“You could have made something up!” Zetta said. “Anything! Gathering more dirt blocks to expand the farm or looking for bigger lakes to fish in or finding flowers to help decorate for the Eve of Hostile Mobs.” She’d almost have preferred it if Rift had told her father about the dragon instead. Almost.
“Well, I’m not as good at lying as you are, apparently,” Rift said with a huff.
The fire within Zetta went cold, and suddenly she found herself shivering with fury. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rift’s mouth trembled, like he wanted to say more but realized he shouldn’t.
“What’s with all the shouting?” Ashton asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Is my shift over?”
Zetta blinked a few times, then turned to look at her cousin, managing to scrape a smile onto her face in the couple of seconds that passed. “Hey, yeah. Rift and Rayne are here to take over. Where is Rayne, anyway?”
“ ‘Assessing the perimeter for hostiles’ is what they said. I think Rayne’s still nervous about being around the dragon, if you ask me.” Rift rolled his eyes. “But we’ve got great plans. Not going to share them now. It’ll be a surprise for when you get back in the morning.”
“Speaking of which,” Zetta said, looking at the sun starting to set in the sky. “We’d better get going. I found some swiftness potions at my aunt’s place.” She downed a potion, then handed one to her cousin, the truth pressed at the back of her teeth. Technically, she had found them in the brewing stand after she’d brewed them.
Rift’s words came back at her. Was she a good liar? She was certainly crafty with the truth, omitting pieces here and there. But if she told everyone that she’d brewed the potions herself, no one would want to use them. Not after the incident with the mayor.
The truth was, like it or not, Rift was right.
“Ashton,” Zetta said, as his lips pressed to the bottle. “Wait—”
She was having second thoughts, but the kid was already guzzling down her swiftness potion like he’d been chugging them his whole life. He wiped away the blue stain above his lip with the back of his arm, then let out the tiniest burp.
“I could drink ten of those,” Ashton said. “It’s sweeter than cake!”
“One is plenty,” Zetta said, grimacing. She felt fine herself. She was sure everything would be okay. When Ashton returned the bottle, however, his overeager lopsided smile had been replaced with a concerned look.
“You okay?” Zetta asked.
“Yeah. Just nervous about leaving the dragon,” Ashton said, glancing at the still snoring beast. “We’d better go before it wakes up and sees me. It’ll be easier to leave that way.”
Zetta nodded, unsure if Ashton meant easier for the dragon or easier for him. Probably both. Ashton handed Meechie the shovel to Rift with the solemn gesture of passing on a scepter to a new king, then flashed a wan smile.
“The dragon is in good hands,” Rift said, patting Ashton on the shoulder. “Don’t worry a single bit. See you in the morning!”
And with that, Zetta and Ashton were off. Running, running, running. With each step, Zetta gained just a tiny bit more confidence in her belief that maybe one day she really could be a great potioner. Or alchemist, as her aunt Meryl called it.
The sun started to set before they could make it all the way to town, so they drank another set of potions to enable them to rush past all the mobs that started to gather around dusk. The odd arrow shot in their direction, but none ever came close to hitting them. As the familiar bell tower came into Zetta’s view, the dread of dealing with mobs was replaced with the dread of dealing with her father.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After walking Ashton home, Zetta returned to the safety of the barn rafters. Hunger was burning in the pit of her stomach, but she was so nervous that she didn’t dare try to see if she could keep food down. Plus, the sugar from the second swiftness potion she’d guzzled still had her jumpy. She’d return home to see her father. She just needed to calm herself first, so Zetta laid her head down on a pile of hay for a minute.
As soon as her lids shut, they popped back open, but it was light out, with the sun peeking through the barn’s wooden slats. Oh no. She’d actually gone to sleep. She’d have to set out to relieve Rift and Rayne soon, and she didn’t want to be late. But she absolutely couldn’t leave again before talking to her father.
