Echoes of Power: The Aethelgard Saga, Four Fantasy Adventures in One

The Static Between Worlds

The chipped ceramic frog was definitely cursed. I just knew it. Not voodoo-doll cursed. More like permanently-attracts-bad-luck cursed. Old Man Hemlock, who’d tried to sell it to my grandma for five bucks, definitely knew. He’d given me a look, a weird knowing look, and mumbled something about “holding onto things better left forgotten.”

Grandma just laughed and handed him a ten.

She collects stuff. Antiques, mostly. Though “stuff” is the more accurate word. Her shop, Park and Daughter, Antiques and Curiosities, is crammed floor to ceiling. It smells like dust and old paper and something faintly floral, like potpourri that died of old age. It’s a good place to get lost, which I do, a lot.

I was supposed to be dusting. Supposed to. But the frog was begging for attention. Plus, the dust bunnies were winning. They’d formed a small fluffy rebellion under the Victorian fainting couch, and honestly, they had a point.

“Leo!” Grandma’s voice floated from behind a mountain of sheet music, warm and scratchy, like a favorite old record. “Less staring at frogs, more fighting grime!”

I sighed and jammed my headphones on. Music usually drowned out the general chaos of the shop, and, more importantly, my own thoughts. My brain is basically a room full of puppies, and a good song is the one treat that makes them all lie down at once.

Today, though, something was off. Static crackled under the thumping bass of my favorite track. Not normal static. It was musical. Like a broken melody trying to climb out of the speakers.

And it got louder when I touched the frog.

I yanked my hand back like I’d grabbed a hornet. The static spiked, then settled into a clear, tinny tune. It sounded ancient, like something played on a lute made of bone. A weird, haunting tune.

“What is that?” I muttered, staring at my headphones. They were good headphones, too. Big, cushioned, the color of a midnight sky. I’d saved up for them myself, eleven weeks of allowance plus one extremely questionable lemonade stand. They did not just glitch.

I touched the frog again. The song swelled. It wasn’t coming from the headphones, exactly. It was around me. Filling the air.

“Leo, are you conducting a one-man orchestra in there?” Grandma called, amused.

“No! I mean, yes? Sort of? The headphones are glitching.” My voice came out high and squeaky.

I stepped away from the frog. The song faded. I touched it again. Back it came, the same repeating phrase, sad and silvery, like a lullaby hummed through a wall.

“Maybe put that down,” a voice said behind me.

I whirled around. Finn O’Connell was leaning against a shelf of chipped teacups, looking like a friendly bear who’d wandered into a china shop. Which, to be fair, he basically had. Finn is big. Seriously big. And surprisingly quiet for someone his size. He helps Grandma after school, mostly carrying heavy things and preventing the shop from collapsing.

“You hear that?” I asked.

Finn tilted his head. “Hear what? Just the usual. Creaky floorboards. Grandma humming. The ghosts of grumpy Victorian ladies.”

“No, the music! The static song!”

He listened, then shook his head. “Nope. Just you, I think.”

I glared at him. He always did this. Filed everything I said under “Leo’s overactive imagination.” He wasn’t usually wrong. But this wasn’t imagination.

I touched the frog one last time, just to prove it. The song blared so loud my teeth ached. And then the air around the frog shimmered, like heat rising off asphalt. For a split second I saw something behind it. A flash of green. Trees. And a feeling hit me, a huge wave of sadness that wasn’t mine.

Then it was gone. The shop was just the shop again. Dusty, cluttered, normal.

Finn was watching me with his eyebrows doing the worried thing. “You okay? ...