Shifter Falls Academy: Year Two Page 4

  The brightest stars

  Shine anywhere

  What the hell?

  “That’s the worst poem I’ve ever read,” Jade glared at the sign.

  “Is it supposed to be a clue?” Kenneth asked.

  “It’s supposed to be a clue,” I sighed.

  Of course it was.

  All of my Nancy Drew training in the world hadn’t prepared me for something like this, though. In those books, Nancy was clever and witty. She always seemed to effortlessly know exactly what to do. In real life, things weren’t quite so black and white. I definitely did not know what I was supposed to do, especially in a situation like this.

  “From first to last, that could mean from your first year to your last year at the school,” Jade said carefully, considering. Good. She was using her wise old owl skills to think critically. We needed that brain right about now.

  “From here to there? Maybe they import items?” I said, raising my voice awkwardly. I had no idea. I wasn’t exactly a seasoned puzzle-solver.

  “The brightest stars shine anywhere?” Kenneth read, and then he shook his head.

  “Bright stars always shine...” I started thinking out loud. What did that mean? Was it talking about actual, physical stars? I looked around, but there was no starlight streaming in. There were no windows or anyplace we could get extra light from.

  “The brightest stars shine anywhere,” Jade said, repeating the line. Somehow, we all seemed to think that stating the words over and over was going to help us figure out exactly what we were doing.

  “No, they don’t,” Kenneth snapped his fingers and grinned. Okay, it sounded like he’d figured it out. “The brightest stars shine in the dark. We need to make it dark.”

  We looked up and around, but the lights were too high up to reach. There were no light switches around or any way to make it dark in the space, but then Jade held up a hand.

  “Wait, I learned an incantation to make light dimmer. Maybe that would work.”

  “It can’t hurt to try,” I said.

  Jade whispered the spell, shook her wand around, and waited, but nothing happened. She shook her head.

  “Let me try again. Maybe I’m just rusty.”

  She tried again, whispering carefully. She moved her wand a bit more methodically, and this time, the lights up above us grew dimmer and dimmer until they were almost completely out.

  “You did it!” I shrieked.

  “You did it,” Kenneth agreed. “Look.”

  He pointed where the sign hung on the wall. Now we could see that it wasn’t just a picture neatly lining the wall. It actually hung on the door to the store.

  “Shall we go in?” Jade asked, and it was the first time I’d seen her smile all night.

  Chapter 5

  Each week ran into the next at Shifter Falls. We had a lot of laughs and a lot of food and a lot of classes, but I never stopped wondering about the strange people arguing downstairs in the halls of the basement that connected the dorms and the castle.

  Who were they?

  What exactly was it that they were looking for?

  Had they ever found the hidden item?

  I mentioned it to Kenneth, but he didn’t seem to think it was as weird as I did. He kind of brushed it off as being just one of those weird things about the school, but I was utterly convinced that it was more than that.

  Jade didn’t think about it at all, if I had to guess. She had her own problems. She was still trying to figure things out with Abby and was busy trying to decide how much she should admit when it came to her feelings. That, balanced with her flight training and shifting classes, meant she couldn’t emotionally take on anything else.

  When I wasn’t busy wondering what had happened that night in the hallways downstairs, I was busy with homework. Apparently, year two meant a lot more assignments. It meant that our teachers trusted us a lot more, and they weren’t exactly afraid to pile on the homework when it came to this year.

  One of my favorite classes of the year was turning out to be Shifting on Command. Our instructor, Randy Harper, was a Shifter Falls Academy alumni who had come back years later to be a teacher. As far as I knew, he’d loved his time at Shifter Falls and wanted to give back to the rest of us, so we spent our time together talking about shifting, what it meant to be a shifter, and sometimes, we even shifted.

  But I was surprised at how much time we spent talking about shifting and not actually shifting.

  “These classes are killing me,” Jade said one day when we were talking about it.

  “Shifting classes?”

  “In my owl class, we’re learning to fly in different ways,” she said. She sprawled out on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

  “How many different ways are there to fly?” I asked.

  Jade just shook her head and sighed.

  “Too many.”

  “I didn’t realize we’d have species-specific training lessons,” I told her.

  “Not everyone does. Cats don’t, do they?”

  “No.”

  “I guess just owls and certain kinds of small shifters, like lizards and bats and stuff.”

  “Well, being small has certain disadvantages,” I offered up carefully. I wasn’t exactly a big cat, and part of me worried that this was going to negatively affect me somehow. I didn’t want to be the only person at Shifter Falls Academy who struggled with shifting because of their size.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But the training is about more than that.”

  “Why do you need to be able to fly in different ways?” I asked. She was talking to me. She was actually talking to me. Neither one of us was being snarky or mean. We were just…being with each other.

  “Because if I need to fly really fast in order to save someone or stop someone, I’m going to do that differently than if I’m just out for a leisurely flight.”

  “That makes a little more sense,” I commented. “So do you have to learn, like, how to pace yourself?”