Zetta rushed home, hoping to catch him before he left for his mining shift. She got there just as he was closing the front door. He stopped when he saw her, standing still, looking like a statue. “Zetta,” he uttered. His disappointment was beyond evident in the way he said her name. He really didn’t need to say anything else.
“I’m sorry I left without telling you where I was going,” Zetta blurted out. “But I’m not sorry for going. I needed to talk to Aunty Meryl. I needed to learn about potioning from someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Father’s brow stiffened at the mention of Aunt Meryl’s name, and the creases on his irritable face deepened further when Zetta said the word “potioning.”
“Magical nonsense isn’t going to save—”
“Don’t worry, she wouldn’t teach me anything. Mostly because she didn’t want to upset you. But she did tell me about Mom. About the wither. Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Zetta asked.
Father shook his head. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now. We’re discussing your responsibilities and your lack of respect for me and for the bylaws of this town. We don’t do magic here. You saw what you did to the mayor!”
“I scared off a ravager that was about to trample her. I think Mayor Maxine could deal with having an invisible head for a few hours rather than having it knocked off completely!”
“A few days is more like it,” her father grumbled. “The spell took forever to wear off. Whatever you did—”
Zetta snickered. She didn’t mean to, but all the tension and anxiety bubbling up inside her had to go somewhere, and thinking about the mayor going around as a disembodied torso for three days just made her giggle. And once she started, she couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry,” she said to her father, holding the stitch in her side with one hand and wiping the tears in her eyes away with the other. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. I’m…” She took a deep breath. “I’m okay. I’m fine.”
She wasn’t, but she needed to pretend to be so she could get through this conversation and get back to the dragon.
“I’m just watching over Aunty Meryl’s place while she’s gone anyway, not doing any magic.” Lie.
“She’s got tons of animals that need to be tended to, so I recruited Rift and Rayne to help out. And Ashton.” Another lie.
“We’re being really careful and avoiding hostile mobs at all costs.” Big ole lie.
There was one scaly, black-winged mob that they were definitely not avoiding. Cute and cuddly now, but they couldn’t forget that it was indeed hostile.
The lies came so easily. They rolled off her tongue so effortlessly. Zetta tried to tell herself that this was all for the good of her people, but she couldn’t help but wonder if there was a better way. Maybe, but she didn’t have time to figure that out right now.
“I’ve got to get going,” Zetta told her father. “You’re always telling me to be more responsible. I promised Aunty Meryl, so…”
Zetta’s father looked deflated, and she started feeling bad about misleading him, but then she reminded herself that he was keeping secrets about her mother, so maybe this made them even. She kept her eye contact firm, not willing to back down from her lie, until finally, her father relented. “Fine. But you can’t ignore your responsibilities in the mine. You’ll have to pull those shifts as well.”
“But—”
“No buts. You should have taken that into account before you made promises that you’d have trouble ke
eping.”
Zetta looked at the rising sun, still low in the sky. She could squeeze in half a shift now and do the rest when she was back this weekend. So she’d have to give up a few hours of sleep to tend to all her responsibilities, but it would be worth it in the end, when they had the dragon trained not to be so destructive.
Zetta ran back to her cousin’s place to tell him that she’d be running a little late, but then her grandpa caught sight of her and invited her in for his famous baked potatoes. And, well, Zetta couldn’t say no. Oh, she wanted to say no, but then Papa would get all fussy and go on a rant about how in his day, his parents didn’t even have two sticks to rub together to make a campfire and fed him nothing but raw potatoes, how he would have given his very soul to the nether to have a fine baked potato like this.
And then Nana would give Papa that impatient look of hers, and say something like, “Now Noah Night, how many times do I have to tell you that nobody cares about your potatoes?” And Papa would get huffy and mutter “Someday, they’ll care, Livvie. You’ll see…” under his breath, and then he’d pout for the rest of the day. Meals at the farm were always a bit dramatic.
