It was so hot that the insects were protesting. Nellie wore the same tank top from yesterday and silently admonished herself whenever someone’s eyes lingered a moment too long, clearly recognizing it. She should have packed more of her Florida clothes, but with Silas’s compound north of Tennessee, and Tennessee being cooler than her normal, she hadn’t expected to need them.
She sat on the edge of a stream in the woods, not far enough to be concerned with the resident bigfoot. She absentmindedly watched the cold water rush over her bare feet. It was some relief from the summer sun above.
Calix sat in an old hunting post up a tree nearby making arrows. He generally used store bought ones, but part of his training was to be able to improvise should those run out. Or so he said. Nellie suspected he was just passing the time.
“Does your family ever visit,” Nellie called up to him.
“Special occasion,” Calix said. “Far flight. It become expensive to do too much.” He blew on the stick he was carefully sharpening. “We video call one times a month.”
A crackling and a fuuum distracted her. The trees ahead went up in a blaze, and Nellie swore she could feel the heat. The fire was just as quickly extinguished, the stream giving an odd pause before returning to its usual flow.
“You lot all right,” Arch’s voice came from where the trees had caught fire. “She didn’t get that far, did she?”
“All well,” Calix called back. He shook his head and tested the sharpness of his stick with his finger. “I tell Arch sending Itzel into the wood is too much. She needs practice away from tinder.”
“She seems to be doing just fine,” Nellie said, somewhat defensively.
Nellie felt an odd bond with Itzel having fought the Piasa Bird together, receiving stitches together. Calix did not appear to feel that bond with either of them, and continued treating them as he always had; kindly, but as novices.
Footsteps crunched through the dried undergrowth and soon Fin appeared. He was sweating through his shirt and the bits of shavings stuck to him indicated he’d been cleaning the stables. Nellie hoped that meant they’d be in use soon.
“Mrs. Adams wants you, Nell,” Fin said. His brown eyes fell to her feet in the stream. “There’s bloodsuckers in there.”
“What,” Nellie squeaked, curling her legs towards her chest.
“No, wait… crawdads,” Fin said, snapping his fingers. “I’m thinking crawdads. It’s too fast for bloodsuckers. But, anyway, you’re wanted at the mansion.”
She put her wet feet in her sandals, glad she had foresight enough to know she’d eventually get sick of wearing socks all the time so would brave bare feet and sandals, and squelched from the woods.
Luckily, she was dry and the dead grass and leaves that had stuck to her feet had fallen off by the time Nellie entered the house. The floors had been steam cleaned recently enough to still give off the faint smell of hot lemons. She gave into the overwhelming urge to tiptoe, to make her footprints as miniscule as possible, as she crossed into the glass corridor that connected the two wings of the house.
She went flat foot immediately.
The cushions for the two patio chairs–the only furniture in the hall minus a tiny, circular table that sat between them–were laid across the middle of the hall into a makeshift bed, and on that bed stretched a woman.
This woman wore a bright pink bikini top and short jean shorts. Her dark hair fanned around her head, the blonde highlights looking like strategic stripes. Her skin was deeply tanned, but a shade that spoke to her laying about in the sun or in tanning beds a lot. The skin around her shut eyes was much paler. She looked too old to be wearing what she was wearing, but Nellie’s brain malfunctioned on pinpointing her age. She wore a jeweled eyebrow bar that kept glittering in the sun in time with the woman’s breathing, and Nellie could not think of anyone over twenty that would bother with such a thing.
“I feel you staring.” The woman’s brown eyes opened. She gave Nellie a quizzical look, and sat up. “You’re not Arden… Well, how awkward.” She held out her hand, jeweled bangles clicking on her wrist. “I’m Brittney, Arden’s mother.”
“Nellie…” She gingerly shook her hand, surprised at the firm grip that shook back.
“Oh, that’s cute,” Brittney said. “You don’t hear the tried and true names much these days.” She lay back down, stretching. “Of course, I’m part of the problem naming my son Arden and not something like Charles or Wilhelm, but there you have it.” She glanced over at Nellie, her thin eyebrows furrowing. “Nellie…? I don’t remember Arden mentioning a Nellie. That’s not short for Perenelle, is it?”
“It is,” Nellie said. “Arden mentioned me?”
“Just that you arrived,” Brittney said. She rolled her eyes. “The way that boy goes on and on about Fin and Brody, you’d think they were the only other kids here.”