  “Pretty much. Nobody wants to get overtired or frustrated or worn out. I mean, what good is trying to fly quickly to save someone if you get worn out after just a couple of minutes?”

  “Fair question,” I said.

  “A very fair question,” she agreed. “What about you?”

  “I mean…I don’t know. Shifting on Command is getting to me, I think.”

  “Not a fan of Harper, huh?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “He’s different from a lot of the teachers. I think it’s because he was gone for so long, you know? When he came back, he felt like he had to prove himself, I guess. Maybe we’ll go through that, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, what do you want to do after this?”

  “After we talk?”

  “No, you big goof,” she laughed, shaking her head. “What are you going to do after we finish school? Some people will stay on as teachers. Others are going to go have these big, magical careers, but maybe they’ll return later. That’s what Harper did. He traveled the world and when he came back, he felt like he had something to prove.”

  “I hope we don’t do that.”

  “I don’t think we will,” she said.

  “Do you know what you want to do?” I asked her.

  “No clue,” Jade told me. “And that’s the problem.”

  It was a problem for me, too. Everyone seemed to have these incredible ideas about what they were going to do after they finished school, but me?

  I just felt lost, and that bugged me more than it should have.

  *

  One Friday afternoon, Mr. Harper stood at the front of the class. His long brown hair was curly and his beard was neatly trimmed. He was a bear shifter, which meant he was chubby and stout, but that didn’t mean he was weak or incapable of moving quickly and slyly. If anything, he moved just as fast as any of his students.

  “What’s the most important thing to remember about shifting?” He asked. He looked out at the
students who sat in his class, and most of us exchanged looks. Nobody really wanted to answer first because nobody wanted to give a shifting demonstration. Oh, we’d all shifted before. Apparently, shifters weren’t weird about nudity or scared of it at all, but it was still strange to me.

  After all, I’d only discovered that I was a shifter last year.

  The idea of being naked and in my animal form in front of other people was still really weird to me. It was definitely something I needed to work on and probably something I needed to get over, but for now, I’d have to just keep doing my best.

  Finally, I raised my hand.

  He seemed pleased.

  “Charlotte,” he said.

  Inwardly, I cringed. I forced myself not to correct him, but it was really awkward for me. I really preferred being called Charlie, but I still wasn’t sure how to politely tell people that, especially people who were authority figures.

  “The most important thing to remember is to believe in yourself,” I said carefully. “And even though it sounds like a simple policy or even kind of trite, the truth is that if you don’t believe you can shift, you won’t be able to.”

  I’d learned that the hard way. Believing in yourself was the key to shifting effectively. You could do it, but so much of your mental health and wellbeing was wrapped into your ability to shift. I’d heard stories of shifters who had wandered off and shifted into their animal form, only to get stuck in it because they stopped believing in their own skills and abilities.

  Were those true stories?

  I had no way to tell, but I knew that the higher my confidence levels were, the better I was able to shift and to train and to work hard at Shifter Falls.

  “Very true,” he said. “And I agree with you on this point. When I was in school, I had plenty of friends who were strong and athletic, but the minute it was time to shift, they’d become nervous and blubbering.”

  “Blubbering?”

  “Absolutely. Would anyone else like to venture a guess as to the second most important thing to remember about shifting?”

  Jade was in my class. So was Abby, apparently. They’d been sitting next to each other all semester. It had taken me weeks to realize that Abby was the girl Jade kept “accidentally” sitting next to in class.

  Jade raised her hand and shot a shy glance at Abby. Abby smiled. I was surprised to see Jade raise her hand because even though she was pretty outspoken and bold, sometimes she seemed really shy in the classroom. It was just one of those things, I supposed.

  “Yes, Jade?”

  “I would like to add that it’s also important to understand how to stay focused.”

  “Interesting observation, Jade. Can you tell us a little more about that?”

  “Well,” Jade shot another look at Abby before turning back to the teacher. “If you struggle with focusing on your objective, you won’t be able to reach it. The objective in this case would be reaching your shifter form or switching back to your human form. You have to be able to visualize it and you have to stay focused on that long enough to make it happen.”

  “Excellent point. Thank you, Jade.”

  Jade beamed and I thought I saw Abby give her hand a little squeeze. Good for Jade. I hadn’t pestered her about her relationship with Abby like, at all, but I was glad it seemed like things were going smoothly for the two of them, at least a little. Jade deserved to be happy.

  She deserved it more than anyone else I knew.

  “All right,” Mr. Harper continued. “So let’s review. When you’re ready to shift, whether that’s so you can accomplish a task or because you simply need to be in your animal form, make sure you clear your mind. You need to give shifting your utmost attention. While you’ll eventually be able to shift back and forth without thought, make sure that now, as you’re learning how to shift quickly, that you pay attention to what you’re doing.”

  He walked back and forth in front of the classroom with his hands behind his back. Mr. Harper looked less like a bear and more like a wise old owl: like Jade. He’d met a lot of students and seen a lot of things. He was the kind of guy whose brain you wanted to pick for hours just to find out what else he had to tell you.

