Son of the Keeper: Book 1: Principles of Magic

by R. S. Merritt

  To his surprise. The policeman walked right by him. Chris continued to stand there until the policeman walked back over and tapped him on the shoulder. Chris looked up at the policeman who was looking down at him with a glazed look in his eyes. The policeman rubbed his fists in his eyes and shook his head then looked back at Chris again.

  “That was weird. I swear you disappeared there for a second. Anyway, you were the boy on the bus with Elroy?” Elroy! That was the bus drivers name. At least now Chris had that bit of information at his disposal. He figured you should probably know the name of the man you had almost killed on the bus for no reason. It was just common courtesy. Plus, it would help him better tell the story in jail to his cellmates.

  “Yes sir. That was me on the bus. Is Elroy going to be ok?” A sickening certainty had settled over Chris that he had killed Elroy with the push.

  “He’s fine. He just got knocked out when his head hit the window and needs a couple of stitches. Can you tell me what happened on the bus?” Chris told him about what had happened. He skimmed over the details of the dream. The policeman stared at Chris then gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

  “You were sleeping on the bus. Anything going on at home you’d like to tell me about?” The policeman stared at Chris while Chris shook his head no and waited quietly. “Ok then if you do ever need someone to talk to about anything you can always talk to a policeman or your vice principal here is a good man as well. Otherwise, if you’re feeling ok you can go ahead and run along to class.”

  Feeling like he had narrowly escaped a much harsher judgment Chris told the policeman thanks and walked quickly down the sidewalk towards his classroom.

  Chapter 2: Let’s Talk About Your Feelings…

  By the time lunch rolled around Chris had stopped worrying about the incident that morning. He was less concerned with getting in trouble and more concerned with the way the cop hadn’t been able to see him. He couldn’t figure out how he had been able to fling Elroy all the way across the bus and into the window hard enough to send him to the hospital with a concussion and a need for stitches. He was eating his lunch in the cafeteria with Brent. Brent had been his friend since kindergarten. He was a rotund boy who wore glasses and was always tucking in his shirt. He loved to read as much as Chris did and they had long conversations about Middle Earth and Narnia and that sort of thing.

  This lunch period though Brent was listening intently as Chris tried to describe what had happened to him that morning on the bus and afterwards with the cop. Brent thought it was stranger and more interesting than the fiction they both regularly devoured and discussed. To Brent it seemed pretty obvious what must be going on even if it was a little on the strange side.

  “Do you think this is like the twilight zone and you have some kind of psychic power or something?” He asked Chris this question with all the earnestness of a fifth grader who still wholeheartedly believed in Santa Claus even though he told everyone he did not. He leaned forward intently waiting for Chris to answer. He didn’t even notice his shirt had come untucked and he’d managed to smear the ketchup he’d poured for his tater tots all over his sleeve.

  “You’ve got a little something on your sleeve there.” Chris pointed out the ketchup on his friends arm and gathered his thoughts while Brent scrubbed away at his sleeve with a napkin that kept crumbling all over the remainder of his tots. “I think something is going on and it would be wicked awesome if I had some kind of power but not if I’m hurting people with it and can’t control it. That cop walked by like I had Frodo’s ring on and then came back like I had taken it off. It was crazy.”

  Both boys sat there mulling it over. Brent absently popping tots into his mouth and trying to get his shirt to stay tucked in. Chris worked his way through the bologna sandwich his mom had packed for him and started in on the crackers and cheese she had put into a couple of little sandwich bags for him. He stacked a couple of crackers around a piece of squared off Velveeta and crunched into the snack.

  Spitting crumbs everywhere then hurriedly wiping them up he tried to explain to Brent that both times he had done something he had felt like he was in danger. “I was having a bad dream on the bus and when Elroy touched me I flung him backwards. I was scared of the cop because I was worried Elroy was dead. Maybe my power is just there to protect me!”

  “Who’s Elroy?” Brent asked with a look of confusion on his face. He had been following along pretty well up to the Elroy comments. He kind of thought Chris was probably talking about the bus driver but how would Chris know the guy’s name?

  “Yes. He’s the bus driver. Same bus driver I’ve had forever. Always been a nice guy. Waits a couple minutes extra at the top of my driveway since he knows I’m late about half the time. I wasn’t scared of him. I was freaked out because I was in the middle of a dream and all of a sudden someone was grabbing my arm. That must have been what triggered me!” Chris was getting more excited the more they talked. They’d both read so much and had such vivid imaginations that he could already see the different paths this ability could lead him down. He’d need to learn to control it. He thought to himself that it was a pretty useless power if it only worked when he had gotten himself into a situation where he had to be scared to make it happen.

