Changing the Prophecy Chapter Six Episode 1

 

Chapter 6 Wolf Circle -- Episode 1

With Maia playing her timber flute and Denzel jamming along on Maia’s travel drum, they walked at a fast pace in rhythm to the music. Denzel glanced upward frequently at the phosphorescent markings on the roof of the tunnel to make sure they continued heading in the right direction. After a few minutes of walking, Elena timidly began to hum along to Maia’s tune and before long she had started singing a jazzy, wordless scat. The beauty of Elena’s voice surprised Denzel. He didn’t know anything much about Maia’s little friend beside the fact that she had an annoying crush on him.

After the travelers had walked in the caves for an hour, their music became inspired. They surrendered to its flow and let it sweep them along. As they lost themselves in the beat, the tune that unfolded spontaneously became like a living creature of its own.

The trio could not risk pausing for fear that the fatally jolly geebachings would discover them if they fell silent. The year before, the geebachings captured Denzel and Maia along with their fellow travelers and had nearly caused them to laugh themselves to death. To save them, Maia played an extraordinarily haunting tune on a water organ (an instrument made of bowls filled with water) and the music turned the geebachings into bright orange birds that flew out of the caves and disappeared in the forest beyond. Turning into a bird didn’t seem like a bad fate for a geebaching, especially considering how unrepentant they were about murdering people. Their morbid sense of humor was horrifying. The strange creatures looked like large orange monkeys and had a ruthless obsession with making people laugh. They were intolerably funny and their infectious laughter had the power to go viral among vulnerable humans within seconds. They lived deep in the mountains and scouted the tunnels for prey, often venturing to the surface in search of victims.

After more than two hours of making music and walking, Denzel, Maia, and Elena emerged from a tunnel opening into the late afternoon light of a glorious golden-green day in a forest in the Amber Mountains. Elena was exhausted from the walk, but she didn’t want to admit it to the others. She was glad she hadn’t confessed to being worn out when Maia said, “That was fast. Last time it took so much longer.”

“We must have come through a narrower part of the mountains this time,” Denzel suggested. “Now we have to find the Wolf Circle.” Denzel’s forehead puckered with concentration. He did not know for sure which way to go. Jasper would have had his bearings in an instant and Denzel wished again that his friend was with them. “Which direction do you think…?” The sound of snuffling emerging from a nearby bush stopped him abruptly in mid-sentence. He whirled around, prepared to defend himself and the girls. “Who’s there? Show yourself,” he demanded, throwing his backpack to the ground in preparation for a fight.

A small, stunted, rusty-orange geebaching, no more than three feet tall, crept out from under the bush. His over-sized floppy ears hung dejectedly onto his shoulders. He wiped his runny nose with the back of his hairy arm.

“Ewww,” Elena exclaimed. “Use a Kleenex.”

He wiped his nose with his other hairy arm and mumbled, “Wassa Kleenex?”

Elena produced a Kleenex from her pocket and handed it to the geebaching, who promptly ate it. Elena giggled. The geebaching smiled faintly.

“Don’t start,” Denzel warned the geebaching, pointing his finger at him threateningly. “Don’t even think about it. If you do or say anything the least bit funny I’ll knock you out.”

Elena patted the bedraggled creature on the head and turned a reproachful face to Denzel. “Can’t you see he’s sad and alone. Don’t yell at him.” Behind her, the geebaching held up two fingers in back of her head like horns, the way people sometimes do to be silly in a photograph. The corners of the geebaching’s mouth twitched.

“Elena, come away from that thing. You have no idea,” Maia warned. She lifted the flute to show the geebaching. “If you so much as giggle, I’ll play the flute, so help me.”

“Won’t work on me,” the geebaching informed her glumly. “I’m a dud.” He commenced to sniffle again.

“Explain,” Denzel demanded.

“I’m tone deaf. Can’t hear music. It sounds like rattle and jammer to me. Been that way all my life. That’s why I have no friends. That and the fact that I don’t want to cause any harm. No laugh-to-death stuff. That’s why I ran away. I’m a freak of nature.”

“What is your name?” Elena asked kindly.

“Guhblorin. Remember it. Remember me as the first geebaching to give up the laugh-to-death. I can vouch it’s a lonely choice.”

“So you aren’t funny?” Maia asked curiously.

“Oh, I’m funny,” Guhblorin boasted, puffing out his chest. “I’m funnier than a cat with the hiccups. I’m the funniest. But I have vowed not to use it on humans. I’m careful. I contain it. Most of the time I do, anyway. I try.” He screwed his face up, “I try really, really, really hard.”

“So let me get this straight; you want me to believe that you’re a geebaching that has decided not to make people laugh because you get that it’s wrong to do that?” Denzel couldn’t quite swallow Guhblorin’s story. The geebaching nodded solemnly.

“You’re not a freak of nature,” Maia assured him, as she lowered her timber flute, “you’re a mutation, an evolutionary improvement. I’m pleased to meet you.” She held her hand out to the geebaching, who took it, and they shook.

“Don’t get too excited,” Guhblorin warned. “I’m a work in progress. If I’m naughty and make a funny, pull on my ear and I’ll serious-up.”

Denzel peered at the geebaching skeptically as he asked, “Do you happen to know the way to the Wolf Circle from here?”

“You betcha,” Guhblorin replied brightly. “Been trying to work up the courage to go there. If I take you there, will you protect me long enough for me to explain myself to the Wolf Circle people so they don’t kill me?”

“Absolutely,” Elena promised.

“Happy, happy, happy,” Guhblorin exclaimed as he hugged himself and shivered with delight. He planted one foot on the ground and started flapping his arms wildly while he spun in a circle around the unmoving foot. He looked like a demented bird. Elena started to laugh. Maia knew better. She stepped forward and grabbed Guhblorin’s ear and yanked.

“Sorry, sorry,” Guhblorin said sheepishly. “We go this way.” He hung his head remorsefully and led the group onto a path into the woods.

