The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel (A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment 2) Read online

  Revised

  Based on the works of Mark A. Whipple

  Illustrations by John C. Wright

  Praise for The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment

  The action is non-stop, with child’s play, schoolwork, and danger all churned together. Lamplighter introduces many imaginative elements in her world that will delight…

  —VOYA

  The British boarding school mystery meets the best imagined of fantasies at breakneck speed and with fully realized characters.

  —Sarah A. Hoyt, author of Darkship Thieves

  L. Jagi Lamplighter, a fantastic new voice and a fabulous new world in the YA market! Rachel Griffin is a hero who never gives up! I cheered her all the way!

  —Faith Hunter, author of the Skinwalker series

  The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, a plucky band of children join forces to fight evil, despite the best efforts of incompetent adults, at a school for wizards. YA fiction really doesn’t get better than that.

  —Jonathan Moeller, author of The Ghosts series

  Rachel Griffin is curious, eager and smart, and ready to begin her new life at Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts, but she didn’t expect to be faced with a mystery as soon as she got there. Fortunately she’s up to the task. Take all the best of the classic girl detective, throw in a good dose of magic and surround it all with entertaining, likeable friends and an intriguing conundrum, and you’ll have The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, a thrilling adventure tailor-made for the folks who’ve been missing Harry Potter. Exciting, fantastical events draw readers into Rachel’s world and solid storytelling keeps them there.

  —Misty Massey, author of Mad Kestrel

  Published by:

  Wisecraft Publishing

  A publishing company of the Wise

  Copyright © 2016 by L. Jagi Lamplighter

  All rights reserved. No part of the content of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, or copied by any technology yet to be developed without the prior written permission of the author. You may not circulate this book in any format.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental or an Act of God.

  ISBN: 978-0-9976460-2-3 (print)

  ASIN: B01FYDZO3K

  Second edition

  First edition, 2014

  Edited by Jim Frenkel

  Cover art by Dan Lawlis

  https://danlawlis.wordpress.com

  Interior illustrations by John C. Wright

  Typeset by Joel C. Salomon

  Cover design by Danielle McPhail

  Sidhe na Daire Multimedia

  http://sidhenadaire.com

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter One: The Unforeseen Difficulties of Retrieving a Broom

  Chapter Two: The Elusive Sparks of Truth

  Chapter Three: The Balmy Surface of the Sun

  Chapter Four: Conversation with the Cutest of Boys

  Chapter Five: The Perfect Memory of Rachel Griffin

  Chapter Six: The Unparalleled Advantage of Curious Friends

  Chapter Seven: The Prince of Foul Play

  Chapter Eight: The Grim General of Verhängnisburg

  Chapter Nine: A Farewell to Innocence

  Chapter Ten: The Unlikely Proposal of Ivan Romanov

  Chapter Eleven: Rachel Gets Valiant

  Chapter Twelve: The Beggar King

  Chapter Thirteen: Dread Versus Valiant

  Chapter Fourteen: Weeping over Sheep

  Chapter Fifteen: The Cold Lair of Dread

  Chapter Sixteen: Waylaying Peter

  Chapter Seventeen: Conversations in the Storm King Café

  Chapter Eighteen: Sigfried the Puddle-Slayer and the Rose-ambush

  Chapter Nineteen: The Magnificent Tree of Roanoke Island

  Chapter Twenty: The Exiled Daughter of Idunn

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Raven and the Elf

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Of Brooms and Iron Filings

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Adventures with Elf Herbs

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Unrecognized Murder Weapons

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Yeti vs. Wookiees

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Fortress That Is Dread

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dragonsmith’s Patented Crush Crusher

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Saving the World Before Dinner, After All

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Unfortunate Wife of Mortimer Egg

  Chapter Thirty: I Don’t Remember That Cup

  Chapter Thirty-One: Leaving on a Jet Plane

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Hiding in the Couch

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Held by the Collar While Everyone Else Fights

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Tearing Down the Walls of the World

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Dedication

  To William E. Burns III

  who suffered the most

  A better godfather no four children have ever had!

