From the Publisher: “When a mysterious woman blackmails Vic and Em into leaving our world through The Door in the Stone, the lonely siblings plunge into a war in Kavenland, a world of myth and magic. Fate leads them to meet best friends Larkin, Ariana, and Noll, who are traveling through Kavenland’s frightening forest on a quest to save their home. With unique and growing powers, the five kids must learn to trust each other while taking on the strange and dangerous creatures of the woods, including the awful Scourge, in a mad dash to save Kavenland—and each other…”
More info About the Author: Rob King has ambled through life with one foot in a fantasy world, one foot in the sports world, and his head firmly in the clouds. When he was young, he played sports (especially football and baseball) and read books that took him to imaginary worlds where good and evil battled amidst strange and wonderful creatures. But he had to grow up. Now he covers sports (especially the Steelers and Pirates) and writes books that take readers to imaginary worlds where good and evil battle amidst strange and wonderful creatures.
His wife, Meghan, is a first-rate marketing professional and the glue that has always kept their life more or less in one piece. Rob and Meghan grew up in upstate New York and currently reside in Pittsburgh. They have two children, Cooper and Schaefer.
Vic–Our World
When the legend of Vic Blake, dashing figure of mystery and intrigue, was written—and it would be written one day—this was the moment they would say it began.
“There’s something ticking in the movie theater!” a boy yelled as he shoved open the glass doors and burst into the street. “Somebody, help!” A low buzz emerged from the crowd of customers who streamed out behind the boy and spread out onto the sidewalk. Some looked nervously back at the movie theater while others edged away toward their cars. Grim-faced moms seized their children by their wrists and marched them off.
Vic’s sister grabbed his arm. Her eyes stretched wide in alarm. He looked down at her with a sly smile on his face. Her eyes narrowed.
At times like this, Vic wished Emily spoke more. Her facial expressions could say more in a moment than a week’s worth of words could from somebody else. Her look now mixed equal measures of accusation and disappointment. Her judgement sent a pang deep in his chest, but he forced himself to shrug it off. Legendary figures had to remain cool and detached. Rules were for others to follow, not for Vic Blake.
He winked back at Emily and ambled past the movie theater on his long legs. Em walked next to him, her flip flops slapping a rhythm as they moved toward the center of town. Vic passed the boy who’d yelled for help and slipped some cash into his hand.
Another little pang hit him. Food was running low at home, and he’d have to surrender the rest of their money before the evening was through. But he reminded himself for the thousandth time that it would be worth it.
“Good work,” he whispered to the boy.
“There’s something in the alley!” another boy yelled from a little further up the street. “Something ticking!”
One of the men who’d left the movie theater looked around frantically. “Is it a bomb?” he called out in alarm.
“Did someone say a bomb?” another man shouted.
“It’s a bomb!” a woman echoed.
“Two bombs!” a man yelled.
“Run!” someone shrieked. “Run!”
Vic looked around and saw panic in people’s eyes and heard the screams from their lips as they jostled each other. A woman snapped her head around frantically. “Jimmy!” she shrieked. “Jimmy, where are you? Has anyone seen my boy?” She was bumped from behind, and she sprawled onto the sidewalk. Vic stepped over her and kept walking. Behind him, he heard Em stop to help the woman up.
Good. He wanted to be alone for the next few minutes. The boy who’d yelled out about the ticking in the alley slithered toward him between the panicked people on the street, and Vic tucked some money into his hand.
So far, his plan was working just as he’d envisioned.
He paused on the sidewalk and eyed his destination.
Mr. Zipkoff’s jewelry store.
Vic snorted. Zipkoff. “Ripped-off” was more like it.
Mr. Zipkoff stood in the doorway of his store. He held a meaty hand over his beady eyes to block out the setting sun as he looked out at the pandemonium on the sidewalk. Vic pressed himself against a storefront a few doors down. The sound of sirens approached, and Vic looked up to see two police cars screech to a stop in the street. Mr. Zipkoff stepped out onto the sidewalk to get a closer look.
Everything was going exactly as planned.
Two officers, armed with bullhorns, jumped out of the police cars.
“Everyone, stay calm!” one of the officers called out. Some of the people slowed down and looked around them.
“Now,” Vic hissed underneath his breath. His pulse thumped in his ears. It had to be now!
