The Librarian's Bane

By Angel Lu and Katelyn Gelle

The Librarian's Bane connects imagination with a hint of mythology. Three girls, Katrina, Annabelle, and Holly venture into a secret world to find three purple keys. In this world, unicorns and centaurs are regular creatures. Dragons and phoenixes fly like birds. Ferocious creatures follow the girls as they receive clues from prophecy-givers. A friend turns into an enemy. An enemy turns into a friend. Can the girls trust the mysterious land?

Angel Lu and Katelyn Gelle both live in San Diego, CA. In September of 2016, they will be going to fifth grade. They both love reading, writing, and basically anything that has to do with books. They are currently writing many more books to accompany The Librarian’s Bane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483455808

Book preview

Holly

Prologue

I t was a dark and stormy night. Thunder, a fearsome dragon, made her way over the Frostbite Mountains and to the Oracle at Delphi. She had urgent news to seek. The secret of the dragons pretending to be librarians was finally being revealed to some people. Finally, Thunder arrived in Delphi. She made her way to the Oracle.

She was just about to ask, Will the dragon’s secret be safe?, when she was interrupted by the Oracle, who boomed,

DESPAIR, THY FEARSOME DRAGON, THUNDER, CHILDREN THREE SHALL LEAD YOUR FATE ASUNDER. YEARS IN THE FUTURE, THEY DEFEAT YOUR LIEUTENANT, HAUNT YOUR DREAMS AT NIGHT EVER CONSTANT. GO NOW, AND ATTEMPT TO PREVENT THE INEVITABLE, BUT DRAGONKIN PEOPLE ARE NO LONGER STABLE. THE DREADED CHILDREN DISCOVER WITHOUT A FAIL, THE SECRET WORLD BEYOND THE GREAT LIBRARIAN’S JAIL. THEY ARE FATED TO FREE THE PRISONERS, AND BEHOLD, THE WORST OF THE WORST, AND YOUR DREADED SECRETS UNTOLD.

The Oracle’s last word echoed around and around, and her reptilian green eyes dimmed. She once again was a gray stone statue on a gray stone pedestal.

Despite how fearless Thunder was, the words still rang in her ears and brought a shiver up her spine. Thunder, for the first time in her 957 years, was frightened. But, Thunder had no time to think about the Oracle’s fearful prophecy, because suddenly, the Oracle had leaned into the yellowish smoke rising from the crack in the floor, and started swaying on her pedestal.

Seeming like she was deep in thought, the Oracle murmured, as if sleep talking, in a slightly reptilian tone, Next Pilgrim.

When she got back to her library, Thunder shifted back into her librarian form, or Mrs. Draco, and started to absentmindedly rifle through some paperwork on her desk. She hadn’t put one hand on the table, when her second lieutenant, Shadowbolt, stepped through the threshold and into the doorway. Eighteen feet of midnight black scales loomed through the doorway. Her piercing turquoise eyes stared at Thunder. The mysterious librarian wasn’t surprised that Shadowbolt was in dragon form, considering that the pitch-blackness outside would most likely hide her long and scaly body.

In a deep, gravelly voice, Shadowbolt said, So, Your Dragoness, what did the Oracle say about the protection of dragonkin?

Thunder hesitated. Could she trust Shadowbolt enough? But she remembered how long Shadowbolt had been with her, how loyal she was, and Thunder knew that she could be trustworthy as well.

Thunder whispered in a psychotic hiss:

"You cannot tell a soul about what I am about to say to you, Second Lieutenant. I trust you are… ah, trusting enough to keep your mouth shut about this subject. Can you keep a secret?"

Shadowbolt nodded, her expression serious. But however, she felt a joy springing up in her. Thunder finally trusted her!

The High Dragoness told her everything. Thunder couldn’t quite catch the shocked look that remained on her face that hung there for a few moments before disappearing.

Thunder told Shadowbolt everything that the Oracle told her, but Thunder just couldn’t quite remember the shocked expression that hung on her face from when her disastrous future was foretold.

