Changing the Prophecy Chapter 2 Episode 1

Chapter 2 Arrival Part 1 -- Episode 1

Doshmisi landed in a familiar field of flowers in the place that the People Beyond the Lake had named Debbie’s Circle after her mother. Debbie had traded years of her life to Sissrath in an act bound by deep enchantment to protect the people of the land from harm and she had consequently died young of a heart attack. That was how Doshmisi and her siblings had wound up moving to Manzanita Ranch to live with Aunt Alice and had learned about Faracadar. Doshmisi stood up and brushed the residue of green powder off her shoulders. When she heard him call her name, she turned to see Jasper with his dog Cocoa bounding joyfully toward her. She felt so happy to see him that she laughed out loud. In a moment he arrived in front of her, threw his arms around her, and planted a kiss on her lips. “I missed you so much,” he said.

“I missed you too,” she replied. She could feel his heart pounding hard in his chest, thumping against her own heart.

“You did? I imagined you were so busy in the Farland that you hardly thought of me,” Jasper confessed.

“I thought about you every day. But I figured that you were too busy here to think about me,” Doshmisi said.

“How busy could I possibly be without anyone to guide?” Jasper pointed out. Jasper had traveled with the Four the year before as their guide. He had spent many years training as a guide and he did a good job. “Where are the others? Where’s Denzel?”

“That’s a good question,” Doshmisi answered, as she realized with growing concern that her brothers and sister were nowhere in sight. Last year they had all arrived in the field together at the same time. She remembered Elena’s last-minute catapult onto Maia’s cushion. That irregularity had been compounded by the fact that Crystal and Ruby had never done the passage before. “Something must have gone wrong,” Doshmisi said. “Crystal and Ruby did their best, but this was their first passage. The others should have come through with me like they did last year.”   

“Where do you think they went? What could have happened to them?” Jasper asked in alarm.

“How should I know? They might still be stuck at Manzanita Ranch. Especially Maia because…” Doshmisi trailed off.

“What happened to Maia?”

“Someone else tried to come with her on her cushion.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maia has a friend who was there and she tried to make the passage with her and it might have caused Maia to be left behind.”

“But that doesn’t explain about Denzel or Sonjay.” Jasper pointed out, with a note of confusion.

“I don’t know what happened. I hope they turn up soon,” Doshmisi said, anxiously.

“And that they turn up here,” Jasper added.

“Here?” Doshmisi echoed.

“Well, they might have made it through and turned up somewhere else. But let’s wait for them here for a little while,” Jasper suggested.

“You’re right. They could have come through somewhere else in Faracadar.” Doshmisi found this thought reassuring. Even if they weren’t in Debbie’s Circle then they could still be somewhere in the land, perhaps nearby. If they were, then she would find them, or they would find her before long. She felt certain of it. “If they turn up here in this field, they’ll remember how to get to your house,” Doshmisi pointed out. “So I don’t think we need to hang around here waiting.” Jasper nodded in agreement.

They began walking across the field as Doshmisi asked, “So what’s going on in Faracadar? What do you know? What can you tell me?”

“I don’t know much. You would probably learn more from a conversation with the trees,” Jasper replied in all seriousness, since he knew that Doshmisi could communicate with trees.

“I’ll consult the trees soon, but right now I asked you. Tell me whatever you know.”

“My father received a message from Mole via the Crystal Communication Dome,” Jasper related, as he and Doshmisi wended their way along a path that led through a field loaded with a variety of brilliant red flowers. “Mole asked us to get his message to the Four. That’d be you.”

“Where did Mole send the message from? The Passage Circle?” Doshmisi asked. Mole lived at the Passage Circle, where he worked as the head battery maker, which meant he ran the mechanics shop. He talked like a Rastafarian and he had an absolutely brilliant ability to build or fix just about anything. He had become one of Denzel’s best friends in Faracadar.

“Mole disappeared a couple of weeks ago. Sissrath kidnapped him,” Jasper replied grimly.

“How do you know? Why was he kidnapped?”

