CHAPTER ONE

Jenna’s Warning

We must be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time; we must reject the false comfort, that others' suffering is not our problem, and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests …

- Unknown -

Crash!

The abrupt sound of glass shattering the relative calm of an early country morning caused twelve year old Jayben Treat to suddenly drop his spoon back into his bowl of cereal. His head spun quickly to the other side of the farmhouse kitchen and he focused in on a frantic gold orb whirling about the wooden floor. 

 “What’s go’n on in there?” a woman’s voice demanded from another room in the cottage. Jayben listened as her heavy footsteps marched from the living room toward the kitchen. He turned his head just as his nanny, Mrs. Katie O’Callaghan, entered the doorway.  ‘Mrs. C’, as he referred to her, was a large, plump, kind-faced woman, who spoke with a thick Irish brogue.

“It’s a scarab!” Jayben said scooting away from the table and standing, “although it looks as though it’s been injured.”

His heart suddenly rushed to his throat.

“Duck!!” he screamed as the winged messenger bolted from the floor and bounced off a wooden cupboard just beyond his head.

Mrs. C, however, did not bend low to avoid being hit; instead, she grabbed a broom resting aside a small pantry and held it before her as though she were a goalie for a professional hockey team.

On the far side of the room, the frantic orb bounced off the ceiling and crashed against the floor where it spun about again before launching itself into the air in a frenetic flight.

Swoosh!

 It buzzed by Jayben’s blond head and would have certainly knocked him out had he not darted under the table.

 “Oh no you don’t!” he heard Mrs. C exclaim as she viciously swung the broom through the air, “Not my muther’s fine table china you don’t.”

The gold orb made contact with the stiff bristles of Jayben’s cape broom, which once again sent the magical messenger sailing to the other side of the room.

Crash!

More glass erupted onto the floor from what was left of the kitchen window. Inside the room a large red dragon’s head peered anxiously about.

“Watch out Slayer!” Jayben yelled as the orb sped by the oblivious pup.

Slayer’s eyes widened and he sniffed the air quickly even as the orb ricocheted off a counter and headed back toward the kitchen table.

“Get it Slayer!” Mrs. C ordered as she pointed the broom in his direction. “It’s there to your right; ya big blind Ga-boon!”

Slayer looked recklessly about the room even as the orb sped by his snout three times.

“It’s to your right,” Jayben screamed at his pet dragon. “Bite it Slayer!!”

Mrs. C lowered the broom and scoffed. “Let him be, Jayben, he’s worthless. Even if that scarab had been wrapped in bacon, he’d never notice it!”