The Dark Shadow of Spring

by G. L. Breedon

  “Daddy has a rather interesting sense of humor,” Victoria apologized.

  “What do they do besides taste like you should eat them?” Rafael asked.

  “Listen,” Victoria said plopping the small crystal ball into her mouth as she quickly stepped into a nearby room, closing the door behind her.

  As soon as the door closed, Alex heard something in his head. It was not like the voice he had been hearing, but it was enough to make a sweat break out on the back of his neck.

  “Mhe met mu malk mu mech muther moover mong mistiances,” the voice said. It sounded like Victoria’s voice, even though it was barely intelligible. Alex could tell by the look on the others’ faces that they too had heard Victoria’s voice in their heads.

  “Mrilliant,” Ben said. “Mou man malk mo manyone manywhere.”

  “Not that you can understand them,” Rafael said after spitting out his marble.

  “That’s why I call them mumbling marbles,” Victoria said, stepping back into the hallway. “They only work if you have them in your mouth and if you have them in your mouth, you can’t really speak. I told Daddy to try and make them work by holding them next to your mouth, but, as usual, he got carried away with another invention and forgot all about them. It also doesn’t help that anything said on one marble can be heard on all of them.”

  “These could come in handy on an adventure,” Alex said, taking the marble from his mouth and holding it up to the light. He could sense that it was enchanted, but could not discern what magics had been used to make it work.

  “Everyone feel free to keep one,” Victoria said. “They’ve just been sitting in that jar for years. Daddy will never miss them.”

  “But how will we know someone is trying to talk to us if we don’t have it in our mouths?” Nina asked. “I don’t want to go around all day with a marble in my mouth.”

  “Mmmm, mit’s mot mo mad,” Clark said, still sucking on his.

  “The other marbles will vibrate slightly if someone is using one,” Victoria said.

  “Can I get another flavor?” Daphne asked.

  “Help yourself,” Victoria said as a loud crashing noise emanated from behind the door at the end of the hallway. “Oh dear. Daddy’s at it again.” Victoria headed swiftly down the hall and through the door, the others following right behind her, only Daphne pausing for a second to switch her orange marble for a red one.

  Alex followed Victoria through the wide wooden door and into her father’s workshop to find a large centaur wearing a dark blue shirt and a long gray apron holding the rear tire of a tractor in one hand and the axel of the tractor with the other. Alex wondered just how strong Victoria would be when she was a full-grown centaur. He decided to put that thought away for another time and returned his attention to Victoria’s father.

  Her father’s face was long and gentle, his eyes deep blue behind a pair of spectacles. He looked to be in his late forties with a well-trimmed beard speckled with gray like the thick and wavy shoulder-length hair on his head. He stood in the middle of a workshop cluttered with odds and ends of various mechanical and magical devices, much like the rest of the house. The workshop had once been a stable and smithy, and one of the two large doors stood open to the backyard beyond.

  “Daddy, are you okay?” Victoria asked with some urgency.

  “Oh, fine, darling,” her father said with a smile as he turned toward the sound of her voice. “Just a little magical mishap. Oh, hello! And who might these be?”

  “These are my friends, Daddy,” Victoria said.

  “Oh, from the club,” Victoria’s father said. “I was hoping to meet them.”

  “It’s not a club, Daddy,” Victoria said with a frown.

  “It’s a Guild, sir,” Alex said, stepping forward from the others crowded at the door. “Hi, I’m Alex.”

  “Ah yes, Alex,” her father said. “The boy screaming in the cave.” Victoria’s frown became a dark glare of warning that her father seemed oblivious to.

  “I wasn’t exactly screaming,” Alex said.

  “And let me guess,” her father continued, not seeming to hear Alex at all. “Victoria’s told me all about you. You must be Alex’s sister, Nina. Yes, I see the family resemblance. And this lovely young woman must be Daphne. You are just as beautiful as Victoria described you. And a strapping young man of your size could only be Clark. I knew a family of giants in Wales. Wonderful people. The mother made the best beef stew. And, of course, you must be Ben. I’ve done some work for your father. Very demanding man. Good with details. Interesting sense of humor. And that leaves Rafael, who must be you.”

