As we made our way through Lanid, I marveled at all of the different people walking about. Many looked no different than humans, but others were creatures that seemed almost impossible to exist. The shops themselves were like any other town layout. All of the shops were old brick buildings side by side with people going in and out of them constantly. Everyone walked along the busy dirt road as they went about their business and bought what they needed. They were dressed with things I had never imagined or things that didn't seem suitable at all for wearing. Some old women an men wore old rags, whereas younger women and their families wore plain dresses styled like those in the medieval times. I couldn't help but notice in one corner, there was a group of men clad with human clothing. Luca pointed something else out before I could stare at them for too long and worry about what was going on.
As we passed a shop filled with broomsticks, I stopped walking to catch a glimpse of them all. "Wait, so you people really do ride broomsticks here?" I stepped closer to the glass and watched as brooms flew back and forth throughout the shop. The shop appeared small on the outside, but looking in I could see a long hall with high ceilings. Broomsticks lined the walls all the way to the top.
"If by 'you people' you mean us witches and wizards, then yes. We do. They happen to help with travel. They are fast and come in handy every now and then. Especially when I want to chase a few kids away from my spooky castle. Now, Hedrick's shop isn't too far away so just stay focused and then I'll show you around all you want. Okay?" Luca grabbed my shoulders and slowly pulled me away from the window my eyes were glued onto.
I sighed as we walked away from the broomstick shop and down the street crowded with people. "Luca, this place is amazing." I felt a smile tug at the corner of my lips and he shrugged.
"You think this place is amazing? This is nothing." He shrugged and I watched his face for a moment.
He seemed so at home here. Everything around him was like a new reminder of who he was and what he could do. What could he do? I still didn't know everything about him, even though he had told me so much about himself. Was he hiding anything from me? Well, there was the time when he said he had been nearly dead once, yet he never elaborated. I would find a way to make him tell me. Then again, he wasn't mine. It wasn't like he was obliged to tell me everything. I wasn't his girlfriend.
Did I want to be? The thought hit me and I looked away from him. No, I didn't think so. Luca was nice, but someone else had already caught my attention. Someone I knew I shouldn't be giving the time of day considering who he is.
Luca stopped. When I came back to reality I noticed that we were standing in front of a dark shop with locked doors. "That's weird. Hedrick said he would help us."
"Is there a back door? Maybe he had planned on only helping us, and didn't want to see anyone else so he closed the shop." I peered into the window, eagerly wanting to see some form of life walking towards us to welcome is inside.
"Maybe. Come on," Luca grabbed my hand and led me down an alley. "There should be a back entrance somewhere down this way..." As Luca was looking around, I heard a scuffle behind us.
"Luca," I started with a gasp as I turned around and found the group of men wearing human clothes walking down the alley toward us. "Luca." My voice cracked as I hit him in the arm.
Finally, he looked up and his entire body tensed. "Just stay back." He pulled me back from the guys, who were now a few feet away, and I allowed him to step forward.
"You two lovebirds enjoying your stroll?" One guy looked at me and I felt the blood leave my face. He had crocodile skin beneath his hood.
"We were, actually. Thanks for asking. Now, if you wouldn't mind us while we head on out, we'd be-" Luca grabbed my hand and tried to step forward. But, one of the men stepped forward to meet him and looked down at him as if he were a child. Of course, compared to him, he was a child.
"I don't think you'll be living anytime soon, kid. We have a few things we want from you." The man reached for Luca's arm but Luca was fast and within seconds the man was on the ground. I felt my eyes widen as the men began throwing themselves at Luca with sharp claws sticking out. Luca landed a couple punches on the first guy before turning to the other man and gripping onto his head and brought it down onto his knee with a crack. One by one, they became more angered and went for Luca. While he was busy fighting them off, I felt someone grab my arm and I couldn't help but let out a short scream.
"Get off of me!" My survival instinct took over my body as electricity rushed through my body and electrocuted the man right in front of me. He fell to the ground with a cry of pain and I backed into the wall. I looked back to Luca, who was laughing. Why was he so happy? I looked around and saw one man getting beaten relentlessly by... no one.
