Chapter Text
“Ugh, why does it have to smell so bad in here?” I complained, waving my hand in front of my face in a desperate attempt to keep the awful smell away.
On my left my friend Aria chuckled at my displeasure. “Well, no one said a room filled with Elephants would smell like flowers.”
“Well, they could at least add a few more vents in here,” I said grumpily.
Aria and I watched the Elephants interact with each other alongside the rest of our school group. With end of the year test fast approaching the teachers decided to give us a day of relaxation before we go straight into a week of review.
On my right our friend Rowan sighed depressingly, his sun hat covering his face. “It’s sad how few Elephants there are these days, due to poachers and habitat loss.”
Rowan was as nature loving as you can get. He advocated for a compost bin at the cafeteria to make fertilizer for the school’s garden. He would get upset when someone threw a water bottle into the garbage and not the recycling. Once he asked Aria and I to attend a funeral for a dead deer he found. That last one annoyed me a bit because Aria and I had to dig the grave due to Rowan being disabled and needing crutches to walk around, but we did it anyway.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Sure, most wild Elephants are being hunted but these guys are sure to live until, how long do Elephants live?”
Aria looked at a plaque hanging on the wall, “In the wild up to Seventy years, in captivity about Forty.”
“Huh, I thought the ones in here would live longer than that. But they’ll live and worry free too and that’s what important.”
A grin spread across my face when he chuckled at that, “Thanks, for trying to cheer me up Caspian.”
We left the Pachyderm exhibit and turned right, heading deeper into the zoo. We spent some time fawning over the cats in the Small Mammal House; we stared in awe at the simians of the Great Apes exhibit. When we arrived in front of the Reptile Discovery Center I was jumping with excitement. I’ve always had a fascination with snakes, one I couldn’t explain, I was drawn to them, something my mom really didn’t like.
Aria and I often joke that I’m a Parseltongue like in Harry Potter, although Rowan often looked at me weird when we said stuff like that, like he was trying to figure out why I’d like them. I turned to ask if they wanted to accompany me inside but froze when I saw Rowan’s face. His expression was one of pure terror, his eyes open so wide, they looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets, his pupils nothing more than little dots. His shoulders were shaking, and he was breathing very rapidly.
“Hey, are you good?” I asked.
“W-We can’t go in there,” he said shakingly.
“Why can’t we go in?” I asked. The way he was acting scared me.
“B-Because-” he stuttered.
“Rowan, Aria, Caspian!” yelled Mrs. Ford, our group chaperone called out. “This way, the other kids want to go in.”
“Um, is it okay if we stay out here instead?” asked Aria.
“I can’t leave you three all alone, even for a few minutes. You have to come with us,” responded Mrs. Ford.
Aria and I shared a look of mutual worry. We turned to look at Rowan, who gulped before heading towards the Reptile Center. Once inside, Aria and I walked on either side of Rowan, ready to help him at a moment's notice. I watched as he nervously shifted his eyes in all directions, mumbling something in a language I didn’t recognize. He made a clawing motion with his middle three fingers before thrusting his hand out.
We were half-way through the center when Rowan suddenly stopped moving. His eyes wide, he stared at a woman in a zoo caretaker uniform, who in turn was staring back at him. Her eyes filled with a manic glee; a sinister smile spread across her face.
“We need to leave, now,” said Rowan. He hit the backs of our legs with his crutches, making us move forward. When we got out, I realized we had left our group behind.
“Rowan, what the hell is going on with you right now?” asked Aria angrily. Her wavy, red hair igniting in the light of the sun. “Why are you so jumpy, and why was that lady staring at us so creepily?”
“Well... it's because-”
Before Rowan could speak another word, a terrified scream can from the Reptile center. Then came another and people swarmed out of the building, their screams filled the streets of the zoo, separating the three of us.
“Aria! Rowan! Where are you?!” I yelled, unable to see my friends. I felt something brush past my legs and fell backwards in surprise at what it was. A corn snake slithered towards me, its eyes staring into my own. Normally I would have been fascinated with this had the snake been behind glass, but instead it was right in front of me outside the exhibit. Dozens of the other reptiles began to emerge from the center, behind them the very same woman who I saw staring at us earlier.
“Well, it ssssseems like that little sssssatyr wasssss carelesssss leaving you here little one,” she said to me. As she got closer it her pants seemed to fuse with her legs, scales growing on them as twin serpent trunks replaced her bottom half. Her pupil became a thin slit, yellow sclera surrounded her green eyes. “It’sssss been yearssss sssssince I’ve feasssssted on a half-blood with sssssuch a ssssstrong ssssscent. Tell me little guppy what will your final wordsssss be before I rip apart your flesssssh?”
I lay there on the ground, frozen in fear. My mind trying to process what was going on as the snake lady slithered towards me. Just as she lunged towards me, the sound of music filled the air. The snake lady stopped mid-strike, her face went from confusion to shock as she was pulled back from me, her body suspended in the air by vines emerging from the grass.
