Irish Magic

by Caitlin Ricci

  I don’t want to go to school today.

  Hannah nodded. “I know. I don’t either. I get so bored there. The teacher just goes on and on, and since I’m not a werewolf, most of it doesn’t even apply to me.”

  I am and I don’t listen.

  She frowned at him and started walking again. After some slight tugging he came along, appearing reluctant though. She didn’t blame him. “Why don’t you listen when she’s talking about werewolf stuff? I’m human, so I’ve got my excuse. What’s yours?”

  Her words feel prickly. When I listen it makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t like it.

  Hannah stopped short, unsure of what she should do. “Did you tell your parents?” He nodded. “What did they say?”

  That it was all in my head and I should get over it.

  Rolling her eyes didn’t help anything, but it made her feel better so she indulged in it. “I don’t think it’s all in your head. Who doesn’t have prickly words?”

  You.

  “Yeah, I think you would have told me if I did. Who else?” Hannah pressed him. He was quiet for a long moment until she thought maybe he wouldn’t respond.

  Nicholai.

  Hannah was surprised. Though they’d known the werewolf for a few years now, Uncle Nicholai wasn’t the first person she would have picked to go to. He was really big and kind of intimidating. And his wolf wasn’t like her dad’s or anyone else’s in the pack except for his partner, Uncle Oliver’s. “So…um…I’ll talk to him and see if we can’t get to spend a few hours of class with him today. At least for you. Maybe not for me, don’t know if he’d teach both of us, but you need the werewolf stuff since you’re getting older.” She shrugged lamely, not entirely sure where she was going with this.

  She knew werewolves experienced changes in their bodies just like humans did. They’d had a day long lecture on human reproduction and puberty. At the end of the day she’d left with a massive headache, but plenty of pain killers hidden amongst her bright pink tampon containers to take care of it. But she didn’t know what Ippy would be going through. Maybe Nicholai could help him with that. She hoped so, since she doubted that there would be books on it like the one her aunt had bought her about Aunt Flo and her monthly visits. It had come with another bright pink pack of tampons, but at least there’d also been a big pack of chocolate tucked into the basket. That had been her favorite part by far and she’d eaten the whole thing that afternoon, which resulted in a massive stomachache, but it’d been worth it.

  Her phone beeped and she fished it out of the pocket on her messenger bag. All of her signals sounded the same so she checked to make sure it wasn’t a text from her dads.

  What is it? Ippy asked when she stopped to look at the screen.

  She smiled down at the email. “My application to join the Furred Mysteries forum was approved. I’ll post a message while we have some free time during lunch.” While it wasn’t a big deal to most people, and shouldn’t really have been to her, that was the forum she’d been trying to get into for weeks. They had the largest community of people that were interested in shape-shifters, which meant someone might know the boy she saw when she was nine.

  Do you know what he is yet?

  Ippy was likely well versed in everything she’d already eliminated. From a unicorn to a young dragon, she’d rejected everything that anyone else had suggested in the past six years. Nothing seemed to fit the little boy she’d seen on the platform while waiting for a train with her dads, though it didn’t really help that she’d barely caught a glimpse of him before the train had come and she’d been taken inside by her dads. “Not really. I want to narrow it down more, and part of me is thinking he might be a selkie, but I’m not really sure. We weren’t anywhere near the water when I saw him.”

  Selkies are all girls.

  Hannah shook her head. “Usually they’re girls, yes. But I found a book about the mythical creatures of Ireland that said sometimes they’re boys. I mean, they have to have kids right? So it would make sense that some of them are guys.”

  I don’t think he’s a selkie.

  She nodded. “You might be right. Sometimes I wonder if I just imagined the whole thing. I was nine and I was confused and surrounded by people. Maybe I didn’t actually see anything. Maybe I made the whole thing up.”

  I don’t think that’s what happened. Do you?

  Hannah took a deep breath and thought about it. Did she really see him? “I think I saw what I think I did. As crazy as that makes me sound.”