So Zetta stuffed a few bites in her mouth, hoping her queasy stomach wouldn’t violently object, then she was on her way to the mines. She arrived just as Milo, her mining partner, did. Not late. Not technically. She cleared her throat loudly as she walked past her father to make sure that he saw her. He was the type who’d say if you’re ten minutes early, you’re on time, and if you’re on time, you’re late. He’d probably collected several stacks of terracotta already, but that wasn’t Zetta’s concern. She took out her pickaxe and got to work.
“You look distracted,” Milo said as he and Zetta started mining in their section. He slammed his sleek iron pickaxe down on a block of yellow terracotta until it popped free. Milo was one of the town’s best miners, and he had the most luck coming across ores.
He’d called first rights to nearly twenty iron veins in the past few months, which meant he’d been given the first ore he’d discovered, while the rest were hauled off to the town vault. Milo had a nice iron pickaxe to show for it. With it, he could dig deeper and have a better chance at coming across more valuable ores: gold, lapis, diamonds…
“Well, I’m not distracted,” Zetta replied grumpily. The night had passed so quickly that it felt like she hadn’t slept at all, and her nerves were still shot from dealing with the dragon.
“Just watch where you’re swinging that axe,” Milo said. Today’s shift had just started, and his cropped, pale blond hair had already turned bright yellow from terracotta dust. His cheeks were flushed from exertion and he had an intense focus on his face. He wasn’t going to let Zetta distract him from a solid day’s mining.
Zetta ignored him and moved over a dozen blocks and started a mining section of her own. She slammed her stone pickaxe down again and again. Her thoughts were gnawing at her. Had she locked her aunt’s door when she left? Had she turned off the burner on the brewing stand? Were the animals okay? She’d closed the gate, right?
In her worry, Zetta had done the first thing she’d been taught not to do as a miner—dig straight down. She tried to stop herself mid-swing, but the momentum carried through, and the block beneath her crumbled to bits. Seconds later, the dark shaft was filled with bright, red light.
Lava. Zetta stuck her hands and feet out, holding on for dear life as the heat made its way up, slowly blistering her skin. “Help!” she yelled up the shaft, hoping she wasn’t so far down that Milo wouldn’t hear her. Her hands were sweating and starting to lose grip.
“Coming!” said Milo’s voice from the top of the shaft. Zetta hoped that he’d rescue her without a lot of fuss, but he’d started yelling to the others that she was in trouble. Zetta cringed. Milo was right. She had been distracted. Now every single miner would know how badly she’d messed up.
Finally, Milo started stacking ladders down toward her. But as Zetta looked up, she saw the light of the lava illuminating a block that she’d missed in the dark. Gold ore.
Big flecks of gold glimmered in the lava’s warm glow. Zetta never mined this far down. She didn’t have the experience or the right pickaxe to break through the more precious ores, and more importantly, she hadn’t been cleared for this type of mining by her father. Now she was never going to hear the end of it, but while she was down here, she might as well make the claim and get her first rights.
“Thanks, Milo,” she said as he got closer. “I know I messed up, but I think I discovered a gold vein. Can I borrow your pickaxe?” Despite the trouble she knew she was about to get into, Zetta was excited.
“Don’t worry about the gold,” Milo said. “We need to get you out of here.” His voice was trembling. She’d never seen him like this; Milo was always so sure of himself. Suddenly the gravity of having a bubbling lava lake right below her sunk in. Zetta wanted nothing more than to get out of this hole as quickly as possible. She climbed up the ladder as soon as it was close enough, then headed back toward the surface. Zetta couldn’t believe she’d mined down all that way, lost in thought.
She stopped when a familiar face popped into view.
“Dad,” Zetta said.
“Zetta,” he said, a sigh of resignation that said Of course, it’s my daughter following closely after. Dad stretched his hand out to her, and she took it, feeling small and fragile in his grip, like she was a child again and he was helping her cross the busy town square. “I’ve got you.”