It made sense for Arden to write the most about Fin and Brody since he was learning how to use swords. She wondered if he told his mother what the three of them did, mentioned the split lips and black eyes. Nellie had the distinct impression that Brittney wouldn’t have been fazed by such updates.
“It was nice meeting you,” Nellie said, inching around the cushions. “I better get to Mrs. Adams or she’ll be cross.”
She had no sooner exited the clear hallway before jerking to a halt to avoid colliding with Arden as he came racing around a corner. His shaggy, brown hair was extra messy. His eyes were angry and wild.
“Did you see an old lady pretending she’s not running around here,” he asked.
“Your mom,” Nellie asked carefully. She pointed over her shoulder. “I passed her in the window hall. She seems very ni—.”
Arden pushed by her and stormed off. Nellie continued onward, slowing her pace only a moment as she heard Arden yelling at his mother to put a shirt on. She giggled, and hurried on to Mrs. Adams.
Mrs. Adams only wanted to see her to go over the details for her video call with Nathalie later that day. It was arranged for 1PM, and it was up to Nellie if she wanted to have her lunch beforehand or eat in Mrs. Adams’s office. (The tone that was used told Nellie that she better not dare eat in Mrs. Adams’s office.) She was allotted an hour, since Mrs. Adams could not keep from her work any longer than that and would need her office back.
“The final point we must address, is if you want your hour to be for you alone or if you would rather share some of it,” Mrs. Adams said, looking at her bullet list in her gnarled hand. “When parents or guardians visit, they do get introduced to the other children, and Mr. Javernick wants you to have the opportunity to introduce your,” her mouth tightened on the next word, “friends. Should you wish, I can arrange for those indicated to join you in the first or last minutes so that you still have to majority of your time with just you and Ms. Herle.”
“Really,” Nellie said, her mind running over each of the others. “That’s awesome! It’s almost as good as if I was able to walk around with the phone to show her the grounds. Actually…?”
“Absolutely not,” Mrs.Adams said firmly. “Not only is there no service outside the house, the grounds are private.” She set her list down huffily. “We don’t need the NSA catching a glimpse of the bigfoot or your fellows performing magic.” She drew a clean pad of paper nearer and poised a fountain pen over it. “Which children?”
“All of them.” Nellie shrank at Mrs. Adams’s sharp look. “Well… I guess Ava, Lilac, and Arden all have company…. And Morgan doesn’t need to be introduced. Fin, Brody, Calix, Itzel, and Arch? But only if they want to.”
“Five introductions will eat more into your time, but as you wish, Miss Herle,” Mrs. Adams muttered, scribbling down the names.
Nellie was confident cycling through everyone’s name wouldn’t take more than a minute.
She wandered through the house with the vague sense to find Morgan. Mrs. Adams had suspended lessons for everyone for the day with the amount of visitors, so they’d have a couple of hours until lunch where they could finish up work on their globe. They missed each other at breakfast, and Nellie still hadn’t apologized for taking off on him last night. She was the older cousin. She was responsible for setting things right.
Morgan wasn’t in his room, but in the library at one of the two long tables. He was frowning at a book on the animal husbandry of unusual creatures.
“Interesting choice,” Nellie commented, sitting opposite of him.
“I wanted to find something on infant memories but, naturally, we do not have childcare books,” Morgan said. “Or hardly any with humans as the subject.” He leafed through a few pages. “Then, I thought I’d see if there was any on baby dragons, but I haven’t found any sign that dragons ever have babies outside the phrases ‘maternal instinct’ or ‘motherly savagery’ when people described their possessiveness over their clutches.”
“Like egg clutches?”
“No,” Morgan said, his dark eyebrows a straight line across his forehead. “Somtimes, people thought they were guardian eggs, but it always turned out false.” He sighed heavily. Allowing the pages to fan until the book closed on itself. “The stories are so far between it’s hard to take any of them as true accounts.”
“So, infant memories and baby dragons… Interesting combo.”
“Is it?” Morgan raised his eyebrows at her. “Did we not talk about you and Penny lacking memories of your now dragon mothers? Ugh, if only Silas had the foresight to subscribe to some sort of pediatric memory journal!”
Nellie beamed at him, giving his hand a pat. “You’re a good cousin, Morgan.”
“Of course I am,” he said, tinting red and looking bewildered. “What have I ever done to make you think otherwise?”
Nellie decided not to give it any thought, because she was sure she could’ve come up with half a dozen answers if she did.
