As the dragon took just a moment to focus on the book, Vidan flicked his wrist and said “Apellum Di Cana”. The ivy around the book flashed and an arch of smoke appeared to Vidan’s side. The dragon lurched towards Vidan. As it did he blurted the only spell that came to mind. “Vidian” he blurted. Red hot sparks issued from the end of his wand and a sparkling butterfly shot towards the dragon’s head. It had bought him the time he needed. The dragon saw the butterfly shooting towards her head and flinched. As the butterfly started circling into the air, the dragon reared up on her hind legs again in defense. Her face was full of confusion wondering what terrible end would come from a sparkling butterfly.
As the dragon’s attention was drawn away from him for a split second, Vidan dove into the portal. He sloshed in the mud as he slid through.
To Vidan’s surprise he lay in the end of a hall in a brightly lit, what seemed to him, palace. Mud had splashed in along with him to cover the floor. It was made up of the most brilliantly colored and polished granite that he had ever seen. There were people standing at the end of the hall looking at him astonished. They wore weird clothing that he had never seen before. A roar of the dragon behind him and the look of horror from the people in the hall brought Vidan’s attention to the book.
To his left he saw a door resting against the wall. He quickly pulled it towards him and stuffed the book and wand behind it and pushed the door to the wall again. He quickly pressed both hands onto the door and said “Protego”. A magical blue glow illuminated the door for just a moment and then Vidan felt the end. He had not closed the portal. He felt the most unbearable heat searing his skin. The last thing he saw was the skin on his hand catching fire. The last thing he heard was the screams of the people in the hall. Their screams were mingled with what sounded like his own scream. Then it was dark.
Chapter 3
Nick Channing
It was a usual day. The wind was blowing slightly, and you could see a few white clouds drifting through the October morning sky. Evanston Wyoming was far from usual though. Nick was used to deep green lawns and neatly fenced yards. It seemed so foreign to him that people really lived in the middle of nowhere like this. There were more homes on just one street of his old neighborhood, than in this whole zip code.
He had never even been in a Mobile home before they moved here. Evanston was full of them. His dad had tried to explain that Evanston was remote and that was the most affordable way to get a house there. He really didn’t care. He was just annoyed it wasn’t like the home he knew.
This morning he was brought from his deep slumber by the sound a neighbor’s dog barking. When sleep left him, he realized that he wasn’t dreaming and that he really was living in a double wide trailer in Evanston. When the realization hit him, he sat up abruptly in his bed. He began to panic. “Am I late?’ he thought. He looked at the clock. It was five o’clock. He had two hours.
This was his first day of school at Evanston High. He had been dreading it. Not only was he a sophomore, but he was a sophomore in a new school. He had spent years in his old schools chipping away at the granite barriers between himself and the popular crowd. It seemed like he had finally broken through and that the warm light from the other side was peeking through at him when the news of the move doused the light and the hopes of finally fitting in with the cool kids.
He knew that he was in an awkward stage. It seemed like all his clothes were getting to small, and his aunt was always joking with his mother about how she must not feed him enough because he was getting taller and skinnier every time she saw him. He had never had overwhelming amounts of self-esteem and this didn’t seem to help his situation. He was a sharp looking kid for a boy entering puberty. His hair was a sun-bleached blond with the slightest natural wave to it. He had let it get longer this last summer he had a thing for the “Seventies” look. He had a nice tan from spending time at the beach and mowing the lawn. The tan took away a little of the awkwardness, but not completely.
His mother always made sure he had some nicer clothes, but he had just been growing so much this year, she didn’t want to spend as much with fear he would just grow out of them. At the start of the summer he had been only 5’7”. He was now 5’9” and it had been only a few months. With his less expensive clothes and the fact that he was felling so awkward, he worried even more about fitting in at his new school.
Nick was sick to think that he knew no one. He would have to start from scratch. It made things worse to know that the other kids at school had been in class since August. It was now the first of October and he would be behind and need to catch up to the class. That meant loads of home work.
