“I need to go to the bathroom,” Sofia said with a clear note of urgency. “Rowan? Are you there? I can’t open the door! It’s too heavy!”

Sofia banged on the door again.

Gretta’s eyes opened. The tiny cellar was nearly completely dark, even to her cat eyes, with only a pinhole of faint light coming from a crack in the trapdoor. She pulled in magic, letting it fill her, and then she harnessed the energy and shifted back to human form. Her human eyes struggled to adjust to the blackness, and she had to navigate by the sound of Sofia’s banging.

“Be careful,” Gretta said, her voice a little hoarse from disuse. “It’s so dark in here that you might fall off the ladder, and I might step on you.”

She heard Sofia hop lightly off the ladder and walk over to her.

“I can see in the dark,” Sofia said. “Take my hand, and I’ll show you where the ladder is.”

“Wait, you can see in the dark?” Gretta said.

Sofia took Gretta’s hand, which was startling.

“My dad says it’s one of my gifts,” Sofia said. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody, but my dad told me to trust you. You can turn into a tiger, and I know that, so it is only fair.”

“I didn’t realize the Wild Mother took such young disciples,” Gretta said.

“Oh, I’m not a disciple of the Wild Mother,” Sofia said.

Sofia gently placed Gretta’s hand on the ladder and stepped back.

“Ah, I didn’t know there’s a spell that lets you see in the dark,” Gretta said.

“I don’t need a spell. I can always see in the dark,” Sofia said. “I have to go to the bathroom super bad.”

Gretta climbed the ladder and shoved the trapdoor open using her shoulder and legs. Light flooded into the cellar, and she blinked. It was early morning, and Rowan was nowhere to be seen. She had a niggling feeling of wrongness.

“Only disciples have magic that doesn’t use a magic word,” Gretta said to herself more than to Sofia.

Sofia blushed. “Don’t tell anybody,” she said. “My dad says that it is a secret. Can you help me up?”

Gretta hopped down from the ladder and looked at Sofia. “I’ll spot you. I think you can do it, but if you fall, I’ll catch you.”

In a scramble, Sofia was up the ladder and into the desert. Moments later, Gretta followed. By the time Gretta was out of the cellar, Sofia was already behind a bush.

“Where’s Rowan?” Sofia asked.

Gretta looked around. She could see coyote paw prints walking off, but Rowan was nowhere to be seen.

“Rowan?” Gretta called out as loud as she dared. She scanned the desert scrub as far as she could see, and the only movement she caught was a few small birds.

Sofia came back around from the bush. “Do you think he’s hunting rabbits?”

“Why don’t you go back down into the cellar and get some water and food? I’m going to quick look around for Rowan,” Gretta said.

“Maybe he has something secret he’s doing?” Sofia asked.

“He said he was going to keep watch, so I expect him to be here,” Gretta said. “He better not be doing anything secret.”

“I don’t think he’s mean. I’d feel it if he wanted to hurt me,” Sofia said. “But, I can feel when people have a secret, and he has a really big one.”

Gretta’s eyes widened. “You can feel when people want to hurt you?”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“I can feel when people are… bad. Rowan isn’t bad.”

Gretta wondered if Sofia had real power or a vivid imagination. While Gretta didn’t trust a disciple of the Trickster, instincts of an eight-year-old aside, she didn’t think Rowan was “bad” either. He was a loner and might have abandoned them to avoid further problems. After all, why was he helping at all? He had nothing to gain, and Gabriela was a murderer who might kill him for simply being in the way. That was enough reason that most reasonable people wouldn’t want to get involved.

Gretta barely knew Rowan, but she noticed the similarity between his leaving without a word and her mother leaving. Gone without an explanation. Maybe everyone left her.

“Please stay in the cellar. I’ll look around for Rowan and be back in a few minutes.”

Sofia shrugged and climbed back into the cellar. Gretta closed the trapdoor behind her.