“Mole used one of Violet’s crystal communication shards to send a message to the Dome and they forwarded it to my father. According to Mole, Sissrath enslaved him as well as many other proficient battery makers, who must work as forced laborers on a project at the North Coast. Unfortunately, Mole has not yet figured out the exact purpose of the project so he couldn’t provide any further information. But his message was important because until it came though, no one had any idea that Sissrath had something going on at the North Coast.”

“Then I think the siege is a diversion,” Doshmisi told Jasper firmly.

“How do you figure?”

“I don’t think Sissrath has any interest in retrieving the Staff of Shakabaz. He understands that he will never get it back. Sonjay took it from him for good. Sissrath’s up to something else and he doesn’t want anyone to figure out what. So he sent Compost with an army of people from the Mountain Downs to blockade Big House City as a distraction and to keep Cardamom and High Chief Hyacinth far away from his secret project, whatever it is.” Cardamom was the only enchanter in the land whose skill at enchantment matched that of Sissrath.

“Should we try to lift the siege at Big House City?” Jasper asked.

“I don’t think so. I think Sissrath wants us to spend time doing exactly that. Instead let’s go to the North Coast and find out what Sissrath is up to. We need to rescue Mole. I bet Mole will figure out what Sissrath’s doing there pretty quick,” Doshmisi said.

Jasper stopped walking abruptly and grinned broadly.

“What?” Doshmisi asked, as she stopped walking too.

Jasper shook his head and chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” Doshmisi insisted.

“It’s straight up terrific to have you back. No lie. You’re one of the Four. You figure out what to do and you do it. I feel great,” Jasper exclaimed, as he continued to flash his grin.

“Puleez.” Doshmisi rolled her eyes and began walking again. “You’re pretty good at figuring out what to do all on your own. I’m not as brilliant as all that. Trust me.”

“Whatever you say,” Jasper said as he fell in beside her.

“Let’s go to the Garden. I want to talk to the trees. Then we can head to the North Coast.”

“What about the rest of the Four?” Jasper asked worriedly. “What if they turn up after we’ve left?”

“We can leave a message for them here to let them know where we went. They could have turned up anywhere in Faracadar or they could be stuck back at Manzanita Ranch. We can’t afford to waste time doing nothing. Obviously the passage didn’t go smoothly. We’ll just have to wing it.”

“Wing it?” Jasper looked puzzled.

“Make things up as we go along,” Doshmisi explained.

“We pretty much did that last year and it worked out.”

“Sure enough.” Doshmisi agreed. She gazed up at the familiar green-tinged Faracadaran sun. It felt so good to be back that she wanted to dance and sing or whoop and holler.

“I need to stop at the house to pick up a few things,” Jasper said.

Doshmisi smiled at him. “You’re totally jazzed to get on the road again aren’t you?”

“I’m totally jazzed to be in the same place with you again. And to get on the road. What other purpose is there for a guide than to do the guiding?”

“It feels pretty great to be back,” Doshmisi told him.

When they arrived at Jasper’s house, he went inside to grab his backpack, which he had packed in advance because he knew he might have to rush off on a journey with the Four immediately upon their arrival. While Jasper was in his house, Doshmisi went to the paddock to greet the tigers, which people in Faracadar rode like horses since they had no horses anywhere in the land. The tigers were herbivores (meaning they didn’t eat meat) and were as gentle as kittens with those they befriended. Doshmisi had ridden Sheba on her last visit to the land. In the paddock she put her arms around the beautiful sleek feline’s neck and gave her a hug. Sheba licked Doshmisi’s face with her large scratchy tongue and purred deep in her throat with pleasure. “I guess you remember me,” Doshmisi said.

Jasper’s mother Crystal and his sister Ruby would remain with Aunt Alice at Manzanita Ranch for the night and would be there in the morning when Doshmisi returned. Doshmisi knew how it worked from the previous year. Even though she would travel in Faracadar for many days, when she returned (at the appointed time) only one night would have passed at Manzanita Ranch in the meanwhile. If her brothers and sister had gotten stuck back at Manzanita Ranch, then she would be on her own this year and would not see them until her return. If they had managed to pass through into Faracadar then she hoped she would meet up with them soon, or at least in time for their return to Manzanita Ranch from Angel’s Gate near Big House City by the fourteenth day of Loma.

