Nykara

by Katie Holland

  - The mysterious coin we found at Yellowstone

  - Can’t figure out the writing on the coin

  - My and Ben’s parents talking about me, “are they sure it’s me” – what on earth does that mean???

  After she added to her list she started working on a Spanish translation when she got a text from Shay.

  Shay: Hey, u busy?

  Alix: Doing laundry and our Spanish homework. U?

  Shay: Nothing happening here. I did mine yesterday. Still going to Ben’s?

  Alix: Yep, just waiting to hear from him.

  Shay: Ok, text me when you hear something.

  Alix: K

  Alix took a short break from Spanish and finished her laundry. Just before noon, she heard her text alert, it was Ben.

  Ben: Still on for today?

  Alix: Yep. I have a small confession to make, I told Shay about the coin. Thought she might be able to help us, she’s good at figuring things out.

  Ben: Not a problem, I think we need all the help we can get. Can you guys come over now?

  Alix: Yep.

  Ben: Cool, mom is making us lunch.

  Alix: Awesome, see you in a few.

  She texted Shay next.

  Alix: I’ll be there in a bit; Ben’s mom is making us lunch.

  Shay: K

  Alix went to her room, got the coin and her laptop, and headed to Shay’s. She was halfway there when she felt like she was being followed. She turned around, but nothing was there. A block later the feeling was even stronger. She slowed down and tried to listen and was sure she heard footsteps. She rounded the corner of Shay’s block and when she did she saw something on her peripheral vision. When she turned around no one was there. Maybe I’m imagining things, she thought.

  Alix was a nervous and was still looking over her shoulder when she got to Shay’s. Shay was waiting for her when she arrived.

  “What are you looking at?” Shay asked.

  “I could have sworn someone was following me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I swear I saw and heard someone.”

  “Maybe there were just going the same direction as you?”

  “If that was the case why was no one there when I turned around?”

  “Um … I don’t have an answer for that.” Shay finally said. “Do you still want to go to Ben’s?”

  “Yes, we need to look at the coin.”

  They went straight to Ben’s. The feeling Alix had was gone now. Alix was about to press the button on the intercom box when the gate opened. Shay just looked at Alix and shrugged. They walked up the driveway and rang the doorbell. Ben was there almost instantly and seemed to be out of breath

  “Were you running or something?” Shay asked him.

  “Uh, yeah, I went for a run. You know I have to keep this body in shape.” he said winking at Alix and gesturing to his chest and stomach.

  Alix couldn’t help but follow his hand so of course she found herself blushing fiercely.

  “So, can we actually come in?” Shay said trying to take to focus off Alix.

  “Oh yeah, sorry, come in.”

  They walked in the house and followed him to the kitchen. When they got there, they saw a bunch of food spread out on the breakfast bar.

  “I thought we’d do a make-your-own-sandwich lunch. Help yourselves,” he said, gesturing to the mountain of food.

  “Either you think we’re pigs or you’re really hungry,” Shay said to Ben, “This is a ton of food.”

  “According to my mom I eat a ton of food so maybe I’ll eat whatever you don’t.” He flashed that smile that made Alix blush.

  “I think I’d like to see that,” Shay said laughing.

  “You’d probably make me do it too.”

  “You bet.”

  “Okay, I confess, it’s not all for us. Mom and dad will be coming in at some point to make themselves lunch as well.”

  “Are you ever serious?” Shay asked.

  “Sometimes, but only if I have to be,” he said and out came the smile again.

  Alix thought that smile might be the death of her.

  They all made sandwiches, grabbed some chips and a drink, and went to the table to eat.

  “I thought we’d work down here,” Ben said. “There is way more room to spread stuff out here than in my room.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Alix said, “Maybe while you’re distracted I’ll hunt for more of those brownies.”

  “Brownies! What brownies? There are brownies?” Shay said loudly.

  “You wouldn’t believe the brownies his mom makes, they are so good they should be illegal. Mint. Chocolate. Chip,” Alix said the last three words very slowly. “Shay likes brownies almost as much as cookies,” she said as an explanation to Ben.

  He just laughed at them. “I thought the saying was the way to a MAN’s heart was through his stomach, but it seems you two would give that saying a run for its money. When mom comes in I’ll ask if there are any more brownies. That fair?”

  “I guess,” Shay answered, “But if she takes too long I’m going to start looking myself.”

  Ben and Alix just laughed at her. They finished lunch and started getting everything they needed for looking at the coin. Since Shay had never seen it, Alix took it out of her pocket to show her. Shay went to open the bag, but Alix stopped her.

  “We aren’t taking it out of the bag. Since we don’t really know anything about it we’re keeping in there.”

  “Okay, that seems like a good idea.” Shay turned the coin over and over. “You were right, this is super strange. I’ve never seen anything like it.

  Alix took the coin back and put it in her pocket. She got her laptop powered up and went to the close-up pictures of the coin she took last night. “Here Shay look at these. I took them last night, so we could get a really good look.”

  Shay took her laptop and had a closer inspection of the coin. “It definitely looks like writing on the one side and kind of like an island on the other side to me.”

