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In the yonder forest, perched on a cypress, Whisperer watched the group with what could qualify as disappointment on his crooked face with his crooked lips. His efforts had failed. This sort of fowl tactics worked umpteen times before when his master ordered him on some mission.
Now he considered other prongs of attacks. The ifs and what-ifs, the whisperings, he could float in the wind. Whisperings that wafted down and instilled fear to all who heard him. This was one assignment he could not afford to blunder. Too much was at stake.
He debated over his options, his heavily lidded eyes darting from tree to tree. For a second he determined to strike the bumbling boy again, but he decided against this. He would wait for Beta and re-evaluate the problem with the latest update.
Whisperer pursed his crooked lips, his breath a gray tube of smoke that swirled toward its goal: the clouds. First softly, then more intensely, he blew. But his gaze never wavered from the struggling, lanky lad with his sister on his back.
Beta had better find that Book, or he would find a suitable punishment for the servant.
6 - HIDE!
WHEN THEY APPROACHED their home Jules noticed their front door ajar, tottering on a hinge.
Creak-creak, the door seemed to say, as the wind blew on it gently.
“Something’s wrong.” He barred the entrance with his back, his elbows spread out to prevent Tippy from sailing in. He poked his head through the doorway and was about to step over the threshold when Tst Tst pushed past him, and he stumbled forward.
“Tst Tst, no!” he whispered, hoarsely. “What if someone’s in—?”
“Mama? Mama!” Tst Tst stood in the middle of the living room and wrung her hands.
The others cautiously followed her in.
As Jules took another step something cracked under his feet. He glanced down. It was the spout of his mother’s favorite china teapot, and a foot away, remnants of the teapot lay strewn in bits and pieces.
Debris littered the dwelling they’d left three hours ago. Pieces of broken furniture scattered over the floor in the dining room, some smashed to smithereens. Crockery lay broken. Even the breakfast dishes of that morning lay strewn on the sink counter. And the pot of potato soup lay on its side on the kitchen floor. Jules had smelled the herb from it when they first stepped into that kitchen. The smell of buttered garlic still hung in the air. The doors of cupboards, armoires, and commodes teetered on hinges as if some force had wrenched them off in a rage.
Jules’s mahogany desk Grandpa Leroy had fashioned for him for his eighth birthday lay on its side, one splintered leg broken and swinging slightly from the break, and Tippy’s miniaturized collection of dolls Grandma Bonnie had woven together out of multi-colored blades of grass lay crushed at the bottom of the stepladder that led to the girls’ attic bedroom.
The children tiptoed about to avoid tramping over their things, as their eyes drank in the mess.
“Who’d do this?” Ralston looked around, blinking several times, and wiped his wet eyes with the back of his hand.
Tst Tst said, “They destroyed everything. What did they take from us? And where’s…where’s Mom?” Her breathing grew louder and she clutched her chest, as if in pain.
“What are we going to do?” Bitha’s tone was barely audible.
“Mama should be here—where else could she be?”
“Maybe she’s hurt.” Jules peered behind a toppled table, afraid he’d find her unconscious.
“Do you think—do you think someone—took her? Maybe they….” Bitha said.
Bile crept up from the pit of Jules’s stomach, and he quickly avoided Bitha’s red rimmed eyes. What if something happened to Mom? Maybe he should have warned her about the acorns? Or that bright flash? Whoever plundered their house was no ordinary scoundrel. He was only ten when his grandpa warned him about Gehzurolle, yet he remembered as if it was only yesterday.
7 – DESTROYER
THE WARNING GRANDPA gave had frightened Jules then, as it did now.
“Jules, the days are coming,” Grandpa Leroy had said, that bleak day as they sat before the fireplace. “One day, Gehzurolle will intensify his efforts against us. Beware of that day.”
Picking up his Ancient Book, Grandpa read, “Suspecting the lives of the now insignificant Fairy Elves will be restored to the former glories they once enjoyed, the Scorpents and their leader, Gehzurolle, the Lord of Shadows, will be driven to distraction. After many failed attempts to annihilate the Race throughout the centuries, Gehzurolle will scheme to extinguish every inhabitant of the land because finally a Keeper has invited him into our Kingdom. He will spare no Elfie. Not even those who work for him.’”
“But which Keeper would do something like that?”
“One who’s desperate. When you see the signs, Jules, you must flee. You and everyone in our family. Immediately!”
“But why, Grandpa?”
“Because it means he’s close to succeeding. He will seek us Keeper families first because without the Keepers and our Books our Kingdom cannot survive. I entrust this knowledge to you for you will take over from your mother as Keeper of the Book, just as she’d taken over from me.” His grandfather’s gentle blue eyes locked with Jules’s own green ones.
“But how will I know when this will happen?”
“The Ancient Book says thieves will come to steal—so beware. But these are no ordinary burglars, Jules. They will destroy everything in their path. Whatever happens they mustn’t get our Book.”