  Him and Brent talked about that for a few minutes as the bell rang and sent all the students scurrying back to class. Their class actually switched after lunch to Mrs. Freshwater’s room for math and music. In the mornings, they had Mrs. Terry for reading and history. Chris enjoyed the math sessions while Brent generally struggled with them. Chris hadn’t told anyone but he had already turned to the last pages of the math book and verified that nothing at the end of the book was confusing to him in the slightest. He kept meaning to go to the library and see if he could check out a more advanced math book but there were just so many other books in the library that seemed like a lot more fun to take home.

  “Baseball huh?” Brent asked him as they walked briskly through the building towards Mrs. Freshwater’s classroom. Brent asked the question casually enough but Chris detected a note of anxiety in it. He rightly assumed his friend was worried about losing the only person in the school who wanted to be friends with him. He was busy considering his response when they got to the classroom. He was fixing to try and nonchalantly point out it was not a big deal and they’d have plenty of time to still do stuff when Mrs. Freshwater and a blond-haired woman came out of the classroom and walked straight towards them.

  “Hi Chris.” Mrs. Freshwater looked with concern at Chris. He was one of her favorite students and she knew he was holding back on his capabilities around math. He didn’t know it but she had already recommended to his parents that they let him skip a grade because she felt he was far too bright to be going into the sixth-grade next year. His reading and math and IQ tests all had him ready to jump into college already. His IQ test by itself was almost scary to look at the numbers were so high. As was the common practice they had not informed Chris of his IQ test scores. The parents had been sent home a number in an envelope but she wasn’t sure that Glenda and Chuck had realized it was a number that would have made Einstein look a little slow.

  “Good afternoon Mrs. Freshwater.” Brent and Chris both responded to her politely as they had been taught. They stood there waiting to see what she wanted and wondering who the blond lady was. Where Mrs. Freshwater had her brown hair in a bun and wore a very formal sweater and long skirt look that Chris privately thought gave her the standard old lady school teacher look the blond was different. She looked more like one of those college girls you’d see in the slasher films. Looking up at her though Chris quickly reassessed her. She may look like your stereotypical young blond woman but her eyes sparkled with humor and intelligence. Looking even deeper Chris noted the deep brown eyes were dangerous and fairly screamed not to take her for granted. Mrs. Freshwater seemed at a loss for words for a second then looked him back in the eye and started explaining what was going on.

  “B
rent, you may go take your seat and let the rest of the class know I’ll be in shortly so they should take their homework out and wait quietly.” Brent nodded his head and unhappily slouched his way through the door and into the classroom. Chris knew Brent was not looking forward to having to go in and try telling the class what to do. Brent operated under the assumption that if he kept to himself no one would bother bullying him. The last thing he needed was to have teacher’s pet added to the list of reasons for the other kids to pick on him. Little did Brent or Chris realize that the only reason Brent escaped being picked on was because he was friends with Chris. The bullies didn’t see Chris as an easy target. Chris unknowingly gave off an aura of self-assurance that protected him from the bullies even while it was a magnet for many young girl’s crushes. He was blissfully unaware of the young girls attention as well.

  Once Brent had made his way through the door Mrs. Freshwater smiled back at Chris again. “I heard about what happened this morning and everyone has said you’re fine but we thought it may be a good idea for you to talk to someone. This is Miss Penny. She’s a guidance counselor who mostly covers the High School but we thought it would be a good idea for you and her to have a chat and make sure everything is ok. When you’re done just come on back to class if you feel up to it.”

  Mrs. Freshwater turned and strolled back into her class room. She shut the door behind her leaving Chris and Miss Penny as the only inhabitants of the hallway. Chris noticed that there was no one else in the hallway at all. Miss penny was looking down at him expectantly. Chris had no idea what was expected of him so he continued to awkwardly stand there. Finally, without saying a word, Miss Penny turned and started walking down the hallway towards the administrator offices. Chris rushed to catch up with her. This was the person they’d found to try and make him feel better?

  Miss Penny walked until they arrived at a door that had been stenciled as the guidance counselor office until funding had been lost for the position years ago. Most of the letters were still there though and the door opened easily enough when Miss Penny used her key on it. She opened the door and went in and turned on the light. It was a small room with a lamp, a large cheap metal desk and two uncomfortable wooden chairs on the opposite side of the desk. There were no windows in the room. It seemed like they had built the counselors office with the knowledge that one day it would be converted to a broom closet.

  “Come in and have a seat please.” Those were the first words Miss Penny had said to him. The words were flat and lacking in any sort of accent that would give away where she was from. They did not have the New England twang one would expect from a woman raised around there. There was no New Yorker harshness nor Southern sweetness to her voice. There was a very slight lilt to the words that brought to mind Robin Hood movies Chris had watched on cold, rainy days with his mom and dad over a hot pizza. Chris mulled it over as he sat down then decided to go with bravado and show off a little bit. Knowing nothing about this woman he wanted to see if he could mentally rock her back on her heels so he could learn more about her. He walked in and pulled out a chair

  “What part of Ireland are you from?” He asked her with all the innocence he could muster. He almost smirked when she let out an audible gasp. He’d scored a point. Now to press his advantage.

