by Ed Masessa
“Randall,” Henry said solemnly. “Please call him by his name.”
A range of emotions flashed across Coralis’s face before it twitched in a brief smile. “Yes. Well, if not for Randall’s interference, we wouldn’t be alive to have this discussion. In fact … ” His words were cut off by a piercing scream from somewhere in the castle.
“Brianna!” Henry shoved his chair back and started for the door.
“Wait!” Gretchen froze Henry in midstride with a powerful burst of Voice. “I will tend to your sister’s needs.” She brushed brusquely past Henry and moved with remarkable speed up the staircase.
“What’s happening?” Henry spun on Coralis. “What’s wrong with my sister, and why aren’t you helping her?”
“Calm down, Henry,” Coralis commanded as he directed everyone back to the table. “Her transformation from hedgehog back to human form has come with some residual side effects that have only recently begun to manifest.”
“Wait a minute,” Luis interrupted. “You have a sister here in the castle who used to be a hedgehog?”
“It was an accident,” Henry mumbled, and blushed.
“You did it? You turned your own sister into a rodent?” Luis laughed so hard he was unable to catch his breath.
“Stop it!” Serena scolded. “He said it was an accident.”
Henry was about to thank her when Katelyn squeezed his hand gently. “Seems like we have a wee bit in common. My guess is Luis has a story to tell as well.”
His face darkened like a storm cloud. “I have nothing to say. Nothing in common with you two. When that creepy falcon gave me that wand, I threw it away!”
“Then what is that in your hand?” Katelyn asked slyly.
Luis stood, his eyes ablaze in defiance. “It’s none of your business!” He stabbed his fork into the bowl of mashed cauliflower and stomped angrily out of the room.
Coralis slumped back in his chair and massaged his temples. “Oy,” he said softly, then got up and left the room.
“Looks like the Wand Master has bitten off more than he can chew,” Katelyn said as she began eating again.
“Indeed he has,” Serena said silently to Henry.
But Henry wasn’t listening. He was remembering something Katelyn had said—about how the falcon had brought her a wand six months ago.
But Randall had been dead for more than a year.
The following morning, the sun rose in a cloudless sky, streaming through Henry’s window with the promise of a better day … not that Henry was aware of it. He snored softly on his back, mouth agape. The sun continued to climb until it reached high enough to catch the glass frame of a picture on the wall at just the right angle, deflecting a brilliant ray of sunshine directly onto Henry’s face.
He winced, moaned, and rolled over. Yet even in his half-conscious state, he realized something was wrong. It took all of three seconds for his slumber to wear off as he leapt from the bed. “Holy moly, what time is it?” He lunged for his watch. “Nine o’clock? What the … How the … ”
He raced around the room, pulling on whatever clothes he could find. He yanked open the door, hopping on one foot while frantically trying to put a shoe on the other. Running down hallways and skidding around corners, he arrived at the kitchen in record time.
“Good morning, Liebchen,” Gretchen sang as she handed him a steaming bowl of oatmeal.
“No time for breakfast,” Henry said breathlessly. “Where is everyone? Why didn’t someone wake me?”
“Oh, that,” she said sheepishly. “Well, the others are at lessons, and I asked Coralis if I could borrow you for a bit.”
“Borrow?” He rubbed the top of his head vigorously. “I don’t understand. Coralis is teaching. I need to be there.”
“There is more to life than what Coralis can teach,” she said, stern yet pleasant. “Now eat.”
“Good morning.” Brianna shuffled into the room, stifling a yawn. She took the oatmeal from Henry’s hands, sat heavily, and began chowing down. “Mmmm … food. Oh, hi, Henry.”
“You just took my breakfast. What do you mean ‘oh, hi, Henry’? Didn’t you see me here?” This is just like the old days. Good old annoying Brianna, he thought.
“I am not annoying. Just very hungry,” she said with her mouth full. “Can you please pass me a banana?”
“Sure. Wait … How did you know what I was thinking?” He passed the banana, eyeing her suspiciously.
