Raz’s mind reeled, the girl’s alluring almond eyes only inches from his own. “Wh-wh-where are we?” he stammered, looking around, trying to make sense of what had just happened. She let go of his hand, and stood up. Towering over him she asked, “In or out?”

“Huh?” he confusingly asked. His mind still not able to fix on a thought.

“In? Or. Out?” she said more slowly this time. “Better decide before the postman returns and notices the disembodied legs coming out from the ceiling.”

Raz looked down and stifled a fearful shout. His torso ended into the dark wooden floor, as if he had been cut in half in some carnival magician’s act. The wood floors around his waist rippled outward when he moved, like he was standing in oak water. Unable to see his legs, he moved them up and down in a marching pattern to ensure they were still there. Then, realizing there were more stairs, he used them to step upwards and slowly into the room, until he was standing level with the girl on the oak floor...

“Alright then?” she asked with a smile. “Good.” And she turned and slowly started walking around the room, her hand dragging across a shelf on the bookcase closest to her.

The room he was standing in was perfectly round. Its curved walls completely covered in curved bookcases and, from the look of them, made from the same oak as the floor. Looking around, Raz noticed the secret doorway he used to enter was in the exact center of the circular room. He made a mental note of its location, as to not accidentally fall through it. Hanging directly above that was a chandelier which was a match for the familiar one he saw everyday in his grandfather’s bookshop; instead of electric bulbs, it was filled with dozens of lit candles, casting their flickering light around the room, making the walls look like they were moving. Above the bookcases, the walls were painted a dark fern green. There were no doors or windows that he could see. The only way in or out appeared to be the secret entrance from the bookshop stairs.

Although this room was new to him, Raz felt as though he recognized it. It reminded him very much of his grandfather’s cottage in the woods, behind the bookshop. But that’s impossible, he thought. The cottage is at least a quarter mile into the woods, and definitely not above the bookshop. Yet, it had the same familiar smell, like the woods after a summer rain; pine mixed with earth and water. The oak floors and green walls were also a match to the lonely cottage his grandfather called home. Except his grandfather’s cottage was more like the bookshop they just left...messy. The sitting room and bedroom lined with old books and pages, so disorganized you would think they had been dropped from the sky and left wherever they fell. Dust could be found on every surface, and cobwebs hung from the lamps and small statues that resided around the room. Raz always thought that the shop and cottage were actually a reflection of his grandfather’s mind - organized chaos. Nothing in this room felt that way to Raz. It was simply too clean.

The shelves here, though filled with books and other items very much like those found in the bookshop, were organized and neat. No dust coated any of the surfaces. Loose papers were not strewn about, but instead, neatly piled on shelves. No cobwebs were strung across this chandelier. In fact, it looked to be polished, helping reflect the candlelight around the room. Raz could hardly process what was happening. Not five minutes ago, he was sitting on his stool in the bookshop that he had spent a majority of his childhood in, getting ready for a long day of reading and filling any online orders that may come through on the old computer they had behind the counter. But now, he found himself in a room at the top of a staircase that went nowhere, in a place he had never seen, with a girl he didn’t know.

Turning now to the girl, Raz asked, “Who ARE you? How did you know about this? Where...no, WHAT is this place?” He said all of this very fast.

Not turning to face him, she continued walking and looking around the room, “My name is Elaine,” she said calmly, as if going through a secret magical door leading to a strange room, which appeared to be the second story of a one story building, was old hat. She ignored his other two questions.

“My name is Rasputin...Raz...my friends call me Raz,” he stammered, still looking around the room, trying to take it all in.

“I know who your are, Rasputin,” she said, closely examining a wooden carved statue of a little old man carrying a bundle of wood on his back.

“Wait, what?!” Raz exclaimed. “How do you know who I am?” Raz was on his heels now. He always had pride in the fact that he either understood what was happening in his life, or felt very confident he could figure things out. So now that he found himself completely unable to understand what was happening, he was starting to to get annoyed. Elaine did not answer, irritating him further.

“The hidden passage, this room, the parchment with the words that burned off the page as I read them,” Raz said. “It’s like some kind of magic.”

“You’re not wrong,” Elaine replied with a quiet condescension, looking closely now at a large leatherbound book on the shelf nearest to her.

“I am getting the feeling that you know something I don’t,” Raz said, the frustration in his voice no longer hidden.

“Again, not wrong,” she replied with a bit of laughter.

