Paranormal is Relative

have shared that kind of thinking on occasion, sometimes to the point of trying to destroy books."

  The king looked horrified. "That is the unthinkable to us! However, most of my people can't even read. We respect words and fear words so much we do not want to fall under their power. So the highly dangerous job of literacy is left to a few of the wisest. When we write something down, it is of utmost importance. We do not lie when we write, although we may not always write in a straightforward manner, for reasons that will hopefully become clear in a moment."

  "If your people don't lie on paper, then isn't prophecy too risky to write down?" she asked.

  "Indeed," the king said gravely. "And yet here I have a scroll devoted to it. It was written five hundred turnings ago."

  "Wait, something didn't translate," Leah said. "Turnings?"

  "That's how we mark the passage of time. I don't know what that means to you."

  "There's no way to figure out how long ago that was in our world," Isabella said. "Fairyland and the real world run on different time. I'm just hoping we don't come out of this six months or sixty years later than when we left."

  "That would be awful!" Maryann said. "And it would be your fault," she snapped at the king.

  He sort of shrugged. "It would be, but hear me out and then judge me for kidnapping you." He pulled out the scroll and cleared his throat. "'When the moon turns violet/when the three stars burn in a row/when gray twilight falls/in darkness it starts to grow. It hungers when it wakes/all things it will swallow/there will be nothing left/it will destroy the Hidden Hollow. Right now it sleeps/stirring in its dark cave/but if a champion can find it/our Hollow can be saved. From the mundane world/soul and hair like flame/with the music of a raven/with castaways' names. With wind, water, and Earth/the champion will attack/in the darkness defeat it/and it will never come back.'"

  They were very surprised.

  "How did you know it was me?" Maryann finally managed to ask.

  "Well, the mundane world obviously means the champion is a human, and one with red hair. Now that you're here, it's obvious you have a fiery soul. I and my council had to use quite a bit of our magic to figure out 'music of a raven' since that could mean a lot of things, although in retrospect, it seems quite obvious. So, as to the last part, are the names correct? Either castaway names as in cast-off or the names of famous castaways?" the king asked.

  "Famous castaways."

  "So you see I brought you here to save my people from the terror of the monster. We call it the Serpent's Shadow. The moon is indigo, two stars are burning, and twilight is falling. I've brought you here hopefully just in time. Of course, now that I find out you are a musician and not a warrior I'm more than a little worried."

  "This is insane," Nora said. "Maryann can't fight a monster just because some old piece of paper says so!"

  "I would usually agree," the king replied mildly. "But so it has been written; so it shall be done."

  "Why can't you fight this thing?" she snapped.

  "My people have no great magics. Only the royalty of us can even fly. Even figuring out the 'music of a raven,' which seems so simple in retrospect, taxed our magics to their limits. What would you have us do? I could return you to your world, but it would assure the destruction of mine."

  "What about asking for help?" Isabella suggested.

  "There are none who would help us, or at least none that would help us for a price we can afford," the king answered. "The Seelie Courts care not for those who are small and insignificant, as we are. Those you could consider proper fairies have nothing to do with us because we are closer to goblin-kin. There are powers we could bargain with, but as you humans say, the cure would be worse than the disease. So I have no options but the prophecy gives me hope. If you cannot save my Hollow, no one can."

  The four band members were silent for a few minutes.

  "I want to try to fight the thing," Maryann said finally.

  "You don't know how to fight a monster!" Nora said.

  "No, but there are lots of things I didn't know how to do until I did them. And I've got you guys to help me."

  "Does it matter that we aren't in the prophecy?" Nora asked snidely.

  The king shrugged. "The prophecy doesn't say anything about the champion getting help, but I think you're going to need all the help you can get."

  "I'm surprised the prophecy rhymes so well in English," Isabella said thoughtfully.

  "Why wouldn't it? It was written in human."

  "What? Why?"

  "I don't know. One of our very greatest queens transcribed this prophecy."

  "Tell us more about this queen."

  "Why?"

  "If you want our Maryann to defeat a monster, we need information," she said. "The more information we have, the more likely we can figure a way to get out of this. Even something that doesn't seem relevant might be. Trust us, your Majesty, we've been through this sort of thing before."