From across the street, a small series of explosions rent the air. The police officers jerked around. There was another explosion. “Another bomb!” someone shouted.
Mr. Zipkoff took two more steps out onto the sidewalk. He stood, hands on hips, and stared over at the park from where the explosions had come.
Vic smiled grimly to himself. He crept quietly behind Mr. Zipkoff. He knew he wouldn’t be heard.
He never worried about being heard.
With the diversion he’d created, he wouldn’t be seen, either. He glided inside the jewelry store.
He’d been here before. He clenched his jaw at the memory. He pushed the thought aside. He knew what he was looking for and what he needed to do to get it. He figured he had a minute, maybe less. The store was air conditioned and cool, but Vic felt a trickle of perspiration on his forehead.
He went behind the counter and snatched the small key that hung off a hook on the back wall. He slipped the key into the lock and slid open the glass door. His heart skipped as his hand closed around a gleaming hair comb. It was the kind of comb that was worn to hold hair back, not the kind of comb that brushed hair. He pulled the comb out of the case and thrust it into his pocket. It was pure gold and heavier than it looked. He closed the door, locked it, returned the key to its hook, and looked up. Mr. Zipkoff still stood on the sidewalk, gazing out across the street.
Vic estimated that he’d been in the store no longer than 45 seconds. He walked out quickly and quietly, so close to Mr. Zipkoff that he could smell the man’s cheap aftershave, and he melted into the crowd.
He let out a long breath.
He’d done it.
He bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
He’d done it!
Em appeared in front of him as if by magic. She looked around to make sure that no one was listening then turned back to Vic and wagged a finger in his face.
“You’d better have a good explanation for all this,” she hissed.
He spread his arms out wide. “An old clock ticks in the movie theater. Another clock ticks in the alley. Some power of suggestion is mixed in. All my boys said was that they heard ticking—which was perfectly true. The police show up. Some firecrackers happen to go off across the street, adding to the suggestion that lives might be in danger. I did nothing illegal. I thought of everything.” He allowed himself that wide self-congratulatory smile after all. “I thought of everything,” he said again.
“What it the police were needed in a real emergency somewhere else?” Em demanded.
He hadn’t thought of that.
“And you created a panic,” Em added. “That is definitely illegal.”
“To make an omelet,” Vic replied loftily, “you have to break some eggs.”
“You didn’t break any eggs,” Em said, “you laid them.”
A dog walked beside Em. The hair on its back bristled and it bared its teeth. It let out a low growl.
“Rufus thinks what you’ve done is terrible,” Em informed Vic.
Vic let a long breath to control his exasperation. This nonsense of Em thinking she could talk to cats and dogs had him worried. He sighed inwardly. At least she wasn’t chirping at every bird she saw.
A cat meowed at his feet. When Vic looked down, the cat hissed at him.
Emily glanced at the cat then looked her brother in the eye. “Willow doesn’t like what you did, either.”
Vic shook his head. She’d begun saying she could talk with cats and dogs a few months ago, right around her birthday. Animals had always loved her, and she’d always loved them, but this was different. After all, he loved ice cream, but he’d never had a conversation with a bowl of mint chocolate chip.
He looked down again at Willow. The cat lifted its tail stiffly up, turned, and sauntered away, its pinkish-brown butt staring back at Vic like an evil eye.
That was something Vic didn’t need Em to translate.
Vic grunted and guided Em away from the animals and through the traffic which had begun to calm down.
“I got the gold hair comb back, Em,” he told her.
She whirled to face him. “What?” she demanded. Her eyes widened as she realized what he was saying. “You created all of that, you risked the lives of countless people…”
“No one got hurt,” Vic interrupted. “A few bumps and bruises, maybe.”
“You couldn’t know that would be all that happened,” Em snapped. “Someone could have had a heart attack for all you knew.”
“But they didn’t,” Vic said. He flung his arms up in triumph. “I did it!” he exclaimed.
“What happens if the police figure out it was you?” Em asked quietly. “You’ve risked someone finding out about us.”
Vic’s elation slipped out of him until he felt as empty as a wrinkled balloon on a cold floor. He’d been so intent on revenge, and—if he were being perfectly honest with himself, on doing something big—that he hadn’t properly weighed the risks. What if he were caught? What if he and Em were separated?
Icy fear gripped him by the throat, and he shivered in the warm summer evening.
