Who You Really Are

PAGE 4

Jade bent down and started scrabbling through the sand, turning up a few lizards that had been burrowing to the cooler layer of sand below, but no ring.

“Not again!” Jade yelled her annoyance at some passing buzzards, and noticed a glimmer of gold in one of their talons. “There!” she shrieked and raced after the slow-flying buzzards. She swiped at them but they were flying too high.

“Do something!” she yelled at Irvetta.

Big mistake.

Irvetta rounded on Jade with fury blazing in her eyes. “How dare you command me to do anything! I will go about what I do how I want and I will do what I please without little gnats like you distracting me from my intentions!”

Irvetta tore after the buzzards and deftly knocked the one with the ring out of the sky and straight into Jade. It squawked and flapped in Jade’s arms until she took the ring out of its talon and threw it back into the air.

Jade turned on Irvetta, ring in hand. “You shouldn’t yell at me, I only asked you for a bit of help! Is that too much to ask?” She shoved the ring in her satchel and stormed up the dune with Irvetta following behind her.

“Where’s the door?” Jade searched the landscape below the dune but her eyes did not deceive her, the door was gone. “Where’s the door, Irvetta?” She turned to the scowling ghost, who’s scowl deepened at the question.

“It turned into a sinkhole.” Irvetta pointed to a small, sucking hole in the ground not far from the dune.

“So, you’re saying, I have to jump in … there?”

Irvetta’s scowl turned into a smirk. “Yes. To get to the next location, you have to jump down a sinkhole.”