The next morning back in New York, Sandra walked down to make breakfast, when her son called out. “Mom!”
“What is it honey?” Sandra asked as she walked into the kitchen, she noticed Tony had sat down at the table.
He had a piece of paper clinched in his hands. “I know I am not… I mean I can’t… I mean… I want to know what I missed during last term when I was with Grandfather James.”
“Nothing we haven’t already told you about, what are these about?” Sandra said as she sat down. Then she noticed a letter addressed to her and her husband.
“Katy took off.” Tong said and stood up. “I am going to go look for her.” Tony left the kitchen quickly and he ran up the stairs.
Sandra sat at the table and read the letter; a tear escaped her eye when a large owl spoke. “The Hepburns will be here in a minute.” Then it flew out the window. Sandra did not even look up, she just continued to look down at the letter, and last night made more sense. The doorbell rang and she got up to get the door, just as her husband and son came downstairs, her son had his book bag on shoulder ready to leave.
“Wait. That is the Hepburns.” Sandra said and pointed to the kitchen. Both her son and husband got the message and went and waited in the kitchen for her and the Hepburns. “Hello Jane, Edgar.” Sandra said as she opened the door, and stood aside to let them and their sons into the house. “Please come into the kitchen.”
Once to the kitchen Deen spoke up. “Who told her she was evil? Why did you let her leave? Where is she? Where is my best friend?” Deen was upset, and worried, so much so that sparks of electricity came from his hands. “I just found the letter in my bag this morning saying she was leaving! What happened?”
“We don’t know the answers to most of those questions. We did not let her leave, the silly little witch snuck out on us.” Tony said, just as upset as Deen, as he tried to control his power, as the flames rolled down his arms and hands. “She maybe your best friend but…” He did not finish his sentence as just then Starlight jumped up on the table and started to meow horribly.
“Does anybody know how to speak cat?” Antonio asked. “I never understood it.”
“I understand it some; she is saying look at Katy’s things, her normal books, not her magical ones, the ones she read before this world,” Edgar stated.
“Well how are we supposed to do that?” Jane asked to nobody in particular.
“Katy is always at the library at school, maybe she went to the library close to where she stayed before finding out she was a witch,” Deen said.
They all looked at him for a moment. “That makes sense. You and I will check that out, our parents will look in to other ways to find her come on Deen.” Tony said and stood up. “You have all the things you may need?”
“Yep,” Deen said and pointed to his bag. “I am prepared; we are going to find Katy. Mom and Dad, you can’t stop me.” Deen said and went to stand next to Tony, with a determined look on his face.
“No, I guess we can’t. Be safe and listen to Tony. Take care of him please.” Jane said. Edgar just nodded his head.
Tony and Deen left their parents as they talked about what else could be done; Edgar had already filed a missing child report with the Guardian office. As soon as they got down on the last stair they almost tripped over Starlight.
“Don’t you want to stay in case she comes home?” Tony asked as he picked her up. Starlight looked him and shook her head, then jumped onto Deen.
Deen tucked her into his bag with her head sticking out and then turned to Tony. “Well, when you went and picked Katy before, where was she?”
“It wasn’t far from here; it will be easier to teleport. Here hang onto my arm.” Tony said and held out his arm. Within moments they were in the same abandon field that Tony first teleported with Katy. “It is a few blocks from here.”
They walked a few blocks until they reached the run-down alley that Katy used to live. Tony could not help but notice the shock that went across Deen’s face when they got to the location that Katy once called home. There were boxes and rags, and a lot of homeless people that had a smell of body odor and alcohol. They walked down to the box that Tony had found her as she stood outside of it; there was nothing there, not even the box any longer.
“Katy lived here? Nobody helped her? No wonder she is the way she is!” Deen said out of shock.
“Yeah, those were my thoughts exactly. I still don’t know why they didn’t send me the second they got her location down with the trace. Or why somebody didn’t try to find her before, they couldn’t use the trace, but they could have searched.” Tony could not keep the anger out of his voice or it seems, able to control his Fire, as his hands were in full flames.
