by Chris Miller
The blade disappeared before it hit the bed, leaving the hilt empty, but the sound…the horrible deafening racket, persisted a few moments longer. I clinched my eyes shut in pain, expecting my head to explode at any moment.
A flash of seemingly unrelated images rushed through my mind like the replay of a long forgotten dream. There was an image of a man with a blackened face and gleaming silver eyes, a giant worm with razor-sharp teeth, a man’s head trapped in a glass ball, and a glimpse of Hope reclined and hovering over a stone altar. The images flew by so fast I could hardly keep up with them. As quickly as they came, the images disappeared and the sound faded away.
When at last the sound subsided, I opened my eyes and stared at the sword hilt, laying on my lap. Had I done something wrong? Perhaps using the blade in Solandria was different from here in the Veil. One thing was for sure, I wasn’t about to try it again.
My eyes fell on the second sword. The hilt of this Veritas Sword was slightly different. It was darker than most swords I had seen. The Author’s mark, the emblem of the Codebearer, was etched in the center of the hilt just as on my own, but it appeared altered. Another marking caught my eye, letters etched into the bottom of the hilt. I held the sword so the engraved lettering caught the light in just the right way. The letters spelled a name.
Caleb Brown
I gasped in disbelief. Could this really be my father’s Veritas Sword? The Codebearers had said he had been to Solandria, that he had been a great Codebearer warrior. This was proof that what they had said was true.
How either of the swords came to be in my backpack remained a mystery. The odds were good that Vogler had something to do with it. If so, he knew much more than he was letting on.
I snatched up Vogler’s card from the nightstand and looked it over. The front seemed perfectly normal: Destiny Hills Police Department logo, his name and phone number, the basic information you might expect. The back of the card was printed in solid black ink with the exception of a single white symbol in the upper right corner, the symbol of an open eye—the same one he had tattooed on his hand.
I’ll be watching, he had said.
I shuddered at the thought. Something was wrong about this man. There was just something I didn’t like.
Chapter 6
What Mom Said
When your life is spinning out of control, the little things can keep you grounded. Today, chocolate pudding was my anchor.
When Mom found out that Vogler had been to the hospital before visiting hours, she was furious. None of the nurses on duty seemed to know anything about it. As we left the hospital, she vowed to get to the bottom of it. The car ride home was a tense one. Mom wanted to know everything he had asked. I did my best to tell her, but found it impossible to explain how intimidating he was, how cold I felt every time he looked at me.
On the way home Mom stopped by the grocery store to stock up on my favorite comfort foods. It was part of her plan to help me recover. We had just arrived home and had hardly walked through our front door when Mom pulled a pudding cup from one of the many grocery sacks on the counter. She tossed me a spoon and insisted I go make myself comfortable on the couch while she pulled dinner together. I didn’t complain. After all “Mom knows best,” right?
Dropping my backpack on the couch, I flopped down next to it and stretched out, pudding cup in hand. It felt good to be back. Looking around the room, I was reminded of the bizarre chain of events that had taken place only a couple of days ago. Boojum had left his mark on the room to be sure. I picked up the couch’s sole surviving throw pillow and stuck a finger into one of its fresh holes.
I wonder where the fur ball went? I thought to myself. When the fuzzy blue pest had popped into my life unexpectedly, he nearly destroyed the entire house in his quest to fill his insatiable appetite. Our family aquarium was shy one fish as well; Emily’s favorite blue one was no longer with us. Boojum had made sure of that. I managed to blame a neighborhood cat for the mess and the fish, but I still felt guilty about all the lying I had done to keep him a secret.
At the time, the thought of keeping a secret pet seemed like a good idea. After all, he looked cool, could go invisible on command and genuinely seemed to like me. Plus, he was the proof I needed to convince my best friend, Stretch, of the existence of Solandria.
In a way, I half expected him to show up at any moment, begging for my pudding cup. He didn’t.
It was probably for the best anyway; he was a horrible roommate. His freakish aversion to direct light was more than a nuisance; it was downright dangerous at times. After wrecking the house he completely destroyed my bedroom and continued his trouble-making ways at the fairgrounds too. The details were somewhat fuzzy, but I did remember chasing the little monster around the fair, trying to retrieve something he’d taken from Rob.
“You know, Emily’s bringing Trista over for dinner tonight,” Mom called out from the kitchen. I heard the oven door open and shut and the beeps of a digital timer being set. “I heard the two of you were hanging out at the fair together Friday night. She’s a nice girl, don’t you think?” Mom said with a hint of teasing in her voice.
“Real subtle, Mom,” I protested.
“What? I was just asking. Just making an observation.”
“Well, it’s not like that okay? She’s Emily’s friend.”
“So? Your father was best friends with Uncle Jim in high school when we met.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, glad to be turning the attention from me and my feelings, back to Mom.
“Yeah well, there’s a lot about your father and me that you don’t know.”
“Okay, ew, Mom. I think you should just stop right there,” I said.
