As if on cue, a chilly gust of wind rushed through the gazebo. Surprisingly chilly for summer. “Oh.” Emma had started to fidget again, her leg bouncing rapidly until her dad grabbed her knee and held it still.
“But ask is the operative word there,” July went on quickly. “Even if they are dangerous, none of them can get at your soul without your consent.”
“Oh, thank Heaven,” her mom breathed, one hand on her chest, clearly just as nervous as Emma was. “That is such a relief. Emma wouldn’t—”
“It’s not always so simple.” July was still frowning. She looked at Emma, then at each of her parents and asked, “Would it be possible for me to talk to Emma for a few minutes? Just the two of us?” Her parents exchanged glances.
“I guess so,” her mom said haltingly. “We’ll wait by the car. Just let us know when to come back.”
Once her parents had left, Emma alternated between looking down at the table and out at the river, anywhere but at July. Sitting on her hands, kicking her legs beneath the wooden bench, she waited to hear what kind of trouble she was in.
“So,” July began, “how did you know?”
“Um. When we lived in Hanover, I had a teacher who was…uh, I don’t know. Something else. I didn’t notice anything weird about him at first, but after a while, I started to see…” Her face screwed up as she searched for the words. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Believe me, I know. But if you try, maybe I can help you figure it out.”
“Okay. He was like, a different color from everyone else?” Seeing July nod in understanding, rather than frown or look skeptical like her parents, encouraged her to elaborate. “People don’t usually have colors, but I kept seeing him—‘glow’ isn’t really the right word. It wasn’t a light. It was just an outline around him. Like, really dark brown-green.”
Again, July nodded. “It’s called an aura. Only immortals have them. That color, to me, sounds like he might have been a shapeshifter, but it’s hard to know without seeing for myself. Was he the only one you saw?”
“Yeah. So far, him and Miss Desavi are the only ones.”
“He and Miss Desavi. And when did she come into the picture?”
“Mr. Taylor caught me staring at him a few times. I think he figured out I could see him. I mean, really see him. He told me to come to his room after my last class, but when I did, he was mad.” She tensed up in her seat, lowering her head and starting to fidget with her mess of ginger curls to deal with the discomfort this memory brought up. “He said he knew what I was, and I better not say anything about him. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I definitely didn’t know anything about him. But I told him I wouldn’t say anything. I was scared. I wanted to tell my mom, but I thought…” She sniffled, hunching her shoulders slightly.
“I understand,” July said gently. “How long did that last?”
“A couple of weeks,” Emma said, sniffing now and then between her words but trying to focus on telling the story. “He acted normal mostly, but he kept giving me these scary looks. Nobody else noticed, I guess. Then Miss Desavi came to our class one day. She knocked on the door and asked to talk to Mr. Taylor. He was in the middle of our lesson, but he still went outside with her. He looked really nervous.”
“I can imagine,” July said with a slight smile.
“Yeah. She’s pretty scary.”
Tilting her head to one side, July asked, “Does she scare you?”
“Kind of? I don’t know.” Miss Desavi hadn’t threatened her or tried to hurt her, so it didn’t seem like there was any reason to be scared. Emma just got a bad feeling around her. Nervous, like she very easily could be dangerous. “I think she’s trying to help, but I don’t really know why. And she’s not very nice.”
July suppressed a snicker. “No, she’s not. And that’s the reason you moved?”
“Yeah. My mom got scared when she found out about Mr. Taylor being some kind of…”
“Immortal,” July prompted.
“That. She got scared and wanted my dad’s job to transfer him. Miss Desavi said it wouldn’t matter because they’re everywhere, but then she told us about you being here, and I guess she changed her mind. She asked if we wanted help. So here we are.”
“I see. Well, I’m going to do everything I can to help you learn how to stay safe.”
“Okay.” Emma smiled, glad that July was turning out to be patient and nice rather than grouchy like Miss Desavi. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Do you have any questions for me? Before I ask your parents to come back?”
There was a silence in which Emma realized that her parents didn’t necessarily have to know what she talked to July about. “You haven’t met any friendly immortals?” she asked. “Not even one?”
“That’s the thing: a lot of them are friendly. Or they seem to be at first. They’ll be nice to gain your trust and then try to persuade or trick you into giving them what they want,” July explained. “I’ve learned to always be careful with them and stay wary no matter what. That’s one good thing about Valen, though: she’s honest, and she’s unlikely to ask you for anything. She may not be the friendliest person, but you can at least trust what she tells you.”
“But no one else?” Emma insisted. Surely they couldn’t all be bad. If there were as many of them as July was saying, that just didn’t make sense, statistically.
