“In the yard?”
“I’m the fox,” he said. “In your yard.”
“The fox?”
“You kept trying to feed me dog food when you were younger.”
“I know about the fox. You’re the fox. In the yard.”
He nodded.
Maybe that was why some part of me recognized him.
“And you knew this, Dad?”
“Yes. I did. You’re handling this really well, by the way.” He stopped writing. “I’m actually really relieved it’s all out in the open. I think you’ll feel a lot better when we’ve all had time to really talk about it. This letter was a good thing, actually. I’d been wondering how to tell you and it just—shoved me off the fence. You and Firian can finally get to know each other.”
Firian peered in the kitchen. “At this point, it hardly matters,” he said. “Usually, familiars retreat by the time a witch is grown. I would only appear to help Charlotte cast a spell. I’ve just been hanging around to make sure the sealing of her magic ‘took’. So…” He opened the fridge and took out one of my dad’s beers. “Once you’re in college, out in the world for good, I’ll take a step back.”
“How often has he been over here?” I asked. “Drinking your beer while underage?”
“I’m not the police,” Dad said. “And—he lives in the backyard. He came over sometimes while you were at school. He watched the movies you won’t watch with me.”
“You—you—you lied to me? About all of this?”
“I know,” Dad said. “I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“I used to play outside naked while the fox in our yard was actually a boy!”
Firian took a drink and sauntered over to me, an enticing smile on his perfect lips. I was starting to feel like I probably shouldn’t think he was attractive. “Rage all you like. But your dad was trying to protect you. From things so horrifying that if you saw them once, you would wake up screaming from nightmares for the rest of your life. Your mother flirted with the darkness.” He paused. “More than flirted…”
“Oh…?”
“She joined the dark side,” Dad said. “Basically.”
I was shaken. Dad always told me that Mom left. He was vague about the details, so I had assumed some country song scenario. Another man, a restless heart, that deal. “And we can’t save her?”
“I can’t,” he said. “I’m human. And you’re a kid. Well, you’re not a kid, I know, but you’re my kid, and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too.” His voice was low and intense, and it made my stomach plunge. We were really close. I couldn’t deny that my dad would do absolutely anything to protect me. It must be torturous, I realized, to lose my mom to some evil force or something, and be helpless to stop it because he was human.
“I just want you to go to college, and make friends, and enjoy yourself, and be happy. I want to help you set up a house one day. I want to come over and fix your toilet leak. I want you to come over for Thanksgiving for my fried turkey. I want normal shit for you because I love you and that’s the only reason I would ever lie to you.”
“Okay, Dad. I understand.” I gave him a hug.
He nodded, and got back to his letter to Merlin College.
I looked at Firian. “What about you?”
“I’m coming over for fried turkey this year,” he said.
Chapter Three
Charlotte
I tried to get back to normal after that, just like my dad wanted. I was still heading off to college soon. I had my usual hobbies. But the next time I tried to play my game, I was antsy. I’d been spending years pretending to be this badass dark mage in the game, and my little relationship between Lord Larius and Firia was like a fan fic I was writing.
But now it was ruined. I knew Firia was really Firian, and…
Is my mom a real life badass dark mage, then?
“Where do you actually live?” I asked Firian. He was now invited to dinner with us. “You don’t really live in the backyard, right?”
“I live in that cabin up on the ridge,” he said, pointing out the window.
We lived sort of in the middle of nowhere, in the northern part of Georgia, where the Appalachian mountains begin. Dad had grown up in Atlanta, and he always seemed like a city guy, but he also had an antisocial quality that had driven him out here, to a cheap plot of land and a house he fixed up himself. We were surrounded by low, forested mountains and the cabin Firian mentioned was the only house we could see from our own windows. But it was on the next mountain over, and very small.
“I thought that was a vacation rental,” I said.
“Sometimes it is,” he said. “I rent out the cabin during the tourist season, and go live in the woods or in the magical realm. I don’t need a lot of money, but that’s just enough.”
“Can I come over some time?”
“If you insist. It’s not much.”
“Well…I don’t insist.” Firian wasn’t that welcoming when I tried to get to know him. I wasn’t sure if I liked having him around or not. I was irritated that he and Dad knew each other already, and although he was willing to answer questions, he didn’t really let me in on his actual life.
“I don’t know if Firian has much of a life,” Dad said, after Firian had left and he was washing the dishes while I dried. “His life is centered around you, kid. That was how your mom’s familiar was. They’re not really human, they just look human.”
“Centered around me? Well, then, why wouldn’t he invite me over?”
He shrugged. “I don’t really understand them.”
“What was mom’s familiar like?”
“I hardly ever saw her. She spent most of her time in the ethereal realm. She took the form of a falcon. Real quiet. Your mom didn’t practice magic until right at the end, so she had no reason to ever show up. Usually, when you grow up, your familiar doesn’t hang around unless you need them. So, when you’re in college you probably won’t see Firian again.”
