Willow's Secret Mission

by D J DuMont

  Chapter Nine

  Willow couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being followed. For the first thirty minutes of her walk, she glanced over her shoulder several times a minute, certain each time that she was going to see someone coming after her. But when no one appeared, she told herself that she was being paranoid. To calm her nerves, she decided to sing a song. She loved to sing but hated her singing voice, so she only sang when she was alone. And you couldn’t get more alone than the middle of the woods on a Friday night. Everyone else was off partying in town or at the rec center.

  Willow started belting out the latest song from the hit boy band of the moment. It was a catchy, cheesy tune about loving a girl for her heart and not just her body. Willow would have been embarrassed to admit even to Sylvie and Alexis that she liked it, but there was no harm in singing it to the pine trees, was there?

  Willow sang the entire song at the top of her lungs, dragging out the last note of the last word of the song as long as she could. She felt better already. She took a deep breath, and was about to start singing again when she heard a loud, cracking sound.

  Instantly, she froze. Her heart began to pound in her chest as she turned slowly around. She fingered the magic ring on her finger, just to make sure it was still there. Using magic here on the Birch Point side of campus was strictly prohibited unless there was an emergency. But Willow had a foreboding feeling that she might be about to face an emergency. There was a good chance someone was sneaking along behind her, and if they were stalking her then certainly they were up to no good. Was it one of the Dark Sparks? But how had they gotten past all of the protective spells that the Dragon Heart Agents had cast?

  Willow tried to peer into the darkness, but couldn’t make out anything except thick leaves. Trying to act braver than she felt, she crossed her arms and stuck out her chin defiantly.

  “Who’s there?” she asked. “Show yourself, coward!”

  She raised her fist threateningly. On the chance that this was some sort of magical intruder, she wanted them to see that she had a magic ring and wasn’t afraid to use it. But instead of some sort of angry enemy rushing forward, she only heard a long sigh. And then, coming out of the woods with a sheepish look on his face, was the last person she’d expected to see.

  “Marcus?”

  He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Yes, it’s me. I’m sorry if I scared you. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Make sure I was okay?” Willow was confused. She didn’t know why anyone would think she wasn’t okay. She’d been a little tired this week, yes. But she thought she’d hidden that pretty well. Besides, the idea of Marcus taking care of her was laughable. He was a nice guy, but he wasn’t a wizard. He had no idea how much power Willow held in her hands right now. She could have sent him flying with a few words from a simple magic spell and a flick of her magic ring. But she didn’t, of course.

  This was no emergency. This was a boy stalking her. But why? Surely not for her looks.

  Marcus lowered his hands and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as if trying to decide how to explain himself. “Look, I know this probably sounds crazy. But you just have a certain look in your eyes. It’s like this…sadness. I recognize it all too well because I’ve seen the same look in my own eyes.”

  Willow snorted. She tried to stop herself—after all, it wasn’t nice to make fun of Marcus when he was trying to be nice to her. But there was no way he had any idea what she was going through. She’d lost her father to a man who wanted to steal magic and use it for evil, and she was basically imprisoned on campus because the Dragon Heart Agency had no clue how that man had gotten to the President. These weren’t exactly your normal, everyday teenage problems.

  To her surprise, though, Marcus didn’t seem at all fazed by her less-than-kind reaction. Instead, he let out a long sigh and looked Willow straight in the eye.

  “You’ve lost a parent, haven’t you?”

  Willow narrowed her eyes at him. How had he found that out? She hadn’t told many people at Birch Point Academy. Alexis knew, and all of the Dragon Heart students knew. But Willow hadn’t told anyone beyond that. She hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it, because at her last school in D.C., everyone had known and had pitied her. Willow had hated that.

  She didn’t want to talk to Marcus about this, but he had a look on his face that said he wasn’t going away until he got an answer. With a sigh, Willow nodded. She would try to keep this conversation as brief as possible.

  “Yes, my dad has been missing for the last two and a half years. But I don’t really like to talk about it, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else. I’m not sure who told you, but I really wish they hadn’t.”

  Marcus looked confused for a moment, then shook his head. “No one told me. I just knew.”

  “What do you mean you just knew?” Willow raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “I lost my dad, too. He died of cancer when I was ten. So, maybe I don’t know exactly what you’re going through, but I understand the pain of a parent not being in your life anymore. Losing my dad was the worst thing that ever happened to me. For a long time I didn’t want to do anything except curl up in my bed and hide under the blankets.”

  “Wow. I’m really sorry.” Willow wasn’t sure what else to say. She felt horrible for assuming that Marcus could not understand what she was going through at all. True, her situation was quite different from his in many ways. But at the end of the day, they had both felt the pain of losing a father. Marcus’ eyes told Willow that he understood that pain, and this realization made Willow want to cry. But she bit back the tears and forced a small smile onto her face. After all, she barely knew Marcus. She couldn’t just pour her heart out to a random stranger, even if he was a fellow student.

