by Terah Edun
She opened her mouth and closed it.
Finally, Katherine said, “I need a break. I’m going for a ride.”
Scrambling up, Katherine fled her room like the hounds of hell were on her heels, flew down the hardwood stairs and out the door with her hair streaming back from her face as she hurried to their other barn, conveniently kept across the property from where Gestap lived in his hovel-like abode on the edge of the swamp. She wasted no time in saddling Black Fire. The only steed they ‘owned,’ although it was more like he owned them.
As she led him out of the stall, Black Fire snorted in disdain. Pushing his wings out irritably once in a while.
“You’re ready to fly, huh, boy?” she cooed to him.
“Well, so am I,” she said as she tightened the last saddle strap between his massive wings. Hopping up from a mounting block, she grabbed his reins and mounted. With a swift kick in Black Fire’s ribs they were off. As he broke into fast trot toward the open fields, she leaned forward in anticipation. This was the best part of her day. The rising sun at her back as he spread his massive wings and they took flight.
And for a moment Katherine forgot her worries as she flew through the skies.
Chapter 21
The next day’s dawn rose with Katherine trudging back from her morning duties in the swamp. As she walked-in the through the mudroom, careful to remove her thick, all-weather galoshes that doubled as swamp gear when she needed to take Gestap out, she sprayed down her lower legs with the hose. Trying to get off as much as mud and dirt as she could. This morning had been a particularly messy affair, with her not paying attention to her surroundings in the swamp. Although ‘not paying attention’ was putting it lightly. She had been completely oblivious to the fact that the log to the right of her skiff was, in fact, moving, and when she had thrust the end of her pole into the swamp floor in order to vault to the platform as always, she had almost lost a leg in the process.
The waiting alligator had reared up in a flash of serrated teeth and a gaping maw. It was only thanks to quick work by Gestap that had involved the kobold leaping straight at the alligator to push him aside that had saved her life. The powerful alligator’s jaws had ended up snapping closed on the strong pole, which once inside the gator’s mouth might as well as been a flimsy stick, and she had fallen forward with a hard thud onto the wooden surface of the platform. The fall had left her body half-in, half-out of the swamp, which she had quickly corrected as she scrambled forward and stood.
Katherine remembered her heart racing in her throat when she had first turned around to look for Gestap. In his toad form he was just as vulnerable to a gator’s bite as she was with his moist, thin skin. But, to her relief, Gestap was just as aware of that fact as she was because she turned to see him scuffling the four-foot long alligator not as a toad, but as a kobold. And he was definitely holding his own. Gestap had transformed his naturally curved nails into sharpened spikes of bone and his teeth protruded from his mouth like a creature from a nightmare with dozens of thick, pointy fangs lining the interior and exterior of his mouth.
The water of the swamp had swirled and splashed as the alligator and kobold wrestled for domination in the early morning hours. Katherine had known that Gestap wouldn’t let go of the punctured grip he had on his prey. He couldn’t because that would leave his foe free to swerve and come at him from another direction with its powerful jaws. Instead he drove his clawed right hand into the alligator’s side over and over again while hold on to him with his left and tearing at his soft underbelly with a ravenous mouth. Before two minutes had passed the swamp water all around the platform had turned red with blood and an exhausted Gestap emerged victorious from its murky depths. With swift kicks he swam over to the platform and pulled himself up out of the water with a helping hand from Katherine.
Carefully avoiding his still razor-sharp claws, she helped him to stand when he insisted on “greeting his defeated foe with proper decorum,” and they watched as the dead carcass slowly rose to the surface in the rippling water and a group of ravenous alligators rose soon after to feast on their fallen brethren.
Katherine had released Gestap’s hand with a shudder and said, “Can we go home now?”
Her voice was a little forlorn, a little lost. Perhaps sensing her disturbed nature, Gestap didn’t tease or prod her on her misstep. He simply said, “Sure,” and pushed the skiff that bumped against the platform with each lapping wave of blood-infused water around to the other side so that she could get in safely.
And that had been her morning. So now Katherine was furiously spraying down her muddy pants. Turning off the water hose with a yank of the knob, she tossed the hose back out the door of the mudroom and into the yard, then quickly stripped herself of her pants and her jacket. Stuffing both into a bucket that the family kept in the room specific for clothes too far gone to be used again and would be incinerated the first chance she got, Katherine raced into the house where the heat was sure to be on, leaving the insulation-less mudroom behind in her wake.
With a sigh, Katherine got ready for class just as if it was any other day. As if her life hadn’t fallen apart like hell in a hand basket, as if her mother wasn’t more distant than ever—except for the moments she felt that she and Katherine needed to have a heart-to-heart, which lately seemed to revolve around which fae leaders in the community were trustworthy and which needed to be quietly offed, and she hadn’t seen anyone else since the funeral.