When Jasper emerged from the house, he joined Doshmisi at the paddock and they led their tigers out.

“Where’s Granite?” Doshmisi asked. Granite was Jasper’s father.

“He had to go to my uncle’s house,” Jasper replied. “We said our good-byes already since he knew I’d probably leave with you today.”

“I wish I could have seen him,” Doshmisi said regretfully.

“He sends you his regards,” Jasper told her as they mounted the tigers and headed out on the dirt road to the Garden, with Cocoa yapping delightedly and running alongside.

It took Doshmisi a few minutes to reacquaint herself with how to sit a tiger and how to grip Sheba’s sides with her legs. She had barely settled into the rhythm of Sheba’s stride when they arrived at the Garden, managed by Jade the Gardener.

Jade emerged from the potting shed to greet them, wiping her hands on her overalls as Doshmisi and Jasper dismounted. “Doshmisi! Good to have you back. We need you now more than ever,” Jade called out.

Doshmisi gave Jade a warm hug. “I need to visit the Grove of Shakabaz and listen for the words of the trees. I hope they have something useful to tell me.”

“The trees always have something useful to tell,” Jade encouraged her. “Would you like some strawberries? I just picked a heap of giant juicy ones.” She held a basket of bright red strawberries out to Doshmisi, who took a handful and thanked Jade. The strawberries made her think of Bayard. He would have loved them. She would have to stay focused on the task at hand and not waste time worrying about where Bayard, Sonjay, and the rest of them had gone.

“This won’t take long,” Doshmisi promised Jasper.

“Take as much time as you need. I’ll wait for you here,” Jasper replied.

As she stepped onto the trail to the Grove of Shakabaz, Doshmisi heard Jade ask Jasper about Denzel, Maia, and Sonjay. Doshmisi popped one last sweet strawberry into her mouth and licked the juice from her fingertips.

Doshmisi had visited these wise, ancient, and enormous trees once before and to her amazement she had discovered that they spoke to her in a tree language that she understood. After that first revelation, she had communicated with trees frequently. When she reached the deep forest, populated with the largest trees, the mossy forest floor felt like a springy carpet beneath her feet and the thick, lush overhead canopy blocked her view of the sky. Amidst the giant red oaks, her amulet began to glow green. She heard a rush of whispers inside her head and a great heaviness overtook her so that she had to sit down on the cushiony ground strewn with pine needles, moss, twigs, fallen lichens, and leaves.

She closed her eyes and the language of the trees that she remembered well entered her in thought and energy through images and mutual understanding. She wrapped her hand around her glowing amulet and her spirit danced joyously up into the high branches. In their language, the trees expressed their delight at her presence. Then their intentions shifted. They sent her an image of her grandmother, Clover, lying in her bed on Whale Island, while her assistant, Iris, brought her a cup of tea. Clover appeared fragile, weak, and unwell. She had dark circles under her eyes, her face was pale, and she was frail and thin. The mighty trees wanted Doshmisi to go to Clover and she sent them a thought to convey that she understood their desire.

The image of Clover faded and a different image planted itself in her mind’s eye; a baffling image. The trees sent the image of piles of algae washing up on the beach. The delicate blue-green algae, usually glowing with lively energy, hung lifeless and limp. Heaps of algae washed up in greasy mounds. And then little tiny mouths opened up in the algae. The mouths screamed in a high-pitched wail, like a tea kettle whistling, except completely lacking the cheerfulness of a tea kettle’s whistle. The scream sounded like the total opposite of cheerful. In the distance, the whales moaned despairingly. Their moans sounded almost like the moans of a person grieving for a loved one who had died. The sheer size of the whales made the water vibrate with their moans and the vibration set Doshmisi’s teeth rattling. Although she did not understand what the images and sounds meant, they alarmed her and filled her with sorrow. She could feel the trees caressing her face in the form of a breeze and blessing her for the journey ahead. Then they withdrew and fell silent.

Photo by Daniela Duncan

Changing the Prophecy Chapter 1 Episode 2

Chapter 1 Before Midsummer's Eve

Episode 2

“What are you doing here?” Aunt Alice blurted angrily.

