Haven: A Stranger Magic (BOOK 1)

Haven: A Stranger Magic - Chapter 9 - Episode 14

Chapter 9 – Episode 14

The breeze felt good on Sam's face; the rain had cooled things off so it actually felt quite nice now. The sky was clear and the birds chirped as they flew by. It was a great day to go to the caves.

They talked about several things on their way, first was about a guy named Kane who had joined Travis's online Halo team.

"Sam, this guy lives in the Hamptons and is crazy good with a sniper rifle. He can run, jump, and shoot with that thing. I'm telling you, he gets a bull's-eye every time. He's gonna be a great addition to the team."

Then Travis talked about his grandparents. Travis had lived with his grandparents for about nine years now. His parents had died in a car wreck when he was four, so he had been staying with his grandparents ever since.

"It's like they forget things all the time, Sam. Grandma is worse than Grandpa. I'm constantly reminding her to take her medication. She has one of those little pill boxes with the days of the week on it. But that doesn't help because she can't remember where she put the box."

Sam nodded, not sure what to say exactly. You couldn't tell by the tone of Travis's voice, but the gloom in his eyes betrayed him. He was worried.

"Sometimes it's so bad I have to remind her what day of the week it is. My grandfather, on the other hand—well, his back is getting worse. He barely gets around now."

Sam nodded.

Sam and Travis had an unspoken, common bond between them. They had both lost parents that they missed dearly. But at least Travis could vaguely remember his. Sam never knew his father; he didn't even have a picture. He didn't know which was worse—knowing your parents and losing them, or never knowing them at all.

Since they had both lost their parents at such a young age, Sam and Travis had not suffered through the normal stages of grief. There was no period of accepting the loss, or working through the physical and emotional pain associated with grief. There was no adjusting to living in a world without their parents. They just simply moved on with their lives.

But it was that very notion of "moving on" that bothered Sam the most. He felt cheated, deprived of what could have been. Sam didn't want to just move on. He wanted his father. He wanted all the memories children are supposed to have growing up. He wanted to share a peanut butter sandwich with his dad, and to hear stories at bedtime. He wanted to build the perfect snowman, and take summer trips into town for a snow cone. He wanted that life, not the one he had now.

Sam and Travis crossed the main street from Giddyup Lane onto Roundtree Drive, which was a much newer subdivision. The street had a nice slope to it, perfect for skateboarding. Roundtree Drive ended in a huge cul-de-sac where many kickball tournaments had been played when the boys were younger. Even though they were always picked last—Sam because he couldn't kick the ball that far, and Travis, well, because he was Travis—they always had fun. The cross street in front of the cul-de-sac was Quail Creek Drive, which dead-ended into a large field and the Saginaw Quarry, better known as The Caves.

Sam and Travis made their way beyond the beautiful, manicured lawns and overgrown gardens to the open fields behind the development to the quarry.

The mounds of rock looked like pyramids from a distance. Most of the caves were formed by dynamite years ago. Explosives had been used to loosen the ground and harvest rocks. The caves were off-limits to everyone due to cave-ins, but that did not bother Travis or Sam. They had been coming here for years now, and had never seen any kind of cave-in. They figured it was just something the city said to warn off curious and unsupervised adolescents.