by R. G. Thomas
“Isadora,” Thaddeus whispered.
Nathan nodded and used the back of his hand to wipe away his tears. “Her, yes, and others. Azzo Eberhard is one, her partner from the attack.”
“Logan too?” Thaddeus asked.
“His power to transform into the Bearagon is dark magic,” Nathan replied. He took a breath, cleared his throat, and then put an arm around Thaddeus, pulling him close against his side. “But enough talk about pure and dark magic tonight. What do you all say we get some sleep? We should reach the foot of the mountain tomorrow afternoon.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Miriam offered as she inspected her knitting with a frown. “I seem to have knitted myself into a corner anyway, and I need to find my way out.”
They settled in beneath blankets around the fire, Thaddeus feeling safe where he lay between his father and Teofil. A light touch on his hand made him turn his head to find Teofil smiling at him, his fingers warm where they curled around Thaddeus’s.
“Sleep well,” Teofil whispered.
“You too,” Thaddeus whispered back.
His fingers intertwined with Teofil’s, Thaddeus looked up at the stars and, with an expansive yawn, fell asleep.
Chapter TWO
THEY AWOKE the next morning to a thin layer of mist hanging just above the blades of grass. Thaddeus yawned and stretched, then sat up fast when he realized he had slept through the night and no one had awakened him to take his watch. He got up and helped his father build up the fire for breakfast, then asked why no one had woken him.
“It wasn’t just you,” Nathan replied. “Miriam, Dulindir, and I took longer shifts. We felt you, Teofil, and Astrid all needed the rest. You three have been through a lot, and with us coming into a town today, we wanted to make sure you were all well rested.”
Thaddeus frowned. “Why would that make a difference?” A thought sent a shiver through him. “Are you expecting us to be attacked? Like what happened at Leopold’s house?”
Nathan shrugged one shoulder but avoided looking at him, focusing instead on placing sticks within the fire. “That could happen. But we also don’t want to approach a small town with a bunch of exhausted kids. It’s going to be hard enough to pass for normal with the group we’ve got.”
Thaddeus looked at the others and had to admit his father had a point. Astrid was a head shorter than Thaddeus and stocky thanks to her gnome heritage. Dulindir was even shorter than Astrid, and his pointed ears could be hidden beneath his long blond hair, but his clothing and overall manner would attract attention. And then there was Teofil, taller than the other members of his family, possibly the tallest gnome for miles, but with a broad face, low forehead, and stocky build similar to Astrid and even his mother.
“Well, thanks for letting us sleep,” Thaddeus said.
“You’re welcome.” Nathan finally looked at him. “How do you feel today?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Okay, I guess. Tired even though I slept through the night.”
“Performing magic is exhausting, no matter how much you learn to control it.”
“Did you ever perform magic while I was growing up? I mean, like, to help clean up the kitchen or fix something that was broken?”
Nathan chuckled. “No. I only used magic a few times during your childhood, and both of those times it was because we were in trouble.”
Thaddeus raised his eyebrows. “We were in trouble?”
“Pursued by sympathizers of Isadora who had revealed themselves.”
“Did you ever kill anyone?” Thaddeus asked in a low voice.
Nathan looked around to make sure the other members of their group were absorbed in their own conversations and not listening in. He leaned closer to Thaddeus, fixed him with a stare, and whispered, “No.”
His father’s smile and the gentle bump he delivered with his shoulder made Thaddeus smile as well. When Nathan went back to the fire, Thaddeus picked up a stone and tossed it back and forth between his hands.
“Why did Isadora hate you and Mom so much?”
Nathan sat back from the fire and let out a breath. He looked up at the cloudy sky for a long moment, then at Thaddeus over his shoulder. “She didn’t agree with our views about the village and the…. Well, the running of the village.”
Thaddeus stared at him in silence a moment. “That’s it?”
“Well….”
“She didn’t agree with what you thought should happen in the village?”
“No, not just that, but… it was complicated, you know?”
