by Melle Amade
Here, in this tiny farming community on the valley floor, a good mile from the tree line, I’m exposed.
“C’mon.” I nod Roman towards the barn doors where the pale sky is just sliding between the wooden slats. There’s no point in us trying to sleep anymore. In the couple of weeks since we had these cursed collars around our necks, neither of us have slept well anyway. I shake the straw out of my hair and tug at the tangles that have slipped into the metal ring.
How has Lady Heather, the witch El Oso keeps at his side, worn this thing for more than twenty years?
I can’t fathom it.
The shooting pains that surge through me any time I try to shift into my bird self is unbearable. Doesn’t matter whether I try to be a raven or a dove, the collar flawlessly stops any attempt to shift.
After the first couple of days I stopped trying. The pain lasts well beyond the attempt, reverberating through my body the whole next day and sometimes into the night.
Sometimes I can tell when Roman has done it. He walks more stiffly, doesn’t talk as much, and certainly doesn’t smile. But I know he’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking. If we could just shift one time, we would be small enough to get out of these collars. We would be free of them and we would be able to be ourselves; not just our human selves but our animal selves as well.
I realize if I can’t get the collar off, it’s going to be twice as hard, if not a hundred times harder to get my father out of El Oso’s hands.
Not that I mention that to Roman, not right now. I’ve seen how much pain he is in and I can’t bear to add my frustration to it. What kind of an idiot was I to try to assassinate El Oso, the most powerful Berzerken shifter in the world? I tried to pretend it wasn’t such a bad idea and, you know, if he didn’t have some weird green magic power, it might have actually worked. But, seriously I was a complete idiot. I had just learned how to shift, had just learned how to control the shift between the dove and raven. I thought I was some badass Ravensgaard warrior able to assassinate the leader of the Order. I cringe when I think of the audacity of it.
And yet here I am again, still believing, still hoping there’s some way I can get out of this collar. The same collar a powerful shifter leopard hasn’t been able to get out of in two decades. A collar that makes her a slave to El Oso and anything he demands. But still I have hope. There’s got to be a way.
The sky is a flat indigo backdrop to the dark mountains surrounding Potter Valley. The valley itself is quite small, about three miles at its widest point by eight miles long. We got here through a narrow canyon road cut from the hillside that tumbled into the Russian River. A two-lane potholed thoroughfare led through the crevice and into this fertile valley full of pastures, vineyards and orchards. Cows and sheep were everywhere. Only a few houses dotted the landscape, and most of them were weather beaten, whatever people could afford to put on the land they probably inherited from the first homesteaders. The road leading into the valley is a dead-end. It heads straight through Potter Valley, over the hill, and ends in some forest.
We are guests of Spotswood Ranch. Apparently, all the older places have names, given to them when first settled. There’s the Dickey Dixons, Twin Oaks, and Valley View. From what I’ve seen, the place we’re staying at, which belongs to Zan’s aunt and uncle, is by far the nicest in the valley. When we pulled up two weeks ago to the old Gothic house, I thought we were in great luck. The red brick, pristine building looked more like a manor than just a house. It definitely wasn’t as big as the Van Arend’s, but it was just as stunning in its own right. The house has pale green trim, wrought iron railings all around the eves, and above its two stories rises a single square tower Zan calls ‘the lookout.’
There’s a thick brick fence that encloses a few of the acres that contain the houses and the barn and its accompanying sheds. Wrought iron spikes line the top of the brick perimeter and iron lions guard either side of the entry gate. At first, I thought it a bit funny because lions seem out of place in Potter Valley. Lions don’t live here, just coyotes. But, I guess the lions carry the message: “Don’t mess with us.”
Right now, the house is quiet. Only the light on the wrap-around porch is on. They get up early in the country, but not so early as two young shifters wearing collars.
I chew a bit on the inside of my mouth as I follow Roman to the stack of hay bales resting between the house and the barn. Although, that’s not right. They’re bales of straw, not hay. Hay is green and food for cows. Straw is golden and cows poop on it. I have learned so much in a couple of weeks in the country, I can barely stand it.
