The Grove

by J. R. King

  Rome rounded a corner on the first floor, heading for his locker. Unfortunately, Logan was already there, leaning against the door and twirling a daffodil between his fingers. Rome held his pace, moving towards him indifferently. The hostility was giving him chills, instinct warning him to err on the side of caution. Thankfully, Aria had gone a little further into detail about whom she was betrothed to. They’d shared a lot of things over the weekend, and yet it was a world he was still struggling to understand – upper class bureaucracy.

  “Do you mind? I’m not really in the mood.”

  “Good,” Logan said. “Neither am I.” He tossed the flower onto the floor, smirking at the agitation on Rome’s face. “I wasn’t here to make idle chat anyways.” Logan folded his arms, staring him down like a disobedient dog. “Weekend’s over,” he said resolutely. “I know what’s mine, even if you don’t, and I’m willing to impress it if need be.”

  Rome felt his face tighten in anger. “Bite me,” he said.

  Logan smiled. “Be careful what you wish for.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, regarding Rome quietly once more. “That attitude isn’t going to get you much around here. In case you were wondering, I own everything, and that includes you. There isn’t a person that can’t be bought or broken, you know?” He laughed humorlessly. “It’s kind of pathetic. Well, we’ll see which you end up being.”

  Rome watched Logan leave, crushing the flower under his shoe as he left. The morning’s confrontation sat at an idle hold for the remainder of the day. There was just enough tension to pinpoint Logan’s quiet malice whenever he walked into a room. It did little except annoy Rome, that negative energy carrying them into the start of their elective classes.

  “Welcome,” Mr. Jones said, greeting students as they filed in.

  Rome traipsed into the classroom, watching Logan collapse into a chair. He could feel him watching his progress around the desks, his stare restless and filled with ill intent.

  “Good, now that we’re all here, let’s begin.” The teacher turned to address his students, smiling merrily. “Beast or Being,” Mr. Jones said, “is a little game we’ll be playing often in this class. I like to make my lessons entertaining as well as informative, and so as soon as you step through that door each day, I want you to be prepared to answer this question.” He pointed at the board, tapping his finger over the words.

  Is it a beast, or is it a being?

  “We’ll be covering both magical and mythical creatures, beings of both known and unconfirmed origins. Some of these critters are real, some only imagined, and some linger somewhere in between fact and fiction. To make it interesting, every time you answer correctly, you’ll collect a point. The person with the most points at the end of the trimester gets to pick a prize out of the prize box.” He rapped his knuckles against the small wooden object sitting on his desk. “Now, I know it doesn’t look like much, but trust me when I say, there are some worthwhile trinkets in there. Alright, why don’t you all start off by writing your answers on a piece of paper? And please do not forget to write your names. If I don’t know who it belongs to, I can’t award any points.”

  Rome squinted at the word scribbled underneath the neatly written question. Nahuals. Why did that sound familiar? He scratched his paper with the tip of his pencil, trying to remember if he’d read something about them before. That’s when he noticed Christian sitting beside him, writing his guess carefully.

  Rome hadn’t been able to see what he’d written, and Mr. Jones had already begun collecting their answers in an old baseball cap. He recalled then where he’d heard the name. It had been in History class, his very first day. He scribbled his answer onto the paper, balling it up and tossing it easily into the hat.

  Christian smirked. “Two points.”

  Rome looked at him uncertainly.

  “Alright,” Mr. Jones said, “on to the answer to our million-dollar question. Are nahuals beasts, or are they beings? Open your books to page two-hundred and twenty-two, and follow along as we outline what, exactly, a nahual is.”

  Rome flipped open his textbook, blinking down at the diminutive section on nahuals. It was maybe the tiniest chapter he’d seen in any of the gifted classes so far. There’d been a chapter on how to identify the base elements in your own body that had been longer than this. Somehow, he was expecting more from something mentioned on page three of their History text. A dated drawing took up most of the first page. It depicted an animal with a shadow in the shape of a human. It was an interesting portrayal, to say the least.

  “Nahuals,” Mr. Jones said, turning to the chalkboard and writing a few key phrases in his handsome cursive, “are a curious study to be sure. They are classified as shapeshifters, but what sets them apart is that no one is quite certain which is their true form: the man or the animal. Nahuals come in a variety of forms. Some are birds, some are mammals, some are amphibians or fish, some are reptiles, and some even take on the shape of insects. The most common variety, if you can call a nahual common, would be large land mammals. They often appear as bears, wild cats and dogs, elk, deer, horses, and so forth. There have been sightings going back hundreds of years; stories and legends of men observing these unique creatures that one moment could be walking upright, and the next, disappearing down a stream or soaring up to meet the sky. They’re fanciful tales to be sure, but what they also are, is true.

  “Nahuals, as defined by the Witches Collective, are witches who have somehow acquired the ability to transform themselves into an animal form. Interestingly enough, the word nahual can be translated quite literally as, ‘transforming witch’. Now, I’m sure that to some of you, transmutation is no foreign subject. However, if you’re acquainted with the study, you should also know that transmuting into a living, breathing creature is much more difficult to achieve than simply turning one object into another. And it’s also much more dangerous. Nahuals take it even a step further by seamlessly changing between their two forms. Not only can they sustain their transformation for prolonged periods, if not indefinitely, but they can call on it at will and maintain their alternate forms without any noticeable impact to either health or magic.

