NOTE: This is only a first draft.

Chapter Three

 

Maxwell woke up the next morning feeling groggy and unrested. He hadn’t slept well, as the loss of the silver hammer had really shaken him. He had spent the entire afternoon and most of the evening on his bicycle retracing his route from the high school over and over, but never found even the slightest trace of where the hammer could have fallen. Finally, exhausted and drained of energy, he had tumbled onto his bed and conked out.

Maxwell’s sanctuary was his bedroom. He loved being in it and took pride in all the work he had done to make it his own.

Last year, with his mom’s permission, he had re-designed his bedroom. Maxwell started it off by taking everything out and painting the walls Stonehenge Gray because he wanted it to feel like he was living inside of a castle. He then built three rows of bookshelves that started near the ceiling and went all the way around his room, except for over the main and closet doors where there was room for only two shelves. They were now stuffed with novels of his favorite fantasy authors, like Terry Brooks, J.K. Rowling, Piers Anthony, C.S. Lewis, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Asprin, R.A. Salvatore, J.R.R. Tolkien, and even Stephen King. Below the bookshelves were a mixture of maps of fantasy lands pinned to the walls that he had drawn by hand using only his imagination. These images were mixed in with posters of his favorite fantasy movies, like all of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies. He even had one for Willow and The Princess Bride. On his desk were drawings he had created with charcoal and pencils of characters he imagined. Lastly, there was his prized collection of Middle Earth movie statues and figurines that he kept in an enclosed glass cabinet in the corner. On top of the cabinet was a cheap replica of Sting, Frodo’s sword. And for some reason, which seemed a little out of place, there was a 15” tall statue of Spock from the original Star Trek series. Maxwell figured that if you looked closely at the Vulcan, you might mistake him for an elf. Live long and prosper.

Over his bed, hanging from the ceiling with a thick fishing line, was a model of a red dragon with outstretched wings. From wingtip to wingtip, this incredible monster stretched six feet across and had glowing green eyes. Maxwell had built it out of paper mache a couple of years ago for the science fair when he was in seventh grade. When the door to his room is opened, a sensor in the dragon’s eye caused the dragon to let out a mighty bellow that sounded remarkably similar to the Godzilla monster from the Japanese movies of the 1960’s. 

Over the years, as the interests of his best friends’ changed, mostly turning to either girls, sports, or cars, Maxwell’s didn’t. As a result of this, Maxwell’s friends moved on, leaving him behind, until he met Billy Shears. Maxwell never played any sports in school, doesn’t really talk with too many of the students, and he and Billy pretty much exist on their own. Sometimes, they are joined by a boy nicknamed Buck Rogers, who is more a fan of science fiction than he is of fantasy. But Buck only shows up at school every Wednesday. . . for some unknown reason. 

Maxwell often feels out of place in the modern, technological world. Maybe this is why he never wanted a computer or a smartphone. He prefers his books and movies.

After looking around his room for ten or so minutes while slowly waking up, Maxwell sighed, kicked his sheet and blanket off of him, stood up, and headed for the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, after getting dressed and making his bed, something his mother demanded, he made his way downstairs for breakfast. His mother usually left for work at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital around 6:00 am, but today was Saturday, so his mother liked to sleep in. He ate a couple of bowls of cereal, first a healthy one and then a sugary one for desert. He left the dirty dishes in the sink, brushed his teeth, and then headed off to the beach. One definite perk about living in Santa Barbara was that the beach is never far away.

Last year, Maxwell and Billy had found a cool little cave in a sandstone cliff face that was located around a point of land that beach-walkers rarely visited. The two friends loved to sit in this cave and tell stories about sea serpents and other aquatic monsters. They did have to be careful, though, about the tide coming in. More than once, they hadn’t paid attention to the waves making their way up the beach and had been shocked by the feeling of the salt water washing over the top of their tennis shoes. On those occasions, they had to hurriedly swim out of the cave and make their way around the point until they could crawl up onto the sandy beach, usually quite exhausted. After all, the swirling tide was quite strong on the Pacific coast, and can be deadly if you don’t know how to handle it. Luckily, Maxwell was an excellent swimmer and didn’t fear the water. Billy, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as strong and sometimes needed Maxwell to pull him past the riptide.

