• Chapter One- Stiller Nacht

    Legend has it that there are eight books lost in time. Books that can grant you their magic, if they approve of you. Eight different elements, eight different locations. Hidden from the rest of the world, only revealed to those who are worthy and to those who wish to destroy them. The goal of this mission is to find them all before the others do.

    This quest will be difficult, trying, and long but I know I can do it. After all, I'm the daughter of the Clarevont Pong Monster. Nothing could possibly go wrong... right?

    "ALEX! That was my creative writing report!" I cried out in protest. Man, I really felt like punching my brother right now. "That took me three hours to write! I'm not even halfway done!"

    "And I still couldn't read it," he shook his head. Alex's real name is William Alexander, but his friends and I call him Alex. Mom and his teachers call him Will or William. When Mom gets angry, she calls him everything but.

    "What happened to your glasses?" I asked, irritated.

    "They stopped working again. Kyle and Tyler told me they'd try to fix it, and if they couldn't they make me a new pair." He's not near- or far-sighted. Alex is dyslexic, but Mom has connections. She helps us in any way possible, even if it means being wanted in... thirteen... no wait, Bulgaria.... Fourteen different and independent countries. I didn't know how she did it. Mom never told us. "If I told you, I'd be in trouble. Sorry," she'd always say. Signed a confidentiality agreement, she did.

    "Great. Now I have to start all over!" I threw my hands up, and went upstairs to the only computer Alex and I were allowed to use. "Worth half my grade!"

    "I'm sorry!" he called after me. "Cadence! I'm sorry!"

    "Chill, Will. You know how she gets," Mom's voice was faint, but I could hear every word she said. Alex may have dyslexia, but I have acute hearing, which is good for eavesdropping on Alex. "Just let her calm down a bit."

    My creative writing teacher was strict about everything, the way you type, how high your hand arched over the keyboard, how you held your pencil. But nothing had prepared me for what he told us to do for our semester exam. Write a fantasy mini-novel with at least ten pages a chapter. Type out the rough draft on your computer, edit, all that jazz, then hand write the final product on college-ruled paper and skip a line every time you run out of room on the line you're on then. The skip a line thing was required for every project, though. It allowed him to correct grammar errors, spelling, and critique us.

    It was all a bunch of baloney. If I taught my own writing class, I'd let them write chapters however long they wanted and hold a pencil how they wanted.

    But enough about him. I cracked my knuckles, grabbed my pencil, then began to write out the first two chapters of my mini-novel.

    "The books of Tahn do not exist, Gracie. Last time I checked, no one has any proof of their existence. Even if they are real, no one would ever find them. That's why they're myths."
    "So you're telling me that my father was a crackpot who spent his whole life searching for a bunch of dictionaries?" Gracie exploded. "If they weren't real, he wouldn't have gone looking for them!"
    "Maybe so, maybe not. Look, all I'm saying is that no one should ruin their lives looking for something that may or may NOT exist." Tanga excused herself from the room.
    "Or maybe you refuse to accept the fact that you've been chosen, just like me and Desta. Don't you remember the pact we made when we first became friends? 'Never leave a girl friend behind. Never doubt a girl friend. Never be jealous of a girl friend. And most importantly, never steal anything from a girl friend, not even her boyfriend.'"

    I was deeply engaged in my activity when there was a knock at the door. Not the door to Alex's and my study, but the front door.

    I couldn't hear the words that were spoken, but I knew they were speaking. I thought I heard my name and Alex's name threw in there somewhere, but I wasn't sure.

    The rest of the evening passed by rather quickly, me spending the time rewriting what Alex had accidentally destroyed. Mom said I had inherited her short temper becuase I can and will blow up on anyone who dares. It was my one weakness. Or, in my mom's eyes, a weapon. I didn't know what she meant, though.

    That night, as I prepared myself for bed, I thought back to my simple days. The books of Tahn was a game Alex and I used to play all the time when we were eight or nine. We would take some of Mom's bigger books and hide them throughout the house. Then one of us would play the villain and try to stop the hero from retrieving the books. It was rather fun, until Mom said we were too old to be doing that. The Christmas after, Mom had gotten me a Hello Kitty journal and pillow set, and that night I had written down the idea of the books of Tahn. I've been writing down all of my creative writing ideas in it ever since.

    I was on the last page of my journal now, and trying to convince Mom to get me a new journal, but so far no luck. I still had half the school year and the rest of high school to make it stretch, and there was no way I was using the last blank page until I had more room to write. Somewhere safe, where Alex couldn't steal them. Or find them, for that matter.

    That boy is so clueless that he wouldn't see it if it was literally right in his face. It was rather sad, really. But I liked it like that. He didn't steal my stuff, I didn't steal his. That was our rule.



    It was a restless night, sleepless night, dreamless night. Stiller nacht. They say that dreams are memories. Memories that can be reborn. Memories that can relive themselves. Memories that can become real. Even if the dreams are completely absurd.

