Ferocious Flea Market Dragons, page 7
I tried to turn over and sleep again, but I caught the sounds of my mother bustling about in the kitchen. The tantalizing scent of sizzling bacon and freshly brewed coffee drew me out of bed. Thorn continued to snore and didn’t stir.
I found Mom at the kitchen table reading a magazine. Uncle Boris and Grandma sat in the living room watching river fishing on the public TV channel.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
“Not really,” I replied. “Is Dad out on patrol?”
She glanced at her watch. “He should be back any time now.”
As if on cue, Dad opened the back door and shuffled into the kitchen. Overnight his stubble had settled in, leaving his features weary.
“Morning.” He kissed the top of Mom’s head.
“See anything out there?” I asked.
“Nothing you need to worry about.” He rubbed the top of his balding head and sat in the seat opposite Mom, who got up to make him some coffee.
Grandma ambled into the kitchen. “Before we get too busy today, I want to stop by the grocery store to pay my respects.”
“We should go another time,” I replied.
The room fell silent. Only the sound of sizzling bacon filled the room.
Dad cleared his throat. “Let’s finish breakfast and go as soon as possible. We can offer our condolences.”
With a decision made by my elders, the Stravinskys piled up in two cars and left for the grocery store an hour later. As we approached the place, the mood in Mom’s car grew somber. The brightly colored trucks, RVs, and carnival equipment rolling in from the south didn’t brighten our spirits.
I swallowed back a sigh as Sveta’s head jerked toward the flashy pictures of animals and clowns. She pointed at the folded-up Ferris wheel.
“Maybe later, sweetie,” Karey said.
We parked in front and I couldn’t miss the black and white CLOSED sign taped on the door.
We weren’t the only ones paying a visit. A group of humans milled about outside. They were speaking in hushed tones to Owen.
The Stravinskys got out and approached everyone. Dad went up to Owen first and shook hands with him. Then he introduced us. Each Stravinsky paid their respects.
“God will care for her,” Grandma said softly in broken English.
“It’s absolutely horrible what happened,” Mom said.
Owen’s eyes met Mom’s. “Thank you for coming. I heard from Patty about your family. I wish we could’ve gotten to know each other under different circumstances.”
A flustered human woman stepped forward with cash in hand. “I know it’s a lot to ask, Owen, but could I get some baby food? I’ll be in and out real fast.”
Owen stuffed his hands in his pockets. Underneath his short nod, I caught his hesitation. Who’d want to walk into the place where your wife had died? “Of course, of course.”
This place was the only store for the next twenty miles. Had the pair run the place by themselves this whole time?
I stepped forward. “I can help. I’m a store manager back in Jersey. Why don’t you let me handle things for a bit?”
Owen shook his head. “You don’t have to. I’ve got it.”
“Nonsense,” Mom said firmly.
Even Grandma took his hand and gently patted it.
Owen glanced at each of us. Technically, we were still strangers in a way.
“If it would make you feel more comfortable, you can see my ID too,” I offered.
Finally, he managed a nod and gave me the keys. “Thank you, Natalya.”
Minutes later, the Stravinsky clan had the store open again. I busied myself at the register, feeling a pang of sorrow as Owen handed me some bills and change for the machine. He departed as quickly as he’d arrived.
Mom whispered to me, “Poor man. I can’t imagine what he’s going through.”
As I rang up items for the customers, Mom and Aunt Olga bagged up everything. Aunt Vera and her children restocked the shelves.
While the others worked, Grandma crafted a simple wreath from grass and branches she’d gathered outside. She slowly made her way to the back-office door, placing the wreath gently against it. Bowing her head, she murmured a prayer for Patty. The act was simple, but it spoke volumes. The store, which moments ago had been filled with the cacophony of commerce, fell silent.
Mom whispered in Russian, “It’s beautiful, Mama.”
Grandma nodded, her voice filled with emotion. “Lord knows no one deserves to die like that.”
The day wore on, and the Stravinskys kept the store going until the late afternoon. When it was time to close, we left the mournfully sweet scent of grass and hope behind.
After locking up the store, we left the building to a too-bright sky. The sun wouldn’t be setting for another couple of hours. That didn’t stop Uncle Boris and Alex from marveling at the carnival. All it took was a single workday for the business to set up shop in the nearby marina parking lot.
I’d tried to ignore it throughout the day, but who wouldn’t notice a kaleidoscope of colors and sounds bustling with infectious energy outside your window.
Without casting a glance over his shoulder, Alex took Karey’s hand and hefted his daughter over his shoulders. He started to walk over to the marina parking lot.
“Should we go home first so Mama can rest?” Mom suggested.
“How about I take your mother back to the cabins? We should let the young folks have some fun,” Dad said. “We may not have another chance like this for a while.”
The way they looked at each other, it seemed like a whole conversation had taken place. Mom nodded and whispered something to Grandma. The older woman plodded over to Mom’s minivan.
With a decision made, Dad would drive Grandma, Mom, and Aunt Olga back to the cabins while everyone else headed over. My brother was already showing his child the sights. Sveta kept pointing at the flashing lights from the Tilt-A-Whirl, while my cousins’ eyes lit up. Aunt Vera reluctantly handed over some cash and they escaped into the crowd.
