Page 46 of Midlife Demigod Unexpected

“Stop!” I tried again.

“Arrestum,” my mother whispered.

“Arrestum?” I asked. “Arrestum. Arrestum.”

The gold light moved off my hands and surrounded my mom’s leg.

“Is it working?” I asked. “Did the bleeding stop?” It was hard to see past the gold light to the wound.

“Feeling better,” my mom muttered.

The bleeding had slowed enough to transport her.

“I’m going to take you home, Mom.” I squatted down next to her. The gold light wrapped around her thigh like a medical bandage. She had lost a lot of blood and was laying with her head tilted back. Her eyes were closed. Any amount of work to get her home was going to be all on my shoulders.

I sat down next to her on the ground cross legged and I held up both my hands in front of me. I was a demigod; I could do things. I could do things I didn’t even know I could do. That was going to be my motto.

I can do things I don’t even know I can do.

I can do things I don’t even know I can do.

With each turn of the phrase, I moved my hands in large circles around me, building energy circles in front of me and making the most of the magic swirling power around me.

“OK, Mom. This is us. This is where we’re going to get off,” I said, reaching over and grabbing her by the hand as I pushed my other hand and all the energy, I had built up forward into creating a portal.

I yelped in excitement.

“I did it, mom.”

The portal shone like a beacon of safe passage. I just had to get my mom through it. “C’mon, Mom,” I grunted as I propped her up enough to get my arm under her shoulders. My mother groaned as I dragged her to her feet. I propped her up with one arm and hobbled with her through the portal just seconds before it closed.

I collapsed on the floor inside my mother’s house. I’d done it.

We’d gotten the feather. We’d gotten home.

I looked up at Chloe, who stood there looking as frazzled as I was, a cluster of silver leaves in one hand and a cluster of gold leaves in the other.

“Did you know it’s sets off every alarm in the entire region if you touch those trees?” she asked. “Now you do.”

“I don’t think I have the feather,” I said, suddenly patting down all my pockets trying to figure out what had happened to the ingredient for the spell.

Chloe put the leaves down on the table and came rushing over to me as she realized my mother was barely standing.

“Let’s get your mom taken care of first and then we’ll figure it out.” She helped me carry my mom over to the old brown weather-beaten sofa where we laid her down.

The pouch. I saw the pouch my mother wore around her neck, and I instantly knew that is where she would have put it.

“It’s in the pouch around her neck.” I pointed to a small bag my mom wore around her neck.

“It’s that tiny? I thought you were hunting the Scarlet Feather?” Chloe asked.

“It’s like a Mary Poppins’ pouch,” I explained. “Watch this.”

I slid the pouch open and reached two fingers inside the tiny opening, wrapping my fingers around the soft feather I could feel inside.

“Here it is.” I pulled out the very large feather I had pulled from the dragon’s rump.

“All that was in there?” Chloe asked.

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