  You aren’t crazy.

  She laughed and wanted to hug him, but stopped herself before she did. “Thanks,” she said instead, wishing there was a way to tell him how important his confidence in her really was. Since she claimed to see a boy with hurt fur six years before she’d been getting all sorts of strange looks, to the point that she had stopped mentioning him at all. Not because she didn’t still think about him, though. She worried about him nearly constantly, wondering if he was safe.

  The naked trees lessened as they approached Samson and Christopher’s house. Instead of the seasonal trees, her uncle—the pack’s alpha—preferred to have his privacy year round and so had planted thick evergreens all along the fence. The walk had taken a while, as it always did, and her dad would drive them in the winter so she’d get to sleep in a bit, but she liked walking to school with Ippy, even if it did take longer. It was their time away from his family and the class. Her dads didn’t bother them, but it was still nicer to just be with Ippy without everyone else around.

  She pressed the call box at the front of the big iron gate with her free hand.

  “Name?” Uncle Samson’s voice came over the speaker.

  Hannah stuck her tongue out at him. “You can see me! Let us in!”

  “Name?” he repeated.

  “Hannah Glass. Daughter of Liam and Travis Glass. Liam, as you know, is the third in command of your pack. Now let us in or I’m stealing Ippy and we’ll go to a movie instead of school and you can tell my dad that I ditched class because you wouldn’t let us in.” Ippy gasped beside her and she squeezed his hand, letting him know everything was okay. He took things literally and she’d been joking. There was no way their alpha would actually take her threat seriously, though his twin sister, Aunt Evangeline, would have likely driven them to the movies herself and then taken them shopping. She’d done it once, too, and Daddy Liam’s expression when she dropped Hannah off around dinnertime had been priceless. She hadn’t ever seen him that upset before, but Evangeline had smoothed him out somehow while Hannah had gone upstairs to put away her new clothes.

  She heard him laughing as the gate beeped and they were let inside a moment later.

  A long walk down the pine tree lined driveway and they were in front of the house Samson and Christopher shared. It reminded her of an old plantation, complete with bright white columns out front and shutters on every window. The home, if the mansion could really be called that, would look perfect in the south surrounded by Spanish moss. Which was weird, since the town they were in, Pine Hollow, was in the northeast.

  Aunt Evangeline was waiting for them when they got to the front step. Hannah smiled at her and instantly went into her arms for a hug, letting go of Ippy’s hand. She was Uncle Samson’s twin sister, and since they weren’t related to either of her dads by blood or marriage they weren’t really her aunt and uncle. But the pack was pretty much one big family and she’d been calling Samson and his sister, his second in command, Uncle and Aunt since she could remember. Samson’s partner and Evangeline’s guys sort of worked into that same idea.

  “You’re wearing those new jeans I got you,” Evangeline said, stepping out of her hug, but not going far.

  Hannah nodded and started taking off her scarf. “Yeah. They fit. Thanks.”

  Evangeline grinned at her and put her hands on her hips. “They look good on you. Hey, I’m thinking about getting my navel pierced. Get your dads to say yes to you comin
g with me.”

  Hannah snorted and handed her scarf and jacket to Ippy, since he was closest to the closet as he finished putting away his outer layers as well. “You know they’d never go for that.”

  Evangeline rolled her eyes, but was quickly distracted by a large black man coming down the stairs. His skin was only a few shades darker than Evangeline’s own. They reminded Hannah of dark and milk chocolate and on that thought now she really wanted something sweet. “Hannah, Phillip,” Samson greeted them as he joined his sister.

  Ippy stepped forward, tilted his head to the side and offered his alpha the sensitive skin of his neck. Samson nodded at the submissive gesture and Ippy stepped back behind her as quickly as he could. When Samson looked to her, probably for some sort of the same, Hannah merely smirked at him and adjusted her messenger bag on her hip. She was human, not werewolf, so she didn’t feel the need to engage in submissive displays with him or anyone else. She respected him, and that was the difference. His wolf, a fluffy shadow around his face, put his ears back at her, but the man remained completely stoic as he said, “Go on and get to class now, you two.”

