The sun was setting on their first day in their new home. Rays of light became dimmer and shadows longer as the sun dipped below the western horizon. Navin clicked on an industrial flashlight and stared into the bright glare it gave off, his face somewhat sad. Memories of his father came flooding back for the first time in almost a year. He was old enough now to understand what death was but still too young to really comprehend it. Karen dug into the box that was marked 'delicate' and found some candles, struck a match and lit the wicks. Then told Navin to turn off the flashlight to conserve its battery.
They laid out their bedrolls and hunkered down in preparation for sleep. Navin sat on his knees and dug into a cup of top ramen, scraping at the stiff paper with his plastic fork to get every morsel of chickeny goodness. Karen pulled her knees up and locked her arms under them. Emily pulled her arms from the sleeves of her sweater and then pulled the front of it down over her legs.
"The power should be back in a few days," Karen said, trying to chase away the oppressive silence. "Until then, it'll be just like we're camping out."
She looked at her daughter. Though neither of her children had answered her, Navin at least had a reason. But Emily looked glum, almost sad, and it worried her. "What's wrong, Emily?" she asked.
A few seconds of silence passed as Emily considered how to answer. Finally, "Why did we move out here? Honestly?"
Karen tried to put on a cheerful face. "I thought you'd like all this nature," she said. "You always loved summer camp."
"Yeah," Emily replied, a slightly complaintive tone to her voice, "but that was only a month. Not, like, forever."
Karen's face hardened slightly, and an edge entered her voice. "Look, I just wanted us to have a new life, leave the old one behind. Is there something wrong with that?"
"Only that we didn't have to come all the way out here to do it," Emily retorted. Then, probably not the best considering the current circumstances, "It's not something Dad would have done."
Navin's eyes widened and he gulped, trying to shrink back and get out of the line of fire of the verbal battle he knew was about to begin. He'd been caught in the middle enough times to recognize the signs.
Karen's lip quivered. "Why do you say things like that, Emily?" she asked, trying to hold her voice steady.
"Because it's the truth," Emily answered.
"Look, I just…I didn't…" Karen lost her composure and began to cry, covering her eyes with a hand and shaking with quiet sobs.
Navin looked at his sister, whose expression had changed from indignation to remorse. Emily scooted over to her mother. "Mom," she tried. "Mom, I'm sorry."
Karen sniffled, took a deep breath, and calmed down enough to speak. "I miss your father as much as you do," she said. "I wish he were here, that I could talk to him." She took a shaky breath. "But more than that, I wish I knew what to do. I whish I wasn't alone."
Emily began to realize that it was partly because of her that they got into these fights. She'd keep her emotions bottled up until she finally exploded. Not in a string of hurtful words and foul language, but thoughtless and emotion-driven statements. She struggled for some-thing to say, but found that all she had was, "You're not."
Karen sniffled again, then looked up and smiled. "Come here. Both of you," she told them. They did as she requested and she pulled them into a hug. "I love you both so much. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you, too."
"You won't, Mom," Emily said. I promise.
They remained in that close embrace for some time.
A couple of hours later, the candles were burning low. Karen had tried to dispel the sadness with stories that brought back happier memories. Navin had fallen asleep by the end of the first and was now snoring like a lion. Karen smiled softly as she pulled the sleeping bag over him, then turned to her daughter. "How are you doing, Emily? Are you warm?"
"I'm good. Thanks, Mom."
"Okay." Karen slid into her own knapsack. "We have another long day of cleaning tomorrow, so get some rest." When this failed to elicit so much as a nod from Emily, she added, "You know, if this doesn't work out, we can go back to the city."
Emily sighed. "It's fine, Mom. I probably just need some time to adjust."
Karen smiled, happy that her daughter was finally beginning to perk up, and laid her head down. Soon she was fast asleep.
Emily lay awake long after the candle had burned down to a waxy puddle, trying to figure out exactly what she'd felt from the necklace she'd found that afternoon in her great-grandfather's library. She held in front of her face, straining to see it in the dim glow from the moon outside. She traced its intricate designs of patterns, turned it over and over in her hand, thinking that looking at it from some other angle might reveal something about it.
After a while, with a lot of wasted effort and nothing gained, she stuffed it back into her sweater with a sigh of frustration and slowly fell asleep.
About two hours later, she began to hear a voice. At first, she though it was her mother's, but noticed as she came more fully awake that the voice wasn't male or female. It was somewhere in between. And dismembered. Emily, it said.
