Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland (The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 3) Read online

  A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment

  Rachel

  and the

  Many-Splendored

  Dreamland

  By L. Jagi Lamplighter

  Based on the works of Mark A. Whipple

  Illustrations by John C. Wright

  Praise for The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment

  The action is non-stop, with child’s play, schoolwork, and danger all churned together. Lamplighter introduces many imaginative elements in her world that will delight…

  —VOYA

  The British boarding school mystery meets the best imagined of fantasies at breakneck speed and with fully realized characters.

  —Sarah A. Hoyt, author of Darkship Thieves

  L. Jagi Lamplighter, a fantastic new voice and a fabulous new world in the YA market! Rachel Griffin is a hero who never gives up! I cheered her all the way!

  —Faith Hunter, author of the Skinwalker series

  The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, a plucky band of children join forces to fight evil, despite the best efforts of incompetent adults, at a school for wizards. YA fiction really doesn’t get better than that.

  —Jonathan Moeller, author of The Ghosts series

  Rachel Griffin is curious, eager and smart, and ready to begin her new life at Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts, but she didn’t expect to be faced with a mystery as soon as she got there. Fortunately she’s up to the task. Take all the best of the classic girl detective, throw in a good dose of magic and surround it all with entertaining, likeable friends and an intriguing conundrum, and you’ll have The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, a thrilling adventure tailor-made for the folks who’ve been missing Harry Potter. Exciting, fantastical events draw readers into Rachel’s world and solid storytelling keeps them there.

  —Misty Massey, author of Mad Kestrel

  Published by:

  Wisecraft Publishing

  A publishing company of the Wise

  Copyright © 2016 by L. Jagi Lamplighter

  All rights reserved. No part of the content of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, or copied by any technology yet to be developed without the prior written permission of the author. You may not circulate this book in any format.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental or an Act of God.

  ISBN: 978-0-9976460-2-3 (print)

  ASIN: B01ILF5Q18

  First edition

  Edited by Jim Frenkel

  Cover art by Dan Lawlis

  https://danlawlis.wordpress.com

  Interior illustrations by John C. Wright

  Typeset by Joel C. Salomon

  Cover design by Danielle McPhail

  Sidhe na Daire Multimedia

  http://sidhenadaire.com

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter One: Falling Out of Dreams

  Chapter Two: Trapped in Transylvania

  Chapter Three: A Day in the Life of an Ordinary Girl

  Chapter Four: The Mystery of the Moonlit Mirror

  Chapter Five: Flops-Over-Dead Chick Saves the Day—Sort of

  Chapter Six: Feasting Upon the Flesh of Innocents

  Chapter Seven: The Vultures, the Wolf, and Mrs. March

  Chapter Eight: Awkward Homecomings

  Chapter Nine: The Goose and His Intrepid Daughter

  Chapter Ten: “Don’t Ever Give In!”

  Chapter Eleven: Uncommon Commoners and Kings

  Chapter Twelve: Ancient Echoes of Sardonic Laughter

  Chapter Thirteen: The Die Horribly Debate Club

  Chapter Fourteen: Memories in Dreamland

  Chapter Fifteen: The Library of All Worlds

  Chapter Sixteen: In Pursuit of Tell-Tale Glints

  Chapter Seventeen: Beautiful Children of the Immortals

  Chapter Eighteen: Behind Enemy Lines

  Chapter Nineteen: One Classy Lady

  Chapter Twenty: So Swears Dread!

  Chapter Twenty-One: Blood Sister of a Blood Brother

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Slaying Elves and Chestnuts

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Crashing the Dead Men’s Ball

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Dead Denizens of the Hudson Highlands

  Chapter Twenty-Five: They Died at Their Posts Like Men

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Swan Who Would Be King

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Wild Hunted

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Though the World May Burn

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Cold as a Tiger

  Chapter Thirty: A Conspiracy of Angels

  Chapter Thirty-One: Plunged Into Darkness

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Banished Knight

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Interlude at Sandra’s

  Chapter Thirty-Four: A Unicorn to the Rescue

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Saturn’s Army

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Dedication

  To John C. Wright,

  the best husband,

  the best father,

  the best writer,

  and the best Sigfried Smith,

  in the universe.

