Guardians

Chapter 14: "The Galleon Sword"

It turned out that we never needed the things that we had packed. My friend shielded us from the cameras with the Othersight, and I murmured a spell that would allow me to see in the darkness. We had already taken account of any mishaps we might have run into, so it was a simple task to avoid them all. Be it as it may, however, we had forgotten one thing.

"The display cases!" I exclaimed softly. "They have alarms!"

"Are you sure that this particular case would have them?" my friend whispered back. "I mean, they are going to move all this rubbish."

"The only way to know for sure is to try the case," I replied.

"Wait a minute, take the gum out of the bag," he whispered excitedly. I did so with a puzzled look on my face. "Now chew it."

"Why, and why me?" I finally asked.

"It's sort of nasty," he answered with a grimace, "but you need to use the gum to lift the case." It made sense; we didn't want to leave fingerprints, and there were three other chunks of dried gum on the case.

"Why me?" I asked again. "It's your idea."

"It's wintergreen-flavored," he said, pulling a disgusted face. "I really hate wintergreen." With a sigh of resignation I pulled off the wrapper and popped the gum into my mouth. To tell the truth, I really didn't like wintergreen either, but it wasn't like I had much choice. It seemed to take forever before it was pliable enough. Finally I pulled the gum out of my mouth and held my breath as I stuck it on the case. We both sighed with ease as the gum held and the museum remained eerily quiet.

"We're not out of the woods yet," my friend reminded me. Trying hard not to grimace, I stuck my thumb onto the chewing gum and started to lift. A millimeter at a time and still no alarm had gone off. One inch... two inches... even time was holding its breath, it seemed. Slowly my friend's fingers stretched out for the sword, sliding under the raised glass and gripping the torn handle at last. Beads of sweat began to form near my brow as I concentrated on not dropping the case down on my friend's arm. Hours of time seemed to pass when I suddenly let out a small gasp. The gum was already losing its stickiness, and my thumb was about to slip! Realizing the danger we were in, my friend pulled the sword out as fast as he could without touching the glass. As he did this I began to lower the case. Without warning three things happened at once. My thumb gave way, and the glass fell into its niche. My friend was able to swing the tip of the blade out of the way, but unfortunately he swung it too far. With a crash the blade clanged against the stone floor, paralyzing both of us in sudden trepidation. The noise seemed to echo in my mind, like a continued reminder of our fatal transgression. A minute passed by, and we could hear no one climbing up the steps to arrest us. I heard my friend swear softly in relief.

"You really shouldn't use such strong language," I reproached him playfully. He glared at me in pretend anger, and we both would have laughed under any other circumstances. He absently held the sword aloft, a strange look on his face. I realized he had been in the Othersight when he shook his head and came out of the trance.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"The sword," he replied struggling to find the right words. "There's something strange about it... Maybe you should hold it and find out for yourself." He held the sword out to me, hilt first.

"Are you sure about this?" I said as I grabbed it. As my fingers clung to the remnants of the leather hilt, sudden warmth spread rapidly up into my hand and arm and to the rest of my body. I knew I could have imagined it, but I could have sworn that the sword began to gently thrum in answer. One thing was for certain, however: the sword had been infused with magic.

"Wow." That was all I could bring myself to say.

"So you felt it too?" he asked, more of a statement than a question. I simply nodded, still captivated by the impression that flowed in me through the blade. Shaking my head to come back to the present, I handed the sword back to my friend, who put it in my backpack.

"Come on, let's get out of here," he said quietly, the Othersight coming over him again. Our journey to the back exit went by uneventfully, but my nerves were heightened now that the "mission" was almost complete. Not only were we trespassing on private property, we were also stealing, no matter how bad the blade's condition was. Finally we reached the door we had entered by. Unfortunately the door was unable to be opened from the inside without a key.

"Looks like we'll have to use the Alohomora spell," he shrugged. Now that we knew I could use magic without a wand to perform simple spells, we had decided to use that to our advantage. Who could trace a wand to its owner when no wand was used?

"Alohomora!" I cried out gently; the bolt slid and the door opened inaudibly. The cold night air felt good to my flushed and sweaty face, but my friend didn't dare lose the Othersight to enjoy the same feeling. Moving faster and faster until we broke out into a run, we put as much distance as possible between crime scene and criminals.