by Simon Archer
While it was fascinating to watch, it was extremely boring. A wave of tiredness overtook me quickly. The heaviness of the last week weighed on my eyelids, forcing them to droop. I could feel the wool in my hand and the wood in my other as it spun in a consistent motion. However, I didn’t seem to be aware of much else.
Which is what caused it to happen again.
I wasn’t paying attention to the speed of the wheel or the rate in which the wool left my fingers. Before I knew it, there was a crackle like the pop of a firework. Then, the entire length of yarn I had already created was on fire. It wrapped around the whole wheel and culminated in a blazing flame on the spindle.
Pomona gasped and jumped back out of the way. My body froze at the sight of the spinning wheel now alight with flame. There was something beautiful about the sight, even more captivating than when the wheel was spinning.
“What are you doing?!” Iynx exclaimed in a high pitched voice. She rushed over with her hands in her blue hair, tugging violently. “Put it out!”
Panic surged through me as I heard Pomona’s wails and Iynx’s shouting. I looked around for some kind of water to douse the flames with. I didn’t see and found myself wishing the snow started sooner.
Then I spotted Pomona’s checkered blanket that originally covered the basket of wool. Like a matador, I yanked on the blanket and draped it over the flaming wheel. I wrapped my arms around it, to limit the amount of oxygen feeding the fire. After a solid minute, the fire fizzled out. I could feel the heat shrink until it no longer existed. Only then did I feel comfortable letting go and slumping back on the stump.
The two immortals stared at me with contrasting expressions. Pomona’s eyes were wide with shock and horror whereas Iynx’s face contorted into one of pure, unadulterated anger.
The bird nymph shook as she pointed back towards the path. Her cheeks vibrated under the force of her anger.
“Get out,” she said, sternly.
At first, I didn’t think I heard her, but then she opened her mouth wide and shouted the words again.
“Get out!” Iynx roared.
A flock of birds scattered out of a nearby tree, scared off by the force of the nymph’s command.
I didn’t even bother arguing. Shame and embarrassment propelled my legs forward, shuffling along the dry grass. I left the forest clearing, the smell of burnt wood wafting in my wake.
11
“You set the wood on fire?” Bethany said through breaks in her laughter. “And the wool?”
I grumbled as I crossed my arms over my chest, my dismay apparent at ever having told my friends about my first wood carving and weaving lesson. We were walking to our respective classes the following day. For me, I was on my way to the dreaded drama class with Sasha.
While I was tempted to ditch considering how terribly the first lesson had gone, I knew that if I showed up then Sasha would have to hold up her end of the deal. Even if Pomona was now terrified of me and Iynx was out for my blood.
“I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you say,” Jade said sympathetically. She reached out and touched my shoulder as we walked. “You’re exaggerating for effect right.”
“Somehow I don’t get the impression that Cameron would joke about almost burning down the entire forest,” Daniella said as she pushed her glasses up her nose.
“I don’t know how I’m going to show my face in that clearing again,” I said as I threw my arms up in the air, exasperated.
“I want to come with you just to see the looks on the nymphs' faces!” Bethany cried out with glee.
Bethany was still laughing when I threw out an arm, whacking her in the stomach. She grunted at the impact and slowed her laughter to a few chuckles.
“I don’t need more people witnessing my utter failure, thank you very much,” I countered, letting my annoyance come through in my voice.
“It was just your first time,” Jade offered as an excuse. “Maybe you’ll get better.”
“It can’t get much worse,” Bethany said, stiffing her laughter behind her gloved hand.
“It could have,” Daniella said matter-of-factly. “He could have burnt down the entire forest.”
“Okay, enough!” I said, throwing out my hands and stopping all conversation. “I get it. I fucked up. But what am I supposed to do when I go back? How am I supposed to make the Fates’ tools if I keep lighting shit on fire?”
“That’s the part that confuses me,” Daniella said as she stuck her hands in her pockets. She looked at the cobblestone paths, clearly thinking. “You’ve never made things spontaneously combust before, have you?”
“Not in recent memory, no,” I said, keeping my tone flat.
“Then it’s interesting to think about why that would start now.” Daniella popped her lips together, stalling. “Could you still have powers that are developing?”
My shoulders slumped at the thought. “I cannot take any more powers right now. I’ve got enough going on.”
“You’ve got that right,” Bethany added. Then she shot me a playful sneer. “Like drama class.”
“You’re already on thin ice, Beth,” I said, pointing a finger in her face.
Bethany backed away and held up her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, brace yourself, Cam. If you thought weaving and wood carving were bad, you’re going to be a fish out of water in Sasha’s class.”
“Thanks for the encouragement,” I grumbled as we approached the art building.
Normally drama classes were held in the amphitheater, but as it was winter and Sasha was a diva, she reserved one of the larger art rooms for winter classes. But the minute that sun shone, and it was higher than eighty degrees, the drama class would be back outside.
“You can do this!” Jade cheered.
“Go get ‘em, Cam,” Daniella said with a smile.
“Can’t wait to hear all about it,” Bethany smirked.
