Fantastic Creatures, page 30
“Alastriona? Come to your senses. What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. I went to find wood. Where did you get the wood?”
Sagishi pointed off to the edge of the grove. Even in the light of the slivered moon, Alastriona could see the sticks and windfall lying around. She shook her head to clear it. No words came to her. She repositioned her sword into the scabbard and noticed that the green hue that had filled the path in front of her had shifted to come from behind her.
“What did you do to your sword?” Arnhyder landed beside Sagishi. “Are you okay?”
Alastriona walked forward. “I’m hungry. Did you get some fish, Arnhyder?”
She noticed the looks Sagishi and Arnhyder gave each other, but ignored them. She had no answers for what had happened, nor for why the gem in her sword suddenly glowed a brilliant green.
Alastriona ate her meal in silence. Even Arnhyder understood her need for meditation, for he only whispered occasionally to Sagishi. The elf sent sidelong glances at the centaur, but didn’t comment. After filling her stomach, Alastriona began to explain what she could.
“So, you’re saying that you felt wisdom radiating from the grove, and the next instant you were in some dreamlike memory from your childhood, and then you found yourself beyond the grove with no recollection of how you arrived?” The disbelief was strong in Sagishi’s voice.
“You felt tired both times you entered the grove, correct?” Arnhyder scratched his shoulder with a hind leg.
Alastriona nodded. “Extremely.”
Arnhyder stood. “Well, let’s go investigate.”
“Investigate?” Alastriona stared in wonder at her friend. She knew he was reckless, but this was even too much for him.
“Come on.” Sagishi walked past them both, letting her hand pull at Alastriona’s arm as she went. “We’re not going to figure this out by sitting here. Oh, and bring the sword,” she said almost as an afterthought.
Rising to her feet, Alastriona grabbed Kingdom Defender and followed the others. As soon as she reached the edge of the trees, she felt the call. A deep longing to curl up under the trees and listen to their stories filled her being. The weight of the sword in her hand suddenly seemed too much and pulled the point of the blade toward the ground. Her feet slowed until she stood still. The voices of her companions drifted to her as if on a summer breeze.
Alastriona breathed deeply. The scent of mulching leaves and mint filled her nostrils. The place radiated with a faint green tint. Without thinking, she felt her hands pull the sword from its scabbard. She gazed transfixed as the rippled hues danced in the green light.
As she watched, the ripples began to move, softly at first and then more rapidly. The rhythmic movement brought a peace to her heart she had not known since she’d seen her family for the last time. Her breathing slowed, and she settled to the ground, her eyes still fixed on the blade.
Alastriona’s vision blurred. With sure movements, she used her free hand to wipe at her eyes. When her hand fell away, she saw a plain before her. Humans formed a line of warriors. She looked to either side of her and found Sagishi on her left and Arnhyder on her right. Beyond them other elves, centaurs, and even gryphons stood ready to fight.
The soft glow of rippling green hues came back into focus. What had that been? It wasn’t any memory Alastriona had ever had before. Could it have been a foretelling? With bewilderment she watched as a single tear landed on the blade resting in her arms. A rainbow of colors gleamed from its edges. With care, she shifted the cloth between her arm and the blade and used it to rub away the stain. A hand on her shoulder caused her to look up into almond eyes set in a heart-shaped face.
“Place the blade into the ground, Alastriona,” said Sagishi.
Alastriona looked to Arnhyder.
He nodded. “Elves know more about magic and swords.”
Alastriona nodded. He had a point. With care, she touched the tip of the blade to the grass. As if she was replacing the sword into its scabbard, she pushed it into the ground. A sigh filled the air encompassing her. She knew it didn’t come from her. Instinctively, she inserted the blade in the ground up to its handguard.
“Would you look at that!” Arnhyder moved closer to her. “The grass is twining around the hilt! The color....”
Alastriona felt Sagishi’s grip tighten on her shoulder. The centaur didn’t blame the elf; instead, she leaned forward to watch, never letting her fingers leave the hilt. The soft grass wound its way like a caress around her hands until it reached the pommel and the stone. The green light shone brighter. Alastriona squinted, but never looked away from her sword.