Maia and Denzel fell in behind Guhblorin as they exchanged a look of concern, both of them worried about hooking up with a geebaching. Elena bent and picked a large white flower and put it in her hair.

“I wish I knew where Sonjay and Doshmisi landed,” Denzel said quietly to Maia.

“I hope they’re together,” she replied.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Denzel said. “What do you think we should do when we arrive at the Wolf Circle?”

“Princess Honeydew is probably there and she’ll have some ideas. Hopefully Goldenrod will help us figure things out too,” Maia suggested. They had lagged behind the others and they noticed that Guhblorin was talking to Elena, who giggled.

“We better catch up,” Denzel noted. “Your little friend has no clue how dangerous he is so she has no reason not to tempt him to break his vow of seriousness.”

They had not walked for long when they came to a clearing on the edge of the Wolf Circle. The sun had begun to dip behind the trees for the evening and Maia gazed up at it with affection. It was an old sun and not as intensely bright as the sun at Manzanita Ranch. It was orange and yellow with a greenish tint around the edges. Maia knew from experience that no moon would appear to brighten the night sky, only the many very bright stars in all different colors.

Four huge white wolves trotted into the clearing and stood at attention, watching the small group of travelers. Guhblorin jumped up onto Denzel’s shoulders where he wrapped his arms around Denzel’s head, covering Denzel’s eyes. At the same moment Elena, quivering in terror, ducked behind Denzel and grabbed his upper arms with her hands in a viselike grip that he couldn’t shake. “C’mon, man,” Denzel complained in exasperation.

Maia held her hands out to the enormous wolves so they could identify her scent. “We’re friends. Remember us from last year?” she said gently. After the wolves had sniffed her hands, she scratched them each under the chin and behind the ears. They licked her fingers and then went to sniff the others. When Maia glanced back and saw Guhblorin and Elena wrapped around her brother, she burst out laughing.

“Oh shut up!” Denzel shouted at Maia, as he extricated one of the geebaching’s fingers from his mouth. “Let go,” he demanded.

The wolves trotted back to Maia, who assured Guhblorin and Elena, “They won’t hurt you. They live here. Why do you think they call it the Wolf Circle?”

Elena let go of Denzel, who swatted at Guhblorin and twisted back and forth trying to dislodge the terrified geebaching. Maia extricated Guhblorin from Denzel’s shoulders and put him on the ground where he rolled himself up into a furry ball. The wolves nudged the rolled-up geebaching between them like a soccer ball, taking care not to injure him with their teeth or claws.

“Take it easy with him,” Maia called after the wolves, as they proceeded to roll Guhblorin down a path that led into the heart of the circle. Denzel, Maia, and Elena followed close behind.

“Do any people live here, or just wolves?” Elena asked Maia quietly.

“People and wolves live here together,” Maia replied.

As they entered the circle, one of the wolves pointed his nose at the sky and howled. Immediately, people poked their heads out of houses and emerged to investigate. In the jumble of onlookers, Maia saw Princess Honeydew and shouted to her joyfully. The crowd parted for Honeydew to make her way to Maia and the cousins hugged each other excitedly. Then, to Denzel’s embarrassment, Honeydew threw her arms around his neck and gave him a hug as well. He hugged her back tentatively, while noticing the look of jealousy that crossed Elena’s face out of the corner of his eye. When she released him, Honeydew demanded, “Where are Doshmisi and Sonjay?”

“We don’t know,” Maia answered regretfully. “We think they arrived in Faracadar when we did, but we got separated during the passage, so we don’t know where they are.” Elena looked down at her feet self-consciously because she felt partly responsible for the fact that Doshmisi and Sonjay had not arrived in the same place as the rest of them. But Maia would not allow her friend to feel bad about it. It may not have had anything to do with her. They didn’t know one way or another. She put her arm around Elena’s shoulders and made introductions. “This is my best friend, Elena, who came with us from the Farland. Elena, this is my cousin, the daughter of High Chief Hyacinth and Chieftess Saffron, heir to the throne of Faracadar, the Princess Honeydew.”

“Why so formal?” Honeydew complained humbly.

“Well, that’s your title, isn’t it?” Maia pointed out.

“Your cousin?” Elena asked with surprise (and a bit of relief as she thought about the hug Honeydew had given to Denzel).

“Our mother came from this land,” Denzel explained simply. “We’re royalty here. Like our cousin.”

Just then Honeydew’s uncle, Goldenrod, appeared and interrupted the conversation so that he, too, could give everyone a hug and exclaim again about their arrival and ask about Doshmisi and Sonjay, and the news was repeated and introductions made again. In the excitement of the reunion, everyone forgot about Guhblorin, who had cautiously uncurled himself from the ball of fur he had become to protect himself from the wolves. A small child noticed Guhblorin and pointed at the geebaching while shouting, “What’s that?”

The people of the Wolf Circle, who remained crowded around the visitors, shifted their focus from Denzel, Maia, and Elena to the geebaching. They stepped back and away from Guhblorin, staring, while Goldenrod answered the child in a deep guttural voice that sounded like a growl. “That is a mountain geebaching. One of the most dangerous and deadly of creatures,” Goldenrod informed.

Changing the Prophecy Chapter 5 Episode 2

 Chapter 5 At the Dome -- Episode 2

“Why do you suppose Sissrath doesn’t want people communicating?” Jasper wondered aloud.

Doshmisi answered, “Think about it. Last year we mobilized all the people to rise up against him. If we can’t connect with people then we can’t do that again.”

“We should have killed him when we had the chance,” Jasper blurted.

“But the whales said violence would only lead to more violence and I agree with them. We found a way to defeat Sissrath once and we’ll find a way to do it again,” Doshmisi asserted.

Jasper shrugged. “We didn’t completely defeat him, did we? He’s back to his old scheming ways already.”

Just then Mrs. Jelly returned with dinner plates heaped with spinach-and-mushroom lasagna that smelled heavenly. Except for the Mountain People, everyone in Faracadar was vegetarian. Doshmisi used to eat meat, but she had given it up after her visit to Faracadar the previous summer, and she didn’t miss it. The people in Faracadar cooked delicious vegetarian food and Mrs. Jelly was no exception. The lasagna was heavenly.

