Aster jolted up out a deep sleep, almost falling out of her chair. She’d been having a wonderful dream, the same dream about beautiful, rolling hills of green with a clear blue lake flowing into a small river that seemed to never end. But every time she’d had the dream, it ended with the beautiful land being destroyed by a dark storm, screams echoing in the emptiness. She moaned with exhaustion as the early morning light streamed in from the window behind her.

Aster blinked her eyes, stretching the kink in her back and neck and leaning back in her comfortable chair, when she suddenly remembered what day, it was. “Not again,” she mumbled. She had unknowingly fallen asleep in their family library on a school night. Something she often did that frustrated her parents.

She stood up and stretched her aching limbs. Heading for the door she tripped over a stack of books she’d left near the hearth. She reached out, grasping desperately at the shelf in front of her to keep from falling. Her hands caught a book, but the book didn’t fall out of the shelf; instead, it stuck out halfway, and a loud pop sounded, as if something broke apart from behind the shelf. Aster’s stomach plummeted, picturing her parents’ reaction to her breaking something, again. To her relief, the shelf remained intact, but relief turned to confusion. She watched in awe as the entire shelf swung open like a door, revealing a hidden room with a narrow spiraled-stone staircase. The room was small, just an alcove really. Aster noticed an old trunk layered with dust against the wall next to the stairs.

“Don’t go looking into places and things that aren’t yours,” her mother had told her once, but her mind whirled with ideas, and as usual, her curiosity had won out. She forgot about school and went to open the trunk. Its owner left it unlocked, and she opened the creaking lid to explore its contents. She found old baby clothes, family pictures, and old books. Wedged between the books a red leather journal caught her eye. The journal looked quite old, even with the dust wiped off it. It had no special design or name printed on the front, just a symbol on the spine that looked like a fire, tied up in knots. She opened the journal and thumbed through the pages. Her eyes stopped on a page written in an unfamiliar language. Despite being a bright student, Aster struggled with languages. She tried deciphering the page, but the only word she understood was Intrusus. In her limited understanding she understood the word to mean “Intruder.”

 She wondered if this page concerned the storms that wreaking havoc across the three lands, the ones many people called the “Intrusions.” The dark storms enveloped towns, either with rain, fire, or floods, and afterward, the dust settled, and the towns were wiped out. Not a trace of debris left. It was as if they’d just vanished in the storm. Though few survived, the ones who did had to find a new home, intruding upon other’s lands, and claiming it as their own. The Intrusions started on the outskirts of each of the three lands and were working their way inland, slowly but surely, swallowing everything up in utter darkness. Aster once heard her parents arguing over their safety in Verd, a small town in the middle of Veridi. Her father told her mother they didn’t have to worry, they were too far inland, and the Evanders would stop the Intrusions. Aster wasn’t sure what to believe, though. She didn’t quite trust the ruling hands of the Evanders. They were the ruling body over the three lands, Veridi, Vela, and Gemma, but never once did they seem to care about the plight of the people.

“Aster!”

Aster heard her sister calling her name. She quickly shut the trunk, tucked the journal under her arm and darted out of the room, closing the hidden door before her sister could see. 

Her younger sister, Amity, poked her red head in the library, frowning at her.

“You did it again, didn’t you? What was it this time? Some great new story or invention pop inside your head?” she grumbled.

Aster pushed past her, ignoring Amity’s jab. No one in her family understood her or her love of reading, discovery, and daydreaming.

“How late is it?” Aster asked, pulling her school dress out of her armoire.

“Late,” Amity stated, “We have to leave for school in less than ten minutes.”

“I’ll be ready in five,” Aster smarted back.

“No one would ever know you’re the oldest by the way you act.”

She noticed the immense disapproval on her sister’s face. Aster knew she was right though, despite Aster being 18 years old compared to Amity’s 14, she often treated her like a child because of her unique qualities. Even their parents remarked on how her daydreams were childish things she needed to give up, but try as she might, she couldn’t stop.

Aster hoped she could accomplish getting ready in five minutes, but she knew she’d have no help from her sister. Aster hated running late, but today more than others, because she wanted to ask her mother about the journal she’d found. It held many fascinating and confusing things and something inside her said the pages held a deep secret.

“Aster, what are you doing?” her mother cried, interrupting her thoughts.

Aster realized she was sitting on her bed, mindlessly fingering her hair. She must have drifted off in a daydream as she was getting ready for school.

“Sorry, Mother! I’m ready. I really was trying to do better.”

Her mother sighed and shook her head as Aster fixed her sleep matted braid into a bun on top of her head and stuffed her feet into her brown leather boots. She glanced in the mirror and grimaced at how her deep red hair looked like a tangled bird’s nest just waiting for a robin to lay its eggs.

“Aster, I”- Her mother started to say, but Aster stopped her.

“I know mother, I need to be ready for school on time, and not allow myself to get so distracted. I know I need to prepare and be more like Amity and”- She felt herself starting to lose it before her mother put a hand up to stop her flood of words.

“I was going to say. I made your lunch and it’s by the door. I don’t want you to be like anyone but yourself, but you do need to work on not allowing yourself to become so distracted you forget about what’s happening right in front of you.”

