White Dragon's Chosen Read online



  White Dragon's Chosen

  By

  Gary J. Davies

  White Dragon's Chosen

  Copyright 2016 Gary J. Davies

  Thank you for downloading this e-book. This book is the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the only exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy.

  This e-book is a work of fiction created by the author and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are a production of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Thank you for downloading this e-book!

  Contents

  Forward

  CHAPTER 1 - George, Mary, and Uncle Harry

  CHAPTER 2 - The Way of Things

  CHAPTER 3 - Troll Friend

  CHAPTER 4 - Dragons Attack

  CHAPTER 5 - Lost Hero

  CHAPTER 6 - Jewel

  CHAPTER 7 - Witch

  CHAPTER 8 - Awakenings

  CHAPTER 9 - Sisters' Last Battle

  CHAPTER 10 - Rangers Rick and Mike

  CHAPTER 11 - School and Feds

  CHAPTER 12 - Elves

  CHAPTER 13 - The Hidden

  CHAPTER 14 - About Dragons

  CHAPTER 15 - Home Schooling

  CHAPTER 16 - The White Dragon and the Mage

  CHAPTER 17 - Mystery Man Returns

  CHAPTER 18 - Pilots and Parents

  CHAPTER 19 - The Giant

  CHAPTER 20 - Trapped and Betrayed

  CHAPTER 21 - Roots of Betrayal

  CHAPTER 22 - Recovery

  CHAPTER 23 - From Frying Pan to Fire

  CHAPTER 24 - Dragon Reborn

  CHAPTER 25 - Witch Hunt

  CHAPTER 26 - Narma

  CHAPTER 27 - Secrets

  CHAPTER 28 - The Battle of New York

  CHAPTER 29 - Enlarged Possibilities

  About Other Publications by This Author

  Forward

  Dragons! Wise giant lizards that fly and belch fire! What's not to like? I find them absolutely irresistible! Though I was currently in the middle of writing a more down-to-Earth series called Global Warming Fun about human trials and tribulations due to climate change (with sentient ants and rock creatures thrown in), I couldn't resist finishing this action-packed story involving super-powered dragons. (Sorry, these are not your grand-dad's dragons of mere flesh and blood!) It also includes several other story elements that interest me: a teenage hero and heroine, a contemporary Earth setting, and an off-planet/parallel universe setting. Also there is a wicked witch antagonist that is much nastier than is usual for my stories, and the hero and heroine become truly super-powered. Altogether this story is much more fantasy and much less science fiction than most of my stories, though you may find tinges of science and philosophy sneaking their way in. All these elements made for interesting writing challenges and hopefully resulted in an interesting story for readers.

  ****

  White Dragon's Chosen

  CHAPTER 1

  George, Mary, and Uncle Harry

  After half an hour of anxious but ultimately useless waiting and searching, George decided to give up looking for his expected ride from the train station. Instead he pulled the small computer-printed map from his shirt pocket to consult it briefly, and then began to walk. He was disappointed that his great-great Uncle Harry hadn’t met him as planned, but he knew that he could easily get to Harry’s house on his own. He had only his old beat-up tan canvas camping backpack to carry; the infinitely precious one Mom had bought for him last year. For a trim, healthy, fifteen year old teen the three mile walk from the train station would be easy, even though he had hardly slept during the over-night train trip from Massachusetts.

  It was a bright, warm, late summer morning in suburban Chicago, a fine morning to be on a tree shaded walk, taking in dewy, fresh air that wasn’t yet unpleasantly hot. Wearing tee-shirt, shorts, running shoes and sun visor, George was quite comfortable.

  Such a grand morning held near infinite potential for brightening the spirit and boosting the vitality of almost anyone, but instead he barely had enough resolve to keep his slightly tanned, well-muscled legs moving at all. He traveled less than two-feet with each half-hearted step he took, such that well over 9000 steps and over half that many heart-beats would be necessary to reach Harry’s house, he estimated, in keeping with his habit of sometimes quantifying even mundane things.

  His destination was not too far at all physically, but his legs seemed to already be leaden, and the walk, like everything else in his life now, was tolerable but seemed pointless. There was no bounce to his step, and it didn’t even occur to him to whistle. This summer his spirits had sunk far too low for even morning sunshine to reach.

  He hiked through relatively affluent neighborhoods. The streets were lined with attractive middle-class homes, populated, he supposed, by people confidently living out their lives with elevated hopes and expectations that helped power them along smoothly. But any feelings of security and hope for the future that they had were but cruel illusions, George knew. Reality could crush away all possibilities for a reasonable life.

  Here along the walkway was a fence where dozens of honeybees labored among the sweet smelling, late blooming honeysuckle that covered it. George envied them their short but simple and productive lives, devoid of useless reason or choking emotion. Human powers of reflection could be as much a curse as a gift.