Thaddeus shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t know. But I want to.”
“Who wants breakfast?” Miriam asked as she approached them.
Thaddeus held his father’s gaze a moment longer, then looked up at Miriam and smiled. “What is it?”
“Mooshberry surprise,” Miriam replied, holding up a spoonful of dark, thick goo.
“The surprise is you don’t turn into a mooshberry after you eat it,” Astrid grumbled as she walked up.
“Gratitude, dear one,” Miriam said in a light and loving tone. “We’re all tired of mooshberries, but they’ve kept us going these several days.”
Thaddeus had to agree with Astrid: he was tired of eating mooshberries—a kind of overgrown blueberry but with a sweeter taste. He remained silent, however, as he accepted his serving of mooshberry surprise and sat on the ground between Nathan and Teofil to eat. He thought about what his father had said, and a hard nugget of dissatisfaction formed low in his belly. Now was not the time to continue their conversation, but he would definitely be asking his father more about Isadora and her followers, including Logan Augustine, the boy who could shift into a combination of dragon, bear, and wolf known as the Bearagon.
“We’ll be coming into a town today,” Nathan said, “so we’ll all have to pay attention, not only for signs of trouble, but any indication we’re not blending in.”
Astrid giggled and pointed her spoon at Dulindir. “Guess you’ll have to wear a hat to cover your ears.”
Dulindir moved as if he were going to flick mooshberry juice onto her, and Astrid flinched away with a shout of protest.
“Astrid,” Miriam said without looking around at her. “Mind your manners.”
“Yes, Mum,” Astrid grumbled.
“Was there any sign of the goblin last night?” Thaddeus wondered, looking between Miriam and his father.
“Not at all,” Nathan replied. “You throwing it like that must have scared it off.”
They finished the little bit of mooshberry surprise they had each been given and then broke camp. After smothering the fire with dirt, they shouldered their packs and struck out through the tall grass, Nathan in the lead. The sun had burned off the majority of the mist, but they still walked through a couple of patches of it. It settled on their skin and clothes with cool dampness, and the feel of it made Thaddeus long for a shower. He anticipated they would need to rest one more night before starting up the mountain, and wondered whether the town ahead might have a hotel, and if so, how they would pay for it. It wasn’t like they could just sprawl out in someone’s backyard at night.
“Will we be able to find a hotel, do you think?” he wondered.
“Don’t know,” Nathan replied.
“Do you have money?”
“Some.”
“Is it enough for a hotel room?”
“Don’t know,” Nathan replied again.
Thaddeus sighed. “I feel like we’re moving to another city all over again.”
“You were always very inquisitive during our moves,” Nathan said, smiling at him over his shoulder. “You like to know what’s going to happen before it does.”
Thaddeus smiled and looked away from his father toward the mountain ahead of them. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“No, it’s not,” Nathan agreed. “It’s just not always possible.”
Thaddeus nodded. “I get it. I need to wait and find out along with the rest of the group.”
“We don’t know what we don’t know,” Nathan said.
“Yeah, yeah.” Thaddeus waved a dismissive hand.
They walked on in silence after that, the only sounds their legs whisking through the long grass, the occasional call of a bird, and the drone of bees. Thaddeus considered the mountain ahead of them, noticing how the early morning sun glistened off the snowy peak and warmed the gray granite skin.
“Why’s it called Wraith Mountain?” Thaddeus asked.
“Old ghost story,” his father replied without looking back at him. “The wind makes howling sounds around the mountain, and it sounds like ghosts.”
“Why not call it Ghost Mountain, then?” Teofil asked.
“Well, I think they wanted it to be a little more original than just Ghost Mountain,” Nathan replied.
“Wraith Mountain,” Thaddeus said to himself, shuddering slightly. “Creepy.”
After a time, Thaddeus heard a familiar sound. He grabbed his father’s arm, bringing him to a stop as the others pulled up short behind him.
