minutes in Uncle Seb’s little convertible when the noisy MG slowed and approached a dirt road to the right. The top was down. The fresh air felt nice, cleansing, even as dust blew up.
I hadn’t ever been in an English car before; having my uncle driving on my right was an odd experience. I don’t know why, but I felt like every car on the opposite side of the road was going to run into me. This was a silly sensation, since I never felt that way whilst a passenger on the left side. As he turned right onto the skinny unpaved road, I felt like we were falling off the main road and would be careening down a cliff at any moment. My uncle laughed at my white-knuckled hands folded on top of each other.
“You have the bag?” he called over his shoulder. Baert’s little windblown face nodded, squinting in the sun.
“Aye! We shall see what th’lassie’s made of yet!”
I didn’t like the sound of this. Hadn’t I been tested enough?
Uncle Seb pulled the car into an open field. It was full of wildflowers, but the grass was low and lovely. The winding dirt road we had been on stretched into the distance and disappeared into the horizon. Baert hopped out and opened his arms wide to the fresh air. His long beard and the tufts of hair on his head, clean for the first time in who knows how long, were smooth and shiny and danced happily in the delicate breeze.
I got out of the car cautiously and looked suspiciously at the trees behind me. We had just driven through that little grove, but it would be a good long while before I trusted a cluster of trees again. There’s something about having a floating yellow rock try to enslave you with happy sleepiness that makes you a bit skittish anywhere remotely similar.
“This is a good spot, Egg. We’ll set up here,” Uncle Seb said. The lighthearted tone from the car ride was replaced with a staunchly authoritative one.
“Ugh, this is turning to a big deal,” I moaned. I momentarily let my heroic resolve be trumped by fear and maybe a smidge of a selfish desire to hide in my bed eating the Nutter Butters I no longer had.
But I obediently followed my uncle to a flat, open space. He kicked a few rocks away, picked up a stick and flung it quite far in a high arc up in the air, then motioned to Baert. I picked up a stick and attempted to nonchalantly throw it like my uncle. It went about two feet in front of me and hit him in the back. He spun around, confused.
“The wind, just, whoooosh, came right through,” I stammered. “Oh, hey, Baert, whatchya got there?”
Smooth, Eve, I thought. What a way to kick off my first hero training.
Baert dropped the familiar brown duffle bag on the ground between us. It landed with a thud and shook a little, a few little squeaks sounded from within. Uncle Seb reached his arms up over his head and stretched, pulling his hands behind his back. He rocked his neck side to side to let out a few satisfying cracks. I attempted to mimic this. Unsuccessfully. Now my neck hurt.
“You’ve studied your Latin, yes?” Uncle Seb said to me as he bent down toward the bag. It quivered under his touch.
“Who, me?”
This was not the response he was hoping for. A lamenting exhale escaped from his strong frame as he stood up.
“So, then what have you been doing all this time?”
“Well, I mean, I still had to go to school, and there was the dentist that one day, and then Baert’s peanut allergy, and Dragon got stuck in the swing …” I trailed off.
I hated disappointing my uncle. We had gone so long without seeing each other. And now, here we are under such auspicious circumstances. Our reunion wasn’t one brought on by familial obligation or holiday happenstance – we were rejoined to literally save the world (or, at the very least, save my family). I still wasn’t sure how I felt about him, but I didn’t want to let him down.
“It’s alright, Egg. I had to learn Latin, too. Only I was younger than you, and my mom was pretty mean about it.”
“Nana taught you Latin?” I squealed in surprise. My nana lived in Italy now; I suppose I could have pieced together the Italian-Latin connection. But to picture her with her perfectly coiffed hair and sassy heels engaging in adventures with dragons and elves – I couldn’t fathom this.
“Oh sure, she’s brilliant with language. And a lot like you,” he added. “She loved and hated the responsibilities of being a dragonlord. And she hated her freckles, just like you.”
“How’d you know I hated my freckles?”
“Instinct, I guess. Do you like having a million freckles?”
I frowned and stared at my freckled forearm. I routinely covered it with a band aid or wore long sleeves because inevitably some idiot kid would say in some idiot voice hey what’s on your arm as if I owed anyone an explanation about my body. And who doesn’t know what a freckle patch is? If I were reading about me in a novel, then surely, I’d have some awesome mark hearkening to my dragonlord lineage. Like a freckly outline of a dragon wing. But alas, I have just freckles. Plain, grotesque, ordinary freckles.
“Yep,” Uncle Seb continued, “Your grandmother and you could be the same person. She was fiercely independent, especially when she figured out she was a dragonlord.”
