and Amma stepped out of a cab into Lincoln Park. They crossed the street and followed a jogging path that ran alongside the petting zoo barn. The smells of animals wafted out as they passed and Amma inhaled. “Reminds me of going out riding when I was a little girl, I used to take our horses all over the hills of our estate. One time I saw some bandits making their way through one of our wheat fields and I, well, that’s a story for a different time, I think.”

“Wait, you can’t just tell me that you saw bandits on your farm and then not tell me what you did!”

“It was an estate, not a farm.”

“And I didn’t even realize that you had an estate, that’s so cool!” Gigi said, surprised.

“It was an amazing place, I miss it very much, beautiful fields, hills, forests, and orchards. It was quite large, but my family lost it some time ago.”

“Can you tell me more about it and the bandits?”

“Not right now, I would like to enjoy being with you for a while.”

“What?” Gigi said, slouching, “That’s so unfair! I hate when adults don’t tell me something because I’m a kid. Can you please tell me what you did?”

Amma laughed. “Not this time, and being a kid has some nice perks. You can still run around and do all kinds of crazy stuff. Life gets harder when you’re an old lady.”

“Oh Amma, you’re not old, you’re only 86,” Gigi said.

“I am 68, there is a big difference. My mother would have been 86 if she was still–” Amma’s voice broke as she said this. Gigi was surprised to see tears in her eyes, “Sorry Gigi. I miss her a lot sometimes. It is a little silly, right? She’s been gone for so many years. I wish I had more time with her when she was still alive.”

Gigi had never heard anything overly interesting about any of Amma’s family until this morning. No one had ever talked much about them. Almost all she knew was that her grandpa died when her dad was a kid and that Amma had to work really hard to take care of the family.

Gigi had not even known that they had once owned an estate. She was curious to know more, but did not want to say anything that might upset Amma. They walked in silence for some time, and Gigi wished that she could think of something to say to find out more about Amma’s family. They were starting to sound mysterious and exciting.

As they walked between the kangaroo and alpaca exhibits, Gigi asked, “What was one thing that your mom gave you that you’ll never forget?”

Amma cocked her head in thought as a kangaroo hopped with lazy ease across its small pen, “There are so many things. The first one I can think of is this bracelet,” she said, pulling back her sleeve to reveal a simple leather cord around her wrist. It ran through a jade turtle that was about as big around as a nickel.

“You know, I think I would like you to have it,” Amma said, untying it.

“No Amma, I couldn’t take something like that from you,” Gigi said, though she had to admit to herself that the prospect of getting something that once belonged to her great-grandmother was very exciting.

“Of course you can take it. Since I never had any girls, I wanted to keep it until you were born so I could give it to you one day.”

“But how did you know I would be born?” Gigi asked.

Amma laughed, “I didn’t, but I also did not want to give it to your dad. He just loses everything.”

“That’s what Mom keeps saying,” Gigi said, “Sometimes Dad asks me to find things for him so he doesn’t have to ask Mom if she’s seen them.”

“I know, he used to do the same thing with your uncle Jimmy,” Amma said as she tied the leather cord around Gigi’s wrist.

“Thank you Amma, it’s really beautiful,” Gigi said, examining the intricate carvings that lined the turtle, making it almost look alive.

“Thank you, that means a lot to me. I am glad you can have it now.”

Gigi gave Amma a hug, inhaling the simple, earthy perfume she always wore.

They walked in silence for a while longer, enjoying the relative quiet of the zoo on a weekday morning. Most of the animals were lounging in their pens looking bored, and Gigi thought they must be sad to not be able to run free. She did not like the idea of letting the lions or the wild dogs out of their pens, at least while she was still around, but she did think that they would have been a lot happier back where they came from.

“Do you ever think they wish they could go back to the wild?” Amma asked as they stood in front of a tiger exhibit.

“I was just wondering that. I think a lot of them would be happier,” Gigi said.

“But most of them would not know how to survive in the wild. I think they would be happier for a while, but they would end up dying off rather quickly.”

“Do animals in the zoo ever get to go back?”

“To the wild? Yes, some do. It is not easy with a lot of them, though. They do not know what they can eat or how to hunt or who or what they can trust, so a lot of the time it does not go well.”

“How do you put them back into the wild?”

“I don’t know much about that, but what I understand is that they need to start in a safe place with some room to grow and learn on their own. For animals that are social, they need to be introduced into a group that is going to take care of them for a while until they learn how to live in the wild.”

“Do you think they would even want to?”

“Go into the wild and not be locked up in a pen for the rest of their lives? I think if they knew they had the choice to live an adventure filled life instead of the boring one they live now, some would take it and some would not. It all depends. They are like people, some people are comfortable where they are at, and others want to experience everything they can.”

Gigi thought about this as they continued through the zoo. “I think if I had the choice, I’d want to be out in the wild. I like Chicago, but sometimes it gets so boring. It feels like I’m in a cage here too.”

“I believe that is true, Gigi. Chicago is an exciting city, just like our whole world is exciting, sometimes though, not pushing yourself means that you never get to accomplish what you were meant to. And sometimes you need to leave where you are to find who you are meant to be. But what do you say about going up to the Nature Museum now?”

“And see more things inside of cages?”

“I suppose so.”

“Meh, why not? I actually really love the Nature Museum. The butterfly garden is my favorite!”

“It is one of the most interesting things there is to see in the city.”

Amma and Gigi walked through the rest of the zoo, coming out into the park that surrounded it, busier now with people enjoying their day and tourists in Chicago for the last few days of the season. They walked across the street and down a trail bordered on either side by tall prairie grasses that once dominated much of the Midwest. As they walked, Gigi had to fight down the urge to ask Amma more about the family estate. She wanted to know about it and some of the family history she had never before heard.

Even more than that, Gigi found herself wanting to see the estate, to taste what it had been like for Amma as she grew up. She wondered if she tried hard enough that one day she would inherit the land that should have been hers.

Chapter 5

True Colors Are Beautiful

The trail opened up to the flagstones that fronted the Nature Museum, Gigi tugged at Amma’s hand, pulling her along. “I’m so excited, Amma!”

“For what?” Amma asked.

“To see the butterflies!”

“We will have to see them last, if we see the best part of the museum first, the rest of it will be boring.”

“Ugh! No, we might miss something if we don’t go to the best part first.”

“But you might also miss something if you skip all the rest,” Amma said as they entered through the heavy glass doors, “and you never know if the thing you skip might be the thing that you should have been seeing.”

“Fine, but if we do the boring stuff first, then I want to spend extra long in the butterfly garden.”

“I think we can try to make that happen.”

Amma paid the admission and they entered the museum. It was louder than the zoo had been, the sounds of children laughing and playing echoed off the high walls of the entry. Gigi and Amma walked across the rough stone floor to a set of exhibits with water flowing freely through what looked like a flooded version of Chicago. They spent some time playing with different obstacles to flood the city so that even where Gigi’s house was would have been underwater, before figuring out how to drain the model so that everything flowed through without leaving the channels.

“You know, this reminds me of the time that I rode on a dolphin,” Amma said as the last of the water drained away.

“You rode a dolphin?” Gigi asked.

“Well, it was not very far, only across a bay, and I did not have another choice. I had somewhere to be and I could not find a boat that would take me.”

“So how did you get the dolphin to take you where you needed to go?”

“Well, it was not easy, I had to keep reminding her that there was a shrimp dinner waiting for her if she got me where I needed to be quickly enough.”

“And did she? Wait, how did you know it was a girl?”

“She did get me there in time, and I knew she was a girl because someone told me she was.”

“That is so cool. What was it like?”

“Like riding a horse, but wetter, and seaweed gets stuck between your toes.”

“That’s awesome! I wish we could ride dolphins here. They don’t even let you pet the ones at the aquarium.”

“It would be nice if they did. But why don’t we move on to another part of the museum?”

“Sure, I’m kinda bored with the waterworks. But nothing sounds as cool as a dolphin ride.”

As Gigi and Amma walked down the hall, they came across a massive stuffed polar bear. He was in one corner, standing on his back legs with his arms raised and teeth bared. Whoever had stuffed him made him look like he was about to maul the person in front of him. Gigi and Amma looked at him for some time.

“He’s not as big as the bear in my dream,” Gigi said.

“I thought polar bears were supposed to be the biggest bears in the world,” Amma said.

“Yeah, but not Big Bear. He’s way bigger than that polar bear. And his neck doesn’t stretch out like he wishes he was a giraffe,” Gigi said, demonstrating with her own neck.

Amma laughed. “How big is Big Bear now?”

“I don’t know, Amma. He’s just a big bear. He’s bigger than that guy for sure,” Gigi said, gesturing, “And he’s nice, he talked to me a lot, and he’s really fast. He ran with me on his back when we got attacked by bees.”

“Were you scared when that was happening?” Amma asked.

“Yeah, I was. But not as scared as I was when I watched that zombie movie at a sleepover at Carla’s house. I hate zombies.”

“Me too, sweetheart, they are just awful. But this bear must be boring compared to Big Bear.”

“Yeah, but Big Bear’s just a dream, so a real life bear’s pretty good, even if he is stuffed.”

“I don’t know about that, I think the bear in your dream would be better, you can have a conversation with him.”

“But Amma, he’s not real,” Gigi said.

“Who says he is not?” Amma asked.

“Ugh! Because he was in my dream, he can’t be real,” Gigi said.

“You have had dreams with your parents and Mav in them before, right?”

This brought Gigi up short as she considered. “Well, yeah. But I know they’re real, I see them every day and besides, bears can’t talk.”

“None of the bears you have ever met, but that does not mean there are not any out there somewhere. And there are lots of people who you know are real that you do not see every day. Some people you’ve never seen at all.”

“Amma, it was a dream! That means it can’t be real.”

“You dream about real things all the time. Have you ever dreamed about having dinner with your family or going to school?”

“Yeah, but those are normal dreams, last night was crazy! Everything in the dream felt real,” Gigi said, throwing her hands up, “But I knew it couldn’t be real as soon as I woke up.”

“Maybe you are right, sweetheart,” Amma said, relenting, “But keep in mind that you dream about real things, and just because you have not seen something before does not mean that it is not possible.”

“Okay, I get it. Big Bear could be real, but I know he’s not. Now can we please go to the butterfly exhibit?”

"I think that sounds like an excellent idea."

"Yes! Thank you!" Gigi said, "Come on!"

Amma smiled, turning towards the stairs. As they climbed them, Gigi described the different kinds of butterflies she expected to see. They walked down a hall lined with more stuffed animals, including a badger, and Gigi understood why Art was so nervous about having a badger angry with him. Even to her, it looked like it would be mean. At last they arrived outside the double doors of the butterfly garden. They watched young butterflies work to break free from their chrysalises behind the glass of an exhibit.

"They're so interesting," Gigi said, "I can't believe they start out as weird caterpillars."

"They need time to grow and change in a safe place, the chrysalis protects and hides them."

"That's so cool. Do you think they're ready when they come out?"

"Oh they are never ready, look at that one," Amma said, pointing to a newly emerged blue butterfly, struggling to stand and unfurl its wings, "but they come out when the time is right and they face the dangers of the world the best they can until they are strong enough to fly."

Gigi thought about this for a while. She hoped that she would not have to be let out into the world on her own before she was ready. “I hope I can make it on my own when I grow up.”

“Most people are not ready even then, but they have to go anyway.”

“Is it scary?”

“Most of the time it is, but you will also learn how to survive and then you can do quite well,” Amma said, “Shall we go in?”

"Yep!" Gigi said, and they entered the tall greenhouse. Inside the air was heavy with humidity and the smell of ripe fruit. A small jungle forest grew up around pools with water features and brick paths. Colorful, fragrant flowers grew amidst the trees and bushes. All combined, it nearly overloaded Gigi’s senses as she walked in. She was surprised that it took her several seconds before she saw her first butterfly, a small one with teal wings. She gave a little squeak of delight and pointed at it.

“There’s one, Amma!” Gigi said.

As Gigi pointed, she saw that another butterfly was now gliding towards a plate of fruit that stood on a pedestal. It landed with a couple flaps of its wings and began to poke an orange. Gigi stepped closer for a better look.

“They are beautiful,” Amma said, “We used to have thousands on the estate when I was a little girl. All different colors, like you would not believe. My favorites were green, like that one,” Amma said, pointing to an emerald butterfly with a wide streak of black shot through its wings.

“It sounds amazing. I really wish I could go there someday.”

Amma smiled in a way that did not reach her eyes. “If you do, you have to go when the butterflies are at their prime, in the summer.”

“What was it like?”

“It was a childhood fantasy come to life that I never even knew I was living in. Beautiful rolling hills sitting at the foot of large mountains, green pastures for the cattle, miles of orchards, each tree heavy with fruit. The air as clean as crystal,” Amma took a deep breath and closed her eyes as if lost in dreams of the past. When she opened them she looked at Gigi.

“Oh! A red one just landed on your head,” Amma said, pointing just above Gigi’s high forehead to her cinnamon brown hair. Gigi rolled her eyes up to try to see it, but could not.

“It must be the shampoo you used today, they like things that smell like flowers,” Amma said.

“Oh, I didn’t take a shower today. I just decided that I’d be stinky and people could deal with it.”

“That is kind of gross, but–”

“Amma! You have one on your shoulder,” Gigi said, pointing as a massive black and white one, with wings almost as big as her outstretched hand, landed on Amma’s shoulder.

Amma turned to regard it and smiled. “This one is amazing.”

Amma and Gigi waited for several seconds until the butterflies decided that they were not food and flew away. Amma and Gigi continued down a short path, enjoying the garden. They watched a trio of green butterflies compete over large flowers growing from a bush as they sat down on a bench. They waited in silence for a long time, taking in every detail, not rushing to go anywhere else.

After a while, Gigi noticed that the butterflies seemed to be flying closer to them. It was not obvious unless someone was looking for it, but she was sure that when they walked in, there were butterflies all around the garden, but now they had left the furthest edges and were making their slow way towards the center where they sat. Gigi looked around to see if anyone had placed a new plate of fruit or sprayed some perfume to draw them closer to the museum visitors, but could not see anything.

Several more minutes passed and Gigi looked up at Amma who was sitting with a little smile on her face, still enjoying the whole experience. Soon, it was clear to other people too that the butterflies were gathering near the center of the garden. Gigi watched as the people stopped near the bench that she and Amma were on a little longer than they had before, enjoying being closer to the beautiful insects.

Then, to Gigi's surprise, a yellow butterfly with long tails on either wing landed on Amma's ear. Amma’s smile widened and she cocked her head like she was listening for something. Then the butterfly fluttered away. A moment later, three more landed on Amma, one on her head, another on her leg and one on her hand. They stayed for several seconds and then flew on, joining the rest of what was becoming a kaleidoscopic of flitting wings around them.

"Amma, this is so cool. You must have used the best shampoo in the world," Gigi said as two more landed on Amma.

Amma laughed, full and high, and when she did, dozens on butterflies descended towards them. Gigi heard someone gasp. They landed on Amma then took off again, replaced by dozens more, each wave of butterflies staying for only a few seconds. Gigi sat in stunned disbelief, watching her grandmother, still with that little smile on her face, as if she was hearing a joke no one else in the world could hear. Gigi thought Amma may have been whispering something amidst the exclamations of surprise from the other museum patrons.

More butterflies descended on Amma until Gigi was sure that every single one in the greenhouse was either on her or flying around her. It was like a mad whirlwind of colors and wings. The butterflies brushed against Gigi’s face as they circled Amma, tickling her nose and cheeks.

"I think it's almost time to go, don't you?" Amma asked as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Gigi was not sure she agreed. She had never seen anything like this before.

A lanky museum worker approached them, cautious and trying to stay out of the swarm of butterflies.

"Ma'am,” he said, “I'm sorry, but I need to ask you to leave. I, uh don't know what you're wearing that's attracting the butterflies so much, but for their safety, we can't let you stay."

Amma stood slowly, careful not to disturb any of the butterflies that were still on her. They began to disperse, flying off to every corner of the conservatory again. Amma stood to her full height of five feet, five inches, raised her chin, and looked the man who was some forty years her junior in the eyes. "It is about time to leave, I agree. The butterflies are quite alright, or will be for a while longer. The Queen Alexandra's Birdswings could use a few more hibiscuses in here though, and I think there will be trouble if they don't get them."

The man's jaw dropped as he heard this. Gigi could feel every eye in the garden watching her and Amma as they made their way to the exit. One butterfly landed on Gigi's shoulder as they left, trying to stow away. Amma held a finger out, letting it climb on before blowing it gently back into the garden.

Once in the hall, Gigi turned to Amma, her eyes wide.

"Well, what did you think of that? I told you we needed to save the butterfly garden for last," Amma said just as a short balding man in a suit walked up behind them.

"Er, ladies, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I, er, understand you've been disturbing the, er, delicate ecosystem of our little museum's crown jewel. I'm afraid we just cannot allow that. May I escort you to the door?"

"That is quite alright, Mr..." Amma replied, looking his suit up and down for a name tag.

"Share. Mr. Share," the man said, “I’m the, er, curator.”

“Mr. Share. I do apologize for the disturbance in there and can assure you that no damage was done. With regards to the door, I believe that my lovely granddaughter and I are quite capable of locating it.”

Gigi noticed with some surprise that Amma’s formal, measured way of talking, became even more precise when she spoke to the curator of the museum, almost like she was rehearsing lines in a play. Gigi even thought she heard a hint of an accent coming through that she had never before heard.

“Thank you, er, Ms…” Mr. Share trailed off.

“Ms. Gossamer,” Amma said, guiding Gigi down the hall towards the stairs.

“Yes, thank you Ms. Gossamer,” Mr. Share said. As he turned towards the butterfly garden, Gigi could hear him say, “Never in all the years...Absolutely remarkable.”

Gigi, feeling confused and ashamed that they were being asked to leave, chanced one look over her shoulder back down the hall. She was surprised to see that most of the people who had been in the greenhouse with them had followed them out into the hall and were watching in stunned silence. Gigi saw one little girl tug on her father’s sleeve and said, “Daddy, where’s the butterfly lady going?”

Gigi felt lightheaded as they turned to go down the stairs, like she could not believe that this was really happening. This felt more like a dream than her dreams of the night before. There was so much that she wanted to say to Amma, but none of it was coming out. They descended the stairs in silence, but Amma slipped her hand into Gigi’s as they stepped onto the first landing. Once they were back outside, Amma turned to Gigi, “Are you alright?”

Gigi could feel tears starting to well up behind her eyes, “I, I don’t know. I thought it was so cool when all the butterflies started coming around us, but I didn’t think that they’d all land on you, and I didn’t think that we’d get kicked out. I...I’m so embarrassed. I’ve never gotten kicked out of a place before, and for not even doing something that was my fault.”

It was too much for Gigi, a little sob escaped her throat and hot tears began to spill out of her eyes as she buried her face in Amma’s shoulder. Amma placed a hand on her back and patted her, making little shushing sounds.

“Everything is fine, sweetheart. I know that was confusing and a little scary. It happens to me more than you would think. The butterflies, not being asked to leave places. Not that I go places like that every day, but if I go to a park, I will usually have several land on me. I have always thought it was rather nice.”

Gigi took several gasping breaths as she brought her emotions under control. She wiped her eyes on Amma’s beige blouse and looked up. “I can’t believe they kicked us out.”

“Yes, that was rather extreme of them, but when people see something that they do not understand, they will try to make excuses for it or try to make it go away so they do not need to consider what is happening. The last time we were here, I managed to step out before that happened, you may not remember.”

Gigi shook her head, “I don’t remember that, but why do the butterflies do that when they’re around you?”

“I have never figured it out. I have heard that other people attract them in a similar fashion, but I have never met one. I did notice that they seemed to like you as well.”

Gigi smiled and wiped her tears with the back of a hand as they started walking through the park towards the city, “Not as much as they like you.”

“Certainly not that much,” Amma said with a smile, “Now, I did promise to take you to Carlysle’s, and we have both been thoroughly embarrassed, so I think that we deserve the largest piece of chocolate cake that they can offer us. Do you recall where it is exactly?”

***

Half an hour later they were seated in Carlyle’s, a cozy cafe in the posh Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. It had industrial steel pipes and ductwork running below the molded false ceiling. Strings of incandescent light bulbs were hanging from the walls. Posters from a long time ago featured boxers with funny mustaches, a man lifting an elephant, and a bearded lady sipping a yellowish green liquid through a glass straw. It made Gigi think what a circus would look like if they decided to turn it into a coffee shop. Much to Gigi’s relief, however, the baristas were not dressed as clowns, though they did do some juggling as they prepared the iced lattes that Amma and Gigi now sipped.

Smoke drifted up in a lazy stream from the candle planted in a wedge of chocolate cake large enough to hold open a battleship door. Gigi was worried that the cake might collapse the rickety end table on which it sat. Amma was picking at it with a small fork. She placed a bite as large as the fork could support in her mouth and gave a little sigh of pleasure.

“I want you to tell me all about what it was like when you were a little girl,” Gigi said, hoping that she would be able to uncover more about her family’s intriguing past.

“That was a very long time ago. Are you sure you want to hear about it?”

“I don’t wanna hear about it if it’s gonna be boring like those black and white movies made a long time ago. Things were in color back then, right?”

“Yes, Gigi, color was a thing when I was a little girl.”

“Then sure!”

Amma began to recount her childhood growing up on a big estate outside of the city. She told Gigi all about the apples, wheat, and pomegranates that her family grew and how they helped to feed thousands of people. She told Gigi about the efforts of whole nearby towns at harvest time, and how they would all come gather the produce of the land, and how the children would work in the fields and orchards all day, but still spend half the night awake and playing in barns. When Gigi asked where the estate was, Amma just said again that it was outside of the city where there were gentle rolling hills covered in farmland as far as the eye could see in every direction.

“Why don’t you live there anymore?” Gigi asked, hoping that there would be a way that she could see the estate for herself.

Amma pursed her lips and inhaled a deep breath through her nose. She looked to Gigi like she was steadying herself. “That is a hard story, Gigi. There was the war, you know.”

Gigi nodded her head. She was not sure which war Amma was talking about, but wanted Amma to keep on talking.

“And I had several cousins and a couple of uncles who were fighting in it. It had gone on for quite some time. So long that it didn’t seem real to me any more. Just a thing that the adults talked about when they were at dinner. But one day, I heard that two of my cousins died in a battle. I had been rather close to one of them, even though she was ten years older than me. It shook me. I realized that it wasn’t something far away any more. It was very real and even though the fighting was distant, the pain of it was not.”

“What did you do?” Gigi asked.

“I decided I needed to help somehow, so I went to school to learn how.”

“That’s kind of boring,” Gigi said, thinking that if she needed to help win a war, going to school would be the last thing she would want to do.

Amma laughed, her dangly emerald colored earrings catching the glint of the early afternoon sun, “I suppose it is. But really, it was the right thing for me to do. I was a little girl. Well, not so little, I was a bit older than you. I couldn’t do much then, but I could get ready to one day help keep the people I loved safe.”

“What did you learn at school?”

“Everything. But I focused mostly on learning how to manage the estate and how to fight well.”

“They have schools for fighting?” Gigi asked, incredulous, “And your parents let you go to one of them?”

Amma laughed again. “There are schools for everything, Gigi. And I was quite a willful little child, believe it or not. But I think that my father was proud of me for caring that much for our country and relatives.”

“What was he like?” Gigi asked, and was surprised to see a look of sadness flash across Amma’s face.

“He was kind and gentle, but too loving for his own good.”

It was a curious thing to say about her own father, and Gigi was about to ask what she meant, but Amma continued speaking, “My cousins died fighting people from another country. The people they were fighting thought that they should be the rulers of our land and decided that anyone who opposed them should die. They thought that their lives and rights were worth more than the lives of our people. They thought they could go around killing and stealing from us whenever they liked. As you can imagine, we did not appreciate that attitude very much, so we fought back.”

Gigi nodded, thinking she understood what Amma was saying.

Amma continued, “With every war, people have to choose which side they are going to be on. There are the people who take things that do not belong to them and believe that they are better than other people, and there are those who choose to stand up and say that the first group is wrong. All throughout history there have been brave people who stood up to evil ones whether or not they were fighting. They chose to do what was right in the ways they could. Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, Harriet Tubman, even Audrey Hepburn.”

“Who’s Audrey Hepburn?”

Amma blinked several times. “I really thought you would have heard of her.”

“I’ll look her up later. How do you know if you’re on the side that stands up to the evil people?”

Amma frowned and for a moment, Gigi thought that she would begin to cry. “Sometimes the people who start out good become evil. But I believe you can usually know if you ask yourself one simple question. If they stopped fighting me tomorrow, would I still want to see them dead?”

Gigi thought about this for some time. “I don’t want there to be a war. But if there is one, I think I’d like to try to be on the side that doesn’t want other people to die.”

Amma gazed at Gigi for long enough to make her begin to feel uncomfortable, as if weighing the words she said next very carefully.

“I believe you would, Grace.”

Chapter 6

The Wizard in the Stone

Grace woke up in the bed at the Wizard’s house that she had fallen asleep in the night before. Rubbing her eyes, she tried to remember the house’s layout. It was a strange place. Every room was a hollowed out, round stone, and in a line, with a door leading in on one side and another door going out on the other. To get from the front of the house to the back Grace had to walk through every other room until she got to the end, which was, of course, the bathroom.

Grace thought it was a good idea to have the bathroom at the very end. It meant that no one would ever walk in on you by mistake while on their way to the kitchen for a midnight snack. The Wizard gave Grace the front bedroom and she had not woken up at all the night before.

Grace looked around her room, still trying to process everything she was seeing. While the walls were round and polished smooth, the floor was flat. The things in the room reminded her of the tea set she had owned as a very little girl. It was not one of those cheap imported plastic sets, but a real one from China made of wood and metal and ceramic. Her mom’s mother, Mimi, gave it to her, and Grace loved the intricate designs covering each item. Although this room seemed to be lacking a tea set, it did have several other items that were ornate or interesting. In order of first to last, these were the things that Grace noticed when she first opened her eyes:

1. Owl perched on a stand staring intently at her

2. Candle glowing with purple flame

3. Pot calling the kettle black (magical pot, standard kettle)

4. Bobcat using a dentist-recommended talon as a toothpick

5. Largest leather-bound book Grace had ever seen

“Who?” the owl asked.

Grace, who had not known that the owl was real, screamed in surprise and scurried back in her bed until she was pressed against the cool wall.

“Who?” the owl asked again.

“Oh, don’t mind him,” said the bobcat with a soft purr, “He doesn’t talk. Though he does ask a rather pertinent question, who are you?”

“Um, I’m Grace,” Grace answered, “What do you mean he doesn't talk?”

“Daft question, I say. But, I’ll answer it anyway. Not all animals can talk, most can, but some stopped talking a long time ago, owls, for example. Well, they remember how to say who, but you get the idea. You came in last night, didn’t you? With Big Bear and that tasty overgrown morsel,” the bobcat said, picking at a tooth again.

“Tasty morsel? You didn’t…” Grace trailed off, fearing the worst for Art.

“Eat him? Of course not,” the bobcat replied, stepping down from the table she was on, “But he was tempting. Kirke has a strict no-guest-eating policy in place. Terrible shame, really. Would have saved him a lot of trouble if he had let the goat at the moss monster that ‘just came in to do a bit of carpeting’ last year.”

“Where is the Wizard?” Grace asked.

“Hmm,” the bobcat replied, placing her furry ear to the ground, “I think he’s three doors down right now. Yes, definitely three. And I don’t really think it’s worth going to the trouble of calling him the Wizard, certainly not in his own house.”

“I suppose not, I guess. I just didn't really know what else to call him.”

“Oh, what’s this?” asked the bobcat, “I think he’s getting nearer. Yes, he is. And it sounds like he’s roused the others. They’re all coming here. How delightful, I may have a chance to speak with him about the infestation that started last night.”

The door opened and the Wizard came in. He was not a tall man though he still had to duck his head just a little to avoid bumping it against the doorframe. Laugh lines radiated from around his eyes, and his unkempt, fluffy white hair framed a pair of thick rimmed, round spectacles that sat perched upon his narrow nose. He had wide mutton chop sideburns and a goatee, but what struck Grace most was his icy blue eyes.

He was dressed in a thick wool suit. The midnight blue vest he wore had a single row of silver buttons that glinted in the light of the purple flame. His jacket was open, the back and sides hanging loose and well below his waist. He wore a broad tie around his neck, the color of dark cherries, and his pants were cut close to his legs. His tall boots were made of some kind of scaled leather that shimmered a dark gold and blue. To tie his outfit together, he carried a thin black cane with a silver head about the size of a golf ball. Grace thought he was dressed like someone who might drive a horse drawn carriage for a living.

Big Bear and Art followed close behind him. As they entered, Grace looked down at the ring to see what color it was. She was surprised to see that it shone with a vibrant green, so rich in color that it looked alive. She breathed a little more easily, confident that she should at the very least listen to what the Wizard had to say.

Grace heard the bobcat purr something about getting permission to eat Art as the Wizard said, “All right you three. We’ve got a lot to discuss and I do not think that sitting here in Grace’s bedroom is the best place to do it. Pot, what do you think?”

“Worst place you could be,” said the Pot, “I think I’m gonna sit here and accuse this kettle all day until he acknowledges that he’s black.”

“Really need to turn that kettle magical just to get Pot to shut up,” muttered the Wizard, “But then they’ll just go on comparing each other and accusing the other of being blacker and no one will get any sleep. Ah, very well, come on you three. Cat? You too? Okay.”

Grace watched as he ducked his head to avoid the door frame on his way towards the front of the house. She hoped that they would stop in the kitchen for some breakfast, and was relieved when they did; she could feel her stomach starting to rumble.

Breakfast was an unusual affair, everything one would expect from a wizard’s kitchen, particularly when magical utensils are floating through the air preparing the food. Once breakfast was on the table, Grace was shocked to see that it was not at all the kind of food she was used to eating. There were eyeballs instead of hardboiled eggs, salamander tails instead of bacon, gelatinous slime instead of oatmeal, and big, crunchy mushrooms cut into triangles instead of toast.

The food was as bad as it sounded, and try as she might, Grace could not bring herself to eat more than a bite or two of each thing. They all tasted as awful as they looked and Grace had to keep herself from gagging several times. She watched as everyone else enjoyed their meals like it was the best food they had eaten in a month. Without asking, Big Bear ate everything on her plate as well, mentioning as he did that it was just right.

As everyone else was finishing their breakfast and settling in, the Wizard snapped his fingers and steaming mugs of tea materialized before each of them, except for Big Bear, who got something the size of a small bucket. Gigi inhaled the steam and was again disappointed to find that it was not the rich, wonderful smell of the tea she had shared with Amma the day before. However, she took a tentative sip anyway and found that it was quite good, full of fruity flavors. She reached for the bowl of sugar cubes that appeared along with their tea and dropped two in.

“Now, Gigi,” said the Wizard, “I don’t believe I properly introduced myself last night. I apologize, there has been so much on my mind these last several months.”

“That’s okay. But I wanted to let you know, I really like to be called Grace,” Grace replied, lifting her wide bridged nose a little higher and feeling rather proud of herself for speaking up.

“My mistake, Grace. Thank you for correcting me,” the Wizard replied, “You can call me Mr. Kirke. Believe it or not, I am your grandmother’s grandfather’s little brother.”

Grace looked at the old man before her, with his fluffy white hair and mutton chop sideburns, and decided that she could believe it. “It’s very nice to meet you. Mr. Kirke, last night you told us that we had arrived just in time, but you didn’t tell us what we were in time for.”

Mr. Kirke looked at her for several seconds, his face blank. Then it lit up with childlike delight and he said, “I remember now, yes I did say that, I meant, you were just in time for dinner.”

“Oh,” Grace said, disappointed. Dinner had been as strange and gross as breakfast.

“But that is not to say that you, Grace, did not arrive at a most interesting time for Easterwood. I have some disturbing news. You may think it insignificant, but I assure you it is anything but. I believe that it most pertains to you, Art,” Mr. Kirke said, turning to him, “I received word today that the Headquarters of the League of Historians was burgled last night. Several historical texts and artifacts were stolen. The thieves managed to escape. The historians there are all shaken, of course, but Mort reported everyone was safe.”

Grace turned to Art who stared back at Mr. Kirke in horror. “What? Burgled? What happened?”

“It was an impressive bit of work, I believe. Whoever did it set off some pretty impressive spells around the block from the League Headquarters building late last night. There was too much magic in the area and it completely overloaded the security spells set up. The thieves, it seems, walked right in, helped themselves to whatever they wanted, and left without disturbing a soul. When the historians woke up this morning, they found a surprising number of artifacts entirely missing. No easy feat, I can assure you, I set many of those spells up myself.”

“You’re telling me someone just went in and got around the security spells like it was nothing?”

“I would not say that it was nothing. It would have taken some very powerful artifacts to do what they did last night, only something from the Larchill or Oak dynasties would have been that strong, and only in the hands of someone who knew how to use it. The only way to do what was done last night would be to take all of the security spells down at once. No one associated with the League has that kind of skill, save myself, and whatever artifacts were used are ones with abilities beyond reckoning.”

“Then who? Who did it?”

Mr. Kirke shook his head. “We don’t know. There are not many people in Easterwood who have that kind of ability. Most of them are my friends, though I cannot say I entirely trust them all. I do not think any of them would have done something like this. The burglary only happened a few hours ago, and Royal Fairy Guard has barely begun their investigation. I am sure with time more will be revealed.”

“This is unbelievable,” Art said, “The League holds some of Easterwood’s most valuable treasures. They can’t just go off and disappear.”

“The Guard is placing tracking spells on all of the missing books and artifacts. However, most of the spells are not working, which is very unusual. But one did begin to track, so they have several of the Guard following whoever has that artifact. They are coordinating with others just outside of the capital to try to encircle the thief. We should know more in the next couple of days.”

“Tell me, who do you think did it?” Art asked.

“Your Uncle Mort said that there have been some characters around the League Headquarters for days now, though he could not provide any clear descriptions of the people he had in mind. I, for one, am not so sure. Mort always had a flare for the sensational.”

Art fixed Mr. Kirke with a stare, "Did the Northies do this? I hate those guys.”

Mr. Kirke shook his head. "Like I just said, Art. I do not know. They are not high on my list of people who may have done something. It seems strange that they would be asking for peace while stealing some of Easterwood's most valued national treasures.”

“Wait, who're the Northies?” Grace asked.

“Wh–Who are the Northies?” Art spluttered, “Weren’t you listening yesterday? Did you hear anything I said? The Northies? Ironstone? I mentioned them a burrow full.”

“Um, yeah, you did, but most of the time you were just going on about Kirkie the Turkey–” Grace said and then froze. She turned to look at Mr. Kirke, horrified that she had called him a turkey and hoping that he would not turn her into a turkey because of it.

Mr. Kirke laughed, full and hearty like there was not a care in the world. “I've been waiting for someone to slip up with that one for a while now.”

"You knew he'd been calling you that?" Grace asked.

"Of course, it's not like he is very quiet, I heard him call me that on his first day in the cottage. However, that is beside the point. Art, the reason I do not think it was anyone from Ironstone, or anyone sanctioned by Ironstone I should say, is because although we have been at war with them since nearly the time that Gaia crumbled, they have suffered for it. Theirs’ is a harsh land that is difficult to grow crops in, and they are surrounded by desert or ice on all sides. They need Easterwood to survive, or at least our food. I believe that after many years of trying to overrun our nation by force, they have decided to try to make peace with us instead. There has not been an actual war with them in a long time, the last real battle between our two nations was some fifty years ago, and I believe they have now exhausted all their options.”

“Yeah, yeah, you can believe that all you like. I know the Northies’ natures, they're bad to the core. You gotta tell me, do you know what they stole?” Art asked.

“I know of everything that is confirmed missing as of this morning. Several key texts from the League’s library and quite a few artifacts, all of Larchill design. An accurate count of what is missing is still underway, but thus far most artifacts have been of unknown purpose,” Mr. Kirke said.

“They stole the artifacts that no one knows about?” Art asked.

“Strange, I know,” Mr. Kirke said.

“Maybe they figured out how to use them?”

“Perhaps, or perhaps they just stole anything they could get their hands on. Little is known about most of the artifacts that the League keeps.”