  “Why am I always last in every list?” Rafael muttered.

  “Are you really?” Victoria’s father asked. “Can’t image why. You rather stand out. Even in this crowd.”

  “How kind of you to say so,” Rafael said, smiling despite himself.

  “Daddy!” Victoria nearly shouted. “Stop it. You’re embarrassing me.”

  “Really?” her father said, blushing slightly and seeming genuinely surprised that his daughter might have taken offense at his odd manner of introduction. “Ever so sorry. I suppose I got carried away. Victoria didn’t have many friends back in South Hampton, so I’m…”

  “Daddy!” Victoria said, her face now a bright red.

  “Ah yes,” her father said. “Anyway, I’m Victoria’s father. You can call me Edward if you like. The name is actually Edasaanis, which means something completely unremarkable in ancient centaur. Translates as something like ‘morning dew,’ I think. My mother was terribly romantic.” Alex could see where Victoria got her propensity to ramble on in conversation.

  “Mmm, would you like a hand with that?” Clark asked, gesturing toward the tractor tire that Victoria’s father was still holding effortlessly aloft in one hand.

  “Oh, yes, if you’d be so kind,” Victoria’s father said. “If you and Victoria could just hold either side of the rear of the tractor, I’ll just slide the wheel back into place.”

  “What are you working on?” Alex asked as Victoria and Clark stepped over and held the tractor for her father. Between the two of them, the weight of the tractor was easily manageable.

  “Ah, well, bit of a secret, really,” Victoria’s father said as he bolted the big rear wheel of the tractor to the axel plate. “Something for the Fujimori family farm. Don’t want to give it away until it’s had its debut. I suspect that all the farmers will want one soon enough if it works. Have to iron out a few kinks first. Such as the wheels falling off. An unforeseen side effect of the enchantments. Ah, there we go. Good as new.” The middle-aged centaur stood back from the tractor and appraised his work.

  “So, Daddy,” Victoria said, wiping her hands on a rag that conveniently hung from the seat of the tractor, “I need to borrow something.”

  “Not money I hope,” her father said. “I was rather hoping to borrow some from you.”

  “No, Daddy,” Victoria said, rushing past the mention of how poor they were. “The spectrotromatron.”

  “Oh, right,” her father said. “Looking for ghosts, are we?”

  “There were some sighted in the cemetery,” Victoria said. “We thought we’d look for them.” Alex felt like someone had kicked him in the head. How could Victoria just tell her father the plan like that? Apparently, though, she knew what she was doing.

  “Oh, certainly,” her father said. “It’s in that box on the bottom shelf on the left, I think. Or the one behind it. Somewhere on that shelf, at any rate.” Victoria walked over to the shelf and began to open several boxes. “My, my, ghosts. It’s been ages since I went ghost hunting. What I wouldn’t do to go with you.” Alex held his breath as he looked at the faces of the others. “But, too much work to do. No rest for the wicked. Or the wickedly ingenious, as the case may be.” Her father laughed as his own joke and Alex found himself laughing along.

  “Found it,” Victoria said, holding up an odd-looking contraption that resembled a large old-fashioned cam
era with no back plate and several metal tubes protruding from its sides, twisting about in all directions.

  “Wonderful,” her father said. “Well, don’t stay out too late. Will you be home for dinner?”

  “Actually, we were wondering if Victoria could have dinner at our house,” Nina said. Alex’s head spun around in surprise. He noticed the astonished look on Victoria’s face and suspected it matched his own. What was Nina up to? Not that Alex didn’t like the idea of having dinner with Victoria, but the notion of introducing her to his parents over a meal made him feel oddly uncomfortable in ways he wasn’t able to identify.

  “Ah, yes, certainly,” her father said. “I’ll just make myself a few cold sandwiches and keep working. Make sure you fetch me when you come home.”

  “I will, Daddy,” Victoria said. “Don’t drop anything on yourself while I’m gone.”

  “I will try not to,” her father said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “And don’t stay out too late. I know all too well how easy it is to get to chasing ghosts and lose track of time.”