I felt my chest rise and fall quickly as I watched the rest of the men fall to the ground or run away injured. "Good to see you again, Hedrick. Just like old times, right?" Luca laughed and I heard someone else laugh along with him.
"Luca, who in the world is that? Why can't I see him?" I looked around, trying to see someone, but Luca just shook his head.
"You won't be able to see him, Nessa. He's kind of invisible to lot of people. Sorry to break it to you, but you probably won't be seeing Hedrick anytime soon. I doubt you would want to, anyway. He's pretty hideous." Luca scrunched up his nose and someone laughed again. Luca laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. I nodded slowly and tried to wrap my mind around the thought. I needed to get used to this place. Blood taking doors, satyrs, and invisible people. This should be easy.
"I didn't realize how much I missed fighting with you, Luca. We'll have to do it again sometime. When your friend isn't with us." His voice was low, and someone rough on the ears, but as he spoke I became more and more used to it.
"As much as I miss it, too, I can't. My dad doesn't exactly let me leave his sights after what happened last time." Luca tried to smile but the laughter died out and the air became tense. Last time? What had happened last time?
I cleared my throat and stuck my hand out into the direction I thought the voice had been coming from. "Nice to meet you, Hedrick. Thank you."
"Hello, Vanessa." My shoulders jumped as a calloused hand grasped mine and shook it loosely. "No problem. Now come to the back room so that we can choose the sources of your wand. First we will have to see which wood you are most with. Then we will need a hair from a magical creature that you are most compatable with. After that we will finally choose a fairy dust to use as a thin coat for your wand. The ones that are most compatible are the ones that we will use to create the main form of your wand. So, this way please." Hedrick's voice floated away from me as he continued to speak. Part of the brick wall disappeared and I followed Luca into the building.
As soon as we stepped inside, the wall closed behind us and my eyes were greeted by dozens upon dozens of trees. How many were there? None of them seemed to be the same kind of tree. Some were tall and skinny. Some were short and had fat trunks. Their leaves were like an entire rainbow. I didn't think I had ever seen so many different species of trees in my entire life. Which really wasn't that long but still.
"What you do is just walk around and try to make contact. Just try to touch them. If they pull away then you should just move on. If they lean towards you then that is another story. Come tell me the name of the tree so that I can write it down. I may have already found you by then. Go on." Hedrick pushed me forward to the first tree. It leaned away with its red leaves rustling from the movement.
"Four hundred thirty seven more to go." Luca smiled devilishly as I was rejected by a tree. Great. That was realy going to help with my ego as far as dating went. I sighed and walked on to the next tree, yet again being rejected.
"How many are there, exactly?"
"Hard to say, but there are a lot and we don't have until sundown so get your butt moving." Luca laughed as I glared at him.
With every new tree, my ego shrank a little more. I was being rejected. By trees. I didn't think any of my friends back home would understand exactly how embarassing and horrible it felt to havae trees shrink back from your touch. I tried counting the number of trees I had tried to make contact with, but lost count at around 239. By then, I had grown almost bitter towards all of the trees. I tried to carry on even longer, but it was to no avail.
I about collapsed. My legs were tired and I had had enough of this. "Luca? Can't I take a break? It's been an hour already." I groaned.
"Fifty eight minutes actually. Keep going. You only have about fifty seven trees left." Luca was sitting on the ground as he spoke and at the same time was tossing a ball to Hedrick. How does he even know where Hedrick is? I mused.
I was cranky enough to act like a complete child and mock him. "You only have about fifty seven trees left." I said in a low and goofy sounding voice. He rolled his eyes and I fought the urge to act even less like my age and stomp my feet. Luca was really annoying me right now. He didn't have to go from tree to tree. He didn't spend an hour walking around being rejected. By trees. I have never felt this rejected in my life.
I hesitantly turned back towards the trees and walked past another twenty seven getting that same feeling of rejection. Thirty left. I stopped at the next tree because it looked familiar. Where on Earth have I seen this before? It was a dark brown and had lighter browns that managed to entwine themselves around the twisty trunk of the tree.
"Is this the kind of tree you used for your wand, Luca?" I asked.
