Chapter One

I nudged my salad away. My appetite had already gone packing the minute we pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. I loathed this diner- dirty white walls and faded blue sticky booths lining the tables. Everyone else loved it here, but I just thought the food was greasy and lumpy. Of course, as long as it’s food, my family will eat it, even if they we like the food since the restaurant switched ownership, but we feel obligated to come anyway.
“Eat your salad.” My mom addressed me.
“Not hungry,” I grumbled. She looked confused. Typically, I eat like a horse. Shrugging, she reached over and scooped some of my dressing off. Then she just decided to take the whole bowl. I didn’t object. I felt sick.
Anticipation lurked in my stomach. I had nothing to worry about, and no exams any time soon- I felt like coils of a sting bunched up tightly, and had no idea why. I hadn’t the slightest clue why my heart was fluttering like a bird. The last time I felt like this, well-
It was two or three days before Christmas and I was pulled out of my bed by will of a lumpy fluttery red and blue thing located to the left of my right lung. I descended the stairs and I came across a large, quivering box. I darted right back up to wake my brother, and found he was awake, already walking out his door. I got my mom and dad, they got the video camera, and we opened the box.
Within it laid perhaps the cutest dog of all time…and that’s saying something, since I am strictly a cat person. She was black and white and had enchanting brown eyes. My heart melted, but then when I pulled her onto my lap she peed. However, over the next few weeks we trained her and she began to grow on me even more. She had her quirks, which made me not feel so alone.
Since then Berri has been a part of our family, faithfully never missing a meal. She has grown fat on the table scraps we have fed her over the many years, but her fur covers it stealthily. We have taken her on walks lately, and that seems to have slimmed her down.
So, my sixth-sense, call it what you will, basically tells me these things. I wish my tabby, Artemis, was with me. He always could calm my quivering nerves. I love him with all my heart and would give the sun for him so that he could extend his life by another day. He’s my guardian angel, he is always there to comfort; he doesn’t yell at me or tell me I was stupid or anything. He jumps up onto me and rubs against my tearful face or my arm, or nestles in the crook of my legs or by my side while emitting a rolling purr.
I don’t know what I would do without him. I look up to him, and I feel, by looking in his eyes, he really is intelligent and wise. He could communicate by ordinary means if he wanted to, but I think his current way is the most sincere. I am always explaining this to my brother, who sees the family cat as a furry thing with a tail that should be pulled, but I can never get through his thick skull. I love Artemis.
Back to the time and place of the diner, where I am sulking about my humming nerves and about to throw up at how much my family was eating.
My dad was very tall, brown hair and glasses, and also very large. Around the house he loved to wear his holey t shirts and hitch’em high pants, preferably with the zipper down. Keep in mind I never agreed to any of this and like to hide in my room, a tree or my backyard baby creek. She’s still a tiny creek, about the size of a baseball bat, and gets as larger in some areas, but always shallow. She’s beautiful all year round.
My brother will sometimes come back to the creek or go into my room or climb my tree to bother me or ask me an endless stream of questions.
“Are there any BLACK HOLES on the earth?”
“Yeah, there are 7, all hidden underground by scientists; they will one day suck our world into their blackness, now get out of my face.”
“Really?”
“Yes, now GO AWAY, please.”
Let’s just say it’s easier telling my brother lies. He is without doubt gullible, and I must admit that I do enjoy coming up with these things. After all, he does terrorize the cat and wreck havoc upon my stuff. He had it comeing.
He is short and still has his baby fat at 11 years old, and he is Irish pale with black hair like my mom’s, with, believe it or not, streaks of gray. He also shared her grey eyes. I was the only one in the family with piercing green eyes. He likes to be called Bobo but his real name is Bodany. Don’t ask me what was going on in my mom’s mind because I don’t know, but it was going on and that was his name.
“ Phoenix!” my mom said, snapping me out of a daze.
My name is somewhat… diverse, too.
“Why haven’t you eaten anything?”
“Because I’m not hungry and you’ve taken my salad.”
She looked at me.
“What?”
“If you wouldn’t keep going off to the dreamland of yours,”
“Of unicorns and rainbows and fairies,” my brother chimed in, using the fact that we were in public to his advantage. Also I was too tired to hit him at the moment.
