Lucas picked up the black book and brushed some crumbs of earth off it. The spider was tiny again and was crawling around inside the skeleton’s skull, which seemed to be its usual chipper self; the horrible magical tar from Morgan’s spell had evaporated completely. Leafing through the book Lucas wondered what to do with it. It was full of tiny handwriting in an alphabet he had never seen before. There were drawings too, but if anything these made even less sense; some were complicated geometric shapes, but there were also horrible pictures of strange animals, or maybe demons. The book made Lucas uneasy. He was both curious and wanted to know more, but also had a very strong feeling that knowing more was a terrible idea, for reasons he intuitively grasped but couldn’t quite describe.

“Should we go and get your raspberries now?” Charlie asked, amiably. Lucas looked up. He remembered why he was out here in the first place, but it was getting late. His mother might be worrying already, he thought.

“I don’t know. Do you want to? I mean, I don’t want to order you around, even if Morgan said I can, because you’re my golem, or something,” Lucas replied. Charlie shrugged.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“I really have nothing better to do.” Lucas contemplated the closed book quietly for a moment.

“I’m not sure if I should tell my parents or the temple about you. Or this.” Lucas was worried, despite not knowing what he had done wrong. If anything, freeing an innocent creature like Charlie from a miscreant like Morgan was the stuff heroes did, wasn’t it? Yet, he could sense it could get Charlie, and possibly himself, into trouble.

“Surely you can explain what happened?”

“I’m just a kid. They’ll think I made it all up, or you bewitched me, and then they’ll take the book away, and they might try and put you into a cage because you look spooky. And if you have to call the dog and the spider, someone might get hurt. I don’t want any of that,” Lucas said, suddenly sad and upset.

“I don’t know them as well as you, admittedly. I think we can pick those raspberries quicker if we do it together though. Maybe you will think of something while we do it? And at least you won’t come home empty-handed.” Lucas eventually nodded.

“Yeah. I’ll think of something; let’s go,” he said, and they walked off together.

THE END