As Roman climbs up the bales of straw and sits down, it reminds me of the picnic bench under the tree at Topanga High School where we used to hang out all the time. That world seems a lifetime away. I don’t even think I’d recognize if it slapped me in the face—the naïve days when I believed my friends were just normal friends. Now I know for sure they’re my best friends. They are loyal to a fault. To their own damnation. I can’t even look at Roman’s metal collar. It chokes me more than the one I wear.
They were never just my friends.
They are all shifters. And not just any shifters. Aiden, still in Topanga, is the heir to the Kortsrijk, the high seat of Muiderkring West. Zan is a fierce coyote and was Aiden’s girlfriend up until a few weeks ago when I screwed it up. And Callum... Callum is Ridder to the Kortsrijk, Knight of the Realm, who leads the Ravensgaard to protect Aiden’s family, the Van Arends. Then there’s Roman. Roman is the most badass of them all. The most poisonous frog in the world. Everybody’s scared of him. Or they were, before he joined me in my attempted assassination of El Oso and we both got banished out of the shifter world.
Mostly I don’t care about being banished, the Order seems to be full of idiots anyhow. But my friends were supposed to cut us off, which they didn’t and are now breaking the law. My father gave himself to the Order to keep Roman and I alive. There is something my Dad has that El Oso wants.
“Are you awake or just sleepwalking?” Roman asks, biting down on a piece of straw.
“It’s 5:30 in the morning, jerk-face,” I say. “We should still be asleep.”
“Dude, I’m not the jerk-face,” Roman says, “that rooster is.”
“I’m sorry, you’re never a jerk-face.” I can’t believe I called him that. Roman is the last person I should name-call. Closing my eyes I take a deep breath of the fresh grass air.
“Never?” Roman asks. “That’s a little disappointing. Do you think I’m losing my edge?”
A weak snort comes out of me. “What do you think they want my father for?” I ask softly.
“Oh, good,” Roman says. “It’s the ‘What did my dad say? What does my dad know? Why did my dad sacrifice himself?’ pre-sunrise conversation. My favorite.”
“He said he knows where it is.” I ignore Roman’s taunts.
“Yeah, I missed that bit. Had a bear paw crushing my face,” Roman says. “But you know what he said. The chalice. He knows where the chalice is. But we don’t.”
“It wasn’t just the chalice.” The words spinning around and around in my head. “He said, you can have me and the chalice.”
“Right. And he transformed into a dove, a Passief, in front of a bunch of predators and they didn’t kill him on sight.”
“No. That’s the weirdest thing, isn’t it?”
Roman’s dark skin stands out against the golden straw bales around us. “Yes,” he agrees. “I would’ve liked to have seen the moment. No chance anyone videoed it on their phone, is there?”
My elbow catches him sharply in the ribs. “I wasn’t exactly surveying the audience.”
“So clearly there’s something about the Passiefs that El Oso wants,” Roman says. “Something nobody else knows. However, we don’t have a Passief around anymore.” He looks at me sideways. “So, until we find your father, we’re probably never going to know what it is. Because your father certainly knew what it was El Oso was looking for. He made it
perfectly clear.”
I try not to cringe visibly; I’m still a Passief. But I never really was only a Passief. I’m a Nuverling–we just didn’t know it. At first, they thought I was only a dove. Doves are Passiefs who defended humans against other shifters during an ancient war, and paid dearly for it when the predator shifters nearly drove the Passiefs to extinction. So, when I first shifted and showed myself to be a Passief, even my friends almost killed me, as they’d been taught. But they stood by me. And then, when Murtagh, Callum’s insane uncle, tried to revolt against Lord Van Arend and almost killed my little brother Henry, in my anger, I shifted into a raven and saved him. It took us a while to figure out I’m a Nuverling. A mixed breed shifter who can shift into two different animals. In my case, that was a dove and a raven. The only problem, as we found in shifter history books is that Nuverlings have unstable cells that destroy each other unless a form of binding magic was performed to choose one animal over the other.