  He thought about this. "Very well. I won't tell you her name, but she is the one who helped defend the Hidden Hollow from the first attack of the Serpent's Shadow. Legends say she summoned the powers of fire, wind, water, and Earth to fight the Shadow."

  "Why couldn't she defeat it?" Nora asked.

  "The queen was quite magically gifted but she could not fight the monster on her own. Yes, the queen summoned the powers of fire, wind, water, and Earth and used those powers as well as her own to fight the Shadow. Both the queen and Shadow were badly injured. The Shadow fled to a cave filled with darkness and the queen was too injured to pursue."

  "'Fire, wind, water, and Earth,'" Isabella repeated in low voice. There was an important thought flitting across her mind and she was trying to catch it.

  "But the queen was very learned and she could predict when the Shadow would be strong again and wrote this prophecy." He pointed to the ring on his head. "She got this crown as a sign of her greatness." He sighed. "But sadly not all of us are as gifted at magic as she was."

  "Did she write down anything about this Serpent's Shadow?" Leah asked. "Like how big is it? Does it have fangs or poison or anything?"

  "Well, it's supposed to be big enough to swallow the Hidden Hollow whole."

  "Are you sure that isn't an exaggeration?"

  "No," the king said sternly. "We do not waste the power of the written word on exaggeration."

  "That is not good news for us."

  "The Serpent's Shadow was not poisonous as far as the queen knew, but she also didn't get bitten."

  "This is still insane," Nora said.

  "I do have the emergency kit," Leah said. "If nothing else we can hit it a lot."

  "If it's big enough to swallow this place, I don't think it's going to be scared off by a baseball bat," she returned sarcastically.

  "Nora, please," Maryann said. "They need help. I want to help, even if they did kidnap me. I'm sure we can do this."

  "I don't do magic," she replied. "Neither does Leah. I don't know what good we're going to be here against some kind of giant shadow monster."

  "We'll figure it out," she said confidently.

  Nora just sighed.

  "Perhaps some more history and some further revelations are in order," the king said.

  "There's more to the prophecy?" Leah asked quickly.

  "Indeed. Understand that our lore says the Serpent's Shadow knows everything that is written down."

  "So it already knows about me?" Maryann asked, aghast.

  "Yes and no. It knows what the words say, but it probably does not know what the words mean. There is more to this prophecy, which may help you out."

  "Well, please tell us," Nora said sarcastically. She was still upset about being stuck high up in a tree.

  He consulted the scroll. "'The queen used much magic/to win the first fight/without her presence/you can't use such might.'"

  "Wow, that's totally not helpful," Nora said.

  "'But that
was then/and this is today/to defeat the monster/requires a different way. You will need to puzzle it out/for everyone's sakes/it makes as much sense/as any 4-D pair of drakes.'"

  "Did you say 'forty?'" Isabella asked.

  He shook his head. "No. '4-D.'"

  "That's-that's just weird," she said. "That's a very human shorthand term."

  "What does it mean?" the king asked.

  "Fourth-dimensional," Leah answered promptly.

  The king still looked confused. "That really doesn't enlighten me."

  "It's a scientific term. It means time," she clarified. "Not sure what drakes have to do with it, though. Does it mean fire-drakes, or mandrakes, or something else?"

  The king shrugged.

  "A drake is a male duck," Nora said irritably. "The writer of this is right; it doesn't make much sense."

  "No, it kind of does," Isabella countered. "The Serpent's Shadow knows everything that's written down, so this prophecy was written as a word puzzle so we could figure out how to stop the monster without it knowing we figured that out."

  "But we haven't figured that out."

  "Well, we're working on it," she retorted. "Please, go on, if there's any more."

  "'There is a human adage/it is mightier than the sword/you will need one/in order to move forward.'"

  "That's easy. It's a pen," Maryann said. "And I have a couple in my purse and my mini-Book of Shadows, so I can even write stuff down."

  "You carry such things so casually," the king said, sounding awed. "'It comes from the crossroads/the realms of dream and fey/driven from nightmares/it seeks a new prey. It is of the dream/it had no kind of shape/until the magic forced it/then it could not escape. It hides in the cave/with coils of