by D J DuMont
“That you’re getting up and going god only knows where at an ungodly hour of the morning, each and every morning? I’m a light sleeper, Willow.”
“But you were always snoring when I left.”
“Pretend snoring. To save you your dignity. I wanted to let you think that your little scheme to sneak out was actually working. But you really need to work on your stealth skills, FYI. Anyway, you seem to have overslept today, and I thought you might want to know. Whatever you’re doing seems to be pretty important to you. So I woke you up.”
Willow stared at Alexis. “Oh, no. You’re not supposed to know about this. No one is supposed to know. They’re going to kill me.”
Alexis raised her hands in surrender. “Hey, I don’t know anything. Not anything important, at least. I know you get up and leave early every morning, and that you’re always gone again in the afternoons, and that you never want to hang out with me even when you’re here. But I don’t know what you’re actually doing. And I don’t want to. I’m assuming it’s one of those ‘if I told you I’d have to kill you’ kind of things.”
Alexis chuckled. She was attempting to make a joke of things, but the sad truth was that she was more right than she knew.
“Alexis, listen. I’m sorry. I wish I could explain things, I really do. But it’s complicated. Just know that it has nothing to do with you, okay? You seem like a cool, friendly girl, and I’m sorry you got stuck with a roommate like me.”
Alexis waved away Willow’s apology. “It’s fine. There’s some strange stuff going on at this school, and I have a feeling you’re involved in the strangeness somehow. You and that Sylvie chick you’re always hanging out with.”
Willow swallowed hard. She had seen Alexis and Sylvie talking on occasion in their American Government class. Sylvie had been assigned a seat right by Alexis, and Alexis was friendly to everyone she met. But usually Sylvie was so good about keeping up a front when it came to protecting the Dragon Heart Program. How had Alexis seen through that?
Alexis seemed to notice Willow’s discomfort. It would have been hard to miss. But Alexis only laughed. “Don’t worry. Your secret, whatever that secret actually is, is safe with me. The truth is, I’ve noticed you looking really stressed out, and I feel badly for you. I don’t know much about you, since I hardly ever see you, but I do know you lost your dad not long ago. It can’t be easy to be sent away to boarding school at a new place right after that. I’m not trying to pry into your personal business. I just want you to know that I’m here to help you however I can. And this morning, it seemed like you needed help waking up.”
Willow couldn’t hide her shock completely. Here she had been, trying her best to sneak around Alexis, when Alexis only wanted to be friendly and helpful. Willow could hardly believe Alexis would still want to be nice to her after all the times she’d blown the girl off. The truth was, Willow was exhausted. She’d been waking up early to go practice her magical skills before regular classes started each morning at Birch Point. Then, after her afternoon magic classes, she had been staying late to practice more in the evening. She’d gotten home so late most days that Alexis was already asleep. Or, at least, she’d thought she was already asleep. Now, she wasn’t so sure. The worst part about all of this was that all of Willow’s extra effort didn’t seem to be helping. She was still lagging behind the other trainees, and every day she feared she was going to hear that the search for her father had been called off. But of course, she couldn’t tell Alexis any of this. Despite the fact that Willow was suddenly overcome with an urge to confess everything to her roommate, she knew she never could. It was sweet of Alexis to still be so friendly to her, but Willow couldn’t do much to reciprocate the gesture.
“Thanks. I guess I did need a little help waking up this morning. I’m a lot more tired than usual.”
Alexis smiled at her. “No problem. Now, if you don’t mind, I don’t have a reason to be up at the buttcrack of dawn, so I’m going to head back to bed.”
“Right. Well, thanks again. I’ll see you in class later.”
Alexis nodded, then climbed up onto the top bunk again. Willow quickly pulled on her clothes and her magic ring, then grabbed her coat and tiptoed toward the door. But just as she was about to sneak out, Alexis’ voice filled the air once again.
“Look, I don’t know what your family situation is like. But if you need somewhere to go for Christmas, you’re welcome to come out to California with me. My parents have plenty of room at their place, and you might be ready for a break from the Maine winter by then.”
“Um,” Willow said, unsure of how to respond. The idea of going to California with Alexis did sound appealing. Willow would love to see a new part of the country, and, besides, her mom tended to ignore her during the holidays. It had always been her father who made Christmas magical. Holidays at home without him didn’t feel like holidays. But at the same time, how could she spend a whole two weeks with her roommate whom she’d been avoiding all semester? She would probably have to talk to her quite a bit, and what would she talk about? She might accidentally let something about the Dragon Heart Program slip, and then what?
Alexis must have sensed her hesitation. “You don’t have to answer me right now. Think about it, and talk to your family if you want to. The invitation stands. And don’t worry. I won’t try to pry any secrets out of you.”
“Alright. I’ll let you know.”
Willow slipped out of their dorm room before Alexis could say anything else. She considered the invitation over and over again as she made her way toward the building with the Dragon Heart tunnel. Long gone were the days when Willow needed Sylvie to help her find her way. Now, she could have made this trek in her sleep.