“Oh.” I bristled. “Why are we even bothering to have him over for dinner, then?”
“You should get to know him a little bit,” Dad said. “Just in case any trouble ever pops up, he’ll be there for you. He can appear near you, wherever you go. Anyway, you already know him, don’t you? From your game?”
“That’s…not the same.”
I thought Firia was my geeky internet boyfriend, which was at least better than nothing. We had spent hours playing the game together and chatting. I didn’t know what to think.
That weekend, Dad was off working some job—he was a handyman, and sometimes he ended up fixing stuff for people on weekends or at weird hours—and I was home alone. I was antsy, so I made some scones. I was a firm believer in baking as a meditation, but then you had to deal with the aftermath: a big pile of flour, sugar, and butter. So I decided to take a walk to Firian’s cabin.
That was probably why I made the scones to begin with, I realized. I needed an excuse.
Outside, the weather was gorgeous. A light breeze stirred the forest around me, and just the right amount of sun filtered through to warm me. I walked down our mountain and then realized that the cabin was farther away than I thought, and also more uphill.
A fox face peeked out of the brush. “Charlotte?”
“Gyaah!” I almost dropped the basket of scones. “How did you talk with a fox mouth?”
“Well, I’m not really a fox. I’m magical.”
“Riiight…well, I just made a huge batch of scones, so I thought…”
He transformed, right before my eyes, into a guy again. Thankfully, he was fully dressed, because I could not handle a schlong right now.
“All of these?” He lifted the cloth covering the scones, and grabbed one to eat now.
“I thought I could…bring them up to you.”
He frowned. “There is a reason why I never told you about me,” he said. “You don’t need a familiar. You have a human life ahead of you, and I would just be in the way
. It’s best if you don’t have to explain me to anyone. The truth’s out. Good. But we can’t get close.”
“Why do you and dad get to decide all of this? What if I want to get to know you?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with my breathtakingly good looks, does it?” he asked.
“No!” I might have protested too vigorously. Truth be told, he was even better looking out here in the woods. The light seemed to give his skin and hair a particular glow. His eyes were off the charts gorgeous. He had appeared in a flannel shirt and jeans, which made him seem like an ethereal lumberjack. The shirt was touchably soft. His fingernails were a little pointed like claws. It was a strange combination. He wasn’t classically rugged, but I had no doubt he could chop the hell out of some wood.
“Because…I could change up my appearance,” he was saying while I had weird fantasies about him swinging an axe into a log.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Do you think you could make it up this slope on foot if you tried?”
“Sure I could. I live on a mountain. I’m in shape.” Admittedly, his mountain was more steep than my mountain.
He grabbed the basket. “Thanks for the scones. I’ll see you later.” He leapt up the rocks, out of reach.
“Hey! I didn’t say you could have all of those!” I threw a pinecone at him, and of course, I missed. “Fine. Jerk.”
I was kicking things on the path as I trekked back up to my own house.
I’d never asked to have a familiar following me around. Well, he was leaving anyway. Fine.
I checked the mailbox on my way up. There was another letter from the school.
Dear Mr. Byrne,
I’m afraid that one cannot simply opt out of attendance to Merlin College. I do not quite understand what you mean by Char being a ‘girl’, but if your son is ‘transgender’, well, our current policy at Merlin College remains to consider gender assignment based on birth for the purposes of learning magic. The test has already been administered and he has been accepted to the school. We will be sending a vehicle for him, and if he refuses admittance to the school, the council will be paying him a visit, if you understand my meaning. Merlin College is one of the top three schools for warlocks in the entire world, and once an applicant has pledged to attend, there are consequences for refusal. I understand that you are a human so you may not fully appreciate what this means for your son.
Char WILL attend Merlin College and it will be our pleasure to be his instructors.
Sincerely,
Ignatius Blair
“What the hell?” I said to the empty room.
This keeps getting weirder. I didn’t apply to go to this school! They think I was born a boy!?
Also, I was getting the feeling this was not a campus with like, safe spaces.
I was starting to feel paranoid. Was I born a boy?
You are not going to go check. You know you’re a girl. This school is confusing you with someone else.
An hour later I was knocking on Firian’s door.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah—I—“
“Can you breathe?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, I have to admit, I am mildly impressed you got here at all.” He held open the door. “Come in. Sit down. Deep breaths.” He handed me a cup of water.
The cabin was nice inside. Very small. Very cabin-y. Like, if you like logs, you’d like the cabin. It had one room on the ground floor and a sleeping loft accessed by a ladder, a wood stove, a tiny kitchen, a couple of large chairs carved from wood with cushions, and a desk with a computer.
“I got another letter from the Merlin College… It’s really weird.” I handed it to him.
“Let me see…” He perused. That was definitely the right verb. “Hmm. You’re right. This is very strange.”
