Poppa’s Journals
632 Words
Being the smart lady that I was, I neglected to bring a candle to light the way. Being the smart lad that he was, my father always kept a torch down there so that it could be easily lit.
I held the torch up at the library of old memories. There were several books, a few barrels of ale, and several sacks of things I couldn't place.
I grabbed a stack of books, the ones containing the lists of people, I carried them up the cellar stairs. I made my way outside to sit on the steps in the afternoon sun.
My father was an avid note taker on everything of interest. Nathaniel was definitely something of interest.
It wasn't until the sun was setting that I found his name written in my father's crisp, neat handwriting.
"Finally," I muttered and I called for Jordan. He bounded out of the trees and glared across the dark space.
"It's okay," I told him as I rubbed him behind his ear. I set up a fire and, having a fire breathing dragon made it easy, and curled up against my dragon. I pulled my father's notes onto my lap and began to read. The handwriting itself brought back memories.
'Nathaniel Jenkins. Tall man with strange black markings along his body with several piercings. Alaina has taken a liking to the strange man. Have to keep an eye on her. She is too curious for her own good. He is a street performer, nothing more or so he claims. He deals in dark magic, that's for sure. Those symbols on his chest were enough to tell.'
That was it? That was all he had on the strange man that he believed to be a threat to his daughter? I read some short descriptions of things that didn't need to be described until his name appeared later except two weeks after his first stay.
'Jenkins came back today. Not because he needed a room. He said it was urgent but he couldn't speak about it around so many people. I agreed but I didn't let him stay at the inn. I had a bad feeling about this man. I knew I shouldn't meet him...he works in dark magic. But, like my little princess, my curiosity persuaded me. We agreed to meet at the barn behind the inn at midnight. I agreed and he left without a look back. The man seemed frazzled. That something urgent must really have been.'
I sighed as the note ended, short and crisp as everything else. I ran through some other descriptions until I found the last and final entry of that book.
'He knew my daughter. Not how I knew her, but he knew things only close people would. Like, how her favorite dress was blue and twirled around her. How her green eyes changed shades whenever she was happy or mad. How would he know these things. I was about to attack him when he told me my daughter was in danger. I asked him if he were threatening her, but he shook his head. There's a man, he told me, that will bring fire raining down from the heavens upon us. Your daughter is the only one who can stop it. Before I could question him farther, he ran off. I would have followed after him, if it had not been for Alaina. She had a nightmare. About a dragon. Again.'
I remembered that nightmare. It was the same dream where dragons attacked the inn and grabbed my father and took him away from me. That actually wasn't far from the truth...
There was nothing. Nothing to tell me where to look for this man.
"Well, Jordan," I said as I curled into him, "this was a waste."
- Writer
