Layla did not trust Jack. He was slippery as an eel. Their parents let him run around playing with no one to check on him all the time. It was Jack who had started the fire at the abandoned barn outside the village. Their father had gotten there in time to put out the flames before it had started the woods on fire. It had been five years ago when Jack was only eight. Since then, his parents had never suspected the truant behaviour of Jack, but it had gotten no better since then. The problem was that Layla knew Jack had the book for a reason. Jack did not have any idea why it was he to take the book.

"Jack watched papa writing in it all these nights,” she thought. “He knows it means something, just like I do, but he does not know he has to discover how to use it.”

Layla had been thinking this when Jack fell out of the sky and landed next to Lillian. Layla did not find this strange, and this rattled her more than his abrupt arrival. She would have scolded him, but it was the book she noticed first. It lay on the grass next to her, the pages ruffling though there was no wind. When Layla put her hand out to take it, the pages stopped moving. Yes, the book was Jack’s.

“Where is the village? Where are Mamma and Papa?”

Layla did not want to answer him. She called out to Lillian, who shook her curly head and sat up. Layla held Ashe was in her arms, and did not want to frighten him again. She asked Lillian if she was alright and told Jack to stop making so much noise. Jack reached for the book. It slid out of his grasp down the hill a few feet. This made Layla nervous. The book seemed to hover in the air as it moved. Layla blinked hard. That could not be. As she stood up quickly, a gust of wind shifted the book further down the grassy slope.

“Jack. Get Papa’s book.”

Jack reached out, but the book slid on the lush grass out of his reach. The pages fluttered. Jack stood, uncertain, after his plunge from above the trees, but Layla did not feel compelled to ask him how he got up above the tree or how it was that he fell. Her attention was on the book. Jack went after it as it tumbled and stopped, ruffling its pages, then tumbled again. The book headed toward the river at the bottom of the quiet valley where the four of them stood quite alone.

Layla understood that she did not have to run as they had in the forest to escape the soldiers with bayonets or the fire. She carried Ashe, Lillian walked behind them in her usual hush. Layla kept a close eye on Jack and watched as the book lead them to the river. She thought it would be best to follow the direction in which the river flowed. The wine-red binding of the book stood out on the grass. She thought about how it would be easy to spot if it got too far away. Jack was limping, but Layla did not give him a chance to complain. The book stayed within his reach that was her concern now.

“It's leading us to the river.”

“Well then, he did understand after all,” thought Layla.

“Can’t you pick it up?”

“I’m hungry,” he complained.

“Jack –“

Layla was cut short by a man who appeared from a thicket of trees. He was small, almost a boy, but had the face of man. His hands were dirty, and his clothes were old. He was carrying a sack.

“I have some food,” the man said.

Jack reached down to pick up the book and walked toward the man.

“Jack, don’t,” Layla called out. Jack stopped. It was the first and only time he had ever listened to her.