“That’s what I’m here to help you decide. It’s my personal choice to distrust them on principle, but you may not feel that way. That’s something you’ll only be able to judge once you’ve learned more about them, though. As to your question, the only one I’ve ever found to be genuinely trustworthy and benign is Cupid, but—”
“There’s a Cupid?” Emma interrupted, suddenly lit up with interest. “A real one?”
“Yes. You’ll learn that a lot of the ‘myths’ you’ve heard of are based on some version of the truth, like Valen being the Grim Reaper. But—”
“What other kinds are there?” Emma sat up on her knees on the bench, now too distracted and curious to hear the negative parts. July frowned again.
“Like I said, several. They’re usually very good at hiding themselves among humans. That’s the reason some of them get angry when people like us exist. They don’t like anyone seeing through their lies.”
“What about mermaids? Or fairies? Are those real? Could I see them too?” Maybe she shouldn’t have been as excited as she was, but these were things she’d always been interested in but assumed were made up. Now that July was saying otherwise, there were so many new possibilities that she had a hard time thinking of them as dangerous.
“Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking,” July said, shaking her head, her tone getting sharper and calling Emma back from her wandering imagination. “Emma, listen. These people are not what you might think. They’re real, but they aren’t the cute fairy tale versions you know, and they don’t want to be friends.”
She sank down to sit on her legs, frowning. “How do you know?”
“I’ve been dealing with them for a long time,” July said bitterly, folding her hands on the table. “I’ll teach you how to make your own judgments, but for now, please, just trust me: you want to avoid them. Consider that your first lesson.”
Emma wanted to hope that they would get more optimistic in time, but her tutor wasn’t doing much to support that theory. Still, she knew better than to question a teacher. July waved her parents back over, and they made plans for Emma to take the bus to her house after school on Mondays and Fridays. July suggested Wednesdays too, but her mom didn’t want their lessons to interfere with church.
“School starts two weeks from now, right?” July asked, apparently assuming Emma would know this. She didn’t, and she blanched slightly as she shrugged. Unfazed, July opened her bag to retrieve something from it. “Well, I’ll expect to start our formal meetings then. In the meantime, I have an assignment for you.”
Seeing the thick booklet her tutor placed in front of her, Emma fought the urge to wrinkle her nose, with only minimal success. Homework? Before school even started? July really was taking this super-seriously, which only enforced her role as an authority figure. The front page of the book read, A Seer’s Guide to Immortals.
“You want me to read this whole thing?” Emma asked incredulously, flipping through the pages and finding them very full.
“Just get through as much as you can,” July reassured her. “It’s not an exhaustive list, but most of the objective information I have is in there. It’ll be a good starting point for our lessons. And whatever questions you have can be addressed during our official lessons.”
That did sound like practical, teacher-y logic. While the adults continued to talk about the details of the arrangement, Emma started reading the introduction.
It’s my understanding that Seers come to be due to residual magic in their blood. Most often, when a mortal has children with an immortal (or other supernatural being), the effects are only observable in the next two generations. If the magic is diluted further than that, it tends to become passive, even altogether dormant. It may take five or ten or twenty more generations to reappear in the form of a Seer, making it nearly impossible to predict.
She blinked at the paragraph, reading it multiple times, trying and failing to absorb the information. It was just so dry, so impersonal. Where was the fun magic information she’d been so hoping for? Flipping through the first few chapters, which were similarly bland and pictureless, she began to despair. How was it she’d been lucky enough to get some kind of magic powers, but without any of the fun parts?
After the grown-ups had finished their discussion and they were on their way back to the new house, Emma sat in the back seat again, holding July’s book against her chest and enjoying its substantial weight.
“She seemed…fine,” her mother said reservedly. “Not as bad as that Desavi woman, at least, so I guess it could be worse.”
“Seemed like a bum to me. No job to speak of,” her dad answered.
“She was awfully well-spoken. Maybe she comes from a wealthy family.”
“And she’s probably still living off them.”
“People make money on YouTube,” Emma piped up, tapping her foot absently in the air. “Like, a lot of money sometimes. Maybe she has lots of subscribers. Maybe she has sponsors. Book sponsors.” Digging her phone out of her pocket, she decided to look it up herself, then paused when she realized she didn’t know the name of July’s channel. “I thought she was nice. Kinda.”
“She seemed very put-together, at least,” her mom continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “It’s fine, Tony. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Her father answered with a noncommittal grunt. Emma couldn’t understand why they were so concerned. The way she saw it, having someone else around who understood what she was dealing with could only be a positive thing. She tried her best to be optimistic, to look for the good in this dangerous position she’d found herself in. Surely there must be some good, even if July didn’t see it.
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