Freiyon Fables: The Rochester Runes

Sarah opened the box without waiting for a reply. Charles couldn’t help himself after all. They both looked in and were confused by what they found. “It’s a book,” Sarah picked it out and blew the dust off, straight into Charles’ face. “An old, dusty book. Sorry, Charles.”

“I’ll take that as revenge for my remark earlier. Is the book valuable?”

“I don’t think so. Looks like some old diary or journal. ‘Fred ... Rochest ... study ... nal ... ’ that’s all I can make out. Hey, wasn’t our great-grandfather named Fred or Frederick? Maybe it’s his secret journal. Let’s take a look.”

Just as Sarah opened the book, a sickening crash was heard from up-stairs.

Charles and Sarah looked up simultaneously, and then looked at each other with concerned faces.

“That can’t be good!” They both exclaimed, running up-stairs to check the noise out.

As they ran, the noise continued, seemingly screeching every time the kids moved. They followed the noise to one of the five attics and opened the third attic door along.

“It came from in here.”

Charles tried the light-switch. Nothing.

“There’s a window over there. Let’s let some light in.”

They crept slowly over to the window and drew the blinds open, letting the daylight pour into the room magnificently.

“Look at all this junk! Why would our Grandparents leave all this behind?”

Charles placed the book on top of a stack of magazines and looked around the attic. Sarah was checking out an old, dusty ballerina figurine when Charles sneezed, making Sarah jump.

“Sorry! The dust in here is so ... stuffy. I can’t wait to ... Hey, what’s that?”

Charles noticed something covered up with a red cloak next to a few boxes.

He walked over to it and pulled the cloak off.

What he stared at was another knight statue, pointing with one hand towards the window, where Charles had left the book.

“Hey, I remember mum mentioning that. What did she call it? The Staring Soldier, right? I think so. She said she used to hate it when she was a kid, because it always glared with red eyes at anyone nearby.”

Charles studied the statue.

“Funny, I don’t remember it pointing at anything. Did mum mention that?”

“Uhh ... I don’t think so. But then, she never really went into those details.”

Charles walked over and grabbed the book.

“Let’s get out of here, I think I’m gonna sneeze ag ...YIKES!”

Sarah froze, looking at Charles; thinking he must be hurt.

“What’s wrong?” She saw his free hand point at the soldier, which appeared to have moved its arm slightly.

“The soldier moved!” Charles stammered.

“Charles, I hardly believe that! You aren’t going to trick me for a second time today. Now let’s ... Holy crabs! It DID move!”

Both kids froze in terror. The statue had indeed moved again, because now its hand was pointing directly at Charles’ chest. “Is it alive? Is it a ghost?”

Sarah couldn’t answer. They both backed towards the door slowly, watching the soldier the whole way.

Charles bumped into something and dropped the book in fright.

The soldier’s hand slumped downwards to where the book lay.

“I don’t believe my EYES! It must be a special magnet attracted to the journal.”

Charles picked up the book, throwing it from one hand to another to test his theory.

“How utterly peculiar! A book-magnet statue!” Sarah raised her eyes in surprise.

Charles’ eyes shot wide in realization. “Hey, I’ve got an idea! Take the journal back down to the hole where it was and leave it there. I think I know what this is all about now.”

Sarah did as she was told and Charles watched, alone, as the soldier slumped its arm to point straight down. Each time it moved, it made that same noise that had attracted the two kids upstairs in the first place.

‘Well, now we know what caused that strange crunching noise.’

The soldier now slumped down completely.

“It’s back where it was, Charles. Has anything happened?”

Charles never took his eyes off the soldier as he replied. “Yeah. Come back up now Sarah! I’m gonna need your help!”

He lifted the soldier up, ignoring the weight, and placed it at the very back of the attic where its hands leant towards the same area where it had been.

Charles backed up and studied the floor where the soldier had been.

‘Some loose floor-boards, broken parts, too, I need something to lift them out.’

Charles took another glance at the soldier before grabbing a rusty lever nearby and using it to lift the planks out of the floor.

