The Book Without Words by Avi Page A

book from him. Odo, the monk wants the book—and the stones—back.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    “He told me these things when I spoke to him.”
    “Spoke to him! When? Where?”
    “In the courtyard. Yesterday. And this morning.”
    “Where was I?”
    “Asleep.”
    “Sybil,” said Odo, “if what you say is true, and we give the book or the stones away, Master will surely not live again. If he dies, we’ll never have the chance to learn his gold-making secret. We will have nothing.”
    “But the monk told me that if Master lives, I’ll die.”
    “Why should that be?”
    “It has to do with the making and swallowing of the stones. He said I’ll live only if Master truly dies.”
    “And you believe all that?”
    “You need to speak with him yourself. Odo, what good is gold if we’re dead?” That said, Sybil hastened up the ladder, leaving Odo alone.
    When the raven was quite sure Sybil was gone to the upper room, he hopped close to one of the locked chests. Rising a claw, he started to mutter, “Ofan, Ofan— ”
    “Odo,” came Sybil’s cry from the room. “Come here. Quickly.”
    “What is it?” Odo called up.
    “It’s Alfric,” said Sybil. “He says he can read the book!”
    7

    “What has he read?” said an excited Odo when he hopped up to the second floor.
    “It’s about the stones,” said Sybil.
    As Odo fluttered close, and Damian hovered near, Sybil drew Alfric to the table where the Book Without Words lay open. “Tell us what you saw,” she ordered him.
    The boy brushed his red hair away from his eyes and stared hard. “It’s … a list,” he said.
    “What kind?” Odo said.
    Alfric moved his hand up and down the left side of the page. “Numbers are here,” he began. “Top to bottom: one, two, three, and four.”
    “Is there anything about gold?” asked Odo.
    “Shhh!” said Sybil.
    “Not that I’ve seen yet,” said Alfric. “But over here,” he said, indicating the right-hand page, “there are words.”
    “Can you read them?” said Sybil.
    Alfric nodded. “They also go from top to bottom. On the top it says, ‘Life.’ Then”—his hand moved down—“‘Thoughts,’ ‘Magic,’ and finally, Time.’”
    “Four,” said Sybil, who had been counting on her fingers.
    “They’re just words,” scoffed Damian.
    Odo, his tail twitching, studied the book intently. “It’s the gold-making formula I want. Look some more.”
    Alfric stole a glance toward at Sybil. When she gave a tiny shake of her head, the boy turned some more pages. “I don’t see anything about gold,” he said after a while.
    “There were four stones,” Sybil said. “And four words. Odo, do we agree Master made those stones?”
    “I suppose we must.”
    “And that he has already swallowed two. Remember,” she said to Odo, “the time when he first died—or so we thought. He must have swallowed the first stone and come back to life then, too. Which is why I found only three.”
    “The first word is Life,” said Odo.
    “Just so,” agreed Sybil. “Then four in all. Odo, recall what he said before his first death: he spoke about stones. That they contained life. Living again.”
    “Something like,” agreed Odo.
    “Life stones,’he said. ‘Immortality. Secrets.'”
    “Then maybe—each stone,” said Odo with a flap of his wings, “gives one of the things on the list.”
    “I must see those stones,” said Damian. “Where are they?”
    Sybil went to the chest, took them out, and put the two remaining on the book.
    “Are you claiming,” said Damian, “that each of the stones provided one of those things—Life, Thoughts, Magic, or Time?”
    “I think so,” said Sybil.
    “Which ones did he take?”
    “Please,” said Alfric. “Perhaps they go from the first number to the last.”
    “If we think the first gave him life,” said Sybil, “then the second must have been Thoughts. The third is Magic. The fourth, and smallest, is Time.”
    Damian reached out and