“Who is this?” Crystal demanded.

“Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh,” Bayard squawked from his perch on Sonjay’s head.

Elena burst into tears. Maia hurried to her friend and helped her up off the ground. “Are you hurt?” Maia asked softly as she picked leaves out of Elena’s long black hair and patted her arm. “You didn’t hurt yourself did you?”

Elena sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of the sleeve of her pajama top, which she wore over her jeans. “What is everyone doing out in the woods?” she asked.

“We tried not to wake you,” Maia told her friend, with a note of apology in her voice. “It’s hard to explain.”

“You left me all alone at the house,” Elena complained.

“You’re a big girl, thirteen years old, don’t tell me you were afraid to be left alone,” Aunt Alice snapped with annoyance.

“What are we going to do with her?” Denzel asked his aunt. “We’ve gotta go.”

“Can Ruby take her back to the house?” Doshmisi suggested.

“No,” Crystal said quickly, “she has to stay with me to learn how to do this.”

“I’ll take her back,” Aunt Alice said with a frustrated sigh.

“I don’t want to go back,” Elena declared as she stamped her foot. “Tell me what’s going on. Ayee! Locos!”

“Latina firecracker,” Bayard squawked.

“Bayard, you are not helping this situation,” Sonjay told the bird.

Bayard eyed Elena and then flew to her shoulder, where he settled in a most dignified manner and repeated, “Latina firecracker.”

“Gracias,” Elena said as she stroked Bayard’s head. “I think,” she added uncertainly, as it occurred to her that Bayard may or may not have been paying her a compliment.

“Elena is amigamia, my friend,” Maia insisted. “We’ll bring her inside with us and then after we go, Aunt Alice please try to explain to her what’s going on.” She turned to Elena and begged her, “Por favor, just let us do what we have to do here and Aunt Alice will tell you about it after we leave.”

“Where are you going?” Elena asked.

“No time,” Crystal stated as she hurried back into the cabin. The others swiftly followed.

“Places everyone,” Ruby announced, as she clapped her hands. Sonjay, Maia, Denzel, and Doshmisi collected their things and then each of them selected a cushion and sat down. Bayard flew from Elena’s shoulder to Sonjay’s shoulder. While the children arranged themselves on the cushions, Crystal and Ruby unscrewed the tops from the jars and mixed the powders into a bowl.

“What’s the day of the return?” Denzel asked.

“It would have been the fourteenth of Loma; but since we arrived early it could come sooner, so make sure to go to Angel’s Gate by the first of the month and hopefully Cardamom can help you figure out the return,” Crystal told them as she and Ruby approached with the bowl of colorful powder.

“Keep your hands and feet inside the passage sticks,” Aunt Alice cautioned, unnecessarily, since the children had done this before and knew how it worked.

“Ready?” Crystal asked nervously.

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Denzel replied.

“Wait,” Doshmisi said. She hopped off her cushion and went to Aunt Alice and gave her a big hug. “See you again soon,” she told her.

Aunt Alice’s eyes filled with tears as she released her niece. “Get on up outta here.” She waved Doshmisi back to the cushion. Zora barked and Aunt Alice picked her up.

Ruby and Crystal began to sprinkle the powder over the Four. Crystal said some strange words and Ruby repeated them. Doshmisi noticed that they spoke the words much more tentatively than Amethyst had spoken them. Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Elena, who burst across the room, her shiny blue-black hair flying like a flag behind her as she jumped onto Maia’s cushion, where she flung her arms around Maia and held on tight. Then Elena and Maia disappeared as Doshmisi felt herself swept up in the twister of powders and whirled off as if sucked down a wind tunnel.

Changing the Prophecy -- Blog Entry Episodes -- Introductory Statement and Chapter 1 Episode 1

Changing the Prophecy is now in print and can be purchased online or at your local bookstore. I am making the story available here on my blog in short episodes to be released every few days. Read here for free. Buy the book if you can’t wait to find out what happens. To find your place where you left off or start from the beginning, type the chapter and episode numbers into the search box in the upper left corner of the landing page for The View from Amy’s World. For example, to find the first episode, type “Chapter 1 Episode 1.” It should take you to it. Enjoy the journey!