“You would have realized we’re leaving now,” she finished.
I blinked, sat there for a few more seconds and then stood up and stretched. I actually couldn’t wait to get out of this disgusting place. The window sill our booth was located by was encrusted with dead bugs.
My stomach was still tingling as we headed to the minivan. My mom always said it’s a sign you are a real mom when you actually want a minivan.
I climbed into the navy blue van that carried the strong aroma of grape bubblegum I had spit out when I was younger and stuck in a cup holder in the middle of July. To this day I can’t stand grape-flavored candy.
By the time we got home, the sun was just about to set. I fell out of the car, carsick, as usual, and sucked in the fresh open air. My parents shuffled inside and my brother roamed off to play video games or eat candy at his friend’s house, most likely.
I decided I was going to take Berri for a walk. We both needed it, and I wanted to make the most of the last drops of summer. Cold threatened in the air, and the leaves looked like they were on their last stems.
I groped around in the closet for Berri’s leash, and then I tied a plastic bag around it. “Berri, wanna go for a walk?” I called, and I heard the click of her claws as she came to meet me by the front door.
I hooked on the leash, and we walked outside. Halfway up the driveway, she stopped and lay down. I tugged at the leash for a few minutes, achieving to pull her an inch and ending up with her collar in my hands. Curse the dog’s crafty cone-shaped head. She ran off to take a poo somewhere, and I threw the leash with unused bag in the garage.
Berri, at least, wasn’t going to control my life. My stomach achieved max anxiety level; I headed off for a walk to the park. I planned on moping around in a tube slide until something interesting that my gut had promised me was going to happen occurred.
I eventually got to the park, and nestled inside a slide. I examined my fingernails. The blue was going to need a fresh coat.
I watched a squirrel dart down a tree and retrieve a few acorns. It froze. I tried not to move. I didn’t think I had made a noise, but it had heard something. I then heard bushes rustling off a ways, and the squirrel darted back up the tree to its nest.
Wondering if this was what my stomach was promising, I peered out the slide at the bushes. There was a very shady looking being lurking in there, looked like a man, but I couldn’t tell for sure. However, something was different about him, he looked… papery? Something was amiss.
Scared, but curious, I silently stepped out of the slide, and hid behind it. I looked at the being. He appeared to be studying a piece of paper, and by the way he kept on turning it 90 degrees, I guessed it was a map. He grunted in understanding at something, and shoved it in his pocket. He was facing away from me mostly, but I saw a grin creep slowly across his face that exposed long, yellow teeth filed down to points. His lips where dry and thin. The image sent a chill down my spine.
I knew I should tell someone about this man, but I didn’t have a cell phone, thanks to my parents. I had no time to think about how awful they were, because then the man slinked off towards the park exit. I snuck after him, knowing perfectly well that I was in danger, but my gut was nudging me on.
I watched as he ran across the street and slunk towards my neighborhood. Even more worried now, I did my best to stay hidden in the cornfield and trees next to the road as I followed him. He had abnormally long fingers that twitched in anticipation for something. The light seemed to bend around him- it freaked me out beyond measure.
I crouched and reached my hand forward to advance closer, and I stepped on a brittle twig. The man stood frigid, and slowly turned around. My heart was hokey-pokeying all over the place, I plastered myself to the other side of the tree, hoping he wouldn’t see me. I heard light footsteps approach the tree, I was sure my loudly thumping heart would give me away. Out of nowhere, I heard a squirrel that was hiding on a low branch climb loudly up higher. The footsteps paused, started up again and began to fade.
I peered around the tree, and saw the strange man entering the curve to my neighborhood. I ran closer as a car rolled by, hidden on the other side of the car.
I stepped into the neighborhood. I saw the man heading towards my house. This was all too weird. This couldn’t possibly be happening.
Freaking out, I followed him. My heart pounded as he slowed and snuck around my neighbor’s backyard. I had no idea why I followed him when my house and a phone were so close, but I did- I blame curiosity. I followed him into the trees.
