"It's a fadua" whispered Vits.
"Uhm, okay, I know this is probably not the right moment..." said James. "But what's a fadua, exactly?"
Vits was out of breath "You're taking a good look at that".
Chaim decided to explain. "A fadua is a beast. It used to resemble a human being, except for the umbilical cord that connects it to the earth".
"Well, according to some sources it's a vegetable" Vits pointed out.
"A vegetable? Yuck! I'll never eat vegetables again" Jimmy looked like he was about to be sick.
"Is it dangerous?" Thea asked.
"It is. If you get close enough for it to catch you with its cord, you will be immediately killed and devoured" Vits said, calmly, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"So, it's either a carnivorous plant or some kind of animal" I said. "Or some strange kind of human. It's deadly and we don't know how to get rid of it".
Vits raised an eyebrow "We never said we don't know how to get rid of it".
"I'd like to know its motives first" Thea said ."What it's doing there".
"Really?" Jimmy was almost screaming. "I'd say that first we kill it and then we try to psychoanalyze it".
"Thea's right" Chaim said. "It shouldn't be here. There's not so much of them anymore and they live on high mountains or remote places. Far from humans".
"If they stay far from human beings, what is it doing here?" James asked.
"They do not live far from human beings because it's their nature to do so" Chaim replied, "It's quite the contrary - human beings do not dwell where there are such creatures".
"You're forgetting to reply the most important question" I said. "Why does it look like my uncle Marcel?"
"A question which you have never asked" Vits said. "And, by the way, it does not".
"It does not look like a human being" Thea muttered. "Chaim said it used to look like one, but it certainly does not look like one now".
"Are you kidding?" I asked, feeling uneasy. "I am aware there are some differences, but, aside from the naval cord, it could be mistaken for my uncle from afar".
"Well" James whispered. "It's getting closer now, so I guess it's time to find out".
The fadua had a human shape, with head, hands, body and legs, but I could see why it could be mistaken for a plant too. It looked plantish enough, like it was made of leaves. No, more like it was a human shaped plant.
"Did humans used to look like that?" I asked.
"Why are you surprised? Apparently your uncle Marcel still does". Thea was still bitter that I didn't ask her to come along into the bakery.
"Some believe that the first humans were like that, before our shape was perfected" Chaim said. I don't know if he ever found himself so close to a fadua before, but I could feel he was not so calm anymore.
"Yuck, so we are descended from that". Jimmy didn't seem to realise what a great danger we were in. The human-plant-animal seemed only a tasteless joke to him.
"No, we're not" Chaim almost lost his patience. "If the story is true, then we were started from scratch after that".
"I can see why" Vits said, bumping into me. It was getting too close and he had to take a few steps back.
We started running.
"Do you want to know something?" Vits said. "Some ancient populations called these beings a word that can be roughly translated to wizards".
"Thank you so much for another piece of information we do not needed" James said angrily. I was always surprised when James lost his patience, since he was always extremely polite. "Tell us something useful, like how they can be killed".
"We should not want to kill another creature" I said, panting.
They all looked at me with hatred. Except for Chaim. I felt like he knew that it was wrong too.
"Just kidding" I smiled.
"You have to cut the umbilical cord. Separate it from the body. It's its life force" Chaim replied grimly. He most likely didn't want to end a life and plus those creatures were very rare.
But our own lives were in danger. It was us or that.
"Cut the umbilical cord?" Thea sounded scared. "It is not easy, especially considering that if we get too close we can be devoured".
"Cutting or breaking it, it makes no matter as long as the life source stops flowing" Vits tried to reassure her.
Of course, everyone knew it wasn't any easier.
"People have accomplished it before" Vits told us. "They usually have bows and they shoot arrows at it".
"Well, we don't have bows but we could try throwing other stuff" I suggested.
"Unless someone has a very good aim, we'll never make it this far" I added. We had stopped running and the thing was getting closer, but the distance was still enough to fail the killing attempt, unless one of us was extremely skilled.
"One of us has to get closer" Vits said. "Even though it will most likely be the end for him".
