The Circle of Owls (The Grimalkin Book 3)

by Dani Swanson

  “I’m glad I have you with me. I’m sure I would already have been lost to a snow drift if I was on my own.”

  “People don’t last much more than a week out here if they don’t have the proper supplies.” Percy immediately regretted saying that to Thea. “But I am sure that Edward and Robin took enough supplies with them when they left the castle!”

  Thea’s face was grim when she responded. “Robin has survived much harsher things than a bunch of snow. She will be alive.”

  They didn’t say much as they continued up the path. Thea was getting cold and picked Fig up onto her shoulder again. He purred so hard that Thea could feel him vibrate through her heavy coat. “Hey! I have an idea!” Thea couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before: she lit a fireball in her hand and rolled it over the snow. The snow melted down to the brick path for a few feet ahead of them.

  “You may not want to do that…” Percy said as he heard the calls of a bazzle come from the trees. “You’re drawing a lot of attention to us.” Beady red eyes from the trees lit up on either side of their path.

  “Oh.” Thea whispered as she started to walk faster down the path. “Sorry….” Fig’s tail grew large as he started a low throaty growl. “Shhhh boy! It’s okay!”

  In difficult silence they continued up the mountain. The bazzle’s and the yeti’s eyes could be seen glowing from the trees, but unlike when Thea was traveling before, they appeared to have a fear of Percy’s presence. The hours seemed to creep by as they made it to a cave opening. The sun was starting to set, and the wolves could be heard crying off in the distance. Thea’s excitement for going on an adventure was no longer enough to cover her feelings of worry.

  “We better stay here for the night. I’ll start a fire for you to warm yourself with.” Percy did his best to find some dry wood within the cave.

  Thea walked deep into the opening, exploring as far as the light would carry onto the stone walls. There were remnants of past visitors there; empty containers and an old blanket were left on the ground. Nothing that would be a sign of Robin or Edward though. Thea went toward the front of the cave to see Percy struggling to get a spark from rubbing two sticks together. She tilted her head to the side and raised her eyebrows. “Need some help?”

  “No, I got it.” Percy said through gritted teeth.

  Thea walked over to the pile of wood and squatted down next where Percy was working. She gently pushed his hands back with her right hand. Percy gave her a disgusted look as she conjured a fireball with her left. She placed the dancing flame onto the sticks and watched as the flame slowly spread to the rest of the pile. Percy started to laugh deep from his belly. “I honestly forgot you could do that.” He started to wipe tears from the corners of his eyes. “Sorry about that.”

  Thea winked at him, as she started to warm her hands by the fire. “No worries. I appreciate the effort.”

  Percy took one of the sticks with the flame aglow and started toward the back of the cave, to make sure that there weren’t going to be any surprises later that night. Fig curled up on the blanket that Thea had found and was happy to be by the warmth. Thea took some snacks out of the bag they had packed, making sure to ration out what they brought in case they were to be out there for a while. Percy came back with a concerned look on his face.

  “What?” Thea questioned with a mouth full of crackers. “What’s the matter?”

  Percy put the makeshift torch back into the fire and sat down farther away from the fire than Thea. She could see that he was sweating from its heat. “Nothing to worry about, but I found an opening in the back of the cave that leads down below….and I can hear running water.”

  “Okay…so why do you look so perplexed?” She finished her snack and handed some to Percy as Fig snacked on a hunk of some type of jerky meat that she found.

  “I don’t remember there ever being an opening in the caves along this route before….let alone a path to flowing water.”

  “Really? That’s interesting. You’ve piqued my interest. I want to see.” Thea picked up the end of what was left of Percy’s torch and started to walk to the back of the cave. After a few minutes Thea could hear the sound that Percy had talked about. It grew louder the further back into the cave they went. Fig, not caring for the noise he was hearing, climbed up Thea’s leg and was sitting on her shoulder again, like a fur stole. “You’re too heavy for this.” She grumbled, as she reached the entrance Percy had spoken about. “Not much of a guard cat, are you?”

  “See? I don’t remember this ever being here. I can’t see where the path goes or how deep it is.”

  “Here, hold this….and this.” Thea handed Percy the torch and Fig as she conjured a fireball in her hand and dropped it down the path like a rolling stone. It went roughly thirty feet down a slope before falling off a ledge and then sizzling when it landed. The light from the flame had gone out. “Must have hit the water and went out.” Thea shrugged, as she slowly made her way towards the edge with a new fireball lit in her hand.

  “Please be careful. I don’t want to go back to the Ice King and report you fell down a hole in a cave.”

  Thea waved him to be quiet, as she had her arms out to balance on the icy rocks. “I’m fine.” Carefully taking small steps the rubber on her boots was barely enough to grip the ground.

  Thea got to the edge and dropped a fireball down into the tunnel below. She could see rocks with a blue hue beneath them and a large stream of running water flowing through the mountain. Once again, the light of the flame danced on the walls of the cavern and then disappeared when it hit the water. “It is too far down to jump and I can’t see how deep the water would be or if there is another opening down there.”

