The Dark Shadow of Spring

by G. L. Breedon

  “Well, if you live in town too,” Alex said, beginning to walk through the trees toward the deer path he knew would take them back down the mountain, “we should head back. Do you have any idea what time it is? My mom hates it when I miss dinner.”

  “I don’t know,” Victoria said, walking beside him. “Seven? Eight? I’m afraid I was daydreaming and not really paying attention to the time. Daddy rarely ever notices when I’m late for dinner. He’s usually too engrossed in some invention.”

  “What do your parents do?” Alex asked, wondering what Victoria’s mother thought about being late for dinner.

  “Daddy is an inventor,” Victoria said with a note of pride in her voice. “Magical inventor, that is. He creates magical items. Stuff like that glow-wand, only far more interesting. And he turns Outsider machines into magical machines, like cars and things. He’s using the old smithing barn as a workshop.”

  “That’s cool,” Alex said. “My dad’s the town warlock and my mom works for the bookseller, Mrs. Pak. Mom loves books. They’re stacked all over the house.”

  “My Mum always did the same thing,” Victoria said, her smile dropping away suddenly. “She passed away last year. Centaurs have two hearts and her human heart was never very strong. But she loved to read. She was reading when she died. Sitting by the window in a special chair that Daddy built.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said, wondering how he would feel if he lost one of his parents. He didn’t think about it for very long. It was too painful a thought. “You must miss her very much.”

  “Oh, ever so much,” Victoria said, dabbing surreptitiously at her eyes with the back of her hand. “But Daddy’s the one who has taken it the worst. That’s why he works on his inventions all the time, I suspect. So he won’t have time think about Mum.”

  “How do you deal with it?” Alex asked, trying to think of the right thing to say.

  “By taking walks in the woods,” Victoria said, her smile suddenly blooming again. “I love to be surrounded by trees. Looking up at them when they sway in the wind. Speaking of looking up, is that how you fell into that cave? Looking up when you should have been looking down? That’s happened to me more times than I’d like to admit.”

  “No,” Alex said, swallowing hard at the thought of the cave. “I was chasing someone.”

  “Oh,” Victoria said. “Like hide and seek? Or a game of tag?”

  “No,” Alex said, quickly trying to figure out how much he should tell her about what he was doing before he fell into the cave. “I was chasing some other kids from school.” That was vague enough. “How did you find me?” And that might change the subject.

  “I heard you screaming,” Victoria said, her voice a little softer. “And then I saw the light from your wand. It was very dim, but centaurs have terribly good eyesight. And hearing. I was about a mile away. I ran as fast as I could. You were screaming so loud I thought you had broken your leg or something. What were you screaming about, anyway? Not to sound rude, but you seemed very scared. Did you see a snake? I hate snakes.” Her front hooves stamped the ground in an unconscious repetition of her distaste for slithering reptiles.

  “No, no snakes,” Alex said, wondering again how much he should tell her. How much would she believe? How much did he believe? “Did you hear anything else? Anything besides me yelling for help?” He wasn’t going to say he had been screaming. It sounded childish. The last thing he wanted to seem to the dazzling centaur girl beside him was childish.

  “No,” Victoria said, cocking her head. “I hear something now, though.”

  “What?” Alex said, straining his ears, wondering if the voice would come back.

  “There are some people along the path ahead,” Victoria said. “I can see five of them. One very large and one very small. There’s another one. I think he sees us.” Victoria waved at what looked to Alex like trees in the darkness of the path.

  “The Guild,” Alex said, his voice a sigh of relief and excitement at knowing his friends were near.

  “He’s waving back! He must have excellent eyes for a human," Victoria said

  “He does,” Alex said. “But he’s not always human. Those are my friends.”

  “The ones you were chasing?” Victoria asked as they continued along the deer path toward where the Guild stood clumped together in the darkness like a stand of small saplings.

  “No,” Alex said, straining to make out the shapes of his friends. “I was chasing someone else.”

  “So what did you hear in the cave?” Victoria asked. Alex wasn’t sure from the tone of her voice whether she was continuing to make idle conversation or whether she was pursuing the question out of real curiosity.