  Author’s Note:

  This is a revised edition.

  Some things have been changed from the original.

  Most notably, Valerie Foxx is now Valerie Hunt.

  Once there was a world that seemed at first glance much like other worlds you may have lived in or read about, but it wasn’t…

  Chapter One:

  The Unforeseen Difficulties of Retrieving a Broom

  “No one’s looking!” Rachel Griffin grabbed Siggy’s arm and tugged. “Let’s go!”

  They dashed past the No Students Allowed sign and raced up the spiral staircase, their footsteps echoing against the stone steps of the Watch Tower. Siggy’s legs were significantly longer. He soon raced past her.

  “Do you think the proctors will find us up here?” she gasped.

  “We have a few minutes,” Sigfried Smith called over his shoulder. He took two steps at a time. He also spoke with an English accent, though his lacked Rachel’s educated crispness. “They have to interrogate the princess. Think she’ll break under torture? Of course, she blabbed about your boyfriend with no provocation. They hadn’t even made her go without food for a week, or used a thumb screw. How long will it take to get your broom?”

  “Gaius Valiant is not my boyfriend!”

  “Shhh!” Siggy hissed. “They’ll hear you!”

  Embarrassed, Rachel clamped her hand over her mouth. She murmured, “They don’t torture students at Roanoke Academy, Siggy. It’s just not done. Did they torture you at the Unwary orphanage where you grew up?”

  Siggy’s voice became hard as flint. “It’s not something a girl would want to hear about.”

  “I want to hear,” Rachel responded seriously. “I want to know everything.”

  They continued pelting up the staircase, which spiraled through the middle of the tower. Through open doors, glimpses could be seen of cabinets filled with materials for warding away the supernatural. Rachel noted chalk, rock salt, stones with a hole in the middle, red thread, and a barrel overflowing with dried daisy chains. A bag of weed killer rested beside the barrel.

  Plunging through an opening in the ceiling, they burst into the belfry. The air was damp and smelled of the straw that covered the rock slabs of the floor. Huge tubular chimes hung from the ceiling. Beneath them stood an obscuration lantern—a brass contraption as large as a lighthouse lamp with an enormous cut-crystal globe. It
stood taller than Rachel.

  The outer wall of the belfry had eight tall arches set into its thick stone. Half of them were open, containing no glass. Outside, to the north and east, stretched a forest of virgin hemlocks. The afternoon sun shone in the west, gleaming off the central lantern’s brass. To the south lay the campus.

  The other four arches contained mirrors, each with a hint of color to the glass—green, blue, golden, and purple. All four mirrors reflected the two young students. Both wore muddy and ripped academic robes of matte black, the kind that had been worn by scholars since medieval days, but which mundane Americans now wore only for graduations. The first student was a tall, handsome boy with golden curls and bare feet. When he smiled, the gleam of his teeth was bright enough to blind passing geese. Behind him ran a panting, tiny Asian girl, far younger-looking than her thirteen years. Black, shoulder-length locks flew wildly about her face.

  Patting the back of her head, Rachel found nothing but hair. Somewhere—perhaps when she crashed through a classroom window just over an hour ago to save her science tutor—she had lost her black-and-white, polka-dotted bow. In the mirror, her reflection simultaneously patted the back of its head, seeking its lost bow. Girl and reflection sighed in unison.

  “Quick,” Sigfried urged, peering back down the stairs, “we only have a little time before they notice we’re missing. Get your broom!”

  “Right!”

  Crossing to the south window, Rachel threw herself onto the sill, still panting. The campus of Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts stretched before her. An area of stumps and saplings separated the Watch Tower from the castle-like building that housed the college and the upper school. Beyond its many spires and towers, she could see bits of the reflecting lake and the long green lawns of the campus commons. Paths led from the commons to the seven dormitories, three to the west and four to the east. Farther yet, she caught glimpses of monuments and fountains, the lily pond, and the Oriental gardens.

