The three walked into another room, and into a small mud room where they were alone. The room echoed from the loud music and cheering going on at the other end of the house.
“Where do we go now?” Rachel asked, looking at Hunter. “What do we do now?”
“You have to go find the book,” Penelope said as Hunter nodded.
“Yes, you must find the book,” Hunter repeated.
“Where? Where is it?” Rachel asked in a panicked voice.
“The last time I saw it, it was upstairs in a secret bookcase in one of the bedrooms,” Hunter said.
“That’s vague,” Rachel replied. “How will I ever find it?”
“You have to trust him,” Penelope said. “You must search for it.”
“I think the room had plaid wall paper, but I’m not sure. I can’t really remember because I was rushed out so quickly—I only took a quick glance at the book and then had to run,” Penelope added.
“I don’t remember that,” Hunter said, “But I’m a guy, I wouldn’t notice that sort of thing anyway.”
“Ok, so upstairs, bedroom, secret book case, and plaid wall paper. Got it!” Rachel said.
“You have to hurry though before they catch us. We don’t have much time,” Hunter said.
“We’ll distract them down here, and you go upstairs. Hurry!” Hunter added.
Rachel quickly turned around and then made a full circle and faced Hunter again.
“Wait, where’s the stairs?” Rachel asked. “That would be an important first step!”
“They’re just through that room on your left,” Hunter replied.
“Now go! Quickly!” Penelope said.
“But wait, what happens if we get split up? What happens if I’m caught?” Rachel asked in fear.
“Don’t forget to use your powers and if we get split up let’s meet at the cemetery at midnight. It’s the only place that we can’t be sensed. We will be safe there,” Hunter said.
“Ok,” Rachel said.
Rachel turned back around and headed towards the stairs. She passed through the room with the Beirut game and quickly dodged the stares and smells of the other vampires. She couldn’t help but wonder if her perfume was helping her cause. She hoped it was.
As she got to the stairs, she looked around to make sure nobody was watching her and then quickly crept up the stairs. On her way up, a guy and a girl were on their way down, laughing and holding hands. They were almost tripping down the steps which lead her to believe they were drunk. She hoped they weren’t vampires, although had a sinking feeling given their scent that they were. She hoped that their alcohol intake would hinder their ability to smell her or sense she was there.
She was pretty sure by the time she got to the top of the steps she was in the clear. Nobody was fooling her and the two who went down didn’t stop to notice her.
At the top of the steps was a long hallway with many closed doors. She looked to her right and then to her left and didn’t know which way to go first. She felt scared and pressured. Her heart was racing out of her chest and she knew she was tight on time and had to move quickly.
She turned to her left and started with the first door on her left. She knocked ever so slightly on the door to make sure she wasn’t barging in on anyone and when silence came from the other end, she opened the door slowly. She immediately looked at the wallpaper and saw that it was plaid. She figured she must be in the right room and was inwardly congratulating herself for finding it on the first try. She looked around for the hidden book shelf but didn’t see any bookshelves. She went over to the walls and started pushing them gently to see if they moved.
Nothing.
Then she pushed on the furniture to see if that moved but it didn’t. It was just furniture—not some secret bookcase.
She began to doubt that this was the correct room and decided to leave it and try another room. She continued down the left side of the hallway and into the second door on her left. She looked first at the wall paper and was surprised to see that it was the exact same plaid as the first room. She became confused and wondered if all the rooms had the exact same plaid walls.
She went around pushing on walls and tapping on surfaces to find this secret hidden bookcase but it was nowhere to be found. She tried a third and a fourth room with the same outcome. She felt like giving up but couldn’t.
Her heart was leaping out of her chest at the thought of entering another room and risking being caught by the other vampires. She didn’t know what would happen if they were to find her. She knew it wouldn’t be good, though, and was scared at the mere thought of it.
