We exited the tunnel and walked out into a well-lit cave. Stalactites adorned the ceiling and bright pink and yellow flowers clung to all the walls except one, where drippy runoff coated the stone in glistening ink. The substance collected in a narrow pool at the bottom, sheening it with a rainbow slick. Dusky gold mushrooms the size of my fist speckled the dirt floor.
“Select a plant, please,” Professor Grim said, waving to the mushrooms. “Before doing anything else, however, you’ll need to remove your gloves and mittens. Bare hands only, students.”
Patty and I stooped down and, after stuffing our mittens inside our pockets, we dumped our tools from our bag, the gold trowels clinking together. Moira settled beside the mushroom beyond Patty.
“As is often the case with hybrid plants,” our Professor said, “they have awareness of the world around them. Before you will be allowed to borrow the plant’s beatleycarne, which is the goblin-like root, you will need to bow and seek the plant’s permission.”
I dipped my head to my mushroom. “Hey, um…Do you mind if I…”
“Oh, holy gobbly-gook beatley-slug…” Sitting on his heels by a plant partway across the cave from me, Eben snickered. He bent at the waist, his hands splaying wide. “Mind if I chop off your carne?”
“Respect, please, Eben,” Professor Grim said, coasting over to tap Eben on the head with his sickle.
Patty rolled her eyes at Eben’s antics.
“Can I please borrow your beatleycarne?” I asked my mushroom, and I swore it nodded. Hoped it was a nod. Otherwise—
“Wake up,” Eben said, poking his mushroom with his trowel. “Hey, Grim, this one’s defective. It’s not responding.”
The plant reeled back from Eben and shot something silver in his direction.
Eben yelped and dove sideways. “Incoming!”
Professor Grim sighed. “Enough, Eben! Molest them at your own peril.”
How could Eben hope to be named the best outling on campus? And why join this class if he wasn’t willing to do what he was told? He’d picked it up the last day of the add-drop period.
“But…but…” Eben gulped, flailing his arms. “It shot something at me. Whatever it was almost hit me.”
“The effect of their darts lasts less than a day,” Grim said. “I promise, while you’ll be unable to move, you will retain full vital functions, including breathing.”
Cringing, I lifted my eyebrows at Patty. If I patted my mushroom and sweet-talked it, could I avoid its darts? To be safe, I bowed again and begged my plant for permission to touch it.
“No hesitation, students. Once you’ve received approval, grab your plant!” As Professor Grim drifted up toward the ceiling, he rubbed his skeletal fingers together with glee. A challenge while holding his sickle.
Donovan had told me Grim kept the sickle because…
Like I’d taken a fist in the chest, my breathing stalled. My shoulders curled forward. Would I ever be able to think about Donovan without pain?
“Fleur?” Patty whispered. “You okay?”
Beyond Patty, Moira watched me with solemn understanding shadowing her eyes. She’d recently achieved a Level Two with her empath skapti, and she was getting too good at ferreting out everyone’s emotional secrets. When my gaze met hers, she darted her attention back to her mushroom.
“Hold tight to your plants.” Professor Grim floated around the room, a dingy gray ghost. Bits of leaves and sticks he’d picked up in the forest rained down, hitting mushrooms that cringed and shot darts. “Don’t let its struggles fool you. It’s no more alive than a blade of grass.”
Last I knew, grass didn’t fire tiny silver spears at people.
When I latched onto my mushroom’s stem, it wiggled like a sack of worms.
Moira shrieked and released hers. Lurching backward, she fell on her butt.
Eben laughed.
“It feels so gross,” she cried out. “Can’t we wear our mittens?”
“The oils on your skin will activate the release of the lardlets,” Professor Grim yelled. “Grab it again, Moira.”
Grimacing, she did.
Had to admit, my belly rolled as I held onto my plant. It felt like a slimy sack of eyeballs.
“With your gold trowel, begin digging at your plant’s base,” our Professor said. “Whatever you do, do not pierce the beatleycarne root.”