“What about the books? Did they steal Pre-Gaian Fairy Folklore?” Art asked.

“No, not that one.”

“That’s a load off me feet. Grandpa Tuck would be rolling over in his grave if they had. What about A Compendium of Ancient Artifacts and Their Supposed Uses?” Art asked.

“Yes,” said Mr. Kirke, and at this Art’s tiny meerkat shoulders slumped.

“They took that one? It was me Aunt Elsie’s crown jewel. She was going to be named to the Legion of Honorable Historians with that one.”

“The loss of that one is quite disturbing for me also. There are many artifacts in the world whose purposes are lost to time, but that work did a better than decent job of theorizing what many were used for. In the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic,” Mr. Kirke said, “the secrets of some of the artifacts they stole could be unlocked with it. Whoever burgled the League, I believe that was their primary goal.

“You’re sure it wasn’t the Northies?” Art asked.

Rather than replying to Art, Mr. Kirke leveled his pale blue eyes at Grace. "Our Queen Felicia herself is travelling to King Kowal in Ironstone to make a binding peace between our two nations. She and what looked like half the court passed through Oakton just days ago on their way to meet him.

“The people of Ironstone starve, and they will rebel against Kowal if they do not get food soon. I think the proposal of peace will go well. Felicia was a friend of mine, and Kowal has few other places to turn. However, it will take some time for that peace to be properly forged, and I worry that in the meantime something terrible may happen.”

"Like what?" Grace asked.

“Like this business with the missing artifacts. It was a bold decision by whoever did it. Not only are they depriving Easterwood of some potentially powerful tools and weapons–if their purpose and how to use them were to ever be discovered–but if Ironstone is blamed for the theft, it would bring the peace talks to an end very quickly,” Mr. Kirke said, his voice now turning grave, “And while peace would be better for Ironstone than us here in Easterwood, there is still much that could be gained for everyone.”

“You don’t think it’s someone evil, do you? Like the Larchies?” Grace asked.

Mr. Kirke threw back his head and laughed, “Art’s been teaching you his Aunt Elsie’s version of history, I see.”

Grace did not understand what was so funny, but apparently Big Bear did because he was huffing and rocking back and forth with apparent mirth as well. Art did not look so pleased with the jibe at his aunt and slicked back the tuft of hair on his head as he said, “She happens to be one of the best historians of the age, sirs, and I would have you show the respect she deserves.”

“Oh, you are quite right, of course, Art,” Mr. Kirke went on, still stifling a laugh, “She does use colorful language at times, though. But Grace, to answer your question. I hope it is not the Larchills. Their line mostly died or vanished some time ago, all the ones that matter, that is. Someone could be trying to bring them back, not so the Larchills can rule, mind you, I do not think anyone would want one of them as their masters, but so that their secrets and power can be leached away. It is very possible that whoever broke into the League of Historians Headquarters is trying to obtain the tools they need to do just that. With the power that the Larchills mastered, someone could reunite and rule Gaia.”

“Why is reuniting Gaia so important?” Grace asked.

“An excellent question! Gaia separated into the nations it is in now is fairly weak. None of the lands has everything they need, but united, they would. If you have all of the pieces of a wagon, the wheels, the bed, the axles, but they are laying in parts on the ground, you have nothing more than a lot of wood and some metal. But with the parts all together, you can go great distances.”

Grace considered that for several seconds before asking, “And what if the person who stole the artifacts is trying to reunite Gaia with some kind of Larchie magic?”

“Then the world could have some very dark days ahead of it and stopping the people who now have these artifacts is the most important thing any of us can do. It could be nothing, just me becoming paranoid in my old age. But something about all of this does not feel right. There is too much moving in the world at the moment for this to be by chance,” Mr. Kirke said, “Mind you, this is nothing like the world was during the last war with Ironstone, the Oat Bushel War. Back then, the last time someone tried to reunite Gaia, quite a few terrible artifacts were used to great harm, in large part because of one person.

“She was the last of the pureblood Larchill line, a particularly nasty witch. I am happy to say, though, that she is no longer around to trouble Easterwood. She could be back, but someone would have had to find the right artifact, and then learn to use some impressive magic. While that was possible for this witch, with her gone, there is only one person left who knows this magic and I don’t think he is going to share it with anyone he does not trust."

“Did you know her?” Grace asked.

“Yes I did but it was a very, very long time ago. She and I were friends for quite a while until she decided that she wanted to help Ironstone start a war with us. But the last battle of the Oat Bushel War put an end to her power here.”

“How would she come back if she did? Can we stop her?” Grace asked.

“That would be some very deep and complicated magic. Not evil, mind you, but not something I would be able to explain unless you had been learning magic for several years. As for what there is that I am doing to stop anyone like her, there is a lot. For one, I am talking to you,” Mr. Kirke replied with a smile.

“To me?” Grace asked.

Mr. Kirke’s eyes took on a faraway look as he replied, “Amma, my niece, was a very special young lady while she was still living in Easterwood. She was quite powerful, an artist with magic, had she lived here longer, she would have certainly far outstripped me, and likely even many of the most skilled magesters who ever lived. I was terribly sad to see her go. She believes, as do I, that you have the potential to be just as powerful as she was.”

“What’d you mean powerful?” Grace asked, “Wait. You’ve been talking to her?”

“In a manner of speaking I have been. If you are willing to learn, you could become very skilled at magic. Our family has always seemed to have a gift for it, and Amma believes that you have it as well. The world is quiet at the moment, and there is little need for very talented magesters. However, I believe we will soon be balancing on a knife’s edge, and then we surely will need as much help as we can get. You can develop your magical skills now and be ready for the day that they will be needed.”

“Would learning magic be hard?”

“Oh, very. It would be the hardest thing you ever had to do or learn, and you will never stop learning it if you decide to begin. There is always more to master.”

“Would I be able to do cool things like ride a broomstick or turn my brother into a toad?”

“I’ve never heard of someone flying on a broomstick, but you could learn to fly in a number of other ways if you become skilled enough. As for your brother, yes, absolutely.”

“Where would I learn the magic? Here at your house?”

“At his house? Are you kidding?” Art asked, sweeping his hand across the breakfast table and knocking off several utensils, “You wouldn’t learn nothing here, not compared to the school you could be going to.”

“School?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, school. It’s grand, enormous. Best school there is this side of Easterwood,” Art said, gesticulating with a knife in hand like he was a conductor.

“It is the only school of magic on this side of Easterwood, but he is right, that is where you would learn.”

Grace did not like the sound of more school on top of what she already had in Chicago. “Well, I don’t really know if that’s something I’d like to do. I’m already in school.”

“But not a school for magic, I’d wager,” Art said, stabbing the knife into the table and leaving it sticking straight up, “You want to learn something that really matters, you go to Meadowbrook.”

“Meadowbrook?” Grace asked.

“The name of the school, Grace,” Art said, turning to Big Bear, “I don’t think she heard a thing we told her yesterday.”

“Art, I do not remember telling her about Meadowbrook. I am quite sure we did not,” Big Bear said.

“Whatever the case,” Mr. Kirke said, “They are right in saying that if you want to learn magic, the best way for you to do it is to go to Meadowbrook. Is that something you would like to consider?”

“I don’t know. Do you think it’s something that Amma would have done if she was my age?” Grace said.

“Not only do I think she would have done it, I know that she did. The cottage Art is staying in once belonged to Amma. She was a teacher at the school for a short time,” Mr. Kirke said.

“Really? That’s so cool!”

“I have never heard someone use cool that way, but if it means you like it, then I agree.”

Grace laughed. The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of learning magic, even if it meant that she had to go to school in her sleep.

“What kind of school is it?” Grace asked.

“It is on an old estate, not far from here. Many of our instructors on rotation are experts in their field. We did make an exception for Art,” Mr. Kirke said.

“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” Art said, slapping the table again.

Grace did not hear Mr. Kirke’s reply. Just the idea of getting to see an estate that was like the place that Amma grew up had her attention. That it was Mr. Kirke, one of her relatives, who ran it was even more exciting. She had been fantasizing about living on an estate since Amma had told her about her childhood home.

“I’d love to see it, when can we leave?” Grace asked.

Mr. Kirke cleared his throat and retrieved a large red stone from his jacket pocket. He looked at it for several seconds before it changed to green. “I believe now would be a good time.”

Chapter 7

Mr. Kirke’s School for Above Average Magesters

Cat brushed up against Grace's leg as they stepped outside of Mr. Kirke's home. "That vermin’s not in the house anymore, I wonder if you might care to join me for a snack."

"No one's going to eat Art, right Mr. Kirke?" Grace said as she began to follow Big Bear down another trail, surrounded by a dense forest on either side.

"I would not be so sure, he has not been able to ingratiate himself like his predecessor," Mr. Kirke replied.

“Well I hope Cat won't hurt him too much if she does decide to eat him," Grace said, catching on to the fun everyone seemed to be having at Art’s expense.

"I can't believe you're all having a nice chat about me getting eaten, especially with me right here. Grace, have a look at that ole ringy on your finger and tell me what it says about all this," Art said slicking back his tuft.

“Oh yeah, I do have this ring, can you tell me what it does?” Grace asked Mr. Kirke.

Mr. Kirke looked down at her outstretched hand, “Why yes, Grace. That ring has a number of abilities. The most important for you at this time, however, is its color. The more red the stone becomes, the further you are from where you should be. It’s called a heart seeker.”

“Wait, I thought Heart Seeker was a ring that Queen Jezel had.”

“It is, and this one was based off of that very ring, but it is a heart seeker, not The Heart Seeker.”

“I guess that makes me feel a little better about it. How does it know what the best possible place is?” Grace asked.

“It is able to assess all the things happening around the person wearing it, and uses its store of knowledge and experience to guess if the person is where they should be. I should warn you, that if circumstances change unexpectedly, the ring may change very quickly to encourage you to go a different location,” Mr. Kirke said, “They get better the longer they are worn.”

“How do you know so much about heart seekers?” Grace asked.

“I helped perfect them,” Mr. Kirke replied.

“Wow, that’s really cool! Amma gave me this one!” Grace said.

“I am not surprised,” Mr. Kirke said, “That is the first one I ever made. I gave it to Amma when she was a little girl, though I had worn it for some time before then. It is not the best one I made, but it does work quite well as a general artifact to help you do all sorts of other things that you will learn all about in school.”

"Can you tell me more about the school? What's it like?" Grace asked.

"As of this morning, there are 95 students living at the school with several hundred more who attend from the surrounding area. The students are divided into three skill levels, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Students progress at their own pace and are responsible for deciding when to move to the next level of training. The schoolhouse used to be the manor of the estate. Classes are held in the buildings that once supported the estate and the noble family who used to live here. They are situated between the mansion and the town of Oakton nearby."

“Are all estates like this?” Grace asked, looking around at the forest and hoping that the estate that Amma grew up on was a little more magnificent. She had been thinking about it a lot, imagining what it would be like if she was the lady of the estate that Amma grew up on. The thought exhilarated her.

“No, not at all. The one our family owned was quite well maintained. This one has rather gone to weed in a lot of the places off the beaten path. There’s not enough time to maintain most of it; takes enough energy just to keep the buildings and trails in good condition.”

“It doesn’t look much like I imagined it would,” Grace said, thinking about the rolling fields of wheat and orchards that Amma had described.

“Ah yes, did Amma tell you about where she grew up? This part of Easterwood is quite different than the old Paulownia estates. That is where I grew up as well. It was a beautiful land, still is, really.”

“Wait, it’s here? Like in Easterwood?”

Mr. Kirke looked at her, speculation playing across his face. “Why yes, it is close to the capital, Redwood.”

“That’s so cool. Do you think I’d have a chance to go see it today?” Grace asked.

“Today? I do not think that’s very likely. It would take quite some time to get there, even by unconventional means. Besides, we have to show you the school.”

“Well, okay, but I’d really like to see it someday soon if I can. I still can’t believe that our family owned something so big.”

“It was a long time ago and the Paulownia lands are quite parceled out to other families now, I’m afraid.”

“Why don’t you own it?” Grace asked.

Mr. Kirke laughed, full and hearty. “It is something I wished for too when I was younger, but I never had any children so it would not pass to me. After Amma left, there was no one to hold it, so it was broken up and dispersed.”

Grace was disappointed to hear this and wondered if it would be possible that they might give it back if they found out that someone who could own it was alive, but the idea seemed farfetched even for this strange place.

They walked down the path for several more minutes. Grace was just about to ask how much longer it would be before they came to the manor when Mr. Kirke cleared his throat. “Ahem, Grace, while you are here at the school, there is one thing that I ask you to not do. Although it might be a strange request, I am asking you to trust me. You may not have to live by this rule forever, but for now, I think it wise. Can you do that?”

“Maybe? What’s the rule?” Grace asked, cautious.

“It is a little difficult to talk about, but if it is not said now, you could find yourself in a rather difficult position. I need to ask you not to speak about Amma. She is a rather controversial figure, and while most people deeply respect her, there are some who take issue with things she did a long time ago. It would be best for you to not even bring her up. Certainly never mention that you are her granddaughter. And that includes you as well, Art. Not a word outside of your standard curriculum or I will feed you to Cat.”

“Oiy, you got it, Kirkie. My snout is sealed tight, just like it’s got wax on it, nothing’s getting in or out,” Art said, clamping a paw over his mouth.

“I do not believe that will ever be true,” Big Bear said.

“Why shouldn’t I talk about Amma?” Grace asked.

“The reasons for that would take quite some time to explain well and we are nearly there,” Mr. Kirke said, “We do need to discuss it at some point, but not now.”

Grace realized that she could hear happy voices in the woods nearby, they sounded like people playing. She looked around and saw the trail take a sharp turn up ahead. They rounded the bend and faced a large house with an imposing iron fence running around its perimeter. It looked similar to a Victorian manor from some of the picture books she had. Painted purple, the school had wood shingles, a white porch that wrapped around half of the house, and white trim around the gables and windows. It was friendly and inviting, not at all spooky or terrifying as some large old houses can be when they are not well taken care of. Surrounded by trees, the school did not have a large yard, but what it did have was full of children, adults, and animals, many practicing magic.

Mr. Kirke, Big Bear, Art, Cat, and Grace all walked through the wrought iron gate and onto the yard. Grace noticed several other students looking at her with curiosity, as if already appraising how well she would fit in with their school. It made her uncomfortable, but she stayed close to Big Bear and Mr. Kirke. The whole group followed Mr. Kirke as he walked across the yard, orating as he did.

“Now Grace, this is Meadowbrook Academy and College, or Meadowbrook for short. It was founded more than a hundred years ago by my mentor, Mr. Humbert. He brought me on as the first instructor and I have been here ever since.

“Mr. Humbert desired to train young people with better than average magical abilities and help them develop their skills. At the time, this part of Easterwood did not have any school, and Meadowbrook’s founding was a great boon to many of the families of this part of the forest. Children could receive first rate training in magic, and anyone could come to develop their skills in a particular field of study.

“Mr. Humbert hoped that the students, particularly those here full time, would go into Easterwood after they completed their courses and work hard to make it a much better place. Easterwood was quite different when he founded the school, and he focused most of his training on things that would improve the lives of the citizens of Easterwood after the Larchill dynasty fell apart. Over time that changed, particularly with the Oat Bushel War between Ironstone and Easterwood. In those days, we were really only training magesters to support the war, soldiers, emergency healers, cooks, road builders, and the like. After the war we broadened the classes to include the arts and new innovations in magic. I am sure we will change again in the future to suit the needs of the time.”

“Mr. Kirke? How did magic even get started? I mean, there had to be the first person ever to learn it, right?” Grace asked.

“Ah! An excellent question, something you will learn in Magic Lore 103: Tales of Daydream Believers.”

Grace nodded, wishing that Mr. Kirke would stop telling her that she just needed to wait to learn about the answers to all of her questions. She did not like that he kept putting her off and wondered if he was using that to try to convince her to come to his school. Though if he was, Grace had to admit that it was working.

“And, to conclude the history of our little school, for more than one hundred years now, Meadowbrook has been primarily a school for the underserved. The less skilled children of noble families and the more skilled of less prestigious families both send their children here to study full time and live in the schoolhouse. The surrounding villages send their children to classes, many for a full education, St. Fay’s and Delphinium and their like are too expensive or far. And of course, we also receive some of the most skilled young magesters in Easterwood and even some from beyond,” Mr. Kirke said, looking at a knot of students in the middle of the yard.

“Is a magester someone who does magic? What kinds of things do they learn?” Grace asked.

“That is what we call those highly skilled with magic, and aside from magical history, taught by our friend Art, we also have magic lore, theory, and how to conduct oneself in daily life, though those are the more dull classes if you ask me. Things get more interesting with our classes in the magical basics, kinesiology, mediology, elementology, vivology, morphology, to name a few. All the ologies, really.”

It was enough to make Grace’s head spin.

“Now, coming around the house you will see the backyard. As you can tell, it is much smaller than the front,” Mr. Kirke may have been a fantastic wizard, but as a tour guide Grace thought he left much to be desired.

Mr. Kirke continued, “Zaro Romani’s smith shop is back there. He teaches our metalology classes, which are part of the elementology training you can receive. He’s also one of the best swordsmen in the area, so some of our students learn that from him as well.”

Grace could see an older man who was incredibly well muscled, more so than even Carla’s dad who Grace thought of as the strongest individual she knew. He wore a heavy dark grey apron and was pulling a yellow-hot piece of metal from the fire. An older boy stood beside him, pouring a glowing purple liquid onto the metal, “What’re they doing?” Grace asked.

“Instructor Romani is making a magical sword, by the looks of it,” said Mr. Kirke, “Vermillian, our student, has decided to make guarding the Spring of Healing his final task. If he can guard it for a year and a day, he will know that he has completed his training and is ready to go into the world a fully trained magester.”

“That’s a really long time to stay anywhere. Does everyone have to spend that long doing something before they’re done with school?” Grace asked.

“Everyone will do what they have to do to finish. I would not worry so much about the time, it is the task that is more important,” Mr. Kirke said as they circled the house, “Over here is the stable. Many of the original buildings throughout the estate have been rebuilt so they can once again serve their original purpose. The unicorns, centaurs, and fawns like to stay here best, and I can’t say that I blame them. There are times I think an old stable and a life free of all the worry would suit me better than my dusty old carriagewreck of a home. Deeper into the woods we have many of our classrooms, though you can't really see them from where we are now. Just follow the signs to each of your classes,” Mr. Kirke said pointing at wooden signs with words that seemed to shift like water before Grace’s eyes, each with a different class name every so often.

“What do you think so far?” Mr. Kirke asked, “Is this a place you would like to study in?”

The whole experience was a whirlwind for Grace and she could feel her head spinning as she processed everything she had seen and heard about the school. “I’d love to, I just don’t really know where I’d start, or really anything.”

“That is something we can help you decide. Though I should warn you, your training here will be very difficult, stretching you mentally, emotionally, and physically. However, if you can complete it, and I think you can, you will soar. All I need is you to say yes and we can begin,” Mr. Kirke said.

Grace could feel everyone’s eyes on her as she weighed her options. She did not have to think about it for long. She could either stay here with her newfound friends, live on a grand estate like Amma had, learn the mysteries of magic, and one day perhaps be able to do things she could otherwise only dream of, or she could go off on her own and wander until she figured out something better.

“Yes, I’ll do it. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do here in Easterwood,” Grace said.

“Wonderful! If it is alright with you, I would like to introduce you to the rest of the students who live here. Most of them are in the yard now for their break between classes, is that alright?”

“Sure, I guess,” Grace said with a shrug.

They walked back around the house. As they stepped back onto the lawn Mr. Kirke spoke, “Attention, classes!”

His voice seemed to carry further than it should have. At it, everyone in the yard began to assemble in front of them. Grace noticed several others coming out of the house, including a giant or something that looked so near a giant to Grace that she could not tell the difference. Grace was small for her age and most adults already looked like giants to her, so to be sure that she had indeed seen a giant, she reached up and pulled Big Bear’s ear down to her mouth, “Is that a giant?” she asked.

Big Bear nodded, “His name is Merriweather, and his feet smell like bad cheese.”

What set this particular giant apart from a plain vanilla tall person was not the very large club he carried or his long hair or even the deerskin vest he wore over his enormous chest. Rather, Grace noticed, as most people do on their first time meeting anything that is more than half giant, that she had a very hard time telling if she was looking at a man giant or a woman giant. Thinking that she would be very rude to not address the giant properly if she were introduced, she pulled Big Bear’s ear back down.

“Grace, if you keep pulling my ear down to your mouth, I am afraid that one day you will pull it off entirely, and then I will not be able to hear you at all,” Big Bear said.

“Oh, sorry,” Grace apologized before asking, “Are you sure the giant is a he?”

“Yes,” Big Bear rumbled like a bumblebee, “But with giants it is hard to tell, and so are dwarves and gnomes, I would be careful if I were you. Their squashed up noses always make it hard for me.”

Grace thought the whole reply strange, so she tugged on Big Bear’s coat to get his attention to ask another question, “Which ones are the dwarves?”

“Oh, I do not think they will be hard for you to spot. They are the short heavy ones with very big beards,” Big Bear said.

“The men and women both?” Grace asked.

“Yes, always. Except the children, they only have small beards.”

Grace could understand why it was difficult to tell them apart.

As she was considering this, Mr. Kirke spoke again, “Good morning everyone, I would like to introduce you to our newest prospective student, Grace Gossamer. She will be learning magic full time with the rest of the beginner’s class.”

Everyone looked at Grace and she felt her face beginning to turn red, unsure of what to say. Big Bear gave her back a nudge with his muzzle and she stepped forward, “Hello everyone. Um, thank you for letting me be a part of your school. My name is Grace, and like Mr. Kirke just said, I’m, um, going to be staying here and learning magic with you. I’m new to Easterwood and, uh, I don’t really know much else to say, I guess. ”

The introduction sounded lame even to Grace, but she was also glad that it would make people think she was unremarkable. She did not like the idea of people wanting to be her friend just because she was interesting. She wanted to be friends with people who liked her for who she was.

Realizing though that she could probably give them a little more to go off of, she opened her mouth to tell them that Amma was her grandmother, despite the stern warning from Mr. Kirke not to. Just before she spoke she looked down at her ring and saw that it was now an alarming shade of red. Forgetting all what she was going to say about Amma, Grace closed her mouth and the ring’s color shifted back to its bright green in a heartbeat.

She just had time to wonder why mentioning Amma would have been so bad when Mr. Kirke leaned in and whispered, “We have a tradition here, I think you should prepare yourself.”

“For what?” Grace asked, but Mr. Kirke just smiled a little.

Everyone else on the lawn rushed forward towards her. It was so unexpected that Grace gave a yelp of surprise and stepped back, but in a moment she was surrounded. Gnomes, dwarves, fairies, elves, humans, dryads, nyads, a centaur, and the giant all gathered around her so that Grace could not see anything but the people pressing against her. She felt strong hands grab her and raise her above their heads. She was scooped up by the giant, Merriweather. Merriweather held her up for everyone to see. She felt like a trophy, presented to the fans at the end of the Super Bowl. Before she could do a thing, Merriweather tossed her high into the air.

Grace flailed her arms and legs as she soared high above Merriweather. She rocketed back down towards the ground, hoping that Merriweather would be able to catch her. Instead, he stepped aside and she continued to fall straight towards the ground. She looked down in terror, realizing that everyone below had formed a ring around the spot where she would crash into the ground. They were looking up, most with smiling faces, and for a moment Grace wondered if she had not just made a huge mistake in coming here.

Right before Grace hit the ground, her fall began to slow, meeting stiff but springy resistance, like a very large trampoline. Her boots brushed the blades of grass below and she shot back up in the air, much higher than before. Screaming in terror and now delight, she flew all the way to the highest branches of the highest trees before coming down again. This time her fall slowed sooner, but her shoes still touched the tips of the grass before she shot up into the air. She flew far above the trees this time. As she did she looked around at the entire forest spread out around her.

It went on for miles, as far as she could see. It was a beautiful forest reaching in every direction, broken only now and again by clearings, rivers, houses, small towns, and some of the largest trees she could imagine. Nearby there was a very large town built on either side of the banks of a river. In the far distance she could make out tiny mountains that rose in snowcapped purple peaks.

Then she was plummeting back down to the ground. Her descent slowed much sooner this time and she landed lightly in the middle of the circle.

She looked breathless at all of the faces surrounding her, “That, was, amazing!” she said.

“I knew you’d like it!” laughed Mr. Kirke.

“They launched me so high it took a minute to come back down!” one gnome said in a surprisingly gruff voice.

“Just be glad you don’t have four legs and hooves,” said the centaur, “It’s not as easy to get tossed when you do.”

Laughing, Mr. Kirke said, “Grace, welcome! Welcome to our school!”

And with that they got down to the business of introducing everyone else to Grace. This was complicated, as anyone who has ever started at a new school can tell you, and Grace soon began forgetting the names and faces of many of the people she had just met. What she did remember was that many were not students at all, but teachers, staff, and even some graduates of the school.

As the crowd began to disperse, Mr. Kirke led Grace, Big Bear, and Art towards the mansion, beckoning a boy who was about thirteen or fourteen. He had smoky brown hair that was short-cropped, reminding Grace of the boys at her school back in Chicago who liked to pretend they were in the army. He was squinting his deep-set, steel grey eyes and Grace could not tell if he was suspicious of something or if the sun was just a little too bright. He had pale skin that looked like it would burn if he stayed all day long in the sun. He followed them, walking with an even confident stride.

Mr. Kirke led the way onto the porch that wrapped around the school and gestured to rocking chairs for them to sit in. Big Bear took his time, sniffing around the largest chair available on the porch. He eased himself into it, and though the chair creaked as he did, it was magically reinforced to support even Merriweather’s weight.

“Grace, I do not know if you caught his name a moment ago. This young man is Lee Stoneheart, one of our most promising upcoming students. Lee, can you bring our guests some refreshment? I believe tea is in order,” Mr. Kirke said to Lee who gave a slight nod of his head before disappearing into the mansion.

“Well, Grace, what do you think of our little school here?” Mr. Kirke asked.

Grace bit her lip and looked around. It was nothing like what she had imagined a school for learning magic would be. For starters, most things seemed rather ordinary, there were no great flashes of light or clouds of smoke or exploding octopi, though the last one may have been inspired by Mav’s recent magician-pirate phase the month before. There was not even a witch standing over a bubbling cauldron anywhere in sight. On the other hand, she had just been thrown higher than many birds regularly flew by a giant and then caught on thin air, just inches before she was dashed against the ground.

“It’s so different from anything I would have expected,” Grace replied.

Mr. Kirke bit back a little grin, “Of course it is. The most important things in our lives are never as exciting as we think they are before we begin them,” then, leaning forward with a smile, he said, “But if we do the important things right, they always end up being better than we could have possibly imagined.”

“How long will I go to school here?” Grace asked.

“As long as it takes until you are ready,” Mr. Kirke replied.

“How long does it usually take someone like me?”

“A young human girl with no magical experience? Eight years, maybe ten, maybe twelve. No difficult thing should take less than ten years to become an expert at, unless you are especially talented. Magic is like life, simple to learn, difficult to master,” Mr. Kirke said, leaning back to allow Lee to place a teacup and saucer on the end table next to his rocking chair.

Lee turned to Grace and placed a beautiful blue china teacup and saucer, quite unlike the one that Mr. Kirke had just received, in her hands. As he did, a gold medallion on a chain around his neck fell from between the folds of his shirt. Grace moved to avoid it, sloshing some of the tea as she did. It swung and hit her right on the nose. Grace looked up at Lee as he tucked the medallion back into his shirt.

“Sorry about that, little souvenir from last summer,” Lee murmured the hasty apology as he served tea to Big Bear in a wooden pitcher and to Art in a thimble. Grace noticed that his accent was a little different from the rest of the people in Easterwood who she had met.

The whole encounter struck Grace as off. She was not sure what about it bothered her, but something about Lee did. He had almost acted too casual, like he was trying to play something off or impress her but act like he was not trying to impress her. It was very strange. She watched him for a few seconds as he set the tray down and descended the porch steps.

“Would I stay at the school the whole time?” Grace asked, trying not to think about Lee as he walked back to the yard.

“Heavens no!” Mr. Kirke said with a laugh, “We would keep you here to learn magical basics, but you never really learn to use your magic until you leave school and go into the real world. Would you believe that in some schools in Redwood students are kept in school for more than ten years before they have a chance to use what they learn outside of the classroom? No, here you will stay at the school for a while and then you will go out and use the things you’ve learned to help people here in Easterwood.”

“Would I go alone?” Grace asked, suddenly a little afraid.

“One day you will. We all have to go into the world alone eventually, but for now, no. You will go with other students who will teach you. You could even go with Big Bear or Art, if they are around then,” Mr. Kirke replied.

Grace thought about going on adventures with the enormous bear and world-wise meerkat as her traveling companions and realized that she quite liked the idea. She nodded a few times as she considered.

“Okay. This all sounds great,” Grace said.

Mr. Kirke clapped his hands together and said, “Wonderful! We will get you enrolled in our next set of classes, and you will be staying here at the manor from now on. I would like to introduce you to your bunkmates. Astral, Elora! Ladies, can you come up here?”

Grace could not see who Mr. Kirke had called at first, but after a few seconds, two girls peeled off from the largest crowd on the lawn, leaving the others behind to play with something that looked like a cloud inside of a ball of water. As they approached the porch, Grace thought they were some of the strangest people she had ever seen.

One was older, probably almost eighteen. Her skin was dark, the color of milk chocolate, but her hair was auburn and her almond shaped eyes the green of Christmas trees. Grace was surprised she could not remember being introduced to her a few minutes before.

The other girl buzzed along next to her on silky wings, beating like a hummingbird’s. The second girl was tiny, about six inches tall. She wore an elegant blue dress that reached down to her calves. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight bun and as she came closer Grace could see that a garland of flowers ran through it. She was pretty in a simple way and based on her features, Grace thought she was probably about a year or two older than she was, though it was hard to tell with her being so small.

“Very good! Grace, you will be joining Astral and Elora in their room. Astral is one of our most advanced students and will likely be finishing her time at our school soon. She is in charge of the three of you and it is her responsibility to ensure that none of you gets into too much trouble.”

Grace saw that Astral was quite beautiful with her heart shaped face. She was an elf and had a sharp, pointed nose and pointed ears. She wore a simple green gown that matched her eyes and was cinched by a belt of leather lined with tiny stoppered bottles. She held her hand out to Grace, “It’s wonderful to meet you. I’m so glad that you’ve decided to join our school.”

Grace shook her hand and looked at the elf girl. Astral was not much taller than she was, but she held herself with a confidence beyond her years. Had Astral not been surrounded by so many other strange people, Grace would have thought her the most unique person she had ever met.

“And Grace, this is Elora. She is one of our beginning students who has been here for two, no three, terms. I believe that she will do an excellent job of helping you feel comfortable with some of your classwork,” Mr. Kirke said.

Grace smiled at Elora, floating there in front of her face with her fairy wings buzzing, unsure of what to say. Elora looked Grace in the eyes and said in the highest voice Grace had ever heard, “I’m Elora Thumb IV and I want you to know that no matter how badly you’ve been treated anywhere else, you will always have a place with me and the other pixies,” and with that Elora held out her hand. Grace offered her a pinky in return.

“Oh! She’s learned so quickly!” Elora said with a giggle, flicking motes of luminescent dust around as she did.

Grace gasped in delight as she saw the shiny dust swirl around the tiny pixie girl, breathing some of it in. With no warning, she sneezed violently, blowing Elora across the porch and into a planter full of hydrangeas. Grace was horrified, wondering if she had just killed her new bunkmate.

Everyone sat in silence, staring first at Grace and then Elora, who was standing to dust herself. When a pixie dusts him or herself, they do not wipe dust off as most other people do. Rather, they shake very quickly so that pixie dust flies all around and they let it fall onto them, leaving a shiny luster.

“I...I’m so sorry,” Grace said, rushing over to Elora, “I hope that doesn’t happen each time I’m around you.”

Elora was already flitting over the hydrangeas, backing away and giving herself one final dusting as she replied to Grace, “Please, think nothing of it. I shouldn’t have expected you to know if you aren’t from around here.”

“Know what?” Grace asked, confused.

“About pixie dust. It sometimes makes people sneeze,” Elora replied, straightening herself.

“Oiy, Grace, you should watch out. Pixie dust is pure magic. Pixies are the most magic filled people there are next to the natties. Dust’ll make you sneeze like you got the rat plague if you ain’t never been exposed to it,” Art said.

“Oh, I hope that it goes away. I’d hate to be sneezing and blowing you around in our room each time I do,” Grace said, worried that she was already on Elora’s bad side.

Astral snapped her fingers.

“You know, try this,” she said, running her fingers over the row of vials along her belt before retrieving one. Unstopping the cork, she tapped a dot of lotion into Grace’s hand, “If you rub that around your nose and mouth it should keep the pixie dust from making you sneeze until you get used to being around it. How long have you been in Easterwood? Most people here have met pixies before.”

“Well, I’ve only been here for two days,” Grace replied.

“Oh?” said Astral in mild surprise, “Where’d you come from?”

“I, uh, I’m not sure. I guess I came from Chicago,” Grace replied.

“Chicago?” Astral asked, “Is it a land across the Hope Sea?”

“Um, no, it’s just a city. All I really know is that my house there, well my bedroom, looks a lot like the bedroom in Art’s cottage. To be honest I don’t really know how I got to Easterwood. I just woke up here yesterday and today,” Grace said.

A somewhat uncomfortable silence fell on the group. Grace could tell everyone on the porch expected her to say more. She watched as people looked first at her and then at Mr. Kirke in hopes of an answer from him. She did not know what else there was to say, though by a little spark in Mr. Kirke’s eye, she wondered if he might be hiding something. She was not lying when she said she knew nothing about Easterwood, and Chicago was so different from everything in Easterwood that even if she talked about it, no one would really understand.

“Well my dear, let me show you around the rest of the grounds,” said Mr. Kirke, “Elora, Astral, do you want to come along?”

The young ladies agreed and the whole group made their way around to the back of the house.

“And now inside the school,” Mr. Kirke said leading them up the backstairs to an enormous kitchen busy with over a dozen staff.

It struck Grace as surprising that a house this size would hold such a large kitchen, for while the house was quite large, she would not have expected so much room for a kitchen alone. They continued their tour through the kitchen, accosted by several pots, pans, gnomes, elves, and one very insistent ham.

“Adolphus!” Mr. Kirke said, clearly frustrated that he was having the conversation, “You cannot eat the brown sugar for dinner. This is your final warning. Stop smoking me, it makes me flaming mad.”

Grace turned to Elora, “Was he talking to the ham just now?”

Elora nodded, “It was an experiment that went wrong a couple of months back. Tom, one of Astral’s friends, was trying to make the ham taste better with a potion he’d made. He was supposed to use honey, salt, and some enchanted rosemary tincture, but he didn't have any honey, so he used molasses instead. When he put the ham in the potion, the ham swallowed a bunch of it and spit it right in Tom's face. It glued his lips shut and the ham started talking. It took Instructor Cobbler three days to figure out how to get Tom fixed and we still don’t know what to do with the ham. He’s practically alive now.”

Grace nodded robotically as she continued to process what a strange place Meadowbrook was.

Just as they were about to leave the kitchen, a terrible scream arose from behind them. While screams were a fairly common occurrence at Meadowbrook, particularly in the kitchen, this one was more desperate than usual. Grace stood shocked as she watched Big Bear take a second bite out of Adolphus, leaving only a few small scraps behind. Big Bear smacked his lips, grunting in delight as he did, not noticing the utter silence that had fallen on the room.

In his shock, an elf dropped a wooden spoon as Big Bear licked the molasses off of the counter, “That was a delicious ham, Grace. Do you think they have any more?”

“Um. I don’t know. I think you’ll have to ask Tom,” Grace replied.

“Oh, yes, Tom. He is truly a master hamsmith. Never have I had a ham so tasty,” said Big Bear as he finished the final few scraps of meat.

Mr. Kirke grunted, “Mm, probably better that way. He would have been devastated knowing I was fattening him up for the Fall Dinner. Well, on we go! In here is our dining room. As you have probably guessed the dinnerware has been enchanted for the last eighty years, so you have little to worry about with setting or clearing your plate.”