After dinner, Jasper suggested to Doshmisi, “Maybe you should use some of that color change powdery stuff to make yourself green; you know, so that you aren’t so obvious.” The year before, Grandmomma Clover had given the Four a powder that would put a color in them like the regular people of Faracadar. The Four were royalty, born from the royal line through their mother and her ancestors, and as such their skin appeared plain brown. The powder had given them each a bright aura of color so they resembled the ordinary people in Faracadar:  Sonjay yellow (like the Mountain People), Maia blue (like the Coast People), Denzel red (like the People Beyond the Lake), and Doshmisi green (like the Island People).

“I wish I could,” Doshmisi replied mournfully, “but Maia has the powder in her backpack.”

“While you’re here,” Mrs. Jelly said to Doshmisi, “would you please take a look at my cousin Jewel? She twisted her ankle yesterday morning.”

The previous year, Doshmisi had used the herbal book to help her heal many people. When she put the herbal on a person’s chest, it opened to a page with instructions about a remedy for the sickness from which the person suffered. The herbal usually gave a recipe for a medicinal cure, but since it was an enchanted object it often acted in unpredictable ways. Doshmisi had developed the skill of figuring out how to use the herbal to heal people. She agreed to take a look at Jewel’s ankle without hesitation.

Leaving Jasper with Jelly and Jack, Doshmisi followed Mrs. Jelly upstairs to a room in the inn where Jewel sat propped up in bed, knitting, with her swollen foot high on a cushion. A vase of forget-me-nots stood on the night stand alongside a blue pitcher of water and a glass. A glow-bug lantern cast an amber light into the room.

“Jewel,” Mrs. Jelly said, “we’re in luck. Guess who showed up? Doshmisi. And she has the herbal and she has come to take a look at your ankle.”

During the year while at Manzanita Ranch, Doshmisi had spent every spare moment studying about medicine, health, and the human body. In fact, she didn’t need to use the herbal to figure out what to tell Jewel about how to treat her injured ankle, but she proceeded to place the book on Jewel’s chest anyway. The herbal opened to a page and Doshmisi leaned over to read the words. The page looked completely different from anything she had ever seen in the herbal before. She stared at the page in astonishment. Instead of providing instructions for a recipe or a quick diagnosis of the problem, the herbal had opened to a dense paragraph that began with the words, Insects remain the most enduring species because of their adaptability. If people could change to meet new circumstances, they would have more success at survival.

“Hold on,” Doshmisi told Jewel, “the herbal is doing something peculiar and I have to read this page.”

“Does it say something bad about my ankle?” Jewel asked in alarm.

“No,” Doshmisi reassured her. “Strangely, it has nothing to say about your ankle. Let me read this right quick.” Jewel and Mrs. Jelly exchanged an anxious glance and fell silent as Doshmisi began to read down the page. Before she could read more than the first few sentences, the herbal slammed shut of its own accord and she could not reopen it. She did not know what to make of this.

“I can’t seem to get the swelling to go down,” Jewel told Doshmisi. “I twisted it pretty bad.”

“You should put ice on it and stay off it,” Doshmisi instructed. “The more you ice it, the faster the swelling will go down and then it will stop hurting. Stay off it and keep it iced and elevated. I’ll write a recipe for arnica cream to rub on it that Mrs. Jelly can make to help it heal faster; and drink four ounces of dark cherry juice every day.”

Jewel thanked Doshmisi for the advice, then Mrs. Jelly and Doshmisi returned to the dining hall. Doshmisi wrote out the recipe for the arnica cream while Mrs. Jelly took an ice pack upstairs to her ailing cousin. Doshmisi kept wondering about the strange behavior of the herbal. She hoped it would not happen when she needed the herbal to act right to help her in a more serious situation.

After Doshmisi wrote the recipe, Jelly showed her and Jasper to their rooms and bid them goodnight. Alone in her room, Doshmisi attempted to open the herbal again, but it would not cooperate. She wondered what it had tried to tell her with that story about how insects were more adaptable than people. Before the book had slammed shut, she remembered reading something about people letting go of outmoded ways of operating, and that people needed to engage in innovative thinking. She decided that for the time being she would keep her discovery about the herbal to herself. Maybe the next time she tried to use it to heal someone, it would act the way it normally did. Or maybe it had morphed into a totally different book altogether, which scared her.

Early the next morning, Doshmisi, Jasper, and Jack took their leave of Mr. and Mrs. Jelly. They wanted to make it to the Passage Circle at the Coast Settlement before nightfall. Jasper could tell that Doshmisi was distracted as they rode through the Marini Hills, fragrant with the scent of flower blossoms, but he didn’t bother her. He figured she needed to work something out in her head; after all, she was one of the Four. He took care not to interrupt her thoughts. Doshmisi continued to try to make sense out of the weird story fragment the herbal had offered up to her the previous day.

By late in the afternoon, Jasper, Doshmisi, and Jack emerged from the Marini Hills and started the descent toward the Passage Circle that formed a link between the Coast Settlement, near the beach, and the Island Settlement, that spread out across the ocean in a string of islands. Weary of travel, and no closer to guessing the meaning of the words she had read in the herbal, Doshmisi felt relieved to reach the end of the day’s journey. Perhaps tomorrow, she thought, I’ll have a glimmer of insight about the herbal.

Changing the Prophecy Chapter 5 Episode 1

Chapter 5 At the Dome -- Episode 1

On her way back to the Garden, Doshmisi pondered the images sent to her by the trees. They urged her to go see Clover, and she would do that. But first she wanted to find out more about Mole and the situation on the North Coast. She believed that if she went to the North Coast, then she would learn something important about the blue-green algae and the whales. She would prefer to solve the mystery about the threat to the algae before she visited Clover so that she could share that information with Clover and seek her grandmother’s advice.

