Lester wound his way through the maze of metal shelves piled high with old books and strange-looking pipe organ parts. In the distance, he could hear the faint timbre of a conversation but none of the actual words. The voices didn’t seem to be arguing, but at the sound of laughter, he quickened his pace. Fearing Amanda was making fun of Mae again, he sped along the familiar path, his sneakers sliding on the smooth cement floor as he went.

However, upon reaching the warm circle of light encompassing the oasis of his old work area, Lester’s concern turned to puzzlement as he suddenly stopped at the sight of both girls in hysterics.

Since they’d secretly commandeered the library’s basement for their headquarters, a few changes had been made. The old blue rug was now centered in the space, allowing the sides of the antique table to be extended, transforming it from a small square into a large circle. The intricate carvings around its edge felt more suited to a meeting of the knights of the round table than a catch-all for the dozens of books and maps Mae had been collecting. But they made do.

An additional floor lamp had been brought from a far corner, along with a sizable rolling chalkboard, which now stood to one side. Its slate black surface was covered in names and dates, many of them connected in a web of carefully drawn chalk lines.

Amanda and Mae were sitting at the table across from each other, a colorful array of chip bags and soda cans spread out in front of them. Spotting Lester, they attempted to compose themselves without much success.

“Hey, Lester,” said Amanda, stifling a laugh. “How’s it going?”

“Okay,” Lester said warily. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” replied Amanda. “Right, Mae?”

Mae tried to pull herself together long enough to answer, but after a glance in Lester’s direction, she looked back at Amanda, and suddenly both girls were off again.

“Do I have something on my face?” Lester asked as they howled with laughter. He rubbed a hand across his chin, thinking about the spicy, guacamole-filled burrito he’d had for dinner.

“No,” Mae said, gasping for air. “It’s just girl stuff.”

Lester wasn’t sure what girl stuff meant and didn’t entirely believe he wasn’t somehow the butt of their joke. But he was happy to see them finally getting along.

“Come sit down,” Amanda said, dabbing the corners of her eyes with her sleeve. “Mae’s got some interesting things to share.”

Lester took a seat in front of a tall stack of books. Mae’s talent in doggedly researching the unknown had generated quite an impressive pile.

“Alright,” Mae said, taking a deep breath to settle herself. “Let’s start with the journal you found in your house.” She pulled it out and set it between them.

Seeing the familiar worn brown leather, Lester felt a resurgence of disappointment, and he eyed it with more than a little disdain.

“This might be —” Mae began, tapping its cover with her finger.

“Useless?” interrupted Lester. “Pointless? An utter waste of time?” He slumped back into his chair. “I’m sorry, you guys. We’ve barely started, and I nearly got us caught for nothing.”

“As I was saying,” Mae continued, ignoring Lester’s comments. “This might be — the first actual clue we’ve discovered.”

Lester sat up. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” said Mae. “You shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss everything that isn’t immediately flashy or exciting. Everyone always wants to find a map with a big red X or a lost manuscript that holds the key to life’s mysteries, but history doesn’t work that way. If you want to know the truth about an event, what really happened before it was cleaned up for your textbooks, you have to look to ordinary documents. Property deeds and marriage licenses often say more than originally intended. No one thinks to work in a bit of revisionist history into their grocery list. Without realizing it, people leave a trail of remarkably intimate and important moments from their lives in quite mundane places. Like this.”

Stolen story; please report.

She flipped the journal over so they could see the back.

“RIN? What does that mean?” Amanda asked, running her fingers over the letters stamped into the leather.

“In Scottish Gaelic, rin means run,” said Mae. “In Korean, it’s a female unicorn. There’s even a Japanese definition that translates to severe or cold.”

“So, which is it?” Lester asked.

“Neither. If you’d kept reading, you’d have discovered that it’s not a word at all. It’s the initials of the journal’s author, Randal Ingram North.”

“North?” said Lester.

“Doctor North, to be precise. He was your great, great grandfather. In fact, he built the house you live in. Your parent’s never mentioned him?”

“No,” Lester said. “The house has been in our family for generations, Amanda’s too, but it’s not like anyone talks about it.”

“Randal North was Giles Hollow’s first doctor,” Mae said. “He even helped settle the town, treating patients and performing surgeries right in his own home. What you found is his medical journal. It’s where he kept notes on his treatments for those original residents. He chronicled everything from births and deaths to injuries and illness. That alone makes this a remarkable historical document.”

“That is interesting,” Lester said. He tried not to imagine the kinds of primitive medicine that might have been practiced in the space below his bedroom. Certain he’d seen dark stains on some of the old floorboards. “But how is it a clue?”

“It’s in his later entries towards the back where it gets a bit more curious,” said Mae. “Dr. North was retired by then, and with no more patients to care for, his medical notes give way to some sort of parable. It’s a grim fairytale that tells the story of a great war, fought between what he refers to as The Light and The Dark. Most of it reads like a classic Greek myth, full of heroic deeds and epic battles. But then the location abruptly shifts to what resembles early North America.”

“You mean, like, pilgrims?” asked Lester.

“No. That’s the odd part. The way it’s told, the descriptions of the land and how the people lived, it’s as if it all happened before Europeans arrived.”

“That’s not so unusual,” said Amanda. “He was probably rehashing old-world myths brought over by the first wave of colonists. When he ran out of that material, he turned to what was close at hand. Most Native American folklore is nature-based, utilizing elemental symbolism like earth, fire, water, and sky.”

Lester and Mae stared at her.

“What?” Amanda asked. “Like you two are the only ones who read.”

“Amanda could be right,” Mae said. “The whole thing is a bit hard to follow. While the war is the main focus of the story, there’s no explanation as to how it started. The fighting stretches over centuries. The Light manages to get the upper hand several times, but then The Dark uses its mythical powers to slip away. If it’s a parable, what’s the point?”

“Not to be rude,” Amanda said, “but why do we care about some bizarre ramblings from an old journal anyway? What does any of this have to do with us or our — predicament?”

“I’m getting to that.” Mae flipped to a spot in the journal marked with a paperclip. Across two opposing pages was a tight list, organized into several straight columns. “Take a look at these names,” she said.

Lester scanned the neat cursive handwriting. There had to be nearly a hundred people, and some of them were pretty famous. Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and someone named George Corwin were each marked with a capital L. At the same time, Captain John Smith, Edward Teach, and Abigail Adams had D’s next to their names.

A thought occurred to Lester. “Isn’t Edward Teach — ”

“Blackbeard, the infamous pirate,” Mae said, nodding.

“I guess it’s not that hard to believe he’d be part of some dark cabal,” Amanda said. “But Abigail Adams?”

“The names are interesting, but this next bit is why I called you both.” Mae carefully turned the page. “Most of it is written in a language I don’t recognize, but Dr. North had begun working on a translation. Do you want to read it, Lester?”

Upon seeing the odd hieroglyphic writing, Lester was reminded of the incident with his math exam. He followed the strange symbols down to the last few lines. Scribbled in the spaces between the indecipherable text was the now-familiar tight scrawl of a dead relative he’d never heard of until today.

“Each shall be drawn into the fight,” he read, “with gifts bestowed by dark birthright. To uncover that which has been foreseen, at the mortal age of — thirteen.”

A chill went through Lester as he finished reading, and he looked up from the journal to see Amanda staring, her eyes wide.

“Drawn into the fight,” Mae said. “At the age of thirteen.” She looked at them excitedly, waiting for a reaction. “Don’t you get it?”

“Yeah, Mae,” Amanda said quietly. “We get it.”