You can say that again... thought Charlie, looking disconcerted.
Katie Goodfellow rolled her eyes. "Oh, Bill, stop..." she said, "you'll make the boy paranoid."
Emily, Charlie's little sister, began to cry. She had just dropped her milk on the floor, so it wasn't a real cry. It only lasted as long as it took for Charlie's mom to give her some more. Then she looked at them with teary eyes, and smiled.
"Well, I'll tell you one thing," said Mr. Goodfellow, gesturing with his chopstick. "There are a lot of crows in this neighborhood."
As one, they looked concernedly toward the window, just beyond which a murder of black, glossy crows, sat amongst the branches of a tree, watching them intently.
"Dirty creatures..." said Katie Goodfellow, making a face.
Charlie regarded the crows with baited breath. They were exactly the same birds that he had seen during the encounter with the old man that afternoon. But how had they got there? They couldn't have followed him. Could they?
"Maybe we should close the blinds," he said, looking concerned. But his dad wasn't listening, as usual.
"So," said Mr. Goodfellow, rubbing his hands together with self satisfaction. "Here we are in our new house. Do you like it? Eh?"
Charlie’s mother positively bristled with delight.
"Another few months and we'll be able to get that hot tub for the back yard that you've been wanting, Katie."
Charlie's mom sat up in her chair and clapped like a performing seal.
"Just think, Charlie," said Mr. Goodfellow, gesturing with his chopstick at the surrounding stack of boxes, "one day this will all be yours."
Great, thought Charlie. Credit card bills by the bucket-load and a gigantic mortgage... He sat back a moment and thought about how it had all come to pass. It all happened because Mr. Goodfellow had got a promotion. He worked for a computer chip manufacturer in town. It was a good job, and paid, as Charlie's father often said, good money. At least now it did because Mr. Goodfellow had been promoted to Manager of Assembly Line Microchip Thingamajigs. Charlie couldn't remember what the exact job title was, and had a feeling that even if he were told it ten times in a row, he still wouldn't remember. Anyway, whatever it was, it meant that his parents could buy the new house on the other side of town, which is what they always did when they came into some money—buy something that cost about one thousand times the actual value of the money that they had come into.
"More noodles, Charles?" His mother offered him a limp box of chow mein. Charlie shook his head. He hated being called Charles. His mother only called him that when she was either angry with him or when she was putting on airs. Since they had just moved into a new house in a ritzy neighborhood, it was the latter of the two.
"Why did you have to name me Charles?" he asked, frowning. "I don’t like that name."
His parents regarded one another with surprise. "It's a perfectly wonderful name," his mother said, moving the soy sauce across the table with a disturbed expression. "What's wrong with it? Prince Charles is called Charles, and he’s a prince!"
"Yes," said Mr. Goodfellow seriously, "and if it’s good enough for him, then it should be good enough for you."
Charlie looked disgruntled. "I don't like it," he said. "I don't want to be called Charlie or Charles or Chuck or any of those names."
"Well, why don't you go by your middle name then?" asked his father.
"Yes," agreed his mother. "Quentin is a perfectly nice name too."
Charlie threw down his napkin. "I'm finished with dinner," he said. Pushing away his plate, he stood up.
"Don't you have any homework?" asked his father.
"I did it," replied Charlie in a surly tone.
"OK," said his father. And then, turning to his wife he asked, "What's on cable tonight?"
"I don't know," she replied. "We haven't unpacked it yet."
Charlie left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to his bedroom. Closing the door, he stood with his back to it, deep in thought. Who was the strange old man who had threatened his life at the gates? What were those mournful, wailing voices upon the wind? And where had all those crows come from? Were they following him?
He passed to his bedroom window and serrupticiously peered down into the yard. Sure enough, the crows, still lurking in the dusky treetops, blinked scornfully back at him. Charlie threw across the curtains, looking concerned. What did they want? he asked himself. And why are they following me?
