Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
“Ahh, I see. Yes indeed—come with me and we’ll figure it out together.” She held out a hand to me but I hesitated.
“Er, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t have much time,” I told her. “Madam Healer gave me a time charm, but it’s only good for going back three hours and I’ve nearly spent that much time here already.”
“I see.” She nodded. “Let me see the charm please.”
I held up my arm and she tapped the golden charm wrapped around my wrist three times and nodded.
“There. That added another hour. Now please come with me—we’ll go sit on my back porch and have some tea while we talk.”
Tark and I followed her through the winding maze of the inn—which turned out to be the oldest still-standing inn in the whole country as Goodie Albright proudly informed us.
“It’s been here since the witch trials in Salem,” she told me. “That was when magical folks started congregating here in Hidden Hollow—to get away from the madness of the Human Realm. And lately more and more magic users are being drawn here—because once again, the outside world is getting very strange and scary.”
I thought of the things I’d been seeing on the news lately and couldn’t help agreeing with her. The “Human Realm” as she called it, was getting awfully frightening of late. It was nice to think there was a cozy magical sanctuary tucked away and safe from all the craziness.
“That’s nice, but I really don’t think I have any magic,” I told Goodie Albright. “I mean, everyone keeps telling me I do, but I’ve never done anything magical or special in my life.”
“Perhaps your magic is still sleeping in your blood. Or it was, until you needed it—and needed to get away to Hidden Hollow,” she told me. “We’ll soon find out.”
We got settled at a small table on a glassed-in porch in the back of the inn. Well, Goodie Albright and I did, at any rate. She had to call for a reinforced stool for Tark to sit on—it took two brownies (that was the name of the attendants with the bark-like skin) to lug it over to the table we were sitting at.
I couldn’t help admiring the view—just outside the porch was a gorgeous garden that was somehow in full bloom despite the Fall weather. Flowers and vegetables and fruits all mingled together in a glorious tangle that didn’t appear to have any rhyme or reason but still looked amazingly well tended.
Once we were all seated, Goodie Albright called for tea and something else.
“My magic-testing kit—it’s in the second drawer in my office,” she told the brownie, who ran quickly to go get it.
The tea tray arrived with a steaming china pot and three cups as well as a plate full of delicious looking cookies. At the same time, another brownie brought what looked like a row of three test tubes standing upright in a wooden tray. One was filled with silvery dust, the second had golden glitter, and the third was empty.
“Now then, Tark would you mind pouring while I test Harmony’s magic?” she said.
“Happy to,” the big Orc rumbled. He looked down at me. “Milk and sugar, right?”
“How did you know how I like my tea?” I asked.
He grinned at me.
“You just seem like the milk and sugar type, but wanted to be sure.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant but before I could ask anything else, Goodie Albright was asking for my hand.
“What are you going to do?” I asked nervously, because she had produced a long, extremely sharp-looking needle from somewhere.
“I’m going to test your blood to see how much magic you have,” she said simply. “I’m sure you have some—enough to get you here, anyway.” She frowned. “By the way—did a key appear for you before you came to Hidden Hollow?”
“A key? No.” I shook my head. “I thought I was going into the ladies room—the bathroom, I mean,” I corrected myself. “But instead, I wound up here.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“Hmm—so you didn’t even need a key to enter? This should be interesting.”
She pricked my index finger quickly and then held it over the empty test tube. She squeezed the tiny wound until three drops of blood had fallen into the tube and then wrapped my finger in a small strip of soft linen.
“There—that will stop the bleeding in a minute. Now, let’s see…”
She started by sprinkling a bit of the shiny silver dust from the first test tube over the blood at the bottom of the third test tube.
At once something started happening—the blood turned green, then yellow and began to glow.
“Ah—interesting!” Goodie Albright nodded to herself. “And now let’s see how it reacts with this.”
She sprinkled some of the golden glitter from the second test tube over the glowing blood and then gave a little gasp.