Keeper of the Books (Keeper of the Books, Book 1) (16 page)

Rachel was every bit as beautiful as her father claimed, and when she walked into the cabin, Nate found himself stumbling upward from his seat at the table and taking off his hat out of respect. Rachel didn’t look at him at first, instead she screamed out her surprise and delight as she and Marum embraced tightly. Questions flew through the air so fast that Nate couldn’t really keep up with their talk. That and he didn’t much care for rehashing conversations. Still, he stood next to the table until Marum finally turned to him and told her his name.
 

“He’s the one who saved my life,” Marum said.
 

“How do you do, ma’am?”

“I’ll take no
ma’am
from you,” Rachel said with a bright smile. “Anyone who has saved my dear sister’s life is a close friend. Call me Rachel.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Nate said, trying to keep himself from grimacing.

Rachel laughed at him in response.

As the three of them sat at the table while Alban prepared the mutton, Nate couldn’t help but look all around the cabin. The place was small, but cozy.

The table where they sat was in the middle of the room and the kitchen area was directly across from Nate. Behind him at the other end of the room next to the fireplace was a large, cushioned chair that was placed next to a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, filled with books of all shapes and colors, some of them on their sides, some standing straight up.

There were three bedrooms in the house, all the doors closed off from the main room. Nate wondered where he would be allowed to sleep tonight.
 

Marum sat to Nate’s left and across from him was Rachel, staring intently at Marum as she recounted the events that brought them here. Alban turned his head slightly from the billowing steam of mutton stew to try and catch everything that was said, occasionally asking Marum to repeat herself.
 

It was difficult for Nate to keep his eyes averted from Rachel. She was indeed a beautiful creature. Nate had rarely seen a woman so pretty in all his life. Her long golden hair stopped at the middle of her back. Her bright eyes gave the appearance of being green, but upon closer inspection (though he was trying not to make closer inspections), he noticed that they were actually blue with yellow flecks. What Nate liked most was her smile as she talked with Marum. It was the kind of smile a man didn’t forget, something so perfect and so vibrant that it melted his insides with every flash.

He looked away from her and up at Alban, suddenly thankful for the man’s warning. Had he not threatened Nate with castration, he might find himself throwing out a flirtatious comment or two, making himself look like a fool.
 

When the conversation steered to Nate, he wasn’t sure what to say. Rachel asked him how he had found himself in the cell next to Marum and the room fell silent in wait for his response.
 

Nate scratched the back of his head, unsure of what he was supposed to say. Would it make sense to these people that he was here because of a book from a different place? A different world perhaps? He expected to be put on the spot like this, but that didn’t mean he had thought of a good way to respond. There wasn’t really a believable lie he could think of in the moment that would make any sense other than that he had been hired to get Marum out of there and that he had broken in somehow. Besides, he didn’t think Marum would play along with the lie. She seemed awfully close to these people.
 

“I don’t know,” Nate responded. “I woke up there.”

Rachel’s eyebrows went in two different direction and Alban turned to look at him. “What did you say? Not sure I heard you right.”

“I said I woke up there.”

Rachel shook her head. “Fully armed? The cell was unlocked?”

“That’s right,” Nate said.

Alban came to the table with hot steaming bowls in his hands and set them in front of Marum and Nate. The smell made Nate’s mouth water and he didn’t wait for Rachel to get hers or for Alban to sit before digging in ravenously. The broth burned his tongue as he shoved the spoon in his mouth, but he didn’t care.
 

“There has to be something else to this story,” Alban said, graciously ignoring Nate’s rudeness.

Nate sat up from his stew and sighed deeply as he chewed the fat from a piece of meat.

“It was as if he just appeared out of thin air,” Marum added.
 

“It’s a strange thing, ain’t it?” Nate said, taking another bite from the stew.
 

“It’s only strange to the people it perplexes,” Alban said. “Such as myself. I have no idea how a man might simply appear out of thin air, unless of course that man is a Sentinel.”

“A Sentinel?” Nate asked.

Rachel and Alban stared at Nate with pause. Rachel cleared her throat. “You don’t know what a Sentinel is?”