“What is it?” Teofil asked, an edge of apprehension to his voice. Thaddeus realized he must be feeling even more uneasy than Thaddeus was himself. They were about to step into a world Teofil had only experienced from the fringes as he’d lived with Leopold.
“Do you hear that?” Thaddeus smiled as he held his father’s arm.
Nathan frowned and cocked his head to listen a moment. Then he smiled at Thaddeus. “Traffic.”
“Traffic?” Teofil repeated.
“Cars,” Thaddeus said as he turned to Teofil. “More specifically, it sounds like a truck.”
“We’re close to a highway,” Nathan explained. “Which means we’re close to the town.”
“Good,” Miriam said with a firm nod. “We could all use a more comfortable rest.”
“Yeah, about that,” Thaddeus said, and looked at his father. “Any closer to an idea how we’re going to pay for a place to rest? We can’t just start climbing the mountain right away, can we?”
Nathan shook his head as he squinted off into the distance. “No, we can’t. And I’ll figure out something, don’t worry. There.” He pointed ahead of them. “I see traffic on the road around the foot of the mountain.”
“I’m tired of being out here in the sun with the bugs and all of the walking,” Astrid said with a whine. “Let’s stop talking about what will happen when we get there and just get there already.”
An hour later, they stepped into shorter, softer grass. Trees grew in staggered clumps around this part of the plain, and finally, like something out of a fever dream, Thaddeus saw a two-lane blacktop that wound around the bottom of the mountain, then disappeared within a small town.
The town itself sat in a rocky groove that seemed to have been cut into the base of the mountain. Houses spread out around a business center made up of two- and four- story buildings. Though it was just past midday, the town had lost sight of the sun and now sat in the shadow of the mountain.
“We have to climb?” Astrid asked as she craned her neck back to look up the steep side of Wraith Mountain. “Up there?”
“Not today, but yes, that’s where we’re most likely to find her,” Nathan replied, his gaze fixed on the mountain as well. “There are a lot of caves and crevasses all over the mountain.”
“How do you know all of this?” Thaddeus asked. “Have you been up there before?”
Nathan sighed. “Come on, let’s keep walking toward town and I’ll explain.”
A funny feeling started in Thaddeus’s stomach, an uneasiness that he seemed to be experiencing more and more lately as he learned new details about this world he’d been shut out of for so long. He trusted his father; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was he wasn’t sure whether he was being told the entire truth about things. He’d started to understand that he needed to keep asking questions until he got to the root of an issue.
His father put an arm around his shoulder and walked him a bit ahead of the rest of the group, all of them still heading for the road ahead. “Back before you were born, Thaddeus, your mother and I came to Wraith Mountain. We spent one night in Iron Gulch—that’s the name of the town up here—before we set out on a hike that quickly turned into a very rigorous climb.”
“You and Mom climbed this mountain?” Thaddeus shaded his eyes to peer at the craggy outcroppings and pockets of what looked to be deep snow. “You climbed it? Actually climbed up there?”
Nathan laughed. “You make me sound like some kind of desk jockey or something.”
“Well, I mean, we’ve never even gone hiking or anything,” Thaddeus explained, “so, you know. It surprised me.”
“Fair enough.” Nathan nodded and gave him a quick squeeze before removing his arm. “We were always on the move too much for me to scout out safe places for us to go and enjoy the outdoors.”
Guilt surged within Thaddeus. His father had lost his wife and had never really known whether she was alive or dead. And then he had been saddled with raising a child all on his own, and not just raising him, but keeping him safe from magical beings that wanted to kill them both.
“Anyway,” Nathan continued, “we spent a few nights on the mountain. We found some caves and explored deep crevasses. One night we soaked in an amazing hot spring.” He fell silent and when Thaddeus looked at his profile, he found his father smiling. “It was a really good trip.” Nathan put his arm around Thaddeus again and pulled him tight against his side, leaning down to whisper, “I do believe you were conceived on that mountain.”