Aster’s mother put a gentle hand on her face and Aster ducked her head, feeling guilty for her outburst, and grateful for her mother.

“Thank you,” Aster said giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before darting down the steps to leave.

She grabbed her coat, pulling one arm through while grabbing the lunch bag her mother left by the door.

“Be careful!” Her mother shouted from the top of the stairs.

 Aster nodded, the lunch bag in her mouth as she put her other arm in her coat.

As she ran out the door, she made a mental note to make it home in time for dinner, maybe even in enough time to help mother make it and set the table! Now wouldn’t that surprise everyone!

She ran quickly, heading for the shortcut through the woods. Her heart pounded out of her chest. She gasped as a stitch caught in her side but didn’t stop. She couldn’t be late for school again. Her mother would give her a tongue lashing, and her father would look at her with his disapproving eyes. Neither of those occurrences was rare for Aster. Out of all her family, she was the problem, the black sheep. She wished she could follow the rules, wished she could control her thoughts and not fall into daydreaming. Her daydreams always got her into trouble. They caused her to forget her surroundings, sometimes fall, almost step in front of a moving carriage, or as for today, be late for school.

Her mother’s words played inside her head: “Aster! You need to keep your eyes on what’s in front of you, not up in the clouds. You’ll only fall down once you realize the clouds can’t hold you.”

But she didn’t agree with her mother. Her clouds held her up just fine. She solved most of her problems and discovered new things through her time in the clouds. Through books, she learned about places far away, animals and people she’d never seen, things she never would have discovered if it hadn’t been for books. She’d become curious about something she’d seen, heard, or read, then off she’d float, up into the clouds, daydreaming. Her parents or teachers often brought her down with their sharp voices, blowing away the clouds and causing her to fall roughly back to earth. She didn’t like when they did that, especially when she was just on the verge of a breakthrough or in a vivid dream. It always took effort to find the thought again or remember how she reached her breakthrough.

Even now, she had to fight against floating off up into the clouds. She had to focus if she was going to make it to school on time. Just ahead was the clearing, leading to an open hole in the back wall of the city, conveniently situated behind the school. The wall was old and had fallen into disrepair, but this part was on the edge of woods, so they didn’t see a need to fix it. It had therefore become Aster’s way of sneaking into school when she was late.

Breaking through the trees, she came out panting. The air was filled with a loud ringing, and her stomach dropped as the last bell before the school day started. She ran toward the hole in the wall, looking around to for any roaming village guards, patrolling the area. Seeing none in sight, she stealthily pulled herself up on the handholds she had created and pulled herself through the hole into the city. The back door of the school was just ahead, a few more feet. She was almost within reach when some force suddenly pulled her back, causing her to stumble.

She screamed.

A guard must have been waiting in a blind spot and now had a hold of her shoulder, looking sternly down at her.

“Late again, Aster,” Josiah said.

Aster sighed in relief. Josiah was one of the younger guards and often went easy on Aster. He also rarely treated her like she was crazy for daydreaming.

 She grinned.

 “Josiah, good morning,” she said, trying to sound as innocent as possible. “You know I wouldn’t be late if it weren’t for a good reason.”

 He scoffed at her attempt to get away with her tardiness. “Oh, I’m sure. What glorious discovery have you had this morning?”

 She smiled. “It was my best yet,” she said, her voice rising with excitement. He’d opened her chance to tell someone who would at least feign interest, and she would not miss this chance.

 “I found an old book in our library, and I began reading through it. The pages contain history and some old journal entries, but then I came across a section I couldn’t read. It’s not in any language I’ve ever seen or heard of, but it’s old, and that makes it important. It could say anything!”

 Josiah looked at her with doubt and confusion, looks she often received after telling of her curiosities. “Another language, huh? And what makes you think it couldn’t just be someone’s list of farm equipment or boring notes about weather and crops?”

 She rolled her eyes. Sometimes she felt like the only one with an imagination around here.

“I know because I could make out a meaning for one word, Intrusus, which if I’m right, means someone entering inside, possibly an intruder. But the most curious part is the ‘I’ is capitalized, like a name…”

 “Stop!” Josiah interrupted. His face changed almost instantly, his laughing eyes turning wide and his mouth shutting tightly, curving in a frown, and his broad shoulders tensed under his uniform. He glanced around with frantic eyes to see if anyone heard Aster’s outburst.

 Aster’s knees buckled under Josiah’s hand as he pressed down harder on her shoulder.

“Josiah, stop! What did I say?” She had never seen Josiah react like this, and it scared her.

He released her shoulder.

 “Nothing,” he said, as he was intentionally having to untense his muscles and force a small smile, as though trying to calm himself.

“Forget it,” he said. “And forget what you think you read. Put the book back on the shelf and don’t look at it again. Don’t tell anyone else what you read or that you found it all.”

 He released her shoulder and stepped back. “Now, go inside to class and tell your teacher I asked you to help me, and that’s why you’re late.”

 Aster stood stunned as Josiah stalked off. She did not know what had just happened, and Josiah’s instructions to “forget it” had only piqued her interest even more. There was no way she would forget, and now she felt sure there was some deeper meaning to this journal. Though how Josiah knew anything about it was beyond her. It just added to her growing curiosity. There was no doubt in her mind now; she had to find the meaning of the journal.