Chapter 1 Before Midsummer’s Eve

Chapter 1 Episode 1

Doshmisi awoke in pitch darkness to Aunt Alice’s insistent gentle voice. “Dosh, wake up,” Aunt Alice said, as she switched on the light next to Doshmisi’s bed.

“What’s up?” Doshmisi asked, as she sat up in bed. The urgent tone in Aunt Alice’s voice instantly snapped her awake. “It’s not Midsummer’s yet. What’s going on?” If it had been Midsummer’s Eve, she would have expected Aunt Alice to wake her so that she could go to the cabin in the woods and travel with her brothers and sister to the land of Faracadar, as they had traveled the previous summer. Amethyst the gatekeeper came from Faracadar every year on Midsummer’s Eve to take “the Four” (as they were called) to Faracadar for a time. Doshmisi’s mother along with her Aunt Alice, Uncle Martin, and Uncle Bobby used to be the Four; but now Doshmisi, who was fifteen, Denzel, who was fourteen, Maia, who was twelve, and Sonjay, who had just turned eleven, were the new Four. Doshmisi and her siblings had been impatiently counting the days left before Midsummer’s Eve, when they would return to Faracadar. But it was not yet the appointed time.

“They have come for you tonight and so tonight you must go,” Aunt Alice told Doshmisi.

“They?” Doshmisi asked. “Who did Amethyst bring with her?”

Aunt Alice’s voice quavered as she answered. “Amethyst died a few months ago, baby. Ruby and Crystal have come instead.”

“How could Amethyst die? What happened to her?” Doshmisi struggled to wrap her head around the idea that the sweet old woman who had baked delicious spice cake for them before sending them to Faracadar only the previous summer had died.

“Nothing happened. She just got old and her body wore out,” Aunt Alice replied with a sigh. “Now get dressed. Remember to take a sweater. Would you please look after Zora for a minute?” Aunt Alice handed her little dog, a silky black Pomeranian with shiny brown eyes, to Doshmisi, who took the dog in her arms. Zora licked Doshmisi’s chin with her rough tongue.

“I don’t want her to bark and wake Elena. Meet me downstairs,” Aunt Alice continued. “I have to rouse your brothers and Maia; and I have to figure out what to do about Elena.”

“Maybe she’ll sleep through everything,” Doshmisi suggested hopefully.

“We should be so lucky,” Aunt Alice responded grimly.

Elena was Maia’s best friend and she was sleeping over for the night at Manzanita Ranch, where the Goodacre children had lived with their Aunt Alice ever since their mother’s sudden death a year and a half before. They were basically orphans because their father had disappeared when Sonjay was a baby; but Sonjay insisted that their father still lived, imprisoned in the Final Fortress in Faracadar. Experience had taught Doshmisi not to discount even Sonjay’s most farfetched ideas so she had reserved judgment on his conviction about their father.

Doshmisi wondered what Aunt Alice would do about Elena.

As she looked in the mirror to put on her woven green hat, given to her last year in Faracadar, Doshmisi paused to study the face that peered back at her. She wore her hair short, cut close to her head. She had coffee-brown skin and deep-brown eyes. She wore a small shiny green stud nose ring, a silver ear cuff, a dark-green sweater, and sea-green cotton pants. She picked up her dolphin earrings and put them in her ears and slipped a silver bracelet on her wrist. She smiled with approval at her appearance. She looked like the healers who lived on the islands of Faracadar. She hoped one day, with greater knowledge, to join their ranks. Thinking about the healers made her remember to take the herbal, a book with recipes and instructions for medicines and potions to help sick people get well. The herbal was an enchanted thing and therefore unpredictable. Although Doshmisi had already learned a lot about how to use it, she hoped to learn more of its secrets during her upcoming trip to Faracadar. She snapped the herbal securely in its carry case, which she then strapped around her waist.