  As his thoughts again wondered unbidden over the disastrous events of the last three months he became less sure than ever that moving in with Harry would help. After all, Uncle Harry hadn’t even met him at the train station as he said that he would. Perhaps the old man couldn’t come. He could be having physical health problems, or he could have simply forgotten due to mental infirmity. After all Harry was ancient: at least eighty or ninety, and was doubtlessly more weak, fragile and forgetful than any teenager could even begin to imagine.

  Even more troubling was the alternative suspicion that the old man simply didn’t care enough about him to bother with meeting him.

  A few minutes’ walk from the train station George noticed that someone else had indeed been waiting for him. “Get lost,” George immediately told the big black crow, to no effect. The blackbird continued to stare down at him from the tree that he had been hiking past, with unnaturally red unblinking eyes. After the night-long train trip George didn’t believe that this could possibly be the same crow that had followed him around during the three months since his parent’s funeral, though it certainly looked like the same odd bird.

  “I don’t have anything to eat, crow,” he added. “If I did, I’d share it, honestly I would, but you should go find yourself a better situation, like I’m trying to do.” There was no response from the creature, other than its continued undivided attention. Like the other crow, this one was not an ordinary blackbird. In addition to red eyes that seemed to even glow, this bird displayed an unnatural tinge that overlaid its black feathers.

  It seemed to George lately that most living things had a mysterious tinge to them of one variety or another, something beyond the reflected color-tinged light detectable by normal sight. However this crow and the one that he had left behind him yesterday more than a thousand miles away were somehow very different from anything else he had seen since acquiring his sixth sense. To his heightened senses the crows stood out like floodlights among candles. It was as if the life force revealed by them was stronger than that of a thousand ordinary creatures.

  George had
started to sense such things over a year ago, but he still didn’t really know what it all meant. At first he had feared that something horrible was happening to his eyesight. After several troubled months he finally told Dad about it. George could tell that although Dad didn’t seem to be worried about his health, he hadn’t been pleased. Instead of explaining his reaction, Dad told him to talk to Mom about his problem.

  Much to his surprise Mom laughed, smiled, and hugged him happily when he told her about his apparent affliction. George remembered at the time experiencing the realization that he was actually taller than his Mom, though she too was wiry strong for her size, like her lean-bodied son. Dad was big and husky.

  “I had been wondering what has been bothering you lately,” she said, smiling. “Good news: there’s nothing at all wrong with you,” she added quickly, noting his still-worried expression. “It’s something that some people on my side of the family experience; boys after puberty and girls somewhat earlier. It’s a gift we have: a rare and wonderful gift. I have the same ability, to some extent. I’ll try to get in touch with my Great Uncle Harry right away; he can explain the full ramifications much better than I can. In the meantime, don’t tell anyone else about it. They wouldn’t understand.”

  Shortly after that, Joan and Evan Lock were both killed in the car accident, and George never received any further explanation of his so-called gift. Maybe, as Mom had said, Harry would be able to tell him more, but George didn’t really care anymore anyway, about that or anything at all. His parents, the two people that meant more than anything else in the world to him, were gone forever, leaving him agonizingly alone and lost.

  As he walked further, the blackbird followed him, flying ahead over him to trees he would pass under if he kept to his course, while following his every movement with its oddly red, beady little eyes. “What do you want from me?” George demanded several times, but the crow only cackled harshly in reply, as though it were laughing at him.

  George gradually convinced himself that the crow that followed him today had to be the very same crow that had followed him around for the previous three months. After all, the alternative, that there were two such unusual crows, both attached to him, was even more crazy than the idea that there was only one such creature following him.

  How the bird had followed him across-country was somewhat of a mystery. It surely couldn’t have flown that far and fast! Perhaps the bird also hitched a ride on the trains. Maybe birds did that sort of thing regularly, for all he knew. But how would it have managed the train change in Philadelphia?

  However, although previously the bird had seemed merely detached and emotionless, today its cries seemed even harsher, and its red-eyed stare seemed downright malevolent. Also, with his sixth-sense George suddenly realized that he could detect a nasty tinge to the bird that he hadn’t ever noticed before. Maybe the train trip had upset the bird, or maybe it had become sick; that might also explain its meaner temperament. Birds didn't catch rabies, did they?

  George was getting used to the crow though. A few times when he lost track of the creature for a short time, he actually became anxious until he located it again. Any distraction, even a perhaps annoying one, helped keep him from thinking of the horrible death of his parents.

  After walking further he paid less attention to the bothersome bird, and his thoughts cycled back again to great-great Uncle Harry. If something bad had happened to the oldster, George realized that he could be back in foster care before nightfall. However, it worried him almost as much that from now on he was supposed to be staying with Uncle Harry. He had met the old man only three times in his life: twice when he was too young to remember much, and then even more briefly at the funeral of Mom and Dad nearly three months ago.

  Other than Harry there had been no relatives at the funeral. Dad’s only folks were distant West-Coast cousins that simply had flowers sent. If they hadn’t seen television reports of the grizzly car accident, they would have never even known about the deaths of Evan and Joan Lock, as their locations had been unknown to both George and the authorities.

