Briallen Bevin and the Snatcher's Cave

Chapter 22: The War of the Flowers

Briallen walked into the infirmary, not bothering anymore to try to stay hidden. On one of the beds near the door was something that was shaped like a human, but it was covered in small, white and yellow daisies. The weird, flowery creature reminded Briallen of a Chia pet she had back at home.

"What do you mean it'll take a week?!" shouted the flower-creature angrily.

"Calm down Mr Davis! Unless you would like me to yank out each and every daisy - which, I assure you, would be quite painful - then you will remain her for the rest of the week and drink this potion!" argued Mrs Krause, obviously irritated by Toby's uncooperative behavior.

"It tastes like cardboard."

"Well, what did you expect? Lemon-lime soda-pop? Now drink it!"

"But it's chunky."

"Mr Davis... " said Mrs Krause, warningly. Toby took the hint and swallowed the potion in one gulp, though he continued to glower at the nurse. Briallen couldn't really tell but she was sure that Toby had a look of absolute disgust on his face right at that moment.

"What happened to you?" asked Briallen, fascinated. She bent over to sniff one of the daisies on Toby's arm. They smelled just like the daisies in her mom's garden and were definitely real.

"Marisol! She's what happened to me!" said Toby, yanking his arm away from Briallen. His voice was starting to go hoarse, probably from all the screaming he had just been doing with Mrs Krause.

"Marisol? But... why? And how?"

"I don't know. Why don't you ask her? Not that she would tell you, because it probably has something to do with her stupid secret!"

Briallen raised an eyebrow. "Marisol hexed you to be covered in daisies because you said something mean to her, didn't she?"

"Maybe I did ask her a couple of questions but that doesn't give her the right to cover me in hundreds of stupid, little, girly flowers! I look like a fairy!"

"Don't be silly, fairies aren't made of flowers. You look like you belong in the bathtub on the Byrnes' front lawn," said Briallen with a grin. She was tempted to pick one of Toby's daisies, but since Mrs Krause said that would hurt him, she decided not to.

"Even better, I look like some stupid hillbilly's lawn decoration!"

"This is stupid, Toby. Just forget about it already and forgive her. Marisol is our best friend and she'll tell us what it was she was doing that day when she's ready."

"Yeah, right," Toby grumbled as he crossed his arms, breaking the stems of at least a dozen daisies, causing him to wince.

"Why do you care so much about a silly secret? You're acting like a little girl, you know that right?"

Toby turned his head away from her, grumbling incoherently. Briallen threw her hands in the air and decided to just leave. She just hoped that what happened to Toby wouldn't escalate into something that couldn't be easily fixed.

* * *

A week later, Briallen was on her way to breakfast when she walked past the library and noticed Toby, sitting at a table and surrounded by books just like she and Marisol had been when they were looking for something to do to Dante Garcia the previous semester. Briallen stopped and briefly considered going in to see what Toby was reading so intently, but decided against it. She was through trying to mediate between Marisol and Toby, and she definitely didn't want to get in the middle of them if they'd resorted to using their wands on each other.

"Come on," said the Auror that was escorting her to the dining hall. "Let's not dawdle."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," mumbled Briallen as they continued on their way. Having actually been attacked before, her grandfather had quickly assigned Briallen a personal Auror escort and he was driving Briallen crazy. She hated having someone look over her shoulder all the time, and kids were teasing her mercilessly about him, asking her things like 'when's the wedding,' and 'what are you going to name your kids.' It was worse than when Lucan saved her during Halloween and she was teased about him. As soon as Briallen was inside the large room with long tables full of food, the Auror made his way to the teachers. Briallen sighed with relief, and took her seat at the Withers table. At least he wasn't eating with her again.

"Briallen!" shouted Hayden Van Vlerah from his place at the Wenlock table. "Sit over here."

"Hey, Hayden, I haven't seen you since Christmas," said Briallen happily as she got up to go sit seat next to the eager boy.

Hayden put a large waffle on a plate for Briallen, and handed her a pitcher full of syrup. "Busy with school. I forgot I had a Divination project that I was supposed to do during winter break and now it's due tomorrow. I've spent all my free time working on it for the past few weeks. How about you? How've you been?"

