Fervor by Chantal Boudreau Page B

melancholic expression, followed a few feet behind them, and Royce stood quietly watching them go, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

 
     
     

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    Sam spent more than a full day recuperating from his close call, with Sarah and Fiona checking in on him at regular intervals. Nathan stopped in a couple of times as well, but there was no sign of Francis at first. In fact, the Teller avoided the house altogether for a couple of days, realizing that he was in the proverbial doghouse for involving Royce in orchestrating the Watcher’s test, and placing Sam at risk. The grazed knee while testing Sarah had been bad enough and Sam started to wonder if Francis had something that he kept hidden well behind his walls that would suggest that he were out to get the smaller boy as much as Royce was. He also didn’t think that the strange Bigs that he had spotted with Royce had anything to do with Nathan’s test, and that part still worried Sam.
    When he was finally feeling a little more like his usual self, Sam pulled the small orange container out of his pocket and had Fiona and Sarah join him in his room. He displayed his find to them, placing it in the palm of his outstretched hand. He also offered a visual image for Sarah through the connection as she reached out to touch it.
    “ What is it?” Fiona asked, eying the strange box warily.
    “ Something special,” Sam insisted. “Something that I’m sure that I was supposed to find.”
    “ Okay, but what is it?” she repeated.
    “ I think that it’s some sort of package,” Sarah suggested. “We need to get it open, to see what’s inside.” She brushed her hand over its surface. “It’s smooth and slightly soft. Someone sealed it in wax, like they were trying to make sure that it was waterproof. I think that they did that because they intended it to pass through the water. What if someone sent it on purpose? What if someone actually used the storm to get it to us on Fervor?”
    “ Why would anyone do that?” Fiona scoffed . “It was probably something that was being stored somewhere by the shore, and they waterproofed it to protect it in case there were some sort of tidal surge. Although I must say, I am curious to see what’s inside of it. How do you get it open?”
    Sam shrugged.
    “ We have to break the seal somehow,” Sarah offered. “But carefully. We don’t know what’s inside, and it could be breakable.”
    “ We could try heating it, and melting the wax away, ” Sam responded, watching Sarah run her fingers along its edges.
    “ We’d still have to be careful,” the petite girl insisted. “Whatever’s in here might be flammable as well. We have no idea.”
    Fiona disappeared into the kitchen, searching through the various magically fueled implements in order to find something that could help them safely break through the seal. She returned with a tool that generated a small flame and they set about carefully working their way into the container. When the casing finally yielded to their efforts, Sam gently pried it open. There was a roll of paper inside.
    “ Paper?” Fiona questioned.
    “ Like a message in a bottle,” the smaller of the two girls laughed. “Is there writing on it?”
    Sam both nodded and confirmed this through the connection, giving Sarah a visual flash of the note.
    “ Can I see?” Fiona requested. Sam passed her the paper
    “ Read it for me,” Sarah asked.
    “ On the outside it says ‘for Fiona.’ It’s for me...” the older girl looked startled and almost dropped Sam’s unusual find.
    “ Go on, go on,” Sarah stated excitedly. “What else does it say?”
    “ I hope that this makes its way to your Finder and then to you okay. I heard you recently and I know that you are aware of some of the things going on. I don’t think any of the others suspect, not the others on Fervor, and not anyone here either.” She hesitated . “Here? Where’s here?”
    “ Maybe it says further along – keep reading,”