“Kenyoku majíkku.”
The words sighed through the leaves above them. Alastriona felt Sagishi’s surprise radiate through the hand on her shoulder, her sharp inhalation of breath disturbing the silence.
“Erufú kenyoku soshté majíkku.”
Alastriona’s eyes never left her hands or the gem in the pommel that pulsed with the words.
“Koka difénda-a káta-na na ohu kudesahu yokeim kéntau-rosu kudeho yúki.”
As the last words faded into the breeze rustling the leaves above them, a light so bright that Alastriona had to close her eyes burst from the gem. When she opened her eyes again, darkness surrounded her.
Arnhyder’s voice sounded loud in her ears. “I could live a thousand lives and never see anything like this! What was that?”
A soft chuckle which built into a joyous laughter came from Sagishi. Alastriona blinked and looked upward. Stars outlined the elf’s head.
“That, Arnhyder,” Sagishi said when she regained her composure. “That was the magic of the elves!” Awe filled her voice. “I never expected to hear or see it ever again.”
“How can it be?” Alastriona’s voice seemed small and harsh compared to the soft whisper of the magic.
“This place must be an ancient elven village. I can feel the presence of many wise ancestors.” Longing filled Sagishi’s voice.
Arnhyder surprised Alastriona with his words. “We will leave you to wander the grove tonight. Come, Alastriona. I’d like to take a look at your sword in better light, if you don’t mind.”
Alastriona looked back down to the sword. Through the dim green light, she could see that the grass was no longer crawling up her hands, but waving gently in the breeze. With a nod, she began to pull Kingdom Defender out of the ground. The blade slid free without a sound or even a feel of scraping rocks. Alastriona shook her head. After all that had happened that night, it shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. Once the blade was free, Alastriona glanced along its length to make sure nothing had harmed it. Satisfied, she replaced it in its scabbard. Once the sword rested in its customary place on her back, she stood. Addressing the trees, she bowed low.
“Alastriona Álago thanks you from the bottom of her heart for bringing the power back into my sword, Kingdom Defender, and giving the foresight to me. If I can ever repay the debt, I will.”
“My debt will be difficult to repay, young centaur.”
The same voice she had heard on the wind whispered, only this time in a language she could understand.
“Your blade will tell you what I require. Be aware, it will come one day, when you least expect it.”
Alastriona bowed again, her right hand resting at her heart, her left held at her waist.
“I will listen and try to honor you, most noble of elves.”
“We know. That is why we healed your sword. The healing of your mind will require your own magic.”
“My mind?” Confusion clouded Alastriona’s thoughts.
“Yes, your mind. Young centaur, you have been hurt and hold bitterness tightly to your being. As long as you carry this weight, you will not be able to use your sword as it was meant to be used.”
The wind picked up, and Alastriona shivered. She turned to see Arnhyder’s wide dark eyes gazing at her.
The sunrise cast purplish-pink hues across the land, coloring the fog around the grove. Alastriona gave one last glance at the strange trees and turned. As she did, she noticed Sagishi. The elf’s shoulders sagged; her eyes were clouded with an undecipherable feeling. Alastriona walked over to her new friend.
“I didn’t have the opportunity to thank you last night for what you did.”
Sagishi waved away the compliment. “Do not thank me. I have none of the elven magic left in me. Thank them.” She gestured to the trees.
“I have, and I have accepted the debt they laid upon me.”
Sagishi’s dark eyes pierced to Alastriona’s soul. “They spoke to you, too?”
The centaur nodded. A sparrow chirped in the bushes. Sagishi turned away. Alastriona frowned. Had she said something wrong? For a moment, she had seen into the elf’s soul, but as suddenly as the sun going behind a cloud, it had left.
“Leave her be.” Arnhyder strode up beside Alastriona. “Much weighs on her heart. She’ll come around. In the meantime, let’s go. You never know what adventure awaits us.”
A smile creased Alastriona’s face. “No we don’t, Arnhyder, and you live for adventure.”
“That I do.” The gryphon lifted into the air.
