by B. J. Smash
“What are you doing?” I asked again. She didn’t answer but hushed me instead.
I thought about protesting but I didn’t get a chance to say anything. A hawk dove out of the sky and swooshed down through the trees. Izadora held her arm out and the copper brown bird landed right on her bare skin. The talons were long and sharp and the bird clenched tightly, but Izadora didn’t flinch. She took something from around his neck and patted his head. His copper eyes watched me and I decided to keep quiet. Izadora reached into her pocket and pulled out some sort of treat and held it out. He took it, gave me one last glance and took off into the trees.
“What the heck?” I said.
Izadora held a slender crystal with pointy edges. “Let’s see what it holds.”
I didn’t even ask her what she meant. I just followed her inside. She grabbed her wooden singing bowl from the kitchen counter and took some spring water from a jug beneath the sink. I knew this spring water was used for spells and divination purposes, but I didn’t expect her to dump the whole jug in the bowl.
She then went to the tree limbs that protruded up through her living room and grabbed a blue bottle and a green bottle. Dropping two drops of each in the bowl, she then plopped the crystal in.
“Carry this to the table,” she demanded.
I picked it up and the wood felt cool in my hands. While I walked it to the table, I noticed that little pictures were forming in the water. Scenic pictures of land and parts of people’s faces. I set it down quickly and some of the water spilled onto the floor.
She sighed and pushed me aside. “I need a klutz spell just for you.”
She touched the water with her finger tips, spoke a few words and then wiped her hands on her apron. “Oh my.”
“What are you doing? Let me see, too,” I said, edging my way in. I had no idea what I was looking for but I still wanted a peek.
“I didn’t think sending Helsberg back to its original time frame would have any repercussions and I was right! But look here…there is one thing that changed history. Just a little bit, not much.”
Drumm pressed up to me now and peaked over my shoulder. “It’s Minnie.”
Squinting, I leaned in. It was woman, maybe in her mid-thirties but the resemblance was uncanny. “That is Minnie!”
“I borrowed a time crystal from mother. Her hawk delivered it to me, as you just witnessed. When you use this specific type of crystal it is easy to look back to the past. Here we have images of Helsberg and what took place over the years.”
“Can’t we just look Helsberg up on the internet and see what happened?” I asked.
She gave me a dour look and said, “I do not need to use the interweb. You can’t trust the information on those things.”
I don’t know if Izadora really even understood the concept of computers and how they worked but I just said, “Oh.”
“Besides. You go ahead and try looking up Helsberg. You won’t find it. It’s under the radar. The djinn sent it back to its secret, original location.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Out west somewhere. Oregon or something like that,” she said in a secretive manner. I didn’t doubt she knew exactly where but she wasn’t going to tell me. “That’s where Darvon’s sister is from,” she added.
“You know he’s dead, right?” I found it strange that she hadn’t asked me any questions but then I remembered that she debriefed Ladriant and Snake Man, and they had witnessed his death.
“He might be. But you have to remember that the Fae are master illusionists,” she said.
I gulped. “He might still be alive?”
“If he is, he’ll wish he was dead. If the djinn’s ever find him. Game over.”
He had to be dead, I’d seen it with my own eyes. There was no way in that short amount of time that he could have faked his death. We returned our attention to picture in the bowl. Minnie sat before a group of people. Two men and two women stood behind her and one lady sat at a table next to her. The men wore button down shirts and the women wore dresses.
Izadora tapped the water and the picture zoomed in to Minnie. I thought this was really neat and I couldn’t imagine how she managed to do that.
“She holds an award. It says she is the first lady veterinarian to use a specific healing technique. Hmmm. I wonder what that means,” Izadora said.
Drumm and I looked at one another but didn’t say a single word. Izadora touched the water and zoomed in to Minnie’s wrist.
“You two! You gave her an elven bracelet.” She drew her grey eyebrows in and gave us a displeased scowl. She scrolled the picture back to the award. “The Drumm Foundation!” she spat.
