The Shadow of Our Stars: The Tales of Evinar

by Alexander Richter

  "Can show me the way into Evinar?”

  With a waved his finger he said, “Unfortunately, I cannot. There’re rules to how this all works.”

  “Rules, what rules?”

  “I could be banished to the Shadowlands. It would break Evinar's ancient laws to take you there. You need to find the way on your own. However, they're loopholes to these rules. I've studied them for some time." Martin picked up the book from the wood floor. "If you are in dire trouble, rules are bent to allow your passage, but only if your life is at stake."

  "What would happen to me if I were not?"

  "You'd end up stuck in-between the worlds. A scary place to be, although I've never been there."

  Abbott massaged his temple in confusion.

  “You want to save someone you care for?” Martin asked, taking a bite from his sausage. “I’ll share a clue. It is not entirely forbidden to do so, and I think you need to hear it. Are you ready?”

  The light in the caravan flickered, dimming in anticipation.

  “In the woods and near the skies, that is where the gates to my world lies.”

  9

  The words snapped into place like missing puzzle pieces. They had been spoken to him before by his mother, a long time ago, in her stories. They were buried deep in the hidden parts of his soul, waiting to be discovered again. He was reminded of a place she spoke of— a doorway, but he dared speak it out loud.

  “Ahaa!” Martin clapped his hands cheerfully. “You know what I am talking about! I can see it on your face, my boy, you have been told the way!”

  “The way? What way?”

  “The way into Evinar.”

  “My mother, she said the exact thing in her stories. About a place in the woods.”

  Martin curled like a child on Christmas morning. After all this time, he could not believe what he was witnessing. “That’s curious!”

  “Curious—how?”

  “There are far more questions, and I’m afraid I’m running out of answers,” Martin confessed, “Your mother, what was her name?”

  “Angelia.”

  The lines over his age-old face deepened. “The Angelia? Haha. It seems like the plot thickens once more! Truly spectacular! ”

  “You knew my mother?”

  “Knew her? We were quite close, her and I, she— she came to visit each year during the celebration. You were only a little boy then, but I remember it like it was yesterday. Her love for my oral tellings and interest in my books—”

  “You sold her that book?” Abbott interrupted, spilling the contents of his teacup in the process.

  “Yes, I certainly did— well, to her and your father both. I take it you’ve read the book?”

  Abbott bounced in joy, hitting his head on the ceiling. “I knew it!” He then vaulted over the table that separated them and gave Martin an unexpected hug. “Through the Sea and Beyond, you wrote that?”

  “M.S. Merrymaker at your service,” Martin took a half-forced bow and threw out his arm to follow through.

  “You…that book… I’ve so much to thank you for.”

  “A well-read book is enough thanks for any author.”

  Abbott could not begin to express the attachment he felt to the book, and now the man who bestowed it into his hands was in front of him. “This is all so much, I mean my brain goes here, and then it goes there, and then it takes a turn and a swivel, and then— I just cannot keep up with my thoughts. There are so many questions, so many things I want to know, and you— you— you’re daughter, where is she?”

  “I'd expect she’d be arriving back soon.”

  The caravan's wooden door opened in a jolt, and Quinn stepped inside, drenched with eyes full of fright.

  Quinn jumped like a spooked cat. “What is he doing here?” she demanded, looking at the china laid on the table, “How did you—”

  “The arrow,” Abbott said with a malicious grin. “I have to thank you for showing me that. And if you don’t mind, I’d like the stone that you stole.”

  Martin glared, disappointed, at his daughter's behavior. “My daughter, a thief? How dare—do what the boy requests at once. There will be consequences for your actions.”

  Quinn rolled the marbles in her sockets. The scene was like watching someone give away their most prized possession, except it wasn't their possession in the first place. The stone left her hand. It felt like she was parting with a piece of herself. “I still want to see what happens,” she sneered. The curiosity was burning a hole right through her pocket.

  “Thank you,” Abbott said, rubbing his thumb over the carved marking.