"Yep. The Swiss. That one is... how old, Hedrick?" Luca looked somewhere. It just seemed like a bare spot on the wall to me.
"Three thousand four hundred seventy-seven years old, now. It's actually one of the oldest trees here." The low raspy voice of Hedrick's came closer than it had started out and I realized that he was coming over to look at the tree with me.
"I'm sorry but I have to ask. Luca, how can you see Hedrick? Why can't I? I know you can... I just don't know how you can," I said as I crossed my arms over my chest. My cheeks became slightly pink from embarassment of having the urge to ask Luca right in front of Hedrick. Was it rude?
"Hedrick is a ghoul. But, a different type. His kind can only be seen by people who have seen someone die before. I -in my case- have seen lots of people die. I've been able to see him ever since I was a kid so yeah." Luca shrugged and passed the ball back to where ever Hedrick was. Hedrick caught it and I now knew he was only a row or two down.
"Oh," was all I could manage at the moment. Seeing someone die? That must be horrible. Now I'm not so sure I want to be able to see Hedrick. Especially if I would have to see someone die in order to. Watching someone die that I loved just so I could see someone invisible seems pretty horrible. Hopefully I will never have to see Hedrick.
I continued my everlasting journey down the rows of towering trees of all sorts. Trees that did NOT like me at all. Whipper, nope. Janinth, nope. Belcath, nope.
I was down to my last seven trees when I finally voiced my frustration. "Luca, how on Earth did you last so long? My head is about to explode. I've been rejected by a few hundred trees. Do you know how horrible that feels right now? Not even a few hundred trees like me." I crossed my arms and huffed.
"Come on, you only have a few more trees. It couldn't hurt you that much, could it? Seven trees. Please?" He pretended to beg me but I only laughed at the puppy dog face he was making.
"Fine, but only because you have a good pouting face." I stubbornly approached the next couple of trees. Excitement and nervousness swelled up inside my stomach and I couldn't hold it in any longer. There were only two trees left and if every witch had a tree then one of these was mine. I groaned but my groan was disturbed by my yawn.
"I never thought I would see the day that you actually showed a sign of being tired." Luca smiled and leaned against the nearby wall.
"Be quiet." I narrowed my eyes at him.
"No. I can't. Then you will probably fall asleep." Luca laughed. I rolled my eyes and held back a giggle. I put my hand up to the second-to-last tree and frowned when it retreated. I stepped in front of the next tree and held my hand out. I closed my eyes and held my breath.
Slowly, something hard and slightly bumpy curled around my hand and through my fingers. I opened my eyes and gazed as the branch twisted through my hand. I closed my hand around it and a smile spread across my face. "This is so weird." I read the plaque. "Dream Root.... The root of the plant can be used to enter someones dreams or even put someone into a deep sleep. The Dream Root has been around ever since the beginning of the two kingdoms." I thought of what I had just read and realized I felt dreamy just being in contact with the Dream Root.
"Dream Root is very powerful young lady." A voice said from behind me, snapping me out of my trance. I turned around. It was Hedrick.
"Yeah." I smiled. I didn't want to let my tree go. It made me feel... weird.
"But you will need to let go of it in order for us to find the rest of your wand..." Something untangles my hand from the limbs of the tree and the feeling of dreaminess left me. "Let's go find your creature."
I followed Luca in a daze. I kept looking back at my tree. The feeling just wouldn't leave me. We walked into another room. There were stables all around occupied by odd animals.
"How many animals are there exactly?" I asked.
"You get to sit down this time." Luca smiled and patted a chair beside him.
I sat down as Hedrick began talking. "The animals will be let out one by one. They will examine you, like the trees. They will only allow you touch them if you are accepted. So, try keeping your hands from touching anything. But there are forty-eight animals. Counting the ones in water. First up, a griffon." A cage was unlocked and out stepped a large griffon. It's brown wings were long and seemed to extend when it stretched them.
Oh, god. I am going to have a heart attack. I gripped the sides of my chair until my knuckels were white. The giant bird came toward me and examined me with it's large, honey-colored eyes. The griffon circled me and then stalked back to its cage without making any further examination. "No griffon?" I asked. That's when I realized I had been holding my breath.