She searched the shelves for anything that might help with Morgan’s theory, but was distracted by all the different subjects. She settled on the floor beneath one of the bookcases with a thin book on Appalachian folklore and cryptids. She grinned fondly at the entry on smoke wolves and shuttered at the notes on a cryptid called a not-deer. They somehow sounded worse than white screamers.
They headed to lunch with nothing to show for their efforts.
Lunch was sandwiches that varied on degree of fanciness. There was plain ham and cheese all the way to foie gras and watercress. Each sandwich was cut into quarters so no one could eat a whole of the same kind without searching among the platters.
The table was cramped with extra chairs squished in spaces. Even with the leaf in the table, they had more people than usual. Nellie found herself wedged between Morgan and Fin in the middle of the table, across from Itzel and Arden. Brittney sat pressed against him now wearing a loose, striped shirt over her bikini top.
“He’s late,” Mrs. Adams said disapprovingly, glaring into an empty seat next to Silas.
“He is coming from the airport, Mrs. Adams; show him a little grace,” Silas said. He caught Nellie’s eye and winked. “You’re in for a surprise.”
Nellie was about to ask—.
“Mr. Faust,” Mrs. Adams said sharply. “Put that sandwich down until we’ve started.”
Arden dropped his sandwich quarter with a deep sigh.
“You don’t need to discipline my son with me sitting here,” Brittney said. She whacked Arden’s shoulder with the back of her hand. “Don’t get caught next time.”
“What is this stuff,” Fin asked, sniffing a shot glass in front of his plate filled with light yellow liquid. “It smells like wine.”
“It is wine,” Mrs. Adams said. “Your guardians have given permission for those fifteen and older to have occasional tastings. As we are hosting so many, I find it the right moment for you to practice your best behavior despite the casualness of the menu.”
Arch and Calix exchanged a glance and sniggered quietly. With both being seventeen and foreign, Nellie would bet anything they’d already had the occasional drink during family holidays.
“Why fifteen,” Brittney asked loudly. “I’m right here. Give Arden a cup.”
Arden muttered something under his breath that darkened his mother’s expression and caused her not to push–jokingly or otherwise–for him to have any wine. Lilac was quietly clinking glasses with her parents at the far end of the table, looking young and bashful as she held the wine. Brody was eyeballing his like it might be a trick.
“I say we start,” Silas said. “The sandwiches will get gross if we leave them too long.” He spread his hands before him. “Please, friends, dig it.”
Mrs. Adams looked sour at this, but held her tongue and sipped from her glass.
Fin gave a shutter next to Nellie, setting his wine aside and taking a large bite of a turkey club. “Think I ain’t going to be much of a wine drinker.”
“Your palette isn’t sophisticated enough,” Morgan said airily. “I suppose developing your palette fell completely on your mother with your father not around.”
“Morgan,” Nellie hissed.
“Oh yeah,” Fin said, grimacing. “And you’re a regular drinker at the ripe old age of eleven? That sounds more like neglect than sophistication.”
She picked at her roast beef as Fin and Morgan continued leaning around her to snipe at each other. Arden looked just as miserable with his face propped on his fist, watching his mother yell stories down the table at Silas (who yelled back much to Mrs. Adams’s disapproval). She smiled weakly at Itzel as she glanced up from some sort of fish sandwich.
“Is it tasty,” Nellie asked dully. Itzel leaned over and dropped a quarter of the same onto her plate, and flashed her a thumbs up. “Why not?” Nellie took a bite, eyes widening. “It’s good! What is it?”
“Sapateira,” Itzel said. Her brow furrowed at Nellie’s blank look. “Not same…. Um… lagosta? No?” She smacked the table, getting more than just Morgan’s attention. “Sapateira? Lagosta?”
“Lobster,” Morgan said.
“Oh, lobster rolls! Excellent,” Brittney said, taking one with great delight. “Have one, honey. You love them.”
“Pass,” Arden sulked.
Brittney frowned at him and turned her attention to Silas. She held up her lobster roll in triumph. “Silas! Do you remember that time up in Maine?”
Silas gave a hoot of laughter, slapping the table. He was nodding vigorously as Brittney started refreshing his memory further, unable to speak or else risk spraying the sandwich in his mouth all over them.
Mrs. Adams slammed her cane down on the floor. “I do hate to interrupt, Mr. Javernick, but I’ll need to excuse Miss Herle and myself from the table.” She looked at him sternly. “She has an appointment to keep, and lunch is running longer than normal.”