They walked on in silence. Vic’s gait went from floating on air to trudging through sludge. Ugly thoughts crowded his head. What if he and Em were found out? What if they were separated, strong hands pulling them apart, ushering them out of their front door, shoving them into different cars, driving them away to two distant destinations? Vic’s mouth went as dry as a math class as he contemplated for the first time the most important thing he’d risked tonight.
Himself and Em.
They’d survived trouble at school—ok, his trouble at school—and the death of their parents. They’d survived it by sticking together. Had his actions tonight put that in jeopardy? He swallowed a lump the size of a rubber ball as he and Em walked along in silence.
In a few minutes, they were on their street, and a few seconds after that, they turned up their short, crumbling path and stepped onto their sagging porch.
“Beautiful house,” kids would snicker. “How are things at Castle Blake?”
The taunts had turned Vic’s ears red and made his insides feel like they were being devoured by a ravenous beast. He’d spent hours and hours dreaming of getting away from his parents, from this house, from this town and going somewhere with Em to start a new life. He’d had wide thoughts of a big world, but those thoughts had narrowed lately. Their parents were gone, and this house was home for him and Em. He’d do anything to protect that and to protect them.
Vic opened the drooping front door and stepped inside. He groped for the light switch and flipped it up. He took two steps into the room and stopped.
A few feet away, in the only chair in the room, sat a strange woman with her eyes closed. Deep creases lined her forehead. A hooked nose sat over a crooked mouth that perched upon a large, misshapen chin. She had boils and moles all over her face. Thick hairs sprung copiously from the moles as if eager to form their own ecosystem.
The woman was monstrously ugly.
Her eyes shot open. “Amazing,” she said. “I really couldn’t hear your footsteps.”
“Who are you?” Vic demanded. “What are you doing here?” Vic looked at the woman. He looked at Em. Em’s mouth hung open. She looked back up at Vic.
“She’s…”
“Hideous,” Vic finished.
“…beautiful,” Em said.
Vic’s eyebrows arched up. He looked back at the woman and recoiled. She really was hard to look at. He stared back down at Em. She looked enraptured as she continued to gaze at the woman.
The woman sprang to her feet. Her light movements surprised Vic. She looked like an ancient, gnarled oak tree, but she moved like a bounding deer.
“We can debate the various merits,” she said to Em, “or lack thereof,” she added to Vic, “of my appearance later. But right now, we don’t have time. I need you to pack a change of clothes and come with me.”
Vic’s mouth dropped and he let out an incredulous laugh. “We’re not going anywhere with you, lady. In fact, if you leave now, it’s just possible that I might not call the police.”
The woman shook her head sadly. “I don’t think you’ll be calling the police. Especially not with what you just pulled tonight.”
Vic’s armpits and brow were suddenly damp.
“The item you stole that’s sitting in your front pocket?” the woman added. “That item belongs to me. Actually, it belonged to my sister, but since she died a thousand years ago, I think I can rightly say now that it belongs to me.”
Vic stepped back. His hand shot into his pocket and closed around the heavy golden hair comb.
“How could you possibly know about that?” Em asked in a hoarse whisper.
“I told you, the item belongs to me,” the woman answered. “I’ve been keeping an eye on it for quite some time.”
Vic wasn’t sure what that meant, but something about the old woman gave him the creeps. His skin felt like a giant dance floor for ten thousand ants. What she somehow knew that she couldn’t possibly know, her ghastly face, her clothes—which he could only describe as Salem witch trial-chic—all added up to…
Vic gulped.
“Are you…are you some kind of a witch?”
The woman gave a laugh—a melodic laugh like tinkling bells, which sounded odd coming from between her crooked teeth.
“Am I a witch?” she mused. She tapped a misshapen finger to her cracked lips. “All things considered, I’d say no, although I can see why you’d think that.”
“Well, you can’t have the gold comb. It belonged to my mother and her mother before her. Mr. Zipkoff got me to sell it to him for four hundred dollars when…”
Images dashed through his head. Empty liquor bottles, his parents’ gassy breath, their reaching for the car keys several months ago as they staggered to the front door. Hours later, the knock on the door, and grim news of a one-car crash being delivered by police officers. Then Vic was wearing a dark, itchy suit to a funeral no one attended. Later, a neighbor came by with a casserole. Embarrassed that there was no one else at the house, she’d made her apologies, said there was no need to return the pan, and bolted out of the door like a prisoner granted parole.
