by Oxford, Rain
“Just come in, you don’t have to knock.” I nodded and stepped in. “You were out a long while. Were you lost most of the time?”
“No.” He frowned disbelievingly. “About half the time. When I was down at the springs, I saw a girl. I think she was a ghost.”
“Did you? They must be curious about you. Did you practice what I taught you?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t do it again.”
“Keep working at it. I’m sure you have a lot on your mind right now,” he said.
I wasn’t sure whether or not I should tell him about my attempt at fire, but I did anyway. He listened thoughtfully as I told him how I became nauseous and warm.
“It’s a good thing you stopped,” he said when I was finished explaining. “You were heating the energy efficiently; however, you were heating it inside your body.”
“Oh…” I said. “That could have ended badly.”
“Well, you probably would have passed out before you attained any serious damage.” He went over to the table and grabbed a small, light brown, clay jar and handed it to me. “Your arm looks much better, but you should put this on before you go to bed,” he said. I popped off the lid to see the same paste he put on my arm the first night. “It’s best when fresh. The bark of the Wigknot tree isn’t flammable at all, though the wood underneath burns hot and long. I peel off the bark for its medical benefits and use the rest for firewood.”
“That’s really smart of the tree; its bark can protect it from a forest fire. Are you going to show me how to prepare the dev… the meat?” I asked.
“I have already done it, for I didn’t know when you would be back and it couldn’t just sit in there for long. Are you hungry already?”
“I should be, but I’m not.”
“Perhaps it’s the quality of food. I’m sure the yorkie is better for you than your ‘fast food.’”
“Road kill is better than fast food. At least road kill involves real meat.”
“You are joking, right? The food did look rather unsanitary.”
“That depends on what day it is. They cook it up Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so if you get in early on one of those days, you should be safe. If you get in late Sunday night, you might as well drive to the ER afterwards.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Ronez had warned me about Earth’s fast food.”
“The burger place I worked at is neither fast, nor food. You’re going to take a bath?” I asked. Edward had grabbed a bundle of clothing identical to the one he was wearing out of the chair. He must have prepared it before I came back. “But it’ll be dark soon, won’t it?”
“Yes, it will, but I can find my way in the dark and there’ll be plenty of moonlight. There’s a bag under my bed downstairs for dirty laundry. I’ll show you tomorrow how to wash clothes. I assume you don’t know because your world has machines that do it for you.”
“I didn’t; I had to go to a Laundromat.”
“What is a---”
“A big place full of washing machines and you pay money to use them. Can I look at your books?”
“Of course.” After considering the sinking sun through the window, he went over to the small lantern on the table, opened the cover, and pinched the wick. When he removed his hand, the wick lit and filled the room with light.
“Thanks,” I said.
He nodded and went to the door, then paused and turned back to me. “There’s a gun under my bed with the safety on and another behind the stove with the safety off. Both are loaded. There’re three axes and many blunt objects in the shed. The rafters can support your weight if you need to get off the ground. Just a precaution,” he promised as my eyes grew wide.
“Do you think I’ll need two guns, three axes, blunt objects, and a hideaway?”
“No. I’m just telling you in case something does attack. Every once in a while, a vampire, a hungry animal, or a drunk wizard will come by and cause trouble. It’s very rare but you seem to attract that kind of trouble. I’ll be back soon.”
“Don’t rush. But before you go… how do you kill a vampire?” I asked. Of course, I was not serious; there was no such thing as an undead person. I was sure Edward was joking about the vampire, but the other two threats sounded very likely.
“A bullet between the eyes, stake through the heart, burning him alive… on the other hand, just run. You should run and call for help. I’ll be back soon.” He left.
I took the lamp and went downstairs.
After putting my clothes in the bag under Edward’s bed, I went to the bookshelf. Most of the books Edward had weren’t written in a language I could read. There were a few hand written in Edward’s language with no titles, which I was pretty sure were grimoires. He did have several books in English, however. One was about the religions of the world and in the very front, Ronez wrote “Happy 2000th Birthday,” signed it, and dated the year beneath his name. I wondered why Ronez wrote in English but signed his name like Edward’s. Well, Edward had said they were both raised on Duran… But if they signed their names in Sudo, it meant the language was over two thousand years old.
Several of the books were stories and poems written in Anglo-Saxon (Old English), which also seemed to be given by Ronez as gifts. Authors I recognized were Cynewulf, Cædmon, and Bede. Most of the books written in modern English were magic books. Some were bibles. I recognized names like Aleister Crowley and H. P. Lovecraft. Two books were hand written in Old Norse, one of which talked about seiðr so I assumed they were both magic books.
None of the books in modern English were actual stories, so I left the bedroom without one.
I explored the cabin for a minute before my eyes locked on Tibbit, whose eyes were always on me. I went outside to escape his dark glare. The sun had set, but when I looked up, there was a huge white moon that gave off plenty of light. I went to sit around the cold firewood and flopped back in the grass. The moon was very bright in my eyes so I turned onto my side… and still saw a moon. There were two moons! The one to the side was significantly smaller than the one straight above, but it was there nonetheless.