Willow shivered as snow flurries whipped at her face. The early December air nipped at her cheeks, and she turned a worried eye up toward the sky. So far, according to those who had spent the winter in Maine before, the weather this year had been mild. But it seemed that was quickly changing. Willow hurried her pace and made her way into the building, then into the long tunnel and across to the Dragon Heart training facility.
Today, she decided to practice alchemy. Despite all of her hard work, this was one area where she still seemed to lag behind. Yesterday in class, Anjali had asked them to change a chunk of chalcocite into a chunk of pyrite. This should have been an easy task, since both items were of the sulfide class of minerals. Locke, Cara, and Sylvie had all managed to produce the pyrite within fifteen minutes. But by the end of the forty-five minute class, Willow had still been struggling.
Now, she pulled out an empty cauldron and began mixing the ingredients she needed for the changing agent. She followed the formula carefully, her brow creased into a worried furrow the whole time. When she had completed the last step, she brought the liquid to a boil, and then put in the chalcocite. She spoke the necessary words of the magic spell before sitting back to wait. According to her textbook, the chalcocite would need to soak for fifteen minutes, and then it should come out as a perfectly transformed chunk of pyrite.
Willow thumbed through her textbook as she waited. She’d made numerous notes over the course of the last semester, but she wasn’t sure all her hard work was going to matter. She just wasn’t cut out for this. She’d been working as hard as she could, and still she seemed no better off than she’d been at the beginning of the year. She might have given up by now, if not for the fact that her father’s life might be depending on her figuring out how to do all of this.
“Are you out there, Daddy?” she whispered up at the ceiling, as though he might actually be able to hear and answer her. Her plea was only met with the sound of her bubbling cauldron. With a dejected sigh, Willow leaned down and laid her forehead on her textbook. She was so tired. Maybe if she closed her eyes for just a moment she would feel better. She had more than ten minutes remaining until she could check on her chalcocite, anyway.
The next thing Willow knew, she was being shaken awake by a strong hand and a familiar
voice.
“Willow! Willow, wake up.”
Willow blinked her eyes open and looked up to see Anjali peering down at her with concern. The room smelled like burnt toast.
“Willow, what are you doing here?”
Willow suddenly realized where she was, and sat straight up. How long had she been sleeping? Had she missed her classes over at Birch Point? And how was she going to explain to Anjali why she was in the Alchemy room so far outside of class time?
“I…I was practicing alchemy. I wanted to try that spell from yesterday again. The one that everyone managed to do except me.”
Anjali sniffed at the cauldron. “Well, it looks like your second try went even worse than your first. This must have been boiling for at least an hour.”
Willow stood and peered into the cauldron. The liquid was a thick black now, about the consistency of mud.
“Gross. I guess I fell asleep.”
Anjali sighed. “What time did you get here?”
“About four a.m. What time is it now?”
Anjali glanced at her watch. “Just past seven-thirty.”
Willow felt a rush of relief. Her first class was at eight a.m. At least she hadn’t missed that.
Anjali gave her a piercing stare. “I got to work about five minutes ago and smelled something burning. It took me a few minutes to track it down to this room.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll clean this up.” Willow grabbed the cauldron and headed for the oversized sink on the side of the room, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.
“So, I’m guessing you’re the reason I’ve been missing random ingredients from the supply cabinet for the last several weeks.”
Willow couldn’t bring herself to look at Anjali. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d notice. I just wanted to practice. I’ve been leaving before anyone got here so I wouldn’t disturb anyone, but I accidentally fell asleep today.”
“How much extra time have you been spending here, Willow?”
Willow stared down at the cauldron intently, still not daring to look up. “A lot.”
“How much?”
“Two hours in the morning, and then about four more hours at night.”
“Jeez, Willow. No wonder you can’t stay awake. You need to rest more.”
Willow shifted from one foot to another, and finally looked up at Anjali. “I’ve been trying to work extra hard on all this magical stuff to finally get it down.”
“I appreciate your willingness to work hard, but you’re pushing yourself too much. When I told you to try harder, I didn’t mean for you to wear yourself out and never sleep. This stuff takes time to master, and everyone learns it at their own pace. Just because it takes you longer to grasp something than everyone else doesn’t mean you’re not good at it.”
Willow pushed the now clean cauldron back onto the shelf with a loud clang. “I’m so tired of everyone telling me that I’ll be good enough if I just give it time. You keep telling me about all these signs that supposedly mean I’m a great Dragon Heart Agent, like the fact that I took a long time to recover from the virus, or that I got a purple loyalty ring. But I just don’t see it. It all seems pretty made-up to me. If I was really that great, I would have been doing better by now. I would have been at least keeping up with everyone else in class.”
Anjali shook her head and crossed her arms. “Willow, sometimes those with the greatest power take the longest to learn to wield that power properly. But once you learn it, you’ll be amazed at what you can do. I have faith in you.”
“Well, that’s great, because I don’t have much faith in myself.”
Anjali let out a long sigh. “You need to sleep. And I think you also need a break. What are you doing over Christmas? I hope you’re going to have time to relax.”
