by Indie Gantz
It can be deduced that the vehicle in question, if it did in fact disappear purposefully, was following us. This leads me back to the original question.
Did the vehicle disappear at its owner’s behest, or was it something else? Someone else.
Day Six: Charlie
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Headstrong
It takes me a minute to process what I am seeing.
Cal just threw a ball of fire at Avias.
A ball of fire. At a person. A person I know. A fireball.
My mind catches up quickly as Avias pushes the fire away with a quick gust of wind, but the fire flows up and over the gust and rounds back down on him. Avias dives out of the way, and the fire ball slams into the ground, scorching the grass as it lands.
“What are you doing, Avias?” I hear the other boy shout, an obvious tremor in his voice.
“You looked bored, Calor,” Avias replies smugly, pulling himself up from the ground and wiping the mud off his shirt. “Thought you might enjoy some company.”
I share a glance with Tirigan, who looks equally confused by the interaction on the field. Avias fakes left and then goes right, throwing a gust of air and knocking Cal to the ground. Cal lands with a hard thump. The crowd cheers.
“Yeah Ave! Knock his teeth out!” Bo yells. Oleander shoves her playfully.
“Let him keep his teeth, Ave!” Oleander shouts, cupping his mouth with his hands. “Let the man keep his teeth!”
“Oh, you’re no fun.” Bo slaps Oleander’s arm. She looks back to the field, and I follow her eyes to watch Cal sprawl out on the field once more.
“What?” Avias calls to him. “One fireball is all you had in you?”
Cal shoots up to his feet from his back in a very quick motion that makes me take more notice of the way his body is built. He’s tall, not as tall as Oleander, but slightly taller than Avias. His sandy blonde hair is cut short. The t-shirt he wears stretches across his chest, exposing more muscle than Tirigan possesses, but not obscenely so. His shoulders are broad, but he’s hunched over, like he already feels defeated in the match.
“I didn’t mean-” Cal starts, but Avias bounds towards him. The blonde boy’s skin takes on an orange color just as Avias plows into his chest, and Avias’ hands push against the exposed skin of Cal’s arms. Avias jumps back with a hiss, cradling his hands to his chest.
“I was just going on instinct,” Cal continues, a little more saunter in his step now. Avias continues to hold his hands up gingerly, obviously injured. “At least I can do more than throw wind around.” Cal stomps his foot into the ground, causing a jet of fire to burn a line from his foot all the way to Avias. Avias flies into the air, literally, and spins so that he lands on the other side of Cal.
“We aren’t out on the pitch, Cal,” Avias sneers. “Foot skills will get you nowhere.”
“I don’t know,” Cal shrugs, his face smug. He gives Avias a once over. “You without a ball, looks about right to me.”
Avias rushes Cal again, this time shifting his weight at the last second so that his foot can kick up and into Cal’s chest. As his foot lands, Avias extends his hand and pushes it through the air towards Cal, using his power to amplify the move. Cal’s body eventually hits the ground on the opposite side of the field, his head snapping back as he lands.
“Two minutes!” The woman yells into the field.
“Time’s running out.” Avias mimes looking at a watch. “Don’t you have anything more impressive to show me?”
Recovering far faster than I would think possible for someone without regenerative capabilities, Cal stands up and gives Avias a look I can’t describe. There’s clear anger there, but it’s combined with a mess of other emotions too hard to pick out.
The boys face off, neither moving for what feels like an eternity. Then, without warning, Cal rushes towards Avias, the ground behind him smoking and turning to ash in his wake. Avias makes no move to stop the incoming assault. Cal reaches his hand up towards the sun, making a pulling motion with his fist, and then jerks his hand in Avias’ direction. A stream of bright light beams down towards Avias, and it only takes me a moment to realize that it isn’t light raining down on Avias from the sun. It’s flames. I don’t have time to panic, because just before the flames reach him, Avias claps his hands together in a loud swap! and pushes his arms out wide. The flames completely disappear. They weren’t pushed away, but snuffed entirely out of existence.