The planks came out easily and Charles shone his torch into the hole, leaning down to see what was hidden in there. It was then that he heard the odd whir of an electronic thing powering up. He gulped and looked up towards the soldier.

The red eyes blazed on and the soldier’s head turned to him. The arm now lifted up and pointed at him and the mouth flap lifted an inch for the soldier to produce an eerie, high-pitched squeal; very similar to a grinding stone.

“Uh, Sarah? Could you hurry up please?” Charles watched as the soldier started walking towards him, clunking loudly as it came.

Charles took another glance into the dark hole and then back at the soldier.

He made up his mind, grabbed whatever was in the hole, and ran for the door.

The soldier screamed again and ran towards Charles.

“SARAH!”

The soldier produced a sword and came towards Charles with more anger and speed. “For crying out loud, Sarah, Help me!”

Charles looked at the hole, then at the soldier, and finally at the window.

‘Hold the phone. I have an idea!’

Charles grabbed a few books and blew some dust at the soldier’s face.

The soldier appeared to become confused, changing course and stumbling towards the window. Charles ran over and stood next to the window and started hollering at the soldier.

“Hey, soldier! I’m over here! I’ve got the book! Come on, are you blind? This way!”

The soldier was about to bang into the window when Sarah came back in, startling Charles and causing the soldier to turn towards them both.

“’Bout time you came back! Now help me get rid of him!”

With their combined effort, the two kids took the sword off the soldier, picked the soldier up and threw it out of the window. They watched it smash onto the ground and they both sighed with relief.

“Boy, Mum’s going to flip when she sees that, Sarah.”

Charles turned to Sarah, whose face was slowly changing to pink again.

“Ok,” she panted, trying to bring her mind back to the realization she and Charles were safe. “That rules out that whole book-magnet idea. What did you find?”

“I don’t actually know what it is.” Charles handed the object to Sarah, seeing it properly for the first time.

Sarah took one look at it and replied. “Rune.”

“I’m sorry?”

Sarah turned the thing around to show Charles what it was. It was a medium-sized rock, but shaped like a small grave-stone with the letter ‘M’ inscripted on it.

“It’s a Rune stone. I’ve heard of them before. People in medieval times used them to foretell the future. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with a proper letter from the English alphabet on it. I wonder why that soldier was trying to protect it.”

Charles remembered back to when he found that mirror in the lounge-room tunnel.

“Maybe it wasn’t THIS he was trying to stop us finding. Protecting, yes, but ... if I’m right ...”

Sarah could see Charles’ keen eyes remembering something. “Did you find something that might be connected to this?”

Charles took Sarah’s hand and ran back down-stairs with her in tow.

“Before you called me to help you with Robert, I found a secret tunnel in the lounge-room.”

“Big deal! There are secret tunnels all around this manor.”

“But do any of them lead to an old, dusty mirror with a huge mark cut out of it?”

Sarah shook her head.

When they ran into the lounge-room, Robert spotted their reflections in the TV.

“What are you two doing and what was all that rattle and screaming about?”

Sarah and Charles smiled at each-other, feeling quite happy to leave Robert out of the fun.

“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you, Robert. Ok, here’s the soldier. Its leg opens the passage and we have to go along for quite a while before we get to the mirror.”

Robert shifted position to see what they were doing. “Passage, Mirror? What are you talking about, Charlie?”

The tunnel opened again and Robert stared in utter amazement.

“Sorry you can’t join us, Robert, but you do have a bad leg. We won’t be long ... hopefully.” Charles lead the way with his torch and they both disappeared into the tunnel while Robert watched.

‘I don’t know why, but I have a feeling this is going to lead to nothing but trouble.’ Robert thought when he turned back around to the TV.

When Charles and Sarah finally arrived at the mirror, Charles pointed at the mark in the mirror. “I think that the rune stone is meant to go into that mark there. Although what it’s supposed to do, I don’t know.”

Sarah placed the rune stone into the hole.

The rune stone fitted perfectly.