“Really? I’m gulping down boiling-hot oatmeal like a bowl of pudding and that’s the question you ask?” Brianna rolled her eyes at Gretchen. “I am trying to be patient.”
“What did I tell you, young lady? No reading the brains.” Gretchen took the empty bowl from Brianna and ladled another scoop of oatmeal.
“I told you I can’t help it. Your brains are screaming at me.” She attacked the second bowl with as much vigor as the first. “Fine!” She put the spoon down. “I’ll slow down.”
Henry’s mind swirled with questions. “Um, okay. Let’s start with the obvious. How can you eat boiling-hot oatmeal without scalding your mouth?”
“Good question,” Brianna said. “I don’t have an answer. Two days ago, my stomach became a bottomless pit, and I’m not going to let a bit of heat stop me from filling it. Next?”
“How long have you been able to read minds?” Henry wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to that one.
“You mean, how long have I known you have a crush on Serena?” She smiled mischievously.
“What? No! I mean … ”
She laughed. “Relax, Henry. Nobody has to read your mind to guess that. It’s plain as day.” Gretchen turned to cough, attempting to hide her laugh. Brianna continued. “To answer your question, it happened shortly after my appetite flared up. But on the bright side, I can only hear thoughts that are directed at me. Weird, huh?”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Because I’ve been practicing. I was eavesdropping on your dinner last night. And I gotta tell ya, the smell of all that food was hard to ignore. Nobody knew I was out in the hall, so nobody thought to think anything about me. Everything was quiet.” She suddenly got serious. “But then I heard … other voices.”
“What others?” He turned to Gretchen, assuming more guests had arrived, but she simply shrugged.
“Voices in the walls,” Brianna said. “All jabbering nonsense. I ran back to my room in a panic. I thought maybe I was going crazy. Until the mouse appeared.” Her body shook as she recalled the memory. “That’s when I screamed. When I heard the mouse speak.”
“Talking mice?” he asked incredulously. “You are crazy.”
“I wish,” she said glumly. “It wasn’t talking to me. Just squeaking like ordinary mice do, but I understood it.”
“What did it say?”
“Ha! Does it matter? Some nonsense about food and string and babies.” Brianna waved her hands helplessly. “He wasn’t the only one. Apparently this place is overrun with mice, and I could hear all of them. It was deafening.” She pushed the bowl away and leaned forward, gently banging her forehead against the table. “Coralis can’t explain it. Gretchen can’t explain it. And I’m going nuts.” She sat up quickly. “Speaking of nuts, is there any more oatmeal?”
“Peanut butter,” Henry thought at her.
“I love peanut butter! Do you have any?” she asked.
“Guacamole,” he thought.
“With corn chips? Excellent idea, Henry!”
“All right already.” He laughed. “I get it. You can hear mice, read minds—sometimes—and want to eat everything in sight. Is there anything else?”
Brianna hesitated for only a second. “No. That’s all.”
“Ahem.” Gretchen drummed her fingers on the tabletop.
Brianna’s shoulders slumped. “Okay … I have to clip my fingernails every day.”
“Every day?” Henry exclaimed.
“But not my toenails—only my fingers.”
“What happens if yo
u don’t?”
“I’m afraid to find out.”
“Is this why Coralis kept me out of today’s lessons? Do the others know?” Henry asked Gretchen.
“Ja und nein.” She smiled warmly. “Sometimes brothers und sisters can help each other in ways no one else can.” She stepped into the large walk-in pantry, came out with a fully stuffed World War II vintage backpack, and thrust it at Henry. “For your hike.”
Brianna clapped her hands excitedly, but Henry’s thoughts went immediately to his last encounter with Forest. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“I beg to differ,” said someone behind them.
Henry and Brianna whipped their heads toward the new voice—one they immediately recognized. “Molly!” They nearly tripped over each other as they ran to wrap her in a hug.
“When did you get here?” Henry asked happily.
Molly yawned. “About an hour ago. Coralis sent for me, so I closed up the shop and caught the first plane out of JFK. Looks like I arrived just in time, too.”