This morning, Maxwell hung out in the cave and tried to change his mood while he waited for Billy to arrive. The loss of the silver hammer had really thrown him for a loop and even though he only had wielded it once, it somehow had felt right in his hand, like it was supposed to belong to him, and only him. This cave was their happy place, but it didn’t seem to be helping much today. He couldn’t seem to put the loss behind him and move on. Every time he forced himself to think of something else, a moment later he would start thinking about that darned hammer again.

How could I have lost it? He thought, slapping his right hand against his thigh. I just don’t understand. The backpack was zipped up when I arrived at home, so it couldn’t have fallen out. Now that I think about it, how did I get the hammer in the first place?

Maxwell stared out of the entrance of the cave and watched the waves roll over the rocky shore and sparse amount of sand, as the tide was out at its maximum distance from the land. He could think of no explanation of how he had gotten hold of the hammer, except by . . . magic. But magic wasn’t real, right? 

Was it all just a dream?

Billy came round the point and walked into the cave. “I thought I would find you here. Sorry I’m late. I started watching a movie last night and went to bed after 3:00 am.”

“What’d you watch?”

“On TBS, they showed the original Clash of the Titans. Who knew there was one from the ‘80’s? It was a pretty good movie, but special effects weren’t up to snuff. The creatures were all jerky and stuff. There’s this cute mechanical owl that I really liked. Then, I felt the need to watch the newer one, and then the sequel too.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, I just love those stories about the old gods. And that kraken. Oh boy! ‘RELEASE THE KRAKEN!’” Billy yelled and then laughed at himself.

“Kraken, yeah,” Maxwell said, unenthusiastically.

“Hey, man. What’s wrong?”

Maxwell looked up at Billy and wondered that if he told his best friend what happened yesterday, would he think he was crazy? But what are best friends for if you cannot trust them with your deepest secrets?

“You may not believe this,” Maxwell started, “but I know that magic is real.”

“What? How? What do you mean? Real? For sure?”

“Yes. Do you promise not to tell anyone? Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Yeah, of course. You can tell me anything,” Billy promised sincerely.

“Okay. Well, as you might have guessed, I kind of messed up in Astronomy class yesterday.”

“I figured that when I saw you still in the classroom after school let out,” Billy nodded.

“I had to write a stupid sentence on the board fifty times, or at least I was supposed to. In cursive, no less. Well, anyway, I was about halfway done, when . . .”

“When what?”

“When . . . when something crawled out of Ms. Marschak’s head.”

“What?!” Billy yelled, standing up.

“It was this kind of shadow thing. It had yellow eyes, was black all over, and had lots and lots of teeth. I could kind of see through it, like it wasn’t quite solid.  Plus, it looked really mean and pissed off.”

“What’d you do?”

“I didn’t know what to do at first. And then I looked down and there was a silver hammer in my hand.”

“Where’d you get that?” Billy asked.

“Nowhere. I mean, it just appeared there, like out of thin air.”

“No way!”

“Yes way! There was something about it. Like, it felt like part of me, or something. It felt right in my hand. I knew at that moment that I was supposed to have this weapon.”

“What did it look like? Did it look like a regular old hammer, like the one my dad has in the toolshed behind our house?”

Maxwell shook his head. “No. Not at all. You’ve seen all the Marvel movies, like me. So, you know what Mjolnir looks like.”

“Thor’s hammer?”

“Yes, sort of like that, but smaller, with red symbols on it.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“Cool. What’d you do?”

“I did the only thing I could think of. I attacked the creature!”

“What about Ms. Marschak?”

“She didn’t have a clue,” Maxwell said. “I charged the beast and hit it with the hammer . . . twice! Then it just kind of disappeared and Ms. Marschak slumped in her chair. I think she may have passed out. I’m not sure. And, do you want to know the weirdest thing?”

“You know I do.”

“The hammer passed through Ms. Marschak.”

“What, how is that even possible?”

“I don’t know,” Maxwell said, scratching his head. “Maybe the hammer only attacks shadow creatures and can’t hurt humans, although I sometimes feel that Ms. Marschak cannot possibly be human.”

Billy laughed and then said, “Then what happened?”

“I shoved the hammer in my backpack and rode home as fast as I could. But, when I got up to my room and opened my backpack, it was gone.”

“No!”

“Yes! I rode my bike back and forth between home and school until it got dark. I never found it.”

“Oh, man. That sucks!”

“Yeah. I’ve been bummed all morning,” Maxwell admitted, shrugging his shoulders.

Billy had a funny look on his face.

“What?” Maxwell asked.

