The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 23

"Jaylon!" I yelled, running back down the stairs with the stone clutched tightly in my hand. "Jaylon!"

I ran into the library and looked around but, seeing no one there, I ran out again. I could hear feet pounding up the stairs and grinned, knowing it would be Jaylon. I ran to meet him, falling against him as I tried to get my breath back.

"Where did you go?" He demanded. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"I found this." I held up the stone and watched his facial expression. At first, he looked confused, and then his face transformed into excitement, then... Fury.

"Louisa!" He said angrily. "I told you not to go up there alone!"

"What does it matter?" I asked, turning away and walking back up towards the library. "I found it, didn't I?"

"Did you touch anything else?" He asked, pushing in front of me so that I had no choice but to stop and look at him. "Anything at all?"

"Only that book up the front, the one listing all the objects," I said, leaning against the wall. I should have known he would get like this. Why did I go up there to get it again?

"Okay," he said, seeming to deflate. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head, a smile slowly transforming his face. "I'm sorry, there's just a lot of dangerous stuff up there. You are pretty amazing, you know that, right?"

I shook my head, but couldn't help the small smile playing on my lips. I let him take me in his arms and hug me, curling against his chest and closing my eyes for a moment, but then I pulled away.

"So," I said, grinning as I held the Bloedzoeker stone up. "Are we doing this or not?"

"Not just yet," Jaylon answered. "We need to read up on it a little more, make sure it's safe and we know how to use it right."

"Aren't there like, instructions?" I asked. "Or a step by step guide to using the bloedzoeker?"

"I wish." He laughed. "No but seriously, we can't just mess around with this. It could be dangerous, it was on the top floor for a reason."

"And that reason was..?"

"Well, I actually might have an idea," he said slowly. "But you're going to need to help me with it."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Have you seen in your family section the collection of books that previous generations have used to document things they found and just like, all kinds of things?"

"I may have seen a couple," I said, glancing up to see that we had started down the stairs without me even realizing. "Why? What's in them?"

"Well, I've read all through like, all of my families ones in the time I've been here and there was this one entry I found talking about the Sylvester family, your family. I think it mentioned something about this, about the bloedzoeker."

"Did it say how to use it?" I asked quickly. "Wait, didn't the book you found in the library tell you how to use it?"

"Mine just mention that someone in your family was doing something with it. And the book in the library? More or less," he frowned. "But reading it from someone we can trust that has experienced it would be much better. I'll find the book my ancestor wrote it in and you can get your from around the same time period."

"Can't we just use the stone?" I asked as we reached the bottom of the stairs, my voice coming out sounding like a whiny child.

"All in good time." He chuckled and wrapped his arm around me, leaning over and kissing the side of my head.

"So, to the chambers then?"

He nodded. "To the chambers."

I waited for Jaylon in the circular room with the twelve doors while he went in to get the book, which seemed to take forever. When he finally came out with a very old looking leather bound book in his hands, I got up hastily from my seat on the floor. We had agreed that the bloedzoeker had to be kept safe, so he had taken it with him into his family chambers and left it there.

"Here," he said, handing me the book. "See there, on the spine. This is the book from 1824 to 1856." He sat down on the floor, placing the book in front of him and opening it up. "This is the entry I was talking about," He said, finally pointing to a jumble of words after flicking through countless pages.

I leaned over his shoulder, making out the words on the page. The entry that he was pointing to was quite short, and it didn't take me long to read.

March 17, 1826

We as a coven long ago decided to never use dark magic, but blood magic is a different matter, is it not? When one's children are missing, I'm afraid it calls for desperate measures. The others do not agree with Julia Sylvester and me, though we amongst the coven have used blood magic in the past. They do not approve of myself and Julia using the Bloedzoeker Stone. But their children are not missing, as ours are. Julia is taking control, as she must, as she does best. I put my trust in her to bring our little ones home.

"Their children were missing?" I murmured.

"Yes, I suppose so, but they found them using the Bloedzoeker. There's an entry a few weeks later." Jaylon flipped some pages and pointed at another.

April 6, 1826

Once again, Julia has succeeded. She has proved to all the coven that we did no harm using the Bloedzoeker stone. It was the only way that this was to be done. Our children are home, we could not have found them any other way.

"Wait so, these books are like diaries?" I asked, straightening up. Jaylon shut the book with a dull thud and stood as well.

"Well, not really," he said. "They're usually used to document magical findings and new spells and things, but at this point, my dear ancestor Cynthia Henwood was rather upset about her missing child."

"So I need to find my book like that from 1826?"

"That's the one." He grinned. "And after that, we can start using the bloedzoeker."

I smiled back, but it wavered as I remembered a previous conversation.

"Jaylon, please let me help look," I said. "Don't make me just stay here and train."

"You can come sometimes, but it can be harmful to others and, more importantly, to you if your powers get too much for you to handle."

"But they won't!" I exclaimed. "Jaylon I thought about it, and I was in control, I just don't know how I did it. I was wishing the bookshelves would disappear so that I could get to my brother faster and that's why it happened. I don't know why, but it-"

"Hey, hey, calm down," Jaylon smiled warmly and grabbed my hands which I had been waving around frantically as I tried to get my point across. "I believe you. You can come on at least some of our little expeditions to find everyone." He leaned forward and kissed me before I could say anything more, his lips lingering on mine. "That's all you'ree getting for now. Now go find that book."