  Author’s Note:

  This volume follows the revised edition of the first two books.

  There are some differences.

  Most notably, Valerie Foxx is now Valerie Hunt.

  Once there was a world that seemed at first glance much like other worlds you may have lived in or read about, but it wasn’t…

  Chapter One:

  Falling Out of Dreams

  “Oh!” Rachel Griffin tumbled out of dreamland and landed on her derriere. “Ouch!”

  With thumps and loud cries Joy, Valerie, and the princess rained down on the grass around her. Rachel could see her friends in the brilliant moonlight. Newly-fallen leaves crinkled as the girls moved, filling the air with their autumn scent.

  The starry sky overhead was mirrored on the reflecting lake, a hundred yards to her left. Also shimmering on its surface were the spires and belfries of the castle-like Roanoke Hall. Along the water’s edge, college students, in their long dark robes, kept watch. Presumably—though, from where she sat wincing, it was too far away for Rachel to see—the glass cases suspended above the lake’s silvery bottom were filled with conjurations and alchemical talismans undergoing degossamerization under the light of the full moon. The rowboats that normally floated on the reflecting lake had been pulled up onto the grass; their painted eyes glinted brightly.

  The blow to her backside did not sting as sharply as her disappointment. Rachel had been longing to visit the dreamlands again, ever since her first trip a month ago, during the second week of the school year. It was quite a let-down to be back in the world of the waking so soon. Today had been so disturbing. She had faced both a rogue jumbo jet that nearly crashed into Roanoke Hall and a demon bent on destroying the world. When she had finally returned to the safety and comfort of her dorm room, she had felt so very weary, but sleep had eluded her. Instead, she had lain awake, reliving in her perfect memory the most upsetting parts of her day.

  When the opportunity presented itself for this nocturnal adventure, she had jumped at the chance. A trip into the land of dreams promised to be a distraction from reliving the day’s terrors. With high hopes, she had
set off with the others. Then, someone had disregarded Zoë’s instructions to hold hands at all times, resulting in more than half of their party tumbling into the waking world again.

  “Oooff!” exclaimed Nastasia Romanov, the Princess of Magical Australia. In her proper, Magical Australian accent she softly murmured, “That was…disturbing.”

  “Ow! I landed on my camera! Ow!” Valerie Hunt’s voice rang out. “Boy, that hurt! I hope I didn’t break anything!”

  “You mean like a rib?” Joy O’Keefe gasped breathlessly, as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “Ow! Oh!”

  “No, ribs heal. I mean a lens,” Valerie replied, followed by some rustling. “I think it’s okay. My father gave me this camera only a week before he disapp…” Her voice wobbled only the tiniest bit. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.”

  “Glad it’s okay,” Rachel said softly, rubbing the part of her that ached the most.

  “Princess, are you okay?” Joy crawled rapidly to Nastasia, who still lay supine, and hovered over her. “Is anything broken? Shall I fetch the nurse?”

  “I am whole,” the princess replied, embarrassed as always by Joy’s ebullient fawning. “The only thing bruised is my dignity.”

  “Shhhh!” Rachel peered around in the darkness, searching for movement. “We should keep our voices down. The proctors’ll hear us and send us back to bed.” She bit her lip against a wave of pain. Her eyes watered. “Oh. My tailbone smarts!”

  Valerie rose to her feet, still fiddling with her camera. “You’re so British, Rachel. And I don’t just mean your accent! Who says ‘tailbone?’ Why don’t you just say…”

  Lamps lit up along the west side of the Commons.

  The motion of Valerie coming to her feet had caused the will-o-wisps to swarm out of their nighthoods and flit around inside the glass globe of the tall lamps. The soft wisp-light illuminated a hooded figure who had previously been hidden by the darkness.