Emily stirred herself and cracked her eyes open. The first thing she saw was a bright pink glow, the amulet hovering in the middle of it. The thing was talking to her! Her eyes snapped open. Her first instinct was to panic, to scream and flail in an effort to scare it off. But as her brain kicked back into gear, she realized that it wasn't threatening her. Rather, it seemed to be trying to warn her.
Emily, it said again. Listen carefully. Your family is in danger. Stay with them.
Safe from what? she asked. The voice fell silent and the glow faded. Wait! The amulet fell against her chest.
Thump! A muffled noise startled Emily back to reality and she gasped, all senses coming to attention. She listened for a minute, and when nothing else reached her ears, she lowered her head again.
Thump! The same sound snapped her head back up.
She heard a gasp that wasn't her own and looked up to see her mother sitting upright. "Did you hear that?" she asked.
Karen nodded. "It's coming from downstairs." Even though she was whispering, the sound of alertness tinged her voice.
Thump! The next repetition woke Navin. "Mom, what's that?" asked the boy.
Karen reached from their flashlight. "I don't know, Navin," she answered as she clicked it on. "I'm going to check it out. You two stay here."
"Heck, no," Emily said. "We'll go with you."
"Absolutely not," Karen replied, her voice layered with authority. "I'm not letting you get hurt if it's dangerous."
"Mom," Emily interrupted. "Remember when I said you wouldn't be alone?" She put a hand on her mother's arm. "I wasn't joking. Navin and me, we're coming. No ifs, ands or buts."
Karen looked at her, then at Navin, who nodded rapidly with a big grin. She sighed in defeat, knowing that her daughter had a point. "Okay," she conceded, "but stay close to me."
They went out into the hallway, the flashlight's powerful beam illuminating the pitch-black corridor. All was silent until they came to the handrail of the foyer balcony. Thump! "Hello?" Karen shouted. No answer. "It's probably just the pipes," she concluded. "Or maybe a raccoon."
Navin was instantly excited. "Raccoon?" Apparently, he thought one of the critters would make a good pet.
The trio descended the stairs. Thump! "Sounds like it's coming from the basement," Karen said. She pulled on the basement door, and the hinges creaked in protest. She looked at her children. "I want you to stay up here, where it's safe," she told them. "If it's really just an animal, I don't want you near it. It may bite."
Emily crossed her arms and gave her mother a look. "What about not being alone?"
"What about it?" This made it clear that the thing making the nose was something she'd rather risk herself with than her kids. "You stay here, and lock this door if I tell you to, okay?"
"But Mom—" Emily whined.
"Just do as I say!" That came out a bit sharper than she'd intended, and she took a breath. "I'll be back when I find out what it is, I promise." With that, she aimed the flashlight down the basement stairwell. Slowly and carefully, alert to any possible danger, she descended into the musty blackness. The smell of dust and years of neglect hung heavy in the air.
Upon entering the basement, she was rather disappointed. There was only junk down here. A bedframe, its faded blue paint cracked and peeling. A freestanding shelf full of dusty books. A stylistic cat's head clock, popular during the '70s. A broken-down washing machine. A decrepit electric stove. Numerous smaller implements of a decorative nature. She swept the beam across the room, revealing more old things of virtually no value. That is, no monetary value, but certainly valuable in other ways.
She sighed and was about to go back upstairs when something else caught her eyes. It was a pale pinkish color, and looked like some kind of tail, or maybe a tentacle. Maybe it was only a tattered length of rope. But the bright color seemed out of place in this dank and dusty basement. She approached to investigate.
Suddenly, it moved, and began to pull back behind the panel of old wood from which it poked out. Karen began to think that it was just a rat or some other kind of rodent that tended to make its home in the dilapidated corners of the world, when the thing it was attached to revealed itself.
Its color faded into a deep lavender from white-tinged edges. It was gaseous and transparent, but had form. It moved like a wisp of smoke, swirling and shifting with the air currents. All this would not have made it half as noteworthy if it hadn't been aware of her, or looking at her with large, slitted eyes. She yelped in fear before she could comprehend what she was seeing.
"Mom?" Emily called. "What's going on?"
Karen's brain kicked back into gear. "Just stay there, Emily!" she shouted, never taking the flashlight's beam from the sentient cloud in front of her. "Get back!" she ordered. Her breathing became quicker. But the thing kept advancing, slowly, like it was trying to catch her off guard. On the edge of her awareness, though, she realized, however dimly, that it was actually pointing to something behind her. "I said, get—" She glanced back and screamed in terror as some octopedal creature with a squidlike mouth enveloped and swallowed her.
