Fledgling
Page 16
Chapter Fifteen
After they handed out the last of the boxes, Aiden went outside the wall and Austin went back to the shop. She made sure to knock before entering, not wanting to accidentally walk in on something. Kai opened the door, his expression pained.
“There are children here,” he grimaced, avoiding all mentions of what happened earlier, “It seems that they want another story. And there are more of them this time.”
He refused to face her directly.
“What do you have against kids?” she asked, stepping past him. She searched the shelves nearest to her, since those seemed to hold the children and young adult books. She wanted to actually take her time and pick out a book that all the kids would like this time. The boys would want something exciting. They would want a danger filled quest. The girls would probably want something magical.
Austin stopped. That was it. Magic. She took one of the newer books, one about wizards, off the shelves, just as Kai spoke, “It’s not that I hate them. They’re just a handful.”
“What was I like as a kid?” she asked. She wouldn’t know, since some people were so insistent on erasing her memory. As far as she knew, Kai was the only person not to, and that was probably less to do with his morals and more to do with the fact that he didn’t have that particular ability.
Kai tapped her head lightly with a book, “You were a handful.”
She made a face at him and walked into the reading room, where the kids were waiting. Now that she looked, she could see the tops of several small heads over the edge of the chairs and sofas.
None had noticed her yet, all too engrossed with the story already being told. Gary was sitting in the storytelling seat, spinning his own fantasy, “And then human slashed at the great, scaly dragon. It fell back, screaming in pain, surprised at the damage a single sword could do. It-“
“You’d make a great storyteller,” Austin said, making herself known. Gary immediately stopped talking, making it clear that Austin had made a mistake.
“That’s stupid,” he snapped, jumping out of the chair. He sat back down beside a cute little girl who hadn’t come yesterday.
Austin frowned at him, sick and tired of this prejudice, “What’s stupid is the way everyone judges people who like words. Why are you here, if storytellers are so bad?”
“You’re not a storyteller, though. You just work here because Aiden told you to,” Garry said, “Dad said so.”
“They’re not bad,” the girl next to Gary tried to explain, “They just don’t have real jobs.”
“Is that so?” she placed her hands on her hips, looking around at all the small faces. She was about to do a dangerous thing, about to make children think for themselves, “I’m here because I want to be, not because anyone told me to. And f you all think that storytellers are so useless, you must not like being here. So why don’t you just leave?”
“Are you kicking us out? I’m telling dad,” Gary threatened.
Austin wasn’t impressed, “Go ahead.”
The little girl spoke again, fidgeting in her seat, “Well, I don’t know. I like being here, and I like stories.”
That was good enough for Austin; it was actually more than anything she expected from this group.
“You can stay. Actually, anyone can stay, unless you don’t like storytellers,” she dared. Three of them, one being Garry, stormed out, and she sighed. Hopefully her uncle wouldn’t be too mad.
She saw Kai in the doorway, and guessed that he had been listening in. He sat on the arm of one of the now empty chairs, “Mind if I stay?”
“Do whatever you want,” she shrugged. Kai gestured for her to sit in the storytelling chair, so she did.
Worrying that she had taken her temper tantrum too far, her voice trembled as she read the first few lines. She coughed and steadied herself. She wanted to give the remaining kids, the nice ones, a good time today. What message would she be sending if she messed up story time today?
She just really hoped that she hadn’t gone too far. Her ideas really were going to get her in trouble someday, if they hadn’t already. She was too human for this world. As if sensing that her thoughts were spiraling downwards, Kai gave her a reassuring smile.
She began to read.