Forlot - Books 1-3 {Completed}

Chapter Eleven

"I cannot believe it. She is gone."

I was in the passenger seat of the car, looking down. I had just been released from the hospital, and Dad was taking me home. He did not want me to go to school. I already had enough "fun" this morning and missed most of school. He thought that it would be best if I rested at home until I got all of my strength back, and I could not agree with him more.

"I am sorry about your friend," Dad said.

I swallowed hard, trying to keep myself from crying. "We...we were not really friends," I confessed. "But we might have." I looked at the necklace that I was holding.

The stone sparkled as cars and trucks came from the other direction, shining their bright headlights on the stone. I peered through the window. The purple sky showed no lights.

No sun.

The only lights that the town was given were vehicle headlights and streetlights. Other than that, the roads and surroundings were in darkness.

And it was the afternoon, not nighttime.

"Do you think that it is strange?" I wondered, keeping my eyes locked on the sky. I wanted to stop mentioning Maxine and move to another subject.

"What do you mean?" my dad asked. "What is strange?"

"The sky."

"What about the sky?"

"Come on, Dad. Have you not caught on? The sky is bizarre."

"Bizarre? What is it that makes it bizarre? It is just like every other sky that you see in other states."

I groaned in frustration. "When we lived in Madison, there was always a beautiful and blue sky. There was never a purple sky."

"You know, Son, there are purple skies around the world."

"...maybe. Every once in a while. But Dad, this is every day. Every morning and afternoon, the sky is purple. And at night, the sky is dark blue. And what is even stranger is the fact that once you cross the boarder between Forlot and the next town over, boom! A blue sky!"

"That is not possible."

"I know! However, that happened to us when we arrived here. Remember? One minute, we had a nice sky, and the next thing that we saw was purple in the air!" I pointed at the sky. "There is no sun!"

"The sun is probably behind the clouds."

"Oh, really? Then where are the dang clouds?! My fellow readers and I cannot be the only ones who think that something is wrong here."

I waited for Dad to say something. He stayed quiet and turned the steering wheel, and the car made its way to another road.

"Dad, the sky is acting odd," I told him. "Our skies do not act like the sky in Forlot."

Dad finally spoke. "Skies are different," he explained. "Depending on the location and the condition and weather, skies will act differently from one another."

I facepalmed.

Ugh! He was not getting it! That did not explain why we never had a sun. That did not explain why we never saw clouds. And if we never got rain, then how come the town was never in a drought?!

None of it makes sense!

I clutched the stone tightly in one hand and rubbed my eyes with the other.

One thing was certain. A person was killed in this small town.

And that was Maxine.

"Maxine's parents are going to be very upset when they find out that their daughter is dead," Dad said as he pulled in the driveway. "I know how they are going to feel."

"Because we lost Mom?" I questioned.

He slowly nodded. "We should help them. I am sure that they will need all the help that they can get." He looked at Maxine's necklace, and then at me. "And you are going to have to give that to them, seeing that it is their daughter's necklace."

"Of course." My dad unlocked the car doors, and I pushed the passenger door open. "Maxine told me that her grandfather made this necklace for her before he passed away."

"I bet that she missed him."

"Yeah. She did."

"Then I bet that she is happy seeing and being with her grandfather again."

"...yep." I could feel myself tearing up and quickly got out of the car.

"I will be back in two hours," he said. "Get some rest."

"What about my doctor's appointment?" I asked.

"I will worry about that when I get off work. You just need to relax."

"Okay, Dad. If you say so."

I shut the door, and Dad backed out of the driveway. He pulled the car onto the road and drove away. As soon as he was out of plain sight, I scurried to the front door and jiggled the doorknob.

Oh, crub. Locked.

Wait. How was it locked? I did not lock it, and my dad said that he came straight to the hospital from his workplace.

I shrugged. No big deal. There is a spare key under the mat.

I bent down and lifted the mat...

...and there was no key.

"What?!" I exclaimed. "Where is the key?!"

"Right here."

I jumped at the sound of that voice.

That female voice.

Who the heck was it?

I slowly shifted my body. "W-who...?" I stuttered.

"Nigel, do you not recognize me?" I let out a gasp as a girl appeared from the shadows.

A girl whom I knew.

"M-Maxine?"

She smiled. "Did you miss me?"