Woodbridge Recollection : The Hidden Kingdom

Chapter 15: Detailed Entries.

  As I always did when I was alone, I closed myself in my room and began reading through the journal entries. By now, I was moving quickly through the fourth journal. The entries were fairly detailed, but the interest I had in them was large. I couldn't exactly put the journal down unless I had to. The stories and information were getting good, running quickly through my seventeenth year.

The entries about Xenophil were becoming plentiful too.

August 4th, 2009

My time as Xenophil's apprentice has become a little harder. He showed me something important today; a trusted secret. He showed me where he keeps his most valuable alchemy books. Its kept under the house, but I won't write the location down. I will express how proud I am of myself. Xenophil said that he could trust me, a thing that he is not well known for.

For a single second, I felt a pull of hope towards the answer I needed. It was short lived though. There was nothing else on the location of those books. The simple clue didn't help either, as the whole place was apparently searched by the council. If they searched the house, they would have most defiantly searched any kind of basement or cellar, too.

I read on, finding some more details about my past life in this kingdom. Just like the previous entries, I was still expressing concerns about a lot of Mathew problems. But then I came across an entry that both intrigued me and irritated me when I read the word Zacarias.

August 12th, 2009

There's a new person walking around the order. I saw him a few days ago when I went to speak to my parents before school started. They were talking to him in the council auditorium when I arrived. He looked odd and sounded foreign, but he was wearing the privateer's black coat, so I didn't find it too disturbing.

I didn't really think much about him until today, because of the rumors. Everyone avoids him, like they don't want to be anywhere near him. During eating times, he would sit alone and brood over his food.

I kind of got the chance to meet him for myself today. I went to the beach after school, to look out over the lagoon. The docks were kind of empty by the looks of the view. While I was walking along the beach, he happened to be standing there, walking around by the rocks. He was fiddling with something,; an oyster? Maybe it was a clam.

When I was close enough, he said that he found it odd that I was there at the same time he was. Most people avoid the areas he goes to. I told him that I didn't really get why people were avoiding him.

"Have ye' no' heard the rumors?" he asked.

"I don't exactly listen to the news in the village," I said.

When I told him I found the news to always be boring or full of nonsense, he then said it doesn't really matter. I'll hear it from somewhere sooner or later.

He threw the oyster back among the rocks and then washed his hand in one of the tide pools. He then stepped up to me and held out his hand towards me. When I reached out he dropped a pearl onto my palm.

His exact words, "A bonny pearl for a bonny lass."

I'll admit, that was kind of cute.

I still can't fathom why he gave it to me. A pearl like this one goes for a lot at the local jeweler. When I told him that, he said that he's got no use for it. He then introduced himself as Zacarias. When I asked him how old he was, he said twenty. So he's an initiate in the order.

I breathed in deeply and then lay back on the bed. So that's how I met Zacarias?

The next few entries were rather short and simple. Some note on work from Xenophil and go on about school homework and projects. Several of these short entries later, another one about Zacarias arrived.