The shadows had forms which shifted. They looked as if to be made of the wind and the earth itself. They swirled like little mini sandstorms in the air. They had snouts, well most did. And limbs, usually four, but sometimes more, or less, and the position of their legs would change, often to very odd angles. Their teeth were there, and then they weren’t. The way the dust moved made them look like they had coats of fur, constantly alive or incessantly flea-bitten. They shimmered in the moonlight and they changed colour often. At first glance they were a mix of brown and silver, but a closer look revealed subtle hints of purple, green, and yellow. Their eyes were red, or white, or black, and yet, it was only when you didn’t look directly at them that they were even there at all. Stare too long and it would just look like yet another hole among the many holes that made up these strange creatures.

For awhile no one moved. There was nowhere to run. But the creatures in the wind did not come any closer. Eventually, Sasha took a few hesitant steps out toward them.

"Sasha!" Bobby warned.

"It's okay." Amanda spoke softly from beside him. "I don’t think they’ll hurt us. I recognize them, although I thought they'd gone extinct."

"What are they?" Gemma asked, as she too, took a cautious step in the direction of the creatures.

"I believe they’re called Cantaloupe."

Gemma stopped, certain she’d misheard. Then she turned and frowned at her mother. "Like the vegetable?"

"It means 'singing wolf,'” Amanda explained. “Because of how they look, and the way they're drawn to music. They're empaths of a sort. They manipulate emotions, or at least they can."

"Like the Sirens?" Salem asked, eyes widening.

"Sort of. They're not dangerous though, not from what I’ve read. People used to hunt them."

Katrina took a step toward the edge of the circle. One of the creatures darted in, swirled around her, and then returned back to it’s friends. It did not hurt her, rather it made her feel almost soothed.

"But they killed people," Seraphina protested, staying close to Bobby and the two adults. She clutched Bobby’s hand tightly.

Amanda shook her head, all the while watching the creatures and her children closely. "I don't think it was them."

"Then what?"

"I don't know."

“I can feel them. Listen,” Katrina told them.

The cantaloupe did not make a sound, at least not out loud, and yet, had you asked anyone in that circle at that moment, they all would have told you that they could hear something.

“It’s like they’re singing,” Gemma remarked, “In my head.” She turned back group. “I think they want us to sing.”

“It’s sad,” Salem observed.

Katrina shook her head. “It’s not sad. It's more like, you know how you feel when you remember something happy but you miss it. That's what it feels like.”

“Like nostalgia?” Salem asked. He stood near one edge of the circle now, leaning close to try and get a good look at these new creatures, all of which just refused to stay still. A couple of them danced around him, almost as if it were a game. Salem laughed as he reached for one and it ducked away. In his head, the music he heard lifted and lightened.

“No, like, like longing,” Katrina explained. Then she paused. “Or it was.”

Sasha giggled as she managed to put her hand right through one. She pulled it back and the creature continued on, both of them unharmed. “It tickles,” she cried with glee. Then she turned back to face the others. “Do you think we should sing for them then?”

Bobby watched all his siblings spread out around the circle in different directions. He took a step forward, hand still in Seraphina’s. She stayed put, a scared look on her face, and tried to pull him back.

He smiled back at her gently. “It’s okay. Trust me.”

She hesitated. But he was patient, and eventually she followed him out.

Soon, she was laughing along with the others.

Sirius leaned in close to Amanda. “Are you sure it’s safe?” he whispered.

Amanda nodded but she watched them closely. “I’ve never seen them before, except in a book. There weren’t that many pictures.”

“Sing! Sing! Let’s sing something!” Sasha demanded. She had found a grouping of smaller cantaloupe and she wondered if they were babies. They darted between her legs and around her ankles. One of them twisted itself in the strands of her hair, tugging them in all directions, before dropping down as fast as gravity and then flying away and off up higher.

Gemma carefully created a small fireball in her hand to see if they would play in the flames, but the cantaloupe quickly dodged away. She could sense the fear they felt so she snuffed it out and soon they returned again. “What song?” she asked Sasha.

“You know the one about the lonely wolf and the moon?”

The others nodded, except for Seraphina who shook her head. Bobby leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you.”

She smiled and hugged his arm.

Salem raised his hands like a conductor. “Ready?”

