Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers

by Lee Edward Födi

  Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers

  © 2012 Lee Edward Födi

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.

  ISBN: 978-0-9879344-0-6

  Books by Lee Edward Födi:

  Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers

  Kendra Kandlestar and the Door to Unger

  Kendra Kandlestar and the Shard from Greeve

  Kendra Kandlestar and the Crack in Kazah

  Corranda’s Crown

  Find out more about Lee Edward Födi at www.leefodi.com and www.kendrakandlestar.com

  1. A Dark Shadow

  2. The Strange Inventions of Ratchet Ringtail

  3. A Secret Door

  4. Into the Elder Stone

  5. Winter Woodsong Calls the Orb

  6. The Garden of Books

  7. Dinner with Uncle Griffinskitch

  8. Through the Magic Curtain

  9. How Jinx Got Her Powers

  10. An Uninvited Guest

  11. Kendra and the Unger

  12. A Night’s Shelter

  13. The Shrieking Skarm

  14. Into the Marshlands

  15. They Meet Pugglemud

  16. Oki Gets into Trouble

  17. In the Footsteps of Giants

  18. Professor Bumblebean and the Riddle Door

  19. The Vault of Riches

  20. Uncle Griffinskitch Fights the Beast

  21. Prisoners of Rumor

  22. The Trial of Whispers

  23. Kendra Goes Next

  24. The Power of Secrets

  25. The Whispers Released

  26. Kendra and the Council

  Map of Een

  Click HERE for Full Size MAP

  IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that you have heard stories like this one before. You know the type: tales of high adventure, where you read about little folk with brave hearts seeking some magic treasure in lands treacherous and unknown. Where danger lurks around every crook and bend in the trail. Where creatures more fierce than your darkest nightmare prowl amidst even darker shadows. And where, they say, sometimes heroes are born.

  Well, in that regard, this tale is no different. But what does set this story apart is one tiny frightening thing. I suppose it’s a thing that might not seem frightening at all to you at first. At least not as terrifying as some of the things in those other stories, like an ancient hag, hunchbacked and cackling with three crooked fangs, or a goblin with scaly gray skin and one yellow eye that glints like a bright gold coin in a dungeon’s dim corner. No, this tiny thing doesn’t seem dangerous at all compared to the fiendish villains in those other stories.

  And now you wonder what this thing can be. Can you guess? No? Then let me tell you.

  It is, believe it or not, a secret.

  A secret, you say? How can a secret be frightening? Well, we will certainly come to that. But not quite yet. First, we must go to the beginning of the story. To get to the beginning, we must go to the land of Een during a time long ago when the world still remembered some of its magic. These were the days when ancient races, such as Dwarves and Elves, still roamed the earth. But even then, the land of Een was not an easy place to find. It was tucked in between the cracks of here and there, a tiny, quiet place that the sharpest eye would miss.

  Here, at the beginning of our story, a young Een girl was staring up with a frown at a row of unusually large carrots. The girl’s name was Kendra Kandlestar, and she was eleven years old. As for the carrots, they were unusually large because they were magic, or more accurately stated, Kendra had used magic to plant them. In fact, she had only planted them that very morning, and by noon, they had grown taller than the garden shed—with no end in sight. Kendra sighed. It had seemed like a marvelous idea at the time. Now that the carrots were looming over her like so many orange towers, well, she wasn’t so sure.

  She tugged on her long braids and furled her brow, deep in thought. Tugging helped her think. Thankfully, she had many braids. Her hair was long and brown, the perfect type for braiding. She had seven braids in all, reaching out from her small head like the rays of a star. Of course, Eens are known for their braiding ability, though I suppose if you have heard of Eens at all, perhaps it’s not their braids that you will recall. Most likely, what you may have heard—and if you have not, I will tell you now—is that the Eens are a tiny sort of people, smaller than rabbits but bigger than mice. They are also a very old people, which is to say they have been in the world for a long time, longer than most. Some scholars and other such people who study these things think Eens are related to Gnomes or Elves. But this is mostly because Eens have pointed ears and seem to know a thing or two about magic. They can talk to animals the same as you and I can talk to each other, and indeed, many an Een town is populated with all sorts of forest critters. These are mostly the small, friendly type of critters, the ones that aren’t about to go eating Eens for lunch.

