“It’s called Lyndcraft Academy and it’s in Nin,” Gemma explained as she slowly paced back and forth around the kitchen, gently bouncing baby Kate up and down as she walked.
Her mother was only half listening. Amanda stood at the kitchen stove and was in the middle of cooking dinner.
Nearby, young Lily sat at the kitchen table hungrily hoping that food was not far off. “Where’s Nin?” she asked.
“It’s in The Bales,” Gemma replied, only too happy to have someone paying attention.
Lily frowned. She didn’t know where that was.
Gemma explained. “Over the hill from Broomstick Beech.”
Lily didn’t know where that was either.
“Other side of the Dragon mountains. Just a little way past Myst.”
Lily thought about it.
“That way.” Balancing the baby with one hand Gemma pointed north-west.
Lily nodded. She had heard of Myst. That was where the sorcerers had their university. It, like Little Rock, and the Emerald City to the south, also bordered the sea, but on it’s north-western side rather than it’s south-eastern. The other three sides were surrounded by rugged almost impassable mountains.
Gemma turned back to her mother, who was frowning at the ingredients in front of her.
“Anyway,” she continued. “You study for half the year and for the rest of the time you get to do field work. All supervised of course. Isn’t that great? It’s all practical focused and because it’s all interleaved you’re basically implementing what you learn straight away so you don’t forget.”
“Uh huh,” Amanda nodded. She was still looking at the ingredients in front of her and biting her lip. Then she grabbed a few of the items she had out and shoved them back in the pantry, swapping them for different ingredients. “We need some more white vinegar,” she yelled out to Sirius.
“Okay,” he called back.
Gemma frowned but continued on regardless.
Lily listened intently as Gemma talked. It was a good distraction from how far away food probably was. She leaned forward and rested her chin on one hand then she suddenly realised her sleeves were drooping low and she was in danger of exposing the strange infected welts that had recently begun to blossom on her arms and legs. She grabbed the ends of her sleeves with her fingers and then tucked her arms in close to her stomach.
“And the best thing about Lyndcraft is they don’t require you to have finished high school to apply. If you wanna sign up early they’ll let you, as long as your grades are good enough or you can prove yourself semi-competent, so I could just take the rest of this year off and-”
That finally got Amanda’s attention. “What? No. It doesn’t matter what their requirements are. You will finish school.”
“But mum I could spend the rest of this-”
Gemma was cut off as her younger sister, Katrina walked into the room. “Mum, Salem won’t get off the computer and I need it for my homework.”
“Salem get off the computer!” Amanda yelled without missing a beat in the cooking.
Katrina left and a moment later bickering could be heard from out in the large foyer where the computer was situated, just around the corner from the bottom of the stairs.
“Salem!” Amanda warned.
Gemma continued talking.
The bickering in the foyer continued as well.
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“Sirius can you please deal with that.” Amanda yelled in between rearranging pots on the stove.
A moment later a man’s voice joined the bickering in the hallway.
Gemma droned on. “Anyway as I was saying... and Kate can come too... the accommodation's really cheap.”
14 year old Sasha walked into the kitchen. “Mum have you seen my skates?”
“It’s not even skating season yet,” remarked Gemma.
“Winter’s only a few weeks away,” replied Sasha.
“Yeah, but you still have to wait until it snows and it won’t snow until late June.”
“No, I don’t.” With a sly smile, Sasha cupped her hands in front of her face and blew. As she blew out, the air turned white and fluffy. Snow burst out from her hands and fell all around the kitchen.
Lily smiled wide but her stomach growled reminding her how hungry she was. Why was she so much hungrier these days? Every day it felt like there was more and more time between meals. She’d even taken to snacking throughout the day, which Amanda had said was fine and to help herself to whatever she wanted from the fridge and pantry. But then yesterday Lily had eaten almost half a block of cheese and still hadn’t felt satisfied. It was almost as if she was craving something very specific but she wasn’t quite sure what.
As the snow surrounded them, Gemma clicked her fingers and the little balls of ice burnt up in the air, merging into one large fireball.
“Gemma!” Amanda snapped.