Grace had not guessed, but this was welcome news. The dining room too was much bigger than Grace would have imagined, as were the library, great hall, study, conservatory, and lounge. Grace soon felt as though she was walking through a real life version of a board game rather than a huge mansion.

“Mr. Kirke,” she said.

“Yes?” Mr. Kirke answered with a mischievous little smile on his face that made Grace think he already knew what she was going to ask.

“All the rooms are so big, where does everyone sleep?”

“Ahh! You’ve noticed! Most people do by now, or by the time they are shown their room. Yes! The whole mansion is enchanted, but one enchantment is particularly interesting. It has made all of the inside of the mansion much larger than the outside. Delightful, isn’t it? Follow me! Off to your room now!” and with a flourish, he led them up the stairs in the middle of the entrance hall. The hall itself looked larger than the whole house did on the outside. Grace let her feet sink into the thick red carpet as they climbed what seemed like a hundred stairs towards the room.

They reached the landing and Grace saw that there were two hallways, one in either direction. Each hall had nine doors on either side. There were two signs in front of her, one that read Boys with an arrow to the left and one that read Girls with an arrow to the right. Not following the rest of the group, Grace turned right.

“No, no,” Astral said, “Someone switched the rooms again. It’s one of the quirks of an enchantment that never got worked out. Every so often they switch on their own, so what used to be the boys side goes to the girls and the other way around. But someone also gives it a little help every so often. The Julianas brothers, I think, those three are always trying to get into the girls side of the house. The house has a lot of spells on it to make life easier and safer. The self-cleaning dishes, lights that follow you if you need to use the facilities at night. There’s one that actually keeps anyone on the school grounds from being seriously harmed or killed.”

“How do you know when the rooms switch?” Grace asked.

“Usually when there’s a lot of screaming because someone opened the door to their room that used to be on the other side of the hall. That's why we need the signs, so we can switch them, but sometimes we're a little late, like today,” Astral replied, taking the signs off the nails on which they hung.

“Why not make them magic signs so they switch whenever the halls do?” Grace asked.

“Good question! This one's already thinking like a magestra, isn't she Mr. Kirke? There's no way to tie down the magic that switches the halls, which is why we can't fix it. Because we can't tie it down, we also can't tie other magic to it, it’s not stable enough. It would sort of be like tying a thread around a flag in a hurricane. And here we are at our room,” Astral said, stopping three doors down.

Grace’s new room at Meadowbrook was charming, and rather than everything being bigger than she expected, as with the rest of the house, everything in this room seemed a little smaller. Mr. Kirke again had to duck his head to feel comfortable inside. It was simply furnished, with three unique beds, each appropriate for their occupants. Beside each bed was a desk and some simple equipment, a pot, stovetop, bucket of water and textbooks. On shelves next to each desk were rows of labeled ceramic jars full of tinctures, potions, herbs, and animal parts. But what caught Grace’s eye most was the little snack in the middle of each bed, wrapped in beautiful golden paper.

“It’s perfect!” Grace exclaimed, turning to the other girls, “We’re going to have so much fun together, aren’t we?”

“The fun has just begun!” Mr. Kirke said, “Grace, you will be starting classes tomorrow, but tonight we’re having a feast to welcome our newest student!”

Chapter 8

More Than Meets the Eye

The dancer swung a chain with a flaming ball on either end, leaving tongues of flame to evaporate into the air as she spun in a tight circle in front of Gigi and her family. Not only was it Saturday and the first day that Amma and the whole family were out in the city together, but it was also the last weekend before school started. As the dancer finished her routine, another one took her place, this time a man with a flaming sword that he swung around like he was fighting in a battle.

Gigi looked at Amma to see what she thought of the man. Amma looked bored, inspecting the grass next to the blanket they sat on. Gigi noticed on several occasions that butterflies flitted around Amma, with two even stopping to land on her shoulder.

“Oh, he’s getting really close! I hope he doesn’t fall in too!” Mav said, grabbing Amma’s arm. Gigi watched as the fire dancer purposefully avoided the gopher hole that another performer stepped in earlier that day, turning an ankle and having to be helped back to the staging area.

“Whew! I’m really glad he made it! I didn’t think he would,” Mav said.

“Oh, you are just so cute. I wish I could stay longer,” Amma said, pulling him into her lap and giving him a huge hug.

The swordsman finished his routine, returning to the staging area with the rest of his companions. They gathered for a couple of minutes and Gigi could see people starting to get restless, wondering if it was the end of the show. But before anyone could get up and leave, the performers walked out to the middle of the roped off area. They formed up in a line and all lit their items on fire one last time, striking a superhero pose as they did. The show reminded Gigi of some of the things she had seen at Meadowbrook in her dream the night before, but that had been much more exciting than the fire dancers. She found herself wanting to talk to Amma about Easterwood, but was not sure what she would say about her dreams that would be interesting.

Gigi looked at Amma who was already standing up, holding Mav and stretching out her back. She imagined that Amma was unimpressed because she really had grown up in Easterwood and had seen and done so many amazing things with magic that these fire dancers looked like kindergarteners. Gigi looked back at the group, now bowing to the applause of the audience.

“What’d you think of them, Mom?” Gigi’s dad asked.

“They were okay. I could tell the kids really liked them,” Amma said, giving Mav another hug.

“Amma, stop hugging me so much,” Mav said, squirming out of her grasp.

“Mav, if you want cake you need to let Amma give you five hugs,” Gigi’s mom said as she rolled up the blanket.

“Ugh! Fine, I’ll take the hugs,” Mav said, “But I want to choose which piece of cake I get.”

Gigi helped her mom pick up the rest of the things they brought, packing them into their bag. Her dad looked at a program detailing the other things to see during the first annual Humboldt Park Performing Arts Festival. It was sunny, the air clear and clean and perfect for a day in the historic park watching performers from throughout the city.

“Okay, it looks like we’ve got the choice between a guy who does spoken word love poems or a troupe of illusionist mimes–come on, where do they find these guys?” Gigi’s dad said as he rolled the program up and stuck it in his back pocket, “Illusionist mimes, I’m guessing?”

“I don’t know, maybe the kids could go with your mom to see the mimes and you and I could do the love poems,” Gigi’s mom said, hoisting their day pack onto a shoulder.

“Um, yeah, that sounds, uh, nice,” Gigi’s dad said, “It’s on the other side of the park, so you and I’d have to leave now and we still might not get there in time.”

“Great! Where’re the mimes?” Gigi’s mom said, handing the pack to Amma.

“In the fieldhouse, they can’t miss it,” Gigi dad said, pointing across a pond filled with lily pads towards an elegant red and white brick building, “Will you be okay with the kids mom?”

“I raised you and Jimmy until you were both twenty-five, I think I can handle these two for half an hour,” Amma said, rubbing Mav’s head as she pulled him back to her side.

“Mom, I wasn’t twenty-five when you stopped taking care of me,” Gigi’s dad replied.

“You’re right, she really never stopped, now come on,” Gigi’s mom said, pulling her dad by the hand, “I wanna hear those poems.”

As soon as Gigi’s parents left Mav darted into a row of bushes that lined the field saying, “Come on out bunnies! I wanna pet you!”

“Mav, we are leaving and you will get left behind for the alligator that lives in the park if you do not come now,” Amma said as she began down a path that circled around the pond towards the fieldhouse.

Gigi followed alongside her as Mav disentangled himself from the bushes, running ahead of them and into a stand of tall grass.

“Amma, this has been really nice. I’m so glad that you’ve been able to be here,” Gigi said.

“I think so too. I only wish your grandfather could have been alive to be here with us,” Amma said with a sad smile.

Gigi thought about the little she had heard of her dad’s dad. He had been struck by lightning when her dad was still young and had been gone so long that it seemed like everyone had almost forgotten him. Gigi had always wished that she could have met him at least one time.

“What has been your favorite thing about me being here? I can tell you, for me it was watching you and your brother play together so nicely. It is just great that you two are such good friends,” Amma said.

Gigi wrinkled her nose. She thought about how Mav had woken her up that morning, throwing a pair of dirty underwear in her face. Maybe that was how grown up friends treated each other. If so, life was not going to be nearly so enjoyable as an adult.

They walked in silence for a while longer. As they did, Gigi thought again about Easterwood and how much she wanted to tell Amma about it. She knew talking about her dreams in detail might sound weird and she hoped that Amma would not get frustrated with her talking about them again. Her mind had been wandering back to the adventures she had in Easterwood all day and she could no longer hold it in. She wanted to talk to someone about them.

“You know, Amma. Both nights you’ve been here I had really weird dreams. They’re so much more real feeling than the other dreams that I’ve ever had before. It’s like I’m actually there and not just dreaming it, where everything’s fuzzy and it’s hard to remember when I wake up. Like last night, I got to meet your great uncle and went to this school that he started. He was really nice, and his school was awesome. It’s a magic school and everyone there is really good at magic. Well, they’re better than I am. I still didn’t know how to do anything, but I told them that I would join the school and they let me. And what else, oh, yeah, the ring you gave me is so cool. Mr. Kirke, the guy who’s your great uncle in my dream, he said that he’s the one who made the ring and that it’s really magical. And this little bracelet,” Gigi said, raising her wrist so that Amma could see that she was still wearing it, “I think it’s been in my dreams too, actually I don't know, I don't remember seeing it.”

Amma laughed, “It is so nice that you are having fun dreams like that, Grace. I used to have the same kinds of adventures when I was younger. Just promise me you will not do anything too scary in your dreams.”

“Oh, some of the time it’s really scary, like when I got attacked by bees with Big Bear, but most of the time everything is so nice and I got to, like, have a huge feast with the rest of the school and get tossed by magic all the way above the forest. And you know what, Mr. Kirke knows about your estate," Grace lowered her voice to a whisper, "I secretly want to be the person who owns it again someday.

"But, someone stole a lot of magical stuff and old books from these historians and everyone’s really worried that whoever stole the stuff is gonna use it to do something terrible. And the queen is going to another country that they had a really big war with and she’s trying to make peace with them. And you know something else, Mr. Kirke said that I shouldn’t mention your name, because even though a lot of people at school think you’re great, some people don’t like you at all.”

Amma looked surprised at this last part and said, “Everyone in your dreams must think I’m a lot more important than I actually am!”

Their conversation was cut short by Mav shouting a long battle cry. He ran towards them, stick in hand. On the end of it was a cicada, wings buzzing like mad, as he waved the stick in front of Gigi’s nose. “Stop evil witch, or I’ll blast you with my bug powers!”

“Ugh, get out of here, Mav,” Gigi said, pushing the cicada out of her face, “Go find something else to play with.”

“You’ve not heard the last of Bug Boy, witch girl!” Mav said, running back up the trail, halting at a spot where ants were spilling out of their nest.

“He does have a lot of energy,” Amma said.

“Mom keeps saying he’s going to make her hair grey, and Dad’s hair’s already turning grey because of him I think,” Gigi said.

Amma laughed as they walked down the path. They continued on for several steps and Gigi found herself wanting to hear more from Amma.

“So do you have plans for when you get back to Seattle?” Gigi asked.

“No, not many plans right now. Probably will work on my garden. It was nice seeing you with some of my jewelry, so I will probably work on finding a few more things from when I was a little girl and send them over as I can.”

“That would be great,” Gigi said, trying not to think about how much her mom would complain as she had to try to find places in their small Chicago flat to store all the stuff Amma might send them.

“Well, it won’t be much, I think. Just a few things that I find here and there. I need to clean out the attic. There’s always more to do,” Amma said as they passed Mav and started walking up the stairs to the fieldhouse.

Amma reached over and took Gigi’s hand in her own, saying, “You are everything I could have ever wished for in a granddaughter. You are strong, stronger than I was when I was your age. No matter what comes your way, you stand up for what is right and you get tough when you need to. Just because something is big and scary or hard does not mean you should run away from it.”

“What should I do if someone tries to hurt me?”

Amma thought about the question for several seconds. “Someone small like you? You can use their size against them. Let me show you what I’d do,” Amma said, setting the pack down just outside the doors leading into the high walled room.

“For example, if you are attacking me and you have a hold on my shirt like this,” Amma said wrapping Gigi’s hands around part of her shirt, “then I would try to get a leg in around yours to trip you.”

Amma hooked a foot in front and then behind Gigi’s feet to show what she meant, leaning forward and then back.

“After that, I would grab you and lean down and into the way I want you to fall. So if I put my foot behind you, I would lean forward and if I put my foot in front of yours, I would lean back.”

Amma let her go and asked, “Did you understand?”

Gigi nodded, releasing the hold on Amma’s shirt.

Amma then grabbed Gigi’s shirt and walked through the motions as she spoke, “You need to work with the other person’s momentum as much as possible. If they are pushing you forward, get a foot in front of them, lean back, and turn as you fall. If they are pulling you towards them, step in fast and hard, get a foot behind theirs’ and push them over it, but be ready to fall with them.”

As she spoke, Amma leaned back letting Gigi’s weight push her until Gigi thought Amma would trip and fall, but Amma righted herself and gave Gigi a solid pat on the shoulder. “It might be better to wait to do the full routine when we’re not standing on stone. But do you think you have the basic idea?”

Gigi nodded, wishing they had more time to learn things like this, but glad that Amma had taught one simple thing she could do if someone attacked her. She had no idea when she would use it, but was glad to have it all the same.

"What have you thought about the school so far?" Amma asked as they entered the fieldhouse, "Is it better than this?"

Inside the back wall was covered by an enormous white sheet that waved like a flag. Two mimes all dressed in white sheets that covered even their hair but left their red painted faces exposed, were juggling four other red painted faces between them. The other red painted faces were making expressions of surprise as they flew through the air. They went back and forth between the jugglers at least a dozen times each.

Gigi considered as the jugglers stopped and the flying faces hung in midair. The waving sheet stilled and as it did the flying faces stepped forward, revealing that they belonged to four more mimes.

"A hundred times better."

Chapter 9

Breakfast With Haughty Lee

Grace woke in her bed at Meadowbrook for the first time. She rolled over to find Astral already awake and holding herself in a position that Carla’s mom called the side plank pose. She had her eyes closed and was breathing very slowly, focusing on what she was doing. Grace watched as Astral shifted her limbs like a chameleon wandering slowly through a tangle of plastic plants in the pet store as it hunted a cricket.

A low buzzing hum filled the room and for a moment Grace thought that the bees had found her and were about to attack again. She looked around, wondering how they would have gotten in and why Astral was not doing anything about them. The buzzing grew louder before cutting off as Elora landed on the head of Grace’s bed with a little cloud of glowing dust. Grace sneezed. As she did, Astral spun around, drawing a whip and cracking it so it pinged off a copper pot on the window sill next to her desk. Grace’s mouth dropped open. It was the fastest she had ever seen anyone move. Astral straightened and smiled, pushing a lock of her dark red hair behind her ear.

“That was so...cool!” Grace said.

Astral nodded in self-assured approval as she coiled her whip and set it in her hammock. “Let’s head down for breakfast.”

Grace followed her in awe, quite forgetting that she was still wearing the loose cotton gown she had gotten from Mr. Kirke's house to sleep in. As they walked out of the room, Elora buzzed up and landed on Grace’s shoulder.

“Don’t get too excited about that, she’s always doing stuff with her whip. It’s all cracks and snaps and flashes of light at first, but it gets old after a while,” Elora said, “I don’t know if you’re going to like breakfast too much. The chefs here aren’t as good as the ones we have back home. How many chefs does your family have?”

“Well, I guess just one,” Grace said, thinking of her mom.

“Just one? Are they a good cook at least?” Elora asked.

“I think so. She makes really good mac and cheese.”

“Sounds weird, what is it?” Elora asked.

“No, it’s pretty normal, it’s pasta and cheese sauce. I think it’s the food I’ve eaten more than any other in my whole life.”

“That’s weird. Only people from the Sapphirelands eat pasta, right Astral?”

Astral turned and shrugged, “I guess. We ate a lot of it growing up, but we don’t really have cheese back home, so I don’t think I’ve ever eaten mc’n cheese.”

“It’s mac and cheese, not mc’n cheese,” Grace corrected, “But wait, what part of Easterwood are you from?”

“Oh, the Sapphirelands aren’t in Easterwood, they both used to be part of Gaia, but they separated when the Larchill dynasty fell apart. The Sapphirelands are pretty far south, it’s mostly jungle down there.”

“Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that there were people who weren’t from Easterwood here.”

“I’m the only student. My family left the Sapphirelands when I was about your age,” Astral said in a way that left Grace feeling like she should not ask any more questions.

Elora whispered in Grace’s ear as the three of them stepped into the dining room, “It’s a really long story. Astral doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Grace nodded as she looked around the dining room. It was by now quite full of other students and a few instructors. Cooks flowed in and out of the door leading to the kitchens, allowing a billow of steam into the room each time they went through. Once she was seated, a grumpy little elf with gnarled hands and a face that looked like a diseased pumpkin approached her and said, “What’d you want for breakfast?”

Grace thought about it for several seconds before saying, “Um, I think a short stack of pancakes with maple syrup would be nice.”

“Well too bad, the pancake chef didn’t show up today,” the little elf said, his voice like rusty gears on a bike.

“Oh,” Grace said, a little dejected, “Well, do you have any bacon and eggs? I’d be really happy with bacon and eggs.”

“The pig died a month ago and our chickens stopped laying last week. Are you gonna order something we can make or what?” the elf looked up at her, beads of unappetizing sweat running between his eyes.

“Okay, well. What do you have that you can make?” Grace asked.

“Same thing everyone else is getting,” the elf said with a sweep of his hand, “Oatmeal today. What, you think we make something to order for you every meal? No, no, no, no, no, last night was something special.”

“Is that what you tell all the girls?” an accented voice behind Grace asked.

The elf looked over Grace’s shoulder, his already lined face shrinking in on itself as a scowl played across his brow, “What’d you want Lee? You don’t like anything I cook.”

Grace turned to see the boy who Mr. Kirke had serve tea while they were on the porch the day before. She was struck again by his accent, though this time what really caught her attention was his eyes. He was no longer squinting and now she could see just how clear and grey they were, like pools of quicksilver. His oval face was offset by a rather large nose, similar to the kind Grace had seen on ancient Roman statues. He wore a light shirt and tightfitting blue trousers that accentuated a slender frame with defined muscles. Grace knew at once that most of the girls at her school in Chicago would have tried to write him love notes.

“That’s because all your cooking comes out looking worse than your face,” Lee replied with a cool swagger that he did not display the day before.

The little gargoyle of an elf stood scowling up at Lee, who made a quick imitation of the face he wore. The elf shook his head in disgust before turning back to the kitchens muttering about oatmeal and stuck up kids.

Lee sat in the chair next to Grace, setting his own bowl of oatmeal down with a thunk as he did so that a good portion of it slopped over the side. Grace stole a glance at Astral who was sitting across from them and noticed the look of mild contempt smeared on her lips.

Lee, for his part had either not noticed or cared, but instead spoke to Grace, “It’s Grace, right?”

“Yeah, it’s good to meet you,” Grace said, extending a cautious hand.

Lee took her hand in his, giving it a shake. Grace was surprised by the strength of his grasp, “It’s good to meet you too. How do you like Meadowbrook so far?”

Well, I don’t really know. I’ve only been here for less than a day. So far it’s pretty good. I guess the only real trouble I’ve had was with that little elf a moment ago,” Grace said.

“Oh, yeah, Norfred. He’s just terrible. He’s been here forever, as long as anyone could remember. I think he used to be a famous cook in Redwood or for one of the noble families but he lost his touch and didn’t ever get it back,” Lee said, pushing his spoon through the bowl of oatmeal.

Grace nodded. “What about you? How long have you been here?”

“Since I was nine, about your age,” Lee said, “I was the best magester in my clan back then and no one really knew how to teach me, so they had me come here instead.”

“Your clan?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, the clans travel the area of Easterwood that borders the Waste. I’m from Stonefire clan,” Lee said, pausing like it would mean something to Grace.

“Why couldn’t anyone teach you in your clan?” Grace asked, trying to be polite.

Lee twitched his lips and gave a little shrug, “I’m just that good. The clans have never spent a lot of time learning magic, so when someone who’s got a natural talent for it comes along, they usually get sent to a school here in Easterwood.”

“I don’t really know much about magic, what makes you so good at it?” Grace asked.

Lee’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, “You don’t know much about magic but you’re going to be a student here?”

“Well,” Grace said, trying to buy herself some time as she thought of an answer, “I, got invited by Mr. Kirke. I don’t know much about magic, but he thinks I have potential to learn. I mean, he said it would take me years and years, but that I’d get there eventually.”

Lee shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I just would have thought you’d know something if you were going to study here.”

“Not really, I actually don’t even really know what I’d use to make magic. I mean people have talked about me using my ring, but I don’t really know what that means,” Grace said, holding up her hand. She was finding Lee somewhat interesting, even if he was a little cocky.

“Oh, wow, you really don’t know much. So some people, the ones who aren’t human, like Astral or Elora,” Lee said, glancing at them, “They can do magic whenever; it’s part of them. But people like us, humans, we need something to move our magic through. I use this stone,” Lee said, withdrawing a glossy brown stone from his breast pocket. It was about the size of a medium chicken’s egg. “It’s from when the Larchills ruled Gaia, made by the desert elves in the Waste. My family’s had it for four generations, but I’m the only one who’s ever been able to really use it to its full potential.”

“I don’t know how to do anything with my ring,” Grace said.

“Well, I could show you, if you’d like,” Lee said, slipping the stone back into his pocket, “It’s tough, I had to learn on my own. But I could teach you a few shortcuts.”

Grace glanced across the table and saw Astral give a subtle shake of her head. Elora sat with her arms crossed, glaring at her tiny bowl of oatmeal. For a moment, Grace thought she should refuse; neither of her new bunkmates seemed to be very happy about Lee being there. He was also the kind of person that Grace did not think she would have made very good friends with, but he seemed so knowledgeable.

If she wanted to grow up to be an excellent magester, Grace reasoned, she would need to learn from lots of people. Maybe she could learn something from Lee that she could not learn from anyone else. She was becoming a young lady, after all, and young ladies should be able to choose things for themselves, whether or not someone was going to disagree with that choice.

“I think that’d be nice. When do you want to meet?” Grace asked.

Elora let out an audible groan as Lee smiled. “What about tomorrow after dinner?”

Grace, not knowing her schedule, looked at Astral for confirmation if she would be available then. Astral, her mouth quirked in disgust, shrugged and ate another spoonful of oatmeal.

“Um, I guess that works. Should we meet here?”

“Sounds good,” Lee said, standing up and either not noticing the other two girls or not caring about their reactions, “I’ll see you then. And don’t forget to bring your ring.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Grace said, feeling her heart start to race a little, like she had just made an exciting yet dangerous decision, “Thanks Lee.”

“Sure thing,” Lee said, “Glad to help.”

Grace watched as he walked away.

“That self-servicing little twit,” Elora said, “Why did you even keep talking to him?”

“I think you mean self-serving,” Astral said, “And Grace, you can work with anyone here at the school to learn magic. Lee’s very good at some things, but he’s arrogant, especially since he came back from his pilgrimage.”

“Pilgrimage?” Grace asked.

“It’s a thing all the members of the clans do, it’s really not that important. But since Lee did one last summer he’s acted like he’s way hotter than he actually is,” Astral said.

“Do you think I should meet up with him?” Grace asked.

Astral shrugged. “Like I said, it’s up to you. I wouldn’t, but that’s because I think he’s obnoxious and I don’t like being around him. You probably will learn some good things if you go, it’ll mostly depend on how much of him you can handle.”

Grace pushed her congealing oatmeal around in the bowl. She had not thought he was that bad, other people she had met were much worse. “I’ll probably get together with him, I feel like I need all the help I can get.”

Astral gave a little grimace as she nodded. “Okay, well if it doesn’t go well, don’t feel like you need to meet up with him again. But we do need to get going or we’re going to be late for your first class.”

“Oh yeah, I completely forgot to ask, what’s it going to be?” Grace asked.

“Apotheosis!” Elora said.

Astral rolled her eyes, “Ugh, don’t listen to her, Grace. You aren’t going to be turning anything into a divine being for a while, maybe never. It’s not really my area of specialty. The most I’ve ever been able to do is promote one of the ants in my colony to queen.

“You’re going to be starting with BA 100: The Basics of Control. It’s a remedial course, but I think you’ll need it to get up to speed. BA stands for basic. All the BA classes are very introductory. After lunch you’ll be doing EL 101: The Things That Matter. The EL classes are all Elementology classes. They’re really foundational to everything you’ll be learning. After EL 101, one of the other students, Tom Strate, the hamsmith guy, volunteered to help tutor you in the afternoons for a few weeks. He’s a friend of mine and was pretty happy to have the chance to help you out. The last thing you should know, if you don’t already, is that classes only last two weeks, so you need to really focus on them, because most of the time they don’t get offered again for a while.”

The three girls hurried to finish breakfast. As they got up to leave Big Bear shouldered his way into the dining room through the kitchen. Grace waved at him and he approached their table.

“Grace, are you ready for your first day of classes?” Big Bear asked.

“Yeah, I think so. I’m pretty nervous to be honest,” Grace replied.

“It is normal to be nervous. Whenever I get ready to do something brand new, I usually eat a lot of honey. It helps to drown the butterflies that begin flapping their wings inside of my belly.”

“I get butterflies in my stomach when I get nervous too, but usually I don’t try to drown them,” Grace said, “Did Mr. Kirke hear anything more about the people who robbed the League’s Headquarters?”

“Someone robbed something?” Elora asked, flying in front of Grace’s face and floating backward as they walked out of the dining room.

“Yeah, it was the League of Historians, someone broke in and stole a bunch of their stuff,” Grace said.

“Wow, that’s crazy. Did they find out who did it?” Elora asked, turning to Big Bear.

“They did not. The members of the Guard who are pursuing the one person who is fleeing with an artifact requested the militias in several of the towns outside of Redwood to set up lookouts along the roads and in forest. The League promised a reward of a dozen gold chestnuts to the person who captures the thief. Over four hundred men and women went out in search of the thief last night, they set up trapping spells and spread out all through the area, but the thief got away.”

“He got away?” Grace asked as they walked through the entry hall.

“Yes, it is very strange. I thought they would have had enough people helping to stop the thief,” Big Bear said, his voice echoing off the high walls. Grace was struck again by the size of the space, thinking it must reach more than five stories high at the tip of the ceiling. Everything inside the hall was so elegant, from the carved handrails that led up the stairs, looking like a pair of long, skinny dragons, to the white and grey marble floor, veined with streaks of gold.

“Well, what’s going to happen now?” Grace asked.

“There are a few talented magesters in the towns further out from Redwood. The Guard has sent messages to these magesters and asked them to set up more complicated trapping spells before the thief passes through. We know that they are moving on or near the Queen’s Highway and there are a lot of towns that can help find this person. I think it will only be one or two more days before someone will corner him. A lot of people are excited about the chance to get a dozen gold chestnuts”

“Is a dozen gold chestnuts enough to buy an estate, or even part of one?” Grace asked, thinking that if she had enough money she could perhaps regain part of Amma’s old home.

“You could buy a small house with that much. Or a really nice carriage with four horses to pull it. That would be really fun. You could ride all over the place really fast. Kia! Kia!” Elora said, pretending that she was in the driver’s seat of a coach.

Grace was disappointed to hear this. The idea of owning the estate had taken hold in her mind and she found herself becoming more and more determined to regain her family’s long lost lands. However, knowing that she would not be able to buy the lands with only a dozen pieces of gold forced her to rethink things, putting the possibility of catching the thief herself out of her mind. She would need a better plan to get her family’s estate back.

Chapter 10

Class is in Session

Exiting through the heavy wooden doors Grace found that she had a moment of vertigo as she stepped outside. Her mind struggled to make the adjustment from being inside in a very large space to outside in a space quite a lot smaller. Grace fought off the dizziness as she walked down the stairs to the yard. As they circled the house, Grace saw Lee walking across the backyard towards the paths that led to the classrooms in the woods. He was reading a very large book while walking in the midst of several other students on their way to classes. Grace watched as he avoided colliding with two girls at the very last moment and stepped over a gnome boy without once looking up.

Grace was not sure what Astral and Elora had against Lee and decided that she would give him a fair chance, thinking that perhaps he was misunderstood. He had been very kind to offer to help teach her, Grace knew she needed all the help she could get.

“I need to go this way,” Big Bear said, “I have some foraging that I need to do for dinner tonight and tomorrow and it may take some time. Do you like the taste of roast venison?”

“I’ve never really had it, what’s it taste like? Chicken?” Grace asked.

“Saying venison tastes like chicken would be like saying that shrub over there is like the tree near Mr. Kirke’s house. They both are plants, but one is a little boring and the other is magnificent. I think it tastes like the forest and the meadows in spring.”

Grace had never eaten either of those things so she just wished him well on his mission to find a deer that would be as wonderful as he was describing.

Grace and Astral walked down one of the trails leading into the woods while Elora hovered between them.

“Crazy about the League of Historians,” Elora said, “I had no idea something like that had happened.”

“It sounds like it was pretty bad and everyone’s freaking out because they have no idea who actually broke in,” Grace said.

“Do you know what they stole?” Astral asked.

“No, I don’t. I don’t even know if the League knows everything that was stolen,” Grace said.

“I hope that they didn’t take the Path Spark. I think that the only one left is there. That would be a really big problem.”

Grace was about to ask what the Path Spark was when she began catching glimpses of students coming from all different directions. “Are those the other students who don’t live at the school?”

“Yeah, this time of day, it’s going to be all the younger students, they’re coming from Oakton or one of the farming communities nearby,” Astral said, “And I need to apologize beforehand about BA 100. You’re probably going to be about the youngest person in the class. Everyone in there has failed more than one class in the last three months. It won’t be very interesting, but since you don’t really know very much about magic, I thought it would give you a chance to start from the very beginning.”

Soon they arrived at a little complex of four rectangular buildings. They were built to look similar to the schoolhouse, but with far fewer decorative adornments and interesting angles. They did have a central yard that several students were standing in, talking to each other.

“These buildings used to be the servants’ quarters,” Elora said, flying in front of Grace and hovering backwards as they walked.

“Like the maids and butlers and things?” Grace asked.

Elora began ticking off on her fingers, “Maids, chambermaids, kitchen maids, housemaids, laundry maids, nursemaids, drink maids, scullery maids, the valets, footmen, hall boys, box boys, boot boys, bag boys, maybe a few others. That’s all my family has, but they may have had a few more back when this place was in operation.”

“Your family has that many servants?” Grace asked.

“Oh, we have a lot more kinds on our estate, but those are the ones that live in these kinds of houses,” Elora said.

“Your family has an estate?” Grace asked, wondering how many people at Meadowbrook had more money than movie stars.

“Well, it’s not a very old estate, but my family came by it fair and square. We made a load of money and bought out one of those ruined elf families,” Elora said, a little burst of pixie dust flying off of her as she turned to Astral, “No offence.”

Astral waved her away, “I’m from the Sapphirelands, it doesn’t matter much to me,” then, turning to Grace, “BA 100’s there in the first one on the left. Instructor Juniper, she’s really tough. Don’t get on her bad side.”

“Have a good time and let me know how it goes,” Elora said peeling off towards another classroom surrounding the small courtyard.

“Any more questions before your first class?” Astral asked, her vibrant green eyes level with Grace’s.

For a moment Grace thought she was being evaluated for something and did not know how to answer. The two girls looked at each other for just a heartbeat longer than was comfortable before Grace said, “I’m a little nervous, but I can’t think of anything else. Thank you so much for working so hard to get me ready for classes.”

Astral’s dark brown lips spread into a smile, “You’re going to be fine, now get to class before you’re late.”

Grace entered the classroom to find a very old woman with wild green hair standing at the front of the room. She wore a black dress with white lace around the bodice that fanned out as it reached the floor. Her arms were thin to the point of being bony, but her elbows and wrists bulged like knots in a tree. Against a gnarled palm she tapped a thin grey switch that reminded Grace of a yardstick. Her lips were pursed so tightly that the cords on her neck stood out in stark relief. Despite Astral’s insistent urging that she would be late for her first day of class, Grace was one of the first students to arrive and took a seat at the front of the room.

Grace breathed in a heady aroma that reminded her of Cascadian pine in the mountains outside of Seattle on a hot summer day. Early morning sun washed across her desk, casting shadows amidst the delicate ivy vines engraved in the border of its walnut surface. Thick bark covered the floor, its fine grain firm and supporting under Grace’s feet, while the walls rippled occasionally like tiny leaves in an unseen breeze between shades of fern and moss. The methodical swat of the instructor’s switch on her coarse palm beat time against birdsong that held all the potential of a new beginning.

Grace did not recognize any of the students as they filed into the class, disoriented and dumbfounded. They looked like prisoners entering the yard after a month in solitary confinement. She realized that these must all be students who did not live in the schoolhouse and who were here for basic magical training. A girl who was a teenager sat down on Grace’s right while a little dwarf boy took the seat on her left. Grace had to keep herself from gasping as she realized that the dwarf boy already had a beard that reached down to his shoulders. He was working hard to extract a quill from his leather bag. When he at last did, what he produced was a bent and gnarled feather that reminded Grace of a gull she once watched crash land on one of the beaches in Chicago. That resolved, he went once again to the depths of his bag in search of something else.

The girl already had a pair of brushes floating around her face, applying makeup in thick cakes, particularly around a few sizable blemishes.

“You’re doing that with magic?” Grace asked, amazed.

The girl cracked one eye just enough to look out the side before shutting it again to let the brushes do their work.

Grace began to understand why Astral had apologized for putting her in this course. One last student, a tall fairy boy with large gossamer wings tucked down his back, stumbled in, a smile on his handsome face. He found a seat in the last row, sitting down in a heap. Instructor Juniper stopped tapping the switch and addressed the class without even introducing herself.

“This class was created to help students who have difficulty in mastering the most basic magical techniques. Some of you have been in school for some time,” she said with a significant look at the girl next to Grace, “Others are quite new to school and have had no magical experience whatsoever. No matter–”

“Who’s had no magical experience?” a boy near the back asked, cutting Instructor Juniper off.

“That is not important, right now, Bixby,” Instructor Juniper said with a tone that dared him to interrupt her again, “what training you received in the past–”

He apparently had not heard the tone because he said, “Is it that girl in the front? I’ve never seen her before. She doesn’t look like she knows a lick a’ magic.”

Grace could feel all the eyes in the classroom beginning to bear down on her. She tried to look at the girl next to her, in hopes that the class would think Bixby was talking about her, but with the makeup brushes still flitting around the girl’s face, Grace did not think that this would be very convincing.

“I think he’s talking about you,” the little dwarf boy whispered as he tapped Grace’s shoulder.

Instructor Juniper closed her eyes as she tried to control her temper, “Bixby, if you interrupt me again, you will spend the remainder of your time in this class standing at the back of the room, do you understand?”

Grace turned to see a plump elf boy nodding his head with so much vigor that his jowls quivered. That seemed to be a good enough answer for Instructor Juniper, because she continued where her sentence left off, “This class should be seen by all of you as a fresh start. You are all in this class for a reason, but I ask that you choose to leave that reason at the door each day you come. For the next ten days, we will focus on gaining control of our minds and quieting them enough to–”

Here she was interrupted again, but not by Bixby. Rather this time it was the little dwarf boy who had at last succeeded in extricating his inkwell from his bag, only to slip as he set it on the desk, spilling its contents in a spreading pool. Instructor Juniper’s lips twitched in annoyance and she handed him the wet sponge she kept next to the chalkboard.

“Accomplish real magic,” Instructor Juniper said, finishing her sentence as she snatched the makeup brushes out of the air and clapped them to the desk.

Instructor Juniper then led Grace and the rest of the class through a variety of things that Grace did not enjoy. They began the day by sitting quietly with their thoughts for what seemed like an hour. After that Instructor Juniper made them close their eyes and imagine nothing, which Grace found impossible to do. After she sat for what felt like an eternity trying to figure out how to imagine nothing, Instructor Juniper had them envision what would happen to a thing once they applied magic to it. Instructor Juniper then had them go one by one and tell her what they envisioned happening. When it was Grace’s turn she floundered for a while as she tried to remember what her mind had been thinking about a moment before. She realized that she could not remember what it was, so she just said, “My desk and that the vines are alive.”

