4 Chapter 4: Catch a Hear (2/2)
”Not now,” BJ snapped at her allie.
The guys and I had already started walking away. I wished they would have jumped in more and backed me up, but it wasn't their fight.
”Don't get in our way, Pitch,” BJ added in an attempt to get the last word in.
”Don't get in mine,” I said before we were out of view.
Wes was happy to see I'd broken ties with BJ, but after seeing her in the woods, I still felt bad for what happened to our relationship. She was once one of my closest friends, but I couldn't help it if my being successful made her turn against me.
BJ wasn't wrong.
It was just as she predicted. My being better than the other interns convinced Beth to offer me a permanent position. Still, nothing was stopping BJ from leveling up herself and finding the same opportunities. I'm sure she would have debated I made her have to work harder to be seen, but she was the one who pushed me to get serious about magic in the first place.
I had a plan to find the leprechaun. Leprechauns kept their gold at the end of rainbows, at least rumors said they did. I wanted to make it rain over the woods. Then the guys and I could have followed the rainbow that would appear afterward.
”We have to use magic to do this?” Wes asked, but it felt like he wanted to argue against my plan.
”There's no other way to do this,” I said.
”We could use a weather machine,” Velmer suggested.
How smart was he exactly?
”Do you have a weather machine,” Wes and I both asked curiously as to how something so whimsical was even a plausible possibility.
”I could build one, but I'd rather watch you make rain without one,” my goblin friend joked.
I shrugged my shoulders, still unsure as to whether or not he was capable of building a weather machine or not.
”I have a zero-gravity spell, if I use it here and it gets enough water in the air it should act like rain,” I said as I pulled the spell out of my back pocket.
”Won't we float too?” Wes questioned.
”As long as we hold on to something, I think we'll be ok,” I said.
”What could go wrong,” Velmer joked.
I didn't think it was possible, but there was someone more sarcastic than me in the world, and I invited him into my search party no less.
We each found a tree to hold on to while I recited the spell. As expected, anything that wasn't rooted to the ground flew into the air. Dirt, mud, bugs, and leaves populated the sky like brown clouds. There wasn't enough water to make rain, at least not while everything else was mixed in with it. Was it a bad idea, maybe, but then it wasn't. As we all tried to keep from floating away, I noticed the force had taken our rivals. BJ and the other interns were in the sky. I might have been concerned for their landing strategies had I not seen something more critical.
The leprechaun. It was completely exposed.
”You guys,” I said, pointing out the little guy in the green suit wading through the forest floor as if it were a river.
The spell wouldn't last much longer, so I needed to figure out where the leprechaun would fall if I wanted to find him on the ground. Before I could chart out the distance between us, we ran out of time. Things were already beginning to pelt the ground. It was like a hell storm. Standing under our tree anchors, nothing hurt us too badly, but that didn't make it any less suspenseful. When it was finally over, the surrounding area was inconceivable. So much debris and land had shifted and moved. It was like we'd somehow teleported to a new location. Paths were gone entirely, and if not for the trees that held their spots, we might have been completely lost in the new layout of The Dead Woods. We couldn't be timid, though. I had a general idea of where the Leprechaun might have fallen, so we had to hurry before he could get away.
”It should be somewhere over here,” I said as we rushed through bushes and around trees. The earth was so lose and muddy; our steps were made slick and sporadic. We might have run past our destination. Eventually, I stopped. Catching my breath, I turned around and found that my two teammates had disappeared. Had I ran too quickly, or did they give up on following me?
”Wes! Velmer!” I called out.
No one answered me. The silence was heavy, and in The Dead Woods, that was dangerous. Someone was around me. They had to be. I tried to ready myself. I used Cannon Ball, and it was exactly what I needed at that moment. From the shadows came the little green man sprinting straight at me with a knife in hand. I stumbled, trying to back away. For such a small guy, he moved like a bullet. Before I could process the danger hurtling toward me, he already made contact.
He stabbed me.
His knife went in my side, but I didn't feel it because of my spell. Had I felt the pain, I might not have had it in me to do what I did next. I caught his wrist before he could pull the blade back out, and I threw him at a tree. I only had a minute or so before my spell would wear off and I would feel just how bad of a wound I had. I tried to keep moving. He wasn't moving. He was still awake. Rather than trying to stand, he stayed at the root of the tree holding his blade out as if to keep me at bay.
”I'm not trying to hurt you!” I exclaimed.
”That's what they all say,” he said.
I was surprised he didn't have an Irish accent.
”I just wanted to ask you for...” I said before he cut me off.
”A wish? They always want a wish,” he said in a patronizing tone.
”Can you help me?” I pleaded.
”You can eat shit and die rabbit,” he said.
My spell wore off, and suddenly, I could feel my body was cold. Blood was soaking through my shirt, and my legs were about to give out from under me. I felt my side, and it stung even just grazing over the spot where my flesh was open.
”Please, I just need,” I said before I fell to my knees.
He stood up. I couldn't hide how badly I was hurt. He approached me with his knife still drawn, and I couldn't think of a way out.
”Please,” I said as he stood eye to eye with me.
”What are you anyway,” he asked with his blade to my throat.
His eyes examined me like a prize-winning pet. It was demeaning, but his curiosity gave me more time to think. Unfortunately, it didn't matter how much I thought.
