• Story 9: Maddie is Missing
    Jiro searched the house from top to bottom, but he couldn’t find her. Mimiko had stayed the night, so Jiro went to wake her up. When he did he started pacing and had a desperate sound in his voice. “Mimiko, I have no idea where Maddie is. I’ve looked everywhere.”
    “Calm down Jiro.”
    “I can’t. She got upset last night and I haven’t seen her since. I need to talk to her.” The desperation in Jiro’s voice was escalating.
    “Jiro why are you so desperate to find her?” Jiro paused. He hadn’t thought that she would ask him that, but the answer came so quickly to his mind that it almost scared him.
    “I love her.” Mimiko wasn’t expecting that answer, but she knew he was telling her the truth by the sincere look in his eye.
    “ok Jiro. If you really love her then I’m sure that we can find her. Mimiko helped Jiro look all over the house again. Kataro helped too. Eventually Jiro realized that she wasn’t in the house. He got Mimiko to call anyone who might know where Maddie went. The gardener didn’t know, her drivers didn’t know, the people they called from the party didn’t know, and the director of the art gallery didn’t know. Jiro was only left with one option.
    “We have to call Zelman Clock,” Jiro told Mimiko.
    “What are you insane? Why on earth would Zelman know where Maddie is?”
    “They’ve been friends for years. Maddie told me so herself.” Mimiko still didn’t look convinced. “He’s the only hope we have of finding her,” Jiro said to try to convince her.
    “All right,” Mimiko said finally. Mimiko put the phone on speaker and let Jiro do all the talking once it got through to Zelman.
    “Hello,” Zelman said on the other end.
    “Hello Zelman Clock. It’s Jiro Mochizuki speaking.”
    “What can I do for you Jiro My Boy?” Jiro’s heart was pounding. Zelman was his last hope of finding Maddie.
    “Maddie ran off last night. She got pretty upset and I was wondering if you might have any idea where she is.” Jiro’s heart began pounding faster. This was it. His last hope of finding Maddie was on the other end of the line.
    “Yea I know where she is…” Jiro’s heart lept. “…but I can’t tell you where she is unless you can tell me something specific that only you and she would know.” Jiro thought for a minute. He had no idea what he was supposed to tell Zelman. There were some things that only Jiro knew that she talked about. Maybe it was her connections in all arts. No, anyone could figure those out. Maybe it has something to do with the house. No, the contractors and decorators know everything about the house. He thought and thought but couldn’t come up with anything good. Then he thought of it.
    “The song. The song called White Rose. She told me the story behind it.”
    “You’re going to need to be more specific. What was the girl’s name in the story?” Jiro thought for a minute. He knew it was French, but he couldn’t remember what the name was. He thought that it started with a “K”, or was it an “R”? He just couldn’t remember. “Your time is ticking away Jiro either you know it or you don’t.”
    “Wait away? Renee that’s it. It was Renee.”
    “That’s correct. Congratulations Jiro. You’re about to find out something that will change your life forever.”
    “Great now where is Maddie.”
    “Calm down I’ll tell you. Go down to the basement and go down the tunnel in the floor. At the bottom you will find a room with 5 doors...” Jiro remembered that room from when he and Kataro had gotten lose. “… You’ll want to open the door that you hear all the bangs and crashes in. Trust me when I say she’s in that room. Oh and one more thing. Maddie would prefer that you go alone Jiro. She doesn’t want everyone finding out at once. At least not yet. Later.” The line went dead.
    “So Jiro you better get down there.”
    “Yea I guess I better.”
    Story 10: The Truth Comes Out
    Jiro went down to the basement and let himself fall through the trap door. This time he was better about sliding down. He reached the bottom and looked around at the room with 5 doors. He definitely heard crashes. He listened harder and he could hear grunting too. It sounded like a girl. It sounded like a girl trying to fight something off. He started to hurry. He listened at each door trying to see if the sounds were coming from the other side of each one. At the third door he tried he knew she was in there. Jiro didn’t think after that he just threw the door open and froze in shock. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at at first, but then it started to sink in. Jiro was right to think that Maddie wasn’t a normal human, but she wasn’t a vampire. She had special abilities. She could control things with her mind. Jiro had caught her levitating water and throwing a huge boulder across the room without even touching it. Maddie realized Jiro was there and turned to face him.
    “Well it took you long enough to get here. I’m sorry for freaking out on you like that, but I just wasn’t prepared for you to already care about me so much.”
    “Maddie what’s going on here? I just saw you levitating water.”
