Prince of Attania, 2

Attan went back to Greg’s farm the next day on his own. He hadn’t been able to eat a bite of the breakfast he usually shared with his mother. Just the thought of having to do that again sickened his already churning stomach. He’d rather not eat at all.

This time he went in elemental form, bypassing the house and barn and the grabby womenfolk. He aimed for the low houses at the edge of the main property, and more accurately, towards the fields beyond them. Greg’s brother Tom ran the farm with the aid of a few helpers. They all lived in the rough houses close to the fields they tended, although as Attan had seen, they took their supper back at the main house. Maybe that’s why Greg and his father had had to catch more fish to bring home. They were feeding quite a large group. They hadn’t looked particularly malnourished, however, and judging from the ample amounts of fried chicken and pie, there was plenty of food to go around.

Attan’s stomach roiled at the memory of eating chicken. He wasn’t particularly squeamish, but he preferred not knowing where his food had come from. That’s why he didn’t enjoy eating fish. Cooked fish looked too much like live fish.

He solidified in a cornfield. The stalks towered above him, separated by narrow rows for walking. From above, the fields stretched on forever, but Attan had not seen any people. Now he understood why. He sighed.

“What are you doing here?” Tom’s cold voice sounded from above and behind him. Attan whirled around.

“I—uh—I was looking for Greg.”

“He’s at school.” Tom stepped closer, blocking what little light there was. He grabbed Attan’s arm. Attan was getting better at not being startled into elemental form. He held his shape. Tom said, “If you want to see the fields so badly I’ll show them to you.” He pulled on Attan’s arm, and Attan either had to go along with him or disappear, and he did not want to disappear just yet.

Tom pulled Attan through the corn for what seemed like a very long time. Attan caught glimpses of what he guessed to be some of the other workers, but he didn’t get a clear view of anyone else. Tom remained silent.

There was a door at the end of a row of corn. Attan realized they must have reached the end of the fields. When he had seen them from above, it looked like they went to the very edge of the valley. Beyond them were increasingly steep hills. Tom shoved him into a small room which was lined with metal and closed the door behind them, leaving them in total darkness. “I think we’re ready,” he muttered. “Go ahead, try to get out.”

Attan just stared at him. Of course he could get out, in any number of ways. Did Tom think otherwise? “What do you mean?” he asked, hating how hesitant his voice sounded.

“I thought so,” Tom said with a satisfied smirk. He opened the door, letting in a beam of sunlight. “Go on, get out of here.”

Still not sure what Tom was talking about, but more than ready to get out of there, Attan left, keeping to physical form for as long as Tom held him in sight. He ran down the narrow row of cornstalks in the direction of the farmhouse, and only let go of his physical form when he was sure Tom could no longer see him. His little excursion had only generated more questions, not answers. But Attan was sure of one thing: Greg’s brother Tom was up to no good.

As wind, Attan flew over the fields and down to Low City. He made it to school only a few minutes late, and no one, not even his cousin and teacher, Macek Merrell, remarked on it. He told Greg what he had done afterward, and Greg paled. “I told you not to go with him,” he hissed, dragging Attan close. Greg glanced around to make sure no one else was listening. “Stay away from Tom, unless you are with me.”

Did that mean Greg was his friend? Attan was all set to agree, when Greg continued, half under his breath, “I told him it’s too soon!”

Too soon for what? Not ready for what? Frustrated, Attan wrenched open his textbook to the next lesson, glad that Macek hadn’t remarked on his late arrival.

“So you want to come over again after school?” Greg asked after a few minutes.

Did he? Attan found that he did. He nodded mutely and continued with his lesson, relieved when Greg left it at that.

Again, Greg’s mother fed him a generous snack and his sisters made a beeline for him, but Greg had Attan surround them both with shadow and walked them through the cornfields. “You should have used shadow this morning. Why didn’t you?”

Good question. Attan hadn’t thought he needed to since nobody had been around. But he’d been wrong. “They can still hear you,” he said. Greg shut up.

Greg led them to the same small hut Tom had brought him to this morning. “This is it,” Attan confirmed, dropping the shadows from around them.

“He brought you inside and then he just—let you go? Greg asked skeptically.

Attan nodded. “What is this place? What’s going on? Does it have anything to do with that other village you and your father brought fish to?”

Greg clapped his hand over Attan’s mouth. He glanced around warily. “Who told you? Did you tell my brother that?”

“Nobody—no,” Attan stammered.

The door was closed in front of them. Greg turned the knob and slowly opened it, seemingly reassured by the darkness inside. He closed it again. “They’re not here. Come on.” Greg led the way back through the cornfield.

“Look.” Greg stopped just before they reached the house. “My brother doesn’t know about it, and you should just forget about it, too. Stay away from him. He’s not too crazy about Family.”

That was an understatement. “What’s too soon?” Attan asked. “What are you all waiting for?”

Greg turned beet red. “Never mind,” he said, starting forward. “Nothing to do with you.”