Upon her return to the potting shed at the Garden, she found that the intuit Jack had joined Jasper and Jade. Although only six years old, Jack had the ability to see into the future and to witness events taking place far away from him. Typical of people who lived at the Dome Circle, he had brown skin with a deep purple glow. He also had thick, purple curls. He hovered over the ground, like all intuits, whose intense energy caused them to lift up off their feet. Jack floated to Doshmisi at eye level and happily flung his little arms around her neck shouting, “hi, hi, hi.”

“What’d the trees say?” Jasper asked.

Jack clung delightedly to Doshmisi’s neck and she shifted him to one side so she could see Jasper and Jade.

“They’re sad,” Doshmisi began, and then hesitated. Jack put his hand on her head and closed his eyes. “They want me to go to see Grandmomma Clover on Whale Island.”

Jack’s eyes sprang open, he pushed himself off Doshmisi, and told Jasper, “Sick ocean. Poison.”

“Yes, Jack,” Doshmisi confirmed. “The trees showed me that something will threaten or has already threatened the blue-green algae and this has deeply disturbed the whales. I’m not sure if I saw the present or the future, but whenever it takes place, it’s not good.”

“Poison?” Jade asked. “The algae poisoned?”

“Poison,” Jack repeated.

“Grandmomma Clover once explained to me that the algae cleans the air in Faracadar, and that without it, the air will thin out and become too dirty to support life,” Doshmisi said.

Jack grabbed his neck, and pretended to choke himself. He fell over sideways, gagging for air.

“Leave it, Jack,” Jasper said, anxiously. “We can do without the theatrics.”

Jack floated benignly in the air with a slightly hurt expression on his face.

“Correct,” Jade confirmed for Doshmisi. “The algae and the whales each have a role in a delicate ecosystem that supports the quality of the air for us air-breathing creatures.”

“And the quality of the water for the sea creatures too, I suppose,” Doshmisi added.

“Of course,” Jade said.

“Then I guess we should head for the Islands to check in with Clover,” Jasper said, eager to strike out on the open road and do the guiding work for which he was trained.

“No, not yet,” Doshmisi disagreed, as she pursed her lips in thought.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean that Grandmomma will have to wait. I intend to go see her, just as the trees wish; but first I want to find out more about what’s going on at the North Coast. I want to look for Mole and see if he can shed any light on Sissrath’s game plan.”

“Do you think it wise to contradict the trees?” Jade asked, worriedly.

“The trees showed me several things. They showed me Clover and they showed me that the algae could potentially be in danger and that the threat to the algae has the whales distraught. I want to find out as much as I can about what we’re up against before I talk to Grandmomma so I can ask for her opinion about all of it. What do you think, Jack?” Doshmisi asked the intuit.

“Coast.” Jack nodded emphatically.

“North Coast it is then,” Jasper said. He asked Jade if she would look after Cocoa until Granite returned. When they took their leave of Jade, she gave them fresh fruit and cheese for their journey. Jasper seated Jack in front of him on his tiger and the travelers headed in the direction of the ocean. Doshmisi enjoyed riding through the familiar landscape, bathed in the light from the greenish sun. She had missed this land. They rode for the rest of that day, stopping only when the shadows grew long and darkness began to descend.

Jasper set up two small tents in a birch forest that night. “If we ride hard tomorrow, we can reach Akinowe Lake and the Solferino Settlement before nightfall,” Jasper told the others before they went to bed. The Solferino Settlement housed the Crystal Communication Dome, a hub for messages traveling throughout Faracadar and therefore its communication center. Perhaps they would learn something valuable about Sissrath’s activities at the Dome.

The travelers rose at dawn for a tasty breakfast of bread, cheese, and grapes. By midday they arrived atop the hills that ringed Akinowe Lake. The many-colored birds that lived near the lake swooped in brilliant streaks across the sky between the hills and the water, which sparkled invitingly in the distance. Jasper led them on the path down to the lake and around its edge. When the blue-tinged fingers of evening brushed the treetops, they arrived on the outskirts of the Dome Circle. They looked forward to staying at the Tollhouse run by Jelly and Mrs. Jelly, whom they had befriended the year before. Mrs. Jelly made terrific pancakes. As they approached the circle, Jack warned them, “danger, danger, danger;” so they remained alert and cautious.

It soon became apparent that it did not require the clairvoyance of an intuit to recognize that something at the Dome had gone amiss. They did not see any people and the footsteps of their tigers sounded loud in the silent road, empty of the cheerful voices of children calling to one another as they played in the yards and pathways of the circle. Jasper pulled his tiger up short and swung off of the large, gentle beast, leaving Jack on the Tiger’s back by himself. He motioned to Doshmisi and she too dismounted. They led the tigers into the eerily quiet circle and made their way to the Tollhouse. Jasper knocked on the heavy wooden door. Two eyes peered out of a slit in the door. The slit slammed shut. Then a jolly balding man with inky purple-black skin and a lavender-colored beard opened the door and hurried them inside, tigers and all, swiftly slamming the door shut behind them. Once he had them safely inside, Jelly (for that is who the man was) crushed each of them in turn in an enormous bear hug as he called over his shoulder, “Mrs. Jelly, come see what the tigers dragged in!”

The travelers stood in the middle of a large dining hall with a high, wood-beamed ceiling. Mrs. Jelly emerged from the kitchen, wiping her work-worn hands on her apron, and exclaiming, “Marvelous to see you, so marvelous. And just in the nick of time. Have you eaten dinner? No, of course not. Let me fix each of you a plate. Say, what became of the rest of you?” She meant Doshmisi’s siblings, the rest of the Four.

“We got separated during the passage,” Doshmisi replied. “I don’t know where the others wound up or if they even made it through.” Her words caught in her throat and reminded Doshmisi of how worried she was about what had happened to the others. She didn’t want to dwell on it because it scared her. She had to focus on the task in front of her.

“It was the first time without Amethyst,” Jasper added.

“Yes, well I’m sure Crystal did her best,” Mrs. Jelly said sympathetically.