  Harry was George’s only living relative on Mom’s side, and was something of a mystery. Her crazy Uncle Harry, Dad used to call him, though he was actually some sort of distant Great Uncle to Mom. Eccentric, is what Mom had said he was, which could have meant a lot of things, George figured, probably most of them bad. Outside of a few rare phone conversations with Mom, Harry hadn’t figured into their lives at all.

  Despite this, Mom obviously cared a great deal for Harry, for reasons never explained. Often she would quote some odd tidbit of arcane sounding wisdom and attribute it to the old man. George surmised that they must have spent considerable time together sometime earlier in their lives, but Mom never talked about it.

  George was therefore surprised when Uncle Harry showed up at the funeral. Thin, wrinkled, grey-haired and bent, Harry looked incredibly old and frail. When he glanced briefly at the bodies of George’s parents the old man staggered as though struck, and George feared that he might totally collapse and expire on the spot.

  However, after looking about nervously as though searching for someone or something, the oldster quickly seemed to gather himself and finally approached the mourning teen. The only words the old man said were: “I see you’re alright; that’s good. Watch out for yourself, George, but have hope.” Then he quickly disappeared. He had come and gone again in less than two minutes. Old Uncle Harry hadn’t been any help at all! Hope? What hope could there be for anything anymore? The word was meaningless. The old man’s mind had to be addled!

  If George didn’t have good friends and neighbors, he probably couldn’t have gotten through the whole awful funeral. His friend Mike and Mike’s Mom were there with him through the whole terrible funeral process. Mike talked almost constantly about baseball and other trivia and his Mom persuaded him to drink Coke and eat chocolate chip cookies until his eyes were glazed over from sugar-shock. Their attentions were very helpful but only to a limited extent. George’s parents, the two most special people in the world, were gone. Nothing could counter that. His own life was pretty much over with, he felt. He was going through the motions of living, but it meant nothing.

  Their bodies, which he had to identify after the accident, were not simply battered horribly, according to his ‘gift’ they were empty shells totally devoid of life. Life, even plant and microscopic life, had a palpable texture to George's expanded senses that was different from that of non-living matter. In death his parent’s bodies had become vacant of all life forces, as though they had never existed.

  George wished he could forget how they both had looked at the funeral. He hated funerals and had wanted the caskets of his parents to be closed, but had given in to the wishes of the funeral home, who claimed that the bodies would look very ‘natural’. No, they looked horrible! Signs of physical injury were indeed well hidden, but to George’s new senses they still both looked anything but natural.

  Worst of all, the empty husks that had been his warm, vibrant parents were somehow tainted with a vile dark Evil beyond mere death. He had never sensed Evil before, but he knew right away what it was. Other people at the funeral remarked how 'good' or how 'natural' the bodies of Evan and Joan looked, given the violence of the accident. Apparently nobody else even noticed the Evil, but with his ‘gift’ George certainly did. Mom had had told him about Evil existing, but he had doubts about it until the funeral.

  Was this what normally happened to dead people? It sickened him still to think of it. What did it mean? About them? About him? About the world? Now that he thought about it, wasn’t that strange new tint that he noticed surrounding the crow today similar to the Evil that he had sensed with his parents’ bodies? Perhaps.

  George was again surprised by Harry when months later the social services people told him that the old man wanted him to go and live with him. He was grateful to get out of the goofy foster home he had been assigned to, but he didn’t see that livin
g with Uncle Harry would necessarily be an improvement. Hitching a ride to Mexico or Canada seemed more sensible, but running away wouldn’t really change anything important either, so why even bother?

  Miss Himple, the stern old social service lady, had seemed reluctant about pulling George out of foster care and sending him off on a long train trip across state lines, but Harry must have had a lot of political pull. The adoption was soon approved. Himple gave George a detailed computer generated map so that finding Harry’s house would be easy. The social worker also gave him something even more surprising and valuable: a quick hug and wish for his happiness. The old woman actually cared deeply about the people she tried to help, George realized, which is probably why she put up with the crap pay that the state gave her to be a social worker.

  The map didn’t provide any hints as to what Harry’s home would be like though. Wishful thinking perhaps, but George was hoping to find an average house in an average suburban-type neighborhood. Given Harry’s age, the house would likely be much older than average, but that would be fine.

  The 'average suburban neighborhood' aspect of George’s expectations was soon realized. George was relieved to find that the homes on the cul-de-sac where Harry lived were normal looking ranches and colonials with garages and driveways and fences. Newish SUVs and sedans and pick-ups were parked in driveways. Enjoying their last days of summer vacation, kids were out playing and a few grownups were out cutting well-kept lawns or planting fall flowers. He also noticed several dogs roaming the neighborhood, smelling everything they found, and chasing or being chased by the cats they occasionally encountered. This neighborhood featured all the standard things his old neighborhood had, back when he had a family, three painfully long months ago.

