Chapter Thirty-Two: The Fourteenth Birthday of Lady Rachel Jade Griffin
Guardians of the Twilight Lands -- The Sixth Book of Unexpected Enlightenment
The morning of Saturday, the thirtieth of March dawned bright and clear. It was Rachel’s birthday. Finally, she was fourteen!
It was going to be the best day of her life!
On the end table beside her bed sat brightly wrapped packages that had arrived from Astrid, Nastasia, Joy, and to her surprise, Zoë. Valerie had sent a card that played music, and there was even a birthday card from Vladimir featuring children in lederhosen marching in a parade. Recently received letters from Astrid and Nastasia, replies to her letters, lay beside them. There was also a package from her Great-Aunt Nimue containing a finely-crafted pair of silver and diamond earrings and, surprisingly, a short letter from Nimue’s grandson, Blackie Moth. In it, he thanked her for the information she had sent to him about how to use the turlu cantrip on a lightning imp’s javelin to create a tremendous force. Writing in the same brusque, clipped manner in which he spoke, her second-cousin let her know that her discovery had been the breakthrough he had needed for the success of his current project.
Included was a photo of Blackie in his Stetson, leaning grimly on his prototype railgun.
* * *
The previous week had passed quickly. The duchess had trimmed Rachel’s hair so that it again just brushed her shoulders, and Marie Anjou had taken her measurements so as to begin on a new summer wardrobe, now that Rachel was a little taller. She and Sigfried had spent a portion of each day looking for the Heart of Dreams, to no avail. They had checked the stable and kennel, the boathouse, the hedge maze, the gatehouse, the grounds, the ruins on Gryphon Tor, and even the surrounding moors. They had tried the endro cantrip in case it revealed something the amulet could not, but nothing had come of it. Either the gem no longer shone, or the Heart of Dreams was not at Gryphon Park.
The rest of their days were filled with adventure. They visited different parts of Dartmoor, went to the butterfly preserve and to see the otters, rowed on the lake—everyone except for Sigfried staying dry—and climbed several tors. Some days, they even made it home by teatime.
Sigfried got into trouble with some giants. Rachel had to use all the spider climb elixir he had given her and three chameleons to get him out of it, but the ordeal had a silver lining. She had needed Gaius’s help, and he had been able to spend a couple of hours with her, before he returned to the unending queue of chores his father had piled up for him. He did get time off the next day to accompany them to Merlin’s Cave. There was nothing there of unusual significance; but both young men enjoyed the excursion, and Rachel was happy to be with them.
This morning, as she lay in bed beneath her pink canopy, she let her memories of the past year parade by, recalling the good and the bad that had occurred while she was thirteen. There was so much that was amazing and a good deal that was horrible. Rachel very much hoped that being fourteen would prove easier than being thirteen had been.
As she reviewed conversations from last fall, she noticed something she had missed the first time. She held up her arm with the black bracelet, waving it above her as she lay in bed in her white flannel Victorian nightgown.
“Gaius, do you have a moment?” she asked cheerfully.
There was something deliciously wicked about talking to a boy while she lay in bed in her nightgown, even if he was over thirty miles away. She luxuriated in it. It seemed like such a grown-up fourteen-year-old thing to do.
“Indeed, I do, birthday girl!” his voice spoke in her ear. He sounded quite cheerful “Welcome to your fourteenth year. Or…wait. You are fourteen, so it’s your fifteenth year. Never mind that. Happy birthday!”
“Thank you very much, O’ Best of Boyfriends.” She grinned. “Um…I have a question.”
“Fire away. I’m milking cows. By which I mean, I am attaching milking machine hoses to cow udders. Not particularly exciting but has to be done.”
“They do that with a machine?” asked Rachel, not sure what to picture in her head.
“Everything can be done with a machine, me lovver, even printing food.”
“You mean like writing on a cake?”
“Er…pay it no mind.” He paused briefly to speak to a chicken. “Sorry, what were we saying?”
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