Nellie crinkled her nose at the strong stench of rotting meat and burnt hair. She clamped her free hand over her nose, raising the flashlight she held in the other. There was a clear trail through the trees with broken twigs creating an outline roughly seven feet tall. Her skin broke out in goose pimples.
A crash caused her to jump. She cut her scream short, spinning to capture the creature in her light. She exhaled, her adrenaline still coursing through her enough to make her tremble, as a lanky Hispanic boy around fifteen stumbled through the nearest bush.
“Fin,” Nellie hissed. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
Fin opened his mouth, clamped it shut, and waved his hand in front of his face. “Whew! That bigfoot is close all right!”
“Fin! Ssh!”
“Chill, Nell, we’re just tracking it,” Fin said. “We ain’t supposed to find it.” He squinted at her, frowning. “You’re using the wrong light. And, it’s in my eyes.”
Nellie hastily pointed the flashlight down and switched it to the red light. She stuck close to Fin as they stalked through the woods; she clutching the flashlight and he whacking tree trunks with a switch.
The smell grew stronger. Nellie kept her jaw clenched to stop from visibly gagging.
The trees ahead creaked. The red beam shone on a large, hairy figure crouched and hunched over. Its mossy greenish-brown shoulders heaved as it crunched something that sounded sickenly like bones.
“Oh,” Fin gasped weakly.
The bigfoot snapped its head up and towards them. Its mouth dribbled, and Nellie was hoping the red was just due to the flashlight. She froze as its silverback-like mouth trembled with snarls.
“Nell,” Fin said, keeping his voice low and elbowing her. “The light.” He jabbed her harder, right in the ribs. “Switch the light!”
Nellie fumbled with the flashlight, taking her eyes from the bigfoot as it rose. Cold sweat broke over her as it roared. She managed to switch back to the overly bright, white-yellow light just as she felt the hot breath of the bigfoot bearing over them. She swung it up into its beady, black eyes.
The bigfoot bellowed out in discomfort, spinning away from the light.
She was yanked sideways, then away into a run by Fin. He had his phone out above his head. The weak light of the cracked screen glowed like a rectangular wisp.
“Cal,” Fin called out. “Bigfoot incoming!”
A whistling hiss cut the air, followed by another before the first had time to die away. There was a thunk-thunk and a mighty crash of the bigfoot tripping over itself.
Nellie slowed to see what happened, but Fin grabbed her shoulder to keep her running forward. They put enough space that the bigfoot chose not to follow; its thumping steps trailing and the awful smell drifting off.
They broke through the treeline at a trot.
A large, lush lawn stretched up a gentle hill towards a palace of a house. It was made up of two sections, a three-story and a two-story. There was a story-high connector made of multiple windows that looked like a warm, glowing corridor from the dark. Many of the windows twinkled with light, lighting the house enough to show the neat, black shutters and stone facade.
There was a large firepit near the tennis court off to the side. Laughter wafted towards them on the notes of a speaker playing music, letting them know they were safe.
Fin straightened, stretching his back with a small groan. He flashed Nellie a smile. “S’mores?”
---
The sun blared through a slit in the deep green, velvet drapes, rousing Nellie from her pillows.
Her room at Silas’s compound was a perfect square with dark wood trim and navy walls. Her sleigh style, kingsized bed was loaded with plush pillows, crisp sheets, and a deer skin blanket. It was always hard to leave it.
She was assaulted by the smell of bacon, sausages, and syrup as she headed for the dining room. Her stomach groaned.
The dining room was a cavernous room with a vaulted ceiling. A crystal chandelier was in the middle above the long, rectangular table that stood before a huge, stone fireplace. A shiny gong the size of a trashcan lid was placed off to the side. The table had twelve place settings, three of which were empty. A second table, half as long and half as wide, was against the wall where Nellie entered. This table was ladened with breakfast foods.
She loaded her plate with waffles, eggs, and bacon, and had just sat down when a stout, elderly woman drew everyone’s attention with a slam of her ornate walking stick against the gong.
