Secrets Of The Realms. Chapter 3: Weird junk

    We didn’t know why Red’s parents left him most of the things in that box. To us it seemed to be a bunch of rubbish. Or as Red put it, “Weird Junk”.

    The very first thing we noticed in the box was a large, beaten up Jotter filled with drawings and notes. From the looks of it, one might assume that Red’s parents were storytellers. A most novel profession if you ask me, pardon the pun. We then found a clear stone rock. I picked it up and placed it on the floor to examine later. Although, upon later examination, it appeared to be nothing more than a simple rock. Then, there was the photo album. This shook red. I could see it in his eyes. 

    They were the eyes of a boy who expected answers, but only received disappointment, woe, and more questions. This book of photographs portrayed a happy family. One mother who looked beautiful and kind as all mothers should. One father who was tall and strapping. And an adorable little baby boy.  In most, if not all the pictures, the father was wearing Red’s hoodie. This proved, without a doubt, that they were Red’s parents. 

    There were pictures from their wedding, their pregnancy, and after Red had been born. It was evident that the couple traveled an awful lot. In one of the pictures, we saw the three of them standing on the edge of a cliff with a beautiful sunset behind them. In another, they were eating in a very audacious looking Tea Shop or Café. 

    Red had very mixed feelings about these pictures. On the one hand, he finally knew what his parents looked like and where he got his looks. However, on the other hand, these images of a happy family brought despair and confusion as to why they abandoned him. It truly was terrible. 

    In the hours that followed, he kept asking me the same question over and over and over again. “Why did they ditch me?”, he would ask. “I don’t know”, I said, “Perhaps it is all a part of God’s plan.” He didn’t believe me, but I could see that it gave him a little bit of hope, which is better than nothing I believe. 

    We then looked through the Jotter. For the Americans reading this, a Jotter is the superior name for a notepad or sketch pad. I understand from growing up in America, that your people speak an almost entirely different language than Englishmen such as myself. Anyway, there were some interesting things in the Jotter. I made the assumption that it was Red’s mother’s Jotter based on the handwriting and its tidiness. It appeared that his mother was not only an artist and what I assumed to be a writer, but a poet as well. In fact, she wrote this one here:

    Through the waters

    Dark and black,

    Sailed our fathers

    Who never came back.

    Raise the colors

    Raise ‘em high.

    So the rotten boy knows

    His end is nigh.

    Come and sail

    Beneath the colors.

    Come and join

    This band of brothers.

    We be no friend 

to Davy Jones

    He try and drown us

    But we cry “No!”

    So in the night,

    Look for his tooth.

    Make one wrong move

    To seal your doom.

    In the night,

    Find his golden tooth.

    For in these waters

    Death may loom. 

    Now, I hadn’t the slightest idea what that could have possibly meant. Poets are strange people. That must be where Red inherits his strangeness.

    We spent the rest of the day inspecting every item in the box. We even skipped dinner because of it. Red was simply too invested. Eventually, we both gave in to the sweet embrace of slumber and fell asleep. Then, midnight came. 

    I can’t recall much but what I do remember is a flashing green light coming from the rock we discovered amongst the rubbish. It was this light that awoke me and Red in a sweat. Strange enough, we were having very similar nightmares. Red said something about a triangular monster, and I believe my dream had a triangle in it as well though I can’t for the life of me, remember what it was about. After all, it has been many years now. 

    We were both struck with terror upon seeing the strange object . Neither of us had ever seen a glowing stone before. Especially not one that had been clear and see-through just hours beforehand. We just sat and stared at the rock for what felt like forever. We thought it was going to explode, but we didn’t dare touch it out of fear of death. Eventually, it stopped glowing, and we were able to return to sleep about an hour later. 

    The next day, we went to Mr. Carmel’s classroom to see if he knew anything about a glowing rock. “It was probably the moonlight,” he said assuringly from behind his desk, “it was probably reflecting the moonlight coming through your room’s window.” “But it was clear before,”, Red said, “and it was flashing a green light!” 

    When he heard this, Mr. Carmel’s face had a sort of glow to it. Similar to that of a child on christmas morning. Mr. Carmel caught himself when he saw my and Red’s confused looks. “I just realized, there’s a lot I need to take care of today, I gotta go.” He said before running out the door and disappearing into the hall. I was suspicious of this, but Red thought nothing of it. “He probably thought of something funny and couldn’t help but smile”, Red said, “and if he knew anything about the crystal, he would have told us.” 

    Every night for the next week was annoyingly the same. We would go to bed, be woken by the stone, wait for it to stop, and then we would return to our slumbers. Mr. Carmel did not speak to us about the stone at all that week. When we would mention it to him, he simply looked at his wristwatch and claimed that he had somewhere to be. Once, under his breath, he stated that he sounded “just like Stewart.” Whatever that means. 

    Even with lack of sleep, Red kept boxing. Everyday he did this. Even when the other kids went out and played, he stayed in our room and fought the wind as if it had done him some great injustice. His persistence has always been one of his defining qualities. I, however, spent my time elsewhere. One would have found me either in the library reading, writing, or drawing, or they would have found me outside playing baseball with the other children. Out of all the American inventions, I must say that baseball is my personal favorite. However, we knew we could not live this way forever. 

    On the last night of the week, Red fell off his rocker! Said he had another terrible nightmare and that it was all because of the crystal. He claimed he needed to toss it out the window. “Don’t do it,” I cried, “we have no idea what that thing actually is! Maybe it’s…” 

    “I don’t want to hear your ‘it’s all part of God’s plan crap!’” He shouted. He then leaped from his bedandgrabedthecrystalfromtheshelf!

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“Hey Barney?”

“Yeah Red?”

“Think you could say a prayer?”

“I don’t think even God can help us now.”

“Well, Thanks God. Thanks an awful lot.”