“She had Ruby with her. Ruby will replace Amethyst as the Gatekeeper soon, but it seems they need more practice,” Doshmisi explained. She didn’t want to sound too critical of Crystal and Ruby. She knew that they had tried their hardest and had not intended to separate the Four during the passage.

“I’ll get you some dinner while Mr. Jelly tells you about our visitors here at the Dome Circle. Not a pretty story,” Mrs. Jelly said as she shook her head ruefully and retreated to her kitchen.

Jelly called a boy over to him and asked him to take the tigers outside, and to feed them and bed them down. Then he sat at one of the heavy wooden tables with Doshmisi and Jasper. Jack climbed happily into his Uncle Jelly’s lap. “Dome down. Dome off,” Jack said sadly, as he patted his uncle’s beard.

“Yes indeed,” Jelly confirmed.

“What do you mean?” Jasper asked.

“What Jack said. The Dome is not working,” Jelly informed them. People communicated across long distances throughout the land using crystal energy generated from the Crystal Communication Dome. If the Dome had stopped working, then the people could only communicate from one place to another by messenger.

“What happened?” Doshmisi asked. “And why is the circle deserted? Where did everyone go?”

“They’re staying out of sight for their safety,” Jelly said. “Sissrath’s Special Forces arrived last week with guns, which are a kind of tool that shoots a small piece of metal.”

“A bullet,” Doshmisi said.

“A bullet?” Jasper asked.

“The small piece of metal shot from the gun is called a bullet. They have them in the Farland, but I have never seen them here. I wonder who introduced them into Faracadar. Perhaps Sissrath invented them. I’m sorry to hear that guns have come to Faracadar,” Doshmisi said regretfully.

“The Special Forces used these guns to kill the security guards at the Dome,” Jelly continued to recount recent events. “Then they sent the Dome workers home and they covered the central crystal with a large cloth. No communications have come in or gone out since. Fearing for their lives, the people of the circle have stayed inside their houses, only going out for essentials. It’s like a siege.”

Changing the Prophecy Chapter 4 Episode 1

Chapter 4 Arrival Part Three -- Episode 1

With a whoosh and a rush of yellow smoke, Sonjay landed on the cobblestone ground of the courtyard at the Final Fortress. “What in the heck?” he said softly to Bayard, who still perched on his shoulder, as he quickly ducked behind a statue that hid him from the view of anyone entering or leaving by the main gate. “You have to keep quiet, Bayard,” he instructed. “Quiet. Understand?” Sonjay put a finger to his lips to emphasize his point. Bayard took to the air and flew up over the stone wall and out of the courtyard, most likely to forage for food. Sonjay felt sad to see him go, but he was better off without the bird for the moment. Bayard could make quite a racket and Sonjay needed to stay hidden.

Sonjay waited in the silent courtyard until nightfall. He hoped that his sisters or brother would turn up. That didn’t happen. He was on his own. He wondered if the previous Four (Momma, Aunt Alice, and his uncles) had ever been separated during the passage. Although he worried about the others, and wondered if they had even made the passage at all, he didn’t think he had arrived at the Final Fortress by accident or because Crystal and Ruby lacked experience. He thought he had arrived there for a reason and he thought the reason had to do with finding his father.

Daddy had disappeared when Sonjay was a baby, and the Four had given up hope of ever seeing him again, even though Momma used to say that Daddy would return to them as soon as he could. The previous summer, when Sissrath held Sonjay and the others captive in the dungeon at the Final Fortress, Sonjay thought he had heard his father speaking their names. Now seemed like as good a time as any to find out if Daddy was actually here. Sonjay had the crescent moon mark of the enchanter on his wrist, just like Princess Honeydew. He wished he knew how to cast enchantments, but he had not yet come of age and therefore had not studied enchantment yet at the Wolf Circle. If he could have cast enchantments, he would have made himself invisible.

Under cover of darkness, Sonjay slipped inside the heavy door that led to the dungeons. The fortress remained eerily quiet. He stepped softly down the stone stairs, wishing he had one of the flashlights in Denzel’s backpack. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he found himself in a corridor dimly lit by wall sconces. Still no one appeared. Hugging the damp, cold, stone wall, he made his way cautiously down the corridor toward the cell where Sissrath had imprisoned him on his previous stay at the Final Fortress.

Suddenly, a hand reached out of the wall and clapped itself over Sonjay’s mouth, then hauled him into a tiny room. Sonjay struggled to free himself from the grip of that hand. “Don’t make a sound,” a voice whispered in his ear. The hand released him as it spun him around and he stared into the astonished face of Buttercup, the wife of Crumpet. Crumpet was the older brother of the great enchanter Cardamom. Crumpet was not the most proficient enchanter. His enchantments seemed to go wrong more often than they went right, but he was a good guy. Buttercup was much better at casting enchantments than her husband. She was a large woman and her dark-brown skin had the distinctive yellow glow of the Mountain People. “What are you doing here?” she hissed. “I almost killed you.”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Sonjay replied. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m rescuing Crumpet,” she declared.

“Well, I’m rescuing my father,” Sonjay countered. “Where is everyone? Are there any guards down here?” As Sonjay’s eyes adjusted to the dim room, he discovered that he and Buttercup, as well as several other Mountain People from Buttercup’s home in the Amber Mountains, had crammed themselves inside a tiny closet filled with brooms, mops, buckets, scrub brushes, and cleaning supplies. “Are we in a mop closet?”

“You betcha,” Buttercup answered. “We put an enchantment on the guards to make them sleep. Well, most of ‘em. It’s complicated. The Special Forces are asleep, but not the Corportons.”

“Corportons?”

“Aliens. I told you, it’s complicated. Let’s free Crumpet, then we’ll try to find your father, and then we’ll get out of here. After we get out, I’ll bring you up to speed about the aliens.”

“I’m down with that. Lead the way,” Sonjay said, as he gestured toward the door of the mop closet.

Buttercup picked up a huge super-soaker squirt gun and handed it to Sonjay. “If you see someone in a snow-white jumpsuit, spray ‘em. Don’t ask questions.” She motioned to the others and stepped toward the door.

