“There now,” she said soothingly. “I’m sure this is just all some kind of misunderstanding. Are you sure that the necklace wasn’t contaminated or something?”
I couldn’t see Maggie any more but I could hear her spat comment of denial.
“Mackenzie,” Mrs Alcoon began, reaching out to touch my arm. She didn’t get the chance to finish what she was going to say, however, because she suddenly recoiled away from me as if she had been burned. Her eyes were as round and as big as golf balls. “You’re a…” her voice trailed off and something flickered in her gaze. She turned back to Maggie. “You should leave.”
Maggie’s reply might have been muttered but I could still make it out. “I’m not leaving you here alone with that thing – whatever it might be.”
“Oh, it’s quite alright, she won’t hurt me.”
Mrs Alcoon sounded a lot more confident of that than I was. Her intervention had dampened down the flames inside me somewhat, but I was still scared and angry, and the enormity of what was going on was starting to hit me. Flames inside me was one thing – at least those I could keep hidden, after a fashion anyway, but actual flames sprouting from my skin was something else entirely. Was it going to happen every time I moved my hands? And what had I been planning to do to Maggie anyway? Something was very wrong with me. No doubt this was all some kind of fucked up genetic thing and nothing to do with her spell in the first place. And yet for a flash I’d been prepared to, I didn’t know what, but prepared to do something. I couldn’t go anywhere without screwing everything up. My whole body sagged in defeat.
Mrs Alcoon moved to the side and relaxed her posture, putting on a smile for Maggie that even I could tell was somewhat forced. Maggie, meanwhile, stared at me with a hard expression in her eyes. I suddenly understood where the expression ‘eyeballing’ someone had come from. I swallowed nervously and cleared my throat.
“No, I’ll go. Being here was a mistake. This spell was a mistake. All of this,” I gestured hopelessly around the air, “was a mistake.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Mackenzie Smith,” Mrs Alcoon stated, pointing me towards the little kitchen. I noted that she was being careful not to touch me again. “There are no mistakes that have been made. We just need to talk, that’s all.”
“I will not…” Maggie started to bluster before she was interrupted.
“You will.”
The little round woman harrumphed loudly and glared at me, then stomped over to pick up her handbag. “If you do anything, and I mean anything, to harm June I will come over here and kill you myself.”
“I won’t hurt her,” I said, hoping that it was the truth.
“Maggie, I already said…,” Mrs Alcoon started.
“Fine! I’m going!”
She gave me one last hard stare and then turned, undid the locks, and left out the front door. The bell jangled loudly as she slammed it shut behind her, making me cringe. For a moment, a heavy silence hung in the air covering the entire atmosphere. Then Mrs Alcoon took a deep breath and spoke.
“You have dragon blood.”
I stared at her, mute, then looked down at my hands. Thankfully they were now green flame free.
“Maggie’s right,” Mrs Alcoon continued, “I don’t have brilliant clairvoyant powers. I don’t have any brilliant powers other than perhaps those of disorganisation. That’s why I haven’t sensed what you are until now, I suppose. The necklace’s spell must have magnified what already project.”
I continued to stare at her, my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth.
“I caught a glimpse of the future. There were a group of robed figures and they were talking about how you were a wyrm. You were with them.” At my suddenly alarmed look, she quickly continued, “You were with them, not being held by them. They seemed to, I don’t know, respect you, I think.”
I must have still looked worried because Mrs Alcoon continued in a reassuring tone. “You have nothing to fear from me, Mackenzie, I am not strong enough to be part of the Ministry so there’s no higher power that I am beholden to tell.” I started at her mention of the Mages. She nodded at me. “Yes, I know what they are. They’re not interested in me although I have no doubt they’ll be interested in you. These people you lived with before - the ones you learned about the Fae from – were they dragons too?”
I shook my head and found my voice. If I was really going to trust her, then I’d have to tell her the whole truth this time. “Um, no. No, they weren’t. And I don’t think I’m really a dragon. I’m a Draco Wyr. Well, only an eighth of me is Draco Wyr, the rest I guess is bog standard human.”
“Mm. I don’t know what a Draco Wyr actually is, dear. Something powerful though, that’s for sure.”
I went back to staring at her.
She smiled. “Go and put the kettle on, why don’t you? I just need to check something in the office – I’ll follow you in a moment or two.”
When I didn’t move, she raised her eyebrows and said gently, “It’s alright, Mack. Everything will be fine.”