I stared at him. Excitement percolated in my chest. Uncle Seb’s casual storytelling belied the incredible truth that he was, in fact, revealing to me my very own origin story.
“She never figured out why some generations were affected, er, chosen, and others weren’t,” he went on unceremoniously. “Your mom, though, whoooo-eeee, she’s a different story. Bitter and angry that she wasn’t a dragonlord, bitter and angry when she started worrying you might be … can’t win with my ol’ sis.”
“Are there others like me? Like us? More dragonlords?”
“Lassie, come off it,” Baert interjected then, “sometimes the trees be havin’ ears.”
“Don’t freak her out,” Uncle Seb snorted at him. “And probably, though we don’t know of any currently. Your nana’s great aunt – Marnie was her name, I think? – spent a lot of time trying to find others like her. She was a chemist, brilliant for her time.”
“Did she find anyone?”
“Dunno. She was burned at the stake before much progress could be recorded. So, you ready for your training? Try to your hand at commanding the spheresaii?”
“Well, not now!”
“I told ye. I dinnae ken that thah lassie’s ready.”
“I can do it,” I snapped and walked over to the bag. My mind raced. I had a role in something much bigger than myself, something that spanned generations and even dimensions. Abstractly I think maybe I had known this, but hearing my uncle talk so casually about it was … well, it was humbling.
“K. I’m ready,” I said as I held out my hand as regally as I could. I tried to recall how Dragon had commanded the quirky crew of colorful bouncing orbs.
“I’m gonna open this bag, but before I do, you need to know two things: movens subsisto, that’ll get them to come to rest, and nunc colligentes, that will get them back to the bag. Can you remember that?”
“Movens subsisto,” I repeated, “and nunc colli … colli-what?”
“Colligentes!” Uncle Seb called, then added, more slowly, “Cuhl-lee-yehn-tus!”
Uncle Seb patiently shouted the pronunciation a few more times over to me as he unzipped the duffle slowly. He swiftly hopped away from the rainbow of colorful balls that burst from the bag.
The little balls bounded and lept every which way. They reminded me of puppies I had seen at a rest stop once during a long drive with my mom; the little dogs were so happy to be free of their car and took off in every direction, aimlessly gleeful. A pink ball jumped near me, then hopped right in front of my face. Up and down it went, jumping to my eye level each time as if surveying me.
“Can they – can they see me?” I asked, uncertain how to feel about this.
“Well, sure they can! They’re fascinating little guys. One of our best finds in the Seventh,” Uncle Seb responded. He walked around and ducked playfully between the balls. He waved at one and then another, and lunged and laugh as though he were frolicking with little dogs himself.
“Stick your hand out, Egg, see which responds first and does what,” he called out to me.
I breathed in. Time to commence my weirdest science project yet. I shot my left arm out, my palm down, fingers stretched wide. Almost immediately a purple ball careened through the air and hovered just under my hand. As it hung there, my palm grew chilly. The purple ball produced an odd steam. Then it become covered in frost. Almost intuitively, I gently made little circles with my open palm over the frosty ball; tiny snowflakes shook from it. I moved my arm in wider circles and I found myself the commander of a snow globe. Snowflakes shot out from the little ball. I swallowed hard – I felt brave. With a swift chop, I sent my arm wide. The ball followed this motion and sent sharp icicles jabbing through the air. Baert, who had been making snow angels on the ground, yelped and flattened himself even more against his snowy rug. I closed my palm and the snow abated; the frost cracked and dissipated, and the purple ball back to its dancing mates.
“Whoa,” I said, turning to Uncle Seb. He grinned at me. I felt grand.
I fixed my sights on an orange ball. Staring at it intently, I thrust my arm out. It bounced a few more times in the dandelion patch as though it were ignoring me like an ornery kitten. I thrust my arm out and splayed my fingers at the same time. That did the trick. It instantly sped forward and stopped just under my hand. It gyrated a bit. I circled my palm about as I had done with the purple ball: little sparks of fire flickered from the orb. My movement increased and turned it into a full-blown fireball. I chopped my arm out wide and a fantastic wave of lava spewed from its little round body.
“Awe. Some,” I said slowly, wide-eyed.
“You’re a natural!” Uncle Seb called from behind a log.
He and Baert had smartly taken cover during my trial runs. I laughed and waved at them, accidentally sending another lava wave up into the air. It hit the ground with a sizzling splat. A red stream burned and dissipated in the cool grass.
I pulled my hand into a fist and held my arm close to my side, astonished at the power I felt. The orange ball bounded back to its bouncing mates as well. I eyed another: an aquamarine beauty that bobbed up and down on the grass. I again held out my arm commandingly. This ball didn’t come as swiftly; instead, it swished through the air with the same grace an eel glides through water.
