The Glowing Book

The Glowing Book(Shania Edeline) Hi, my name is Jacqueline. I have a brother who is my twin, but he’s older than me. His name is Jason. He has a pointy nose, blue eyes, and he is a lot taller than me. I also have complete parents, who are very strict to us.
Jason and I have just returned from a weird quest which both of us must complete because we are the next people who are supposed to do this quest. It’s hard to explain, so let me tell you the whole story.
The story starts in the school library. My twin, Jason, and I were looking on books about magic stuff, because both of us like magic. We were just having fun exploring the unique covers of the books, when suddenly a book caught my eye. The book cover was gold, while the books beside it were covered red. Jason brought it to a table and we found out that the book was locked.
“Jacqueline, look!” my brother said.
I did not answer him for a moment; I was too busy looking at the book. Since Jason hates to be ignored, he grabbed my wrist to get my attention. I could not take my hand away from his grip, he was a lot stronger compared to me.
“Ouch! Okay, okay, I’m listening now,” I said, with my annoyed face.
“I have a feeling that this book is special,” he said. Then he started talking about those useless myths and magical things. I was listening at first, but then I ended up wondering why he liked myths. When he was done talking, the book glowed.
Something magically appeared beside the book. It was the key. Jason and I were afraid to take it, but at the end I calmed myself and took it. Nothing happened. My brother snatched the key from my hand, and tried to open the book, but he couldn't. Maybe I was able to open it. I snatched the key back from him, and tried to open the book. It worked! But the book was empty. The book was thick, but nothing was written. I was about to scowl at the book for being so annoying, but my brother stopped me. He was holding the book, and his eyes were focused on something. I looked the book, and saw a weird text written on the last page of the book.
“What do you think you're doing?” I asked Jason, but he only asked me to keep quiet. I was so annoyed, but I decided to keep quiet. When I looked at him, I figured out that he was trying to read those writings.
“Jaq, the text says that we are the next assigned people who are supposed to look for four missing parts of this book,” after a long pause, he continued, “This is ridiculous. We're like the characters in a fiction book where the characters had to find something.”
I did not say anything. Actually, I didn't know what to say. I asked him some details, and he said that the task skips generation. All of our ancestors, including my grandpa, failed the quest and died. Mom tried to hide the reason why grandpa died, but we knew that the reason mom told us was not true. We carefully hid the book in Jason's backpack the moment we were out of the library, and went home. When we arrived, mom was already sleeping.
“Good, mom’s sleeping already. We don’t need to make excuses of where we had been,” Jason said. I didn’t know how to respond, so I shrugged.
I set the alarm for 4 a.m. at the next morning. I thought about the weird things that happened that day. Everything that happened today was too much; the glowing book, the key that magically appeared, and the quest for me and Jason to complete. I didn't want to think of any of these things, so I drift off to sleep, thinking that I'll be free of these things by morning.
“JAQ!” Jason was yelling already.
I checked the time. 5:00. I was late—very late. Quickly, I grabbed everything that I need. I went out of my bedroom, and I saw Jason standing there, waiting for me. We walk silently to the front door, to prevent mom from waking up.
“And where do you think you’re going?” My mom went out of her room and stood in front of the front door so that we could not go out. She saw our stuffed bags, and her face suddenly turned pale.
“Actually, um, we…have a school camp. We did not tell you yesterday because you were sleeping when we got home,” Jason said. Mom did not believe him, and she focused her eyes on me, she was asking me to tell the truth. My face started to turn red, which means that I was panicked. “We should go now! Love you!” Jason quickly went out the house and I followed him.
When we were outside, we did not know where to go first. Jason walked around a park near our house and found a tunnel. There was a warning written on the rock just in front of the tunnel, which says “You should not enter the tunnel unless we are the right people”. I did not know who those “people” are, but I was sure that Jason and I were one of them.