  Ippy started heading in that direction, but Hannah wasn’t ready to go just yet. “Is Nicholai here?” she asked Evangeline—after all, the man was her…boyfriend? No, that didn’t sound right. Significant other, maybe. She didn’t know. Either way Evangeline, Nicholai and Oliver were in a relationship. It wasn’t conventional, but they appeared happy, and the men were nice to Evangeline so Hannah didn’t really care.

  Evangeline appeared surprised by her question. Hannah looked to Ippy and found him in the hallway, looking at his shoes. Whether it was out of submission or embarrassment, she didn’t really know. “Ippy wants to talk to him about werewolf stuff.”

  Samson frowned. “You two have a teacher for that. Nicholai is a busy man and—”

  Hannah shook her head. “Ippy doesn’t listen to the teacher. She has prickly words. Nicholai doesn’t.” They didn’t question what she meant by using Ippy’s description of the woman’s words, likely because they knew better. Hannah might have been less than half their ages, but she didn’t put up with anyone, not even the alpha and his second, making her best friend uncomfortable.

  Evangeline looked between Hannah and her brother.

  “For how long?”

  “Huh?” Hannah asked her.

  “How long as the teacher had prickly words? The classes are important, if he hasn’t been listening for the past two years that she’s been teaching that’s an issue that needs to be addressed,” Evangeline explained softly.

  Hannah looked to Ippy for the answer. When he didn’t answer she went over to him, standing in front of him so that he couldn’t ignore her. “How long, Ippy?” she quietly asked him, knowing he didn’t like attention and was probably feeling a bit uncomfortable anyway.

  Stop looking at me.

  His voice was a desperate plea inside her mind and she obeyed instantly, turning her back to him and staring at the wall across from her until he said it was okay to turn back around.

  While it was true that no one ever pushed her around, she never did it to Ippy, either. She’d learned the hard way that backing off and giving him some space was the best thing in the world for him when he was close to lashing out. She’d seen him at his worst and knew it could be scary, both for everyone else and for him. There was no reason to do that to him for just a little answer.

  Tell them she’s always had prickly words.

  “Always,” Hannah told Evangeline and Samson, not taking her gaze off the pale cream wall across from her and the painting of lilies that hung on it. She didn’t need to look at Samson and Evangeline to be able to tell what their expressions were like. She and Ippy were odd to them, and probably to most people, too. But she didn’t care.

  “Better?” she asked Ippy.

  He came around in front of her and nodded without lifting his head. She smiled, hoping that he could see her expression, and offered him her hand. After a long moment of silence, he took it and she turned back to Evangeline and Samson. “So can Ippy spend some time with Nicholai today? If he’s here, of course.”

  Evangeline nodded. “Sure. I’ll go tell him to get his butt out of bed. We stayed over here last night for a horror movie fest. Too bad you couldn’t come.” She turned and headed back up the stairs.

  Samson didn’t move until she’d left. “Hannah, Phillip, would you two please join me in my office?”

  She swallowed thickly, ready for whatever punishment she’d probably earned, and gave her alpha a nod. She tried to stay out of trouble, but it was hard sometimes. She squeezed Ippy’s hand, hoping to reassure both of them at the same time. It didn’t really help as they followed Samson into his office.

  He took a seat behind his big desk and nodded toward the door when they came through. “Close the door behind yourselves and sit down please.”

  Ippy closed the door and she pulled the chairs out for both of them. She hadn’t done anything drastic lately, but still she went through a list of her recent offenses to figure out which one Samson had found out about. Not doing her homework didn’t really seem like a big deal. She’d snuck a cookie before dinner the night before. Class had started and she’d likely be in trouble for being late, but being in a meeting with the alpha was a pretty good excuse for missing the usual crap that the teacher went on about.

