by A. S. Oren
“Nothing’s wrong,” we all say at once.
I take a bite of the potatoes, just to appease him.
Edgar puts down his fork. “Uh huh. I don’t believe you. What happened out there today? Did you get into a fight?”
Paden cuts off a bit of meatloaf. “We’re just tired, Ed. It’s been a long day and we have to do it again tomorrow for longer.”
Edgar nods. “Well, it’s best you get used to long days now. They’ll be even longer at Spearwood.”
I stand from the table and take my plate over to the trash to scrape my food off into the bag. Then I wash it along with my fork. “I’m going outside. The moon is going to be up earlier than expected.”
Pushing open the screen door and closing the wood one behind me, I step out onto the porch. Snow still falls fast onto the ground. The moon should be up in the next five to ten minutes, even though the overcast clouds will make it impossible to see. I step off the porch and into the snow. It’s already up to my knees. We’ll have over six feet by Thursday.
Why did I have to kiss Maverick today? Now everything is weird and I don’t know how to fix it. Is that why Edgar told them never to kiss me? Maybe he knew it would make things uncomfortable.
As if starting my period wasn’t bad enough, I had to go and add this to the mix. I want everything to just go back to normal. Then, maybe, I won’t feel so bad for acting without thinking.
The burn inches along under my skin. The change is coming.
I walk away from the front of the house and undress. I don’t want to destroy another set of clothes. The snow will be less harmful for them than being ripped to shreds.
I’ll have to deal with my mistake tomorrow afternoon.
At dawn, just after I shift back, I wake and wrap myself in the blanket Edgar always leaves near my body. I grab my soggy clothes before heading into the house to get fresh ones. The snow still falls steadily, now at least two feet higher than it was when I shifted. Miss Nizbet will be here in the next hour.
“Morning, Avalon.” Edgar stands at the stove, like normal, making cream of wheat.
“Morning.” I go to my room and change into a pair of jeans and a black sweater. I half-heartedly try to run a brush through my hair, but the wet blonde curls make it near impossible without breaking my brush.
I head back downstairs. The boys sit at the table now, eating. I take a seat next to Maverick. He looks at me and frowns. He leans over and sniffs me.
I lean away from him. “Why are you sniffing me? What’s wrong with you?”
“You smell like cake.” He leans over more, forcing me to stand.
Jericho stands. “No, she smells like strawberries.” I take a step back from the table.
Paden takes a deep breath in. “No. It’s the smell of rain.”
I cross an arm over my chest and hold onto my other arm just above the elbow. “What the hell is wrong with you three? I don’t smell like any of those things.”
Edgar sighs and opens his potions cabinet. He takes out a vial of something purple and uncorks it. “I was wonderin’ if this would happen.” He hands the vial to me. “Drink this, now, or they’ll get worse.”
I tip back the vial and swallow it. I can’t place the flavour, almost like fennel.
Jericho frowns. “The smell went away.”
Edgar smiles. “Good, it worked.”
I hand the vial back to him. “What happened?”
“You just finished your first period, which means your body is goin’ to transition into the heat phase.”
I frown. “Like a dog, or cat?” We’ve just started learning about the biology of mating animals.
He nods. “Yes. I wasn’t sure if this would be the case with you. I only have lore to go off of for female dragon shifter information. Luckily, Miss Nezbit was able to find some old books that talked about it and listed possible remedies to make it so males weren’t goin’ insane while the females were in heat.”
Paden stands with an empty bowl in his hand and gets more. “Why weren’t you affected, Ed?”
Edgar clears his throat and looks to the ground. “I’m an old man. The heat only effects the young and strong.”
“So, I’ll have to take that potion for the rest of my life?” I frown. More things I have to deal with because of the damn dragon shifters.
Edgar shakes his head. “Only until you enter menopause. After that, it won’t be an issue anymore.”
Well, that’ll only be another forty years or more. “What if I forget, or can’t take the potion, what will happen then?”
