Keeper of Reign

8. Secret Cellar

“NOT THE ATTIC.” Jules rushed to the dining room wall and un- hitched two dragonfly lanterns from their hangers. The burglars seemed to have missed them. For an instant, he worried about his pouch of stones behind the hearth brick. His grandfather and he had collected many of the stones together, a last vestige of a token of Grandpa. “I know a secret hide- out.” He pointed at the cloak closet.

Miranda said, “We can’t all fit in there!”

Just then, whoever, or whatever, skulking outside, scraped at the bark that acted as the shingles of their tree home. The grating made Jules’s teeth tingle, and he clenched them tighter to stop the discomfort. It sounded like metal claws upon wood.

The window shutters rattled as if a strong wind wanted to pry the find Mom’s Book and had come back for a second try. He scanned the room for any sign of the Book—nothing. Should he hide and leave the skulker to find it? No time.

Jules opened the closet door and shoved Tippy. The others followed suit.

Once inside the cramped closet, Jules stooped and cleared away the mountainous pile of apparel on the floor. (These cloaks had fallen off their twig hangers.) Tumbled clothes obscured a trap door. Lifting the insert with some difficulty, as the panel appeared jammed, Jules jerked the board to the left to make room for his siblings and Miranda to rally on ahead into the gaping hole in the floor. Steps hewn out of rough wood greeted them. Save for the light from the dragonfly-shaped lanterns in Jules’s grasp, the passage wound into darkness. Steps corkscrewed round and round to somewhere deep beneath the house.

“Here.” He shoved a lantern into Bitha’s hand. “Hold it higher.”

Once Miranda entered, Jules stepped down into the passage, ducked and slid the trap door back into place. He squeezed past the rest and led them down the winding stony steps. Some of the stones came loose as they edged their way in a single file down, down the narrow tunnel. The air smelled hot and musty as if moths had once lived there. Miranda, who was last in line, slipped once and almost pulled Ralston down with her as she grabbed his arm.

Ralston said, “How far down does this go?”

But Jules didn’t answer him. The dragonfly lanterns made diagonal patterns of light on the rough wooden walls on both sides of the crusading party.

“Where are you taking us?” Bitha’s voice quivered, and her words echoed in the darkness.

“Grandpa showed me this place before he left.” “Why didn’t you inform us about this?” Tst Tst said. “I said ‘secret’ hide-out.” Suddenly Jules’s outstretched hand hit a wall. He groped on it and found a rusty ring like a knocker in the middle of the expansive wall. “I saw Grandpa do this.” He twisted the ring round and round a few times till a click echoed in the tunnel. He slid the creaky slider of a hidden latch and pushed the wall open.

When Jules stepped onto the stony floor of the cellar the cold traveled from the ground through his strapped sandals and bit the soles of his feet. The cold air enveloped him, and his nose started to run. He tilted his head into his shoulder and wiped his nose into his cloak. With the dragonfly lan- tern held above his head he saw books lined from floor to ceiling in rows and rows of bookcases, some against the four walls and others back to back in the middle of the cellar with its high ceiling. Just as he’d seen them last. The bookcases themselves looked like giant buildings at least thirty or forty times taller than Jules.

The others stood by the doorway and gaped.

“Why didn’t Grandpa tell us of this—this library?” Tst Tst’s eyes stared accusingly at Jules.

He shrugged. “Maybe you were too young—I don’t know. We shouldn’t argue about this, we don’t even know where Mom is.”

On hearing this, Tst Tst and Bitha cried, “They took her!” Tst Tst whimpered between sobs. “Do you think the intruders are inside our living room, now?”

Ralston’s voice quaked. Miranda said, “These books are made for giants! There’s no way a normal Elfie can handle them.” Jules had never heard her so surprised. “They were for normal people.

Once. Elfies were normal, once.” She took the lantern from Bitha and moved toward the nearest book-case. “Where did your grandpa get all these books?” “It’s a family thing. An inheritance. You wouldn’t find it interesting.” “Like jipsy I wouldn’t? How’d they even bring these giant books through your tiny doors?” She faced Jules squarely, her blue eyes burning like emeralds. “Tell me your secrets.”

Jules felt Ralston nudging the small of his back with an elbow. “It’s common knowledge we all shrank, right?”

“So these bookcases and books didn’t? What’s so special about them?” “My grandpa said they belonged to the King.” “Wait.” Miranda stretched her arm and shoved his chest. “How are you related to this exactly? To the King? Jules, we’ve been friends since for ever and you kept this from me?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” “Explain.” “If you help me find our Book maybe I’ll tell you.” Could Mom have kept it down here, and that’s why it was not on the mantel?

“Making contracts, are we? And what Book? This place is books galore—take your pick—which one do you want? Ha! If you can lift even the smallest.” And she doubled over and broke out laughing, the lantern in the other hand swinging wildly.

Jules had never seen her like this.

Miranda strode to one of the shelves and ran her hand on a book’s spine. “They’re all in alphabetical order. What’s the Book like? The one we’re supposed to look for?”

“It’s about this big.” Jules held a span about double his hand’s width for the height and one hand length for the book’s width. “And it has a double ‘X’ on its spine.”

Miranda glanced at the looming bookcases. “Nothing’s that small here unless it’s behind one of these giants, which means you can forget about finding it unless we have ten years.”

Miranda was right. How could they even move these giants, as she’d termed them? Maybe if they had days—which they didn’t. Jules glimpsed at Tippy squatting in a dark corner, small and forlorn, cupping her stone and sobbing into it.

“Maybe we should stay quiet.” He walked over to Tippy and was about to sit with her when a tapping sound jerked him upright and he turned around.

“Shh!” he said.

Everyone stared at the doorway. No one had slid the oaken door shut. Someone must have found the trap door in the closet! Jules wanted to kick himself as he realized he hadn’t pulled the fallen clothes back over the entry as his mother always had. His eyes scanned the library.

This had seemed like a safe place, but where could they hide amongst the books? They couldn’t possibly climb the shelves. Before he could summon them to maybe squeeze between some of the books the sound of metal squeaking and a loud click sounded.

“Quick!” Jules pulled Tippy to her feet while gesturing to the others, who were staring at him with fear on their faces, as if he had answers to every trouble.

They followed him as he ran down the hallway of bookcases, his lan- tern lighting the path only a few feet at a time.

“Turn the lantern off once you hide.” He shoved Tippy into a slight gap between two books to get behind them.

A much smaller book fell, a rare Elfie-sized one, and he quickly picked it up and shoved it back so no one could guess Tippy stood behind the tall ones. He was just about to slip behind another book when the door creaked open. His last thought before light spilled into the room was, at least the others were safely hidden.