Back home in Maine, he had fit in just great. He had four friends that he had known since the first day of kindergarten; Chris Weston, Matt Evertson, Jesse Rinker, and Ryan Gilling. They were inseparable. He couldn’t remember a day growing up that he wasn’t hanging out with at least two of them except for holidays and for family vacations. Even then mom let one of them come occasionally. He had so much fun on the trip to South Dakota when Jesse came, that he didn’t even consider that a “family trip” it was more like a weeklong sleep over. They had gone to Flintstone village and Mount Rushmore. There wasn’t any particular thing that stuck out from the trip. He just remembered laughing and joking with his best friend all day everyday. They never got tired of each other. It was enjoyable.
Today was no trip to South Dakota. Today was a nightmare. So was the last year of his life. Nick had never known life any different than the life he had in Maine. He lived in the same yellow wood sided house his whole life. Their home was nestled between giant shade trees that had been there since the pilgrims landed for all he knew. It was an older home, but Nick’s parents had made it a very comfortable place to live. His mother loved to decorate, not to mention keep things neat and tidy. Nick’s dad loved to work outside in the yard and so the outside was as beautiful and homey as the inside. There were mature nicely trimmed bushes and perfectly cut grass to perfectly frame the cute little house into the scenery. They had a dog, a fence, and even a hill for sledding in the winter. He had a younger brother named Shaun and a baby sister named Vanessa. Everything had been so perfect it seemed, except for when he tracked mud in the house or forgot to get home before his curfew, and he had to admit now, that was his own fault.
His room had been the same room from when it was a nursery until the day they had slung all the memories into boxes and left. Nick’s father was an engineer for AFC, The Augusta Fuel Company. They supplied heating oil to the homes in Maine and were one of the best at doing it. During the last few years, people had been turning to alternative fuels and his company had been slow making the necessary market adjustments. Nick felt very bitter towards the company. Their short sightedness had cost him his life. They started to lay off workers and cut costs. Nicks dad had been one of the more tenured engineers, but they let him go. His father had always said they were looking for “Young Blood” and were weeding out the “Old Thinkers”.
Nicks life was changed forever that day. His father and mother called them all together as a family and told them that their father had lost his job. They proceeded to tell them that they had been looking for anything else in the area and even in the state but could find nothing. Nick’s father’s company had been kind enough to make arrangements with one of their fuel suppliers and had landed him a job in Evanston Wyoming.
Nick could remember how he felt the blood leave his head, like someone had pulled a plug in his toes. He could feel tingling, as the blood emptied onto the kitchen floor through his feet. Then someone plugged the whole and the blood rushed back to his head. His face felt like it would explode as he begged and pleaded that there was something else they could do. He was panic stricken, he couldn’t leave his friends, he couldn’t leave this house. He couldn’t leave his life, and he couldn’t imagine leaving Alyssa Gooden. Alyssa had been his secret crush since the 2nd grade. He had never met a girl that could be so beautiful and fun
at the same time. They had been good friends their whole lives, but that was all. He wanted it to be more. He had always been too scared to ruin a good thing, and now August Oil was making that choice for him. It wasn’t fair!
He had so many vivid memories of this house, the people and the Town of Augusta. He could remember the Christmas plays at the elementary waiting in the hall way off the Gymnasium with his reindeer horns made from construction paper before going on stage. He could remember stringing popcorn for the school tree. He could remember all the Christmas eves that he had spent trying to fall asleep. He remembered how afraid he was that he would still be awake when Santa flew in with his presents and that he wouldn’t get anything because he wasn’t asleep. He remembered all the autumns when the leaves had fallen on their lawn. They always piled them up and would run and jump into them. Only the cool night air and the smell of mom’s fresh bread could lure them away. He remembered how secure it felt to sit at the counter and eat the bread with jam and then to weasel a spot on the couch between mom and dad to watch the Monday night football games.
