A New Golden Son

Prologue

The magic circle is the place of suspended disbelief. People who study games and storytelling and religion will all tell you that a magic circle is what you enter into when you stop interacting with the world you know, and start interacting with the world that might be. In this way, the magic circle is more accurately described as the home of hyper-belief. It is the space where whatever you are experiencing in that moment is the only "real" that is - possibly the only "real" that ever was - regardless of what "real" you think is right. Albert Louis, a boy that was only common in his own mind, lived in the magic circle every minute of every day. I call your attention to him because, in many ways, this story is about him. It is about his Circle, and what became of him when he left it for good.

Albert was the son of one mother and one father. The three of them lived in a house that wasn't too big, and wasn't too small. They weren't rich. They weren't poor. They were happy. The childhood Albert remembered with them was mostly pleasant in every way. If anything stuck out to him as odd, or bad, or just not quite good, it was the look that other people gave him when he expressed a lack of interest in playing with his peers. Albert was just never that interested in playing games with other children. That was how they suspended disbelief - to play make believe or kickball or torch tag. But playing games with other children always seemed so forced to Albert. The other kids couldn't understand why he wouldn't just abandon himself to the game, and Albert could never understand how a game could be so important as to make people forget everything else. He saw that kids had fun playing together, but he didn't know how to have fun with them in the same way. For Albert, the greater joy was to just be: listening to the wind in the trees, watching the birds, exploring the banks of the river, enjoying the closeness of his father or mother. He could enjoy every moment reading, listening and thinking. To add balls and lines and hoops and penalties and nets just seemed unnecessarily complicated. And distracting. Life was complicated enough without all of those things. Just being alive, by Albert's estimation, was a complete wonder.

The Louis home was located not far from other homes, but down a dirt road that didn't lead anywhere in particular. Every day before 8:00 the house was a flurry of typical morning-time activity. Two adults scrambled to get ready for work. One child tried to drag himself from bed to breakfast to bus. Each morning the child, Albert, would leave the house just before Mr. and Mrs. Louis. They had jobs, he understood, that took them to places away from the home. Their work required them to stay out until early evening. His after-school commitments (chess-club Monday, clarinet lessons Tuesday, Young Botanists every other Wednesday, etc.) meant he arrived just after they returned most days, and occasionally just before. On the off chance that school was canceled or Albert was sick or an activity didn't take place, one or both of his parents was always waiting for him at the house. Though he was fully twelve years-old, Albert was never home alone.

The boy didn't think that this was odd. Nor did he find it strange that he never went anywhere outside of the home with his parents. During holiday breaks and school vacations the family stayed home every day. They owned a number of acres of land, and so they were often outside among the trees, on the hills, watching the birds. Food and other household goods were delivered. And Albert was encouraged to take the bus into town if he ever wanted to shop for personal items, or see a movie at the theater. He was even free to invite friends from school to the house. But the family never went anywhere together. Not to a restaurant, Not to a church. Never had Albert been with his parents more than three miles away from his home, a distance that exactly equaled the furthest point their property reached from the center of the house.

One happy Saturday, Albert had climbed a tall tree to get a better view of the valley behind his house. From the back of the Louis' home, which was nestled in the Smoky Mountains, one could see the land receding down and away into a million, billion leaves and branches and shapes and colors. Albert wanted to see into the central chasm of that mess of wonderful where he knew a river was running happily over rocks and under shade. Climbing carefully, he had made it to the topmost branch on the left hand side of the tree. It was from that point, surveying his whole corner of earth, that he fell. Quickly. Quietly. Fatally. Sort of.

Normally Albert was a careful climber. He had been up this particular tree many times to see the river. There was even a crook he favored where he could sit and lean against the trunk, counting the colors of the trees and hills as they changed over the course of a day. But for whatever reason he had misjudged his footing that morning. The branch he chose to stand on, unable to support the boy's weight, had given way almost as soon as he put his foot on it. As he fell Albert hit not one, nor two, but three branches. And this sequence, pulling at those three branches on that specific tree, was a magic combination that unlocked a door between Albert's world and one thousands of realites away. It had been created by fairies when the tree was only a sapling and they had long since forgotten about it. But it is hard to say whether their surprise or Albert's was greater when instead of falling properly to his death, Albert simply died to the life he had known and found himself summarily buried in a pile of autumnal feast.

What had happened was that the fairy side of the door had opened into midair above a rather heavily laden banqueting table. Albert had crashed through this loudly, thinking it was branches, but then found himself lying mostly conscious under an assortment of meats, cheeses and pies. He did not move immediately, both wondering earnestly how leaves had become pies and also enjoying the bits that had fallen into his mouth. Had he known what was coming shortly after, he would have got up and run like lightning. But he did not know, could not have even guessed, what sort of life his death had brought about. So he didn't move.