Shaking her hair behind her shoulders, Alastriona readjusted her pack. The weight of Kingdom Defender was a comfort. She wondered how the sword would speak to her, but she didn’t doubt the voice that had spoken the night before. One day, she would repay the debt. Until then, she would protect Sagishi; that she knew. With a contented sigh, she lengthened her stride into a gallop to catch up with Arnhyder and the elf.
Even as a young girl, Kandi J Wyatt, had a knack for words. She loved to read them, even if it was on a shampoo bottle! By high school Kandi had learned to put words together on paper to create stories for those she loved. Nowadays, she writes for her kids, whether that’s her own five or the hundreds of students she’s been lucky to teach. When Kandi’s not spinning words to create stories, she’s using them to teach students about Spanish, life, and leadership. Her books include the Dragon Courage series, a middle grade to young adult fantasy, as well as The One Who Sees Me, a Christian historical fiction. You can find out more about her at kandijwyatt.com.
Mothers’ Night Out
“Thank you so much for covering Alaina’s shift tonight,” Josie told me when I stepped into her infant classroom at 6:45.
“No problem,” I told her. “When I clocked out at five, I got some dinner and a couple snacks for later.” I held up my hands to show her my grocery bag and my fast food leftovers.
A flicker of a frown passed over Josie’s face. I checked my attitude, because I knew she was a health nut. Whatever. She was forty-four, the same age as my mom, and looked every bit of it. All that kale and avoidance of gluten wasn’t doing her any big favors. “What’s left over from your dinner?” she asked.
“Half a hamburger.”
She frowned a little more this time and told me, “You’ll have to finish that now before the families arrive, but you can put your drinks in the little fridge over there by the sink.” Okay, maybe she wasn’t judging my choice of food after all. She just didn’t want me eating in front of the kids. I went to throw the hamburger in the trash. “No!” Josie said sharply, stopping me. “I prefer you just eat it, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m really not hungry,” I told her, reaching for the handle to the trash cabinet.
She put her hand on the cabinet to block me. “I’m afraid I must insist that you finish it. So it won’t leave a smell.”
Fine. I took the hamburger out and ate it in three big bites right in front of her.
“Thank you,” she said, not even fazed by my rudeness. She actually looked a little grateful, if that made any sense at all.
After I put up my snacks, I asked, “When did we start opening in the evenings? Is it a special event?”
I’d only been working at New Tradition Day Care since June when I graduated from high school. The place was open normally from 7:30am to 5:30pm. It was a really nice, high quality center, with its own parking lot and ringed by beautiful spruce trees that separated it from a large park. They charged a ton for tuition—not that my measly paycheck reflected any of it.
Josie didn’t stand around while she talked, she kept busy taking all the cotton sheets off the crib mattresses and tossing them to me, then replacing them with waterproof plastic sheets. “Actually, Mallory, this is a regular thing,” she answered. “We keep it pretty hush hush. We wouldn’t want all the parents to know we have a Mother’s Night Out program or we’d be overrun.” She tossed another sheet to me. “Alaina usually helps me, but she just had to go see KISS in concert. She said it only happens once in a blue moon, and she couldn’t miss it.”
Done with the cribs, she got out a couple big plastic bins and gathered all the soft toys into them. Into the bins went the dolls, stuffed animals and even some of the plastic toys like the blocks that could be squeezed. I helped her once I began to understand that she was only leaving out hard plastic toys, the kind that can’t be destroyed. “Alaina said I’d only have to work until 11:00,” I double-checked. “Is she really coming back to work after a concert like that? I wouldn’t.”
“She understands her responsibility,” Josie said, putting the bins in a closet where the babies couldn’t get to them.
“I can stay all night if you need me to,” I said. “Then she won’t have to rush.”
Josie paused and looked me right in the eyes. “I’d prefer you to leave as planned.” Then she smiled. “Besides, I think you’re scheduled to open tomorrow morning for regular care.”
“We could just switch schedules. I feel bad about ruining her good time. Why don’t you call her?”
“No.”
That answer sounded final. I knew the tone well from my mom. I didn’t push it any further.