Nate shrugged and lifted the bowl to his mouth. He knew it wasn’t proper, but he was so hungry that it didn’t matter. He gulped down the broth despite the heat. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and held the bowl out toward Rachel. “Get me more of that stew and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Rachel squinted at him, clearly not impressed with their new guest. Her newfound abhorrence wore no mask as she stood from the table to serve him.
 

Nate then looked at Alban who had a smile etched across his face. He seemed too interested in this new mystery to care about Nate’s brash behavior. “You have whiskey?” Nate asked.
 

Marum looked at Nate disapprovingly this time, but he didn’t look back at her.
 

Alban’s smile widened. “Of course!” He turned to Rachel. “Bring the bottle, our guest is thirsty!”

Rachel was no longer her bubbly self and was not keen on the idea of having Nate in her home, he could tell. She set the bowl in front of Nate with a splash, then nearly slammed the dark bottle of whiskey on the table in front of him. She then brought enough glasses to the table for everyone to drink, though only Alban and Nate took one.
 

Alban poured a little into a glass for Nate and then poured a tiny bit for himself. He scooted the glass across the table and Nate took it happily, knowing full well he was going to need a lot more than a splash.
 

Alban raised his glass in the air, looking at Nate and Marum. “To newfound freedom!”

“Here, here,” Nate said before knocking back the drink. It burned his throat, but not enough to send him coughing. He set the glass in front of him and took it upon himself to refill it. He didn’t stop until the glass was more than halfway full.
 

Rachel’s eyebrows went up at the sight, but she politely said nothing.

Seeing her expression, Nate smiled and shook his head. “You’ll forgive me, but I haven’t had a good drink in two solid days. It’s starting to get to me.”

“Great,” Rachel said.
 

“So,” Nate said, taking another swig and looking toward Alban. He was already starting to feel more loose. “What is a Sentinel? I mean, I know what the word means, but you seemed to indicate it was something more.”

“They can use magic,” Alban answered.
 

Nate pushed out his lower lip and nodded. “Of course. Magic. Why not?”

“There are five Sentinels,” Alban said. He took such a small sip from his whiskey that Nate wondered if the man even tasted it. “They make up the League of Sentinels. They watch over the land, using their powers to keep Galamore held together.”

“So, they are like a bunch of wizards or something?” Nate said.
 

“Sure,” Alban answered. “A kind of wizard, yes.”

Nate’s eyes fell on Rachel again. Perhaps it was the whiskey that gave him courage, but he allowed his stare to linger. He figured she wasn’t too much younger than he, maybe about twenty-five or six. As curious as he was about these Sentinels, Nate was more interested in Rachel’s story. Why hadn’t she been married yet? Where was her mother? Why’d she still live with her father?

“Seems to me,” Nate said, “if these Sentinels were worried about holding a place together, they might think about having more than five people.”

Alban shrugged. “It is what it is.” He took another sip and then looked up. “Now, about this business of appearing in the jail cell next to Marum.”

“What about it?” Nate asked.

“How did you do it?”

Nate finished off his glass and filled it up again, much to the disapproving looks of Rachel and Marum. The glass was full this time and some of the excess whiskey slithered down the side. Nate brought the glass to his mouth and licked it away.

Rachel stared at him with a curled lip.

Nate took another gulp and shook his head as the liquid burned all the way down. “This stuff is better than what we’ve got back home.” He smiled when he noticed all of them staring at him. “Ya’ll don’t understand,” he said. “It’s been a long week.” He knew he was going to need the whiskey to make it through the rest of this conversation.

“No,” Rachel said, “I think I understand completely.”

Nate ignored her judgmental tone and got right to the point. “I found a book,” he said, looking at Alban who was still sipping at his first helping of soup. “Not here in Galamore, but from where I’ve been traveling. A place called Texas.”

“I’ve never heard of this place,” Alban said.
 