The moment it sat in place, the mirror started to slide to the left, letting unexplained light into the tunnel.

Charles grabbed the rune stone quickly, thinking it would be a good idea to save for later use, and they both looked out to where the light was coming from.

Stepping through the door-way opened up by the mirror, the two felt like they were being pulled through a portal for a few seconds. The unexplained light was like a spiral of bright colours glistening around them, pulling them forwards. And quite suddenly, they were not in the manor, but in an entirely different place.

It was spectacular. What stood before them was a whole new world with clear, blue sky, mountains, trees, lakes and hills filled the scenery for as far as they could see.

“What IS this place? Did we end up outside somehow?”

Sarah shook her head.

“I don’t think we’re in our world anymore, Charles.”

“That would be absolutely correct, you two,” A new, male but squeaky voice announced.

The kids turned to see who had spoken and were quite surprised to see a young, cute meerkat looking up at them with a cute smile. Charles looked confused. “Um... did that meerkat just talk or is there some weird trick here?” He asked Sarah.

“No, I don’t think so...” Sarah’s eye twitched as she saw the meerkat smiling at her.

“I’ve never seen you two around these parts before. Mind telling me how you got here?” The meerkat asked. The two kids were still in shock that the mammal could clearly speak proper English.

Sarah then broke the shocked state first and shook her head a bit. “Um... I’m not exactly sure. We f-found a passage-way that lead to this odd door and when we opened the door, we were here.” The meerkat looked to where she had pointed. “Uhh what door? All I see is a rock surface.” The meerkat responded with curiosity.

“...Rock surface?” Charles and Sarah whirled around to see that there was no door behind them.

“B-but... I could’ve sworn we went through a door!” Charles said. “It was right here!”

Sarah felt the rock face desperately, trying to figure out what could have happened. “What is this? This is nuts. You’re right Charles, the door was definitely there. I... hey!” Without warning, Sarah appeared to have vanished right into the rock and Charles and the meerkat looked stunned at the area where she vanished.

“S-S-Sarah? S-Sarah?!” Charles didn’t know whether to panic or cry out loud. It was an immense surprise to him that, upon the third time he called out to Sarah, she came back out of the rock, a bit sore and dirty but otherwise fine. “Wow... It’s some kind of trick door. An illusion. Made to keep us thinking the door was gone. That’s rather clever.” She explained, brushing the dust off herself.

“Wow... a trick door. Haven’t seen one of those in some time,” The meerkat said. “Now for the big question, mind telling me a little bit about yourselves?”

Charles scratched his head, a bit confused still.

“Well, I’m Charles and this is Sarah. We...uh... we moved into our grandparents’ manor today and wanted to do some exploring and I came across this place. Um... What’s your name... little fella?” He wasn’t sure how to approach talking to a meerkat. He hoped he wasn’t offensive.

“Folks around these parts call me Nathaniel.” The meerkat said.

Sarah giggled softly.

“That’s a cute name. So, Nathaniel, you said before that we aren’t actually in our human world here? Then... what’s this place actually called.” Sarah asked.

Nathaniel smiled and bowed to them like he was introducing them to a king.

“This... is Freiyon!” Nathaniel gestured to the rolling hills, the lush forests, and the bright sky. “The world I and many others like me call our home.”

“Freiyon?” Charles and Sarah asked.

“The name is very ... unique...” Charles said.

Turning back to the kids, Nathaniel jumped up onto a smaller rock and wiggled his tail.

“It’s always been my home and as far as I am aware it has never been at war... until now... I’m afraid that you two have come at a very tough time. You see, there is this fierce person taking over parts of Freiyon and they are trying to collect something called ‘the Rochester Runes’. And no-one knows where they ar...” “Rochester? Nathaniel, that’s our last names.” Sarah interrupted. Charles remembered what Sarah had said earlier to him when they were attacked by the soldier. “These... runes... they’re actually real?”

Nathaniel shrugged. “I believe so... but no-one’s seen them that I know of.”

