“Yes. We’ve been looking for one all day. If you give it to me, then I won’t tell everyone in Dullshire that there’s a Lore Keeper skulking about in the Woods.” Barclay held out his hand, his face burning red. He flushed when he lied. Whether he got the mushroom or not, of course he would tell the townspeople about her. And they would grab their pitchforks, and they would drive her and her Beast someplace else.
“As if they’d dare to come into the Woods and find me,” the girl countered.
Barclay moved to grab the glass jar, but she snatched it out of his reach.
“Give it to me.”
“Absolutely not. I found it!”
“You’re not even using it!”
“Yes I am! I’m making a trap.”
Barclay scoffed. All she had was a line of jars. What was she trying to trap? Lightning bugs? “A trap for what?” he asked.
“A trap for Gravaldor.”
Barclay’s stomach filled with dread even colder than the icy mist. If she somehow summoned Gravaldor, then the tragedy from seven years ago in Dullshire could happen allover again. Barclay had already lost too much to Gravaldor to let him destroy his home a second time.
He climbed atop the fallen trunk. Even side by side, she was still taller than him, but so was almost everyone. When he took a step closer, her dragon—or Mitzi, as she called it—bared its fangs at Barclay and gave a snakelike hiss.
“You can’t do this,” he told the girl.
“Yes I can. I’m going to bond with Gravaldor, just like I bonded with Mitzi.” She rolled up her sleeve to reveal a strange tattoo on her forearm in shiny golden ink. It looked just like her dragon. “Gravaldor is the Legendary Beast of the Woods. And when I bond with him, I’ll—”
“You want to bond with him?” Barclay echoed, his voice high and fearful. Just the thought of Gravaldor made him picture his parents—the gentle way his mother treated the books that she read to her students as a schoolteacher, the apple treats his father would bake for Barclay when he learned to follow a new rule. If it hadn’t been for Gravaldor, they’d still be alive. If it hadn’t been for Gravaldor, they’d still be a family.
All Barclay had ever done was follow in his parents’ footsteps. Because he believed, down to his very core, that if he worked hard and tried to follow the rules, he could almost get them back. He could earn the life in Dullshire that he should have had.
He didn’t even care about the danger anymore. Or the Mourningtide Morel. Or the dirt under his fingernails.
He had to stop her.
“You’ll kill everyone,” Barclay seethed. “Gravaldor isn’t like your dragon—”
“I told you, she’s a whelp—”
“He’s huge! He’s bigger than trees, with fangs as long as you and me. He’s more powerful than any Beast in the Woods, and you’d be eaten before you’d even be able to feel sorry.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How would you know? You’re just a farmer of…” She deflated, trying to think. “What’s the word for it in your language? They’re squishy. It’s a… a…”
“Mushroom?” he impatiently finished for her.
“Yes! You’re just a mushroom farmer.”
“I know because Gravaldor once destroyed our entire town.” He didn’t add anything about his parents because he didn’t share stuff like that with strangers. Everyone in Dullshire was right. Lore Keepers were selfish, and they only brought doom.
The girl’s face softened, but she didn’t back down. She took a few steps closer to Barclay and jabbed her finger into his chest. He wobbled but didn’t fall over.
“I need to do this, and you can’t stop me.” Mitzi squawked in agreement. The girl kept walking and poking him until he’d backed up to the edge of the trunk. “These are the most difficult items to find in the Woods, and I collected them all.” She waved the jar with the Mourningtide Morel infront of his face. “These will summon and trap Gravaldor. It’s perfect.”
Barclay’s eyes widened as he examined the mushroom in that jar. Up close, he realized its scarlet dome was actually crimson.
“Wait!” he said. But the girl gave him one more jab, and he toppled off the trunk. He landed painfully in the center of the clearing, a pine cone squashed underneath him.
“Wait!” he sputtered again. “That’s not a—”
But the girl had already set the jar down, completing the perfect line.