Instructor Juniper’s stare was piercing, like twin spears, before she gave a little nod like she had just decided something.

The class dragged on forever as the sun crawled across the sky. It was so boring and not at all what Grace thought magic class would be like. Several times she almost fell asleep right there in front of the class, but each time her head started to nod, she thought she could feel Instructor Juniper’s eyes starting to turn to her, the new girl that did not know magic.

By the end of class all the students trooped out, dragging their weary feet and looking even more disoriented than when they first came in. Grace rose to follow them. Just before she made it to the door, Instructor Juniper called her back, “Grace, a moment if you don’t mind.”

Grace hoped that Instructor Juniper did not see her shoulders sag as she turned back to face her.

Instructor Juniper stood watching the last of the students make their way out. She waited until the door slammed shut before she turned her gaze to Grace. “Mr. Kirke told some of us that your grandmother is Amma Paulownia. Is that true?” Instructor Juniper asked.

Grace nodded, wondering why he had told some of the teachers but had warned her not to.

A little wrinkle creased the area around Instructor Juniper’s eyes like she was being hurt but did not want to show it, “She was a good woman. You should be proud.”

Grace was taken aback, no one had ever spoken about Amma like that before. Aside from being her grandmother, Grace had never thought that Amma was a very remarkable person.

“Um, thank you,” Grace said.

Instructor Juniper gave a small, curt nod. “And Grace, please know that although you’re in this class with a lot of people who probably do not care so much about learning anything. I do expect much greater things from you.”

Chapter 11

The Last Day of Summer

A bowl of oatmeal sat before her, and not for the first time that morning, Gigi tried to convince herself that she was not going crazy. It looked more unappetizing than it had in her dream of Meadowbrook the night before. She poked it with her spoon, watching the oatmeal wiggle like jello. A skin was starting to form on top of it, around half a dozen raisins. Gigi did not like raisins in her food, so she was not sure how they ended up in her breakfast.

"It'll put some meat on those ribs," her dad said, poking her in the side.

"Dad, I don't want meat on my ribs, I want something that tastes good for breakfast," Gigi said, trying to elbow him away.

"Well I love oatmeal, I practically grew up on it," her dad said, scraping the last spoonful out of the bowl.

"Can we please have bacon tomorrow? It's the first day of school and I really want something I like."

"Aww, does my little piggy want bacon," Gigi's dad said as he walked into the kitchen with the bowl.

Gigi's mom came in and sat down in his chair, her own bowl of oatmeal steaming. She ate a spoonful and winced. "It really is awful. I don't know why he keeps buying it. How'd you sleep?"

"Amazing," Gigi said, "For the last three nights I’ve had these awesome dreams. They're so real, it feels like I'm actually there, and I don't forget what happens in them when I wake up."

"Wow, what’re they about?" Gigi's mom asked.

"A magical forest land where I'm in school to learn magic!"

"Well, that sounds…magical."

"It is! And there's a giant talking bear that's my friend, and so is this elf girl," Gigi said, leaning forward, "And a meerkat who teaches history."

"Is he part of a mob?"

"A mob?"

"Yes, a mob is a word for a group of meerkats who all live together."

"Well, he's part of a group and most of them live together. I guess he's kind of like the lookout, he's supposed to be writing a history book while he's out there at the school, but he's kind of lazy I think."

"Your dreams sound nice. Are there any bad guys in them?"

"Bad guys? I guess. I mean, there are the people from a different country, but they're trying to make peace, so not too many people think of them as bad guys. There are some people who stole stuff from the place where most of the meerkat’s mob lives, but I don't know what they stole, so I don't know if they're bad guys or really bad guys,” Gigi said as Amma walked into the dining room with a mug of tea, “There’s also Jezel the Last Queen of the Larchill Dynasty, but most people think she’s either dead or gone away somewhere."

"Someone stole something from the Historians?" Amma asked with a wince as she sat down. Gigi thought her limp must be hurting her.

"Yeah, they're trying to figure out how to get it back though," Gigi said.

"Who is?" Amma asked.

"I don't know, a lot of people, I guess. The Historians, the king and queen’s guards. I even think that Mr. Kirke would help if he could."

"Who?" Gigi's mom asked.

"Mr. Kirke, he's the guy who runs the school. I was telling Amma about him the other day. But the Historians mob is really far away from the school, so I don't think there's much he can do."

“Wow, those are really crazy dreams!” Gigi’s mom said with a little more enthusiasm than normal.

“Yeah, I guess. I can’t really control what I’m going to dream about,” Gigi said.

“Well no, just remember that when you're awake it's time to focus on the things that are here and real. School starts tomorrow," Gigi's mom said. Gigi noticed Amma straighten herself a little more than usual, pursing her lips in annoyance.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s just that the dreams are so exciting and nothing exciting ever happens here,” Gigi said.

Gigi’s mom snorted.

“Just wait until you’re a parent, you’ll be wishing it wasn't so exciting all the time,” then she began tickling Gigi all over until they were both out of breath and Gigi had pleaded surrender more than a dozen times. With all the commotion, Mav woke up screaming in his bed before he came into the living room fine, but still in his underwear and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Hey, what's happening today?" Gigi asked, "It's Amma's last day, are we gonna do anything cool?"

Much to Gigi’s dismay, it was the most boring day since Amma arrived. She thought there would surely be something exciting for them to do, but instead, they spent most of it getting ready for school. They started by organizing her clothes and making her try on what felt like a million different outfits. Each time one ended up in the pile to donate, one of the adults made a comment about how big or old she was getting. Gigi wished that her parents would start treating her like she was growing up instead of just saying that it was happening. She was glad that Amma seemed to treat her that way.

When trying on old outfits was done, they went to the store to buy all the last minute things they needed for school. The stores were already picked clean by hundreds of other shoppers that weekend. Each successive store they visited was a larger disaster, with the remnants of the school supply section reminding Gigi of the aftermath of a tornado. It was a wonder that they found any of the things they needed.

Each time they got back into the car it felt like they were getting packed into a rocket ship for a trip to the moon. Gigi did not enjoy it, though she enjoyed the prospect of starting school even less.

They loaded into the car once again after visiting their fourth store, still unable to find a protractor. Gigi decided it was time to mention something that was bothering her.

"I don't even know why we're here. I mean, it's not like I'm going to be growing plants at school. I don't understand why we need a protractor. I wanna go home and spend the rest of the day with you guys doing something I like. Amma’s leaving early in the morning and I want to be a family with you guys."

She did not care that everyone had seemed especially tense during that last store visit. This was not how she wanted to spend her last day of freedom.

"I think that is an excellent idea, Grace," Amma said, turning to Gigi’s mom, "Take us home."

"Gigi still needs a protractor," Gigi's mom said.

"Mom, I'm not even going to be doing any farming. I don't know why they're making me get one."

Gigi's mom turned around in her seat and Gigi knew she had been pushed too far. "It's a protractor, not a tractor. And you use it to calculate angles, and I think,” she said, then stopped and took a calming breath, “I think it's fine we head home. You're right. You aren't going to need one tomorrow. I'm sorry I got angry. Let's go home."

Gigi was not sure, but she thought she heard her dad mutter "Thank goodness" under his breath.

"It's okay, Mom. It would just be nice to go home and maybe play a game or something, you know, as a family."

The car ride back to their house was a quiet one with each person lost in their own thoughts and Mav nodding off. They settled into a slow afternoon and evening, playing games and relaxing. It became the kind of day that Gigi had always thought was perfect. She was glad that it had slowed down like it had and spent time enjoying being with the people that she loved most in the world. Before she knew it, Gigi’s parents were wishing them a good night and going to their room.

As soon as their door shut, Gigi felt free to run the house. It was the last night that Amma would be there and Gigi wanted to take advantage of as much time with her as possible. Amma being here for this trip had raised several questions in her mind that she wanted answers to. She did not think that she would be able to get those answers right away, but she was sure that she could try. Gigi walked over to the couch and sat down, patting the space next to her.

“I wanna cuddle, and I want you to tell me more about when you were younger,” Gigi said.

Amma smiled and took a seat on the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“What would you like to know?”

“All kinds of stuff. Like how many times has the butterfly thing happened to you? Or who were your parents?”

Amma thought about the questions for several seconds before seeming to make up her mind on answering them. “The butterfly thing first happened when I was a little girl. I was probably only around four or five, and it was during the summer time. There were thousands of butterflies out that year and my family and I were having a picnic. They came like a flood, it was wonderful and incredible, they were everywhere around us, like a gentle tornado of colors and wings. My parents, Gabriel and Cerinda, were just as shocked as you were the other day. They had never seen anything like it before either. I, of course, thought it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to anyone anywhere.”

“It was really cool. How many more times has it happened since then?” Gigi asked.

“Several, I would say a half-dozen times including the other day. I know how much attention it seems to draw, so I try to make sure I move to a new place before it starts.”

“You didn’t do that at the museum though.”

Amma laughed a little, “No, that is true. I wanted you to see it. I do not know how many chances you will get to see something like that and I thought you should experience it.”

Gigi thought it was a strange thing for Amma to say, but did not press further. Her mind had once again wandered back to the old family lands.

“Can you tell me more about the estate? Why’d you have to sell it?” Gigi asked.

Amma winced at the question and thought about how to answer for a long time before she spoke, “I loved my family very much, but they did not always make the best decisions. One of those bad decisions was small, but it lead to a larger one, which lead to a catastrophe which my family did not handle well. By the time the dust settled, some people were making us sell everything we owned to help pay for the damages caused by the catastrophe.”

“That sounds terrible. What was so bad that they made you sell everything you had to pay for it?”

“That is a very good question. There are a few things in the world that people think are unforgivable. Unfortunately, my family did one of them and did not handle the aftermath of that unforgivable thing well.”

“Amma, can’t you just come out and tell me what happened?” Gigi asked, now annoyed.

“No, I do not think I am going to, it was quite sad and terrible and I do not want the last of our time together now to be about something like that. But I would like to reminisce a while longer about my childhood with you.”

So they talked late into the night. Amma regaled Gigi with stories of her childhood over steaming mugs of Amma’s tea, even telling her about the bandits who she had discovered and all of the wonderful beauty in a place that Gigi would never own.

Chapter 12

Not All Fun and Games

The knife flew past Grace’s cheek, so close that she wondered if it may have taken off a lock of her hair. She stood in the deserted dining room as it cleaned itself and returned the dinnerware to the hutch cabinet that dominated half of one wall. She ducked to avoid a trio of forks headed straight for her face.

“You don’t have much to worry about. They couldn’t hit you even if you wanted them to, the magic is too strong,” Lee said amidst the clatter.

Grace looked up to see him standing at ease just behind her, paying no attention to the plates and goblets that soared past him. He wore a light tunic with broad sleeves that hung around his elbows. Grace could see a golden pendant hanging from a cord around his neck and realized it must have been this that slipped out and hit her on the face while Lee was serving tea.

Standing, but still not sure that she was safe from the dinnerware, Grace said, "I didn't see you at dinner, I thought you'd forgotten that you said you'd help me."

"I was getting a few things," Lee said, patting a leather satchel slung over his shoulder, "Are you ready to go?"

"Sure," Grace said, taking a quick step to the side to avoid a knife headed for the spot between her eyes only to step into the path of another. It came to a halt, less than an inch from her nose. She stood staring at it for a moment, not for the first time wondering if this magic thing was really a good idea. Lee plucked it out of the air and tossed it towards the cabinet where it settled into its place with the rest of the silverware.

Placing a hand on the small of her back, Lee guided her into the kitchen. "I thought we'd practice in the old training yard. It's where a lot of students go when they need some extra space."

"Where is it?" Grace asked, stepping around a pair of gnomes who were climbing into a cauldron, steel brushes and soap in hand.

"By the old guard house. It's where that bear lives now."

"You mean Big Bear?"

"Yeah, him," Lee said, toying with his pendant as they stepped into the backyard.

"Why do you wear that pendant?"

"What? This?" Lee said, holding it up so Grace could get a closer look. It was round and in the middle of the pendant was a hollow ring. Spreading out and circling around the hollow ring were three overlapping flourishes, each a different color set inside the gold rim. One was a deep green, another iron grey, and the third sapphire blue. “This is the sigil of Gaia, anyone who wants to see Gaia one day reunited wears it. Each of the colors is for one of the countries that used to be part of Gaia.”

“Do you think reuniting Gaia be a good thing?”

“Each nation has things the other two needs. If the three were united again, they could support each other once more.”

“What kinds of things do the others have that Easterwood needs?”

“Ironstone has a strong government and military, the Sapphirelands have many mines and most of the old magical texts and artifacts.”

“Okay, what does Easterwood have then?”

“We have food and the best access to the rest of the world.”

“How would they be reunited?”

“Well, someone would probably have to become king or queen over all three. Either through marriage or by force. Quite a few people have tried, but it’s not gone well since the Larchills. The training yard’s over there,” Lee said, pointing to a trail that Grace had not yet been down.

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes while Grace thought about reuniting Gaia. She liked the idea of people living together and not having wars, and also helping each other with the things that they had. She did not like the idea of other people taking over anything. It reminded her too much of the things that Amma told her about while they were out together. Grace did not want to think about what a war would look like if someone tried to take over Easterwood, or, for that matter, if Easterwood tried to take over another country. She had seen far too many strange and powerful things since her first day in Easterwood and had no desire to find out how devastating any of them could be in a full on battle or war.

The path opened up into a clearing that was about forty feet across with a simple wooden fence ringing it. Next to the dirt clearing was a long, two story building with wood siding and wooden shingles with moss growing on them. The door was set back behind a covered porch and was wide enough to fit three large men standing side by side. It was the most rustic building she had seen since she arrived in Easterwood and she wondered if it was Big Bear’s home.

“Is that where Big Bear lives?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, it is. He kind of comes and goes as he likes though, just wanders around the area. Some people say he helps out where he can, you know like moving trees and getting wagons unstuck from the mud, but I’ve never seen him do anything like that. I think Mr. Kirke keeps him around because he feels sorry for him.”

“Feels sorry for him?”

“Yeah, he’s past his prime, he’s accomplished a lot in his life, sure, but he’s to the point now that he’s so old there’s not a lot more that people are interested in having him do. But why don’t we work on practicing some magic. You brought your ring, right?”

Grace held her hand up to show him and as she did she was surprised to see that the stone in the ring was a bright shade of orange, like a tangerine. She gasped when she saw this, wondering where she should be that she was not at the moment. Lee took her hand in his and inspected the ring for a few seconds.

“May I?” he said, slipping it off her finger.

Grace did not like that he had taken it practically without asking, but she let him look at it, turning it over several times. She noticed that the ring had turned from orange to yellow and she breathed a little easier. Lee held the ring up to the sky, inspecting it in the last full light of the sun then handed it back to her. Grace slipped it onto her finger and watched, with some confusion as the yellow washed out of the stone, replaced again by a vibrant orange.

“Eh, it’s alright. I mean, it’s a good enough ring for most things. It should be okay for what we’re going to try to learn today. Where’d you get it?”

“I got it from my A–” Grace started to say Amma before she realized that she was not supposed to use Amma’s name, “–ah, grandma.”

“Your grandmother? Was she good at magic?”

“I don’t think so, I mean I guess some people around here think she was, but I’ve never seen her do anything.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You said you’d never done magic before. How’d you even get accepted into Meadowbrook if you don’t know how good at magic you’ll be?”

“What I’ve heard is that anyone can do magic. And I promised to work really hard.”

Lee held back a snort of laughter. “Sure, anyone can, but not everyone is very good at it. You have to pay a lot of money to go to school here, so what I don’t understand is why someone would pay a lot of money for an education in magic if they don’t even know if you’re going to be any good at it.”

“What’d you mean? I didn’t have to pay any money.”

“You didn’t?” Lee asked, surprised, “My clan has to pay two gold chestnuts each year I’m here.”

“Oh, well maybe it’s because Mr. Kirke’s my uncle,” Grace said it without even thinking and at once wished she could have taken the words back. Lee’s eyes widened in surprise and his eyebrows shot up so high that Grace almost could not see them behind his light brown hair.

“Why do you look so surprised?” Grace asked.

Lee shook his head a little to recover. “No reason, really. I just didn’t know that Mr. Kirke had any family.”

“Yep, well, here I am,” Grace said with a shrug.

“I suppose so,” Lee said, tapping two fingers against his lips, as if thinking, “Where did you say you were from?”

“No one around here’s really heard of it. It’s a city called Chicago.”

“Hmm, no I’ve not heard of it either. Are you sure it’s not made up?”

“Made up?”

“You know, a pretend city?”

“Why would I make up a city?”

“I don’t know, I’m not the one from a city that no one’s ever heard of.”

“Now listen,” Grace said, feeling herself start to get angry, “Just because you’ve never heard of a place, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. There’s a lot of stuff you’ve never seen but you still know exists, why can’t there be something else that you’ve never heard of that you didn’t know existed until just now when I told you.”

Lee held up his hands in surrender, “Okay, okay. You’re right. I just think it’s odd that you don’t really know very much about Easterwood or magic or much at all around here, for that matter, but that Mr. Kirke is your uncle. I figured if you were from somewhere far away that it would make sense. I’ve just never heard of this place.”

“Well, I am from somewhere far away, I just don’t really know how far.”

“How did you get here then?”

Grace could see that she had talked herself into a corner. She could either lie, tell the truth that she lived in Chicago and that Easterwood was a dream, or tell a version of the truth that would probably get the fewest questions. She opted for the latter, “I fell asleep one night and when I woke up, I was here.”

“You just fell asleep? You don’t remember at all how you got here?”

“Nope, just fell asleep and when I woke up again, here I was.”

“Wow, that must have been some really incredible magic. No one’s done anything like that since the Larchills.”

“Well, I couldn’t really tell you, I don’t know how to do any magic, remember?”

“Right, did you still want to learn?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Great. I thought we could get started with trying to lift a few things. One of the easiest things to do in magic is just to lift something. So, since lifting something simple and small is much easier than more complicated things, I brought these beans,” Lee said, pulling a handful of beans out of his pocket, “What you’re going to need to do is envision the bean in your mind’s eye just as it is, no dirt around it, no bugs that might crawl over it, just the bean. And you have to envision the bean you want to lift, not one that looks like it. When you have the picture of the bean in your mind, you need to start to see it raising up. Then you start to run those thoughts through your ring. The magic in your ring is what’s going to move the bean. Does that make sense?”

It did not make a lot of sense to her, but Grace thought about it for a while before saying, “Think about the bean by itself, see it raising up, then push those thoughts to the ring and it does the rest?”

“Kind of, it’s less about your thoughts doing it than your will. You’re telling the bean where you want it to go.”

“That seems easy enough. How long do you think it’s going to take me?”

“With that ring? Quite a while. I brought a couple artifacts of my own. They’re old, I mean really old, they use a lot better magic than the ring you’ve brought.”

“I think I’d like to try my ring first. Everyone else’s told me that it should be good enough to do most things I need it to.”

Lee looked disappointed, “You can try, but I can only be out here so long. I’ve got studying to do.”

“That’s fine, we can keep going till you need to leave,” Grace said.

“Okay, so I’m going to put the beans there on the ground in front of you. It’ll probably be easier if you’re sitting on the ground, one less thing to think about, then you focus on getting just one bean in your mind by itself.”

Grace sat down and stared at the beans in front of her. They were regular looking beans, none very exciting at all. She picked the least exciting of the lot, a small black one with no distinguishing marks but the dimple in the middle. It was the most ordinary bean she had ever seen.

Closing her eyes she worked hard to get it all by itself. It was difficult and took her more than ten minutes because she kept on seeing other beans in her mind or she imagined the bean changing into something else, like a three bean salad. Or, she would see the bean there exactly as it should be but with all the grains of dirt around it which confused the picture in her mind.

At last she was able to keep the bean exactly as it should be, alone and stable in her mind. When she did this, she thought about it raising off the ground. This was far easier than she thought it would be and she was able to envision it levitating after only the second try.

Without saying anything, she thrust her fist out, pointing the ring at the bean, believing that when she opened her eyes it would be floating in the air. She waited for a full five count of Mississippis just to be sure, then she opened her eyes. The bean lay in the ground exactly where it had been fifteen minutes earlier.

Grace let out a defeated sigh and looked to Lee for help.

“You could try again,” Lee offered.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s just that it took so long and nothing even happened.”

“It always takes people a long time. It took me almost a year,” Lee said.

“Yeah, but how old were you?”

“I was two, but that’s beside the point.”

“Two? You did your first magic when you were two? Is that some kind of record or something?” Grace asked.

“I think it’s close to one. It’s not a record, though I’m sure about that. I wish it was. Do you want to try again?”

Grace looked down at the stack of beans, sitting on the dirt, mocking her and decided that she did. Closing her eyes she focused on the same bean. She envisioned it alone and was delighted to find that it happened faster than before. She next imagined it rising into the air until it was level with her eyes. Then, when she thought she had built up enough determination, she released it all, letting it go straight to her right hand where her ring was.

Grace smiled. That time she was sure she had felt something give. It was just a little something, a tingling in her fingers. But when she opened her eyes, ready to see the bean hanging a few inches away from her face. She was disappointed. Not only was the bean not levitating, it also sat in the pile, entirely unmoved by her efforts.

“Maybe you do need a stronger artifact,” Lee offered again, “You could use this one,” he said retrieving a second gold pendant from his pocket. It was a sister to the first. Grace could see some slight differences between the two, different shades of blue and green in the colored areas, the steel on the second one Lee showed her was a little more battered than the first.

“Do you think it would help?”

“Maybe. Have you been able to get the bean by itself in your mind?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, and have you imagined it floating up?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if you’ve done both of those things and what you’re trying to lift isn’t moving, then usually you need a stronger artifact, like this one.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“It’s an old artifact, made by the Gaians. This one’s just got a lot more power than most people can put into an artifact these days.”

“Like my ring?” Grace asked.

“Like your ring,” Lee said, holding out the pendant for Grace.

Grace looked at it for a few seconds, thinking that it did look beautiful, despite the greater wear on it than the one that Lee wore. It made sense. If she had her steps down right, but what she was trying to do still was not working, maybe she needed something with a little more power, or juice as her gym teacher would have said.

Grace reached out to take it but froze as she saw that the stone on her ring was slipping away from orange and becoming red. She looked around, anxious, and hoping that everything was okay. There was nothing that she could see that she should be worried about, no one in the woods, no zombies coming out of their long forgotten graves, or bees humming in the distance. The training yard lay in an eerie silence. Grace reached out to take the pendant again and watched as the ring went from a rusty red to the bright red of a firetruck.

Something was wrong with the pendant, Grace realized. She was about to say that she wanted to practice a little more with her ring when she heard a great huffing sound behind her.

“Grace? Grace, can I talk with you?”

Grace let out the breath that she did not realize she had been holding. It was Big Bear. She dropped her hand and looked up at Lee. A scowl flashed across his face for a moment, then he smiled. It was not the kind of smile that Grace was used to seeing on people who were happy, rather it looked like the kind of smile that all the kids at her school gave during class pictures.

“I think I need to go see what Big Bear wants,” Grace said, “thanks for trying to show me how to do some magic, I really appreciate it.”

“Do you want to do it again sometime?” Lee asked.

Grace fiddled with her ring, looking down at it again, hoping for a sign. The color had cooled to a yellowish orange, but was holding steady.

“I, uh, I think that Astral’s going to have me working with someone named Tom. Maybe another time though, after I’ve gotten started?” Grace said, forcing herself to look up at Lee.

Something like anger or annoyance flashed across Lee’s face, “Okay, yeah. Well, I mean Tom could be a pretty good teacher. Great fighter, for sure. Better cook though. I wish it was him in the kitchen and not Norfred. If you ever decide that you aren’t learning enough, let me know and I’ll take care of you.”

The way he said the last part made Grace think that Lee was one of the most arrogant people she had ever met in her life and she fought the urge to say something. Perhaps Astral and Elora had been right and she should not have come out with him, but at least now she knew. She looked at him a while longer, even as an uncomfortable tingle ran down her spine. Something about Lee had her unsettled, but she was not sure what. She did have to wonder, though, why the ring had sensed so much danger around the pendant. Lee had said it was old, perhaps it was made by the Larchills and it had some deeper, more dangerous magic inside of it? Grace was not sure she wanted to know. It did not seem to effect Lee in any way, unless it made the person who had it think that they were better than everyone else.

Grace and Lee walked out of the clearing towards the path that led back to the schoolhouse. Lee continued past Big Bear without a glance, moving with purpose and calm assurity. Big Bear took his place at her side.

“Grace, what were you doing just now with Lee?”

“I was working on learning how to do magic. He told me that he was going to try to help me figure out how to do it for the first time.”

“I see. I have not ever liked Lee very much, he makes me uncomfortable. It is the way he smells. It is not like other humans. Not bad, but different.”

“Well, I didn’t learn anything that I ended up using today and I don’t think I’ll get together with him again if I can help it. Astral and Elora were right, he’s really arrogant and a bit of a jerk. I didn’t really like being around him. He wouldn’t make a very good friend.”

“I have known many people who are arrogant and Lee is very much like all of them. But, I am glad that I found you. I have been on the road for almost two days, trying to help find the people who stole the artifacts from Art’s friends.”

“Really? How? I thought the thief was a long ways off.”

“Mr. Kirke used an artifact that made an image of me and let me see everything like I was there with them so I could help.”

“What happened? Did they catch anyone?”

“They did not. Even though things have gotten worse than they were a few days ago, one good thing has happened. The people following the thief know that they are travelling on the main road that runs through the middle of Easterwood. It is the fastest way to get to Ironstone. It also runs straight through Oakton and is only a few minutes’ walk away from where we are now.”

“What does that mean? That the thief is a Northie?”

“Perhaps. I think they are, but we do not know for sure yet. There are some very good magesters who live near this road, old students of Mr. Kirke’s and some of the people he trusts most in the whole world. They were some of the magesters I went to help. They set up more complicated trapping spells. These spells would not just catch the thief, but could also set off other ways to track them more easily or slow them down if the thief escaped. I think one of the spells would have turned the ground into molasses, which sounded like a very good idea to me.”

“Let me guess, the thief got through.”

“They did. You are very good at this, I think that perhaps you should be one of the people helping to track where the thief is going.”

Grace thought that Big Bear might have been exaggerating some, but could not help the little surge of hope she felt at a chance to be an integral part of such a big adventure.

“Mr. Kirke even talked with his old students to make sure that they did the spells correctly and he is confident that that they did. But still the thief got through.”

“So what happens now?” Grace asked.

“Now the Royal Fairy Guard wants to know how someone is getting past so many of Easterwood’s best magesters and trackers, so they have asked every lord who has an estate along the highway to send some soldiers or woodsmen to guard the road. They have also put a reward of one hundred gold chestnuts out for the thief’s capture.”

“Wow, is that a lot of money?” Grace asked.

“It is more money than I have ever had, even when I was making a lot of money,” Big Bear said.

“Isn’t it possible that this person’s tricking everyone?” Grace asked.

“I thought the same thing until today. I did not tell you yet about the good thing that happened. Someone saw the thief.”

“They did? How did they know it was him?”

“Her, Grace. It is a her.”

“Well, how do they know it was her?”

“I know that you come from a very busy and strange city, but in most parts of Easterwood, everyone knows the people they live near. There are no strangers and when someone visits, everyone knows that they are visiting. They saw her in the town of Boar’s Hollow. It is a small village a ways outside of Redwood.”

“So you’re saying that someone saw this lady and thought that they didn’t recognize her, so she must be the thief?”

“No, not a lady. A girl. She is young, the person who saw her said.”

“A girl’s doing all this?”

“I do not know how, but yes, the Guard thinks so. They know how far she is ahead of them, about two days. So they ask in the towns they pass if anyone has seen someone they did not recognize travelling through the town about two days earlier. This was the first time anyone had, and several people had seen her. She had brown hair cut very short, was wearing a grey cloak, and rode a white horse. It is all very strange.”

“You said that she’s coming towards us, right?” Grace asked, now thinking about the reward that was being offered for her. Surely more than one hundred gold chestnuts would be enough to buy at least part of the old Paulownia estates. She started wondering if she really could help catch the girl.

“Yes, and even though I did not think that she would make it here when she first left Redwood, I do think that she will pass through Oakton. She is a very sneaky one and so I think that Mr. Kirke and the other instructors are going to have to put up some very good traps to try to catch her if she makes it this far.”

Chapter 13

Schooled by an Almost Street Thug

After a week of classes, Grace realized that the only people she had gotten to know since arriving at Meadowbrook were her roommates, Art, Big Bear, Lee, and another boy named Tom Strate. Tom was Astral’s friend, the boy who had made the ham that Big Bear had eaten on Grace’s first day at the school.

Grace did not think that she would have gotten to know Tom if he had not been friends with Astral first. Once she spent some time with him, she found herself liking him well enough. As a person he was okay, but he had not made much progress in teaching her to learn how to use magic. Grace soon found their sessions tedious. If they had been meeting up as friends, she probably would have enjoyed seeing him, but since it was always just more classes that she still could not perform any actual magic in, she soon found herself getting frustrated.

They had been meeting every afternoon for the last five days now. From the beginning, Grace had noticed some peculiarities about Tom. For example, he wore clothes that never seemed to quite fit him just right and always looked a little too nice but also a little too well used. Though he was only fourteen, Grace thought that his rich, brown eyes seemed much sadder and older than they should. Though his skin was the color of golden wheat, his hair matched his eyes.

Grace often wondered if he got nervous because of the scar that ran smooth and straight down his cheek, pulling his eye and the right side of his mouth together so that he always looked like he wore a cocky grin. He seemed to get very uncomfortable rather quickly around certain people, particularly those in positions of authority. With everyone else he seemed to do fine.

Grace wondered if Astral had put them together because they seemed to have several things in common. For starters, Tom was as much an outsider as she. Much of the rest of the school was made up of either students whose families were from Oakton or were from the noble and established families of Easterwood. Only a few students like herself, Tom, and Astral had no other family or were from somewhere outside Easterwood.

To say that Tom had no family was not entirely true. Grace learned that he grew up on the streets of Redwood, the largest city in Easterwood, with his younger sister who was about Grace’s age. She was not particularly talented at magic, but he had developed some interesting skills while they had been on their own. An orphanage had taken them in after a couple of years surviving in some of Redwoods toughest neighborhoods.

It had not taken long for the orphanage to discover that Tom had a very strong talent for magic. They had reported this to someone in Redwood’s nobility and the next thing Tom knew, he was being told to pack the few meager possessions he owned and to prepare for a trip to Meadowbrook. When Tom first learned that he would be coming to Meadowbrook for a full education he tried to convince the orphanage to pay for his sister to come as well, but they had refused and his sister remained in Redwood.

Only once he had arrived in Meadowbrook did he learn that the orphanage had received a very generous sum from the royal family. They had sent him to be trained to be a guard. He had talked to Mr. Kirke several times about having his sister come as well. However, each time Mr. Kirke had spoken with the headmistress of the orphanage she had refused to let the girl come.

When Tom told Grace about this, she could see that he wanted nothing more than to complete his training as soon as he was able so that he could return to Redwood and support his sister on his salary as a royal guard. Grace wondered what she would do if her own family was there with her in Easterwood and realized that she would want them as close to her as possible as well.

Grace was no judge by any means, but she believed that the royal family made a very good choice in training Tom to be on their guard. Though he was only fourteen, he had a lot of lean muscle. He was quick and light on his feet as well as talented with a number of combat magics.

Since becoming her tutor, Grace had watched him several times at swordplay with Instructor Romani, wrestling with Big Bear, and trading fireballs with the cooks. He was particularly skilled at the last, able to lob a fireball right into the lap of a cook from almost fifty yards. The cooks, for their part, had long since taken to carrying heavy pans around as shields in the case of a surprise attack.

However, within only hours of her beginning tutoring sessions with Tom, Grace noticed that he and Elora had a very unusual relationship. Elora regularly sent him to do chores for her. Grace watched Tom doing a few different tasks for the little pixie girl. He washed her clothes, which was not difficult since they were smaller than his hand. He got her an acorn shell full of warm milk before bed, which was harder than one would expect, because spilling any of it would mean that the shell was basically empty by the time Tom got it to her. Sometimes Elora would even make him do her homework, which seemed especially nasty.

Grace did not understand Tom very well, but she did feel bad for him. Several times during their lessons Grace had let him know that she did not think that he should let Elora push him around like that.

The lesson this day was going worse than usual, Grace unable to clear her mind enough to do anything, and Tom unable to explain how Grace should actually go about clearing her mind. Grace sat down on a mossy stone and crossed her arms over her chest, deciding that she was done for the day.

“Okay Tom, why do you let Elora push you around so much? It’s ridiculous,” Grace said.

“I don’t have much of a choice,” Tom replied, taking a seat on another mossy stone, “It’s because of the royal family that I can come to school at all. They’re paying for everything.”

Grace was caught off guard, “I didn’t realize she was that important. She’s so small.”

“Oh, she’s not that important, but size doesn’t have much to do with it. Even though most of the fairies that rule Easterwood are the same size as humans, Elora’s still technically in the royal family. Really, she’s more like a cousin to the royal family. Her actual family, the Thumbs, may be the only pixies with royal blood. She can trace her lineage all the way back to before the Larchills. So she is royalty, I guess, but she’s probably got three or four hundred other fairies in front of her to the throne. So even though she’s really far removed, I don’t want to make her mad. She could start talking to people who could actually ruin my chances at being in the guard,” Tom explained, “I decided a long time ago that I’d do anything to get off the streets of Redwood. You don’t know what it’s like there.”

“I know what Chicago’s like, and Redwood can’t be too much worse,” Grace replied.

“I don’t know about Chicago, wherever that is, but in Redwood, if they catch you, they’ll pop your eyes out and enchant ‘em and then sell ‘em to people on the streets. You’ll never see ‘em again after that.”

“Who pops them out? And, and why?” Grace asked, a little horrified.

“Street thugs, there’s a lot of ‘em over there. I used to be one, well, I was training to be one. It’s the only way to stay alive in some of those neighborhoods. There’s enough street thugs out there that want to, you know, get rid of the competition and make a quick buck, so they come for your eyes.”

“But why the eyes?”

“They take out some of the competition by making ‘em blind. Then they sell the eyes to the hedge magesters, you know, the ones who only got half an education or taught themselves everything. Those guys use ‘em to do all kinds of seeing spells. There’s quite a few of ‘em in Redwood. But it’s nothing compared to the Sapphirelands, you should ask Astral.”

Grace thought this all sounded very gross, but something else caught her attention, “What do you mean, I should ask Astral?”

“You don’t know?” Tom asked.

“Well, I mean I know she’s from the Sapphirelands,” Grace replied.

“Well yeah, but that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean then?”

“I meant that when Astral was young her family and a few others fled the Sapphirelands. Something bad happened down there, she’s never told me. Well, they were on their way up here to Easterwood, almost through the Waste, when the people her family was trying to get away from caught up to them, they set the coach her family was in on fire. Then there was a big fight, like a battle, and Astral got out of the coach. But another coach with their group toppled over and almost crushed her and she was trapped under it. She couldn’t really see what was going on, but pretty soon she realized that the people who were after ‘em had won the battle.

“They didn’t stay too long, though, because a bunch of riders from Easterwood started coming to see what was going on. They found Astral, but she was the only person left alive from the whole group. Everyone else was either dead or taken away.”

“That’s terrible. Poor Astral!”

“Yeah, and she never found out what happened to them. The guys who got ‘em got away and disappeared. It was a long time ago, but Astral’s always been determined to find ‘em again.”

Grace considered for a moment before asking, “Is she sure it was the people from the Sapphirelands who attacked them? I mean, maybe it was like zombies or something?” thinking that if it were indeed zombies, that Tom was probably right about Gaia being tougher than Chicago.

“Probably not. There haven’t been any zombies or guys like them since the Oat Bushel War. Anyways, Astral would have known if they were zombies. If it wasn’t the people who were after them from the Sapphirelands, I don’t know who it would be. But here’s the crazy part, no one has ever heard from the people who went missing. They just disappeared. Astral’s tried, she knew which ones got taken and has always been on the lookout for news about ‘em. Nothing, ever.”