I’ll bet, Attan thought. He might be a kid but he wasn’t completely unaware of the world around him. For all his father’s efforts, not all Family or non-family got along. “So are we friends?” he asked, as they came around the edge of the barn.

Greg’s step hesitated. Then he shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re friends.”

There wasn’t time for further conversation as Greg’s twin sisters found them and appropriated Attan as their playmate.

“Disappear on ’em!” Greg advised wryly, as he left Attan at the mercy of his sisters while he went to wash up for supper.

Attan thought about it. Then Farra thrust a handful of flowers at him and smiled shyly. Tiny water elementals danced atop their glistening petals, invisible to the girls but perfectly obvious to Attan. He envied them their exuberance. Smiling back, he said, “Thank you.”

The water elementals left the bouquet of flowers to swirl around Attan’s head in invitation. The forsaken flowers drooped. Another time, he might have taken them up on it. But he was in human form today. Regretfully he shook his head, and the tiny water elementals swarmed back to the flower petals, which perked up immediately.

“You’re still here.” Tom regarded Attan quizzically from across the yard, his eyes resting on the flowers in Attan’s hands. Beads of moisture trembled, then fell to be absorbed into the dry earth. Attan almost wished he could follow them. Greg’s brother really didn’t like him, that much was clear.

“I was just leaving,” Attan said. He ran down the long driveway before the girls had time to register that he wasn’t staying for dinner again. He’d explain to Greg tomorrow at school.

Part of him was exulted he didn’t have to eat another big dinner. But part of him wondered what else he might have missed. He passed Greg’s father chugging up the road and waved in passing. As soon as he rounded a bend, he let himself go to wind and headed for home.

Greg’s family was strange. They were loud and looked unsettlingly different. And there were so many of them! Attan’s Family family, by comparison, was much smaller and not nearly as boisterous. Despite the fact that Tom did not like him, and he wasn’t all that sure if Greg really liked him either, Attan found himself intrigued by Greg’s family.

Attan felt it the minute he transformed inside his house. “Dad!” he shouted, running towards the bedroom. Halfway there he lost human shape altogether and launched himself at Jet, passing in and through him just as his father let go of his physical form, too. They merged, Attan’s mother a heartbeat behind them, and at last Attan found peace.

This was his family. This was as it should be. Greg’s family was a poor second. They would never know what they missed.

Jet was the first one to take back human form. He grinned widely. “Non-family friends, huh? And the girls all like you?” he teased. “My little boy is growing up.”

But it was a gentle reminder. Non-family were not Family. They could never truly be the same.

Attan materialized too, and curled into his mother’s comforting lap. It was the next best thing to merging. She stroked his dark hair away from his face.

“I have to go to Darcy tomorrow,” Jet said. “Do you want to come with me?”

Attan sat up. “But what about school?”

Jet’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, I think I can convince your teacher to let you go for a few days.”

“A few days!” Excited, Attan bounced down and flickered between visibility and invisibility.

“One condition.” Jet smiled tolerantly down at him, although his eyes were serious. “You have to eat.”

What? Attan ate. Most of the time. He nodded, still excited over the prospect of visiting the capital with his father. He wished it could have been Parrion, but maybe next time. “I’m going to pack,” he said.

Jet stopped him. “There’s no need. We won’t be taking the car.”

Attan’s eyes widened. Yes! His father seldom traveled strictly in elemental form. As King, he needed to be seen by his people, and always cognizant of the feelings of all his people, King Jet rarely flaunted his extraordinary abilities.

“Have you eaten dinner?” Doll asked.

No. Attan had narrowly escaped having to suffer that particular fate at Greg’s house. Slowly he shook his head.

“Great!” Jet said, bouncing off the bed to stand next to him. “Then let’s all go out to eat tonight. I’m starving!”

The next morning, Jet and Attan shared an early breakfast with Doll before taking elemental form for their three day trip to Darcy. Becoming wind, they hurtled across Low City, creating small eddies of dust in their wake. Jet stopped on the other side of the Mattick and took physical form under a low bridge. Traffic bustled noisily overhead. Attan followed suit, wondering why they had stopped so soon.

“Suppose you show me what’s worrying you about this farm you’ve been visiting,” Jet said grimly.

Attan stared at his father. He should have known his father would have picked up on it during their merge. In a way, he was glad. He hadn’t been sure if the unease he felt was worth mentioning yet, but his father obviously was concerned enough to want to find out more.

Jet gathered Attan into a hug. “Don’t ever think you are alone,” he murmured before letting him go. Grinning his usual confident grin, he said. “Show me.”

They sped across the countryside in elemental form, merging with each other and the free elementals all around them. Attan knew it—he knew he wasn’t alone. How could he be—being what he was? Jet’s warm approval surrounded him.

Attan led the way to the small room where Tom had brought him, finding the between spaces to merge inside the empty room. Jet’s lips pressed together in anger as he realized what the room was for. Except for Jet and Attan, no other Family Elemental was able to move through seemingly solid objects, so it made sense that non-family would not know it was possible. The metal walls here were made to trap an Elemental.