Thea met my eyes. I could see fear and anger in her eye pupils. She clearly meant to say 'Risk your life again today and we're not friends anymore'.
That annoyed me. I had to tell her something - that I was brave enough, that I was good enough, but the words did not come. Then I suddenly realised it wasn't about that. Thea had had a very lonely life. I think I was her first friend and we had connected immediately. Chaim and Vits were good people, but they didn't get us like we could get each other. James and Jimmy were surely smart kids but they were still strangers. She had lost her parents before and now she didn't want to lose me. That would have meant being alone again.
"That won't be me" I told the others. "I don't have a very good eyesight. Remember when I told you it looked like my uncle? I'd have to be right under its nose to get a good shot and it would be too late".
I checked. We were too far to be sure, but it most definitely had a nose.
"I think one of us should do it" Chaim told Vits. "I don't wanna lose one of the kids to something like that".
"You cannot" Vits looked troubled. "You are not capable of killing a living creature, you told me that yourself a thousand times. If you go out there and then you can't do it, you're supper and we're next".
"You can't either" James told Vits. "I mean, I'm sorry, but you are way too clumsy. I've never seen you doing a lot of physical exercise, so I am not sure - but something tells me you don't do it on purpose" he blushed. "And you always walk like you're drunk".
"Well, sometimes you talk like that too" I added.
"That was mean and unnecessary, Oliver" Chaim told me. "And completely pointless, considering the way Vits talks is not related to the fight with the beast".278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGAkQYng0Nr
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"It might be" Jimmy looked thoughtful.
"I have a plan" James looked serious . "I take this" he picked up a tree branch with a pointy end "And I charge".
"If you mean to use it like a chainsaw" Thea said. "It will take you centuries"
"No" James said. "Last night I couldn't sleep, so I went to the library. I found one of the books we are supposed to read".
I am not sure it was true, but he had to say that since Chaim was listening.
"And I found a spell to work wood. I like working wood so I learned it by heart".
"Loser" Jimmy whispered.
"This loser will save your life" James replied.
"No, because I will save yours".
"Why do you want to be me?" James cried out.
"Stop it!" Thea almost screamed. "That thing is getting to us! Jimmy, if you have something to say, say it now!"
"I do" Jimmy still looked super calm. "By the way, thanks for the idea, Oliver. When you teased Vits for the way he talks, it just clicked. Well, the fadua is not human, but close. What if it could understand our words? James could have more chances to slash at it with his magic wood if I talked to it during the process".
"You mean to distract it?" Vits was shocked and he didn't care about hiding it.
"It could work, I suppose" Chaim said, reluctantly.
James said some words that I could not understand and the point of his wooden stick seemed to change. I touched it just to make sure and I immediately wished I didn't. A deep cut on my thumb made me squeal from the pain.
"Congrats" Thea muttered. "Just try not to get yourself killed before the thing can do it".
She smiled, though.
James charged with his new spear and Jimmy followed him closely.
Thea was starting to panic and Chaim noticed it.
"Let's think happy thoughts" he proposed. "Anyone?"
"If they both get slayed they will not argue about having the same name anymore" Vits said. "Actually", he looked thoughtful. "Even just one of them would do".
"Nobody's dying" Chaim protested, but he was cracking a smile.
I admit I found Vits' remarks quite brilliant, even when they were in a life or death situation. It seemed that Thea had enjoyed that too, which made everyone feel less guilty about laughing since she was the one who needed support.
James was slashing at the creature's cord like a pro. That thing must have been harder than it looked, though, because it took many cuts to tear it apart and it definitely needed more time to be receded completely.
Jimmy was talking to the fadua and that part of the plan seemed to work perfectly. Then he said something that caught my attention:
"You ugly thing, wanna know something? Oliver said you look just like his uncle Marcel".
Maybe it understood, maybe it knew my uncle somehow. I just know that it hissed angrily.
Then the umbilical cord caught Jimmy.
I knew I had to do something. Timmy must have had the same thought, cause we both started running towards the creature.
"You know, I was wrong" I joked. "To think about it now that I see it so clearly, my uncle looks much better".