I repeated the same movements as before. Water powers. I commanded dashing waves up and around me, found myself encircled in a swirling watery tower, and shot rainclouds out over my uncle and Baert. I giggled uncontrollably as the two of them darted around the field away from the raincloud’s deluge.
I released the aquamarine ball from my imperial control and focused on the remaining two. One was pink and kind of marbled, the other was a pearly white. I jutted my hand out toward them. Neither stirred. The pink one kind of rolled around in the grass, and I swear the white one actually rolled away from me. I frowned. This power had gone to my head in a very short amount of time.
My furrowed concentration was interrupted by Uncle Seb’s voice. I looked up to see his athletic stride carrying him quickly toward his car. Baert followed with his mini gait. He pumped his little arms and yelled at Uncle Seb to wait up, wait up. Fully alarmed, I totally forgot my legion of bouncy balls. I took off running toward them.
“Egg! The spheresaii!” Seb was shouting at me. “Round them up!”
He was to his car now. Without opening the door, he very smoothly hopped over the side and landed effortlessly in the driver’s seat. Baert, on the other hand, reached for the side of the car, leapt up, hit his chest against the closed door, and fell backward. The car sped forward.
“Egg! Now!” Uncle Seb hollered as he picked up speed, driving in a wide arc. He slowed next to Baert, and, without even coming to a complete stop, grabbed the little elf with his right hand while he kept his left on the skinny steering wheel.
“Uh, uh, nunnit … What is it, again?” I was so flustered; I couldn’t remember what to say! “Subsist … Subsisto! That’s it! Movens Subsisto!”
I ran around the field and yelled this phrase over and over. I carried the duffle while doing so, almost tripping over its handles as I ran. The little balls, the mighty spheresaii, did as they were told and came to rest in the grass, rolling swiftly into a line together.
“Nunc colligentes!” I pronounced as I held the duffle open for my colorful little army.
One by one, they bounded and bounced into the bag, and the mysterious white one came reticently at last. I rapidly zipped up the brown bag and took off in a sprint toward the black MG. Uncle Seb swerved one more time to turn the car my direction and sent a fantastic plume of dust into the air.
“Jump, Egg! Hurry!”
I waited and watched the car come near me. I counted like I used to do when waiting to hop in time to jump ropes at recess.
“On three!” Uncle Seb shouted. “One – two – three!”
Baert swung the door open of the moving car and I launched myself in, bringing the duffle with me. Baert closed it behind me; my shoelace got stuck in the closed door and yanked my leg back as I tried to scramble over the bucket seat to the little passenger bench in the rear. I gave a hard tug and my shoelace broke entirely. I sat in the back, panting, trying to see what was behind us in the cloud of dirt that hung over the field.
“What …,” I gasped, breathing heavily, my heart pounding, “what was it? What was after us?”
“Hmm?” said Uncle Seb over his shoulder. His driving hadn’t slowed, but it was definitely less erratic. We came upon the paved main road.
“What was back there? What did you see?” I sputtered as I adjusted the painfully tight lace on my shoe.
“Oh, nothing. We just wanted to be sure you could get the spheresaii and yourself rounded up in a hurry,” my uncle said nonchalantly.
“Aye, th’art o’ the speedy exit be a key part of trainin’, lassie.”
“What … what do you mean? Are you serious? You scared me! Like, really scared me!”
I gave the backs of the bucket seats holding my sanctimonious uncle and the smug elf each a swift kick. Now my foot hurt; trying to kick in this cramped space was difficult. But they got the point.
“I could’ve been hurt! Or you could have been hurt! I hardly know what those balls can do!”
“You controlled them so naturally. And look how well you performed under pressure.”
“Aye, a right dragonlord, lassie.”
I was beside myself. Or rather, I wanted to be beside myself. But dammit, they had a point. Naturally I couldn’t let them know that I understood their insane teaching methods. I folded my arms indignantly and let out a loud exasperated hmph!
“Would you like to discuss training over some food?” Uncle Seb asked, trying to catch my eye in the rearview mirror. I turned further away.
“I’m not hungry,” I sniffed.
At the mention of food, my stomach growled. I hoped the noise from the drive would mask it. But Baert heard. He grinned at me.
“Not even for a wee bit o’pie?”
I hated my predictability.
“Fine. But –”
“I know, I know; you can have all the a la mode you want, Egg. You’ve earned it.”
“Damn right I have,” I mumbled.
“Does your mom know you swear?”
I said nothing. I preferred to bask in my outrage in silence. And think about what kind of pie I’d like to eat first.