Henry smiled at how easily he was able to divert her attention. Once they had eaten, he invited her to his room. The Amazing Zeppo had pretty much spilled the beans. If Brianna didn’t know for certain, she at least suspected that Henry had been keeping some big secrets from her. And after seeing the hypnotist, Henry had to wonder if Brianna’s strange voice wasn’t its own kind of magic.

He removed the books from his footlocker and showed her how the stone could translate from the ancient language into English.

“It’s magic,” she whispered. “Like in the movies. Like a princess movie!” She squealed and ran off.

“Where are you going?”

“To get changed!” she yelled from down the hall.

He had definitely succeeded in getting her mind off their mother’s absence, but it still nagged at him. What am I missing?

The full moon outside was bigger than ever, threatening to swallow the night sky. The bad moon is on the rise. The Amazing Zeppo’s words. Words that meant nothing to him. He flipped open his notebook of translations to a page that referenced lunar activity. Then he opened the ancient book to the corresponding page. There was a crudely drawn picture of a large circle with interesting symbols inside it, and a line of text just below it. The ulexite hadn’t translated any of that text, so Henry hadn’t bothered to copy the image into his notebook.

An idea took form and gained momentum inside his head. He rummaged through his closet until he found an old piece of sidewalk chalk. It briefly occurred to him that his idea might not be a good one after all. But curiosity got the better of him.

Working swiftly, he re-created the drawing on the hardwood floor. When he was done, Coralis’s wand tingled in his hand. He held it up to the moonlight. The clear veins began to glow. Quickly he flipped off the light switch and returned to the moonlit window. The wand brightened in his hand. When he dipped the point downward, the glow intensified into a single beam.

Henry had once had a flashlight with circular covers that would project images like the Batman symbol onto a wall. The effect now was very similar, as the beam of light illuminated the circle—but nothing outside of the circle. The beam stayed within its perimeter. Henry gasped as he thought his drawing of a winged symbol actually moved.