  Samson sighed and leaned forward over his desk. “Hannah, Phillip, you two are inseparable so I thought I’d talk to you both at once about this. Phillip, if at any time you want Hannah to leave the room please raise your hand and I will ask her to go. Alright?”

  Hannah nodded and looked to Ippy, waiting for his answer, too. After a moment, he nodded, too, though he didn’t look happy about it as he squirmed in the big chair.

  “We’ve never had a child with autism in the pack before, and it is upsetting to me that Phillip has endured for the past few years with a teacher that didn’t work for him. We won’t be changing out the teachers, but we will find a way to make sure that you get what you need, Phillip. I know you do better when Hannah is with you, so if you want her to be in your lessons, too, then we will do that. But without knowing what you need, I can’t help you,” Samson said quietly, his attention switching between them.

  Hannah bit her bottom lip before answering him. “I don’t always think Ippy knows what he needs, though.”

  Samson nodded and his gaze focused on her for a moment as Ippy stopped moving beside her. “But you seem to know. I need your help to be able to get Phillip the education he needs. You’re both teenagers now, and there are things you’re going to need to know before you become adults.”

  Hannah turned her attention to Ippy. He was looking at her and she offered him a smile. “What do you think?”

  Don’t leave me.

  “Never,” Hannah promised him.

  “So what are you both learning right now?” Samson asked them, his expression going soft.

  Hannah shrugged. “Not much. I’ve read all the books and I guess Ippy hasn’t been listening. I’m not good at math and Ippy knows all the science stuff.” How was she supposed to tell him what she didn’t know?

  Samson’s face pinched. “Obviously I need to meet with each of the students individually. This is not the kind of headache I needed this morning.”

  Hannah flinched. “Sorry,” she mumbled, knowing it wasn’t her fault their teacher wasn’t good, but feeling like she’d had some part in it anyway.

  “You’re fine. Wait here, I’ll get Nicholai and he can at least do some stuff with you today. Tomorrow we’ll sit down with everyone and figure out a lesson plan,” Samson replied, rising from his chair. Hannah offered him a tentative smile which he returned and she felt instantly better. Once he was gone from the room, she pulled her phone out of her bag.

  What are you doing?

  She worked quickly, knowing that she wouldn’t have much time, but wanting to get this post
up there anyway. “Posting on the forum about the boy.”

  Saying what?

  Hannah typed as she talked. “Hello. I hope someone out there can help me. You see, six years ago I was in Ireland and saw a little boy on a train platform. He was wearing a sweatshirt and was with an older man. I think he was a shape-shifter and that he was in trouble. He looked hurt. I want to know that he’s safe.” She frowned down at her phone, wishing that she could describe him more or talk about how his brown fur was hurt or how he wasn’t a wolf like the rest of her family was. Her post sounded so vague.

  You stopped talking.

  She nodded. “I’m not sure what more I can say without giving us away. I mean, I want to find him, but I’m not going to put the people I care about out there, either. These people will probably go ballistic enough with the mention of me saying I think I saw a shape-shifter.” She rolled her eyes. This wasn’t the first forum she’d joined trying to find him over the years, or even the twentieth, and sometimes there were idiots among the curious people. The problem was that she usually didn’t know they were idiots until after talking to them and getting her hopes up. Sighing, she pressed send and figured that she probably wouldn’t get an answer until the day after tomorrow, at the very earliest. It was a big forum, after all, and her post was just a little one asking for information. She tried not to get her hopes up as she put her phone away.

  Her dads had warned her not to expect too much. They didn’t mind her joining the forums or posting on them and they had access to all her accounts, even this new one. She didn’t mind giving them that, since they allowed her plenty of freedom and Christopher, Samson’s partner, was a cop and had sat all the kids down the year before and told them the dangers of making friends online. She was safe—it was the little boy she was worried about. Well, now that she thought about it, he wouldn’t be that little anymore.

  If he was even real to begin with.

  She pulled her legs up under her and faced Ippy. “You okay with this? Doing something different about class?” He nodded and she relaxed as they waited for Samson to come back with Nicholai.