"Mom!" Emily took off down the stairs without thinking.
"Em, wait up!" cried Navin as he hurried after her.
They arrived in the basement to find their mother gone and the flashlight on the floor, still lit. "Mom?" Emily called. The sound of a closing door caught her attention.
"There's no one here," Navin observed.
"Something went through that door as we got here," Emily said, pointing the flashlight toward a door in the wall. "I heard it shut." She approached it, took the knob in her hand and turned it. She cracked it open and peeked through.
On the other side was a massive cavern, much larger than the depth of the foundation should have allowed, with a long stairway that slowly spiraled downward. Spiky stone arches stretched out over the steps at three points.
"Mom?" Emily called again.
Aiming the flashlight down the steps, she began to descend, Navin on her heels. They moved slowly, not wanting to trip and impale themselves on one of the numerous stalactites that lined the stairs like a handrail. The enormous space, aside from their breathing and foot-steps, was utterly silent. Emily swept the beam of light across the area and saw a single door at the bottom.
When they reached the door, they felt a blast of cool air. "Looks like there's only one way down," Emily said. She extended her hand. "Take my hand and don't let go." Navin did, and together, they entered the opening.
Inside was another staircase. Partway down, Navin dared a glance back and saw something both fascinating and terrifying. "Em?" His sister looked back.
The corridor was collapsing in on itself, the bricks of its walls filling in the space between. Very quickly. "Run!" she ordered. Navin needed no further encouragement. The idea of being sealed alive in stone was not appealing in the slightest. Hands still linked, they sprinted down the corridor.
They ran for several minutes, adrenaline spurring them onward, the corridor sealing itself just yards behind them. They saw the end and made a mad dash, exiting the tunnel just seconds before it sealed behind them and looked as if it had never been there. Whatever or whoever had the ability to do that must be very powerful indeed.
"Did you see that!?" Navin demanded, gasping. His sister didn't answer. "Em?" He turned around and saw what had captured her attention.
Standing in front of them was an octopedal monster with a squidlike head, beady eyes that glowed white and two rows of holes that ran along each side of its bulbous abdomen. In the center of its tentacled head was a gaping fleshy orifice that dripped with some kind of fluid and had three sets of gummy jaws that pulsed with muscular twitches and decreased in size the further back into the animal they got. The creature was hissing at them.
"Emily!" a muffled voice called out from inside the animal. It was their mom! "Emily, go get help! Don't come near this thing!"
Both Emily and Navin looked on in shock that their mother was inside this hideous crossing of a spider and an octopus. Then Emily bent down and picked up a stick. She wasn't sure she could do any good without a real weapon, but something was better than nothing at this point. Her eyes widened as she perceived the monster change targets. "Navin…" she began. The ugly thing suddenly shot out a hidden tentacle straight at her brother. "Navin, run!" she yelled.
But it was too late. Navin had no time to register what was happening and react before the tentacle wrapped around his waist and lifted him off the ground. Emily jumped up and wrapped her arms around the slimy appendage. She looked the monster square in the eye and shouted, "Let my brother go!" But it simply jerked its tentacle, dislodging her proceeded with its meal.
Navin started to panic, screaming and beating at the tentacle that held him. He even tried biting it, but it was too big for his mouth and the slime that covered it tasted absolutely vile. He looked up and realized that he was approaching its mouth. This thing was going to eat him! The thing pressed him into its feeding orifice headfirst and used its tentacle to push him through its esophagus. He let out a groan of utter disgust and his slid through it. After a few seconds, he emerged inside what had to be the creature's stomach.
"Navin!" a voice cried, and he looked up.
"Mom!" he cried back as he slid free of the thing's esophageal sphincter. "Mom, what's going on? What is this thing!?"
"Don't know, don't care," Karen said simply. "Let's just get you out! Quick, through the hole!" She hoisted him up and pushed while he pulled, trying desperately to free him of this hideously slimy chamber. She felt fleshy appendages brush her back and looked over her shoulder to see several tentacles waving about.
Meanwhile, the spider-octopus thing had set its sights on Emily, and it whipped two tentacles toward her. They grabbed her arms at the shoulders and lifted her off the ground. "Let's go!" she hollered. The thing didn't. "I said…" Her amulet began to glow. "…let go!" The amulet discharged and energy struck the ugly creature in the face.
