Freya's Founding: Book 2 of the Winging It Series

by Sonja Bair

  While holding the phone, it dinged again—my mom saying she had landed. My students started making tsking and booing noises at my flagrant breaking of the no-phone rule, but I had a good enough rapport with them that I knew it was in fun. Nevertheless, I said that, as a show of remorse, I would let them out of class a few minutes early (which was a win for me too, but hey, they didn’t need to know that). Therefore, when the bell signaled the end of the school day, my classroom was already empty and I was ready to go.

  I met Gina and my mom in the parking lot. Both had pleasant smiles on their face; the kind of pleasant that made my teeth clench. Gina handed me the keys and I dropped her back at the house before my mom and I started the forty-five-minute drive to the ranch.

  As we were leaving SLO city limits, I glanced over at my mother. Her eyes were pinched at the corners and her face was paler than normal. She held her body stiffly and was frequently rubbing her temples. Normally, she looked at least a decade younger than her age, but now she looked a decade older. I didn’t know what had caused this change in her demeanor and appearance, but it worried me. I didn’t know what to say to her.

  Mom was the first to break the silence. “She’s trouble.”

  “Explain.”

  “She doesn’t like being at the bottom of the pecking order. She feels like she needs to hold back in order to fit into your pack. ”

  “Okay, I get that. But she, in fact, is holding back. So kudos for her self-control.”

  “But how strong is her self-control?”

  “She’s a teenager who has gone through massive trauma. I think the fact that she is standing upright is evidence that she has good self-control.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She looked out the window and drummed her fingers on the doorframe.

  “That’s it? That’s all you are going to say? Where’s the over-the-top opinions and advice? And the mother-knows-best lecture?” I was actually hoping for it but, of course, would never admit that.

  “Gina doesn’t know what she wants. If her intentions were clear, she would be less trouble. As it is, she wavers between wanting to upset order and wanting to fit in. That indecision will allow her to integrate farther into your lives before she calls down trouble. If she calls down trouble… Or she might use her desire for change to create a better good. I can think of a few people who broke away from the traditions of their ancestors for the betterment of all.” She glanced at me from the corner of her eye before continuing, “She’s trouble because she’s standing at an intersection right now. And I can’t see which way she will turn.”

  I thought back to the literal intersection that we stood in the other day and her interaction with the skateboarder. Was that incident a foreshadowing of her future choice? If so, what did it mean?

  “Speaking of trouble,” I said. “You promised that you would tell me more about the Elder situation and your thoughts on Viktor’s weird call.” She had been frustratingly unspecific during our phone calls up to this point. Her only replies to my incessant questioning about the matter were: “It’s complicated” and “I’ll talk about it later.” Neither of which were satisfactory to my growing curiosity. And now she seemed wound tight with stress and still wasn’t answering my questions. Was it related?

  “You don’t seem yourself,” I said. “Is something wrong?”

  “It’s complicated…” she sighed, but didn’t continue.

  “Does it have to do with the Elder situation?”

  “Your sister should be part of the conversation as well. Let’s talk about it later.”

  Something was definitely wrong.

  Oddly enough, there was a big gray horse tied up to the fence outside my sister’s house. It turned to glance at us rather blankly as we got out of our car and then, deciding we were harmless, rolled its head back to stare straight ahead.

  “So this horse walks into a bar,” I started as my mom groaned in dread, “and the bartender says, ‘Hey!’ The horse looks shocked and then replies, ‘How did you know what I wanted to order?’”

  “I think your dad told me that same joke a few weeks ago.” Her groan turned to a shake of the head.

  “Funny man, my dad.”

  Elin burst through the door just then and enveloped both of us in a massive hug. After our joyful reunion, she explained the equine presence.

  “I know that you wanted to go for a flight, Mom. And I didn’t want you two to have all the fun, so I’m going along on Bandit.”