“Yuk. It smells like skunk,” Sonjay sniffed the super-soaker.

“You betcha,” Buttercup confirmed.

“What’d you put in this thing?”

“Skunk juice, they hate it.”

“They?”

Buttercup shushed him. “Let’s roll.”

Sonjay and the others followed Buttercup out of the mop closet and down the corridor. Buttercup held a device in one hand that looked like a cell phone but Sonjay knew it wasn’t. There were no phones at all in Faracadar. Buttercup pointed the device forward. When it started beeping, she turned it off and put her hands on the cell door nearest to her. “He’s in here, stand back,” she instructed. Sonjay and the others moved away. Buttercup pointed her fingers at the door, closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and then spoke words of enchantment under her breath. The door to the cell slowly opened.

“You have to teach me how to do that,” Sonjay told her admiringly.

“All in good time.” She entered and Sonjay followed close behind. Inside the cell, Sonjay saw a cot with a blanket on it. There was a small window high up on the outside-facing wall. A table had been pushed against that wall and there was a chair on top of the table. The cell was empty.

Buttercup looked up at the chair on the table. She reached for Sonjay’s skunk juice super-soaker, which he handed to her gratefully (it smelled awful), as she commanded him, “Climb up there and get that pastry off the chair. Be careful. Don’t let it crumble.”

Sonjay clambered onto the table and sure enough, he found a fat cinnamon roll on the chair. It looked tasty. He climbed back down with it resting flat on his palm. “Yum,” he said to Buttercup. “I’m starved.” As he started to open his mouth to take a bite, Buttercup snatched the cinnamon roll out of his hand and smacked him upside the head. The other Mountain People laughed.

“What’s up with you?” Sonjay demanded as he rubbed his face where she had slapped him.

“Shut up!” Buttercup yelped. She tenderly placed the pastry on the cot and said a few words of enchantment to it. The pastry glowed chartreuse, then yellow, and then, with a pop, it transformed into a familiar figure.

“Crumpet!” Sonjay exclaimed. “I almost took a bite out of you.”

“What did I turn into this time?” Crumpet asked querulously.

“A cinnamon roll,” Buttercup informed him.

“With icing and raisins. You looked delicious,” Sonjay added, as he put his arms around Crumpet and gave him a hug. He had missed the incompetent enchanter; incompetent because whenever he became too excited, flustered, or angry while conducting an enchantment he turned himself into some object (usually something useless) and remained stuck like that until a capable enchanter could be found to change him back.

“The Corportons have Sissrath in their back pocket. It’s disgusting. He took them to the North Coast,” Crumpet began to explain to his wife in an agitated voice as he waved his arms above his head, but she stopped him with a raised hand.

“Not now. First, if you upset yourself then you might turn into a doughnut, and second, we have to help Sonjay find his father and then skedaddle out of here before the guards wake up.”

“You have a father?” Crumpet asked Sonjay incredulously.

“Everyone has a father,” Sonjay reminded him.

“Alive? Here?” Crumpet continued.

“I think so. I need to find out for sure. I haven’t ever seen my dad. But I think he’s down here somewhere. Do you remember last year when Sissrath put us into a cell in this dungeon? The time you had turned yourself into a rock and your brother Cardamom turned you back while we were imprisoned?”

“Of course. There’s nothing wrong with my memory,” Crumpet replied haughtily. He unfolded his long body to its full height as he gave his wife a hug. “Thank you for rescuing me, babycakes,” Crumpet told Buttercup appreciatively. She planted a kiss on his nose. “Where are Doshmisi, Denzel, and Maia?” Crumpet asked Sonjay.

“I don’t know. We got separated during the passage.”

“We have to go. Now,” Buttercup reminded them urgently.

“OK, OK,” Sonjay said as he took the stinky super-soaker out of her hand and headed toward the cell door. “Here’s the deal. I thought I heard my father’s voice when I was in that cell with Crumpet and the others last year. But I don’t know exactly where the voice came from. I just know it was near our cell. Do you think you can find the cell where Sissrath imprisoned us last year?” Sonjay asked Crumpet.

“Of course. I never forget a prison cell,” Crumpet said, his eyes shining brightly. “Everyone imprisoned here is an enemy of Sissrath,” Crumpet pointed out as he turned to Buttercup and suggested, “so why don’t you and the fellas start opening cell doors and have a look to see who’s inside, while I take Sonjay to our former cell to see if we can figure out where his father might be.”

“You got it, babycakes,” Buttercup agreed. “But be quick. The Corportons will discover us any minute.”

Crumpet and Sonjay hurried out of the cell and continued down the corridor. Crumpet turned to the right into a passageway that looked familiar to Sonjay, and then he stopped outside a cell door. “This one.”

Sonjay put his hand on Crumpet’s arm. Crumpet still smelled vaguely like cinnamon and it made Sonjay’s mouth water. “Keep quiet for a minute and let me listen,” Sonjay commanded. Crumpet obeyed as Sonjay cocked his head to the right and listened intently. All he could hear was Buttercup and her team in the distance as they released prisoners from their cells. Last year he had distinctly heard a man repeating over and over again his name and the names of his brother and sisters. Maybe his father had died since the previous year. After all, he had probably been a prisoner in the Final Fortress for ten years or more.

Just then, Bayard appeared. The parrot flew down the passageway and squawked “Daddy-O, Daddy-O.” Sonjay trusted Bayard implicitly so he followed him immediately. Bayard alighted on the floor outside a cell door and repeated “Daddy-O.”

“Can you open it?” Sonjay asked Crumpet. “Without turning into a slice of cake, I mean?”

“Give me a little credit,” Crumpet complained. He said some words and the lock clicked open. With his heart beating loudly in his ears, Sonjay pulled the heavy door back with a creak and a rumble.

