Prologue

The moon was high in the sky, and it was well past midnight. Hayden shouldn’t have been awake, but he couldn’t go to sleep. At seven years old, he was too scared to go to sleep, high alert on any moving shadows or unexplained sounds. It was a dark and stormy night. He could hear the wind shaking the trees, sheets of rain pattering relentlessly against the windows.

Suddenly, there was a crash of thunder so loud that the house vibrated. Hayden jumped up from his bed, his heart racing. He was sure that he definitely couldn’t go to sleep now. He crept out of bed, opened the door to his room, and slipped silently into the hallway. He looked around, pulse pounding. The first thing he noticed was that there was a light on, coming from downstairs. At the sight of light, some of his fear left him. He walked downstairs towards the light.

The light was coming from the living room. As he got closer and closer, he could hear voices. He ambled closer, until he could them clearly. The voices shook with anger, betrayal, and devastation. They belonged to his parents.

“Mom? Dad?”, Hayden muttered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“You can’t leave us, Hal…”. Hayden’s mother’s voice was soft, barely audible and tearful. It stopped Hayden dead in his tracks.

‘Is she crying? What did I do?’, he wondered.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way, Anne…”. That was his father’s voice. Hayden pressed his back against the wall outside of the living room, straining to hear the conversation.

“You have a family here. Think about Hayden. He’s your son.”, his mother exclaimed. Hayden’s heart was beating so loudly, he was sure it would hop out of his chest. He took deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.

“...My responsibilities. I have to fulfill them, back in Serania.”.

“I don’t care about your responsibilities!”, his mother spat, her voice shaking with fury.

“You didn’t care about them eight years ago. Why start caring now?”.

Hayden felt unnerved by the anger in his mother’s voice. She was a very kind and gentle woman, and she never raised her voice at Hayden, even when he did something wrong. When she argued, her goal was always to make others understand, and never to intimidate.

“I don’t belong in this world. You and Hayden don’t either. Yet you decide to waste away in this world, and you decide to keep Hayden here as well. If you truly cared about him, you’d let him come with me.”.

‘What world? Where is he going?’, Hayden’s mind ran over everything he just heard.

‘Is Father leaving us? Is he taking me with him? Do I have to leave Mother?’

Dread twisted in his gut. He couldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t. He’d rather stay with his mother for the rest of his life than spend even a single day with his father.

Hayden’s father was never caring or affectionate towards him. He was always business-like and formal. It unsettled Hayden.

“You’re not taking him.”, his mother’s voice rose an octave.

“Fine. Then he’ll stay with you. I’ll be taking my leave now, if I may.”. His father’s voice was ice cold, without a sliver of emotion.

“But–”, his mother started.

“I CAN’T LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE.”, his father shouted. Hayden’s heart jumped to his throat. He heard a chair scrape and fall against the floor with a loud ‘THUNK’. Then, there were footsteps coming closer.

Hayden raced back to the safety of his room, praying no one saw him. He closed the door partially behind him, and walked toward his window.

From the window, he watched the outline of his father’s figure in the rain. His father walked a few feet before stopping. Hayden crouched, wondering whether he’d been heard or seen. But his father didn’t turn. Instead, he raised his hand to the air, and his fingertips glew a bright, beautiful gold.

He made a strange movement with his arm, as if he was drawing an invisible eight in the air. There was a flash of brilliant gold light that momentarily blinded him…and then his father was gone. It was as if Hayden’s father disappeared into thin air.

After he disappeared, the night was quiet, except for the sound of the rain. Downstairs, Hayden could hear his mother’s sobs.

‘Don’t worry’, he wanted to tell her.

‘He doesn’t deserve you. I’ll make you proud, mother. I’ll never, ever leave you. And I’ll never, ever end up like him.’.

Hayden clenched his fists and grounded his teeth, his wonder and confusion replaced by searing hot fury. He hated his father more than anything else. He didn’t know why he left or where he went; all he knew was that his father made his mother cry, and that he’d left him and his mother behind.

After that, Hayden was up. The storm had softened, and the wind had died down, yet he still couldn’t fall asleep. He stayed awake, thinking about his mother. And he thought about what he saw his father do with his hands before vanishing.

‘How did he make his finger glow like that? Could I do it, too?’. Hayden wiggled his fingers in front of his face in the dark, checking to see if they’d glow. They didn’t.

Most of all, he thought about where his father disappeared off to. Hayden didn’t know anything about Serania, and he didn’t have a clue about what his father did. He knew one thing for sure, though: what he’d witnessed that night was a work of magic. His father had left for another world, one called Serania. A magical world.

‘Where is Serania?’.

Hayden fell asleep, wondering if he’d ever see it.