Grace did breathe a little easier at hearing that it probably was not zombies, but now knowing that her new friend had such a terrible experience made her very sad.

“Yeah, what happened was awful. Sometimes, I wonder if she works so hard at school so she can go and find her parents as soon as possible. It’s basically what I’m trying to do.”

“Well, I mean that kind of makes sense. If your parents were lost and you thought there was a chance you could find them, wouldn’t you try?” Grace said before realizing what came out of her mouth, “Oh, Tom. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—I, I’m sorry.”

Tom swallowed and Grace could tell that he was trying very hard not to let her see him about to cry, “Thanks.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched for a long time before Grace thought of something she could change the subject to. “Have you heard anything more about what’s happening with the Queen? Did she make peace with the Northies?”

Tom looked relieved at the chance to talk about something else.

“You don’t know much about what things are called, do you?” he asked, “Just because Ironstone’s in the north doesn’t mean we call people from there Northies. Most people from Redwood call ‘em Stones. And no, she hasn’t made peace with ‘em yet, at least that’s what people in Oakton are saying. I don’t even know if she’s arrived.”

“How do you think it’s going to turn out?” Grace asked.

“I think it’s going to go well. I mean, the Stone king, Kowal, sent his youngest son down to Redwood to try to make peace, so I think they want it,” Tom said.

“Can you please call them Northies? It’s really hard for me to keep track of all the names everyone uses for the same things,” Grace said, “and who’s this prince anyways, no one told me about him.”

“I don’t know why they would, he was just some guy. Everyone knows that the Stones—er, Northies, want peace even more than we do. They don’t have any good way to grow much food or trade with the rest of the world, you know cut off by the desert and mountains and without any ports, so even though they’re bigger than us and have better armies than we do, they’re still really poor,” Tom said, “Anyways, everyone here thought he came down to try to marry one of the princesses, but that didn’t happen.”

“Why? Is he really ugly or something?” Grace asked, not sure if she believed a prince could be ugly.

“Who? Prince Parzival? Are you kidding? He’s probably the most handsome man in the world. All the girls were tripping over themselves to get a look at him. You should have seen Elora on the day they visited Meadowbrook. Even Astral took a couple looks,” Tom said with a sly grin that twisted his scarred face.

That last bit surprised Grace, she had not thought Astral would be interested in a boy.

“Well, why didn’t one of the princesses want to marry him then?” Grace asked.

“No, you got it backwards, they wanted to marry him, he didn’t want to marry them,” Tom explained, “It could have set him up to be king of Easterwood one day, but Lee, Lee Stoneheart, heard some of the stories from his guards. Prince Parzival’s an adventurer, he’s been all over the world. He’s even been across the Western Sea and back. If he got married, he wouldn’t be able to do those things anymore. He’s not ready to settle down.”

The thought of an adventuring prince did sound very exciting to Grace, but one thing he said caught her attention, “Are you and Lee friends?” she asked.

“Lee? I mean, not really. We’ve had a lot of classes together, but no. I don’t think that Lee has too many friends. He mostly just keeps to himself,” Tom said.

“He was kind of weird around me,” Grace said, “He tried to teach me on my second day, but he was so cocky about it and he kept on trying to get me to take this pendant he was carrying.”

“Oh yeah, that sounds like Lee. He got weird after his trip a while ago, I don’t remember when it was. But he’s always trying to get people to take things from him so that they owe him or something. I don’t really get it,” Tom said, “and he’s had a pretty short temper the last few months.”

“Yeah, he tried to give me his Gaia pendant and was really disappointed when I didn’t take it,” Grace said.

“Oh, those pendants are everywhere. Some of ‘em do have a lot of magic in ‘em, but they’re mostly just old Gaia stuff,” Tom said.

“Oh, and you know that big old book he carries around? What’s that for?” Grace asked.

“I don’t know what it’s for, but I’ve noticed him reading it a lot lately. I’ve been meaning to ask what it’s about,” Tom said.

“Whatever it’s for, it can’t be worth all the trouble he has to go through to get it everywhere.”

“Listen, Lee’s an okay guy. I’ve had him for a lot of my classes. He’s a little weird and can be rude, but for the most part, he’s pretty good. I’d just not worry about it if I were you. Lee’s gonna be who he is and it’s best if you just focus on making sure you’re learning everything you need to,” Tom said.

Chapter 14

Catch Her if You Can

"Oiy, Big Bear, are you going dull in the head or what? When's those thiefy boys coming this way?" Art asked as Grace set down mugs of tea for the three of them. It was the first time she had been back to Art's house since she woke up there on her first day in Easterwood.

Raising the mug to his mouth and drinking the tea off in one gulp, Art continued, his accent growing thicker, "Bugs and beetles that was hot. Seriously, Bear, when are they gonna come? It's been two weeks since you said they'd be coming up here and nothing. Not a sound, not a word. And all the artifacts and books is still missing. The tracking spells on 'em aren't tracking, the culprits aren’t been caught yet, and you sit there, calm as a summer day, sipping your tea, like nothing’s the matter."

Grace looked at Big Bear as he set his tea down at the table. He did look very relaxed, maybe what people said was true, that he was past his prime.

"Art, I have told you many times, but you do not seem to remember very well, so I will tell you again. It is not a thiefy boy, it is a thiefy girl.”

“Oh lay off it, you and me both know all those people all look the same, can’t tell the difference between ‘em,” Art said.

“That may be true, but I think it is good to at least try,” Big Bear said.

“Alright, I’m sure Grace here appreciates me putting out the extra effort, don’t you?”

Grace shrugged as Big Bear said, “The Royal Fairy Guard set up the tracking spells only a few hours after the artifacts and books went missing. They put a spell on each item that was stolen to try to find it. The spells work very well, they let the person who cast the spell follow where the thing is going, but the spells did not work. Everything has vanished, except for one artifact, like they did not even exist. Someone did a very good job of hiding them and no one knows how the magic that they used is stronger than the tracking spells. The Guard hopes that if they can find the person who has it that they will be able to get to the other things.”

“That’s all dandy that is, but do you know how far out she is from Oakton?” Art asked.

“They think only a few days now. She should be coming through soon, if she is not caught first. There are many people who have decided to come out to try to catch her. Hundreds of people all along the highway in Castle Park, Wainwright, and Sterling. They want to win the reward money,” Big Bear said.

“And do they finally know what artifact they’re tracking?” Art asked.

“Yes, they are tracking the Path Spark. It took a long time before anyone would tell me."

"Are you serious?” Art said, standing up on his hind legs, alert, “They took the Path Spark? The Path Spark? The only one left? Why didn’t someone tell me it was stolen?"

"Wait, what’s the Path Spark? I think Astral mentioned it once, but I don’t think she said what it does,” Grace said.

“Oh, it’s only one of the most powerful artifacts ever made,” Art replied.

“Okay, so what does that mean?”

“What does that mean? You’re a funny one. It’s the Path Spark, I’m pretty sure you know about it."

“What? Why do you think I’d know? I don’t even know what the Path Spark is.”

“P–Wha?” Art spluttered, “How can you not know about the Path Spark? It’s what Amma used to win the Oat Bushel War against Ironstone.”

“What do you mean, win the war?” Grace asked.

“What’d you think I mean?” Art asked, “Has Kirke seriously not told you about this yet? Leave it to a historian to set records straight. It was the battle at Hyreford. The king of Ironstone, King Udther, had pretty much beaten everyone in King Quincy’s army except the Royal Fairy Guards who were protecting him. All of them were hiding out in these caves. Udther had the last Larchill with him, that Jezel witch we’ve been telling you about. She had more power than almost anyone else. She was also the last person who knew all the old secrets of magic, you know, the ones the Larchill’s came up with.”

“Wait, if she was so powerful, why was she working for the king? Why not just make herself the queen?” Grace asked.

“Oh, she did, you remember she called herself the queen all the time, but no one liked her and not even the Northies followed her. Anyways, Udther and all them, they kept trying to get into the caves where King Quincy was, but the guard kept them out for days.

“Finally, they decide to just bring down the whole mountain on top of ole Quincy’s head with all the magic in the army. But the Royal Fairy Guard turned out to be awesome, and they held the mountain up. By then, Udther’s army was running out of food and they was real far from anything to eat, so they would have starved if they stayed much longer. So Udther asked Quincy to send out his champion and have them fight Jezel. And whoever lost, their side would surrender. So Quincy agreed, because he saw no way out, and Amma volunteered to fight, even though Jezel was a burrow full older and better at magic. But Amma went out with a Path Spark, a replica of the one that got stolen, and they fought at the foot of the mountain. Nobody really knows what happened, because Jezel turned everything dark and then there was a huge flash of light and the next thing anyone knew most of Ironstone’s army was just gone.”

“So…” Grace asked, not making the connection.

“So, the Path Spark was made to transport people. Not like one or two, but a bunch. But it wasn’t a very good artifact. It was always messing up. It’s real name is the Split Path Spark because no one ever knew quite where it would take them, but that’s a mouthful, so everyone just calls it the Path Spark. The Larchill’s never got it to work quite right. Mostly the Path Sparks just blew stuff up when they got used. A few times they worked right though, and loads of people went and found themselves in all kinds of crazy places, on top of volcanoes, across the Hope Sea, maybe the moon. Anyways, everyone knew they wasn’t stable, but that they packed a load of power. There was only a couple left and Amma somehow got one of them. Then she got close enough to the Northie camp to use it and finish off that whole army of theirs.

“Well, most people think that Amma blew up the Northie army, but if you ask me, what she really did was move them all somewhere else, you know somewhere far, so they couldn’t bother us no more. And she took the Path Spark with her. Lot of people thought it was the last one made, but it turned out there was one more. And that’s the one that we had in the League’s Headquarters. So, you can see why I’m a right bit jumpy about it. It’s like the most powerful thing for moving stuff, or blowing it up if you aren’t very good at using it, there is. Whoever has it can really mess things up for the rest of us.”

“But Big Bear, you said that a lot of people are trying to find the thief, right?”

Art looked at Big Bear, who gave a little grunt. “They are trying to keep up, but it is not easy for them, the girl is moving very fast.”

“Do you think she’ll be coming through Oakton though?” Grace asked.

“There are not many roads in Easterwood, and the thief has only used the Queen’s Highway. It is only a five minute walk from the school,” Big Bear said.

“Well how long will it take before she gets here? I mean, the way Art says it, it sounds like she should have been here weeks ago.”

“Art does not understand time very well.”

“Hey! I’m an historian, I am,” Art cut in, slamming his empty mug against the table.

“But if you were a good historian, you would know that a rider alone and with only one horse will take more than one month to travel between Redwood and Oakton on the Queen’s Highway.”

“How many times do I have to repeat myself? I’m not a geographer. I don’t care about those things.”

“That does not matter. What matters are the things that are happening, not the things you care about. This thief is outpacing the Fairy Guard’s fastest horses even though she has to avoid all of the people trying to stop her.”

“But if they know what road she’s on, there’s gotta be someone else ahead that can try to stop her, right? You know, before she gets to us?” Grace asked.

“Yes, the people I have been helping, but the thief seems to be very good at hiding when danger is near. She has passed through several towns without being caught. But when she gets here Mr. Kirke and the instructors and I will wait for her. We have been setting magical traps that will catch her.”

“And then what? I mean, what if she tries to use the Path Spark?”

“Then probably we will all go to live on the moon, or wherever else it takes us to by accident. I have heard that living on the moon is quite nice.”

“People live on the moon?” Grace asked.

“She’s right, that’s stretching the truth, Big Bear. I ain’t never heard of anyone living on the moon. Maybe visiting a few times, but never living. But, that’s beside the point. This time we’re ready for her. If she makes it this far, she won’t get past us,” Art said.

The three sat in silence, considering the news and what it might mean in a very short time. There was a knock at the door and Grace jumped a little.

“Oiy, who’s coming round right about now?” Art said, getting down from his chair and opening the door.

A voice came from the entryway, “Um, excuse me. Hi, I, uh, I was supposed–”

“Spit it out, mate. What’re you here for?” Art asked.

“I heard that Grace was here. She’s late for our tutoring, and I didn’t know if she was going to be coming today.”

Grace buried her face in her arms. It was Tom. Grace had come to Art’s house, hoping to avoid having to sit through another exhausting tutoring session with him. He kept telling her that she was so close to being able to do magic, but she did not feel at all like she was. Now, after weeks of trying unsuccessfully, she was ready for a break. She supposed she should have told Tom beforehand that she was skipping that day, but she had not seen him and had thought it would be okay.

One strange quirk that Grace noticed about Tom was his issues with getting nervous. It seemed to happen mostly around authority figures. Even standing in front of Art, who was smaller than a house cat, though a good deal more onerous, Grace could tell from his voice that he was having difficulty.

“Well, she ain’t here, mate. I don’t know who passed that information along, but you’d best be checking your sources before you come around looking for her,” Art said. Grace breathed a little sigh of relief. Art had understood when she told them that she wanted an afternoon away from everyone else.

“Art, what are you talking about? Grace is right here at the table and has been for the last hour,” Big Bear said from the dining room table.

Grace let out a groan and Art shook his head, letting Tom into the house.

“Oh, I didn’t realize that you, you’d wanted to, um, skip today,” Tom said, peeking his head around the corner before stepping in, his brown hair messy like he had been wearing a hat or running around the school grounds for a long time.

Grace did feel bad ducking out on him without even saying anything.

“I’m sorry Tom,” she said, scrambling for an excuse that would not hurt his feelings, “I didn’t think that we were going to practice on Fridays anymore. I, um, it’s been a long time since I spent time with Art and Big Bear and I wanted to get together with them. Can we pick up again on Monday?”

“Yeah, I mean, that, that should be fine. Have you, you know, been, um, practicing?” Tom asked, now entirely unnerved.

This was not a question that Grace wanted to be asked, because she had not been practicing at all outside of her lessons with Tom and in her classes. Both Tom and Astral had been telling her every day that she needed to spend more time on it, but it was just so hard to figure out. She was not even sure how to get started and being such an outsider, with no family, except for Mr. Kirke who was never really around, and no knowledge of Easterwood she did not know if she even had the power to do magic like they were talking about.

“Not as much as I should be,” Grace admitted, rolling her empty tea mug between her hands.

“Um, okay. Well maybe you can practice some on your own this, um, you know, weekend. Then we maybe can do a double session on the first day of the new classes, if, you know, if you want.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure she does. She’d have a ball with that, right, Gracie? Now, we were just getting our second cup of tea ready when you barged in, and if you don’t want to have to retake The Pixie Rise to Power, Expectations and Reality again, I’d suggest you start packing,” Art said, jabbing a paw at Tom as he backed out of the door.

The door closed with a creak and Art came back to the table.

“You’re welcome, Grace. I rather like Tommy back there, so it right pains me to kick him out of me own home that way,” Art said.

“You have a class about the pixie rise to power?” Grace asked.

“Oh yeah, it’s prime teaching material. History being made as we speak. Just a few students are in it though. Him and that Lee guy are the best ones in the class, couldn’t tell you why. That either of them likes it boggles me mind.”

“What do you think of Lee? He tried teaching me magic too, but it got really weird. I mean, with Tom everyday it’s just hard, but with Lee it was like he wanted something else.”

“Oh yes, I never asked you that day about it,” Big Bear said, “How did your time with Lee go?”

“I mean, not great, I didn’t do any magic. Lee was weird and acted like he knew everything. But what made me really uncomfortable was that my ring kept turning more and more red the longer I was with him.”

“I tell you what, he’s not been the same since he went to the Hall of Towers. Came back changed, not sure how, though. Doesn’t matter about your ring, it’s not always right. I mean, don’t get me wrong it usually is, but maybe it was reacting to something else or maybe that pendant had some evil magic in it that Lee didn’t know about, or maybe Big Bear had eaten too many beans and it knew that something bad was about to happen,” Art said.

“Art, that was not nice at all. That day I did not have any beans. I did have a very nice chocolate cake with bacon inside. It was quite delicious. But I remember that day because I thought that Lee smelled very strange. I did not know about the ring. I wish you would have told me then. Art is not wrong when he says the ring is not always right, but if Mr. Kirke says it will work, you should believe him and trust it to guide you.

“And yes, Lee is different since he came back from the Hall of Towers. I do not see him often, but that journey changed him,” Big Bear said.

“What’s the Hall of Towers again?” Grace asked, knowing that they had talked about it, but not able to remember what it was.

“Yeah, it’s a bunch of anthills in the Waste that grew up so high that they look like towers. The clans, all those people that kinda roam along the border of Easterwood and the Waste, they think it’s some kind of religious place. Each time they have a big life event, becoming a man or woman, getting married, having their first kid, dying, stuff like that, they like to go. It ain’t required, but they try to go anyways. Don’t know why, the Waste never appealed much to me, dried out me skin,” Art said.

“So you’re saying he went there to the Hall of Towers a while ago and when he came back he was different somehow?”

“Yeah, I mean, not really, but a little. Like cocky, too confident, like he was so much better than the rest of us. That kind of stuff. And Big Bear thinks he smells bad now.”

“I did not say he smells bad, only different. But yes, Art is right. And I am glad that you did not take the pendant. There are many magical things in this world and you should not try to use them unless you know what they are,” Big Bear said.

Grace nodded. She had not seen Lee very often since they met for their failed attempt at tutoring, and the times that she had seen him she made sure to check her ring to see if it changed colors at all. Every time it had stayed exactly the same, making her wonder if what she had seen with him was all in her imagination. She could not shake the feeling that something was wrong about him. That everyone around her agreed did not make her feel better. They all seemed to think he was a little boy who thought he was something that he was not. She saw him as someone who had the ability to do real harm, but she was not sure why. He had never really given her a good reason.

However, there was a much more pressing matter at hand. Grace really did need to start learning how to do magic. Too much time had passed already since she came to the school and people were going to start asking why she was here if she could not do even a tiny bit. Tomorrow, she resolved, she would do it for the first time.

Chapter 15

More to do Than BibbidiBobbidiBoo

Sunlight filtered through the blinds’ wooden slats and Grace threw an arm over her eyes to block out the sunlight. She moaned as she tried to motivate herself to get out of bed. She had been going to school at Meadowbrook for three weeks now and it was high time she started doing what she was at school to learn. If only she could get herself out of bed.

Grace rolled over one more time, groaning as she adjusted to the light. She surveyed the room. Her gaze fell to her hand and the ring, glowing its cheerful green. She knew that if she did not get in some real practice on her own soon that Tom would push her twice as hard to do magic for the first time until she did.

Grace stifled another groan as she rolled out of bed. She was really beginning to worry that the problem may be with her, that she would never be able to do magic. She wondered what Mr. Kirke would do if this was the case. She did not think that he would throw her out, but she imagined what other possibilities might await her if she did not begin doing any kind of magic soon. None of the options she imagined seemed good. Visions of the pair of gnomes she saw scraping the inside of a cauldron the afternoon that she and Lee practiced together being the one that stuck most vividly in her mind.

If she was honest with herself, she had not been trying hard enough. Both Instructors Juniper and Romani, her roommates, and Tom kept telling her that she needed to be patient and continue practicing. Grace decided that today was the day that she would begin applying herself to her studies. She was going to learn how to do magic if it was the last thing she did.

It did not help either that she spent so much time with Tom and Astral. They made her feel like she was inadequate. They were so good at all the magic they did, making it look effortless each time, and that made Grace feel like she would never be at their level.

This morning, however, she determined that she was going to give everything that she had to figuring out how to do magic for the first time. She was in the middle of her second module of classes, even though she had not succeeded in any of the actual assignments during her first two classes. She was in the next elementology class, EL 102: Things that Matter More. She was also moved to the next basics class, BA 101: The Principles of Control, again with Instructor Juniper. Although the instructors had encouraging words, for the last few days she felt like they were disappointed in her. She was even worried that they would start to wonder if she had any talent with magic at all. This was especially true of Instructor Juniper, who Grace did not want to let down since she thought so highly of Amma.

As she stretched to wake herself up, Grace decided that she did not want to continue with classes until she really felt like she had given everything she could to doing magic for the first time. She resolved to not leave her room until she accomplished something with magic, no matter what it took.

Grace looked down at her ring and found it glowing green, encouraging her on. Grace sat up, checked to be sure that the other girls were still asleep in their teacup and hammock and slipped out of bed.

Grace wondered what kind of magic she would try to do if she could get her mind to clear enough. It would need to be something simple, like lifting one of the beans on her dresser. It was what Lee had suggested, and even though he was not the person she liked or trusted most in the world, that seemed like an easy enough thing for her to lift. Grace looked at the beans and then she closed her eyes, keeping the picture of one of them in her mind.

It was no coincidence that a small mound of beans was on Grace’s dresser, unusual as that may be for a girl of ten in most walks of life. Beans are one of the easiest things to enchant, which is why they feature so prominently in some of the world’s best loved fairy tales. The difficulty that the humble bean often faces is that, being as deliciously edible as it is, magic beans are often mistaken for their ordinary cousins, sometimes with explosive results. It was fortunate for Grace that she knew that the beans on her shelf were magic beans, to be eaten only in the most dire of circumstances, such as hunger.

In the time that it took to understand the state of the lowly beans at the top of the dresser, Grace’s mind drifted from the bean to a bowl of beans to chili to the pot of chili her dad had made Mav for his first birthday. Then her mind wandered to the birthday itself, a lumberjack affair with paint-on beards, a flapjack flipping contest, and life size Lincoln logs, that Grace’s mother’s brother, Uncle John, had stopped in with on his way to build a house in Minnesota. This led Grace to thinking about her cousins, Uncle John’s children, and by the time she was done thinking about them she heard the raspy-squeaky yawn that Elora seemed to prefer when waking up.

“Are you trying to use magic?” Elora asked, rubbing an eye as she peeked over the toadstool.

“Yeah, and it’s so much harder than I ever thought it would be,” Grace replied, looking down sadly at her ring.

“What were you trying to do?” Elora asked.

“I was trying to lift one of those beans,” Grace said.

“Those magic beans? You won’t be able to lift those. Not even Astral can lift one of those half the time. Only if she using a magic spatula that the chefs use or something like it. Enchanted anything is a ton heavier when you’re picking it up with magic than something that’s not been enchanted. Here, try a toadstool,” Elora said opening a jar with some difficulty, labeled Toadstools, Various.

The little pixie girl chose one and flew it over to Grace. She set it down in front of the bed. Grace looked at it, closed her eyes, pictured it in her mind, and then, holding out her ring, thought about it raising off of the floor.

Grace focused for what seemed forever, but was only 13 seconds, and at last opened her eyes.

“Did it work?” Grace asked.

Elora stuck out her lip and shook her head, “No. I don’t think you focused hard enough. When you get ready to use magic, what do you do?”

“Well, I look at the thing I want to do magic on, then I close my eyes and remember what the toadstool looks like and then I think about it moving,” Grace explained.

“That’s your problem,” Astral’s musical voice chimed in, “You can’t start by picturing the thing you want to use your magic on. You need to start with nothing, then add the things you want. It’s like painting. If I gave you a painting with a tree already on it, would you be able to make the picture into a house?”

“I guess I couldn’t,” Grace said after considering for a few seconds, “Or I could, but it would be really hard.”

“So if you start with something already in your mind, it’s going to get in the way of all the things you want to happen, even if they’re similar. Try again, and this time start with nothing in your mind, then bring in the toadstool, then bring in the magic. If you need a word to help you focus on the magic, try to say something about the magic you want to make, like flip’em toadus,” Astral said, “Elora, scoot back some, it’ll be a little easier for her.”

Elora did and Grace closed her eyes, focusing first on ridding her mind of all the things running through it until she was completely blank. It came sooner than she thought it would. She took a moment to be sure her mind was actually blank, which opened her mind to thinking about itself. She sighed in exasperation and opened her eyes.

“You started thinking about not thinking, didn't you?” asked Elora.

Grace nodded.

“Try this,” Astral said, “Instead of making sure your mind is blank, the moment you feel it is, begin focusing on the toadstool and then the magic.”

Grace tried and failed three more times, not able to get the toadstool alone in her mind once. She opened her eyes defeated and looked at Astral and Elora, “I can't do it,” she said.

“Sure you can!” they encouraged her, “Keep trying!”

Grace closed her eyes again and this time her mind emptied more quickly than before. Rather than wait to be sure it was completely empty, she imagined the toadstool and nothing else. With the toadstool in mind, she began to see it flying all around the room and without thinking shouted, “Eat that toad, Mav!”

The other girls shrieked in delight as the toadstool shot into the air, passing just a finger’s breadth away from Astral’s nose. When Grace opened her eyes, she was delighted to see both girls coming to embrace and congratulate her. It was exhilarating.

Grace hugged them, and then in her excitement ran out of the room towards the dining hall, hoping to be downstairs in time to tell Big Bear, who often ate breakfast early. As she turned the corner to go down the stairs, she collided headlong with someone, knocking her backwards onto her bottom as she did.

Stars flashed across Grace’s vision as she landed, and she shook her head to clear it. Looking up she saw Lee standing in front of her. His handsome face went from a look of surprise to anger and then soured to something else as he saw who had run into him. Grace had never had someone look at her that way before, and she tried to move back to get as far away from him as possible. Lee had not been happy any of the times she had seen him since he had tried to train her, so this was not a big surprise. But this seemed like it was something more. Grace was not even sure what she had done to make him so angry. She had tried to be polite a few weeks back, had even let him look at her ring, a thing she was coming to value more than anything else in Easterwood. So why did he look so angry?

Keeping his eyes on her, Lee knelt to pick up the leather bound book he had dropped. His movements were slow and deliberate, like a tiger pacing around a newborn fawn. Not for the first time, Grace noticed his large, muscular arms and unyielding steel eyes. She was not sure why, but fear settled in Grace’s stomach like a lead ball. She edged back on the floor towards her room. Lee studied her for a couple more seconds, then seemed to realize that he was scowling. He blinked and shook his head as if to clear it, smiled, and flipped the book up. It spun end over end. He snatched it out of the air, rifled through the pages, and shut the book with a snap. He moved with almost-practiced ease, like he had done this little trick half a hundred times.

“It’s a book of ancient artifacts, Grace. Maybe you’d like to have it, help you to learn what some more advanced magic looks like,” Lee said. He held the book out to her, and without thinking, Grace reached out to take it. As she did, she saw her ring out of the corner of her eye, again glowing the bright red it had when Lee tried to give her the pendant on the training field. She snatched her hand away as if burned and sat on her ring, hoping that he had not seen it. She was not sure he knew everything that it could do, and did not want him knowing.

An angry scowl reappeared on Lee’s brow, but only for a moment before fading. He shrugged and put the book back into his bag.

“You’ll never learn if you don’t accept help. Tom said you’re not even doing well with him. You won’t stay here forever if you can’t learn to do magic, even if Kirke is your uncle,” Lee said with a shrug, “I’m just trying to help you.”

Grace looked at him for a little longer, feeling blood rush to her face as her indignance rose. She could do magic, she had just done what he had tried to teach her and done it really well.

“I don’t need your help Lee, I just did it for the first time right now. I was going downstairs to show Big Bear.”

Lee shrugged.

“Well good for you Grace. Let’s all throw you another party,” he said, turning and walking towards his room.

Grace sat on the floor, watching Lee until he had gone in his room. She was unsure of what to do and breathless at the exchange with him. She knew she should try to understand why Lee had been so eager to train her, but she was caught up in the moment. Grace walked down the stairs, taking a couple glances over her shoulder to make sure that Lee had not changed his mind and decided to follow her.

The dining room was almost full, the students crowding around the tables, eating and talking about what they were going to do on their day off. Big Bear sat alone at a table in the middle of the dining room. Grace ran over and told him about her success while he enjoyed a breakfast of trout lox, feta stuffed olives, and honey-drizzled pancakes.

“Grace, I knew you could. You just needed to think about all of the things that you had learned and know what was important for you to use.”

“I don’t really know what that means, but I’m so excited, Big Bear! I can’t wait to start trying other magic!”

“That will be quite nice. But I have a question to ask. It is something I have been thinking about for some time now. Do you want to go into the forest for an adventure after classes soon? It has been a long time since we had a nice walk together,” Big Bear said.

“That would be great!” Grace said, then she leaned in and whispered, “And I have something else that I need to tell you about Lee.”

“Another thing? He is a peculiareculse, so I am not surprised. Peculiareculse is a name I gave to people like him long ago. But in the meantime, I think it would be very nice for you to show me some more magic,” Big Bear said.

“Okay, sure! Pass the olives, please,” Grace said, closing her eyes, balling her fist and pointing her ring at the bowl of olives. She worked hard to empty her mind. She was so excited and her thoughts were racing in a hundred different directions. She also could tell that the hum of morning chatter was quieting as the people in the dining room began to watch. She could sense that all eyes in the dining hall were now on her. For a moment she wavered, her near-empty mind bringing in a picture of an olive in the bowl too soon. She tried again and this time managed to clear away the cluttering excitement of the morning from her mind long enough. In a flash, the large green olive was in her mind’s eye, and before she knew it she had used magic to bring an olive flying through the air towards her. Eyes still closed, she opened her mouth with a grin as it soared in. It was firm, salty, and sour; absolutely delicious. She had done it.

Then the rest of the bowl of olives hit her in the face.

Immediately the dining room filled with laughter. Caught off guard and now soaked all down her front, Grace opened her eyes to see everyone but Big Bear looking at her, pointing and laughing. She looked down her front and saw that the juice from the olive bowl had stained her pajamas, drenching her through. Embarrassed, she turned and ran out of the room, wishing she had never come down to make such a public display of her magic.

The shame of it all completely ruined the experience and excitement of doing magic for the first time. As she ran upstairs, Grace could not hold back the tears. She thought doing magic for the first time would be a happy occasion. She had hoped that if anyone at the school thought she did not deserve to be there because she did not know any magic when she came that they would now realize how wrong they were. Instead, now they just had a reason to laugh at her.

Stepping back into her room, tears streaming down her face, Grace could still hear the uproarious laughter from the dining room. She wondered if they would ever stop, or if, no matter how skilled she became, the other kids at school would always know her as the olive girl.

“Woah, you look terrible,” Elora said as she entered, “Ew! You smell like my Uncle Herbert’s pickling plantation. What happened down there?”

“The olive bowl hit me in the face,” Grace said, flopping down onto the nearest chair.

“You made a whole bowl of olives fly?” Astral said, “That’s amazing! I’ve never heard of anyone doing something like that on the second time they did magic. I mean, that’s really, really good.”

“What does it matter if everyone just laughs at me and thinks I’m an idiot now?” Grace asked.

“They laughed at you? What am I saying, of course they did. Listen, they’ll never be able to say that they’ve done what you just did. And if you keep learning, they’ll eventually respect you. And sure, they’ll laugh, but it’ll be because they knew you before you were great, and it’ll make them feel good because they were there on the first day you did magic.”

The silence in the room was heavy as Grace considered this.

“You really think all that?” Grace asked.

“I mean, I said it to make you feel better, but yeah, if you get really good at magic someday, I do think that. It’s the kind of thing grandparents tell stories about while they sit around hearth fires. I knew this or that legend before they were great.

“But listen, Instructor Romani’s going to be really excited to hear this. Don’t let him get carried away, alright? He’s been telling me for days now how close he thinks you are,” Astral said.

It was kind to say, and Grace hoped that Instructor Romani would indeed be as proud of her as Astral seemed to be.

Though the olive incident was embarrassing, for the rest of the day Grace heard several students whispers cut short as she walked by. Many looked the other way with guilt in their eyes, like they had just been caught doing something that would get them in trouble. She even heard two girls in one of the bathrooms saying, “I just couldn’t believe it,” and “I didn’t think she had a chance.”

Grace could feel herself swell with a pride. She had accomplished something that everyone else seemed to think impossible for her and now she was becoming the talk of the school. It was the first time she felt like people had noticed her after her first few days, and that they seemed impressed with what they saw. This did not, however, stem the tide of jokes that came her way. Grace tried to not let them get her down, remembering what Astral had said. Many of the jokes were actually quite good and only a few of them were olive jokes like, “Grace! Show me olive your magic!” and “Someone’s gonna have to callamata do Grace’s laundry!”

Grace had spent the rest of the day working on lifting and moving things, finding that soon she was able to move lots of small objects and even a few big ones. Astral kept on telling her that it was the fastest she had ever seen someone pick up that kind of magic, basic as it was. She encouraged Grace to continue practicing, but suggested that she stay in their room to avoid having any more embarrassing accidents that day. Though accidents happened often at the school and each student had their fair share, one thing that all of them enjoyed was getting a good laugh in at other students’ expense. Elora explained that it was in good fun and that usually people were not really mean about it. Even still, with some of the crazy things that Grace made fly around the room that day, she was glad that only Astral and Elora were there to see it.

When Grace finally got into bed, she lay wide awake, thinking about all the things that happened that day. It had been wonderful and she at last felt like she was doing something right. She still did not feel like she fit in with the others from Easterwood, but at least she knew now that she was not hopeless. However, as she lay in bed, something in the back of her mind kept troubling her. The run in with Lee had been confusing and even a little scary. Something about it had bothered her, but she could not quite put her finger on it.

Grace lay in the dark for a long time, hearing first Astral fall asleep, her deep breaths calm and smooth, then Elora, who let out little snores each time she breathed out.

Something about Lee this morning nagged at the back of Grace’s mind. It was like the time that she told her mom that something was wrong with one of the kids in her school. Grace did not know what it was and could not even explain why she thought there was something wrong with him, but after a few weeks, she found out that he had to go to another school far away because his parents had decided they did not want to be together any longer. She could sense that something was off.

Grace’s eyes began to drift shut. Though she fought it, she soon found herself overcome with exhaustion and falling asleep. Today had been filled with so much learning, she would treasure it always as the first truly magic filled day in her life, even if she had smelled like Elora’s Uncle Herbert’s pickling plantation. The day had been filled with learning. But not from books.

In a flash, Grace’s eyes shot open. She had not been reading books, but Lee had, and one book in particular. He was always reading that book about ancient artifacts. He had wanted her to take it, just like he had wanted her to take the pendant. Both times the ring had gone crazy, flashing red and warning her to do something else.

Was her ring telling her to not take anything from Lee?

With effort, Grace forced thoughts of Lee from her mind. She did not want to think about the sulky, handsome boy after such a great day. Grace’s mind was moving now and she would not be able to fall back asleep for some time. Instead, she lay in bed wondering about all of the things that were happening in Easterwood. All but one of the artifacts were still missing and that one seemed to have so much power it could kill all of the people in a whole city if it was used incorrectly. She did not want to imagine what it would be like if the wrong people got it.

Grace tried to think about how she would act if she knew a bunch of magic and also was being chased in places that she could not easily blend in. She would continue moving as quickly as she could, finding ways to get around things that no one else thought about. If she had something that could transport her to a different place, she certainly would consider using it to get away from anyone who was setting up traps for her. But every time anyone talked about the Path Spark, they would mention how unstable it was and easy to use incorrectly. Not even Mr. Kirke seemed interested in using it.

Grace wondered if the girl was getting help from different people like spies or something who were showing her how to get around the traps that were being set. Or perhaps the girl was riding something that would let her avoid the traps more easily, like a dragon or some kind of tunneling worm monster. She knew that the girl was riding a horse, but if the horse was moving faster than anyone thought was possible, maybe something else was happening. What if it was actually a shapeshifting dragon that could turn into a horse when it needed to so that it would not draw attention?

Grace thought that this might be a little farfetched even for Easterwood, but something was unusual about the way that the girl was travelling and no one seemed to know what.

Her eyes grew heavy and her mind foggy as she faded again to sleep. Her last thoughts of the day were of a small mountain of 112 gold chestnuts that she would be awarded if she caught the girl and returned the Path Spark to the League of Historians. She would carry all that gold to Amma’s old family home and hand it over to buy the property. She imagined herself lugging a large bag into the feasting hall during a party, the room growing silent as she walked down the center aisle. She would carry it to the head table then slam it down in front of some fat lord with a big drooping mustache and say something daring like, “I’m here to reclaim what’s mine.”