”I just need,” I tried to speak, but everything went black.
I was getting tired of waking up in strange places. The air was sterile but pungent. I heard the sound of heart monitors and drug names being called out. There was air blasting into the room from overhead. I knew where I was before I opened my eyes. That hospital bed was a first I hadn't expected to see. I suppose my impact resistance was no match for the deadly force of a simple pocket knife. As I sat up, I noticed that both my mom and dad were sitting in the corner of the room waiting for me to wake up. I tried to pretend I was still sleeping, but they knew I was awake. They both scolded me for putting myself in such danger. Dad wanted me to quit my job with Beth outright, and Mom vowed to find the leprechaun so she could do several things to it as penance.
My wound wasn't as bad as it seemed. I lost a lot of blood, but only because I ignored my damage for so long. Had I acted more carefully and gotten help sooner, I may not have passed out. Typical. I was unlucky enough to almost die but lucky enough to survive.
I owed my survival to someone.
I couldn't believe who they said found me. BJ was responsible for calling for help. Even with our feud going strong, I guess she was human enough to save me. But I wasn't the only person she saved.
”I'm sorry,” I said.
”We almost died doing something we shouldn't have been doing in the first place. Do you want to be human so bad?” Wes said.
It seemed the leprechaun left the interns alone and only went after my team. Wes was strong, so he was stabbed at least three times before he went down. His body naturally healed faster than most, so by the time I walked down to his hospital room, I couldn't see any signs of what happened to him. He was getting ready to leave when I made it to his bedside.
”What?” I asked.
”Isn't that what all of this was for, so you could wish to be human again?” He suggested as he tossed off his medical gown before dawning his usual hoodie.
”No, I wanted to make a wish for my dad,” I said.
I completely spaced out. It never occurred to me to use the wish to be human again. How did I not think of something so obvious? Did I not care anymore? Its possible, or maybe I was so focused on helping my dad that I prioritized myself last for once.
”Either way, this was stupid,” he said.
He left the room, and I tried to follow him, but I still had pain. It was difficult keeping up with him while I worried about ripping my stitches.
”Wes I'm sorry,” I said
”Why do you need magic so badly all of a sudden?”
”I'm good at it,” I debated.
He was upset with me, but he still stopped between every few steps to let me catch up.
”You're good at other things, things that don't get you killed,” he said.
”You never cared about stuff being dangerous before,” I argued from behind his back until I caught up enough to step in front of him.
We were making a scene throughout the hospital. Doctors and nurses became our audience, but they appeared to be too busy to pay a couple of teenaged boys arguing any attention.
”Why are you so against magic?”
”I just don't think we need it,” Wes said, but he wouldn't look at me when he said it.
”There's more to it, there has to be, or you wouldn't be so upset,” I said.
”We almost died.”
”But that's not why your mad, Wes.”
He went silent, and before he would say another word, he pulled me into a stairwell. We were alone, but in that place, our voices echoed off the metal railings like a haunted audience.
”Do you know where enchanted paper comes from?”
”Magic shops,” I said, and I was naive.
”I mean, do you know what it's made out of?” He reiterated.
Wes was never the one to be so serious. He was never so cloak and dagger. The closest thing I knew to what he was in that moment might have been his moments of activism, but even that was a stretch.
”I never really thought about it,” I said.
”People like me used to hide from humans...,” he started to say before he paused.
He swallowed something in his throat.
”...Because they killed us for our parts,” he continued to say.
My eyes went wide. Was he serious? When he said ”used to” how far back was he referring to? He made it seem like something recent.
”We had to beg to be seen as actual people just to get them to stop hunting us,” he said.
”But they can't do that anymore, do they?” I asked, assuming he was referring to at least decades ago rather than anywhere close to the present.
”Not to those of us who live with humans. But creatures that choose to stay independent aren't citizens. They can be hunted to extinction,” he said.
He said ”can be,” meaning it was still happening, but something like that couldn't be happening. Could it?
”That can't be right,” I said.
He started to go on until a doctor walked into the stairwell. We held our tongues until we were alone again, but our echos were like a choir.
”It's not right, but it's true. Every time you use magic, you're using something that took the life of a person like you and me,” he said definitively.
”Wes,” I pleaded for something easier to swallow.
”Ask Velmer, goblins were being hunted like pigs until they came out of hiding,” he said.
”But now,” I started to say before Wes quickly cut me off.
”Pitch, living with humans means letting them know where we are at all times. No one is going to go after an elf, but my family has to worry constantly. And that doesn't begin to cover all the creatures who haven't agreed to live with humans yet.”
”I didn't know,” I said.
He took a breath, and I tried to. It was a lot to take in. It was a lot to process. My side was killing me, but my mind hurt worse. I leaned against a guard rail to take the weight off my feet. Wes let me stew over the dark waters he made me aware of, but the implications alone were enough to make me sick.
”Most of the creatures we saw at STR would be slaughtered if they ever came to a town like Daybreak,” he said.
His tone was less harsh. His words weren't rushed anymore. He wasn't beating me over my head with my ignorance. He could have been worse. If what he said was true... why would he lie about something like that? He wouldn't. But it felt impossible.
”This wasn't a problem before. I thought you hated magic,” he said as he took a spot beside me on the guardrail.
”I did, but now,” I said, looking over at him only to find he was still looking back at me.