Chapter Thirty-Six and Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Six: In Which Flake Attempts To Figure Things Out With No Luck
 
    The door wouldn’t open.  The window wouldn’t open.  As much as Flake shouted and knocked on the door, no one came in the room.  The more he became convinced that he was probably kidnapped.
 
     If so, how did he get out?

​    He reviewed the clues.  When the old becomes new, the children will flee, right by the side of the glittering sea.  Right, by the side of the glittering sea.  Assuming that the glittering sea was the Coral Kingdom, right of it would be… well, it depends on where you’re standing, won’t it?  The only things surrounding the Coral Kingdom are the Fearsome Forest, empty plain, and the Breeze Kingdom, if being above it counts.  Unless, maybe when it said right, then it meant that the children were right by the sea, and not that the location was to the right.
 
    As for the old becomes new part, he first thought it was something about rebirth, or maybe recycling.  But the prophecy was referring to a certain time, a time when the old becomes new… what could that be… then it just came to him.  A new moon!    Okay, maybe not.  After all it wasn’t called an old moon then a new moon, but still.  New moons only happened once in thirteen years, greatly narrowing things down.  So, if there was any news of children fleeing in any of those dates, then he might be able to find out where the missing children were!
 
    And then the newest clue.  Look above to history class, down to history.  Above, or down.  The only above could be Breeze Kingdom, or maybe the mountains, but for down… underground?  Coral Kingdom?  What about history?  Maybe this was linked to some incident in history?  Maybe children got kidnapped on the night of the new moon somewhere above or below?  Above and below what?
 
But didn’t he figure out the answer already?      Flake wasn’t sure.  It was becoming hard to remember what happened before he was in the hospital.
 
    There were a lot of things he was just guessing at, and none of it really made sense.  Maybe… the Oracle guy was a fake and leading him on a wild goose chase to keep him busy because… he is the kidnapper?
 
    I’m probably just getting paranoid.
 
    “Hello.”
 
    Flake jumped up.  He had been so lost in his thoughts he missed that a figure was sitting in front of him, on the ground… oh.
 
    “Relax, Flake,” the Oracle said soothingly.  His eyes were closed.  “Go to sleep.”  His words sounded so calming, but it didn’t take all of his anxiousness.  Did he hear?  Did he read my thoughts about those suspicions?
 
    “Go to sleep… “ he droned.  “To sleep…”  It was like he was in a trance.  It was like he was- he was… Flake suddenly felt very sleepy, unable to hold on to his thoughts.
 
He slumped into sleep.
 
Chapter Thirty-Seven: In Which Rose Attempts To Search For Historical Events With No Luck
 
‘Wait… Rose!  Is that you?”
 
Startled, Rose dropped the book she was reading.  She looked at the hospital bed, which was carrying Flake, who happened to be wide awake and disoriented about his surroundings.  The door a crack, and an armed guard peered through the crack at Flake.
 
Oh, you’re finally awake! she exclaimed.  Everyone was awfully worried about you, being the son of a chief and all, which you happened to neglect telling me about.
 
“Uh-huh,” he said, still half dazed.  “Are we in Comfort Hospital?  Is the tree still outside the window?”
 
Huh?  Rose was about to answer, but the guard beat her to it.  “Yes, this is Comfort Hospital.  There aren’t any trees outside the window, but there are plenty of fish.”
 
Flake breathed a sigh of relief.  “Great.  So we’re in Coral Kingdom-”  He suddenly stopped, staring in front of him.  “Wait- Rose!  We need to get to the library as soon as possible!”  He bolted out of bed and went for the door.
 
The guard blocked him.  “You can’t leave the room until a certified doctor says you can.  Chief and doctor orders.  You’ve been in a coma for a day and a half, you are in no condition to go running off-”
 
“It’s been a day and a half?” Flake interrupted, aghast.  “I’ve been out for that long?  What if- maybe-”  He faced the guard.  “Look, I need to get to the library now, lives depend on it-”

What do you need?  I can check it out from the library for you, Rose suggested.
 
Flake looked at her.  “Um, well, I need a list of important history occurrences on the new moon- never mind, just history occurrences is fine.  Especially pay attention to ones that include child kidnappings or similar.  Okay?”
 
The guard looked confused.  “Wait, do you want me to… ”  He looked at where Flake was looking at, Rose, as if she had just appeared.
 
Rose nodded.  But… where’s the library?
 
Flake shrugged.  “I’m not sure.  Ask around.”
 
    Did Flake forget?  Or maybe he was still in partial coma trance and couldn’t quite remember everything?  Right.  I’ll get right on to that except for the fact I CAN’T TALK, she thought.
 