The others nodded. Sasha started them off.

“White wolf, whispering wonder,

Why do you howl at the moon?

Soft wolf, with footsteps like thunder,

Why do you run so soon?

Stay wolf, whispering lover,

Don’t leave me to myself.

White wolf, mystery runner,

Soft and sweet your sound.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I’ll trade a song for all your howls,

And hope that you’ll be found,

On nights like this, so seldom missed,

Just beyond the grounds.

Out of reach, but still I hope,

I’ll hear you in my dreams,

A lonesome sound that’s always bound,

For lonesome company.”

Amanda and Sirius watched as the children sang and they felt the emotion that emanated from the creatures in waves. It was a connection like no other, a common language, without words.

Katrina reached absently to the flute that she had somehow managed to keep a hold of throughout the night’s events. She felt drawn to it, like it wanted something. There was magic in the air. She could feel it, just like the empath magic she had in her charm, but stronger, so much stronger. No witch had magic like this, not even her mother, and the more they sang, the stronger it grew.

As her hands touched the fine crafted wood she became aware of something and an understanding formed. The magic she had imbued into the knife earlier had flowed and fit, and it had been drawn into a shape but it had also been discordant, like pouring water into a bowl. It fit and it had a preference, but it did not belong, not really. As she started to tug empathic magic from the air and infuse it into the flute she could feel a resonance, as if the magic from the cantaloupe were music itself which already belonged to the instrument in her hand. It’s harmony interacted in a way that increased the power. The magic flowed through her so easily, that she had no doubt this was going to be the best infusement she’d ever made.

"They’re very shiny. What are they made of? Do you know," Sirius asked Amanda as he watched the cantaloupe leap and bound about, somehow finding purchase in the empty air.

Amanda nodded. "Transition metals mostly, iron, cobalt, nickle, alumin-..." Amanda's tone changed half way through her answer and her words trailed off as her eyes widened. "Oh. Shit."

"What?" Sirius asked, seeing her tense up.

"We need to get away from here. Get back to the ship."

"I thought you said they were safe?"

"It's not them, it's..." She cut herself off and raised her voice to call out to the kids, who were well spread out, "Guys, we need to go. Come on. Now!"

Down near the water, Salem turned and pouted, “Oh, but why?”

Amanda turned to answer him, her back to the dunes, where Sasha played with the small cantaloupe. Where, unseen by anyone yet, a much larger shape, was making it’s way forward, down from the rolling hills of sand and stone. A large, dark shape with two wings and many scales.

Gemma noticed it first and she recognised it as the same dragon that had attacked their ship, only it looked much bigger on the ground.

Fire played in it’s throat as it set one giant clawed foot on the sand. It’s eyes focused on the cluster of cantaloupe that played near Sasha.

“Sasha!” Gemma yelled a warning, hoping her sister would have time to run. You weren’t supposed to run from dragons, but the cantaloupe moved so much anyway that Gemma hoped any movement her sister made would pale in comparison.

Sasha turned her head and saw the dragon, but instead of running away, she dove toward the baby cantaloupe that the dragon focused on and planted herself in front of them.

She raised her hands and began to summon an ice wall, as the dragon drew it’s head back and the fireball rose quickly up it’s throat.

But ice was no match for dragon fire, least of all the ice created by a young girl. Gemma knew this and so she ran for Sasha and raised her own hands. She had seen how dragon fire could be controlled, she had seen her mother do it, and yet, Amanda was so much more skilled than Gemma. Gemma could barely control her own flames. What hope did she have here?

Luckily, a girl of action, and with little time to think, Gemma did not waste time on doubt. The dragon drew her mind to fire, and with that last dragon attack so fresh in her mind, she knew what she aimed for was not impossible.

She reached Sasha right as the fire flew towards them and she put everything she had into keeping the flames away from them.

Amanda had turned her head at Gemma’s shout, but too late to stop the fire heading for them. The flames spread along the beach, covering the space where Gemma and Sasha had been. And it did not stop, far out the sides it flared, heading right toward the rest of the group.

With a flick of the eyes, and a slight movement of the wrist, Amanda sent the flames up into the air. It took time, too much time and she was so very tired. She saved those nearest, but Gemma and Sasha remained hiddedn by flames. She worked the fire away, hoping against probability that Gemma had somehow managed to create a small pocket of safety.

