Back to Glenn

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley… long ago—”

“What a load of rubbish,” James whispered.

He was sitting in the back of the crowd, his arms folded across his chest as the storyteller proceeded, the beginnings of a sunburn starting to peak across his freckly skin.

He had spent the last three hours at Glenndale, the local Renaissance festival in his hometown. Every summer the carts and buildings and people crowded into the empty fairgrounds to put on their show, and James hated it. He wanted to be somewhere else – anywhere but here, in the back row of a small, cramped auditorium, with his little brother bouncing up and down next to him. Forrest was seven and the prospect of princes and princesses, horses, chariots, and turkey legs flooding the streets every summer seemed to him like the ultimate way to spend an afternoon. James’s stepmom, Nancy, apparently thought so too, so she had given him $100 plus some spending money and the car to take his brother to the fair. It wasn’t enough.

So here he was, a man of seventeen, listening to a wannabe actor regale the crowd about strangers fighting to save ladies in distress and bring back magic to forgotten lands.

He didn’t bother listening closely to the story. His back hurt. He was sweating too, and he was pretty sure a piece of the wooden benches they were sitting on had splintered and was poking him in the butt. He looked at Forrest next to him. He was on his knees, hands placed carefully on his thighs, wide blue eyes glued to the middle-aged man at the front. His blond curls were starting to stick to his forehead and neck, his nose and cheeks pinking in the sun.

When his dad had married Forrest’s mom, James hadn’t really cared for the idea of having another brother in the family; he was already the youngest of four. Adding on Forrest wanting to constantly play, sneaking into James’s room, and taking all the fries at dinner and somehow not getting in trouble, the idea had crystallized into a giant green dragon’s egg.

There was clapping, and James looked up to see the performer bowing at the front.

“Jimmy,” Forrest was tugging lightly on his Pink Floyd t-shirt. “Can we go say hi?”

“No, man. Let’s just get out of here.”

“But I wanna see what dragon I would have.”

Forrest stared into him, his eyes penetrating his soul. Water welled at their sides. James hated when he did this.

“Ugh! Fine! But this is the last thing we are doing. It’s time to go home.”

“Can we get a snow cone as we leave?”

“Sure,” James lied.

Forrest skipped to the front of the semicircle where the stage was located and took his place patiently waiting behind a few other kids with their parents, all waiting to ask the storyteller what color dragon they would have. James reluctantly followed.

When Forrest got to the front, he waved up at the man, grinning from ear to ear.

“Ah hello, my wee lad!” the man hollered, his entire body dancing with his words. “And what might your name be?”

“I’m Forrest Carey!” he announced, pointing to his chest. “And this is my big brother!”

At the boy’s last name, the storyteller shifted slightly, as though he had just remembered the name of a song he had forgotten. He looked up at the teenager in front of him: Short for his age, but not small, kind of lanky in a long-distance runner sort of way. Dark, straight hair with amber eyes.

“Carey, ya say?” He extended a hand. “You must be James then.”

Forrest’s mouth dropped open. “His name is James!!” he squealed, his hands squeezing into little fists at his side.

James hadn’t bothered to take the man’s hand. “You know my dad then?” It wasn’t unreasonable. It was a small town.

The man lowered his hand, “Aye, you could say I know your family.”

Forrest was looking between the man and James, dumbstruck that anyone could know his big brother.

The man turned back to the boy. “I suppose ya want to know which dragon would be yours?” His eyes were glittering again.

Forrest nodded earnestly, his eyes pleading.

The man turned back to James. “Ya see, young Forrest, that all depends on yer brother here. He’s the one that got the dragons to come back in the first place.”

It was the kind of thing James would have raised his eyebrows over, had he been listening a little more closely.

He winked at James, “So,” he continued, “only he knows what kinds there are in the Valley.”

The man motioned upward to lots of little wooden dragons, each painted a different color, suspended on strings above him.

“But it all depends on what he’s got.”

James scoffed. There was no way this man was going to get him to spend the last of the money on some cheap dragon toy that would probably break the minute they left the fair. Not when he could just pocket what was left over.

Forrest’s eyes were fixed on him, those blinking blue globes pouring into him again. But he could be stronger this time.

“No, Forrest. Come on, I’ll get you a snow cone.”

Forrest’s eyes faltered and fell to the ground. James grabbed his hand, leading him back to the main street of the fair.

“Yer goin’ to have ta make a decision boy!” the man called after him.

“Oh yeah?” James yelled behind them, not bothering to turn, “and what’s that old man?” They continued to walk off, not bothering to listen to the man’s answer.

It being later in the day, the line for snow cones wasn’t very long. James reached into his pocket to retrieve his stepmom’s money. He fanned through it, picked out four one-dollar bills, and placed them into his brother’s outstretched hand.

“This should be enough. Go get your snow cone. I’ll be at that picnic table,” he pointed to an empty one behind them. “Got it?”

Forrest nodded and ran to the vendor.