A man with long dreadlocks sat at a table and typed on an old-fashioned typewriter. When Sonjay entered, the man looked up from his work with curiosity. Bookshelves loaded with books lined the walls of the cell. A rich red-and-black carpet covered the floor and a warm fire glowed in the fireplace. The bed, piled high with comfy pillows, invited a nap. A glow-bug lantern stood on the table and cast an amber light to the edges of the room. This warm room was the opposite of a cold, damp prison cell. It looked more like a cozy study.

Sonjay had expected to find a grizzled and emaciated man chained to the wall, his eyes rolling around crazily in his head. This man looked well-fed and clean. And he looked exactly, precisely, like Denzel, only grown up. When Sonjay entered the cell with Crumpet, the prisoner pushed his chair back and rose to his feet with a questioning expression.

“I am Sonjay, the youngest son of Debbie,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Are you my father?”

The man’s face collapsed with emotion as tears ran down his cheeks. He nodded his head and then, in a voice that cracked, he said, “Yes. Yes. I am Reggie; Reginald Goodacre. I am your father.”

Sonjay was stunned. He had set out to find his father and had expected to find him, but nothing could have prepared him for the moment when he would actually stand face-to-face with his father. Rooted to the spot, his eyes welled up with tears. Reggie walked over to Sonjay and wrapped him in his arms. They held onto each other tightly and cried, oblivious to everything and everyone around them. “Such a beautiful, strong boy. My son. I have wished to see you every minute of every day these ten long years,” Reggie choked out between sobs.

Sonjay felt like dancing and shouting. He was fit to burst with joy and wished with all his heart that his brother and sisters were there with him at that moment. But all his wishing did not bring them to his side.

“Sissrath says your mother died; is it true?” Reggie asked.

Sonjay swallowed hard and nodded his head. “She had a heart attack. But it was really the deep enchantment that killed her. You know, because she traded years from her life to protect the people.”

“Yes, I know it. I tried to save her. That’s why I came here,” Reggie said huskily as he tried to regain control of his emotions. “Are the others here too? Doshmisi, Denzel, and Maia?”

“We were separated during the passage. I think they probably arrived in Faracadar somewhere, just not with me,” Sonjay explained. “But I don’t know.”

The sound of a struggle in the passageway outside the door of the cell cut their reunion short. Sonjay and Crumpet ran to the threshold of the cell. Buttercup stood just outside the cell, transfixed in horror as she watched the far end of the passageway fill with human-like creatures covered from head to toe in snow-white jumpsuits, their faces hidden by opaque gray masks that did not yield any clue as to the appearance of the creature which lay underneath.

“Run for it!” Buttercup shouted, as she discharged a stream of stinky skunk juice from her super-soaker.

Changing the Prophecy Chapter 3 Episode 1

 Chapter 3 Arrival Part Two -- Episode 1

Maia flew down the wind tunnel filled with blue powder with Elena wrapped around her like a life jacket. When she burst through the passage into Faracadar, Elena still clung to her, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “You can let go now,” Maia said, unable to conceal the note of anxiety in her voice. Elena opened her eyes slowly and peered around. She blinked and winced.

“Such bright colors,” Elena observed.

“You’ll get used to it,” Maia assured her brusquely. Deep-blue wisps of smoke drifted off Maia’s shoulders.

“Where are we?” Elena asked.

“Faracadar. And you shouldn’t have come,” Maia said.

“Please don’t be angry with me,” Elena begged.

“I’m not angry. I’m worried that I can’t keep you safe here,” Maia informed her. Elena’s eyes widened with fear and uncertainty.

At that moment, Denzel popped through and red smoke steamed off his head and shoulders. He glared at Elena as he shouted, “Oh no, not you! You stupid idiot!”

Elena promptly dissolved into tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…”

“No you didn’t, did you? You have no idea how big a mistake you made. No idea. But now we’re stuck with you, so you’re going to have to try to keep up. Maybe we can leave you with the People Beyond the Lake until Loma and the return, because…” He stopped in mid-sentence and gazed around him. “Whoa,” he said to his sister, “where the heck are we?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Maia replied.

“This is not Debbie’s Circle, not at all. And where are Dosh and Sonjay? Shoot. Your dumb friend must have scrambled the passage,” Denzel accused.

“I would get it if she had scrambled my passage, but how could she have scrambled yours? Or anyone else’s? She jumped onto my cushion. If it got scrambled, it happened because Ruby and Crystal don’t know how to do it right yet. Don’t blame Elena.” Maia wrapped her arms around her weeping friend.

“Having her jump onto your cushion in the middle of it sure didn’t help.”

“And yelling at her won’t help either, will it?” Maia chided him. “Maybe Dosh and Sonjay will come through in a minute.”

“And maybe I’m Abraham Lincoln,” Denzel muttered.

Maia ignored her brother’s snide comment as she pointed to the mountains that rose behind them. “It looks like we arrived near the Amber Mountains.”

“Looks like it,” Denzel agreed.

“But which side of them are we on?” Maia wondered aloud.

“The sun looks like it’s on its way down so I’m going to guess that it’s late afternoon. Then that direction is East, toward the ocean, and that direction,” Denzel turned around, paused, and shouted, “RUN!” He took off up the rocky hillside. Maia grabbed Elena’s hand and raced to follow her brother as several of Sissrath’s Special Forces, in full battle dress, emerged from the trees.

Denzel scrambled swiftly up the hillside to an open cave entrance above him. The Special Forces moved up the hillside behind him and the girls, but the grown men in battle dress could not keep up with nimble young feet and they failed to overtake their prey before Denzel, Maia, and Elena reached the opening of the cave and rushed inside, deep into the darkness, and far from the cave’s mouth, with their hearts roaring in their ears.

“Sheesh, only been here a hot minute and Sissrath’s already trying to snuff us. What a sore loser,” Denzel complained as he bent over and gasped to catch his breath.

“Who are those guys?” Elena asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Denzel answered. “I’m guessing you’re starting to realize that following us here was not such a hot idea.” He actually grinned. He was happy to be back and he was going to enjoy watching that nimby-pimby Elena figure out that she had bitten off more than she could chew. Fortunately for him, neither Maia nor Elena could see him grinning in the dark. He sat down and rummaged around in his backpack until he found his flashlight.