  Eens come in many shapes and sizes, though it is safe to say that they are mostly small, mostly friendly, and—most of all—afraid of the big outside that exists beyond the magic curtain. This magic curtain is like a giant invisible wall that separates and hides the land of Een from the rest of the known world. But we shouldn’t blame the Eens for being so timid. In the world that exists beyond the magic curtain lurk all sorts of dangerous monsters, including Ungers, Krakes, Orrids, Izzards and Goojuns (both the lesser and greater varieties, if you happen to know or care that there is more than one type of Goojun at all). Of course, if you were as tiny as an Een, then you would know that the world is a hard enough place in which to live, never mind Ungers and Goojuns and such. To an Een, a flower might as well be a tree, or a rock might as well be a mountain.

  Of course, Kendra’s carrots were another matter altogether. They would have been considered enormous even in our world.

  “Uncle Griffinskitch is going to have a perfect fit when he comes home,” Kendra declared, tugging on her braids extra hard.

  Then, as if he had been waiting for his name to be mentioned, Uncle Griffinskitch appeared, stepping out from behind one of the giant carrots.

  “Kendra!” the old Een bellowed. His voice was deep and loud, though to a person the size of you or me, it would have seemed scarcely louder than a whisper. “What have you done now?”

  With a gulp, Kendra turned to face her uncle. “Th-th-the carrots have grown out of control,” she stammered.

  “Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered.

  Uncle Griffinskitch said “humph” a lot, though Kendra had long ago learned that humph didn’t always mean the same thing. For example, a quiet humph meant that her uncle was deep in thought, while a louder humph, the sort that came from the bottom of the old Een’s throat, meant that he was more than just a little angry. Then there was the roaring sort of humph that meant . . . well, it usually meant that Kendra had really done it this time. Of course, as long as he was in the humph stage, Kendra knew she was only in a tiny bit of trouble. It was when Uncle Griffinskitch yelled, “Days of Een!” that it meant extra chores for a week. Kendra wasn’t sure what “Days of Een” meant. No one else she knew ever said it, though she did find the phrase once in an old book in her uncle’s study. It began, “In the Days of Een, when all were one . . .” But that’s all she could remember because it had been a long time ago when she read it.

  Uncle Griffinskitch glared hard at Kendra with his sharp b
lue eyes. “Someone,” he said, “has been playing with magic.”

  Magic, of course, was something Uncle Griffinskitch knew about. He was a wizard, after all, and a powerful one at that. It was one of the reasons he sat on the Council of Elders. Kendra liked to think that another reason was his beard, for it was so long and white that she could not help but to think of elders when she looked at it. Some Eens claimed that Uncle Griffinskitch had never once trimmed his beard or long whiskers. Kendra didn’t know about that, but she was pretty sure the beard slowed her uncle down. He never seemed to move faster than the pace of a snail going uphill, despite the help of the short wooden staff that he always clutched in his withered old hands.

  “I thought a little magic might help the carrots grow,” Kendra told her uncle sheepishly.

  “Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered as he eyed a large book lying in the grass near Kendra’s feet. “What’s this? Gardening with Magic. How many times have I told you to not borrow my books without asking?”

  “Yes, but I thought I could surprise you—,” Kendra began.

  “I’m surprised all right,” Uncle Griffinskitch interrupted. “Unfortunately, it is a surprise of the unpleasant variety.”

  “Er . . . can we stop them from growing?” Kendra asked.

  “What’s that?” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered, stroking his beard and gazing intently upon the carrots. “Yes, of course. A Goojun’s sneeze would do it.”