I restrained my groan and decided it was best to take the steps at a run so I could just get this thing over with. The sooner I got in there, the sooner it would be over.
The drama class was on the top level of the art building. It was in an emptied out storage room, with a golden wooden floor and a wall of windows that looked out over campus. I could see the northern side where Ann’s barn and assortment of animals roamed. One wall still had layers of assorted storage items, most of it covered with a dusty canvas cloth.
When I entered the classroom, I could see that everyone was already gathered in the center of the room, sitting on the floor. They were all dressed in our black uniform, though none of them wore boots. Just socks or were barefoot which surprised me. There were about eleven students, most of them young enough to be first or second years.
However, there was one person that stood out from the rest. Not only because she was significantly taller and older, but also because of her pale skin and shockingly black hair, the color of midnight. I was taken aback at the sight of her, surprised to see the new Enka leader amongst the group of students.
Instantly, I was intrigued. Being the new branch leader, she shouldn’t have to take any classes at the Academy. She would have been a graduate already. So what the hell was she doing there?
Sasha perched herself on a black box, legs crossed over one another, back straight. Her eyebrows rose when she spotted me.
“Ah yes,” she crooned when I walked in. “Welcome Cameron. You can take off your shoes and leave them by the door with the rest.”
I did as I was told, though feeling slightly self-conscious about not having my boots on. It was a small thing, I knew that, but it was enough to unsettle me. I didn’t like the level of vulnerability that it implied.
“Oh, also remove your sash,” Sasha added as she pointed in my direction. “We’ve all equal here.”
I eyed the daughter of Dionysis with clear disdain. She shrugged one shoulder in response, not caring about my displeasure. I didn’t like what the removal of sashes implied. It meant that in this room it didn’t matter
if I was an Elemental Official or not. Sasha was in charge, and she wasn’t going to let us forget it.
“Come and join us, my dear,” Sasha invited with a wave of her hand. “Class, this is Cameron, son of Hephaestus. He will be joining us this semester.”
Some nodded their greeting while others waved. The Enka leader that I recognized from the introduction ceremony shot me a closed mouth smile with a glint in her eye that I couldn’t quite read. I plopped down at the back of the group, still giving myself a couple of feet between myself and the rest.
“Great,” Sasha said brightly as she clapped her hands together. “We’re going to start with our morning exercises to get our bodies loose and then we’ll jump right in. Everybody up!”
What happened next was one of the weirdest things I’d ever experienced. Sure, Sasha wove in basic stretches to the warm up, but there were also unusual vocal exercises to warm up our voices. I found myself having to roar like a lion or scrunch up my face like a mouse. We had to massage our own faces while groaning like zombies. Then there were the tongue twisters. I fumbled over every single one of them. One would have thought that I’d never spoken English in my life.
Sasha often came over to adjust my posture during the stretches, but there was one time she approached me and grabbed my jaw. She moved it long and wide in time with the tongue twister.
“Annunciate my dear, annunciate!” she commanded.
Then we moved into group exercises where we had to do trust falls and use one another for stretches. Everyone paired up automatically, leaving me with the Enka leader. She was open and gentle with my body, but I found myself stiff and awkward around her. I didn’t even know her name for Zeus’s sake, and I was supposed to trust her not to let me hit the ground! The whole thing was absurd.
But, lucky me, it only got stranger.
Sasha had us play these improv games where we were just supposed to make stuff up. One time we had to be a machine and repeat the same odd noise and random movement over and over until we were one cohesive machine together. Another one forced us to pass an imaginary ball around the circle, passing it in unique ways.
Predictably, I missed the mark and apparently “dropped the ball” which resulted in a sharp scolding from Sasha.
“You have to watch and listen to the person next to you, Cameron,” Sasha informed me as she snapped her thin fingers in my direction. “It’s about connection.”
I bit my tongue and replied with a tight smile. Eventually, I got the hang of the ball game, just pretending to dribble a basketball before I passed it onto the next classmate. It wasn’t original or anything, but I didn’t care. I just needed to participate enough to get through this stupid class. Whatever it took to keep me on Sasha’s good side so the nymphs would have to keep helping me, no matter how many times I blew up the materials.
The first couple of classes were like this. I fought back any rebuttals as Sasha yelled at me nearly every session to “Let your creative juices flow! Open your mind to the possibilities!”
It was infuriating. I dreaded every time I had to step into that third-floor classroom, wondering what hell Sasha would put me through that day.
The other students seemed to enjoy the freedom the drama class provided. They threw themselves into each exercise with reckless abandon, not afraid to fail or look foolish. I knew that there was probably some life lesson hidden in there somewhere, but I wasn’t in the mood to learn it. I had other skills I needed to focus on.
The most intriguing person, however, was the Enka leader. I still couldn’t figure out what her deal was. I found myself glancing at her more than once, like she was a puzzle I couldn’t quite figure out.
She caught me staring at her, however. A hot flush ran up the back of my neck and I averted my eyes quickly. But like a magnet, I found myself looking once more. Though, when she caught me this time, she didn’t look away. She simply smiled and winked at me.