It was customary to leave the grieving family members in peace unless the widow or widower made special accommodations to assure mourners they were welcome in the queen’s home. Mother had opened up the house to a mourning day for one day and their refrigerator was now so packed with casseroles that Katherine was stocking the overflow in the cool basement downstairs. Naturally a chilly climate, it had turned downright frosty in the last week. Which was how Katherine knew that no matter how busy her mother tried to make herself and no matter how unaffected she appeared with a mask of dutiful mourning on her face, she wasn’t all right. Something was terribly wrong with the Queen of Sandersville. If Katherine thought a mother-daughter heart-to-heart, their third in three days, would help, she would have marched into her mother’s office and forced her to sit down. But her mother was a pro at shutting down unless she wanted to open up, and so far the only person she seemed inclined to tolerate in that regard was her only sister, Katherine’s aunt.
Katherine grimaced and wondered as she raced back down the stairs in fresh clothes for school and pulling a comb through her damp hair as she went. Where in the world is Aunt Sarah? She went to fetch Rose’s remains days ago, and never came back. Even for her that was strange. She missed Rose’s fucking funeral. I hope wherever she is, it was darn important.
With a sigh, Katherine dragged open Marigold’s creaky door. As she prepared to hop into the Beetle’s old interior, her eyes happened to glance up and land on Rose’s brand-new car. For a moment Katherine considered it and pushed the thought out of her mind in disgust. Her sister was barely dead; she wasn’t going to rummage through her stuff like some hunter foraging for gold.
“We’ll deal with Rose’s car and her room when we deal with it,” Katherine said while pushing her sunglasses down off her head and on to the bridge of her nose while tossing her backpack onto the cracked leather of Marigold’s passenger seat. With little time left to lose, she pushed the garage door opener impatiently, backed out of the garage, and zoomed off toward school.
Or, well, zoomed off in Marigold style. Which was about forty-five miles per hour tops on a good day. Damn, she missed that SUV.
When she got to the middle and high school that sat on the edge of the town, Katherine leaned back into the seat of her parked car and wished she had to be anywhere but here. She had arrived twenty minutes before homeroom because Marigold had actually made a pretty respectable effort today. Now she pushed the glasses back from her face and stared moodily out of the windshield. She could see the destroyed classroo
m windows from where she was parked. They had been covered with plastic sheets taped to the sides of the brick wall and all the glass had been cleaned away. Katherine grimaced and got out of the car, thinking, I better get in there. It’s better to know before homeroom if I’ve been expelled or not.
She didn’t think there was much chance of her escaping punishment. At all. After all, an entire classroom had seen her call upon the fierce winds and explode the windows out with her neat trick. They might not be sure how she did it, but that wouldn’t stop them from yammering away to the nearest assistant principal in the hopes that the ‘emotional turmoil’ might get them out of a midterm or two. Humans were nothing if not practical in that way. She had to admire them for their ingenuity. But right now she felt like cursing her damned luck. It wasn’t as if she wanted to go to school. What she wanted was one less problem on her plate and one less adult haranguing her. If she knew the administration at this school, that was one wish that would definitely remain unfulfilled.
With the wind in her face, she walked by whispering crowds of students with her head held high and wished she was anywhere but here. No one tried to stop her, but she could feel their stares on her back and whispers like sharp pinpricks in her mind. At that moment she would have given her right leg for a true guardian. A protector. A paladin. A person who would have her back through good times and bad.
Her mother didn’t have one. Her sister certainly hadn’t had one.
Every high queen had a paladin of sorts sworn to them. Mid-level witches and prospective queens were lucky if they could share the guardian for their principality. Katherine had heard that the powerful queens of the city courts had their own warlocks that attended to their safety. Then she burst out laughing—she couldn’t help it. Rose had a warlock by her side and look what good it did her.
For a moment the whispers halted. Shocked silence followed. The students probably thought it was highly improper that she was laughing or that she had gone momentarily insane. The truth of the matter was that none of the students she went to school knew her. Not the real her. It wasn’t that she pushed them away so much as kept to herself. It wasn’t that she was mean, either. In fact, she went out of her way to protect the weaker kids in the hallways. But more often than not her powers tended to explode out with destructive force. And most people, a select few of crazies not included, liked to steer well clear of that.
When she made it into the cool hallway lit by overhead fluorescent lights, she found that it was blessedly empty. Katherine swiftly made her way down the hall to the small side office that housed her assistant principal. The one who tended to like her the most and understood her quiet misfit nature. Just as she reached forward to turn the handle on the door, it opened in front of her with a whoosh and out walked Connor with surprise plastered on his face.
“Katherine?” he said, making her name a question.
“Connor?” she said in reply, unconsciously mimicking his inflection.
“What are you doing here?” they both blurted out at once.
Katherine blinked. “Figuring out my punishment for that incident a few days ago. You?”
He shrugged. “Got in trouble with Ms. Gorsachieky again.”
Katherine narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “I don’t know why you insist on provoking her. You know it’s against the rules to read another witch or warlock’s mind.”
“She can’t prove that I’m doing anything of the sort,” Connor whined.
Katherine snorted. “You know and I know, that she’s upset for a reason.”
“Well, if she was truly upset about the ‘fantasies’ I see,” Connor answered while raising his fingers and making bunny ears to emphasize his sarcasm, “then she would acknowledge full-out that I read her mind and have me suspended. Instead she sends me to this assistant principal’s office every chance she gets.”