  “I won’t, Daddy,” Victoria said and led the others through the big shop door and out around the back of the house.

  “Are you crazy?” Alex asked when they were out of earshot of her father. “You told him about looking for the ghosts.”

  “I try never to lie to Daddy if it’s at all avoidable,” Victoria said. “Besides, he’s not the sort to ever think that looking for ghosts could be dangerous. Now had I told him that we thought the ghosts were popping up because the Shadow Wraith was trying to escape and destroy the world, he probably would have grounded me. Or he would have insisted on coming. It’s so hard to tell with him sometimes.”

  “Your dad’s a nut,” Daphne said to Victoria with a laugh. “A great, big, wonderful nut. My dad’s so boring.”

  “Nice,” Ben said with a sigh. “He’s so nice. All my dad ever does is complain.” Ben’s father was harshly critical of Ben. He didn’t like Ben’s grades, didn’t like Ben’s friends, didn’t think that Ben was living up to the family name. Ben’s parents had been divorced for a year now, and while he still saw his father nearly every day, their relationship had become strained.

  “And he encourages you to go on adventures,” Nina said. “Our dad frowns on adventures.” Alex thought that was a monumental understatement.

  “Thank you,” Victoria said. “He’s a bit odd when he gets absorbed in a project, but he tries very hard to be a good father. And speaking of your father, I’m very excited to meet him. And your mother. Thank you ever so much for inviting me to dinner. Daddy’s idea of cooking leaves a great deal to be desired. Like the application of heat to food, for one. I’m afraid I end up making nearly all the meals.”

  “Tonight’s spaghetti night,” Nina said. “Mom always makes more than we can eat.”

  “Mmmm, spaghetti,” Clark said, his stomach rumbling loud enough for the others to hear. “I should head home for dinner, too.”

  “Let’s all meet back at the Guild House right after we eat,” Alex said. “We can tell our parents we’re working on our homework.”

  “Yes, I’m sure my aunt will believe that,” Rafael said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he waved and set off down a side street toward his aunt’s place.

  The others each headed for their homes and Alex soon found himself in his own house, seated at the end of the kitchen table with Victoria kneeling beside him on a pile of blankets and slurping a long spaghetti noodle between her lips. Alex laughed as a tiny drop of sauce landed on her delicate nose. He reached out with a napkin and wiped it off as she giggled. Looking toward his plate, he noticed his mother and father eyeing him in a way that made his face warm and his stomach flutter.

  It had become clear to him after only a few minutes at the table what Nina’s motivation had been in inviting Victoria to dinner. At first he had suspected that she simply wanted to embarrass him, but he soon realized that Nina genuinely liked Victoria and looked up to her like some sort of older sister. Alex wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. Nina was odd in that she didn’t really have friends her own age. She was always hanging out with Alex and the Guild and rarely mixed with the kids from her own class. While she was certainly friendly with Daphne, they weren’t exactly girlfriends. Alex couldn’t really imagine Daphne having girlfriends like other girls. But Nina clearly liked the idea of Victoria being her friend as much as Alex did, although, he suspected, for significantly different reasons.

  “So, Victoria,” Alex’s mother said, bringing Alex’s attention back to the table, “what was the town you came from like? It was Warwick, in Southampton, wasn’t it? Alex’s father and I have been to most of the twelve magical colonies, but we’ve never had a chance to visit there.”

  “Yes,” Victoria said. “It was very nice. A lovely little town. Very much like here. Different magical people and magical creatures from around the world. And it wasn’t too far from London. Daddy took me there a few times to see the sights. I absolutely love the theatre.”

  “But, you’re a centaur,” Alex said around a mouth full of garlic bread.

  “Manners, Alex,” his mother said. “We don’t speak with our mouths full.”

  “Sorry,” Alex said, feeling a heat rise in his face again.

  “It’s not all that hard if you’re good at Mind Magic spells,” Victoria said. “And Daddy is ever so clever with Mind Magic. Normal humans would see me as whatever they thought I should be. A girl riding a horse, or leading a horse, or just a girl walking down the sidewalk.”

