Hexa Melodies of Peace: First Melody

27. The Desolate Palm

Selena spent the next day inside the zeppelin deck with Seth and Misha. Seth and Misha did take breaks occasionally but Selena didn’t. Worried about her, Seth took some food and water for her but she was too focused on the pictures she had taken from the mummy. Lance had seen the pictures and he would be lying if he said they didn’t seem interesting. Although he couldn’t understand the ancient language that was written, the small pin man-like drawings depicting so many things were curious. Even Rain and Misha couldn’t understand the language perfectly. It was ancient and they had only read the modified and improved version. Seth could read it quite well since he had spent most of his life stealing old scrolls and manuscripts of prehistoric Black Magic. Selena had mastered the language (ancient and modern) thanks to Daemon and Angela.

‘Seth,’ said Lance, ‘can you get Selena out? I wanna ask her a few questions.’

‘I’ll try,’ he said, ‘but why can’t you go in?’

‘I am avoiding closed spaces,’ said Lance, ‘feels like something is closing in around my heart.’

Seth’s smile lost its spark for a moment. He got up and left. Rain and Misha were sitting next to Lance. He had shown some progress in his training. After trying very hard, his face purple from concentration, Lance had finally started firing small lightning bolts. Misha was one hundred percent positive that Lance wouldn’t have had problem controlling his lightning if it hadn’t been for Phantom.

‘NO!’ came Selena’s scream from inside, ‘LET ME GO! I AM SO CLOSE TO FINDING SOMETHING! IF I GET INTERRUPTED NOW I MIGHT FORGET ABOUT IT!’

The door burst open and Seth came walking with Selena on his shoulder. She was punching his back. She was a mess; her hair was all messy, there were dark circles under her eyes, she had ink dots on her cheeks and forehead and it seemed she had been biting the end of her pen; there was ink on her lower lip. She was barefoot and was in her underwear. She had Lance’s white dress shirt on and it was also stained with ink. Her camera was hanging around her neck and she had a crumbled piece of paper in her hand. Seth put her down in front of Lance.

‘WHAT?!’ she barked at Lance.

‘You know it is all fine for you to stay in there and work on the poem but we have been flying without any destination for a day,’ said Lance.

‘SO?!’

‘So why can’t you tell us our next location and then work on the puzzle?’ said Lance, ‘I thought you had made a list of islands we were going to investigate.’

‘I did,’ said Selena, ‘I know.’ She sat down on the wooden floor and rubbed her eyes and massaged her forehead.

‘Then just tell us the place,’ said Lance, ‘you can keep working on the clues we got from the mummy and we can head for that island.’

‘That is what I had thought,’ she said, ‘but there is a problem. I don’t know which island to go to first.’

‘Why not?’ asked Rain.

‘Because at first I had decided to randomly go to each island,’ said Selena, ‘but now I think we should go to the next island after I am done investigating the pictures I got of the mummy.’

‘Why?’ said Lance, ‘we are gonna be visiting the islands on your list anyways. What does it matter if we go to one before the other?’

‘It does matter,’ said Selena, ‘if I can find some reliable clues from the mummy, then we can go to the island which we will be certain won’t be a waste of time.’

She had a point. They all thought in silence for some time. Axel was standing at quite a distance. They could see him shoot looks at them. Guess he couldn’t help his curiosity.