The Book of Arenden

❀ Two ❀

❀ Two ❀

"What in the world is the meaning of Arenden?" Caith mumbled to herself, quiet enough only herself can hear. "It seems old fashioned. 'The Book of Arenden', you are playing jokes on me," she continued to mumbled. And laughed softly to herself.

Frana heard the mumbles but she can't heard the words clearly enough. She stared at Caith as she continued to talk to herself. Frana then frowned after Caith laughed to herself.

"Stop doing that, it's freaky. Are you making new friends with spiders?" Frana spoke. She had got everyone's attention on her. Caith looked at her and narrowed her eyes at Frana.

"I do not make friends with spiders," she denied. Frana shrugged.

"Then why are you talking to yourself?"

"There was this book I found here. I never seen it before." Caith stared back at the old brown book she had yet to touch.

"What book?" Raylene spoke from the corner.

"The Book of Arenden." Nea scoffed and laughed.

"What kind of name is that?" Asked Nea. She looked to Ella's direction. "I didn't know you collect books with cliché titles." Ella was staring at Caith who was still had her eyes on the book.

"Bring it here," Ella said simply before she sat down on the already-clean-sofas. Caith took a hold on the book before she climbed down the stairs. The others got the message and gathered around beside Ella. She was sitting on a sofa which a coffe table was in front of her.

Caith came as dropped the book to the table and that resulting a cloud of dust fly over them. All of them coughed. The other gave Caith a glare and she just gave a laugh.

"Haha, sorry. It was heavy."

Ella shifted her attention back to the book. 'The Book of Arenden'. She had never seen this book before nor she ever knew this existed. "Where do you find this?" She asked Caith. She shrugged.

"I don't know, I found it on the top of the shelves. It was cover with white sheets and I took it off. So that's how I found it," said Caith.

The book was big. It was old looking brown book. She traced her fingers to the words before deciding to open the book. She sensed the others watching her intensely before she hold the edge of the front cover and opened it.

It won't budge. Ella frowned in confusion. She hold the front cover and the back cover and opened it. Still, it won't budge. Frustrated, she tried harder.

"What in the world? So much for the dramatic scene," said Caith and snatched the book away from Ella. She forced the book opened. Caith gripped the front cover and Nea gripped the back cover.

"This is ridiculous!" Nea grunted. "It was like opening a big block of woood-Ah!" Caith's hands slipped and she let go of the front cover. Nea fell on her butt and she glared at Caith.

"Haha, sorry. I slipped," she said showing her hands.

"Oh really? I can't tell," said Nea sarcastically. Caith shrugged.

Raylene snatched the book from the floor and examined it closely. "Do you know this book, Ella?" She looked at Ella but she just shooked her head.

"I didn't even know that book even exists in this house."

"Maybe," said Frana as she snatched the book from Raylene's hands. "Mrs. Silverwolf knew about this."

Ella thought about it for a second before she snatched the book from Frana. "I doubt it."

"Why? It was her house. She should know this."

"Hey, not everyone knew about their own house, you know," said Nea with a devilish smirk. Caith had already helped her back to her feet.

"What do you mean?" Asked Frana.

Nea nudged her head towards Caith and Raylene. "They don't know that we bought kittens to our apartment."

"Oh yeah, forgot to mention about that."

Caith frozed. "You bought what to the apartment?" Raylene breathed out. Caith didn't say anything. "Where is it now?" She looked around the room as if the kittens would jumped out of nowhere in any second.

"Oh, I told Marie to take care of it."

"You-"

"Guys," Ella cut Raylene's sentence off. She placed it back to the coffe table. Somehow, that made them quiet and all of them were staring at the book, not knowing what to do.

"Hey, look at that," said Frana as she pointed to something on the book. She was pointing on the word 'book' specifically on one of the letter 'o'. All of them looked closely and saw that there was a hole in the middle of the 'o'.

The words 'The Book of' were in a smaller font than the word 'Arenden'. And the word 'Arenden' was covering the whole book so they didn't noticed the hole before.

"A hole? Why in the world there's a hole in the middle of the 'o'?" Asked Caith.

"Not just any hole," said Raylene. "It was a heart shape?" She said unsure.

Ella examined it more carefully. The heart shape was so familiar. Like she had seen it before. Ella suddenly have a deja vu of her grandparents holding something heart shaped.

Her hand automatically went to the chains of her necklace. She pulled it off from its hiding place-that is, beneath her shirt-and pulled it off from her neck. The others stared at her confused. Once she loosened her grip on the necklace, she dropped it to the table.

Frana gasped. Ella wasn't sure if it was from excitement, scared or something else. The others were quiet as they stared at the necklace which had a gold heart shape charm.

"Would it fit?" Frana whispered. Caith lightly smacked Frana's head. "Cut out with the dramatic scene," said Caith. Frana frowned at her.

"I guess we have to find out right Ella?" Asked Nea. Ella looked at them and saw that they were waiting for her to do something.

Ella took the necklace in her hand and let her other hand traced at the hole.

"I said cut out with the dramatic scene already!" Caith's voice made Ella jumped. She sighed and mumbled,"impatient girl." But she listened to Caith anyway and placed the heart-shape charm necklace on top of the hole.

It fits.