CHAPTER ONE: "INTRODUCTIONS"

1. The Nightmare

Flames gushed and smoke billowed out of two crystal skyscrapers, making them resemble icicle matchsticks.

Many more skyscrapers surrounded the fiery pair, all the towers rising out of a mammoth cloud that floated in a sunset sky, along with several smaller clouds highlighted with lavender and gold.

An emerald dragon circled over the skyscrapers, readying for a second attack.

In a courtyard in the middle of the skyscrapers, four boys dressed in sleepwear watched the dragon. Three of the boys wore baggy shirts and shorts while the fourth wore monogrammed pajamas. Only two of the boys knew each other, a stubby kid with buzz-cut blond hair standing like a bodyguard beside a frightened freckled beanpole boy with short uncombed dark brown hair.

"Who the heck are you?" the stubby kid snapped at the boy in fancy pj's.

"Who are you?" pajama boy shot back. Good looking, wiry, towheaded with plenty of wavy hair, and not much taller than the stubby boy, this kid acted anything but intimidated.

The last boy studied his unknown comrades. He was not quite as tall and skinny as beanpole, or quite as handsome and self-assured as towhead, and nowhere near as hot-blooded and gruff as stubby. His ruffled hair was black and his big eyes were gray. "Where are we? How did we get here?" Unlike stubby and towhead, whose drawls sounded American, this boy spoke with a working-class Welsh accent.

"Who cares?" beanpole boy yipped, pointing up. "What about that?"

It was the dragon.

Swooping between the skyscrapers, the creature thrashed one tower with its claws and whipped and shattered another with its spiked tail. Shards fell, sharp as daggers.

The boys scattered, but the Welsh lad braked when he heard a tolling bell. The tolls were deep and loud but also soothing. Turning towards the tolls, he saw a girl unlike anyone he had ever seen in his life standing on a pentice, a covered path in the courtyard leading to each of the skyscrapers.

The girl, like the boys, appeared to be twelve years old. Her freckled face was pretty and her warm green eyes were shrewd. Her long hair was orange and braided like a Swede or a Dane, though Colin noticed that one braid, above her right eyebrow, had been chopped short. She wore purple and black bohemian clothes and men's hiking shoes. In one hand she held a staff with a burning candle on top, and in the other hand she clutched an empty knife scabbard over her heart. Bizarre runes were carved into the scabbard. The girl didn't speak or even flinch as the shards rained down. All she did was stare at him.

And then the Welsh lad woke up.

2. The Knight and His Shadow

Colin Sinclair didn't know where he was at first.

He found himself sitting up in a bed that could have been his. A gray lump of fur sleeping curled at his feet looked like his cat, Shadow. The brown walls, slat-wood floor, and light bulb dangling from the ceiling reminded Colin of his broom-closet-size bedroom. So did the solitary window, posters of musicians Gordon Giltrap and Oliver Wakeman thumbtacked on either side. Leaning against the wall beneath the Giltrap poster Colin recognized his dad's vintage Gibson guitar.

Colin threw off the covers, took a breath for courage, and tried dipping one toe on the floor.

The slats felt solid.

Colin slid off the bed as a groggy Shadow grumpily crawled out from under the covers.

The boy looked out the window. There was Old Bread Street, less than a mile from Cardiff Harbour and the River Taff. Looking beyond his neighborhood, Colin saw the rest of his hometown of Cardiff, Wales.

Everything looked the way it should at five o'clock on a late spring morning. The world appeared normal, but still it somehow…felt…maybe…different. No, Colin was positive something was different. And if it wasn't the world, then it had to be him.

"I think I had a bad dream," Colin whispered to Shadow as the cat walked figure eights around his ankles. He picked up Shadow. "I suppose it was a dream. I'm not sure."

Colin wasn't sure because before tonight, May 26, his twelfth birthday, he had never dreamt. Which could explain why he wondered, if it had been a dream, it took place in a crystal city. And why was there an attacking green dragon? And who were those other boys and that girl? What was she doing holding an empty scabbard?

"And why did the scabbard have to be for a knife?" Colin shuddered, trying not to sob.

Shadow purred as Colin scratched his chin, but suddenly stiffened the way cats do after spotting a bird or rabbit. Colin was used to this and so, unlike the cat, missed a big man with rusty hair and a bushy mustache standing near a streetlamp across Old Bread Street. The stranger seemed to fit right in with his matching tweed cap and pea jacket, but the cat in Colin's arms sensed something out of place with the man. Maybe it was the way the stranger was staring at the Sinclair house. At Colin's window. At the boy.