“Why? Will it try to kill me, too?” Eben asked. He’d gotten up and moved to a different mushroom. Couldn’t say that I blamed him. The other one was spinning in place, though it had stopped flinging darts.
“The beatleycarne are delicate roots,” Grim said. “If you slice their hide, they could explode.”
Talk about putting the D in Deadly.
“Much too messy,” he added.
Messy was an understatement.
“Dig deeply, students,” he shrieked. “At least ten inches. You don’t want to accidentally cut off your beatleycarne’s base.”
Or…boom.
Scraping sounds echoed in the cave.
“Exactly. Like that,” our professor said. “Scoop the dirt out and set it aside in a pile. Eben. Please do not throw it. You’ll need it once we’re finished with our beatleycarnes, to rebury them.”
The side of my trowel nudged against something solid. Squishy-solid, since its flesh gave when I pressed harder.
“Once you’ve located your beatleycarnes, tighten your grip on your mushroom top,” Professor Grim said. “Under no circumstances do you want your beatleycarnes to escape.”
“Why?” I asked. My fingers flexed to the point I worried I’d pop the mushroom cap off like a baby dandybucklion head. A thrill for Moira, not for me.
“Beatleycarnes are the gremlins of the fae. If we don’t return them to the ground, they’ll run wild.”
Sounded like my kind of creature.
Our professor coasted around the room. “Delightful. Thus far, you’ve all achieved an A in class for how you’ve exhumed your beatleycarnes.”
Leaning forward, I peered into the hole I’d made in the soft cave floor. If the thick, gooey orange thing was a beatleycarne, then yes, I’d exhumed it. About six inches long and two inches wide, it rippled like an exposed slug.
The Professor hovered in the middle of the cave, watching us. I assumed he was watching. Hard to tell with his hood. But I felt the weight of his gaze. “Now lift your plants from the ground.”
I held it up in front of me like a severed head. It didn’t improve on closer inspection.
Professor Grim swirled around the room, his robe fluttering frantically. “Quickly. Lay your beatleycarnes on your sketar hair bag and latch onto the beatleycarnes base. With the golden trowel, sever the beatleycarne root from the top.”
A quick gouge—and multiple swallows to shove down bile—and my mushroom top separated from my beatleycarne. The carne lay underneath my palm like a well-behaved pup.
“Place your beatleycarnes in the sketar hair bag, pull the drawstring snug, and let’s go! Leave the mushroom tops behind.” Professor Grim coasted over our heads and into the tunnel. “Hurry. The eclipse awaits!”
As I dropped my beatleycarne into my bag, it wiggled. I tightened the string at the bag’s top as the carne spasmed and twisted, poking at the sides.
We hurried into the tunnel, aiming for the ledge outside.
Like everyone else, I carried my bag with my hands thrust in front of me like an offering. From what I could tell with a quick glance—though it was a challenge to see more than Patty half-jogging in front of me—no one else’s beatleycarne moved.
Was the fact that mine was flipping around a good or a bad thing? With luck, it would be easier to extract lardlets from the livelier ones.
“Find your jars, students,” Professor Grim shrieked. “And settle down in a circle around them. Quickly! No wasting time. The eclipse will soon be upon us.” He floated into the middle of the circle while we dropped to our knees, facing our jars and each other.
“Softly lower
your bags onto your laps.” Professor Grim’s hood slanted toward the sky, where a shadow already crept across the moon.
“This is so freakin’ cool!” Patty’s eyes gleamed. She held up her hand with her index finger and thumb smooshed together. “I can’t believe we’re this close to Seeker Serum. The raw stuff, that is.”
Fresh Serum was basically harmless. It didn’t become true Serum until it had been refined by technicians in the Seeker’s Guild.
“We’re extracting lardlets tonight,” Professor Grim said. “Raw Serum tapping will take place in our next class.”
Caught up in the excitement, I fiddled with the string keeping my bag closed. My beatleycarne must be eager to release lardlets, because it continued to fidget inside.
As shadows took over the night and the eclipsed ripened, we grew more impatient.