“Gross, Dad!” Thaddeus pulled out from under his arm, stopped walking as he shuddered, and then shook his head hard as if trying to dislodge the words. His father laughed and it proved contagious as the rest of the group caught up with them and joined in.
“Why are we laughing?” Dulindir asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Thaddeus replied, scowling at his father.
“Anyway,” Nathan continued once he had stopped laughing, “that’s why I’m more than certain your mother will be up there.”
“Is this close to where you once lived?” Thaddeus looked between his father and Miriam. “All of you?”
“Oh, it’s not very far, dear,” Miriam replied, then put a finger to her lips and looked around. “Of course, back then we used to just come and go by magic, so nothing seemed very far.”
“You can do that?” Thaddeus asked and turned to look at his father. “We can just—” He snapped his fingers. “—disappear and reappear somewhere new?”
Nathan put out his hand and wobbled it back and forth. “In a way. You have to have been to a place before, and then you can transport there. But it takes a lot of work, and a lot of energy.”
“That is so cool!” Thaddeus clapped his hands and laughed. “Oh my gosh. I can’t wait to learn how to do that! I’ll be all, like, time for school, bam! I’m there! No more bus rides filled with bullies and jerks.”
“Well, you have to use it sparingly,” Nathan cautioned. “You can’t just go vanishing and reappearing all over town. People would probably burn you at the stake for something like that.”
Thaddeus’s excitement tapered off. “Oh, yeah. I guess the ungifteds would be jealous.”
The others laughed, and Teofil asked, “Did you just make that up?”
Thaddeus tipped up a shoulder in a half shrug. “Yeah. Why? What do you all call normal, nonmagical people?”
“Normal, nonmagical people,” Nathan replied. “But I kind of like ungifteds. It makes us sound special.”
They resumed walking and soon entered the cool shadow of the mountain. At first it was a relief to be out of the sun, but after a few minutes Thaddeus felt chilled as the sweat dried on his skin and a breeze picked up. Not long after that, Nathan turned so they were walking parallel to the road. When they reached a small group of trees, Nathan stopped and lowered his pack to the ground.
“I think we should take a short break here,” he said. “Get ourselv
es ready to enter the town.”
“Ready?” Thaddeus asked. He looked at the others and noted the smudges of dirt on Astrid’s face, the sweaty tangles of Teofil’s hair, and Dulindir’s pointed ears. “Oh.”
“And, if I may be so bold,” Miriam added, “we should hide our weapons out here.”
“Why?” Dulindir asked.
Miriam said, “Normal, nonmagical people—”
“Ungifteds, you mean,” Teofil said.
They all chuckled, and Miriam gave him a playful swat. “The ungifteds don’t carry around swords and other weapons.”
Thaddeus thought of the short time they had lived in a small town in Ohio where gun owners were allowed to carry weapons openly and said, “Why don’t we have guns instead of swords and knives?”
“Gunpowder is very susceptible to magical tampering,” his father replied. “Guns can explode in the faces of the people holding them.”
“Oh, wow.” Thaddeus’s eyes went wide.
“And to Miriam’s point, we should hide most of our weapons because they would attract unwanted attention,” Nathan said.
As a group they inspected the cluster of trees and found one of them had lost a branch, which had left a narrow gap in the innermost section of its trunk. No one passing by would be able to see it, so they wrapped Dulindir’s sword and the knives they all carried inside a blanket before setting them inside the opening. Astrid held on to her slingshot, and Nathan kept one knife with a smaller blade that would not cause suspicion should it be discovered.
Using a bit of water from their canteens and waterskins, they cleaned themselves up as best they could and then struck off toward town. Thaddeus kept his hand on the canteen containing the last of the water from the Well of Tears, which he’d secured to his belt. It wasn’t much—just over half-full—but he hoped it would be enough to change his mother from a dragon and back into her human form. He was anxious to meet her at last, but that moment seemed so far in the future, he had to consciously keep himself from thinking about it or else he’d become more impatient than he was already.
