The Realm, Chapter 3: Entering the Realm

Written by Shaela Druyon Saturday, 09 May 2009 23:43

Alex marched slowly to his room like a man on death row, his step-dad following close behind as if to bar his escape.

"Go clean up and change your clothes," Mark said, crossing his arms in front of him and planting himself firmly in the hall.  "Make sure you wear long sleeves and a jacket.  It's a bit chilly out."

Once Alex had washed the dried blood off of his face and changed clothes, putting his jacket gingerly over the fresh bruises on his arms, he rejoined Mark in the hall and followed him down the stairs to the front door.

There, waiting with a grizzly grin, stood Billy Tucker in all of his 6-foot, 2-inch horror.

"HEY there, little guy," said the senior, wrapping his heavy arm around Alex's neck and rubbing his fist through his hair roughly.  "Ready for that scrimmage?"

"Oooh, football!"  came Flora's voice from the living room, and then she was at the door.  "I want to play!"

 

Alex squirmed out of Billy's grip and smoothed his hair resentfully.  "What are you talking about?"

"Now don't back out on us, Alex.  The team is counting on you."  The syrup in Billy's voice made Alex want to puke.

"I'll take his place," said Flora, grabbing her sweatshirt from the hook on the wall.

"No, Flora.  This is guy-stuff."  Mark said gruffly. "Alex, you don't tell someone you'll be somewhere and then change your mind whenever you feel like it.  Be a man and follow through on your commitments."

"But I--"

"No ‘buts', Buddy," came Billy's falsely friendly falsetto.  "Right, Mr. Templer?"

"Right you are, Billy.  What else are you going to do today, anyway, Alex...read a book?  Leave that to the girls."

"Hey!" snorted Flora.  "I'd rather play football than read a book any day, thank you very much."  Flora mumbled something else as she zipped up her sweatshirt and headed back into the house.

"Come on, Alex.  It'll be fun."  Billy made the Boy Scout symbol of honor and grinned.  "Promise."

Alex's heart cringed.  Was he the only one who could see the malice in that show of teeth?

"Billy, why don't you come in and take a seat while Alex grabs his cleats."  Alex felt Mark's grip around his upper arm where the bruises had formed from last night, and he winced as the pressure tightened over them.  "Let's go, son.  I'll help you find them."

Once they had climbed the stairs again, Mark turned Alex around, bending down to glare into his face and say in a low voice, "You're going to this scrimmage, you little sissy, if I have to drag you there myself.  Now go get your cleats."

Biting back emotion, Alex did as he was told, but it was all he could do to keep the tears in his eyes from spilling over.  It took him a minute to find his cleats in the junk-pile at the bottom of his closet.  He hated those shoes--Mark had given them to him as a gift for his last birthday, even though his step-dad knew he didn't like playing sports.

He wiped his eyes and tied them on furiously, then glanced up and caught sight of the photo of him and his mother which stood in a frame on his bedroom dresser.  It was a close-up shot of them hugging in front of their old apartment, slightly tilted since she had stretched out her own arm to take the picture.

Her dark, almond eyes stared at him through the thin glass, and Alex felt a knot form in his throat.

He stood, picking up the photo from the dresser to take in his mother's image.  She had always told Alex he looked more like his father, but he clearly had her full brown hair and straight Italian nose.  His green eyes reflected in the glass of the frame, one of the obvious traits he had inherited from his biological father--whoever that was.  His mother would never talk about him, except to say that he was a bum who left them before Alex was born, and they were better off without him.

He stroked the glass above her face.  "Why did you leave me here?"  he said softly.  He reached into his dresser drawer and pulled out his mother's custom-made, metallic-green harmonica.  It was the last present she had given to him before she died.  She used to play it for him when he was sad.

He placed it to his lips and blew gently, sending a poignant harmony into the air.

A pounding on his door ripped Alex from his reverie.

"Quit wasting time," said Mark.

I'm coming," Alex said, and mindlessly shoved the harmonica into his jacket pocket.  Something rustled, and he pulled out the crumpled piece of paper whose words had brought him so much comfort only the night before.  He risked his step-dad's ire and took a moment to read them again.

"--your father.  I have plans for you," says the King.  "And they are for good, not disaster.  They are plans to give you hope, a brighter future than even you can imagine for yourself.  When you are ready to come home to me, call upon me--I will listen.  I will show you the way if you look for me earnestly, but you must look.  You will only find me when you seek me.

Come home to me, my child--"

Mark pounded again on the door.

"Coming!"  Alex put the paper back into his pocket, his heart once again stirred to hope.  Let Billy do his worst.  Alex had set his mind to search for this King who made such unbelievable promises, and he knew exactly where to look.
But first, he had to ditch the bully.