  The ‘old house’ part of his expectations for his destination turned out to be a gross underestimate. The address on an old rusty country mailbox along the street confirmed that the enormous plot of land at the very end of the cul-de-sac was Harry’s.

  It was overgrown with exotic looking bushes, vines, flowers and trees such that only the ornately gabled roof of an enormous, ancient looking house was barely visible, perhaps a hundred yards in from the cul-de-sac’s turn-around circle. George wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Even though most of it was hidden from view by chaotic green growth, he could tell that the house wasn’t simply old, it was ancient, huge, and quirky-weird, and the yard was much more a rampant jungle than a yard. George immediately decided that he liked it!

  Bordering the yard along the cul-de-sac circle’s dilapidated concrete sidewalk but almost totally hidden in flowery overgrowth was a decrepit, three foot high, perhaps in some earlier era white wooden picket fence, with a closed gate blocking a narrow, crumbling concrete path that tunneled into the jungle in the general direction of the house. There were also several hand-painted ‘no trespassing’, ‘no salesmen’, and ‘stay out, this means you’ sorts of signs on the gate and fence, most of them as old and decrepit as the gate itself.

  Might as well get it over with, George figured. Ignoring the posted warnings, he reached across the gate to unlatch it. After unlatching it the gate creaked in and open on its own, as if either welcoming him or daring him to enter.

  “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” said a boy’s voice from behind him. The voice carried a hint of threat that George didn’t like.

  He turned to face two kids about his own age watching him from the seats of bikes they had silently parked behind him along the curb. “Really? Why not?” he asked.

  “Old Man Simple doesn’t go in for visitors,” the boy explained, “so you aren’t going to sell anything in there anyway. Say, it isn’t food in that backpack, is it?”

  “If it is food for Mr. Simple, you’re horning in on our territory, you see,” explained the girl, but she said it in a friendly way, and she was very cute. George could tell because he suddenly felt very nervous and self-conscious.

  She had brown hair and eyes similar to his own, was about a head shorter than him and the other kid, and had legs and other curvy-shaped body parts of the sort that he had begun to seriously notice over the last two years or so, ever since his voice started changing. Really, really notice. His newly emerging sixth-sense also indicated that she was vibrantly alive compared to most people, much as his own mother had been, though not nearly so intense as the crow.

  Talking to girls his own age had become very difficult, and George was momentarily tongue-tied. “He’s our friend, you see,” the girl added, with a smile. “We do errands for him like taking him his mail and delivering food. He pays us a little sometimes. He's very old. He hardly ever even leaves his house. We try to sort of watch out for him by keeping kids and sales people away.”

  “Don’t I wish it was food in my backpack!” George replied at last with a grin, when he had finally found his voice. “It’s mainly just a couple changes of clothes. And I’m not a sales person or anything like that. I’m moving in here with my Great-Great Uncle Harry.”

  “You’re George Lock then!” said the girl. She smiled now very warmly, and her eyes widened, which made her look even cuter. “Harry told us that you were coming soon. He gave us the impression you were a little kid though. I was hoping to baby-sit.”

  “There goes our business,” added the boy, sourly. “Like totally! No more errands for Harry by us; he'll get all our business!”

  “This is a very good thing for Harry though,” said the girl. “He needs more help than he lets us give him. My name is Mary Williams, and this sourpuss is Johnny, my brother. Welcome to the neighborhood, George.” She pushed her bike closer, a move that caused her curvy legs to flex smooth muscles, and reached out to shake George’s hand briskly. The grip of her small hand was firm and strong but soft at the same time. George had no idea how girls could do that, but it was fascinating.

  “Thanks," said George. "And as far as I’m concerned, you can keep your business. Who knows, maybe with me here, your business will double or triple.”

  “Well, thank you for coming then,” said Mary brightly.

  “So what grade are you entering?” asked Johnny, his tone less hostile but still domineering.

  George had been staring into Mary’s deep brown eyes, but turned his attention back to Johnny. Now that George knew they were siblings, the resemblance between the two of them seemed obvious. Johnny didn’t glow radiantly with unusual levels of life-force like his sister, however. “Going into ninth,” he replied.

  “Great, that’s my grade,” Mary said, her smile deepening even further. “Johnny will be in eighth; like you, this is his first year at Eastern High.”

  “I’m on the J-V football team already; they just had try-outs,” said Johnny, as he also shook George’s hand. He tried to squeeze it but George squeezed back equally as hard.

  “I was thinking of going out for track,” George said defensively, though it was the first time he had thought of it. He felt he had to claim some sort of sports interest, to counter both the fact that he wore glasses, and that Johnny was acting so macho. George thought that his glasses gave himself a too-nerdy look, but ever since he had been in foster care there wasn’t money enough for contacts. He was indeed a bookworm, but had found that appearing so sometimes led to hostility from the Neanderthal crowd.

  “Me too,” said Mary. “I’m mostly a sprinter, but I’m working up to the longer distances.”

  “She’s also a nerd,” added Johnny. “She could have skipped some grades but she’s trying to fit in with us jocks.”