Drumm swallowed hard and I grabbed his hand. “She helped us out. She wanted something to remember Drumm by.”
“It’ll be fine,” Drumm said.
Izadora slapped the water and the images were gone. “I suppose you are right but I am going to have to look into it.”
I couldn’t help myself and a laugh escaped my mouth. I thought it was great that Minnie had gone into veterinarian science and that we had inspired her to do so. I had to wonder if the technique was the same technique she’d witnessed Drumm using. Drumm relaxed and said, “That is pretty cool. That she learned something of our ways. Not bad.”
Izadora uttered words below her breath as she walked away. It was probably a blessing that we didn’t hear what she said.
“She’ll get over it,” Drumm whispered.
As we stood there dumbfounded, we heard a commotion outside. Both of us went to the porch to find Izadora yelling down over the balcony. At first I thought she had to be angry by the way she acted but then it was evident that she was having a good time.
“You ol’ scoundrel. You’re lucky things turned out the way they did. Or I would have turned you into a cow. Then you’d only be a two foot tall cow but still,” she laughed heartily. Izadora never, ever laughed heartily.
An old man yelled back and I knew that voice well. “You old coot. Are we playing cards tonight? Egbert says he’ll come over. Just don’t peg his other leg.”
I peered over the balcony to see Ish McTish’s white head and white beard. He had a brand new green jacket and Beanie wore a gold bell on his broken horn. As he sat on his giant white hart, he said, “Hi Ivy!” and grinned from ear to ear.
“Hi!” I smiled. I was happy to see that these two had worked through their differences and were getting along fine. Who knew how long it would last?
“I have a bone to pick with Winemaker,” Izadora growled. She called Egbert by his last name and that was never a good sign.
“I’ve got to go for now, Izadora, but I’ll be back tonight. Tell the old man to come too.”
“Edmund is coming. He’ll be glad to see you,” Izadora said.
“Oh! And maybe I can win my old top hat back?” Ish suggested.
“We’ll see,” Izadora replied.
I almost wanted to stick around. Nothing ever good came from witches and wizards playing cards together but if my GG Edmund was coming, he’d be the one to keep the peace. I had heard stories from Ian. When witches and wizards get together, someone always went away with a deformity or as a toad. Now and then a house would get burnt to the ground because of a lightning storm or blown down by the winds of a tornado.
Nope. No good came from card playing. But hey, at least they were getting along for the time being.
***
Aunt Cora tied a small bag to her horse’s saddle. While the elven didn’t usually use saddles, she preferred to use one. She spoke gently to her new horse, Gypsy-Queen, and hummed her a soft melody. The spotted Appaloosa had been a present from her dear Minimus and she couldn’t be happier.
Aunt Clover arrived with a small bag and we were ready to go. She wore a red sundress with black tie dye markings. The bottom part of the dress looked like rags and had an uneven appearance. She sort of reminded me of a bar maid from the old western days.
“I’m ready!” She lifted
a duffle bag to Izadora’s stairs. “I just wish I could bring my dog. But mom said she’d look after her. They seemed to be getting along fine when I left.”
It was actually a relief to know that Gran would have someone to look after. What better company than a dog? I felt a little bit better about all of us leaving now. I had also been informed by Izadora that my sister agreed to stop by and help Gran out at the café from time to time. Even though her life was in the ocean now, she still loved her land legs.
Ladriant stood between Solstice and another horse called Wynter, an Irish Cob that looked similar to Solstice but with more white hair. While Solstice’s main was half black and half white, Wynter’s main was pure white. While other horses can be trained or bred to fly, it comes easiest to the Irish Cob. They tell me that this horse had been friends with Solstice before he came to Merribay.
He would be Ladriant’s and Aunt Clover’s ride. It was decided that Ladriant should go to Hy Brasil with us because Maximus wanted to meet him. No one would ever think of arguing with Maximus and so it was a done deal. Not even Drumm seemed to care.