It dropped her, shrieking, and she hit the ground with a loud grunt and a thump. The energy sparked and zapped as it dissipated. "Emily!" Navin shouted. His head was poking out from one of the holes on its side. The thing turned tail and ran.
"Navin!" Emily jumped up and gave chase, not willing to let this ugly beast claim both her mother and brother. Navin had managed to get his right arm loose, and was now working on freeing his left. Emily sprinted, catching up to it and grabbing his wrist just before her toe caught a rock and she tripped. Her sudden decrease in momentum pulled Navin out of the offensive animal's body. They hit the ground, rolled over the edge and slid down a slope before finally coming to a stop near the base.
The grotesque creature let out a furious screech. "Come on, get up!" Emily ordered, hauling Navin to his feet. "Head for the rocks!" She and Navin splashed through a shallow stream as they raced away, searching for a place to hide. Emily found one first. "Navin, over here! Hurry!" She shoved her brother into a nook and hunkered down beside him.
They heard the giant spider-octopus thing shuffling around and grunting. They didn't know what the sound meant, but they figured it was probably looking for them. It hissed, and it sounded way closer than before. Emily wrapped her arms around Navin as a slimy tentacle slithered over the top of their hiding place. They watched with bated breath as its mouth became visible.
Snap! A noise caught its attention and it turned around, but whatever had made the sound was nowhere to be seen. It walked away, grunt-ing in confusion. "Is it gone?" Navin asked.
Emily peeked around the corner of their hiding spot. "It's still close," she said.
"What do we do about Mom?"
Emily sat down heavily. "I don't know." And she didn't. This was like nothing they'd ever encountered before. Not just that thing, but this whole world was foreign. They might as well be on an alien planet. Suddenly, her amulet began to glow.
Emily, it said in that creepy disembodied voice. It you want to save your mother, then listen carefully. Make you way down the ravine and find the cavern's creek. Follow it upstream until you find the source; there you'll find a house on a stone column. It paused to let her digest the information. Beware the creatures that stand in your way. Whatever happens, you must seek the aid of the man who lives in that house: Your great-grandfather, Silas Charnon. It started to dim. Now go. You've no time to lose. It went dark and thumped against her chest.
"What was that all about?" Navin asked.
Emily peeked around the corner they were hiding behind. The bloated rear end of the thing that was hunting them bobbed and jiggled as it searched for something else, and she took advantage of its distraction. "Take my hand," she told Navin. Her brother did, and they crouched low. "When I say 'go,' we run down the ravine." Navin nodded. Taking one last peek, she saw the monster shuffling around some rocks on the far side of the clearing. "Go!" she whispered.
They tiptoed out of their hiding place for a few yards. Only a few steps later, Emily's shoe slipped on some loose gravel and the stuff crunched under her foot. They heard the creature screech, and Emily yelled, "Run!"
And run they did. Down a very narrow ravine that was just wide enough for the enormous bug thing chasing them. Emily and Navin huffed and panted as they ran for their lives. The clacking noises of the insect thing's legs made it sound even creepier. Soon, they exited the ravine and came to a sliding stop on the top of a cliff. It's a dead end, Emily thought with despair.
Her amulet lit up again. The umbrella mushrooms, it said. Pull the out by the roots and use them as sails.
Sails? Emily asked, not understanding how they could possibly hold their weight. Then it clicked. Parachutes! Working quickly, she crouched down and began pulling on one.
"What are you doing?" Navin asked, his voice panicked.
The gigantic fungus came loose and she handed it to Navin. "Here, take this!" She bent down and started pulling out another. This one came out much more easily than the first. Navin looked back and saw the screeching monster bearing down on them. "Navin, jump!" Emily shouted, but Navin seemed frozen in fear between the monster and the cliff. They couldn't afford to wait. "Jump!" She shoved him off the cliff and jumped after him. They wrapped themselves around the stems of their mushrooms.
Up on the cliff top, the nightmarish creature skidded to a stop and shrieked its rage at its escaping prey. Emily looked back up with a mixed expression of worry and hatred. We'll be back, Mom, she promised.
They slowly drifted down and away from the predator, their paths crisscrossing and they narrowly missed each other several times as they struggled to control their descent. Emily looked over at her brother. "You okay?" she asked.
He nodded. "Yeah." After a few minutes, he began experimenting with control. "Hey, Em. If you lean, you can steer it."
"Great," Emily answered. "Try to keep it steady."
They continued to drift ever downward. It seemed like this was going to be a long trip to wherever the true ground was. They passed another grove of the giant mushrooms. Navin heard something land on the top of his, then a pecking noise. "Em!" he cried. "Something's eating my parachute!"
