CHAPTER ONE: ENTRANCE

In this world, there is a small number of people who have had the fortune to stumble into another world of entirely different bearings; your uncle’s trip to Egypt notwithstanding. The World that is at discussion here is an entirely different land altogether: like a planet, with all its own kingdoms and provinces. William Jones is one such lucky person.

William Jones is, by no offense, a teenage boy of only eleven: lacking the wisdom, skill and experience of a traveler or an explorer. But really, it was by mere dumb luck that he found his way into deep, deep trouble, and it was by sheer guts that he entangled himself out of it too. However, if a seasoned traveler or explorer had gotten into this World instead of William Jones, this story would be all over the front pages of every newspaper now and told in a very high-and-mighty way that you will believe that it was all bosh.

As with every great adventure, it all usually begins in a purely accidental way. In William’s case, his had begun one drowsy summer afternoon. He was sitting against one of the sturdy pine trees that formed the border of a thick forest in Dahlia Pond, Massachusetts. A book entitled ‘Three Wishes for Mister Jones’ was sitting on his lap, and he was devouring it quite eagerly, the main reason being that the main character shared his last name.

Just as he was about to turn a page, the shrill beeping of his digital watch went off. He fumbled with the bookmark and took a look at his watch. It was time for lunch. He got up and ran as fast as he could across the wide meadows of Pinewood Farm in the direction of the lone brick farmhouse that stood in the middle of the meadow. Along the way he passed some horses, and one trotted up to the fence in hopes for a nice apple or a sugar lump.

He halted and dug into his pockets for a sweet treat, but he found that he didn’t have any . . . and then, wait a minute! He turned all his pockets out and realised that he had left Mister Jones back at the pine tree! But he didn’t have time to go back and fetch it . . . he shrugged apologetically at Jerry the horse and rushed back into the house. If he wasn’t on time for lunch, Grandmother would have a terrible fit . . .

He didn’t even bother to knock on the screen door and crashed into the kitchen just as any panicked eleven-year-old boy would do. His Grandmother, thoroughly startled by the commotion, had picked up a wooden spoon and ran towards the door, only to find that it was only William.

“William Jones!” she screeched, throwing the spoon into the sink and rapping his head with her knuckle once. “How – many – times – did – I – say – KNOCK – THE – DOOR?”

He winced and bit his lip to stop from crying. He was a big boy after all, for the age of eleven, and the sight of tears would only make Grandmother angrier.

“I’m sorry, Grandmother,” he said in a choked voice. “I won’t do that again.”

“Well! That’s better now, isn’t it?” she strode towards the stove and opened a pot of mashed potatoes. “Growing up in the city has made a bad-mannered boy out of you, honestly! I tried to tell your mother, let you stay in Dahlia Pond, but NO!” She slammed the lid shut. Then she looked at him, her eyes going up and down, studying his grubby appearance, then she shouted, “What are you standing there for? Go wash up!”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

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After lunch, William was allowed to go out and play until dinner time at seven. For William, who was quite a bookworm, playtime meant time to enjoy the story of Mister Jones’s three wishes underneath the nice pine tree. He ran with his heart throbbing with excitement and suspense. Such was his love for his favourite book! He couldn’t wait to rescue Mister Jones and continue reading his adventure.

He approached the tree and found the book.

“Mister Jones!” he exclaimed and knelt beside it. His hand moved to touch it, but before the tip of his fingers could so much as brush it, an owl, a great tawny owl with the most brilliant gold eyes, perched on top of his book and pecked at his hand.

“Ouch! Hey! Come back! That’s my book you’ve taken!” He yelled, for the owl had flown off into the forest with his book. He gave chase to the owl, determined to win it back no matter where the owl took it.

The owl led him deep into the forest, sharply swerving around trees and, at one point, leading him through a thick hawthorn bush, which he scrambled through and earned himself a good deal of scratches and holes in his shirt. After he had disentangled himself through the hawthorn bush, he stumbled next into a small stream that was no higher than his ankle.

The owl was now perched on an overhead branch, staring at him intently.

He glared at it. “You’ve taken my book and made me all wet and scratched! My grandmother will be awfully mad at me, and it’s all your fault, you horrible beast!” He picked up a fairly big stone and let it fly at the owl.

It screeched and flew off.

“Where are you going?” He ran after it.

The tawny owl flew alongside the stream. It was some time before William realised that there was an old and ancient path that ran along the stream. It went straight on, up a hill and suddenly sloped downwards where the stream trailed off. Then the path was gone, disappearing through a more sinister side of the forest that he hadn’t seen before.

The owl flew ahead for some time, before it came to rest on a branch. It gave him another intense stare, and William trudged grudgingly ahead. The owl leapt off the branch and flew again.

Then he realised something. “You’re making me follow you, aren’t you?”

The owl suddenly stopped and dropped onto the branch closest to him. It hooted and took off again.

He sighed and went after it. The tawny owl flew much more slowly now, and William noticed that the light in the forest was turning into a deeper shade of blue.

The sky was almost the hue of twilight when the owl led him into a copse and dropped his book. Was he there, at the owl’s destination already? William picked it up and pocketed it; it was one of those books that fit nicely into an oversized trouser pocket.

A great mist fell around him. The only thing he could make out was the tawny owl’s bright, gold eyes somewhere above him.

After a while, the mist cleared, and suddenly a large manor loomed in front of him. Its appearance was so sudden that he backed away and was about to run if it wasn’t for the owl, who dropped onto his shoulder and hooted softly.

He was standing in front of its large entrance, an iron archway inlaid with intricate patterns. The owl pecked softly at his ear, as if encouraging him to enter, and enter he did, with a pounding heart.