  “Does this mean your mad at me?” Quinn said, looking at her father.

  “In any normal set of circumstances, I would be furious. Thieving things? It’s not how I raised you! I don’t condone this kind of behavior. But that being said, I’m rather happy to have made this boy's acquaintance. Your selfish act has resulted in a fantastic discovery. But do not take this as a compliment, you’re still in trouble.”

  Quinn stood, unsure of what her father was saying. “What do you mean, I did— nothing wrong? What discovery?”

  “Exactly,” his father- like grin eased Quinn’s anxieties. “He was the right person to tell it to, in fact, I’ve told him more than you probably have.” He let out a chuckle and patted his daughter’s back. “You look dire— tell me, what trouble has your nose wiggled into this time?”

  Quinn’s upper lip lifted to dismiss the question, but Marty’s eyes grew steer. “I kind of… well… two men they tried to hurt me and this other girl... I protected myself… with my knife.”

  Martin’s posture stiffened, “WHAT!” he said in a shaking voice.

  The was tapping against the caravan window twisted the pit in his stomach. Click-click! The glass announced. The sound was coming from the outside.

  “Not expecting more guests?” asked Quinn as grief struck her.

  Her father slowly turned towards the small circle cut out to look through the frosted glass, “Not at this time,” he said as he undid the latch and metal fastenings. Ara came barreling in and landed talons first on Martin’s chest. “Ara, what has gotten into you?”

  “They’ve followed me!” Ara said, fluttering to the wooden table.

  Quinn went flush white. “They’ve what!”

  “I tried losing them, but they used some kind of magic on me. They knew exactly where we are! And they’re looking for him,” Ara’s beak peaked against the top of Abbott’s shoulder.

  Martin waited for his daughter to translate, but she could hardly speak the words.

  “What’s going on?” he set down his teacup and came nose to nose with his daughter.

  “Vailïc men—they followed us here!” The statement put a shiver down her spine to say aloud. “They tried to hurt me, and I—”

  “You defended yourself? With your knife?” his bushy brows raised as his cheeks turned red. “Do you know what danger you’ve put us in?”

  “It doesn’t matter. They were never here for me!” Quinn’s head shifted towards where Abbott stood. “They want him.”

  “Him?” Martin asked in disbelief. “Why him?”

  “I don’t know,” Quinn asked Ara for further elaboration.

  “They’re here to kill him.”

  “They’re what?” Quinn gasped.

  Martin’s hand cupped her mouth. “Shhh! They could be outside right now. We’ve done too much and talked too long. We need to think here!”

  “They want him!” Quinn starred deeply at Abbott, who had braced himself against Martin's bookcase and looking like he was going to crumble into dust.

  “What do they want with me?” he whispered after his stomach took three summersaults and the palms of his hands felt like liquid.

  “I don’t know, they never said,” Ara told Quinn. Her wings finally tucked themselves back under her breast after she flew to her perch in the corner.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! A thumping came from the wooden door. Quinn j
umped to the ceiling. The hair on the back of her neck stood up like it was under a static spell. They’re here! She yelled in her head. Ara offered no other words on the subject as she cowered in the corner.

  “You both need to leave,” Martin instructed as he removed his night time cap. “I can keep them for a while, but they will overpower me.” He retrieved some of his arrows from one of the kitchen cabinets and strung up the bow that hung above the caravan's door. “Go!”

  “What do you intend to do with that?” Quinn asked, “Kill them?”

  “I said distract. Besides, these arrows are enchanted not to pierce the skin— you know that." He motioned them to leave again. “It’s to protect my wellbeing at this age. Not as young as I used to be." Martin winked at Abbott’s whose face was blank. “Now, leave through the washroom.”

  “But—“

  “Go!”

  Quinn grabbed Abbott’s arm as he fumbled to put the stone in his pocket. The washroom was down the enormous hall and on the right. Inside, there was a secret compartment that opened inside the woods, an “escape route” designed purely for dire dilemmas.

  Before departing, Martin bestowed the field journal into Abbott’s procession. “You made need this,” he said.