There was a forest behind the houses on my side of the neighborhood. He dissolved into the trees, and stopped, close enough I could see him, at the edge. He took out the paper map again, and began to study it carefully. I knew this was my chance to run home and forget it all, but I didn’t.
He folded up the map and set off.
I tried to imagine what he wanted back here. I fantasized drug dealing, dead bodies, and other crazy stuff and began to hyperventilate.
Then I remembered someone lived back here.
Ashley (my best friend) and I had found the house once.
We were bored and were walking down an old winding path. The path began three houses away from mine, and halfway down it there was a creek that flowed under a bridge on the path and into the forest. We had decided we would follow the creek to find more frogs and minnows, paying no heed to the scores of “private property” signs.
We followed it deeper into the forest, not caring about getting lost as long as we stuck to the stream. We came across a McMansion, our mouths hanging open. All the houses in our neighborhood where very small, my house wasn’t even half the size of this one. Glancing at each other, we then crept closer. We soon where hiding behind a bush with the house in full sight.
Then we felt hands on our shoulders. Screaming, we whipped around and saw a woman with long black hair. She told us this was private property and we had no business there.
We took one look at her eyes, and bolted off towards the stream. We kept the entire thing to ourselves, and spoke of it no more to anyone else. Sometimes we would fantasize about who lived there and that the woman was a witch.
I suddenly realized that the abnormal man must be heading to that house.
My suspicions where confirmed as the house came into view, and the man made a beeline straight to it.
Now, many people question my sanity. My mother worries about me because I will spend hours outside in the rain, my favorite weather, just sitting on a rock by the stream that I figured also led to the house. I could sit there for days, just watching the stream. I think it’s beautiful.
At the moment, I also questioned my sanity. I had always been the brave one in the family, always, basically, first to jump in the cold pool, but that was no excuse for following a mysterious man onto private property I knew belonged to a grumpy woman.
I had tried to turn around, but my body wasn’t listening to me anymore. Apparently, it’s newly elected leader was my heart, which was yelling at me to get my butt in gear.
I gave up, let my heart win and followed the man around the side of the house. There was a black gate that entered a courtyard that the man approached. I saw a lock on it. The man seemed amused at the large bolt and heavy metal barring that surrounded it, and cleared it in an instant with one jump.
My breath caught. The man was unnaturally light, and he soared over the gate like a paper plane.
I gulped, and it felt like I was being held under a pool full of ice and freezing water. I felt ill, but I really wasn’t the one deciding here. I guess I did have a good reason to be there. If the woman was alone, she would need help. I looked at the man. As scary as he was, he looked as if he was made of paper, and would crumple if you threw a rock on top of him.
Making sure the man was out of sight, I climbed up the gate. At that moment, I felt grateful that I spent a lot of my life in trees. I cleared it easily. However, at the top, I paused, and scrambled over to the closest roof. I was on the roof in an instant, and was very proud of myself. The man couldn’t see me, but I could see him.
Then I thought about something- what if this man was the woman’s husband, and he was just taking a shortcut home? There was a small road leading to the house, and it looked very long. Perhaps I was all wrong, and I was going to be caught and get in trouble for being all stalkerish.
But I thought that if this man was welcome here, he would have entered the front door, or would have at least had a key to the gate. Plus the man had a sinister aura surrounding him.
I watched as he slipped behind a small tree in the courtyard full of flowers. It was a willow, and its long green tendrils concealed him nicely.
I was never this good at hide and seek.
Moments passed, seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to…hours? I had no sense of the time, though the sun was adjusting its position in the sky.
I held my breath as a door that entered the garden swung open, and the woman I had seen that long time ago on my adventure with Ashley emerged, humming and with a watering can in hand. She looked so much more at peace then when she found us. She strolled over to the flower bed- right by the willow.
Then, the man emerged
The woman gasped and her metal watering can hit stepping stones with an resounding crash.
“H-How did you g-get past?” She stuttered.
The man just smiled, and pulled a long metallic gun from the folds of his coat.

A thought

Remember: It always starts with
a five letter word.
Sometimes, it leads to a four letter word.
It’s amazing what people do for one simple four-letter-word.
It’s horrible what people can do when the four-letter-word
Has been stolen by another,
And their
Five letters
Has been crushed