He tugs at his ponytail. “You only have to take it once a month after your period ends. I doubt you’ll forget, you’re not the type to do that. However, if you can’t get the potion or make it for whatever reason, then you better find a secure room and wait it out, it will last about a week. Because a man not thinking with his brain is a dangerous one.”
I frown. “What else would he be thinking with?”
Edgar smiles and ruffles my hair. “I sometimes forget how innocent you still are. Stay that way for as long as you can.”
I fix my hair. “You make no sense sometimes.” I take my seat again. At least the anger at him has left my system. I hate not being in control of my emotions.
Dipping my spoon into the cream of wheat, I savour the sweet taste of maple on my tongue. Edgar always knows how to make the best bowl of cream of wheat. “Thank you, Ed.”
Edgar takes his own seat at the head of the table. His bowl only has a slice of butter sitting on top. “You’re welcome.”
I take another bite before glancing around the table at the boys. All of them stare at me out of the corners of their eyes as they eat. Yesterday crawls back to the front of my mind. I kissed Maverick and now they are mad at me for breaking some rule I didn’t know about.
I take one more bite before pushing the bowl away from me. Normally I think things through and foresee most of the possible outcomes. Why didn’t I do that yesterday?
“Are you feelin’ okay, Avalon? You barely touched your food last night, and now you’re passin’ up maple cream of wheat?” Edgar stands from his chair and comes to touch my forehead. “Are you havin’ a lot of pain again? I can make you some tea.”
I bat his hand away, ire filling my chest again, mostly at my own stupidity. “I’m fine, Ed. I just don’t have an appetite right now. The pain is what it always is. The tea barely touches it anymore, you know that.”
I’ve gotten good at pushing the pain to the back of my mind.
He goes back to his seat. “I know, but you need to keep up your strength, and you can’t do that if you don’t eat more than two bites of food at every meal. Especially with the cold trainin’ you guys are doin’ this week.”
I glance out the kitchen window, the snow continues to drift down. It sure is a Colorado winter in the mountains. How much snow has Denver gotten? “The cold doesn’t bother me, Ed. You know that. I sleep out in it.”
Jericho’s spoon clinks in his empty bowl just as Miss Nezbit walks through the front door. She brushes snow off her long, wavy brown hair and grins at us; her big brown eyes sparkle. “Brrr…it’s chilly out there. Ed, can’t you give me a necklace that can transport to inside the house?”
Edgar clears his throat and stands with his empty bowl. “Nope, rules are rules, Miss Nezbit.”
She slips off her petticoat jacket and hangs it up. I eye her short, black, pencil skirt, matched with black pumps with the red soles and a light grey turtleneck.
She sighs. “Ed, call me Zaria. I’m not your teacher.”
Edgar tugs at his ponytail, before sticking his washed bowl on the dishrack. “You’re the children’s teacher, Miss Nezbit.”
Her smile falls a bit, but she shakes her head. She has it bad for him. I’ve seen the way she stares at him during lunch. Does he know?
“Of course, Ed. You’re absolutely right.” She claps her hands together. “You kids almost done eating? Who’s ready to learn?”
I stand and go to the sink to wash my dish and spoon. “Miss Nezbit. How old are you?”
She laughs. “It’s not nice to ask a lady how old she is, Avalon. But to answer your question, I’m forty-two. Why?”
I nod. “And how old are you, Ed?”
Edgar stands at the stove again, putting away the leftovers. “Fifty-two. What’s with all the questions about age?”
They’re not too young or old for each other. I shrug. “No reason. Just curious.” I smile. “You and Miss Nezbit would make a cute couple.”
Edgar’s cheeks flush. Oh yeah, he likes her. “Go learn something.”
I grin and go past to the boys at the table to the basement door. We converted half the room down there into a schoolroom. “You’re just mad because you know I’m right.”