He remembered going to the cemetery on Memorial Day to leave flowers on his Grandparents graves. He remembered how dad would smile and tell the stories of his parents with a smile on his face. It almost felt like they came alive again on those days. There was a magic here. He could not explain it, but his heart was glued to this town and this home. He was sure that it would kill him if they tried to pull him away. He was sure that when they left, his heart would stay attached to his home. He was sure as they took him away his heart would stay in Augusta. He wouldn’t be able to feel anything again.
All of his life experience came from living in that home, and he did not want those feelings to disappear. Nicks Mom and Dad had reassured him there was nothing they could do. They had already been checking for employment locally and there was nothing available for his dad. The other companies were doing the same things, “Down Sizing”. They kept telling Nick, “Remember Nick, it’s not the house that makes a home. We still have each other!” That just made him angrier.
It was weeks before Nick could speak to his mother and father. He spent every minute with his friends. He spent time at his old elementary, his Junior High, and even went to his old future high school. Every minute that passed just left him with one less minute to soak it all up. He felt as though it were harder to breath each day. Finally, it came. The house had been purchased by the Chezeck family from Jersey. The contract gave them a date that they had to be out. It was on a Tuesday. It was the worst Tuesday of Nicks life. He had spent the night before going through all his old things. He had slowly peeled all of his posters from the walls and boxed up the last of his things. That left him with only a black duffle bag full of clean underwear, pants, shirts, and socks. At least he had his hand held Q5 in there to keep him entertained on the drive in the U-Haul truck.
When the last poster was down and the last box out of his room, he sat down on the carpet, overwhelmed by the emptiness of the room. “This isn’t fair!” he said to himself. “Why is this happening to me?” Overcome with self-pity, Nick turned off the light. He sat down on the sleeping bag in the corner of the room and looked out at “his yard” and “his fence”. He stared up into the crescent moon and realized that this was the last time he would ever look at it from here. He climbed into the sleeping bag and slept for the last time in “his room”. He fell asleep thinking about every birthday he had had, every Easter, and every moment from his childhood. As he did, he had to keep wiping the tears that kept welling in his eyes. After he had fallen asleep, his mother came into the moonlit room and knelt by his side. She reached out her hand and brushed away the last tears that had put him to sleep. Nick never saw her body shudder as she wept silently. He never knew her heart was hurting as bad as his. He didn’t realize the hardest thing for his parents was to see his life upturned and ripped away from him like this. He never thought of their lives being torn from them. He couldn’t understand how much they wished they could continue to provide him with what he wanted. They felt helpless. If he had, things might have been a little different when they got to Evanston.
Chapter 4
Evanston Wyoming
Nick sat straight up in his bed staring at the wood paneled walls of his new cell. It was 6:15am and there was no way he would sleep any more. In his reminiscing, he had fallen back to sleep. The dog that had woke him up was still barking. It was Rambus the neighbors Doberman. He hated that stupid dog. Once it started to bark it wouldn’t shut up. It was like the Jones never even noticed how loud and obnoxious the stupid animal was. “It was in their yard! How could they sleep through that?” Nick thought.
He had already been feeling miserable enough the night before, but now he was in an even worse mood if possible. The bus wouldn’t be here until 7:30am and it only took him 10 minutes to get ready for school. He could have slept in another hour if it weren’t for that stupid dog.
Nick slipped his legs over the side of the bed and touched them down on the old multicolored carpet. His eyes stopped for a moment on the carpet. He was amazed that anyone would even buy a carpet made up of brown, orange and green strands. After his wondering, he pushed himself to his feet and towards the bathroom in the center of the trailer.