  To her surprise, Marcus seemed to understand her hesitation. He once again raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and smiled at her. “Look, I’m not going to try to force you to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just wanted to tell you that I understand, and I’m here if you need someone. Even if you just need a friend, I’m here. I’ve been watching you, and you seem to be a bit of a loner. You hang out with Alexis and Sylvie a lot, but you don’t really mix with anyone else. And you disappear every afternoon.”

  Willow instantly felt defensive again. “There’s no rule that says I have to be friends with everyone at school.”

  Marcus shrugged. “No, of course not. But I know, at least for myself, after my dad died I withdrew from the world and didn’t want to make friends with everyone. That was a mistake, because when I finally started to go out and hang out with people again, I felt much better.”

  Willow wanted to laugh. Marcus was trying to be helpful, but he had no idea what the real reasons were behind her only hanging out with a few people, or disappearing every afternoon. Still, she appreciated the fact that he was trying to help. And she couldn’t deny that she felt a little flattered that he had noticed her. After all, he was one of the most popular, handsomest boys in their class. She’d been watching him, too, since the night in the rec center. He was always laughing, and always surrounded by a group of friends.

  But Willow didn’t want to get too drawn into the social scene at Birch Point Academy. Cara managed to be a social butterfly and have a lot of friends outside of Dragon Heart Academy. But Willow, Sylvie, and Locke had all been more reserved. It wasn’t easy to make friends when you had to keep half of your life a secret. Boarding school wasn’t exactly the best environment for hiding who you were.

  There was a part of Willow, however, that sometimes wished she was just a normal student here. She wished she could hang out in the rec center or go for walks without constantly thinking about when she was going to have to sneak over to the Dragon Heart side of campus again. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to spend a little bit of time with Marcus. Just a little bit. He was right about one thing: it would be really nice to have someone who understood what it felt like t
o lose a parent. Willow’s situation was a bit different, since she still had hope that she might one day see her father again. But she had a feeling that Marcus would still be understanding. Besides, he was really cute, and Willow was a teenage girl. Didn’t she deserve to spend at least a little time with a cute guy now and then?

  Her decision made, Willow smiled at Marcus and gestured toward the woods. “A friend would be nice. Want to walk with me?”

  Marcus’ face lit up. “I’d love that.”

  He started walking toward her, and they fell into step together as they made their way through the fragrant pine forest. Willow felt suddenly, irrationally happy. Being near Marcus made her feel giddy and at peace all at the same time. He looked over at her and grinned, and she grinned back. But then she brushed her finger against the hard metal of her magic ring, and felt a pang of worry. She had to be careful not to let him learn anything about her secret life.

  “Listen,” she said, taking a deep breath. Her stomach twisted up into nervous knots as she spoke. “There are things I can’t talk about, like where I go every afternoon. If we’re going to be friends and hang out, you’ll have to accept that.”

  “Hey, no worries. I’m not trying to pry into your personal business. I just want you to know that someone’s here for you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Willow didn’t have many people who were truly there for her, no strings attached. She hoped that Marcus meant it when he said he wasn’t going to pry.

  Only time would tell.

  Chapter Ten

  The weeks passed by in an ever-busier blur. All of Willow’s classes, magical and non-magical alike, only grew harder. The homework load grew heavier, and Willow sometimes struggled to remember a time when she hadn’t felt constantly exhausted. The worst part about the overwhelming work was that Willow had no time to help with the search for her father. She knew the Dragon Heart Agency was still working on it, and she tried to follow their updates as best she could. But she missed being on the front lines of the search, as she had been all summer.

  Anjali told Willow at least once a week that the best thing to do was to excel in her classes as much as possible. The better she was at magic, the better able she would be to help if or when a chance came to rescue her father. Not only that, but the Dragon Heart leadership was also more inclined to help Willow search for her dad if she showed promise as an Agent.

  The only problem was that Willow didn’t show much promise. At least, she didn’t think she did. Anjali told her all the time that she was doing just fine, but Willow felt like she was falling further and further behind in her classes. By the end of October, she felt like a robot, just going through the motions and trying to survive. She was beginning to worry that she might not pass her midterm exams. What would happen then? Would they give her another chance? Or just kick her out of the program? Willow hoped she didn’t have to find out.

  The President’s assassination no longer dominated the news cycle constantly, but that was because there had been no new developments in the case since August. As a result, the Dragon Heart leaders, including Anjali, had become more short-tempered as time went on. Willow knew they had a lot on their minds, but she wished they wouldn’t take it out on the students. She also wished they would lift the ban on leaving campus. Being stuck here hadn’t been so bad for the first few weeks. But now, Willow felt restless. She wanted to be able to go into the city, or to explore the forests beyond the campus boundary. Even hanging out with Marcus was hard. He tried to be patient, but Willow could tell that he was annoyed when she couldn’t leave campus—and couldn’t tell him why.

  Things continued on without changing, and even Sylvie, who was normally a total optimist, grew glum. Willow felt like something had to change, and soon. So when she received an urgent message one Saturday morning asking her to come see Anjali, Willow couldn’t help feeling hopeful. Perhaps there was news of her father. And maybe that meant there had also been a breakthrough in the investigation of the assassination. Willow felt like a ball of nervous excitement as she made her way toward the Dragon Heart side of campus. She ran up the stairs to Anjali’s office, and pounded on the door so hard that her knuckles started to hurt a bit. She barely noticed the pain, though. If there was news of her father, nothing else mattered.

