“I’ve decided to go for some supplies,” Dad said. “We cannot go on without them.”

  Dad had called another family meeting. Everyone had been complaining recently about things we had used up and needed, like more food choices and candles. Some things we needed desperately, like clothing, since what we had left was ready for the rag bin.

  “It’s too bad we can’t get a merchant wagon to come through our valley every month or two,” I said.

  “Would be nice, but there just aren’t enough people here,” he said. “I knew this day would come eventually, so there’s nothing for it. I will leave in the morning.”

  As we pondered that, Lil asked, “How long will you be gone?” That very question was on my mind, also.

  “I don’t know for sure. I’m hoping to not be gone more than four or five days, a week at most. Jer, you're in charge, as usual. If I’m away longer than that, it means something serious happened to me. In that case, use your best judgement. The most important thing is to keep this family safe.”

  “Of course,” I agreed.

  “Good boy. I know you will. I don’t worry about you. While I’m gone you all need to work together, and things will work out. You’ll see.”

  The next morning, before he left he gave each of us a bear hug. Mom had been the hugger in our family, not Dad. But he had been trying harder ever since she passed. He was so large I felt like a little kid again whenever he gave me a hug.

  Letting me loose, he said, “If you all leave home, make sure you keep our valuables hidden.”

  We had talked about this before. We didn’t have many valuables, but we all knew what they were: tools, weapons, our roc relics as well as the stones from the mine. When we showed them to him, Dad had said they were very valuable and called them manacite. They were able to store extra magic, or mana as he called it. He was even taking some of them with him to trade. But only a few small ones. He said if he took too much people might become suspicious.

  Before we lost sight of him he stopped and waved bye to us, then turned and jogged out of sight.

  For the next few days we kept ourselves busy nearby. We explored some more ruins of old homes and practiced with our weapons. We used sticks for hand-to-hand combat and set up targets to shoot with our bows. We also did a little hunting. That was mostly Fin, since he was faster and stronger than the rest of us.

  And we practiced using our magic. Lil was getting better at making things fall slower from farther away and throwing things higher and longer distances. She could also pick up and carry heavier stones, as long as she was concentrating, though Fin could still pick up the heaviest.

  Yes, it was quite embarrassing to be the elder brother but feel like the weakest of the three.

  My practice was mainly trying to cancel their magic whenever they would let me. I worked to increase the distance each time, so I didn’t have to be so close. I was making steady progress, but we all noticed that we could do more whenever we had one of the manacite stones. Even holding a roc bone or some feathers helped a little, though not quite as much.

  So, Lil had been right. The roc relics were magic.

  We also learned there were limits to how much we could use our affinities before we had to stop, especially Fin and Lil. If they pushed too hard they got headaches, their body started shaking and got very weak.

  My null magic was very different though, almost the opposite. The more I used it the more full I felt. I could only hold so much before my body started heating up and made me feel dizzy and light headed. In fact, when it was darker out, Lil claimed my face was actually glowing, though I couldn’t tell.

  On Day 5 we started to get worried, but we tried to stay busy and not let it worry us.

  On Day 7 we all knew something had gone wrong. But we decided to wait two more days, just in case.

  The weather had grown steadily warmer with tree buds and blossoms opening, and flowers blooming all across the valley. It was a stark contrast to how we were feeling about our situation.

  On day 9 we were about out of meat again.

  Together we decided to go on a hunt, not for big game, but for something bigger than the squirrels and small rabbits we had been catching. I decided that we would all go together, since I didn’t want anyone to be alone.

  So we got our packs ready and left after eating the little bit we had left for lunch. We had already found some hollow logs deep in the woods where we could store our other valuable things. We couldn’t lock up the house, so we just left it clean with not much to take, other than our homemade furniture.

  We went east this time since we hadn’t gone that way before, and the mountain foothills were closer. There were lots of small birds singing in the trees. The bees were out in greater numbers since there was so much nectar available for them. Luckily they left us alone.

  As we climbed to the top of a large hill we stopped to take a break. We all sat on a log to rest.

  “What’s that?” Fin asked, pointing south.

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  I could see a wide cloud of dust in that direction. It seemed to stretch across at least half of the south end of the valley. But it was too far away to make out anything in detail.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The only time I’ve seen something like that before was when a herd of horses were running across a field.”

  “But there aren’t any horses here,” Fin said.

  “I didn’t say it was horses, just that they looked like that when they ran.”

  “Maybe it's a bunch of other animals.” Lil suggested. “Something could be scaring them.”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think we have that many large animals here either,” I said.

  “Maybe we should go see what it is when we get back?” Fin said.

  We probably should find out in case it is something we might have to deal with.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “When we get home, if Dad isn’t back yet, we’ll go see what is causing it.”