“Um,” Billy said with some apprehension. “Are you sure that this really happened and you weren’t just daydreaming again? After all, you are you, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I sure,” Maxwell said vehemently. “It happened. I know it did. Well, at least I am pretty sure it did. It felt real. Maybe it didn’t. No, it did happen . . . I think. Now you have me second guessing myself.”

Billy nodded, not quite sure if he believed Maxwell’s story, but he was always there to support his best friend.

That talked for another hour or so about this and that, but hunger soon made them leave their cave. They split up and headed back to their homes. 

Walking in the back door that let directly into the kitchen, the screen door slammed shut behind him as Maxwell halted to a stop. Anna, his mother, was sitting at the small, round, Formica kitchen table having a cup of coffee with a stranger. A plate of homemade chocolate chip peanut butter cookies rested on a plate in the center of the table.

“Uh . . .” Maxwell said.

“Oh, Max darling. You have a visitor,” Anna said smiling, offering him another chair.

“I do?” Maxwell said as he came to stand behind the chair, preferring not to sit at that moment. “I don’t believe we have met, have we, Mr. . . . ?”

“Mckenzie, John Mckenzie,” the man said standing up and offering his right hand to Maxwell. He had a slight Irish accent.

Maxwell tentatively stretched out his arm and shook the man’s hand. Mr. Mckenzie shook Maxwell’s hand firmly and then smiled as their hands returned to their sides. He sat back down and took a sip of his hot tea as he looked at Maxwell over the rim of the cup. He pushed his round glasses back up his long nose.

Anna jumped in excitedly, “John . . . umm, Mr. Makenzie was just telling me about an exciting opportunity.”

“Oh,” Maxwell said as hepilled out his chair, sat down, and grab a cookie. He took a bite and chewed as he stared at the stranger.

Mr. Mckenzie smiled at him.

“What kind of opportunity for you?” Maxwell asked his mother. He wiped away some crumbs from his lips with the back of his hand.

“Oh, not me. It’s for you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” Mr. Mckenzie said, putting down the cup of tea and looking directly at Maxwell.

“Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why are you offering me anything? My grades are just mediocre and I’m not in any clubs or sports.”

“Those things don’t matter to me,” Mr. Mckenzie said, dismissing the notion with a wave of his arm.

“Then why would you want to offer me anything?”

“We have our reasons.”

“What reasons?” Maxwell asked, puzzled, reaching for another cookie.

Mr. Mckenzie looked at Anna and his eyes returned to Maxwell. “Let’s just say that you did something important yesterday and we would like to offer you a position in a very special school.”

Anna clutched her hands at her chest and smiled proudly at Maxwell.

Maxwell just stared at the stranger in his house, sitting at his kitchen table, with his mom smiling at him. The second cookie hovered in front of his open mouth. Is he talking about the silver hammer and that shadow creature? Maxwell thought. Is this man dangerous? Are our lives in danger? Maxwell put the cookie down on the table in front of him and looked around the kitchen for the nearest escape route.

Mr. Mckenzie noted Maxwell’s eyes darting around the room, like that of a caged animal. Realizing that he was making the boy nervous, he decided to unzip his jacket, which he had neglected to take off when he entered the house. He had purposely zipped it up to his neck to hide what was underneath. His right hand reached up to the zipper and then slowly pulled it down.

Maxwell stared at the priest’s collar under the man’s jacket and he instantly relaxed.

Father Mckenzie said, “Maxwell, I am here to offer you a full-ride scholarship at our school for talented youth. We believe that you would fit in perfectly with our other students and would excel at everything we have to offer. Now, the school is not near here, in fact, it isn’t even in this dimension.”

“Wha . . . wha . . . huh?” Maxwell stammered. He looked at his mom. Anna kept smiling, looking back and forth between the priest and her son.

“Don’t worry about you mother,” Father Mckenzie said, “I cast a forget spell on her when I arrived and she won’t remember most of what we talk about here.”

“A spell?” This was getting to be a little much. Maxwell felt a little faint and rested his head upon both of his hands, his elbows on the table.

“Yes, I said a spell,” Father Mckenzie confirmed. “Magic is real.”

Maxwell’s head snapped up. “I knew it! No one ever believed me!”

“Only those that still believe in magic after they hit puberty are ones that can help us,” Father Mckenzie said after taking another sip of tea. “Most young adults let that part of their childhood slip away as they grow older. Only a few continue to believe in all of the wondrous creatures they believed in as a child. These are the ones that can help us. And, Maxwell, you are one of those that still believes. And, apparently, your belief is stronger than most. In fact, it is the strongest we have ever measured.”