“Those guys are the Special Forces, the elite army of a nasty enchanter named Sissrath, who tried to kill us last summer. We beat him fair and square, but he’s probably still after us,” Maia explained curtly, before following the beam of Denzel’s flashlight with her gaze. “We’re in the Through-Tunnel,” she said matter-of-factly when she had taken a quick look around.

“Ya think?” Denzel replied.

“Oh shut up. Being mean accomplishes nothing. We have to work this out together,” Maia reminded him.

“You were here last summer? Where? Where is here?” The ramifications of her impulsive act of jumping into the unknown began to dawn on Elena.

Denzel answered, “It’s way too complicated to explain right now.”

“I’m sorry,” Elena cried, “I never should have done it. Send me back and I won’t ask any questions. I’ll forget the whole thing. Your secret will remain safe with me. This never happened.”

“Well, it did happen, and we can’t send you back. Believe me, if we could then I would do it in a heartbeat,” Denzel said.

“We’re on the Big House side, right?” Maia asked her brother.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Denzel confirmed. “So we have to go through.”

“Not the geebachings again!” Maia exclaimed. “Last time, they made me laugh so hard that my lungs almost exploded.”

“Don’t remind me of that; they nearly killed you. At least this time we don’t have the high chief with us to give us away hollering because a little mouse ran over his toe,” Denzel noted with relief.

“We don’t have to creep through in silence, you realize. I can play the timber flute all the way through and that should protect us until we get to the other side,” Maia said.

“That sounds like a plan. We can probably get through in a couple of hours of walking and then spend the night at the Wolf Circle,” Denzel suggested.

“A couple of hours? Of walking?” Elena wailed. “In a mountain? In my pajamas?”

“You have your jeans on,” Maia contradicted, “not your pajamas.”

“I’m in my pajama top,” Elena whined. “And your brother’s here. I look silly.”

“I already told you back at Manzanita Ranch, I’m not interested in you, so get over me,” Denzel said harshly. It more than annoyed him that of all the people from their life at Manzanita Ranch who could have followed them to Faracadar, Elena had succeeded in doing it. He was burned out on her having a crush on him. He had not given her the least encouragement. How mean did he have to act for her to get the message?

“I’m thirsty,” Elena said, sniffling.

Maia removed her canteen from her shoulder and passed it to Elena. “Have some of my water, but don’t backwash, aight? And don’t drink too much either. We need to conserve for later.” While Elena took a sip from the canteen, Maia asked Denzel, “What if Dosh and Sonjay turned up right after we did and got captured by the Special Forces?”          

“I didn’t see any sign of them,” Denzel said.

“Me neither, but maybe we should wait here for a little while to see if they turn up,” Maia suggested. “If they’re inside the mountain then they would need me to play the timber flute to protect them from the geebachings.”

“Doshmisi?! Sonjay?!” Denzel called out. His voice echoed back at him. He paused to listen for a response, but he knew it would not come. “Maia, they’re not here. They’re just not. They either turned up somewhere else or they didn’t make it through at all. We need to push forward without them.”

Elena handed the canteen back to Maia, who attempted to provide her friend with a simple explanation. “Here’s the situation in a nutshell. Me and my brothers and my sister have a job to do here in Faracadar. We have a duty to keep the people safe and prevent bad enchanters like Sissrath and his smelly buddy Compost and other bad creatures, like sea serpents, from harming anyone. Or taking control of the land. The people in this land call us the Four because we have special responsibilities. Things are going on here in Faracadar that we have to find out about, and then do something about. This tunnel leads through the Amber Mountains. We have to follow the tunnel and meet up with our friends on the other side in the Wolf Circle to find out from them what’s happening. You’ll have to go with us.”

“Sea serpents? I’m afraid of snakes. I’m even afraid of worms,” Elena said with a whimper.

“Then I guess you should have stayed off Maia’s passage cushion.” Denzel threw Elena a smug I-told-you-so look.

“Stop hating on Elena,” Maia snapped at Denzel. She attempted to reassure Elena by telling her, “You’re not in danger of encountering a sea serpent in here; we’re inside a mountain. In here we have to watch out for geebachings.”

“So geebachings are funny?” Elena asked hopefully.

Denzel and Maia looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Bueno,” Elena said as she smiled for the first time since arriving in Faracadar. “I could use a few laughs.”

“Not this kind,” Maia warned. “Geebachings make people laugh themselves to death. Literally. They make you laugh so hard that you can’t stop and then you can’t breathe and then you die. They have no mercy.”

“And they live in this mountain?” Elena asked, wide-eyed.

“Yup. But we dealt with them last summer. They can’t listen to music. It makes them turn into harmless orange birds. They’re OK with singing and drumming, but musical instruments, like my flute, transform them.” With those words, Maia produced her timber flute from her bag and put it to her lips. She began to play and, as she did so, her amulet began to glow with a blue light.

“Whoa,” Elena remarked as she pointed at the amulet. “Hecka cool. I want a necklace like that.”

“Yeah, our amulets do that sometimes. C’mon, we need to walk,” Denzel informed Elena, “while Maia plays music to keep the geebachings away.”

“How do you know which way to go?” Elena asked.

“We told you. We were here before,” Denzel switched off the flashlight as he fell in behind his sister and followed the music of her timber flute into the darkness. He looked up at the phosphorescent mold on the ceiling of the tunnel. The pattern of the glowing mold indicated which way to walk. Jasper had taught him about the mold last summer. Denzel had looked forward to seeing Jasper upon his arrival in Faracadar, but things had not gone as expected. “Later Man,” Denzel whispered softly to Jasper, even though his friend couldn’t hear him. He hoped that maybe Dosh and Sonjay had arrived in Debbie’s Circle like they were supposed to and that Jasper would lead them to him and Maia eventually. For the time being, the best plan was to try to reach the Wolf Circle without getting killed by geebachings.