“I’m not on Earth,” I whispered pathetically. I’d never been out of the country and suddenly I was looking up at the foreign sky of another world. A Japanese-like world full of haunted springs, wizards, yorkie cows, and creepy crows that stare. There was too much gravity and too many moons.
It was never more than in that one moment that I felt out of place in life. At least on Earth, I knew what to expect and what was expected of me. I lived in the city, had a job and apartment, and I went to school. That was all that life was for me, and I had a place to be. I had friends and family. Only two people on Duran even knew I existed.
It must have been hard for Edward and Ronez to live two worlds apart.
There was a disturbance in the shadows of the forest when two trees began to shake. They were huge trees, yet something was bigger or stronger than them. I could see a shadow move and it looked massive.
Don’t move. He can’t see you if you don’t move, I told myself. Or was that the T-Rex? Edward was right when he said I attract danger: I must smell like a small, defenseless, juicy animal. Maybe it’s just Edward. Or Edward’s pet troll. Quick! Play dead! I slowly sat up instead. I hadn’t brought a gun and with the gravity, I certainly couldn’t run to the shed without tripping a bunch of times. Kind of like a woman in a horror movie. That thought kept me glued to the ground. Then the moving abruptly stopped and the monstrous shape shrunk away.
I sat there for a few minutes before Edward came out of the woods only a few feet from where the tree-shaker had been. I jumped up and resisted the urge to run to him, pointing at the trees like an idiot. “Did you see that thing?” I asked. He frowned, confused. “There was something in the woods, over there. It was shaking the trees.”
He stopped in front of me. “You were out here at night without a gun? All the biggest predators are nocturnal,” he said, as if I were insane.
“You were in there with
out a gun,” I pointed out.
“I am not human, nor am I a monster magnet. It’s going to be challenging to keep you alive,” he predicted.
Only the repeated experience of being kicked out on the street for the night kept me from responding to the offense with sarcasm. He never told me it was dangerous at night, so how could he be mad at me? I came from Houston, where the only monsters that came out at night were people.
I wasn’t sure if my face revealed how offended I was, but he sighed. “Sit down.” I did and he sat next to me with his dirty clothes in his lap. “I have only taken apprentices from Earth a couple of times, and they were orphaned children who were afraid of their own shadows.” He leaned forward and moved a log, which lit up in flames. “I shouldn’t have assumed you would stay inside, so I am sorry that I didn’t warn you.” He adjusted the grill and sat back.
“Why do you have to touch it to make it burn?” I asked.
“To command fire and earth, you have to use a lot of energy. Touching what I want helps to focus energy on it.”
“So things around you won’t blow up?”
“Yes. Any person can learn to do magic, but it comes easier for some. The magical energy we use is called nominal energy and is actually produced by the worlds. Each book protects not only transportation to its world, but the magic.”
“So if one of the books is destroyed…”
“The world would be destroyed. It is a delicate balance between the gods, their worlds, and the magic. We are here to protect that balance.”
“That’s a lot more pressure than I was prepared for. Why are you teaching me to control water when I need to learn to turn myself in visible or create huge diversions?”
“Diversions never protected my brother. Mastering the four base elements is fundamental before learning any other magic. For wizards, controlling nominal energy will come easier, but you may still have a difficult time with one or two of the elements.”
“So which are you better at, fire and earth, or air and water?”
“I’m best with earth. You probably will be, too. Ronez was always best with air, which is odd because air is what most wizards find the hardest. He seemed to make an art form out of his work. He wrote books on magic that sounded more like philosophies. He liked to learn about everything. That was his favorite thing to do; learn.”
“And you?”
“I like to know. I’m much more impatient than him. “I kind of agree with your way of seeing it. I spent all my life being forced to learn stuff I will never use, like the Pythagorean Theorem, war history, and cursive. Physics, psychology, ancient languages… stuff like that I enjoy learning about. Everything I learned that was important I learned on my own and through experience. I learned that stepparents are evil, little dogs are evil, and older brothers are evil. You’re not older than Ronez, are you? Because then you’d be the older brother and you don’t look evil.”
“I don’t know, but I once tied Ronez to a tree so I could use him as bait for hunting, so I probably am.” He grinned wickedly. I made a mental note to hide all the rope I find.
I cleared my throat and went on. “I also discovered that most laws are unjust- including the laws of nature, boys are crueler to animals than girls, girls are crueler to boys than anything, bug bites itch, it’s not a good idea to stick a wet plug into a socket---”
“How many times have you been electrocuted?” Edward interrupted.
I thought aloud and counted off on my fingers. “Sixth birthday… School fieldtrip… Teacher’s meeting… Seventh birthday… Sleepover with Stacie Briggan… TV room… Stacie’s basement…” I smiled at the memory. “Vivian’s house… and then the lightning strike.”
“Nine times?!”
“Most of them were just little shocks: Only three of them got me into the ER,” I said.
“And one of them stopped your heart,” he pointed out.
I looked down. “Actually… Two did.” I could feel his stare. “The field trip incident was at a science museum and I’ve never had good luck at those. I remember once getting bitten by a dog there and I was pretty sure it had rabies.”