  “I don’t think anyone would believe me if I told them,” Alex said, looking up at her. He realized that, while he wasn’t used to looking up at girls his own age, he didn’t mind looking up at Victoria at all.

  “My father always says I’m terribly gullible,” Victoria answered, “so I’ll probably believe anything. Besides, no one screams like that unless there’s a very good reason.” She met his gaze and he could see from her eyes that she was being self-deprecating to give him a chance to say the thing he was bursting to share with someone.

  “I heard a voice,” Alex said quickly. “A voice in my head.”

  “What did the voice say?” Victoria asked, looking concerned. Alex hoped it wasn’t from concern for his sanity.

  “It said it was coming back,” Alex said, his mouth dry as he remembered the words reverberating in his head. “Coming back for its revenge.”

  “Hmm,” Victoria said, lowering her voice as they approached the waiting members of the Guild. “Maybe it was a ghost.”

  “It seemed much more powerful than a ghost,” Alex said. He wasn’t sure how he knew this to be true, but he knew it was.

  “Well, whatever it was, it sounds like it involved Spirit Magic,” Victoria said casually. “Only a living being can work Mind Magic and there didn’t seem to be anything living in the cave besides you. Does your family have a history of working with Spirit Magic?”

  “Only one person in this valley has been able to use Spirit Magic for more than a hundred years,” Alex said, thinking of Old Batami the soothsayer in her cabin in the middle of the White Forest.

  “Well,” Victoria said, seemingly unaware of what the impact of her words might be, “now it seems there are two.”

  Chapter 6: Walk in the Woods

  “Alex!” Nina said, dashing out of the shadows of the darkened path to slam into her older brother and wrap him in a vise-like hug. “It is you!”

  “I told you it was,” Rafael said, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

  “Pony,” Ben said, craning his neck back to look up at Victoria. “You also said he was with a girl on a pony.”

  “A centaur,” Clark said as he bent down slightly to look Victoria in the eyes.

  Realizing that everyone was staring at Victoria and was clearly more interested in knowing how he came to be with her and who she was than anything else that might have happened to him, Alex cleared his throat. “This is Victoria,” he said. “She just moved to town. Victoria, allow me to introduce the Young Sorcerers Guild. This is Clark, that’s Ben, this is Daphne, that’s Rafael, and this is my sister, Nina.” Everyone said hello, each of them more than a little impressed with the fact that they were speaking to a centaur. While Alex had met the other centaurs in the valley thanks to his father’s occupation, few others in the town had.

  “It’s very nice to meet all of you,” Victoria said. “I must say, it’s terribly impressive that you’re all in a guild at such a young age. I didn’t realize there were still guilds in the Americas. The guilds have all died out in Europe. Back in South Hampton, which is in England, which is where I’m from, there hasn’t been a magical guild in two hundred years.”

  “We’re a relatively new guild,” Alex said with a cough.

  “We’re kind of like a club,” Daphne said, a sheepish tone in her
voice.

  “Oh, a club!” Victoria said. “What sort of things does your club do? Is it an open membership? Could I apply? As I’m new in town, it would be ever so nice to able to meet people in a club.” Each member of the Guild seemed to answer a different question at the same time.

  “Adventures,” Ben said. “We have adventures.”

  “And, um, practice magic,” Clark added.

  “Like waking the dragon,” Rafael offered.

  “And membership is gorping easy,” Daphne said.

  “As long as you’re not me,” Nina quipped with a pout.

  “And you’re looking at the whole Guild,” Alex said.

  “We’re very selective,” Rafael said.

  “Oh,” Victoria said, her facing falling as the excitement drained out of her. “Naturally. You can’t just accept anyone. Particularly if you don’t really know them.”

  “What Rafa means is that we only accept kids who don’t fit in,” Alex said, oddly uncomfortable with the idea that Victoria’s feelings might be hurt.

