"Grandpa!" I shouted running from my sister's room.
I threw open his door and found him fast asleep in his bed his wheelchair parked next to him. I've never been in my grandpa's room before and any other day I would have been fascinated by all the old maps and creepy ancient paintings, but I wasn't paying any attention to the walls. I began shaking my grandpa awake, yelling in his ear that he needed to get up. My grandpa sat up and rubbed his eyes with his hand, he then looked over at the clock on his nightstand.
"Bailey what are you doing in here you know you're not allowed in my room!" he said angrily then he noticed how upset I was.
"What's the matter?"
I was starting to have an asthma attack and fell down onto the ground. It fetl like a giant hand was grasping my lungs and refusing to let me breathe. I began feeling dizzy as I struggled to pull my inhaler out of my pocket. I fumbled it around trying to line it up right before jamming it into my mouth. Once I could breathe again, I quickly picked myself off the floor and told my grandpa everything that happened. I don't think I've ever panicked so hard in my entire life
My grandpa quickly rolled out of the room and left me alone on the floor to see if what I said was true. I couldn't breathe my lungs felt like they were collapsing, it felt like I had run up a thousand flights of stairs in two minutes. I coughed and coughed shoving my inhaler in my mouth then sat up and started breathing deeply. I ran back to Brandy's room where I found my grandpa parked at the window staring into the night sky.
"Be honest with me Bailey, who kidnapped Brandy?"
"I don't know," I lied.
"What did she look like?"
The fact that my grandpa already knew it was a woman was a little scary, I gulped waiting for him to turn around, but he continued staring at the moon.
"She was tall with white hair."
I couldn't bring myself to say that she was floating in mid-air and glowing blue like a ghost, because she couldn't have been. Ghosts aren't real it was only a person in a strange costume, it had to be.
"Bailey did she have a face?"
I didn't answer right away, so my grandpa asked again.
"Did she have a face?"
"No, I don't think so, although she could have been wearing a mask."
My grandpa sighed.
"There's nothing we can do then might as well go back to sleep."
My grandpa rolled out of my sister's room and back into his own, with a small smile on his face. I stood there in utter shock, there was nothing we could do? Brandy was missing, she was just a little nine-year-old kid she had to be found immediately.
"What do you mean go back to sleep? We have to call the police! We have to look for her! We have to do something!"
I could feel my coughs were about to start but I held it in wanting to hear my grandfather's response.
"There's nothing we can do," he said picking himself up out of his wheelchair and lifting himself into bed.
"I'm calling the police," I said ready to run downstairs.
"Go ahead but they won't find her!"
"Why not?" I could feel anger boiling inside of me, this was no time to play games!
"I would tell you, but you wouldn't believe me so what's the point!" My grandpa complained laying his head on the pillow and pulling the blanket over himself.
"This is no time for stupid fairytales Brandy is kidnapped!" I screamed my heart was racing and I couldn't stop coughing.
My grandfather didn't answer me and now he was starting to snore, I was so angry that I kicked his desk. It violently shook then a picture frame fell off and hit the ground with a shatter. I quickly got on my knees to clean it up, I would never break one of my grandpa's things on purpose. I looked at the picture to see how bad the damage was. There was a large shatter on the glass but the picture behind it was fine.
In the picture my grandfather was much younger he had both his legs and hands. He was dressed like a knight in shiny silver amour. Wearing a very fancy helmet with a huge purple feather sticking out the top, he held a giant sword in one hand and a large, severed head in the other. The head was the size of a large watermelon, scaly and dark red, it looked like a lizard head with horns and a big reptilian snout.
Normally when I saw a picture like this one, I instantly assumed it was taken at some medieval fair, but today was different. There were strange mystic artifacts all over my grandpa's room, hundreds of old books, and dozens of ancient paintings hanging on the walls. All the paintings contained very regal people or some sort of fantasy creature, like a cat that stood on their hind legs, wearing clothes like a person, huge colorful dragons breathing assorted colors of fire, tiny little pixies with glittery wings and dresses made from flowers, and a large purple unicorn with a long horn and big feathery wings.
There was a random picture of me, and Brandy thrown in taken at Christmas. It didn't match up with all the detailed paintings of fantasy creatures, it was taken by a cheap camera a while ago, and my eyes were closed. I looked at the picture of my sweet little sister with her big brown eyes and little pink bow and felt a twinge of pain in my heart.
"Grandpa please tell me what happened, I promise to believe you."
My grandpa didn't move at first and I was worried he had actually fell asleep, but just then he sat up and frowned.
"Brandy was taken by the ghost queen of Luminari, the reason the police can never find her is because she's in the spirit world."