As she approached the fifth door, she was hoping for a better outcome. She was petrified that someone would be in the room when she knocked, but luckily, it was empty. As she entered, she saw the same plaid wallpaper—but this room was a little different than the rest. On the far wall was a roaring fireplace with a large stone mantle above it. There was a sitting area in front of the fireplace and two walls of books on either side. Immediately, Rachel went over to the bookshelf to see if this was the secret bookcase and started pushing and tugging to find the secret door. After what felt like hours of prodding the right side of the bookcase, she found nothing. She even glanced at all the titles of the books and none of them was the old coven book.
Then, as if by chance she looked over at the mirror and in its reflection saw a tiny glimmer of light coming from the other side of the bookshelf. She slowly walked towards the light and peeked in through the crack. It was so small that she couldn’t see in the crack. Part of her was scared to touch it as the light poured out. It was almost as if the glow of an angle was behind the wall. She knew this was it, she knew this must be the secret bookshelf that Hunter was talking about. She had to find a way to open it though.
She pressed and prodded, but nothing. The bookshelf would not open.
Her mind kept going back to all those movies she used to watch where the detective would waltz into a room and swing open the secret bookshelf and find the missing link, but that wasn’t happening to her. It was much harder than she expected. She knew now that it would not be easy and it would take much more than a simple push to open this so-called secret bookcase.
She looked around the room, maybe it needed to be opened with some sort of key, she thought. She opened drawers and checked under the carpets for hidden keys, but nothing. There were no keys, nor did she see a key hole anywhere on the bookshelf so even if she had found some key she wouldn’t even know where to put it.
Then she stood in front of the bookcase, and if by sheer force willed it to open. She used Mind Control for the first time on something other than an animal or a human—and it worked. The book shelf began to part and the ray of light that was peeking out of the small crack began to flood there room. For a second, Rachel thought she was entering the gates of Heaven.
When the doors finally opened all the way, there, in the glowing ray of light, lay the old coven book. She knew this was it. It was the thickest book she’d ever seen and must have been two feet tall, lying on its back looking up at her. It was bound in beautiful brown leather with a golden embossed cover which read CXB and under it was a picture of a panther with fangs. She wasn’t sure what CXB stood for, but figured it had to do with something from this coven.
She stood there for a second in awe of this enormous and beautiful book. She knew this book would hold the key to healing Benji, but she worried that it would take her days to find the right page with the information about the Red Amulet. She turned around to make sure that nobody had come in after her or sensed that she was upstairs before she opened the book. Then, she turned and lifted the front cover.
The feel of the book reminded her of her father’s old Encyclopedia collection that was bound in beautiful leather. She was hoping to find some sort of table of contents but there were none. She knew this was going to be tricky and also that it would take a while to find the correct page.
All of a sudden, the pages of the old coven book began to turn themselves. Thousands of pages went by and then as if by magic the pages stopped and there, in front of her eyes was the exact page she was looking for.
The heading read: The Red Amulet. Under the title was a picture of this mysterious Red Amulet in all its glory. The picture was beautiful, and very detailed. The Red Amulet was smaller than she’d imagined, assuming that this picture was drawn to scale, and contained a red ruby, encased in silver.
She began to read about the amulet, when she heard the door open to the room. She quickly turned around and tried to hide, but it was too late. The two guys who were standing at the front door as she entered had found her upstairs, searching through their coven book.
She knew this was bad and stood there like a deer in headlights awaiting her fate as her heart leapt out of her chest. She could feel the beads of sweat pouring down her face, and the fact that the fireplace was roaring right behind her wasn’t helping the cause.
“Excuse me?” one of the guys said, staring at her.
Rachel couldn’t help but feel like a burglar being caught red handed.
“Um, Hi!” Rachel said, staring back at them.
“Don’t Hi us,” the other guy said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Rachel could tell by the tone of his voice that he wasn’t happy. She knew she shouldn’t be up there and wished this had never happened. She wished she was still in the cave with Benji trying to save him in another way. She wished he’d never uttered the words Red Amulet.
“Well?” the first guy repeated. “What are you doing up here?”
“I, um, um, um” Rachel began to stutter.
“You um what?” the second guy asked again. “You shouldn’t be up here. Who let you upstairs?”
Rachel didn’t know how to answer this.
“I, um, just let myself up. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Of course you knew,” the first guy said. “If you didn’t know then how would you have found the book?”