“Measured?” Maxwell asked with raised eyebrows, picking up the cookie in front of him and taking a bite. “How did you measure me?”

“Magic, remember,” Father Mckenzie said, winking at the boy.

Maxwell laughed and exclaimed, “Oh, yeah,” while cookie crumbs tumbled out of his mouth onto the table.

Anna continued to smile at both Maxwell and Father Mckenzie.

“So, how about it Maxwell? Would you like to go to a place that’ll teach you how to use magic? There’s so much you could learn there, and I think that you would really love it and excel there. Every student we have, and there are over one thousand, loves the Crabalocker Order of Multidimensional Magical Arsenal. We have wonderful teachers and, umm, highly interesting creatures in our academy.”

“Creatures?”

“There are too many to talk about now, but just know that everything you have read about in fantasy books actually exists.”

“Everything?” Maxwell asked, raising one eyebrow. “Even dragons?”

“Yes, of course. We even have one that is a teacher.”

“Wow!”

Father Mckenzie took the last sip of his tea and placed the cup back on the saucer. “So, Maxwell, do you think you would like to attend Crabalocker? I think you would really love it there and would fit in perfectly with all of the other students. After all, they all have the same interests and talents that you do.”

Maxwell looked again at his smiling mother and she nodded to him. “What about my mom? What’ll she tell everyone once I’ve gone? Will I ever be able to visit?”

Father Mckenzie nodded his head to each of Maxwell’s questions. “Your mother will be fine. You’ll be able to talk to her after classes any time you’d like. We have two-way mirrors, called the Amalgaphone, that use interdimensional magic so people can talk to one another. We always put one in the house of the parents of a student and another in your dorm room. Anna will believe that you are attending a special school somewhere in rural Oregon deep in the mountains. She won’t know where you actually are.”

“Okay, that sounds great.”

“As for visiting her, of course, you’ll be able to do this during breaks in teaching. You know, the typical breaks like winter, spring, and summer. In summer, it is mandatory that you leave, as we close down the academy for restoration and revitalization.”

“I see,” Maxwell said, a slow smile appearing on his face.

“So . . .” Father Mckenzie prompted, “Would you like to explore your potential and learn how to use magic?”

Maxwell sat there and thought about what he would be leaving behind. The only thing he could think that he would miss would be his mother, his room, and of course, Billy.

“I have a friend . . .”

“Yes, we know of Billy Shears,” Father Makenzie said, taking his last sip of tea and placing the cup on the saucer. “We have our eyes on him. Please don’t share any of this information with him. I don’t want to have to wipe his memory too.”

“Okay, I won’t.” Maxwell said, worriedly. He had already told Billy about the attack last night and the silver hammer. Now he would have to make up some kind of story about where he was going, since he couldn’t tell Billy about Crabalocker. “Well, then, I’m in!” Maxwell shouted, jumping up from his chair. “This is so cool. When do we go?”

“I have to leave now, but I’ll let you have the weekend to get your affairs in order. Be ready to go at 6:00 pm on tomorrow night. Here, take this.”

Father Mckenzie pulled a coin out of his coat pocket and handed it to the young man.

Maxwell looked down at the coin in his hand, flipped it over, and frowned. “A dime? What’s this for?”

“It’s a Dimensional Dime. When you are ready to go, flip it high in the air.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that is it,” Father Mckenzie said as he stood up and snapped his fingers loudly. Maxwell saw them flash blue very briefly. “I have just called forth two travelling trunks and they are now in your room. Fill them with whatever you feel you’ll need at Crabalocker. If you need another, just knock on the top of one of them three times and snap your fingers twice. Another one will appear.”

“Thank you,” Maxwell replied as he started to get excited about leaving, and, of course, using magic to call forth another travelling trunk.

“I must get back to Crabalocker as I always have too much work to do. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

Anna stood up and shook Father Mckenzie’s hand. “Thank you for this wonderful opportunity for Maxwell.”

“It’s my pleasure, madam,” Father Mckenzie said as he zipped up his jacket and made his way to the front door. As the door closed behind him, Maxwell heard a loud pop, and the door rattled on its hinges. He ran to the door and flung it open. The porch was empty, as was the street. Father Mckenzie was gone.

“Wow!” was all that Maxwell could say.