"So, you mean everything you've ever told us all those stories about unicorns and dragons they were all true!"
My head was spinning, and I tasted some vomit in the back of my mouth (and let me just clarify that pizza does not taste the same the second time).
"Of course, why would I go through all that trouble just to lie to you?" My grandpa asked lifting himself out of his bed and setting himself down in his wheelchair.
"I thought you were just trying to entertain us like how everyone who tells stories about goblins and unicorns is. I thought it was just entertainment."
"Just because a story is entertaining doesn't mean it's not true, how do you know all those people who write unicorn and goblin stories weren't telling the truth and the world just didn't believe them. Get dressed and meet me downstairs!" My grandpa as he got on his stairlift heading down. I ran to my room to change.
I threw on my T-shirt and jeans I couldn't believe what was happening. Did I really believe his crazy stories were true, did he pay someone to dress up like a wicked ghost queen and kidnap Brandy. Was this all just an act to get me to believe in fairytales, that's crazy right? My grandpa would never do anything so evil as to make me believe Brandy's life was in danger when it wasn't.
After I was dressed, I ran downstairs and found my grandpa packing a backpack full of food and water, he threw it over his back then began wheeling his way over to the back porch, I followed close behind.
I regretted not putting on my jacket when the chilly night air hit the skin on my bare arms. Even though it was the middle of July it felt like winter, much colder than I remembered it. My grandpa was heading down a long thin trial into the woods, the trail was dark, and the woods were scary. There was no moon in the sky only hundreds of little stars bbut they barley gave off any light, I couldn't even see my feet. My grandpa didn't have a flashlight and I knew his vision wasn't great. There was no way he could see the twists and turns of the path, but he went along just fine as if he had walked the road dozens of times before.
We walked for hours I asked my grandpa where we were going but he didn't answer. The sun was starting to rise, and it was now the crack of dawn. The trail dead ended in the middle of the woods right into an old tree surrounded by more trees.
"There it is," my grandpa said with a big smile on his old face.
"What?" I asked expecting to see some sort of miraculous thing that I just hadn't noticed before.
"The entrance to Luminari."
He gestured towards the old tree at the end of the trail it was dead and barley standing up there were no leaves on any of the branches and the trunk was hollow. It smelled like mold and there was a strange orange moss growing up half the trunk.
"Grandpa that's just a dead tree."
"No, it's a daed tree."
"That's what I said a dead tree."
"No, you're pronouncing it wrong it's a daed tree. They're a very rare breed they look just like a regular dead tree, they sound just like a regular dead tree, they even smell like a regular dead tree, but they're not."
"What's the difference?"
I was scared to even walk near the tree in case one of its branches decided to snap off and crush me.
"Daed trees are entrances to Luminari, they're in fact the only entrance that humans can use."
"How do you get through?"
I walked around the entire tree and there was no special door or anything just a large rotting hole in the side barley large enough for a cat to slip through. I looked inside the tree and noticed a patch of grass with several different colored mushrooms growing on it.
"I don't see an entrance," I said pulling my head out of the tree and brushing bits of rotten bark out of my hair.
"The entrance is under the tree," My grandpa said rolling up next to me.
He gestured to the hole and broke off some more bark. He made the hole big enough for me to walk through then he took off his backpack and put it over my shoulders.
"Aren't you coming with?" I asked as he tightened the straps over my shoulders.
"I want to, but I can't, it would be too hard for me to get around in my chair I would only slow you down."
"It's alright I don't mind being slowed down."
I didn't think I could do this without my grandpa he knew everything about this place, and I knew nothing. He was brave and strong he had fought in the war, lost both his legs and survived. I couldn't even breathe without my inhaler. I was a little chubby and short for my age and I needed extremely thick glasses just to see.
"You have to get Brandy back as soon as possible who knows what the queen is going to do with her."
My grandpa turned me back around and frowned.
"Bailey as wonderful as Luminari is it's incredibly dangerous, there's a big chance you'll die down there. Are you willing to do this?"
I thought about it, how big of a chance? If it had been any other person stuck down there, I would have refused to go, I would have gone home and called the police, but it wasn't just any person, it was my baby sister, and as her big brother I have to protect her. It's my job!
"Yes, I am," I said but I didn't sound as confident as I did in my head, in fact I sounded incredibly unsure.
"Alright then, be safe."
My grandpa shoved me with all his strength, and I went falling backwards, I went right through the hole in the tree and instead of landing on the mushrooms like I expected I fell through them like the grass was only a hologram. I began falling faster and faster everything was pitch black and smelled like earth. I felt like Alice when she went through the rabbit hole, only I'm pretty sure Alice wasn't having an asthma attack at the same time.