  “Bandit is a Pegasus? That’s awesome. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “Ha, ha. You’re as funny as Dad. No, the ground is too rough for other kinds of transportation.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I thought we could kill two birds with one stone…”

  “Watch it with the metaphors!” I interrupted, slapping my hand over my heart in pretend horror.

  “…and try to find out who has been trespassing on our ranch land and why.”

  “What’s going on?” my mother asked.

  “We’re seeing evidence of cars and trucks on the property that aren’t ours. But we have so much land, it’s hard to pin down what they are doing. All of us have been so busy and all the cattle are accounted for, so it’s been a low priority to trace the paths. My guess is they’re growing some marijuana somewhere. We had that happen a few years back.”

  Both of them turned to me, bracing themselves for some sort of punny retort.

  “Sounds like a fabulous plan. Let’s do it,” I replied primly. It’s good to shake up family roles occasionally. Besides, Elin probably didn’t want to hear that her ranch had gone to pot.

  Elin rode below my mom and me. Although sans wings, my mom may have looked like a former professor of International Studies at University of Chicago (because she was), when she took to the sky, she was as magnificent as any Alva I had ever seen. As soon as she released her wings, her face started to lose some of its tension. She even smiled slightly as she pushed out her arms and did a slight bend, stretching her back. This was the Alma that I knew—she had no hesitation or question about who she was. She belonged in the sky as much as she belonged on land. Elin, too, was a sight to see. Long, golden hair flowing behind her, and her horsemanship so perfect it looked as if she and her ride were one creature. Although she had never planned to marry into a ranching family, she had absorbed the feel of it into her very being. I wished that, in time, I knew where I belonged and would exude the self-confidence of my mom and sister.

  “There,” my sister shouted and pointed ahead of her. My mom landed softly where she pointed, examining the ground. Sure enough, there was a rough two-track path leading from the dirt road we were on. Bent grass still covered the ground under the improvised road. Vehicles had been out here, but judging by the thinness of the trail and the vegetation still leaning over the path, not many and not for an extended amount of time. Looking ahead, I could see the tracks leading across a field and disappearing into the distance.

  “They seem to be parking their vehicles on the other side of that hill and then hiking somewhere,” said Elin. “If there isn’t anyone parked there now, we can explore more. But if there’s a car, we’ll just go back and call the cops. I don’t want to mess with drug growers.”

  “So much of my day-to-day life is dealing with bureaucracy and paperwork,” my mom said, rolling her shoulders and wings back and forth. “It’s refreshing to be out here— following a trail, searching down bad guys, being free. Problems generally aren’t this black and white.”

  “That reminds me about the Elders…” I started.

  “Later.” She braced her feet and swept into the air without a backward glance.

  We followed the trail for about half a mile before a substantial hill rose ahead of us and cut off our vision of the path. Elin reined in her horse and motioned that we could fly up and over the hill to get a bird’s eye view of any parked vehicles. My mom looked at me—a gleam in her eye, wings beating fast. She really was enjoying thi
s. Taking off in front of me, she rapidly rose over the hill, then paused at the top. Dropping to the ground, she fell to her belly and wiggled until some brush covered her. I stayed below the rise of the hill, waving my hands and trying to catch her eye. She ignored me. I looked back to Elin at the foot of the hill, shrugged, and flew a little farther. Dropping to the ground a little behind my mom, I shimmied up to her hiding spot. Peering down, I spotted a brown pickup truck which looked like its expiration date had come and gone years ago.

  “Is anyone there?” I whispered.

  “Yes. One man just walked over to join the other one on the far side of the truck.”

  “Let’s get out of here and call the cops.”

  She waved me quiet.

  “Really, Mom, we aren’t superheroes and we don’t know if they’re dangerous. Let’s get out of here.”

  The slight noise of pebbles falling down the slope behind us caused me to startle and spring to my feet. Mom pulled me down before I could fully stand.

  “It’s just your sister. Be quiet; I want to see what they’re doing.”

