“Open one? So they’re like jars?”
“There’s more!” Jillian went back to reading, holding up one finger to indicate that Louise should wait. “I don’t believe that there have been any changes made to the fundamental nature of the nactka itself. The object inside is held as if time has been stopped until the nactka is open. A flower would remain as if newly picked. Ice will not melt even in the hottest of summer. A chicken egg will not hatch for a hundred years, and yet when taken out, the chick will emerge unharmed.”
Louise gasped and then caught hold of her excitement. “But we don’t have one of these.”
“But we know they exist! Magic can save our baby brother and sisters.”
“We don’t have one and he might not describe how to make one.”
“He had one here on Earth.”
“Three hundred years ago in Paris.”
“Grandpa Dufae has this Codex and the old photographs. He might have it. I’m sure he would let us use it.”
“And he might take us away from Mom and Dad!”
Jillian waved away the objection. “He already knew there were other embryos. If he wanted more kids, he would have arranged for them to be born.”
“He didn’t have the money to pay for surrogate mothers. Esme did.”
“He gave Esme copies of all the Dufae family stuff. He must have thought she was arranging more kids to be born or something.”
They both paused and frowned as the logic of their mother once again escaped them. Why had she left the puzzle box with April? Except for the odd mystery photographs, there had been nothing of her in the box.
“They would have never made her captain if they thought she was crazy.” Jillian pointed out.
“There is that,” Louise agreed. They had to be missing some vital information that made Esme’s action logical, but so far Louise couldn’t even guess what that might be. “We need more information.”
Jillian growled in frustration and sat down at her desk and started to link her tablet to the house computer.
“What are you doing?”
“This is taking too much time. I’m speeding it up.”
“How?”
“I’m going to machine translate the entire document so we can do text searches and see everything he says about the nactka.”
* * *
Needless to say, the spells made the translation software have hissy fits.
* * *
The next entry of nactka came a hundred pages later and explained little.
It was pure childish curiosity that made me unlock the box, but I had recognized the dozen primed nactka the moment I saw them. I might be still a child, but I’d sat at my grandmother’s knee and heard all the dark stories of our enslavement. I knew that I had to act. My first thought was to merely disarm the nactka, but I was afraid I might accidently trigger whatever spell they were meant to activate. Nor would simply destroying these twelve solve the true problem. He couldn’t have made these; he lacks the intelligence and talent. Whoever created these might be able to make more. Might have already done so. These nactka pose no threat on Earth; they are inert. They remain dangerous, however, until I understand what the spell they’re linked to does.
“No, not another song!” Jillian cried as the next paragraph started out with “Knock knock, pick the lock, open the box…”
“Well, we know that the nactka are in a box.” Louise started a separate search. “Let’s see what he has to say about the box.”
Luckily Dufae obsessed about the box. He drew pictures of it. He considered changing the keyword of the lock spell and made elaborate notes on how to make lock spells and then decided that the magic of Earth was too “dirty” to guarantee a success.
And then they made an amazing discovery. The last few pages weren’t in Elvish but French. The hand that made the letters was more impatient, gone was the elegant perfection.
“Today my wife has borne me a son and we named him Roland Dufae. His ears are as pointed as mine. I was born fifty some years ago but I still look like a youth. I realize that my father would have lived forever on his native world and could not imagine that his life would be cut so short in such a tragic way. I have no idea how long I will live, but I must be sure that my child knows of his heritage, for it is stamped upon his face and determines how fast or slow he may grow. I will teach him to read and speak my father’s tongue. When he is old enough to understand, I will tell him of how my father traveled to Earth from the world of elves and why. When the crown of France fell, taking my father with it, I was still an infant. I was carried to safety in America. The Codex and many of my father’s things were brought with me, but the nactka that were his whole reason for fleeing his homeworld were not among them. I do not know what happened to the box containing the nactka. For his soul, I pray that they were smashed by ignorant fools, but from what I know of the box’s construction, this is unlikely. Protected as it was, it was virtually indestructible. It must exist somewhere in France along with all the crown jewels looted from the palaces. The fools will not be able to open the box, so it will continue to be, until I or one of my children search it out.”