"I'm followed by Aurors all of the time, and my two best friends are fighting with each other and I keep getting caught in the middle."

"Did one of them had something to do with the kid covered in daisies?"

"Actually," said Briallen, before taking a large gulp of milk, "that was one of them. Marisol somehow cursed Toby to be covered in daisies. I saw him in the library on my way to breakfast this morning, surrounded by books. I know he's looking for a way to get back at her."

"How did the fight star-ow!" Hayden cried suddenly. His hand went quickly to the back of his head. He and Briallen turned around to see if someone was responsible for the sudden pain at the back of his head and saw Lucan with Cora Quinn and Christian Chavira, sitting at the Platt table, chuckling.

"So sorry, Van Vlerah," said Christian sarcastically. "I guess my aim is off. I meant it to go a little more to the left."

Briallen took out her wand and mumbled a spell she'd just learned recently. Christian's waffle suddenly burst into flame. The three Platts jumped up from their seats and pointed their wands at the flaming waffle, trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to put out the fire.

"Thanks," said Hayden sheepishly. "You didn't have to do that, though. They'd have hit me even if you weren't here."

"I doubt it. Lucan's been angry with me ever since the last day of school last semester," Briallen said as she scowled at Lucan.

"I think he's jealous," commented Marisol. She sat down opposite of Briallen, and innocently helped herself to a spoonful of scrambled eggs.

"Marisol! I saw what you did to Toby. I know he's been a real jerk lately but did you really have to hex him like that?"

"Yes, he deserved it," replied Marisol, indignant, her chin up.

"You do know he's in the library right now looking for something to do to you in return, right?"

"Please, like I'm worried about what he'll do to me. He's horrible at Transfiguration."

"Well, you should be worried. He's more angry with you than you are with him," warned Briallen. Marisol shrugged, indifferent. "This is really getting out of hand, Marisol. Just apologize!"

"For what? I didn't do anything to him! He's the one acting like a goblin!"

"You're both acting like idiots!" argued Briallen, completely forgetting she had decided not to no longer be involved in her friends' fight. Marisol glared at her, and then got up and left without finishing her breakfast. "Oh, just great. Now they're both mad at me."

"Well... we can hang out today," suggested Hayden shyly. They still hadn't spoken about how Briallen had kissed him at Christmas. Briallen knew he must be confused since she first told him she didn't want a boyfriend, and then the next day she'd kissed him. She had read about sending mixed signals in YW, and the problems they caused, but she was feeling lonely without Marisol and Toby as company. She wanted to hang out with someone, anyone, especially if that someone wasn't also friends with Marisol and Toby.

"Okay," said Briallen, smiling at Hayden.

* * *

Later that night, Hayden and Briallen were in the Wenlock common room playing wizard's chess when Marisol stormed in. Hayden looked at her, amused, before moving his knight to take one of Briallen's pawns. There was a tulip where Marisol's nose was supposed to be but Briallen didn't even notice Marisol, she was so into the chess game.

"Briallen! Look at me!" screamed Marisol, pointing at her tulip-nose. "Look at what that toe-headed diricawl did to me!" Briallen looked up at her best friend, was startled into silence for just a moment, and then burst out laughing. The other Wenlocks in the room quickly joined in when they noticed why Briallen was laughing. Marisol fumed. "THIS IS NOT FUNNY! This is war!"

Marisol stormed up the stairs to her dorm room. The sound of a her slamming her door could be heard even in the common room.

Briallen looked up at Hayden, an eyebrow raised. "I think I'm going to have to hang out with you for the next couple of days. I don't want to end up with baby's breath for hair or something just as weird."

"I'm okay with that," said Hayden with a small smile. Briallen knew he would be. She felt bad for Hayden, like she was using him somehow, even though she genuinely enjoyed spending time with him. He didn't talk incessantly about boys like Marisol, or about baseball, like Toby. Briallen was even considering letting him in on the investigation, though she wasn't sure if Marisol and Toby would like that.

* * *

The next few days at Bergamot were strange; or stranger than usual, at least. The flower fight between Marisol and Toby had somehow been picked up by the other students and everybody was now cursing everybody else with a plant for a body part. Unlike the other professors, Professor Stalkes was thrilled with the turn of events and began using students as examples in his Herbology class.

