Addie stared at the words on the page, Take me with you, It said.
Her heart started racing, and her eyes quickly darted side to side. Squishy bumped his snout into her leg causing her whole body to jolt.
“What is it?” he asked curiously.
After she recovered from his surprise attack, Addie crouched down and cupped her hand around Squishy’s floppy triangular ear so she could whisper, “The book says I should take it.”
Squishy repeated the action Addie had done just moments ago, quickly looking side to side.
“I’ll keep watch,” he said seriously.
Taking one last glance at the words on the page, Addie gently closed the book without a sound. Then, she ran into a problem. There wasn’t anywhere to hide it! She felt her hands become slick with sweat as her beating heart started thumping out of her chest. If she tried to walk out of the library with the giant book in her hand, she would definitely get caught. She had to hide it somewhere. But her dress didn’t have any pockets!
Just as her worries started to cause her to panic, the entire book burst into bright white flames and instantly turned to ash, scattering on and dirtying the floor and her hand.
Addie opened and closed her now empty hand, then she opened her mouth in shock as her heart dropped. She accidentally destroyed it somehow! But, how? She hadn’t done that on purpose! Oh no, she was going to get in so much trouble with the library.
Call upon me.
“Squishy, it’s gone!” Addie whispered frantically, “I burnt it!”
Call upon me.
“I’m talking to you right now!”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Call upon me.
Addie looked at Squishy with bafflement while squinting her eyes at him. She didn’t get this situation at all! First, the book poofs into flames somehow, and now she’s hearing fake voices? It had to be Squishy.
“Seriously Squishy, stop it!”
“I have done nothing.” Addie could feel his confusion and sincerity through their bond. But that was so strange.
The words were coming from soul telepathy, and Squishy was the only one who should be able to do that. What was that voice if it wasn’t Squishy?
Call upon me.
Addie grabbed onto the source of that voice and pulled at the magic connecting it to her. She felt something pour out from one of the cracks in her soul, and within moments a book manifested directly in her hand. The title read, “Techniques of the Soul Hunter”.
Her heart started calming down, and she looked at the book in her hand with relief. The nerves began to fade as she realized the book was fine after all, and her confusion vanished once it became obvious that the second voice was coming from the book.
Squishy angled his head slightly as he asked Addie, “What happened?”
Squishy’s question jolted Addie out of her thoughts, and she dropped the book out of her hands in surprise. Before it could hit the floor, it transformed into soul flames and rushed back inside Addie’s soul shell. This time, it didn’t leave any ashes behind.
“I’m not really sure,” Addie answered. “I guess we’re bonded to a book now?” Addie asked with a frown— equal parts disgust and confusion rising up at the thought of being bonded to a book. Wasting a soul bond on a book would be awful, but also it should have been impossible since she didn’t want the bond in the first place.
Except, when Addie inspected her soul, she didn’t feel a third soul bond. Based on the empathic connection she had with Squishy, it felt like he didn’t notice a third soul bond, either. Maybe she would ask Christena about the book later. Addie felt slightly better that she couldn’t see a soul bond with the book, but she wasn’t entirely convinced about what exactly had happened yet.
“And how come it didn’t leave ashes behind this time? Why couldn’t it have done that last time?” Addie grumbled. Now she would have to figure out where to hide the ashes all over the floor.
“An odd book, for certain,” Squishy agreed.
Addie scanned to the left and right of the bookshelf rings she was currently standing in one last time. When she didn’t see anyone, she wiped her hands against each other to get all of the ashes off. Then, she started pushing the pile of ashes underneath the bookshelves with her foot. Hopefully, no one would find them. For some reason, she still felt sort of bad, hiding the ashes like this. Getting caught stealing a book from the library would be worse though, so she definitely needed to hide them. On the other hand, as long as she wasn’t caught breaking the rules about taking things home, she would probably be ok. She didn’t have a choice, anyway. It wasn’t her fault the book decided to burst into flames and hide out in her soul.