This made Raz angry. “Look,” he said with a much more forceful tone. “I don’t know who you are, or where you came from, or how you knew about this room, but I have had enough of these games, and I want answers now!”

She turned and faced him. “So, you do have a little fire in your belly after all. Good,” she said with a small, sly smile. “What would you like to know?”

“For starters, who are you?” he asked, glad to now be getting somewhere.

“I told you, my name is Elaine,” she answered.

“I know that,” Raz retorted, “but that doesn’t tell me WHO you are.”

“No, I guess it doesn’t,” she said back. “My name is Elaine Shemwell. I am from England, and your grandfather sent me.” Then she just stopped and stared at him, as if she knew this would take him time to process.

After a few heartbeats, Raz found his voice, “Wait, what?!” he asked. “My grandfather...sent you? Sent you for what? Why? Where is he? Is he okay?”

“Let’s take those one at a time, shall we?” she replied, sounding a bit vexed. “Yes, your grandfather, Pelias Fischer, sent me. He is at my grandmother’s house in Scotland. Why he sent me, and for what, is a bit harder to explain. I was told to get you, and recover and return an artifact he has hidden here.” She stopped and stared at him again.

“Wait, are you saying my grandfather knows about this place?” asked Raz, looking around the room. “That he has a secret magical portal to a hidden room, a room he kept secret from me for seventeen years, and that he sent you to find me, and to bring him something from here? I don’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “This is some kind of elaborate prank.”

Elaine let out a heavy, purposeful sigh. “And yet,” she said, holding both hands out, palm upward acknowledging the room, “...here we stand, in a room only accessible from the top of a staircase that ascends into the ceiling in a one story building, that we accessed by climbing through a solid yet waterlike surface, activated by reading from a note your grandfather sent you.”

Raz started to respond, but stopped. Looking around, the magnitude of what she had just said starting to sink in. Then, as if a veil had been lifted, he started to see things clearly for the first time in his life. The house and cottage that just “sprung up” when his grandfather moved here. The old books, tomes and manuscripts he ventured all over the world to find. His grandfather never discussing anything personal before his life in Woodhaven with Raz and his mother. The quirky dust-filled bookshop. His living like a hermit in the woods. How could I be so blind?! he thought.

“Is my grandfather a... wizard?” he asked.

Elaine laughed out loud. “You read too many fantasy books, Raz,” she said. “Wizards are works of fiction, told by people who didn’t understand the world around them, trying to make sense of what they could not.”

Raz was even more annoyed at her dismissive attitude. He was, after all, just trying to get answers. Answers she, for some reason, was unwilling to give him. “Then what would you call it?” he demanded. “Since you know so much,” he retorted, sarcastically.

Her answer came sharper than expected, “I don’t know everything, but what I do know, that you don’t, could fill a book.” He could tell she was not pleased with his indignant tone. “Now this has gone on long enough. There is not enough time for me to be able to explain everything. Now, stop asking your inane questions, and help me find what I was sent here for. And don’t touch anything,” she added.

She turned on the spot and returned to looking through the shelves, moving statues, and looking behind books. Don’t touch anything, Raz thought to himself in a childlike mocking voice. Raz realized he was still clutching the envelope and the now blank note his grandfather had sent. He placed them on the shelf on the bookcase in front of him. Then, taking a deep breath, trying to calm himself, Raz asked “Would you like to share with me what you are trying to find?”

Without looking at him, she said, “A small glass orb, about the size of an orange.”

“Any particular color?” he asked

“Hmmm. Right now, probably white,” she replied.

“What do you mean ‘right now’?” asked Raz.

“Well, depending on how it feels, it could change.” she said.

“Kind of like a mood ring?” Raz asked, fully expecting a patronizing response about the foolishness of comparing, what he assumed was, a magic orb of some sort to a silly novelty ring.

To his surprise, she laughed lightly and said, “That’s not too far off, actually. Maybe you’re smarter than you look.”