However, the novelty even wore off for Professor Stalkes when on one Friday, Jessica Marriott cursed Dante Garcia with a pair of bouncing bulbs for ears. Whenever Professor Stalkes came near enough to Dante, the bulbs would try to smack the teacher, which put him in a very foul mood. When the weekend arrived, everybody was relieved and hardly anyone left their dormitories, except for meals, at which time the Aurors could be seen in the hallways, making sure there was no more cursing going on. But, because everybody left at the same time for meals now, the stairs and halls were very crowded and it was impossible for the Aurors to catch everything.

"This is getting ridiculous," said Briallen as she was squished against the staircase railing with Benjamin in front of her, Kimmy behind her, and Conall, sporting a few dandelions on his head, to the left of her as they all made their way to the dining hall for dinner. When they all finally reached the second floor, Briallen cut away from the group and ran into the library where she stopped, bent over with her hands on her knees, and took several gulps of air. She had managed to ditch her Auror bodyguard in the crowd too, which made her happy.

She looked around the library, which was completely empty. Briallen didn't even see Mrs Shan, the librarian, which was very odd. She walked down a row a bookcases with a window at the end and took a seat on the ledge, where several cushions had been placed for comfort.

"I thought I saw you come in here," said a familiar voice from nearby.

"Marisol? Is that you?" whispered Briallen, looking around her.

"Yeah."

"Where are you?"

"Right here," said Marisol as she stuck a hand through the book case that Briallen was facing.

"Why don't you come around over here?"

"I'm hiding from Mrs Shan. I have a bubotuber plant on my head and I don't want her to see me or she'll kick me out."

"Why?"

"...Because I have a bubotuber plant on my head. They're very sensitive. The slightest touch will make them ooze and Mrs Shan doesn't want anything messing up her precious books. She wouldn't even let me in when I had that tulip for a nose because I kept sneezing pollen!"

"I'd be more scared of what the books will do to you if you mess them up, if I were you," said Briallen as she remembered the time when she had accidentally tore a page in one book and it had smacked her numerous times on the head in retaliation.

Marisol giggled nervously. "How come I haven't seen you lately? I know you're not on Toby's side."

"I'm not on anybody's side! Look, just tell Toby what you were doing and end this! I'm sorry I didn't support you before when you wanted to tell him, but I didn't think any of this would happen. And maybe if the other kids see you two getting along again, they'll stop cursing each other too."

"Fine," said Marisol, giving up. "I'm getting sick of all of this too. I didn't think it would go this far."

"No kidding. Let's go find Toby," said Briallen, relieved. She was looking forward to things getting back to normal, and hanging out with her best friends again.

"He's in our study room, here in the library."

"How do you know that?"

"I might have locked him in there... accidentally-on-purpose, you know."

Briallen rolled her eyes as she and Marisol made their way to the study room. When they got there, Marisol muttered a spell and the door swung open. Toby was lying on top of the table, on his back, with his knees up and his arms over his face.

"Toby?" said Marisol quickly. "I'm sorry for everything and I'll tell you where I was that day but you have to swear not to be angry with me anymore, okay?"

Toby sat up, looking solemn, and nodded. "And we should tell the teachers everything we know about the kidnapper."

"No!" cried Marisol. "It's too late! Not only will they not care about what we have to say, but they'll be angry we waited this long to say it, and we'll get in trouble because we broke a bunch of rules finding out everything we know!"

Toby was frustrated, but knew that Marisol was right. "Fine."

"Okay, so, that morning I had snuck away to The Village to see Mr Teaberry about planning a surprise party for your birthday... which is obviously no longer a surprise since you now know."

Toby stared at Marisol. And then he laughed. "This whole thing was about a party? I should have known. I thought that maybe you had - well, never mind. I'm sorry I was such a jerk to you."

"I'm sorry I was a jerk to you too." Marisol smiled and looked down shyly at her feet. Then, unexpectedly, she lunged for Toby and wrapped her arms tightly around him. The moment she touched him, however, the bubotuber plant on her head exploded its sap everywhere, covering the three friends.

"Gross!" screeched Briallen as she tried desperately to wipe the plant goop off of her face. "Words were good enough!"