While Doshmisi dressed, Aunt Alice awakened Denzel and Sonjay. She sent Denzel to her nightstand to retrieve the amulets, which the children wore when they traveled in Faracadar. Doshmisi wore the Amulet of the Trees, Denzel wore the Amulet of Metal, the Amulet of Watersong belonged to Maia, and Sonjay had inherited their mother Debbie’s amulet, the Amulet of Heartfire. Last summer, the energy in the amulets had assisted them in their quest to take back the Staff of Shakabaz from the powerful and malevolent enchanter Sissrath. According to Aunt Alice, the amulets enhanced the gifts and abilities that the children already had within them.

Doshmisi had discovered that she had a gift for healing and she had made good use of Aunt Alice’s herbal to heal the sick. Denzel had discovered he had an aptitude for inventing, building, and making things. Maia, who had befriended the drummers of Faracadar, had proven herself to be a brilliant musician and had used her talent for music to save their lives on more than one occasion. The power of the Amulet of Heartfire had brought out Sonjay’s innate leadership skills and his ability to see straight to the truth. In the end, Sonjay had been the one to take the Staff of Shakabaz from Sissrath.

Sonjay dressed in his favorite lemon-yellow T-shirt and jeans and grabbed a canary-yellow sweatshirt, which he tied around his waist. His hair stood out from his head in short baby dreadlock twists. He ran his hand over the dreads as he raced down the stairs to find his inseparable companion Bayard Rustin, an enormous, eye-poppingly bright, green-blue-yellow-red parrot. Sonjay entered the sitting room and turned on the light. Bayard blinked at him in the sudden brightness and asked, hopefully, “Amethyst makes spice cake?”

Tears filled Sonjay’s eyes as he held out his arm for Bayard to climb aboard. “No, you greedy heap of feathers, no spice cake.” Then he continued more gently, “Amethyst died. Ruby and Crystal came instead and they didn’t bake anything. They’re in too much of a hurry.”

“Uh-oh,” Bayard said as he settled on Sonjay’s shoulder. “Uh-oh.”

“You can say that again,” Sonjay agreed.

Bayard obliged by repeating, “Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh…”

“Alright, that’s enough times,” Sonjay interrupted. Sometimes, Bayard acted as annoying as a pesky little brother.

Just then Denzel joined them. He was the tallest of the four Goodacres and had the lightest skin of the four as well. He had large eyes and large hands. He wore his hair in a short natural, not quite as short as Doshmisi’s hair. He was handsome and caused a stir among the girls who went to his school. Prepared for the trip to Faracadar, he wore a pair of sturdy hiking shoes and his characteristic red-and-white plaid flannel shirt. He carried a partly filled backpack. “Here bro,” he said as he handed Sonjay the Amulet of Heartfire. “I have to go to the garage to grab some stuff. Tell Aunt Alice I’ll meet you guys on the porch in a few minutes. Hey, take your skateboard and a spare set of wheels.” Sonjay glimpsed duct tape, a screwdriver set, a crescent wrench, and some wires bouncing around in Denzel’s backpack. As Denzel headed out of the room, he turned in the doorway to give Sonjay one last instruction, “Oh, yeah, get the canteens from the pantry, aight?”

“I’ve got it covered, man,” Sonjay assured him.

“No spice cake,” Bayard informed Denzel mournfully.

“While you’re in the pantry, you better find something to feed that bird. If he gets hungry he’ll drive us all nuts,” Denzel pointed out.

Upstairs, Maia opened her eyes as Aunt Alice gently tapped her shoulder. Aunt Alice held a cautionary finger to her lips, indicating that Maia should remain quiet. Maia slipped silently from her bed, glancing anxiously at her friend Elena as she tiptoed out of the room behind Aunt Alice, who led Maia down the hallway to Doshmisi’s bedroom and then handed Maia her clothes and her travel drum.

“I think we got out without waking Elena,” Aunt Alice said worriedly. She informed Maia that Amethyst had died and that Ruby and Crystal had come to take the Four to Faracadar. Maia’s eyes welled with tears at the news about Amethyst. “But it’s not Midsummer’s Eve,” Maia said, as she wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Will it work tonight? Will it be OK?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Aunt Alice replied.

“Then why did they come tonight?” Maia asked. “I don’t think we can do this without Amethyst.” Her voice trembled as she said Amethyst’s name.