  Before he could press his advantage, she fired back.

  “I’m mostly from Florida but my parents spent some time in Ireland and took me with them a few times when I was younger. You’re the first person who has ever noticed that. Good ears. Now. Would you like to tell me about what happened today?”

  Chris told the story he had already told the policeman and had rehearsed in his head on the walk down the hall. He’d decided to downplay even more the part of the story about where he was having the dream of watching the courtyard with the thing in it that kept scratching his window. When he was done, Miss Penny continued staring at him for a minute as if waiting for him to go on. When he did not say anything else she asked him if he typically threw people across busses for waking him up. When she put it that way he went ahead and said he had been in the middle of a weird dream when Elroy had nudged his shoulder. Miss Penny asked him what kind of dream and he couldn’t think of a good lie so he went ahead and told her the truth.

  “Is that why you were so sleepy on the bus? Because you have been having nightmares? How long has this been going on and have you dreamed of anything besides something scratching on your window?”

  Chris felt like the questions were a little off the mark of what a guidance counselor would typically be asking. He had no frame of reference other than what he had seen on TV and read about but he felt the questions should be more along the lines of how did the dreams make him feel. Instead, this woman seemed genuinely interested in the context and subject of the dreams themselves. As if she believed the dreams meant something more than a regular adult would believe. Or maybe she was just being nice and a good listener and he was reading way too much into it.

  They discussed the dreams a little bit longer and Miss Penny finally got around to asking him counseling type questions. How were his grades? What subjects did he like the most? What did he want to be when he grew up? How was living in the lighthouse? She professed a jealousy for the beauty of where he lived and he told her it was also pretty lonely out there. The lighthouse sat on a peninsula but it might as well be an island most of the time for the young boy. He told her about how he spent a lot of his time reading and exploring the rocks around the lighthouse. There were caves you could explore until the tide came in and the waves filled up the spaces you were trying to get to.

  At some point Miss Penny judged their time to be up. She checked her watch and then locked the door to the counselor office behind the two of them and walked Chris to the bus ramp. Chuck and Glenda were both standing there waiting for him in front of Chucks old truck. Glenda ran over as soon as she saw him and bent down to give him a hug and ask him if he was ok. Chuck walked over displaying slightly more decorum and asked him the same thing. Neither of them seemed to believe him when he said he was fine. Miss Penny asked him to go get in the car really quick so she could have a word with his mom and dad before they took him home.

  Chris was a bit confused. He wasn’t in a state of trauma or anything. He knew about shock from his reading and knew that soldiers who were traumatized would continue to function almost on autopilot for a while before the trauma really kicked in. Otherwise, every solider would freeze up on the battlefield and only the sociopaths would be able to kill for their countries. He’d pushed a guy who startled him out of a sound sleep and that guy had fallen over and hit his head. According to the police officer and everyone else he spoke to Elroy just needed a few stitched and he’d be fine. Why the kid gloves on for him? Accidents of this caliber happened pretty regularly on the monkey bars. Maybe without the ambulance and the blood and confusion but still. He watched as his mom and dad were drawn into a conversation with Miss Penny.

  Chuck and Glenda finally ended the conversation and walked back over to join him in the truck. Chris was glad since it was getting chilly inside the truck. He’d left the truck door open a little bit to try and hear what was going on and had basically just accomplished letting all the warm air out and replacing it with a nice frigid chill. Chuck let Glenda in and then went around and got in on the driver’s side and started up the truck. Glenda pulled Chris over next to her on the bench seat of the truck and kept her arm around him. Occasionally she’d bend down and give him a kiss on the head and Chuck would reach over and ruffle his hair a little bit.

  Inevitably they asked about what had happened as well and wanted to know how it made him feel. Mostly he felt bad for Elroy and good for getting to leave school early. Especially when Chuck pulled in at the local Pizza Hut to pick up a pepperoni pizza for them to take home for dinner.

  Chapter 3: Take Me Out to the Ballgame

  The next few months seemed to fly by. The bitter New England winter slowly faded away into a much more
hospitable spring. It was still cold on the peninsula but Chris could ride his bike on the large driveway without fear of hypothermia. It also widened his ability to clamber around on the rocks and the breakwaters surrounding the lighthouse. He’d slept soundly since the incident on the bus. He guessed having to tell multiple people he was having nightmares and then talking through it with Miss Penny must have cured him. Maybe there was something to all that touchy feely talk about it stuff.

  The best part of spring had turned out to be baseball. True to his word, Chuck had bought him all kinds of baseball paraphernalia for his birthday. Basically, Chuck had seen how excited Chris had been to get a chance to play and he had gone all out. Glenda remained secretly amused by the whole thing and just fell more in love with both her big and little man every day as she watched them practice together. Chuck had played baseball in high school and had been pretty good at it. Chris was beyond good at it.