  “My underachieving brother exaggerates,” said Mary, “but it doesn’t hurt to study hard. It’s nice to be on the honor roll; much better than a Neanderthal approach to life.”

  Her use of the term ‘Neanderthal’ startled George. It was almost as though she had read his thoughts about her brother.

  “I say forget the brainy route, George,” countered Johnny. “You’re famous right from the start anyway, and that should help you get settled in with
the crowd at school.”

  “Famous? Me?”

  “You will be, as the kid living with Old Man Simple,” Johnny explained. “I bet he’ll show you rad mysterious stuff that he hasn’t even shown us.”

  “What mysterious stuff?” George asked.

  “If we knew what it all was, it wouldn’t be so mysterious,” said Johnny. “I’ve been trying to figure out what he’s up to, but haven’t gotten as far as I’d like. I don’t suppose you know anything?”

  “Can’t say that I do. Why do you think he’s up to something?”

  “Because he’s so weird,” explained Johnny.

  “But not in a bad way,” added Mary quickly. “Odd is all, our Dad says. Just because he’s different doesn’t mean he’s crazy; he obviously isn’t. He’s cool and smart and we all like him a lot. Our Dad and Johnny just like to try to figure everyone out on their own terms. Tell George your big theory about people, Johnny.”

  Johnny shrugged. “Everybody is up to something, that’s my theory, and if you can figure out what that something is, you can maybe make a buck or two from it for yourself.”

  Mary rolled her eyes up. “Our Dad has his own welding business, but he has always had higher business ambitions. He’s always talking that way, about making money doing this or that. Sometimes he tries out one of his schemes, and usually he's lucky if he breaks even on them. You take it too seriously, Bro.”

  “Oh yeah?” responded Johnny, turning to face his sister. “Someday I’ll be rich and you’ll still just be middle class.”

  “That’s what I’m working up to myself,” George piped up, to return their attention to him and maybe win some points with Mary. “Someday I want to be middle class.”

  Johnny looked at him sourly. “You ARE middle class already!”

  George shook his head. “Don’t I wish! Everything I own is in this backpack.”

  “Maybe it seems that way,” said Johnny, smiling knowingly, “but Harry says you have a trust fund. You can’t have a trust fund and be lower class. It ain’t possible.”

  George felt like he had been kicked in the stomach. He didn’t like to think about his modest trust fund at all. It was blood money, money gained from the death of his Mom and Dad. “Harry gets it until I’m eighteen, assuming I stay with him,” he said curtly. “That might help make him middle class, but not me.”

  “Harry’s way beyond middle class,” countered Johnny. “He owns a huge forest behind the house. Trees like you wouldn’t believe, for this part of the country. Our Dad says that means he’s rich, or he could be, if he sold it. Dad thinks he’s crazy for at least not selling the wood for lumber. But you’re the one with the trust fund. Harry says your trust fund pays out a couple of thousand dollars a month.”

  “That does sound like a lot of money,” commented Mary, "for a teenager anyway."

  “It’s too damn much,” George said bitterly. All his folk’s belongings when they died had been sold at auction and the proceeds had been used to create a modest trust fund for him. Every time he thought of it, he thought of them, and of losing them. It made him sick to think of the trust. The greatest parents ever, the family house and all that was in it, including photos and other family keepsakes, were gone forever, converted to cash for him. Death-tainted cash. “I don’t want that damned blood money,” he muttered, as he turned, stepped through the gate, and slammed it shut behind him, letting his anger fight back threatening tears.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mary, stunned by George’s sudden show of pain and his vehement reaction. “Harry told us about your parents and how they set up the trust fund for you. We shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “Yeah man, that’s rough,” said Johnny. “Middle class, lower class, who cares anyway? Heck, my biggest asset right now is this crappy little old bike.”

  “And your much bigger and crappier mouth,” added Mary. They both laughed.

  The humor helped lighten the mood again, and George needed new friends very badly. He took a deep calming breath and turned to face them again, though he stayed within the fence. “I bet Harry’s told you guys a lot more than he ever told me. What mysterious stuff has he shown you?”

  “You know, his elfin books and dragon scales and stuff,” said Johnny.

  George’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “Is Harry into gaming?”

  “Not at all,” said Mary. “He takes his work very seriously.”

  “His work?” George had never heard what Harry did for a living, but what could elves or dragons have to do with it?

  “His research into weird stuff,” said Johnny, “if you can call that work. I think it’s a hoot, an old dude taking all that freaky stuff so seriously.”

  “I think it’s fascinating,” said Mary. “Harry says there are things all around us that most people don’t even see or know about. Do you ever sense strange things, George?”

  “All the time,” he said, looking pointedly at Johnny. That brought a knowing smile from Mary.

  “I think it might all be a trick to fool us,” said Johnny. “I think he has some kind of strange secret project going on that makes him some big bucks, and he’s just showing us some goofy-weird window dressing to put us off the scent.”