  “A Goojun sneeze!” Kendra cried, tugging on her braids. “How would we get one? From one of their handkerchiefs?”

  “Goojuns aren’t exactly the sort to use handkerchiefs,” Uncle Griffinskitch snorted.

  “Oh,” Kendra said. “So what then? I thought it was forbidden to go near Goojuns.”

  “Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch said. “It’s not forbidden to go near them. Just to help them. Them and any other monster that lives out there.”

  He pointed a crooked finger into the distance, towards the magic curtain and the world that lay beyond. Kendra followed his gesture to the horizon, but she could see nothing except the vast blue sky. Of course, this was no surprise. No one could see the magic curtain, not even Uncle Griffinskitch, for it was completely invisible to the naked eye.

  Kendra was just about to look away when suddenly she did see something in the sky. It was just a dot, far in the distance, and it made Kendra gulp. She had seen dots in the sky before, of course. They usually just turned out to be birds. But what made Kendra take particular notice of this dot was that it was quickly becoming more than a dot. With every second, it was becoming larger and larger, plowing through the clouds like a giant cloak of darkness—and it was heading straight their way!

  “What is that thing?” Kendra cried.

  Uncle Griffinskitch couldn’t even muster a humph, and if he had, Kendra wouldn’t have heard it anyway. For now, a shriek came from the dark shadow, so loud and piercing that the world seemed to come to a sudden stop. If you had heard the shriek, you might have said that it sounded like long fingernails scratching a chalkboard. Or that it was like the blood-curdling cry of a baboon, deep in the wilds of Africa. Or maybe you might have said that it sounded like the screech of a skidding car, the type of sound that sends a shiver down your spine and frightens you to your very toes.

  This shriek was worse than all of those sounds mixed together. It was so loud that Kendra had to put her hands to her ears just to try to block out the tiniest bit of the bone-jarring howl. It was the type of sound you could feel, the type that had weight. Indeed, it was so heavy that one of the giant carrots even cracked and smashed to the earth in a brilliant burst of orange.

  The shadow itself was as large as the shriek was loud, casting a darkness so wide and gloomy that it seemed as if night had suddenly fallen. Kendra and Uncle Griffinskitch craned their necks as the ominous shape tore through the plants and trees above them, but all was black. Then, in a flash, both the shadow and the sound were gone. The silence was blissful, but it only lasted for a second. In what seemed like one beat of a tiny Een heart, the shadow returned, zooming back with an even louder, more triumphant roar.

  Then, just like that, it disappeared all together.

  “Days of Een!” Uncle Griffinskitch cried after a few moments. His sharp blue eyes, framed with wrinkles, were still locked on the now-empty sky, and his whole body was trembling.

  “What was that thing?” Kendra asked.

  “Humph,” the old wizard muttered, and it was the kind of humph that Kendra had never heard from her uncle’s lips. It was the kind of humph that suggested grave trouble.

  “Hurry,” Uncle Griffinskitch said, casting a worried glance at Kendra. “We must go at once to the Elder Stone!”

  UNCLE GRIFFINSKITCH now moved at a pace that would definitely leave all snails behind, downhill, up-hill—or any hill. Kendra had never seen her uncle go with such quickness, and for once, she was the one who had to keep up.

  She had only been keeping up for a very short time when a small gray mouse came darting around a corner in the path, running so fast that he blundered right into Uncle Griffinskitch. The old wizard was sent to the ground in an explosion of white hair.

  “Humph! Who’s in such a hurry that he can’t mind where he’s going?” Uncle Griffinskitch grumbled, pulling himself up from the dust.

  “Why, it’s Oki!” Kendra exclaimed.

  Oki was not only Kendra’s best friend but also an after-school messenger for the elders of Een. The mouse was very excitable by nature and was now panting so hard that he could barely speak.

  “I’m sorry, Elder Griffinskitch,” Oki squeaked. “I didn’t mean to bump you! But I was just on my way to find you. Something terrible has happened!”