Thorn slipped his right hand in my left. “Should I win you something?”
“Yes, you should.”
Uncle Boris scanned the mixture of humans and supernaturals covered in glamour. “I wonder if that Calliope woman will be here?”
“Probably not,” Thorn said. “She didn’t seem like a people person.”
“She seemed more like a kill-people kind of person,” I added.
“Sounds like an amazing woman,” Uncle Boris said as he nodded. “She’d hunt down your food, skin it, then she’d have many tales to tell as we sipped wine long into the night.”
I shook my head. It seemed like every woman would be his ideal.
We weaved through the humans, many of them screaming and laughing through their conversations. A group of human women held a quilt-a-thon at one long table while others gathered in a bustling single-tent beer garden. Glasses of beers flowed freely, and the humans eagerly parted with their cash.
We passed Alex who had stopped at a milk bottles booth game. With ease, he knocked over the stack of bottles and won a prize for Sveta.
Next, we passed my cousins who had gotten into line for the Tilt-A-Whirl. They engaged with some other sullen-looking teenagers. I smiled and Thorn’s grip on my hand tightened.
“It’s good to see you relaxed and having fun,” he said.
“How come you and I have never gone to an amusement park?” We’d never made the trip, yet the idea of sitting in those same seats or touching those handlebars after those humans put their grubby, nasty hands all over the place didn’t seem appealing.
Thorn chuckled. “We get enough thrills from everyday life these days—not that I didn’t want to take you. I’d like to travel the world with you, but we keep running into the kind of trouble where I just wanna sit in the middle of nowhere and do nothing.”
The thought of doing absolutely nothing—of just sitting in a blank, sterile white room—seemed divine. Almost impossible. I’d planned a Maine trip with Thorn to tap into serenity, but as he’d said, we’d never had a moment to catch our breaths.
“How about you win me a prize over there?” I pointed to a water gun horse racing game on the other side of the lot. “Then we can sit down in the beer garden and plan out our quiet, serene, no drama vacation.”
After I said those words, Thorn leaned over and kissed my forehead. The gesture was heartfelt, but when he pressed his lips against my skin, I didn’t believe we could plan a vacation in the future. Maybe I couldn’t see the future anymore now that I had Diana in my life.
Once we made it to the booth, the lady behind the counter said, “Looks like we have some customers. Care to play? A dollar each.”
The human appeared eager to make a sale.
“No cheating,” I whispered.
“How am I supposed to win?” Thorn replied just as quietly.
“You’re an excellent shot,” I said. “Just try.” I eyed him to show that I wouldn’t allow any cheating.
Thorn lost not once, but twice, before I gave in.
“Fine,” I whispered. “I want that Santa doll. You can stop playing now.”
He flashed me his award-winning grin, then he won with ease. After watching Thorn get a near perfect score, the woman blinked for a moment. Finally, she handed me the prize, a cute little Santa Claus doll dressed in a red riding suit as he sat upon a reindeer in full racing horse regalia. I squealed with joy. You didn’t have to be home to add to your hoarding stash.
Suddenly, someone bumped into me. Usually, I ignored it. We were in a crowd, after all. But a scent crossed my nose—one that I had smelled on Patty’s body. I handed over the doll to Thorn and bolted after a man wearing a green hat with white trim. He was a werewolf. The man’s scent was faint, but it blended well with the sweaty human bodies and other supernatural creatures around us. I weaved through the crowd as the man’s pace picked up—only for him to disappear into the sea of faces. And he wasn’t the only one wearing that hat. Another human passed and I caught the same text on the front: Granger Cranberries.
Thorn caught up with me. “Did you recognize someone?” he asked.
“It was the smell I caught on Patty.”
Thorn searched through the crowd. “I don’t smell it.”
“It was faint, and there are too many people here.” We walked through the carnival again, stopping at every booth. At every ride. Other than my family members, we never encountered another werewolf again.
Either the culprit had disappeared, or someone was playing with me.
Chapter Twelve
After the carnival, everyone returned to the cabins. While Dad and the others were debating on how to catch the culprit, I escaped the house to go speak to Grandma again. Instead of finding her next to the seats near the fire pit, I spotted her sitting on the other side of the pond. She perched at the edge and her bare feet dangled into the cool waters. As I drew closer, she even wiggled her toes and splashed a bit. Hearing her girlish giggle made me smile.
“Come, come,” she beckoned me.
I hurried over and discarded my shoes before I sat. The water along the edge appeared gross with algae lapping against the shore.
“There’s nothing in here that will hurt you,” she said softly. “I want you to feel everything around you tonight so you can connect with something other than yourself.”
After taking in the water, I took my time to slip off my socks. The grass tickled the sensitive skin between my toes, but it would take me a moment—a bit longer than a moment—to finally sit next to her with my feet in the water.
Once I gave in and took the plunge, she nodded with approval.
“There you go. See?” She demonstrated by lifting her feet in and out of the water. “Feels nice, no?”
