Chapter 11
Diana followed Calvin and Kieran outside, half listening as they chatted quietly about how to reach Sieval’s pond.
She shook her head, still somewhat in disbelief at everything.
Today sure has been quite the day – and it’s barely lunchtime!
Gratefully, she tucked the chicken salad sandwiches and yuzu madeleines that Kieran had given them into her purse. It was obviously going to be a long hike, and she didn’t think she’d be able to make it there and back without a good meal.
And the madeleines were obviously from Sylvie’s bakery, made with the yuzu that Gale was somehow able to manage to grow up here in the mountains, so there was no doubt that they would be incredible.
She’d never even tried yuzu before, so she was looking forward to it even more than she normally looked forward to Sylvie’s new creations.
“Got it,” Calvin said to Kieran. “My wyvern is advising me that it knows exactly how to find the take-off and landing places you described, so we should be all good.”
“Take-off?” said Diana, before she could stop herself. “Landing? What – are we taking a helicopter or something?”
Calvin and Kieran exchanged a look, and Diana’s stomach quivered in sudden realization.
We’re… Calvin is going to fly us up there?!
“Oh…” she said, unsure of what the proper response to that would be.
Calvin was by her side before she could blink. “Are you okay with this, Diana? I can always go by myself and come back here and meet you afterwards, if you’d rather not. And I completely understand why it might be frightening.” His eyes blazed with protectiveness. “But I would never let you fall.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” she replied, without even thinking about it. But she didn’t have to think. She just knew – Calvin would always protect her.
She looked up into his concerned face, smiling. “While I can’t say it’s always been my dream to fly up a mountain on a wyvern’s back, it’s my dream now. Count me in.”
The worried line between Calvin’s eyes smoothed out as he relaxed. “I’m glad to hear it. But if you change your mind, just let me know.”
As the surprise wore off – replaced by a building excitement – a thought suddenly occurred to her.
Why does Kieran know where there are handy take-off and landing spots? I know that he doesn’t have a helicopter.
In fact, why does he know about any of these things? He’s so happy-go-lucky that it’s easy to write him off as being a pretty carefree guy, but clearly he has hidden depths.
A slight creaking noise caught her attention as a light breeze gusted through the trees, sending clouds scudding in front of the blazing sun and bringing some welcome relief. She looked up toward the source of the sound –
To see the enormous weathervane ponderously rotating about its axis.
The griffin-shaped weathervane.
Diana had always thought that when a lightbulb went on over a cartoon character’s head, it was purely metaphorical… but now, she would’ve sworn that there was a giant incandescent bulb floating directly above her, shining the blindingly bright light of truth in every direction.
And Calvin had told her that there were such things as pegasi and dragon shifters. So….
A griffin? He can turn into a griffin?!
She looked from the weathervane, to Kieran, to the weathervane. Back to Kieran again… who looked sheepish, and definitely guilty.
“Busted,” he said, with a little wave. “I probably should’ve mentioned it earlier, but I got so caught up talking about sprites that it never even crossed my mind.”
She turned to Calvin, who also had the good grace to look a little embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he said apologetically. “I just didn’t want to spill his secret without asking him first.”
“Not much of a secret if you advertise it to all and sundry, now, is it?” she exclaimed, gesturing up at the ginormous weathervane.
Kieran rubbed at the back of his neck. “What is it they say about hiding in plain sight?”
Diana sighed good-naturedly. “Well, I guess I never worked it out until now, so I suppose you can say it worked.”
Is this just how life is going to be, now, with new mysteries being revealed every day? How many other fantastical secrets have been in front of me all along?
“So, we’re just going to… fly up there,” she said. “Aren’t you worried about being seen?”
“A little,” Calvin admitted. “But I think we should be able to do it. Kieran has told me the best route to take to avoid detection, and the wyvern’s scales make for decent camouflage against the trees so long as the sun isn’t too bright. So if this cloud hangs around, we should be okay.”
“That’s a big ‘if’,” Diana muttered, though she didn’t mean it in a discouraging way – she just didn’t trust the vagaries of thin cloud cover to keep them protected from view. What would she say to the PTA if they found out she was flying wyverns all around the place?
“Oh, and Caleb is having his movie screening at the town hall today,” Kieran added. “A lot of people will probably be there so that they can enjoy the air conditioning, rather than traipsing around in the woods. So you should be okay.”