  “You would freeze in the water and your cat would freak out.” Fig was already trying to get to the highest point on Percy to avoid the sound at the edge of cavern’s floor.

  “Yeah, he would claw your chest up on that jump.” Thea replied, over her shoulder.

  She dropped another fireball below, but it didn’t hit the water right away. It landed on one of the rocks, before rolling off its sloped side into the stream. “Hmm.” She furrowed her brow as she tried to make out the shapes below.

  “Hmm, what?” Percy asked, as he cautiously joined her at the edge of the slope.

  “I think the rocks are moving in the water.”

  “Rocks don’t move. Do they?” Percy asked as he looked over the edge with hesitation.

  “I don’t know, I’ve seen flying trees before.” Thea said as she dropped another fireball into the water with a sizzle. Percy saw it too. The rocks had moved positions in the darkness. “So, moving rocks could be possible, right?”

  “Maybe we should stop dropping fireballs into the hole.” Percy suggested, as he bit his lower lip and slowly backing away. “Where I come from, rocks aren’t supposed to move like that.”

  They watched the shapes in the darkness, with their eyes squinted, trying to see anything in the cave below.

  “You’re probably right.” Thea said after the last of her fireballs fell from her hand and into the hole. This time, it landed on a piece of rock that moved when the fire touched it. It also opened its large, orange eye, right before the fireball rolled off it and into the water. “Did you see that?!” Thea was now whispering.

  “Was that an eye?!” Percy was already tugging on Thea’s sleeve trying to guide her away from the mouth of the cave.

  Thea lit one more fireball and held it in her hand as she looked over the edge. There were now two large, glowing, orange eyes coming toward the opening at an alarming speed. “RUN!” She yelled as she threw the fireball down the hole at whatever was coming towards them.

  Percy started to run up the slope with Fig in his arms. The cat, scared of all the commotion, was hissing and had his claws out, piercing through his booties, causing Percy to drop the torch, which rolled down the slope- tripping Thea in the process, as they ran through the darkness. Thea tried to catch her balance but slipped on
the ice, landing hard on her knees. Percy stopped to help her get to her feet, as the ground below them started to shake. Fig had leaped from Percy’s grasp and was now halfway to the entrance of the cave. Thea looked over her shoulder to see the massive orange eyes coming closer to the opening. Soon, a scaly snout was protruding through the hole. It was returning Thea’s fireballs with a substantial stream of fire- coming straight for them with a furious speed; the trio was barely able to make it up the sloped cave floor without being burned. Flames were hitting the high end of the ramped walkway- deflecting the stream into a wall of fire that almost caught Thea’s heels. The stench of burnt hair was coming from their arms, just from the heat that was being generated.

  “Was that a Blue-Scaled dragon?! Did we find them?” Thea panted out, as they watched the wall of fire slowly extinguish, and the ample snout retreat into the darkness of the hole. The ground no longer shook and the calming sound of running water could be heard echoing below.

  “I didn’t take the time to see what color the scales were….sorry.” He was bent over with his hands on his knees, as he was catching his breath.

  “Where’s Fig?” Thea looked back to the entrance of the cave.

  “He was long gone before you ever decided to run.” Percy chuckled as they went to the camp they had set up, far away from the dragon.

  Fig was past the fire, sitting outside the entrance of the cave, in a drift of snow – staring back at the humans with very large eyes. “You are made of FIRE! You are such a scaredy cat, I swear!” She sat down next to the fire and patted the side of her leg. Fig warily came in and laid down next to her. “I thought you were supposed to protect me?” She said, as she started to scratch his ears. “That’s your one job!”

  He softly meowed at her, as the hair on his tail started to relax.

  “I wonder why the dragon is living under a mountain?” Percy said, as he was pacing along the cavern wall. “They like to be as close to the sky as they possibly can, so why would one be underground? I can’t imagine that he has enough room to fly down there!” He continued to pace, deep in thought.

  “Do you think it’s stuck down there? Do we need to help it get out?” Thea’s love for animals was cancelling out the fact that she was almost burned alive by that dragon.

  “I don’t think it got down there through that hole….So there would have to be another opening somewhere, where it got in. If there is another opening someplace, it should be able to get out the same way that it went in….right?”

  Thea and Percy made beds out of the blankets they had packed. Thea draped the blanket she had found over part of the rocks, blocking out some of the cold air blowing into the cave. Percy only needed one blanket that he laid out on the floor, whereas Thea had her cloak and the patchwork blanket the fairies had made for her wrapped tightly around her and Fig – as they lay close to the fire. Thea couldn’t sleep as her mind was racing through all the different things that could have happened to Robin, and why she hadn’t come back to the cabin. She finally decided to believe that Robin was happily living amongst the dragons. She pretended that she got a letter from her saying that she was studying the dragons for a new book she was writing. That put her mind at ease so she could finally fall asleep.