Chapter 16

The Old Man and the Plea

Grace’s improvement by the next day she had class was incredible. She had spent the whole weekend practicing the one spell she knew how to do and was now able to lift things that weighed almost as much as she did. Astral told her that it took a slightly different spell to lift things that weighed more than she did, but that it did not matter too much, because she was well on her way.

Astral had been right when she said the instructors would be excited to hear that she had finally done her first magic. In her morning class with Instructor Romani, EL 102: Things That Matter More, the Elementology instructor bellowed in his huge voice, “Gracie, you have succeeded at last! I shall give you a popkin.”

Grace, who did not know what a popkin was, but did know that the enormous blacksmith intimidated her, looked up at the man with wide eyes and nodded in agreement. Instructor Romani then handed her a little copper disk, saying, “This is a popkin I made. You can use it when you want to do magic on copper. It is very useful, I think, for making the copper into something new. Only for the special achievement students.”

Grace stood holding the copper disk, not much larger than the cents she kept in a jar in her bedroom in Chicago, unsure of what to do with it. A little gnome girl who Grace thought was named Wysteria Redwing tugged on her sleeve and, standing on her toes, whispered in a gruff voice, “They aren’t very good unless you just want to make more popkins, but Instructor Romani loves to give ‘em out like candy.”

Grace nodded, pocketed the popkin, and wondered if she could start a jar of them on her nightstand in her bedroom at Meadowbrook.

Later in the day, Grace realized that she was beginning to grasp much of what Instructor Juniper was telling them about control. Several times during her BA 101: The Principles of Control class, she was able to come close to the control that Instructor Juniper continued to encourage them to have. Grace at last felt like she could begin her studies in earnest.

The day flew by, and Grace found herself learning more magic in those two classes than she had in all of her previous days in Meadowbrook combined. Mr. Kirke had even paid a visit to the school during lunchtime to congratulate her on the wonderful progress she had been making. Grace could feel herself swell as she saw the glint of pride shining in his cool blue eyes. She was doing it, she was finding her place in the school. She had not even realized how much of an outsider she felt like until her first day back in class, able to do at least a little magic, just like everyone else.

That afternoon as she wrapped up a surprisingly successful tutoring session with Tom, they sat waiting for Big Bear on the thick moss that covered the stones around the pool they practiced near. Grace loved its spongy feel between her toes and fingers. She closed her eyes and let the sun that filtered through the leaves overhead warm her face as she took a breath of clean forest air.

Grace looked at Tom and smiled. She knew that he had not always felt comfortable trying to teach her, but today he had seemed to shine, like he saw hope for her through all of the frustration of failure that she had faced over the last few weeks.

“You did really well today,” Tom told her from his own rock next to hers, “I don’t know how much more you’re going to need me to help you after another week or so. I mean, I can, but I think that you’re going to be able to start learning a lot on your own from now on.”

Grace would be lying if this was not a huge relief to her. She had gotten tired of all of the classes in the day and then additional work with Tom in the evenings. She thought she would want to be Tom’s friend if he wanted that as well, but she did not like the idea of continuing to learn with him every day.

“Thank you Tom, that means a lot to me. I know that you’ve helped me a ton to get where I’m at now. I don’t think I would have been able to get here as quickly without you.”

Tom’s face, normally the color of a weak latte, turned darker and he looked away, running his fingers through the moss, “Thanks Grace. I’m really glad to hear that.”

They sat in silence for several seconds before Grace said, “You know, I’d like to hang out with you still. Like even though we won’t be doing a lot of sessions any more. The school part’s not really been easy, but I think I’d have fun with you.”

Grace looked up to see Tom’s reaction and was surprised to see a look of confusion mixed with a little horror.

“What? What’s wrong?” Grace asked, unsure of what she had said.

“Hang out? What–What does that even mean?” Tom asked.

“Like spend time together?” Grace said like she was asking a question, even though she knew what she meant.

“Oh, well, where I’m from when someone says that someone’s going to hang out it means that they’re going to get, you know,” Tom wrapped a hand around his neck and gave a jerking motion like he was being hung.

“Wow, that’s–that’s horrible. I didn’t mean anything like that. I guess I mostly just meant I want to spend time together.”

Tom’s face lightened and he broke into one of the fullest smiles she had ever seen, the scarred side of his face pinching up further than the other.

“I think I’d like that a lot,” Tom said.

Grace was going to say more, but a rustling sound interrupted her. She looked up to see Big Bear making his way down the path, cautious not to destroy too much of the foliage on either side.

Tom looked up too and immediately Grace could tell that he had become uncomfortable. Big Bear came into the clearing around the pool and huffed out a greeting, “Hello Tom, hello Grace. I hope you have both been having a very edufunctional day. That is a fun day that you learn something that you can use.”

“Oh, uh, hi, um, Big Bear,” Tom said, struggling to find words.

Grace marveled at how quickly he could go from easy and almost likable to a nervous wreck.

“We were just, um, you know, ah, talking about magic and, and stuff.”

“That sounds nice. I like magic and I do very much like stuff. Especially when it is stuff to eat. I heard that you made that excellent ham that I enjoyed the other day. Do you think you could do it again?” Big Bear asked.

“I, well. I guess I could, but I couldn’t, you know, talk for a few days afterwards, because my mouth was sealed shut,” Tom said, running the toe of his boot over the rock.

“Oh, I am sorry to hear that you will not be able to enjoy the ham with me then. Grace, are you ready for our adventure?” Big Bear asked.

“Oh, yeah!” Grace said, then turned to Tom, “Do you want to come along?”

“No, no. I think I’ll go back now. You know, I guess I have a lot of stuff that Elora needs. She, um, kind of always wants me to do everything for her. And I’ve got homework too.”

Grace watched him begin down the path back towards school, feeling anger at the way Elora treated him rising in her gut. When he was gone, Big Bear said, “Grace, you are gathering people to be your friends like a gnome on harvest day. And everyone knows a gnome on harvest day is the most busy a gnome will get. Did you still want to take our walk?”

“Sure, I’d love to!”

Big Bear huffed a reply as he began to walk around the pool and away from Meadowbrook.

“Did we tell you about the elves that used to be kings and queens in Easterwood? It was long ago but sometimes I think we would be much happier if the world was like it was way back then,” Big Bear said as he narrowly avoided a rabbit’s burrow.

Grace did not, and as they passed they were quickly followed by a plump coney, shouting in its tiny rabbit voice, “You uncouth blaggards, who do you think you are knocking down my front do–” the rabbit froze as he caught sight of the enormous bear he was addressing, and without another word scurried back into the partially collapsed burrow, leaving a trail of black pebbles cascading in his wake.

Grace giggled. “I hope he’ll be okay.”

“He will, I think it will only take him a couple of shakes of his whiskers to rebuild his tunnel,” Big Bear said in his most sage voice. It would take the rabbit three hours and fifty-one minutes to repair the damage done.

“Do you think that the kitchen will make cheeseburgers tonight?” Big Bear asked.

Grace, surprised by the sudden shift in the conversation, shook her head, “I think it’s roast boar with truffles and root salad.”

“Oh yes, the boar that Cicero and I chased yesterday. He will be very tasty if he’s made with the truffle trove he was guarding, but maybe a little stringy in places. He had a very bad attitude that one,” Big Bear informed her.

Grace could imagine if she knew that she was to become someone's dinner, she also would likely have a bad attitude about the situation.

They walked in silence for some time before Grace said, “Big Bear, I’ve been thinking about the Path Spark some lately. Do you think everything is going to be okay in Easterwood?”

“Okay in Easterwood? I hope so. And I think it will. I remember last time just before things were not okay. It was not at all like this,” Big Bear said.

“What was it like?”

Big Bear let out a grunt that was half growl. “It was like a bowstring pulled back as far as it will go. Everyone knew something bad was about to happen.”

“And something bad did happen, right? I mean, you’re talking about the Oat Bushel War.”

“Yes, the war that Amma helped to end. But the problems were building for a long time before that. Since the Larchills, I think. Amma ended the war and most of the bigger problems for Easterwood in that battle. But, if Ironstone had not started the war in the first place, I think the world would be much better than it is now. The people in Ironstone should have waited. I think Easterwood would have helped them if they had waited and asked.”

Grace considered something that her mom’s dad, Opa, once told her. In her best Opa impersonation, which included her imagining she had a cigar clutched between her teeth as she spoke, Grace said, “Having a quick solution doesn’t mean it’s the right one. Sometimes you gotta to let a problem play out and it goes away on its own or you see the solution with time. Other times you’re gonna need to figure out a way no one expected, like flipping the problem on its head. But when those things don’t work, that’s when you kick that sucker right in the teeth and see what happens.”

“That is interesting,” Big Bear said, “but not as interesting as that sign.”

Grace looked up just as Big Bear pushed aside some dense bushes to make room for her. She was surprised to see that they were coming out of the woods to a wide road leading into a town. It was Grace’s first time to see any part of Oakton from the ground. There were many more people on the road than she expected. It was wide enough to allow four ox carts to pass side by side and was covered in gravel and grass in most places. Grace realized that this must be the Queen’s Highway that the thief was travelling along.

It was then that she caught sight of the sign that Big Bear must have been referring to and she was surprised that she had not seen it before. Standing next to the side of the road and made of wood panels was a giant giraffe, probably almost half again as large as a normal giraffe. It lowered its long neck for each traveler that entered into Oakton saying in a magically recorded voice, “Bartholomew’s Traveling Circus and Menagerie, coming to your town soon! Best show in the world!”

The sign itself seemed to gather quite a lot of attention and though it would not have been overly interesting in Chicago, here in Easterwood, it was downright exotic.

“Do you know what it’s for?” Grace asked.

“I do not, but I have heard of these travelling circuses. They are usually very bright and colorful to make people interested, but then are boring when the actual show starts,” Big Bear said.

A large sign lit up at the giraffe’s feet each time it finished announcing the show. It read,

Bartholomew's Traveling Circus and Menagerie:

Rated Best Show in the World

Five Years Running by the Redwood Seer.

They continued onto the main road, but instead of going into Oakton, they walked away from it. Before Grace could ask why, she started to notice that they were getting looks from the people passing them. She wondered if she might have something on her face before she realized that they were looking at Big Bear. Soon people also stopped to greet Big Bear and once he and Grace were pulled aside for a conversation by a very old man who was bent over with crooked joints.

“It seems like a lot of people know you,” Grace said.

“Yes, I suppose they do. But I am not a very interesting bear to know any more. I do not really know why they want to talk with me,” Big Bear said.

They continued until they were almost around a bend and out of sight of Oakton altogether when another old man, also very bent with crooked joints, stopped them.

“Oh, hello Gregor, it has been a very long time since I have seen you,” Big Bear said, surprised joy in his deep voice, “I would like you to meet Grace,” he said with a nod of his enormous head towards Grace, “This is Grace”

“Eh? Grace?” Gregor repeated loudly, “Looks more like a Clumsy if you ask me.”

Gregor laughed at his own joke and Grace had to step back to avoid the flecks of spittle from the man’s mouth. Big Bear did not laugh either.

Gregor seemed to realize that his joke had not been well received because he lowered his voice so that only Big Bear and Grace could hear, “Listen, though, I need to tell you something,” then, as if reconsidering Grace’s presence, he asked Big Bear, “Is she okay?”

“She is a good friend to myself, Mr. Kirke, and one or two fairy royalty, I do not know exactly how many, they never stay still long enough for me to have a good look at them,” Big Bear said, “You can trust her.”

Gregor nodded and as he did a series of little pops ran down his spine, “Good. I’ve got news about the artifacts that were stolen from the League. One of those little ferrets thinks he figured out who robbed the place. It was King Kowal.”

Several seconds of silence met this declaration.

“I didn’t know that King Kowal left Ironstone,” Grace said.

“Shhbbshhhh,” Gregor spluttered, “You want anyone to hear about this? It wasn’t him, but he had it done. That little fella Mort says he finally remembered something about those clowns he thought had been hanging around the League’s headquarters for a few days before the place got robbed.”

“What did he remember?” Big Bear asked.

“You know those ghosts who are the bodyguards for Kowal’s family?”

“Wait, ghosts?” Grace asked, “What’d you mean, ghosts? Like real ones?”

“No, not ghosts, Ghostwalkers. They’re men and women, as alive as any of us. But they’re the best of the best wizards that Ironstone has to offer, and they guard the King and his family.”

“They are the Royal Fairy Guard of Ironstone,” Big Bear said.

“Yeah, kind of, if the Guard wore grey cloaks and walked around lookin’ creepy all the time,” Gregor said, “Well, that squirt Mort said he remembered seeing one of those ghosts when the Ironstone ambassadors came. Never left their side, never spoke a word the whole time the delegation was here.”

“How does Mort know that the person he saw outside of the League is the same man as the ghost with the delegation?” Big Bear asked.

“Man? It wasn’t a man. It was a girl, a young girl. All the Ghostwalkers called her Charlatan. You know how they are with their creepy codenames.”

“I do not think that a girl would be allowed to join the Ghostwalkers.”

“That’s what you’d think, right? But ask anyone you want, she was there, at the palace when the Ironstone delegation were there. A hundred people remember her. Mort’s asked. They all remember that little girl in her grey cloak.”

“And he remembered seeing her outside of the League’s headquarters?”

“The day before the place got robbed. Everyone thought she’d gone with the rest of them, Queen Felicia, Prince Parzival, back to Ironstone for the peace talks, but he swears that she was there. Dressed in different clothes and everything, but there.”

“I do not remember anyone who looked like that when they came through Oakton, and if she is a ghost, she would have been someone I noticed. I do not like ghosts very much,” Big Bear said.

“Yeah, I heard about that,” Gregor said, giving Big Bear a punch on the shoulder.

Big Bear grunted before he began to speak, “So, it is possible that this is the same girl as the one who is riding so well to get away from the people following her and around all of the spells to trap her. If it is the same girl, then we do have a very unusual problem. I do not think King Kowal ordered this theft, but perhaps one of his rivals wants to keep him from making peace with Easterwood.”

“That’s just what I was thinking,” Gregor said, clapping a hand on Big Bear’s shoulder. Grace decided not to mention that Gregor had just moments before been saying that it was King Kowal who had robbed the league headquarters.

“Do you want me to tell Mr. Kirke?”

“Wha? Of course I want you to tell him! I’d do it myself if it didn’t mean I had to walk a mile or three. If I had an acorn for every mile I could have walked in my younger days…Mort’s been tryin’ to tell him, but he’s not been answering any of the messages Mort’s been sending,” Gregor said.

“Does Mort know anything else? Like where the rest of the artifacts might be?” Big Bear asked.

“No, just that the magic hiding the rest of the artifacts is strong, really strong,” Gregor said, “They can’t find anything except the Path Spark, the one that Charlatan took with her on the run.”

“Okay, I will tell this to Mr. Kirke. Thank you, Gregor,” Big Bear said, “Is there anything else that I should know?”

“No and nothing. But I wanted to say thank you again. Don’t know how many times I can say it, not after I made a fortune betting on you in the giant pits.”

“It has been a long time since I wrestled a giant. But you are welcome. I would not do it again unless I had to,” Big Bear said, “The giants usually were very mean. There was one that was so nice, though. He made me wonder why we were even wrestling at all. Probably for the entertainment. And the food. Yes, mostly food I suspect.”

Gregor looked at Big Bear confused, then said, “Well, you made me enough that I never had to cook another meal in my life.”

“Oh yes, but that was a long time ago, and I am afraid that I did not get all of the good things from giant wrestling that you did. All I got was a chance to learn how to flip a very large giant on his back,” Big Bear said, “though that trick has been useful a few times. I am very glad that someone else benefited from it though.”

“Yeah, well, if you ever want to get back into the game, you come and ask me. I’ve still got friends in the fighting leagues,” Gregor said.

“That sounds interesting,” Big Bear said in a way that sounded to Grace like he was only trying to be polite, “I will let you know. Grace, I think we need to go home now.”

Once they were in the woods again, Grace asked, “What’s going to happen if someone uses the Path Spark?”

“I do not know. It is not an easy artifact to use, the Larchills never made it very well to begin with, and no one after had enough experience to make them properly. If it is not used correctly it could blow up everything around it or it could transport all of the people for a mile around to a place that none of them could get back from. It can remove everyone in a city or an entire army, even if it was only used one time, which is why it is so dangerous.”

Big Bear continued after considering for a while, “But if someone who can learn how to use it has it, it would be a big problem. They could move a whole army away to the middle of the ocean, then themselves back to a safe place and do it again to another army or city. It would mean that someone could take over the whole world by just going to one place or another and moving thousands of people at a time. If someone was skilled enough, they could move most of the people alive to a place that they should not be in only a few days. I think we need to try very hard to catch the thief when she comes this way.”

“So you think the thief everyone’s chasing is the Charlatan girl that Gregor was talking about?” Grace asked.

“I do not know. I suppose it is just as likely to be her as anyone else. But I do not think that someone that young would be able to use the Path Spark the right way,” Big Bear replied, taking pains to move a blackberry bramble out of the path so that it hit neither him nor Grace.

“Thank you, Big Bear,” Grace said once the bramble had swung free behind her, “Did Amma use it the right way?”

Big Bear seemed to shrink a little at this question, “That was a very terrible day. I do not think that anyone could have used it how it was supposed to be used. Amma never came back, but neither did any of the other people who went with her, which was most of the Ironstone army.”

“Do you think the person who has it now would try to use it on us?” Grace asked, worried about what the answer would be.

Big Bear cleared his throat before he answered. “I do not know, but anyone who has decided to steal it must be planning to hurt a lot of people at the same time.”

“What do you think they want to do with it?” Grace asked as she jumped over a puddle.

“I do not know,” Big Bear said, “Maybe nothing right now. It is important to remember that by just having the biggest teeth, other people will let you do what you want. And the person with the Path Spark would certainly have the biggest teeth.”

“But you’d take care of me, right Big Bear?” Grace asked.

“Of course, I have the biggest teeth for miles,” Big Bear said.

They walked in silence for some time, then changing the subject Big Bear said, “Grace, that show with the giraffe seems like it will be scrumdumtious. I think that we should try to go, even if it turns out to be boring, It is very rare that a show comes to a town as far as Oakton. It may be a long time before it comes, but I would like to go when it does.”

Grace wrapped her arms as far around Big Bear’s neck as she could reach, “I’d like that a lot Big Bear. And thank you for protecting me. I hope that that stupid Ghostwalker girl never comes this way.”

Chapter 17

Hide and Seek

“Get down, what’re you thinking?” Astral said, yanking hard on Grace’s sleeve. Grace flattened herself against the ground as a voice in the woods shouted something indistinct.

“Too late now, they know where we’re at and we’re surrounded. Let’s see,” Astral said, running her fingers over a dozen vials in the belt around her waist, stopping on one with a deep blue liquid inside, “This one ought to do it. Inhale it and then run on to Big Bear’s house.”

Grace said nothing, though her heart was thundering in her ears as she heard the voices throughout the woods calling back and forth, coordinating as they approached the ditch that Astral and Grace had been hiding in. Astral pulled the vial out of her belt and handed it to Grace.

“Uncork it and breath it in as you do. Do it now, quick,” Astral said.

Grace pulled the tiny cork. The blue liquid rushed out of the vial in a vapor all around her. She breathed it in as best she could and then turned to run to Big Bear’s cabin. It took her several steps before she realized that she was not actually running. She was moving quickly, but floating rather than running. Not sure what the vapor had done to her, she tried to move faster, but found that she could not speed up. Still, she was moving almost as fast as she could sprint.

The ditch that she and Astral were hiding in was in the middle of a small clearing, surrounded by thick forest cleared of underbrush. Grace entered the tree line and tried to turn to avoid running headlong into a wide, tall pine, but found that she could not. Instead she collided with the tree trunk, bracing for the pain of it smacking her in the face. But the pain did not come. Rather, she found herself gliding smoothly through the wood. The world was dark for a moment and then the bright noonday sun hit her eyes. She had passed right through the tree and not felt a thing.

She saw one of the people who were trying to chase herself and Astral down give a start as he saw her pass. He swung a pair of balls with a cord between them at her, but they passed through Grace’s legs as though they were not even there.

The potion had somehow made her body like a vapor that could pass through things.

She continued on, leaving the man and several others who had seen her behind. It was not until she got to the training yard that her body began to rematerialize. It came back slowly, but Grace knew the moment she began to feel the resistance of the tall grass in the yard. The potion’s effects were nearly done.

They ended about two hundred feet away from Big Bear’s cabin and she fell to the ground, gasping for air. She was not winded from the run, but still felt like she needed to catch her breath.

“They found you, huh?” Tom asked.

Grace stood, running her hands over her body to make sure that all of her was still intact. Once sure that she had not left any part of her behind she answered Tom, “You guys are crazy. It’s so intense out there. They did, but I got through. I might have cheated though. Astral gave me a potion and I turned into air or something.”

“We’re trying to make it as close to real life as possible. There’s no cheating today. And we’ve never done anything like this. Mr. Kirke’s trying to work out the best spells for the area and what it’s going to look like if we have a bunch of people trying to catch this Charlatan girl.”

Grace looked behind Tom to see who else had made it through and was surprised to find that only a half dozen students stood discussing under the shade of a large, low hanging tree next to Big Bear’s cabin. She was the youngest by far and did not know any of the others by name. Most of the Meadowbrook students who were roughly the size of a human girl had tried to navigate the half mile through the woods between the school and Big Bear’s house. They had left in waves of ten every two minutes. Over two hundred students had volunteered to try to evade Mr. Kirke and the instructors’ traps and defenses. Grace and Astral had been in the last group to leave and had hung back a little, wanting to see what would happen to the other students who were in their group. The traps had been effective, but not foolproof.

“Well I think we could have maybe gotten through if I hadn’t given our position away. I just hope that Astral can–” Grace was cut short by what sounded like a clap of thunder that rocked the forest.

“Woah. I wonder who did that?” Tom asked as he surveyed the tree line, looking for the source of the blast.

Grace turned to look across the training yard, hoping that she would see Astral come sprinting through, uncaught by the many test traps that Mr. Kirke and the instructors had placed throughout the woods. Instead she saw a massive tree shoot into the air above all the rest and come smashing down with the same ground jarring crash.

“It’s one of the dryad chiefs. I guess Mr. Kirke decided to wake him up for this,” Tom said, watching as the tree leaped into the air again. It was awe-inspiring, watching the enormous tree swing branches through the air like clubs the size of large cars as it cut a path through the woods.

"Tom, it's getting closer. Do you think everything's going to be okay?" Grace asked.

"It should be. I mean the dryads can be really wild, but they usually don't hurt people."

The dryad quit its leaping and opted instead for a swift run, brushing the smaller trees out of its way as it sprinted towards the training yard, in line with where Grace and Tom stood

The ground shook just a little now with each step he took and Grace could feel her heart beginning to speed up again. "You're sure he won't hurt us? He, he's coming our way, really fast."

"Um, maybe we should–" Tom began but his voice died in his throat as Astral burst from the tree line, running at a dead sprint. She was moving so fast that her legs looked like a blur beneath her.

Astral was nearly halfway across the training yard when the dryad chief broke through the tree line and came to an abrupt halt, sinking into the ground. The silence was abrupt. Grace watched as Astral continued on at a dead run, knowing that she would make it to Big Bear's house, the goal they had been assigned to reach as part of the test that Mr. Kirke had set up.

Roots as big around as Grace's stomach shot out of the ground all around Astral, tripping her and bringing her to her knees. More roots burst up, covering her entire body in a writhing mass of dirty snakelike vines. Astral struggled against them for several heartbeats and then slumped forward, unable to break free.

The roots loosened and sank back into the churned up earth. Astral stood and shook the dirt from her tunic. She turned to face the enormous dryad, giving him a wave to acknowledge his victory. Grace was shocked to see the tree freeze and a tall, wild looking man with light brown skin and a large bushy head of hair seem to step out of the tree and wave back to her.

Mr. Kirke emerged from the forest and joined the dryad chief, motioning for the students who had made it through the forest to join them.

“That was impressive, Grace,” Mr. Kirke said when she and the other students had joined the small crowd that had gathered around the tree that the dryad chief had inhabited, “I didn’t think anyone would be using Bluebreath Potion, but that was brilliant.”

“Thanks, I guess. Astral gave it to me,” Grace said.

Mr. Kirke turned to Astral, “Again, just brilliant. I do not think that this Charlatan could be using it all of the time, but in a bind for herself and her horse, if she had enough of it. Yes, it would be nearly impossible to trap her. We are going to need to cast a wider net, I think. Woodwind, do you think your dryads could support an effort like that?”

“You push us far and farther still, child of man,” the dryad chief said. Up close, Grace could see that his skin was wrinkled and deeply lined, so much so that it looked like the bark of the tree he had inhabited. The joints of his hands were knobby and gnarled and he cracked his knuckles with the sound of splitting wood as he continued, “I am not so easily persuaded as some of the younger trees you have sought help from.”

Grace could not help but notice that Woodwind’s gaze drifted ever so slightly to Instructor Juniper who now stood next to Mr. Kirke, herself a dryad.

“Of course. I would never presume upon the noble rights of the ancient dryads. But I would ask you to remember the pacts that your mother made before you were an acorn.”

A deep rumble like a tree’s branch groaning under immense weight came from Woodwind’s throat, but he nodded his head once and turned back to walk into the forest.

Mr. Kirke and Instructor Juniper exchanged a meaningful glance. Instructor Juniper gave a little smile and nod before Mr. Kirke returned to questioning how the students had evaded capture. It took some time, but by the end, Mr. Kirke seemed to have a better idea of how to prevent the students from eluding them a second time. He began to give directions to the instructors on how to revise their spells to capture the students who had made it through. Once they had talked through how to handle all of the concerns and questions that the staff had, Instructor Kirke dismissed the students, asking all of them if they would be able to make their way through the traps in a couple of hours once the improvements were made.

Astral drew Tom and Grace aside as the other students began to disperse. “I need to find some prayerwort berries for a potion I’m making. Do either of you want to help me?”

“Not me, I’ve got homework that I need to do,” Tom said, looking away and Grace knew without even having to ask that it would be Elora’s homework that he was going to be working on. She was not even sure how he managed to imitate her microscopic handwriting, but however he was doing the work, it was passable to the instructors.

“Okay. What about you, Grace?” Astral asked.

“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t really know what I’d be looking for, but I’d be happy to help you try to find some,” Grace said.

“Easiest thing in the world. There’s actually quite a bit of it out in the forest. It’s a small plant, usually less than a foot high, with waxy dark green leaves and round purple berries that stand up above the leaves. I need quite a few berries. I’m only using the skin, but it’s not possible to do the potion I’m thinking about without a lot of it.”

“Sure, sounds like fun. Is there anything that I need to know about? Like are the berries going to give me a bad rash or something?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, if you were an elf.”

With dawning realization Grace understood why Astral was asking her and Tom for help.

Grace asked, “You wouldn’t be able to pick these on your own?”

“Well I can and do, but I’d need gloves. I didn’t think that we’d be out here again later today so I didn’t even think to bring any, but since we’ve got some time, I figured I’d try to track the berries down.”

Saying goodbye to Tom, Astral and Grace made their way back into the forest. Grace was glad that she was spending time with Astral. One thing that she had noticed since coming to Meadowbrook was that she had not made any really good friends with anyone else. She spent time with Elora and Astral, but she was not sure she really wanted to be Elora’s friend, the pixie girl could never seem to get over herself. Astral had always seemed guarded, like she did not want to expose too much of herself to the people around her. Grace hoped that she and Tom would start to spend more time together as friends now that their tutoring sessions had come to a close. It had not really happened yet, but it had not been long since they ended.

When she first came to Meadowbrook, Grace had assumed that someone would become her friend naturally. However, as time wore on, she found that she had several acquaintances around her, none of whom were actually her friends. Grace was not sure why she felt like she needed to have friends here at Meadowbrook. She was always vaguely aware that everything around her was a dream, even if it seemed more real with each passing night. She did not understand why she would want to be friends with people who were only dreams, but still the need for people that she could call her own continued to grow. She was really grateful that Astral had asked her to come out and help her.

“I think I saw some prayerwort berries over there the other day,” Astral said, pointing towards an area a little to their left. The girls veered towards the area that Astral had indicated, picking their way through the forest.

“What’d you think of the halls switching this morning?” Astral asked.

“Meh, a little weird. I think because you warned me about it, I wasn’t as surprised as I would have been.”

“No one’s come into our room by accident yet, have they?”

“I don’t think so. At least not while I’ve been in there.”

“Last year Tom walked in on me while I was stretching in the morning. It happened during breakfast and I think he was coming back to his room to get his books.”

“Tom?”

“Yeah, you should have seen the look on his face. He was petrified. We actually started being friends after that.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Well, I’m just glad no one came in while I was changing out of my pajamas.”

“No doubt.”

“What’s this potion for anyways?” Grace asked.

Astral bit her full lower lip as she considered her answer and Grace could tell that she was not sure how to explain it. She wondered if it had something to do with her missing family.

“It’s the main ingredient in a pretty complicated potion. The potion actually doesn’t even do anything, you need to use it with this special artifact to get the artifact to work,” Astral said.

“Oh, okay. Well what does the artifact do?”

“It can see the past.”

“See the past?”

“At least that’s what it’s supposed to do. It’s not an easy artifact to use and with the potion being as difficult as it is to make, it’s almost impossible for it to actually work. And it only can see the past of the person who’s using it, and some of the events that happened around the person. So, for example, I wouldn’t be able to go back hundreds of years and find out where someone buried some really valuable treasure or something.”

“That’s really cool though. How does it work?” Grace asked.

“Mr. Kirke has this artifact that looks like a candle wick. You make the potion and it becomes a thick liquid that hardens when it cools. While it’s still liquid, you dip the wick into the potion and pull it out a lot of times, the same way you make a candle. Then you light the wick with magic, but instead of it being a light, it’s a picture of the things that happened to you, whether you remembered or even saw them or not.”

“Wow, sounds awesome!”

“Kind of. It’s actually a Larchill artifact.”

Grace stopped in her tracks, stunned to hear that Astral was even thinking of using something that had been made by such evil people.

“It’s okay, mostly, Mr. Kirke told me I could use it and both he and Instructor Juniper are going to be there when I do. If I see anything that I shouldn’t or something like that, they can help me figure out what to do. Not everything that the Larchills made was bad. A lot of it was actually really good, they just didn’t use it for good purposes.”

“So what’re you hoping to see?” Grace asked.

“That’s the thing that’s a little harder to talk about. It's my parents. They went missing a long time ago. I've been trying to find them ever since I came to Easterwood."

"What happened?" Grace asked. Even though she knew the answer she thought it would be impolite to not ask.

Astral shook her head as she knelt in front of a small plant that had round purple berries and waxy leaves.

"Some people wanted my parents and me dead. They'd kidnapped my dad and were going to torture him until he told them where my mom and I were. He escaped and found us at a neighbor’s house. We fled that day, got in a carriage and drove. We met up with a few other people, all leaving for their own reasons, but trying to go somewhere that they'd be able to make a new home, Easterwood, even Ironstone. One family was going to try to hire a ship to sail across the Hope Sea and leave Gaia altogether.

"There's a lot of bad things happening in the Sapphirelands. There's not really anyone who helps keep people like me and my family safe. Everything's just run by gangs or warlords. They don't like looking weak to anyone. Can't look weak, really. If their competitors found out that they were going to kill someone and then that person got away, it'd make them look weak, like they couldn't hold their own. Then all the other gangs would start thinking that their land and money and all that would be something that could be overrun easily. It happens a lot."

"That sounds awful. Why'd they kidnap your dad in the first place?" Grace asked, kneeling to pick the smooth berries.

"He found out something he wasn't supposed to, I think something about the gang that got him, but I'm not sure. He never told me what it was, but they didn't want to take the chance, so they were just going to try and kill all three of us," Astral said, tears beginning to fill her eyes.

"But you said you escaped."

"We did, but they followed us. We thought that they wouldn't want to go all the way into the Waste, but they followed us even there. We prepared better than they did, brought stores of water, extra food. They were riding light, stealing from people they passed while we were still in the Sapphirelands. Once we got into the Waste, there was no one left for them to rob. I think a lot of them didn't make it, couldn't catch up to our carriage train. But enough did."

Grace stopped picking berries and looked her friend in the eyes, not sure she wanted to hear what Astral would say next. Astral took a deep breath and steadied herself.

"They caught up to us. We fought, tried to fight them off, but there were too many, and they were better than we were. I don't remember much of what happened. Only that I got trapped under a carriage for a long time and that some riders from Easterwood came out and found me. No one else. I'm the only one they didn't take or kill."

Grace stared at Astral until the elf girl broke her gaze and motioned for Grace to put the berries in a sack she had. Grace did not know what to say to make Astral feel better, and everything she was thinking of sounded lame and hollow.

"It's what I'm going to do for my final task. The last thing I need to accomplish before I'm finished here in Meadowbrook. I'm going to find out what happened to my parents. No matter what it takes, I'm going to find out where they went and who took them."

"And then?" Grace asked, hoping that she did not already know the answer.

"And then I'll make sure that they are never able to take someone's parents away from them again."

Chapter 18

The Invisible Girl

“Very good class, now you just need to give it a little unicorn spit. Grace a little more, ahh, perfect!” Instructor Romani’s voice boomed over the blazing furnace he stood in front of. He cut an intimidating figure, in his soot stained apron, holding a hammer that weighed half as much as Grace did. Grace set the tiny bottle labeled Saliva of Unicorn down on the rough plank table that she did all of her elementology work from. The antler spike she was working on was clamped in a vise before her. Grace watched as the unicorn spit dripped down it, shimmering in little rivulets that looked like glitter water. It dried quickly, leaving sparkling veins on the surface.

“Now this is a unique bit of magic. Unicorn spit has some wonderful life giving properties. You can use it to seal a cut, heal it in seconds, help a child grow by mixing it in his milk–my mother gave it to me every day when I was a baby and look at me now–” Instructor Romani said, pounding his massive chest, “or, as you will see at tomorrow’s session, grow some very unusual things, but you need to add a little extra magic for that. So class, take your antlers and bury them in the holes we dug in front of the classroom and perform the spell that we learned at the beginning of class.”

His thick accent, black beard, and huge personality reminded Grace of Pinocchio’s captor, Stromboli. However, Instructor Romani was kind and generous, his eyes full of twinkling laughter.

“When you are done with planting the antlers, you are dismissed. Be sure to perform the spell on them once they are in the ground!” Instructor Romani said as the students filed out of the classroom portion of his smith shop.

Grace finished up, doing the spell on the antler twice when it was in the ground. She thought she had messed it up the first time and wanted to be safe. She stood, facing the Meadowbrook schoolhouse. She did not think that she would grow tired of the beautiful, stately mansion, and looked forward to continue studying there for years to come. A buzzing sound filled the air and Grace prepared herself to run in case it was a swarm of bees. Consciously she knew that it was Elora or one of the other fairy students, but she still could not shake the fear that those bees put in her.

The buzzing grew much louder as Elora flew up and landed on Grace’s shoulder. Grace could feel a little disturbance of wind on her cheek as she landed.

“Are you ready for the Prune today?” Elora asked.

“I really don’t think you should be calling her that,” Grace said.

“Instructor Cobbler?” Elora asked, “I mean, she was named Plum Cobbler when she was a nice plump elf baby, I don’t see why she can’t be renamed Prune Cobbler now that she’s a wrinkly old lady. But you didn’t answer my question. Are you ready for her?”

“Yeah, I guess. But, her name really is Plum?”

“You bet your buttons it is. But I’ll see you in Chromatics after lunch, okay?” Elora said, buzzing off to the schoolhouse.

A couple of hours later Grace and Elora were in CM 101: Reds, Yellows, Blues with Instructor Cobbler. It was the first module for Chromatics, the magic of colors.

“Now class,” Instructor Cobbler began, “Chromatics, as you may have guessed, forms the basis of most illusion magic and plays an important role in metamorphosis. But to think that Chromatics is only a means to more advanced magics would be missing some of its essential points and incredible usefulness. By controlling a thing’s colors alone, you can very quickly and easily make it look like something that it is not. It is much more difficult to change something or create a full illusion than it is to simply change its color. Often your intended result, say hiding something, can be achieved at a fraction of the effort.”