I turned around to see what was causing this and saw Rowan standing ten feet behind, blowing into a set of panpipes. His hat was hanging behind his head, revealing a pair of small horns on his head. A yell from the snake lady caused me to turn my head to her, and saw Aria with one of Rowan’s crutches, the flat round part at the bottom was removed, revealing a bronze blade with a bloody tip. Aria plunged the blade into the snake lady once again, eliciting a scream from her before she dissolved into a yellow powder. Once the monster had dissolved, Aria dropped the crutch and ran to me, with worry on her face.
“Cas are you okay?” she asked.
“Y-yeah, I’m alright, physically at least. Mentally, not so much. What was that thing?” I asked.
“That was a dracaena, a dragon woman,” replied Rowan walking towards us.
“How are you walking?” I asked him. “You don’t have your crutches, speaking of which why is there a knife in your crutch? Also, why do you have horns?”
He looked at me sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s always weird when I do this. Just try to stay calm alright.”
I was going to ask why I should stay calm when he kicked off his shoes, revealing a pair of hooves where his feet should be. I did not stay calm, neither did Aria. We shrieked so loud I thought my glasses would shatter. Rowan covered his ears which had gotten pointier like an elf's.
“What are you?” asked Aria.
“I’m a satyr, a goat man,” he replied.
“That dracaena thing, she mentioned a satyr, was she after you?” I asked.
“No, she was after...you. The two of you,” he said.
“Why?” asked Aria.
“I can’t tell you right now, we’re too exposed out here. Wait until we get home. I’ll explain everything then.”
“What do you mean you can’t tell us? You just told us your part goat, but you can’t tell us why that thing attacked us , how does that make any sense?!” I yelled.
“If I told you right now it might attract more unwanted attention, I need to make sure you’re safe first before I tell you what you need to know.”
I was pissed off. Rowan who had been my friend since August, who I have spent days with laughing and joking around, who knew why I was just attacked by something that shouldn’t have been real wasn’t saying anything. My cheeks burned in anger, and I had to take multiple deep breaths to ebb my emotions.
“Fine, we wait until tomorrow. But if you don’t tell us what we want to know, I am not speaking to you again, you got that goat boy,” I growled angrily, pretending not to notice the hurt look on Rowan’s face.
We headed to look for our group once Rowan put his hat and shoes back on and sheathed his crutch knife. We ended up seeing Mrs. Ford pacing back and forth over by the Prairie Dogs. Once she saw us, she ran over to us demanding to know where we were. Rowan told her we were close to the entrance when everyone started running out of the building and got swept up in the crowd and ended up in the Great Apes again. Once she calmed down, she told us that due to all the snakes and lizards escaping the trip was being cut short and that we should return to the buses.
The other kids were upset, but Aria, Rowan, and I were more than ready to leave. The bus ride home was quiet and awkward, the three of us wanting to talk about what happened but inevitably backing down. We arrived at the school an hour earlier than we were supposed to, arriving in time for dismissal. Getting off the bus we walked away from the school to the surrounding neighborhood. Walking down the street we headed towards the end of the cul-de-sac, towards a grey Ranch house, my house. I grab my keys from my backpack and unlock the door, closing it once Rowan and Aria are inside. Quickly locking the door, I turn on my heels and glared at Rowan, only uttering one single word, “Talk.”
“Soon,” he said turning to rummage through his satchel backpack.
“Not soon. Now,” I told him. My blood began to boil. “You said that you’ll tell us what’s going on once we get home. We’re home so start talking.”
“It’s a long story and I’ll need some help filling in some blanks. Found it!” He took out two gold coins, a flashlight, and a glass prism from his backpack. He closed the curtains and placed the prism on the coffee table before giving Aria the flashlight and telling her to flash it on the prism.
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s important. Just trust me on this, okay?” asked Rowan.
Rolling her eyes, Aria lit the flashlight and aimed it at the prism. Immediately the far wall was covered by a large rainbow. Rowan muttered something under his breath and threw one of the coins at the wall. Expecting it to bounce off the wall, I was shocked to see the coin essentially being absorbed into the wall.
“Show me Maya Castillo,” said Rowan.
Why would he be asking a wall to show him my mom?
Immediately after he said that an image of my mom appeared in the rainbow. She was in her car in the Target parking lot. She was going through her purse when Rowan called out to her. She jumped in her seat and looked around trying to figure out where the voice had come from when she noticed us. Her eyes widened in surprise at what she was seeing; mine were widening as well.
“Rowan? What are you-” she stopped talking and looked around again before taking out her phone. “What are you doing? You know you’re not supposed to get in contact with me like this.”
“I’m sorry but it’s an emergency. It finally happened.” As soon as the words left his mouth my mom dropped her phone and looked back at us, look at me.
“What happened?! Is Caspian alright? Is he hurt?”
“No one’s hurt, but it’s time they know the truth.”
My mom looked taken aback at that, “Are you sure? Isn’t it too early?”
“Once the attacks start, they always get worse. They need to know; they need to go to camp.”
My mom looked at me, tears forming in her eyes. She wiped the tears away and took a deep breath. “Alright. Have you told Cadence yet?”
Rowan shook his head, “I called you first.”
“Tell her. I’m coming home right now.” She turned the car keys, starting up the car.
Slowly her image in the rainbow began to fade. As the image faded completely, I called out to my mom, “What are you two talking about? What do we need to know?”
Before the image disappeared, my mother looked at me and with a sorry voice she said, “The truth about your fathers.”