Rather than show the confusion I feel at Avias’ move, Cal continues his sprint forward, undeterred. His arm is up, ready to strike, but Avias still doesn’t move. Cal’s hand bunches in Avias’ shirt as his other fist extends back, ready to land on Avias’ face. Avias flashes a smug smile, and Cal’s face contorts like he’s exerting himself greatly. Only then do I see his arm shaking as it hovers near Avias’ face.
Oleander’s hand goes up beside me, five fingers splayed wide as he yells out onto the field. “Five!”
Avias’ head darts to the left, and Cal’s arm finally extends in a punch, just as Avias throws his head into Cal’s, causing the blonde boy to stumble backwards.
“Four!”
Avias flies up into the air and lifts Cal along with him, spinning him quickly and then letting him fall back down to the ground.
“Three!” The crowd roars. Everyone is yelling one of the boys’ names or just cheering as loudly as they can.
Cal lands on his feet, the muscles in his thighs easing the fall. He sets his eyes on the ground by Avias’ feet and a circle of fire springs up around Avias. It grows quickly, the flames reaching Avias’ navel.
“Two!”
Avias flies up and out of the way just before the flames can obscure him completely, but not before his shirt catches fire. He smothers it out quickly while he hovers in the sky, but I can see a grimace of pain on his face. The next time Cal sends flames his way, Avias harnesses the flames for himself and throws them back in Cal’s direction. The Fotián simply raises his hand in response and absorbs the flames through his fingers.
“One!”
“The match is ended!” the old woman croaks loudly. The ground shakes beneath my feet again. “Draw!”
Avias floats easily back to earth and walks over to where Cal is standing. They look breathless, their cheeks flushed and their clothes wrinkled and dirty. Avias has a large hole in his shirt to the left of his navel. Their voices are too low for me to hear, but whatever Avias says makes Cal’s eyes widen and his mouth drop open. Hurt flashes across his features, and then Avias turns away from him, his head bowed to the ground and his own expression unreadable.
“Good show, Ave!” Bo claps her brother on the back when he reaches us. “Poor Cal is left to lick his wounds.”
“I didn’t win, Bo,” Avias says coolly. “It was a draw.” He looks around the crowd like he’s searching for someone or something, but seems to come up empty.
“Yeah, but did you see his face?” she asks, obviously unaware of Avias’ avoidance. “He was gutted. I think you-”
“Bo!” Oleander cuts in and clamps a hand over her mouth. “Why don’t we get you something shiny, yes?” He gives Avias a look somewhere between sympathy and scolding, and then pulls Bo through the crowd ahead of us.
I chance a glance back at Cal, who’s still staring in Avias’ direction. Avias looks lost in thought, a less-than-pleased expression on his face.
“It was a fun match,” I say, hoping I don’t sound like an idiot. “We both enjoyed it a great deal.”
“Yes,” Tirigan joins in. “Well done.”
Avias seems to come back to himself then, and he turns to us. “Right. Well, I wanted to show you a proper good time. It’s good to hear I was successful.” He has his eyes on my brother, who smiles nervously in return.
Tirigan starts backing up to give Avias room to follow Bo and Oleander, but just as he does, I notice a large rock right behind his ankle threatening to trip him. On instinct, I begin to push the rock back into the ground, b
ut it’s too late and Tirigan has already begun to fall. Avias, however, reaches out at the last second and pulls Tirigan back by his shirt. Tirigan stumbles forward, landing hard into Avias’ chest.
I prepare for the worst, knowing Tirigan’s sensitivities, but I am pleasantly surprised by my brother’s reaction. He simply rights himself and takes a step back, like maybe he isn’t even aware of what happened. Avias lets go of Tirigan’s shirt, then smoothes it out carefully with the palm of his hand. Tirigan takes another hesitant step back, but pushes a small smile to his lips and nods at Avias in gratitude.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Avias replies easily. “Do you want to go shopping with Bo? I could use another shirt and a healer. I can’t guarantee a good time, but we have some time to kill before our father’s band plays. So, if you two don’t have anywhere else to be...”