“Then.... is this one of them?” Charles pulled out the rune stone that he and Sarah had found.

“Whoa! Where did you get that stone?” Nathaniel asked. “Is that one of the rune stones?”

Sarah looked defeated. “We were kind of hoping you could tell us.” She replied, feeling a bit let down.

Charles noticed her look. “Don’t tell me you wanted to look for the rune stones too?”

She nodded. “Would be fun, but then again Robert would be left out. You wouldn’t know where we could find them, would you Nathaniel?”

“Not really... there’s legends and stuff, but that’s about it,” Nathaniel shrugged. “Sorry, you two.”

“Well, maybe you could help us find some more then.” Charles suggested.

Nathaniel looked sad. “I’m sorry but I can’t. I have to head back home to my mommy now. I only came to get some water when you two came through that illusion door. You wouldn’t happen to have a water bottle. I’ve heard humans have those a fair bit. It would make collecting the water easier.”

Charles nodded. “I have one small enough for you to carry. I didn’t really need it anyway.” Charles took a small water bottle out of his bag and handed it to Nathaniel who took it happily. “Thank you so very much. I’d stay around and be your guide around this place, but according to my mom I am too young to go around the world by myself at the moment. Thank you very much again!” Nathaniel vanished back into the forest.

Charles and Sarah stared.

“Well, this is going to be a long day,” Sarah snarked.

“Tell me about it.” Charles said. “First, we went through that door, then we meet Nathaniel...” Charles was out of breath. “It’ll definitely be a long day.”

The two of them decided to explore a stone bridge that was running over the same river Nathaniel had collected some water from, just a bit upstream from the boulder they had come through. Sarah, having once been a girl guide for 12 years, decided that they would leave something there to mark they had been there. “Just as a marker. I can remember where I left it then.” So they walked towards the bridge and inspected it carefully. Whilst they did this, however, Charles was surprised when a small note came flying over to them from the forest side of the river and landed just in front of Sarah.

“What’s this?” Sarah bent over and picked the note up, then read it. “‘The first stone will only be found when a new arrival saves someone from his family from death.’”

“That’s strange... a new arrival saves someone from his family from death...” Charles looked at the note.

“What do you suppose it means? Do you think it means us? And what would be the death thing if it is us. I mean... it sounds really ba...”

“MAYBE IT WOULD BE ME?” Sarah and Charles spun around in shock as an enormous, walking, talking eucalyptus tree leered at them angrily.

They were stock still as the tree growled at them fiercely. “WHERE ARE THE STONES?” The tree thundered. Sarah and Charles shook like jelly.

“W-wha- I, what- huh-?!?” Charles almost fainted.

“W-w-we don’t know, h-honestly!” Sarah said in a barely audible whisper.

“I NEED THOSE STONES, AND IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THEM THAN PERHAPS I WILL TAKE YOU INSTEAD!!” The fierce tree grabbed the kids from the ground in a split second.

“Whoa! What are you smoking!?” Sarah screamed. “Let us go!”

“FAT CHANCE, BRAT.” The tree’s branches grew tighter around them. “HOW SHOULD I KILL YOU, I WONDER...? STRANGULATION? CRUSHING YOU? PERHAPS I’LL JUST SWALLOW YOU WHOLE AND LET YOU ROT IN MY TRUNK.”

“Wait! We can’t kill the kids, you moron!” Another voice said. “Our master wants these kids to stay alive for interrogation! Or have you forgotten that with your thin, hollow, termite-infested brain of yours?”

The fierce tree turned around to see another tree, who slapped the kidnapping tree on the back of the head. “Idiot! Threatening to eat these brats. Do you want them to die of fright?!” The new tree grouched in anger. “Let’s just take them back to our camp and then tell our master what we have! Blast us and burn us, you’re going to get us both charred to smithereens if you aren’t careful!” The new tree pushed its’ companion to the ground, allowing the kids to fall out of its’ grasp for a moment. The kids tried to run while they could but the new arrival shot out a root like an octopus tentacle and wrapped it around them. “Blistering burnt bushes, you thought it would be THAT easy you two?!” He sneered.

