The Adventures of the Junior Phoenixes, Part 1: The Pendant of Life

Chapter 11: An Early Morning Stroll

Chapter 11

     Hours turned into days. The days kept passing with Shade being alone in the lofty northern tower. The students were very busy with new classes (some with heavy class loads) and making new friends. Shade would come down from the tower and would walk around the campus as the students would walk from class to class. Occasionally he’d see one of the students and he’d wave. He got a few waves back, but no one would run up and greet him or anything more than a friendly wave. Sam Meadows did wave and grin at him a lot, though, which made him smile and sometimes blush.

     At meal time, when the whole school was in Commoner’s Hall, he would get waves from the students. The exception was Dareo Hyrcanian, who could care less now that he was immersed in school, and he only received dirty stares from Echo Turan who seemed to loathe him.

     The other person who seemed to glare at him was Master Bullavin. Bullavin would shoot him displeased looks every time, and Shade just got to a point where he quit looking at the Master’s Table during meal times.

     Quidditch matches were a time that he at least got to see some of the kids in action. Sam Meadows was the Bishop Seeker, and was very good at it. Dan Titan was a Beater, and played brutally on the pitch. Cedrique made the Putnam team as a Chaser. His athletic physique and charming attitude made him a magnet to all around him and a target for the American girls at Salem.

     Shade would go to the matches and cheer on Bishop, but he also found himself cheering for Cedrique as well to support him. When he did go to the games he found himself missing Jinx, since they had been teammates together.

     Most days, Shade kept to himself in the guard tower. He would watch from the north guard tower over the grounds and he would walk along the wall, checking on the defenses. He felt paranoid most often, as if he was being watched. He swore he could still feel silver eyes watching him from outside the castle walls.

     On occasion, he’d walk into the Great Woods surrounding the school. He’d walk about under the tree canopy, listening and letting his senses do the work.

     One night, as he was walking in the forest, he heard the growling and heavy footsteps of what he thought were wolves. He drew out his wand and pointed it at the thick brush of the forest. The canopy of the Great Woods was thick and it concealed more than it revealed. Shade kept his wand at the level of his eyes and he never let himself be caught off guard.

     The growling was nearby, but it seemed to taper off. Shade swore he heard footsteps patter away, and he kept his eye out. He came across some tracks that seemed too big to be wolves, but too small to be Dire Wolves. They were distinctly canine in nature, he thought. He followed the steps but they disappeared towards the edges of Walden Pond and the Great Woods. They were strange; the impressions on the ground seemed like a dog but appeared bipedal. The footprints befuddled him.

     He stood silent, letting his surroundings absorb him, feeling one with the woods. “Floramortis,” he whispered, and the spell allowed him to feel what the trees felt. He cleared his mind of nothing but the trees and the forest around him, letting the spell take him over. The Plant Moving Spell was complicated but Master Wolf had told Shade that if one can understand every aspect of what that spell can do, then that spell can allow one to do anything you set your mind to allow it to do. Shade allowed the trees and plants around him to become his eyes. He extended his feelings out and let the trees see for him. All Shade kept seeing was the blurry image of the familiar face of a little girl and it broke his concentration. Shade ceased doing the spell. I’m doing something wrong, Shade thought. He gave it up and kept a vigilant eye out. He stayed out for another hour in the woods then walked back slowly to the guard tower, looking around suspiciously. He had that feeling of being watched again, and he was wary as he continued. The full moon illuminated the night and shone bright down upon the grounds of Salem.