I glance over at Roman and almost feel ashamed I’ve never told him the truth about my choice, but I don’t know how to say it now. My friends worked really hard with Zaragoza to do the binding spell to make the raven override the dove. We thought I could only choose one—and we chose the raven to protect me. But I couldn’t let my father’s side go and just let the dove disappear. Yes, my mother had raven blood and I could shift into a raven, but it wasn’t all I wanted. My father’s family was destroyed by the Order; men, women, and children in the Australian outback. massacred in cold blood Being a dove was a heritage I couldn’t just let go. I wouldn’t let my dad be the last dove, even if it meant putting myself in danger. So, Dad used ancient Aborigine magic to balance the dove and raven in my body and now, well, before I had this blasted collar, I can shift into the dove or raven comfortably. To the best of our knowledge, I am the only Nuverling in the world. The only one still alive whose body wasn’t trying to rip itself apart.
But the tyrannical rule of El Oso was too much. He killed Zaragoza, the warlock who conducted my Bloedhart ceremony helped me transform into a raven in the first place and then found the binding magic that would save my life. It was too much; El Oso had to be stopped.
“What are you thinking about?” Roman asked and I realize I’ve been quiet for a while.
“Zaragoza,” I throw out the first thing I can think of, but don’t tell him I was thinking I’m still a raven and a dove. Roman, Zan, Aiden, and Callum all think I am only the raven; I have lied to protect them. If they find out, and even though they’re on the outskirts of the Order now, they may want to go back. It may take lifetimes before Passiefs are not reviled.
“He’s dead, Shae,” Roman says. His face, already dark from the natural hue of his skin, is hidden in the shadows. “He’s not suddenly going to pop out of the woodwork and save us. Nothing’s gonna save us.”
I swallow hard. I know Roman well. He’s only sixteen like the rest of us, but he made his own decision to help execute El Oso. And even though Roman’s actions are not my responsibility, I can’t help but feel like a complete jerk that he is banished with me. And probably what is worse -- I’m relieved I don’t have to go through this alone.
I’m the jerk-face.
Roman stands up as the barn door opens. “Well, whatever brilliant plans you have for getting these collars off, rescuing your father, and saving the world, Shae, are going to have to wait.”
We both glance over at Cooper as he walks out of the barn stretching and smiling.
“There are animals to feed,” Roman and I say in unison.
I frown as I follow Roman towards the barn. He’s not the same guy he was before all this happened. But I guess none of us are. The question is, who are we going to become? Because I know we have to become something else if we’re ever going to fix this mess.
4
“Where you going?” I ask Zan as she lopes down the front porch steps later than morning, past where I’m watering the front garden, and heads toward her Jeep. It doesn’t look anything like her red Jeep down in L.A. It’s an old beat-up thing that apparently Uncle Steve used to drive when he was younger. He gave it to Zan when she started driving, which is apparently around fourteen up here. They don’t have cops in Potter Valley so all the kids get behind the wheel young, usually starting on a tractor. She keeps the Jeep for doing local errands. But now sixteen, I guess she can take it into town if she wanted to. Still seems weird she has this whole life up here that I’ve never known about.
“Aunt Emma needs some milk for the gravy,” Zan says.
“Oh, can I come?” I turn off the hose and head towards her. We don’t get much time alone anymore. This is a good chance to check in with her and I also kind of want to see if The Lodge is open.
I jump into the Jeep and for a second it almost feels like old times, driving through Topanga, except the roads here aren’t curvy or hilly at all, they’re just straight and narrow, past open fields of pastures with cows and orchards. But sitting next to Zan in a Jeep, well it just feels normal.
Minutes later we slowly cruise down Main Street. I glance out the window at the tiny wooden houses built about one car-width apart. You’d think out here people would take advantage of the space and get as much land as possible. But I guess not everyone can live on a farm. Main Street cuts the valley in half, width-wise and is the central hub of Potter Valley. There’s a community center, mechanic, church, rodeo grounds and about forty small homes lining either side of the street. Most of the places are impeccably manicured, but a few are faded and worn around the edges. We pass the old school building, built in 1921 according to the numbers above the front door, and I get a sudden pang of homesickness. It’s a single building like the brick educational fortress of Topanga. You only see those types of schools in small, isolated communities.