“When what, dear?” the woman asked softly.
Vic cleared his throat and wiped a hand across his eyes. He was surprised that his hand came away wet. “When we were vulnerable and needed the money,” he said. Rage rushed through him like a thunderstorm, engulfing and consuming his sadness and self-pity. “Mr. Zipkoff gave me four hundred dollars!” He clenched the comb in his fist and brought it out of his pocket. The comb’s clasps bit into his palm as he brandished it in the air. “It’s got to be worth thousands!”
“It’s worth a lot more than that,” the woman answered. “Oh, maybe that’s a good price for it in your world,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand, “but I assure you that it’s worth a lot more than that where I come from.”
“Wait—what did you just say?” Em asked. “What do you mean ‘in your world’ and ‘where you come from’? Are you telling us that you’re not from this world? And did you say your sister died a thousand years ago?”
“Right on both counts,” the woman replied in a cheery voice.
Vic fought back a wave of panic. He wanted to strike a bold tone, but his voice came out thin and weak to his own ears, like an off-key oboe.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want with us?”
“Ah, the questions you should have been asking all along.” The woman stepped back into a long, graceful curtsey, then stood up again. “My name is Adelessa. I’m here because I’ve been watching your family for years. Centuries, really. Finally, the time has arrived.” She pursed her lips. “As for what I want with you—I want you to come to my world and help to set it right.”
“Why would we do that?” Vic asked.
Adelessa answered with a question of her own.
“Have you ever had the feeling that you don’t quite belong, that you want something more from your lives?” she asked. She looked at Em, then Vic, then Em again. “You are more comfortable with animals than humans,” she stated.
Vic watched in fascination as Em and Adelessa locked eyes. Em seemed to fall into a kind of trance. She stared vacantly at the older woman. Her breathing slowed and almost stopped. Vic began to feel his scalp prickle. He was just about to step forward and say something when the connection that held Em and Adelessa together was broken.
“Yes,” Em whispered. “Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”
Adelessa nodded and turned her attention to Vic. “And you—you have footfalls so light that no one can hear you coming. You went into the staff room at school and stole a teacher’s mug on a dare. No one heard you coming or going. Did that make you more popular?” she asked.
As Adelessa’s eyes met his, Vic’s mind tumbled back to the third grade. He remembered the mocking tone of one of his fellow students, Chip Newhart. Chip was one of the popular kids. He thought maybe Chip would like him if he did something crazy like steal a teacher’s mug. It didn’t work.
Vic remembered the ache of loneliness that he’d felt when Chip tattled to the principal. Like a projector set on fast speed, more scenes of rejection and ridicule flashed through his mind. He’d pushed and compressed those feelings down deep into his gut, but they’d grown into a great, gray pearl of resentment in the years since.
He found that he couldn’t look away from Adelessa as she leafed through his memories like a shopper leafed through shirts at the mall. A group of kids tried to corner him in the playground. He’d fought kids before, but this time they were too big and too many to fight. He ran away as they tugged at his backpack and pulled it free. He snuck back later to find that they’d dumped out its contents. Some had been swept away by the wind, and he had to scour around for an hour, burning with shame, until he’d retrieved everything.
He tried again to stop Adelessa’s probing but found that he couldn’t. He felt naked and exposed. He saw himself through her eyes, and he felt abashed and angry at what he saw.
Even finding success running on the track team a year ago hadn’t helped. He’d always been the fastest kid in school. But overnight, it seemed, he’d become the fastest kid in the district, and then the fastest kid in the state. Instead of helping him to fit in, it was just one more thing that separated him from everyone else.
Those thoughts melted away as soon as they’d come, and he saw only Adelessa’s emerald-colored eyes. Then that green became the green of a forest, and Vic saw himself and Em walking with three other kids about their age who he didn’t know. The scene shifted, and the same kids were crowded around a table in some sort of cottage. The five of them laughed and talked. They clearly had formed a bond of some sort. They were something Vic had never had.
Friends.
“Perhaps you need a fresh start,” Adelessa said quietly. Vic shook his head as the images faded away. There was a tinge of pity in Adelessa’s eyes. “Your parents felt the same way. And their parents, and their parents before them, and their parents before them…” Her voice drifted off. “You feel like you don’t belong because you don’t belong,” she added.
