Addie had been distracted watching Auntie build the barrier around black cloak’s hideout, so it surprised her when Squishy reached out through the bond.
“My lady, the children from the tavern are most likely still trapped.”
Uh oh. Addie thought, eyes wide open in panic. She had completely forgotten about those poor kids while she was distracted chasing black cloak! Guilt ate away at her, and shame. Honestly, it was mostly shame. How could she have forgotten about them for this long? What if some of them never recovered because she didn’t tell Auntie sooner?
No, Addie decided. This course of action had been correct. Cornering black cloak was the most important thing. Now, no more children would get hurt due to him. That didn’t mean Addie could dawdle around though.
“Auntie?” Addie hastily tugged on Auntie’s pant leg.
“Yes?” Auntie was still gasping for breath, the exertion of magic taking its toll on her.
“I think we need to go back to the tavern,” Addie said.
Auntie’s incredulous face stared back at Addie. “Give me five minutes to recover. That took a lot out of me.”
“There are other children still trapped over there.”
At first, Auntie sighed in frustration, but then Addie’s words caught up to her and she immediately stood taut. “You’re worse than your grandmother. Let’s go!” Without even taking a much-needed moment to catch her breath, Auntie started run-hobbling back to the ruins. Addie followed after her.
This time, getting back to the ruins felt more subdued to Addie. Auntie was still recovering, so they couldn’t fully run. At the same time, Both Auntie and Addie knew the stakes involved. Leaving the soul-burned children alone in the basement of the tavern... Well, Addie didn’t want to think about the worst-case scenario. She just hoped they could help those children. Without magic of their own, well, even Sen hadn’t been able to heal Nettal in that situation.
When they arrived, the ruins looked just as Addie remembered— completely worn down. Addie thought she saw one of the roofs crumble a bit with a piece of stone falling to the floor. Soon, they walked up to the tavern.
They all stopped at the entrance to the boarded-up doorway. Before Addie could suggest using Realmspace to bypass it, Auntie lifted up one leg and kicked straight through the boards. They shattered on impact, sending splinters flying everywhere. A few of them hit Addie’s skirt, causing her to jump back in surprise. Squishy jumped straight into the air by instinct, then glared at Auntie. In response, Auntie just winked at Addie. Auntie used her hands to tear away all the remaining broken pieces of wood, and then stepped past the threshold.
“I could have just teleported us in there,” Addie said with sass.
Ignoring Addie’s sarcasm, Auntie asked, “Which way?”
Addie pointed to the staircase in the back, “Squishy says in the basement.” She relayed.
“To the basement, then.” Auntie marched forward, each step more assured than the last. One day, Addie hoped she could be as powerful as Auntie. Maybe then, she could have the same level of confidence, too.
They walked down the staircase, with Auntie in the lead and Squishy trailing behind Addie. He wanted to ‘protect the flank.’—whatever that meant.
Addie expected Auntie to rush down the stairs and start helping the other children right away, but she didn’t for some reason. She took her time going down the stairs and often paused to listen for sounds. If it had been Addie, she would have just rushed straight down there to help everyone quickly. Auntie had a different method though, a more careful one. Auntie paused to inspect the stairs a few times by tapping at them with her foot, sending dust careening into the air.
“Why are you doing that? Let’s go!”
Auntie’s face turned fierce and she glared at Addie. “Be quiet!” she whispered. “Think before you speak. There could be someone else dangerous down here. And I’m checking the stairs because this entire building looks like it could collapse at any moment.”
Violet seemed to think so too, giving a quiet chirp of agreement.
“Oh,” Addie mouthed, not daring to speak aloud anymore. Auntie was right, these stairs probably hadn’t been maintained in ages, with half of the steps being more of a crumbled ramp than polished stone. The walls didn’t look much better, the grey stone-brick walls showing cracks spiderwebbing out every which way. Addie just hoped the ceiling wouldn’t collapse on them. With a new understanding of her surroundings, Addie followed Auntie down patiently. She didn’t want the stairway to break apart and crush her, either.
