9 - Fateful Discourse

     Thankfully, Baddo wasn’t home as Mara and I made our way over from Spotter’s Landing. Just in case, Mara had transformed into a green remis that almost resembled her monstrous form’s head, and had been hanging onto my shoulders. Neither of us spoke about what had just happened at the shack with Eva, and thankfully, Mara didn’t pursue it. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to think about what happened. But she couldn’t help but chatter in excitement as we approached the large wooden doors and entered my family house.

     “I guess we should make ourselves comfortable,” I told her. “He should be finishing his shift at the mines soon I think.”

     “Adan, is that you?” A voice called out to me from the kitchen area. It sounded like Ada.

     “Yeah, it’s me,” I replied. “And I’m with Mara.”

     Ada’s face popped over from the kitchen just in time to see Mara jump off my shoulder and grow in size to her human form. Her eyes widened in alarm, no doubt from seeing it for the first time.

     “I wasn’t expecting that…” She admitted a bit sheepishly. “I suppose that means you don’t have to shop for clothes though?”

     Her reply made Mara shrug. “I guess? I never really thought about it. I can never tell if I’m wearing clothes or not. It’s… it’s all skin to me.”

     “I’m not sure if I would enjoy that feeling,” conceded Ada. “Wait, if it’s all just skin, doesn’t that mean you’re naked?”

     “Wait, she’s naked?” a voice that definitely belonged to Avan and sounded way too excited for comfort shouted out in question. There was a flurry of footsteps bounding in our direction, then Avan appeared, almost falling down the second floor’s railing instead of taking the stairs. My brother’s look of disappointment at Mara’s state of dress made my sister and I snort in laughter.

     “Uh, hey,” Avan replied, putting on his most flattering expression. “Name’s Avan.”

     Mara couldn’t help but giggle as my brother pulled himself off the floor. “Charmed.” She replied. “Weren’t you the one who was hiding behind his siblings when Adan and I left the cave?”

     Avan’s face fell as realization rose from his memory. A light in his eyes died. “Oh. uh, yeah.” was all he muttered.

     “But to answer your question, yes I can remove them,” Mara redirected her attention towards Ada. She removed her vest from her person and dropped it to the floor. Avan let out a yelp as Mara’s figure became blurry, and she returned to her pale horned and tentacled state. After a few moments, the clothing on the floor dissolved, leaving only a few flecks of scales in its place.

     “By the gods!” Ada exclaimed, stepping closer to inspect the fallen scales. “This doesn’t obey the laws of physics at all!”

     “Welcome to my life,” Mara replied with a tender smile.

     “So, uh, what brings you here?” Avan asked, pulling himself to his feet. “Something wrong with the shack at Spotter’s Landing?”

     I told them my plan, leaving out what happened between me and Eva. They didn’t need to know about that. Or have the chance to gloat how clueless I really was. It’s not that I couldn’t trust them not to make fun of me… but maybe I was scared they would, and it wouldn’t feel like they were just teasing me like normal.

     By the time I finished my explanation, the rest of my siblings had also shown up. None of them had any objections, save for one or two minor things.

     “So, you think Baddo is really going to be okay with the existence of a skinwalker, let alone be willing to let you travel to the Needle to find some answers?” Alan summarized.

     “Yeah, that about covers it,” I replied. A flicker of motion appeared in the corner of my eye, and I glanced over to the twins, who smiled with blushed cheeks. “Something up?”

     “Uh, we’re betting on how badly this blows up in your face,” Armani confessed, pulling out a sack of coins

     “‘Mani thinks you’ll be disowned,” Avena added as her brother threw her a nasty look of betrayal. “I just think Baddo is gonna ground you.”

     “Are they normally this cavalier?” Mara asked, crossing her arms together.

     “Yup.”

     “All the time.”

     “I have never seen them ever be serious.”

     ““We’ve made bets on who is the real older sibling.””

     “It takes some getting used to,” I confessed.

     “What does?” a new voice asked behind me. I felt my blood run cold. Turning around, I saw my Baddo standing at the door, arms folded and smiling the kind of smile where you’re in public and he can’t yell at you until they get home. In his folded arms, I spied something familiar; the client list of Nova Stone.