Professor hefted his sickle like a starter at a stock car race holding a checkered flag. “On my command, open your bag, remove your beatleycarnes, and hold them up in the filtered light. Three…two…and…one!”
I loosened the string and separated the folds. Inside, my sluggy beatleycarne now lay sedately across the bottom, finally behaving like the others. I gripped it as gently as possible but my fingers sunk into its surface. Like a slimy bean bag, things inside slithered.
“Ho, baby,” I said with a grimace. “Come to Mama!”
Patty swallowed and, her face shriveling, pulled out her beatleycarne.
Leaving our bags on our laps, we lifted our slugs into the air, where they were bathed in eclipsed moonlight. Beneath my plant’s dull orange skin, muted orbs in green and blue flickered. Was this a chemical reaction to the moonlight?
“Now place the head of your carnes over the mouth of your jar and squeeze tight,” Professor grim yelled. “Remember, you can’t hurt them.”
Gremlin of the fae, huh? Mine acted as passive as a sloth.
I leaned close to Patty. “Which end is the bottom? Can’t tell.”
“The darker end,” she hissed, her face lined with crinkles as she put all her effort into squishing her beatleycarne.
Darker? The entire plant resembled dead pumpkin blush. One end had a narrow line across it, however. Assuming that must be where the lardlets emerged, I stuffed that end into the top of my jar, sealing the rim with beatleycarne plumpness.
I leaned forward, squeezing my hands around the smooshy body.
A thump beside me drew my eye. Another thump and a round, gleaming ball the size of a walnut plopped into Patty’s jar, joining the other. Shimmering with blue and green light, they slithered around the inner surface.
“This is so much fun!” Patty said. Her glance darted to my empty jar. “Squish it harder, Fleur!”
I curled my fingers, digging them into the fleshy body. Tighter. Nothing was happening! Had I dug up a defective beatleycarne?
A lardlet shot out with a moist pop, but I’d pointed the wrong end into the jar. The gooey, glistening lardlet landed on my thigh, and a whitish, slimy teardrop slid down the side of the oval ball. It scurried sideways, bailing from my leg like a kid off a diving board.
How could it move? It had no legs.
I snatched up the lardlet and held tight.
“Students,” Professor Grim called out, drifting toward Bryce. “Do not—”
I yelped as my beatleycarne bucked and thrashed and lost my one-handed grip. My carne plopped onto the ground and, quicker than I could shriek by the fae, it scrambled from our circle, heading for the side of the ledge.
“Do not let it get away,” Professor Grim shouted. He pointed his sickle at the beatleycarne, and I expected a laser beam to shoot out.
Wrong story.
I jumped to my feet, as did Eben.
“Smoosh it,” he yelled, waving his beatleycarne overhead. A lardlet popped out and smacked on the ground beside him. “Grab it. Kill it. Stomp it flat.”
We gave chase, me flailing behind Eben. So that was his plan. Show me up by catching my beatleycarne. No way!
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it!” Eben said, smacking his boots around my beatleycarne but missing. For a slug, that baby could move.
Eben and I bumped into each other, and I tumbled forward, groaning when my body bit into the unforgiving ledge. I scrambled across the stone, straining to grab my beatleycarne.
It slipped through my fingers and flung itself off the cliff.
“Oh, dear,” Professor Grim said, his voice barely above a whisper for the first time ever. “Simply dreadful.” His sickle drooped, and the tip smacked on the ground. “Now you’ve done it.”
Crawling forward, I peered over the side. A cluster of boulders waited below, and evergreen tree tips speared upward, part of a dark green blanket spreading away from the cliffside for miles. In the distance, I made out the pencil-thin edge of the Academy roofline.
Vertigo sucked me down and made my head spin.
No beatleycarne in sight, however. It had to be dead. Nothing could survive that fall.
I inched away from the drop-off and flopped on my back, holding up my hand. “At least I didn’t lose my lardlet.”
“Wait!” Professor Grim rushed me, his skeletal fingers outstretched. For the first time ever, he’d ditched his sickle. “Something isn’t right. It’s changing color. Be careful not to—”
Searing pain flashed across my hand. Like lightning, it arced down my arm and hit my chest, a spear aiming for my heart.