From downstairs, his mother yelled, "Charlie, your father hooked up the TV. Family Spending Spree is on!" Charlie rolled his eyes. He didn't even bother to reply. Family Spending Spree was the most inane game show on the planet. It involved grown-ups humiliating themselves by dashing around a studio set that was made up like a department store. These hapless individuals would leap around pushing shopping carts and answering questions in order to remove price tags from choice items like refrigerators, microwave ovens, and electric lawnmowers, while a cheesy, grinning host called Mr. Treebles flounced about them in a glittering coat, wielding a calculator and saying things like, "You've advanced to the Express Checkout Phase!" or "Sorry! Credit Card Declined!" Or simply kicking up one heel and saying, "Toodles!" It was a sad show for sad people, and Charlie hated it.
Sitting down at his computer, he turned it on and checked an online map. Inexplicably it showed the land beyond the gothic gate to be just a lake surrounded by forested hills, and little else...
Charlie stared thoughtfully into space. If that was the case, then what was the reason for the nervousness of the old man? And why were the crows following him?
Something was wrong, he thought, and tomorrow he'd go back there and find out what it was.
Chapter 3
The next day was a Sunday. Charlie woke groggily, realizing that something was bothering him—it was the encounter with the old man at the gothic gate the previous day, and the crows that had followed him home. Were they still in the back yard or had they given up the ghost? Climbing out of bed, he sidled up to his bedroom window, and sneaking open the curtain, peered down into the yard. Sure enough, the crows were lurking upon the lawn, regarding him resentfully.
Charlie slowly lowered the curtain. What do they want? he wondered. Are they spies?
Disconcertedly, he got dressed, went downstairs and found his dad sitting at the kitchen table, fixing a computer monitor. There were pieces of it all over the table alongside the dirty dishes from yesterday’s dinner. Charlie found a place amongst the clutter, pushed some electronic components aside, and began to eat his cereal.
"Don't eat so fast," said his father, peering up at him from his work. "It's not a race. If you eat too fast you'll choke, and then I'll have to do CPR, and that'll be a problem because I don't know CPR. Then I'll have to spend the rest of my life feeling guilty because you choked on your cereal and I didn't know CPR. So eat more slowly, OK? Do you have some homework to do?"
"I told you, I did it," Charlie quipped.
"School related weekend activities?" inquired his father. "Sports?"
"Nope," replied Charlie, shaking his head.
"Undesirable misfit friends who hang about doing bad things in grocery store parking lots?"
"I don't have any friends in this neighborhood," said Charlie.
"Well, why don't you go and find some?" said his dad. "Just go up to someone in the street and ask them if they'll be your friend."
Charlie could see that his dad was a bit engrossed in his work. "I guess that I could go out on my bike," he suggested.
"Good idea," replied his father, so Charlie went and got his coat. When Charlie got to the door, his dad, without looking up from his soldering iron said, "Charlie, I was just joking about going up to strangers. Stay away from strangers—especially anyone who looks like a gang member or a drug dealer, or anyone who is generally shifty in any way."
"OK, Dad," said Charlie. Throwing his jacket on, he turned to leave.
"Oh, and Charlie," said his father.
Charlie turned around.
"Stay away from people whose eyebrows meet in the middle of their foreheads, because they're probably Satanists. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, Dad," replied Charlie, rolling his eyes wearily.
His dad went back to his soldering, but he wasn't finished talking, "...and women who have moustaches, they're not to be trusted..."
"No, Dad."
"Or people who have a missing limb that is replaced by some kind of prosthesis, because, you know, that prosthesis could be a deadly weapon—like, have a pincer or a hook on it, just as easily as a hand."
"Yes, Dad," said Charlie. Slamming the front door behind him, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He was out in the fresh air again. He peered up at the sky—it was gray and overcast, and better still, there was no sign of the crows.
Charlie pulled his bike out from the garage and pedaled through his neighborhood. All the while, he wondered what he would do when he reached the gothic gate. He would slip between it, he thought. That is, if he could get the gate open. If not, he would try to climb it. Once on the other side, he would have a look around, serrupticiously, of course, and if someone caught him poking about, he'd just tell them that he was lost, or he'd think of something else to say. Anyway, that was the plan.
