From the Mountain

I don’t know what to say to the boys as I gawk at them, blood rushing through my head like a roaring river and my heart beating rapidly in my chest. The only boys I have been around have been in Weapons, and that was different. I didn’t ever have conversations with them – just competed against them. In the dorms, I kept to myself. Other girls flirted, talked to the boys. But not me. Not Teak the Freak.

  The Light Skinned boy has blonde hair, a bit too shaggy as it frames his face. He has a broad chest and firm, muscled arms. His nose is angular, placed perfectly on his face, and on the right side of his cheek is a Mark of Power, so much like mine that I catch my breath.

  The other boy seems sullen, his arms crossed over his chest. He is leaner than the Light Skinned boy with an olive complexion and coppery curls that frame his face. His jaw is firm, solid, and his eyes are a vivid green, like emeralds or green diamonds…if such a thing existed.

  “Geez, what happened to you?” the Light Skinned boy asks. I blink my eyes a few times, trying to understand what he is talking about.

  “What?” I manage to say as I turn to close the still opened door.

  “You’re covered with blood.” I glance down at my healing robe. When I woke up this morning it was white…but it would be difficult to tell that now.

  “Emergency,” I squeak out, swallowing to clear my throat.

  “What, did someone get his head chopped off?” It is the Light Skinned boy, and his golden eyes are twinkling, as if he is enjoying this.

  “Yes…well, actually it was a woman.”

  “Holy snock…I’m sorry.”

  “It is okay. You didn’t know.” The room is awkwardly quiet. The other boy hasn’t said a word, but I notice that his eyebrows furrow and he clamps his jaw tightly when I mention the woman. However, it is the Light Skinned boy I can’t seem to take my eyes off of.

  “I’m Thann,” he tells me. “And this is Koree.”

  “I am Teak…hi.” I pull my right hand up and do a stupid little wave, trying to keep the dagger concealed.

  “Well, Teak, nice to meet you.” Thann is smirking at me as if he is amused. Then his face becomes serious. “Did the lady live?”

  I scrunch up my face, thinking about the woman. “So far…”

  “Well, that’s good news, right?” he interrupts. I nod my head in agreement.

  Finally the other boy speaks. “Come on, Thann, we gotta get going.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Thann smiles at me, and when he does, his whole face lights up, as if a candle glows inside his skull. His teeth are white and his grin enormous. “My mom sent us here for a package…or something from…” He rolls his eyes up into his head like he is trying to remember something. “From…Entho. Yeah, Entho.”

  “Well, I can’t disturb him…he is with the woman.” I pause for a moment. “She could die.”

  “That’s a problem for sure,” Thann answers, but he doesn’t appear to be worried in the least. “Maybe we can wait here…talk to you for a while.”

  My heart starts beating in my chest. Talk to these boys for a while? What would I say? “Umm….”

  “Come on, Thann, we need to go and you know it,” Koree interrupts. I sigh with relief.

  “I can look in his office…” I offer.

  “Hey, that’s a good idea,” Thann says. “I could come with you.”

  “No!” I answer too quickly. “You can sit there.” Without thinking, I motion to the lobby sitting room with the dagger still in my hand.

  “Geez, you don’t have to stab us,” Thann quips. “We’ll do what you say.”

  I realize what it must look like with the dagger in my hand. I feel my face getting hot, surely flushing into a bright shade of red. I am also sure my Mark of Power is pulsing and growing into a horrible purplish color. I wonder if when Thann gets embarrassed his Mark of Power changes into an ugly color like mine. I stare at him for a second, and I find it hard to believe that anything about this boy could be ugly.

  “Um…sorry.” I immediately pull the dagger back down, but I don’t let go of it…I have had too much training for that. “I will be right back,” I tell them, glancing over at Koree, who looks bored leaning against a wall of the clinic. I stop for a minute, thinking. I look back to Thann. “Do you know what I should be looking for?”