Sirius ran to the edge of the flames, trying to go in further, to get to his daughters, but the heat held him back.

Eventually the fire burnt out. The smoke cleared, and there huddled together, sat Sasha and Gemma, and a group of baby cantaloupe, all of them completely unharmed. Gemma stared down at her hands, surprised at what she had achieved. She could not control the entirety of dragon fire, like her mother but she had managed enough to keep the flames from engulfing them. And Sasha, with her ice magic, had countered some of the radiating heat.

It was only once the flames were gone that Gemma realised she had been holding her breath. It was a good thing too, for as she tried to breathe in, she realised the air seemed to be lacking something quite necessary. It took a few moments for oxygen to fill the space again and by the time it did, Sirius had covered the ground between them and picked up both of his children.

Carrying the two of them over his shoulders, Sirius ran back to the rest of the group. Behind him the dragon pulled it’s head back, readying for another attack.

Sasha screamed as fire consumed a few of the cantaloupe she had been trying to protect. Thanks to the time she had bought them however, most managed to flee, including all the little ones. The ones that were too slow were the biggest, and they burned with bright colours, flames of green and blue, which were quickly snatched out of the air by the dragon’s long snout as it consumed their cooked remains.

Amanda kept the flames from getting to close to Sirius’s fleeing heels but as the fire disappeared and she dropped her hands and took a step forward to help him with the girls, she stumbled slightly on the sand.

Bobby reached out to steady her by grabbing the back of her shirt.

Sirius reached them and set the two girls on the ground, who both looked back at the place they had been in only a moment before, where nothing now remained.

The group turned to make for the ship, but before they could take another step, a flame swept passed, igniting more cantaloupe, this time it coated the beach between them and their shortest escape. The dragon moved closer, forcing them nearer to the water. Around them, the chilling howls of the cantaloupe filled the air, sounds they were each all too familiar with.

But amid the howls the creatures kept singing a silent song. It was a sorrowful one, of longing and sadness, and Katrina could still feel it’s power. Not once during, this whole ordeal had she ceased channeling that magic into the flute. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure she could stop now even if she had wanted to. It was more like the magic was using her than the other way around.

She watched the dragon make it’s way down the beach toward them, and she noticed her mother’s tired and sweaty face and how the flames licked a little closer to them with every breath the dragon blew. She could see Gemma’s fearful gaze darting around, obviously unsure if what had been done once could be done again. As Katrina funneled the magic in into flute, she remembered what it was they had originally been intended for, and she had an idea.

Her infusing continued, as she raised the flute to her lips. Around her, more than anyone else, the cantaloupe danced, almost as if they knew what she was doing, and that she needed them. Their magic was wild and unfocused. It leaked out into the air, the way wind makes music in a forest. A sound that’s beautiful but easily lost.

Katrina did not really know how to play a flute but she got the instinctive feel that a melody was what was required here, that to use this magic in it’s most potent form, and to point it at a target, she must play a tune. She knew which note was which and she had a basic understanding of scales, arpeggios, and harmonics, but she knew no songs. She hoped it did not matter.

She played the notes in order, up a scale, down a scale. Then she mixed it up, and tried to remember a lullaby. She got some notes wrong and it was no song that anyone would have recognised but it worked. It was music nonetheless and it was played with passion.

She played and twisted the magic that the flute now held into something crafted and deliberate, into a command. She watched as the dragon stopped it’s attacks. It’s tail curled up around it’s front legs as it sat down on the beach, and slowly, very slowly, it’s head started to sway.

She used less magic in her song than she channeled into the flute, such a small smidgen that she had no fear of running out. She felt the power that flowed from the cantaloupe grow even stronger. Her whole body felt like it was one with the magic, like it wanted to join in too. She knew not how much power she had put into this instrument. It was excessive, more than anything she’d ever done before, and it did not cease. Her vision started to lose it’s focus, the dragon and her family around her became blurry. The beach started to tilt, the air took on a sharp metallic taste and then nothing. Her skin chilled before she lost all sense of temperature. No longer could she feel the wood of the flute beneath her fingers, although she knew they still played. Several final notes and then the world went black.

The last thing she heard was the whispering of the wind.