     Baddo glanced over at Mara, still in her human form, but sweating almost as much as I was. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’re acquainted,” He said finally, some warmth coming to his eyes as he regarded her. “Are you new to Havenwood? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

     Mara pursed her lips. “Yeah, you could say something like that,” she answered, glancing over at me. I would have said something if not for the fact I was racking my brains trying to figure out how he had found the notebook. “I got all lost and turned around, and your son offered to help me.”

     “That’s wonderful to hear I did something right with my boy,” Baddo boomed, all the while his eyes were saying, Don’t even think of leaving. We need to talk. “The West End Hotel is on the other side of town. I can hitch up the carriage and get you there in no time.”

     “Oh, uh, that’s really generous of you,” Mara said just as I was coming to my senses. Wait, was she blushing? “And uh, I honestly didn’t expect to find myself in this situation, but…”

     “Mara, it’s okay,” I assured her, regaining my composure. “Go ahead and show him.”

     That caught my Baddo’s attention. “Show me what?” he asked, switching gazes between me and the woman.

     “Baddo, promise you won’t freak out,” I told him, even as Mara bit her lip in uncertainty.

     “Adan, what are you talking about?”

     “Promise you won’t freak out,” I repeated even more firmly.

     He sighed in exasperation. “Alright, I promise not to freak out,” he agreed with some irritation. “Now what…” Baddo started to say, only to stop mid sentence as Mara once again changed.

     Everyone stopped, watching as Mara’s hair shrunk and the helm grew over her face. The horns pushed out of her cheeks and shoulders, and her skin grew pale and scaly. Tentacles sprouted from her waist, and the skinwalker stood where there was once a human.

     Baddo’s expression hardened as he regained his composure and looked at me and Mara. “Both of you, in my study. Now.”

     Before locking us in the study with him, Baddo ordered the rest of my siblings to not say a word of what has happened until he decides what to do next. He sat at his desk, placing Nova’s notebook in between us as he rested his elbows on the wood, hands clasped in front of his face, a poignant reminder of what was going to be part of this meeting. “Explain.” He ordered, all humor and levity gone from his voice. The message was clear: I wasn’t talking with the man who raised me. I was talking to the man who maintained an integral business operation for the kingdom.

     I had only seen him act like this with Alan and Avan. The fact he was now using it on me was terrifying.

     There was nothing else I could do except talk. I told him about the cave, about the egg inside it, reaching out to Seraphina for assistance only to get roped into discovering Silas’ conspiracy, all the way back to returning to the cave and discovering Mara. Even what happened with Eva. Everything felt like this big release of pent up stress finally reaching a breaking point before relief.

     Baddo kept his eyes on me the entire time, only glancing over to Mara whenever the skinwalker was mentioned. Speaking of, Mara kept fidgeting in her chair. The more I spoke, the more I noticed she was making minor shifts in her appearance. Hair lengthening and shortening, eye colors changing, skin tone deepening and paling. I remembered learning in class how a chameleon’s color could indicate its mood, perhaps some similar principle applied to skinwalkers?

     Once I finished talking, Baddo was silent for a few minutes, no doubt collecting his thoughts. He hadn’t changed his posture or moved his hands once while I was explaining everything.

     “Adan, my figglon, my dear boy,” he began, spiking my anxiety. What was he going to say? “Let me start off with this: I love you, and always will, and every day I am proud to be your father.”

     Oh. That wasn’t what I was expecting.

     “But what in the six realms were you thinking!!” Baddo continued, his voice rising to a shout. I felt my insides shrink instinctively. Mara flinched at the sudden increase in volume, transforming into a remis where she then proceeded to hide under the chair. He rose from his seat and started swearing in his native language, and I caught some hints of him pleading with his departed wife to give him strength with their stupid son. I think. All I really caught was him begging for help, mentioning Isa, and me directly. “Do you ever stop to think about how your actions can affect others?” he suddenly asked me.

     “Uh–” I started to answer, only for Baddo to cut me off.

     “I expected and prepared for something like this when Adan and Eva became friends,” he continued, putting his face in his hands. “Everything you’ve gotten yourself up to has been relatively minor compared to this. Child’s play, really! But I don’t think I was prepared for my son to discover and show me that skinwalkers were real!” He fell back into his seat, looking so much more tired than I thought he would be. For a moment, Baddo came across as an exhausted old man instead of the vibrant and energetic father I always knew him as.