“Perenelle Herle. Serafin Cabrera. Calix Dimopoulos,” she named off sharply. “Mr. Javernick wants a word. Now.”
She grabbed a waffle on her way out, and was joined by an exhausted looking Fin and a tall, olive-skinned boy with soft, brown curls. She trailed them, their strides being longer, down a hall with white wainscotting to a dark door with bronze fittings. A plaque next to the door read: S. Javernick.
“You think we’re in trouble,” Nellie asked the two older boys.
“We are,” Fin said. “He’ll let you off for being a kid.”
Silas was eating his own breakfast at his desk. He was engrossed with papers on his desk, his reading glasses low on his hawkish nose. He peered over the top of them, set them aside, and straightened.
“Which one of you had the idea to go annoy our resident bigfoot,” Silas asked.
“I thought Nell could get some extra training in,” Fin said. “She’s been here a week, and you haven’t–.”
“Exactly, Serafin,” Silas said firmly. “She’s been here a week. Far too soon to toss her out in the woods in the middle of the night.”
“That’s why I went with her,” Fin said. “I had backup.”
“Calix,” Silas said, nodding to the tall boy.
“I feel Fin had good idea,” Calix said, heavily accented. “I say yes when he ask me to trip bigfoot if I need to. I need to. I trip it. We all go to the fire.”
Silas leaned back in his leather chair, pinching at his eyes. “I’m not saying the plan wasn’t effective. I’m upset that you did it without clearing it. And for dragging a young girl along.”
“This is what we’re training for,” Fin challenged.
“Knight Cabrera didn’t send you here for you to take your training into your own hands,” Silas said. “He certainly didn’t send you here to drag Commander Herle’s daughter off on some hazing trip.” Silas looked at Calix. “Anything to add?”
“I hit target using night goggles…,” Calix said offhandedly.
Silas’s mouth twitched as he tried stopping a smirk.
“You two go back to breakfast before it gets cold,” Silas said. “I need to talk to Nellie.”
“Sorry, Nell,” Fin said, backing out of the office.
“Sorry,” Calix repeated, doing the same.
Nellie squirmed where she stood once the two boys left. Her shoulders eased as Silas smiled at her, shaking his head.
“I know you’re eager to get out in the field, but I promised Nathalie you’d be safe,” Silas said.
“Fin and Calix were with me,” Nellie said. “They’ve been doing this forever.”
“Nellie,” Silas said, a tone of warning.
She sighed heavily. “Fine. I won’t go sneak around the woods.”
“You’ll have field work before you go back to school,” Silas said. “Don’t rush it.” He gestured to the door. “Go get breakfast. Oh, one more thing. Morgan is due to arrive by tonight. I don’t want to put extra pressure on you, but… he is your cousin. Just keep an eye on him.”
Her plate was cold when she returned to it. The warm syrup helped very little, but the food was still delicious. She was the last in the dining room and took her time, enjoying the silence.
Morgan arriving would put them at ten, not including Silas and Mrs. Adams. Six of the ten were boys, and with the youngest of the boys being thirteen, all of them were teenagers. She had a lot of fun with them, but they could be loud and gross beyond her tolerance level.
She headed outside into a warm, sunny day with a welcomed breeze. Figures of the other kids dotted the hillside. It was easy to pick Calix out from the others with him standing apart, shooting at targets. There was a flash of fire which signaled to Itzel—the second oldest of the girls—sparring among them.
Nellie counted six people running, jumping, swinging, shooting. She veered away to the far lawn where the gardens and stables were kept. She waved largely at the two figures in the garden.
Ava jumped up, waving back. “Hey! Missed you at breakfast.”
“Silas didn’t appreciate the extra curricular activity last night,” Nellie said. She glanced at the willowy sixteen-year-old girl with impossibly long, blonde hair. This girl was sitting in the dirt, holding a weed against the bright sky with a vacant smile. “Good morning, Lilac. …What’re you doing?”