The kids struggled inside the grasp of the root, because it was really tight. “How are we going to get out of this one!?” Charles asked in shock.

Then, a small rock hit the tree in the face.

“What the!? Who threw that!?” The tree yelled.

The kids turned around to see, up on top of a nearby hill, Nathaniel, with an arsenal of rocks to chuck at the trees. “Don’t worry, friends! I’ll save you!”

The two trees recognized the meerkat and chuckled. “Hah! Nathaniel the meerkat, huh? Where’s the rest of your family, young one? Trying to hide in their dirty home no doubt! What can you do to us to stop us?” They mocked, starting to stalk away with the kids.

“There’s something I know about you. You trees don’t like fire. So I’ll start up a fire in front of you two!” Nathaniel threatened.

The trees looked a bit worried for a moment. “Y-y-you wouldn’t dare! What are these kids worth to you anyway?! Besides, you don’t have anything to start a fire, stupid meerkat!”

Charles smirked. “He might not, but I do!” Suddenly he flicked a lighter out of his pocket he kept for camping trips and managed to throw it to Nathaniel. Nathaniel looked at it a bit confused.

“What does this thing do?” Nathaniel wondered as he fiddled around with the lighter, then suddenly he accidentally lit one of the trees’ feet on fire. This was the one that had first caught the kids and was hanging onto Charles at the time, and he began to jump around in a panic.

“AHHHH!!! Hot hot! Get it off me! Get the fire off me!!!” In his panic, the tree dropped Charles to the ground, who rolled down and landed next to Nathaniel.

“Great work, Nathaniel! My turn I reckon!” He quickly retrieved the lighter and waved it at the trees. The second one holding Sarah blew out the fire on the feet of his companion and retreated with him, unfortunately still holding Sarah.

“Hey! Charles!!! Heellllpp!!!” She cried. Charles went to run after them but Nathaniel stopped him in his tracks.

“Charles, I might need your assistance on this. Think you can help me out on this?” Nathaniel asked. Charles looked back to the direction Sarah was taken.

“B-But they took my sister!! I need to rescue her!”

Nathaniel nodded. “We will, but we can’t do it alone! That’s why I need your assistance with this thing. I know about something that could help us, but you will need to get more assistance from your home if possible.” Charles rubbed his forehead, struggling to think on what to do. It was risky, but Nathaniel was right. They needed more help.

“Ok. What do you need me to do?” Charles asked. Nathaniel smiled.

“That’s the spirit. First, go and get as much help as you can. When you return meet me at the bridge and we will work out the rest then.” Nathaniel replied.

Charles nodded. “Right, I’ll do that right now!” Charles started to head off back along the path that would lead him to the hidden door and back to his house. Nathaniel watched Charles leave, concerned. “I just hope that this goes alright.” He murmured.

Only a few moments later, Charles was making his way along the tunnel, back towards the lounge-room where his brother was, as quickly as possible, “Robert! Get help!” Robert jolted in surprise and sat up. At first he thought it was the TV calling him, but the second voice confirmed it wasn’t.

“Robert, please get help! I need help!”

Robert looked down the tunnel that Sarah and Charles had gone through, listening to the faint clapping of running feet.

Robert dug into his pocket for his mobile phone and switched it on, waiting impatiently for it to load.

“For crying out loud, Robert! If you are still watching TV when I get back, you are going to be in a HEAP of trouble!”

Robert dialed their mother’s mobile number and watched as Charles finally came through the entrance to the tunnel.

“Who are you ringing? Mum? Hang up now!” Charles grabbed Robert’s phone and switched it off.

“You wanted help, Charley. Why can’t I call mum?”

“Because if you call mum and we tell her everything that’s going on, she won’t believe a word of it. Plus, I sorta ... abandonedSarahtemporarily.”

“You WHAT?!? Why on earth did you do that?”

Charles sighed.

“Look. The only way we’re going to get help is to ask some-one who has experience with this house.”