  “You’re too suspicious of people,” admonished Mary. “Not everyone is like you and Dad, suspecting people to have hidden agendas and looking for a fast buck.”

  “Nobody else I ever met is like Harry,” Johnny retorted.

  “Well, I suppose I better go see for myself,” George said. What they had told him made him very curious to explore for himself the inside of the old house. Plus he was starving, and maybe Harry would have food. “Really nice meeting you both. See you guys later?”

  “Sure, we’re not hard to find,” said Johnny, as he pushed off and started pedaling away slowly. “We live just next door.” He pointed to the modest ranch house next door. It looked pleasantly normal, compared to Harry’s jungle hide-away. “Come by later if you get a chance.”

  “Thanks, I’ll do that,” replied George.

  “See you soon,” seconded Mary, as she began to follow her brother, again incidentally showing off legs and curves, but then she suddenly stopped. “One more thing. Do you know why that crow is following you?” She pointed up into a large oak tree that grew along the street outside the yard’s fence and jungle. Sure enough, there it was, the damned red-eyed crow!

  “Why would you think that it’s following me?” George asked.

  “It flew over and around you through the neighborhood like it was a kite you had on a string," said Mary. "Very unusual bird. Is it yours?”

  He couldn’t tell her that it had probably been following him around since the funeral three months ago, that would be far too weird. “No,” he said truthfully. “It’s definitely not my bird. Just a coincidence, I guess.”

  “It looks almost exactly like a bird friend of Harry's that was hanging around earlier this year,” she said. “It stopped coming around about three months ago.”

  George was too stunned to reply. The crow had shown up right after Harry’s visit to the funeral! Had Uncle Harry brought the bird with him, and left it to follow him around? Was that even possible?

  “Just thought I’d mention it,” she added, with a terrific smile. Then she headed home, pumping fast with smoothly muscled, tan legs to catch up to her brother.

  George turned his attention to navigating the path that hopefully led to Harry’s house. Giant flowering plants towered over the walkway, forming a tunnel that dove into and through the jungle of tangled growth, while skirting around the bigger trees and bushes. Ten-foot high walls of horny bushes and vines sealed off the path from the rest of the front yard and the rest of the universe. After only a few steps George couldn’t see the house or the street at all.

  Even stranger, before entering the path, loud neighborhood sounds of lawn mowers, barking dogs, and playing kids had dominated his senses. Here on the path, abruptly there were only gentle bird and bee sounds, and occ
asional sounds of movement in the thick of the tangled growth. All normal neighborhood sounds were completely gone, which was totally impossible! It was as though he had stepped into another universe! “Weird,” he remarked to himself. At least the strange crow was nowhere in sight, but he knew that the bird could still be following him, concealed by the jungle-like growth and flying about on near-silent wings. Some of the soft rustling sounds that arose from all around him in the bushes could be made by a crow, by humans, or by unknown animals of undeterminable size.

  Flowers became even larger and more numerous as he went further, and there were thousands of buzzing bees tending them, along with dozens of darting hummingbirds of various exotic colors. George didn't know much about flowers or birds but he couldn't remember ever seeing any like these before. The sweet flower smell was intoxicating. Overhead, tree branches and vines accented by additional white, yellow, and blue flowers formed a tunnel ceiling that filtered the sunlight.

  “Wow!” he said aloud, stopping only a few steps short of an impossibly huge snake that was sunning itself under a small patch of open sky. It was all black, had to be well over fifteen feet long, and was thick as his thigh. It had to have escaped from a zoo or something! It was coiled loosely in the middle of a narrow stretch of the path such that there was no getting around it, though he supposed he could run and leap over it, even with the back-pack, unless it struck upwards to pluck him out of the air as he sailed over it.

  “Excuse me,” he said, announcing his arrival. “Would you mind moving aside for a few seconds? I wouldn’t want to step on you or have you eat me."

  The snake didn’t react at all. George thought that he heard laughter, very soft but very close by, and he half expected to see Johnny and perhaps also Mary emerge from the tangle of flowers to tell him about their giant fake snake. That would explain the noises that he heard from the surrounding jungle. To his senses it seemed alive, but it couldn't be! This was obviously a gigantic rubber snake. It was too big to be real; it had to be a gag.

  He impatiently stomped his feet, not expecting any reaction from the rubber snake, but it lazily lifted its fist-sized head a few inches off the walkway, turned its beady eyes towards him, and hissed at him open-mouthed, flicking a long red pointy reptilian tongue. The snake was very real! He should have trusted his new senses! George anxiously backed up a few steps to be further away from it, though the snake resumed its original sleeping position. He again thought that he heard movement and high-pitched laughter from somewhere in the bushes.

  “Look here, I do need to get by you at some point,” he protested, as he more critically assessed his chances for bypassing the creature. The plant growth bordering the path was at this point so thick and laced with thorns there was no way he could get around the snake. However, at his feet lay grapefruit-sized rocks and several stout staff-like sticks. Oddly, they were the only rocks and sticks he could remember seeing along the path. He could badly injure or perhaps even kill the snake with the rocks or sticks. Instead he picked up a tiny, pencil-sized stick and lobed it gently towards the lounging creature.