James walked to the table, hitching his leg over the bench to sit sideways. He glanced at Forrest eagerly gesturing at the pictures on the wall to the woman behind the counter, and he stretched and yawned. He would be glad to get back to the air-conditioned car. Back to his life. He watched the numerous fairies, princesses, and wizards walking around him.

“Back to reality for that matter,“ he muttered to himself.

He turned back to Forrest and the vendor— and didn’t see him.

He bolted up from the table. Looked left, looked right. Scanned each face in the crowd and then quickly jogged up to the woman selling snow cones.

“Hey – where’s the kid you just served?”

“What kid?” The woman asked, her eyes tired from the long day.

“The kid you just served!” James retorted. “the blond boy pointing at the pictures who didn’t have an adult with him!”

“Well, why weren’t you with him?” She was reeling back slightly, eyes still glazed, but clearly stunned that he was getting frustrated with her.

“UGH!”

James threw his hands in the air and wheeled around to do another check of the people. “Forrest?” he called, “Forrest!”

There was no answer. No signs of a struggling boy, no signs that anyone was even aware that something might have just happened. In one second, James’s anger turned to panic. This was bad.

He continued to yell for Forrest as he went through the crowd, asking anyone he saw if they had seen a little blond boy walking by himself with a snow cone. He found security and raced towards them.

“Help! I need help!”

The man looked up from his booth, “you hurt?”

“No,” James huffed, out of breath, “I lost my brother. He’s seven, blonde hair, blue eyes, had a snow cone with him. Wearing a yellow t-shirt and blue shorts.”

To James’ amazement, the security guard rolled his eyes. “Well,” he said, “why weren’t you watching him?”

“What?” James pulled back. “Why does it matter? He’s gone! Can’t you, like, shut down the entrances, get on a megaphone or something?”

The guard chuckled slightly, shifting his weight on his seat. “Did you try looking for him at the picnic tables by the food court?”

James’s voice was getting louder and louder, “I just told you that my baby brother is missing and You Think That Maybe I Just DIDN’T LOOK FOR HIM HARD ENOUGH?!”

James cupped his hands at his temples and pressed painfully into his skull, letting out a beyond-exasperated huff of air at the ground. Why was everyone behaving so strangely? How could it be that seemingly nobody had either the time or energy to pay attention to a missing boy? Except—one pair of eyes was. One man was looking at him. An old storyteller, about 100 feet away, quietly watching.

James started to move towards him, turning back to the security guard as he went. “You suck at your job!” He rounded, then, on the storyteller, who seemed to beckon as he turned and began to walk away from him back towards his old wagon of painted dragons.

James trotted to catch up.

“Hey! Hey you! Where’s my brother?” He grabbed the man by his shoulder, attempting to spin him around to face him. The man stopped and looked at him.

“James Carey, was it?” he had the same, unfazed glaze over his voice and gaze as the snow cone lady and the security guard. But something about his seemed different. False. “What can I help you with?”

“Where’s my brother? What did you do with him?”

The man turned, tilting his head in a ‘follow me’ motion, continuing to walk to his wagon.

“Kidnapping is a felony, you know!” James yelled at him.

The man stopped and turned. Like that, the glaze vanished. “Yer brother is fine, for now, James. You need to come inside, and we can get him back.”

James didn’t know what to say. Was this guy nuts? And yet, somehow, he followed him willingly into his caravan, where the man’s demeanor shifted quickly to rushed, as he started pulling cloaks off the wall and stuffing papers into canvas bags.

“I told ya you’d have to make a decision.” The man said, scrambling around them.

“What decision?”

He stopped briefly, “whether or not to remember.”

James stared at him.

“I take it ya weren’t listening to the story,” He said as he turned again to collect things, “so let me give you the short version. There’s a lot more to this world than you can possibly imagine, James. I know you don’t think that now, but the world was a dark place, full of evil and wizards and horrible creatures. People were poor and helpless in the Valley until you came along and saved us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Valley Glenn! The place where yer brother was taken. The place you went when you were young. The place you must go again!” he started to open and close jars, rummaging through drawers.

“You’re crazy.”

He stopped and turned to James. “Oh no my boy, this isn’t crazy.” He handed the bag to him, covering him in the cloak. “When you were young, you had nightmares, nightmares of a place ya didn’t know. You were alone and wandered around until you found a man named Pod.”

“What are you talking about? How do you know that?”

“Eventually, you two found the cure to the darkness, and goodness came back to the Valley. Magic and dragons. The story I told today. It’s real – and it’s yours!”

James stared, his heart beginning to race.

“You have to go quickly, otherwise yer chances of finding yer brother may be lost. When you left, the Valley somehow started getting sick. I’m afraid it may once again be the dark place from your nightmares, James. But you have to go.”

“I don’t understand.” James whispered, frozen to his spot.

The man turned, his hand clutching something.

“Hurry. Find yer brother before it’s too late.” And he blew a yellow dust into James’s face.

James coughed and spun away, tripping on his feet and falling. But he didn’t land on the hard wooden floor of the dark caravan. He landed face first on the ground. On dark green grass.

He lifted his head and heard an earthshattering roar behind him.