  “It sounds like you had a wonderful time there,” Alex’s father said. “In Warwick, I mean.”

  “Yes,” Victoria said. “We only really moved because Daddy thought it would be good for me to see more of the world.”

  “See, Dad,” Alex said as he raised his glass to take a sip of water. “Seeing more of the world is a good thing.”

  “Hmff,” was all his father said in reply.

  “Did you have a boyfriend back in Warwick?” Nina asked, a hint of mischief in her eyes.

  “Oh, well, hmm, yes, I guess you could say I did,” Victoria said, her cheeks rapidly turning pink.

  Alex coughed as he took a drink from his glass and water bubbled out of his nose. He covered his face with his napkin as his father patted his back. “Water’s for drinking, not for breathing,” his father said with a gentle laugh. The heat rising to Alex’s face began to burn as he glanced at Victoria, who smiled at him as she always did.

  “So what was he like, this boyfriend?” Nina pressed. “Was he a centaur as well, or a human, or some other sort of boy, and how long were you dating, and what sort of things did you do, like did you ever ki…?”

  “Nina!” Alex’s mother interjected. “It’s not polite to interrogate our dinner guests.”

  “Sorry,” Nina said. “I’m just curious. I’m sure Alex is curious, too.”

  “What?” Alex said, coughing again and nearly spitting a meatball out of his mouth.

  “Well,” Victoria said, her cheeks red as autumn apples, “we weren’t really dating as such. We were just very good friends, I suppose you would say. With an understanding that, when we came of age, we would make a formal arrangement. That is the custom among centaurs. And his family was very particular about such things. And, of course, he was two years older than I, so it was very important.”

  Alex tried not to think about Victoria and her centaur boyfriend. It made the heat in his face feel like he was going to burst into flame.

  “You must miss him very much,” Nina said, her voice filled with innocent curiosity, even as she glanced at Alex with a smirk.

  “Oh, well, we write to one another,” Victoria said. “But there’s so much to do here in Runewood and so many new friends that I haven’t really thought of him as much as I thought I would.” Victoria’s gaze shifted briefly to Alex and he thought for certain he would combust into a ball of fire where he sat.

  “A first romance is always something we r
emember fondly,” Alex’s mother said.

  “Especially if it’s your only romance,” Alex’s father said, reaching over and taking his mother’s hand and kissing her.

  “Gross, Dad,” Nina said.

  “To you, maybe,” Alex’s mother said.

  “Wow, look at the time,” Alex said, putting his napkin on the table. “We should get to the Guild House. We wouldn’t want the others to have to wait on us for the study session.”

  “Put your dishes in the sink,” Alex’s mother said.

  “And don’t stay out in that shack too long,” Alex’s father said. “With all that’s happened lately, I don’t want your friends walking home late.”

  Alex stood up and took Victoria’s plate to the sink as she clambered to her legs. His mother and father came up behind him at the sink. “She’s a very pretty girl,” his mother said softly.

  “She’s a centaur,” Alex said, trying to keep his tone indifferent.

  “Very pretty nonetheless,” his father said as he ruffled Alex’s hair.

  “I hardly noticed,” Alex said, straightening his hair and walking away from his parents.

  “Thank you ever so much for dinner,” Victoria said with a wave at the door.

  “Our pleasure,” Alex’s mother said. “We’ll do it again soon.”

  “Great,” Nina said.

  “That would be lovely,” Victoria added.

  “Wonderful,” Alex muttered as he closed the door behind them, wondering if their plans for ghost hunting would go better than dinner had.

  Chapter 16: Ghastly Gathering

  Moments after stepping out the back door, Alex, Nina, and Victoria were in the Guild House collecting the spectral detector and waiting for the others to arrive. Minutes after that, the entire Guild snuck out to the backyard and down the street toward the town cemetery.

  Like the rest of Runewood, the cemetery was exceptionally well-maintained. The grass between the rows of headstones was trimmed short and cleared of autumn leaves from the randomly placed oak trees that dotted the grounds. The bare branches of the trees covered the waxing gibbous moon above like bony fingers, creating long, slender shadows across the graves.