They reached the bottom of the stairwell and came to another open doorway. Rusted hinges sat half destroyed on the sides of the wall, but if there had been a door at one point, it was long gone now.
Neither of them had a light, to see in the basement with, but that didn’t matter to Addie or Squishy. Auntie must have had her own way of sensing their surroundings, since she didn’t seem to be bothered, either.
The basement was a simple affair, a simple stone square, with no separating walls for additional rooms. There was a single unoccupied wooden chair as the only furnishing. Most importantly, five children, all younger than Addie, lay on the bare floor. Two of them were girls and the rest were boys. Even in their unconscious state, they seemed to huddle up for warmth instinctively. Amazingly, they seemed cleaner than Addie did. Looking down at herself, the skirt part of her dress had been all torn up, and her legs were almost completely covered in dry flaking mud. In comparison, the children in front of her looked pristine: if Addie didn’t know any better, she would say the children were sleeping peacefully, free of worries.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
A few more moments passed as Auntie checked the room for danger, her head moving side to side. After confirming no one other than the children was in there, she relaxed some, and sent Violet out flying into the room first. After nothing happened further, Auntie relaxed even more, though Addie noticed her shoulders still seemed tenser than normal, and she kept her eyes open wide.
Squishy walked over to one of the boys and inspected him. “Soul damage,” He said telepathically.
“They’re hurt, just like Nettal,” Addie said aloud.
“There are too many for me to carry.” In response to Auntie’s words, Violet flew out of the room faster than lightning. Addie heard a few flaps as the tiny bird raced back up the stairwell, and then nothing. “Violet is going to inform Mr. Owlcharge. These are his people, the children he has the responsibility to protect. He can take things from here on.”
And so, they waited. Surprisingly to Addie, the wait didn’t last long, no more than a few minutes.
The walls started shaking, and Addie watched as a few large cracks began forming in the inlaid stone wall. Sunlight started creeping through the splitting ceiling, and Addie feared she would soon find out what dead people felt like when they were buried.
She closed her eyes and screamed, while Squishy ran over to her side and shouted at her, “To Realmspace!”
She was too afraid to move, though, and by the time she gathered her wits enough, she saw Mr. Owlcharge’s face peeking through the damage in the ceiling. A desperate moment passed through Addie as she wondered why Mr. Owlcharge would be attacking.
The walls continued to shake, but miraculously, none of the rubble so much as came close to Addie. She glanced to her side, and Auntie still seemed perfectly calm, as well. The ceiling folded away from the sides of the room, revealing the tavern above had been split open through the middle like a walnut. The bright light from the sky flooded into the room, making Addie blink as her eyes adjusted to the light. Everything made sense, as Addie realized Mr. Owlcharge wasn’t attacking at all. He was just moving all the stone and earth away from the area to easily reach the children.
With a final burst of magic, Addie watched Mr. Owlcharge’s eyes become shadow, as they drank in the light around him, the color matching Arlie’s scales perfectly. His snake-like companion wrapped around his right arm. Addie heard a loud crash, and the ground shook once more, as the entire upper level of the tavern finished collapsing on either side of the basement, reuniting with the swamp.
He hopped down into what was now just a stone pit in the ground and brushed some of the rocky dust off his impeccable suit.
“You found some of the children. My gratitude, Miss Lomain.” He said to Auntie.
“Thank little Addie, here. She and Squishy found them. Before that, there’s more. We found the culprit.”
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Addie laid down in her bed, facing the ceiling. It would be a few days before they could deal with black cloak. Auntie and Mr. Owlcharge needed time to prepare, or so they said. The children they found in the basement had been returned to their families, but just like Addie had feared, there was little hope of healing them without forcing them to undergo a dangerous initialization they had no way to prepare for.