Henry couldn’t believe it. Molly had been the first person they’d turned to when their mother suddenly disappeared and Brianna transformed into a hedgehog. She operated a small tavern on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that was a local refuge for the Wandmakers’ Guild. And she had an amazing collection of oddities in her basement workshop.
Then something occurred to him. “Molly, this is Brianna.”
“Aye, I know. ’Tis my little hedgehog all grown up.” She ran her hand through the permanent blue streak in Brianna’s hair, a remnant of their last adventure. “Though she’s a wee bit older than I thought she’d be.”
Brianna giggled.
“I have a feeling we have a lot of catching up to do.” Molly laughed. “So when do we start that hike?”
“Here’s the list so far.” Henry and Molly sat in the shade of a tall pine tree and waited for Brianna to catch up. It hadn’t taken long for her to realize that a hike was not the same as a casual stroll. Forest allowed them fairly easy passage, but the terrain was much more hilly and rugged than anything Brianna was accustomed to.
Their goal was to find out what kind of animals Brianna could connect with. Molly read from the list. “To varying degrees, she can hear red squirrels, wood mice, marmots, voles, and shrews. All are rodents, except the shrew, so … I don’t know what to make of that.” She scratched her head, puzzled. “Then there are the ones that were blank—a red fox, a brown bear, a hare, and, most intriguing, a hedgehog. I had a theory that she was somehow connecting to rodents because of her time as a hedgehog.”
“But hedgehogs aren’t actually rodents,” said Henry, equally puzzled.
“Which leaves us with—I have no idea.” Molly leaned back, staring up at nothing, trying to make some sense of it.
“Phew! That was some hill.” Brianna wiped beads of sweat from her forehead and plopped down to join them. “Can we eat now?”
“You’ve already eaten everything,” Henry complained. “Have you considered the rest of us might be hungry, too?”
“Not as hungry as I am,” she moaned as Molly handed her the list of animals. “So what does any of this mean? Henry is the animal expert, not me. And what’s a marmot?” She passed the list to Henry and rummaged through the backpack. “I thought we had some apples in here.”
“The marmot was that oversize squirrel you fed the apple slices to,” said Molly. “You said it wanted them.”
“Oh yeah.” She tossed the bag aside. “I probably should have waited. It was either apples or wood chips, and we didn’t have wood chips.”
“What exactly do you hear?” Molly asked.
“It’s hard to explain.” Brianna stood and gazed up into the trees. “They aren’t words or symbols or even pictures. They’re just chirps and squeals that mean things to them, and somehow I can translate them … Well, almost. I think if I practice, I’ll get better at it.”
Henry shook his head. In a way, it made sense to him. His own connection with nature had gotten stronger since he began studying with Coralis. There was a subtle power he could feel in just about everything, especially in animals and minerals. He thought back to the revelations at dinner the previous night. Katelyn’s experience had been horrifying. And while he didn’t know why Luis’s reaction was so violent, he suspected the boy’s first experiences might have been pretty bad as well. Henry was glad that Coralis had been there to guide him before he did anything destructive … not that changing his sister into a hedgehog was anything to sneeze at.
Suddenly he turned to Molly. “Why did Coralis send for you? There are only five of us. Coralis shouldn’t really need an assistant. Unless … Is he going somewhere?”
Molly laughed. “Oh, he can handle the training all right. It’s the teenage hormones he’s not so good with.” She stood and brushed the pine needles from her pants. “Don’t look so confused, Henry. Lock a few boys and girls your age in a castle and nature takes its course. Coralis tells me Luis bothers you.”
“No, he doesn’t.” His response was too defensive and he immediately knew it. “It’s not that he bothers me; he’s just so angry. He seems to hate me and I just met him. Although he’s fine with Serena.” Then it dawned on him. Luis’s hostility toward him was only part of the problem. He’d told Coralis he’d work through it. But that was before he saw Luis and Serena together.
He was jealous.
“Hormones,” Brianna teased.
“You’re not immune, young lady,” Molly chided. “You went through a physical growth spurt, but soon your hormones will catch up as well.”