We went inside the tunnel and crawled for a short distance, and we saw that the opening which we came from was closed. So we continued crawling because there was no other way to go. I saw light. It came from the other end of the tunnel. I told my brother to crawl faster. We crawled and crawled, and finally we reached the other end of the tunnel. My legs felt numb, my knees were also scratched by the rock in the tunnel. By the time I stood straight, I just realized that I was looking at the most beautiful landscape ever. The trees were towering high, with birds’ nests on almost every branch.
The view made me speechless. When I took a glance at Jason, he was searching for a clue of the missing part of the book by digging the ground.
“Jason, what are you doing? Can you actually find something there?” I asked.
When I finished talking, Jason brought a small statue of a horse out of the hole. Jason took out the book out of his bag and put it on the ground, right beside the thing he found. The book glowed again, and the thing disappeared from the ground and reappeared on the cover of the book.
“That was easy!” Jason said.
I checked the time. It was already lunch time, and we did not eat anything since morning. We brought some food from home, so we stopped and ate our lunch. We were very thirsty after lunch, and we forgot to bring a water bottle, so we went to find for a river. After minutes of walking, we found one. The water was clear and it looks clean. We drank the water and it tastes fresh. We washed our face and our hands. When I looked in the river, I saw something shimmering. I reached my hand and took it, and it seemed like one of the parts of the book.
“Jason! Look at this! I saw this thing shimmering in the river a while ago, and I took it. Do you think it’s a part of the book?” I asked.
Jason took the book out of his bag and put it on the ground beside the thing I found, and they glowed. The thing disappeared and reappeared on the cover of the book, just beside the first missing part we found. We were happy because we were able to find two missing parts of the book in one day. The quest will not be long, I thought. I could just relax and the parts will appear by themselves.
We walked again, hoping for signs of the remaining two parts of the book. We found a small house beside the river, and we were hoping that whoever lived in that house would let us stay for a night. We knocked the door, but there was no answer. We waited for another three minutes before knocking the door again. There was still no answer. Then it started to rain heavily.
Since Jason and I forgot to bring our umbrella, we became wet because of the rain. The day was going to be better, I thought. The rain did not stop for the whole night, and we had other place to sleep. We went to get some big leaves and sticks to tents beside the house. When we finished making the tents, the sky was already dark. We ate the rest of the food left in our backpacks and slept.
When I woke up the next morning, it was not raining anymore. I walked to Jason’s tent to wake him up. I went inside and he was still snoring. I shouted his name and he woke up instantly. We went to the river to wash our face and brush our teeth. While washing our faces, we looked at the house and the front door was open, so we went there after brushing our teeth.
There was something in front of the door. It was a scroll, and we didn't know what it was. Jason opened the scroll, but there was nothing written. The scroll reminded me of the book. I took the book from Jason’s backpack and put it on the ground. The scroll disappeared from Jason’s hand and did not reappear anywhere.
A woman came out of the house and smiled at us. We put the book back in Jason’s bag before she could see it. But it was too late.
“What’s that?” she asked, “Why did you hide it from me? Let me see it.”
“It’s just our journal book,” Jason lied, “There’s nothing good in it.”
“Okay then,” she said. “Are you cold? You could come in and rest if you want.”
I said yes, and the three of us went into the house. The house was lovely, but I felt that something wasn't right. I felt like that place wasn't real, and the woman was not a regular human being. By looking at Jason’s expression, I could tell that he was also uncomfortable. The woman asked us to sit on the living room and wait for her to bring two cups of tea for us, when Jason and I saw something that looked exactly like the first part of the book that Jason found—a statue of a horse. Jason brought the book out of his bag and put it under the table. It glowed, and the statue reappeared on the cover beside the other statue of the horse.
The woman came back, and she saw that the small statue under her table was gone. I saw her face turning red, and her voice suddenly came out.
“What did you do to my statue?” she shouted at us, “Do you think it’s polite to just take something from other people’s house without permission?”
“We’re sorry, we need that statue to complete our quest,” I said. I couldn't help telling the truth. I am a person who tells the truth most of the time, to everyone, even strangers.
Jason stared at me with his angry eyes, and at that moment I knew that Jason was mad at me for telling the truth.
“A quest?” the woman asked, “A lot of people used that excuse—a quest to complete. I didn't believe them, so I challenged them into a fight, and at the end I always win.”