I had its attention. Now I just had to keep talking.
"What kind of thing are you, anyway?" I asked. "You're far too curvy to be a plant and you're too green to be human. Not to mention, we have umbilical cords only when we are born and we're attached to our mother, not to the ground".
"To be fair" whispered Thea."I think its mother is the ground".
"Well" I added. "Still, we don't die when the cord is cut. Otherwise that would be pretty miserable, now, wouldn't it?"
James finally made a final, deep cut. I could see the fadua crumbling under its weight and down on what remained of the cord.
But the real reason why we won was the hurricane.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean a real life full size hurricane, but it was the closest it could get without tearing the place apart.
The fadua laid dead on the ground, its cord ripped to pieces. James and Jimmy were both alive and well.
I took a deep breath.
"What the..." I muttered, referring to the hurricane.
"I know" Thea whispered. "I made it happen, but I'm still not sure how".
"You did it?" I almost screamed. "That's awesome! Gosh, you're so powerful!"
She smiled and blushed "You're pretty powerful too".
Chaim and Vits came to see what had happened.
"That was a great move, Thea" Chaim said.
"Thanks, but I'm still not sure how that worked".
"I think you all may have noticed something by now" our teacher explained. "All sorcerers are good at any kind of spell or potion, if they learned it properly. However, each one of us is particularly skilled in a certain area of the knowledge. It's like we have a main power, greater than the rest. Sometimes it shows when we don't mean to do magic, but we feel hopeless. From what I've seen, I think that your main power is one of the four elements - it may sound simple and obvious, but it's actually quite rare. Your main power is Air".
"You were very good" Vits added. "You destroyed the thing that was going to eat your friends, but you didn't create any further chaos. It's amazing that you could control it so well".
"It's like I just snapped". Thea sounded almost guilty that she was being complimented. "The fadua was going to eat Jimmy and it was so close to attacking Oliver..."
While he was talking, Vits unsheathed a pocket knife and began cutting through the plant, removing something that looked like bones.
That sparked two different reactions,
"You should have given us the pocket knife to fight that thing" James complained.
"ARE THESE BONES?" Jimmy screamed.
"No and yes" Vits replied calmly. "What good would my pocket knife be against that beast? You could have thrown it, but I don't think it would have worked. It's not easy to mutilate something throwing this from afar" he grinned. "This, I can tell you. And yes, by the way, the faduas have bones. I'm extracting those and we will keep them for you to gnaw on later".
"Is he kidding?" James asked Chaim, raising his eyebrows.
"He's exaggerating. We're keeping the bones and, yes, if you chew them you can see the future. Which means someone is going to do it, it'd be a waste if we didn't, they're so hard to find".
"I don't want to" Jimmy protested. "What if we choke on them?"
"You won't" Vits grinned. "If you swallow".
"No way" said Chaim. "You have to spit them out".
"And this is why" Vits completed. "You and I don't get along".
Thea was looking at the bones.
"I don't think I'd do it either, they look just like human bones".
"But they're not" James reassured her. "They're plant bones, aren't they?"
Jimmy laughed "Plants don't have bones".
"Like animal bones, then" James decided.
"I don't know" Thea looked worried. "Animals do not understand our words like that. I fear the fadua was more human than we'd like to admit".
"It wasn't" Vits told her, finishing the job. "We just had bad luck to find one shaped as a human. It's not the only shape they come in, some are supposed to look like lambs, while others...well, people say they look like plants and their fruit looks like a lamb".
"That's confusing" James objected ."And why can't people agree on what they look like?"
Vits face went dark "Because people rarely survive after meeting one".
Jimmy was pale and he seemed to have trouble breathing. "I know where it comes from" he said.
"Tell us" I said. I felt like I needed to know.
"When I was hidden in the bakery, earlier, like I told you, I heard your uncle Marcel talking to himself. Well, he said he had just bought a miraculous plant that grew lambs. He was really happy, because he said he had paid it much less than it was worth. But it definitely wasn't as tall as a man back then, because otherwise I would have seen it".