  “An island huh, we thought it looked like a map,” Ben said

  “And that is why you guys needed me. I have a unique way of looking at things.”

  “Yeah, unique,” Alix snorted as she laughed.

  Shay threw a pen at Alix. “Stop it.”

  “Okay, okay, sorry.”

  The three of them got back to looking at different pictures, different angles, and throwing out ideas.

  Shay was looking at the ‘word’ side of the coin. “Maybe the words make a spiral, find the starting point and we can figure it out.”

  “Maybe,” Ben said, “Any idea we come up with is worth looking at.”

  They were tossing some ideas back and forth and flipping through the pictures again when Natalie walked in.

  “Hey kids, what all this?” she asked walking over to them. She looked at the pictures on the table.

  The next thing Alix heard was the sound of breaking glass. Ben’s mom had dropped her glass. It hit the floor and shattered. Ben and Shay were looking at where the glass fell, but Alix saw the look on Natalie’s face; she looked scared. She instantly tried to school her expression, but Alix knew what she saw.

  “It can’t be,” she said in a voice so low that only Alix heard her.

  “Um, mom, are you okay?” Ben asked her, while picking up the pieces of the glass from the floor.

  “I’m fine son, just clumsy,” Natalie said in an almost normal voice, as she started cleaning up the broken glass. “I thought I was setting the glass down on the table, I guess I missed. I was too busy looking at these interesting pictures. Where did you get them?”

  Unsure of what to say Alix and Shay looked at Ben for an explanation to give his mom.

  “Well,” he started, “When Alix and I were at Yellowstone yesterday we found this coin. It was so interesting that we took a bunch of pictures of it. We thought we’d try and see if we can figure it out.”

  �
�I see,” she said. “And you went to Yellowstone for your English project, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you remind me what your English project is?”

  “Um, sure. Miss Fay assigned partners and handed out a current event that had been in the paper recently. We are to research it and find out as much as we can and write a paper about it.”

  “And the current event you two got was …?”

  “The missing hikers at Yellowstone. We talked to a ranger there and he directed us to the area that the first hiker went missing in. Is something wrong?”

  Natalie hesitated before answering. “No, I was just curious about those pictures, they seem very … interesting. Did you leave the coin there or take it with you?”

  “We took it with us. It didn’t seem right to leave it there.”

  “Do you have it here? I’d really like to see it.”

  “Uh, yeah, it’s in my pocket,” Alix said. She took the coin out and handed the bag to Ben’s mom.

  Natalie took it and stared at it. She flipped it over once and handed it back to Alix. “That is a very unique coin you two have found. Have you figured it out yet?”

  “No,” Alix answered, “We can’t find any information on it at all. And anything we have is just a guess.”

  “You said that you were researching the missing hikers, what does this coin have to do with that?” Natalie asked them.

  “We don’t know if it has anything to do with them. We just found it in the area where one of them went missing so we thought we’d look into it,” Ben answered.

  “You should show your dad these pictures later, he’s good at puzzles.”

  “Good idea mom, I think I will.”

  Natalie went to the cupboard to get another glass and poured herself some juice. She made a sandwich and came over to the table to rejoin them.

  Shay started elbowing Ben and was mouthing, ‘Brownies’ at him. He mouthed back ‘Okay.’

  “Hey mom, are there any brownies left? Alix was telling Shay how much she liked them, and I promised Shay I would ask you if there were any left.”

  Natalie looked at Shay, “I’m sorry Shay, but Ben’s father ate the last of them yesterday afternoon. It’s almost impossible to keep baking in this place,” she smiled at Ben. “But I’ll tell you what, next time I make them I promise to make Ben, and his dad, save you some to try. Okay?”

  “Okay, I guess I can live with that,” Shay sighed dramatically.

  Natalie smiled. “I heard how much you like cookies … I’m pretty sure I have a few stashed away in the fridge.”

  “Really?” Shay perked right up.

  Natalie got up and went to the fridge, sure enough, she came back with a plate of cookies. “Here you go kids, enjoy.”

  All three of them replied with a thank you and dove right into the cookies. Alix noticed that Natalie was looking at the pictures with a far-off look.

  Sometime later they had all become frustrated with the whole process of trying to find out information about the coin and decided it was enough for the day. Alix gathered up everything and put it in her bag. Ben walked them to the front door.

  “Oh, hey Ben,” Alix said, “Did you read the stories we all co-wrote in English yet?”

  “Oh crap, with the project I totally forgot about reading them. Did you read them yet?” he asked.

  “No, but I hadn’t planned on reading them until tonight. Miss Fay said we were going to be doing something with them on Monday, so I wanted them to be fresh in my mind.”

  “Yeah right, I had forgotten about that too.”

  “You’d better get on it, there might be a quiz or something,” Alix said smiling.

  “Probably. Are you okay opening the gate to get out?”

  “I think so. If we have trouble, I’ll call. Bye and thanks for lunch.”

  “See you girls tomorrow.”

  Alix and Shay waved and walked down the driveway. This time she saw the gate button with no trouble and they headed to Shay’s.

