Jinxed

Chapter nine: suffice it to say

Chapter nine: suffice it to say

I don't own fablehaven

Seth turned the page. The other side of the cover was shown. He nearly screamed in relief. His eyes were sure to pour out of the sockets any second now. His hand shifted over to his pile, but there wasn't any left. There wasn't any left! Hallelujah! Seth was going to make sure no one else was going to pile books on him. Kendra had been nearly done herself and Seth had gotten the lovely job of reading Patton drone on about how perfect Lena was. If that hadn't been enough, he had been given one of the books from grandpa's study. The guy was even more boring. He didn't do anything cool. Entry 31: things were fairly quiet 'round this preserve. I delivered the milk to the immaculate fairies and did the other chores which consisted of things such as checking on Viola the milch cow and dealing with the dryads. Then it was dinner time and I opened a can of soup that hadn't gone bad yet. Sheesh. How did this one make it up to the study? Sure it told of the different inhabitants of Fablehaven but most Seth had never heard of or they had disappeared. Like what was a Parrion? It had only been described as "a small creature who extraordinary healing abilities. The nasty little fellows seemed to be if a brownie had gotten of the wrong foot"

Wait a minute.

Seth opened the journal Kendra had given him. Something was nagging at him. He had heard about those someplace else. He scanned the pages reading past Patton's blunder with the naiads and all the lovey-dovey stuff. There! He had mostly skipped over this area while occasionally peeking at words to see if anything held legit value. Seth read slowly.

I had taken Lena out on an exploration of sorts. She was always asking to be brought along to insure my safety. I normally had to refuse. How could I be responsible for an injury that fell upon her? This day she insisted and I hadn't the heart to turn her down. That was my mistake.

After dealing with the minor inconveniences the trolls brought, we were heading home when Lena said she wasn't feeling well. We picked up the pace but Lena didn't make it to the house. She had collapsed on the ground and didn't give any slight movement. I was worried. I brought her to the house and the next few days tried everything I could to wake her up. None of it succeeded. I came to a decision. I had once heard about a cousin species to the brownies. The group was called the Parrions and legend had it that they could brew all sorts of concoctions. It was also said they were extinct, which I hoped against hope wasn't the case. I headed off into the preserve, and after a little fudging my part, was able to find the entrance. Now this is information which I dare not expose, else it gets into the wrong hands. I had learned that they were the last group in existence what my luck. I struck a deal with the Parrions. In exchange for Lena's well being, the Parrions had asked me what I thought the worth was. We further bargained and I can say no more due to our contract. Suffice it to say that if an hour of much need were to arrive, one could always find help.

The passage ended and Seth wondered how he had missed that. What was Patton talking about? One could always find help? Wasn't that from some movie? If Seth ever became a world-wide adventurer, he vowed to say exactly what he meant.

Hold on, did that mean Kendra have what Lena had? Seth wasn't so sure. Lena had felt strange before fainting. Seth wasn't sure what Kendra felt but she would've called someone. Seth shook his head. They could find out the reasons later, Now was time for action.

"Grandpa! I've found something!"

No one heard anything. At least, that's what Seth assumed by the lack of footsteps. He got up from the ground and said the same thing louder. Seth was starting to panic. Where were they? Seth walked down the hall and into the kitchen. Gone. He started up the stairs. The first room didn't have anything.

"Grandpa!"

"Seth?" Thank goodness. Grandpa stepped out into the hallway looking concerned. "What's wrong? Has anything happened?"

Grandma put a hand on his shoulder and gestured for Seth to say something.

Seth walked into the room with them. He opened the book and started flipping through pages. "I found something. Here, look." He pointed to the passage. He'd fill in Bracken and Tanu later.

Grandma's eyes grew large. "Seth...this is..."

"Wonderful," Grandpa said. "But we must find the location. If I'm correct, then there are two separate reasons as to why they both fainted. Patton and Lena lived several years ago and something like this would have likely broken out before. Patton himself was fairystruck, it would've made more sense for him to faint if it was do to the plague."

Was Grandpa saying that Kendra was cursed? She'd go mad? Seth realized Vanessa was right when she had told Kendra that she too would know soon enough. What other things had they missed?

"Well, What are we going to do about it?" Seth asked.

Grandpa eyed Grandma before sighing. They seemed to be having a debate through their eyes. Seth began tapping his foot.

"I don't know. There is...one thing we can try but I don't like it. I strongly don't like it."

"We've got to try something!"

Grandpa began pacing in his I'm-making-a-plan-and-we're-going-to-win way, which was quite different then the Seth-Michael-Sorenson-What-have-you-done?! pacing. Grandpa shook his head several times.

"We're going to need to change the locks and shift the location of several things." Pace, pace, pace.

"Why?"

"We'll need to make sure you don't know anything valuable." Pace, pace, pace.

"Wait what?"

"It'll take some time, but I believe that is time we have time for...barely." He stopped pacing.

"Would you just tell me what's going on!" Grandpa turned to him, expression solemn.

"Why, you ask? Because Seth, you're going to the jinn."

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*Yikes. On. Bikes. This chapter was a struggle. I had to rewrite it so many times. Well anywho I was having a conversation with my cousin the other day and we got on the topic of endings. We were discussing la la land and she said it was such a good movie. I told her I thought it sucked but the music was good. And she's like excuse me? Bitter-sweet endings are the way to go. I told her that happily-ever-afters are better. So my question to you is: which do you prefer? I'm quite curious.*