Rimwick

Some Kind of Home

"I can do what now?"

"Control the wind, apparently. This isn't that uncommon in adolescence. Magical ability often grows in correlation with-"

"Ms. Kay, offense intended, you're an idiot. No one can control wind."
"Riley," my principal enunciates. "You live in a town where people can't go out at night because they'll be eaten. Those who go into the hills don't come back. Monsters roam the streets after dark and you're sitting in here saying no one can make a little air move?"

She has a good point.

"Go home," Ms. Kay says. "Tell your mom what happened. She's helped a lot of kids like you."

The kitchen is steaming with Mom's herbal cures and spicy concoctions. (She's actually a baker, not a witch, but saying "herbal cures" sounds cooler.) Just like normal, I slam the screen door and sling my backpack into a corner before sliding into a chair. Unlike normal, the first words out of my mouth are,

"So when were you planning on telling me that I, apparently, have magic powers? Were you just going to keep it a secret? And who else has them? Ms. Kay said you've helped kids like me before."

"You have magic?" Mom asks mildly. I really hate it when she does that - just ignores my frustration and answers me calmly instead of sending me to my room.

"Yes," I snap. "I can make wind."

"No, you can't," Mom says.

"Yes. I can. I just did."

"No, Riley. We won't know what your real power is until tonight. The wind is just a side effect, like a warning, to tell us you have magic."

I bury my face in my hands. "This isn't happening. Magic... magic is worse than Dusk Children." Dangerous, evil, terrifying.

"Magic is a tool," Mom says. "We use it to protect ourselves. It's dangerous, yes, and hard to control, but it is very real. Sometimes it just takes a while to show itself. Most people in Rimwick with a power don't even realize they have one."

"Other people in Rimwick have magic."

"Yes. Not many, but a few."

"And I have magic."

"If you were really controlling wind."

"I wasn't controlling it! Not on purpose!"

"Was it responding to your emotions?"

"I don't know!" Angry air slams across the kitchen, knocking herbs and spices off the wall.

Mom grins. "I'd say that's a yes. Don't worry; it will go away soon."

"Mom," I say. And then I stop. I'm too confused, too worried, too stressed out about having magic I didn't know existed to think straight. But the one thing my mind locks on- the thing every event in Rimwick always comes back to- is that I am different, and different is bad. We bond together for protection against the Dusk Children. No one can afford to be unique, no one should ever be different, no one should ever be-

"I'm a freak," I say.

Mom rolls her eyes. "You are not a freak just because you have a power."

"I was a freak before."

My navy peacoat, my heavy boots, my ripped jeans; the knives I take everywhere; our ramshackle house at the edge of the town- and all that pales in comparison to the one deciding fact that makes me an outcast. No one in Rimwick likes me.

"Do you really think that?" Mom asks.

I don't answer.

Mom gets up from the table and goes to the cupboard. After rummaging for a moment, she comes back and hands me an old photo. I recognize it right away: Isaac, Jay, Daria and me, taken a couple of years ago at the Holden's annual picnic. It used to be one of my favorite events of the summer. We'd hang out in Daria's back yard for a while with the adults and other kids, then break into the school and spend the night there. It was dangerous, of course, and freaked our parents out the first few times, but Dusk Children can't enter buildings. We were fine.

Angrily, I shove the photo away. "They don't like me, Mom. We aren't friends anymore."

She purses her lips, studying the photo, then puts it back in the cupboard,

"If you could, would you leave Rimwick?"

"Leave?" I ask. I didn't even know that was possible. Everyone who tries to go through the mountains gets eaten.

"Hypothetically."

I stare at her. If I could leave... Rimwick is my home. It's the only place I've ever been. But what kind of home is filled with people you despise?

"Yes," I say. "I want to leave. I don't want to spend my whole life trapped here." I don't want to spend my whole life known only as the friendless freak.

Mom nods. She's smiling with her lips but not her eyes. "Alright, then. Pack."