The Silver Owl

17

"Zac! Zac!" I'm almost screaming from excitement, "Pull out the map! See if it matches with anything we see here!"

"Okay, sure," Zac slips my sea green backpack off his shoulder.

He searches for the map my father gave to me, it is still folded perfectly. As Zac opens the map, disappointment falls across his face, and I take it that nothing we see matches with the map.

"Well, uh, they all got trees... The trees are in common, but I don't see anything else that would match, like the buildings. They're aren't many buildings on the map, but this sure looks like a town," A stab of disappointment slices it's way through my heart.

"Oh, okay. Well... um... Jenny- erm- the note, I mean fable thing said north right? Maybe keep going north?" I suggest.

So we do. We go north for a long, long, time, only really stopping to sleep, eat, pet dogs that are out on a walk, and such.

"I swear, when we get back, I am going to run a marathon, just because we walked so much," I tell Zac. Seriously? If we could walk across water, we would've probably walked across the River Alexandra.

"Really? Alright, cool. There's one coming up during the summer. You should do it with me," Zac pats my back. Oh crap. What did I just agree to? Running a marathon with one of the most athletic people at Tamvar?

"Oh- Zac, I was just joking..."

"Oh, come on, Lizzie. To late to back out now."

"I- How- It-" I begin to protest, but admit defeat, "Fine, though I should be able to drop out whenever I want. And you have to go at my pace. If you're gonna do it with me. I am not running however many miles that is at your pace."

"26.2 miles, actually," Zac agrees to my terms and conditions. Send help, please...

"So from here, if guess we try to find Leafcrossing... And whatever that is should be it, right?" I refresh our memories, desperately hoping that what I said was true.

"I think so, that's what I have gathered anyways."

We walk around, asking for Leafcrossing, getting strange looks- which we are used to by now- until a boy, probably ten or eleven gives us an address.

How were kids so much younger than me in on this Leafcrossing thing, and I'd never even heard of it?! Was there a secret clubhouse meeting I missed?!

"Look for the wooden house on Summerstorm. Good luck."

Thankfully, Summerstorm wasn't all that far away. I don't know what town we are in but it wasn't huge.

Summerstorm looks like a ghost town. Many of the house had just been up and left, but as the little boy promised, in the middle of the street was a small dark wooden house.

Zac leads the way, I'm scared. The house barely seems to hold together, and the floor boards creak at we step on them.

"Hello?!" Zac yells bravely, "Is anybody in here?" Although, Zac does not ask it like a question, he makes it sound like a statement.

"I am," A strange voice replies, I almost scream.

"Who are you?! What do you want?!" The voice challenges, it is old and male.

"We are looking for Leafcrossing. Do you know where we can find it?"

"Not an 'it'," the voice tells us, "Him."