When a woman moves into the sleepy town, it rouses everyone's tongues to start wagging. She is strange and distant in her manner. Tia Frost is blissfully unaware of the townsfolk's discomfort with her. With Burt at her side, she wonders about the wo...
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I grunted reading it. "She couldn't have could she?"
The man looked at me confused. "I don't know what a poem has to do with anything."
"Janna, can you go into the glove box of Roland's car? There should be a note."
The man looked alarmed. "Tell her to wear gloves."
"Janna wear gloves!"
There was a pause before the radio crackled. "Copy that." There was another pause before she came back. "Mac there was something in there. It says a time for reflection is past, a time to be thankful. What is this?"
"Bag it, Janna. I'll explain it later."
I walked to the boot. "The bag in there."
The man nodded and opened the boot and pulled out the rucksack. He opened it pulling out candles and a knife leaving them in the boot. Finally, he pulled out a drawstring bag that clicked. The bag was the one I'd seen before full of food scraps. "Stop.. open that."
He did and inside were three small stones with what looked like runes on them. I pulled my notebook out and copied the shapes down. The man repacked the bag and placed it back in the boot. "What now?"
"The bookshelves. There's going to be something there to help us."
We both went back into the house and I studied the shelves, It wasn't until I got to the neat shelf that I saw what I'd been so blind to before. There was meant to be a book missing. I pointed to the cover of the book I'd borrowed. "That one."
The man pulled the book out and gave me an odd look. "The sleeve doesn't match the book. It's too big."
"Bring it to the table." He slid the book out of the dust cover.
It was a book on runes. "Right let's find these." I waved my notebook in front of him. As he turned each page the excitement grew in me. He stopped at the first rune. "This one's called Elhaz, it stands for protection, warding, self-defence. It can be reversed. which would mean not protected, vulnerable, a stop in business, or treason in intimate relationships."
"If they mean different things depending on what way up they are how will we interpret the message?"
I was writing it down in my notebook. "We will cross that bridge when we come to it."
One of the other men walked over and saw the runes. "There's someit' like that in the basement."
"Thanks, we will go there next." I said.
Of course... that was where she was hiding The other two runes were Uruz and Raidho. "Can we take the book to the basement?"
"I don't see why not. It sounds like we might need it."
I followed the man down into the basement. There was a book in the middle of the floor open with more runes set around it. I walked to the book and shone my light at them. On the page of the book were the three runes that were in the bag. "Well, this is becoming silly."