  “It is unknown whether any witch would be able to cultivate such a skill, or if it is a trait that one must be born with. It is apparent, however, that in either case it takes much time, dedication, and practice to perfect such a skill. The Witches Collective has, in the last few decades, deemed practitioners of nahualism to be unstable, and thus hazardous to the rest of society. The art has since been banned, and is seen as quite dangerous. Because although nahuals retained their own thoughts and motivations while as animals, they also shared in the instincts and desires of their beasts, which occasionally would shine through in their actions as witches. It is believed that aside from being able to practice magic while shapeshifting, they may also be able to tap into the senses and abilities of their animal counterparts.”

  Rome was staring down at his textbook in a state of epiphany. This class was turning out to be a real eye-opener. The amusing thing was, half of what Mr. Jones was teaching them wasn’t even in the textbook. He spoke suddenly, interrupting the teacher’s lecture. “How would you be able to tell a nahual from any other shapeshifter if you saw one? For that matter, how would you be able to tell a nahual that took its form as a wolf from a werewolf?” he asked. Rome barely noticed Christian’s assessing glance.

  “Both good questions,” Mr. Jones replied. “A nahual, one that took its shape as a wolf at least, would be slightly smaller and much weaker than your average werewolf. Another way to tell the two apart would be to look up at the sky. Werewolves can generally only transform on a full moon.”

  A boy in the back row raised his hand and Mr. Jones gestured for him to speak.

  “So a nahual could just come and attack us at any time?”

  Mr. Jones laughed. “Not quite. As I said, the magic has been forbidden for some time, and there hasn’t been a reported case of nahualism in many, many years.
Not since before you were born, I’d say. The Witches Collective takes such offenses quite seriously, and the punishment for a practicing nahual can be severe.”

  “How severe?” Rome asked.

  “Well, it would all depend on the individual, I suppose. Who they were, as well as what they were, would all play a crucial role in determining sentence. It might be something as simple as having the offender monitored for several months. Though more commonly, the Collective would have them exiled or incarcerated. There is not much optimism from our governing party that such a rogue practitioner would have the ability to reform. In one severe case I heard about, the man in question was sentenced to death.”

  “That’s insane,” Christian said.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” Mr. Jones replied. “Coming back to the topic of our debate, are nahuals beasts or beings, and if we stumbled upon one today, how should they be handled? The way the law is written makes it apparent that the Witches Collective views nahuals as rogue witches practicing an outlawed art. However, some would argue that it’s a natural born trait, something that cannot be surrendered at will. Others still believe nahuals are nothing more than sophisticated magical creatures, able to pass as witches within our society.

  “Who decides, though? How should we truly categorize them, and where do we draw the line? Can they be captured and studied? Or are they given the same rights, and thus subject to the same rules as any other individual? It’s been a matter of debate for years, and the lack of urgency to solve the issue has led to a near standstill on properly addressing the matter. If you ask me, though,” Mr. Jones said, “I think nahuals are still out there, even to this day. Whether practicing or just existing in the way they were made to. They are still living among us in this world, and they deserve a voice.”

  A girl raised her hand and he called on her to speak.

  “Couldn’t supporting that we question the Collective get you in trouble? I can’t imagine they want you teaching us to doubt their decisions,” she said.

  Mr. Jones smiled warmly at her. “I’m not trying to create little radicals in the making. I want to encourage you all to question the world around you, to question everything in life. Don’t doubt their decisions, but ask yourselves if you think those decisions are just. Brainstorm on how you could make them better, how you could make society better. We all have to be brave sometimes, to speak our minds. Especially if our opinion is an unpopular one. But if you stay quiet, if you sacrifice what you believe in out of fear, you risk compromising who you are. And that is a much more frightening thing.

  “Alright, let’s revisit our little game,” he said, picking up the baseball cap and perching on the edge of his desk. He picked up a few of the answers, dropping them playfully back into the hat before selecting one from the top. “Logan,” he said happily. “At the beginning of class you declared that you thought nahuals to be beasts. Do you stick by that answer?”

  Logan crossed his arms, taking a breath before answering. “Yes. The rules are in place for a reason, and no one should receive special treatment or exclusion from those rules. Anyone who still willingly practices something like that is a liability, and in my mind, no better than a savage.”

  “Alright, let’s see if we can’t find someone who disagrees…” Mr. Jones shuffled through the papers before specifically snagging the crinkled up ball from the bottom of the bunch. He hummed in thought as he read the answer. “Rome,” he said. “You wrote that you thought nahuals were both. What made you think that, and do you still maintain that belief?”

  Rome started turning his ring around on his finger. He’d never been so happy to be called out in class. “I do still believe that,” he said. “The world isn’t black and white. People, as well as animals, are complex. They have systems of hierarchy, instincts, fears. Just because something is a predator doesn’t make you its prey. And it doesn’t make it a savage, either.”