“Did it?” he asked.
I looked up at him. “No, it had its rabies shots, so I suppose it didn’t. The owner of the dog was pretty mad at me, though. I thought she was gonna give me rabies. The one time I ever went to a zoo was on a school trip. I fell into the alligator pit, and then the polar bear habitat. Luckily, the bears were swimming and the alligators were busy chasing the guy who was supposed to feed them. How ironic.”
“Remind me not to take you to a zoo.”
“Then there was a fieldtrip where we went to the beach and I drowned. Twice. And I was bitten by a crab. The teacher didn’t want me to go near the water or touch the sand, and she practically shoved water down my throat to keep me hydrated. She didn’t want to deal with the lawyers again.”
“How are you even alive?”
“Three trips to the ER, two CPRs, and one creepy doctor who wouldn’t let a patient die on his time. He didn’t want to deal with the lawyers again, either. So, I have had a few medical incidents.”
“Any broken bones?” he asked.
“Not including cracks, all my fingers, most of them two or more times… both arms, the right one twice plus the cat-monster bites… all my toes accept one… Both my feet, one of them shattered all to hell by the Jacob, the aforementioned stepbrother… both my legs…. several of my ribs… And I cracked my skull real bad. I couldn’t break anything else because Mother refused to pay anymore hospital bills. Do you know how discouraging it is to have life insurance at six years old?”
“What is life insurance?”
“If I die, she gets a lot of money. You know, I used to think someone was out to get me. Mother would tell me God was testing or punishing me and that if I behaved badly, he would send me off to Hell. That’s probably why I never believed it; I was in Hell much of the time and I couldn’t imagine anyone, not even God, could do anything worse.”
“Tiamat was never out to get you, or anyone. Ronez told me that’s not her way. However, it does sound like someone was. I have not seen any sign of bad luck, though. It sounds like your misfortune is less subtle.”
“You haven’t known me that long, and most of the time here, I was asleep. Things tend to happen when I’m around. A bolt would come loose or a rope would snap. Several of my mother’s boyfriends thought I was being haunted by poltergeists. I had a cat because even the most docile dogs hated me.”
“Actually, that is odd. Most dogs like wizards. How’s your immune system?”
“I once was sure I had the chicken pox, the Bubonic plague, and an ear infection all on top of my asthma and double pneumonia. When she heard about the Avian flu, Mother wouldn’t let me out of the house except to go to school four days a week. My immune system is why Mother never let me out of the country and made me keep my room cleaner than a hospital. I’ve run over black cats that had better luck than me,” I complained.
Edward looked amused. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck here.” He pulled a piece of Wigknot bark out of his bag and handed it to me. “You should probably keep a little of this with you at all times. Eat it like candy.”
I took it, broke it in half, and put half in my mouth. Eating bark is frowned on in most parts of America. But so is eating yorkies, at least outside of a Chinese restaurant.
“I wonder if I’ll outlive you. You’re much older than me.”
“We’re both immortal; we’ll only die if killed, and I seem to be better at not getting killed than you,” he said.
I knew he was right. “Have you ever been married?” I asked. “You’ve lived a long time and had kids. Have you ever loved a woman or were you just… obligated to have kids.”
He frowned thoughtfully at the fire. “A bit of both. I have loved. There were several women I liked and who I got along well with. I had several children before I discovered love.” He pulled out his book, opened it to a page, an
d then pointed out a signature written in something that didn’t quite look Sudo, though it still looked a little Japanese or Chinese. “Milia, a human. She wasn’t a witch, but she had visions of the future, so they tried to burn her as one. I was visiting Ronez. Ronez was a real gentleman with women and would not give up the chance to help one. I always found humans to be irritating and cruel. They very rarely ever did burn a real wizard and when they did, it was by accident; the person hadn’t even discovered his or her powers. Milia never denied her powers. She took the punishment bravely, though she did not deserve it.
“They took her up and tightened the rope around her neck. Our eyes locked and something in me… I knew I couldn’t let them kill her. I don’t know why even to this day, but I couldn’t let it happen. Ronez was off saving someone else so it was up to me to help her. In front of all those people. But luck came when needed most. She had a vision, right there. Her eyes rolled back, her skin paled… she looked like she was having a seizure. She called out my name as if she knew me. It scared people, some of them into running away. Everyone was too surprised and confused to react. I used that distraction to get up there and cut her down. She passed out as soon as her vision ended. I pulled her away and got her back to Ronez’s house without anyone following.
“Ronez called me an idiot many times, but he seemed to understand why I did it, too. I didn’t understand the look he gave me until much later. When she awoke, she wanted to sign my book before I even told her about it. Then she came to live with me and for many years, it was great. I was happy with her, even when we got in little arguments, usually involving the kids. She was only able to have two, both of which gave her a lot of trouble. But after about twenty years, she grew depressed. I am immortal and she kept getting older.” His face remained indecipherable but his voice was despondent.
“She left me so I wouldn’t see her get older. Despite all her visions, she believed I was better off without her. I begged her not to go. She died alone many years later. I said I would never let myself love another mortal.