“There are so many veins,” Lilac murmured. “Do leaves bleed?”
Nellie inched away from Lilac and turned her full attention to Ava. “What’re you doing in the garden? I thought you were here to learn from Arch and Itzel?”
“Yes… but, they wanted to practice so I…,” Ava trailed away.
It was a welcomed surprise when Nellie met Ava at the airport to fly to Silas’s compound. She apparently came from a line of druids, and her mother’s green thumb was more magical than colloquial. She was supposed to learn the basics from the other two mages to help strengthen her weak, nature-based magic.
Itzel favored fire, and lacked patience. It made her a poor tutor, worse still was the language barrier.
Arch was just Arch.
“Do you see this flower,” Lilac interjected. She was lightly running her fingers up a tall sprig of deep, blue flowers. “It’s poisonous. Causes paralysis.”
“...Cool,” Nellie said.
There was a lapse of silence as Lilac set about plucking the blue flowers, carefully placing them in a small, wicker basket. Nellie suspected the next flower she turned her attentions to was also poisonous.
“Want to visit Hodge,” Nellie asked Ava.
They took a cobbled path from the garden up to the stables. The stables were a long, elegant building made of stone. There were twelve extra large box stalls, a tack room, a carriage room, and a loft.
Hodge was in the stall nestled by the tack room right by the entrance. He was snoozing with his feet curled to his stomach. His head bobbed rhythmically as if he was dreaming.
“He’s so beautiful,” Ava whispered, clutching the bars on the door. Tears brimmed her eyes. She hastily removed her glasses to wipe them away. “S-sorry. This is a lot.”
“Tell me about it,” Nellie said. She pressed her face into the bars to watch Hodge sleep. “I’ve had five months to get used to the Realm, and it still makes my head spin.”
“I knew magic was real,” Ava said. “The jokes about Mammaw being a witch never had any punch to them. But, unicorns, bigfoot, a secret society….”
Silas made it clear before the tickets were booked that his compound was routinely used for the Auctorita to assess potential recruits. Some of the kids were children of Auctorita members, or of the Order of Ferblanc, or had some kind of tie to the Seekers, but others were like Ava; Silas or someone happened to stumble upon them.
“My cousin is coming in tonight,” Nellie said.
“The one that was visiting over Spring Break? I never did get to meet him.”
Hodge lifted his head. His nostrils flared. He staggered to his cloven feet, and began pawing at the shavings in agitation.
A stocky, black boy with a surfer bro vibe sauntered up to them. He wore a thick, leather chestpiece over his t-shirt. A wooden sword was on his hip and a small, metal disc shield was attached to his left forearm.
“Sorry, Hodge, I’ll hang back,” he said to the increasingly angry unicorn.
“What’s up, Brody,” Nellie asked.
“Class time,” Brody said. He jumped back as Hodge body slammed the stall. “Okay, okay, I'm leaving! Hurry along you two, or Mrs. Adams will have a fit.”
Nellie and Ava were just visiting for the summer, but for the other kids, they lived at the compound year-round. They were schooled throughout the year in all the regular subjects, Nellie and Ava were exempt from those, but they also had supplemental classes in diplomacy, debate, etiquette, histories of the Realm, and other such lessons; those were the lessons required for all of them.
She was sitting at a wooden writing desk next to Ava and the youngest of the boys, Arden, fifteen minutes later. The lesson of the morning was cryptid focused; Nellie suspected it had something to do with the bigfoot venture the previous night as there were questions on the difference between the ape-like creatures.
“Let’s review the worksheet,” Mrs. Adams said, slowly pacing in front of them. She stopped and put her hands on her hip. “Miss Maebry, put that larkspur back in your basket!”
Lilac stopped sniffing the blue flower she delicately held, dropping it into the wicker basket tucked under her desk.
“Now then… let’s continue.”
It was amazing how treating the seven-foot tall, carnivorous beasts like homework rendered them as dull as fractions. After the lecture and worksheet review, Mrs. Adams quizzed them on dinner etiquette until the study period was over.
