by Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Chapter Ten

Coming to terms

Marcus was again in his smaller form when he joined Amanda. She was again at the place she’d been while awake since their arrival. Quietly sitting on the cabins porch looking out over the lake far below. He paused, debating interrupting her silence. Three full weeks had passed since Amanda’s life had changed. Three weeks that the young woman had spent coming to grips with her new reality. Her new future. “Amanda” Marcus called softly.

“Just watching the water” Amanda answered. She turned to look at the little dragon. “You never said how you found this place. Its really peaceful.”

“From your memories. You were here last when you were six” Marcus explained. “Your grandfather used to own this place.”

“Lake Hanson. I thought it felt familiar” she admitted. “Who owns the cabin now? Some secret society of mages?”

“Actually, it no longer exists. Or didn’t.” Marcus hopped onto the porches railing, his claws digging into the weathered wood. “It burned when you were seven, don’t you remember?”

“Not really” Amanda admitted. “That was a long time ago you know, and I was always sick. So are we in the past, a different world or what?”

“In your present. It is much too dangerous for any but the strongest to travel through time. To do so safely is currently beyond even my abilities. I simply rebuilt this place, using your memories as a guide. Magically of course, I’m pretty lousy with a saw. You must realize that the books were beyond me, you’ll have to replace them yourself. Your grandfather gave your mother this land as a gift in his will, but she hasn’t been up here since after the fire. There’s not even a hiking trail through that bramble anymore. With luck you will soon own this land. You see I’ve started feelers through your worlds legal channels in an attempt to obtain this properties deed. I hope to hear something soon.”

“We really need to rebuild the garden” Amanda decided. “There used to be some fruit trees. I’ll need tools, I do like to grow things. But how long will we really be here?”

“Until you are ready to leave” Marcus admitted. “Which will be a very long time unless you start your training soon. Or never, should you decided you prefer living here. Your life choices are your own. I am only allowed to guide, never to decide.”

“Yeah. I guess I think I’ve learned to understand that” Amanda admitted. “You only had to explain it what? Every day since we arrived? What about college though. You said I should go, but I can’t go to college and live here. It’s kinda a long walk. Oh what, about a hundred and seventy miles straight line?”

“About that, maybe a bit more. I’ll have to create a gate of course. That way you can walk from here to your campus and back in just a few steps. But you have to start your magical education first.”

“About that” Amanda said. “First, thanks for the time. To get my head on straight I mean. I was ready to face death. Everyone dies of course, no matter how evil or good they are. Even in the fantasy books. I’ve known for simply years I wasn’t going to see twenty-one. I just don’t think I was ready to lose everything and still be alive. I just wasn’t ready for that.”

“You’re the first” Marcus explained. “I mean, the first I know of to die, just to learn magic. That I’m aware of.” He moved his wings, bringing out one arm. A shelled peanut was grasped in his claws. “I’m quite certain that there are others. I can’t say I know how you feel, because I really don’t. I still see my family now and then. I’ve even have a wife who loves me very much. All I can say is that from my limited experience, hurt never goes away. It fades, then one day something causes you to think about what caused that pain and its right back in you. Just as bad as when it happened. Time doesn’t heal wounds, it just lets them hurt you more.”

“They think I’m dead, don’t they. So I can’t see them again can I. My family I mean” Amanda asked. Marcus noted she was fiddling with the tip of her tail again, an action he’d finally realized was just a nervous habit. “It’d hurt them to know what I’m going to become. Right now they think I’m on the ultimate trip. Heaven, angels, white gates. All that boring stuff they talk about in church every Sunday. I’d hurt them. Wouldn’t I?”

Marcus nibbled at his peanut, giving Amanda’s question serious thought. He carefully finished his snack before settling on an answer. In his eyes, to Amanda’s credit, she waited quietly for his decision. “I think you would. There’s no rule against your letting your family know your alive. Its your choice of course. I think though, that in this case... Look Amanda. Your parents and your older brother have come to terms with your death now. We’ve seen that through the pool. True, your younger siblings still think you joined the Air Force. Your sudden return wouldn’t much affect them emotionally. I’m certain your parents will explain to them what they believe really happened when they are old enough. But if you show up and can’t stay. In the least there’s going to be legal problems. Especially for Sara.”

“Sara” Amanda echoed. “Miss her too. My best friend.”

“How long were you friends Amanda” the dragon asked as he appeared to produce another peanut from under his wing.