    “Oh.  Yeah.  Um, can you” -he looked at the guard- “show her to the library?”
 
    “Um, I can’t leave my post,” he said apologetically.  “I suppose I can call someone over…”  He looked over at Rose.
 
    “She can’t talk,” Flake explained.  “But is it okay if you just bring her over to the local library?  Quickly.”
 
    “Right… I suppose I’ll see what I can do.”  The guard looked from Flake to Rose and back again, then called, “Station One is leaving the premises!”  He backed out to the hallway and motioned to Rose to follow him.  She did.
 
    Rose followed the guard through the hospital and out.  The guard gave her a bubble pearl (only for the head) and she grabbed on his hand tightly as the guard swam through the water with ease.
 
    They went in a huge building called Pufferfish Central Library.  “It’s the largest collection of books in the district,” the guard said.  Rose didn’t doubt that.  There were tons and tons of books, placed in bookshelves towering to the top of the building.  How she was going to look through all of these to find what she needed, she had no idea.
 
    “History books are over there.”  The guard pointed to a set of bookshelves on the left side.  “I’ll be sitting at this table if you need me.”
 
    Rose headed to that section.  Sure enough, all the books were about history, and they were huge.  There were rows and rows of thick books, and none of the titles were specific, mostly just Volume I and Volume II and so on.
 
    Rose picked out an especially big book and started sifting through the pages.  The pages were thin and dusty, the writing inky and hard to make out.  Apparently this was something about how the kingdoms were formed.  Probably not what Flake wanted.
 
    She was about to shut the book when something caught her eye.  A picture.  On the page was a detailed ink drawing of a circle divided into five sections.  Each section had a little drawing: a little snowflake, a flame, a… round blobby thing (Rose wasn’t exactly sure), a cloud, and something that looked vaguely like a rock, but Rose wasn’t sure about that either.
 
    She looked at the caption below the drawing.  In the beginning, there were five kingdoms: Glistening Glacier, Fractured Flame, Colorful Coral, Blissful Breeze, and the Crystal Caves.  No one was living in the Fearsome Forest because everyone thought it was dangerous.  Interesting.  Rose was pretty sure there wasn’t a Glistening Glacier or Crystal Caves Kingdom.  She was also sure that there wasn’t a Colorful Coral Kingdom, but it was probably the same as the current Crystal Coral Kingdom.  How come she’d never heard about the ancient kingdoms?  Rose would’ve been more than happy to browse over that book, but she had a mission to do.
 
    Rose got another big book and browsed over the contents.  This one was easier to read an more helpful to her search.
 
Brief Overview of Ancient History……………pg. 5
The Early Kingdoms………………………….....pg. 8
The Origin of the Kingdom Conference……pg. 12
The Great Coral Plague……………………....pg. 15
The Treaty of Free Borders……………….....pg. 17
The Flaming Riots……………………………pg. 20
The Fearsome Forest Colonization…………pg. 23

1. First Explorers………………………....pg. 24
2. Small Villages…………………………...pg. 25
3. Council of the Tree………………….....pg. 26

The Crystal Cave Kingdom Extinction……..pg. 27
The Kingdom War……………………………pg. 30

1. The Prophecy…………………………pg. 31
2. Tension Mounts………………………pg. 32
3. The Forest Burnings…………………pg. 33
4. The War Starts………………………..pg. 34
5. The Battle on the Glacial Crevasse…pg. 36
6. The Battle of the Old Birch…………pg. 37
7. The Wind Massacre…………………...pg. 38
8. The Surrender…………………………pg. 39
9. The Aftermath………………………..pg. 41

The Spell Storms..........................................pg. 42
The Origin of the Great Sycamore.............pg. 43
 
 
    The contents went on and on.  Rose didn’t think that Flake would need that much historical events, so she just focused on the important ones, like the Kingdom War, which had several sub-categories and lasted eleven pages.  She also looked for ones related to kidnappings, but there weren’t many.  The closest she could find was The Swift Assassin Killer, but those were murders, not kidnappings.
 
    Wasn’t Flake about to say something else?  Something about the new moon?  Rose started looking for that too, and that greatly narrowed her search.  There were only a few events that were on a new moon day: The Coral Plague (it lasted through the new moon but didn’t start on that date), the Crystal Cave Kingdom Extinction, the Spell Storms, the Festival of the New Moon (obviously), and the Forest Protection Protests.  Reading through them all, she found nothing related to kidnappings or similar.
 
    Rose spent much of the day flipping through old history books with no luck.  In the end, she just got discouraged and had the guard take her back to the hospital.

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