“Yes, yes, of course, Mrs. Adams, of course,” Silas said, dismissively waving Mrs. Adams’s off. He smiled at Nellie. “Give Nathalie my regards.”
“Misters Cabrera, Dimopoulos, Will—” Mrs. Adams said, struggling to her feet.
“No, that’s fine,” Nellie cut in, scurrying up. “They’re still eating.”
“Very well. To my office then.”
“What’s up,” Fin whispered.
“Nothing,” Nellie said, her cheeks reddening. “I better follow her.”
It seemed childish and even spoiled to ask everyone to stop eating to go say hello to Nathalie. She avoided eye contact with Morgan who was half-glaring with his hazel eyes darting from her to Fin, apparently suspicious if his name would have been included in Mrs. Adams’s list.
She settled in Mrs. Adams’s seat once the computer was set up. She was told it was connected and she would just have to wait for Nathalie to join, and then left alone.
Nathalie’s face–slightly grainy–popped up on the screen. The lines around her blue eyes deepened as she smiled broadly. Her face had pink patches from being outside in the sun. Her blonde hair looked less golden and paler.
‘Nellie! Oh, how I’ve missed you!’
“Missed you too,” Nellie said, her face stretching into a huge smile. “Where’s Ash?”
‘Of course.’ Nathalie shook her head, smirking. ‘Hold on.’
Nellie stared at Nathalie’s chin as she stood with her laptop in her hands. The surroundings bobbed and jostled as she went to the door, titled sideways as she freed up a hand to open it, and righted.
‘I don’t see him at present… Usually, he’s snooping around the flowers. Did I mention I put in flowers in the last letter? Just violets, mind you. My thumb isn’t so green.’
“Which ones are violets again,” Nellie asked. “Pansies?”
‘I think so. Oh, where has that dog got to?’ Nathalie stopped craning to look down into the screen. ‘I’ll keep an eye out. Tell me everything. Are you having fun? Are you learning anything?’
A knock on the door distracted her from answering. Nellie looked at the time in the corner of the screen, frowning. Barely ten minutes had gone by. It was much too early for Mrs. Adams to need her office back.
The door clicked as it opened. Fin stuck his head in, glanced around, and opened it wider. Morgan, Itzel, and Arden were with him.
“Sorry, Nell,” Fin said. “We don’t want to interrupt, but Morgan said you were having a video call and wanted to say hi. We just—.”
“Crash the party,” Morgan said. He sauntered over to the desk, circling around to face the screen. With an all-knowing tone he said, “Hello, Nathalie.”
‘Good to see you well, Morgan,’ Nathalie said, sounding amused. ‘Is there someone else there?’
Nellie stepped aside to allow Fin, Itzel, and Arden to squish in behind the desk too. She introduced each of them, mentioning small things like Fin’s father being part of the same Order that Rhys was once part of, and Itzel being a mage like Amias. She started to mention Arden’s mother was visiting, but he cut her off and said he needed a break from her and not to worry about him sneaking away.
Nellie did not mention her and Fin sometimes sneaking into the woods to spy on the resident bigfoot. Or, how she and Itzel survived a Piasa Bird. Or, how Arden not currently sporting a black eye or cut lip was unusual.
‘Oh, Nellie, before I forget again; did Amias arrive all right? Was his flight dreadful?’
“Amias?” She thought back to the empty place setting at lunch. Silas told her he had a surprise for her. She beamed. “Amias is coming?”
‘Well, there goes the surprise,’ Nathalie muttered. ‘And that makes it more likely that his flight was dreadful. Poor man.’ She looked up over the laptop. ‘Is that him? Dog!’
“Ash,” Nellie said.
‘Come here. Nellie’s on the screen. Beast!’
“Ash,” Nellie corrected again.
‘Do you want dinner? That usually gets—Oh, he’s gone.’ Nathalie sighed. ‘Sorry, Nellie love, he’s too busy doing his own—.’
Nathalie shrieked and the laptop fell. The screen went black with a jagged white line that vibrated as it tried keeping picture. Nellie could hear Nathalie yelling at Ash about poofing in front of her, but the sound was mangled and watery. It sounded a bit as if Nathalie said goodbye before the connection was cut off.
“You mama nice,” Itzel said.
Nellie grinned, quietly shutting Mrs. Adams’s laptop as Morgan whispered the correction to Itzel.
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I currently am not supposed to eat lunch meat, so they had a sandwich feast. My kid keeps calling me. Guess that's it for the comment, lol.