Suddenly, Shadowbolt turned and glared at Thunder, an intense glare, as if the Oracle’s prophecy was Thunder’s fault.

We must do something, she whispered, her voice barely heard by Thunder, Before time runs out.

3 years later…

Chapter 1

The Girls

T hunder was still sitting at her desk, solemnly thinking about her dream last night about three mysterious, wandering children when suddenly three 9-year-old girls stepped past the threshold and into the library.

The first one had brownish blackish hair that hung down in two silky braids. Her hair almost looked like the soft black fur of a newborn black panther. She was wearing a blue jacket encrusted with tiny jewels that shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow. She had on long black leggings criss-crossed with a dim color. Pink, blue, and green shoes matched her outfit perfectly. Blue-rimmed glasses lined her face, giving her an aura of knowledge. A turquoise pouch with a thin blue-and-black wave on top and black straps hung from one elbow, revealing an overload of fat, giant-spined chapter books. When Thunder had a closer look, she realized that this girl had braces, patterned with silver and a light, robin’s-egg blue.

The second girl also had dark brownish-black hair that looked like chocolate that was just beginning to melt. Like everybody in her family, she had glasses with greenish blue lenses - you could never tell which color it was. She had on a light periwinkle shirt that seemed like it should have fit her, but on the contrary, it was actually pretty big, hanging below her knees. She was also wearing jeans and tennis shoes that were blue with white laces. Her clothes gave her the sense of a careless dresser. Her glasses seemed to clash with her outfit slightly, but if you looked at her whole figure, she looked nice, but up close, she looked a little tacky. She had a round face, smile creases, and a glowing grin, although she did have the rare look on her face that meant not to mess with her. She too was carrying a pouch, bright neon pink one, worn out from years of use. Thunder could just see holes beginning to form in the worn out corners of the pink fabric.

The third girl had cropped dark brown, almost black hair that went past her shoulders, and dark eyes that could give quite a piercing stare. But most of the time, they were warm, kindly, and amused. She had on a white shirt with colorful flowers, with white, paper-like frills that covered her slim shoulders. She had a sly grin that gave her an aura of cleverness and slyness. She wore navy-blue jeans, and a bright, violet backpack with intricate designs, only one strap hanging over her frilled shoulder, and the zipper open, revealing an overload of seemingly long chapter books that had worn-out covers. Thunder noticed some were ancient-looking scrolls. Purple glasses with flowers on the sides were placed on her face, with thin, diamond-lined lenses that sparkled in contrast to the dimly lit library. She had white-and-blue Monster High shoes that perfectly matched her outfit. A glass purple-beaded bracelet lined her right wrist. There was also a strange emblem on it; it faced outwards so all who looked at her could see it-a silver triangle with two other smaller triangles inside, colored purple and then a light blue. The emblem was familiar… but Thunder didn’t stop to think exactly where she had seen it before.

The girl smiled, and it seemed to make Thunder at ease, forgetting the Oracle’s prophecy, reminding her of the days in Dragonis, her homeland when she was just a tiny baby dragon, drinking warm milk, tossing a ball of snapdragon stems ragged from many years of use, cuddling close to her mother, Stormine, hearing ancient stories of how Dragonis was found…The girl’s smile was so bright and happy that it was infectious, and made Thunder smile too.

All three of the girls made their way to the return cart, in which they dropped their books into, and Thunder couldn’t help noticing that each of them was wearing a tiny friendship bracelet made out of some sort of faded-brown material with a small silver-and-gold heart-shaped locket that hung from a small pink string attached to the bracelet. As the girls approached slowly, laughing and talking, Thunder saw that the faded-brown material was actually strips of leather, braided together and cut at the edges, giving it an old and worn-out look, but perfect. All three girls wore this bracelet on their right arms, with the tiny locket placed facing their hands, with the heart just touching the edges of their wrists. The third girl had the bracelet just below her purple one.