Headlights came in through the front windows of the room, and Josie quickly pulled the blinds all the way down to block them out. “The parents are arriving. Before they come in, there’s something you should know. These aren’t babies that go to this day care regularly. We’re going to have nine of them. There are two sets of twins and one set of triplets in this group. The youngest is an only child and only nine weeks old. The oldest baby is Ms. Dierdre’s son. He’s eleven months and the third born of a triplet group, but his brothers don’t need to come here anymore.”
Ms. Dierdre was our Center Director. “I didn’t even know she had kids,” I confessed. Josie just shrugged and didn’t offer any more information because the first mom was entering the classroom.
She was introduced to me as Shelley Gray as she pushed her two babies into the room in a two-seat stroller. She wore yoga pants and a tank top like she was headed for the gym instead of a job. The woman was lean and fit, I noticed. Though her babies, two boys, appeared to be about six months old, she didn’t look like she had recently given birth. There wasn’t a hint of leftover pregnancy fat left on her. Mrs. Gray was sweet as could be and seemed delighted that her babies would have a place to stay for the night. She never stopped smiling for a second, thanked us a hundred times, and only had a moment of worry cross her eyes when Josie introduced me and explained that Alaina was going to be late.
“Oh, well, I’m sure you have it all worked out, like usual,” Mrs. Gray said. She winked at me. “You’ll learn a lot from Ms. Josie. Everyone in town says she’s the ‘Baby Whisperer’ because she knows everything there is about taking care of babies.”
Josie gave an aw shucks look that made me laugh out loud. A diaper bag was passed over, and I took it to the counter to put the bottles in the refrigerator. I noticed there were only two. “Um, Mrs. Gray?” I said, trying to catch her before she left. “There aren’t enough bottles for the whole night.”
Mrs. Gray looked uncertainly at Ms. Josie, who said, “Two is all they’ll need. They’re going to bed at eight.”
“O—kay,” I said, but I let them know in my tone that I thought it was stupid not to have a back-up. Some baby whisperer. Everyone knows babies wake up hungry in the middle of the night.
Within the next twenty minutes all the moms had shown up with their kiddos. While they weren’t all in work-out attire, they all were amazingly healthy looking. All of them had sleek, long hair, strong arms and long legs.
The other thing they had in common was the desire to give their kids unusual names. Mrs. Diedre’s son was Maccon. The two girl twins that were nine months old were Susi and Timber. The triplets were Lowell, Canagan, and Channon. Channon was a boy, mind you, and Canagan was the girl. Weird. Mrs. Gray’s twin boys had more normal names. She was kind enough to name them Channing and Colin. The tiniest baby was Felan, a little girl.
Once again, I was kind of glad the babies would all be asleep early, because I didn’t want to have to say those names over and over again all night long.
Ms. Dierdre was the last mom to arrive. She came in a little harried at 6:30 and apologized for being late. She went to plop little Maccon down on the floor, but he refused to bend his body to sit. So, she made sure he was steady in standing position and let go. Maccon smiled giddily, took two steps and fell to his bottom.
“He’s walking now,” Ms. Dierdre told us. “Just a couple steps, but he’ll be good at it within the next week or so if he’s anything like his brothers.”
Josie took the diaper bag from Ms. Dierdre and asked, “So, this will be his last overnight visit then?”
Ms. Diedre beamed with pride. “I think so. It’s about time. His brothers learned to walk at ten months. He’s been slow. I’d keep an eye out on him tonight, though. He’s liable to try to jump out of the crib.”
“Jump out?” I said. I’d babysat a lot of babies over the past four years, and I’d seen babies climb out of cribs but never jump.
Ms. Diedre just patted me on the shoulder and said, “You’ll be gone before then, so you won’t need to concern yourself about it. Ms. Josie knows what to do.”
Maccon was a cute boy with pretty hair that was blond at the roots and dark at the tips. His mom had dark hair with a cool streak of blond close to the front that ran from where she parted it to where her hair was cut just below her shoulder. I once asked a co-worker if she dyed it like that, but I was told it was natural and she’d had that streak of blond her whole life.
