Search for the Crystal Key (A Continuation of Dark Escape)

Chapter 6

Tara was so absorbed in her reading that she didn't hear Brandon climb the stairs. Assuming he was in bed she'd taken the servant's stairs to the kitchen and hadn't bothered to check the rest of the house before heading back to the den with tea in hand.

"You're up late," Brandon drawled lazily as he leaned his tall muscular body against the door frame.

"Did I wake you?" Tara asked in a voice just above a whisper as she gently closed the book and carefully set it on the antique side table next to her winged back chair.

"I'm a little big for that fainting sofa. I thought I'd try a bed instead," he said while rubbing and flexing his neck for emphasis. "What were you reading?" he nodded his head toward the book

she'd just set down.

"I was seeing if I could find anything in this book about the shadow people," she replied hesitantly.

Although she knew he'd understand about the book and its contents, she remembered all too well Maggie's warning about allowing other people to handle it. After not heeding her warning about reading from the book haphazardly and calling forth the dark side, she had no intention of disregarding her words again.

"Really? What kind of book is it?" he asked.

He started toward the book, but stopped when she laid her hands possessively over it.

"I'm sorry, but this book was given to me by Maggie with the strictest instructions that no one was to read from it, but me. Not even Dennis," she explained.

Brandon's gasp was sincere while his hand flew to his mouth.

"You have the Book of Secrets," he whispered.

Tara was astonished.

"How did you know that?" she asked.

"It's a long story that I may tell you someday. For now, just look at chapter twenty-seven," he said eagerly. He positioned himself comfortably against the dark, freshly polished wainscoting covering the lower half of the wall. "I'll wait here."

Eyeing him suspiciously, Tara opened the book to chapter twenty-seven and started reading.

There are many dimensions belonging to the planet we live on. These dimensions contain various forms of life. Some are of a brilliancy that would blind the naked eye like the sun and others are of shadows that blow in the wind. It is of these shadows in the wind that we focus now, for they are of the shadow people in a land called Shadow Land. Knowledge is power over these people and protection against them as well. The shadow people live in a world very different to that of man, yet similar. At one time, they were the extension of man. Every human who walks the earth has a shadow side. These shadow sides do not always stay in synchronistic growth with their human counterpart, thus separating themselves from the brightness and taking on a persona of their own. Because they lack light, they prefer the presence of creatures that dwell within the darkness. Thus, the shadow people are a misguided lot who cannot be trusted and are often times of evil persuasion. On occasion, they find a portal into the human's world and steal away the unsuspecting, taking him back to Shadow Land to attach one of their own for the purpose of using that connection to assist evil with its quest of taking the world over completely. Many humans who have gone mad and committed heinous crimes for seemingly no reason have, in fact, been possessed by one, or more, of the shadow people.

Tara couldn't believe what she read. Here before her was the answer to Dennis's disappearance. She frowned at the time she wasted searching the library when it was in the book the entire time. Her mind snapped back to the realization that she directed to this information by Brandon and she scowled.