Lighthouse
BYRD
It was a random spot in the middle of a suburban street.
You would never look at it twice if you passed it. It was just a nothing part of the South Shore Neighborhood of Chicago. Quiet and unremarkable, Chicago bungalows lined each side of the street and sidewalk with pristine blankets of snow over manicured lawns. Wind curled and howled between each house, biting, merciless, and so cold it almost felt personal. All around us, it was like the city was wrapped in a winter coat that hadn’t been shaken off in weeks. The houses were even still dressed up for the season with festive string lights blinking lazily from porches and inflatable decorations inflated cheerfully in the yards. It seemed regular as hell.
Yet, it feltoff.
Just minutes before, the city had buzzed around us with holiday mirth. After a three-hour drive from the hotel, we arrived in Chicago, rolling off the interstate and into the thick of things. Late morning sunlight skimmed over the city’s jagged skyline, soft and silver, making everything feel washed in a delicate quiet. We passed block after block of packed sidewalks. People bustled about in thick, puffy coats with bags of to-go orders and finds from post-holiday sales swinging from glovedhands. Corner stores blasted holiday music through cracked doors. Street vendors braved the cold on sidewalks and in parking lots, smoke rising from their food carts into the steel-gray sky. The city didn’t slow down for anything, feeling alive with its own brand of chaos in the way that one would expect of Chicago.
Turning onto this street, though, everything felt still.
The essence of the city remained, but it was distant, muffled, as if we were slipping somewhere else. Just seven houses into the neighborhood, there were no more cars parked in driveways or along streets. Any footprints on the sidewalk or ridges in the packed slush faded away, too. The road was blanketed in a dirty, packed gray slush with ridges like it had been carved by dozens of tires and then left to harden. However, that and the blackened salt and snow in piles on the curb stopped abruptly, as if the city didn’t want to plow any further. There were no people. Even the trees grew close and tall here, their black limbs bare and brittle-looking against the silver sky.
Magic steeped and hid just beneath the surface, though.
It should have been creepy. Fuck, itwascreepy. But, instead of dread, something else entirely caressed my skin. It was warm and electrifying. It filled my gut with excitement and anticipation. My fingers twitched with energy. My dragon perked up, her eagerness radiating out to the rest of me.
Everything felt…expectant, waiting for something to happen.
“Stop here for a sec, Starlight,” I said into my helmet’s Bluetooth microphone.
Without question, Quinn coasted the motorcycle to a smooth, obedient stop. Keeping close to us as we followed the GPS directions along a new route to my cousin’s house, thanks to Everett providing the address, it wasn’t long before the low rumble of Cody and Maisie’s bike faded into a stop behind us.The SUV carrying the rest of our crew crawled to a halt in the middle of the street, tires crunching over icy, packed slush.
What is that? It feels like a… hum? It reminds me of the crystals in the cavern with the hunters. It’s beckoning to me.
My dragon’s wings fluttered in sync with the vibrations. Her tail swayed, mesmerized and intrigued.
My mom’s black rock heated so I could feel it through my layers of clothes.
Something thrummed beneath my skin.
Somethingright.
I took off my helmet, the cold air stinging my cheeks and filling my lungs. I unzipped my jacket, shrugging out of it. I placed both into the motorcycle’s storage compartment. The air felt charged all around me. The wind bit through my gray cropped SZA hoodie, ripped jeans, and fishnet tights I wore underneath, but I barely even noticed. If anything, I welcomed it. Aside from the fact that I had finally asked Maisie to magick my clothes to be warmer and survive my shifts, I wanted to feel more of the magic along my skin. No, it wasn’t a want. Ineededto feel it. I wanted it to bathe in it, let it soak into my every pore.
It’s like a song I’d always known but was hearing again for the first time.
I swung my salt-speckled boot over the bike and stepped forward.
The barrier shimmered just ahead like heat on asphalt. It was barely visible. Yet, it pulsed, slow and steady, like a heartbeat. I reached out. My fingertips trembled. My hand hovered for just a second before I pressed my palm and fingertips fully into the surface that I could barely make out.
The shield rippled like a pond disturbed by a fallen leaf.
It was a solid thing, delicate but firm under my touch. Its magic surged up to meet me, hot and alive and so very familiar to me. It skated across my palm. My own magic stirred in kind toanswer. My scales whispered down my skin in a gentle cascade, like they were each waking up one by one. My eyes burned for a second before my vision sharpened with stabbing clarity, where I could count the snowflakes clinging to the streetlamps towering yards above yards. I swore I could evensmellthe old magic and something uniquelyours. My dragon curled closer under my skin, like a cat stretching in the sun, eager to be closer to the spell under my touch and preemptively fearing ever being far from it again. My breath hitched.
I swallowed the low, thrilled purr of recognition trying to rise in my throat.
This had to be it. This was the enchantment where my father’s family lived. Wheremyfamily lived. I had been here many times growing up, but it had never felt so strongly like Ibelongedhere until this moment. I felt it tugging at my bones. This place had once been so buried in my memories, I didn’t think I would ever remember it, let alone find it again.
This was what it was to feelhomeon my skin again.
Where I was meant to be.
Especially now that I was the dragon I had always wanted to be.
“This is definitely the boundary,” I said, breathlessly. I turned back to Quinn and the motorcycle. “All we have to do now is just… go in.”