  The stick bounced harmlessly off of its black coils. In response the serpent again hissed, drew its head several feet above the sidewalk, and coiled into a striking pose. Swell!

  “Sorry. Really, I only need to get by. Please? It will only take a few seconds. After that you can reclaim your sidewalk. I’m very, very sorry for the inconvenience.”

  To his surprise the snake slowly shifted its coils to one side, leaving half of the walkway clear. It kept its strike-pose though. It was as if the creature was tempting him, daring him to try to pass by it.

  “Great,” he remarked somewhat sarcastically, as he took off his backpack and held it draped over one forearm. Using it as a shield, he walked slowly past the big snake, while expecting at any moment to feel needle-sharp teeth sinking into an exposed leg or elbow, followed by muscular coils of snake that would pull him to the ground and slowly squeeze the life from him. George couldn't help imagining what the snake would look like with a big George-sized lump in its middle. Much to his relief the snake followed him with its turning head and eyes but didn’t even hiss, and soon he was clear of it.

  “Thanks so very much,” he told it sincerely, as it reclaimed its prone position in the sun. Breathing easier, he put his backpack back on and resumed his walk up the path, but with increased caution.

  The path meandered constantly, twisting left and right, and growth further blocked the sunlight, until George wasn’t sure anymore if he was still headed for the house or away from it, or even if he was still in the front yard. It kept going and going, looping through ever thicker and flowery growth. George began to wonder if this walkway even led to the Simple House, or to any house at all. Maybe it was an elaborate trap of some kind. Maybe the snake was trained to let victims in, but to not let them out!

  “I don’t believe it,” the teenager remarked, as he stopped to observe another obstruction on the walkway. Tens of thousands of small black ants congregated around a dozen ant holes situated along a wide crack that stretched across the concrete path. Each hole looked like the crater for a miniature, inch tall volcano made of tiny bits of soil. One carelessly placed human footfall could kill ants by the hundreds and set their work back for hours or days.

  George stepped over the ants and their ant-hole cones very carefully, taking care not to disturb them at all. Then he kneeled to watch them. They were running this way and that, carrying bits of earth, dead bugs, and other small, unidentifiable objects. He shook his head in amazement. It must have taken them forever to dig the holes and the maze of underground tunnels that probably linked them. How did tiny-brained ants know how to do all that stuff?

  He continued on. Not far beyond the ants he passed a spider the size of a dinner plate, then a box turtle the size of a basket-ball, and a frog almost as large. He did his best not to disturb any of them. After all this was their jungle; he was only passing through it.

  Abruptly a skunk stood on the path ahead, producing a terrific skunk stink. George came to a dead stop. The skunk stood to one side and he could perhaps walk around it, but it was already staring at him intently with its tail raised and there was no way in hell he was going to try. “So OK, I suppose that I’m in no real hurry,” he said quietly. “I’d appreciate getting by, but you’re welcome to take your time doing whatever you're doing.” He stepped back a few paces so that he wasn’t crowding the creature.

  Oddly enough there was again a convenient pile of sticks stones beside the sidewalk. George could throw some of that at the skunk to get it to move off but he might injure the critter doing that. There was no way he would chance doing that. Instead he and the skunk stared at each other for several minutes before the skunk finally gave a little squeak and ambled off into the bushes.

  “Good enough. Tell your uncle that you passed our little test,” said a tiny, high pitched voice from close behind him, startling George much more than the snake or skunk had. He turned and couldn’t see anything at all except jungle, but he had a feeling about the voice, that there was a strangeness about it, odd but very different from the dark ‘feel’ of the crow.

  “Where are you?” he asked. “Who are you? What test?”

  Soft shrill laughter from perhaps two individuals, fading quickly as it moved away, was the only reply he got to his questions, while the plants rustled softly as though disturbed by the passage of small creatures. A strange feeling came over him for a moment; he felt a little dizzy. Probably from lack of food, he figured. However, immediately afterwards he felt refreshed and invigorated.

  He thought that he heard something else nearby, hidden by the thick bushes and trees: something massively huge that crushed jungle growth with its enormous weight as it moved away ponderously. It sounded much bigger than Johnny or his sister. What it could be he had no idea, but he was very glad that it was moving away from him!

  He walked on. Around the very next bend in the path the jungle abr
uptly faded into grassy lawn that badly needed cutting. Fifty feet beyond that, a monstrosity of an old house jutted up into the August sky. He was stunned speechless. It was huge, more the size of an apartment building or small hotel than a home. It had pealing white painted wood shingles and several broken windows, but more important, it had character.