“How are you doing?” I ask as we drive down main street. “You know, without seeing Aiden.”
Her gaze whirls as if she might snap at me, but I hold steady, my eyes clear. She takes a deep breath exhaling slowly. “I’m okay,” she says. “It’s just, you know, I always knew Aiden and I weren’t going to last. I always knew it was just this thing that was happening. And I get what went on between you guys. I’m not even mad about it. Anymore. I just...I just miss him. And I don’t even think that I miss him so much as a boyfriend. I just miss hanging out with him.”
I’m treading on eggshells here. I miss him, too. But after I kissed him behind her back while they were dating, I don’t think I’m allowed to say that.
“I know you miss him too,” Zan says it for me.
“Man, I love you,” I say. “After all I put you through, and you are still just so cool.”
Zan’s laughs as she shifts the Jeep up a gear. “I don’t know about that. There’s been a few times when I would’ve clawed your face. But this is the kind of stuff that makes long-term friendships, isn’t it? We go through things together.”
“That’s why I feel bad for Aiden,” I say. “It’s like we all left him there. His dad’s really sick and all of us ditched.”
“Well, you and Roman had to leave,” Zan glances over at me. “That was a crazy maneuver trying to assassinate El Oso.”
I close my eyes for a moment because it’s still kind of hard to figure out what I was thinking. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Can you do me a favor?” she asks.
“What’s that?”
“Next time you have a ‘good idea,’ can you make sure you run it past someone?” She throws me a sideways grin.
I nod. “Yeah.”
She slows down the Jeep. “No. For real. You have a lot of ideas that you take action on and don’t run past anybody. We’re all in this together. I think we’ve made that pretty clear. So, you have to include us in these things.”
“Yes. I got it,” I say.
She holds out her hand, little finger raised. “Pinky promise?”
I shake my head but wrap my pinky around hers. “Pinky promise,” I say. “But may
be you want to get Roman to do that. I don’t see myself doing anything crazy anytime soon. He, on the other hand, is a bit of a loose cannon.”
Zan’s face grows serious. “Yeah. We’ve all had a bit of a rough time. But we’ll make it through.”
She slows down, turns the corner, and parks at the store. I bring up the topic that’s been on my mind for a week or so now. “I think we need to reach out to Aiden.”
She nods hesitantly. “Yeah, I know. I still have to get that scrambling box from whoever Cooper thinks he can get one from. But I’ll focus on it.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “We really need to know what’s going on back in Topanga. If we are ever going to figure out where El Oso is, we have to stay in communication.”
“You know you can’t just go after El Oso,” Zan says. “First we have to figure out what the green energy is. We have to understand his power.”
“I know,” I say. “But that’s another reason why we need you to hook up some computers around here. We need to get moving, Zan. Besides, it might distract Roman from bucking broncos and other crazy stuff.”
“The headache he had all night might be enough to keep him off of them,” Zan smiles. “Then again, it is Roman.”
“Yeah, so I doubt it.”
We get out in front of Hopper’s Corner Store. It’s a two-story, bright yellow, wooden building, which has probably been here over a hundred years. There’s a billboard above it with the words “Hopper’s Corner Store” and a drive through overhanging where people can buy four-dollar gasoline. The other bigger building here is a long low-lying dark brown saloon, complete with wooden sidewalk, swinging doors, and hitching posts, which I’m sure still get their fair share of use. In between the saloon and the store there is just enough space to squeeze in what people in L.A. would call a tiny house and sell without land for $135,000, but here, well, it’s just a glorified shed.
“The Lodge” is painted on the wooden board above the front entryway and the window has a display of some of the beautiful baskets and necklaces I saw at the rodeo yesterday. I haven’t thought twice about Jacqueline since the rodeo, but now, if my crazy hunch is right and she created the earthquake, I want to find out more.