“Ew!” Brianna wrinkled her nose. “Boys will always be yucky.”
Henry laughed. “For a second, you looked like your old hedgehog self.”
Brianna appeared to be thinking of a comeback, but Molly stepped in. “We’d best be moving along. And I can use the exercise. I must confess, I’m a wee bit out of shape. And to answer your other question, Henry, yes, Coralis will soon be taking a short trip. He won’t tell me where, but I can tell you he’s worried.” She motioned for them to follow, then set off at a brisk pace.
Henry directed a thought at Brianna. “What do you think that means?”
“Who cares? We’ll get to spend more time with Molly!” She smiled broadly and jogged to catch up.
Henry was about to follow when he suddenly felt as if someone was watching him. He scanned the forest until the feeling passed, then ran after the others.
He missed a falcon taking flight.
Clouds thickened overhead, blocking the remaining sunlight. The darkness of twilight settled long before they returned to the castle walls, circling the perimeter twice before an opening finally appeared to let them in.
“This place still has the same sense of humor I remember from long ago,” Molly said.
“Yeah, it’s a real barrel of laughs,” Henry said sarcastically, recalling the time he’d fallen through the wall.
Gretchen waved to them from across the courtyard and beckoned them into the castle, where they found the kitchen table set for the four of them. “The others have already eaten,” she said happily as she handed out generous bowls of vegetable stew. Brianna was on her second bowl before the stew had cooled enough for Henry and Molly to start eating. “I see your little walk has given one of you an appetite.” Gretchen chuckled.
“Where are the others?” Henry asked.
“In the Kunstkammer. We have a new arrival. A young girl, Bryndis, from Greenland. An interesting addition, if I do say so.”
“Another apprentice? In the Kunstkammer? But even we haven’t been allowed in there yet!” Henry whined.
“Ja. Und she put that other young man right in his place.” She laughed. “Uff! There were fireworks for sure. I think that is why they went to the Kunstkammer so soon. It is good you came when you did,” she said to Molly. “I’ve never seen Coralis so flustered.”
“Hormones?” Molly winked at Henry.
When they
arrived at Coralis’s Kunstkammer—his innermost private workspace—Luis was trapped in one corner by a grayish-brown snake with dark brown blotches. And the girl who could only be Bryndis was trapped in the opposite corner by a nasty-looking olive-brown snake. It hissed at her, the insides of its mouth black as coal.
“It’s about time you got back,” Coralis growled at Molly.
“Now, is that any way to treat an old friend?” She gave him a light pat on the back and faced the new apprentices. “How about we start with some introductions. My name is Molly.”
“Luis.” His voice trembled as he stared at the deadly viper, which whipped threateningly.
“Bryndis,” the new girl said gruffly. Henry studied her briefly, trying not to stare. She was nearly as tall as Molly but stockier, with short, dark brown hair and skin a few shades darker than Serena’s. She wore thick boots that appeared to be made of animal skin. Her heavy, knitted sweater was red, with an intricate geometric pattern of many bright colors.
She looked as though she was ready for a harsh winter, and Henry was instantly curious about her. Yet her most noteworthy feature was the raw power that emanated from her in waves. She stood very still but did not appear frightened by the snake. Henry thought she either wasn’t aware of its deadly venom or simply didn’t care—and it was probably the latter. His instincts told him she could probably make the snake go away if she wanted to.
With a quick jerk of her head, she delivered a wave of frosty air in his direction. “Stop look,” she said in choppy English.
“Sorry.” He turned to Serena for help.
“I am Serena.” She introduced herself and extended a hand toward Molly.
“Ah, yes, the Navajo girl. So good to finally meet you.” Molly raised an approving eyebrow in Henry’s direction.
“And I am Katelyn.”
Molly spoke to her in a foreign language for nearly a minute. It must have been about something funny because by the end they were both laughing.
“What so funny?” said Bryndis, her eyes ablaze.
“My apologies.” Katelyn dipped her head. “’Tis nice to know someone else here speaks Gaelic, my native language. And rest assured, the joke was not at your expense.”