Chapter 4
A Guarded Secret
"Wake up, Charlie."
Charlie woke up to find that Emma and Olivia were standing over him. He looked at the very peaceful and beautiful wedding scene.
"Hey, where's the fire, the chaos, the-"
"Oh Charlie you must've dreamed that. You were asleep through the whole wedding," explained Olivia.
Emma said in a excited voice, "Charlie now we're cousins."
Charlie pondered on that sentence. This would be a weird summer after all.
Meanwhile, in a hut in the woods, Klaus was glad that he had gone by his instinct. He gladly accepted the company of the Sparks and the "other" Bloors. They were kind, generous, and genuine. They had nothing bad to hide about themselves. Klaus was helping Naren one night when, all of a sudden, a wolf jumped out of the bushes and into the camp. The wolf somehow put out the fire and ran in the darkness. Samuel Sparks came out of the hut when he heard the noise outside. He was about to hurl the rock in his hand when he saw the familiar wolf face of Asa Pike.
Samuel immediately took the wolf Asa into the camp. Everything was back to normal in a few minutes after cleaning up. Inside the hut were Bartholomew Bloor, Naren's guardian, Samuel Sparks, and Asa. Samuel turned on the light so that Asa could change back temporarily to his human form. Asa changed and got right to the reason he was in the hut and back in the city.
Charlie woke up to a strange noise coming from his closet. He got up and looked in his closet to see what woke him up. Inside the dark closet was the ancient painting of Skarpo, the wizard. Charlie wondered if the painting had caused the disturbance. He knew that it would be risky to go inside the painting, but he would have to if he were to figure out if Skarpo caused the noise. So he went into the painting.
Klaus entered the hut. There were three people huddled together in a small circle. One of them, Bart Bloor, gestured for Klaus to enter the circle. Naren also joined the circle.
In a very hushed voice, Samuel Sparks explained,"Now, listen. Asa came back because a clairvoyant told him a prophecy she dreamed. She said that:
Fire will burn kin
An ancient power will return
And in the darkest hour
Light will come from within.
Klaus was totally clueless on what Samuel had just said. Naren looked the same way. Samuel obviously saw this because he started to explained the prophecy.
The inside the painting was the same as before except that the white wand wasn't on the table. Skarpo walked towards Charlie with a large, golden key in his hand. Charlie wasn't sure that he should accept something from Skarpo, especially after the disaster with the weather last time.
However, Charlie was rather curious about the key that Skarpo was about to give him. So he moved with caution towards Skarpo and the key. Skarpo dropped the key into Charlie's hand and turned around. Charlie was about to leave the painting when Skarpo screeched a word and from seemingly nowhere hundreds of little bats swarmed Charlie.
Klaus was watching the stars outside in his sleeping bag. He had read several books on astronomy and the constellations and tried to find them. Naren was lying beside him and was looking at the stars but in a different view. She saw the hundreds of little lights in the sky, each unique and special.
Chapter 5
The Dead Man's Grave
Charlie woke up strapped onto a table surrounded by candles. He looked around at where he was. He saw that he was obviously still in the painting. The table with the mysterious objects was in front of him so Charlie was behind the place he started. Skarpo appeared from nowhere and gloated in front of Charlie's face.
"Thought you could just swipe the Golem Key away from me? Well this is what happens to scum."
Skarpo waved his hand in a gesture and suddenly out of the shadows, a dark cloud appeared behind him. The dark cloud slowly formed into the shape of a horse. The cloud then galloped towards Charlie. It was wrathful with red eyes that glowed like coals on its dark black body. As it came, Charlie felt an odd sensation and saw his vision darkened to a black void.
Klaus had just woken up from his slumber when he heard the strangest noise. There was a faint groaning coming from inside the blue tent.
"That's odd," Klaus thought, "I didn't see a blue tent last night."
He crept quietly and slowly opened the tent flap. Suddenly, a horrid, ugly face jumped out at him.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Klaus screamed in shock/surprise.
To Klaus's relief, the ugly face was just a Halloween mask and underneath the mask was the friendly face of Naren. He chided Naren for scaring him but at the same time he laughed right along with Naren.
Charlie woke up in a dark place. He was lying on a damp dirt ground. He looked around and realized he was in a graveyard. He backed away from the frightening headstones and hit something hard. He turned around to see a headstone with a name that scared the sense and nonsense out of himself. The headstone was etched with the name Charlie Bone.