“Well, we are looking now, there has to be a school or a library near here, I am sure Katy went to school and the library, that is all she seems to do is read, when we aren’t practicing for classes or Eleball.” Deen said, and then thought about something for a second. “Why would she run?”
“What did your note say?” Tony had bought a map at a local newspaper stand and consulted it on the locations of the libraries and museums.
“It said that she knew what she was doing would protect us all; that I was her best friend, but she wasn’t going to be a destructive force in my life. Tony, I don’t know what it means, I know she was worried about being evil, but this… This is just too extreme she… She just can’t leave…” Deen stopped there, confused about what really went through Katy’s head.
“My letters said she found out why Riley wants her gone, why she should be gone. She didn’t explain more. My father said his and my mom’s was more of a thank you, but she could not allow them to care about someone like her. She should have said something when she found out. She must have found out before she left school. Did you notice anything on the way home?”
“Now that you mention it, she was a bit withdrawn but I thought that was just because she was tired, she takes her studying very seriously and being on the Eleball team, we don’t get much sleep. And now that you mention it, I remember sitting on my bed talking to her on Thursday night then I remember nothing. I thought I must have fallen asleep. I think maybe I should tell you something.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Katy knows a lot of spells, a lot more than I do, and we both study ahead, she had wanted to sneak into the Air dorm, I bet she used a sleeping potion on me and snuck into their dorm. She wouldn’t have wanted me to talk her out of it. She had a spirit visit her telling her things were not as they seemed in Necromancy.”
“How would she have done it?”
“She knows the invisibility spell. She must have followed a couple of Airs into their dorm, and then overheard Riley say some stupid lie about her. I don’t know why he is still at school. I hate that kid.”
“Yeah, well so do I.” Tony said and let the conversation end. “Look, the public library is down one more block, I doubt they will remember Katy but we can try.” They walked in silence for that last block and as they walked up to the doors and into a place Katy may have come to hide. As they walked through the doors Tony waved his hand and changed their clothes. Deen’s into jeans and a dark orange t-shirt; his own into a black suit with a dark blood red shirt and a dark orange tie, no matter what they wore they would represent their power. It was just how it was, every magical represented their element somehow on their person. Even O’ Conaill, who wore all pink, had navy blue and gold scarfs daily.
Tony and Deen walked up to the counter. Ony looked at the people and chose the older lady at the end of the row. “Hello, I am from Child Services,” Tony said. “I am looking for a young girl, maybe you have seen her around.” Tony took out a picture of Katy and Deen. It was taken their first term.
“I know her she would come in here and read every day. I haven’t seen her since December. Sweet girl, about time someone investigated her home life. I would give her cookies every so often, she would love them.”
“What type of books did she read ma’am?”
“She was working her way through all of them.” Deen let out a small laugh but stopped when Tony glared at him.
“What, that totally sounds like Katy,” Deen responded.
Tony rolled his eyes, “please continue ma’am.”
“She loved fiction but every so often I would see her look at the travel section. She would look at the books on the different states. I sure do hope you find her.”
“Thank you,” Tony said, as they walked over to the travel section. “Did Katy ever mention any states or anything to you?”
“No. She use to say she read about colleges, she thought maybe when she got older, she would try to go to one of them. She said she wanted a life, a different life.” Deen said and looked through the books on the shelves. “I wish now I had listened to her more about this world. Maybe we could find her faster.”
“Don’t blame yourself. This is the Solomon’s fault, nobody else’s. If something happens to her, I will…” He let the sentence die and Deen took the hint from the flames around Tony’s hands, to let the subject drop.
As Tony and Deen went through different state books, in flew Jane’s owl. “Charlie! What are you doing here?” Deen yelled as he grabbed the owl.
“Deen, there is a note attached to him.” Tony said and grabbed the note, as soon as they had the note Charlie flew off. “It is from your mother. It says that someone saw Katy leave the house and teleport. She kept saying Iowa.”
“Then we can find her; Iowa can’t be that big! Maybe she went to one of the schools there!” Deen looked up at Tony.