Colin set Shadow on a desk next to two piles of unfinished homework. "People have bad dreams everyday. Doesn't mean anything. It's nothing to worry about." The boy climbed back into bed. "Eventually everybody has nightmares." As he pulled his covers to his chin, Colin heard a dog bay outside.

His skin sizzled, as if he had stuck his finger in an outlet.

The dog had to be as big as a hound, judging by the low howling. A hound that sounded as if it was hunting but had lost the scent.

"Don't be a scrut," Colin murmured, thinking himself stupid. Hounds didn't go hunting in the capital of Wales! It had to be his imagination! Probably just like it was his imagination that the shadows in Colin's room were growing darker and drawing closer to his bed as the hungry baying continued.

Shadow bounded straight from the desk to the foot of the bed and curled up, hiding his face under his bushy tail. Colin plopped down on his pillow, tugging the covers over his head. Neither of them dared to move again until sunrise.

3. The King

"Hey, Miss America."

It was a dorky thing to say to a girl. But when Reginald Spencer III said it-with his perfect pale-yellow hair and movie-star smile that even braces couldn't spoil-even seventh-grade girls a year older than him swooned.

"Hi, Reggie. You playing in the tournament this afternoon?"

Reggie and his cousin, Derald, were rushing to first class. There was zero time to stop and flirt, so Reggie slowed down long enough to wink at the beautiful Cissy Glenadek.

"I'm batting lead-off," Reggie said. "Be there to see it. Okay?"
Cissy giggled. So did the girl walking with her.

Derald, a head taller and half as handsome as Reggie, playfully slapped the back of his cousin's head.

"What was that for?"

"You're worse than Captain Kirk, you know that?"

"Can I help it if I have the face and the gift of gab to go with it?"

Derald slapped Reggie's head again. Harder.

"What was that one for?"

"Because you're right."

The cousins laughed as they threaded their way through the congested corridors of Willet's Private School to Mrs. Overton's civics class.

"So," Derald asked, "are you jazzed about your folks coming for your birthday?"

"I guess."

Reggie didn't want to jinx anything by saying how he felt out loud, but he was more than jazzed. He was amped. This was the first time Reggie's mom and dad had ever agreed to visit him during a school year, and he had been attending Willet's in Cambridge, Massachusetts since first grade.

"I know what you mean," Derald said. Derald's mother, Linnea, and Reggie's father, Reginald II, were brother and sister. Linnea and Reginald II were also jet setters who behaved as if visiting their children between the months of August and June only slowed them down. The only relative who ever visited the boys during the school year was…

"Grandpa!"

Derald dashed to a dapper old man waiting by Mrs. Overton's door. Reggie sprinted, too, and both boys hugged their grandfather, Reginald I. A broad smile spread beneath the tall, thin man's white mustache, and his sky blue eyes twinkled as he lovingly crushed his grandsons in his arms.

"Hello, boys!"

"You here for Reggie's tournament or his birthday?" Derald asked.

"Did you think I'd miss either? Though why you'd play baseball when you could enjoy a good game of cricket I'll never understand." Born in an English county called Norfolk, Grandpa Spencer's British accent was as strong today as it had been when he arrived in America a half century earlier. "I wager you'd toss a wicked googly, Reggie."

"Did Mom and Dad come with you?" Reggie asked.

The old man's happy face clouded.

The look broke Reggie's heart. "They're not coming, are they?"

"I'm sorry. No."

"Do you know why?"

Grandpa Spencer bent to a knee. "They needed to fly to Australia and…"

"'Needed'?" Reggie was mad. He knew better to interrupt his grandfather.

"That's all they told me, boy."

Reggie nodded. "I'm sorry. I know you don't see Father much more than I do."

"That's not the point." Grandpa Spencer almost added that it didn't matter if he got to see Reggie's dad or Derald's mom. His grandsons needed their attention now, not him. Reggie had every right to be hurt and disappointed. However, like the old man supposed would happen, Reggie pretended not to care. It was an act the boy was getting frightfully close to perfecting.

"It's okay. So long as you'll be there."

"You know I will be."

