"Sir they were just greedy men." Wilbert told him.
"Yes they were but we feel that we failed in protecting our community from them."
"So we are going to try it for the next century and when we meet at our next gathering we will discuss this again."
"Yes sir I think that would be best."
This concluded the business part of the gathering and of course we danced.
A few days later we escorted our guests to Montreal and other ports along the St. Lawrence Seaway. Everyone returning to Europe was on one of Pedro's steam ships.
Paddy watched some of the ships set sail. He looked a little homesick when he came over to me.
"You are missing London." I whispered.
"Yes I did not realise how much until now." He put his arms around me. "Watching everyone board the 'Santana' happy to be going back home. Yes Kylie I miss London very much."
"Then hopefully whoever we are assigned to goes there."
"We will not know that for another thirty three years." He sighed.
"That is true but in the mean time we can whisper where we would like to live."
"Now that is an excellent idea." He kissed me. "Time to go home."
We joined up with the rest of the squads and headed home.
A few days later after we cleaned up the cave. The Councils walked onto the main square with a large rolled up parchment paper.
"Kylie, Colleen, Annabelle come help us please."Councilwoman Cleo said.
"Yes Madam." We said.
We handled the roll very carefully.
"All right put it down here." We laid it down on the far side of the square. "The three of you hold down the edge." The Councilwoman asked. Anna, Cassie and the Councilwoman slowly unrolled the parchment. As they unrolled it we discovered that it was a large map of the world.
Everyone was curious and they came to stand around the map. The Councilwoman asked some of them to get some rocks to hold down the map.
After a while the rest of the Councils came and stood around the map.
"Cleo my dear, you did an excellent job on this map." Councilman Klaus complantmenting her. She smiled shyly.
"I am sure you are wondering how we acquired this map." Councilman Klaus nodded towards the map. "The one thing that Franklin and Barkley excelled at was cartography. You might say it was their passion. Where ever they went they always drew a map of their surroundings. This is the result and my lovely Cleo has enlarged it so that it will be easier for us to plan where we will all live."
"Now there will be ten Councilmembers living outside the cave at any given time. Each of us has a marker. My fellow Councilmembers please stand around the map." Everyone placed themselves. "Now on the count of three I would like everyone to toss their marker on the area they would like to live." They nodded."One, two, three."
The markers landed in fourteen different areas Councilman Klaus and Councilwoman Cleo's marker landed close together.
"Interesting. I like how this turned out. One Councilmember in each area except Cleo and I of course. Zeus mark down the results."
"Yes Sir." Zeus was standing there with ink and paper writing.
Everyone took note of where each marker was.
Paddy and I went on patrol with Cassie and Samuel.
We heard Cassie whispering to Samuel. "Did you see where Councilwoman Mary Burns tossed her marker?"
"Yes Love in my grandmother's area."
"We should ask if we can be her Elite Guardsmen."
"Good idea." Samuel whispered.
They finished the rest of the patrol in silence. The family gathered in our quarters for our evening meal that night.
Everyone was unusally quiet during our meal.
Missy was sitting beside her Aunt. "Aunt Cassie why are you not on the Council anymore?" Missy purred.
"Well Missy." Cassie looked at her niece she glanced at Samuel then smiled. "I missed doing patrols and all the fun things I used to do and we were allowed to step down after we served a hundred years actually we are allowed to step down at any gathering we have so that a replacement can be found right away. It is Council law." Samuel was holding his head.
