Chapter 2

Grandpa was looking at the pond. He didn’t notice them till the car pulled up beside the house. Chris jumped out, and was struck still in his tracks by the sight of Grandpa.

Melanie grabbed a few plastic bags of groceries from the car and walked across to the veranda where Grandpa was sitting. Grandpa welcomed them, saying they looked just like they did on their trip last year. Melanie wanted to hug Grandpa but she never did, just like she wouldn’t hug her own parents.

Chris kicked in the sand and a white plume of dust rose up from the ground. Omegus staggered out of the car, looking at Grandpa. “He looks real old this time,” Omegus thought, but said nothing. He wanted to say that Grandpa looked healthy but somehow the words didn’t come out. He hoped Melanie would say something.

They went inside and Grandpa took Chris to the attic where he was impatient to go. There were some of his playthings that were kept in Grandpa’s big brown box. He took out a slingshot and aimed it at Grandpa. Grandpa chuckled.

Grandpa took a pink scarf from his left jeans pocket and tied it around his neck.

Chris saw a blood stain on the scarf but thought there must be some long story of Grandpa scraping his finger in the kitchen behind it.

“Why did you do that?” Chris asked.

“To ward of evil spirits,” Grandpa said.

Chris couldn’t understand. As far as he could say, there were no evil spirits. But maybe if he looked closely in the shadows he would find one? Is a shadow a spirit? Is the shadow of a person his or her soul? Chris thought all this, but didn’t say anything.

The odor of frying fish wafted up into the attic. Chris felt hungry.

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Chapter 1

The mountainside was snowy and pure. The mountain peaks glistened in the sunlight.

Chris looked out the car window and saw the green, tall cedars rush by. The fresh and pure mountain air made him feel alive. His white jacket was silken and contrasted with his coarse brown hair. A mischievous thin smile was ever-present on his ample face. Wide open eyes that always seemed to defy logic would reveal a gleam of innocence if one looked closely.

His dad, Omegus, was a portly, heaving man for whom the mountains were a bit too much. But they were going there. Though this was where he spent childhood and where he was thoroughly at ease than anywhere else, it still seemed to strain him, the thin air and the uphill terrain. Omegus was a man with a future already inscribed in him, whether he really liked it or not was in the hands of the person who inscribed it.

His mom, Melanie, had the look of someone so open to life that looking at her was like staring into thin air. She observed everything: commented on the sharp curves they took, the ragged huts on the roadside, the mist between the hills and her son’s silence.

Chris shifted in the back seat. He pulled down the window to let the new air in. It was new to him. He was brought up in a city apartment where the air was, well, artificially purified. This was naturally pure air. He thought of the classmates he wouldn’t see for the next two months of holidays. Would he miss them? Would they miss him? But it made more sense to forget about them and explore this wonderful place, whatever it would turn out to be.

Anyways, there would be Grandpa, whom he would be seeing after about a year now. Grandpa was the wisest man he knew. Grandpa knew a lot of things that other grown-ups didn’t know. Grandpa had told him some things that still stayed on in his memory.

Chris: Dad, put on some music.

Omegus puts on a soft music station. Just then they stop at a petrol bunker. The waft of petrol odor that came in made Chris pull up the window. He opened a yellowing, old children’s book. There were illustrations of huts and meadows that caught his eye. He liked that the book was about a hundred odd pages. But now he wouldn’t be reading much since there was a lot of exploring in the mountains to be done.

The petrol tank was filled. Mom was talking about changing over to hybrid car. Dad countered that an electric car would be better but that they couldn’t afford one at the moment. Chris thought that either way it would be great, but he liked the electric cars that the school kids came in. They were almost noiseless and seemed supremely clean and hassle-free. Besides, they would accelerate swifter than other cars, so he decided he would like an electric car, if he was to choose. They were back on the road now and Chris was looking down into the misty depths of the lush green valleys below. A tinge of fear ran up his spine. He looked away.