  The bells in the six domed bell towers atop Roanoke Hall rang four times, marking the end of classes. On the commons, students rushed to and fro. Proctors rounded up wrongdoers. Tutors—as Roanoke Academy called its professors—helped the injured. Rachel looked around, hoping for a glimpse of Gaius Valiant. There was no sign of him, but she caught a glimpse of Nurse Moth astride her orange Ouroboros Industries Flycycle—a device that had as much in common with an old-fashioned broom as an automobile has with a horse-drawn carriage. The nurse’s hands were raised in a cantrip as she floated a patient toward the infirmary.

  “I see the nurse!” Rachel leaned forward. “On her own bristleless. She’s not on mine!”

  Sigfried peered down the staircase. “The coast is clear! Go for it.”

  Rachel stretched out her hand. “Varenga, Vroomie!”

  Siggy came to join her. He gazed out over her shoulder. “Is it coming?”

  “Can’t see it yet. It can take a minute or two. It’s possible Nurse Moth shut it in the infirmary—in which case, it won’t come.” She glanced warily toward the stairs. “Can we wait?”

  “Sure. What’s the worst that will happen? Expelled for sneaking into the forbidden tower?” Siggy paused, cocking his head. “What’s that noise?”

  Behind them, the giant lantern rattled. A chill slithered up Rachel’s spine. She and Sigfried exchanged glances. They both spun around.

  “Why is it…doing that?” she whispered.

  “I’ll look.” Sigfried absentmindedly touched his chest where his all-seeing amulet hung under his black academic robe. “It’s an animal. A rat, maybe? Brown and ugly.”

  Rachel crept across the straw, close to the mossy wall. She craned her neck. A small, brown animal with a long slick tail came into view. It worried at the brass pedestal of the lantern.

  “Looks like a muskrat,” she whispered.

  “What’s it doing?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. Rather cheeky of it, isn’t it? Maybe there is food inside.”

  “Probably someone’s familiar.”

  “No.” Rachel shook her head. “The pads of its paws would be silver.”

  The lantern flared, multi-colored flames flickering and leaping within the crystal globe. Glints of red, blue, and green danced over the hanging chimes, the straw, and the mossy walls. They transformed the drab stone belfry into a wonderland.

  Rachel’s lips parted in delight. “How beautiful! But we should…” Her voice died.

  The muskrat’s eyes were the same milky color as those of the students who had been under the control of their wicked math tutor, Dr. Mordeau. Rachel thought back several seconds, replaying her memory of what she had just experienced. In her perfect memory, a tall, black shape hunched over the little animal—like the shades from Dr. Mordeau’s cloak.

  “Siggy!” Rachel shrieked. “Stop that muskrat!”

  Fixing her gaze on it, she whistled. A tingle of energy welled up in her body, running from her toes and fingers, through her limbs, to her lips. Excitement and giddiness gripped her, but she kept her face as calm as a mask. Silver sparkles of light flew from her mouth, forming a brisk breeze. This wind pushed the muskrat across the straw. It traveled nearly three feet.

  Rachel grinned and clapped her hands. She had only been at school for five days, yet she had improved so much. She could now push something the size of a muskrat with a breeze she summoned with sorcery. Her hours of practicing were paying off.

  Sigfried pulled out his trumpet from a voluminous pocket in his robe and blew. A wind, swirling with the same silver sparkles, picked up the muskrat and swept it another twenty feet—across the belfry and out the open window. Rachel sighed. It had taken her hours of practice to be able to push that creature a few feet. Siggy was a natural.