“We’re going to have to do it without her. And we’re going to have to do it tonight. Something is up. Get dressed and ready to travel and we’ll ask them about it when we see them at the cabin,” Aunt Alice informed her. Maia dressed quickly, pulling her deep-blue sweater over the explosion of long braids that covered her head. She slung her travel drum over her shoulder. “I have to get the timber flute from the library,” she told Aunt Alice, as they stepped softly down the stairs.

After fetching her timber flute, Maia joined the others on the front porch where they had assembled. Sonjay handed Maia her water canteen and Denzel handed her the Amulet of Watersong.

“How do you know they’re here?” Doshmisi asked. She held Zora under her arm and petted the little dog so she would stay quiet.

“They came to the house and found me,” Aunt Alice answered.

“Are they allowed to do that?” Maia wondered aloud.

“They did it, didn’t they?” Denzel replied.

“Amethyst never left the cabin, but tonight Ruby and Crystal came to the house and found me. Things are changing.” Aunt Alice gave Doshmisi a hug, handed her the lantern, and then put her arms around Maia and squeezed. “OK, go. You know where to find them,” she instructed as she released Maia and bent over to embrace Sonjay.

“What do you mean? You have to come with us,” Maia pleaded.

As Aunt Alice turned from Sonjay to give Denzel a parting hug, she replied, “I can’t. Elena’s here. What if she wakes up?”

“She won’t,” Maia assured her aunt. “She sleeps like a rock. Besides, she’s not going to start wandering around the house looking for us if she does. She’ll just go back to sleep.”

Aunt Alice hesitated, considering her options.

“She might go wandering through the house looking for me,” Denzel mumbled.

“She’s not that weird,” Maia defended her friend.

“It seems weird to me,” Denzel informed her.

“She just has a crush on you. Would it hurt you so much to be nice to her?” Maia demanded in exasperation.

“I’ve called your Uncle Bobby. He should arrive in a couple of hours,” Aunt Alice said. “He’ll be here by the time you get back. When he gets here I’ll go to the cabin.”

 Doshmisi noticed that Aunt Alice had not reprimanded Denzel and Maia for bickering about Elena and took it as a sign of how distracted and worried her aunt was.

“Come with us to the cabin,” Sonjay begged.

“Uh-oh, uh-oh,” Bayard squawked.

“You know you want to,” Doshmisi tempted Aunt Alice.

“Oh alright,” Aunt Alice agreed. “I suppose Elena will sleep through this.” Doshmisi handed Zora over to her aunt as the family stepped off the front porch and hurried down the driveway to the path bordered by raspberry brambles that led to the cabin in the woods.

As they approached the cabin, they saw light streaming from the windows. The door flew open and Ruby hurtled out. She burst into tears as she flung her arms first around Doshmisi, and then around Maia. Her mother, Crystal, stood in the doorway, surveying the scene. Crystal and Ruby had a fire-engine-red tint to their rich, brown skin because they were of the People Beyond the Lake. When Ruby reached for Denzel, he quickly held out his hand and shook hers to prevent her from engulfing him in a weepy hug. “How’s Jasper?” he asked.

“Fine. He’s at home waiting for you. He’s especially waiting for Dosh,” Ruby replied with a short laugh as she shook Denzel’s hand and then Sonjay’s. Jasper was Ruby’s younger brother. At the mention of his name, Doshmisi’s heart raced.

“Let’s get moving,” Sonjay said impatiently, as he nodded in greeting to Crystal.

When they entered the cabin, they saw that Crystal and Ruby had already placed the four travel cushions in a neat row on the floor and had surrounded each square cushion with the requisite four passage sticks, pieces from the original gateway door linking Faracadar with the world in which the Goodacres lived with Aunt Alice. A powerful enchanter of old had created the gateway with deep enchantment and very few had passed between the two worlds using the gateway door or the passage sticks.

The jars of colorful powder twinkled brightly, lined up next to one another on the table. The Goodacres missed the delicious scent of Amethyst’s fresh-baked spice cake. The wood-burning cooking stove squatted cold and silent in the corner. Doshmisi remembered the warmth and sweet spicy scent that had greeted them the previous year when they had arrived at the cabin, filled with questions. Crystal touched the jars of powder tentatively with trembling fingers.

