Jim Armstrong and the Goblet's Curse

Chapter 25: Sacred Dragons Really Love Leaves

I watched the snow whizz by the windows, occasionally hitting the glass and leaving smears of water behind. It was late afternoon, almost evening; the sun was slowly setting, painting the sky in faint shades of orange. I sighed and tore my eyes away from the window to look at the room and it's inhabitants.

Shea was sitting on the bed facing the TV, flipping through the terrible hotel channels. She was staring at the screen with glassy eyes, as if she was seeing it, but not seeing it at the same time. Noah was lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and pulling on each of his fingers so hard that I was sure he was going to break at least one of them. Cecy was walking in slow circles around the room, opening and closing cupboards and drawers with more force than necessary. James was sitting on a chair, throwing a bouncy ball against a wall and catching it, Over and over and over and over again. Where he had even gotten a bouncy ball, I don't know. Davis was sitting on the floor , leaning back against a wall, studying all five of us warily.

Sighing heavily, Shea turned the TV back to CP24, which it had been on for the past four hours. The reporter on the screen was reporting an update about the 'terrifying and harrowing sights witnessed by tourists on the CN Tower Edge Walk.' This was the reason that Shea had starting flipping through the channels in the first place; it was too irritating to hear people talking about our 'crimes.'

It was almost three months into the new year, three months, and we had spent most of that time sitting in this hotel room, waiting for Davis to change his mind and tell us where we could find the Silver Sand. Once in awhile, we tried to work out some other ways of getting more information on the Sand, but to be honest, we didn't have any other real leads. Davis was our only hope, and he hadn't given in yet.

The snow had stopped falling, but the window was streaked with streams of water from the leftover flakes. I couldn't take all this sitting around. Not doing anything left me with nothing better to do other than worry about the students of GreySlash, and whether or not more people had fallen ill because of this stupid curse. I didn't think we would be here for so long. I honestly thought we would have been wrapped up with this Itinere by now and would be back at GreySlash. But here we still were.

The room was in silence except from the constant ramble from the TV, when James finally spoke.

"You realize you could be killing people right now, right?" he asked, his question pointed towards Davis. My interest had been peaked again. I looked towards where those two were sitting. Noah sat up, Cecy stopped walking around, and Shea turned the TV off.

Davis looked up at James, squinting from the bright light of the room. "You realize that I've already told you that I don't care, right?"

"You know, I thought you would be a bit more human," Shea said. "But I guess I was wrong about you."

We lapsed into silence again, everyone staring at Davis. He looked at all of us before sighing. "Fine. There may be one thing that I want from you five."

And just like that everyone was awake and alert. James and Shea hopped off the bed and came to sat in front of Davis, Cecy dropped down to the ground, Noah scooted closer and I jumped off the window seat and wedged myself in between Noah and a cupboard.

"We're listening," Cecy said cheerfully.

Davis rolled his eyes. "One of my best friends is Natural Life Researcher and he collects leaves of trees to study their backgrounds and futures. He's been after the certain leaves of Willomay trees for a while now and he hasn't been able to get his hands on any yet."

"Willowmay tree leaves?" Noah exclaimed. "No wonder he hasn't got any yuet. They're like, some of the rarest trees ever."

"Willomay trees?" I asked. "I've never even heard of those trees."