Gretta found marks in the sand that might have been Rowan’s, but if she was being honest with herself, they could have been made last night by Sofia or herself. She wasn’t a tracking expert, and there was no clear paw definition to the sporadic imprints she saw.

She looked up occasionally, feeling that maybe somebody dangerous was around, but she also didn’t want to walk right into Rowan, who might laugh at her for following his prints and not seeing him. Beyond the movement of scrub caused by the breeze, she didn’t see anything.

Ahead, she spotted a place where the ground was more churned up. Multiple footprints had come together to a spot and then a long track away that might have been from dragging something heavy. When she looked closely, there were a few dark spots in the dirt. Maybe blood?

She followed the drag track for a few minutes and realized it was headed straight toward the road. Had somebody taken Rowan and dragged him away, or were these from some previous night where somebody shot an animal and hauled it off? It was the wrong time of year for hunting. Maybe a poacher?

She followed the drag marks and spotted tufts of tan fur, possibly coyote fur. She was holding an internal argument over the likelihood of Rowan abandoning them instead of the chances she had found evidence of poaching. The people after Sofia wouldn’t have taken him and stopped looking for Sofia. They’d still be searching.

Gretta stopped and looked around. What if she was being lured away from Sofia? Maybe the people who took Rowan were still watching her. Or maybe she was overreacting.

She turned around and started walking back toward the cellar. Stupid trickster disciples!

As she walked, she scanned the rolling hills. A tumbleweed blew past, and the motion nearly gave her a heart attack. She was running when she reached the scrub that hid the old cellar. She looked around to ensure nobody was watching, opened the cellar’s trap door, and climbed in, shutting it behind her.

“Did you find him?” Sofia asked.

“I need your help finding a light,” Gretta whispered. “I can’t see at all right now.”

Sofia lowered her voice to a whisper. “Why didn’t you just leave the door open?”

“I’m not sure it’s safe right now.”

“Take my hand, and I’ll guide you to the mat,” Sofia said.

Gretta felt Sofia’s small hand in hers, and she followed until she felt her toes bump into the foam mattress.

“I’ll look to see what’s in Rowan’s barrel and see if he has an extra light,” Sofia said.

Gretta heard Sofia rummaging around. The near-perfect darkness was only broken by a faint hint of light—so faint that if she stared at it, she felt dizzy and wondered if she was hallucinating it. She decided to sit down while she waited rather than risk falling over.

She felt a book lying on the bed next to her.

“Were you reading a book?” Gretta asked, still in a whisper.

“Yeah,” Sofia said. “I love reading.”

“You can read in the dark?”

“Sure,” Sofia said. “I don’t think he has another light. What’s a Silmarillion?”

“A longwinded reference book,” Gretta said. “Why?”

“Rowan has a copy of it in here,” Sofia said.

“Maybe he wanted something to put himself to sleep.”

Gretta suddenly felt Sofia’s hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to see if I can help you see.”

Before Gretta could react, she felt Sofia pull on magic, and then a rushing sensation moved from Sofia’s hand and into her. The cellar around her came into focus. It didn’t look like it had in the light; the colors were completely wrong, as everything was shades of purples, reds, and oranges, but she could see. Next to her was a book entitled The Hobbit. She flipped it over and saw that the book had pictures and words, and while none of the colors were correct, she could see them fine.

“This is amazing,” Gretta said. “Thank you.”

“Where is Rowan?” Sofia asked.

“I’m not sure, but we should hide for a bit, just in case. Rowan wasn’t up there. If the people after you knew where we were, they would have already found you, so maybe we can lay low and see if Rowan returns. I’m still healing, so the more time I have to recover, the more ready I’ll be if somebody does come.”

“Can you turn into a tiger?”

“I could, but I’d still be hurt. I’d probably just be able to roar loudly. If I have another day or two of rest, I can probably do more than roar at them until they pee their pants.”

“What if Rowan is hurt and can’t come back?”

“Rowan will be fine,” Gretta said.

Sofia’s whisper was barely audible. “You know that I can feel lies, right?”