The Search for the Lost Prophecy (Horace j. Edwards and the Time Keepers #2)
Chapter Two The next day Horace was consumed by thoughts of his dream It was the end of the weekend and as he finished up his homework he couldn’t stop thinking of the strange images and what they might mean Who were the boys What was the prophecy they mentioned And where was this mysterious tomb It wasn’t until much later in the afternoon while at his grandparents farm that Horace finally had the time to think about the dream The family had returned to the farm to clean and move out the last of his grandparents belongings After an hour of helping his sisters roll up oriental carpets vacuum the wood floors and move boxes 4
Chapter Two of old clothes and framed photos up from the basement into the front hall Horace wandered outside for a little break As soon as he stepped out into the open field behind the farmhouse Shadow swooped down and brushed Horace’s tangled hair with a wing before soaring back up in the air Over the weeks since his adventures through the sycamore sycamore tree Horace had grown ever closer to the beautiful falcon She circled around in the blue fall sky and then dove toward the ground this time brushing the back of his neck with her soft tail feathers Horace let out a loud laugh as she tickled his skin Shadow almost never left his side anymore At night she kept watch from a perch on his bedroom windowsill windowsill and then followed him each morning as he rode his bike to school During lunch she’d stare watchfully from the chain-link fence across the field while he played with his friends Even in the afternoon as he sat in class with the other sixth-graders listening to Mr Petrie’s endless lectures outside she circled overhead diligently waiting for the school bell to ring and Horace to emerge for the 5
afternoon The other kids had also grown accustomed to her presence everyone except for Seth The scars on his forearm from her attack a month earlier were still raw And while he had been a great ally when they had time-traveled to Egypt immediately upon their return to school Seth had reverted to his old bullying ways This afternoon was no different Shadow spiraled and twisted in the air while Horace walked across the open field The rest of the family was inside the farmhouse while Horace wandered around He was happy to have a little fresh air to make sense of the strange dream from the night before and take inventory of all he’d experienced since his grandfather’s death The painful memory of that event always resurfaced when he returned to the farm The circumstances surrounding his grandfather’s death had sent Horace on a desperate scavenger hunt for answers But the hunt had only revealed more secrets which even now he struggled to make sense of particularly in light of the strange dream Weeks before Horace had uncovered a hidden doorway in his grandfather’s office that led to a tunnel under the 6 The Search for the Lost Prophecy
Chapter Two farm The tunnel connected the house with an old sycamore sycamore tree in the backyard When Horace had first found the tunnel he thought he had discovered a forgotten remnant of the Underground Railroad However the intended use of the tunnel which ended just feet from the sycamore tree was not at all connected to this well-known chapter in Nile’s history It was tied to an even greater and older secret Hidden within the bark of the tree was a doorway to Ancient Egypt The discovery of this portal and the scarab beetle that unlocked it had changed Horace’s life The scarab beetle was a small stone amulet which had proven to be more than just an ancient souvenir dating back to Egypt It was also a powerful key that unlocked a portal across time The beetle connected Horace to his grandfather and an order of guardians known as the Keepers of Time But this had also raised questions for Horace What did it truly mean to be a Keeper of Time How far back did the Order stretch Were there any other Keepers today or in Niles As Horace wandered around the field kicking at piles of leaves that had accumulated other questions began to 7
