The Dark Shadow of Spring by G. L. Breedon

of books on shelves and floors around the house.
    “Maybe the den,” his mother said, scratching her head. “Or the dining room?  I seem to remember a pile of history books on the stairs to the attic.”
    “Hey, Sis,” Alex said, handing a dry bowl to his sister for stacking in the cupboard, “wanna help me look for books?”
    “What’s in it for me?” Nina asked with a smirk.
    “The warm feeling that comes from doing a good deed,” Alex said, smirking back.
    “As long as that warm feeling tastes like chocolate, I’m in,” Nina said.
    “Done,” Alex said. He had long gotten used to bribing his sister for assistance with candy bars. She was a sucker for a Seven Up Bar, with its cherry, coconut, maple, jelly, Brazil nut, caramel, and fudge centers in each of its seven sections. They were one of the few Outsider candy bars available in town.
    “No candy before dinner,” his mother said, drying her hands. “What do you want a book on the history of the valley for?”
    “A research project,” Alex said. “For the Guild.” Which was true. Sort of.
    “Well, I’ve read most of the books in the house,” his mother said. “I could probably save you some time. I never read of anyone reporting hearing voices on the Black Bone Mountain. People sometimes claim to hear voices in the Whispering Woods at the edge of the Dead Forest, but that’s all in the south of the valley.”
    Alex was silent as his mother eyed him. He hated it when he was so transparent that she could tell what he was thinking. He often suspected that she was using Mind Magic on him.
    “And while I’ve read about several caves and suspected treasures buried in them,” his mother continued, “I’ve never read about any cave in the Black Bone Mountains except the one that the dragon Gall’Adon is sleeping in.”
    Alex tried to keep his face neutral at the mention of the dragon and covered his surprise at his mother’s insight into his plans by asking a question. “Are there any books you haven’t read?”
    “A few,” his mother said.
    “I think we should search, just in case,” Nina said, a conscientious look on her face.
    “You just want the chocolate,” Alex said, rolling his eyes.
    “If I help you look, do I get chocolate?” his mother asked, a hint of mischief in her voice.
    “Deal,” Alex said. His mother loved chocolate even more than his sister, and with her help, he might actually find a book that would explain what was in that cave.
    Alex and his mother and sister spent the rest of the afternoon and some of the evening looking through stack after stack of books piled in the rooms around the house. Normally he would have asked the Guild to come and help, but the parents of the Guild members, his in particular, had long ago decreed that Sundays were to be family days since the Guild spent nearly every waking moment of every other day together.
    Alex’s father came home a few hours after they began and, after sneaking a couple of spoonfuls of leftover cold chili from the pot in the refrigerator, he dove in to help with the search. A family book hunt was not an uncommon occurrence in the Ravenstar household. Since his mother had nearly as many books as the town library, and on nearly as many subjects, research for school papers was usually conducted at home. The whole family was regularly called out to hunt down a volume on a particular subject.
    Digging through a dust-covered heap of books in the upstairs hallway with his mother, Alex reflected that searching together as a family was possibly slower than searching alone, but more fun. His mother and father would always find books they had forgotten they owned, which would inevitably elicit a story about where they had found it, which would lead to a digression about some journey or adventure they had been on together.
    By dinnertime, they had a small mound of history books assembled in the middle of the table and had heard a number of tales of their parents’ youth that