Chapter 7

BreakDown

So on we went. We found out that they were in an abandoned warehouse. The people screaming gave us a clue.

"Aaaaaahhhh!" A lady ran by screaming. "Oh Queen and Princess of Linderwall," she said kneeling. "This dragon is trying to kill me!"

"Just keep running. If it asks you to make a wish, don't." Mom made a look at her like 'if you do there will be consequences.'

"Yes, your majesty."

"Now go, we'll try to stop it, go!" The woman started running, not even bothering to look back.

I looked at mom with a very worried look on my face. She looked back at me, very gentle and very soothing.

We all ran in at the same time.

Ginger and Angel didn't notice us until Derik ran up to Ginger, while pulling out his sword, getting ready for battle.

"Start it!"

I thought for a moment, wondering what he meant. Then I understood.

I took out the book, just as Derik got to Ginger and started fighting, and I started reading it, making sure I could see the dragons face before I did. The spell said I had to.

When I started, I could feel the magic working. I hadn't felt it when I was practicing. I felt weird, like something was happening to me, but I kept saying the incantation.

Meanwhile, Ginger had no idea of what Derik had meant, or what was going on. She just fought the, what she thought to be, annoying prince.

Then she saw Lindy, and knew exactly what their plan was. They were trying to get rid of her. Well, it's going to take more than that to get rid of her.

She pushed Derik and ran after Lindy.

I had just looked up and saw the dragon running after me. I knew Derik couldn't turn around, that fast, and my mom… well maybe she could help me, but not by very much (she wasn't a very good fighter). I wouldn't blame her, we have guards for that, but Ginger still came after me. I couldn't move or stop saying the spell or else everything would be lost. So I stood there, hoping something would happen or that I would suddenly finish.

Neither one happened, in fact, nothing happened. It was actually like time had stopped, in fact it did stop.

Everyone was frozen around me; I could feel it. I knew I had to look around, so I did. It was true! Everyone had frozen in time. I was the only one who could move.

I wondered if I should move, or if it would ruin our plan.

Well, I can't stand here all day with everyone around me frozen. I don't even know how to unfreeze them, I thought to myself. So I took a chance, and walked over to my mom.

Still nothing happened. "Thank the King!" I said aloud. Then I quickly put my hands over my mouth and looked around. "That's good. At least I can talk in here, that is, without anything happening."

I looked around. I was wondering how it felt, to be frozen, I mean. Then I looked very closely. They weren't frozen in time, they were just moving very slowly. So slowly it was like they weren't moving at all!

I looked at the book. Maybe I had said something wrong in the spell. I didn't remember what I had said, so I flipped to the front of the book, the table of contents. I looked for moving slowly or something similar to that. I found nothing.

I thought for a bit. Then I looked up what I thought they were, frozen. Still nothing. I kept thinking. Maybe it's not them. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm moving so fast that it makes them seem slow. I thought for a moment. Then I looked up fast. I found nothing with fast, but I did find something with speed.

It was called "The Magic of Hyper Speed." I found it on page 12. It said that when you're in hyper speed, you're going so fast that anyone around you can't see you, or you think that the rest of them are not moving at all. Well if that's true, than I must be in hyper speed. Well, how do you stop it? I flipped to the next page. I looked and looked, and then I found it. At the top it said 'How to Stop Hyper speed.' I quickly read thought the three paragraphs.

Soon I became very puzzled. I couldn't find the answer to my problem.

All the paragraphs said were directions. Not a spell or anything.

I knew something was wrong. I looked over to the next page, but it didn't say anything either. Then I found it. A page had been ripped out of the book.

Obviously someone set me up. I think to myself. "Someone knew I was going to be here, and knew that I was going to say the incantation for Ginger. But the only thing is how? How did they know this was all going to happen? How did they get me in hyper speed without me saying the incantation? How! How! How!"

"I'll tell you how." A voice, suddenly, came from nowhere.

I thought it sounded familiar, but I couldn't figure it out.

"I'll tell you how," it said again. "I knew that one day you would try to stop the most powerful dragon, soon to be, in the world. So I just had to stop you."

"Who are you?" I asked, puzzled.

"You don't need to know that right now (and you will probably figure it out)," the voice snapped. "Anyway, back to the story about how I stopped your plan."

"When you were sleeping one night I said the incantation making it so that, when you tried to get rid of the dragon, you would disappear, with the book, into hyper speed. Leaving your friends and family behind, wondering what happened to you at the end of your incantation."

"How did you make me get into hyper speed, what spell did you use?" I asked.

"The same one that I ripped out of the book and the one you have to use to get out of hyper speed," it snarled back.

"Where is it?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Who are you?"

"You haven't figured it out yet? I'm the one who you made. I'm the one who you're trying to get rid of. I'm the dragon that will be the first to be the most powerful dragon in the world!"

"Ginger! Send me back, now! Get me out of hyper speed!"

"Now, why would I do that? Good-bye! Forever! Well… maybe I'll come to visit sometimes, since you did help me, by making me, but I'm not really that kind of person." Then she made this laugh that felt like it shook the place, but in normal speed, so I couldn't really feel it.