He stepped nervously over the threshold and came into a courtyard. There were some people standing around the courtyard, whispering and drifting about, but they were all real because William saw that their feet touched the ground. They were dressed oddly too, like people from the Middle Ages; and their clothing was either dark brown, green or grey in colour.

The courtyard was a long, rectangular one. At the end of it stood another archway. William made his way nervously towards it, careful not to bang into the many clay pots and jars that littered the courtyard.

He stepped through the archway and found himself in a vast hall that was about three stories high and definitely bigger than the whole of Pinewood Farm. All along the walls of the big hall were ceiling-to-floor windows which had no panes. They were spaced in small intervals.

For a moment, William stood there, silent, waiting and scared. The chilly air that was blowing through the windows was not helping to cheer him up. He wished desperately that he had brought with him a coat of some sort.

“Zarya,” a quiet, if it was possible, voice boomed from the end of the hall. A woman’s voice, but it was stern. It sounded like a command, and it certainly didn’t make any sense to William.

The owl hooted and nipped at his ear. “Ouch!” he gasped, but he suddenly he understood, and he knew what to do. His legs moved, but he didn’t know why. He found himself walking the length of the incredibly long hall, but so stark of decoration, and finally a figure came into view.

A tall woman with dark, wavy locks that hung just above her shoulder stood in front of a gilded, golden chair. She wore a plain, long-sleeved grey dress which ended just above the floor. As he got closer, he saw that her skin was pale with a roseate glow, and her eyes were a deep, but sparkling blue. Strangely, he did not think of her as beautiful. She had a deep countenance about her. Wisdom swirled in the depths of her eyes. She seemed to him that she had lived a very long time; had seen many things, both suffering and joy, yet she was not old. Then William concluded, and he felt that his choice of words was succinct and right, that she was ageless and majestic.

He halted in front of her and the mysterious drive that spurred his legs was lifted. The tawny owl dug his talons into his shoulder and flew off, only to land on her shoulders.

“You have found my owl, Zarya,” the Lady said. “But she is not one who loses her way easily. She has been gone for many days, and with you she returned. To thank you is pointless, but to question you . . . how did you get here?”

He gulped, but the words flowed out of his mouth on their own accord. “She led me here, my lady. I merely followed her because she had taken possession of my book.”

Her eyebrows rose ever so gently. “What book is that? May I have a look at it?”

Automatically, he reached into his pocket and presented ‘Three Wishes of Mister Jones’ to her on one bended knee. He felt a little sheepish when he watched her study the book, frowning, most probably, at the silliness of the book.

“This is a book of great magic,” she concluded, which surprised William till no end. All the while, he had thought that it was just a book that he had dug out from the dusty confines of his Grandmother’s old trunk in the attic. “How did you come by this?” she looked intently at him.

“I took it from my Grandmother’s trunk. It was hers, I think.”

She nodded thoughtfully. Then she offered a long, slender hand towards him. “Come with me, Mister Jones.”

He blinked as he took her hand. “How did you know my name?” he couldn’t help blurting out.

She smiled, a wise, all-knowing smile, and led him out of the hall. “The book,” she said simply, as if it was the only explanation for it.

“What about the book? Why?”

“ ‘Three Wishes for Mister Jones’? The book, as I have said, is a book of great magic. It is the legendary Book of Prophecy. When there is a Prophecy set in motion, its title will change to include the name of the person of which the Prophecy concerns and it will work its magic. You were drawn to this book, were you not? You felt a heavy pull, a strange sense of excitement when you found it, a fervent desire to keep it with you. That is the magic of the book. It has a will and spirit of its own.”

William paled a little and now stared at the simple book in her hands. The Book of Prophecy . . . he had been reading a Book of Prophecy all this while?

The Lady brought him out of the hall and up a flight of stairs to the right of the archway. The flight of stairs led into another hall which contained more people such as those who drifted in the courtyard. The difference was these people looked graver and some had long, white hair altogether. They looked up at the Lady as she passed and some bowed to say, “Long live the Lady Maegda.”

She nodded and gave a warm smile to those who greeted her. She swept across that hall, with William being on the receiving end of some curious and unfriendly gazes, and through a pair of massive wooden doors, which she pushed open as easily as you might push a loose drawer back into the cabinet. Once she entered it, she shut the doors.

They were now in a large chamber which was as bare as the hall downstairs, the only decoration being a long and wide tapestry that took up the whole length of one windowless hall. A few handmaidens were sitting on a divan, talking and laughing softly, and at the sound of the doors, they hurriedly stood and curtsied.

“Please bring us some food and water from the Wishing Well, will you, Mira and Nari? One hour from precisely now, you are to bring the Councillors into the Great Hall and tell them to wait there until I arrive,” she said, in a manner that amazed William because it was both commanding and humble at the same time.

After Mira and Nari, the said handmaidens had left the chamber, Lady Maegda led him out of the chamber onto a wide balcony that looked out into nothing but endless trees. In the middle of the balcony were a simple stone table and two stone stools. Zarya, the tawny owl left her shoulder and landed regally on her gilded perch just beside the table.

William sat as Lady Maegda did. She placed the Book of Prophecy on the table and caressed it gently, muttering a string of incomprehensible words as she did. Much to William’s wonder, the gold title ‘Three Wishes for Mister Jones’ faded and was replaced by a complicated writing. He squinted at the letters then finally made the words out: ‘THE BOOK OF PROPHECY’. Below it was written in smaller words: ‘CONCERNING WILLIAM ARTHARN JONES.’

He gave a yell of surprise and shrank away from the book, his heart almost bursting out of his ribcage. He looked up slowly at Lady Maegda, wanting to see what was written at her face, whether it was a look of knowing or confusion, but also afraid at what he was about to find out.

When he finally met her eyes, she looked sympathetically at him and opened it. “Are you ready to discover your Destiny?”