"No griffon." Hedrick said. I couldn't see him, but I knew there was a smile on his lips.
All sorts of animals left me sitting. Birds, horses, sprites, and even some odd-looking walking fish. There were so many, I eventually lost count of them all. I had no idea that there were this many different types of animals in the world of fantasy (which was now my reality even if I didn't want to admit it). And even then I hadn't seen all of them becasue not all of them were able to be tamed or taken care of.
"Seventeen more." Luca changed positions on the hard wood floor of the huge room.
"What's next? A beaver who can jump as high as a kangaroo and has the skin of a whale?" I couldn't help but smile. There were so many amazing and different animals that I wouldn't even be surprised if that really was what was coming up to me next.
"Meet Ashen, a Fire Fox." He opened a stable and a huge, fiery fox slunk out and toward me. Her eyes were red and her coat looked like an actual blend of colors in a fire. Then I noticed that her tail actually was on fire. Ashen, the fox, slunk around my chair until she was on my lap. I held my breath as she cocked her head. Sadly, she leaped off of my lap and went back into her stall.
"Make that sixteen." I sighed. Was I ever going to find an animal?
Hedrick opened another bird cage and out flew a dark black bird. It's feet and beak were both a bright and shiny silver. It's feathers had the illusion that they were twinkling as it flew through the air. She landed on my lap and looked at me. "Meet Star, a Night Bird." Hedrick said, unsure of what he was doing.
Star cocked her head from left to right. Suddenly, she flew back to my shoulder and shoved her head under my braid. Does she know I have that mark?, I thought. Star leaped down into my lap again and sat there. Soon, she decided to curl up and go to sleep right on my lap. My eyes widened. Does that mean...?
"Great. Now that you have your animal we can go on to the fairy dust." Hedrick announced. I might have been imagining it, but he seemed almost surprised or unsure of the animal that had chosen me. Was the bird an odd combination for a summer fae? He scooped Star up and sat her back in her hanging cage as I contemplated what he was thinking.
We all got up and walked into the next room. It was a smaller room. Small jars sat everywhere. There was shimmery dust inside that I'm guessing was fairy dust. Pink, purple, green, blue, gold, beige, lack, red, orange, yellow, silver, everything. Every color that you could possibly imagine.
"Just stand in the circle on the floor and close your eyes. No peeking." Hedrick said.
I walked into the circle and closed my eyes. Wind suddenly swarmed all around me and I thought I was caught in a huge sandstorm. "Open your eyes!" Someone yelled. I opened my eyes and saw all of the fairy dust swirling around me. It looked like I was right in a swirling and glittering rainbow. I held out my hand and let the dust run through my fingers. "Just a minute more!" One more minute? Why can't I stay like this longer? Than I realized that the colors of the dust were leaving one at a time. I could only make out purples, blues, black, silver, pinks, and reds.
I pulled my hand back and watched as the colors left one by one. My braid flew up from the wind and I tried to hold it down but the wind wouldn't let me. Then I figured that the fairy dust was observing the mark just as Star had.
Pink and red dusts left. Then blue. I was left staring at purple, black, and silver. Black left. After that the wind got harder and faster. It seemed as if the colors were having an entire war! Finally, the purple left and the silver fairy dust settled at my feet. I looked around at the jars of fairy dust. "That was unbelievable," I smiled and looked down at my feet. "What kind of fairy dust do I have?"
"That pixie dust is from the fairies of Lore. No one knows much about them, except that they aren't like most of the other fairies. They don't belong to a specific kingdom, they live wherever they want, but are hard to find." Hedrick jotted something on his notepad again. Yet again, he sounded surprised. What kind of things were compatible with me? Clearly not the regular kinds of things. "That is the ending of our appointment. Come tomorrow to get your wand around seven in the evening. Have a good day."
Luca and I said bye and then we walked back to the front of the store. I put my hood up and glanced toward Luca."So, I was thinking that instead of hanging around the town we could just go back to the Academy. I don't think I want someone to attempt to mug us again. I kind of just want to leave."
"That's fine." Luca shrugged as a sad look settled upon his face. He led me away from the crowds and we made our way back to the Academy in silence.