Old as she was, Instructor Cobbler hopped nimbly down from the desk she was standing on and paced in front of the class. She had very wrinkly skin that was darker than Astral’s. Despite what Elora said, Grace did not think that Instructor Cobbler looked like a piece of dried out fruit. Her light grey hair stood out in stark relief to her dark skin and ebony earrings she wore. She held a wooden spoon that Grace had heard she used to enhance her magic and poke students who were starting to fall asleep in her lectures. She was feisty and full of energy. Grace thought that if ever she and Amma had met they would have been good friends.

Instructor Cobbler wore a bright red dress and high heeled shoes, like she was on her way to a dance right after class. “For example, it was nearly eighty years ago that I found myself at a formal party in this very dress. I know what you’re thinking, how can it still fit her so well? Well that’s just a secret you’ll have to find out on your own,” she said with a wink, “I had come with a dashing fairy and after he’d stolen a few kisses, we were just starting to enjoy ourselves on the dance floor.”

Grace could not imagine anyone, least of all a dashing fairy, wanting to steal a few kisses from the wrinkled old elf in front of her, but before Grace could think about what she must have looked like when she was younger, Instructor Cobbler continued with her story, “Well in walks this fairy girl with her gaggle of ninnies all around her and she’s madder than a gnome without a cabbage patch. I can tell whoever she’s after is about to be in a world of hurt. She says, loud enough for most everyone to hear, ‘Thinks she can steal my boyfriend, does she? Whimsy, what’d you say she’s wearing? A red dress?’ Well I look over to my date and he’s gone all green and sickly looking in the face, staring right at this girl with his jaw on the floor.

“You don’t have to think twice about what I did. Give up my chance at a wonderful night with that very handsome fairy? Not on your life,” she said, waving her hand from the top of her dress to the bottom, turning it into a deep emerald, “Of course, I had to hide him too, so I turned his hair bright blue and gave him a kiss that had his toes curled for the next decade. And it worked, because he–”

“–Became my husband,” Elora finished for her under her breath in unison with Instructor Cobbler as the class broke into oohs and ahs of mild appreciation.

Grace turned to Elora and whispered, “You knew what she was going to say?”

“Yeah, I had to take this class before. I’m not very good at Chromatics and Pruny over there thinks I need some more time learning before I can go on,” Elora said.

“If Instructor Cobbler thinks you need the extra lessons, maybe it’ll help. We could study together if you want,” Grace said.

“For all the good that’ll do,” Elora said, “I’m only good at one thing–”

“Ahem,” Instructor Cobbler cleared her throat to bring the class back to order, “So, I would like you all to practice this very simple bit of magic, changing the color of one piece of your neighbor’s clothing. The trick to Chromatics is focusing on the object first, making sure you envision it as colorless, a black outline of a thing will do, and then adding color to it. This can be especially difficult for the colorblind or,” and here she gave a significant glance at Elora, “If you have difficulty imagining an object without any color. Do not try to substitute white, grey, or black. If you do, you will just end up with a different shade of the color you are trying to achieve. For you very beginners, I recommend the word Chromatos. You may begin practicing now.”

Grace was about to ask Elora what new color she wanted her dress to be when the little pixie let out a sigh of frustration and said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

Elora squinted at Grace’s pink shirt and with a snap of her fingers a mote of pixie dust appeared, shooting off towards Grace. The bright yellow mote struck Grace’s shirt and turned it a hideous shade of brown.

Elora said a word that would have made the kids at Grace’s school in Chicago blush and sat down on her chair in a heap.

Trying not to laugh Grace asked, “What color were you going for?”

“Green,” Elora said sulking, her arms crossed.

Thinking back to what she remembered about mixing colors, Grace realized what Elora’s problem was.

“You just added green to the pink,” she said.

“How’d you know that?” Elora asked.

Before she could explain, Instructor Cobbler approached them from behind, “She’s right, Elora, if you were going for green, you forgot to take the pink out first. Grace, why don’t you give it a try?”

Biting her lip in concentration, Grace closed her eyes and imagined the outline of Elora’s dress and then filled it with a bright yellow she hoped would cheer her up. She flicked her ring hand and said, “Chromatos.”

The room was immediately filled with shrieks of surprise and horror. Grace’s eyes shot wide open, afraid she had seriously injured someone. Instead, she saw that everyone wearing a dress in the room, including Instructor Cobbler, now looked like a floating head with two legs underneath and hands out to the side. Grace felt her heart sink as she wondered what kinds of jokes the other students would make when word of this got around the school. She had managed to avoid any serious magical gaffes since her olive incident, but this would set them off all over again.

Elora was rolling on the desk, laughing in hysterics. She looked like a pair of legs wiggling up and down while a tiny head rolled back and forth in gales of laughter. Grace looked at Instructor Cobbler who was trying hard to hide the smile that cracked her lips. Grace was so embarrassed.

Grace watched as one of Instructor Cobbler’s disembodied hands withdrew the wooden spoon seemingly from thin air. She gave it a single flick and immediately the girls in the class had their bodies back. It took some time for the students to calm down after that and Grace could not help but noticing that she received several scornful looks from many of the other girls in the class.

Elora seemed to notice as well because she said, “Don’t worry about them. They’re just jealous. They can’t even get started changing something’s color. You’re really good at magic. Seriously, it took me almost the whole class last time to just change something’s shade.”

Grace looked around and realized that she was right, only a few other students seemed to have been able to change the color of anything on their partner. “Do you really think I’m doing well? Sometimes I worry.”

“You just worry because you have to live with Astral. She’s perfect at everything she does. Makes me sick sometimes.”

“That’s not true, you love Astral! Anyways, I don’t know, I feel like I could be doing a lot more,” Grace said.

“Nope, trust me. Keep doing the kind of stuff you just did and you’ll be finishing up here at Meadowbrook and off to the real world in no time,” Elora said.

“Do you think I could use this spell to make all of something invisible?” Grace asked, wondering if this or something like it might have been how the people who had stolen the artifacts were able to keep them from being found.

“Yeah, sure, maybe. I mean like I said, I’m not too good at the chromatology stuff. But you did it to all the girls in the class, with enough practice you’d probably be able to make just about anything invisible.”

“And do you think if something was invisible that a tracking spell wouldn’t be able to find it?” Grace asked.

“Jeez you ask a lot of questions. I don’t think so. Tracking spells usually focus on the thing itself, not if the thing is visible. But listen, you really should try to get better at this invisibility spell. I know you did it by accident and all, but that was really something. Accidents happen all the time when we’re doing magic, but usually they’re not that big. You’re probably a lot better at magic than you realize. You should keep practicing, then you can turn all of me invisible and I can go and spy on all those boys I like.”

Chapter 19

Done Deal

Grace took most of Elora’s advice to heart and began practicing Chromatics with a passion. She found that not only was she able to learn how to change the color of things quickly, she was especially talented with the accidental spell she had used to turn all of the girls’ dresses invisible. She worked with Instructor Cobbler to perfect the spell so that she was soon able to turn not just one item on a person invisible, but everything they wore and their bodies also. It was a very cool spell and Grace soon began thinking of all the wonderful and mischievous things she would be able to do if she was invisible.

After a few days of working on the spell, Instructor Cobbler took her aside after class.

“Grace,” Instructor Cobbler said, sitting on top of one of the students’ desks, “You’ve done a wonderful job learning the invisibility spell. I’ve never seen anyone take to it so quickly, I don’t even teach it until my students get to their 200 level classes. It’s not an easy spell to learn and a difficult one to maintain for long, especially if someone is moving a lot. You should know that it is the type of spell that can be abused to some great harm, so I encourage you to be wise with how and when you choose to use it. And please, don’t do anything illegal with it; these kinds of things could get you kicked out of school or thrown in prison under the right circumstances. Not to mention, it’s a rather easy spell to defend against and unravel.”

Grace could feel her eyes grow wide with the prospect of prison or expulsion. After the conversation she began to reconsider her varied uses of the spell, deciding on much more mundane ideas such as hiding her homework from Elora, who Grace had found copying on more than one occasion.

Some minutes before, at the end of class that day, Elora had shot out of the room like a bullet as soon as they were dismissed, not even taking time to say goodbye. Outside in the courtyard, Grace continued thinking about the estate and how she would get Charlatan’s reward money. She was just about to go back to the schoolhouse when she heard an approaching buzz that sent a chill down her spine. Looking around she saw Elora fly up beside her as she landed on her shoulder.

Standing on her toes, Elora yelled into Grace’s ear, “Grace! I’ve got some great news! Big Bear’s gonna to take us into Oakton! I can’t wait!”

Grace craned her neck away from Elora as far as it would go, trying to keep her hearing intact. Although Elora was about as tall as Grace’s hand, her voice was just as loud as anyone’s and her yelling into Grace’s ear was deafening, “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re excited. I am too. Why are you yelling in my ear?”

Elora stepped back and plopped down on Grace’s shoulder. “Oh, I’m yelling because I had to get Big Bear’s attention so he’d talk to me about going to Oakton together.”

Big Bear sidled up next to them and said, “I told you when we were talking and I will tell you again now, Elora. I have trouble seeing, not hearing. I could hear everything during our entire conversation.”

“You coulda told me that sooner!” Elora said, still close to yelling.

“Elora, seriously, you’re way too loud. Everyone’s looking at us,” Grace said.

Elora stopped long enough to assess the situation and found that everyone was looking at them. “Aw, forget them. We’re going out for an afternoon on the town, right Big Bear?”

“Only if Grace can come. If she cannot we will wait for another time.”

“‘Course Grace can come,” Elora said.

“Well, okay,” Grace said, “When did you want to go?”

“Um, now, obviously. Are you ready for some fun or what?” Elora asked.

A little more than half an hour later, the three of them found themselves walking down one of Oakton’s dirt roads lined with shops on either side. The stores they passed were all crammed full of everything you could ever imagine needing. From ordinary everyday items to the most unusual magical artifacts, the merchants in Oakton were insistent that everyone have their necessary wares.

Most of the stores had a theme, like the stores in Chicago. However, most stores in Chicago did not sell a silk dress that could turn into a suit of armor or a juice with dandelion seed extract to make you float when you jumped. Grace did think she had seen a talking desk at one of the more sophisticated furniture stores in Chicago.

They stopped in a shop full of hundreds of spools of ribbon on dowels lining the walls. Bows, both magical and otherwise, tied in every shape that Grace could imagine, and quite a few that she could not, hung from display stands on the floor. The girls took turns trying to decide which bow would look best on Big Bear, laughing each time they put a new one in. Even Big Bear gave great heaving bear laughs when he saw himself with two tiny pink ones in his ears, saying that they reminded him of a girl bear he had once known.

Elora insisted on buying a bow for both of them and they spent a whole hour trying to decide what style and color best matched Grace’s cinnamon brown hair and red oak skin. They then spent another fifteen minutes arguing over if the bow should be made of magical ribbon or not. Though Grace tried desperately to get just a normal bow, Elora was insistent, even going so far as to say to the shop owner that the woman should not listen to Grace and just pick out the best magical ribbon she had in a deep green. When the large, sophisticated bow was finally in her hair, Grace thought it looked like the kind of thing Amma may have worn when she was Grace’s age.

They continued on a little further to a low building. It was made of large, rough cut grey stones that gave it the feeling of a vault or a castle. Grace realized that it was one of the only all stone buildings that she had seen in Easterwood since arriving. Most of the buildings she saw had been made of wood or were part of the trees. This building had two heavy bronze doors in front that featured swirls that looked like rams’ horns.

“I gotta stop in here. Why don’t you guys come in, it could be a little while that I’m here,” Elora said with a significant look at Big Bear. Grace wondered if this was the reason Elora wanted Big Bear to come to Oakton with her.

Elora flicked a mote of pixie dust at the door and it rang like a loud bell. Grace could hear the sound of muffled hooves approaching and a few seconds later the door opened to reveal a fawn who from the waist up looked like he was in his mid-twenties. He poked his horned head out and looked up and down the street. Once he was sure that nothing was out of the ordinary he directed his focus on Elora before letting it wander to Big Bear and Grace.

“They’re with me, Staggs,” Elora said, buzzing forward.

Staggs gave them one more look and nodded a little, opening the door wide to allow Big Bear and Grace to enter. The door shut with a muffled boom that made Grace think she was being closed inside of a cave.

The inside of the building was spare, with a half dozen chairs on one side of a simple wooden table and one chair and a door on the other side. A single glowing ball of comfortable yellow light hung suspended by magic above the wooden table. While the room seemed to be sealed off, the air was fresh and only smelled a little bit like goat.

“Laurie, I told you not to come back until you’re ready to do business. Are you ready now?” Staggs asked as he walked around the table and sat in the chair opposite them.

Elora flew up to the table and landed on it with her hands on her hips, leaving Big Bear and Grace to stand just inside the door. “I’m ready, but I need to know that you’re gonna deliver on your side. And I don’t want fifteen. I want twenty.”

“Twenty?” Staggs said, pulling a pencil out from behind his curly locks. He looked at Big Bear and Grace and motioned for them to take seats next to Elora before continuing, “I can’t do twenty, not for how much you’re going to pay me. I don’t even know if I can keep the fifteen I have in mind searching that long.”

“Well I need them starting today, and I don’t want the lame members of your tribe, I want the best ones you’ve got. You understand me? Only the ones who’re magesters.”

“Starting today?” Staggs looked up from the notes he was taking directly onto the table, “You said they would not be starting until tomorrow? It’s not possible. I can’t even have fifteen ready today.”

“Then the deal’s off and I’ll go talk to Cicero. I’m sure his herd would like an ounce or two of dust.”

“Cicero? He’s one of your instructors. He wouldn’t help you. You think I’m daft Laurie? I know the centaurs too well. He won’t help you.”

“I don’t like you calling me Laurie, and he said he would help me. His magesters are stronger and faster than yours’ and he said he could get ten of his herd into the woods today for the same price as you’re offering me for fifteen.”

“Then I suppose our business here is finished,” Staggs said, standing, “You can find your way to the door, I’m sure.”

Elora’s eyes widened for a moment and Grace thought she looked like she was scrambling to think of something to say. It was the first time Grace thought she had seen Elora caught off guard. “Well, I didn’t, uh, I didn’t tell him I’d do it. I wanted to see if you could match or beat his offer.”

“Did you now?” Staggs asked, leaning on the back of his chair and toying with one of his horns, “And what did you offer him for the hire of ten of his finest magesters in an attempt to capture this thief that all of Easterwood is after?”

“Same as I offered you, one ounce to take the job, another ounce when you catch her. I get all the gold,” Elora said, straightening like she was now in control of the conversation again.

“And why is it so important that you get this little thief?” Staggs asked, “I don’t like to do business for anyone without understanding why. You don’t need the money.”

“You can consider it a point of personal honor for me. If any of your magesters are able to capture Charlatan, I want full credit. I want everyone to know that it was because of me that she was caught.”

Staggs seemed to consider this for some time before he nodded his head, “The reward for Charlatan’s capture increased to five hundred gold chestnuts from the royal coffers just this morning. That makes catching her on our own a lot more interesting. What do you say about that.”

Grace looked at Elora, who stood frozen on the table, stunned by the news. Elora turned to Big Bear who nodded in agreement with Staggs.

“F–Five hundred gold chestnuts?” Elora asked, “That’s a lot of money.”

“You can see why I’m going to have a hard time getting twenty of my tribe to commit to going out with you. Perhaps you should talk to Cicero. The centaurs have always been more noble. They might still help you without the additional promise of gold to lure them away.”

“Uh, no, no. I’d still like to talk to you first. How much do you think you’d need for twenty of your fawns?”

“Well, myself and nineteen others? I would need two ounces up front and three more if we caught the thief. And we would not be setting up any trapping spells, that would only be us forming a wide perimeter, enlisting the help of some of the dryads that work for us.”

“How much more to set up trapping spells?”

“Since they would vastly increase our odds of catching the thief, I would say,” Staggs stopped to do some more writing on the table, “I would say another half an ounce up front.”

Elora bit her lip and she considered, “You’d need two and a half ounces up front to get twenty of you out there? Could you start tonight?”

“Yes, I believe that we could.”

“I can give you half an ounce right now. The other two ounces can come from my father’s friend, Lord Julip. His factory should have some excess.”

“I’ll need a certification of payment drawn up.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. If you make it, I’ll sign it, you just get your guys out there.”

“Very good,” Staggs said, tapping the floor three times with his hoof. The portion of the table that he had been writing on changed colors and began to fade, rematerializing as a sheet of ivory paper with green and blue fibers running through it.

Staggs held the sheet up, reading it twice before sliding it over to Elora who mumbled as she read, “The signatory herewith Elora Geraldine Thumb shall retain the services of, la, la, la, twenty retainers of Tribe Markhorn in the matter of the capture of an unknown person with the following description. La, la, la, young girl, grey cloak, Path Spark shall be handed over to the signatory, if captured, Tribe Markhorn shall, blah, blah, two and a half ounces of pure pixie dust prior to engagement, drawable from the Honorable Lord Julip on the credit of Family Thumb, three more after capture of the unknown person. Signatory shall in no way be held responsible for damages, blah, blah, blah. Default by, la, la. Term of contract shall end in ten days’ time or once unknown captured person has been turned over to authorities or in the event of the death of blah, blah. Okay, this is perfect! Where do I sign?”

Staggs indicated an area at the bottom of the page. Elora signed the paper by flicking a mote of pixie dust onto the sheet, her elegant script appearing in gold letters.

“Here’s the first half ounce,” Elora said pulling a bag about a half an inch around from within the folds of her dress. She flew it over to Staggs who held his hand out, greedy eyes watching Elora’s every move, “I want her, Staggs. Do you understand? I want her captured.”

Staggs tugged the drawstring and opened the tiny bag. Golden light spilled out and over his face as he did. His eyes lit up with joy for a moment before he schooled himself and cleared his throat. “Excellent. I will alert my tribe at once. It has been a pleasure, Elora.”

Back on the street, Grace turned to Elora. “You just paid him to hire twenty magesters to try to capture Charlatan?”

“I sure did,” Elora said, “My family’s coming up on the big leagues these days and we gotta show all those clowns in Redwood that we can hold our own with the rest of ‘em.”

“What would you do with all that money?” Grace asked, thinking about how much she wanted it to be able to try to buy back Amma’s estate. She was sure it would be more than enough and she would become the hero of her own family, the one who resurrected a lost noble house.

“Eh, not sure. Probably put it out for loans or something. You know, make some nice profit off it. Maybe use it to pick off one of the competing pixie dust factories that’s struggling some. Really kick it into gear. Doesn’t really matter what I do with it. I’m in it for the glory. You know?”

Grace could feel jealousy rising up in her throat. She had wanted to be the one to try to catch Charlatan. She at least could have used the money to try to buy back something that she desperately wanted. Elora only wanted to use the money to put out loans, and who cared if her family looked better to all the Redwood nobility? They were already rich and getting richer by the minute. Grace imagined how angry she would be if one of the fawns Elora had just hired turned out to be the one to catch Charlatan and win Elora all that money and fame.

It was not that she deserved any of the money, but at least she would not use it for totally selfish reasons, Grace tried to tell herself. She wondered again if the money would buy back all of the estate or if she would have a little left over for some other things. She was not sure how she would try to catch Charlatan, only that she wanted to be out in the woods or along the highway with everyone else that she was sure would be there when Charlatan came through. She tried to let the anger at Elora melt away as they left Staggs’ building.

As they walked on a little further Grace felt it starting to fade, replaced by a resolve to be the one person in all of Easterwood able to catch the elusive thief.

They soon came to a store that specialized in magical artifacts of all kinds. The lichen-covered sign above it read, The Magnificent Magester. It was full of things that Grace had never before seen, and she stopped for a closer look at the storefront.

“You wanna go into Mags?” Elora asked, more enthusiastic than Grace was used to her being.

“Mags?” Grace asked, confused.

“Yeah, that's what everyone calls it. It's supposed to only have a bunch of cheap stuff, but the guy who owns it thinks he’s the best thing since buttered buns. I've never been in there, but Tom loves to go, even though he can’t afford any of it,” Elora said.

Seeing a potential customer, the merchant inside came out and shook Grace’s hand with surprising vigor. He was a plump man with a drooping mustache and a bald head, and when he spoke Grace thought of college-educated pirates, “Hello there young miss! My name is Mr. Wrathbone, purveyor of fine magical artifacts. How are you and your fine friends today? Looking for anything in particular?”

Grace smiled back at him, “I don’t really know, I just thought your store had a lot of really interesting stuff.”

“Well, I wouldn't call it stuff. It's only the finest collection of artifacts in Oakton. But, don't take my word for it, do come in, you and your pixie friend. I’m afraid, sir, that I don’t have room for someone of your…stature,” Mr. Wrathbone said, addressing Big Bear.

“Oh, that is alright,” Big Bear responded, “I just saw a man grilling some kind of meat over there and I think I would like to have a talk with him about it. Grace, Elora will you be okay?”

Grace nodded as Elora landed on her shoulder, whispering as they followed Mr. Wrathbone into the store, “You gotta be careful around these guys, Grace. They'll take us for everything we got and leave us beans. Not even the magical kind.”

“He’s that tricky?” Grace whispered back.

“Yep, just make sure you don’t buy or promise to buy anything,” Elora said as they entered the shop.

The inside of Mags held all of the promise of magic that the outside offered. There were boxes and barrels full of some of the most wonderful and strange things Grace had ever seen. Sitting under a sign proclaiming “Decorative Charm Baits” were a barrel full of tiny wooden monkeys who chattered at each other while they climbed on their playthings, an aquarium with stone fish, each sparkling like gems as they swam through the air, and a cage holding dozens of straw birds, each singing a different tune that sounded like an entire orchestra. Toys labeled Unstoppable YoYo’s, Haunted Jack-in-the-Boxes, and Fortune Telling Tops lay piled in wicker baskets in the other corner.

Along the wall on Grace’s right lay a vast array of art supplies. There were brushes for painting pictures with moving images like a television that would tell an entire story, but only up to a thousand words a sign next to them noted. Chisels for sculpting stone creatures intended to come alive lay piled in a heap beside a pottery wheel for making vials and bottles to hold potions requiring special care.

Further back in the store were the most powerful artifacts. There were dozens of rows and shelves full of things. These artifacts were used only by magesters for, among other things, healing, harming, looking beautiful, looking plain, being invisible, being seen, making money, making friends, sending instantaneous messages, and a host of other things not worth using paper and ink on.

Grace stopped in front of one such artifact, something that looked like an umbrella from China. Attached to one side of it, a little sign read,

Brumella:

Make Water from Thin Air

Grace laughed a little as she read the explanation. Mr. Wrathbone, leaning against a shelf full of all different kinds of skulls asked, “What do you think of the brumella, little miss?”

“Well, I’ve never seen anything like it before. How does it work?” Grace asked.

“Simplest thing you could imagine,” Mr. Wrathbone replied, “You just push the base of the brumella up like this. You run your magic through the pole and it starts to rain under the brumella. Collect as much water as you want.”

Grace watched as a small shower of water began to fall under the brumella, making a puddle that was quickly sucked into the floor.

“So it’s like an umbrella in reverse?” Grace asked.

“Well, sure, if you want to be boring about it,” Mr. Wrathbone replied, a little hurt.

“What if I don’t want it to rain water?” Elora asked, flying up to them, “What if I want it to rain with something I like? Like cocoa.”

Grace had found that Elora was drinking a lot more cocoa the last several days than she had when Grace first arrived.

“Oh, that would be quite nice, but I’m afraid you would need the Chomella for that,” Mr. Wrathbone replied. Leaning forward with a conspiratorial air, he whispered, “And it’s quite a lot more.”

“That’s how it always works,” Elora said, shoving her hands into the pockets of her dress, “They get your attention with the one you don’t want and then tell you the one you do costs more than an ounce of pixie dust.”

“How much does the brumella cost?” Grace asked.

“Well, I’m guessing that you’re probably one of the students from Meadowbrook, yes?” Mr. Wrathbone asked.

Grace nodded.

“Now, I know that money to spend while you’re a small lad or lass in school can be a bit of a touchy subject. Heavens know, I was next to penniless when I went off to school, not now though, mind you, but I was,” Mr. Wrathbone said, patting his belly with the air of a man who did it often and was proud that he could, “So, you probably can’t afford it. If you really want it, something could be arranged, you could perhaps come into the shop and work for a while. But tell me, why do you want something like this at all? I think one of our toys would be much more to your liking,” Mr. Wrathbone said, picking up a Jack-in-the-Box and turning its crank until the lid popped open and the ghost of a little gnome popped out screaming obscenities about people destroying his garden.

Elora lifted her nose and sniffed to show what she thought of Mr. Wrathbone’s toy.

Grace thought about it as Mr. Wrathbone wrestled the ghost back into the box before replying, “Well, I’m new to Easterwood. It’s a very nice place, but I don’t know what’s out there. Some things have been a little scary since I got here and it would be nice to have a few things that could help me if ever I got into trouble. I mean there’s lots of rivers around, but what if the rivers dry up?”

“Wha? Rivers dry up?” Mr. Wrathbone asked, “I never heard of something like that before. No, most of the folks who want a Brumella are those who are going to the Waste. You don’t have any trips planned to go there any time soon, do you?” he asked with a chuckle.

Grace shook her head. “I’m not even sure where it is.”

“Well then I think that a nice haunted Jack-in-the-Box is just the thing for you,” Mr. Wrathbone said, “Get you started learning a little more magic; these little buggers offer great advice once you can get ‘em to trust you.”

Grace could still hear the ghost gnome screaming through the box, “Pluck my radishes and use ‘em for your salad, I’ll pluck out your filthy mustache, you barb–” Mr. Wrathbone gave the box a firm knock, silencing the ghost inside.

Grace found herself less interested in Mags than she thought she would be and was beginning to think that Elora was right, that it was just full of lots of junk. She looked out the window, wondering how she could make a graceful exit without hurting Mr. Wrathbone’s feelings. She saw Big Bear next to the meat stand, swaying a little in the way he did when he got agitated. She opened her mouth to say something about needing to get back to school when she caught sight of Lee through the front window.

Lee was striding into a rather dull looking book shop across the street, its sweeping roof built into the side of a large tree. He carried the leather bound book and looked really upset.

Grace was not sure why, but she really wanted to know what Lee was up to. Of all the people at Meadowbrook, Lee was the one she wanted to be cautious around. Still, if she had a chance to see him in a situation he did not know he was being watched, then she would take it and find out what he was doing.

Looking down at her ring, Grace saw it shining a dull green. She bolted from the store, bursting through the door into the late afternoon sunlight. Grace avoided two carriages and a pair of gnomes riding a mule as she crossed the street at a run. She came to a skidding stop outside the bookstore and peeked in through the dirty glass. She saw Lee walking towards the back of the shop, a scowl twisting his handsome face. She checked her ring again and found that it had not changed colors. With a breath, Grace turned and got in step behind a very wide dwarf as he entered the bookstore.

A little bell rang as they walked in. Grace had to hold her breath, both because she felt like she was especially daring and to keep from choking on the smell of blue cheese and grilled onions that wafted off the dwarf. The front of the shop was two stories tall, with every inch of wall covered in bookshelves groaning with heavy books. A spiral staircase off to her left led to a second floor that covered the back half of the store, also packed with rows of full bookshelves.

Grace could hear Lee’s raised voice in the back. She risked a peek over the dwarf’s shoulder to see Lee towering over a diminutive old elf who sat behind a tiny desk tucked into an alcove under a second floor.

“You said it would be in there. I’ve read through the whole thing a dozen times and it doesn’t have anything useful about it at all. I want my money back and I want a book that’s actually going to help me use it the way it was meant to be used.”

“Master Stoneheart,” the little elf’s voice was wispy thin, yet carried through the whole building, “There are so few books written about them. Such dark, old magic, why do you need to know about them? Mr. Kirke doesn’t teach this.”

“You don’t think I know, do you?” Lee said, his voice now growing cold, “He told me about you. Why do you think I came here in the first place?”

The elf stood, now cautious. “Master Stoneheart. I do not know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about this, you idiot,” Lee said, opening the book, letting something round and gold spill out. It bounced on the elf’s desk with a sonorous ring and the elf groaned as he saw it. Grace got one glimpse at it before it fell flat on the desk, but it was enough. Even at this distance, she could recognize the pendant that Lee had tried to get her to use. She wondered if he had hidden it in the book the day that she had run into him. She could not at all imagine what was so important about it, but the elf drew back in revulsion.

The dwarf grumbled something about, “Meadowbrook kids always thinking they’re smarter than they are, nothin’ but trouble,” and “Gotta get back before my beef goes cold.”

“You...you shouldn’t have that. I thought I was the only person in Oakton he gave one to,” the elf said, hissing.

“You think you’re special? No, he gave me mine long before you received one. And what have you done with yours?”

The elf let out a piteous moan.

“I need to know how to control it,” Lee said, his voice lower, “I need it working, do you understand?”

“You can’t control it, only a few wizards are strong enough to control a niyan charm. It works if someone chooses it, or if it chooses someone. But someone as young as you able to control who it chooses? No, it is not possible,” the elf wheezed, “He really gave you one too?”

Lee ignored this last question, “So it works on the person who it chooses? How do I know who it’s chosen?”

“I can’t, I, I shouldn’t. He would be angry,” the elf said, cowering.

“He’ll be angry if you don’t tell me. You’re supposed to be helping me,” Lee said, taking a step closer and looming over the elf.

“Alright, alright. Run a scrying spell into it. The face of the person it’s chosen will appear in the middle.”

“How can I get it to choose the right person? I want it to choose her.”

Grace’s heart sank. Even Lee was trying to catch Charlatan, and he was using some kind of advanced ancient magic to do it. Everyone was bringing everything they could to try to be the one who caught her, and Grace had nothing at all that would help. She was not rich and she did not have a powerful artifact. She certainly was not skilled enough at any kind of magic to make a difference. She knew little about Easterwood, so little that she did not even know that the rivers never ran dry. She would not have a chance at getting the reward money in a thousand years.

Grace did not hear the elf’s reply, because Elora buzzed up to the window and began tapping furiously on it. Grace risked a final look around the big dwarf. Lee was looming over the desk, but the elf was looking out the window. He looked at Grace for just a moment then back at Lee, nodding his head at everything Lee was saying. Grace, afraid that she would be seen by Lee if she stayed much longer, left the store and the grumbling dwarf behind.

Outside, Elora buzzed up to Grace.

“Elora, I need to talk to you about–” Grace started to say.

“Forget that, you weirdo, runnin’ across the street into shops for no reason. Something good’s happening!” Elora said, tugging a lock of Grace’s hair.

“What do you mean?” Grace asked.

“What’d you mean, what do I mean? Look!” Elora said, pointing down the street, “That jerk’s after the reward too. I can’t believe he’s got the nerve. After everything he saw me have to go through with Staggs...”

Grace looked over to where Elora was pointing. She saw Big Bear and two very tough looking middle-aged men wearing leather armor and swords at their sides standing next to him, nodding as he gestured to areas outside of Oakton and down the road, then once in the sky.

“I think he’s telling those guys where they need to set up the traps for Charlatan,” Elora said.

“Probably, do you think we can get any closer?” Grace asked.

Without answering, Elora zipped over to land on Big Bear’s shoulder, saying loudly enough for Grace to hear, “Grace wants to know if we can come over.”

Big Bear jerked his head away to put some distance between his ear and Elora’s tinny yells. He turned around, motioning to Grace with a paw that was larger than Grace’s head. Grace approached, careful to give the tough looking guys extra room. They did not look like the kind of people who would have appreciated someone getting in the way of their work.

“What’s going on?” Grace asked.

“These two gentlemen have come in from out of town and want to help us set up the traps for the thief. They are some of the best hunters in this part of Easterwood and I think that they will be very, very good to have. I am telling them that I want sticking spells set up every body length of mine for a hundred paces on either side of the road, and that the sticking spells should be able to reach up as well.”

“What’s a sticking spell do?” Elora asked, and Grace knew that she was already thinking of orders to give to Stagg’s tribe.

“It will reach out an invisible arm that grabs onto the person or thing it is assigned to trap and does not let go easily. In this case it will be the person who is holding the Path Spark. It is stretchy too, which is what gives it so much strength. I think it is a very good spell to catch someone, but we are also doing a blinding spell that will keep a person who has the Path Spark from seeing for a day and a night if they run through the magical web that these men will put up.

“There are several more I have asked them to do, but those are the ones I think are most interesting.”

“Does that mean that Charlatan’s going to be coming this way?” Grace asked.

“I believe so, probably in the next day or two. She is still moving faster than the Guard, but no one has seen her since Boar’s Hollow.”

“So do you think that this is going to catch her?” Grace asked, hoping that she would have a chance to be the one to stop this girl and still unsure of how she would do it.

“I do not know. I will have some of the instructors come and make the traps much more powerful to help. I think that with these there is a chance.”

“Are you going to have like a stakeout or something?” Grace asked.

“Yes, I believe that many of the people from Oakton will try to help catch her. It is almost like a game of catch the greased pig to most of the people in Easterwood now. Every town she goes through they try to catch her, but she always slips through their fingers.”

“I’d really like to be there for it if I can,” Grace said, wondering what it would be like with all the other people around her. It would be a competition, to be sure, but she thought that she had just as much chance of catching Charlatan as anyone else at this point.

“I do not think that you will be joining us, Grace. If she used the Path Spark with you nearby, you could be hurt you very badly or even killed. I do not want to take that chance and neither does Mr. Kirke.”

“What?” Grace asked, shocked that she was being told she could not participate.

“You need to stay home at Meadowbrook,” Big Bear continued, “It is for your safety. If we do catch this girl and she uses the Path Spark to try to escape, many people could die.”

Grace could feel her chances of catching Charlatan begin to melt away. She could not believe it. Surely no one else was having this kind of a restriction placed on them, but here she was, being told that she could not try to catch her and win the reward money. She could not believe that she was going to be the only person left out.

She thought about it as they walked back to school. If she had not been related to Mr. Kirke, she was sure that she would have been able to go out with everyone else. Grace was weak with frustration. Elora was hiring people, Lee was using ancient magic, Big Bear had found some of the best trackers and hunters in Easterwood, and she had to stay home. The visions of her buying back Amma’s estate began to swim away from her mind, replaced with one of being all alone while everyone else got to go out and have a wonderful adventure.

Chapter 20

The Split Path Spark

The halls of Meadowbrook echoed with Grace’s steps. She had never been in the gargantuan mansion with so few other people. On a normal day there would be kids laughing and talking throughout the entry hall or reading in the library and study. Today classes had been cancelled and silence hung heavy on the whole schoolhouse. The only sign of life was the occasional yelling from the few remaining cooks in the kitchens. Earlier in the day Grace, lonely and wishing she could be out in the woods hunting for Charlatan with Astral and Tom, had tried to go in, but a pair of gnomes, had all but pushed her out, telling her not to come back until she could make herself useful.

As boring as the schoolhouse was turning out to be when no other students were around, Grace had no mind to waste her day off doing chores that she did not need to do.

All of the other students had left early in the day, making their way out into the woods and along the highway in hopes that it would be them to catch Charlatan. The Royal Fairy Guards who were tracking her knew that she was about three days ahead of them, which meant that she would be coming through the area around Oakton sometime that day or night. The Meadowbrook students had answered the call to help with enthusiasm, though Grace could not tell if it was more out of civic duty or the chance to win a small mountain of gold that had them walking patrol lines.

Word about the expanded reward purse had spread through Meadowbrook like wildfire. The Royal Fairy Guard was so intent on finding this girl that they had issued wanted posters, loudly proclaiming the reward of five hundred gold chestnuts to anyone who could bring the thief into custody.

Grace had been hearing whispers of how much was being done around Oakton to try to catch Charlatan. Over a thousand of the best designed spells for trapping or slowing a person down had been set up throughout the area along the Queen’s Highway and deep into the forest on both sides. Most had been done by Mr. Kirke and the Meadowbrook instructors, but plenty of others had been added by the citizens of Oakton well versed in this sort of magic. This was nothing to say about the hundreds of local farmers and woodsmen for miles around the town, who also set up traps near their homes. Though the spells were invisible, the number of people who had come out was not. Grace had heard that Woodwind had even recruited a dozen more dryads to roam the area northwest of Oakton in an attempt to provide one final barrier to Charlatan.