Before we mounted the horses, Izadora came down to the top of the steps and handed me a small purple bag that fit in the palm of my hand. It was tied with a dark purple ribbon. “Keep this on you. Never take it off!”
“Okedoke,” I said and sniffed it. I would like to say it smelled of roses but it smelled more like oregano or something. I sneezed three times and stuffed in on the inner pocket of my robe.
I wore a brand new robe today. Izadora had made it for me, since she was a proficient seamstress and she’d made elven garments before. It was a beautiful shade of green and sewn into the seam was the faintest silver thread. She informed me that it was rare thread made by magical spiders. On the inside were two pockets, one on either side. Supposedly, I would be able to put several things in these pockets and it would not show on the outside. It was similar to her magical blue robe but probably would not hold nearly as much stuff. She had bone knives, pans, books, crystals, and rocks stuffed in there. You name it...she probably had it.
She told me to come up the stairs and I did. She said in a low voice, so that no one else could hear, “Thank you for saving me back in Helsberg. I appreciate that you came to my aid.”
Wow! She was actually saying thank you. Two words she wasn’t really familiar with. “No problem Izadora. You’ve saved me plenty of times.”
“I have, haven’t I?” she snickered.
“Besides, you probably still had powers. You were just seeing if I could save you,” I said. I wanted to know if she would have been able to defend herself, or if she had just wanted to see if I could do it.
But I’ll never know. She didn’t answer and I could read nothing in her expression. Instead she said, “Let me see the gem that the djinn put on your wrist.”
I turned my wrist over. I hadn’t told anyone about it yet. Things had been too hectic. I don’t know how she knew about it; it wasn’t terribly noticeable. The sapphire had sunk lower into my skin and I had almost forgotten about it, myself. She reached out and touched the small sapphire and then picked at it with her nails.
“It’s in there. Probably for good,” she said.
“Is that bad?” I asked.
“Probably not. From what I hear about gifts from the djinn, they can be tricky at times but just be careful.”
“How so?”
“Well, sometimes they are more powerful than you anticipate,” she explained.
“That’s probably how I was able to use the retrieving spell. I really didn’t think I’d be able to save Ladriant and Snake Man from their doom.”
She held back a smile and avoided eye contact. It dawned on me that it might not have been just me that saved them after all. However, I’ll never know. She wouldn’t ever admit it.
“How did you know about the sapphire? I forgot to mention it and it’s really not that noticeable,” I said.
“If an object holds magic; I can see it. I could sense it the day you arrived and I knew exactly what it was. Just keep the elven stone your mother gave you and the sachet I made for you. The three things all together should keep you safe,” Izadora said.
“Safe from what?”
Her white hair fluttered in the wind and my wise old mentor said, “You should know by now, to always be on guard. You never know what’s going to happen; just that it is going to happen.”
I didn’t know what she meant but I agreed.
“Go now. The boy waits,” Izadora said. She could have meant that Lucian was awaiting the cure. Or she could have meant Drumm was waiting for me now. Either way, she was right.
Below us, Ladriant sat on Wynter, and Drumm laced his fingers together and helped Aunt Clover on the horse. She sat behind Ladriant and her head only came to between his shoulder blades.
“Make sure you hold on,” I said.
“Of course I’ll hold on,” Aunt Clover said.
“Uh…she means really hold on Clover. Tightly,” Aunt Cora said.
“Alright. But why?” Aunt Clover said confused. She wrapped her arms around Ladriant’s midriff.
“You’ll see,” Aunt Cora said while tidying her hair into a pony tail.
“Shouldn’t we tell her?” Drumm asked concerned, as he hopped up on Solstice’s back. Solstice whinnied and dug his hoof in the grass. He was ready to go.
“Nah,” I said.
I jumped on Solstice’s back with ease and adjusted myself behind Drumm.
“How do you jump like that? He’s such a big horse and you just seemed to fly right up there,” Aunt Clover observed.