Jason and I were speechless. The woman who was in front of us was the one who killed our ancestors. Moreover, we were not prepared if she was going to challenge us for a fight. We didn't have any weapons with us, not even a knife.
“Well, we have a quest to complete, and we need your statue to succeed,” Jason said.
“Fight me. If I lose, I will give you my statue for free. But if I win, you will not have the statue and you must stay here and work for me for the rest of your life.”
“It’s a deal.”
“What? I know that’s the only way to complete the quest, but what if we lose?” I whispered to Jason.
“We’ll not lose,” Jason whispered back.
The woman transformed into a monster. It was the scariest monster I've ever seen. She had black wings, a huge body which looked like a spider’s, big hairy spider’s legs, two human hands, and a scorpion’s tale. All in all, she was fifteen times bigger than me. She lunged forward and lifted Jason up to the air. I went to one of her left foot and stepped on it. She screamed, and her scream was the most horrible scream ever. My ears hurt badly, I felt like they were about to detach from my head.
While she was screaming, she released Jason from her hand. Jason fell to the floor, and I heard a big THUD. I went to him, and I saw that his leg was badly injured. I went to him and checked on his leg. Then we had a quick conversation.
“Jason, I’m sorry,” I said
“There’s no need to be sorry,” Jason said. He smiled at me, and I felt myself crying. I quickly thought about a plan that might work.
“Jason, I have an idea. Can you get up for a while?” I asked. He nodded. “Okay, so here’s the plan. You distract the monster so that her tail will not sting me. While you distract her, I will go to the kitchen and look for a knife. When I have the knife, I will try to cut her tail first, then her eight legs. In that way, she would not be able to move that fast. I will try to stab her head by climbing on top of her body.”
He did not say anything. He got up, but I could see that he was struggling for me. I ran to the kitchen and quickly searched for a knife. When I took a quick glance at Jason, I saw him flying to the window, while the monster was laughing. I had to do this fast. I found no knife, but there were a bow and arrows under the sink. A bow was even better. I grabbed the bow and the arrows and ran towards the monster. I took three arrows and aim for her tail. I needed three to completely cut her tail, and I should do it accurately. I released the arrows and they cut the monster’s tail perfectly.
The monster screamed for the second time. It noticed me, who was aiming an arrow to one of her legs. She ran to me and I released the arrow. She slowed down. I continued aiming for her legs one by one and release the arrows. Finally, eight arrows are released, and all of them cut the monster’s legs. But the monster had two hands, but there was only one arrow left.
“Jason! Catch!” I shouted, and threw the bow and the arrow.
Good, Jason knew how and where to aim. The monster was still walking with its hands towards me, and all there was left for me to do is wait for the arrow to stab the monster’s heart. The monster was exactly in front of me, and it was just about to eat me when it suddenly collapsed. I saw the arrow at the back of the monster, just the perfect spot.
I ran to Jason and hugged him. He looked happy, but his leg was badly bleeding. I went to my tent and took my jacket, and wrapped it around the injured part of Jason’s leg. The dead monster was gone, and there was another horse statue on the floor. I grabbed the book from Jason’s bag and put it on the floor. The book glowed very brightly, until I was not able to see anything because of the light from the book.
The moment I opened my eyes, I was already in my bedroom. The book was beside me and all the parts of the book were there on the cover, including the scroll. I went to check on Jason, and it turned out that Jason was perfectly healthy. We were so happy, and we decided to return the book to the library. When we went downstairs, mom acted as if nothing happened.
“Mom, Jason and I are going out to our friend’s house. We have a group work to do,” I said.
Mom smiled at us, and we ran to the library. We found the spot where we first found the book, and we returned the book. The book glowed one last time, and then it disappeared from the rack. Jason and I succeeded in the quest, and that means our grandchildren will be safe from the danger of this quest. We went home in the afternoon, and sat in the living room with mom, and watched the TV. A video was shown, and it was the video of our quest. I looked at Jason, and he smiled at me. I smiled back, and the three of us continued watching the video.