“Mum has.”

Charles groaned.

“I meant someone who has LIVED here for a REALLY long time.”

“Grandparents?”

Charles rolled his eyes. “No, Great-grandmother Helen Rochester.”

Robert chuckled. “And just how do you expect to get there?”

Charles smiled. “I was thinking maybe you could drive us there in your car.”

Robert grinned expertly. “I like the way you think.”

Back in the world of Freiyon, things weren’t going so well for Sarah Rochester. Sarah woke up with a start when she smelt the fire in front of her. She knew straight away she was still in the company of the evil eucalyptus trees. Then she spotted the fire and her nerves got the better of her. She tried to struggle out of her bonds, disgusted by what she thought she saw in the fire.

What if it was human bones? Surely a tree as evil as this one would go straight for people’s bones for fire-wood.

“Relax, young human girl. I know what you’re thinking and you are wrong to fret. I haven’t used human bones to make this fire.” One of the eucalyptus trees walked into the camp, followed by his companion.

“Who are you and what do you want?” She asked them.

Both trees turned and stared at her, smiling at each other.

“I will answer your second question first, young human. We want those rune stones and we know that you and your brother are searching for them too. We also know you have found out where the first one is. So tell us, truthfully, WHERE IS IT?”

Sarah blocked her nose from the tree’s breath and snapped back at it. “I’m not scared of you! I know that this is all some crazy nightmare and that I’m gonna wake up any minute now and you won’t even exist. So go burn your branches, you twisted trees!”

Both trees laughed hard. “A nightmare, huh? Could a nightmare do THIS?”

The tree ripped Sarah out of her bonds and lifted her up to his mouth. Sarah screamed from fear and severe pain. The other eucalyptus tree whacked its partner before it ate Sarah.

“Oy, ash-brain!! Master’s orders are to keep her alive REMEMBER?! You want to cross the master’s path?”

“But Eucalita, she is of no use to us.”

“Don’t make me have a Trengthgrit with you, Ewowan!”

Sarah was dropped to the ground roughly and she ran for safety behind the dead log she had been tied to.

“You wouldn’t DARE!” Ewowan steamed.

Without hesitation, Eucalita flung up the axe he had used to chop up the fire-wood and slammed it into Ewowan. But Ewowan wasn’t going to give up that easily. When Eucalita made the third chop, Ewowan stepped to the side and whammed its leafy fist into Eucalita. This didn’t change a thing. Eucalita didn’t stop hacking until Ewowan shrivelled down to just a pile of chopped wood. Sarah was appalled. They had both fought over just trying to keep her alive, yet she still couldn’t decide if what was happening was real or a nightmare. Eucalita sighed and turned back to Sarah, dropping the axe to the ground in exhaustion.

“You ... you saved my life but k ... killed your partners.” Sarah felt like being sick.

“Master’s orders, child. You were utterly lucky. That was it. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to start looking for those stones. Oh, sorry. You’ll need to stay here while I’m gone, so I will have to tie you up again.”

Sarah was slightly confused about this tree. He was obviously a bad guy, yet he was being as polite as he could be to Sarah. Was it just to please his master, or was it something else?

As Eucalita tied Sarah back up, he asked her again where the stones were.

“Look, you want the truth? I honestly don’t know. Until my brother Robert got speared with a booby-trapped arrow, I didn’t even know about the stones. And yet now all of this has to do with stones. I can give you one thing though. Check our manor, ok? That’s where it all began, and I’m positive the stones are there. Check there and maybe you’ll find what you want. The hidden door is only on the other side of that bridge your partner took me away from. Smash through the door and you can start searching.”

This seemed to satisfy Eucalita because he stood up once he finished tying Sarah up and left the clearing.

Before he left, though, he gave a strict warning to Sarah. “If you are tricking me, girl, you can kiss your life, and your family’s life, good-bye! Got it?”

Sarah nodded and watched as the tree left, feeling defeated inside.

Charles and Robert had just arrived at Helen Rochester’s retirement home and found her in her room, alone.