With some weird combination of guilt and relief pervading through Addie, she started walking away from the area to look for Christena and Nettal.
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It didn’t take long to find them. As Addie expected, the library seemed to understand her intent and immediately brought her to Christena and Nettal. Over the course of just a few steps, Addie quickly found herself in an entirely new area of the library. Looking up at the ceiling, she was probably somewhere near the middle of the building.
She walked up to a small alcove surrounded by bookshelves on all sides. The inside of the alcove was furnished with a couple of small desks and super comfy-looking loungers. Christena was fully reclined in one of the loungers with Fluffy asleep in her lap and a book in her hand, while Nettal seemed to be writing on something at one of the desks.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Christena glanced up at Addie as she walked into the alcove, but soon moved her eyes back to her book once she noticed Addie wasn’t walking toward her.
Silently, Addie began to creep up behind Nettal who was too focused on her writing to pay attention to her surroundings. Lotty was facing toward Addie though. She looked at him with pleading eyes and a finger at her lips to try and tell him not to tell Nettal about the impending surprise.
A few steps behind the chair, Addie positioned herself behind Nettal and slowly moved her hands up into position. Then, all at once, Addie exploded forward with a loud ‘Boo!’ and lightly pushed her outstretched fingers into Nettal’s shoulders.
Nettal screeched and tried to jump out of the desk chair, flailing her hair around wildly in the process. But, her seat got caught in a seam on the hardwood floor and barely slid a few centimeters before the entire chair started tipping backward. Addie hurriedly pushed the chair back forward so it wouldn’t fall on top of her, saving Nettal from falling backward on her head in the process.
No longer in any danger of falling, Nettal turned her whole body around on the chair to glare at Addie with an icy look.
In response, Addie couldn’t help but laugh. In the corner of her eye, she saw Christena trying to stifle her chuckles, too.
“I thought the chair was going to tip backward!” Nettal protested.
That only made Addie laugh harder.
“It’s not funny! I could have hit my head you know? Plus, look at this page! You’ve ruined it. I’ll have to start all over.”
Nettal held the piece of paper up in the air so Addie could see it. It looked like Nettal had drawn a big thick line right up the text-covered page when Addie surprised her.
“What are you working on anyway?” Addie asked.
Nettal crumpled up the ruined piece of paper and threw it onto the floor. Addie watched it curve through the air and then completely vanish before it could land.
“I’m working on a couple of things, actually. First, I tried to see if I could teach Lotty some letters, but that didn’t really work out at all. He just can’t remember the meaning of the symbols for some reason.
Addie looked at the floor to the left of the desk and saw the baby fawn staring up at her with his eerily impassive eyes.
Nettal opened one of the drawers on the right side of the desk and pulled out a piece of paper. Then, she started writing again.
“What are you writing now?” Addie leaned over Nettal’s shoulder to try and read her writing.
Nettal looked at Addie for a moment, but she didn’t try to stop her from reading it. “I’m trying to write down the causes for a few diseases. Lotty keeps sharing all kinds of images and feelings about some of the diseases we don’t know very much about, but none of it makes sense to me. I thought writing it down with words might help me figure it out. I decided to start small, so I’m starting with the common cold.”
“Huh.” Addie started reading along as Nettal wrote:
He keeps showing me images of these weird blob-looking things. He shows me the blob growing in size and then eventually splitting itself right in half to make two of itself. After that, both blobs grow until those ones split off. When I asked him why people get colds, he showed me an image of a different blob flying around and then entering the main blob. After the smaller blob enters the bigger blob, the bigger blob explodes! When the bigger blob explodes, it shoots off tons of copies of the smaller blob.
Nettal scratched at her head for a moment, “I really don’t understand what these blobs have to do with anything at all. Apparently, this is something he learned from his mother. If I can figure out what all of this means, then the doctors at the clinic will be able to heal people with colds even if I’m not there to use magic.” She explained.
