The door shut in my face.
I couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause of my anger. Having to return home? Laken? My father not telling me? Or how Laken actually left when I told him to?
Whatever the reason, I stayed for another moment after he left, basking in my fury and anxiety-induced sweat, wondering what I’d gotten myself into.
Tomorrow, I decided. I’d figure it out tomorrow.
CHAPTER SIX
Unfortunately, tomorrow came, the sun rose, and fire-spitting chickens crowed. Which meant this wasn’t a nightmare—it was real. And living creatures were depending on me to survive.
What wretched luck… for them.
Yanking the blankets off my body, I crawled out of a youth-size bed, sore and groaning. Sitting on the edge of a sunken mattress, the nostalgia of my old room swarmed around me.
My small, once-white vanity showcased its age in scratches and chips in the wood and missing chunks of paint where I’d peeled it. Yawning, I hovered over the dust-covered surface and opened my old jewelry box filled with things Laken had made me. Against my will, a smile tore from my lips while I held up my favorite in the palm of my hand. An opal crystal wrapped in wire and strung on a silver necklace. He’d always been a good gift giver. I’d bought him embroidered socks to match mine.
Swearing the gem burned my palm, I dropped it back where it belonged. Locked up and kept away.
Hairpins, brushes, and ties. Ribbon awards from my school years. Carved wooden sculptures of my father’s favorite creatures—his cheap idea of an apology. Journals, daggers from my dagger phase, and very, very dead plants tookup the space in and on the vanity. Old schoolbooks stayed stacked in the corner where I’d meant to burn them.
The collection of age-old perfume bottles hid under my bed and scattered along shelves—for potential potion making, obviously. I could vividly see my mother in the kitchen pretending to help me make my own elixirs. I’d watch my father collect samples from the creatures, the goat’s milk, a shed dragon scale or rallow feather, using them to experiment. I tried to do the same, and she encouraged it. Though I never made any breakthroughs, perhaps this place held some decent memories.
The chickens crowed again. Scowling, I figured it was time to go before I changed my mind and decided to have chicken for breakfast.
It took getting dressed, fifteen minutes searching for boots, and a seven-minute pep talk, but I made my way to the frail, cluttered desk where my father’s notebook waited for me like he’d planned. Tucking it under my arm, I slid the door to the back open and stopped there.
Thick and bitter wind bit at my nose, as if it couldn’t decide between winter and spring. Lush greens surrounded the small pond, overgrown on the outskirts with weeds and cattails. Trailing toward the higher end of the pasture, wildflowers bloomed.
A tiny sizzle sounded in my ear as a bastard with a beak peeked around the corner at me, sending me two feet back. A chill ran up my spine.The hellblazers.Goose bumps came alive over my arms, my fists clenched.
It’d been years since my mother passed away, and since I’d tried joining my father in his work, but it felt like yesterday. As an eager and starry-eyed child, I’d kneeled at his side in the dirt and mud, listening to every word and each caution. I’d seen the hellblazers in action, their rage and their fury. I’d seen them spit fire and had to hold on to my pants so my father didn’t see me trembling. When the flames flew, I ran.
Unfortunately, against the wall behind the chicken coop, my mother’s two handmade, hand-painted planters sat. Or they did, until that one time my back smacked into them, sending them to the ground, shattering—along with our relationship.
All that time, and yet my fingers still shook at the sight of the empty wall. The burning anger—no, disappointment—in my father’s eyes when he looked at me then. The way he withdrew from me and shut me out from the sanctuary. From him.
But I’d changed. I could do this.I hope.
For the first time since then, with a straight spine and my chin high, I crossed the threshold. I couldn’t let them starve.
From the back window wall, the pasture opened with each creature having its own enclosure along the concrete patio. Five on the left, five on the right. A little pen for their individual little houses, beds, troughs, and such. Other than during feeding times, their gates remained open. Part of my grandfather’s mission had been not to lock them up as much as possible; this world remained theirs, too. And they deserved to wander it.
I opened my father’s journals and tried to read thescribbling of a middle-aged man with no organization skills. Each creature had its own row with its name, age, species, and notes.
First on the list: Indo—easy.Indomitus: seventy, horned ash dragon, cannot fly nor breathe fire / trauma with poachers / scars. Considering he’d been here since before I was born, I knew he was fed in the woods near the water. He didn’t come out to be seen, but I wasn’t surprised. He never was social. I left it at that, leaving his food on a boulder.
Next on the list: goats.Finneas and Finnigan: six, dassin goats, Finneas’s eyes pecked out after abandoned / Finnigan is brother don’t separate. Side note: discovered they’re females; keeping the names. Their milk has healing properties, hence the creams we sell.
Their enclosure, on the far right, had wooden forts and ramps for climbing and jumping off. With a rusted green bucket filled with pellets jingling at my side, one gray-haired goat hurried to the fence with a little pep in his step. Finnigan (I believed) came right to me. Actually, I knew it was Finnigan because she had eyes. Her nose flared, smelling my unfamiliar scent. A relieved breath slipped from me. At least one creature here didn’t want me dead. Finneas lingered a few feet back—with no eyes.
Two down. Six to go. So far, so good, right? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
Next.Archie: four, rallow, brain injury / randomly transports in episodes. Rallows are birds able to transport themselves. There was a group of them that delivered messages at HoneyBrooke’s post office. That’s where our Archie came from. He’d gotten a head injury in a transport gone wrong and never fully recovered. At first glance of the ruby-red feathered bird, I thought it’d be simple. He caught a glimpse of me and began disappearing and reappearing every two seconds, about four inches in front of where he’d been right before. One day I’d properly introduce myself; today, however, I ducked and ran and zigzagged to avoid being bombarded.
Moving to the enclosure hosting a white wooden home, completed with a pink cushioned bed, I stood over the little gate but saw nothing. Knowing Phoebe and the deadly prickler she was, she’d stay unseen if she wanted. Her anxiety made sure of it.Phoebe: seven, deadly prickler porcupine, poisonous spikes removed by poacher / goes invisible when nervous.
Carefully pouring some whack-ass mixture of leaves and berries, I tilted the bucket. It took exactly four seconds for Phoebe to appear—three inches from my face, standing on her hind legs. Endless abyss of shadow-filled eyes poured into my very being.