  A frisson of terror shot through Rachel. Was this another Veltdammerung follower come to abduct her and her friends again?

  She whistled sharply.

  Magical energy rushed through her body, tickling her lips as tiny blue sparks left her mouth. Accompanied by the scent of evergreens, the sparkles flew through the air to swirl around the hooded figure. The figure stopped moving, paralyzed.

  “Who’s that?” cried Joy, frightened.

  “Possibly one of the cultists who kidnapped us earlier today,” exclaimed the princess. “They wore hoods.”

  Valerie raised her camera and snapped a picture. In the brighter light of the flash, Rachel found an instant match in her memory for the feminine nose and mouth visible beneath the hood. The last time she had seen this particular hooded figure, there had been a little paper soda jerk’s cap perched atop her head. The paper hat was not currently in evidence.

  Also, this hooded figure carried an oboe.

  “Obé!” Chagrined at having frozen a fellow student, Rachel performed the Word of Ending cantrip by extending her index finger upward and moving it horizontally. “Ever so sorry, Miss Black! I mistook you for an evil Mortimer Egg follower.”

  The young woman in the hood rolled her shoulders, as if to confirm that she was no longer paralyzed.

  “Understandable, Griffin. You had a hard day.” Xandra Black’s normally dry sardonic tone had a touch of compassion. “Being kidnapped, nearly sacrificed, and all that.”

  “You are one who warned me about touching Joshua March, are you not?” Nastasia stood up, brushing off the long black academic robes she wore over her pajamas, the legs of which stuck out at the very bottom. Her long flowing curls glinted golden in the wisp-light. Even having tumbled from dreamland, Rachel’s friend appeared as incomparably lovely as a magical princess should. “The one who works in the Storm King Café?”

  “That’s me. Flops-Over-Dead-Chick.” Xandra Black nodded with wry moroseness. “Or perhaps, Constantly-Possessed-By-Annoying-Voices-Chick would be appropriate. Take your pick.” She paused. “Or you could be truly non-conventional and call me by my actual name.”

  “What are you doing standing here…in the darkness…in the middle of the night?” Rachel asked, curiosity bubbling out of her.

  Xandra gave an apologetic shrug. “Waiting for you.”

  Before Rachel could express surprise, Xandra’s head snapped backward. Her lips opened, and a new, deeper voice came from her mouth. This new voice did not need to move Xandra’s jaw to speak. “In one minute and twenty seconds, the proctors will arrive. In thirty-two seconds, Zoë Forrest will reappear in the center of the commons. Run.”

  Rachel ran. Valerie and Joy followed.

  The princess called after them stiffly, “Why should we be afraid of the proctors?”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Rachel replied over her shoulder, holding up the skirts of her black academic robes as she sprinted, “and we’re not in bed!”

  Behind her, she could hear the other girls, feet pelting and breath panting—except for the princess, who glided calmly. To their left, two dark-clad proctors left the doorway of Roanoke Hall to head their way: a slight figure with light-colored hair and a very tall figure wearing a cowboy hat. Neither one was her friend, Mr. Fuentes, who might possibly have turned a blind eye to their midnight activities.

  Rachel ran faster—not that it helped. She pumped her legs as quickly as she could, her breath coming in short spurts, but Joy, Valerie, and Xandra all dashed past her. She was just too small to keep up with the longer legs of her friends.

  A puff of mist appeared in the center of the commons. Zoë Forrest stepped out of it, holding the hand of Sigfried Smith. Wrapped around the orphan boy was the long, furry, serpentine length of his familiar and best friend, Lucky the Dragon.

  “What part of ‘you must hold on’ did I not make clear?” Regarding the other girls with a mixture of annoyance and amusement, Zoë spoke in a voice that held faint traces of a New Zealand accent. She twirled her right forelock, which was long and braided, A dappled feather had been stuck into it. The rest of her hair was cut pixie-short. Tonight, her locks were pale pink and the feather was magenta with maroon spots.

