The Descendants and the Missing Guardian

Chapter Three

Seth scrambled toward the bunk bed to wake his brother and heard the desk chair creak under the weight of the stranger. He froze, feeling his heartbeat thundering in his ears like the large drums in band class. He needed to wake up Jared. Now.

"I'm afraid that will do you no good," the voice said, as if reading his mind. "I used a little sleeping powder to make sure your brother didn't wake up."

"Did you hurt him?"

The voice laughed. "He's fine. It's you I'm after."

A shiver ran through Seth as the chair slowly turned toward him. He froze, staring in disbelief at its occupant. A blurry creature faced Seth, changing from tall to short, from fat to skinny. Its head changed from a man with dog ears to a duck with a beard, to many other muddled combinations, each consistent with a tuft of frizzy blue hair coming from the top of its head.

"The name is Belvedere," a cat's paw stuck out from the blurred being, quickly morphing into a feathered hand with bright pink nail polish, then into green and scaly claw.

"What are you?" Seth asked, clinging to the wall behind him.

"A shapeshifter, of course," the figure answered. "Why I'm the Head Guardian of the Crossroads and you're looking at me like I'm a PollyDoodle or a FarsWaggle!"

The creature looked down to its extended hand and blurted out, "I'm sorry, I forgot that when I'm in your world I can't keep to one shape."

"A shapeshifter?"

"And a Guardian," Belvedere added. "Now, I need you to come with me."

"I'm not going anywhere. I don't even know what you are!"

"So much to explain and so little time," Belvedere said, looking genuinely distraught.

"Seth?" a voice came from the hallway outside his bedroom door. "Can you keep it down?"

"Hello!" Belvedere said as Marin appeared. She screamed and ran from the bedroom.

"Oh, dearie me," he said, standing up and running after her.

"Leave my sister alone!" Seth said running after the shapeshifter. The two followed Marin into the bedroom at the end of the hallway.

"Mom!" Marin yelled, "Mom, help! There's something in the boys' room!"

Entering behind Belvedere, Seth found Marin on the opposite side of their mother's bed. The floor was covered in their mother's bedding and she was nowhere to be seen.

"What did you do to our Mom?" Marin asked, pointing at Belvedere.

"I did nothing," he claimed. "I am here to help. There must have been an information leak; let's call it what it is, a Security Breach, a full-out red alert! Someone must have found out I was coming!"

"I must be dreaming," she insisted. "This can't be real!"

Belvedere lifted his hand in the air toward Marin and poofs of dust surrounded her. She fell face first onto their mother's bed.

Seth climbed on the bed beside his sister. As he rolled Marin over, a loud snore escaped her lips.

"Don't worry, that's the sleeping powder I told you about," Belvedere said. "It really works in a jiffy."

Seth shook his sister's shoulders. "Marin! Can you hear me?" He looked up at Belvedere with a glare, "Wake up my sister, right now!"

"Fine," Belvedere said and snapped his fingers.

Marin sat up and looked at Seth. "Good morning," she smiled, raising a hand to his face and pinching his cheek. "How's my little brother?"

Seth knocked his sister's hand away but she kept reaching up to him. "What did you do to her?"