Nate nodded and took another, smaller, sip. “Anyway, it must have been magic too. I could flip the pages as long as I wanted and the book would never end. The cover had no title. And what’s even stranger, the words were being written across the pages as I was reading it. It was like there was an invisible writer penning the words right in front of me. Next thing I know, I’m falling into the book and I wake up in a cell next to Marum. The rest, you already know. I’ve never heard of Galamore. I’ve never heard of Sentinels. I’ve never heard of any of it.”

Rachel stared at him like he was crazy, and Alban kept sipping at his soup as if this was nothing he hadn’t already heard before.
 

“But I wasn’t the only one to go through the pages,” Nate continued. “There was a man named Tyler Montgomery that fell through. Then there was my brother, Joseph Cole.

“So, you’re interested in finding your brother and this Tyler person?” Alban asked.
 

“I don’t care much about Tyler Montgomery,” Nate said, “though I wouldn’t hate to run into him.” He took another swig.

“Sounds to me like you stumbled onto something incredible.”

Nate hadn’t been as fascinated with this book so much as how much money it was supposed to fetch him, but now that he was in the world of Galamore, it made him wonder what Tyler Montgomery was up to. Still, all he wanted was to get Joe and get out of there. But how he was supposed to just leave, he didn’t know.
 

“How do you figure I get out of Galamore?” Nate asked.
 

Alban sat back in his chair and looked toward the ceiling thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose the nearest border is northward through the Great Ridge Mountains, but it will take you a long time to travel that.”

Nate didn’t suppose that that was the way he needed to leave Galamore. The way he had come here in the first place was through the book.

Alban lifted a finger. “I know who could help a man like you.”

Rachel shook her head. “Father, no. Cara doesn’t do that anymore.”

Alban waved her off. “Cara owes me a few favors. She will see him.”

“I’m sorry,” Nate said, “but who’s Cara?”

Alban leaned forward and smiled. “She’s the Foreseer.”

“Foreseer? You mean a fortuneteller?”

“Oh, Cara is much more than a fortuneteller,” Alban said. “Fortunetellers make up lies for money. And while Cara
did
make a living telling people lies, she actually has a true power to see things.”

“How can she help me find my brother?” Nate took another sip from his glass. He didn’t know if his head was swimming from the alcohol or if it was the surreal adventure he had stumbled upon.

“She doesn’t see everything,” Alban said. “Maybe she can’t tell you where your brother is, but she can at least tell you what lies ahead in your future. And that could give you some direction.”

“Where is she?” Nate asked.

“A night and a day from here,” Alban said. “It’s south, so it will be toward the direction Marum needs to go to get out of the president’s reach.”

Marum nodded. “I remember Cara.” She looked at Nate. “It is on the way for me.”

“So, that’s your plan? To get across the border?”

Marum nodded. “Not the border of Galamore, obviously. But if I can get out of Tel Haven Woods, and on into the Sunset Woods, I would be out of reach. The Rangers won’t stop until they find me, but they won’t follow me there. Of course, I won’t truly be safe until I’m back in Gray Elf Country.”

“How far is that?” Nate asked.
 

“It’s a long journey,” Alban said. “Weeks. A couple of months if the weather doesn’t cooperate.”

“And I will have to keep a low profile, so it might take me even longer,” Marum said.
 

Nate nodded, unsure of how this all fit with him. Apparently Galamore was huge. If it so happened that his brother woke in a random place in this country, he might not ever find him. His worried thoughts were only defeated
 
by another gulp of whiskey.

“You really think the Foreseer can help me?” Nate asked.
 

Alban shrugged. “It’s worth a try. Cara is unreliable at times, but she has been a good friend with valuable insight for me in the past.”

Nate didn’t really like the idea of dealing with a foreseer. Things having to do with the supernatural or magic made him feel uncomfortable. Of course, now he realized he shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the prospect of magic. He had just fallen through a book into a new world. Whether or not he wanted to be a part of it didn’t matter. Magic had found him, and he had to get used to it.
 

Rachel stared at him through her intense eyes. If he were any other man, he might have recoiled and looked away. But he was Nathaniel Cole. He didn’t back down from anyone. He returned her stare with a smile on his face.