Ink Sisters

Chapter Two

Another legend. Another month. Another journey to Willowdown.

Lorelle tugs the grey cloak over her shoulders. She secures it with a bronze pen before turning to help her sister with her own. It is the way of things with the twins: one may finish before the other, but she always moves to help her sister. Always.

"What's bothering you?" Lorelle asks Leandra as she tucks the cloak up under her pointed chin. "You've been... strange since we recorded the Legend of the Five Relics of Asterlyn." She has sensed her sister's distance in the past few weeks like a chord tugging her own emotions downward.

"It's just all so sad isn't it?" Leandra asks. "Many of the old legends are that way."

"I wonder," Lorelle begins solemnly, "what do you suppose happened to the Seeker?"

"Faded into the mists of time, most likely," Leandra answers. She squeezes Lorelle's thin fingers. "Much like the ancient trees that kept secrets."

"Fortunately for us," Lorelle smiles, "the lake still remains.

There is no more talk of trees or sadness as the pair falls into a comfortable silence moving about their small space. Syd means to break it.

He has been uncharacteristically quiet since the writing of the legend of the relics. Something is troubling him, but he won't say. Syd, the talking book that rarely shuts up, has been silent for days.

Leandra lifts the large tome and begins making her way to the wobbling bookshelf. She and the book have made up as best they can. As she lays him flat on the top shelf, his mouth groans open, sending dust particles flying sparsely into the dim room.

"Take me with you," he whispers to her. She jumps, startled that he has spoken in the first place and also that he did so without being summoned by the stroking of his spine. The sisters were warned that Syd may grow in power each time a story was recorded, slowly gaining the powers back that were stolen from him. His ancient pages were drawn and made from the very trees of the forest where the lake now sits. As each story is shared upon its pages, where they rightfully belong, Syd too grows more powerful with the magic humming through him.

"I don't think so," Leandra chastises, eyeing the book severely.

"What's that?" Lorelle asks, smoothing her cloak down so that it barely grazes the floor. She steps closer, and Leandra tries to shield Syd, but she cannot stop his mouth from moving.

"Take me down to the lake and the town!" Syd's shriek is loud and blunt, a forced disturbance in the softness of the room. "I feel I must go with you today!" Lorelle moves closer. Sighing, Leandra steps back.

"He's getting more powerful," she says with disappointment.

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Lorelle reaches around her sister and heaves the book into her cloak, blanketing it with the folds of fabric. "Now, tell us why It's so important that you come with us," she adds to Syd before completely enveloping him.

"Something strange is happening," Syd replies mystically. "A change is coming, I believe on this very night." The sisters share a skeptical look.

"He's lying," Leandra accuses instantly. Her dislike for the book is coming out again.

"I am not!" Syd shoots back. "You are!"

"Please!" Lorelle interjects. She frowns at her sister. No words are spoken, but somehow each one can sense the others growing unease. Syd never speaks this way. They ignored his warning once before and paid severely for it.

"You feel it too, Leandra," Syd says, quieter this time.

"He's right you know," Lorelle agrees, touching again upon her sister's melancholy from the relics.