"That's strange" Vits said. "The only way it could have gotten so big was if it was fed after that".
I finally understood something. I was sure of it, it felt true, almost like touching the fadua's forehead and having its memories playing back for me. Everything made sense, how it had gotten so big, why it seemed to know my uncle and why my uncle wasn't chasing after me yelling right now. Jimmy's punch couldn't have knocked him down for so long.
I tried my best not to panic and I muttered "It ate my uncle".
When we came home, Vits told us "I hope you're not looking for other adventures anytime soon. This one was dangerous enough for a lifetime".
He was right, of course. But after a few days I started feeling bored again. James and Jimmy had to learn all the lessons that Thea and I already knew, so there was little to do.
Something changed about a week later. We were eating dinner when Chaim said "You know, there are some rooms in this house that I think need some re-painting. We could do it ourselves, but there wouldn't be much time. Furthermore, it would be nice to pay a hard working person to do the job. After all, it's lovely to help people doing what they love".
I think none of us paid too much attention to that, but the next day I stumbled on somebody I didn't know when I decided to go eat a snack.
"Uhm, hey" I managed to say. She was a painter, I could tell from the stuff she had brought, but she was most likely still an apprentice. She looked like she was about fourteen years old. She looked foreign - her skin was the colour of caramel and she had big and lovely dark eyes. She also had super dark hair, which made Thea's natural dark hair look somehow reddish in comparison.
"I am Saba Zaman" she said. "I already met Thea, James and Jimmy so, according to what Chaim told me, you must be Oliver".
I was very surprised. I didn't have lessons that morning so I had woken up a little later, but it was still shocking to hear how everybody had already met the new girl.
"Yes, I'm Oliver". I took a look at the walls - she had already started and they looked pretty good so far. "So, I'll leave you to your work".
I left, smiling politely.
I met Thea, James and Jimmy in the garden. They were picking fruits. Jimmy was also eating the pomegranates, which were kind of Chaim's treasures. I didn't know if I was supposed to mention it or not.
"I'm bored" Jimmy announced after a while. "Let's find something to do".
I just remembered it was Saturday so we didn't have lessons all day, cause, according to Chaim and Vits, people don't work on Saturdays.
"We could explore the house" I proposed.
They all agreed.
I don't exactly know how it happened, but we found ourselves in Chaim's room. It was the most interesting part of the house, surely, even though it was full of stuff we couldn't even begin to comprehend.
I found an old book that looked roughly like a diary. It didn't have any date on the top of the pages and the sentences didn't begin with "Dear diary," but it was handwritten and it looked extremely personal - some pages were ripped off and a lot of words had been deleted and rewritten.
I felt guilty but my super power is my curiosity, after all. I had to read it. Plus, if it belonged to Chaim it meant that I could find out more about my teacher. He wasn't really talkative and I knew little of his life, so I felt like it was only right for me to take a sneak peek in his secrets. Or so I told myself. I realized I wasn't alone. All my friends were with me so I could ask them what we should do.
I held the diary over my head for everyone to see and I barked "Should we read it?"
"No we shouldn't" replied Jimmy biting his lip. I immediately regretted asking them, but then he smiled and said "We must".
"No" James muttered. "It might contain things that Chaim doesn't want us to know".
"That would be even better" Jimmy put in. "What shouldn't we know about our teacher? Maybe he keeps secrets from us - like that he cooks and eats children. We trusted him enough to come and live in his house, he should trust us with his secrets".
"That almost made sense, except it didn't" snapped Thea. She was always very sassy. "I like Chaim. I don't want to hurt his feelings. They'll be hurt if he knows we read it".
"If he knows" Jimmy insisted. "We won't tell him and there's no reason he ought to find it out on his own".
"Are you crazy?" James replied "Have you seen how big that thing is? We'll never read it all today. We'll have to keep coming back and he'll notice".
Thea looked at me with disapproval "You asked the question and then let us here arguing. What do you want to do?"
"I want to read it" I wanted for my voice to sound strong and leader-like, but it came out in a whisper.