“Miss Wagner, one moment,” Mrs. Adams said, holding her hand out to stop Ava and Nellie from leaving the study room. “How are your magical studies going?”
“Um… fine…,” Ava murmured.
“I expect progress to be slow,” Mrs. Adams said. “Nature based magic is less common; much more akin to being an excellent gardener than what we think of as magic. That, plus being young will make things slow. I don’t expect you to really blossom, pardon the expression, until thirteen or fourteen.” She attempted a smile with her thin mouth. “Don’t worry so much about it. Just listen to Miss de la Torre and Mr. Willoughby.” Her overly plucked eyebrows lowered. “Well, perhaps just Mr. Willoughby, given the language situation.”
Mrs. Adams gave a curt nod, and swept by them, calling out to Fin for her check-in with him before the year-round boarders returned to lessons.
Nellie and Ava returned to the stables. They gaped at Hodge for a while before going to the two last stalls. One of them housed what looked like eight slightly larger rabbits, but that was dashed with the other stall housing the same rabbits except that these five had small antlers.
“Mr. Javernick said they were mixing them next week,” Ava said.
“Before going to the Conservatory?” Nellie smiled as a buck scratched his antlers against a stump. “I guess it’ll be less work for the Keepers if they try to start breeding here.”
As it turned out, jackalopes were headed towards the endangered species list. Between cars, construction projects, and the tourist traps’ taxidermy being genuine, the small rabbits had taken a hit. Silas had a fondness for them—Nellie was not completely sure he was joking when he said he used to eat them in his youth—so helped out with building the population whenever the Keepers needed.
Hodge started carrying on, snorting and stamping the ground. Fin walked over with a side eye at Hodge, scooting further from his stall as the unicorn grew more agitated.
“Mr. Javernick is looking for you,” he informed them. He grinned at the jackalopes. “I’m your keeper today. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
“Does he want to see both of us, or can I help,” Ava asked.
Nellie jumped in at Fin’s unsure expression. “Creatures don’t mind her,” she said. “Her magic isn’t like the magic-magic.”
“Just with the females, to be on the safe side,” Fin said. He winked at Nellie. “Gotten into enough creature related trouble for the week.”
Nellie left Fin and Ava to the jackalopes. She went back to the house and found herself outside Silas’s office. She took a breath, knocked, and slithered inside when she was told to enter.
“Ah, there you are,” Silas said, setting his reading glasses aside. He picked up a sealed letter from his desk. “Nathalie sent a letter.”
“Oh… thanks,” Nellie said, accepting it.
Silas smiled. “You seem disappointed.”
“Guess I was expecting… something,” Nellie said. She opened the letter, scanning over it, a smirk spreading across her face. “Ash is doing good. And she’s teaching the hobbyist welding course at the tech college twice a week.” She groaned. “She thinks letter writing is a lost art and says I should write her instead of relying on the weekly phone usage.”
“You can write everyday, even if the mailing takes longer than a text,” Silas said. “It is a good way to keep sharp. But, I still say you give her a call Saturday. She’ll want to hear your voice.”
The warmness she felt at Silas’s statement waned as her mind wandered. She folded up her letter.
“Something else, Nellie?”
“You said Morgan was coming tonight…”
“I suspect Amias will be his chaperone,” Silas said. He snorted. “Even my compound is too much nature for him. I hope he stays long enough to hear our resident bigfoot bellow.”
With her pressing concern answered, Nellie happily went back outside. It would be good to see her godfather again.
The afternoon was filled with gardening while the others were in class, a review of etiquette with a lesson on debate tactics, and watching the boys sparring on the lawn.
Arden went flying back as Brody blocked and countered with a pummel from his shield. Nellie joined Ava and Brody in a heavy wince. The spindly, brunette boy lay still on his back a moment before a weak chuckle shook his torso.