Miss Nezbit blows a kiss as she walks through the Void before her, which stands against one of the white, wooden pillars. We won’t see her again until Monday. At least Edgar doesn’t make us have school during the weekends, too.
Edgar turns to face us, red stains his cheeks. “Today you’ll be spending the night out there. I taught you yesterday how to dress a kill outside. Avalon, you can use your talons to cut it open.”
I nod.
“The fire will be your source of warmth. However, like I said yesterday, you won’t always be given things to make a fire. Especially when you’re in your final years at Spearwood. Thus, you must rely solely on your powers to create your resources. You have the basic skills mastered to do this. It shouldn’t be at all hard for you four.”
Jericho raises his hand. “So you’ll come get us at dawn, right?”
Edgar nods. “You know the trail to get back home. If you get injured or can’t make it through the night, I want you all to come back here. This is just the beginning of your training for survival in Spearwood. I don’t expect you to succeed the first time out there alone.”
The burn of ire enters my chest. I want to prove him wrong, tell him we can do it. I know I can, but I’m used to the bitter cold. The guys, on the other hand, aren’t. Will they be able to make it the whole night?
Paden steps forward. “I know we can do it on the first night. We have each other to rely on. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do it.”
Edgar lifts an eyebrow at him. “Well, that’s a good sign of confidence from a leader, Paden. The rest of you will take his lead on this.”
“Yes, sir,” we say in unison.
Edgar points to the door. “Head out.”
We leave, and enter the almost blizzard conditions of the outside. My bare feet sink into the soft top layer of snow.
Paden comes to walk next to me, his rubber boots crunching through the snow. “I don’t understand how you can do that. Walk in the snow with no shoes of any kind.”
I shrug. “I’ve never liked shoes, and I find it’s easier to walk through the snow like this. Less weight to drag through the snow.”
Maverick walks on my other side and wraps his arms around his body. “I don’t get how the cold doesn’t faze you. You’re a fire user. Shouldn’t the cold and wet be like the bane of your existence?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how any of this works. I just know it doesn’t affect me in the least. Maybe I’ve built up a resistance to it because of all the years I’ve been sleeping out in the snow. In dragon form, I don’t feel the cold at all.”
Jericho sniffs from behind us. I glance over my shoulder as he rubs his red nose against the sleeve of his jacket. “Can we stop talking and get to the cabin faster? I want to be able to warm up by a fire before we have to go out and hunt for what we’re eating tonight.”
Paden nods. “Jer’s, right. We should get to the cabin as fast as we can.”
“I’ll race you there!” I pick up the pace, running ahead of them and jumping over a fallen tree trunk. At least the running will help them get their body heat up.
Their footsteps thunder behind me. “You didn’t give a warning!” shouts Maverick.
I dart around a large rock. “Sucks to be you!” I laugh and make my strides longer, to cover more ground. They’re all taller than me, so it won’t take long for them to catch up to me if I don’t take precautions.
Jericho passes me while screaming, “Oh yeah!”
I sprint and grab his hand, pulling him back and going ahead of him.
“That’s cheating!” He runs neck and neck with me.
“I don’t remember stating rules.” I huff and try to keep my breaths even.
“Well, then, eat snow!” He moves his arms out in front of him. Before I can slow down, a large mound of snow piles up in front of my path. I run straight into it. It’s like hitting a cold pillow. They all sprint ahead of me, laughing. I scramble to my feet and run after them. Jericho’s the first one to make it to the cabin’s door.
I catch up to them as we enter the cabin. “I’ll win next time.”
Jericho grins over his shoulder at me. “You hope you will. No one can beat me at running.”
Maverick shakes his head and stares at the centre of the room where our fire remnants have disappeared. “I guess Ed came out here and took our started fire away. We really do have to do this from scratch with our powers.”
Paden claps Maverick on the back. “Don’t worry, bro, we can do this.”
I brush past all of them and go to investigate. “He’s right. We practically built all of the fire from scratch yesterday. Today is no different. You’ll just have to pull up some roots from the land underneath us, and Jer can dry them.”