  Logan sneered back at him. “Having sympathy for outsiders because you’re a loner yourself? I wonder if you’d feel the same way when locked in a cage with one of them.”

  “Anything can seem scary if you don’t understand it. What if your best friend turned out to be a nahual?” Rome said. “Someone you liked, someone you trusted and respected? Would your view of them change suddenly because you found out they were different?”

  Logan glared at him. “I don’t make friends with freaks.”

  “You don’t make friends period,” Christian said. “Anyone who doesn’t hate you is just terrified of your stuck-up family.”

  “Alright,” Mr. Jones said, “let’s dial it back a bit.”

  Rome stared at Christian as he came to his defense. It was faint, but he definitely had the sense that he’d been backing him there. He returned to the conversation before the bickering could start up again. “You all know about something that half of the world can only dream of, but you keep it hidden because you know how most people would react. Magic, shapeshifting… it’s all the same. The Collective knows that small minds limit progress, and yet as a whole they can’t imagine a greater understanding than their own without being fearful of it. It’s hypocrisy. Banning nahualism is no different than hunting down a witch and burning them at the stake. My point is that everything has a purpose, whether you realize it or not.”

  “Very interesting perspective,” Mr. Jones said. “And some rather insightful words, I might add. I’ll admit, our subject of the day was a bit of a trick question, so I’d planned on awarding everyone a point anyways. I think we can all agree that Rome deserves an extra point though, for that very compelling argument and his rather accurate answer. We’ll continue our debate on this topic later on this week,” he said. “But I’d have to say for now, when faced with the question of beast or being in regards to nahuals, we should all have to reply: Both.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Fear Not the End

  Kaleb sat on the stiff sofa in Richard’s apartment, wondering not for the first time what had prompted him to come. He’d requested his presence that evening for, as he put it, ‘a chat’. And for reasons beyond comprehension, Kaleb had been obliged to comply. He leaned into the thin cushion, politely refusing when offered a cup of coffee.

  “What is this about?” he asked finally.

  Richard sat across from him in a tall armchair. “Forgive me for having to be nondescript about the nature of our meeting. But I wanted to talk to you in private. I’ve invited someone to join us for this conversation. She shouldn’t be long.”

  Several uncomfortable moments later, a knock came at the door. Richard rose to answer it, leaving Kaleb to wait in a state of unrest in his living room. A short figure moved through the doorway, and Kaleb eyed her warily from his perch on the couch.

  “Ariahna, I’d like to formally introduce you to our guest.”

  In an amused manner, she turned to the boy seated across from the fireplace. “We’ve met, though just briefly.” She smiled, entertaining her father all the same. “It’s Kaleb, right?”

  Kaleb’s stare was penetrating when he settled it on Richard. “Would you care to tell me why we’re here now?” he said.

  In the silence that followed, Richard swept back to his chair, sat quite perplexedly, and seemed to gather his thoughts. Ariahna still had not taken a seat, and she began to do so then, drifting uncertainly to the matching chair fixed opposite him.

  “This will have to do for proper introductions, I’m afraid. By now, you know my name of course, and my profession. I serve as a representative for the Collective, and I have been sent here to act as an intermediary. From here forth, all contact made between the Witches Collective and yourself will be made possible through me.”

  The displeasure was apparent around Kaleb’s eyes. He sat back into the burgundy couch, watching the two of them with equal amounts of distrust. “And I’m not to have any say in who I work with? My father I’m sure had a different contact set in mind for me.”

  “Your father requested tha
t I specifically would look after you. Those were his wishes, which we are humbly complying to.” Kaleb’s gaze shifted to Aria, and Richard turned in his seat, addressing them both. “I’ve asked her here so that you have someone else you can turn to if ever I’m not available. You can trust her as you would me.”

  “I trust you less than you imagine,” Kaleb said.

  “I wish there was something I could tell you to change that…” Richard ducked his head, staring at his entwined fingers. “But unfortunately that is not the case, and these are the circumstances in which we find ourselves. You have me, and you have her. That’s what you’ve been given. I suggest you make the most of it.”

  Ariahna chose that moment to speak up, asking what neither of them had even attempted to answer. “Would you like to tell me who our guest is, perhaps? Or only that the Collective has interest in him and that I’m supposed to act as a contact in your stead? I doubt I’ll be much use if I don’t know all of the particulars.”

  Her father spoke tersely. “The particulars are not of importance. All you need to know is that he is a valuable asset and should be treated with dignity and respect. His private dealings with the Collective are just that; private, and none of your concern.”

  Kaleb folded his arms, observing them curiously. “She doesn’t know?”

  “I would have thought you’d prefer it that way.”

  “I would prefer to have a competent contact, not an ignorant one.” The flames reflecting in Kaleb’s eyes darkened as his eyelids narrowed to mere slits. He regarded Aria then, explaining what he’d assumed was common knowledge between them. “I’m here to find a resolution to everything you all started. I am the answer to the war, the possibility of peace or your inevitable destruction. Son of the King, heir to the First, and a truly poetic ending for us all.” His fangs snapped down abruptly.

  “But you’re—”

  “A witch?” he said. “Don’t remind me.”