A Kelpie of Rowan

Chapter 61

Rowan carries her bag into her room and shuts the door behind her. She dumps it onto the emerald-green surface of her bed and tilts it, sending everything pouring out. The bag of salt spills out with the strange leather case and a small pile of granules pour out. She sighs and sweeps the pile of salt into her hand. She carries the salt over to the window and patches up a few points where the line of salt is growing thin.

When she returns to the bed, she picks up the leather case and frowns. There is a line along one edge, almost as if . . . Her eyes widen. It opened! How? She moves to slip her hand through only for her fingers to glance off the leather surface. It sealed shut again. How did it open the first time? She backtracks. She dumped the bag onto the bed and salt spilled out from the salt pouch. Did the salt touch the case? Is that what did it? She shrugs.

There's one way to find out. Rowan carries the case over to the window and places its edge against the line of sand. Just like she had hoped, a slit appears in the material of the case. She slips her hand inside it before it can disappear. Inside it is a hard object, the texture bumpy. Rowan wraps her fingers around it and pulls. A book comes sliding out, studded with what looks to be various tiny gemstones.

It's like the old tomes, the rare kind you see in ancient libraries. The book is small, barely large enough to fit in the palm of her hand. She slowly flips the cover open, only for a slip of paper to fall out. It falls to the ground face-down and she bends to pick it up. When she turns it over, she finds a packed piece of writing on it. It's the same writing as she found when she received the bag of runes.

This is a book of runes. It will teach you what each of them does. Be careful with this tome, however. It is a rare piece and it can do much damage if it falls into the wrong hands. To aid you, the case will only open in the presence of salt, which is unlikely to be used around most of the Aos Sì, as you well know.

She looks at the book and eagerly turns the page, excited to learn other runes beside the single two she knows. Each page holds a different rune and they shimmer, settling into her mind. By the time she's looked at three of them, a headache is beginning to form. She sighs. Of course the runes are powerful enough that she can't look at them all at once. She flips back to the ones she did look at.

The first rune is a set of two interlocking diamonds, one overlapping the other. The word bind lies beneath it. The next rune is quite simple. It looks like the number two with a three partially overlapping it. That one is labelled as water. Rowan frowns. What happens if they are placed together? She pulls a pen from her desk and begins to write. Instead of her mind controlling it, her hand seems to be doing so.

The water rune emerges from the pen first, with bind overlapping it. Nothing happens, so Rowan darts to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. When she returns, the pattern of runes is still on the paper, which actually does surprise her. She doesn't know why, words don't just disappear. She moves everything off the desk, especially the book. Rowan leaves the paper where it is and carefully tilts the glass of water.

A thin stream of water pours out. When it hits the paper, it freezes in place, leaving a column of water rising into the air. Rowan frowns. How did it do that? She didn't use the freeze rune, she used bind. She waves her hand through the water. Above her hand, the water begins to move again. It falls all at once, pouring over the desk. A few droplets hit the rune on the paper and freeze in place all over again.

But why does this combination make the water freeze in place? Carefully, Rowan removes the paper from the desk. The water seems to move with it, the entire column. Her eyes widen. The water isn't frozen, it's bound to the paper. She grins and darts out of the room. Her grandmother is sitting on the couch in the sitting room, reading a book. She looks up when Rowan runs in, her expression alarmed.

"Rowan? What is it?"

Rowan tugs on her grandmother's arm. "Come on! You need to see this!"

Aisling pushes to her feet and follows Rowan back to her room. She freezes in her tracks when she catches sight of the desk. "Rowan, what is that?"

"Water!"

"Why is it doing that?"

"Because I bound it to the paper."

Aisling frowns in confusion. "What does that mean, Rowanberry?"

"Watch."

Rowan grabs the paper and turns it onto its side. The column moves with it, turning onto its side. Rowan giggles at her grandmother's stunned expression. "It's alright. It won't move unless-" Aisling had swiped a hand through the column, sending half of it falling towards the floor. "-you cut off the connection to the paper."

Her grandmother winces. "Sorry, Rowan."

"It's alright. I'll just get a towel from the kitchen."

Rowan hurries to grab a towel, ending up with a lime-green one. She tosses it onto the floor to cover the small puddle of water and carries the remainder of the thin column over to the glass. She slices through the column at the base and watches it fall into the cup. When she flips the paper over again, there is still a small amount of water sticking to the paper.

She frowns. How does she get it off? Maybe if the runes are broken? She grabs her pencil and draws a slash through the pair of runes. At once, the water is released and it floods the paper. She tosses the soggy mess into the small recycling bin beside her bed and turns to her grandmother.

"What do you think?"

"How did you do that?"

Rowan shrugs. "With these symbols. So far, I only know about five. The freeze rune, bind rune, water rune, protection rune, and there is one other. I forgot its name."

She flips open the book once again. The last rune is even simpler than the water rune. It's just an x with a colon beside it. It's labelled as reverse.

"The one I forgot is called reverse."

Aisling nods. "Well, leave them be for now and go to bed. It's getting late."

"Yes, Gran."

Rowan slips the book back into its case and waits until the opening disappears before she tucks it into her bag, shoving the bag of salt in after it.
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I think Rowan is having a lot of fun with the runes, don't you? What do you think is going good to happen next? Tell me your thoughts!

I have another question for you guys too, should I make a chapter for a rune alphabet/dictionary? Seriously, answer this question please.

Happy reading and I'll see you next chapter!

~Goddess of Fate, signing out.