  “That was quite the afternoon,” Shay said when they reached her step.

  “Did you see how his mom reacted when she saw those pictures? I saw her face, she looked scared for some reason. She tried to hide it, but I know what I saw. And I don’t think she was clumsy, her hand wasn’t even close to the table when she dropped the glass. I’m a little freaked out now.”

  “I wasn’t really paying attention to her face after the glass fell.”

  “Oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot, after the glass fell I heard her whisper ‘It can’t be,’ and I think she was looking at the coin. Totally. Strange. I almost feel that I’ve stepped into an alternate universe or something.”

  “I get that. Ever since Ben moved here things have been off. But I know we’ll figure it out.”

  Alix adjusted her bag on her shoulder. “I’d better get home. I have to read those stories in English. I think we’re going to have leftovers for dinner, we made a lot of lasagna yesterday. Text me if you want, I’ll only be reading. See you tomorrow.”

  “See ya.”

  Alix went straight home and added to her list.

  - Can’t find anything out about the coin

  - Natalie seemed to freak out when she saw the pictures

  It was still a couple hours before her mom got home for dinner, so she decided to sneak a piece of the leftover pie from the night before. She took the pie to her room and got out the booklet of stories. She was actually quite interested to see how they turned out. They were arranged by the row of students from left to right, then front to back, so that meant the story she started should be the last one in the booklet. It appeared that Miss Fay had even put the names of the students in the order they wrote the story. Each story appeared to be about a page long, so she didn’t figure it would take very much time to read them. Most of the stories were pretty good considering they had to write based on what someone else had already done and the small amount of time they had to write in. The story that Ben had started with a new kid moving to a small town ended with the new kid becoming captain of the football team and winning the state championship. Alix laughed at that one. Finally, she got to the story she’d started. She couldn’t believe what she was reading so she read it again. This was her part of the story:

  Author 1- Alix:

  Ashley woke up and didn’t know where she was. The last thing she could remember was going to bed. Now she was in different clothing, clothes like you would think belonged in the times of jousting knights, and she was also in the middle of a meadow. Even though she had no idea where she was she thought it felt familiar, like she had been there many times before. She walked through the grass and looked at the flowers feeling very comfortable. She picked a few of the wildflowers and wove them into a braid in her hair. She wandered around the meadow until she saw a break in the trees.

  Now here was where things started to get strange. This is what the other four students wrote:

  Author 2 - Debbie:

  Ashley noticed that in one part of the meadow the trees were thinner, and it looked like a path through them. She took a step in and found that it wasn’t as scary as she thought it was going to be. She followed the path and was soon at the other side of the trees. As she walked out of the trees she saw a beautiful house just a short distance away. I feel like Snow White she thought to herself. Will that house be full of dwarves? That made her giggle. She walked over to the house and knocked on the front door.

  Author 3 - Evan:

  There was no answer. She decided to see if there was anyone around, so she walked around to the back. What she found surprised her. It was a girl about her age working in a flower bed. The flowers were very beautiful. They were all the same but like nothing she’d ever seen before. Bright colors that had Ashley mesmerized. The girl got up and turned around. “Ashley, I’ve been waiting for you. Come with me.” This made Ashley very confused, she didn’t know this girl and why would she be waiting for her. But she didn’t feel scared, so she we
nt with the girl into the house.

  Author 4 - Eve:

  Here’s where things got even stranger. On the outside, it looked like a really big house but on the inside, the house was only a one-room cabin. “I don’t understand what’s going on?” Ashley said. “Who are you? What is happening? Where am I?” The girl said nothing and only pointed to the fireplace. Ashley walked over to it. The fireplace was huge, almost as tall as she was. The mantle was intricately carved with trees and flowers, it was beautiful. She just had to touch it, so she reached out and touched it with her fingers. She got a small shock, but it didn’t hurt, it kind of tickled actually.

  Author 5 – Darren

  She turned around to ask the girl something but in her place was an old lady. “Who are you?” Ashley asked. “Who I am doesn’t matter, it’s who you are that does. You are the one who has come to save us. Take my hand and come with me. It’s time.” Ashley took her hand and they walked back over to the fireplace. The old lady pushed a button on the mantle and a secret door opened in the middle of the fireplace. They walked through it and they vanished, never to be seen again.

  Alix’s hands were shaking as she finished reading it for the second time. It was so similar to her dream she was astounded. How was that possible she wondered? The only person she had told about her dream was Shay and that was right before school, right before that story was written. She knew it wasn’t exactly like her dream, but it was close enough that it freaked her out. Before she could think about it anymore she heard her dad calling her.

  “I’m in my room dad.” She heard him walk down the hall. He poked his head in her room. “What’s up?”

  “I figured we could all use a break from cooking for the night so what do you say we go out for Chinese food?”

  “That sounds great to me. I love Chow’s spring rolls. What about mom?”

  “It’s a nice evening out so if you don’t mind a bit of a walk I thought we could meet her there.”

  “Okay. When do you want to leave?”

  “About 5:30,” he said and left her room.

  That gave her about a half an hour before they left. She called Shay.