  “I know,” Uncle Griffinskitch said sternly. “I saw the dark shadow.”

  “It’s worse than that!” Oki exclaimed.

  “What do you mean?” Uncle Griffinskitch asked.

  “I can’t say for sure,” Oki replied. “But the elders have called an emergency meeting, and you’re needed right away, Elder Griffinskitch. It’s something very serious!”

  “I must make greater haste,” the old wizard declared. “Kendra, get back home, and mind yourself. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Kendra started to object, but it was clear her uncle wasn’t in the mood to argue. Without further fuss, the whiskered Een turned and headed down the path.

  “Did you see the shadow, Oki?” Kendra asked as soon as her uncle was out of sight.

  “No, but I heard it,” Oki told her, seeming to shiver at the very thought of the shadow. “And whatever it was, it made an enormous hole on the lawn in front of the Elder Stone.”

  “Really?” Kendra said. “This I’ve got to see.”

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Oki said.

  “Oh, come on!” Kendra urged. “It’ll be fun. Just follow me. I know a shortcut!”

  She turned and disappeared through the blades of grass.

  “You know, it’s not normal for an Een to seek out adventure,” Oki twittered as he reluctantly followed after her.

  “Well, you’re always telling me that I’m not a normal Een,” Kendra called over her shoulder.

  “That’s true,” Oki said. “I’m more Een than you are. I never crave adventure. In my experience, adventure can mean only one thing: danger!”

  “Oh, what could happen?” Kendra asked. “It’s just a giant hole.”

  “Exactly,” Oki said. “The perfect sort of thing for a tiny mouse like me to fall into.”

  “Oh, I won’t let that happen,” Kendra told him, and she quickened her pace across the forest floor. To her, the giant world seemed a peaceful place again. The soft summer light was smiling upon the mushrooms and wildflowers, and she could almost forget about the dark shadow. But the silence was not to last.

  “There’s no way I’m going anywhere near that Elder Stone, you slug-brained, foul-winded, barf-infested fur ball!” came a sharp voice.

  �
�Who said that?” Oki squeaked.

  “It came from that direction,” Kendra said, pointing through the trees.

  Just then, they heard a second voice: “I’ll have you know you’re speaking to Ratchet Ringtail, perhaps the most talented and respected inventor in all the land of Een!”

  “More like Ratchet Rattlehead if you ask me!” the first voice retorted.

  “Ratchet?” Kendra cried, throwing a startled glance in Oki’s direction. “What’s he up to now?”

  “You can bet it’s trouble, whatever it is,” Oki said. “You know Ratchet!”

  Kendra nodded, for she did indeed know Ratchet—all too well. He was one of her favorite friends, though in truth most Eens looked upon him as a troublemaker. Ratchet the raccoon considered himself an amateur wizard and an inventor with extraordinary talent. No one knew exactly what that meant, though Kendra had long ago come to the belief that Ratchet simply invented with the help of what little magic he thought he knew. His inventions were rarely practical. There were his time boots, for example, with their long toes curling at the ends so that they pointed behind you. The boots were meant to take you back in time and, to Ratchet’s credit, they actually worked—sort of. Unfortunately, you kept bumping into yourself coming the other way, so the journey into the past always ended up being a rather short one.

  “I just need to work out the kinks,” Ratchet had said at the time, though if he ever did, Kendra had never found out. Most of Ratchet’s inventions seemed to collect dust on the shelves of his laboratory.

  Still, the thing about Ratchet was that he always listened to Kendra. In many ways, he treated her just like an adult. That was worth a lot in Kendra’s book, whether he was a wizard, an inventor, or even just a troublesome animal.

  “All your friends are animals,” Uncle Griffinskitch had told her once.

  It was true, of course, but it had never seemed to bother him before Elder Burdock Brown had come by one day and pointed out as much. Burdock had only one eyebrow. It was dark, shaggy, and it stretched across his forehead like an angry