He trails off, locking eyes with me then Tirigan.
“Yes, that sounds like fun,” I answer for the both of us.
Avias seems nice enough, despite his obvious problems with the boy he just left on the field. Oleander and Bo don’t send up any warning flags either, so I figure their company is better than anyone else’s at the moment. Besides, if we want to get some useful information, we might want to actually get to know them first. It would make our interrogation seem more natural.
“Good,” Avias says mildly, gesturing forward. “After you.”
◆◆◆
We follow our three new companions around the festival for a while, pretending to know things we don’t and acting like we aren’t immensely impressed by everything we see. Children clamor around us, and people call out to us from booths, trying to sell us goods. Avias replaces his scorched shirt with a nearly identical one and receives medical attention for the burns on his hands and torso at a booth with a cross symbol carved into it. The Téssera there use their power to heal Avias, who trades a handful of stones for the service.
Watching Avias battle was a wakeup call that Tirigan and I have absolutely no idea what we should do in a fight. Sure, on instinct we seem to be able to move things and protect each other, but on purpose with people watching? I doubt I could make a pencil float.
Despite feeling discouraged, I’m enjoying our company a great deal. Any fear that Téssera would be far too different from us to relate to has been squashed, and now I’m just struggling with what I should and shouldn’t say. It seems our ignorance about some things is acceptable, with our made-up history carefully planned out to explain it, but I’m still afraid I’ll say something just too hard to believe.
I’m pulled out of my increasingly anxious thoughts when Bo stops us near a food stand. A large wooden sign depicts some sort of meat on a stick.
“Come on,” Bo pulls her older brother’s new shirt towards the booth. “Buy me a leg, and I won’t pester you for anything else for the rest of the day.”
“I won’t trade my stones for animal meat, Bo,” Avias replies with a stern look. Bo looks up through her lashes at him to sway his position, but Avias is unaffected. “No.”
“Here,” I say, pulling out two blue stones after reading the sign on the food stand. I hand them to her. “Have at it.”
Bo’s face lights up, and she pulls me in to kiss my cheek. “Oh, Charlie! You are a blessed creature, you are!” She runs off with the stones and stands in line for her food.
I grin, and Tirigan chortles next to me. I give him a pointed glare in return.
“You’re saying I’m not a blessed creature?” It comes out easily, just like our banter always does. This time though, there are eyes on us, and I’m instantly more self-conscious than I was moments before. Oleander steps closer and smiles down at me.
“You’ll get no argument from me.” He turns to Avias and waits, crossing his arms across his rather expansive chest and inspecting me further. “What say you, Ave? Is Charlie here worthy of such a title?”
Avias looks at his friend for a moment, a mixture of annoyance and befuddlement on his face. He gives me a cursory glance then shrugs. “I see no reason to disagree yet.”
“Nice,” I say in response, mildly affronted by Avias’ assessment. “No need to gush though. Don’t want to embarrass yourself.”
Before I can regret the forwardness of my joke, Oleander laughs.
“You’re funny,” he says, still smiling.
“Sometimes,” I reply. “Although, Tirigan might disagree with you.”
Avias says something quietly to Tirigan, and my brother shakes his head with a small laugh. As curious as I am about their exchange, I let it go to watch Bo walking slowly back towards us, a large leg of meat at her mouth and her eyes closed in bliss.
“You lot don’t know what you’re missing.”
“I know exactly what I’m missing, and I’d prefer not to think about it, thank you,” Avias replies dryly, eyes scanning the crowd. “We should head on to see Father. His set will begin shortly.”
“Looks good,” I say to Bo, gesturing towards her meal.
She pushes it towards me and speaks with a mouthful of meat. “Want some?”
“Oh, um, no thanks,” I reply, looking up to find Oleander grinning widely at Bo. “We ate just a little while ago.”