"Hold on!" she called back. She leaned and steered her mushroom toward his. "I'm coming, hold tight!" When she judged that she was close enough, she flailed her legs at it, trying to kick it off his fungal parachute but missed by inches. The thing squawked angrily at her and flared its wings to make itself appear bigger and more threatening. "Hold on, I'll come back around!" she shouted. The bat-winged, bug-eyed bird resumed pecking at the cap of Navin's mushroom.
Suddenly, her amulet came to life. In about a minute, that conebeak will peck through the cap, the disembodied voice said. When that happens, Navin will fall to his death.
What can I do? she asked.
Use the amulet, the voice answered simply.
Emily looked on in desperate hopelessness. How?
You've already done it once. You can do it again, the voice replied. The amulet glowed brighter. No more fear. Just focus…
She fixed her sights on the conebeak.
…And project that energy.
She shut her eyes tight. The amulet hummed, and an instant later bright red energy arced toward the bird and struck it in the chest. The conebeak shrieked in pain as it was literally cooked alive, then slid off of Navin's mushroom, still sizzling and crackling.
Navin looked at her in utter amazement. "How'd you do that?" he asked.
Emily looked at the hovering, glowing amulet. "I'm not entirely sure," she answered.
"Does this mean you're a wizard?"
"No."
"Wait, a witch. I mean a witch. You're a witch?"
"Stop it, Navin. I'm not a witch."
A few minutes later, they finally met the ground and skidded to a halt. Remember to use this power wisely, the voice said to her. Being a Stonekeeper is a responsibility you mustn't take lightly.
A Stonekeeper? she asked. But the amulet had already gone dark.
Navin looked back the way they'd come. "What do we do about Mom?"
But Emily's mind was elsewhere. She heard light tickling and looked around. A small river was flowing past them a few feet away. "The amulet side to find the stream and follow the water to its source," she said. "We better do as it says."
"How do you know we can trust it?" Navin asked, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. "That voice sounded pretty shifty."
"That shifty voice saved your life, Navin," she told him. "And it's not like we've got many options right now. So unless you come up with a better plan, the amulet will be our guide."
Navin frowned, but followed for lack of a better idea.
They crossed the stream and climbed a rocky slope, then jumped down a short distance after reaching the summit. A few minutes later, Navin saw three creatures munching on leaves. They were small, about the size of a house cat, with stalked eyes and pink in coloration. They would have been normal to look at if they didn't look like a cross between a slug and an armadillo. One was larger than the others: Apparently, the larger one was the parent and the smaller ones the offspring. He tried to pass with an unthreatening gait, but the things' eyes followed him. He became intrigued and looked around for something to feed them. He turned his head and saw a small tree chute just off his left shoulder and pulled off a handful.
Emily, not realizing that Navin had stopped, kept going, all her energy focused on reaching their destination. She was just hopping onto a rock that came up to her knee when the amulet spoke. Emily, it said. She stopped. Don't let Navin out of your sight.
She turned around to find Navin missing and gasped. "Navin!" She ran back the way she'd come and rounded the corner to see him holding out a leaf to one of the pink slug-armadillo things. "Navin, get away from those things!"
He turned his head to look over his shoulder at her. "They're harmless, Em," he said, one of the little animals rearing up to take the leaf he held in its mouth.
"How do you know they're not diseased?" she countered. He looked back at them, and they stared incomprehensibly back, their eyes wide and vacant. "Come on, get up," she said, hauling him to his feet.
"Aw, come on," he complained. "They're hungry."
"How do you know they want leaves?" she asked.
"That's what they were eating when I found them," he told her.
"And how do you know they don't eat other stuff?" She watched Navin intently as his face screwed up in thought. "Remember what King William told Prince Derek in Swan Princess?" Navin nodded. "Things here may not be what they seem. I can't have you getting or hurt on me, now."
The slugadillos watch them until they disappeared, then turned around and started sliding in the opposite direction. They went on for what might be considered quite a distance for them before a hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed the largest one. It shrieked in alarm as it was picked up and held before the face of a young male elf, who looked between it and the other two smaller slugadillos before opening his mouth wide and clamping down on its head.
After a few minutes, he finished his impromptu snack and peered over the low ridge he was hidden behind. A cloud with large eyes swirled behind him, looking where he was. Several dozen yards ahead of them were the two young children they'd been tracking, who seem-ed to be completely unaware that they were being followed.