Willow made a face. “Well, relaxing is unlikely. I’ll probably be going home to my mom, which means she’s going to grill me about how I’ve been doing in school and put a lot of pressure on me to do better, no matter how good my grades are. Ever since my dad disappeared, she’s been really hard on me. We were never that close before, but now it’s like she can’t stand the sight of me. It just reminds her of him or something.”
“I see. Is there anywhere else you could go instead? Any other extended family that might be more relaxing?”
Willow shook her head. “No. All of my extended family would be upset with me for not going to see my mom. They’d just tell me that she needs support during this difficult time. Like it’s somehow my job to make everything right for her.”
Anjali nodded slowly. “I think everyone, including me, has put too much pressure on you to fix things. You know, when I told you to perform as well as you could in hopes the search for your dad would continue, I never meant to make you feel like everything was riding on your shoulders.”
“Isn’t it, though? The search for my dad depends on me and my performance.”
Anjali shrugged. “There are always options, Willow, if you’re willing to find them. If your performance alone isn’t enough to keep the search for your dad going, we’ll find another way.”
“But you said—”
“Forget what I said, Willow. I’ll find a way. Just stop putting so much pressure on yourself. All it’s doing is wearing you out, which isn’t helping our cause any. And speaking of options, are you sure there’s not something else you could do for Christmas break? Somewhere else you could go that’s more relaxing?”
Willow snorted. “The only other option I have would be to spend the break with Alexis.”
“Alexis?”
“She’s my roommate. She invited me to come to California with her for Christmas break.” Willow suddenly felt guilty about the fact that Alexis knew she was sneaking around. But if Anjali noticed anything amiss in Willow’s expression, she didn’t mention it. Instead, she clapped her hands twice and nodded approvingly.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
Willow blinked. “You do? You think I should go to California?”
Anjali nodded. “Absolutely. Time away from all of this is exactly what you need. And you wouldn’t have to worry about any family drama.”
Willow felt confused. “But, Alexis isn’t a Dragon Heart. What if she asks me a bunch of questions about what I’m doing every afternoon at school?”
“Then you just tell her you can’t talk about it and leave it at that. Honestly, Willow, you have to stop worrying so much about what everyone is going to think. Yes, you need to keep this work secret. But if Alexis is not going to push you for details, then it’s fine. You have to make the judgment call on how Alexis handles the fact that you have a secret, but the fact that you’re even telling me about this invitation means you want to go. So go. Have some fun, and get away from all of this for a few weeks. I think you’ll come back and perform much better with a clear head.”
Willow considered this for a few moments. Anjali was right—she did want to go. The last few months had made Willow so tired, and she felt like she was constantly spinning her wheels but getting nowhere. Maybe it was time to try something different. If Anjali thought a break would help her clear her head and do better magic, then so be it. Willow would take a break. She had a feeling that things weren’t going to be any better when she came back, but at least she would have tried. And at least she would have gotten a good vacation out of it. Willow’s mom would throw a fit about the fact that Willow wasn’t coming home for Christmas, but Willow knew she would secretly be happy about it, and would let her go with Alexis.
Willow looked back at Anjali and shrugged. “Alright. I guess I’m going to California for Christmas.”
And then, strangely, Willow felt at peace for the first time since arriving at Birch Point. Perhaps this time away would be exactly what she needed, after all.
Chapter Fourteen
Two weeks later, when final exams were finished, Willow climbed onto a westbound plane with Alexis. Ten hours later, that plane finally landed in sunny San Jose, California. A
lexis’ father worked as some sort of computer whiz for one of Silicon Valley’s numerous tech companies, and had made piles of money when a startup he’d been part of had been bought up by one of the giants of tech. Alexis was an only child, like Willow, but her parents lived in a seven bedroom, six thousand square foot home anyway. A quick internet search told Willow that a home like that in the heart of Silicon Valley cost somewhere in the neighborhood of nine million dollars.
Despite their wealth, though, Alexis’ parents were just as friendly and down-to-earth as Alexis was. They welcomed Willow into their home as though she was a long lost daughter. Alexis’ father apologized profusely that he’d have to work quite a bit over the break and wouldn’t be around much.
“Normally, I would try to take some time off during the break to spend with Alexis, but we have a big product launch going on and I just can’t get away from the office as much as I’d like,” he’d said. Willow was touched that he’d even bothered to apologize. After all, he didn’t even know her, and he certainly didn’t owe her anything. His kind demeanor made her miss her own father even more.
Alexis’ mother, on the other hand, had quite a bit of time to spend with them. She worked for a law firm, but had just wrapped up a huge case, and so could spare some time to take the girls around. Willow found herself in the middle of a grand adventure. One day, she was hiking in the Redwoods of California. The next, she was sitting in the front row of the San Francisco Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. She did touristy things like visiting Alcatraz, and more laid back things like having long, lazy lunches at Alexis’ favorite local restaurants. On Christmas Day, the sun shone brilliantly and the temperature was a balmy sixty-eight degrees. Willow had never felt so much like she was on vacation. And all of her fears that Alexis would press her for information about the Dragon Heart Program proved unfounded. Alexis never mentioned the fact that Willow frequently disappeared at school, or that the two of them hadn’t actually spent that much time together before this break.