“She’s half elven, remember?” Aunt Cora said.
“I know, but...” Aunt Clover said.
“Oh Clover, you have a lot to learn.” Aunt Cora nudged her horse in the flanks and they were on their way. Wynter followed closely behind them. Drumm and I both turned to wave at Izadora. She nodded once and watched as Solstice took off after the other horses.
We whipped through the brush and jumped over a fallen log. At one point Solstice passed the other horses. He had to be first, he couldn’t stand it otherwise. We practically flew over a wide stream and I turned to make sure Aunt Clover was still with us.
She waved and then quickly hugged Ladriant again. When we came to the edge of Merribay, the aunts “oohed” and “ahhed” at the fantastic city. The sun peaked above the horizon and shimmered gold rays over the ocean. The city itself was amazing and the structures, other-worldly. There were white towers with blue and gold spires, and the ocean crashed and spilled over the walls and into the city itself. Colored roofs dotted the rocky hillside, and cobble-stoned pathways intertwined between the buildings.
I inhaled the fresh, crisp air. It smelled of brine but the air was so pure it was energizing.
“I love Port de Mer!” Aunt Clover said, whiffing the air.
“I do, too!” Aunt Cora agreed.
“I love the city too but time is wasting. We must carry on,” Drumm said.
Ladriant agreed. He’d been awfully quiet this morning but I assumed that he was just enjoying life. I suppose that’s what we both should be doing. Enjoying life. We’d almost died only yesterday. I took in another deep breath of air. I saw him do the same.
Finally, it was time to start the real part of the journey. All three horses lined up beside one another, and Drumm asked Aunt Clover if she was ready. She said, “Uh-huh.”
“Good! Let’s go,” Drumm said.
“Well, aren’t we boarding the horses on a boat or something? How are we going to get there?” Aunt Clover asked innocently.
Just like me and my first time traveling to Hy Brasil, no one had prepared Aunt Clover for what was to happen next. They all found it funny. It was twisted but we were Seaforth’s. You had to expect it.
Drumm pointed along the cliffs edge and said, “We run down this way and then take it from there.”
“But there is nothing but cliffs that way and then the ocean for miles and mile
s,” Aunt Clover said.
“Yup. You’re right,” I said. I knew my Aunt Clover to be a bold and adventurous gal, but this was probably the limit.
Drumm leaned down and prepared to whisper in Solstice’s ear. Solstice shifted his head around, swaying it back and forth, and pawed at the dirt. When Drumm said, “Take us to Hy Brasil,” the horse bolted forth at tremendous speed, leaving the others in his dust.
Without looking back, I knew my Aunt had just figured it out. I smiled as she screamed expletives and then her voice went up to a high pitch squeal. Aunt Cora laughed and I could have sworn over the thumping hoof beats that she called out, “Muhahahaaa!”
And as Solstice’s back hooves left the edge of the cliff, and rocks crumbled down to the watery depths, I laughed hysterically. This had to be the best way to travel. Flying horses…nothing could ever beat that!
Hy Brasil
Solstice landed with a series of loud thuds as we hit the misty shore of Hy Brasil. His large hooves kicked wet sand up to our feet and legs, and Drumm slowed him down to wait for the others to arrive. He didn’t particularly want to wait and he impatiently shimmied sideways.
“Hold on. Patience is not your virtue,” Drumm scolded.
Solstice neighed back and attempted to stand still.
The sun was just setting and the sky held an ominous quality about it. It was different shades of dark blues, with a spattering of purple wisps. Black rain clouds threatened to roll in from the east, and it was already damp and drizzling.
Solstice whirled around and whinnied. His ears went up and he listened for his friends. I watched the dark woods that lay right above the rocky bank. The closely knitted trees were crooked, bent and gnarly. They somehow reminded me of old men frozen in time. The place was nightmarish and I shivered. I knew for a fact there were strange things in the woods, but I also knew, that Maximus had full authority over the island. Nothing bad would happen to us here.