“Arden, you good,” Brody called. Brody visibly exhaled as Arden threw up a thumbs up. He turned his attention to Nellie. “Want a turn?”
Nellie and Ava exchange looks of varying levels of unsurness. A quick glance towards Arden, now sitting up, revealed a busted lip. Nellie had been reluctant to join in on the sparring despite it looking like fun, and this was not helping her reservations.
“Should I go,” Lilac asked, lying on her stomach and kicking her feet over her head. Her long hair spilled across the grass like a golden blanket.
Nellie climbed to her feet, dusted her pants, and took the wooden sword Calix hastily brought her. The other boys had all stopped when Arden was thrown, and continued to watch with anticipation when Brody extended his offer.
She adjusted her grip on the sword like how she was taught. It still felt bulky and unnatural.
“I won’t move,” Brody said, raising his circular shield. “Give that a whack.”
“Me next,” Fin said, striking a battle stance next to Brody.
“Also me,” Calix chimed in.
Arch—tall and lean with a movie star smile—hung back, using an ornate walking stick to counter his weight, leaning back playfully. “I’ll sit this one out,” he said. His emerald eyes went to Ava. “Do you want some pointers while these barbarians smack each other?”
“Whose a barbarian,” Arden protested, his lip still oozing and now growing fat.
“Go on, Nellie, give me a hit,” Brody encouraged.
Her wooden sword thudded lamely against Brody’s shield. Her cheeks burned. She could not decide if she held back, or was weaker than she realized. Brody was fighting to keep from laughing.
“Now me,” Fin said, unfazed and elbowing Brody aside. “Right on the sword.”
She started to relax as she took turns hitting Brody and Fin (Arden was still nursing his busted lip, Calix went back to shooting targets, and Arch was now chatting with Lilac, Itzel, and Ava). They helped her improve her grip, and she found herself starting to smirk as they, slowly, swung back at her and she was able to dodge.
The bell rang out across the lawn to signal for them to come in. The sun had started to set leaving the sky with a blush. They hiked up to the house, sweating, dirty, and feeling accomplished.
“My goodness,” Mrs. Adams said, eyeing them disapprovingly. “You certainly used your free period well. Now, hurry and wash up. Dinner will be more formal tonight, so do be sure to… dress… appropriately.”
The back of Nellie's neck prickled in time with Mrs. Adams going ashen. She felt as if a low electrical current was creeping over her arms and running down her spine. It was magic. Unmistakably, but nothing at all like what she felt off Arch, Itzel, or even Amias.
Silas burst out of his office. His eyes widened, and he gave a quick, respectful nod of his head. “R-Regere, welcome.”
Nellie was vaguely aware she was now the only person that had not turned around. She drew in a breath, clenched her fists, and turned.
-------------------------------------
I'm going to need to reorder so much of this. But, yes, predictions with Ava maybe having something up was correct. With her magic being the unusual nature based stuff, she doesn't trigger creatures like Amias did. You can think of her (eventual) ability as that one lady that can get anything to grow no matter the climate or time of year. Since her magic is more natural, it is connected more with how her body works which is why Mrs. Adams mentions her age. Ava won't be able to do anything until she hits puberty, lol.
Penny isn't at the compound. She keeps Hodge there if she's away somewhere where taking him would be too much of a hassle or impossible. (In this case, she's overseas for a bit.)
And now the newbies! Arden (13) doesn't have a surname right now since I didn't need one yet. Calix Dimopoulos (17) is a Greek boy with family in the Auctorita. Serafin "Fin" Cabrera (15) is an American from one of the southern states, his father is a Knight with the Order of Ferblanc. Brody Jones (16) is either American from up north, or possibly he's only half American with the other being either UK or Australia. He's got connections through the Auctorita. Lilac Maebry (16) is one of those that was stumbled upon. Not sure her exact origins, probably American. Archibald "Arch" Willoughby (17) is from the UK with connections through the Order of Ferblanc. Itzel de la Torre (14) is from Brazil and has connection through the Keepers.
