The Red Wolf's Daughter (Book 3 Part 2: The Making of the Siran)

Chapter 31

"Hey, Tabitha," I said while I bounced over to her thirty minutes later with Caroline trailing behind me, not saying a word but also hesitating because she didn't like this one bit. "I have something for you."

Tabitha looked up from what she was doing and at me slightly startled but smiled, trying but failing to hide her nervousness, and I couldn't help the frown that flickered across my face before it became neutral. "Hello, Ky," she said while she tucked her head closer to her chest in greeting. "How are you?"

I shrugged and grimaced before I cleared my throat and shifted on my feet, my cheeks turning red. "I have been better," I admitted, "but I am ok."

Tabitha frowned and worry flashed across her face while she nodded that worry turning to concern. She didn't question me, and I had a feeling that she understood that I did not want to talk about it.

Especially with Cooper glaring at me as if I was interrupting an "important" meeting between them...

Tabitha cleared her throat and looked at Cooper before she looked at me while she raised an eyebrow in question. "Now, what is it, Dear?" she asked. "What do you have for me?"

I took the small chest from my pocket, and Tabitha gasped in shock while recognition filled her eyes. "This," I said and held it out so that she could see it. "Do you know what this is?"

Tabitha opened her mouth to say something before she closed her mouth because she couldn't get a word out. She held her hand out, and I walked over to her and dropped it into her shaking hands, her mouth dry.

"What is it?" Cooper asked and leaned forward in his seat. He narrowed his eyes and scowled while he looked at Tabitha and then at me. "What did you give her?"

"It's a small chest," I said while Tabitha continued to look at it and moved her hands across it, and I shrugged and grimaced. "I don't know what it does or anything, but I have a feeling that my grandmother thought it was important, which is why she had given it to me."

"It's an old toy that I used to have waaaaay back when," Tabitha said, her voice barely above a whisper, while she looked at it before she looked at me with tears pricking the corners of her eyes. "It was to help me with my powers when I was a child, and I lost mine around the time she died." Her voice was breathless, and there was a bit of a quiver in it that I didn't like because I did not mean to make her upset.

"Is it dangerous?" Cooper asked, and I bit back a scoffed laugh while I held back an eye roll but scowled. "I wouldn't trust whatever she gives you, Tabitha," he warned, and this time, I couldn't help but roll my eyes at what he said and showed further.

"It's not dangerous, Cooper," Tabitha said with a shake of her head, "and I don't think Ky did anything to it." She moved it around her hands some more before she cleared her throat and looked at me again. "Have I ever told you the importance of it?" she asked, and I had a feeling that she was talking about my version of her.

I grimaced before I shook my head no, my cheeks turning red. "I know that your grandkids get excited when it's their fifth birthday because it means that they get one," I said. "Other than that, I don't know anything about it."

Tabitha slowly nodded before she looked at it again. "Well, there is a prize in here," she explained, "and to get to it, I need to use magic to unlock it."

"The shorter it takes you, then the bigger the prize?" I asked and raised an eyebrow in question, and she nodded in confirmation. "What's the prize?"

"Oh, a ton of things," she said and waved me off with a small chuckle in her voice. "One of them was a little poem that I liked when I was younger. Unfortunately, I do not recall what that poem is."