Jericho points to one of the holes in the side of the cabin. “The holes are covered by snow. How is the smoke supposed to escape?”
Paden stands at the door, holding it open to let light shine into the cabin. “I could use metal work to make a small fireplace and chimney.”
Maverick crosses his arms over his chest. “How do you know how to do something like that? Isn’t that an advance technique?”
Paden shrugs. “I read about it in one of my metal user books. If I can’t do it, then we’ll figure out something else.”
I go to take his place at the door. “It’s worth a shot.”
He smiles at me. “Thank you, Lon. At least one of you has confidence in me.”
He steps forward and takes in a deep breath before letting it out. Pointing one of his palms down at the ground, he raises it slowly into the air. The ground under us quakes and cracks, as molten liquid seeps out. The red glow fills the room, banishing the shadows to the corners. His other hand comes up to make a fist. Moving it in a circle, the molten liquid grows, forming a small cove. From there, a long pipe raises upward, toward of the holes in the roof. Water drips down and sizzles as the snow melts away.
With a stomp of his foot, molten liquid drains back into the ground, healing the cracks. The fireplace cools to a dark brownish-black Paden spins on his heel to face us with a grin.
I nod my head. “That was really awesome.”
Jericho and Maverick nod also.
“I want to try some advance techniques, too.” Maverick pouts.
Paden laughs. “Then crack open a book more than once a day. Can you bring up some tree roots for us to use?”
Maverick sighs, but nods. “I would like books better if they read to me.” He cracks his knuckles before crouching down and pressing his hands onto the dirt floor.
Again, the ground rumbles as four long tree roots rise out it, like dancing cobras. He stands and they still in twisted shapes.
I bite my lip as I shift the nails on my right hand into their claws. I don’t normally try to do all five at once. But we don’t have an hour to wait around for a fire. A metallic flavour enters my mouth and warm blood coats my lower lip. I lick it away. It will heal in a few days.
Paden once more takes over holding the door. Striding over to the first tall root, I swipe, cutting straight through on the first go. I grin. At least these things come in handy for something.
The tip of the root falls to
the ground. It doesn’t take me long to cut the four roots into enough timber for a least half the night. Once I’m in my dragon form, I’ll keep the cabin warm with my body.
Maverick lowers nubs of the roots back into the ground and seals up the cracks in the dirt floor.
Jericho gathers the logs into a pile. “That was freaking awesome! I can’t wait until we can shift with you, too.”
For them it won’t be painful, though. “Four more years, unless you find some way around waiting to come of age.”
Jericho pulls the water from the roots until they are bone dry. A thick stream runs out the door and into the snow.
I nod and grab a log to throw into the fireplace. “Let’s see if this thing works.” I’ll need more than a little flame to light this; we can’t cheat and use pine needles to help it burn longer.
Paden’s teeth chatter. “What’s taking you so long?”
“I’ve never tried this before. It’s going to take more than just lighting the tip of my finger. I’ve only ever seen teacher Marks do it a couple of times for the older trainees.”
Jericho comes to stand next to me. “What do you want to try?”
I take a deep breath in and let it out. “Fire breath.” Will it will hurt? I can do it easily in my dragon form, but I’ve never attempted it as a human.
“But teacher Marks says that only seniors should attempt that,” Maverick’s voice wavers.
I glance over my shoulder at him. “Well, I don’t know what else to do. Unless you can grow trees now? Edgar made it clear we can’t go gather some pine needles or scrapes of bark.”
His gaze falls to the dirt floor. “I can’t grow things yet.”
I sigh. “Then I have to try this. Paden, come in here already.”
Paden shakes as he steps into the cabin and lets the door close behind him. Darkness swallows us up.
I close my eyes and form a fist with my right hand. I press it against the flat palm of my left and positon them over my heart. This is where I need to focus my magic. I draw on memories of the heat swirling in my chest when I breathe fire at night for fun.