  I looked down the hill. The horse was tied up to a tree at the bottom of the hill and Elin was belly-crawling over to the other side of our mom.

  “What’s...”

  She got waved silent as well. The strangers had now circled around the truck and were standing in full view. Both men’s arms were flying out to their sides, gesticulating wildly. They appeared to be arguing, though the words were lost to the wind. Their confrontation continued as they headed down a slope away from us and then disappeared from view.

  “Let’s go. We can get cell reception on top of a hill not too far from here.”

  As I looked over at Elin, my glance stopped on Mom. The years had slipped off her face and the grin stretching from ear to ear made her look as giddy as a schoolkid. Whatever was bothering her before had slipped from her mind and I wanted to keep that joy going a little longer. A half-planned idea started brewing in my brain. “We could go and call the police… but what fun would that be?”

  “We are not going to rush in there and do a citizen’s arrest, Freya,” Elin hissed at me.

  “Nope. That would be dumb. But Mom seems to be itching for adventure and I could do with some fun, too. Let’s wait until they leave and then sneak down. We can peek into the car and see if we can figure out what they are up to. And then I can do a little, ahem, car maintenance for them.”

  There was a moment of silence as my family caught on to the plan.

  “Ohh, like the car maintenance you performed for Alrik all those years ago?” Elin asked.

  “I wonder if he still remembers that…” I giggled softly.

  “He does,” Mom said with a wicked grin. “He certainly does…”

  Chapter 12

  Before we crept down to the truck, I scouted the position of the two trespassers from high above. They were still walking away from their vehicle. Even if they were to immediately turn around and come back, we would have a good fifteen-minute lead on them. And it wouldn’t take me that long to do my thing.

  Elin was indignant as I landed beside the truck.

  “Those jackals have been poaching off our land.”

  “Poaching? That’s a thing? Like,” I broke into a terrible Cockney accent “‘e’s been poaching ‘Er Majesty’s deer. Off with ‘is ‘ead?”

  “If it were just deer, that would be one thing but, no, based on the antler in the back, it looks like they are poaching tule elk. They’re rare and a protected species. We were so excited to have a herd starting to graze in our lands; they were almost extinct and they are an important part of maintaining native landscape. Now those swine are hunting them.”

  “Well, give me a few minutes and I doubt they will be back anytime soon. And while I’m doing that, be sure to write down the license plates and take pictures for the police.”

  Hopping up into the cab, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. Fast food wrappers were strewn everywhere and the windows were filmed to a hazy gray from years of cigarette smoke. The smell of unwashed bodies and stale smoke permeated the air, only faintly covered by the highly ironic “New Car” air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. My gut, churning in disgust, insisted I finish the job fast.

  I bent down under the steering wheel, for once glad of my small stature. Following the steering column toward the floor, I located the black wire which wasn’t grouped into a bundle. At the intersection of the column and the brake pedal lever, I cut and stripped the wire using a pocket knife Elin found in her saddle bag. A wire running from the brake switch got cut and stripped as well. I twisted the two bare ends together and then tucked them out of the way in the foot well. The brakes would still work fine, just a little… different. Seeing the keys in the ignition, I decided to leave one more parting gift. I turned the key to accessory mode and switched on the radio. Hmm, so they like hard rock. Alrighty then, Tijuana music it will be. Finding the right station, I turned off the car and then spun the volume knob all the way to eleven. You’re welcome, my poachy friends.

  Glad to be finished, I hopped out of the car. I desperately wanted to wash my hands after being in that nasty cab for just a few minutes, but I had to settle for scrubbing them on my jeans.

  “Done?” asked my mom. She was nearly hopping up and down in anticipation.

  “All set to rock their world. Let’s leave a note to scare them into running away as fast as possible.”

