A Place Beyond The Map (46 page)
“Phinnegan,” Emerald called. “We should get started.”
“All right,” he said, stuffing his hand, and the gem, into his trouser pocket. But as he moved to join them, Phinnegan’s knees buckled as pain lanced through him.
“Phinnegan, what’s wrong?”
The other Faë had noticed as well, and the three rushed to his side as he clutched his stomach.
“It’s nothing,” Phinnegan said through clenched teeth. “I’ll be fine.”
“Doesn’t seem like nothing, mate. Here, let’s have a look.” Before Phinnegan could stop him, Periwinkle had lifted his shirt, exposing his stomach and the Mark now branded there.
The collective gasp from the Faë was followed by an extended silence. Phinnegan shifted his feet, embarrassed and awkward feeling now that the Faë had seen the symbol he bore.
Emerald was first to break the silence. She moved to Phinnegan and pulled his shirt down. When she looked at him, Phinnegan saw multiple emotions swimming beneath her eyes.
“I fear that though you may not wish it, you will return to us one day.” She took each of his hands in one of hers and leaned closer to him. “I will not forget what you have done,” she continued in a whisper.
“Come on,” she said, speaking normally with a weak cheer in her voice. “Let’s get you home.”
Periwinkle and Crimson moved to join them, but both avoided looking directly at Phinnegan.
“How will you get me home?” Phinnegan said, trying to deter everyone’s minds from his Mark. “I thought Periwinkle said it was impossible.”
“Well, we have a bit of an advantage now, haven’t we?” Periwinkle reached into his pocket and pulled out a small object, which he proceeded to toss to Emerald. Phinnegan recognized it once it was in her hands.
“That’s like the stone that brought me here.”
“Not just like, mate. It is the stone.”
Phinnegan thought back to Féradoon when the juror had questioned the stone.
“It said its owner was Emerald Wren.” He looked at the green-haired Faë beside him. “You? But how did Periwinkle…” He stopped when she raised a hand.
“That is a story worth telling, but not now. Time is short. The effects of the Great Stone will not last too much longer.”
“How do you mean? Did it sort of…strengthen it?”
“Yes, something like that. Any ordinary stone would soak up some of the Great Stone’s energy if placed near it. Periwinkle had both for quite awhile. More than enough time for this task.”
“What do we need to do?”
“Just hold my hand,” Emerald said. When Phinnegan placed his hand in hers, she squeezed it reassuringly.
“Should I close my eyes?” he asked.
“You can if you like.”
Phinnegan closed his eyes, just as a gentle breeze began to playfully tousle his hair. The breeze became cooler, prickling his flesh with hundreds of tiny bumps. He expected the characteristic tug at his middle that he had come to expect from travelling in this world. The breeze became cooler still, and when the first drop of rain dotted his cheek, he opened his eyes to check the sky for he could not remember seeing even one cloud.
But he opened his eyes not to a sky aglow with the morning sun, but instead to darkness. Not a total darkness like the belly of Féradoon, but a more familiar, comforting darkness, one dimly lit by a full moon whose light only just penetrated the rain clouds.
When his eyes adjusted to the reduced light, they quickly settled on that most longed for sight. His heart seemed to skip a beat and a sense of relief coursed through him.
“Home,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Emerald said, squeezing his hand. “Home.”
Sitting alone in his room the following morning, the window shut fast against cold and relentless rain, Phinnegan sipped cautiously from the cup of black tea his mother had just brought him. The spicy scent of clove drifted from the cup to his nose. It was her way of showing that she was no longer angry, despite sending him to bed the previous night without supper.
After Emerald had said her goodbyes and disappeared in a faint distortion, but not before once again expressing her gratitude, Phinnegan had run all the way to the front door of his home. When he burst through the door, his mother had scolded him both for being gone the entire evening and missing supper, as well as tracking a bucket’s worth of water in with him and onto the floor.
One afternoon. It all happened in one afternoon.
The thought was so unfathomable that he nearly wondered if he had imagined it all. When he had awakened earlier that morning, the Mark on his stomach had almost faded completely. So faint were its lines that he thought perhaps those, too, were something he had dreamed.
But what about the book?
Setting his tea on the bedside table, he rushed to the pile of dirty clothes he had tossed into a corner. Finding the pants he had worn the previous night, he searched the pockets until his fingers touched the supple leather of the book’s binding.
Withdrawing the book, he stared at its cover for several moments, tracing the now familiar symbol emblazoned upon its cover.
“What secrets do you hold?” he whispered, turning the book over in his hands before opening its cover.
There, on the first page, the answer awaited him.
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Chapter 2 – A Late Night Visitor
Chapter 5 – Under the Mountain
Chapter 8 – A Lack of Evidence
Chapter 9 – A Place Beyond The Map
Chapter 12 – The Troll Under the Bridge
Chapter 14 – The Plan Revealed
Chapter 15 – An Unwilling Thief
Chapter 16 – A-Door-Within-A-Door
Chapter 22 – A Man and a Quill
Chapter 23 – A House of Many Secrets
Chapter 26 – A Book of Secrets
A PLACE BEYOND THE MAP
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2011 Samuel Thews
Cover Illustration Copyright © 2011 by Larque
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
To my first readers – Mom, Heather and Eva