The bitch actually winked! While that forward gesture surprised me, what shocked me more was that I wasn’t put off by it. If anything, I was all the more interested in her. I wasn’t good at letting things go. Especially things that were out of place and interested me.
I got my chance to ask her outright right after class that first day. The Enka leader approached me when we were putting on our shoes at the end of class. I didn’t notice her at first because I was stuck in my head with the swirling, doubting thoughts all chorusing “What the hell had I gotten myself into?”
“So what did you think?” she asked as she tucked her hands into her pockets. Her voice was lower than I would have expected from such a slight woman, gravily and seductive, so I startled at the sound of it.
I looked up after tying my shoe. “It’s…” I couldn’t seem to find the right word.
“Weird?” she filled in with a chuckle.
“Am I allowed to say that?” I lowered my voice conspiratorially.
“Sure,” she replied with a smile and a shrug. “It is a little weird and everyone knows it.”
“Yeah but not everyone likes it,” I grumbled as I straightened the tongue of my shoe so that it lined up perfected with my shin.
“No,” the Enka leader agreed, “but it gives most students a break from the strategy and the fighting lessons. Most really enjoy it.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I asked, my curiosity coming to the surface.
“That and my mom always said I had an affinity for pretending,” the soldier replied with a second casual shrug. “They didn’t offer drama classes when I was a student here so I thought I would give it a try.”
“An affinity for pretending? Is that code for you’re a good liar?” I asked teasingly as I straightened up and crossed my hands over my chest.
At first, I thought we were passing witty banter back and forth, bordering on flirting. But a seed of suspicion bloomed in my chest. She didn’t introduce herself properly.
Normally demigods would introduce themselves by saying who their godly parent is. But this soldier never mentioned it. Another clue was the fact that she referred to her godly parent as “mother” with a sense of reverence that I had never heard from another demigod. Most of us resented the absent parent in our lives. It was an unusual change of pace, enough to raise suspicion for me.
Before the soldier could answer my initial question, Sasha rushed up to the pair of us. “I see you’ve already met your scene partner.”
“Scene partner?” I asked as though the drama teacher was speaking a foreign language.
“Yes,” Sasha replied, clapping her hands excitedly. “Holly and you are going to be working on a scene in the upcoming weeks. I figured it would be a good fit considering you both as the oldest in the class. Don’t want to freak out the wee ones, do we?” the teacher said with a giggle. Then she stood up straight and ran her hand over the front of her robes. “Well, I’m glad to see you getting along. You’ll be working very closely with each other this semester.”
The daughter of Dionysis’s eyebrows bounced in a teasing manner before she made a dramatic exit out of the classroom, holding her flowing robes out like a gown.
Holly and I stared at the open doorway where Sasha exited before we eyed one another and she burst out into laughter. I was a beat too late joining in with her laughter, unsure what was so amusing to her.
“She’s a handful,” Holly concluded.
“You can say that again,” I agreed with a wry smile.
“She’s a handful,” she joked, keeping my voice the same as before.
“Okay smartass,” I said trying to brush off the conversation and get out of the room as soon as possible.
“I thought it was funny,” Holly said jovially as she reached out and elbowed me playfully.
When her skin connected with mine, it was as though a jolt of electricity zapped through me.
I quickly stepped away from her, shocked by my body’s reaction to her. It wasn’t as though I found her attractive, did I?
Despite her ang
ular face, she had soft eyes that were easy to get lost in. She was the complete opposite of Hailey with her gangly arms which looked too big for her body. While they were both light-skinned, Hailey glowed in the sunlight whereas Holly looked like she would explode the minute the light touched her.
Then Holly smiled. It was the first time she smiled with her teeth since I saw her. They were perfectly straight and her smile was wide and girlish. Another wave of butterflies soared through my stomach at the beauty behind that smile. I put a hand to my stomach and backed up towards the door, shocked by my body’s reaction to her.
In a weird way, it felt forced. Like someone had placed the feelings there under false pretenses. The butterflies quickly turned into a pile of rocks as I made my way to the door.
“I need to go,” I said suddenly. “I have to… uh, I have things to do,” I babbled, my brain unable to come up with a proper excuse.
“No problem,” Holly said, completely unphased by my word soup. “Until next time, Cameron.”
“Yep,” I said because there was a severe disconnect between my brain and my mouth. I couldn’t seem to come up with anything more intelligent than that.
I scampered off, walking as fast as my long legs could carry me without breaking to a full run. I focused on my breath, inhaling the sharp cold, using it to clear my racing thoughts.
What the actual fuck was going on with me? That was the weirdest sensation. I didn’t like the feeling that Holly gave me. I felt as though someone was force feeding me too much sugar, expecting me to like it. Holly’s charm seemed forced and my suspicion of her never waned the whole time.
I wanted to believe in a fellow soldier but it was as though there were red flags popping up in the corner of my vision when I thought about the Enka branch leader. I told myself that I would keep my eye on her during our time together in class.
As if I needed another thing on my plate.
12
Hailey