The last sentence was said in a tone of outright disgust.
Katherine breathed out deeply. “You know you can’t keep accusing her of being a long-lost factionist from the Russian Empire without proof.”
“I know what I saw,” Connor said, sticking out a petulant lip.
“Whatever,” Katherine said, reaching around him and grabbing the door knob to turn the handle and push the door open.
“That reminds me,” Connor exclaimed in a hurry, “I didn’t mean what are you doing here, I meant what are you doing here, as in school.”
A small smile tugged on Katherine’s lip. You couldn’t distract Connor from his point for very long.
“I’m here because I have to be,” she said simply.
“Damn, Katherine, your sister died,” he said in surprise. “Give it a week at least.”
Katherine said over her shoulder as she turned the knob on the door and entered the office, “I wish I could.”
Chapter 22
Katherine sighed when she walked into the room and saw the secretary’s desk was empty and the door to the assistant’s principal office was closed. It was a tiny box-like room with the secretary’s desk taking up all the space not used as a pathway directly between the door that led to the hallway and the door that led to the assistant principal’s office.
For moment, in the empty passageway, Katherine had peace. She drummed her fingers against the plywood of the door that she leaned against and reluctantly pushed herself away from its comforting embrace. Walking the four steps that marked the distance from one door to the other, she raised a fist and knocked resolutely on the door.
“Come in,” said a male voice.
Katherine pushed the slightly ajar door open without further invitation. In the slightly larger room that service as his office, Katherine found Mr. Nielsen standing in the corner and shuffling through some papers beside his file cabinet.
He looked up quickly at her approach and said, “Ah, Ms. Thompson, I’ve been expecting you.”
A solemn look broached his face. A slight smile crossed hers. She happened to find Mr. Nielson to be one of the one of the more approachable administrative officials in the schools. Once or twice she had even come to talk to him of her own accord.
He finished shuffling his papers and rapidly stuffed the sheath in a folder before slamming the file door shut and walking toward his desk.
Gesturing at a chair, Mr. Nielsen said, “Please, sit down.”
Katherine promptly took the indicated metal and leather seat that had seen better days. This school was the only one in town for more reasons than one—they couldn’t afford to run two school buildings for separate middle school and high school curriculums, although they had a large enough student body to maintain such a quorum if needed.
As Katherine settled in the squeaky chair, she turned calm eyes on Mr. Nielsen, waiting on his pronouncement, whatever it might be. After all, he said he had been expecting her, which at the very least meant he had something to say to her.
Mr. Nielson, for his part, folded his hands and rested his chin on the bridge they formed.
“How are you doing, Katherine?” he asked in a calm tone.
“Fine.” Katherine shrugged, wanting to get this over with.
He nodded and reached out for a candy dish. Picking it up, he held it out to her. “Toffee?”
She shook her head quickly. Could he just get on with it? If he gave her a legitimate excuse to leave, she was gone. But if her mother heard that she had pressured the human administrator into excusing her from her classes, she’d never hear the end of it. Never mind that Katherine would never do such a thing. Not without a darned good reason, anyway.
“Fine,” he said simply while popping a rejected toffee into his mouth. “Let me be blunt. First you became withdrawn in class, then you stormed outdoors to deal with something best left alone, and now this...your has sister passed away.”
Katherine frowned but said nothing. The second accusation could use a little bit of clarification from her, but it’s not like she understood the phenomenon fully anyway, and Rose’s passing was none of
his business. But she wasn’t going to speak up and object. Mainly because this conversation was going exactly the way she wanted.
“But I don’t think the answer is to sink into sullen resentment,” the man said.
“Neither do I,” blurted out Katherine. She was hoping this was her chance. Here was the moment he said leave school and clear you thoughts for a few days. She leaned forward in eager anticipation of those words.
But as Mr. Nielson continued talking, she rapidly got a sinking feeling in her heart. “So I’m recommending that you take on three counseling sessions a week with our school practitioner.”
Katherine sat up abruptly and her jaw dropped. This was so not what she wanted.
The man continued to move his dreadful toffee around in his mouth. She was beginning to wonder what she’d ever seen in him in the first place—this announcement was tantamount to the greatest betrayal.
Nervously Katherine cleared her throat. “Mr. Nielsen...I know you want to help. I’ll be more active in class, I promise. I don’t need counseling.”
The man smiled. “I’m sure you think you don’t, but it can help to talk over your feelings with a qualified professional.”
“I don’t want to talk about my feelings with someone else, professional or otherwise. I’m fine on my own. If I need to, I’ve got Gestap,” Katherine interjected.
The man wrinkled his nose at the mention of the kobold’s name. “As suitable as Mr. Gestap may be, Ms. Florence will be better.”
“I’m sure she would, but I refuse—”
He cut her off as he said, “I’ve already spoken to the queen, who supports this measure, Ms. Thompson. You will be going to counseling three times a week starting this afternoon during your physical education class. I hope this, along with the coven guidance that Ms. Florence might be able to give, will be of help to you.”
