The Fae Chronicles: The Hollow Forest

Chapter 2

     The weekend was filled with donuts and research. I'm surprised Aunt Tessa knew we were alive because when Rowan and I came home, she was alseep on the couch with Eddie, our cat, asleep on her stomach and an old rerun of Days of Our Lives flashing across the screen. We spent Saturday holed up in my room sprawled out on my bed with numerous books, boxes of donuts, and both of our laptops scattered around us. We'd been researching the demon baby thing all day with no luck when Rowan suddenly said, "Hey, doesn't this look like your birthmark?"

   I picked my way across the bed to what she was looking at. Sure enough, an exact replica of the birthmark on the back of my neck glowed back at me from the screen of Rowan's laptop.

   "Let me see it real quick." She said, moving my long black hair out of the way to look at the small cluster of what looked like lightning on my skin. Rowan gasped.

    "What? What is it-hey now!" I said as she lifted my shirt altogether.

    "Nothing much, Harry Potter, just the masive tattoo on your back!"

     "What?" I scrambled off the bed and turned around, looking in the mirror on my wall to see dark blue tendrils of lightning bolts winding down my back. I was speechless for a moment.

     "I remember it being small yesterday..."

     "It was the demon baby. I knew it." Rowan said.

     "I don't think it was the demon baby." I said. "I was born with this birthmark and it just grew? More sinister powers may be at work."

     "Ah yes. I knew Obama was doing experiments." Rowan said thoguthfully.

    I threw a pillow at her, but she batted it away. "It's not Obama either! We just have to corner Ryan at school on Monday!"

   "If he's there. We know his deep, dark secret now." She said in a mock-serious tone.

   "Well now all we can do is wait and get some concealer. If Aunt Tessa finds out about this, she'll never let me out of the house again."

   "Some surprise rehearsal, huh?"

   I laughed. "Shut up!"

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    We went from first to third block without seeing Ryan, which both worried me and relieved me. We were sitting in the courtyard at lunch, trying to make ourselves look when Rowan leaned across the table. "I thought he'd be here by now. It's not like him to miss school."

    I sighed. "It's not like him to sprout wings and speak in tounges either."

    She shrugged. "True."

    Lunch passed, and so did fourth block with no sign of him and many questions from Hunter and Dan. Rowan and I were walking to the parking lot, as she was taking me home today, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I whirled around to see Ryan looming over us, looking surprisingly anxious.

   "Hi." He said. "We need to talk."

   Rowan snorted. "No shit! You just sprout wings and have a conversation with a little demon baby and you think we don't want some answers?"

   "And, ahem, where exactly are your wings?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

   "Oh, it's a simple illusion spell. All you need is-but that is not important right now! We can't talk here. Somewhere with less people-oh!" He grabbed our shoulders and we fell through the floor.