A crinkle in Bo’s brow appears and she shakes her head. “So? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Not everyone has a bottomless pit in place of a stomach, sister,” Avias cuts in, stepping away from our semi-circle and pointing to his right. “We’re going to watch my father play with his band.” My chest sinks when I realize we might have missed our chance to ask these people if they know Kor, but then Avias turns to Tirigan and lifts a brow at him. “Care to join us?”
◆◆◆
Their father’s band is set to play in a tent at the end of one of the long rows of booths, closer to the path leading to the campsite. Music floats out of the tent as we approach, the soft whisper of a wind instrument accompanied by a deeply low stringed instrument. The song is haunting, each note chilling the air around me and making me second-guess our destination.
Why are we doing this again? I take a calculated glance at Oleander, who’s in a heated debate with Avias about the merits of tea over coffee.
We need to blend in, yes?
Yes, but-
Making friends, listening to music. These are typical human activities. We’ve read about them. Just act as if you are normal.
I am normal. Tirigan grunts his disagreement. I suppress the urge to elbow him in the ribs.
The longer we spend with these people, the less unusual it will seem for us to ask about Kori. It’s a good point, so I just nod, and watch as Bo walks quickly towards the tent’s opening ahead of us.
“Come on, I want to get good seats!” she yells back before disappearing into the tent, leaving Tirigan and I alone with Oleander and Avias. Their bickering becomes more heated as we near the entrance.
“No, I do understand your position, Oleander. I just find the foundation of your argument extremely brittle,” Avias is saying, hands gesturing in short bursts. The crinkles around Tirigan’s eyes become more obvious as he watches him.
“What possible argument could you have with that?” Oleander scoffs. “Coffee tastes horrible without sweetener and tea can be consumed as is. That makes it superior right out of the gate!”
“I am not disagreeing with your statement, just pointing out that it is a very poor reason to claim superiority,” Avias says with a quick shake of his head.
“I prefer coffee too, Avias,” I cut in, looking between them. Avias gives me a strange look then balks.
“I do not prefer coffee. I loathe the vile creation.” His nose crinkles in disgust. Tirigan laughs beside me, and then stifles it with a hand over his mouth. I ignore him.
“What? I thought you were arguing in favor of coffee.”
Avias looks between Tirigan and I, then shares an expression with Oleander that can only be described as pity. “I was. That doesn’t mean I hav
e to like it myself.”
“You are very odd.” The comment escapes my lips before I can stop myself. Oleander bursts into laughter, and I rush to apologize, but Avias waves me off.
“I am odd. That’s all right, isn’t it?” He eyes me for a second before turning his gaze to Tirigan, who nods appreciatively.
“Of course it’s all right,” I say easily. “I guess I can’t really claim normality myself.”
“Oh yeah?” Oleander asks. He pulls open the flap of the tent and holds it open for me. “And what makes you so different?”
The truth sits at the forefront of my mind, but I push it away. “Preferring coffee to tea, apparently.”
Oleander laughs again and places a hand on my shoulder once we are all inside, speaking into my ear so I can hear him over the music. “I like it too. Just don’t tell Avias, he’ll make me take the other side of the debate next time.”
I chuckle while following him to the seats Bo has saved for us.
“Cutting it close, aren’t you?” she whispers as I sit two seats down from her. She leans around me to look at Avias, who sits up at the end of the row next to Tirigan. “Mum’s up front with Robin and Cyra. Might want to pop your head over.”
Avias looks up from his seat and arches to see over the small crowd in front of us. He says something quietly to Tirigan, who nods in return. Avias walks towards the front row, stooping low in the aisle.
“Have you heard them play before?” Oleander asks, taking the seat between me and Bo.
“Um, no,” I say carefully, recalling our cover story. “We were on the road most of our lives. Haven’t gotten to see much of anything.”
“That’s a shame,” Oleander says with genuine regret. His face lights up, adding, “Of course, now I have an excuse to show you around the rest of the festival. It’s the polite thing to do, I think.”