  “But I can’t read it."

  “Tap the spine three times,” Martin waved his hand over the book. “Use it well, I’ll meet with you two later. Tomorrow marks the first day of the hunt. I'll use it as an opportunity to escape. Quinn, bring him back if you must. I trust your judgment. The ancient laws will be forgiving to his arrival under the current conditions. Take Ara with you. She’ll keep watch in the sky.”

  Ara flew over and latched onto Quinn’s arms and fell fast asleep. All this flying was a burden on an owl that rarely spent time in the air. Ara lived a perfect life, until now. A plentiful snack in the morning and an even better snack in the night, Ara sat on her perch in Quinn’s window sill with little adventure known to her. That was the case when Quinn kept her nose out of trouble.

  The washroom was furnished more extravagantly than any Abbott had seen before— polished brass knobs with hand-painted flowers marked all the drawers and pale linen-draped against a dingy wallpaper. It was a washroom fit for the likes of royalty. Abbott thought.

  "Down the hamper," Quinn said, motioning her arm with Ara asleep on it.

  “Where does this lead?” he asked, starring down into the hamper.

  “I don’t have time to answer your questions,” Quinn opened the hamper, and it revealed no bottom. “Come on, crawl in. Papa will explain everything tomorrow.”

  Abbott’s eyes grew. “You first.”

  “We don’t have time for this!” she barked irritably.

  “You’ve crossed me once before, what makes—”

  “Look, I made a mistake, okay? I’m sorry— can we get past all that?” Quinn’s torso sunk into the basket, and she offered Abbott her hand. “They want to kill us both now. If we stay and chat, we're as good as dead.”

  “But what about my father?” Abbott said. Up until this point, the night’s events had all but clouded his mind. He had forgotten altogether about his responsibility. “I need to warn him! What if they search there too?”

  “There’s no time!” Quinn said, dismissing the thought. “Once we’ve everything sorted, you can go straight back to him, alright? As far as we know, they don’t even know where you live.”

  Abbott groaned. His father needed to be warned. “Promise we’ll go back?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t make promises.”

  There was a strain in the way Quinn spoke like she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Abbott saw right through it, but what choice did he have? If these men wanted him dead, it was in his best interest to stay as far away from his father until everything was sorted. The thought of putting his father in danger seemed foolish. The only difficultly in this judgment was Abbott had no idea why all of this was happening.

  Through the laundry hamper, they crawled, passing dirty socks and worn garments, for what felt like a kilometer. Inside the tunnel of fabrics, a system of well-placed lamps lit the way to wherever it would end. But all Abbott could think about while we crawled through someone else's laundry was whether or not his father would be safe from danger.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The noise persisted.

  Admits the thundering, Martin’s attire changed it something far more suitable to the occasion. He put on his lavender performance clothes, after all, a performance he would put on for the folks outside his door.

  “Open your door!” they bellowed. “We know you’re in there.”

  “In where?” Martin said as he swung the heavy door open. “I think you fellas have me mixed with the wrong sort of crowd.” An arrow was tucked under his nose, and his bowstring was drawn. “You can see how very rude you’re both being, right? Showing up, unannounced and bashing on my private house. Have you any manners?”

  Remus’s accomplice clutched his knee. “I’m going to kill her.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Martin’s eyes twinkled in a challenge. “You aren’t going to ever find her. She’s far more intelligent and witty than you’ll ever be. Such a shame you both couldn’t have joined in the fun tomorrow. I heard there’s room for two more half-wits in the crowd.”

  Remus wasted no time and retrieved his belted weapon— a crude-looking broadsword, cursed with a corrupted edge. The dead giveaway for an elite member of the Vailïc horde. The instrument was wicked; smithed deep within the depths by the dark shadows of the Vail. Martin had written a chapter on the subject in his field journal.

  Outnumbered and outmatched, he danced like it was another one of his ordinary routines. He whispered tureen em viola to his arrows, and like an automated machine, he whisked them off with precision and accuracy; one flutter after another.