He rode over the hill past the partially constructed houses, and coasting down the forest road, came at last to the gloomy gate. It was just as it had been yesterday, and there was no one around, so he hid his bike in some ferns, and unlatching one of the heavy wrought-iron doors, creaked it open and slipped through to the other side.
And wasn't that a wonderful feeling? The air was sweet with the heady scent of pungent moss, lichen, decaying wood, saplings, and old growth trees, because, for as far as the eye could see there was deep tangled forest in every direction save for the bracken path in front of him, and the gate behind.
Glancing about to make sure that he hadn't been seen, Charlie serrupticiously hurried down the winding path between the giant redwoods and majestic cedars. Above and around him, the forest in all its deep dark places felt alive and listening, yet Charlie could not see so much as a bird or an animal.
In time, he came to a standing stone; a rough-hewn, ancient obelisk thrust awkwardly into the earth. Like a mile marker from medieval times, it was again engraved with maekings that were far too faded to make out. He could hear crows in the tree canopy. Like some kind of primitive alarm bell, they cawed raucously.
Charlie regarded them resentfully. They must have followed me, he thought. The breeze washed across the ferns. There was no way to evade crows when you were out in the open. He passed down the path, and, emerging into bright sunlight, found himself upon a shingle beach by the edge of a lake, which, bordered upon all sides by forested hills, must have stretched for a mile or more all the way around. Upon its furthest bank there were river reeds and a family of swans.
Picking up a smooth round stone, Charlie skimmed it across the glinting water. The stone skipped twice, hopped, and then ducked beneath the glinting waters, leaving a somber ripple in its wake. Down the stone drifted, spewing bubbles, past carp and river reeds until it landed softly upon the river bed some thirty feet below, beside a broken sword and some silver dubloons.
That's when Charlie heard the voice.
"Iron! Iron! Bring out your iron!"
Startled, Charlie wheeled about.
There was what might have been the sound of horses hooves on cobbles, and the trundle of a carriage wheels...yet none could be seen. There was nothing, save the sun glinting brilliantly upon the lake water.
Perplexed, Charlie tried to understand.
"You'd better watch yourself..." That was a serpentine voice, guttural and uncomfortably close. "Anything can happen in a place like this...Remember that, won't you?"
Frowning confusedly, Charlie faltered backwards. The breeze lifted his hair.
"Who are you?" he asked, but no answer came, and now he was beginning to feel unnerved. Pulling himself together, he passed disturbedly down the thin dirt path that surrounded the lake.
Another voice said, "We won't hurt you....Stay awhile, boy."
Charlie felt something invisible push up aside him.
"What you got there?"
Something was going through his pockets. They must have been, for his pockets were moving of their own accord. Coins drifted out of them, rotated, floating in mid air, and then disappeared.
"Hey, you!"
Alarmed, Charlie glanced up.
There was a rowing boat out in the middle of the lake. In it sat a boy of about Charlie's age, dressed in a sweater vest and a bow tie, tweed trousers, gloves, and a wooly hat that looked like it had been knitted by a grandmother.
What does he want? wondered Charlie.
There came the crack of a twig underfoot. Charlie whirled around, his heart surging.
The old man emerged from the trees, angrily beating aside the brush with a staff. Two rangy wolf hounds with predatory eyes loped behind him inquisitively.
"I thought I told you never to come back?" he said, his eyes livid.
"I—"
"We don't like visitors around here."
"I just—"
"I warned yer once..." The old man's eyes narrowed and his mouth mottled. "You're a sneaking little blighter..."
"No, you don't understand, I—"
"I've heard enough of you." He turned to the beasts. "Kill him!"
And with that the beasts leapt and Charlie ran.
Through the trees Charlie pelted, the world seeming as if in fast motion. Ferns whipped past his face, briars snagged his clothing, and all the while, the dogs barked wildly behind him. He flew over logs, ducked under low branches, thrashed through waist high ferns until finally, red-faced and panting, with an awful pain in his side, burst into a sun lit glade and cast about like a cornered animal.