  “And you have to be at least twelve years old,” Nina said, glaring at Alex. “I’ll be twelve this summer, but until then I’m an honorary member, which means I can’t vote, which is fine because they usually all vote for whatever crazy scheme my brother comes up with.”

  “I’m nearly fourteen, actually,” Victoria offered. “I know it’s hard to tell with centaurs.”

  Alex gave Nina a dirty look before turning to Victoria. “Seeing as how you saved my life, I’d be happy to recommend you for a membership vote.” Alex wasn’t sure if that was what he had intended to say or if it had just popped out when he saw the renewed look of excitement in Victoria’s eyes.

  “That’s awfully kind of you,” Victoria said.

  “We can hold a vote Monday after school,” Alex said, walking down the deer path and hoping that the conversation would bend away from what had happened to him.

  “You saved his life?” Daphne asked, squinting as she started after Alex, the others all beginning to follow as well.

  “Oh yes,” Victoria said. “I pulled him from a sunken cave he had fallen in.”

  “You fell in a cave?” Nina said.

  “Mmmm, did you hurt yourself?” Clark asked.

  “Mad Mages,” Ben said. “What happened to the Mad Mages?”

  “Did they push you in the cave?” Daphne asked. “That gorping Dillon deserves a hex the size of, well, the size of Clark.”

  “I tried to track you, but I lost your scent somehow,” Rafael said. “You must have gone off the deer path.”

  Alex fell silent for a moment. He wasn’t sure how much to tell them. He wanted to tell them everything, but he was afraid they might not be as quick to believe him as Victoria seemed to be. But whatever the voice was, it was dangerous. If something or someone was coming back for revenge, it could be perilous for the whole town. And what if it was coming for him? He was still pondering what to say when Victoria made it unnecessary.

  “It was easy to find him,” Victoria said. “He was screaming so loud, you see. Seems he heard a voice in his head. Which I think is a sign of Spirit Magic. Alex says no one in the Valley has had the ability for Spirit Magic in quite some time, but I think that makes it only more likely that it was Spirit Magic because it would seem the Valley is due for another Spirit Mage.”

  Alex remained quiet as the others erupted into questions on what he had heard and what had happened. He looked at Victoria and couldn’t resist returning her wide smile. He shook his head. He really liked Victoria. She was interesting in a way none of the girls of the valley were. She was a centaur, after all, and she was beautiful as Daphne in a completely different way, but he suspected that she had a tendency to say things before she had really thought them through.

  Alex kept walking, but he slowly explained what had happened. How he had chased the Mad Mages. How he had planned to ambush them and instead fell into the cave and hit his head. Then he told them about hearing the voice. The voice in his head. What it had said. The searing white pain in his mind when it spoke. He was afraid to tell them what he thought it all meant.

  The others were silent. That worried Alex. He had expected more questions to come pouring forth. To be grilled or called a fool or accused of making it all up.

  “There were insane wizards in the woods?” Victoria asked Ben, changing the direction of the conversation completely. Alex caught her eye and thanked her silently.

  “What?” Ben said, before understanding her question. “No. The Mad Mages Club. They’re like us, only evil.”

  “They’re not evil,” Daphne said. “They’re wicked. They know better, but they do bad things anyway.”

  “Same thing if you ask me,” Rafael said.

  “Yeah, well, they nearly got us killed today,” Clark groused in a deep rumble.

  “Oh,” Victoria said, her eyes lighting up, as she brought back a statement made long ago. “When you were waking the dragon.” Alex made mental note that not much escaped Victoria’s notice and that she was much smarter than her effervescent personality seemed to imply.

  “You never know when to keep your mouth shut, Rafa,” Daphne snapped.

  “Sorry,” Rafael replied. “It slipped out.”

  “Daddy said there was a dragon living in the Black Bone Mountains,” Victoria continued, “but I just assumed he was pulling my hind leg. I’d love to see a dragon. It’s not very much like a snake, is it?”

  “It’s nothing at all like a snake,” Alex said, remembering the flames chasing them through the rocky tunnel.

  “It must have been fabulously annoyed at being woken up,” Victoria said.