Then Nettal let go of her pen, causing it to clatter around on the desk. She fell in her seat and draped her body over the desk with a slight thud. “Ugg! It doesn’t make sense! Christena doesn’t get it either.”
“Can you draw one of the blobs?” Addie asked.
“I think so.” Nettal straightened her back again and picked up her pen. She drew a blobby circle, with another smaller circle on the inside which she colored in fully. Then, she drew a bunch of other weird shapes with the big blob. Addie stared at it for a moment and then realized something.
“I’ve seen this before.”
“Really?” Nettal looked at Addie with suspicion as she crossed her arms. “Where?”
Addie focused really hard on her spatial sense. She used it to inspect Nettal’s face, just like she did with the tree leaves in the forest. She narrowed her spatial perception until she could only see the tiniest section of Nettal’s face.
“Those blobs look just like your face.”
With outrage, Nettal mock slapped Addie’s shoulder. “Don’t be mean if you aren’t trying to help.” She huffed and turned her head away.
“No, I’m serious! When I use my spatial sense to look at the tiniest part of your face, it’s got tons of those blobs! Just like the one you drew. I recognized it because I saw similar blobs inside of some tree leaves before. I was wondering what that was. Do you know?” Addie asked.
Nettal turned her gaze over to Lotty. From Addie’s perspective, he didn’t seem to respond to Nettal’s look, but he must have since Nettal started to explain, “Lotty says you’re right. That’s so weird. I guess you and me, and also all the tree leaves are just made out of these funny-looking blobs? Huh.”
Addie heard the sound of a pen scratching on the page as Nettal started writing down what they figured out.
Behind her, Addie heard the sound of a book being slammed shut, causing her to turn around and see what caused it.
Christena was standing up tall, looking out of the alcove. Addie noticed the book she had been reading was no longer in her hands. Scanning her eyes toward the entrance of the alcove, she saw Mr. Owlcharge walking into the area followed by Auntie and their respective bonded.
“Looks like you two girls had some fun!” Auntie said with a bright smile.
Nettal got out of her seat and ran up to Auntie, then she gave her a big hug. “Mom!” Nettal said with joy. “Come look at what I’ve been working on!”
“I’d be happy to!” Auntie allowed herself to be dragged over to the desk, where she stood as Nettal started explaining the blobs to her.
“And that’s when Addie said we all have these blobs all over us! How weird is that!” Nettal explained with excitement pouring out from her tone.
For a brief moment, Addie and Auntie made eye contact, allowing Addie to see Auntie’s eyebrows scrunched up with her eyes narrowed in confusion. “I see.”
Auntie remained quiet for a few seconds, but Nettal didn’t say anything more. She reached out to ruffle the top of Nettal’s head and said, “I’m glad you are having fun with your magic.”
Then, Auntie repositioned herself to face both Addie and Nettal at the same time. “There’s something Mr. Owlcharge and I discovered while investigating our former adversary.”
“Who’s that?” Addie asked. She wasn’t quite sure what ‘former adversary’ meant.
“We are talking about the man you called, ‘Black Cloak’. Well, you see, as we investigated my Area for this once beloved community member we found out he wasn’t at all!” Mr. Owlcharge said with his usual exuberance.
Auntie must have seen the confusion on Addie’s face, as she quickly clarified, “What Mr. Owlcharge is trying to say is that, there are no records of Black Cloak ever living in his town. He wasn’t on the citizen registry.”
"After we discovered he didn’t grow up here, we decided to investigate his residence.” Auntie’s tone darkened as she continued with a harsh face, “In there, we found letters and objects of worship dedicated to the Watchers of Servus.”
“What’s that?” Addie asked with a frown.
“We normally try to avoid the subject,” Mr. Owlcharge began with a serious edge to his tone, “But in this case, we decided you and Nettal needed to know so you could defend yourselves if something like this happened again. In short, the Watchers of Servus seek to destroy all things, and ‘return’ our planet to the ‘loving and dark embrace’ of Servus. They seek to destroy everything.”