When The Bell Tolls (Darra Blackwell)

CHAPTER SIX

I finally don't have to wear the arm sling, though I barely wore it to begin with because it itched and made almost everything impossible for me. That's probably the best news I've heard since I came to Australia. My arm doesn't hurt much anymore, which is a bonus. It just sucks that I won't have time to enjoy being without the sling because I'm going to die sometime on this trip.

I have to live the best life I can in a few short days, right?

Right!

Not really. I can't spend the time I have left with my family back home. At least I'm with Lia, but do I really want her to see me die? No. She's my best friend, and I want her to have a happy life after I'm gone. Seeing me die would obviously wreck her life. She'd be way too traumatized to get on with the rest of her life. What can I do about it, though? 

In my pocket is a sticky note where I wrote the riddle on from memory since Darra has the original copy. It crinkles every time I take a step toward the River City Museum with Lia. It's a bright, sunny day outside, and a soft breeze blows through the snowy streets. Thankfully for us, it isn't cold enough to take a taxi to the museum. But I'd much rather stay inside than venture out into the world that is actively trying to kill me.

Knowing that the riddle is in my pocket makes me feel so much heavier than normal. It's like it is weighing me down. I don't understand anything about the riddle, so I'm hoping that Darra figured it out already. If he did, though, he would have come and found me and told me the answer, which means he didn't figure it out yet. 

"You've been thinking for a while," Lia says, interrupting my racing thoughts. I look over at my best friend to see a worried look on her face. "What's going on?"

"Nothing much," I say, shaking my head. I want to tell her everything about what's going on, but magic isn't known in everyday life. She would think I'm making it all up, that my imagination has finally run over. "I'm thinking about my run-in with your family's bookcase, but that's about it."

"I can't believe that it fell over on you," she says, laughing. "You know how many times Mom, Dad, and I stayed over there and nothing like that happened?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." It wasn't my fault that the bookshelf fell over. It was the magic that was attached to the bell I tripped over on my first day here that made it fall on me. "Not really my fault since I didn't even touch it, but whatever."

Thankfully for me, the museum is directly in front of us, so we don't have to talk about the falling bookshelf anymore. She's too busy looking at the large building rising up out of the ground to notice how uneasy I feel about this whole situation. It was her idea to come to this place without the rest of her family since they already had something planned without us today. 

The two of us walk up the stairs to the museum, and I hold the door open for her. The main atrium of the museum is large, with vaulted ceilings and an enchanting staircase directly in front of us that swirls up to the next level. A large statue of a man holding a bow and arrow reaches toward the second floor. This place is so beautiful that I forget for a minute that my life is on the line right now.

"Whoa," Lia mutters as we walk up toward the gigantic metal statue. "This place is awesome."

I scan the words about the statue and realize that it's a statue for an Aboriginal man, one of the important native people to Australia. It gives the backstory for this man and the tribe he's from, but I'm too busy looking at a familiar boy to care about what the words are saying to me. Standing in between the statue's legs is Darra Blackwell, the elf that is trying to help me with this curse. I have no idea what he's doing here, either.

"I, um, have to go to the bathroom," I announce to Lia suddenly. "I'll be back in a minute, okay?"

"Okay."