Book 2 The Knight at Dawn Chapter 10

10 One Mystery Solved

The air was warm. It was dawn. Far away a dog barked.

“I think that’ s Henry barking!” Annie said. “We did come home.”

They both looked out the tree house window.

“That was close，” said Jack.

In the distance， streetlights lit their street. There was a light on in their upstairs window.

“Uh-oh，” said Annie. “I think Mom and Dad are up. Hurry!”

“Wait.” In a daze， Jack unzipped his backpack. He pulled out the castle book. It was quite wet. But Jack placed it back with all the other books.

“Come on! Hurry!” said Annie， scooting out of the tree house.

Jack followed her down the ladder. They reached the ground and took off between the gray-black trees. They left the woods and ran down their deserted street. They got to their yard and crept across the lawn. Right up to the back door. Jack and Annie slipped inside the house.

“They’ re not downstairs yet，” whispered Annie.

“Shhh，” said Jack.

He led the way up the stairs and down the hall. No sign of his mom or dad. But he could hear water running in the bathroom. Their house was so different from the dark， cold castle. So safe and cozy and friendly.

Annie stopped at her bedroom door. She gave Jack a smile， then disappeared inside her room.

Jack hurried into his room. He took off his damp clothes and pulled on his dry， soft pajamas.

He sat down on his bed and unzipped his backpack. He took out his wet notebook. He felt around for the pencil， but his hand touched something else.

Jack pulled the blue leather bookmark out of his pack. It must have fallen out of the castle book. Jack held the bookmark close to his lamp and studied it. The leather was smooth and worn. It seemed ancient.

For the first time Jack noticed a letter on the bookmark. A fancy M.

Jack opened the drawer next to his bed. He took out the gold medallion.

He looked at the letter on it. It was the same M. Now this was an amazing new fact. Jack took a deep breath. One mystery solved.

The person who had dropped the gold medallion in the time of the dinosaurs was the same person who owned all the books in the tree house.

Who was this person?

Jack placed the bookmark next to the medallion. He closed the drawer. He picked up his pencil. He turned to the least wet page in his notebook.

And he started to write down this new fact.

the same

But before he could draw the M， his eyes closed.

He dreamed they were with the knight again. All three of them riding the black horse through the cool， dark night. Beyond the outer wall of the castle. And up over a moonlit hill.

Into the mist.