Keeper of Reign

6. Hide!

WHEN THEY APPROACHED their home Jules noticed their front door ajar, tottering on a hinge.

Creak-creak, the door seemed to say, as the wind blew on it gently.

“Something’s wrong.” He barred the entrance with his back, his elbows spread out to prevent Tippy from sailing in. He poked his head through the doorway and was about to step over the threshold when Tst Tst pushed past him, and he stumbled forward.

“Tst Tst, no!” he whispered, hoarsely. “What if someone’s in—?”

“Mama? Mama!” Tst Tst stood in the middle of the living room and wrung her hands.

The others cautiously followed her in.

As Jules took another step something cracked under his feet. He glanced down. It was the spout of his mother’s favorite china teapot, and a foot away, remnants of the teapot lay strewn in bits and pieces.

Debris littered the dwelling they’d left three hours ago. Pieces of broken furniture scattered over the floor in the dining room, some smashed to smithereens. Crockery lay broken. Even the breakfast dishes of that morning lay strewn on the sink counter. And the pot of potato soup lay on its side on the kitchen floor. Jules had smelled the herb from it when they first stepped into that kitchen. The smell of buttered garlic still hung in the air. The doors of cupboards, armoires, and commodes teetered on hinges as if some force had wrenched them off in a rage.

Jules’s mahogany desk Grandpa Leroy had fashioned for him for his eighth birthday lay on its side, one splintered leg broken and swinging slightly from the break, and Tippy’s miniaturized collection of dolls Grandma Bonnie had woven together out of multi-colored blades of grass lay crushed at the bottom of the stepladder that led to the girls’ attic bedroom.

The children tiptoed about to avoid tramping over their things, as their eyes drank in the mess.

“Who’d do this?” Ralston looked around, blinking several times, and wiped his wet eyes with the back of his hand.

Tst Tst said, “They destroyed everything. What did they take from us? And where’s...where’s Mom?” Her breathing grew louder and she clutched her chest, as if in pain.

“What are we going to do?” Bitha’s tone was barely audible. “Mama should be here—where else could she be?”

“Maybe she’s hurt.” Jules peered behind a toppled table, afraid he’d find her unconscious.

“Do you think—do you think someone—took her? Maybe they....” Bitha said.

Bile crept up from the pit of Jules’s stomach, and he quickly avoided Bitha’s red rimmed eyes. What if something happened to Mom? Maybe he should have warned her about the acorns? Or that bright flash? Whoever plundered their house was no ordinary scoun- drel. He was only ten when his grandpa warned him about Gehzurolle, yet he remembered as if it was only yesterday.