  We finished with our rest and continued to climb higher in the foothills. Eventually we came upon some tracks of something small with cloven hooves— wild sheep or goats most likely. We followed the tracks up a steep hill until we came to a rock slide area. It was sloped such that it was hard to tell if it would be safe to cross or not. But if we wanted to follow the tracks we would be forced to try.

  I decided to have Lil go first with Fin right behind. I would cross at the same time but down hill from them, so that if either of them fell, I could be there to catch them. As we got to the middle of the field, however, the rocks I had been stepping on started to slide as a group, meaning we all started shifting and sliding down the slope together. They didn’t slide far before they stopped. However, in the process my foot got stuck in between two heavy boulders, not quite crushing my ankle but enough so that I couldn’t pull it loose.

  “Fin, I need help getting my foot out.” I knew it was dangerous for all of us to remain on this unstable slide area, but I couldn’t escape on my own.

  Lil had stopped, and Fin was climbing down to me when I heard a loud crack followed by a crunching sound above us accompanied by a small tremble in the ground. We all looked up to see a large boulder had just started to roll down over the rock field, knocking other stones loose as it went.

  There was no time.

  “Hurry, run!” I yelled. Both Lil and Fin turned back to me with look of horror on their faces as they looked at my trapped leg.

  “No!” They both yelled simultaneously, then started scrambling down to me as fast as they could.

  Fin had been closer, but somehow Lil reached me first. But together we all worked to move the stones apart so I could get my foot loose. Once my foot was out, I looked up to see which way we needed to run. The noise was thunderous now. It looked like the large boulder was going to miss us, but some of the smaller ones were heading right toward us.

  There was no safe direction to run, and there wasn’t time anyway. Lil brought up her hands, I could tell she was going to try something with her magic. Fin also was running up the hill to try something.

  There’s too many. I screamed in my head, but cold fear paralyzed my voice. I knew there was nothing we could do. But I also knew they were going to try anyway.

  I knew I couldn’t do anything with my magic, but maybe I could somehow support each of them. It was all I could think to do at that moment. With no time left, I gathered my desperate desire to bolster them and pushed it out with everything I had.

  I knew something happened because I felt a great amount of energy instantly rush out of me.

  The boulders rushing toward us all changed directions. Some parted and went wide. Others shot up and over us, crashing back to earth below us. Some just froze in place, and a few even rolled up hill before coming to a rest.

  When it was over there was dust everywhere, giving us all coughing fits.

  We were all completely drained of energy, but I grabbed each of them by the hand and pulled them to safe ground, where we collapsed to rest.

  “Wow,” Fin spoke up first, still laying on his back. “I don’t know how but I think I pushed some of the rocks away without touching them.”

  “Yeah,” Lil said. “I was able to make a bunch of them lighter. But that was much more than I ever could do before.”

  “I thought my affinity could only cancel magic, but now I'm not sure,” I said. “I think I helped you. At least I tried, and it felt like I did something.”

  “That makes sense,” Lil said. “I was a lot stronger.”

  “Yeah, I felt stronger too,” Fin said. “But how did I push rocks away like that? It felt like I was pushing them, but I wasn’t touching any of them. Body forging doesn’t work like that.”

  “Well, maybe you have another affinity,” I suggested. “Mom had two.”

  “Isn’t that what Heathry had?” Fin asked. “She could pick up things without touching them. What is that called?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll have to ask Dad.” When he comes home. That was a sobering thought. We were all lost in thought for a while after that.

  “Lil, how did you beat Fin down the hill?” I asked. “He was a lot closer, but then you were there.”

  “I don’t know. I just ran to you as fast as I could. He was going so slow I just ran around him.”

  “I wasn’t running slow,” Fin said. “I was going fast. You whizzed by me so fast I almost didn’t see you. But I did feel the wind after you ran past.”

  “Huh…” she said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, there is another affinity for time, but it’s really rare. I think Dad mentioned it. It’s where a mage can make time pass differently than normal. If you sped up time for yourself, everything else would seem slow to you, right? At least, that’s how I imagine it works.”

  “Oh!” was all she said as we thought about it.

  “It sounds like we have a lot more things we need to test and practice,” I declared. “But, now that we are rested, we need to finish our hunt and get back. If Dad comes home, I want to be there.”

  “Yeah,” Fin agreed.

  We ended up not finding the animals we were looking for and turned back as the day wore on. We had to go back a different way so we could avoid the rock slide, so it took extra time. On our way home, however, Fin did shoot a couple of rabbits, so it wasn’t a total loss.

  As we were nearing home, it was getting late and the sky was getting dark. As we went over a small hill and looked to the south, we stopped and gasped. There were a bunch of campfires burning, some of them quite large, with sparks and flames licking billows of dark smoke rising into the sky.

  We rushed home after that, worried that our house might be on fire as well.

  That was not the case, but we were sorely disappointed to find that Dad was still missing.