“Feels amazing.” The temperature had dropped as mother moon rose in the sky, but the water still retained heat from the day. If I closed my eyes and didn’t look so closely, I could imagine that the water was crystal clear, and that a universe didn’t live within the waters squirming between my toes.
“Today we’ll go into another lesson. Yesterday, you learned about self-transformation. Now, we’ll talk about transforming something else.”
I tried not to sigh. Drawing from within to accomplish what I wanted was one thing, but to change something else rubbed my fur the wrong way.
Grandma must’ve caught my sullen mood, for she said, “Oh, stop it.”
Then she added, “I’m not having you go out and curse people or transform them into pigs. Such a thing would be an insult to the hog, but it’s important for you to learn these powerful spells and use them if needed.”
I sighed. “I don’t mind learning them. I’m wary since we’re pretty much jumping into the deep end of the pool with this stuff. Tamara only taught me the basics for a reason.”
“Oh, Natalya,” Grandma said.
“Mom didn’t want me to learn either.”
“My Anna means well. She’s right to be cautious. The zealous old magic spellcasters take what we know, and they taint it, but you’re a good girl. I trust you.”
She fished in her dress pocket and withdrew a large, red apple. It was so ordinary that I couldn’t resist laughing.
“How did you get that out of the house without someone eating it?” I asked.
“It wasn’t easy.” She handed it to me and continued. “This is what you’ll change.”
“How?”
“During the last lesson, I wanted you to feel for something other than yourself, and you have already started to do that. When you’d opened yourself to old magic in the past couple of months, you’d opened yourself to the flow and ebb of living things. Now I want you to reach out to the inert ones like this apple.”
I examined the apple, finding it firm with only a small bruise. It even still had the stem from when it’d been connected to its tree.
“I can feel it in my hand,” I murmured. “And I can perceive its weight, but I can’t truly see it, if you know what I mean. How do you feel for something with no underlying magic?” I felt foolish for asking such a question, but it seemed like an obvious one.
“Think about it. You take from yourself to cast spells and you understand how that works. Now when it comes to this inert object, you can tap into every single part of it, too.” She paused to purse her lips. “Stop giving me that doubting look, girl, and just listen.” She recited another spell. This time I recognized each word. There were only four of them, but I’d never heard them in this sequence before.
When it was my turn to recite what she’d said, I held the apple in both hands and pictured a generous wolf-sized bite taken out. Naturally, nothing happened. Not so much as a twitch, twinkle, or even a nudge within my body.
“You don’t believe it’s possible,” Grandma said with a cheesy grin.
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.” She poked the apple. “You see other spellcasters casting spells willy-nilly like your wizard friend and you think you don’t have to work for it.”
Grandma touched the center of her chest with her hand. “Look at me. I am a little old wolf at this point, but my belief is as vast as my beautiful homeland. Perhaps even more.” She extended her hand, and I returned the apple. She brought the piece of fruit to her lips, mumbled the words again, then kissed it. She presented the apple, revealing a lipstick stain where the apple’s red was now green. Whoa, now that was clever.
Grandma said, “This is a very powerful spell—if you do it right and don’t use another living being as a source of power.”
I grasped the stubborn apple again, imagining what I could do. After speaking the words again, the fruit refused to budge. A couple tries later and I still didn’t make any progress.
“Be patient,” she said with a soft smile. “Saint Peter’s Basilica wasn’t built in a day.”
I nodded, imagining the wondrous things I could do when I was ready to do the impossible.
Chapter Thirteen
Two days passed with little progress. I’d like to say that the calm in the deep woods had a way of easing my fears, but I woke up again that Wednesday morning with the sensation of beetles crawling up and down my back. I sat up, and Thorn’s head rose.
“What is it?” He was immediately alert.
I swung my feet over the side of the full-size bed, grateful to feel my running shoes were where I’d left them. They were ready. Shoelaces undone. Bag nearby and barely unpacked.
“Just a bad dream,” I lied.
“No more bad dreams.” He reached for me and tried to tug me back to bed, but I refused. I ran my right hand along the warm spot where I’d slept, finding it bug-free.
Not long after waiting for others to shower—including Aunt Vera who took forever to wash her hair—I ended up at the breakfast table munching away. Since I had to sit, I used the time to piece things together. It didn’t take me long to ponder on the universe: essentially, we still had no leads on where the werewolves went.
“I want you to rest today,” Thorn said firmly. The look on his face meant business, but I had too much to do.
“We don’t know where those two werewolves went, so I need to pound the pavement for a little while. Maybe see if any of the locals have any information.”
“Do you think they’ll speak to us? Wolves probably aren’t popular around here.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
Thorn reluctantly accompanied me into town. The area seemed quiet, yet less tranquil, compared to the last time we ventured into Stitchings. I scanned the faces of every driver who passed us, checking to see if I recognized any of them, but none of them appeared to be related to our suspects.
We checked the marina first, going from boat to boat to see if the werewolves had been here recently. A leprechaun, heading out to fish with his brother, had little news for us either.
“Can’t say that I’ve seen any werewolves around these parts lately.” He spat a ribbon of tobacco over the side of his tugboat. “If they’ve left town, it’s for the best between you and me.”
