The Secrets of Elderville
Chapter Thirteen:

Delilah flies over her hometown for the last time, she looks down at the little homes with their warm lights peeking through the clouds, starting to pass over the museum. “Goodbye Eddie the guard, goodbye museum, goodbye my lemony scented soaps” she smiles sadly. She looks back up and realizes she’s fallen behind the army a bit and quickly speeds up, the blue gem shining brightly against the clouds. The moon shines brightly over her and the army as they make their way to the halfway point, Corny’s nest. Opal falls behind to fly next to Delilah, “we’ll be at the nest soon, then we should arrive to the elder tree by morning.” Delilah nods, her thoughts being too crowded to really pay attention to Opal’s words. Opal takes notice of Delilah’s distracted gaze, “Delilah! I need you to focus!” Delilah snaps out of it, shaking her head, “sorry! I still feel unprepared for what’s to happen.” Opal then hops from her hummingbird and onto the glowing blue gem on her broom.

“This is what has been foretold, it is your destiny. I’m sorry that you were the one that was chosen for this, but we can’t choose our fate. Your ancestor fought bravely in the first war, she gave up her power for this and eventually her life. You will be honoring her by following in her footsteps.” Delilah smiles at Opal and nods her head, Opal hops back onto her hummingbird and speeds to the front. Delilah begins to cry, the wind carrying her sobs behind her.

Suddenly Delilah hears a “caw!” next to her, she looks to her right to see a huge black crow flying next to her. “Grandmother?” The crow caws at her again, she nods her head, “okay, I understand.” Wiping away her tears, she speeds forward, now eager to swat that wasp off the face of the earth.

Jessa hops on Corny along with Hawk, Matteo and Lily. Vlad will stay behind with King Grog and wait for Opal. The three mountain guards, Pan, Morty and Torry ride three snowy white owls. Before they can leave, Nancy starts to scream for Jessa. “Jessa! Wait!” Jessa slides off Corny, picking Nancy up and hugging her. “It’s going to be okay Nancy, you must stay here with the mountain wanderers, you’ll be safer with them.” Nancy nods, giving Jessa one last hug. Jessa then hands her to the wanderer Lizzie, “I’ll take good care of little Nancy for you, princess Jessa.” Jessa climbs back onto Corny, with Hawk hugging her from behind. Hawk whispers in her ear, “are you ready?” Jessa nods her head, quickly kissing Hawk’s cheek.

They fly off into the night, towards the elder tree, Jessa yells to the mountain wanderers, “the elder tree will be on the horizon once we pass the field of flowers!” All three nod their heads. Towards the back of Corny, Matteo sits, staring at the guard Torry. Her blue hair shined in the moonlight, as did her blue wings and the snowy white owl she rode. Without realizing it, Matteo was beginning to slip from Corny’s back, he had not been gripping Lily’s waist but was resting his head in hands like a lovesick puppy. Before Lily could notice, a big gust of wind hits them, making Matteo slip off Corny, “MATTEO!” Matteo could not get his wings to flap due to the high winds. Thinking that this was the end, Matteo closed his eyes when suddenly he landed on something soft. He opens his eyes to see the back of Torry’s head, her long blue hair whipping around in the air. He positions himself behind her, gripping her waist tightly. “What in the maiden were you doing?!” she yells to him, Matteo, embarrassed, stumbled on his words, “I- I don’t know, I got distracted.” Torry rolled her eyes, “what could’ve distracted you so much that you fall off an owl at this height!” He continued to stare at her, she looks back at him, her eyes the color of amber, he leans in closer to her. She looks at him up and down, realizing exactly what distracted him, her cheeks begin to turn red, she quickly turns forward. Matteo smiles, looking over to the group, Jessa and Hawk are smiling and shaking their heads at him. The only one not smiling was Lily, who stared daggers at him and Torry. Matteo was confused by her aggravated look, he mouths the word, “what?” Lily turns her head away from him, Hawk pats Lily’s hand which was squeezing their waist very tightly.