“Gee, thanks,” Raz said sarcastically, as he began going through the items on the shelf on the opposite side of the room from where Elaine was looking. He saw large dark leather bound books with gold lettering on their spines, but instead of words they had symbols. They reminded him of battle flags he had seen in books about ancient Great Britain that his grandfather had once shown him. On the shelf below were small statues of what looked like medieval knights carved from white stone, their paint almost gone entirely from the years of display, but Raz could still make out symbols on each shield, some of which matched symbols he had just seen on the books on the shelf above. Looking at the shield held by one of the knight statues, a red cross, he looked to the books above until he found one with a matching symbol. Opening it to the first page, he read in bold lettering;

“The Tales of the Brave Sir Galahad, Noble Knight of the Round Table”

He was right, he thought. The symbols on the books were the crests of the Knights of the Round table. Each book’s symbol matched the one found on the shield of one of the small stone statues of a knight. Cool, he thought, but not a glass orb. Placing the book back in its place on the shelf, he continued on to the next bookcase. Instead of books or statues, this case held what looked like different wooden walking sticks, laying on their sides, cradled in small wooden arms. On the top shelf was a gnarled looking wooden staff, looking like an ugly tree root ripped from the ground. Yet someone had taken the time to carve what looked like ancient runes down one side. The staff on the shelf below that was much smoother and straight. It reminded Raz of an oar from a rowboat, minus the paddle. White cloth was wrapped around both the top, and the bottom, like a mummy trying to shed its wrappings. There were two other staffs on the two shelves below, but both looked in different states of carving. Did his grandfather make these? he thought. Again, like the bookcase before this, very cool, but there were no glass orbs he could see.

“Any luck over there?” he asked Elaine over his shoulder.

“Nothing yet. You?” she questioned.

“No, nothing,” he said. At least she is talking to me, he thought, It’s a start.

The next shelf seemed to house a menagerie of necklaces and rings of all different sizes, shapes, materials, and for lack of a better word, eras. A necklace of brass that looked like it came from ancient Egypt. A wooden ring with a hawk carved into it reminded him of Viking carvings he had once seen. There was a bone beaded necklace that looked like it had belonged to a Native American tribe. An African shaman’s mask sat upright on the bottom shelf. But nothing that looked like a glass orb.

“Well, I don’t see anything here that fits the description,” Raz said. “Are you sure it’s here?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding frustrated, “Pelias told me I could find it here.”

“Why would he tell you it was in a room, but not tell you where?” Raz asked. “Wait, how did you even know how to find the secret room?”

“I didn’t,” she replied. “Your grandfather told me you would know how to find his private library, and where he hid the orb.”

“He told you I would know?!” Raz said exuberantly, slightly laughing. “How would I know? Until you walked through the bookshop door this morning, I had no idea ANY of this existed! I mean, until fifteen minutes ago, my grandfather was just a quirky old bookshop owner! I’m doing everything I can to keep it together right now! I can’t decide whether this is real or I’m having one messed up dream...”

“Well, I guess he must have had more faith in you than you do,” she said.

This took Raz aback. He started thinking about what she just said. His grandfather needed something so important that he sent a girl he obviously trusted to get it, and had such faith that Raz would know how to find it, he told her nothing more. A sense of purpose came over him. “Right then,” he said. “Tell me exactly what he told you when he said I would know how to find it.”

“He said as his only grandson, and as the last of your father’s bloodline, you would know,” she replied. “Look, I didn’t think it made much sense, and bloody hell, nobody even knew you existed, but when Pelias Fischer speaks, you listen.”

Raz found this last part fascinating. His grandfather was always well-liked. He was nice and kind and, well, grandfatherly. But the way Elaine was talking about him was filled with such reverence and respect, it made Raz second guess everything he knew about the man. It emboldened him even more that he not let his grandfather down. Looking around the room, he began to think. Family. Grandson. Bloodline. His father. What did these have in common with this room. The staffs, the jewelry, the statues, the books….the books. Raz and his grandfather shared a love of books. It’s a place to start, he thought. Walking over to the shelves with the books and knight statues, he pulled the first book off the shelf, a symbol of a gold hammer on the spine, and opened it.

“The Adventures of Sir Gawain, Noble Knight of the Round Table.”