She smiled "We'll read it then".278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW0iJ5tc94a
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I was born before the War. Everybody believed in magic back then. Even here, in the least magical place in all of the Corporation of the Kingdoms. Even here in Outwoods. It was customary for the parents, each time a children was born, to bring them to a powerful sorceress and have their future read. The year I was born, they prophesied a child would save the world. And he was famous in all the Kingdoms, though nobody knew his name.
It wasn't me.
He was born a few months before me. My parents were elated - they expected something similar to be said of me, only because I was born soon after.
The old ladies who predicted the future did their best to tell every parent only the best things to be said about their children. And there were always plenty.
I was told later that the lady had quite a hard time telling my parents what they wanted to hear.
In fact, she said "This boy is cursed".
And my parents pleaded and cried, begging her to say something else. Wasn't there anything good to say about me?
No, there wasn't.
You'd think that since it was so strange to hear such horrible things about a child, I would have become as well known as the boy I mentioned before. But nobody knew me. My parents never forgot what was said about me that day, but forgotten, other than that, was pretty much my middle name.
One day, my parents came home from work pretty late. I didn't care much, I had already learnt that they needed me more than I needed them. Not in the love kind of need, but in the "an extra couple of hands" kind of need.
When they finally came home, my dad said "I found you a job".
I was fourteen. He had already found me countless jobs in the past ten years of my life, but the curse thing kept acting out and got me fired (AKA - when I had had enough of one place, I'd simply tell them the story).
I smiled viciously asking myself who I was going to harass with my tricks from now on.
My mother slapped me. She didn't like when I smiled. I was used to be hit by my parents, anyway. So I still smiled, whenever I felt like it.
"This isn't a job" Mother corrected.
"He's still paying us to take him in".
"Paying to take me in? What is it?" Then I made a dirty joke about it. It was stronger than me. A reply like that would probably get me in trouble, but I smelled dirty jokes from miles. And I loved shocking my parents. They were way too polite to talk like that, so it was up to me. I felt a personal duty to be the worst they could think of me.
Who am I kidding? I never needed an excuse to enjoy myself.
My dad shoved me violently to the ground then screamed "PAY ATTENTION, SON!" as the two things were somehow connected. If anything, it made me want to pay less attention.
"You're going away" my dad explained, with a tone that made it clear that he thought I was mentally slow.
"Mister Tunks paid us to have you as an apprentice".
That was crazy. Of course, I didn't know who that man was. He wasn't from our town. And what did he want to do with me? What could possibly any sane person would want to do with someone like me?
I managed to get my deep thoughts out in a sarcastic snarl "Apprentice as what?"
"Well" my dad replied. I could see that he didn't like it. Perfect, I'd take it. Not that I had a choice.
"You're studying magic".
I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop laughing. Laughing so hard in my parents' face was suicidal, but I could only think about how it was magic the thing that screwed my life in the first place.
My mom was deadly serious was she said "I think you should know it's dark magic. Evil magic".278Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5ZMM6mstcg
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I closed the book feeling uneasy. I looked at the others "I don't think we should be reading this".
They all agreed. Later, when we went to my room, we decided to talk about it.
"Whatever he learnt there, it's not the person he is now" Thea said strongly. Nobody could argue and I think that nobody wanted to.
"I still respect him a lot" James said. "Even though I admit it was a pretty strange thing to read".
"The problem with reading other people's writings is that you don't get to decide what stays on the page" Thea pondered wisely.
"He had a horrible life" Jimmy said. "But he isn't a bad person - and I know enough about magic to know that he's not teaching us the dark stuff. He's not dangerous".
We all nodded. We knew very little about him, but he seemed like a great person. And we wanted to believe that more than anything.
I went to sleep that night with my head feeling like a rollercoaster. I kept thinking about the diary. It was crazy how relatable Chaim's life was. He lived in Outwoods, he was raised by people who didn't care about him (even though his natural parents were way worse than my foster ones) and we both had been brought in by a wizard. Chaim had ended up with an evil one and I had ended up with him. I felt that I had been way luckier and I hoped I was right.
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