All twelve looked in the book, and like Kyle were surprised at what they saw. The photo album was filled with pictures of their fathers--no other humans but those five men. But there was more than just five men. The pictures showed all sorts of creatures: hydras, centaurs, conjoined siblings that did not look like human siblings, and so on. But what appeared most frequently were the dragons. There were five of them, exactly as Abraham had described them in the bedtime story to Kyle. For some reason, Kyle felt that strange feeling again. It was as if he knew and recognized one of the dragons: the one with purple scales and vermillion hair and spines. Was it possible that--no, perhaps his mind was just trying to convince him of something like that, possibly to cope with his father leaving so suddenly and being gone for so long.
And yet, it could be possible. The dragons looked exactly as Abraham described them, and the hair and dandruff that Kyle had kept from his father now matched the hair and scales of the purple dragon. At the same time, his sister and their friends felt the same way about those five dragons. When Diana brought up the bedtime story, their friends recalled their fathers telling them the same story years ago--word for word. How could it be that their fathers all had so detailed a story? How did this photo album exist? They needed answers, and they needed to know where to find such answers.
Then, Peter noticed that a slip of paper had fallen out of the book. Picking it up, Kyle unfolded it, and found that it was a map--and a strange one as well. It was a map of the area around the city, but on the map the city was smaller, as they the map was made in the city's oldest days. There was a specific route, with a starting point that was not far from the house. Maybe this map would lead to answers.