  As the sun rose in the morning sky, the temperature only increased a few degrees. Thea felt frozen on the inside- she lit another fireball to increase the flame on their small fire.

  “I’ve been thinking….” The sound of Percy’s voice startled her enough that she jumped – she forgot that he was there with her. “If Robin and Edward went to find the blue-scaled dragons, and there is a dragon below this mountain….they may not have gone up to the mountain top, but followed it down to the opening where the river is flowing. We should go around this mountain and track the base to see if there is another way in there.”

  Thea sat and started to nod in agreement with what Percy was saying. Robin is a smart person and is a better tracker than Thea. “It sounds like a logical thought….and it will be warmer, right?”

  Percy chuckled at her while wrapping his jacket around her shoulders. “I guess you aren’t used to this weather yet.”

  Thea blankly stared at Percy for a moment before standing up and putting away her makeshift bed. “Let’s go to the base of the mountain. Maybe then I can feel my face again.”

  Percy pulled down the blanket from the entrance, peering out into the white void. Unbeknownst to them, there had been unwelcome visitors not far from their cavern door while they slept. Wolf tracks could be seen going up the path of the mountain.

  “Another reason we will be going to the base….if the wolves went that way,” Thea pointed up the path. “Then we will go the other way.” She started out the door toward the trees, with her cat again curled around her shoulders. Percy shook his head as he followed behind.

  “This mountain is bigger around than it looks.” Thea’s legs were starting to get the feeling back in them as they continued to wind down around the width of the mountain.

  “There are pros and cons for going up and over a mountain and going around a mountain….” Percy was getting warm too. He had taken off his jacket and had it tied through the strap of his bag.

  Fig had also warmed up enough that he no longer was forcing Thea to carry him around her neck. The amount of snow was decreasing, and they could see spots of grass poking through the snow here and there.

  There were only a couple of instances when the yetis and bazzles threw snowballs at them. Usually it only took a yell from Percy and they would disappear within the pines. “Why are they so scared of you?” Thea watched a bazzle run across their path and into a dense bush to hide.

  “My jacket is made of yeti hides. I have been hunting yetis since I was a little tyke with my dad. They know who the hunters are.”

  “That’s horrible! Why do you hunt them if they are intelligent enough to recognize you?!” Thea gasped as she spun around to look at Percy’s face.

  “What do you think you were eating last night? We don’t have the same amounts of chicken and beef that you have at the base of the mountain.” He smiled at her shocked face. Thea felt dumb to not realize that she had been eating yeti for her dinner whenever she was on the mountain. “It’s all part of the natural system up here. If we didn’t hunt them, they would overpopulate and starve.”

  “I guess that makes sense. It tastes like a spicy beef….and I should talk, I eat meat too.” She could see the red eyes of a small yeti watching them from the trees. Where they were aggressive with her while walking with Dean and Charles, these yetis would shut their eyes to hide amongst the snowy branches when they saw Percy. “Interesting. I guess it’s part of the circle of life, right?”

  “I guess, but yetis eat meat. They would have no problem ripping through your flesh to make their next meal....so it’s sort of eat or be eaten, rather than the circle of life….we could eat the penguins.” He playfully smirked at her without making eye contact.

  “Don’t tell me about eating the penguins. I don’t want to know where the food comes from anymore.”

  “We don’t eat them….I was just saying that we COULD eat them.” Thea’s face was twisted in a mixture of sadness and disgust. “I wish I didn’t like the taste of meat so much.”

  The conversation between the two went from where the food came from, to what causes witches’ magic to be different from witch to witch, to trying to identify how Fig’s magic worked. They even tried to define the reason for existence over a lunch of yeti jerky and sweet cakes. Thea was enjoying Percy’s company and their discussions. He had a worldly sense to him and seemed to have thought thoroughly on many subjects. Thea wondered if he had read as many books as Robin had – he had a vast knowledge of pretty much anything that Thea wanted to talk about.

  They finally made it to the other side of the mountain and came to a valley that was lush with green grass and wildflowers. Fig was happy to frolic through the flowers – he didn’t think he was ever going to see the gr
ass again. Thea was even warming up enough to unbutton her coat.

  “We should probably stay close to the base of the mountain to see if there are any openings. Don’t you think?” Thea had taken the hat off her head and was fluffing her hair.

  “I’ve never been down in the valley before, I’m not even sure if there is a river that runs through here.” He nervously looked around. Percy hated not being prepared.

  They started to circle around the valley but were not able to find an opening to the mountain they had descended from.

  “Well, that mountain peak over there is the one that we were headed to in the first place – we should head that way and see if we can find anything at that part of the base.” Percy followed the witch across the field looking at the wildlife they were passing. He had the same boyish look of curiosity on his face as he watched a few of the fairies fly amongst the tall grass as Charles and Dean had watching the penguins. Though he had seen fairies before, he still found them fascinating when he went to new regions of the country. “They always look different wherever you travel. Some have large wings, some are brightly colored….you just never know what kind you’re going to find.”