“Thanks,” Vic muttered. “I’d already figured that out for myself.”
Adelessa frowned. “That’s not what I meant. What I meant was, you feel like you don’t belong in this world because you don’t belong in this world. You belong in my world. That’s where your ancestors are from. That’s where I want you to go now.”
A bright ray soared inside of Vic’s chest, a long-lost emotion that he searched to identify. He finally found the word.
Hope.
Vic couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt it. He wanted to believe Adelessa. He wanted to believe in another world where he could start over, someplace where he could feel like he belonged. But cynicism crept from the shadows of his mind and wrestled hope to the floor.
“No,” Vic said. “I don’t know what kind of tricks you’re playing with us, but we’re not going with you.” He didn’t trust this woman at all.
Adelessa looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t have time for this,” she muttered, more to herself than to Vic or Em. She turned to Vic.
“I’ve told you a little about why you should come with me,” she said. “Let me tell you what will happen if you don’t.” She took a step toward Vic and stared up in his eyes. “You’re going to get caught.”
Vic swallowed. He hoped his voice sounded more confident than he felt when he spoke. “No chance,” he said. “I thought of everything.”
“What about all of the security cameras around town?” Adelessa answered. “Several of them probably recorded you going into the jewelry store.”
He hadn’t thought of that.
Adelessa shook her head sadly. “Amazing that you’ve stayed away from child services for so long,” she said. “When the police find out that there is no aunt living here with you like you’ve been claiming, and that two children are on their own—why, I suspect they’ll have something to say about that.” She let out a theatrical sigh. “I doubt the two of you will be kept together. Such a pity. Of course, Vic will probably be in jail.”
“That’s blackmail!” Vic said in a hoarse whisper.
“If you come with me, I will give you the chance to return…” She looked around doubtfully and gave a vague wave of her hand. “…to this.” She shrugged. “Or you can stay here and be separated, and Vic can go to jail.”
Em looked at Vic. She nodded slowly.
“We’ll come with you,” Vic croaked.
Adelessa nodded. “I’ll give you five minutes to throw your stuff into backpacks.”
Five minutes later, with some changes of clothes in their bags, Vic and Em followed Adelessa out the door. She told them to leave their phones behind. Vic felt numb. They were leaving their home. It wasn’t much of a home, but it was all they knew.
Vic looked down at his sister. Her flip flops smacked down on the sidewalk, like a ticking clock counting down the time that they had left to be around everything they’d ever known.
“I’d like to believe her,” Em whispered.
“And I’d like to believe in the tooth fairy,” Vic hissed. “The first chance we get, I say we give this Adelessa the slip.”
But they never got the chance. They passed through the town and into its outskirts. Adelessa stumbled once, then again, but it only made her more determined to increase their pace. She stopped in front of a huge outcropping of rock and leaned against it for a moment.
In the distance, Vic heard police sirens wail. Adelessa looked around, then made a small gesture with her hand. To Vic’s astonishment, a door in the stone, invisible just a moment ago, swung open toward them.
“This is how your ancestors came to this world long ago,” she said. “Through the Door in the Stone.”
Vic stood motionless and open-mouthed.
“In you go,” Adelessa said.
Vic gulped. He grabbed Em’s hand firmly and stepped into the cool, dark tunnel. After a few paces, he stopped. A dim light filtered in from somewhere, and Vic saw that the passageway split into several different corridors.
“The one all the way to the left,” Adelessa ordered from behind him.
Vic followed her instructions.
“I think you can find who you truly are in this world.” Adelessa said. “I won’t tell you it will be easy, but I think you can do well for yourselves.”
“What is this world called?” Em asked.
“You’ll be going to a city called Laketown,” Adelessa answered, “in a country called Kavenland.”
“What’s the world like?” Vic asked as he came to the end of the tunnel. “What do you expect us to do?”
Adelessa slipped past them. She pulled open the door. Vic threw his hand over his eyes. Bright sunlight temporarily blinded him as he stepped forward.
Then he felt a shove in the small of his back. A moment later, Em hurtled past him.
“The first thing I expect you to do,” Adelessa answered, “is to survive.” Then she slammed the door shut behind them.
This excerpt is published here courtesy of the author and publisher and should not be reprinted without permission. Cover art and illustration by Cooper King.
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