The forest has a way of calming me unlike any other place, any other person, in the world. So the next day, I spent a great deal of time sitting on my favorite stump, my eyes closed, feeling the forest’s power flow through me. Everything that had happened in the last few days had begun to accumulate inside of me, and my nerves were a wreck. After sitting outside for a few hours, I was beginning to feel a lot better about the situation with Ben. I still hadn’t come to terms with how Starla had treated me and how her delicate condition was going to affect the rest of the pack, but the more time I spent in the forest, the more I was reminded that we would all be okay.
The crunching of feet on leaves and snow had me opening my eyes and peering off through the evergreen trees to see who was approaching. It wasn’t a cadence I recognized. When Starla stepped into my line of sight,
Things were weird at home, but it was almost Christmas, and that helped to take my mind off of all of the craziness with Starla and Sam. It also helped me not to think about Fionna, even though I got a new message almost every day from someone at the School for Mages who told me something about how insane she was acting. Most of the time, it was Kayla or Lluvia who lit my phone up with, “You’ll never guess what she did today!” but sometimes it was Sean or Liam. I always shared the messages from Liam with Ben so he’d know exactly what we were saying to one another, even though he constantly told me that he trusted me. I knew he was still worried about Liam, that something was going to happen to make me feel like I’d rather be with him than Ben, so I tried to keep my distance from Mr. Finch. It wasn’t that hard since he was on the other side of the ocean. After I told him what Maggie had said and what Brice had added
Francis Flamingo looked odd, standing in the snow wearing a bright pink cloak, the hood over her dark hair. Snowflakes accumulated on the fabric, making her look like a strange symbol of summer lost in a wintry mix.I took a few steps closer to her, Ben following me, even though I didn’t want to speak to her. I could tell by the way she was standing there on the sidewalk outside of a hardware store that she wanted to speak to me. She wouldn’t have stopped walking if she was just saying hi. “How are you?” I asked as I stepped back on the curb to match her height.“Not good, I’m afraid,” she said, shaking her head. “This is our first Christmas away from Fionna, and I’m not sure how it will go. I am missing her desperately.”I nodded. “I can understand t
Francis Flamingo didn’t look like the deranged tropical bird in a snowstorm she had a few moments ago now that I was hovering above her eye level and she had to look up to see my face. If anything, she looked more like a frightened child. I could certainly see the resemblance between her and Fionna, her own daughter, who had been terrified so many times in my presence, I wasn’t sure what to think of her parents. For all I knew, her off-balance existence might be because her parents were just awful to her.I didn’t have time to dig into the psychosis of the situation at the moment, though. I needed to set something straight. “Listen here, Mrs. Flamingo,” I said, refraining from wagging my finger in her face, but just barely. “You don’t get to threaten me or my pack. I’ve done more for you and your family than anyone else has, maybe ever, unless y
What was meant to be a fun day of giving back to our community was quickly becoming something else--a day full of conflict. I didn’t like that idea at all, but here Starla was, standing on my front porch, waiting for me.I tried not to make assumptions that she was there to mess with me, but after interactions we’d had recently, I had zero expectations of it being anything other than her here to gripe at me about something. “What’s up, Starla?” I said, the words practically falling out of my mouth in a sigh.“Hi, Harlow. Sam and I heard that you are helping some of the kids and elderly people in town with Christmas presents, and we want to help.”I could only stare at her, my mouth agape, for a few seconds. “You do?” I asked her. It didn’t sound to me
Shopping was so much fun! Even though Ben isn’t much of a shopper and usually doesn’t like this sort of thing, we had a great time picking out the toys for the kids and other items, like warm blankets, for the elderly people on our list. By the time we had collected everything we needed, including a ton of wrapping paper, and got it loaded back into the truck, it was snowing pretty hard outside. I wasn’t worried about us making it home safely because I could make sure that nothing happened to the truck, as I had that one time when Sam and I had almost gotten hit head on going to the jewelry store, but I was concerned for everyone else. I sent them a text telling them to be careful going home, and once we had Raven and Tony loaded up in the truck, we headed out. It would’ve been a tight fit if we hadn’t put everything in the back of the truck secured from the weather beneath a large tarp.
While the rest of the pack was at home wrapping presents and listening to Christmas music, probably sipping hot chocolate and eating fresh sugar cookies, Ben was driving me over to Francis Flamingo’s house so I could put the mage in her place. The entire way there, my hands were in fists as I seethed with anger. It wasn’t just that she had been so brazen as to try and attempt to mark my home as her territory, which is a huge threat against my pack and my forest, it was a disrespectful insult against my family, particularly my grandma, and I just wasn’t going to stand for it.Ben pulled his truck to a stop outside of her house, which was the same shade of sickening pink that she had colored our house with. As I reached for the door handle, his hand came down on my arm. “Are you sure you want to do this, Harlow?”&ldquo
Ben didn’t say a word about the war I’d started with Francis Flamingo on the way home. Not that I’d struck the first blow, but I was sure he was thinking that what I’d done was unnecessary, and I should've left well enough alone. He might’ve been right. After all, she’d already shown she had no problem attacking my home. Who knew what might come next? If she was half as crazy as her daughter, it would be a problem. I hoped my threat of getting Fionna kicked out of the academy would be taken seriously, but with unstable people it is hard to know what they might be thinking.I answered a few questions about what I’d done when I got home, but most of the pack was preoccupied with present wrapping, so we concentrated on that. Melanie had the great idea of color-coding the gifts by family with different kinds of wrapping paper. Since we had enough varietie
“Who is that?” Melanie asked, obviously seeing my face and knowing there was something wrong. I clearly didn’t want to answer my ringing phone.I scowled and said, “It’s Mage Jaye.” Both Raven and Melanie made faces, their eyes popping out of their heads, as they backed toward the house. I didn’t blame them for not wanting to stick around and hear how this conversation was going to go.I answered the call, “Hello?” hoping I was wrong to be alarmed and the head of the council of mages was actually calling with some good news. Since I couldn’t even imagine what that might be, I didn’t hold my breath waiting for her to tell me everything was rosy.“Harlow,” she began, her tone wiping away even the faintest traces of hope I’d held out fo