“Are they going to drag me there kicking and screaming?”
“Only if you plan to kick and scream.” He arched a brow at me.
“Well—I can’t go.”
“I guess we’ll see what happens. Someone wants you at this school. Someone forged your acceptance test…somehow.”
“You think?”
“I can’t imagine they’re just mixing up names.”
“Who would do that?”
“I don’t know.” He paused, folding the letter. “We could take up the matter with the council and fight it. You really had your heart set on going to the University of Georgia, didn’t you?”
“You’re being sarcastic,” I said.
Obviously, since I’d known him online for a while, he’d been a witness to the entire college application rigamarole. Dad nagging me about grades and extracurriculars, so I’d be competitive, trying to get scholarships, applying, getting rejected by my top two choices, threatening to go work in retail for the rest of my life, blah blah. It was a pretty familiar story. Dad wanted me to be a more exceptional child than I was. He hadn’t gone to college, he had made some screwed up choices when he was younger, so it took him a while to get this far, ‘this far’ being a small town handyman. He wanted a better life for me.
But who cared? I loved my dad. I loved our easygoing life. I thought I would have been okay with staying here and taking care of him. I had already been sick to my stomach thinking about leaving him alone here.
“You’re worrying about him, aren’t you?” Firian asked.
“Yeah, I…”
My whole mood had changed since the letter came. I had no idea what to major in at the University of Georgia, but I couldn’t stop thinking about learning magic.
“I worry about him too. But he can take care of himself.” Firian perched in the other chair. Everything about his movements was a little more graceful and wild than other guys. It was part of the reason he seemed a lot older than me. “You’ve had a couple of days to think about this, Charlotte.” He raised an eyebrow. “What do you think? We should have told you a long time ago, shouldn’t we?”
“Yes. You should have.”
“At some point, it probably has crossed your mind that you would like to know more about the magical world.”
I nodded. “Like…why am I spending hours sitting at a computer pretending to be a mage when I could be a real one?”
“It sounds like these people from Merlin College are coming for you,” he said. “Like it or not. Witches take their hierarchy very seriously. If you applied to attend this school, it would be a scandal to refuse. I would have to help you take it up with the council, and I can’t guarantee an outcome. I have no pull in the magical world. But…I’m sure we would sort it out eventually. The other option is…you could try it out.”
“It’s an all-boys school, right?”
“Yes.”
“So they’ll reject me when they find out I’m really a girl.”
“Perhaps.” He gave me a conspiratorial look and whirled back into the kitchen. It was almost like he just teleported; just one minute he was standing and in one smooth motion he was back by the stove turning on the coffeemaker.
“What’s that look?”
“Well…you’re right. They might reject you. If they bother to—you know—inspect. However, you already passed the test.”
“But I didn’t pass the test! I don’t know what they’re talking about!”
“All I’m saying is, maybe you should just see what happens.”
“Is that what you want, Firian?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he said, but I didn’t buy that for a second.
“Familiars are probably happier casting magic,” I said. “That’s why you exist, right?” This whole situation was still confusing to me. “You really don’t have any family? You only exist because of me?”
“I was born from your magic,” he said. “That isn’t to say I don’t have my own existence. You might say familiars are the avatar for magic. We take human form from magic so we can communicate with witches. You can cast magic on your own, yes, but to tap into true pow
er, you need me.”
“So you’re the physical embodiment of my magic.”
He nodded.
“Is that weird for you?”
“Why would it be?”
“If I die, do you die too?”
“No,” he said. “I retire to Etherium. But it’s true that familiars don’t often outlive their witches by much. There’s not much point in going on, I guess. But I have hobbies. So I think I’ll be fine.” He sounded almost like he was joking. It was hard to tell.
I stared at the letter while he made us some coffee; to go with the scones, I guess. I was trying to read his body language while he wasn’t looking at me. He seemed pretty laissez-faire, but he wanted me to actually use my magic. I knew it. What good was a familiar’s life if the witch he was attached to never learned any magic?
“Firian? I—I think I should go. If they’ll have me.”
“Ah.”
“That’s what you wanted, right?”
“It’s your decision.”
“Dad won’t like it. But…I need to know more about my mom, I think.”
He handed me the coffee. “Yes…I think you do.”
“Anyway, I’m not going to be able to concentrate on my classes about normal stuff until I understand what I’d be missing.”
Then again, considering I was headed to a school for elite warlocks, where I would be the only girl on campus, I might have some other issues with concentration.
Chapter Four
Charlotte
Whatever I decided, it seemed like I really didn’t have much choice. On September 12th, I woke up wondering if anything would happen. It seemed like just an ordinary day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, my phone rang at eight am and I freaked out but it was just some credit card scam. Dad was making scrambled eggs. He seemed nervous. He never stopped stirring the eggs.
The Fairer Hex Page 2