“Maybe, let me check what the major college towns are and then we will check them first.” Tony went up to the front and talked to the young woman at the other end of the counter and got the list of three of the largest public universities in Iowa; Iowa State University, University of Northern Iowa and The University of Iowa.
As they walked from the library back to the field where they teleported in, Deen spoke up, “well which one do we check on first?”
Before Tony answered Starlight started to meow like crazy. “You know all those years in languages and I never could get cat. I wish I knew what she was saying.”
“I got an idea. Starlight meow when I get to the one you think we should go to.” Deen said then started to read the short list. Once he got to the University of Iowa Starlight started to meow like crazy once again.
“Well, I guess we are going to…” Tony looked down at his paper. “Iowa City, here Deen, I have a pamphlet from the campus, we should concentrate on this location, it looks like the center of the campus.” Tony showed Deen the pamphlet and tapped on a golden dorm building.
“It says here it is the old capital building. Look, it says there is a mall across the street and the streets are always full of people. It seems like a good hiding place.” Deen said as they prepared to teleport to Iowa City. Deen grabbed Tony’s arm and then they appeared in front of the same building in the pamphlet, thankfully nobody seemed to notice the two appear out of thin air.
As soon as they landed, they took a second to take in their surroundings. Starlight jumped from Deen’s bag and took off toward the mall. “Well, that seems like a good place to start.” Tony said as they crossed the street after Starlight.
They went into the mall and searched the whole location, but since it was around noon, if Katy had been here, she may have left to find some food or something.
“Well she doesn’t seem to be here now, and I can’t find Starlight.” Deen said as he met Antonio in front of the drug store.
“Well, let’s go in here and get something to drink and something to snack on and then we will walk the downtown. According to the information there are a lot of places she could be.” Tony said and walked back into the store.
“Do you have non-magical money?” Deen asked as they stopped in front of the coolers.
“Yep, I keep some on me at all times in case I have a reason to interact with the non-magical world.” Tony said, he grabbed a couple of apple juices and a couple of turkey sandwiches from the cooler. “Look, it is going to be fine, we will find Katy and bring her back home.” Tony said as he paid for their items.
They sat down on a bench outside of the mall. They ate in silence before Deen spoke up. “In your home you said she was something to you…” He let the sentence die and hoped Tony would respond.
“I don’t think this is the time for this conversation Deen, maybe later. Let’s just concentrate on finding Katy.” Tony responded back to Deen’s unfinished question.
“Okay.”
They finished their lunch in silence and started again to walk around the downtown area, they stopped at the campus library. Deen pushed at the walls that surrounded Tony’s thoughts but found he had insanely good shields.
Again, Tony went up and pretended to be from Child Services. “Have you seen this little girl?” He asked as he handed the young man behind the main counter, the picture of Katy and Deen.
“Yep just saw her, she came in around eight this morning, I haven’t seen her leave yet, but she could have left when I was on break. Wish, I could be more help.”
“Thank you for your time.” Tony said as they walked away from the desk.
“This place is huge!” Deen said and looked around. “How are we going to find her?”
“Have you learned the locator spell?” Tony asked as he pulled took out a crystal and a piece of paper.
“If there is a locator spell, why didn’t we use it before?”
“It only works if you are in the same building with the person, if you have a connection to that person.”
“What type of connection?” Deen asked as Tony placed the paper on a table and drew sections on it.
“Any strong connection. I found Katy, that bonds us; you are her best friend that bonds you. Now, just be quiet for a second.” Tony said as he tied the crystal to a string and it started to spin above the paper. That went on for a few moments then it stopped. “Well, she was at least at the rare books section, let’s check there first.”
They said nothing as they worked their way around the library finally, they found the rare books section. They searched high and low, and did the locator spell, but nothing happened this time, it just pointed to their location.
“Well, she seems to have left the library, let’s try some place else.” They walked around town the whole day, but they always seemed to just miss Katy. What they did not know was that Katy knew they were there.
Kris Charles - Author 