A/N: First things first, replies to all the reviews I got!
etsuko: yeah, I can't belive no one submitted one before now! Anyway, thanks for reading! And of course reviewing.
simply just being: Yes, I thought so too. I'll have to show that review to the person who wrote it ;) (notice in the first chapter where I said I didn't write it)
almostinsane: Thanks for the R&R!
Dvlsadvocate: Done ;)
bribegula: Thanks for the r&r, and the constuctive criticism.
LittleOneOfDoom: thanks for reviewing!
Maybelline1802: First Review! Thanks!
Well, hopefully all of you got to see your name in bold, which I know is just so exhilerating. So, now to the story!
Chapter Two: Signs
The Shadow jumped back as the car hurried away. Landing him self in a pile of mud in the ditch near the side of the road. He slid for a split second and fell down.
Now covered in mud, he sat up and looked around. He seemed to blend in with the night's darkness, for he was only a shadow, a very dark shadow.
Mo was up to 60 miles per hour on a neighborhood street. Scared that if he stopped, The Shadow would appear in front of the car, once more, with matches. He was frightened. What might happen to Teresa? Or Meggie? Or… me? He could kill us all if he wanted to and, if he wanted to, he could do it fast.
Teresa noticed Mo in panic and rubbed his shoulder, trying to soothe him and get him back down to legal speeds.
Mo felt better as he felt his wife try and calm him down, and he looked back at Meggie in the mirror and saw her reading her favorite book that Elinor had given her. So he looked back on the road, knowing that his wife and child were both calm.
A few minutes past and everything was calm. His wife was slowly falling asleep and his daughter was still reading the poem book. He felt a slight sense of safety for a second. And then it happened.
WAM!
His car slid to the left of the road, then to the right. The wheel was moving like it had a mind of its own and Mo couldn't stop it.
Finally the car pulled to a screeching halt and all was quiet. Meggie was looking out the window in horror, not able to speak.
Teresa was staring at Mo, wide eyed. Of course, she could never speak ever since the day she had disappeared, but she was still speechless.
Mo was holding the steering wheel with a tight grip. Finally, he let out a long sigh "What else could possibly go wrong?" he grinned as he spoke those words, knowing that anything could happen when people can read beings out of books.
He opened the car door slowly and went to the other side of it. He reached down and started feeling around at the bottom of the car as if to try and find something. His hand stopped moving, he must have found what he was looking for, thought Meggie who was staring at him from in the car. She unbuckled her seatbelt, opened the car door, and rushed out next to her dad.
He opened the side of the car and lifted it up.
Meggie stared at the side, shocked. "Um… we had a compartment there?" she whispered to him.
Mo never looked up, but whispered back "Yes, but only for emergencies. I had it put in after I had read Capricorn out of the book. I was scared, but I knew this would help me a little if I tried to get Capricorn back in his place. I'll tell you more in the car" He rushed around to the side of the car and opened the glove box. A key was inside. Grabbing the key, he rushed back to the secret compartment.
Meggie started to walk a few steps away from the car. Not knowing why she was doing this, she looked around fast.
OW, she thought as her foot hit something and she tumbled to the ground. Standing back up quickly, she felt around for the thing she had hit. Her fingers felt something hard and she picked it up.
Meanwhile, Mo opened the compartment box, grabbed a flashlight, a lantern, and some food and slid the box back in place before locking it. He pulled down the lid and looked at the black figure that was Meggie. "Meggie?" he called out, facing Meggie, who was a few yards away.
"Yeah?" she called back.
"What are you holding over there?" he asked when he saw something in the black figure's hands.
"Come help me bring it to the car and I'll tell you." She smiled, bringing it to the car. "Just kidding, I'm not that weak." She smiled again as her father turned the flashlight on and shined it on the, what seemed to be, plywood.
Teresa looked back in her seat, studying the two, and quickly deciding to get out. She walked to the side of the car and stared at the wood, noticing some strange markings on a side that Mo and Meggie weren't looking at.
"Looks like some plain wood." Meggie said quietly.
"It does, but for all we know, it could be anything or have anything on it."
"True, but what"
Teresa walked closer, hearing that, and pushed the plywood over, almost scraping the paint of the car, but flipping it nonetheless.
Meggie looked down and her eyes lit up. "It is more then just a plain piece of plywood."
"But you-" Mo started and stopped. He wasn't going to get annoyed with his daughter. He never would do that. But before he hadn't had to stop himself from getting mad, he simply just didn't get mad at all. The pressure was weighing him down. An unusually new thing to him since pressure hasn't gotten to him before either.
Mo studied the wood hard, trying to decode the letters and symbols, but with no luck.
"It looks like some sort of writing in Chinese" Meggie whispered, still staring hard at the wood.
"It's not Chinese, Meggie, but I don't-" her father paused for a second and she stared at him, "know what it is…"
Teresa went over and touched the wood, fingering the markings and trying to understand them. As she felt them thoughts were racing through her mind and she trembled.
Meggie knelt down beside her mother and studied the wood with her. She touched and read and flipped it upside down.
She felt like she'd checked everything. She felt like this wood was nothing but junk that needed to be thrown in the trash.
And then she turned her head and let out a small gasp.