  It was only when Remus, with one swift placement of his sword, did the barrage cease. Cut in half, Marty held the broken bow in his hands with an expression of remorse. "That was my favorite bow." The line lay split in his fingers, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Magnificent Martin Marksman.

  “Did you think that your distraction would throw a knife into our plans?” Remus sneered violently. “One way or another, we will get what we came here for, even if we leave a trail of bodies in the process. Starting with yours.”

  “And your triumphant plan was to what—hurt someone less than half your age? Or was it to steal the Waxy Caps all for yourself?” Martin chuckled as he retrieved a cast iron skillet to use as a weapon. “Brewing a nice stew back at home? Need a couple of children to sweeten it up?”

  “Enough!” Remus erupted. “I’ve had enough of your silly commentary!”

  “But I’ve only begun.” He tossed the skillet, and it bonked the assailant in agony. “Well placed!”

  Remus’s blade hummed in his beefy hand. “You’ll die for that.”

  In a detracted attempt, Martin retrieved a smoke pellet and tossed them out his door. They were filled with unseeable dust from the Grey Isles that would shield one's vision for days at length. This was his chance. If was going to escape, no other opportunity may present itself.

  But while he rummaged for his belongings, Remus maneuvered through the dust as if not affected by its potency and wedged his cursed blade into the soft spot of Martin’s stomach.

  “I’ll find your daughter and give her the same,” Remus said as his body slumped to the wooden floor. “Search the place. There’s got to be an exit somewhere. Then burn it down. Destroy any evidence.”

  “What about him?” Remus’s accomplice asked, rubbing his temple.

  “Leave him inside to roast inside— like a stew.”

  The hamper chute came to its end under the roots of a silver yew. Like a rabbit leaving its hole, Quinn and Abbott crawled their way into the desolate timbers.

  “All things considered,” Abbott said, plucking the stray sock from his jacket, “Magic can be very helpful.”

  “You w
on’t think that when you see what harm it can do to you,” Quinn said with a sigh. “I hope he's alright.”

  “He seems to be very brave.” Abbott leaned over to Quinn.

  “Bravery gets you killed in Evinar,” she said under her breath.

  “Only if you’re not careful. He seems to know what he’s doing.”

  Quinn didn’t feel like talking about the matter anymore and allowed the thought to go unnoticed. “We need to wait out here until it’s safe. Once it is, we will head straight back to your father to check on him. After that, I’m leaving this place and never returning.”

  Ara hooted overhead, signaling her arrival. “I’ll be up here,” she said to Quinn, “yell if you need me.”

  “If I’m yelling, you can assume my death,” She said bluntly. “But I’m not going without a fight.”

  The dawn of a new day was rising. The adrenaline the night’s events gave Abbott was beginning to wear off, leaving his eyelids heavy. Quinn, on the other hand, was as wide awake as humanly possible. Even with Abbott yawning every fifteen seconds.

  Where they were at now was unknown to Abbott. He had never in his life explored this far. He could barely see the smoke billowing into the rayleigh scattering sky above for the chimneys in Woolbury. This was a deep forest and it seemed to stretch on in every direction endlessly.

  “Let me see the stone again,” Quinn said, returning to the fire that raged in her mind. “I want to try something.”

  “And why should I?” Abbott objected. “Last time you stole it right out of my hands. I want to see what this thing does just as much as you do, but I’m not willing to lose it again. This may be my only chance to help my father, and I can’t lose that.”

  “Things are different this time. Both our fathers are in danger, and this could be the only thing that helps us. If the stone is what I think it is, I will help you find a way to make things right with your father’s health.”

  Abbott wasn’t going to be fooled twice. Quinn’s words were taken lightly. There was no doubt in his heart that she’d crush his selfless aspirations with the stone, but the notion of greed and corruption haunted his mind. What if the stone could actually help his father? He could never forgive himself if he’d let it slip out of his possession twice. “And just how do we discover its properties? You’ve had time with the stone alone and found nothing. What more can you do?”