“I guess that’s one piece of good luck,” Diana said. She’d forgotten about the movie screening – some sort of obscure Eastern European piece of cinema from the 1960s. She wouldn’t have minded going herself, but she felt confident in saying that she preferred the way her day had turned out.
Caleb, who ran the local movie screenings and arts festivals, was yet another tall, handsome, solidly-built guy who’d moved to Girdwood Springs in the past few years, and Diana wondered with an internal laugh what kind of creature he turned into.
Oh, like he turns into anything. I need to stop assuming everyone is a shifter!
“Well, then. Should we go?” she asked.
“No time like the present,” Calvin said. “Thanks for your help, Kieran – we’ll let you know how it goes.”
“No problem! Say hi to Sieval for me,” said Kieran with a friendly wave.
The two of them headed down the path that Kieran had indicated, conversation kept to a minimum as they traversed the increasingly rugged terrain. Kieran hadn’t been lying when he’d said his take-off point was well hidden.
Diana’s excitement grew as she scrambled over a rocky outcrop. Calvin was going to turn into a wyvern, and he was going to fly her to meet a sprite in order to lift a curse.
And to think that this morning, the main thing on my mind was deciding which shirt to wear and what waffles to order!
Eventually they found the spot: a small clearing surrounded by some rocks and thorny bushes, the trees scraggly and not particularly photogenic. It wasn’t the kind of place a lot of hikers would choose to come.
“I can definitely take off from here,” Calvin said, glancing around. “It’ll be a little tight, but it’s doable.”
“Right,” Diana said uncertainly. “Um. So. We’re actually doing this, then?”
It still seemed a little unreal to her. Sure, she’d seen Calvin in his wyvern form just a couple of hours ago, but riding him?
Okay, I need to find another way of phrasing that, Diana thought with an internal grimace.
“I promise it’ll be perfectly safe,” Calvin said soothingly. “But if you really don’t want to –”
“No! No, I didn’t say that,” Diana jumped in quickly. “I just, uh, might need a moment to get used to the idea. And… I haven’t ridden so much as a horse in my life. I don’t know if I have the right… um…” How to put this? “… the right technique.”
This time, her grimace was very much external.
Why did I say that?!
But either Calvin didn’t notice her unintentional double entendre or he was too much of a gentleman to guffaw out loud or even point it out.
“It’s no problem – like I said, I would never let you fall,” he assured her. “I don’t think it’ll be that long of a flight, either, but if you do want to land at any point, just let me know and I’ll take us down as soon as I see a suitable place.”
“Oh – no, no, I’m sure it’ll be okay.” Diana felt a strange jab of disappointment that they’d only be flying together for a short time, apparently – before reminding herself that they had the rest of their lives to go flying, and perhaps keeping this one short was for the best, until she became a little more accomplished.
“If you stand back a little, I’ll shift,” Calvin told her, taking a few paces into the clearing. “Take your time, though – there’s no rush.”
Diana swallowed. Calvin was being very considerate – but now that her initial trepidation had worn off, she found anticipation was tingling through her veins.
I want to ride a wyvern!
Still, she stepped back, giving Calvin all the space he needed. She’d already seen how big he was in his wyvern form – he was right when he said that the clearing would be a little tight.
She held her breath, her eyes going wide as Calvin’s body seemed to shimmer a little – and then began to grow.
The sheen of green scales covered his expanding body, and the two beautiful, dark green wings he’d protected her with when the tree branch had fallen sprouted from his back, rising up toward the tree tops. A massive scaled tail swept out behind him.
Diana found she couldn’t watch all of the transformation at once – there was just too much going on, too much change taking place. And for such a drastic change, from a very tall and extremely handsome but otherwise regular man into a huge mythical creature, it seemed to happen very quickly.
Before Diana knew it, she was looking up into the golden eyes of… of…
It’s Calvin, she thought, as she stared up into the wyvern’s scaly face.
It didn’t make any sense, and yet, it was also completely true.
I don’t know how I know, but….
It helped, she supposed, that the wyvern was currently emitting a deep, booming purring sound – almost like it was an enormous, scaled, winged cat. Diana was pretty sure it was meant to be a sound of reassurance – and it was working.