Mark watched from the doorstep as Alex followed Billy to his truck.  Alex hesitated, hand on the door handle, as Billy went around to the driver's side.  A hundred thoughts raced through his mind in that moment.  He contemplated running--he was faster than Billy, for sure, but not his truck.  And Mark was still watching.  He couldn't face coming home if Mark knew the real reason Billy was here for him--if Mark knew how scared Alex felt.

"It's open," said Billy, jumping into the driver's seat and clicking in his seatbelt.  Through the window, his smile became sinister now that Mark couldn't see his face, and fresh fear stabbed at Alex's heart.  Yet he found himself opening the door and sliding into the passenger's seat.  What else could he do?

I'll jump at the first stop out of sight, Alex told himself, but his hand still shook as he tried to buckle his seatbelt.

"Don't bother," said Billy, shifting into gear and pulling away from the house.  "It's broken."  His grin was gone, and the look he gave Alex made the younger boy's neck-hair stand straight up.

Alex didn't care about what his step-dad thought anymore.  He yanked on the door-handle and threw his weight against the door to jump --

-- and ricocheted back into his seat.  The door didn't open.

He pulled the handle and shoved harder, then again, and again, but only succeeded in making his shoulder sore.  The door wouldn't budge.

Horrified, Alex turned back to Billy.  The senior shifted gears and shot another mad grin at Alex.  "Child safety.  Now who's the dummy?"

The truck made a sudden left turn, throwing Alex's head painfully against the window, then a right, and he went sprawling into the gear-shift.

"You're insane!" he breathed, pulling himself back into his seat as far from Billy as he could get.

Billy slammed on the brakes for a stop-sign, sending Alex's body into the dashboard, then shifted into first and peeled out.  As Alex was thrown awkwardly into the back of his seat, he wished desperately that it wasn't Saturday morning.  Not a car shared the road with them, giving Billy plenty of space for his creative maneuvers.

"Not bad for a dummy, huh, Freshman?"

"What are you doing?"  Alex braced himself as best he could as they rounded another corner, his feet against the dashboard in front of him, his hands against the ceiling and door of the truck.  He felt like a spider clinging desperately to the slippery corners of a sink about to be doused with water, and promised himself never to torture the creatures like that again.

"Giving you what you deserve, you little punk.  You picked the wrong bulldog's tail to pull."  Billy shifted into third as they hit a straight stretch of road.

"Look, I'm sorry about your girl-troubles..."

Fourth gear.  "You don't know how sorry."

"I didn't know it mattered to you!"

Fifth.

"I mean...you and Laura.  I thought you were just asking her out to mess with her!"

The engine revved as the gas petal hit the floor, and Alex was shocked to see tears in his eyes as Billy rounded on him fiercely.  "I love her, you freak!"  The tires hit dirt as the truck veered off the road.

They heard a scream through the back window.  "Look out!"

Billy slammed on the brakes and straightened the truck just in time to miss the white sedan parked on the side of the road by the woods.  Alex heard a thud against the back windows of the truck, then they came to a halt.

Billy threw open his door and jumped out angrily.  "Who the--?"

Alex wasted no time in darting out of the truck behind Billy's back, then bolted to the other side.  "Flora?"

"Uhnhn..."  Flora untangled herself from the tarp she'd been hiding under and gave her neck a pop before straightening up to glare at Billy.  "You maniac!  What's the big idea, throwing me around like that?"

Alex would have laughed at the dumbfounded expression on Billy Tucker's face if he weren't afraid to attract the bully's attention.
"Now wait a minute," Billy said after taking a moment to gather his thoughts, then he pointed his finger at Flora accusingly.  "What are you doin' in the back of my truck?"

"Going to watch the ‘football scrimmage,' duh.  You know, the one you're supposed to be taking Alex to go play in?"

Billy's expression changed, then his eyes shot at Alex in sudden recognition.

Alex took his cue--and ran.

Billy smacked the top of his truck with a curse and ran after him.

"Hey!" yelled Flora in the growing distance.  "Hey!"

Alex put on a burst of speed, realizing grimly as he ran through the familiar trees and bushes that Billy had taken them to the woods surrounding Mirror Lake.  If he could just run around the lake instead of--

"Into it..." he finished out loud as he broke through a hedge of underbrush and splashed into a foot of lake water.  It was almost the exact spot where Billy had thrown him in the day before.  He could see the rickety dock dangling over the water about a hundred paces to his right.

He heard leaves crashing on his left.  Alex sprinted as fast as he could away from the sound.