It was useless, he couldn't run any more. The pain in his side was too sharp, his breathing too shallow. His legs were like jelly. Crows wheeled in the sky like gathering vultures as the barking approached. They would tear him apart.
That's when he heard the rather dignified voice of an English gentleman from behind him.
"You've gotten yourself into rather a fix, haven't you?"
Stricken, Charlie whirled around. Standing aside him was a thin, late middle-aged man in a finely tailored nineteen thirties white suit and a panama hat. He narrowed his eyes at the dogs who bound through the ferns.
"Go." he said, remorselessly flicking his eyes toward the gate. "I will deal with them."
"But—"
He raised a warning eyebrow.
"You don't have much time..."
The snarling hounds bound into the clearing quicker than can be imagined. One leapt wildly for Charlie's throat. Raising the palm of one hand, the gentleman sent the beast rotating wildly over the ferns. The other palm sent the second hound loping away with a painful howl. Behind them staggered the old man with a knife, cursing and blinding.
Charlie leapt away and sprinted through the foliage toward the gate.
"That boy is wanted by the High Chancellor!" That was the cry of the old man. "You've been told not to come around here! I warned you" There was an explosion of light. Panting heavily, Charlie reached the gate and slipped through it. On the other side, he found a murder of crows squawking about his bike as if claiming it. Stamping about at them, he climbed onto the bike. One of the crows leapt up, and in a shattering of wings and claws, bedeviled his face. Charlie took the pecking mass of black velvet feathers in both hands and cast it to the ground. He then placed one determined foot upon the bike pedal. The other crows gathered about staunchly as if ready for a battle. Lowering his eyes, Charlie rode through them, and then, red faced and sweating, rode furiously over the hill toward home.
Chapter 4
When Charlie got home, he went straight to his room and remained there for the rest of the day, vowing never to return to the gate or anywhere near it for a very long
time indeed, and most certainly he never would have done, had not a rather unexpected event occured.
It all started the next day. Charlie went to Ridgedale Elementary in town. It was a moderately sized school, average in most respects, and for the most part, nothing much of earth shaking consequence ever happened there.
That was about to change.
During the morning’s history lesson with Mr. Peters, the classroom door opened and old Mr. Fauntroy, the school's gray-haired principal came in with a blond-haired boy. "Mr. Peters," he said as he approached. "I've got a new pupil for you. What did you say your name was, sonny?"
"Augustus Whitstable Febulant," said the boy in a decidedly upper-class, European, but no one could quite place it, accent, "but my friends just call me Whitstable."
Charlie froze, and with bulging eyes looked the boy up and down.
It was him again—the same boy that he had seen in the rowing boat upon the lake. The unusually pale, blond boy, dressed in a knitted sweater vest and a bow tie. He wore an old fashioned blazer and a golf cap, and had all the manner and bearing of a young European aristocrat.
Old Mr. Fauntroy raised his bushy eyebrows to Mr. Peters. "Some children like to make up names, don't they Mr. Peters? No, boy—what is your real name?"
"That is my real name," said the boy curtly. "Read the letter if you don't believe me."
The children erupted into laughter once more, making Mr. Fauntroy exasperated and red in the face.
Mr. Peters knelt down next to Whitstable and extended his hand. "Well, that's an unusual name," he said. "We like originality here. Pleased to meet you, Whitstable." The little boy shook his hand seriously. "And your parents?" asked Mr. Peters.
Mr. Fauntroy interjected. "Whitstable is being looked after by his grandfather," he said quietly. He waved a letter over Whitstable's head. "It's all here if you want to see it."
Mr. Peters smiled a tight smile. "I don't think that will be necessary," he said. "Now, Whitstable, where would you like to sit? We have a few spare places to choose from. There's a seat up front, next to Marci Andrews or there's one over there by the window next to Roger Wilkins, or there's one in the middle next to—"
Wizard Heights - Book 1 - The Legend of the Sorcerer King Page 2