All of the students living in the schoolhouse had left, joining another five or six thousand people from the area who spread out through the woods. Grace had watched them file out of the schoolhouse yard that morning after a brief speech from Mr. Kirke, jealousy and disappointment blossoming in her heart.

It was by far the largest coordinated effort that anyone had done to try to capture Charlatan since she went on the run with the Path Spark and Grace could not see how she would be able to get through so many people who were on the lookout for her. She would be captured this time for sure. The other towns she had passed through might not have had so many people interested in catching her, but here in Oakton it was a different story. The stakes had been raised sky high to Grace’s understanding, and nobody wanted to miss out on the nationwide game of cat and mouse.

“What could you buy with five hundred gold chestnuts?” Grace had asked Astral over breakfast that morning.

“A lot. It’s more money than anyone needs, I can tell you that much,” Astral said.

“That’s what you think,” Elora shot back, checking the little bag of pixie dust she had kept at her side since she met with Staggs the day before. She had been putting every mote of dust that came off her into the bag, in hopes that she would be able to use it to catch Charlatan. Even though she had hired most of the magesters in Staggs's tribe, she still wanted to be out hunting Charlatan. Despite being annoyed with her, Grace thought it was impressive that Elora would still be out in the woods with everyone else.

“I’ve never even seen a gold chestnut before,” Tom said, “But if I had even a handful, I’d use ‘em to get my sister out here and we’d buy a little house somewhere along the river.”

“Oh Tom, you’re so funny, we all know that you’re going to join the Guard one day,” Elora said with an absent minded little laugh.

Tom looked like he did not appreciate this idea very much. He excused himself and got up to leave with the rest of the students who were going out that morning. Grace realized that for all of them, catching the thief was like winning the lottery when the prize was enormous. Everyone wanted to try, because they thought they had so little to lose and so much to gain.

Grace had asked Astral one last time as she walked out of their dorm that morning if she could come. Astral only smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry Grace. I know that you’re missing all the fun and excitement, but both Big Bear and Mr. Kirke told me that under no circumstances were you to leave Meadowbrook to try to help catch this girl. You’re just going to have to stay here. I wouldn’t worry about it too much though, she’s not been caught yet and even with as good of traps as have been set all through here, I don’t think that she’s going to get caught this time either. You don’t have to worry about missing anything.”

Grace had started the day alone in her room, but soon had grown bored and frustrated with the scenery, and had thought it was too quiet. She had moved to the dining room first, but the chefs had annoyed her with their jokes, so now she sat curled up in her slippers, in a comfy velvet chair in the study. As the sun moved higher in the sky, she started to see the chefs leaving the kitchen in ones and twos. Even they were going to join in the hunt for Charlatan.

Grace read a large book about the first elf kings and queens who ruled in the land that would become Gaia before the fairies united it all. Grace had chosen the book in hopes that the stories would be dull and tedious, just the thing to help her fall asleep next to the little fire that crackled in the fireplace. Instead, she found them engaging and exciting enough to keep her mind occupied on anything other than the adventure that she knew she was missing out on.

The house was utterly silent as she read.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Grace stiffened, sitting up and looking around. She thought she had heard the sound of footfalls and wondered if one of the pesky gnomes or Norfred, the ugly elf from the kitchens, was coming to talk with her. She was sure that the other students were not returning, they would have made a lot more noise coming into the house. Grace listened again for the sound, but it had stopped. Returning to her book she began to read about an elf king who was destined to rule the world.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Grace sat up, sure that she had heard something, and that it was louder now. Someone was moving around outside the study. Grace wondered if it was one of the staff doing some dusting while they had the chance without all of the students in the school. Telling herself it was something like that, Grace settled back into the chair, trying to get comfortable again and having a hard time of it. She had lost her place, and the moving picture on the page that showed a dark skinned elf with a crown and a scepter standing triumphant on top of a mountain did nothing to help her focus.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound was louder still and Grace was sure that someone was right outside the door. She could feel her heart beginning to speed up, despite knowing that she was perfectly safe in the schoolhouse. She looked at the door, wondering if anyone would try to come inside. In a stroke of genius she decided to run behind it so she could jump out and scare whoever was moving around the schoolhouse so quietly. It would teach them to put her on edge.

Grace tiptoed to the wall where the door would swing open, feeling her heart begin to thunder in her chest. She was almost as excited about scaring the person if they did decide to come in as she was on edge about who it might be. In a stroke of genius, Grace made herself invisible, checked once that she had done the spells right, and then held her breath. It would be even better if she could startle them without being seen.

To Grace’s surprise, the ornate bronze doorknob began to turn. Whoever was opening the door was trying to do it quietly, so no one would hear. Grace wondered if it was Astral, back to give her a little shock. The door opened slowly, creaking just a little on its hinges.

Grace heard the person step in, could feel her heart racing in her chest. The person took two more light steps in past the door, and Grace knew she had her chance. She was just about to slam the door behind the person, jump out and yell, “Ha! Gotcha!” when she caught sight of a ragged grey sleeve. Confused, Grace froze. She had never seen anyone on school grounds wear something that filthy.

The person let out a sigh of frustration before turning to leave. Grace, curious now, let them go on a little ways down the hall before tip toeing out behind. She was glad that she had made herself invisible already and for her slippers, which muffled her steps even more on the carpet.

Grace caught a glimpse of them again, this time able to see their full figure. They were hooded, wearing a ratty old grey cloak with tears and stains that indicated its wearer had been living rough for some time. The figure came to the end of the hall and pressed themselves to the wall, peeking out into the entry hall, searching the whole space before walking quickly to the stairs.

Grace barely had time to follow them, but she took off running in pursuit. She was surprised to see her spells fade as she ran. She had thought they were tied off to the point that she could move around freely and the spells would still keep her entirely hidden, but as she looked down, she could now see that her body and clothes were translucent and ghostlike. She had never tried running while using the invisibility spell and thought she might have to do it over again to make it work right.

The person she was following finished her quick walk and crouched down at the foot of the stairs. Grace, in the middle of the vast entry hall came to a skidding halt. As she did, the invisibility spells seemed to return to their full potential, making her fully invisible once again. The person did another scan of the area around them and this time Grace caught a look at their face. It was a girl, not much older than she was, Grace thought. With a growing sense of certainty and alarm, Grace thought that she might be following Charlatan herself. Grace had not thought about what actually catching her would be like, she had only thought about what things would happen once she was safely caught.

Grace tried to get a better look at the intruder, but she was off and running again, this time up the stairs.

The intruder was very fast, much faster than Grace was. Heart thumping in her chest, Grace followed the girl, sprinting up the stairs and hoping that she would not be gasping for air once she made it to the top. Grace watched the girl as they ran and guessed she would probably have another look at the entry hall to make sure no one had followed her once she was at the top of the stairs. Grace came to a halt about halfway up the stairs, her invisibility spell locking back into place. A heartbeat later the girl made it to the top landing and surveyed the entire room below her.

Grace thought she was being very careful and it further solidified her thought that this was indeed Charlatan. The girl turned right, into Grace’s hall. Grace continued running up the carpeted stairs, but more cautiously now. At the top of the landing she knelt down and peeked her head around the corner. The girl was counting doors on the left side. Five doors down, she stopped and, with one final look down the hall that went straight through Grace, she opened the door and stepped inside.

Grace followed once again, trying to think what on earth the girl would be looking for. Perhaps she needed supplies or a change of clothes. She had been wandering the whole schoolhouse, it seemed, in search of something and now may have found it. Grace wondered why she had chosen this room specifically. If she had wanted a change of clothes, she should have just gone into the first room available, unless she knew something about the house that Grace did not.

Heart pounding so loud she was not even sure that the invisibility spells would make a difference, Grace looked into the door of the room she was in, just two doors down from her own. She had not been in it, but it looked mostly similar to her room, only with different beds and a few more homely touches. Grace was surprised to see that the girl was not opening drawers and rummaging through them, but rather she was just sitting at one of the desks, her back to the door, looking out the window like she did not have a care in the world.

Grace took one step closer, hoping to figure out what the girl was trying to do. A board creaked under her foot and she froze.

The girl spun at the sound, on her feet in an instant. Grace’s blood turned icy as she processed what she saw.

The girl looked so similar to Grace that they could have been sisters. She stood looking at the girl, having difficulty processing what she was seeing. She had the same wide bridged nose set between eyes that were a little more green than Grace’s burnished chestnut ones. From her thin face, Grace guessed that they had the same willowy build. The girl was only a couple of inches taller than Grace was, her short cropped, light brown hair not long enough to cover the same high forehead that Grace had. Only the girl's skin was markedly different. If it were not for the angry pink sunburn, Grace would have guessed she was very light, close to pale.

The girl’s rather thin lips were raised in a rictus of disgust as she drew a short sword from the folds of her cloak. She slashed it through the air and the invisibility spells dissipated around Grace, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. The girl sighed in anger and strode across the room, sword in hand.

Grace’s eyes went wide as she realized that she was not only face to face with Charlatan, but that the girl was now going to try to kill her. Grace backed up until she was pressed against the door on the other side of the hall. She fumbled for the doorknob, not even thinking to turn and run down the hall.

Charlatan crossed the hall in two long steps and faced Grace. Grace raised her hands to ward off the girl.

“Please. Please, I, I won’t tell anyone. I won’t tell anyone you were here,” Grace said, tears now streaming down her face.

Charlatan shook her head as she approached. She moved with a cautious confidence that hinted at her comfort with what she was about to do, but also an awareness that she needed to be prepared in case something went wrong.

“Please don’t. Please. Please. I–I have a family, people that love me. Please don’t do this,” Grace begged her again, feeling her knees grow weak.

A flash of pain played across Charlatan’s eyes for only a moment and then she pulled the sword back and rammed it into Grace’s chest. Grace screamed as she watched the blade split her blouse, sure that she was about to die.

But the icy steel did not pass through her chest. Rather, Grace felt it stop as it touched her skin, the point an uncomfortable pressure, but not even drawing blood. Her eyes travelled up the blade and locked with Charlatan’s. She was just as surprised as Grace was, trying to understand why the blade had not run through Grace’s heart.

Charlatan drew the blade back again and brought it down on Grace’s head. Grace raised an arm to try to block the sword, feeling the cold steel edge collide with her palm. It pressed against her hand with almost enough pressure to draw blood. Charlatan tried to force the blade down through Grace’s hand to finish her, but it had stopped short and would not move.

It was then that Grace remembered something about the spells on the schoolhouse and perhaps all of Meadowbrook. The spells made it impossible for anyone on the school grounds to come to serious harm or be killed, either by accident or on purpose. No matter how hard Charlatan tried to hurt her, she would not be able to. Charlatan seemed to realize as well that there must be a spell keeping Grace safe, because she sheathed her sword and grabbed Grace’s wrist.

Charlatan’s grip was like iron, much stronger than Grace would have expected it to be. She pulled Grace down the hall towards the stairs. Grace stumbled along behind her, trying to break free of Charlatan’s grasp. She released Grace’s arm at the top of the stairs, but before Grace could do anything, Charlatan’s boot heel was connecting solidly with her chest.

Grace tumbled backwards, falling down the stairs, end over end. The carpet padded the fall some, but she felt like she was receiving dozens of blows as the world turned in every direction. Grace could feel herself speeding up as she rolled down the stairs, even though she tried to slow her fall by grasping anything she could.

Grace spilled out onto the marble floor with a teeth-rattling thud, sliding across it’s polished surface. Dizzy and disoriented, Grace looked around. To her horror, Charlatan was already standing above her, reaching down to pull her up. The girl was strong, much stronger than she had any right to be, and dragged Grace back to her feet, walking them over to the front door.

Charlatan went first, opening the door a crack to see if anyone was outside. She peered out the door for several seconds, checking in all directions before opening it slowly and then pulling Grace along with her. Grace felt like her arm was going to be wrenched out of her socket and tried to get free, but Charlatan turned around and punched her in the nose. The pain was immediate, flashing through her face like a firecracker. Charlatan clenched her fingers several times as she nodded in approval.

The spells protecting the people in the schoolhouse only went so far.

Tears blurred Grace’s vision and she could feel her nose starting to fill with blood. Charlatan dragged her towards the school’s front gate. The punch had cleared Grace’s mind enough to begin processing what Charlatan was trying to do. She had no intention of letting Grace live and was trying to take her to a place where the magic that protected the students and staff of Meadowbrook no longer held.

Some of the things that a police officer who had visited her class in Chicago the year before began to run through her mind. She needed to scream for help and she needed to resist this girl as much as possible. She would not be able to beat Charlatan in a fight, but she could perhaps bring enough people to help keep her safe. At the very least, she could bring another witness to the situation.

Grace began to scream, calling for help as loudly as she could. Her voice was shrill and panic stricken and Charlatan started at the sound. She turned around and slapped Grace across the face hard enough to see stars. As her head spun to one side, Grace saw a way to free herself. She swayed for a moment then righted herself and began screaming again, expecting another sharp blow.

It came a moment later.

Remembering what Amma had taught her the day they were in the park together, Grace collapsed under the blow and slipped a foot in front of Charlatan’s feet. Grace fell heavily, dragging Charlatan down with her and forcing her to choose to fall on top of Grace or let her go and risk having to chase her down. Grace hit the thick grass of the yard in a heap, jarring her. Charlatan landed on top of her, driving the wind from her lungs. She forced a knee into Grace’s windpipe and pressed down. Grace flailed her arms wildly, trying to get some purchase to push Charlatan off of her. Her thumb caught on a hole in Charlatan’s cloak and Grace heard the sound of ripping fabric. A large tear appeared in Charlatan’s sleeve, leaving her arm exposed from the shoulder down.

The pressure on Grace’s throat was terrible and for a moment Grace thought that Charlatan would succeed in crushing it, but just when she thought this would be the end, the pressure eased ever so slightly. Grace took a gasping breath for air. She looked Charlatan in the eyes and saw fury raging there. Charlatan tried to force her knee back down onto Grace’s throat, but found that it again hit an invisible barrier that kept Grace safe.

Charlatan growled in anger and dragged Grace back to her feet. As she did, Grace saw the exposed flesh of her upper arm through the rip in Charlatan’s cloak. For a wild moment, Grace got a glimpse of a tattoo high on Charlatan’s arm. It was the same symbol of a unified Gaia that Lee wore on a cord around his neck, the three overlapping swirls revolving around an open circle. But Grace did not have time to process it, because Charlatan slapped her hard across the face, blurring her vision. Grace tried to scream again, this time finding that her throat was raw and the best she got was a raspy whisper. She struggled against Charlatan, trying to break free, but she was too strong.

And then Grace saw that help was on the way. She just needed to hold out for a few seconds.

Going limp once again, Grace slowed Charlatan down.

Charlatan spoke for the first time since Grace encountered her, “Come on you–”

Something hit Charlatan on the back of the head, pitching her forward as a bright light exploded silently all around them. She stumbled and spun around, trying to find who had hit her.

Lee was sprinting across the yard. He held the artifact stone he used for casting spells in one hand and a large stick in the other. Lee made a throwing motion with the hand holding the rock and a translucent white orb about the size of a tennis ball sprang to life, flying towards Charlatan. She saw this one and stepped out of the way, easily avoiding it. The orb hit the schoolhouse, exploding in a burst of light that looked like a water balloon.

Charlatan growled and pointed her sword at Lee. The ground beneath his feet buckled and then surged up, sending him flying in the air. Arms and legs flailing, he flew in a wide arc, crashing into the ground only a few steps away from Grace and Charlatan. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet. Charlatan was on the move before he landed, though, leaping higher than Grace’s head into the air, assisted by magic. She landed the heel of her boot in Lee’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground.

Lee rolled, and as he did he raised a protective shield around himself. It glowed like the translucent orbs he had thrown, blocking him mostly from view. Charlatan growled in frustration and Grace saw a chance to make a difference in the fight. She closed her eyes and began focusing on Lee, trying to remember exactly what the loose tan linen blouse and pants he wore looked like. She could remember the brown leather belt around his waist and the silver buckle holding it in place. The buckle would be hard, she was not very good at metal objects, but she had to at least try to help him. With those pictures in her mind, she opened her eyes.

Charlatan approached the shield with the same caution she had first approached Grace with, but now Grace could see that she was angry and determined. She raised her sword and swung it in a wide arc. Lee’s shield split in two, melting into light. Grace got a clear glimpse of Lee, his face panic stricken as he realized how easily she had taken down what he had likely considered his best defense. Grace forced as much magic as she could muster through the ring and onto him. In an instant nearly all of Lee disappeared, leaving only a silver buckle hanging in the air.

Charlatan froze for a moment then shook her head and waved her sword again, slicing through the magic that Grace had used to turn Lee invisible. Lee reappeared, for a moment looking as startled as Charlatan had, then he regained his senses and struck out with a spell that turned the ground at Charlatan’s feet to ice. Before she could step aside, Lee rushed her, swinging the stick like a madman. Charlatan raised her sword and blocked the blow with lazy indifference. Then she spun her sword around the stick, forcing it from Lee’s grasp. Lee, realizing he was outmatched, backed away, trying to put distance between the two of them.

Charlatan swung her sword again, and this time a white stringy substance shot out of the end. Flicking the sword, she sent the string in a circle, wrapping it around Lee’s feet like a spider’s web. Lee conjured a flame and threw it at the line, severing it. The line around his feet stayed firm however, and he toppled to the ground as he tried to conjure another flame to burn himself free.

Grace saw the stick and ran for it. She picked it up just as Charlatan began spinning out more line, using it to try to break Lee’s grip on the stone. Grace ran the last few steps, drawing the stick back like a baseball bat, and slugged Charlatan in the back of the head.

Charlatan sprawled forward, falling onto Lee. Lee grabbed at her and wrenched the sword free as he tried to wrestle her to the ground. Charlatan was too quick, however, and slipped out of his grasp, reaching into her cloak and pulling out a crystal sphere about the size of a baseball. It glowed with a swirling mist, pinpointed by specs of light that reminded Grace of a galaxy.

“Get away from me,” Charlatan said, holding the sphere out.

Grace stood frozen, too stunned to move.

“This is the Path Spark. I don’t know how to use it, but if either of you comes any closer, I will put as much magic into it as I know how and blow us off the world.”

Grace let her eyes drift to Lee who lay on the ground, as unmoving as she was.

Charlatan took two gasping breaths and said, “Good, now stay here and don’t–”

“I’m sorry young lady,” Mr. Kirke said, his voice loud and echoing into the trees. Charlatan spun, but as she did the Path Spark shot out of her hand and towards the schoolhouse.

Panic rose in Charlatan’s face and she took a step towards Mr. Kirke then turned to run. She froze in mid stride then raised several feet off the ground.

“Grace, Lee, it looks as though you have caught our thief.”

Chapter 21

The Masks Come Off

It was nearly dark when Mr. Kirke emerged from a hidden room tucked deep inside the stairs of the entry hall. Grace, Lee, and Big Bear had been sitting in another room under the stairs, waiting for something to happen. Mr. Kirke, Instructor Romani, and Instructor Cobbler had been speaking with Charlatan for hours now and Grace could only imagine what would happen next. Big Bear, assigned to guard the door, moved just enough to let Mr. Kirke enter.

“Grace, a word please. Lee, I’ll speak to you next,” Mr. Kirke said, looking more tired than Grace could ever remember.

Grace followed Mr. Kirke into the room they had been interrogating Charlatan in and was surprised to find that the girl was no longer there. Instructors Romani and Cobbler still were, however, looking as grim and exhausted as Mr. Kirke. Grace took the only seat remaining and could not help but wonder if this was the chair that Charlatan had been sitting in moments before. It was made of hard wood and was uncomfortable. The seat was angled down just enough so that she felt like she was going to slide off at any minute. She wondered if it had been made so that the person sitting in it would feel uncomfortable.

Mr. Kirke began, his voice clipped and serious, “Grace, I want you to tell us exactly what happened from the time you were left alone in the house. Please leave no detail out.”

Grace thought about everything that had happened that day, making sure she was getting things right, before she began to speak. The events of earlier that day spilled out of her like water rushing through a broken dam. When she came to the part about seeing Charlatan in the room of one of the other students Instructor Cobbler raised a hand to stop her.

“You’re saying that she wasn’t looking for anything? Only that she went into the room and by the time you got there she was sitting with her back to the door, looking out the window?” the little elf woman asked.

“Yeah, that’s what happened,” Grace said.

The three adults exchanged meaningful looks.

“What? Why’s that important?”

Mr. Kirke cleared his throat before speaking, “It is hard to say. She wouldn’t tell us anything about why she went into one of our student’s rooms, but we believe that she was waiting for something. Or someone. I’m especially interested to know that she appeared to be counting the doors as she walked down the hallway. Are you certain that she was?”

“Well, no, but it really looked that way. I think maybe I was just thinking she was because it didn’t make sense that she’d walk all the way down the hall instead of just going into the first door she got to,” Grace said.

The others exchanged another glance, seeming to accept Grace’s logic.

“Which students are in that room?” Instructor Romani asked.

Mr. Kirke ran his tongue over his teeth as he thought. “Cerine Mist, Janessa Pilgrim, and Sarpina Starlight.”

“It’s odd that she would end up in the mayor’s daughter’s room,” Instructor Cobbler said.

“I think that is a coincidence. The Mists are relatively unimportant, though loyal to a fault towards the crown. Still, it is worth noting,” Mr. Kirke said after some thought.

“We’ll need to watch those three girls closely. She chose their room for a reason,” Instructor Cobbler said.

“Yes, and we will need to examine their things as well, though I am quite sure it will not turn any useful information. She was waiting for something, not searching when Grace found her. All three girls will be quite traumatized when they learn that she was in their room.”

They sat in silence for several moments, thinking about their next steps.

“Did you guys find out anything about her?” Grace asked.

Mr. Kirke did not look at the instructors this time before answering, “We did. And much of it is quite concerning. To begin with, yes, this was the Charlatan that everyone in Easterwood has been searching for, and yes, she did have the Path Spark on her person.”

Mr. Kirke retrieved the glass ball that Charlatan had shown them. Grace took a closer look at it, surprised to see that it was a thing of beauty with tiny points of light sparkling inside of the glass orb, swirling around inside of it amidst a thin cloud that turned like a galaxy.

“It’s beautiful,” Grace said.

“And quite deadly, I’m afraid,” Mr. Kirke said, “Not unlike a woman I once knew.”

“Was Charlatan the thief?”

“It’s hard to say now. She claims she was not. Her real name is not Charlatan though, it’s Rilianne. Larchill.”

Grace froze at the name, afraid at what she would hear next.

“I can see that name surprised you as much as it did us. I suppose we shouldn’t be so shocked. Something like this was always a possibility. What it means, though, is likely Jezel is still alive and very actively trying to bring Easterwood to its knees.”

“What?” Grace asked, starting to feel her head swim.

“I’ve been concerned about it for some time now. She has been gone for so long, but never confirmed dead,” Mr. Kirke said, his voice weary.

Instructor Cobbler looked at him and Grace noticed something in her eyes, like sorrow or regret.

After a moment, Mr. Kirke continued, “I have feared for a long time that one day she would reemerge. It seems as though that is what is happening. Interesting that it is through this young girl that she is first revealing herself. Makes me wonder if her wings were clipped by Amma at the Battle of Hyreford. If they were, she would need to work through others.”

“Like Rilianne?” Grace asked.

“Yes, like her. There could be others as well. I do wonder about her though…” Mr. Kirke’s voice trailed as he became lost in thought.

“Did you see that she was wearing the Gaia symbol?” Grace asked.

“I did notice that, yes. I cannot say I’m surprised, though. Most people believe that Gaia must be reunified, but no one really knows how to do it. And everyone thinks their own country would be the best option to rule over the other two. There are a few separatists, who like things the way they are, but I scarcely agree with most of their ideas. Rilianne seems to fit the idea of someone who wants reunification perfectly. She carried an artifact that could have achieved just that halfway across our country, after all.”

Grace thought that made sense, but she did not like the idea that someone she greatly admired and respected wanted the same thing as someone who had tried to kill her. But thinking through what that would mean was much more than Grace was willing to consider at the moment.

“Mr. Kirke?” Grace asked, a little unsure of how to phrase the question, “Um, it’s kinda weird, but I was wondering. Why did Rilianne look so much like me? It felt like we could have been sisters or something.”

“You noticed that also did you?” Mr. Kirke said, “Well, it would be hard not to. There are many questions here to answer, and I’m afraid that only time and diligence will tell. For the moment though, the world is a much safer place with the Path Spark now back in safe hands. The nation owes you no small debt of gratitude. Perhaps the world.”

Grace could feel her cheeks start to turn red as she blushed.

“Thank you,” Grace said, “I think I really just got lucky though.”

“You most certainly did, but you also happened to be where you needed to be, and with a cool enough head to know how to handle her the best you could. One good thing about all of this is that we have a clearer picture of Easterwood’s enemies. Before today they were shrouded, many people did not even think some were alive. With Rilianne in our hands, we can begin to know our enemies. It is no small thing too that she is a Ghostwalker. Queen Felicia may be in grave danger. She has already been warned,” Mr. Kirke said.

“The Royal Fairy Guard with her are more than a match for most of what Ironstone might throw at her, short of bringing out the army,” Instructor Cobbler said.

“Agreed,” said Mr. Kirke, “I believe that the Ghostwalkers, or at least some of them, have been compromised and that they are now in the pay of one of King Kowal’s enemies, someone who does not want the peace he is seeking between Ironstone and Easterwood.”

“Did you ever find out how Rilianne was getting past all of those spells?” Grace asked.

The three adults looked at each other and Instructor Romani shrugged, saying, “Gracie. You will not believe it. She has an amazing horse that she rode. Wings and everything. It is incredible, there has never been anything like it before. Not even in the ancient stories. But still, it does not seem to be able to fly so well. We found it near the stables after you came back into the school. It took a lot of work to catch it, Mr. Kirke’s spells could not even easily subdue it. Still, it could not fly like a bird. It could only go a short way each time it rose into the air and would not enter the forest.”

“She has a pegasus?” Grace asked, surprised.

“A what?” Instructor Romani asked.

“A pegasus. A horse with wings,” Grace said, confused.

“I don’t know. I didn’t think something like this possible. Like I said, we’ve never seen something like this before,” Mr. Romani said.

“You know about this kind of creature?” Mr. Kirke asked.

“Well not really, I mean, where I’m from they’re toys and in stories and stuff,” Grace said.

Mr. Kirke and Instructor Cobbler exchanged glances again before Mr. Kirke said, “Whatever the case, we think that the winged horse, the pegasus, you said? We think it helped her to avoid the spells set and make the journey so quickly. It is a great deal faster than a normal horse when it is in the air. However, I do not think it is the full picture. Something else helped her on her way, and we will need to find out what.”

“Do you think she would have tried to kill me if we went outside the school?”

“I have no doubt. Taking a life is part of the initiation into the Ghostwalkers, so she is certainly experienced in it. We have no small task before us to find out who Rilianne Larchill truly is.”

Chapter 22

Home Again, Home Again

Steam billowed up from the large pot, a mushroom cloud forming in Gigi’s kitchen. The smell of pot roast and vegetables filled the room.

“Dinner’s ready, Gigi. Why don’t you go tell your brother and dad,” Gigi’s mom said, “And why didn’t you set the table yet? I asked you to do it half an hour ago.”

“Sorry, Mom. I’ve just been thinking,” Gigi replied.

“Well I hope you’ve been thinking about a way to eat without any plates or silverware because that’s what we’re going to have to do if you don’t get those on the table now.”

Gigi scooped up several plates and a handful of silverware. She rushed out to the dining room, setting the table haphazardly, before her mom could get the potholders. Then she ran into her bedroom where Mav and her dad were playing with cars. She stopped short as she saw her bed. Just the night before she had helped to catch one of the most elusive thieves Easterwood had ever known.

“What’re you staring at Gigi?” Mav asked, “Do you wanna go to bed now?”

“No, um, dinner’s ready.”

“Dinner?” Mav asked, excitement beaming in his eyes, “What is it?”

“I don’t know, something in a big pot.”

“I just hope it isn’t soup. I hate soup,” Mav said moaning as he stood and walked through the traffic jam that he and their dad had made.

“You doing okay?” Gigi’s dad asked once Mav left the room.

“I think so. I’ve still been having those dreams and they keep on growing and getting bigger and more exciting. It’s been a lot of fun, but last night was really scary,” Gigi said.

“Like a nightmare?”

“Yes, but also no. It was too real. It felt more real than a nightmare does.”

“Yeah? Why don’t you tell us about it over dinner?”

They gathered around the table as Gigi’s mom served up ladles of pot roast to each person. Gigi bit into the tender vegetables and looked at her dad to see if he still wanted to hear about her dreams the night before. He smiled a little and nodded.

Gigi took a deep breath and began, “I had a really exciting dream again last night, but this one was super scary.”

“Was it about a gassy ghost?” Mav asked, pressing his palms to his mouth and blowing a raspberry.

“Ew, no. You’re so weird. It was about a thief who had stolen something super powerful that can move people to other places, even to the moon if they wanted it to.”

Gigi explained all about the events of her dream the prior evening, answering several questions along the way, most of which had to do with how the magic in her dreams worked. She finally came to the part where Mr. Kirke took the Path Spark out of the girl’s hand.

“Then, the girl tried to run for her horse, which turned out to not be a horse, but a pegasus. And that was so cool, because it was really, really majestic, even though it couldn’t fly as well as I thought it’d be able to. So they caught her and then Mr. Kirke took her into a secure room in the schoolhouse with Instructor Cobbler and Instructor Romani while Big Bear guarded the door. They asked her a ton of questions, mostly about why she stole the Path Spark and who she was working for.

“But she said that she didn’t steal it, that she was only supposed to bring it to someone. She also said that she was a Ghost–”

“I knew it! I knew she was a ghost! She’s gonna be gassy, isn’t she? I can’t wait!” Mav said, tucking his knees against his chest and holding them in anticipation.

“She said she was a Ghostwalker, which means that she was working for a king who was an enemy, but then she said that someone else had given her and the people that stole the stuff from the League of Historians orders. She said that they hadn’t come from the king at all and that she didn’t know who had given the orders.”

“Then what happened?” Gigi’s mom asked.

Gigi thought for a minute as she tried to remember everything, “I think they also asked her where the rest of the artifacts were and she only shrugged and said she didn’t know, that she and a lot of other people had been ordered to bring them out, but that she was the only one who made it. She said she didn’t know where the rest were or if anyone was going to be getting them.”

“So it sounds like it was a bit of a bust then,” Gigi’s mom said.

“Well, not really. I mean, everyone thinks this is the most powerful artifact of the ones stolen, it’s one of the most powerful ones ever if someone uses it the right way. I guess it’s kind of like a nuke in my dreams. And they’re still trying to understand how the girl was able to get around so many people who were trying to catch her. The pegasus probably helped, but they don’t think it would have been able to do everything. I think there’s a lot more that they need to find out from her. But the Royal Fairy Guards should be showing up pretty soon, and when they do it’s gonna be bad news for her.”

“Do you know her name, by the way?” Gigi’s dad asked.

“Oh, yeah, she did tell Mr. Kirke. Everyone was calling her Charlatan, but it’s actually Rilianne Larchill, which means that she’s really evil.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met an evil Rilianne,” Gigi’s mom said.

“You’ve never met any Riliannes,” Gigi’s dad said out of the corner of his mouth.

“No, not Rilianne, Larchill. Her name being Larchill makes her evil,” Gigi explained.

“How does her name make her evil?” Gigi’s dad asked.

“All of the Larchills were evil and the ones that ran Gaia, the country that Easterwood used to be part of. They were the most evil people that ever lived, but they all died off, except for one. She’s really evil and is probably related to Rilianne. I mean there are some that’re left and they aren’t as bad, but they’re like cousins and stuff, so they’re barely Larchills at all. I don’t really know where any of them live.”

“Why can’t Rilianne be one of the cousins then?” Gigi’s mom asked.

“Well, I don’t know, all I know is that they’re bad, and everyone was really surprised to hear that it was her name. And then they asked her a lot of times how she was able to get around so many people and traps and each time she would just point towards the stables and say something like, ‘I have a flying horse. How do you think I did it?’ ”

Silence hung as each member of the family thought about the story.

“So I guess you were pretty much the hero, weren’t you?” Gigi’s mom asked.

“Not really, I mean I was just in the right place at the wrong time. And the girl was way stronger and better at fighting and magic than I was. I got really lucky that Amma had taught me how to do some cool moves and that there were people that were there to help me.”

“Yeah, how did Mr. Kirke know to come back to the school to help you?”

“Oh, that’s a really good question. So he has a ring like this one,” Gigi said, holding her ring up, “Except it’s a little different. His has a compass that turns and shows him exactly where he needs to go, mine only changes colors when I’m in a place I’m supposed to be or not. And his compass kept on turning to the school, so he decided to leave all the traps and go to see what was happening. And Rilianne was there so he was able to stop her."

“That’s pretty cool,” Gigi’s dad said, “What about the other kid, though? Lee? How did he know to come back?”

“Oh, he said he’d forgotten something, one of the artifacts he was going to use to try to catch Rilianne, so he came back to the school for it at just the right time,” Gigi said.

“It sounds like they should be giving you guys all medals,” Gigi’s dad said.

“That’s the best part, I think. There was a huge reward for the person who captured Rilianne, 512 gold pieces. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have to split it with Lee, which I’m really not okay with, but it’s a ton of money. I can’t wait to see what I can do with it,” Gigi said as she thought for what seemed the hundredth time about how much of the old Paulownia estates she was going to be able to buy with half of the winnings. She could not wait to fall asleep and claim her reward.

“What happens now?” Gigi’s dad asked.

“That’s a really good question. I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.”

After dinner, Gigi excused herself to her room. She had gotten to the mail first today and had been surprised to find something addressed to her. She so rarely got mail from anyone that she hid it under her pillow as soon as she got into the house, worried that if her parents saw it they would open it, not let her have whatever was inside, and ask a bunch of questions. All evening long she had been anxious to find out what she had received. Now, with her door locked and a few minutes to herself, she lifted her pillow to reveal a small padded envelope.

Her name and address were written in an elegant, flowing handwriting that looked similar to Amma’s but that Gigi was quite sure was not. Gigi had been disappointed that Amma had not sent her anything since she went back home. They had talked on the phone a few times since, but not about anything exciting, and never once about Amma’s past or Gigi’s dreams.

Turning back to the envelope, Gigi could feel her heart begin to beat harder in her chest. She wanted very badly to believe that whoever had mailed it must be someone that Amma knew. There was no return address or any indication of who it was from, other than a postmark from Olympia, Washington.

Gigi could feel her heart thunder with excitement. Whatever was inside was quite small; Gigi could only vaguely feel it, but could tell that it was hard and round.

She tore the top off of the envelope and spilled the contents out onto her bed.

Something metallic spilled out, bouncing on her mattress and glinting with the shimmer of gold, steel, and gemstones. It rolled end over end, settling next to her pillow, and Gigi’s heart stopped beating as her breath caught in her throat.

It was something she could only remember seeing in her dreams.

The symbol of a reunified Gaia.

Thank you for Reading!

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Acknowledgements

There are a few people that need to be called out for their awesome support and amazing job of being exactly who they are.  First, and always, is Kirstie, my heart.  Thank you for keeping me on the straight and narrow, for all your rereads of this book, and support whenever I need it.  I love you.

Thank you also to my parents, for giving me a love of other people and cultures, for showing me what it means to work hard and to be creative. To Grandma Bennett for putting a love of the written word deep in my heart and letting me pound away on your typewriter when I was a little kid.  I hope you enjoyed all the stories I left behind. To my sisters who I love dearly and showed me how to love life and not take it too seriously.  Sorry you ended up after Grandma in this list.

Thank you also to the awesome friends who helped me edit this. Mike, for helping me understand how ten year olds actually act. Daniel, for slapping my poor sentence structure around so much that there was nothing but black and blue left on the pages of the book you sent back. Carmen, for seeing the characters for who they should be and not who they were.

About The Author

C. L. Van Liew lives in Chicago with his wife, two children, and any other house guests that may be with them at the time. He enjoys running, camping, hiking, coffee, and board games as well as time with friends and family.  On most weekends throughout the summer you can find him exploring the city with his family.