  Elin located a pen and small notebook from her handy saddle bag but my mom grabbed it from her. Using big, angry block-letters she scrawled: “YOU BETTER HOPE UR GONE B4 WE GET BACK WITH OUR SHOTGUNS” and tucked the paper under the windshield wipers. Hands on hips, she stood back, looking at her handiwork. Her face set into a look of professorly approval, she nodded sharply. This was the mom I knew—a confident, capable woman who could more than handle any crisis that dared step in her way.

  “Can you tell us about the Elders while we wait for them to return?” I asked.

  A small wrinkle formed between her eyebrows but she agreed, waving us back up the hill to our former observation post. Once settled as comfortably as possible, she started the explanation.

  “I’ll tell you what I know, but keep in mind that I, too, am not an Elder and therefore don’t know all the workings of the council…” She paused to gather her thoughts, then turned to both of us.

  “But before I talk about the Elders, there is something I need to tell you. The peace accord I am set to broker turned uglier than expected. A rouge subgroup of one of the tribes decided that pursuing peace with their enemy would be a mistake. Any compromise, they thought, would be a defilement to their culture and beliefs. In their heads, they were the righteous saviors of their people, and therefore any of their actions would also be righteous. They were nearly done creating and installing a network of powerful explosives in the building in which the peace accord was to be held. And they would have pulled it off, but an outside person infiltrated the rouge group. This mole revealed the bombing plan two days ago and, using that information, the rouge group has been apprehended and is awaiting trial.”

  Elin’s face was white as a ghost and I’m sure mine looked the same. While working for the USN, I had been trapped and tortured by a different group of supernaturals, but I thought that was an unheard-of incident. I never thought my mom’s life would be in danger as an ambassador. But if the plan hadn’t been discovered, she would have been heading to her certain death. I hugged her tight, both relief and fear running strong within me. Squeezing me back, she made soothing noises. Once a mom, always a mom, I guess. Letting me go, she continued.

  “They caught the criminals, so let’s not focus on the what-ifs. I brought up the bomb threat for two reasons. First, the world is not always roses and rainbows. Freya, you are my sunshine girl, but this is a reminder that there are bad people out there. Second, the person that infiltrated and stopped the bombing is associated with the Flock. Although no trail has been found that leads dire
ctly back to Alva orders, it is reasonable to assume that they were operating under the auspices of an Elder, although the Elder was not acting with full council knowledge. An Elder, with or without total council support, would be the only one with the knowledge and resources to make an operation like this occur. So I owe my life to an unknown Elder who, in all likelihood, broke international and Alva laws to infiltrate a foreign supernatural tribe.”

  “You really don’t know who ordered the spy mission?” I asked.

  “No, they hid their tracks well, but I do have a suspicion of which Elder was responsible. Which leads me to the next point—the divisions within the Elder council. As you well know, Elders are elected into their position and once they are elected, they remain in the role until they step down or die. So we are ruled by a mix of democracy and autocracy. Our nearly constant position of power throughout the supernatural world has shown that, at least influence-wise, this is an effective way to rule. As you don’t live near the rest of the Flock, you may not know that there is some unrest, as many people are saying that they don’t want to submit, carte blanche, to the rulings of the Elders; they want a larger voice in decision-making. This sort of dissent has happened in the past but, for the most part, the Elder structure has remained unchanged for centuries.

  “In the last year, an Elder retired and there was a spot open. Your Aunt Tuva was widely expected to get the role, as she has had a long and successful history of leadership through compromise. But a group who believed in our traditional, strong Elder role drummed their followers into action and got their candidate elected. This new Elder is actually a relative of ours as well. Tilde is your… second cousin once-removed, I guess. She promised honor and glory for the Alva while downplaying her rigid view of top-down leadership. But now that she is in office, she has started to act on her authoritative views, to the displeasure of certain groups. There have even been some calls for an impeachment, something that has happened only five other times in our thousand-year history. But just as loud as the protests are accolades for her strong leadership. The Alva are a house divided right now, and tensions are running high.”