Gawain, he thought. There was no Gawain in his family that he heard speak of. He placed the book back on the shelf. He grabbed the next one, two gold keys on the spine. Opening it he saw this book was for Kay, another knight of King Arthur. Kay also didn’t seem familiar. He put that book back next to Sir Gawain’s. He repeated this several times. Red Griffon for Brunor. Three crowns for King Arthur. Clustered stars for Percival. Diagonal stripes for Lancelot. Stripes with a star for Hector. Stripes with lions for Bors. What’s with all the striped shields? he thought, frustrated that his hunch about the books appeared to be wrong. He reached for the final book. It had a golden lion on it. Pulling it down, he opened it and read:

“The Tale of Sir Tristan. Noble Knight of the Round Table”

Tristan! he thought. His father’s name! He quickly flipped through the pages, looking for any clue, anything that could lead him to a magic orb, but to his dismay, nothing. Then he glanced down to the stone statues, and remembering the matching symbols on the shields, he began scanning them. Crowns, stripes, keys, stars, a griffon. A gold lion, I need a gold lion, he thought. Then he saw it. A knight with a very faded green shield, in the center of which, standing on its hind legs, was a golden lion. He reached down to pick it up. It was heavier than it looked, but being made of stone, it wasn’t that surprising. What WAS surprising was that when he picked it up, a wooden pressure plate under it raised up, and a small door slid open directly behind where the statue had just vacated. Just inside the little door, perched on stand shaped like a hand looking like an autographed baseball in a sport memorabilia collection, sat a small glass orb filled with what looked like bright white smoke floating within. “Here!” he called to her. “I found it! It’s here!” He reached out to grab it, but right as his fingers began to grasp around the smokey sphere, he heard Elaine yell, “No! Raz, don’t touch it!” But it was too late. His finger wrapped around it, pressing it tightly to his palm.

Her yell frightened him and he pulled it quickly from its hidden resting place, spinning to face her. The smoke within the orb turning a bright blue in his hand. The now blue smoke began spinning and churning within the sphere, like water trying to escape a glass prison, bathing the room in a soft blue glow.

“What?! Why?!” he stammered.

“We have to leave, now!” she yelled.

Grabbing him by the arm, she pulled him towards the hidden door in the oak floor. She was much stronger than she looked, and he was having a hard time resisting.

“What is going on?! Why are we leaving?!” He had wanted to spend a bit more time here, and was hoping she was going to answer at least some of the millions of questions he had.

“I told you not to touch anything!” she yelled. “You have no idea what you just did!” Letting go of his arm, she jumped into the floor where they entered. “Come on, Raz!” she said as her head disappeared with a ripple of the wood floor.

Hoping he knew where the top step was, he placed his foot through the oak, watching it disappear at the ankle. To his relief, he found the footing of the top step. And, taking a deep breath like he was plunging into the lake, he ran down the stairs he couldn’t see. In a blink, his head was through and he was descending the familiar stairs, back in his grandfather’s bookshop. Elaine was just ahead of him, heading towards the front counter and the door.

“What’s the rush?!” Raz yelled after her. “What is going on?!”

Suddenly she froze on the spot, just in front of the mahogany counter, “Oh, no!” she exclaimed, “He’s here.” And for the first time, Raz heard fear in her voice.

He ran up along side her. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked, slightly out of breath. He looked at her face, and, looking at her brown eyes, he saw not fear, but terror. Raz followed her gaze out the windows until he saw it. A man was standing there. Tall, in a dark grey cloak, hood pulled over his head, hiding his eyes. A black beard with lines of grey throughout it. A wicked smile forming on his face. He was walking slowly towards the front door. Her fear was spreading to him, and now he knew why. The look of this man was sending a chill down his spine. “Who...who is that?” Raz asked shakily.

His question seemed to snap her out of her stasis. She wheeled around to face him, “Is there a back door?“ she asked hopefully.

“No,” he replied. Pointing toward the door, and the stranger making his way toward them, he said, “The only way in or out is that way!”

“We have to leave right now!” Looking up towards the ceiling she shouted, “The crow! Where is the crow?!”

“What crow? You mean the statue?” Raz asked confused. Pointing he said, “It’s in the corner, to the left of the fireplace. Why? Go where? Who is that?”

She did not answer, and, grabbing him by the elbow again, she began pulling him towards the direction where the stone crow kept watch. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled out a small golf-ball-sized, shimmering, purple marble. Their speed increased as they ran toward the corner where the statue of the crow sat, its “Bird Surveillance” sign hanging below. Elaine threw the purple ball directly at the corner. It hit and began expanding until it became a glowing purple door, pure black in the middle. Raz noticed that as the portal opened, the statue of the bird above was spreading its wings. Suddenly there was an explosion, as the front of the bookshop was ripped open. And, as she pulled him through into darkness, the last sound he heard was the explosion of the bookcase directly behind him, and the sound of screeching birds.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3 - Balin