Nicks mind continued to wander as the hot shower careened over his skin. Soon the small bathroom was full of hot steam. He kept going over all the injustices that had come upon him over the last few months to keep his mind off of going to school for the first time. Every time he thought about catching the bus his stomach turned and he was sure he was going to be sick. So, he did everything he could to keep his mind off it. It really didn’t work though. A giant knot was forming in both his throat and his stomach. How was he going to pull this off? He didn’t know anyone. At least the school wasn’t as big as the one he was used to in Maine. His old Jr. High was made up of 2,000 students. Evanston only had just over 300.
Begrudgingly he climbed out of the shower and grabbed a clean towel from the loose towel rack. The towel rack that seemed like it would fall off the wall every time he touched it. He couldn’t believe how “junky” this house seemed to be compared to what he had been used to. He couldn’t believe that his mom or his dad would even consider buying a house like this after the beautiful home that he had grown up in. He remembered the day they looked through town with the realtor. They hadn’t seen anything better, at least that was in “Dad’s” price range. Every time they headed for a new home he would get excited just to be let down as they pulled into the driveway of another run-down trailer home with yellow weed filled grass and an old gray chain link fence. There were hardly any trees, and the ones that had trees (if you could call them trees) looked as if the trees were begging for water and a good pruning with a chainsaw.
His mother had smiled at him when they decided on this trailer and said, again, “It isn’t the house that makes a home Nick, it is the family inside.” That is when Nick spat out the venomous words that seared his mother’s heart, “It will be hard to feel love in a junk hole like this!” Nicks father had never been physical with him before, but that day was a first for many things. “You take that back” his father spoke strongly as he grabbed him by his arms and forced him to look into his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mother turn her head and wipe a tear from her eyes, as his father shook him. “I will not put up with your attitude any more Nick! You have been acting like a baby for the last 2 months and I have put up with it because I knew you were hurting inside, but not anymore. Can’t you see this is difficult for us too?”
Nick found more words filled with malice pouring from his mouth. He could only remember saying something like “You have no idea what I am feeling” and the most dreadful thing, “You can’t even take care of me, look at this house!” and that is when he ended up on the ground on his back. He remembered the confusing look on his father’s face that he had never seen before. It was a fierce look, his face was fiery red, and his eyes were angri
ly fixed on his face, but his jaw line seemed broken and quivering. His eyes were welling up with tears. Just then Nicks mother stepped between them. Her eyes were red, but she was now working up a smile. She said “Stop!” and went on to tell his father how happy she was with the house. In her usual way, pointed out the fun she could have whipping it into shape. That was his mother. She was always focusing on the positives.
Nick remembered how miserable he had felt after saying those things to his dad. He could never imagine saying them to someone he loved so much. It seemed to worsen the rift between them. Just two months ago they had such a great relationship just like they had always had. As soon as the news broke of the move, Nick had closed up. It wasn’t on purpose, but he just didn’t feel happy, he didn’t want to talk to anyone, because no matter what they said, they couldn’t change a thing. They couldn’t buy his house back, they couldn’t give his father his job back. He was going to Evanston High School, whether he wanted to or not.
Nick just wished he could erase those cruel things that he had let slip out in frustration. That day he felt like a terrible son. He already felt bad. When he was around his dad, he didn’t feel like he could look him in the eye. He wanted to ask for his forgiveness and take it back, but he felt so selfish and that made him angrier. More than anything, he just wanted to hug his dad, he hoped his dad would just reach out to him, but he didn’t. They just tried to avoid each other from that point on. Nick could tell that this just made his mother even more miserable.
Nick was brought back from these terrible memories with a knock on the bathroom door. “Nick, come on buddy, I need to get ready for work!” said his dad with a little anger in his voice. Nick realized that he was staring at himself in the mirror with a mouth full of toothpaste when his father had jolted him from his thoughts. He quickly spit and rinsed and said “Okay, okay. I am almost done”. He wrapped the towel around his waist and opened the door. His father was overrun by the thick steam that poured out of the small bathroom as Nick slipped by his dad down the hall. All the steam made it easy to avoid eye contact.
The Scent of Death Page 4
