Torn Page 0,56

TWENTY-FOUR

When we cracked open Eric's book, I never expected to find what was inside. Last time I'd seen it, I thought I recognized some of it even though I remembered some of the writing was weird. But now looking at it - I had no idea why I thought we'd be able to read it. Letters from an ancient language were scrawled across page after page of detailed notes. Collin was as perplexed as I was.

"The letters aren't even going in the one direction," I said, pushing my hair out of my face and wrapping it with a rubber band. When I leaned over the book again, I shook my head. We'd returned to the boathouse to examine the pages before anything else happened. When we opened it, I thought the book would be in English, but it wasn't. There were odd squiggles and they covered every inch of every page. I shook my head, looking up at Collin, "Do you recognize any of it?"

His mouth was hanging open slightly, as his finger dragged across the page. He'd been doing this for the better part of an hour, not saying much. He shook his head, "No. This is like Greek - they are Greek characters - well, for the most part. But, periodically there is something else thrown in. And it isn't written left to right. I tried right to left like some languages, and up to down like others, but there is no continuity." He looked up at me, and locked eyes with me with complete seriousness on his face. "I can't read it." The bond stirred. The words of his confession might have seemed straight-forward, but the bond translated that statement for me. He meant I can't help you. The realization hit him hard.

"Collin..." My fingers brushed the top of his hand to get his attention and break his thoughts before they turned dark. The icy hot spark of skin on skin instantly caught his attention, and had the desired effect. "We'll figure it out."

And I thought we could, but as we sat there for the rest of the night trying to decipher Eric's writing it became more and more obvious that we couldn't. Collin used his phone to look some things up online, but that didn't help at all. It led us back to our initial impression - this was some derivative of ancient Greek. As he researched, I looked for the page that Eric had showed me before. I saw the scrawling handwriting in black-brown ink that was written with an ancient pen. It was neat, like the old Eric, with everything grouped into rows. Some rows seemed to be grouped in circles, while others seemed like squares.

I had no idea what it meant, but when I found the page I was looking for, I froze. My fingers touched the yellowed parchment gently, as if I couldn't believe the drawing was there - Apryl's necklace. The drawing showed a black and white disc, exactly like mine. There were words around it. What did Eric say this was called? He told me once, and I wanted to know about it. I wanted to know how my sister came into possession of something that belonged to the demon realm while she was alive and well, having nothing to do with demons. The answers were right in front of me, but I couldn't understand what it said.

I pointed to the book and asked Collin, "I saw this page, before when Eric showed me this book. He didn't tell me what was on it at the time, but later, when we were coming to find you - he mentioned my necklace. He said he knew it was brimstone, and that it was called the..." it sounded like Kreturus. I rolled the word in mouth until I recognized it, "The Kreturic Pendant! Do you think we could use that information as a starting place, and see if we can try to see what words say that on this page?"

Collin looked at my necklace and back down at the drawing in the book. "It's worth a try. This is a Kappa," his finger pointed to something that looked like a K and then an N, followed by an E. "This looks like the beginning of Kreturus or Kreturuic, but the word just stops." His fingers trailed quickly over every letter surrounding the drawing, while he spoke softly sounding out each possibility. He did it quickly, and his finger dashed across the page