The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 20

"Jaylon?" I called, walking down the aisle between some of the rows of shelves. "Where are you?"

I had left Noah and his family along with the Hunt family back near the libraries main entrance, and only Charlie was tagging along now.

"Jaylon? Thalia?" I called again, thinking maybe they had split up and Thalia would be nearer. We really needed walkie-talkies or some tracking system so that we could find each other in here, even better would be having it in the entire house.

"Over here!" I distant voice called. I followed the sound and a couple of minutes later I spotted Jaylon. He was sitting on a step ladder, though I don't know what someone who could summon books to him out of thin air needed a step ladder for. He had a pile of books beside him and on open in his lap.

"He is a real bookworm isn't he?" Charlie muttered. "Who knew you'd fall for the nerd type?"

"Shut up." I laughed, shaking my head at my younger brother. "Who knew you'd fall for the bad girl?"

"What are you talking about?" Charlie spluttered, but he was going red.

"Oh, I see the way you look at her!" I carried on, laughing. "You've got it good, don't you?"

"I don't know what you're going on about," he muttered shaking his head. He fell behind and I turned, an eyebrow raised. "I'm going back," he said. "You're annoying."

"What else are big sisters for?" I called after him, still laughing as he turned the corner and disappeared from sight. I turned back and carried on to Jaylon, who was intently studying the book in his lap.

"Find anything?" I asked. He glanced up and smiled, nodding.

"The bloedzoeker will be perfect for what we want," he said. "And this book tells you all about how to use it and the risks and all that stuff."

"So are we going to get started with it today?" I asked.

"We have to find it first." He laughed and stood up, waving a hand and sending all his books but the one in his hands back to their places on the shelves.

"Okay, well, I have some good news," I said, not quite sure how to tell him that after he'd been alone here for fifteen years, some not so random people seemed to have wandered into his house.

"Louisa," he said, stopping in his tracks and looking giving me a partly annoyed, partly disappointed look. "We were supposed to look for it together, you better not have gone up there on your own."

"What?" I frowned in confusion, not sure what he was talking about. "No! No, I wasn't up there. I just went to get Charlie and all them and accidentally went to the wrong section."

"Oh," he said in surprise. "What's the good news then?"

"Well," I said, trying to think of the best way to put it as we walked between the towering shelves. "The section I wandered into wasn't empty."

"Let me guess, Danielle?"

"Wrong, again." I laughed.

"Just tell me!" He exclaimed, and though he laughed I could tell he was getting impatient.

"Some people wandered in while there was no one here yesterday thinking it was empty. They were still there."

"And that's a good thing, why?" He asked.

"Sam, Izaac, Tyson, Nicole," I listed. His face remained blank. "Hunt," I added.

I watched as the blank, confused expression melted away to be replaced by a look of shock and excitement.

"You're kidding?" He said loudly, grinning. "Wow, that's insane! All the magic here must have attracted them or something."

"No idea how it happened," I said with a shrug, catching on to his contagious excitement.

"You sure it was them?" He asked. "Not just people faking it?"

"I could feel the magic in Nicole when I shook her hand," I said. "I don't know if that makes sense, but..." I trailed off, not sure how to explain the way I had felt it.

"No, it makes total sense. WItches can feel the magic in others, especially powerful ones. And now we're getting closer by the day!" He said. "So, where are they?"

"I left them just near the entrance to the library," I said, "with Danielle, Noah and Andrew. Charlie came with me..." I stopped suddenly and looked around the library. All the shelves looked almost identical, and if you didn't know your way you could get so lost. "Uh, Charlie is probably lost."

"Well, that's helpful," Jaylon said, though he was still very cheerful. "Maybe we'll need the Bloedzoeker to find him in here."

I laughed, but I was kind of worried. Charlie was smart and growing up with a sometimes not all their mother and an absentee father, he had grown to be very independent. Even so, it didn't change the fact that he could get very claustrophobic and he hated getting lost anywhere. We went to a giant corn maze once when he was twelve and he absolutely hated it. Five minutes in he got claustrophobic, decided we were never going to get out and that we were going to die, and then he had a panic attack and fainted. I could just imagine that happening in this dimly lit library beneath those rather imposing looking shelves that towered over him.

"Charlie!" I yelled. "Charles!"

"He's fine, it's just a library," Jaylon said with a chuckle. "Let's go meet the others, he'll find us."

"You can go, I want to find my brother," I said decidedly, turning away from Jaylon. "Charlie?!?"

"Hey." He caught my arm and looked at me with concern on his face. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

"He's not good with stuff like this," I said, shaking my head. "When he was with me, he was fine because I knew where we were going, but on his own, it's all claustrophobic and huge and he'll be lost and-"

"Hey, hey, calm down!" Jaylon planted his hands on my upper arms, anchoring me down and looking seriously at me. "We'll find him, he'll be fine."

We split up and wandered the library, calling out to Charlie. After a while, we met back up again, both of us with no luck.

"Maybe we will have to use the bloedzoeker," I said miserably.

"Or maybe he got back to the others," Jaylon suggested. I could tell he was dying to do just that, to go meet the newcomers who were probably getting very impatient themselves.

"Okay," I said with a sigh. "Let's go back."

I would still get lost in this library if I hadn't gotten used to recognizing the different shelves. Even so, there was still an enormous portion of the library I'd never been alone, and I didn't much fancy the thought of getting lost in here.

"He's older now, maybe it'll be different," Jaylon suggested as we took the shortest route back to where I'd left the others.

"Maybe," I murmured, but there was no way I believed it.