The field of flowers stretched out very far, Corny and the other owls needed to rest for a while. They landed in the middle of the field, everyone hopped off and began to collect twigs for a fire. Morty had brought with them a large piece of squirrel meat for everyone to eat. Lily declined, she did not eat meat, she began to make broth to eat and invited everyone to have some if they like. Morty scoffed at her, “no wonder you have little muscle on your bones, you need meat to build up strength if you are to fight against an army of wasps.” She went to go rip off a piece of the squirrel meat, her muscles bulging from the sleeves of the ripped up brown top she wore. Lily began to stare at Morty with her messy gray hair, amazed that such a short wanderer could have such huge muscles. She then stared at the other guard wanderer sitting next to Morty. Pan, his hair matched the snowy white owls, but his eyes were a piercing pale white as was his skin. She noticed that he was not partaking in the squirrel meat, so she got one of her little wooden bowls and offered him some broth. He smiles at her and nods his head, then pats the ground next to him, offering for her to sit. She plops down next to him, giddy that she has finally found another wanderer who does not enjoy meat. “So how long have you abstained from meat? I’ve not had any since I was about ten,” He smiles and begins to move his hands around, making signs with them, Lily was confused at first but then quickly realized that Pan was speaking sign language.

“Oh, I see,” she goes back into her mind to the time she read a book all about sign language. It then clicks in her head; she begins to sign back to him. Pan smiles widely at her, grabbing both of her hands, he points to his heart and begins to sign that she has filled it with so much light. He then signs to her that he hasn’t eaten meat since he was sixteen. Lily’s heart melted; she couldn’t stop staring into his eyes.

Across from the fire, Matteo sits next to Torry who is telling him about a time when she was cornered by a huge bear in the mountains, but he couldn’t stop staring at Lily fawning over the guard Pan. He rolls his eyes when Pan takes Lily’s hands, showing her how to sign beautiful. Lily blushes hard at Pan, which made Matteo’s grip on his piece of squirrel meat even tighter. Torry snaps her fingers in front of him, “hello? Jeez you sure do space out a lot.”

All of a sudden, the sound of a bowl falling on the ground grabs everyone’s attention, Morty was standing in front of Pan, “stop with all this no meat talk, and eat the damn squirrel! You need your strength!” Torry stands, pushing Morty away from Pan. “Stop it Morty, do not start. It is Pan’s decision, NOT yours!” Morty knocks Torry’s hands off her, “well it’s HIS decision that could get us all killed! He is weak, just like this little flower sitting next to him.” Matteo begins to rise, his fist ready to swing but it was Lily who punched first. “I AM NOT WEAK!” Lily’s whole body was shaking. Morty wipes the blood from her nose, “good shot pipsqueak, you caught me by surprise though, let’s see if you can really fight.” Matteo stands between them, but Lily pushes him aside, “let’s do it.”

Lily and Morty stood five feet apart while everyone watched them in a circle. Corny and the other owls hooted at them, excited to see who would win. The only one against the fight was Matteo who stood with his arms crossed. Hawk stood in the middle of them, they yell, “BEGIN!” Morty and Lily run at each other, Lily slides under Morty’s legs, knocking her feet from under her. Morty grunts, angry now, she then kicks Lily’s feet from under her but a second too late, Lily darts into the air. Morty follows her, lunging at her, tackling her to the ground. They made a big thump sound when they landed, Morty pins Lily’s arms down, starting to hock a loogy to hang in front of her face. Lily, disgusted, uses her legs to grab hold of one of her legs, she uses her body weight to flip Morty onto her back. She cocks back her arm, but then she stops. She leans down to her face, “who’s weak?” She smirks at her, standing up and offering her hand. Morty accepts, dusting off the dirt from her fur. “Very nice, I was wrong about you, I apologize,” she offers her, her hand, Lily smiles and shakes it, “I accept your apology.”

