The Skelitin Saga: Volume One

Prologue

"So there they stayed, within their shell of stone, frozen in time. Some say that they still sit there, waiting for the Child of Stone to set them free. Preparing to set their record straight... Permanently,"

The image of the two wizards' statues, hidden by thick, lush, overgrowth, disappeared from Grayson Ritcher's mind at the sound of the storybook snapping shut. The picture was replaced by a haunting view of the clouded night sky, which almost anyone over the age of seven couldn't help but appreciate.

Gray, however, was six and a half.

At first, the scrawny child barely shifted his position on the low branch of the Red Tree, as if sitting quietly enough would add a few more chapters to the end of his favorite story.

It never worked, but it was always worth a try. So when he didn't hear the familiar cracking from the old book's spine, or his mother's voice dropping dramatically while announcing a new chapter's title, Grayson wasn't surprised. But he was, obviously, slightly disappointed.

He turned to look down at the base of the tree. Down at his mother, who set the Skelitin Saga by: Sara McKinney down by her side, and stared back at him expectantly.

They both knew she was waiting for the questions that were inevitably going to be asked about the story they'd read together dozens of times. But this time, he had. Surprise for her:

Nope. Gray thought, turning back to the clouds, and bright red leaves above. Questions just prove that you don't know something. So I'm not going to do it.

And he wasn't. He didn't have any questions this time. So ha! She was waiting for nothing. For once, his mother couldn't read his mind...

But, there was one thing that was bothering him.

"Mama?" Gray called slowly.

"Gray?" She called back softly, leaning up against the trunk and staring, calmly and contentedly, into the horizon.

Gray hesitated. "I wonder... since Dare was really in control for the whole last chapter... I wonder why he didn't just kill Scary, instead of ending up freezing them both," There. See? That was a statement, not a question. Chalk one up for the Gray man.

"I was wondering about that myself," she replied. "Maybe he began to grow a conscience near the end. Or maybe all the other magic he did weakened him, so he didn't have the strength to finish the job,"

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Gray smiled, inwardly patting himself on the back as he slid off the branch.

Gray landed on the soft dewey grass. The kind that looked only damp, until you touched it and ended up soaking your entire hand. He stood up slowly, and set his beat up sneaker on top of a patch of grass, just to watch the ground surrender an inch as he stepped down.

He wasn't sure how people took things, like grass, for granted. Even though they walked on it every day.

Next, Gray patted the Red Tree in silent thanks for holding him up all night, just like his Mama always did, and walked to the edge of what he and his mother called the Big Drop.

It wasn't actually all that big, but it was in fact a drop. It went straight down about ten feet. Like a stair, for giants, crudely carved into the earth.

"Careful over there, Gray," his mother called, using the Red Tree to stand, then patting it's rough surface in thanks. "I don't think you're ready to fall off of that, yet,"

"Do you think the statues are in this forest, Mama?" He asked, ignoring his mother's heeds, just long enough to scan the trees. It was said that the two fought in a large cave in the mountainside. He hadn't seen any caves. Or mountains... but then again he hadn't explored the whole forest either.