Keynan Mooring looked up from his book, bleary-eyed. How long had he been staring at the same spot on the page? Thirty minutes? Keynan was incredibly smart, but even he didn’t understand what in the world this book was going on and on about.
“Nightshade Pool is only found on the night of the waxing crescent moon. To find it, you must hold up a reflective object at a 90 degree angle from the stars of Orion’s Belt, facing the moon. Only then, when the starlight is reflective off the grass, will Nightshade Pool be found.”
Keynan scanned the section over one more time to make sure he’d read it right. The pages felt rough under his hands, callused and stained with soot and dirt from helping outside and at the factories. He ran a hand through his curly brown hair and frowned, his brow puckering.
He slammed the book closed and sat back in his desk chair, thinking for a moment. Screams erupted from downstairs, startling him out of his thoughts. At first, he was annoyed and he marched out of his room to see what all the commotion was about. But his anger melted away when he peered over the stair railing and saw a dark-haired girl, smiling at his two little siblings.
“And then,” said his brother, Ezra, doing that thing where he got so into a conversation that he didn’t realize how close to your face he was, “the monsters make a sound like this. Show her, Kacen.”
Kacen gave a low wailing cry that made Wyatt’s sisters, Mabel and Lakyn, shriek. Keynan walked down the stairs and continued to eavesdrop on the conversation.
“Are they any good guys in this story of yours?” Alexa asked Ezra.
“Well...I guess there can be. But I know you’ll like this next one! Lakyn and I made it and it’s about a squirrel with magical sneezing powers!”
“What even?” Keynan asked with a smile, waltzing up from behind his brother. Kacen gave the cry again and flung himself onto his older brother’s back. Keynan flopped backwards onto a chair, squishing Kacen in between himself and the cushion. Lakyn gave a triumphant, “Ha, ha!”, before Mabel pounced on top of her, copying her brothers. Alexa muffled a laugh with her hand. “You know,” she told Keynan, “You aren’t a very good example.”
Keynan shrugged and shook Kacen off of him. The little boy fell to the ground and scowled at his brother and stuck his tongue out. Alexa rolled her eyes and helped Kacen stand up. He ran over to Keynan and stomped on his toes. Keynan grimaced and moved over to Alexa and sat down.
“That was deserved,” Alexa told him.
Kacen shot him a smug grin.
“I guess so,” Keynan muttered. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”
“No, I suppose not.”
Keynan stood up and stretched, his limbs popping. Alexa stuck her tongue out. “That sounds terrible.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Wanna come with me? I need to show you something. It’s that book of yours. The one you loaned me.”
“I didn’t loan it to you. You aren’t paying me, remember?”
“Fine, that’s true. I guess I borrowed it then. But c’mon.”
The two of them left the littles behind and headed upstairs. Alexa ran to Keynan’s desk eagerly where the book sat closed. She let her fingers graze over the leather-bound cover. Keynan’s lips twitched up into an amused grin, which he masked by pretending to wipe an invisible something off his mouth. He wondered if Alexa could understand the gibberish of the Nightshade Pool. Plunking down on his bed, he wrapped a gray blanket around his shoulders and observed Alexa as she flipped through the book. Her right hand wandered up to her long braided hair. Fingers pulling at the free strands cascading around her face, her lips mouthed the words soundlessly. Suddenly, her eyes darted sideways toward him and cheeks flushed, she gave him a wry look.
“Enjoying the view?” she asked, raising a skeptic eyebrow.
Keynan reddened. “I was just seeing what you’d make of it.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “I get what you mean. I hadn’t realized how...befuddling it was when I recommended it to you.”
“Why did you suggest it in the first place.”
Her tense look morphed into a sheepish one. “The synopsis looked interesting.”
Keynan rolled his eyes and stood up. He moved to the desk and began flipping through the pages until he came to the very last one. On the top of the page was a dark title that read: Nightshade’s Destinations. Listed below were all kinds of names of kingdoms. Some were extremely odd, like Jengantua and Sappleson. Others sounded far more regal, like Aesthetica and Zoronacove. But there was one name that filled Keynan with all kinds of terror. It made him feel like he had been electrocuted, and then dipped in water.
But strangely it also filled him with a pleasant warmth, not unlike that which his mother’s rose and hazelnut cookies gave him. The word was in the middle of the page, waiting for him to read it.
The word was Aurladon.
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