LITMIR.BIZ

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up and looked around. It was a blazingly hot, sunshiny day. She was in some kind of desert, with very little around her but some sparse, spindly shrubs.

      Glancing into the distance, she saw that a mile or two away from where the portal had decanted her, there were signs of a flourishing town, from the turrets of a castle to the spire of a synagogue. Behind the town were vast mountains and a forest of pine trees.

      Before she had a chance to attempt to work out when (and where) she might be, she heard the sound of screaming coming from behind, growing louder and louder as it came closer and closer.

      She turned to see Simon come hurtling through the vortex. Walter was right behind him.

      They both flew through the air and hit the dry, desert ground. Esther winced as she watched them go rolling across the hard earth.

      “Argh!” Walter grunted.

      Finally, they came to a halt, and a cloud of dust poofed into the air.

      Esther jumped to her feet and ran to them. As the dust cloud they had stirred up started to disperse, it revealed that the two had become an entwined tangle of limbs.

      Esther reached the tangle and grasped for a hand. She found Simon’s and gave it a tug. The two boys managed to free their legs and, with Esther’s help, Simon sat himself up.

      “Golly gosh,” he said, panting. “That was a rather rough journey.”

      Walter extracted his arm from beneath Simon’s behind. “You could say that again.”

      He rubbed his head, then looked over at the portal. Esther did too and saw that the crackling lines of purple electricity had stopped. Then, with a zip, the portal closed. Silence descended.

      Walter blinked rapidly as a look of fear overcame his face. “Where are the others?” he asked.

      “Oh!” Esther exclaimed as she suddenly recalled the moment she’d seen Oliver, Hazel, and Ralph careen through the left-hand pathway of the portal, just before she and the others had disappeared down the right. She felt an ache deep in her heart. “They went the other way.”

      Simon and Walter exchanged a sympathetic look.

      But Esther didn’t want their pity. And she didn’t need it either. Since taking the Elixir, she felt better than ever. Her mind felt sharper, her senses more alert. She felt healthier than she ever had, and the last thing she wanted to do was dwell on negativity.

      She dusted down her clothes and looked around her. “Right. We need to get going. Professor Amethyst said that one of the portals would take us to the Scepter of Fire. There’s no time to waste.”

      “Well, hold on,” Simon said in his stilted Victorian voice. “Why don’t we take a moment to recuperate?”

      Esther could hear the concern in his voice. She knew it wasn’t because of the bumpy ride through the portal. He was referring to her near death experience and the Elixir of Life she drank to bring her back to health. It had been just a matter of minutes ago she’d thought she was on the brink of death. But she really didn’t want to talk about all that right now. She didn’t even want to think about it. Not when they were on a mission to save the school.

      “Didn’t you hear what the headmaster said?” she reiterated to Simon. “We need to find the Scepter of Fire.”

      The boys exchanged another worried look.

      “We heard,” Walter said. “And I get that you want to jump straight into the mission.”

      “But you’ve been through quite an ordeal,” Simon added.

      “And if you need time—” Walter continued.

      “Or someone to speak to—”

      “Or a shoulder to cry on—”

      Esther shook her head and held her hands up to stop them. “Guys. I’m okay. You don’t have to look at me like I’m made of porcelain and might break any second. I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I’m alive. And now I want to find this Scepter and save the school. Can we just do that? Please?”

      She didn’t want to think too hard about the fact that Oliver had been torn from her once again. That just when she’d been reunited with him, fate had ripped them apart once more. She didn’t want to think about the fact she owed him her life, nor the fact that he was the person with whom she’d fallen in love. There would be time to think later. But now, if she spent even a second dwelling on it, she knew she’d break down and dissolve into tears.

      Simon and Walter exchanged a final glance, then both shrugged, clearly realizing there was no point arguing with the headstrong Esther.

      “So, where are we?” Walter asked.

      “I’ve no idea,” Esther said, looking about her at the unfamiliar landscape.

      “And how do we go about finding this Scepter of Fire?” Simon asked.

      Again, Esther was stumped. “I don’t know.”

      Just then, Esther saw something come hurtling through the air right for her. It looked like a brass cricket ball and it was flying at an enormous speed right at her face.

      Drawing on her switchit skills, Esther reached her hands up and caught the catapulting ball of metal. It was going at such a speed, she staggered back. Shock waves ricocheted down her arms.

      Taking a moment to recover from the surprise, Esther looked down at the object in her hands. It was Oliver’s magical compass.

      “How did that get here…?” she stammered.

      Nothing was as it should be. The headmaster had spoken to them through the vortex. The portal had split in two. The compass had found its way to her. For reasons she didn’t fully understand, the portal they’d traveled through was different than usual, and the normal rules clearly did not apply.

      “The compass can guide us!” she said excitedly, looking up from the ancient bronze instrument to the others.

      “How does it work?” Simon asked.

      “It shows you the future,” Esther said. “So if we interpret the symbols correctly, it will guide us to where we need to be.”

      Walter frowned. “Where we need to be?” he asked. “Or just, you know, where we will be?”

      Esther paused to consider his point. If Oliver’s team had taken the correct tunnel and landed in the time that would lead them to the Scepter of Fire, then whatever future awaited Esther and her team would be entirely different. But then again, whatever future the compass showed to them, it was their destiny to follow it nonetheless. Though it might not lead them to the Scepter, it would lead them to something, and that was enough for her for now.

      Esther decided not to dwell too long on Walter’s point. There’d be no way of knowing which team had landed in the place where the Scepter of Fire was lost until they were holding it in their hands.

      She looked down at the symbols. The main dial was pointing to a small image of a sun. Another was pointing to an anchor. A third showed what appeared to be a stick figure throwing a javelin.

      Esther scratched her head, none the wiser, and looked up at the desolate, sandy area for clues. She had to shield her eyes from the blazingly bright sun, since there wasn’t anything to provide shade other than some spindly trees and some skinny, grazing goats.

      “Well?” Walter asked her. “Where are we?”

      “I don’t know,” she confessed.

      “I can see the sea,” Simon offered, pointing into the distance where a silver streak glittered on the horizon. He squinted. “It appears to be a harbor filled with vessels. Perhaps we’re on an island? Some kind of trading hub?”

      “Ooh, yes!” Esther said, her mind starting to put some of the pieces together. “That would explain the anchor. What else do we have?”

      “Are those orange groves?” Simon asked, pointing once more to a densely wooded area filled with trees bearing bright,

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