“Oh gee... How long. Ages, simply ages.” She noticed Marcus’s puzzled expression. “Its slang. Means so long you never think about it. Honest truth, I met her in the hospital when I was eight. I was in for a series of drug treatments. They failed obviously. Then tests and therapy. They wheeled her into my room with her umm.. her left leg in a cast. She’d broken it while roller skating backwards. It was a compound fracture, the kind where bone sticks out of your skin. So she had to stay in the hospital until they were certain there wasn’t any infection. She still has the scar, if you know where to look. I asked her how it happened, she asked me about my problems. It turned out that Sara was four years older, twelve. She seemed so mature. Laughing about how stupid it was she’d broken it, that she’d have to take her finals in a hospital room not a classroom, and how that would just really upset Miss Patterson. Her teacher. We just sorta clicked.”

“Did you have any other friends” Marcus asked.

“Not like Sara” Amanda admitted. “No one wanted to be around the sick girl. I did have a few friends. None really close. I did have a boyfriend I was really serious about, but he died in the war last Fall. This last year I made a point of pushing anyone still trying as far away as I could.”

“Why push them away” Marcus asked, honestly curious.

Amanda pulled her feet onto the edge of her chair, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Lotta reasons” she answered softly as she laid her chin on her knees. “It’s hard keeping a friendship going when your always tired, or in the hospital. Most of them didn’t like Sara. They kept calling her weird or using nasty names. She is, weird I mean. Sorta. But calling people nasty things just because their furs a different color. I don’t like that. I think though, really. I think I didn’t want them to hurt when I died. Its different when you hear ‘that sick girl finally died’ than when someone tells you ‘one of your friends died.’ I really hope that they will say ‘gee, that’s too bad’ and go on with their lives.“

Marcus blinked, surprised by the logic behind Amanda’s explanation. “Any other boyfriends?” he asked.

“Why? You interested” Amanda asked. “I was always told teachers shouldn’t get involved with their students.”

“Not interested” Marcus laughed. “You’re the wrong species to interest me. Your face is pretty but your bodies all wrong. Besides I am happily married. I just wondered if you pushed all the boys away too.”

“Only really was one” Amanda admitted, turning her gaze up to the porches roof. “I was still working out my letter, where I was telling him goodbye. Being honest why, not some song and dance. The real truth. Sara was going to mail it when I died if he wasn’t back before then. Then his father called one night, he’d been killed in the war. Only over there three weeks when some kid shining his boots set off an explosion. Killed several people. I never finished the letter, I burned it instead. Then I never contacted his family again. Mom told them I couldn’t stand the emotional pain. Just tried to get on with what I had left in life.”

“So you and Sara grew closer.” Marcus nibbled on his new peanut, running thoughts down in his mind like paths in a forest. “Are you in love with her?”

“Ha ha” Amanda half-laughed. “Sara is my best friend. She’s also a girl. I do love her like a big sister, if that’s what you mean. Other ways too I guess. She’s tonns important to me. Honestly I can’t think of living without talking to her now and then. But I don’t love her like I loved Frank. That’s different.”

“Good friends are rare” Marcus agreed. “Are you ready for your first lesson?”

Amanda dropped her feet to the porches weathered surface, “Might as well” she agreed. “What’s first? Hunting lightning bugs or digging for lost stones.”

“You do have a good sense of humor” Marcus admitted. “First we learn how to make paper. You’ll need some rushes from the lakes edge. I’ve already gathered the other items.” He looked up into Amanda’s eyes, noting the lack of understanding. “It’s a dual lesson. First, every important piece of paper you use needs to be made by your own hand. The making imparts some of you into it. Second it’s a lesson in patience. You won’t believe how many times I had to start over at first.”

“I have to make paper for everything? Amanda asked, still sitting in her chair.

“Only your ledger books. The ones you put your final thoughts into. Your spells, your final research. Notes and things can be slapped on anything. Their unimportant after all. It’s the final thoughts that need to feel your touch.”

“Bookbinding. I know how to bind books. Sara’s brother Thomas taught me. Will I have to make my own glues and threads to?”

Marcus turned towards the cabins door. “For your books, yes” he answered as the door opened for him. “But nothing else. At least, not at the moment.” He stopped just inside the doorway, looking back at Amanda as she stood to follow. “By the way. How are you at black smithing?”

“Claw biting” she answered, elicting a cringe from the dragon. “And I’ve decided on a new first name, like you asked.”

“That being?” Marcus asked, very much afreaid of what this odd girl might come up with.

“Lollypop. It’s Sara’s nickname for me, though I don’t know why.”

“Lollypop” Marcus repeated. “Lollypop... Who in their right mind is going to be afraid of a witch named Lollypop?”

“The smart ones” Amanda answered.

“You’re right there” he agreed. “The smart ones.”