Luckily, no more children had been hurt since Auntie trapped black cloak in the giant wooden sphere, so they were now even more certain that he had been the cause. Three days had passed since then, and impatience and unease started worming into Addie’s mind. The longer they waited to confront him, the more bad feelings started grabbing onto Addie. It felt like waiting only made it more likely for black cloak to escape, or hurt someone. She felt like a storm was coming, but instead of preemptively finding shelter, they were just waiting to be rained on.
Until then, Auntie was busy planning with Mr. Owlcharge. At first, Addie worried about the whole situation. She wanted to help, too! And it seemed to her like the adults were going to defeat black cloak without involving Addie. But, after Addie confronted the adults, Auntie assured Addie that she would be needed for the plan. That eased Addie somewhat, but the adults still wouldn’t tell her what the plan actually was. She wanted to know too!
For now, Addie passed the days in boredom, just waiting for Auntie to tell her more about the plan. However, there was some fun lately with her lessons. Christena had started teaching Addie more soul techniques. For now, lessons were still focused on defense. Christena had shown Addie how to form a second layer of the transcendent loop, which offered even more soul protection than just a single layer. Addie felt that it was too easy. She moved her magic in exactly the same ways as before, just with an extra layer added on top. It was slightly difficult when she had to hold both layers at the same time since it required multitasking. Or, she could just let Squishy hold one layer while she held the other layer. That was much easier.
Christena kept telling Addie that once she mastered defense, she would start teaching offense, too. Addie wanted to learn offense, too, but Christena wouldn’t teach her no matter how much Addie pleaded. For now, Addie gave up on it, even though Christena also agreed Addie had the second layer mastered. “At least teach me the next layer!” Addie thought to herself. Though, maybe she could figure it out herself? Something to think about later.
Since Auntie was so busy, Addie walked up to Christena after lessons, letting her know that she planned to go outside the mansion for a while. Addie wasn’t going to make the same mistake a third time.
“I want to find that Impossible deer. I did some reading about it, and it says that, ‘thou who the hoofed one shalt mark may ask for a blessing,’ though Squishy had to explain what that meant.” Addie was just proud she memorized that passage from the encyclopedia. It used some strange old words. “I think the mommy deer would help fight black cloak if I ask her nicely.”
Christena considered for a moment, then said, “That seems like a reasonable idea to me. Make sure you eat the lunch I prepared for you before you leave. I don’t want it to go to waste since I went to so much trouble making it for you.”
“Thanks, Christena! I’ll be home before dark!”
And like that, Addie once again explored deep into the swamp. She and Squishy stopped by the clearing where they had first rescued the fawn and tried to track its scent again. But it seemed that the scents had faded by now, or so Squishy said.
Addie plopped her boots through the mud, purposefully making squelching splashes as she paced in a circle. It helped her think. Up until now, they had always relied on Squishy’s sense of smell to track things.
The connection Addie had felt to the fawn the day it cried for help was also long gone, faded into the wind just as surely as its scent.
A bit of mud splattered into a rock after Addie kicked at the ground. “What should we do?” She thought aloud.
It’s not like the Impossible Deer left any tracks behind either. Left without any ideas, Addie and Squishy went back to the mansion for the day.
Christena joined them for dinner, but Auntie was too busy, so Christena had brought food directly to Auntie a little bit earlier. Dinner tasted bland tonight, even though she knew it ought to be delicious.
Normally, Addie would be quite talkative, happy to tell Christena all about her adventures.
Tonight, though, Addie had her dinner in subdued silence. Christena seemed to pick up on it, after Addie started swinging her feet underneath the table while looking at the floor. The chair was slightly too high up for Addie to reach the floor. She could see Squishy’s galaxy laden eyes looking up at her from below, begging for meat. He already had too much, though, and his stomach was bulging. So, she didn’t give in to his pleas.
“What’s wrong, Addie? You really came home with your boots absolutely caked in mud. I have to clean up after you, you know?” Addie would have apologized, except Christena’s tone wasn’t scolding, it was just conversational.
“Squishy and I tried to find the Impossible deer but we had to give up. I hate giving up.” Addie played with the food on her plate by squishing it with her fork.
“Alright, let’s think together,” Christena suggested.