As the room calmed, Ombric approached this new moonbeam. “Did Lunar send that glowing boy?” he asked with urgency in his voice. The children grinned at one another. Of course Ombric spoke the language of moonbeams! The beam dimmed and its light flickered. Ombric nodded. “No? Most interesting.” He stroked his eyebrows. “Now return to your home, young soldier,” he told the moonbeam. “Tell Tsar Lunar what you’ve seen. Send what help you can.” The moonbeam paused for a moment and then shot back up through Big Root’s open hollow, into the sky.

Nicholas Saint North and the Battle of the Nightmare King Chapter 5

The village would never be the same. That seemed certain. But Ombric’s first lesson to anyone who lived in Santoff Claussen was simple: There’s a little bit of wizard in everyone. That magic’s real power was in belief. That every spell began, “I believe. I believe. I believe.” Old William picked up the two halves of Ombric’s staff and fit them back together precisely along the break. He looked at Katherine intently.

She instantly understood. “Ombric’s first lesson,” she whispered. She ran her fingers along the break, smoothing the splinters down into the staff. “I believe. I believe. I believe,” she said. The deafening howl of the grief from the villagers did not abate. But through the tumult, that first lesson came back to everyone. Old William, then others, began to repeat the words. “I believe. I believe. I believe.” Over and over. And, powered by belief, the broken staff was made whole again.

The atmosphere began to lighten in waves. The wind slowly stilled. The air became as quiet as a midnight snow. Time itself seemed to stop. The villagers could feel magic all around them. And when they opened their eyes, there stood Ombric, looking so very Ombric-like! As if nothing had happened at all. And behind him stood the bear! His wounds were gone—vanished!—but his fur was now as white as a cloud. And in his giant front paws he held the man like a sleeping child. Ombric took the staff that Katherine, beaming brighter than even the sunlight, held up to him.

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What the slugs and ants had to say was difficult to understand since the words “infiltrated” and “unfamiliar” were hard to translate. One girl, the gray-eyed Katherine, the only child who was being raised by Ombric and who actually lived in Big Root, had the best grasp of the conversation.

“There’s something new and strange in the forest,” she told the others. The insects weren’t sure what it was. The question of whether these invaders would turn out to be good or evil hadn’t entered the children’s minds. They were just doing as they had been taught: to be curious. So lanterns in hand, they set out, eager to discover their new mysterious guests.

Nicholas Saint North and the Battle of the Nightmare King Chapter 3

“Well, old boy, get ready for something you’ve never seen. I’m ready to combine man-made devices with your ancient hocus-pocus,” North proclaimed, levitating honey into Ombric’s cup.

Nicholas Saint North and the Battle of the Nightmare King Chapter 13

While the children delighted in which type of cookie they’d received, Ombric stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up pensively at the high hollow of Big Root. He raised one finger skyward and twirled it in a circular motion. From the top of the tree’s hollow, bark began to peel back until a large round portal, like a window, opened up.

The whole village was there, parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles. The children leaned out from their bunks. They could now see up to the starry sky and the Moon, glowing bright and beautiful.

“Tonight we find ourselves at the center of an ancient war,” Ombric began, walking slowly up the staircase. “Look at our Moon. It was not always there to light our night. A war brought it to us—a war with the Nightmare King.” He paused and waved his arm toward the glowing sphere.

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Then out of the night sped something swift and bright—something that moved almost too quickly to be seen. It was brighter than fire, and the shadows cowered. And then there was laughter. The bright laughter of mischief.

And in a single perfect moment the children saw what looked to be a spritelike boy holding a staff with a brilliant moonlit glow at its end. He seemed to glisten like beads of light. He stood calmly amidst the chaos, his laughter bringing forth swirls of mist that hovered in the air. Then, in an instant, he blurred into a hundred shafts of refracting light that came together around the children like a protective cone, driving back the shadowy blanket. Then he blistered out in all directions, driving back every shadowy creature that could be seen.

When the shadows vanished, so did the spectral boy, leaving behind only a breeze of misty laughter that drifted over the woods like an echo.

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“Pitch has returned,” said Ombric evenly. “We’ve seen the proof.” He pulled a small glass jar from his cloak. Inside was a fist-size Fearling, churning and desperate to escape. A chorus of worried gasps came from the children and their parents.

“It can’t get out,” Ombric assured them. “The glass is made from star sand, like the windows in Big Root.”

Nicholas Saint North and the Battle of the Nightmare King Chapter 5