  Running to the western window, Rachel shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun and peered at the falling muskrat as it tumbled through the air. She thought back recalling everything that had happened from the moment she pushed the creature back. In her memory, she could see the shade from Mordeau’s cloak. It abandoned the muskrat in mid-air and took off for the south. The little brown animal still tumbled through the air. Rachel tried a tiathelu cantrip, hoping to slow its fall, but it was beyond her range. Sadly, she averted her gaze, not wishing to see the poor thing splat on the stump-filled field below.

  The muskrat never hit the ground.

  Out of the hemlocks to the north shot a serpentine shape, about twelve feet long and covered with golden fur. Its long whiskers, the mane that ran along the length of its back, and the tuft on the end of its tail were all flame-red. Ruby scales coated its underside. Short horns curled above its vaguely wolf-like head.

  “Go, Lucky!” Siggy cheered his familiar and best friend. “Get it!”

  Fire shot from the dragon’s mouth. It struck the falling creature, which let out a horrible screech. Lucky swallowed the muskrat whole. Rachel cringed, feeling sorry for the poor beastie: abused by Mordeau’s shade, tossed out a window, and then charbroiled in mid-air.

  Siggy whooped.

  Rachel turned away with a sigh of sad amusement. Chiding Sigfried for lack of sympathy was like scolding the wind for blowing. Boys were like that—Siggy more than most.

  Looking to the south after the departing cloak-fragment, Rachel recalled the blank faces of her fellow students as, possessed by the shades from Mordeau’s cloak, they had raised their wands and tried to kill her. Mordeau had been captured, but her master was still at large.

  Her hands curled into fists. “We must stop Mortimer Egg.”

  “Of course!” Sigfried agreed fiercely. “He tried to kill my girlfriend. He must be destroyed.”

  Rachel smiled, pleased and touched by her friend’s enthusiasm. Anyone else would have said, “We can’t stop him. We’re just kids.”—anyone except Sigfried the Dragonslayer.

  Crossing to the great lantern, Rachel knelt before the large brass key that controlled the flame. Tipping her head back, she watched the dancing colors—red, blue, purple,
green—as she searched her mental library, calling up from her photographic memory any information she might have encountered about such devices. She recalled a manual she had glanced at once on how to refill the oil in an Aladdin lamp, an encyclopedia entry on the history of chandeliers, a book on lighthouses and how they worked, the time she had come upon…

  Ah! That was what she needed!

  She recalled the time she had come upon her father lighting the obscuration lantern in the small turret atop her grandfather’s tower at Gryphon Park, her home back in England. The spirits that the lamp commanded had loomed about him in a circle. The moment she had come bursting up onto the tower roof, he had dismissed them. She played back the memory twice, frowning. He had sent her back downstairs before turning off the lantern. That was no help.

  “Which way do I turn it?” she murmured.

  “Righty tighty, lefty loosey?” Siggy offered, squatting beside her.

  “Does that apply to obscuration lanterns, too?”

  “Is that what this is?”

  Rachel nodded.

  “No idea what that means.” Sigfried shrugged. “Remember, I didn’t grow up in your World of the Wise. I’m unwary even for an Unwary.”

  Rachel giggled at that. “Okay…” She paused, thinking how best to explain the lantern and its purpose. “Let me see if I can give you a proper description. You know we’re on the Island of Roanoke, right?”

  “Are we?”

  “Yes…” She eyed him skeptically. “Remember the ‘lost’ colony of English sorcerers uprooted this island and made it float? So they could escape from persecution in England?”

  “No.”

  “They sailed it around the world for several centuries. Then, it became grounded here in the Hudson River. You remember that, right?”

  “No.”

  “But…” Rachel made a noise of frustration. An uncomfortable tingling sensation spread across her shoulders. The very notion of forgetting disturbed her. “Mr. Gideon told us. In true history class.”

  Sigfried looked as if he were so bored that it was causing him pain. “You mean true napping? If it doesn’t teach us how to brew death or throw fireballs, what good is it? I plan to learn a cantrip that will allow me to sleep with my eyes open.”