  “It wasn’t gorping happy about it,” Daphne said, with a slight shake of her head.

  “We hadn’t been planning on waking it up all the way,” Alex added a bit defensively.

  “Yeah, the Mad Mages followed us and woke it up to see the flame,” Clark said, grinding his teeth.

  “Fire,” Ben added. “Lots of fire.”

  “Well, why do you call it ‘waking the dragon’ if you weren’t trying to wake the dragon?” Victoria asked.

  “We were waking it just a little bit so it would tell us our destinies,” Daphne said.

  “That’s brilliant,” Victoria said, her voice nearly squeaking. “I’d love to know my destiny. What did it say your destiny was?”

  “Only Alex got to ask before the Mad Mages showed up,” Nina said, looking at her brother, concern in her voice.

  “And what did it say?” Victoria asked, barely containing her enthusiasm. “It must be ever so exciting to know your destiny.”

  Alex remembered it all too well. “It said ‘You have fought the Dark Beast in all your lives. The Dark Beast marks you again. Always and forever.’”

  Everyone fell into silence again as they walked. Alex hoped for more silence. Silence all the way home. Hoping no one would say anything. That no one would voice the thought rattling loudly in his head ever since Victoria had pulled him from the cave. If he possessed any powers of Spirit Magic, they clearly weren’t strong enough for Victoria to sense his desires, no matter how hard he willed them.

  “Do you think the destiny the dragon gave you has anything to do with the voice you heard in the cave?” Victoria asked aloud.

  Chapter 7: Late for Dinner

  Once again, everyone burst out with questions and statements all at the same time. The only one Alex paid attention to was the one his sister had uttered.

  “Are you crazy?” Alex said. “No way.”

  “You have to,” Nina said, the tone of her voice emphatic. “You have to tell Dad. He’s the town warlock. He needs to know if something evil is loose on the mountain.”

  “I can’t tell him how I found the cave,” Alex said, frowning over his shoulder at his sister. They had reached the edge of the mountain forest and were walking along a path that headed toward the North Road and back to the town of Runewood. Alex could see the lights of two farms off to either
side of the road and the dim glow of the town up ahead. They recovered their bikes from where they had stashed them and headed toward town.

  “No one said you need to be stupid,” Daphne said. “But we should tell someone.”

  “Yeah,” Clark said. “You know, in case it’s not all in your head.”

  “It’d have to be a very small evil if it were,” Rafael quipped.

  “Thanks, Rafa,” Alex said.

  “Crazy,” Ben said. “You’re crazy, but you’re not that crazy. I believe you. But you should tell your dad.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Alex said, thinking it through. Whatever the voice was, it felt like it was far too powerful for him and the Guild to deal with alone. And his father was the town warlock, after all. If there was a chance that anyone would believe him, it would be his father.

  “What do you think, Victoria?” Nina asked, looking up at the young centaur’s face.

  “I tell Daddy everything,” Victoria said. “And I only regret it half of the time.” Seeing Alex snap his head around to look at her, she continued, “But I would never tell him about dragons and such. Although I might mention that I found a boy in a cave. I don’t necessarily need to say that the boy was screaming and hearing voices.”

  “I was yelling,” Alex said.

  “That’s what I meant to say,” Victoria said with an apologetic look. “It’s very difficult to tell the difference between a human yell and a scream.”

  “I’ll talk to Dad,” Alex said, desperate again to change the direction of the conversation. “I’ll tell him as soon as I get home.” Maybe it was the tone of his voice or the knowledge that an adult, the town warlock, would know at least some of what they had been up to, but the rest of the journey back to town was accomplished in near total silence.

  As they rode their bikes, Victoria galloping gently beside them, Alex thought about what to tell his father and how to phrase things so that no hint of their adventure with the dragon could come up. Alex never lied to his parents. His father, as a warlock, was too good at sniffing out untruths. But Alex did find that if he omitted details skillfully enough, he could avoid the worst punishments when he needed to confess some misadventure or indiscretion. He needed to figure out exactly what to say and what not to say. The problem consumed him all the way into town.