"Hey, Alex!" came a surprised voice, and Alex slowed down at the dock, turning around to find Jase jogging toward him in the distance with a careless grin.  "Where's the fire?" he called.

Before Alex could answer, Billy leaped out from behind a tree and tackled him onto the wooden planks of the dock, jamming his knee so hard into Alex's neck that the skinny boy could barely gasp for air.  His harmonica rattled onto the wood, jarred loose from his pocket by the fall, and landed on top of the folded piece of paper from the Book.

Something wild and foreign entered the bully's eyes as he hungrily reached out for the harmonica.

Jase had been too shocked to react, but as Billy's hand closed around the harmonica and slip of paper, he charged forward with a shout.  Billy glanced up and hissed, grabbing a handful of Alex's hair in his free hand and pulling up while leaning his knee harder into Alex's neck.

"Come no further, or I will crush him," came a grating, alien voice.

Alex made a choking noise, and Jase stopped in his tracks.

"Leave the boy alone, shade."

"He is not within your authority, here, shaft."  Billy's lips had not moved, but Alex realized with horror that the voice had come from him.  "You do not even carry the King's sword.  Do not interfere, or he will suffer unnecessarily."

"It is you who will suffer if you continue to cross those who belong to the King."

The voice crackled in defiance.  "If they are His, let Him come to claim them."

"Enough!"  Jase held out his hand toward Billy, who stretched out his own and hissed.

"Hey, get off of Alf, you jerk!"  Flora broke from the woods and threw herself at Billy, who knocked her aside effortlessly.

"Flora!"  croaked Alex, struggling against the bully's weight.

Using the distraction, Jase sprang forward, kicking the harmonica and slip of paper out of Billy's outstretched hand.  Billy hissed again and leaped after the fluttering scrap of paper, but too late.  In one smooth motion, Jason snatched the paper out of the air with one hand and planted the other firmly over Billy's forehead, chanting something Alex couldn't understand.

There was a loud crack; the voice screeched.  Jase yelled as though in pain, his hand burning brightly against Billy's forehead, and the strangeness suddenly left the bully's eyes as a wave of blinding light flew out in all directions from Jase's hand, knocking them all to their backs.

---

Vaguely aware that something had happened to free him from Billy's hold, Alex scrambled to his feet and scanned the dock for his mother's harmonica, which he cursed himself for even bringing.

Jase and Flora both lay on the ground nearby, sitting up slowly as though coming out of some kind of daze.  What had happened?
A green glint caught his eye.  There it was, right next to Billy's arm, and the bully was just beginning to open his eyes.  He looked up.

Alex launched for the harmonica, but Billy was faster, smacking away his hand like a bug and snatching up the instrument before rolling to his feet.  The wood groaned beneath his weight.

"Give me back my mother's harmonica!"

Billy held his head with his free hand and groaned.  He must have gotten up too quickly.  "You want it?" the bully sneered through a grimace.  "Go get it."  And twisting back his arm and body, he launched the little green prism into the lake.

"Noooooooo!"  Without thinking, Alex sprinted to the end of the dock and dove into the lake after it.

"Alex, don't!"  Flora screamed, running forward.

Without a word, Jase bolted past her and plunged into the lake after Alex.  Billy watched coolly from behind, and Flora wheeled around suddenly to face him.

"If anything happens to my brother, I'll--"

Billy stepped closer, towering over her threateningly.  "You'll what?"

Just then, the dock beneath them began to creak and tremble.  Currents of water lashed at its posts as a gigantic whirlpool opened up in the middle of the lake, sucking in everything within its grasp.

What the--?"  Billy said, taking a cautious step back as the wood swayed dangerously.

A beam snapped beneath the force of the current, and Flora screamed as the dock crumpled into the speeding waters, dragging both of them into its whirling depths.

---

Alex felt warm sunlight on his skin, and a cool breeze fluttered his hair. He opened his eyes to find himself on the shore of a white-sand beach, his clothes still damp from his journey through the whirlpool.

The sound of a harmonica’s chords made Alex turn his head to where Jase sat cross-legged next to him, soaked and bedraggled, but still wearing that lopsided grin of his. The older boy handed Alex his mother’s green harmonica.

“It’s a bit wet on the inside, but plays great all the same.”

Alex took it with a mix of gratitude and a twinge of resentment at Jase’s irreverence for the instrument. Grabbing the edge of his shirt, he gently wiped the smudges from his mother’s memento, tucked it into his pants pocket, then looked up and gazed in amazement over the turquoise ocean stretching before them.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Alex,” said Jase, hopping up to his feet and dusting off his pants. “Welcome to the Realm.”

To be continued...

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