Gemma withdrew her hand and dropped her eyes. Her fire magic wasn’t the most well-controlled and fireballs in the house were generally not allowed as a blanket rule.
Then Amanda turned to Sasha. “Where did you have them last?”
Sasha looked down sadly. “I don’t know. Bobby have you seen my skates?” Sasha asked her older brother who had just entered the kitchen with a very serious look on his face.
He glanced at Sasha and then met his mother’s eyes with a worried look.
Amanda frowned and put the spoon down on the bench.
Just then Salem entered the kitchen. “Ugh, she’s not even doing homework, she’s just looking up fashion photos.”
“It’s for my arts class dufus!” Katrina yelled from the foyer.
Salem rolled his eyes and headed for the fridge.
Sirius entered the kitchen right as Gemma got up to leave. She handed him the baby. He took her with surprise.
“Can you hold Kate? I’ll be back in a sec.”
“Hey, no snacks, dinner’s almost ready!” Amanda told Salem.
Lily watched the chaos unfolding all around her. Now that she’d gotten used to it, she almost found it comforting. As Salem slammed the fridge door shut, she caught a whiff of something wonderful, and then, a moment later it was gone.
“Aww, fine! I’ll be up in my room then,” Salem grumbled.
Sirius looked down at the baby and frowned. He tried bouncing her softly but she started crying. Turning to his wife he asked, “Did you hear back from Wolf yet about tracking the loose dreamweaver?”
Amanda shook her head. “Not yet. I asked Cat as well and she said she couldn’t sense it anywhere. Maybe it died in the house.”
“Let’s hope,” Sirius replied.
Amanda didn’t look hopeful though. She eyed Bobby with a questioning look.
“Didn’t you put them in the cellar to dry?” Bobby said to Sasha.
“Maybe.” She left to go and check.
Once Sasha was gone Bobby turned to his mother. “I think I’ve messed up a healing. I was riding Cinna and she tripped on a rabbit’s hole. I figured I’d just fix it up but...” Bobby swallowed hard.
“Sirius, can you take over the cooking?” Amanda asked her husband.
“Uh...” he looked down at the baby, who was still wailing up a storm, and then up at his wife, unsure how to do both things
“Just don’t let anything burn,” she told him.
He nodded but still looked panicked.
Amanda hesitated.
“It’s alright, I’ve got her,” Gemma said as she returned and reached for her baby.
Sirius sighed in relief and took over his wife’s place at the stove.
Amanda followed Bobby out to the stables.
Gemma paced up and down the kitchen trying to calm Kate’s cries.
Sasha returned a moment later. “I still can’t find them.”
“Mum!” Katrina yelled from the hall. “Salem keeps dropping fake spiders on me.”
The baby’s crying grew louder.
“Oh, shh, it’s okay.”
“Daaaad!”
“I am not!”
“I have to find them, Sarah wants to go skating on Wednesday!”
“When’s dinner going to be ready?” Lily asked, but no one heard her.
Sirius struggled over the stove while behind him the chaos continued.
Lily eyed the fridge. No one was watching her.
Driven more by instinct than thought and with a singular focus on whatever that sweet smelling thing in the fridge was, Lily slipped off her chair and crossed the couple metres to the fridge door.
She pulled the door open. No one noticed a thing. Gemma was too focused on calming Kate. Sirius was watching the cooking and occasionally yelling things toward the hallway where Katrina and Salem continued their squabbling. Sasha had disappeared off somewhere again to look for her skates. Amanda and Bobby were outside. They all paid no attention to Lily and Lily paid no mind to any of them. Her sole focus was the plate of raw mince that sat neatly in the centre of the fridge, lit up by the cool glow of the internal lamps as if it had been laid out especially for her.
The meat was the source of the smell she was sure of it, although her certainty was not something she considered but more something she felt at an animal level. Without any thought at all to what she was doing or who might be watching she reached forward and took a handful of meat. She brought it to her mouth. She closed her eyes as the soft texture surrounded her tongue and the cold juices ran down her chin. The temperature was the one thing that annoyed her. She would have preferred if it had been warm, warm and pumping.