Flickering Creatures | ONC 2024 | ✔︎

(11) Tales Emerging

The rain let up the next morning. By now, signs of Wightnight's approach—now only two nights away—were visible throughout the forest. Mist clung about the trees, its faint glow falling invisible with the sun's rise. Stories said the Wights made this vapor themselves. Bella could certainly see the plausibility of that. Rather than burning off, the mist thickened over the course of the day, pooling first in hollows, then spilling out across the rain-dampened forest floor. They were still nowhere near the bog.

More signs of Wightnight were simply signs of autumn tainted by association. Colours tipped the branches of early-turning trees, like someone had used them as paintbrushes. When the wind blew, birches loosed a flurry of yellow leaves like giants' coins. At the road's edges, fall asters splashed purple and white in the drooping grass, still weighed down by a memory of the night's rain and morning's dew.

Daphne walked with a sprightly step this morning, swinging her folded umbrella. Titus eyed the muddy road in disgust. When he tired of shoulder-perching, he slithered down to Daphne's potion-bag for a comfier ride. Bella took off and flew. She stretched her wings in the sun, enjoying the rich smells of autumn, and the overhead view of the colour-splotched forest. Lights winked where tree canopies thinned. Even in the daytime, Wights drifted through the forest in numbers normally reserved for evening fireflies. Bella flew a little higher.

In less than an hour, the ruddy line of Baneberry Bog peeked over the green horizon. The bog always looked like it had gotten a head-start on the forest's fall colours. Bella let herself drop, spiraling down to rejoin her companions. Daphne was chatting with Titus, who was still comfortably installed in her potion-bag even though the ground had dried. Both looked up as Bella swooped to a halt on Daphne's shoulder.

"We'll be at the bog by evening," she reported. "Sooner if we eat lunch while walking."

"Well, my feet are sore," said Daphne. "I'm stopping for lunch when it's lunchtime."

Bella opened her beak to mention Bryony, only to bite back the words as she found Titus watching her. She nodded to the notebook in Daphne's hand instead. "Any progress?"

"Hm? Oh, this? I haven't been looking. Well, I was. Now we're talking about Alchemy."

The twitch of Titus's whiskers told Bella he might have had something to do with that. She still didn't know if he'd ever worked for an Alchemist before.

"What happened then?" he asked Daphne. "I'm not aware of any neutralizing potion for garlic-citrus tinctures. They have all manner of colorful names among the cat colonies."

"You've spoken to the cat colonies?" said Bella, startled. She'd known there were communities of strays scattered throughout Nerium and other larger cities, but Titus had never struck her as the type to strike up conversation with street cats.

Titus acted like he hadn't heard her. "Given that you've mentioned those same classmates as still in your classes, I can only presume nobody got caught."

"Oh, no," said Daphne with a sheepish grin. "They caught a Theriologist from the senior class who'd been trying to reach a rat's nest under the school by taking apart a brick wall in the basement. She denied everything, obviously, but the damage in the lab looked like rats, and nobody had a rat familiar to reach the wild ones and prove otherwise. Rats were barred from the school for safety after a previous Theriology incident. Nobody died," she added, when Titus winced. "Not that I'm aware of, anyway. But it was a close call, so it was only larger familiars allowed after that. The Department of Familiarity has a lovely nest where they house any rat familiars whose keepers are in school."

"What about the incident? Did that student receive punishment for her apparent crime?"

"Nothing serious, I think? But she did have to clean up the mess. And that's why I'm not in Herbology."