  Unlike the other girls, Zoë wore her street clothes, blue jeans and a sweater. On her feet were a pair of marvelous silver sandals. These allowed her to move in and out of the realm of dreams. They had been made for her by a relative who was a Maori shaman.

  “In our defense,” Nastasia spoke graciously, as she joined them, “I do not believe any of us intended to let go. I tried to maneuver to lead us down the Way. But, as I was in the middle of the group, this proved impossible.”

  “That was wicked awesome!” Sigfried shouted, his voice carrying through the night. He was tall and brawny for a fourteen-year-old, with short curly golden hair and handsome boyish features. He spoke with a British accent, gesturing expansively. “We walked in dreams! Did you see that, Lucky? Did you see that, cute girl members of the Dreadfully Violent Adventuring Club? We’re pioneers! Like astronauts going into space, only dreamier. We’re dream astronauts. What’s the Greek word for dream? Oneiros, or something, right? We’re oneironauts!” He jumped up and flashed his girlfriend a brilliant smile. “I hope you took lots of pictures, Goldilocks! We want to record this for posterity!”

  “Oh, I’ve been taking pictures!” Valerie Hunt, Fearless Reporter Girl, held up her camera and flashed another picture. Rachel could not see her clearly, but she knew that the other girl had short flaxen hair, a squarish jaw, and an intelligent sparkle in her eyes. She had been in bed when Zoë brought the others out of dreamland into Dee Hall to pick her up, so she was still dressed in her bright yellow Hello Kitty pajamas. “But whether the photos will come out? That’s a different question.”

  “Freaky, spooky-strange place!” Lucky the Dragon spoke in his gravelly dragon voice, as he unwrapped himself and flew upward. His long sinuous body stretched between ten and twenty feet, depending on his mood. Rachel could not see the colors in the dark
ness but knew that the fur covering his body and his four legs was golden, and his long whiskers, his back ridges, and the puff at the tip of his tail were a fiery red. His short curling horns were of a tawny ivory. “Let’s go back! I want to eat that dream chicken!”

  “I…don’t think you should eat up there,” Joy O’Keefe said nervously, brushing her mousy brown hair from her heart-shaped face. A bulky, hand-knitted sweater covered the top of her baby blue pajamas. As a seventh daughter, Joy’s clothes consisted mainly of hand-me-downs. The sweater had been carefully darned in several places. “It might be like eating conjured food. The cramps, after it vanishes from your body twenty-four hours later, are terrible. Not that I would know, of course. But if you ever have a parcel of older sisters, and they dare you to eat the conjured sugar cubes and cupcakes at a children’s tea party, say ‘No!’”

  Rachel glanced around. The tall figures of the proctors were halfway across the commons, moving purposefully in their direction. The shorter one broke into a jog. Her heart rate doubled. She so wanted something nice to happen to balance her horrid day. Getting caught for breaking curfew was not what she had in mind.

  “Quick, the proctors are coming!” she spoke rapidly. “If we all hold hands, with Zoë on one side and the princess on the other, Zoë can lead us in. Then we can turn and follow the princess—without the huge rumpus caused by having the princess in the middle.”

  “But I need a hand free,” objected Valerie, “or I can’t use my camera.”

  “That is what caused the trouble last time,” said the princess.

  “Maybe the people beside her can hold Valerie’s elbow,” offered Rachel, “Or Lucky could wrap around her and then hold onto two other people.”

  Zoë shrugged. “That might work, Griffin. Let’s try it.”

  • • •

  The group grasped hands and ran, ignoring the proctors’ shouts. Mist rose around them, obscuring the campus and the running adults behind them. Rachel moved through the thick pearl-gray fog, unable to see anything except her friends. She held onto the princess with one hand and Xandra with the other. Xandra held Joy’s hand, who held Siggy’s. Lucky’s head and front claws rested on Sigfried’s shoulders. His long, sinewy body wrapped once around Sigfried and twice around Valerie, and the claws of his back feet held firmly to Zoë’s waist. His slender tail with its red-tasseled tip waved about freely.