“Do you know how to do it?” Aunt Alice asked.

“Sort of,” Crystal replied. “We should have prepared for this better; we didn’t imagine that we would lose Amethyst so soon.”

Aunt Alice ran her hand up and down Crystal’s arm in a comforting gesture. Amethyst was Crystal’s mother. “Amethyst is watching,” Aunt Alice said.

Crystal smiled even as tears filled her eyes. “So she is,” Crystal agreed.

Knowing that time was short to gain information, Sonjay cut to the chase. “Quickly, tell us why you came tonight. Why couldn’t you wait until Midsummer’s Eve?”

“Uh-oh,” Bayard insisted.

“Uh-oh is right,” Ruby confirmed. “Compost has laid siege to Big House City with an army of Mountain People. They assembled outside the city a couple of weeks ago and surrounded it. They won’t allow anyone in or out.”

“What do they want?” Denzel asked. “Have they made any demands?”

Ruby answered, “Well, they say they want the Staff of Shakabaz, even though they must realize that it will not come to them now, after it went to Sonjay at the Battle of Truth. And they could never use it, even if Cardamom handed it over to them, which he won’t of course. Sissrath has not appeared at Big House City. We don’t know where he went or why Compost remains on his own. We can’t make sense of any of it. We need your help.” Compost worked for Sissrath. The Four had defeated Sissrath with the power of truth in a nonviolent protest the previous year. During that protest, which people referred to as the Battle of Truth, the Staff of Shakabaz had chosen to move from Sissrath’s control into Sonjay’s hand. As powerful as Sissrath was, he had not been able to prevent the staff from changing hands. Sonjay had left the staff at Big House City under the watchful eye of the mighty enchanter Cardamom for safe-keeping. The royal family that ruled Faracadar lived in the Big House at the center of Big House City.

“Cardamom can’t do anything to stop the siege?” Sonjay questioned.

“He has not done anything so far,” Ruby replied.

“What about High Chief Hyacinth and the princess?” Maia asked. “Where are they?”

“The high chief is with Cardamom in the Big House. Princess Honeydew went to the Wolf Circle with her mother a few months ago. She has begun studying how to use her powers as an enchantress.” The Four had traveled with the high chief and his daughter the year before and Doshmisi had helped them to reunite with Honeydew’s mother, High Chieftess Saffron, after Doshmisi discovered that Sissrath had imprisoned Saffron at the Final Fortress and put her under an enchantment of forgetting. The Four were the princess’s distant cousins and part of the royal family through their mother’s ancestors.

“Something doesn’t seem right about this,” Sonjay said.

“What do you mean?” Crystal asked.

“The siege doesn’t make sense,” Sonjay explained.

“I agree,” Crystal told him. “Jack visited us today. He was extremely distraught. He told us to bring you to Faracadar and that prompted us to attempt to come before the appointed time.”

“What exactly did Jack say?” Doshmisi asked.

“You know how hard it is for him to put things into words. He said to come get you and he said ‘whales’ over and over again,” Ruby told her. “He also said ‘bad oil’. He plopped a large clump of algae on the kitchen table.” Jack was an intuit. Intuits had psychic abilities and they could often see the future. Jack was just a little boy, only six years old, and his intuit’s mind moved so quickly that he had trouble talking clearly so other people often had a hard time understanding what he meant. Intuits rarely lived more than sixteen or seventeen years because the intensity of their lives burned them out young.

Doshmisi groaned. “Not the whales again,” she said to no one in particular. She loved the whales and, unlike most other people, she could even hear them when they spoke, just as she could communicate with the trees in their language. But the trees made sense to her while the whales talked in poetry and Doshmisi had a hard time figuring out the meaning of the words the whales spoke to her. She didn’t want to have to rely on the whales to explain anything to her in their poetic words,

Just then a startling crash came from outside the cabin. Aunt Alice and Crystal bolted, followed closely by the others, with Zora yipping at their heels. Aunt Alice had grabbed the lantern on her way out the door and she held it high to reveal Maia’s friend Elena sprawled on the ground next to an overturned plastic bucket beneath one of the cabin windows.