I screamed as Professor Grim shouted my name.
Chapter 2
“My, my, what a pickle,” a high-pitched voice said.
The chiding tone reminded me of when I was a kid living with Mom and the milk carton—no lid—slipped from my hands, spraying milk all over the kitchen.
Wincing, I opened my eyes.
I found myself lying on the moldy bunk inside the secret room I’d discovered beneath the Academy, when I fell into the moat and the naiad, Sirra, tried to drown me.
Playssss, Sirra had called it.
Hard to have fun when you couldn’t breathe.
Finding a hatch in the stone wall, I’d opened it and fallen into this room. A ward magically kept the water from flooding inside along with me and had probably prevented anyone else from finding it. I had no idea why I’d been granted access, but I’d been grateful to escape Sirra.
While I’d wanted to return to explore further, I hadn’t had the chance. There was a water-stained journal here, plus a chest with a lock that sent out sparks when I tried to pry it open.
A woman dressed in a long, dark green gown stood beside the bed. Stood? No, she floated. “Quite a mess you’ve made, now haven’t you, child?”
As if I’d swam through the icy waters of the moat again, I shivered. My teeth chattered.
“Are you a ghost?” I stuttered out.
She dipped her head.
Should I be creeped out or excited that I could talk to a ghost? Wait. This room… “Let me guess. Are you Minerva?”
She clapped her hands and smiled. “Wonderful! You’re such a quick student.”
Minerva was the only guess possible since the water-destroyed journal lying on the rickety desk behind her mentioned the name.
“I’m not really a good student,” I said. “I messed up in Professor Grim’s class. My beatleycarne escaped. The lardlet…” I lifted my hand, relieved it looked normal. “I have a feeling the lardlet got away, too.”
She pressed her clasped hands to her chest. “Havoc does appear to follow you wherever you go, now doesn’t it?” While her tone was dry, her green eyes sparkled.
“Thanks,” I said with a roll of my eyes. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I sat up, but my body limped like overcooked noodles, and I flopped back against the wall. “Whoa.”
“Lie down. Rest.”
Taking her advice, I settled back on the mattress. The room spun. I spun. If I got up, I’d fall. “Did you flit me here from the cliffs?” My flitting ability was still missing, so I couldn’t have done it myself.
It was past time to see a healer about the malfunction. For some reason, I’d been unable to flit since the night I’d fought and defeated the nightlace clusters.
“Here?” Her salt and pepper brows drew together, and she glanced around, her lips parting slightly in surprise. “Oh. The Academy? I haven’t been here in… Let’s say a very long time. But to answer your question, no. Neither of us is truly here.”
“I must be dreaming then.” Perhaps I was lying on the ledge with the Professor and my friends hovering around me, wondering what they should do. Or I’d been taken to the clinic. Unless… “I’m not dead, am I?” burst from me.
“Not at all. There’s still more for you to do before that happens.”
“Let’s hope I have a lot to do before it happens.”
Her smile widened. “Fear not. While your future contains many paths, most do not end in an untimely death.”
Somehow, her statement didn’t make me feel better. And it reminded me of Alex, my dragonfly friend who created more questions than he answered. This was a common occurrence at the Academy.
My hand flew to my pendant, where he rested. “Are you friends with Alex?” Long ago, when the original six families split from the fae and settled here on Earth in the parallel universe, they’d used companions to enhance their magic. A dragonfly like Alex had served as companion to the sixth family. While I was an outling and not Elite, let alone a member of the sixth family, Alex had befriended me. Periodically, he’d appear, spout cryptic statements that created more questions than they answered, then morphed back into my pendant.
“Alex? I don’t know him.”
“He’s a dragonfly. He—”
“Oh, my.” Minerva’s head tilted, and she paused as if listening. “You’ll wake any moment. We haven’t much time.”
Definitely related to Alex.
“Time for what?” I asked.
She fiddled with the top button on her dress. “I wish I could explain, but I can’t.”
Crystal Wing Academy- The Complete Series Page 49