They all sit back down around the fire, except for Jessa and Lily who go off to practice spell casting. Jessa and Lily read from a book Lily brought with her from the hollow library. ‘All About Spellcasting for The Beginner’, Jessa points to a fire casting one, “Let’s start with this one, I want to burn that wasp.” Lily points her wand, and a yellow light shoots out of it, a target then appears in front of them, a few yards away. Jessa gets out her sketchbook, ripping a paper from it and sticking it to the target. Lily squints at it, the picture is a drawing of the wasp king with a big red ‘L’ next to his face. Lily laughs, “what does the ‘L’ mean?” Jessa smiles, aiming her wand at the target, yelling out “FUOCO CAOTICO!” A huge flash of flames shoots out of her wand, engulfing the target, the drawing nothing but ashes now. She turns to Lily, “loser, it means loser.”

They keeled over laughing, so much so that tears began streaming down their faces. Jessa then reaches for the book to replace another spell to learn when Lily stops her, “wait, look!” she points to where the target was, and they see a little mouse, shaking from the fire spell. Lily and Jessa run to it, the mouse covers its eyes and cowers. Lily lays her hand on its head, “don’t worry little one, we won’t hurt you.” The mouse, still shaking, retracts its body away from her. Jessa crouches down beside Lily, “we need to communicate to it that we mean no harm. You thinking what I’m thinking?” Lily nods her head. They go grab the book, looking up the spell for voice enchantments. Jessa replaces the one named ‘dare loro voce’, she points her wand at the mouse and recites the spell. The mouse glowed white for a second, then they started to hear the little mouse mumbling something. They both lean down closer to it, they hear it saying, “please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me” Jessa smiles at it, “we’re not going to kill you little mouse,” the mouse stops shaking instantly. It peaks its head out from its fetal position. “Yo-you’re not?” it says in a squeaky voice. Jessa and Lily shake their heads. The mouse straightens up, its ears bigger than its head, it wriggles its nose, sniffing them. “You understand me?” Lily nods her head, “yes Jessa casted a spell on you, giving you a voice.” The mouse looks to Jessa, with awe in its little beady eyes. “What do we call you?” Jessa asks, offering her hand, the little mouse accepts, letting her pet it. “My name is Pippin, but you may call me Pip if you like,” Jessa and Lily smile at him. “Well, it’s very nice to meet you Pip, would you like to come with us to our camp and meet the rest of our group?” Pip accepts, following behind them as they walk back.

Rose awakens in her cage, immediately looking up to see Theo still unconscious. His skin was pale, and his wings gone. Rose winces as she tries to get up, her swelling on her eye had gone down a bit but there was still a big lump above her right eye. She whispers, “Theo?” He does not move. She picks up an acorn that lays just outside her cage, throwing it at him. Still, he does not move. Rose begins to panic, she yells “Theo?!” Suddenly she hears him groan. Relief floods her, “oh thank the elders! Theo!” He can barely lift his head, but with what strength he has left, he picks himself up and leans himself on his side against his cage. “What the hell happened?” he says in a croaky voice. “I think…I think she tore your wings Theo. I’m so sorry.” Theo sighs, bringing his arm around to his back, touching where his wings used to be and only feeling dried blood. “Damn, that bastard,” he coughs.

Rose yells to the guards, “hey! We need water! Give us water!” The wasp guards buzz to each other, one of them shrugs, the other one enters the hollow and fills up a bucket with water from Nail’s sink. They sit it in front of Rose’s cage. Rose stares at the wasp guard, “how am I supposed to drink this if I can’t reach it? You must open the cage!” The wasp hesitates, looking back at the other wasp guard buzzing some more, the other guard shrugs its shoulders again. The wasp guard then reveals another key to the cages, opening Rose’s cage.

It sits the bucket inside when suddenly Rose launches herself at the guard, casting a spell that lifts the water out of the bucket, shooting it at the guard and then freezing him in place, a frozen statue. The other wasp guard flies at her but she quickly casts another enchantment, a sleeping spell, the guard immediately drops to the floor, knocked out.

She rips the key from the first guard’s hand, unlocking Theo’s cage. “Good job sis now let’s blow this acorn stand,” she carefully grabs his right arm, swinging it over her shoulder. With what little strength she had, she flew him out of Nail’s hollow and into the pitch-dark night sky, far away from the elder tree. “Where are we going to go?” Theo whispers. Rose straining to talk while holding all of Theo’s body weight, she says “we’re going to replace Jessa.”

End of Chapter Thirteen.