Mom rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Nothing like that you goof. All I’m saying is not to overlook somebody simply because of your sister, okay? Besides, a little bit of friendship might be exactly what you need to take your mind off things.”
“Point taken, can we talk about something else now? I’m trying to…you know, heal here.”
Part of me wanted the conversation to end there, but the other part of me was interested in seeing where it might go. While it was technically true that Emily and Trista had struck up a friendship first at the beginning of the school year, Trista was actually in my grade and had been acting pretty friendly toward me too.
I had convinced myself it was just her upbeat, energetic personality that made her friendly to everyone—that there was nothing special about the attention she had shown me. But, for some reason I couldn’t shake the weird feeling that she and I knew each other better than just passing acquaintances.
Finished in the kitchen, Mom walked into the room with her own pudding cup and waved her spoon at me. “Scoot over,” she said.
I swung my feet off the couch to make space for her, hoping the whole Trista thing was behind us.
She let herself sink low into the couch, took a bite of pudding and released a long-reserved sigh. No doubt, the last few days had been as traumatic for her as they had for me…maybe more so. Setting the remaining pudding aside, she turned to me.
“I don’t know if you remember or not, but you and I had a date to talk today.”
“We did?” I replied. Truth be told, I hadn’t remembered until she brought it up, but now I was acutely aware of the tense moment we’d shared just before she sent me off to the Destiny Fair. Friday had been a bad day—before my alleged involvement in the school fire. Apparently, I owed Mom some explanations.
“If you are up for it,” Mom said, “I’d like to take some time now to talk over what’s been troubling you lately.”
“Sure…” I offered hesitantly, “I can try.”
Ever since my first trip to Solandria through the Author’s Writ, Mom had grown increasingly agitated whenever I brought up the subject. I tried to brace myself for more of the same.
Mom surprised me by saying, “Before we start, Hunter, I owe you an apology. I’ve been thinking things over and realize now that I’ve been coming up short for you lately.”
“Mom, you don’t need to…” I tried to interject, but she persisted.
“No. I mean it. You clearly have been going through a lot and the truth is I haven’t been willing to listen, I mean really listen. I’d like to do that now.”
I was stunned. “I’m not sure where to start,” I said.
“How about starting with where you found this?”
She reached down and lifted a heavy, leather-bound book from beside the couch. It was the Author’s Writ, a book unlike any other. The Writ was a portal to the hidden world of Solandria and each time I saw it served as a reminder that there was more to life than what my eyes could see. Apparently, Mom had been in my room and brought the book down during my overnight stay at the hospital. There was something strange about the Writ Mom was holding; its binding was falling apart in places I hadn’t remembered. The brown leather was soft and the golden markings were the same, but the book looked as if it had aged a hundred years overnight. I marked it down to one of the other things I couldn’t accurately remember. The list was growing longer by the minute.
“I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you,” I said.
“Try me,” Mom answered. Her patient expression told me she was serious. “You might be surprised.”
I took a deep breath and then launched into my unbelievable tale while Mom, true to her word, listened intently to the whole story. I told of how the book pulled me across the Veil into Solandria, and of my training as a Codebearer, using a Veritas Sword to fight with the Resistance against the Shadow. Finally, I told her of my quest to end the Bloodstone’s curse, which ultimately led me back home to Destiny after the Author rewrote my life. As much as I wanted to leave it at that, I still had to tell her about what happened at school with the mysterious stalker who stole my backpack, and my mop assault on Mr. Tanner, which led to a visit with Principal Strickland and an afterschool counseling session with Ms. Sheppard.
When I had finished, Mom said, “It might come as a surprise to you, but I have heard most of this before, not from you, but from your father.”
I was shocked.
“Dad told you about Solandria?” I asked. While it was true that my experience in Solandria had revealed some clues of my dad’s involvement there, I had never heard my mother talk about it before.
“I know,” Mom said, hanging her head. “It was a mistake for me not to tell you before. I can see that now. But I was just so afraid.”
“Afraid of what?” I questioned her.
“That I’d lose you to…whatever all this is about, just like I lost your father.”
“Mom, what do you mean?” I asked with growing concern in my voice. “Is Dad lost in Solandria?”
“No, no,” Mom answered quickly. “Well, I guess perhaps in a way he is. Who’s to say where he really is now? The point is, for the last year before he left, he started getting mixed up in this crazy book. He gradually got more and more obsessed with it until he and I rarely talked anymore. It’s like he became a stranger in our house.”
I remembered that feeling well. Dad had been largely absent from our family events, leading up to his eventual disappearance. More than once Emily came home crying from a softball or swimming meet because Dad hadn’t shown up.
“But how come I never saw the book, oºr heard Dad talk about Solandria?” I asked.
“Because I wouldn’t let him,” Mom snapped. She always was one to stand her ground with Dad. Apparently, this time was no exception. “That stuff never came home. And the more intense he got about it, the more convinced I was that you and Emily needed to be protected from it.” She reached over and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “I know it sounds awful, Hunter, but in some ways I felt relieved when he finally left us. I could finally let my guard down again…. But then,” she looked back at the Author’s Writ resting between us, “you found it.”