“Thanks,” Zetta mumbled.
“I guess I don’t need to say that I’m disappointed in you,” her father said, capping the hole with a block of red terracotta as soon as she and Milo were out. “You know better. Tell me what’s really going on with you.”
“Nothing, Dad. Just life.”
“Look me in the eyes and say that again,” he said.
Zetta realized that she was looking all over the place, in every direction except at her father. Her foot was tapping quickly.
A scowl crossed her father’s face. “Zetta, I don’t think you’re taking this situation seriously. We need everyone on their best game out here so we can get the wall and watchtowers finished in time.”
“Which watchtowers?” Zetta asked.
“If you hadn’t run off, you would have heard the mayor’s announcement. We’re building four watchtowers into the wall to give us an early warning and a strategic advantage for our archers. Which means we need even more terracotta. We don’t have time for you to be distracting everyone.”
“It was a mistake, Dad. People make mistakes!” Zetta said. “I promise I’ll do better. Now let me get back to—”
Zetta’s father snatched the pickaxe out of her hand. “You’re no longer a miner,” he told her.
“What?” Zetta said. She’d wanted to hear those words for so long, but not like this. She felt like something was being taken from her instead of getting out of a task she loathed so much. “You can’t do that!”
“I’m the mining manager for this shift. I can do what I want. We no longer need your help. Go home.”
Zetta’s lip trembled. “Okay,” she said, trying to keep back the tears. Her father had always been bitter toward the whole world, but this felt different. It felt personal.
Zetta walked back to town, alone. As she approached, she saw the wall and the starts of watchtowers being built at the corners. She didn’t understand why her father and all the other adults in town were being so stubborn. Why were they investing time in this wall, when they knew it hadn’t worked the first time? Why couldn’t they even entertain the idea that there might be better ways? And yeah, maybe watchtowers were an improvement, but wouldn’t they be even better if the archers had poison-tipped arrows? Or if they could lob splash potions from up there as well?
Zetta wanted to believe that she could leave Sienna Dunes’ protection to the adul
ts, but they just weren’t acting fast enough. They needed to be bolder. They needed to prepare for the worst, because who knew how big the next raid would be. And maybe Zetta messed up a lot, but her ideas were solid. She could contribute to the town in more ways than mining terracotta.
Her aunt Meryl’s words ran through her head, about how Zetta’s mother messed up a lot, too, and started keeping a journal. Dad kept some of Mother’s old things in the hall closet. Maybe her journal was in there, too. She ran home, which felt like an alien place now. Drab sandstone lined all the surfaces, and a potted dead bush sat in the front window. Zetta couldn’t remember it ever being alive.
An old music player sat in the corner. When she used to babysit Ashton, they’d toss on a record and dance for hours, but it had gone unused for so long now, Zetta wasn’t sure if it even worked anymore. She saw how dank and desperate her home seemed compared to the warmth of her aunt’s place. How were she and her father even related? They were so different. Or maybe tragedy just affected them in different ways.
Zetta opened the old chest in the hall closet. It was full of odds and ends—an old saddle, a broken fishing pole, and old music discs. All this junk hinted at the person her father had once been, before he’d folded up into himself. She took out a disc and stuck it into the player in the living room. Zetta thought she’d get a taste of some old-timey music, but was surprised to hear her dad and aunt singing a silly duet together. Goofing off. And if there was one thing that her father didn’t do, it was goof off. Still, it made Zetta smile as they harmonized, their lyrics all about desert life—half complaining, half celebrating.
Who needs grass when you’ve got sand?
With cactus growin’ ’cross the land?
The desert sun, she burns so bright.
Our days are hot, but cool’s the night.
Oak trees are rare, and so’s the rain.
I’m never leavin’, what’s the gain?
Life mightn’t go the way you planned,
The Dragon: An Official Minecraft Novel Page 10
