Episode 4
Autumn came in like a whisper. Leaves rustled secrets into the wind, and the trees bowed under the weight of knowing things too old for speech. Rudolph could feel something shifting inside him, too, like a key had turned, unlocking doors he didn’t know were there.
Sunny was healing. Music had returned to her voice, but it was quieter now, deeper. She and Rudolph spent evenings under the stars, reading Minerva’s old journals, decoding the languages of their ancestors, seeking meaning in stories long buried beneath the dust of war and silence.
One night, Minerva called Rudolph into the attic.
“Time you saw this,” she said, handing him a box wrapped in aged black cloth. “Your father left it behind the night before he shipped out the last time.”
Inside was a journal. Handwritten, bound in weather-worn leather, smelling faintly of pine and gunpowder.
The first page read:
“If you’re reading this, I may not come back—not whole. But know this: the blood in us is older than time. We are Makers, yes, but we are also Guardians. Of what, I did not fully understand… until I touched the veil.”
The Veil
Major had been sent on a mission that didn’t exist—not in the official record. A rift had appeared in a remote jungle, a tear in the fabric of the world. Something ancient had stirred there, something that called only to those with the Maker’s blood. Major had been chosen to investigate, but what he found was not meant for human understanding.
“Beyond the veil,” he wrote, “there are worlds stacked on top of this one—threads in a loom we cannot see. I crossed. I saw myself. I saw you, son. Older. Wiser. Alone.”
The journal ended abruptly, mid-sentence.
Rudolph sat in stunned silence, the words echoing in his bones. That night, he couldn’t sleep. The veil. The vision. The sense of time folding in on itself.
That’s when he first saw the eyes.
Two gleaming orbs like twin moons peered at him from the shadows beneath the workshop table.
He blinked—and out stepped a cat. But not just any cat.
Sleek as obsidian, fur shimmering like a starlit ocean. Its form shimmered, shifted—at first a domestic feline, then a lynx, then something closer to a shadow with eyes. And then it sat, curled its tail, and spoke.
“Took you long enough.”
The Familiar
Its name was Kito, a spirit-bound familiar tied to the Maker’s line. “Your father summoned me before he left,” Kito explained, grooming a paw. “But he told me to wait until you were ready. You are now.”
“What are you?”
“A guide. A guardian. A companion. And occasionally, a critic of your fashion choices.”
Kito was ancient, sarcastic, and fiercely loyal. He could shift into any feline form, slip through shadows, and see what most could not.
Together, they explored more of Major’s notes, deciphered runes in the journal that had seemed meaningless before. With Kito’s help, Rudolph reconstructed a map of spiritual leylines, magical nodes, and places where the veil between worlds thinned.
One Final Message
One of those places was beneath the town itself, hidden in the catacombs of the old church, abandoned since a fire years ago.
There, Rudolph found the remnants of a Maker’s Circle, scorched into stone. And carved in the wall, glowing faintly in Maker’s ink, were five words:
“I am not lost. Becoming.”
Rudolph touched the letters, and in that moment, he felt it—his father’s presence. Not dead. Not even truly gone.
Just beyond.
Kito arched his back. “He’s still out there. Between worlds. And if you keep growing… if you keep becoming… You might reach him.”
Next: The Maker’s Legacy
The town was changing. So was Rudolph. New threats loomed. People began whispering of strange lights in the sky. Time slipped oddly in places. Something was coming, something ancient and broken loose.
But Rudolph was no longer alone.
He had his magic.
He had Kito.
And he had Sunny, who was starting to remember songs no human should know.
To be continued…
Brufay 
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