  Weird character. The Simple House was anything but simple! It looked as though it had started out as a regular old house, but then art-crazy builders and craftsmen with far too much extra time and materials on their hands had gotten hold of it. To the building’s generally boxy shape had been added cylindrical spires and triangular wings and odd little cubical extensions, as well as weird antennas and windows of all shapes and sizes. Most conspicuously, there were all sorts of fancy carved wood do-dads all over it, like on those old castles in Europe, including hundreds of pointy spears, discs, triangles and squares that protruded from the wood trim. More unusual still, there were dozens of wood carved animal shapes: horses and eagles, but there were also exotic looking dragons and troll type creatures.

  George mounted a huge front porch with loose floor boards that creaked when he walked on them. There was an odd assortment of chairs on the porch, which appeared to be sized to accommodate tiny children and giants as well as human sized individuals. What the elaborately furnished old house didn’t have was a doorbell. George knocked on the heavy wooden door with his fist for several minutes before Uncle Harry finally answered.

  “What is it?” the old man asked, as the door creaked open slowly. He looked startled and confused, as though he had just woken from a long nap. George probably looked even more startled and confused, because Uncle Harry appeared to be at least twenty years younger than when George had last seen him; now he looked no more than sixty! He also stood straighter, beating George’s five foot eight by two or three inches. His face looked much less wrinkled, what little could be seen of it behind the full beard and mustache, which was mostly light brown in color like George’s own hair, with only a few streaks of gray. At the funeral it had been solid gray. But unless he had a much younger doppelganger this was definitely Harry. “Sorry, no visitors, I’m busy,” he mumbled, and started to close the door in George’s face.

  “It’s me, George, Uncle Harry! Your message said that you’d meet me at the train station more than two hours ago!”

  “Yes, so it is you!” Harry said, with a sudden huge smile, as he pushed the door open again! He shook George’s hand warmly and pulled him into a hall, past stairs leading up, and into a study cluttered with tables, chairs, and books. “But you weren’t coming until Wednesday!”

  “This is Wednesday,” George noted.

  Harry’s confused look returned. “It is? I thought Wednesday was tomorrow.”

  “Nope.”

  The smile re-formed on Harry’s face. “I get it now! She didn’t tell me that you had arrived, and the others had to be in on it too,” he remarked loudly, as though was talking to someone besides George. “It was a full-blown conspiracy of all of you, it had to be!” he accused.

  George couldn’t figure out how to respond, it was such a strange thing for Harry to say. Who was he talking to and who and what was he talking about? “It’s OK though, I had a nice walk,” he said, in an effort to defuse Harry's apparent animus and confusion.

  “You walked all that way yourself?” the old man asked.

  “It was only a couple of miles.”

  “That part was obviously easy, but then you had to reach the house by crossing the front yard using the path from the street. You didn’t have any trouble?

  “Not serious trouble.”

  “Was the crow with you along the path?”

  How had he known about the crow? “No. I haven’t seen it since entering your yard. I don’t know if it came into the yard at all.”

  Harry’s thick eyebrows rose in surprise. “And she didn’t come to me either, or tell me that you and she had arrived! That’s all very strange. Notice anything unusual along the path leading to the house?”

  “There were odd animals and voices.”

  “Ah-ha! Talking animals?”

  “I don’t think so, though there was at one point someone talking to me that stayed hidden in the bushes. The animals that I encountered were on the walk.”

  “Animals on the front walk? What kind of animals? Big dangerous ones like lions, tigers, or bears or worse? A hairy green or brown giant the size of a buffalo maybe?”

  “No. Ordinary creatures, but some of them potentially annoying. A huge snake, skunk, turtle, frog; that sort of thing. I thought that I heard something much bigger in the bushes, but couldn’t see what it was. You’re kidding about lions, tigers, bears and giants, aren’t you?”

  Harry shrugged. “In my yard almost anything’s possible.”

  “But there aren’t real bears or other dangerous animals out there, are there?” George persisted. The growth was heavy enough to hide an elephant, and he had heard something moving through the growth that sounded huge.

  “Depends on what you mean by the terms 'real' and 'dangerous',” Harry said cryptically, “but truly large animals are much more likely to be found in the backyard than in front, at least until they are properly dealt with. Tell me about the voices.”

  ”When I got near the house a voice said to tell you that I have passed some sort of test.”

  “Really? Good for you! What test is that?”

  “I have no idea. Do you?”

  “Perhaps. Was it a big, really deep voice or a little, high pitched voice?”

  “Higher pitched than an Oz munchkin, and there seemed to be two of them.”

  Harry nodded his hair covered head in approval and smiled broadly. “Ah-ha! That’s good! That’s very good! It’s a good thing then that you came through the front yard alone, and not with me or the crow. She had to be in on it though, of course, but chose not to interfere. The high pitched voices explain a lot. In fact, it explains why I thought that today was yesterday, and why I wasn’t informed about it before now.”

  “It does?”

  “Yes, and it puts you a big step ahead of where I thought you’d be by now. I don’t know what you did, but somehow you made a very good first impression.”

  “With who?”

  “With whom, you mean. With the Little People.”

  “Midgets?”

  Harry laughed. “No, don’t be silly! With the elves!”

  ****