Spells in Silence

Chapter 18: The Hunt

Noise from outside Simone's cottage eventually forced Hazel's eyes open. She was not sleeping inside the building tonight, but rather on the roof. As August faded and approached September, the nights had lost the worst of its heat and was now actually on the pleasant side. The sleeve of her jumper made an excellent face mask to keep the light of the sun out of her eyes, and that meant she could continue sleeping even after the sun rose.

Or she could if everybody would keep their arguments down to a dull roar.

The heated conversation did not stop the way she wanted it to do, and with a long, loud sigh she pulled the jumper off from around her head and stuffed it into her satchel. She teleported down to the ground still in her clothes from the day before, Morgan gliding to her shoulder, and stomped over to the knot of adults still talking in loud voices. 'What?' she wrote. No one glanced up from their own discussion, however, and after several seconds of waiting she clapped her hands as loudly as she could.

That thankfully caught their attention, and they all looked over at her and the question she had asked. "She looks like an angry kitten," was Jean Luc's first thought, which did not improve her mood any. "It is nothing, Hazel. You can go back to bed."

'I no sleep if you talk loud like this. What. Happen?'

Silent chuckles swept through the thoughts of the adults, and she shifted her tired glare between each of them in turn before returning her gaze to Jean Luc. "It is nothing so terrible as you may think. Grégorie noticed some strange signs in the forest for the last week or so, and it looks like there is a boar running around. We are just deciding how best to track it down and deal with it."

'Deal with it?'

Grégoire nodded. "Yeah. Boars are pretty good eating, but they can be a right pain in the butt to track down and hunt. They are also destructive wherever they go, eating anything at all that is edible—"

"Because we are not lacking resources for this upcoming winter already," Jean Luc thought to himself.

"—and the last few times one was around, they came to the compound at night and tore stuff up, too." Grégoire sighed. "And on that this is almost certainly a magical boar, and that just makes it more complicated. That's about it, just need to get rid of it."

Hazel's fingers were already moving. 'I can help.' After everything they had done for her in the last few months – taking her in, teaching her how to make magic potions, even throwing her her very first birthday party – there was no way she was going to ignore them when they had trouble of their own. She did not know exactly how she could help, not yet, but surely there was something she could do.

Grégoire and Jean Luc looked at each other, almost as if they were having a silent conversation. Jean Luc's mind was filled with doubt, but Grégoire? "Having another pair of eyes would not hurt," he finally said. "If nothing else, she could climb a tree faster than I could to take a look from on high."

"Somehow I doubt she would lower herself to simple climbing when she can teleport," Jean Luc thought with a small shake of his head. "If she wants to go and you want to take her with you, I will not say no. Not like either of you would listen anyway. You said you found most of the signs to the northeast?"

"I did. It is where I thought I would start the search."

"Okay then. Marcel and I will take the south and west, respectively. There are a few spells we can use to make sure the boar has not moved into those areas. I do not know they would be as useful for finding where it is, but if you cannot find it today we can search together tomorrow."