     “Are you mad?” came my tentative question.

     “That was unfair, I’m sorry.” Baddo answered. “This isn’t your fault, and I am not mad at you,” he assured me. He grabbed Nova’s booklet and half heartedly threw it back onto the desk. “What I am concerned about, however, is something we are going to have to talk about soon. ”

     Baddo forced a smile onto his face. “Mara, was it? It is alright. Come on out.” He said soothingly. After a moment, Mara hopped back onto the chair, still appearing as a slime. Once she solidified back into her human form, Baddo looked her over. “Some things are changing here in Havenwood, we will have to make some arrangements so no one suspects your sudden inclusion in the Carick family.”

     “You want me to stay?” a stunned Mara asked.

     “Of course, why wouldn’t I?” Baddo replied. “I raised Adan to do what’s right, even if it is hard.” His smile turned wry as he shared a knowing look with me. “And we are no strangers to hiding in plain sight, my dear.

     “I am much more hesitant, however, on allowing my son anywhere near the Needle,” he added after Mara smiled. “I am not an unreasonable man, Mara, but surely you must understand that as his father I can’t just knowingly allow Adan to endanger himself. We will have to discuss that much more at a later date.”

     My hope soared at the idea of being able to help Mara. For just the briefest of moments, even Eva’s confession was forgotten in my mind at the catharsis I felt by proxy at Mara’s relief and joy. If she could be accepted by us, perhaps there was a chance after all for others to as well!

     Baddo’s expression suddenly darkened as he picked up the notebook again. “But now we have this to consider,” He said grimly. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in, young man?”

     That stopped me short. I glanced over at him nervously.

     “Eh?”

     He pointed at the notebook. “I found this in your room.”

     “B-but that’s not mine,” I stammered back. “Why would I be in trouble?”

     “Mara, I’d like a word with my son in private,” Baddo said cordially. Despite coming from a different era altogether, the skinwalker seemed to completely understand some massive discipline was about to take place, and quickly made her exit from the study.

     “I already told you it belongs to Silas,” I reminded him. “I don’t see any reason why you’d have any problem with me having it.”

     “I have a problem with this existing at all,” Baddo retorted. His expression became inscrutable again. “What do you think this is?”

     Was that a trick question?

     “... It’s a list of everyone Nova Stone boinked as a prostitute?” I tentatively answered.

     He sighed in exasperation. “Yes, but that’s not the point.” came the reply. “The point is that it shouldn’t be here. It should have been destroyed long before Silas ever got his hands on it.”

     “You’d destroy evidence of infidelity?” came my incredulous reply.

     Baddo raised an eyebrow at me. “What would you do,” He asked. “Publish it in the news? Half of Havenwood wouldn’t believe it, and the other half would have their lives ruined. Not everything is always so black and white, Adan.” My father flipped open to a random page in the book and read a name from the contents. “Terry Sanders, for instance.” Baddo announced. “He worked for me for a few years thanks to his older brother before resigning and getting a job at the West End. I won’t say he was a perfect man, everyone has their faults. But the night his brother died, he met with Nova to forget the pain. Now he’s been happily married for three years to the love of his life and they’re expecting a child soon. Revealing this could ruin their life if it was made public.”

     I couldn’t believe what Baddo was saying. “But he was unfaithful!” I replied, losing my temper. “Doesn’t his wife have a right to know?”

     “His wife may already know,” Baddo countered calmly. “We don’t know their personal lives. Perhaps he admitted as much during their courtship, or shortly after their marriage together. We don’t know, and we don’t have a right to put a spotlight on them for the rest of the community to pick apart.”

     Baddo sighed as he saw my defiant expression. “Let me try again using another example: Do you think Mara would appreciate any kind of scrutiny that would lead to others knowing she’s a skinwalker?”

     “But that’s…” I was going to say not the same thing, only for the words to die in my mouth as the weight of what Baddo was getting at finally dawned on me. He wasn’t just talking about infidelity. He was talking about us. And I was being a thick headed idiot chasing after some childish interpretation of justice, not realizing I had almost stepped on a bomb waiting to blow up everything.

     “We need to get rid of it,” I said suddenly, looking up to Baddo.

     “Thank you,” Baddo agreed, and with a flick of his wrist, shredded the journal into oblivion with his magyk.