“Great-grandmother Rochester. Good to see you. It’s me, Charles.”

“Charles ... Of course! I r-r-r-recognize your voice. How are you s-s-s-s-sonny?” She replied weakly, she was now 111 years old, which was astonishing for the children to believe sometimes.

“Not good Helen. Things have been happening to us and we need your help.”

Robert had finally managed to get over to a table and support himself on one of the chairs nearby, puffing from all the hopping.

“What happened to y-y-you, Robert? It is Robert, isn’t it C-C-Charles? I often g-get Robert and your f-f-father confused.”

Charles frowned. Was he the only family member that didn’t know what his own father looked like?

“Yes it is Robert, Helen. He’s been hurt. A booby-trap set up in the manor.”

“My old manor? Oh, dear boy, w-what have you gotten yourself into? This is d-d-d-dangerous, evil stuff you’ve mixed into.”

Charles and Robert sat down and leant close to Helen.

“What can you tell us about the Runes of Rochester, Grand Helen?”

Helen sighed, her eyes clouding over with memory.

“My m-memory is f-failing me, however I r-remember some things about S-Sybil Rochester. Sybil Rochester made the seven stones f-f-five hundred and twenty years ago around the time of King Arthur’s legend flowing around England. He was in England at the time. He p-p-proclaimed that there was another world with talking animals, walking, talking trees and other magical things. He made these stones as a way to find out about that world, and s-s-supposedly the stones could grant wishes too. But then a curse descended upon the family, making anyone that searched for these strange stones m-m-mysteriously disappear. Awful things happened to family relatives, and I thought it would never hurt us when I heard about it. And then, when your grandfather was young, my husband went and tried to find out about it t-too. He almost made it as well. He had told me one night, I can j-just remember, that he was so close that he was sure he was even going to find the first stone. H-h-however, three nights later, I heard a gun-shot and I went to find out what had happened and he was gone. I never s-saw him again,”

Charles stayed quiet for all of this. Was his grandmother referring to the world in which Sarah was now a prisoner? It seemed very likely.

“I realize now that those stones were nothing but e-evil to our family. You haven’t found one, have you?”

Charles nodded and suddenly Helen had pure panic in her eyes.

“You FOUND one?!? Then you are in trouble too! Why do you think the house tried to stop your brother here from just moving a picture? Yes, I know. I knew all along about that hidden box, but I never was able to find the key to open it. So I never knew what was inside.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Charles asked.

“Have you got the stone with you?” Charles pulled it out of his blue backpack.

Helen pushed herself away from the stone in fright.

“You brought it HERE? Why would you do that? It’s meant to be k-kept hidden! Always! Take it back to the house! I’m afraid I can’t help you anymore, boys. I’m too afraid and too old to go back to that m-manor. You must go! Even here there could be spies, evil minds that will do anything to get the rune stones. The rune stone you hold is not one of the ones created for wishes, I can tell. Get it back to the house!”

Robert had already gotten up and was hopping to the exit as Charles thanked Helen, picked up the rune stone, and stood up to catch up with Robert.

“And one more thing, Charles.” Charles swung around.

“Yes, great-grandmother?”

“Well done on f-f-finding that stone!”

On the drive back to the manor, Robert turned to Charles and finally asked what was on his mind. “Can you tell me now what the hell is going on? May I remind you I almost lost my foot because of a booby-trapped picture? This is part of that curse Helen mentioned, isn’t it?”

Charles nodded. “Not just part of it. I think the curse may not have been a curse after all. I think someone else wanted the stones and ...′

“What, and had set those traps around the manor to keep people away just so it was for themselves? Could be, but who?”

“I don’t know. Look, when we get back, we’ll just use the stone in the mirror-door again, get Sarah back and forget this whole thing happened.”

“How can we just forget it happened? You heard Helen. This is a curse on the family, and you can’t defeat curses.”

“Maybe not, but you CAN find the person who created the curse.”

“Right now, I don’t think I want to.”