Derald cheered, "Of course he'll be there. We can always count on Grandpa."

"That's right, Reggie," Grandpa Spencer promised. "So long as I'm around, you can always count on me."

Reggie thanked his grandfather, then excused himself. "I need a drink of water."

Oh, boy, he was mad, all right. Actually "mad" didn't really do justice to how Reggie was feeling. Blood pounded in his temples as he stopped in front of the hallway fountain. As Reggie turned on the water he realized he was grinding his teeth, one of his bad habits. He stopped, then remembered his parents scolding him for grinding and ruining the gorgeous white teeth they spent a fortune maintaining, and started again.

Reggie didn't bother taking a drink. He just observed the water shoot out from the faucet in an arc, collect in the sink, and stir down the drain as he deliberated about his parents' flying to Australia. Reggie began to fantasize that the whirling water was a stormy ocean his parents' private jet was sailing over. His mother got airsick in rough weather and his father detested storms, so Reggie liked the idea. A lot.

The fantasy seemed real. So real, in fact, that Reggie almost shouted when a small pair of webbed claws reached up out of the vicious whirlpool circling down the drain. Two arms followed. Suddenly a fish-man monster made out of water arose from the whirlpool and stretched towards the jet, intent on snatching the aircraft and dragging it into the tiny maelstrom.

"No!"

Everyone in the corridor looked as water in the fountain exploded and drenched Reggie from head to toe.

Reggie gasped and backed away from the fountain.

Everyone laughed. Even Derald. Everyone except Grandpa Spencer. The old man rushed over and grabbed the shivering boy by the arms. "Reggie! Are you all right?"

Reggie stuttered, "Y-y-yes," but it was obvious that he was anything but all right.

4.The Trickster and the Shaman

The front door of a duplex opened and a beanpole boy with freckles ran out carrying a lunchbox. "Ollie! Let's get cracking! Time for school, dude!" Timmy Shannon pretended to dribble a basketball as he waited outside the duplex's other front door.

A stubby kid with a blond crew cut finally opened the door. He did not look happy. "You got to wait. Pop's talking to me."

"Oh." Timmy knew what that meant. Ollie was in trouble. Again.

Phil Steele stepped into view beside his son. A squat, no-nonsense man with arms like Popeye the Sailor sticking out of the sleeves of his Marine basic dress uniform shirt, he suggested that Timmy should "Run on ahead."

"Yes, sir."

Timmy marched ahead a few paces before he risked taking a peek back at the Steeles' front door. It was shut.

Aw, man, Ollie. What'cha do this time?

Timmy about-faced. When he reached Sherman Avenue, he glanced at his watch. Not wanting to be late getting to the W.T. Sampson Elementary, he picked up his pace and almost rammed into one of three boys who suddenly stepped in his way.

"Hey, Ben." Timmy tried to walk around Ben Emerson, but Sammy Travis blocked his path. Sammy was one of Ben's two trusted toadies along with Jody Dawson. Timmy was taller than Sammy, but Sammy was a lot wider so Timmy stopped.

Ben sneered. "Where's your ornery pal, nature boy?"

"Home." Timmy sounded unconcerned, an attitude that irritated Ben.

"Haven't seen you feeding the banana rats up on Bulkeley Hill for a few days," Ben said. "Don't they miss you?"

Sammy and Jody laughed with Ben, but Timmy just stood and waited to be on his way.

"What's the matter, nature boy? Don't you think I'm funny?"

Timmy expressed no opinion about that.

"Can't you talk, nature boy? Or, now that I think about it, maybe I ought to call you mama's boy?"

Neither Ben nor his toadies noticed Timmy grip his lunchbox a bit tighter. They were too busy watching Timmy's face, which wouldn't change.

"I mean, it's just you and Mommy Commander living all alone? Right? That's the way it's been since the Navy sent her here? Right?"

Timmy refused to react. No flushed face. No tears.

This challenged Ben, who decided to get personal.

"So where's your daddy, anyway, mama's boy? You even know who he is?" Ben stepped nose-to-nose with Timmy. "I mean, do you even know where you come from?"

"Knock it off!" Ollie ran up Sherman Avenue and pushed himself between Ben and Timmy.

The bully smirked. "Two against three? That suits me fine."

"Try one against three, doofus," Ollie corrected. "And that suits me."