That was the first time she’d ever called me Mack. Without saying anything else, I took myself off to the kitchen and sat heavily down on the chair. I lifted my hands up to eye level and scrutinized them but I couldn’t see anything different about them. No weird green fire. Gingerly, I touched the necklace with my fingertips. That was cool to the touch again also.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked myself softly.
Concentrating a bit harder, I focused on my fingers and this time willed the fire to re-appear, just to see if I could. After a second, my hands ignited. I waved them around in front of me. Un-fucking-believable. I tried to will the fire to disappear and then, bit by bit, it did. The flames just winked out across my fingers, one after the other. I stretched out my index finger and screwed up my eyes and stared at it, trying to gain a little more control. It was a bit harder but after a few moments my one finger alone caught alight. I touched my other hand with the flame and felt nothing, no burn, then tried touching the wooden table. It immediately left a dark scorch mark. Hastily, and guiltily, I covered it up with a coaster, then reverted my attention to my finger.
I moved my finger down through the air and the flame followed. Then I smiled to myself and sketched out Mack in cursive script, just as I’d done years ago with sparklers on Guy Fawkes’ Night. I grinned. I stared at my finger again and tried to make the flame bigger. I’d only been intending to try for a couple of inches of fire, instead of my current centimetre. The result, however, became a ball of green inferno that enveloped half my arm. The fabric of my black top burned completely away within an instant whilst I shrieked and shook my arm in a sudden frenzy, attempting first to shake away the flames, then to stamp them out with my other hand. When neither of those techniques worked, I pivoted on my heel and shoved my whole arm into the small aluminium sink, awkwardly twisting on the tap. For a heart-stopping moment I thought that water wasn’t going to have any effect, then the flames hissed and were extinguished. A plume of smoke was rising up from the very pores of my skin.
I glanced at the door, expecting Mrs Alcoon to come in at any moment to see what the noise had all been about and to realise that whilst I might not be hurting her directly I was burning down her kitchen. The door remained shut, however, so I opened up the small grimy window to let in some air, and flicked on the kettle. Experimenting further in such a small space probably wasn’t a good idea.
By the time the kettle boiled, I was getting impatient. There was still no sign of Mrs Alcoon. I was starting to wonder if she’d gotten cold feet and had simply disappeared, hoping I’d just leave. She’d been so calm fifteen minutes before, however. After a few further moments of indecision, I poured a cup of her herbal tea and straightened my shoulders. I’d take it in to her and see where the land lay. If she was nervous about my presence, then I would make things easier on everyone and just leave. But then she’d just been reassuring me so why wouldn’t she have thrown me out before when Maggie was still here?
I picked up the chipped china mug filled with the noxious brew and exited the little kitchen. She wasn’t in the shop front and her office door was closed so I went straight up to it, balancing the tea in one hand, and knocked gently. When there wasn’t any answer I knocked again, but harder. Still, there was no answer. I steeled myself and twisted the doorknob, then pushed the door open with my free hand.
“Errr….Mrs Alcoon? Is everything alright?”
She didn’t answer. I peered round the door and saw her figure in the office chair, feeling enveloped by a surge of relief that she’d not left. And then, suddenly, I became aware of a faint yet lingering acrid smell that hung in the air. What was that? It could be some more strange herbal tea that she’d been drinking earlier but there was something else about it that didn’t seem entirely natural. I peered closer at the figure of the old woman. She wasn’t moving, in fact she didn’t even seem to be breathing, although she maintained a healthy glow about her cheeks. My stance changed and my muscles tightened. What was she doing? Was this some kind of trance? Perhaps she was contacting the Fae – or something even worse - to tell them what I was. I imagined a telepathic conversation in which the old woman gleefully proclaimed that she’d found a living breathing Draco Wyr with magical green fire properties whose blood could be drained straight away because they were sat in her kitchen drinking numbing herbal tea. I tried to shake away the residual paranoia.
Stepping forward, I gingerly stuck out my hand to prod her motionless body but, as soon as I drew close, the air cracked and snapped and an electric shock ran from the tip of my outstretched index finger right the way to my toes pulling me off my feet and slamming me back against the door, closing it against my back. The corner of my spine caught the doorknob and I yelled out in pain at the jarring streak of agony that ran across my back. I curled my fingernails into the palms of my hands and gritted my teeth, pulling myself upright and keeping my gaze steadily on Mrs Alcoon in case she moved. She didn’t.