Trifecta

Chapter Five: In Which You Meet Papa

The sun was setting by the time I finished the washing. I returned to the house to hang the clothes on the line, the ruby I had found hidden in my pocket.

I came up behind the house to find someone already there. The basket fell from my hands and – thankfully – landed upright in the grass with a soft thump.

"Papa!" I ran to hug him. My happiness upon seeing him however, quickly faded when he didn't hug back. "Papa?" I asked hesitantly, pulling back. "Is something wrong?"

"Would you care to explain why your mother told me Perié came home alone? She said you'd let him run off on his own!"

Oh, not this again! Come on, I'd done the washing, I wasn't having supper, couldn't we just leave it at that?

"Papa, yes he ran off, but I ran after him! He runs off all the time!"

Wrong thing to say, Scout.

"That's the problem!" Papa exclaimed. "You aren't supposed to let him run off at all! You've got to get your head out of the clouds Avaká. Or you'll never notice anything."

You know that feeling you get when you witness an injustice? The urge to do or say something, but what real effect can one person have?

Then there's that moment, the moment when your blood boils. The moment when you've had enough, when you see red and you don't have control over your words. The moment you don't even hear your words until they're out in the air? You know that Scout?

That.

"You think I've got my head in the clouds?!" I exclaimed, much to the surprise of Papa. I was usually a quiet person when it came to him and Mama, but in reality I had a temper, and I don't think I had good control over it.

Sometimes words just spill out...

"Perié's the one with his head in the clouds, running around, yammering about magic all day! I've never once considered having magic of my own! I'm too busy running around after that mongrel I'm made to call a brother!"

If you've ever snapped at your parents Scout, I'm sure you can imagine how that went.

I slammed the door to mine and Perié's room and threw myself on my tiny bed. It was made of itchy wool stuffed with straw, so it provided little comfort.

Why was it always me who was punished? Perié was the one who ran off, Perié was the one who made up stories about magic and charms!

I sighed, rolling over and reaching for my shawl. I found it wasn't around my neck, and remembered that it was still wet in the basket waiting to be hung on the line.

Dragons and dungeons.

Trying to take my mind off the usually ever-present piece of fabric that may or may not have made my little brother fly, I pulled the ruby I had found out of my pocket and held it up to the light of the oil lamp above me.

It shimmered, bouncing the light into my eyes. I winced and shut them. Bringing the ruby down from the light, I pressed it into my palm.

SMASH!

My eyes shot open, looking for the source of the sudden sound. I laid my hands on the bed to push myself up and reeled back when I felt wet. Huh? The only liquid in here was –

My eyes went to the glass of water on my bedside table, or what was left of it. There was a puddle full of shatter glass instead, water dripping down the wood, and some of it had splashed onto my bed.

I gulped and scooted towards the end of the bed, away from the puddle. That was the second time today something had happened when it shouldn't have. And my shawl wasn't even in the room.

This didn't make sense. If my shawl was magic, why didn't it do anything until today? And what about the water glass? How had it exploded? Why had it exploded?

I suddenly felt the weight of the ruby that was clutched in my hand. I opened it to see it resting comfortably in my palm.

Had it done it? No, that didn't make sense either, as it couldn't have made Perié fly, I hadn't found it then.

Something wasn't right here. Okay Avaká, think. What was at both events?

Me.