ends up getting more on herself than the walls.
'What's dramatic now?' she says suspiciously, eying the four of us, one hand on the waist of her painting overalls.
'Hayley, as usual,' I say.
'Mac and Destin are sneaking off to the woods,' Hayley snaps.
Mom's eyebrows raise, blue paint smudge and all.
“We're not going far, Mom.” I reach for the handle. “We’ll be back by dinner, promise...”
“MacAlister Dupree,” my mom says harshly, and I cringe. “You are not wandering around in those woods. They’re full of snakes and poison ivy, and there’ve been reports of coyotes lately.”
Coyotes? Did that have anything to do with the ninja? “We won’t go out of eyeshot of the house, promise,” I lie.
Mom gives me the narrow appraising look that means she’s reading my mind. I hate that look. “No. The girls and I are going shopping in town, you’ll be coming with us. Destin, you’re free to stay or come with us, of course, but I’m not leaving the two of you here to wander off the instant my car leaves the driveway.” She didn’t have to ask him if his dad knew where he was. It was Saturday. Destin spends more time in our house than his own anyway. Also, his dad isn’t nearly so micro-managing as my mom.
“Aw come on, Mom, we wouldn’t do that!” I protest. We would. We absolutely would. But we’d absolutely be back before she was, so she’d never know.
She takes the backpack from me and starts transferring the sandwiches to the fridge.
“The woods are off limits,” she says firmly. “Always have been, always will be.”
Hayley gives me a smirk and sashays out of the kitchen. Amity glances back at us with an expression I don't quite understand - something like hunger - but quickly follows her out.
I glare at Destin for having the nerve to look relieved. Did he
Alright so, to be fair, I should probably come clean about why the whole possibly-mythological-creature thing didn’t freak me out as much as it should. And, you know, Destin and the feathers.
When I was eight and he was nine, Destin fell off the jungle gym in my backyard. He was mostly fine – some scrapes on his hands and bruises – but there was this pile of feathers all around him. At first I thought maybe he fell on a bird or something, but then he swore me to ultimate secrecy and told me the truth.
He wasn’t human. Not him, or his dad, or his mom, or his sister. Their whole family was some sort of other race. Feral, he said. Apparently being feral sometimes meant you got abilities. Usually it was useful things like strength or speed or really good eyesight. Not Destin – he just molted when you scared him. Bummer of a superpower.
So anyway, that was how I first learned that there’s a lot more going on in the world than most people know. Naturally I wanted to know as much about this stuff as possible – but Destin’s knowledge about his heritage is pretty limited. Apparently his parents’ families immigrated from somewhere far away, to get out of a bad situation, and have wanted to lie low ever since. His dad was pretty vague about it to him, he said, and refused to explain any more. He also claims that if I ever let on that I know anything, his dad will go berserk. I’ve never seen the man so much as curse in traffic, so I don’t know about berserk, but so far I’ve kept my mouth shut and done my part to help Destin hide the feathers. The down jacket was my idea. Pretty clever, right?
Meanwhile, foreign people built a weird school in the middle of some old cotton fields and started collecting kids that give me the heebie jeebies.
“It’s the school,” I say. “I’m serious, there’s something really fishy about the whole situation.”
I’d managed to convince my mom to drop us off by the library downtown while she, Hayley, and Amity go dress shopping. Research is a much better fate than listening to them fight about skirt lengths.
“We’re not actually writing that paper for history, are we,” Destin states, as we cross the street to the large, three story stone edifice that is the Havenwood Public Library. For a town as small as ours, we really outdid ourselves on our library. I like to call it THE CASTLE OF BOOKS. In all caps.
“Who said anything about a history paper?”
“You did, five minutes ago, when you asked your mom to take us to the library.”
I make a dismissive sound. “I wrote that already.”
“Well I haven’t.”
“Oh come on, it’s Civil War crap, it took like ten minutes.”
“It’s a five page paper, how do you do that?”
“I’ll give you my notes. Come
“Oh alright,” he sighs. “But if my dad finds out we’re doing any of this...”
“Yes!” I exclaim. How he could be so apathetic about his own origins is a mystery to me. If it was me, I’d want to know. “Okay so I’m thinking we start with property records. I mean there has to be a reason why they went to all this effort to build on that particular piece of land – ”
“Kid. Hey, kid.”
There’s a woman sitting on a bench in front of the library, presumably enjoying the shade of the awning. She can’t be comfortable in that much leather – it’s scuffed and stained and her mid-length hair is tangled and unkept. My first assumption is that she’s homeless.
“V’you got a library card?” she asks in a distinct British accent.
“Uh...yeah?” I say, taken off-guard by the question.
The woman holds up a twenty dollar bill. “Be a mate and check something out for me. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“It’s a public library,” I state slowly, not sure she’s all there. “You can check it out yourself.”
“I’m not from around here,” she grins, and it’s unsettling. “That makes things complicated and I’m in a bit of a hurry. Do you want the money or not?”
Something about her pings my creep-o-meter. I’m not sure if it’s the weird request, the squiggly red tattoos running down one side of her neck, or the smell of alcohol that rolls off her. Probably all of the above.
“Yeah sorry, we’re in a hurry too, so uh...no thanks,” I say, and we shuffle past her into the library.
“Dustin Heron,” Edna Thrush says sharply.
Destin twitches. We were trying to sneak past the library’s front desk, but the old lady is like a hawk. A tiny, wrinkled hawk. Or as Destin likes to call her, a troll.
“It’s Destin, ma’am,” he say sheepishly. Destin and I have been going to the library our whole lives, and she always gets his name wrong.
“Whatever unusual name your parents decided to give you, you still owe twenty-two thirty for that late return.”
“I’ll um, I’ll have it next weekend,” he offers.
“You’ll have it now, or you’ll not go a step further. MacAlister Dupree,” she greets me with absolutely zero warmth. Edna the Troll has this thing where she only addresses people by their full names.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” I say, on guard. I’m trying to remember if I owe the library anything. I sure hope not.
Fun sidebar about how Destin got his name. Usually when people ask him about it, he tells them he’s named after a city in Florida where his family used to take vacations. The truth is a little more...pink. See, Destin’s parents were positive they were having twin girls. Like, 100% positive. They had everything all decorated, a closet full of frilly matching dresses, and names already picked out. Angela and Destiny. Their names were embroidered and stamped on everything. Serious. So you can imagine their distress when Destin turned out to be uh, not a girl. Basically they scratched the ‘y’ off most of the stuff and just decided not to waste all the baby presents – they got him some legitimate boy clothes for going out and stuff, but most of Destin’s baby clothes were still pink.
The pictures are hilarious.
Destin turns out his pockets. He has all of three dollars. “Uh...” he stalls, looking at me. I shrug. I’d left all
