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Saving Sky Town

Chapter 1

Grandmother Maya

A tall brown haired boy, about the age of seventeen, struggled through a window into the witches’ house. He would have used the door if there were one, but this house was made to keep people out, so there was no door. The witch, on the other hand, could come and go as she pleased. All she had to do was turn into a cat and jump out the window.

He got to his feet, dusting off his pants, moved his bangs out of his face, and looked around. Inside, the house was old, full of memory, dust, and cobwebs. The floor would creak wherever he stepped, no matter how lightly he did. The witch here wanted to see him for, what she said, “an important reason”. She used to live here; till she died of accidental poisoning that she caused herself, now she haunts it. The boy walked down the hallway. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see the floor was deformed and mossy from rain that had found its’ way in through cracks in the roof. There were also places where the floor wasn’t there at all, floorboards missing here and there.

He found a soggy and uneven stairway. He walked down them, carefully skipping over the broken or unsafe ones till he came to a door. The door, though beautifully crafted, was shabby and looked as though it had fallen off the hinges many times.

He reached for the doorknob and opened the door. He then stepped inside the room, and carefully closed the door, so as to not break it off. The room was brightly lit. Candles were everywhere; on the floor, the tables, bookshelves, and even on some of the chairs. He carefully picked his way across the floor and sat down in an empty dusty chair. He stayed there for a few minutes admiring the candle lit room till he was bored of it and redirected his attention to a window. Outside it was still very dark.

He got up out of the chair to look at a picture of his young grandmother that was hanging on a wall behind him. As he turned toward it, he was surprised to find a bright pink flamingo starring at him. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? It was hard to miss in such a room. He decided to believe that it must have entered the room sometime after he sat down.

The flamingo, finding the boy suddenly uninteresting, started cleaning his feathers. The boy, however, was very interested in why a bright pink flamingo would be here. This was no place for a flamingo, the only explanation would be that it escaped from the zoo, but then there was still the question of how it got inside.

He started slowly toward it, putting out his hand, just touching the birds back. When it felt his touch, the bird jumped back.

“Aye mate, just clean those!” The boy took a few steps back. His mouth dropped and his faded green eyes were wide open with a look of horror, in disbelief. “What?” It said, “Got somethin on me face?” Then realizing the boy wasn’t going to answer, he walked over to a mirror and looked into it. “Oy! Don’t do that to me! For a second, I thought there was something wrong with me!” The boy didn’t answer. The large pink bird turned away from the mirror and stood up straight. “I think I know wha’ it is; never seen a talkin’ flamingo before? Well, I’ll tell you mate, it wasn’t easy learnin’ how to talk; and if I weren’t so brilliantly smart-”. The bird was cut-off suddenly by a young woman’s voice.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! You never taught yourself to talk! Also, you are, by far, the most pathetic, stupid, self obsessed creature I have ever come across. I was the one who made it possible for you to talk!” The flamingo jumped around so that he was facing the painting of the boys’ grandmother. The woman inside the painting moved forward and stepped out of the frame. She was short, about up to his hip, yet thin. She had brown hair down to the small of her back, her eyes were a violent bright green, and although she was in her early twenties, you could easily mistake her for a child of ten or eleven years old. The boy smiled down at her, and she smiled up at him, saying, “Hello, Dawson. How are you?”

”Okay,” he replied as she walked over to the flamingo and made a shooing motion for it to leave the room.

“Okay? Just okay?” she said shutting the door after the flamingo left. “I’ll just have to fix that. Let’s have some fun now, shall we?” Dawson’s smile grew more as he watched his grandmother walking around the candles. She went to a table, put her hand on it for a few seconds, and then raised it up. Everything on the table; books, jars with small living animals, vials with bright neon colored liquids, and of course, candles, all floated up a few inches above the table. She waved her hand to the left, and the objects flew to the left. They then found an empty place on the floor or a chair. “That’s better,” she said, and turned to him with a grin on her face and a twinkle in her eye. “Well, what are you waiting for? Hand me that blue orb or yours…you did bring it didn’t you?” The witch asked. The boy nodded and put his hands in his pocket and slowly pulled out a small blue sphere.