“It found me, Mom,” I corrected her.
She gave me a worried look. I could tell she was still tense about the whole thing.
“Well,” she said bravely, “I’m certainly not going to make the mistake of forcing you to believe or not believe something because I say so. With my luck, I’d just push you away, but can I at least say that I’m really concerned for you? Please be careful with this. I don’t…” her voice quavered a bit, at the memory of what my father had done. “I just really don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” I tried to reassure her. “Not like that. I’m not going anywhere.” I hugged her close as she wiped her eyes. I couldn’t help but think how strange it must be for her to know so much about the Codebearers, the Shadow, Solandria, yet still not really know it as being real. That’s when the sobering thought struck me: what if she never did find that understanding? What if I lost her?
I determined right then and there not to let that happen. Not if I could do something to prevent it.
“Mom,” I said tentatively, but with a sense of urgency, “I don’t know what Dad talked about or showed you, but would you let me show you how the book works?”
She started to shake her head, “I don’t know, Hunter. I’m not sure I want to set you up for the disappointment.”
“No, really Mom. It’s not that big of a deal,” I said, flipping open the book. How could she ignore it if she saw for herself? She watched curiously as I flipped past blank page after blank page of the Author’s Writ. That’s when I remembered.
“I forgot; you can only see the words when you use the key.” I snapped the book shut and pointed to the keyhole on the hinged latch. “I’ve got the key somewhere up in my bedroom,” I said, jumping to my feet and laying the book back on the floor. “I’ll be right back.”
Mom chuckled, saying, “Then I guess I better plan on eating dinner alone. You do realize that your room is still torn apart from last night’s fiasco, don’t you?”
I cringed just thinking about the mess Boojum had left in his wake after he nearly set himself on fire. Finding the key up there would be like finding a needle in a haystack—make that two haystacks.
“Hold on,” I said, suddenly thinking of another option. I scooped up my backpack, unzipped it and then reached in. “Did Dad ever show you one of these?” I asked her as I withdrew my gold Veritas Sword hilt, holding it out for her to see.
Her eyes widened as her fingers ran over the polished metal and leather-wrapped handle. Touching the engraved triple V mark at its center she asked, “Where on earth did you get this, Hunter? You’re not taking metal shop this year at school, are you?” She knew better than to ask that—I’d never been good with Popsicle stick crafts let alone mastering wood or metalwork.
“It’s the real thing, Mom. Go ahead, hold it,” I said, placing it into her hand.
Gawking at its solid feel and weight she assessed, “A replica like this had to cost…well, more than anything you’ve ever saved up. Where’d you get the money for this?”
“It’s not a replica. It’s an actual Veritas Sword—my sword. It was given to me during my training with the Codebearers in Solandria. It really works too! Here, let me show you.” I took the bladeless sword from my mother and stood in the most impressive pose I could manage. I had to fight back a smile as I imagined the look on Mom’s face when she saw the blade of light for the first time. This was the moment I had been waiting all summer to share with somebody back home in Destiny, the proof that Solandria was real.
With both hands firmly gripping the hilt, I recited a passage from the Author’s Writ, saying, “I will walk by fire and not be...Aaaagh!”
Skreeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Instantly, I dropped the sword and reached for my head, pressing hard on both sides, trying to stop the horrendous, mind-numbing squeal that was su
rging through my brain. With eyes tightly shut, I saw flashes of more, seemingly unrelated images race through my head: a giant turtle, water pipes, fire. When I opened my eyes I saw Mom holding her ears as well, only for a different reason.
“Not the fish sticks!” she shouted, as she leaped off the couch and ran into the kitchen. The painful sound in my ears slowly faded to the equally annoying, but less painful sound of the kitchen smoke detector. The smell of smoke told me all I needed to know. Dinner was done…and, unfortunately, so was our conversation.
Chapter 7
Girl Trouble
The smoke detector and I have an unspoken understanding…we hate each other. It’s not that I don’t respect the thing; it’s just that it doesn’t know when to shut up.
The smoke detector was still screaming for its life when I yanked it down from the ceiling and stepped out on the porch with a screwdriver. Removing the batteries was the only way I had been able to successfully quiet the screamer in the past. It was time once again for open heart surgery.
After fighting with the screw on the battery case for far too long, I finally gave up and chucked the howling device out into the front yard. It landed on the sidewalk with a whimpering chirp and continued crying as it rolled to a stop beside the mailbox and the black boot of a girl I’d never seen before.
Nonchalantly, she bent down, picked up the alarm and pressed a red button on the back. Like a baby in the arms of its mother, the alarm went quiet immediately.
“Sure, do it for the girl,” I muttered to myself as I shuffled out to retrieve the little brat.
The girl standing there was attractive and stylish, but not in your traditional “girly” way. There was a look of toughness about her—not the “bad girl” kind of tough, but more of the sassy kind. She looked like she had a lot of fun and didn’t care too much about the “in crowd.” My sister, Emily, would have hated her, which made me all the more interested.
