The New Kid by Temple Mathews

moved. They might have been statues if it weren’t for their breathing, so rapt was their attention. He told them about a fateful night that had changed the course of his life forever, a night that had bound him to his eternal duty.
    He was just eight years old and coming home from fishing up at Fallen Leaf Lake with his father, Edward. They’d been to a baseball game that same weekend and had gone out for ice cream, too. Edward had been so loving and attentive to Will that he’d even let him hold his prized railroad watch. It was an Elgin pocket watch, the watch Edward had inherited from his own grandfather. As young Will held the watch to his ear and listened to the ticking, Edward smiled and hugged him and told him someday the watch would be his.
    It was as if Edward had known what was coming and was trying to cram in as much face time with his son as he could before . . . it
happened. As they arrived home to their modest three-bedroom Craftsman in Palo Alto they were greeted with a freak storm that whipped up punishing hot winds, winds hotter than any Santa Anas. And even though the winds were hot the sky was ragged with angry clouds. Will’s mother had gone to visit her sister during the “boys’ weekend” so the house was dark. As the winds grew to gale force Will’s father did his best to secure the house but it groaned under the sheer force of the assault, shingles ripped asunder, debris raking against the windows.
    Normally a calm, grounded, steady-handed man, Edward was suddenly nervous and twitchy and Will saw fear in his father’s eyes for the first time as Edward gazed at the roiling sky.
    “Come down in the basement with me, Will, I have something to show you. Hurry!”
    Down they went. The basement was Edward’s domain and Will had not been allowed this kind of access until now. Sure, he’d snuck a peek or two and wondered what the big deal was about a workbench and a bunch of tools and junk in the basement. Why had he been refused entry? His father had told him it wasn’t a safe place for a boy to play and Will’s mother had backed him up. But tonight all bets were off; tonight was a rite of passage.
    Edward moved quickly past his workbench and flipped a switch and a fluorescent bulb flickered on in the far corner of the basement. Will craned his neck to look past his father as Edward unlocked and opened a thick old oak door and saw a secret room full of different kinds of futuristic-looking tools and weapons—weapons!—the likes of which Will could never have conjured up even in his wildest imagination. His father picked one of the weapons up. It looked like a shotgun from the future and Will was filled with excitement despite the ominous howl of the storm outside.
    Kneeling down inside the secret room, Edward dialed a combination on a floor safe and removed a crystal key. He then brought the key out of the room and locked the oak door behind him. He rolled
the clothes dryer aside, revealing another, smaller door to a hidden compartment. Using the crystal key he unlocked the compartment and pulled out an ancient box adorned with intricate engravings. He used the same crystal key to open the box, and from the box he lifted out a book. Or rather half a book.
    Closing the secret compartment, Edward brought the book out and set it down on his workbench. Will’s eyes were filled with wonder as his father opened the thick, age-old volume. The pages were made of what he later learned was cabretta leather and the front cover was made of marble and embedded with emeralds. The back cover and an indeterminate number of pages were missing.
    “Inside this book,” said Will’s father, “are things you will need to know if you are to survive.”
    Will wished that his father had not used the word “if” and his young heart thudded in his chest as he awaited further instructions. Gazing down he saw that the pages were covered with ancient symbols. Though Will had learned to read at a very young age and