I never heard her voice for a long time after that.

How do I get out of here? I wondered to myself.

I sat down, cross-legged, and thought. I thought hard. To help concentrate I closed my eyes, and thought. Not about how I got here, or how it feels, or what it looks like. I sat and thought about how to get out of here, how my family would feel if I was gone forever, how Derik would react when he found I was gone, but most of all, I thought about how the world depends on me to help them out of this hole.

I thought so hard it felt like I was rising off the ground, and I was, I just didn't know it.

I started to hum this song I learned when I was a little girl. I learned it from the nurse of the castle. She never exactly told me the song, I just heard her sing it when she worked and I started learning it. I still don't know what it is or what it's called. I just knew it was a soft and beautiful song.

After I was done humming it, I started to whisper it. I remembered all the notes and words to it, exactly. So I sang it, aloud. Still thinking, I knew I would get out of here, somehow, sometime.

I could feel the magic around me, but yet… I couldn't. It was very faint.

A smile crept over my face as I was singing. I could feel something good happening, something very good.

I felt like time was stopping (in hyper speed), but not exactly stopping. Slowing. Hyper speed was slowing down!

I was so happy. But I didn't stop concentrating. I knew it had something to do with what was happening. So I never lost track of my concentration.

It slowed down very slowly. I still thought about how everyone, how they are counting on me, I still thought about how much my mom would miss me, and most of all I thought how much I would miss Derik.

Somehow, I thought he had some way of helping me get out of here. So I thought hard about him and me. I had never thought so hard about something before in my life.

I still sang and I still thought. Then suddenly I opened my eyes and jumped up. I knew I was getting close to real time and I wondered if I could start from where I was on the incantation or would we have to start over.

I could see everyone stare in my direction either wondering what happened to me or wondering what was appearing out of the darkness. Since I couldn't tell how far time had actually gotten from when I got into hyper speed, I guessed they were wondering what was appearing from the darkness.

Slowly I appeared, and slowly their faces became puzzled. I wondered how I did it, how I got out of hyper speed. I thought the song had something to do with it. Then I knew. The song was the spell that I needed!

I couldn't believe it. But, instead of jumping up and down and celebrating, I opened the spell book and got into the position I was in before I fell into hyper speed, just in case I could still go on with the spell. But I soon found I couldn't.

I could hear the voices now. Ginger was so surprised. I gave her a little smile.

She was saying something like, "No! It can't be! How could she get out?!"

Then mom chimed in, "Who is it? What is it? Where did it come from?"

I wanted to yell to her. I tried. "Mom, it's me, Lindy!" I heard my voice pound, but did they hear it?

They must have, because I heard mom say, "Was that Lindy? Lindy, where are you?" Then turned to Ginger, "What did you do to her, or with her?"

"Mom, I'm over here!" I said, waving to her.

All she did was stare.

"How did you get out of hyper speed?" Ginger piped in.

"I sang."

"What? What did you sing?"

"A song I learned from the nurse, when I was younger, probably the incantation to the spell."

"How would she know it?"

"I don't know. She liked to sing it while she worked."

"What was her name?"

"Why should I tell you?"

By now I was fully there. I could see Ginger sneering at me while she said it. "What is her name?"

"Her name was Susan Pickenly."

I stared in the direction of Derik.

"How do you know?"

"She's my cousin," he said.

I was very surprised to find this out.

Not only was I keeping a secret from him, at first, but he was keeping a secret from me as well. He never told me one of his family members worked for me.

"Derik, how did she find that song?"

"She always knew you would like it, the way she sang it. She knew you were trying to learn it all along."

"But how? And how would you know?"

"She'd call me every day and talk to me. She always told me how much you learned of the song that day, or what she thought you learned of it. She new you were learning it, because she was trying to teach it to you, in a way that you would think she had no clue. She never told you what it was called, because she couldn't. If she did, you might not want to learn it any more. But she thought it was so important that you learned it. I guess she was right. Her and her powers were right."

"Her powers?" I asked.

"I'll tell you later. Don't want these people to know." Derik said.

"Oh, I know you didn't just say what I think you said," Ginger growled.

"I think I did." Derik flashed a smile.

"Errrrrrrrrrrrr!" Ginger screamed with rage as she ran after him.

Derik swiftly moved. It was like he was there, but then he was gone, and finally appeared behind Ginger as she ran into the wall.

"Not only does my cousin have powers, but I do, too," Derik said.

"First let's finish this fight, and then let's get on with the story," I said, watching as Ginger tried to run at Derik again. Same thing happened. Derik disappeared and reappeared behind Ginger with Ginger still running past him.

"Right, first they flee, and then us. Now it's our turn. Let's go." He started running to the door. Then the rest of us followed, hoping Ginger and Angel wouldn't follow, and they didn't.

We ran all the way back to the castle, which didn't seem as far as when we ran to the shack. It didn't really seem that far, because I was thinking of how I got out of hyper speed and what Derik was talking about.