Nothing happened for a few seconds while Ollie waited for Ben or a toady to make the first move. Timmy finally tapped his friend's shoulder. "We're late."

Timmy moved to go. Ben told Timmy to hold up. Ollie balled up both hands into fists. Then an adult barked, "Enough of this, you boys! Enough!"

Mr. N.J. Ott had appeared. A Cuban exile in his 80s, he stood erect and, thanks to a lifetime of hard work, was in excellent shape. His only concessions to age were the few gray hairs on his nearly bald head and the thick lenses in his glasses.

"Sorry, Mr. Ott," Timmy apologized, seconded by Ollie. Although Mr. Ott never carried it with him, he was the possessor of the "Walking Stick," given to the oldest civilian living at Guantanamo Base Naval Station in Cuba. It was a position of respect to everyone at GTMO except Ben, who suggested that Mr. Ott go back to Tryzna Village, the base's Jamaican housing area.

"You don't talk that way!" Ollie moved to push Ben.

Mr. Ott blocked Ollie with an arm. "That's not my way, boy." Mr. Ott gazed at Ben, and it wasn't long before the bully withered. Ben told Sammy and Jody, "We're out of here."

"See you, losers," Ollie chuckled.

As Timmy thanked Mr. Ott again, the old man stared at Ollie and asked, "You'd liked to of pounded those boys some for picking on your friend, I bet."

"Yes, sir," Ollie confessed.

"Three against one?

"No big deal, sir."

Mr. Ott laughed. "You've got heart, boy. More heart than brains at times, I bet."

"I think my pop would agree, sir." Ollie didn't sound very happy about that, either.

The old man slapped both boys' shoulders. "How 'bout I tag along with you boys to school? Tell your teacher what happened? Maybe then you won't get into trouble for being tardy."

The boys thought that would be fine, and Timmy said, "Sorry to take you out of your way, though, sir."

"It was my idea. Remember? But you two can pay me back by doing me a tiny favor."

"What sort of favor?" Ollie wanted to know first.

"Just take some advice from me."

"What sort of advice?"

Mr. Ott laughed again. "Listen to me, boys. Some people say life's a circle. Maybe you've heard that expression before? Anyway, I say life follows a circle, like a river flows between its banks. That circle goes round and round, which is why what goes around, comes around. Maybe you've heard that expression before, too? Anyway, a time's coming soon when you boys will have to make decisions. Oh so important decisions. And there'll be times when the best decision you can make will be ones that your heart, and maybe even your head, will tell you is the worst thing you could do. But there'll be a part of you, a good part of you, that's gonna plead and beg that you don't to listen to your heart or even your head."

Timmy asked, "How do you know we'll have to make important decisions, Mr. Ott?"

"It's only natural! You both turn twelve today, don't you?"

"How," Ollie wondered, "did you know today's our birthday?"

"We live in a small corner of a small island! And I did work in the base administration office. I know most everybody's birthday at GTMO."

The boys were willing to believe that. "So you want us to listen to this good part of us and ignore our hearts and heads?"

"Boys, I'm just asking you to listen to it when it pleads and begs. Don't ignore it, 'cause you'll be tempted to. Being able to ignore your heart and head at times is a big part of becoming a grown up, and becoming a grown up is waiting just around the corner on the day you turn twelve."

They came to the elementary school. Instead of entering the building, Mr. Ott stopped to read a plaque mounted on it. The boys knew what it said:

In memory of thousands of Cuban and Haitian children who laughed and played on these playgrounds during 'Migration: Safe Haven,' and the volunteers who cared enough to give them back their childhood for a while.

"Seems so long ago," Mr. Ott told the boys, "but it was only a few years. I think your mom came to GTMO soon after it was over, Timmy. We had something like fifty thousand husbands and mothers and children camping here, down near where the war prisoners are kept now. Those folks just wanted to find new homes and freedom in America, but it took a lot of work and time for the folks in Washington to find them all homes. Most of them fifty thousand were here two years." The old man pointed at the plaque. "Some of the Navy and Marine people living at GTMO back then said we should ignore them camp folk. Those people were listening to their hearts and heads. Other people living here, though, they listened to that good part of them. They rounded up the camp children and brought them to this playground and into their homes, just so those camp children could just feel like children again."

Mr. Ott looked at Timmy and Ollie, winking at both, and went inside the school.

The boys looked at each other, shrugged, and followed Mr. Ott to class.

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