Wonder Made

Seventeen, Part Two

"So-"

Rayburn Auttsley let his shaggy crop of rusted hair tumble in front of his eyes. He sat on a bench next to Peneloper, who had positioned herself as far away from him as possible. This separation between them had not gotten lost on the Auttsley patriarch, though he scratched at the stubble shading his chin and acted aloof. Peneloper rubbed her sweaty palms against one another with such veracity the skin might sluice off. "How's your mom? Little Carma?"

Peneloper's lips pursed. "She's thirteen now," she said, rebuking the 'little' of his previous question.

He'd remembered Carmichelle as a girl, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, annoying but loving. Always raising her hands in the air and demanding hugs, a little chubby, squirming thing dirt-spackled who loved coercing laughter through some of her sillier dance routines. But that wasn't Carmichelle now and he would have known that had he not-she gulped.

"Ah," Rayburn craned his head back. "So, she's all angsty and self-obsessed?"

"Her against the world," Peneloper remarked. She remembered the hug from earlier. "Though she hasn't lost her warmth. It's there when she allows it to be."

Rayburn chuckled, and then turned and eyed his eldest. "And what of you? What's seventeen-year-old Peneloper like?"

Peneloper squeezed her hands. "Apparently, she comes from a lineage of mages." She eyed him, then catching his gaze, turned away, whipping some of her hair into a frenzied tornado in front of her face. "Or is it sorcerers? Wizards? Witches? What do you call yourselves?"

He sighed. "Depends on the idiot you ask. In the know refers to us with magic. And while real witches exist, along with sorcerers, dark skirmishers, and light-bearers, some of us are harder to categorize. Most with the ability to wield magic call themselves crows."

"Ah," Peneloper said. "Bird lingo. Yes, it seems very popular among your kind."

"Your kind," Rayburn corrected. She nodded. "And yeah, it's pretty niche, got a nice ring to it. If you're a fan of alliteration, being a crow and having color has a decent mouthfeel."

"I'm a crow," Peneloper tapped her feet against the hardwood floor.

To have their feigned moment of privacy, the Council had given them access to a dingy janitor's closest, barely the size of a bathroom. Her gaze roamed over the homemade shelves of plywood and duct tape which wielded such necessities as buckets, gloves, brand new mop heads, lemon-scented Lysol and bleach wipes, and sacks of that sawdust they used to throw over vomit.

Peneloper never understand sawdust as a viable combatant to throw up. It neither concealed the smell nor cleaned up the mess. If anything, it just combined with the regurgitated slop to form an acrid paste that singed the nose hairs of all who smelled it, but maybe that was its function; to give off a warning stench and say, "He who expels here shall smell it until his death and beyond." Or, maybe not.

"They'll probably call you an owl." Her father's words, as they'd often done when she was little and daydreaming, dragged her back to reality. Though reality now was far weirder than anything she'd conjured up in her mind before.

Rayburn grimaced. "That's what they call me due to our last name."

Peneloper leaned back, the wood hissing underneath her. "Is that what they called Grandma Mildrea?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him smirking. "They may have, but only behind her back. You might not remember much about her, but she was fearsome. Killed that cyclops and could drink a dozen Oxmen under the table at the Song." He sighed, his gaze distant. "Kelpner wasn't lying when he'd said she was one of the best crows to have ever cawed."