    “Jiro I’ve got a lot to tell you, but I can’t do it here. Come on let’s go to another room.” Maddie walked past Jiro and out into the other room. She went up to one door and unlocked it. She opened the door and let Jiro inside. The room was small and only had one table and two chairs in it. Jiro walked in the room. “Have a seat. You’re going to want to be seated when I tell you this,” Maddie said. Jiro sat down in one of the chairs and noticed for the first time a gigantic painting on the wall above the door. It was a painting of five people in a meadow with the wind blowing. There were three young men and two young women. The young man in the middle was tall, strong and seemed very sure of himself by the way he puffed out his chest. The man on his left was strongly built and rugged looking. He was squatting and had an almost mean look in his eye. The man farthest to the left was rather skinny, but had a very thoughtful look on his face. Then there were the two girls on the right side of the picture. They looked like identical twins except for their hair color. The girl with dark brown hair was wearing a long brown dress that reminded him of the one Mimiko wore the previous night and the other girl was wearing a dress just like the one Maddie wore. In fact the blonde girl seemed to look a lot like Maddie. That’s when it clicked; the blonde girl in this picture was Maddie. Jiro didn’t know what was going on, but he was ready to listen. “Jiro what I’m about to tell you is going to be hard to take in, so if it ever becomes too much just let me know and we can wait for it to sink in.” Jiro nodded to show he agreed. “Jiro as you could tell I’m not normal. In fact I’m probably as far from normal as you can get. Jiro This picture was painted by a very famous artist of his time. That time was the early first century.” Jiro didn’t know how to take that.
    “So did he draw a picture of your ancestor that happened to look a lot like you?”
    “No Jiro. I’m the one Who posed for that painting about a millennium ago. I’ve been alive for that long.”
    “So you are a vampire?” Jiro asked. He didn’t know what other explanation there was.
    “No Jiro I’m not a vampire. I’m one of a group of people that through time have been referred to as the Legendary Five. And when I say throughout time, I mean since pretty much the beginning of mankind. Jiro I’m one of the five guardians of the worlds.”
    “What does that mean?” Jiro didn’t know how to take this, so he just sat there and listened.
    “That means that a little while after God first created man he made five children and gave them all special abilities. That picture is of those children after they saved a town from destruction. The local artist painted this picture in our honor.”
    “So wait these other people in the painting are your siblings?”
    “Yes Jiro exactly. That’s my brother Jared.” She pointed to the one in the middle. “My brother Matthew, but we called him Beast.” She pointed to the guy to his left. “My brother Daniel but we called him Mage.” She pointed to the guy on the far left. “And finally my sister Renee.” She pointed to the brunette girl. “We were all very close and we all had special abilities.”
    “What were those abilities?” Jiro asked.
    “Alright well we all had a special area of weaponry that we were masters of and when I say masters I mean better than any normal man could ever be, and we also have a heightened sense to aid us with our area of expertise. My eldest brother Jared was accomplished with a sword and other had held weapons; his sense was touch. My next oldest brother Beast was accomplished at knife fighting and hand to hand combat; his sense was smell. My younger brother Mage was accomplished in medicines, herbs, and poisons; his sense was taste. My sister Renee was accomplished in flying weapons; her sense was sight. And me well I’m accomplished in manipulating the elements which was what you were seeing me do in the other room; and my sense is hearing.”
    “Wait a minute you can manipulate the elements?”
    “Yea I can move around or change water, earth, wind, and fire. That’s actually how I know Zelman I taught him how to control fire.”
    “Wow! You’re amazing!”
    “I am?” Maddie wasn’t expecting Jiro to be so excited about it.
    “Are you kidding this is amazing. I can’t wait to meet the rest of your family!”
    “Jiro you can’t meet them.”
    “But why?”
    “They’re dead. Beast went first, followed by Jared. Then Mage died and then Renee. They’ve all died the only way we can die.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “My siblings and I could not be killed. We couldn’t die at all except in one circumstance. God knew that eventually we’d return to him, but He needed us on earth to help guide his people and protect the weak. We were only meant to stay our time and then join him in heaven just like everyone else in this world.”
    “So wait God really did all this for you?”
    “Yes he did. God loves everyone Jiro and my siblings and I gave hope that God really does exist to people, that’s the main reason God gave us these abilities.”
    “Wow. This is all so complicated.” Maddie chuckled.
    “And you haven’t even heard half of it. Jiro there is only one way for any of us to die and that’s when we fall in love. Each of us were told from the time we were children that when we fell in love our hearts would form to another’s. Our heart beats would start to become in sync. When one heart started to speed up the other would speed up. If one heart started to slow down the other would slow down, so if one stopped beating… Well you get the picture. It only happens once and we have no way of knowing who it’s going to be until our hearts form to theirs. It’s the way my siblings died. They fell in love and spent the rest of their lives with that person. My sister and I were very close. God made us twins so that we could be closer. Being the minority of the group we needed that. She was my best friend my entire life and it caused me so much pain to see her leave the world. Jiro I’m not telling you all this because our hearts have formed. Trust me you’d know if they had. I’m telling you because there’s a great chance that they will.”
    “But Maddie I do love you. Is it because you don’t love me back that our hearts haven’t formed?”
    "Jiro I am falling in love with you, but these things take time. You're going to have to be patient. If we are meant to be together we'll know in 3 months."