    I woke up the next morning feeling better than last night. Saturday. Monday was the day my mini-novel was due. There was no way I could write the last half of it in that time. So I did some research.

    I entered in the Google search bar books of tahn and waited for the results to load. I skipped Wikipedia and jumped straight to a sight centered around the books.

    This was a little-known myth, according to the website. There are replicas made and sold only in Turkey, but my Mom had brought one back for Alex and I when she had visited there on business. The Wind Book of Tahn was the title of the one I had and Alex's was the Equality Book of Tahn.

    Some people say that the books are hidden throughout America, protected by powerful sorcerers and an invisibility spell. Only the ones who are chosen and those who want to ruin them can see them. The site also dictated that the Ruiners -the official name for the enemy- look like ordinary people, so it's be very difficult to spot a Ruiner.

    I scrolled down the screen and read the story about the books. It was very useful. It read:

    The Books of Tahn used to be one collection of protecting magic to the land of Svalpeta, defeating any adversary that came its way. They were always locked in the vault, buried deep within the palace. There was a rival kingdom not too far from Svalpeta, named Greetanna who wanted to control these books. Greetanna offered an alliance treaty stating that should Svalpeta agreed, Greetanna gets half of the Books of Tahn and one fourth of the land. The queen of Svalpeta refused, telling the ruler of Greetanna that the books must never be separated, or there shall be horrible consequences. Disasters will rule the earth, floods, fires, hurricanes, death, epidemics until the day they are reunited with each other. Those who reunite them shall be chosen by the books to learn their magic and they shall control whatever element the book possesses. Greetanna eventually rose in power and gained strength that the Books of Tahn could not fend off. Greetanna was only able to take half of the books, though. Svalpeta scattered the remaining ones and enchanted them with invisibility to those who were not chosen; whoever Svalpeta chose as its champions were the only ones able to see them all. Greetanna did the same with its four books, scattering them as well. Greetanna vowed that once all the books were together again, the forces of both countries would be unleashed and the champions of both countries will clash in a batle for earth. Long after, the two countries died away.

    I stopped reading after that and walked over to my bookshelf. I pulled the wind replica off the top shelf and flipped it open. It was written in Latin, a dead language that only scientists and choirs use, but it was easy to read.

    "Pachtus yamanos valur," I whispered. That didn't sound like real Latin to me. Probably wasn't, though I kept reading. "Etmus gana coelicus gloriahm deos damanya."

    Nothing happened. Of course not, the book was only a rip off of the original, which probably didn't exist anyway.

    "Cadence! Will! Come clean out the attic! I'm going to Kroger," Mom called from downstairs. Sighing, I placed the book back in its sopt and slowly ascended the ladder that had fallen from the ceiling.

    Nearly choking on the dusty old smell, Alex beckoned me over to an old box of books.

    "Can you go through that? I think it may just be old baby books." Alex walked over to the other side of the attic, leaving me to a box about half the size of an elephant. I began to unfold the box's flaps.

    I pulled out book after book, keeping the three The Cat Who... books we had, all our Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, and throwing out things like Pirates! and our old McGraw Hill school books. About halfway through, I stopped, gazing at something I thought I'd never seen before.

    "Do you remember this, Alex?" I glanced at him and reached for the book. The Storm Book of Tahn. "I thought that place in Turkey only sold the Wind and Equality Books of Tahn."

    "It... did." Alex huffed as he nearly dropped a heavy-looking dollhouse on one of the empty tables.

    "Then where did this come from?" I held the book out for him to see.

    "Cadence?" Alex approached me and reached for what I was holding. "The Storm Book of Tahn. Isn't it just a replica?"

    "Alex, this isn't a replica." I felt my face pale as it looked from him to the book. "I'm holding the real Storm Book of Tahn!"

    "Wait, what?" Alex shook his head, then looked at me like I was crazy. "I've... wait, what?"

    "The reason we can see it is because these books are protected. Greetanna stole half of the eight books and Svalpeta scattered the remaining ones and enchanted them with invisibility to those who were not chosen. Whoever Svalpeta chose as its champions were the only ones able to see them all," I recited. Having a good memory helps in dire situations. "Greetanna did the same thing to the ones it had."

    "Wait, what?" Alex repeated. "Are you saying that... we've owned one of the eight Books of Tahn wihout knowing it?"

    "Must have, or else I wouldn't be holding it," I remarked. "We're the chosen ones, aren't we, Alex?"

    "Yeah..." he replied.

    Then I realized something I didn't before. "We have to face the Greetannians in battle once all the books are reunited."

    "We can't let them get to the others, then. We have to go and get the books."

    "But what about Mom?" I shook my head. "We can't just leave her here."

    "Do we really have a choice?" Alex answered. "Mom left for Kroger. It'll take her about an hour or two to get back with everything. If we pack our stuff now, we'll be long gone before she gets back."

    "You just made yourself sound like a horrible son, you know that?" I retorted. "But, like you said, we have no choice. Let's go."