  “If you’re thinking about girls, or boys, or you’re thinking about your pet, or you’re daydreaming about all of your academic responsibilities,” he snorted, as though this was some sort of good joke, “then you won’t be fully focused on shifting. This means that your shift will be sloppy. It’ll take longer to finish, and those are precious seconds you might need. Why?”

  A boy in the back raised his hand.

  “Heath?”

  “Because you might be fighting someone and need to be in your animal form.”

  “Excellent. If you’re going to fight someone, which I don’t necessarily recommend, then you need to be able to get into your animal form very quickly. Anyone else?”

  Abby raised her hand. Mr. Harper pointed at her.

  “Abby? What would you like to add?”

  Abby spoke clearly. She had the same confidence that Jade usually did, and she had a nice smile. I liked her a lot and I hoped they managed to get everything about their relationship sorted out. My friend deserved to be happy, and despite the fact that I had been suspicious of Abby at first, she really did seem kind.

  “Because anytime you shift, you should do so with accuracy and precision. Shifting in a way that is ineffective just wastes your energy.”

  “Excellent point. I’ve had many students who come to class and they know how to shift, but they haven’t quite managed to do so easily.”

  Mr. Harper glanced at the clock at the back of the class.

  “We only have a few more minutes, but that’s all of the material I have for you. Does anyone else have any questions for us today?”

  He looked at the class hopefully.

  I couldn’t tell whether he was hoping someone would have a question or no one would, but I carefully raised my hand.

  “Charlotte?”

  He seemed a little surprised, but that was fine. I was generally a fairly quiet student in class. I didn’t exactly like drawing attention to myself if I didn’t have to, and there I was: raising my hand twice in one class.

  What exactly was coming over me?

  “You said you were a student here?”

  “Yes, that’s right. A long time ago,” he chuckled.

  “What was the hardest thing about shifting for you?” I asked, curious. He was a teacher now, and obviously an expert in shifting. I was surprised, though, when an almost dark expression crossed Mr. Harper’s face. He shook his head, and the expression cleared.

  “Oh, that’s a difficult question,” he finally said. “I’ll have to think about that. Well, that’s all for today. See you next week.”

  He gathered up his books and walked briskly toward the door. Then he abruptly left the entire class. We all sort of stared at the door for a long time, wondering what had just happened.

  Where was he going in such a rush?

  And why didn’t he want to answer questions about the past?

  Chapter 6

  It was the third month of the semester when I finally felt like things were slowing down and I had some more time to myself. I’d been busy with my classes, and spending time with Kenneth, and trying to keep Jade as sane as possible. She was still crushing hard, and her life seemed to be a mash-up of classes and daydreaming.

  “What are you going to do for dinner?” Jade looked over from her desk, which was covered in handwritten spells and half-filled potion bottles. She was busy working on one of her projects for class, but I just shrugged.

  “I’m thinking of going and seeing Fiona,” I told her. “It’s been awhile since I saw her. I want to see how her semester is going.”

  “Too bad you don’t have her as a teacher this year,” Jade said. “She’s fantastic.”

  Jade was in two of Fiona’s classes, and she basically never stopped talking about how wonderful it was. I wasn’t je
alous at all. Not a bit. There was nothing to be jealous of, right?

  After all, it wasn’t like Fiona was my mom and she was ignoring me to hang out with my friend or anything like that. Fiona was a woman who had guided me and helped me, but she wasn’t my mother.

  She was my landlady, and I appreciated her, but our relationship had changed a lot.

  I missed her.

  And as much as I liked to pretend that I was okay without her, the truth was that she really had made a huge difference in my life. She’d been there for me when nobody else had. She’d managed to take care of me, and she’d guided me when I was very, very lost. No matter what happened, I’d always have a special place in my heart for her and everything she had done.

  We weren’t related.

  We didn’t have anything in common.

  She didn’t owe me anything.

  Yet somehow, she’d still gone out of her way to help me, and to guide me, and to bring me to Shifter Falls Academy when I needed a way to be saved from the dangers of the shifter world.

  To be honest, I didn’t like thinking about Fiona too much because it just brought back memories and questions I’d long been fighting. There were things I didn’t have answers to, and as time when on, those questions bothered me more and more.

  Questions like, where did I come from?

  It seemed stupid, at 19 years old, to worry about something as trite as who my parents were, but I just had never found any answers. The worst thing was that I didn’t have a way to get any answers.

  It wasn’t like I had a grandmother I could call up. I had never been adopted, so I couldn’t ask my adoptive parents. I didn’t have an agency I could go talk to. My former foster families didn’t know anything about where I’d come from, and honestly, I was so young and sad when I’d gone into care that it wasn’t like I really remembered very much.

  I had snapshots of memories that haunted me: things I was so close to remembering, but just couldn’t. Every once in awhile I’d think I could remember my mother laughing or my father talking to her quietly, but then the memories would fade and I could never figure out if I had actually been there for those experiences or if the memories were really just dreams I’d forgotten about.