  “Just a package…probably for my mom…Kesper Harcourt.”

  “All right,” I answer as I walk away, trying to appear calm, even aloof. I pull the door of the clinic open and enter the hallway to our attached house. I shut the door behind me, stop in the hall, and struggle to take air into my lungs. I lean against the door, images of the two boys crashing through my head. Two boys I am talking to, as if I were a normal teenager. In normal times.

  As my heartbeat slows and my breathing regulates, I enter Entho’s office. Even though we are privileged because he is a healer, his office is furnished modestly. A bare oak desk rests in the middle of the pale blue room, and the smell of Entho invades my nostrils…herbs, medicine, and soap along with the slightest metallic trace of blood. Or maybe that is from me...I can’t be sure.

  Bookshelves line the walls and healing instruments of various sorts are neatly arranged on a tray. His leather healing case is strategically placed by the door, ready for him at a moment’s notice. I wander over toward his desk, looking for a package. But his desk is bare of anything except an enormous, handmade calendar. His billing papers. Some pens and pencils. Paper clips and an ancient stapler I don’t think works any more. A picture of my mother. And me…when I was young. But no package.

  I start to walk away when a brown paper catches my eye. It is lying flat on his desk, and I can see Entho’s handwriting on it, scrawled neatly for a change. It is a large envelope that is sealed carefully, and it is addressed to Kesper Harcourt.

  Should I take the envelope and give it to the boy…to Thann? What if it is the wrong one? I study the huge brown envelope for a few minutes, and I know it has to be the right package. I search the room one more time, knowing that Entho doesn’t like to be disturbed when he has a patient in serious condition…he is using his Power to heal, and if I break his concentration, it could be dangerous or lethal to the patient. Or him. I bite my lower lip, thinking about what to do.

  I grasp the envelope carefully in my hands and step out of Entho’s office. With the dagger in my left hand and the envelope in my right, I scurry back to the clinic, hoping that I am doing the right thing.

  I swing the door open to find Thann and Koree sitting in the lobby. Thann’s back is slouched against the bench, his long legs stretching out in front of him. Koree is sitting beside him and leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees. I catch my breath at the sight of them.

  I want them to stay forever, and I want them to leave right now.

  Thann stands up. “You found it?”

  “Ummm…I think so.” I hand the envelope to him. Koree stands up at the same time, both of them inspecting it together.

  “Yep, has to be it,” Thann says.

  Koree nods his head, finally speaking. “It has Kesper’s name on it.”

  “Yep,” Thann answers again, grinning widely. “Okay, thanks, Teak. My mom will be happy, but we gotta fly…”

  “Dragons are outside waiting…you know,” Koree adds, as if we are suddenly friends. He finally smiles, and a dimple creeps up on the right side of his cheek. It is a slow smile where I don’t see any teeth, but for some reason it is mesmerizing.

  “Yes, of course,” I breathe out.

  “Thanks, Teak,” Thann says, turning to go. Koree has already led the way to the exit door. Thann twirls around, “Maybe we’ll see you around some time.”

  “Sure,” I answer half-heartedly.

  “If you’re ever in Harcourt, look us up,” he smiles.

  “Harcourt? But that is far away…”

  “You never know,” Thann answers, shrugging his broad shoulders.

  “Yes, you never know,” I repeat as I watch the two boys walk into the encroaching darkness,
their long legs hitting the cobblestone path in a rhythm only close friends or relatives can have. Koree walks slightly ahead of Thann as they approach the outlines of what appear to be two small dragons in the distance.

  I close the door quietly and slide the lock over, breathing in the masculine smell they left behind, clean and sweaty and salty all mixed together. I wonder for the first time what it would be like to have a boy in my life… a real boyfriend.

  Impossible, I think as I turn toward the mirror above the sink in the clinic, staring at my pale reflection…at Teak the Freak. Totally impossible.

  Chapter 13