  “Come in,” Anjali’s voice drifted through the thick wood of the door. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Willow walked into the room. Almost immediately, her heart fell. The expression on Anjali’s face did not look happy. Whatever news she had wasn’t good. Not only that, but there was a Dragon Heart Agent Willow did not recognize standing in the room. Something bad had happened, and if Willow was being called here because of it, that could only mean one thing.

  “My father?” Willow asked, her voice breaking despite her resolve to sound calm. “Do you have news of my father?”

  “Willow, please sit down,” the Dragon Heart Agent said.

  “I don’t want to sit! I want to know what’s going on with my father.”

  Anjali spoke up. “Willow, this is Agent Ryan Watford, and he’s going to explain what we know. But first, we need you to sit down and remain calm.”

  Willow glared at Agent Watford, but did sit down. Anjali and Agent Watford exchanged a glance, as if trying to decide who was going to break the news to Willow. Willow wished they would just spit it out.

  Finally, Agent Watford started speaking in a gentle voice. “Willow, we’ve lost your father’s trail. I’m really sorry.”

  “You’ve…you’ve lost his trail? What does that mean? How? We seemed to be getting closer and closer to finding him all summer long.”

  “We were,” Agent Watford said. “But the last few months have been difficult. We’ve had to split our search efforts between many projects, one of which has been the President’s assassination. As you can imagine, that has taken quite a bit of resources.”

  “I knew it!” Willow shouted. “You let the search for my dad go, didn’t you? I knew that as soon as the summer was over and I was gone, no one would care enough to continue. How can you give up on him again? We were so close, and now all that hard work is lost.”

  Agent Watford gave Anjali an uneasy look. Willow tried to glare at Anjali, but Anjali was refusing to meet her eyes. Agent Watford let out a long sigh and continued.

  “I know this is not the outcome you wanted, Willow. And I came here to tell you myself because I thought you at least deserved to hear about this directly from headquarters. You must understand that an agency as large as the Dragon Heart Agency has many projects, and has to prioritize. For a while, your father was a priority, because we believed he would lead us to the Dark Sparks and to Stein. But all of the evidence lately suggests that your father is no longer being held captive by Stein. Not directly, anyway. Stein will never just let your father go, because he probably knows too much. But all of the evidence we have now suggests that Stein is no longer trying to force your father to teach him about magic. Perhaps he has given up, or perhaps he’s found a better way. All we know is that your dad no longer appears central to Stein’s operations.”

  “Which means the Dragon Heart Agency doesn’t give a crap about him anymore. He’s just dead weight to everyone. To Stein, and to you guys. No one cares one bit what happens to him!” Willow burst into tears. She hated to act so weak in front of Anjali and Agent Watford, but she couldn’t help it. This was her father they were talking about. He’d been the greatest Dragon Heart Agent of modern times, and now the Agency was giving up on him. Again.

  “Willow, our country lost its President over two months ago, and we still have no clues as to how. We believe Stein may know about the Dragon Heart virus, and the world may be on the verge of a magical dragon war. The agency cannot spend resources searching for one lost Dragon Heart Agent, no matter how great that Agent was.”

  “But don’t you understand? If you find my dad he’ll help you find Stein! He knows a lot about Stein and what that guy is doing!”

&nbs
p; “He did know a lot, at some point,” Agent Watford said in an overly sympathetic voice. “But we don’t think he knows much anymore. All of his information is likely outdated at this point. We have to focus on searching in ways that will give us current intelligence on where Stein is and what he’s doing.”

  Willow sat in shocked silence, staring at Agent Watford. She tried to come up with words that might convince the Agent that giving up on her dad was a mistake, but she felt tongue-tied. Anjali refused to look at her, and Willow felt like screaming. How had everything gone so wrong this year? The search for her father had been called off, she was falling behind in her classes, and, thanks to the President’s assassination, she was a prisoner on campus.

  The Agent must have taken her silence as acceptance, because he gave her a small smile and held out a large, sealed envelope to her. The word “confidential” was stamped on the envelope in bright red, and in small black print at the lower left corner of the envelope the words “Sigmund Ember, Case File,” were printed. Willow nearly wept just at the sight of her father’s name. Her father, whom she was never going to see again. Not if things kept going the way they were.

  “This is the record of the search for your father over the last two months. You’ll be able to see in there that we did everything possible to track him down.”

  Willow huffed. “Not everything. You can’t say you did everything when you’re giving up so soon.”

  “Willow!” Anjali said in a warning tone.

  That’s when Willow knew it was hopeless. Anjali had been one of her dad’s best friends. If even she had accepted that the Agency was giving up, there was nothing Willow would be able to do to change things.

  Willow looked down at her feet, away from Anjali’s gaze, and away from Agent Watford’s gaze. “Was that all?” she asked, desperately trying to keep in control of her emotions.

  “That’s all,” Anjali answered. “You may go.”