Chapter 1: Visions
 
	"Cirdan!  Don't touch that!" said Saralond with urgency in her voice.  "It's forbidden for you to be here and you're still sick!"
	"But I only wanted to see it for myself," said Cirdan feeling gloomy that his sister had yelled at him. "The grove is so beautiful at this time of year and I just wanted to see what's going on."
	Off in the distance Saralond heard faint voices coming.
	"They're coming," she said.  "Leave quickly."
	The voices were approaching, getting louder.
	Swiftly turning to leave, he fell flat onto his face, there had been a small stone stuck in the ground that he had tripped on.  He picked himself up, noticing a figure standing off in the forest a bit.
	"Who is that sister?" he asked.
	"Just someone the elders want to see," replied Saralond.  "Nothing you need to worry about."
	"Ok sister," said Cirdan and proceeded to leave.
"Cirdan!" Saralond called.  
She walked a few paces over to where an object was lying on the grass and picked it up.
"Your necklace, it fell off, make sure you get father to fix that clasp.  You don't want to lose it, father will have your head."
She handed the beautiful silver necklace back to Cirdan and he put it in his pocket.
"Thanks sis," said Cirdan as he left the wooded area, Saralond and the strange man, behind him.
There was a bright flash of light that filled the Grove.
 "JAMES JACOB!!  Will you please wake up!" bellowed Mrs. Davies, James' grade 9 math teacher at Morgan High School.  James' head shot up, his big blue eyes looking more alert then they had at any time during the entire morning.
	"Huh?  What?"  James replied curiously while his classmates laughed at his apparent lack of consciousness. "Oh... math.  Sorry Mrs. Davies."
	"Yes, math, Mr. Jacob.  Why don't you at least make an effort to pretend you're paying attention?" Mrs. Davies said in her stern voice, just then the bell rang over the P.A. system and she returned her attention to the rest of the class. "Ok class, I want you to do questions 1 through 15 on page 235, and have it done for tomorrow!"
	Not wanting to wait for the ridicule he would receive from his fellow students, James packed his books away quickly but neatly, leaped out of his seat, burst out of the classroom and tore a path directly to his locker. 
	Staring at his lock, for a split second he forgot his combination, "Why can't I focus today?  Geeze, I really haven't been getting enough sleep lately."
He sighed and fumbled to open his lock, but was eventually successful.
Even for a fourteen-year-old boy James was unusual, yet very clean and polite.  He always kept his locker in perfect, tidy fashion.  His books fit nicely on the two shelves and his jacket all snug on the bottom hook.  He put his book bag away under his jacket and fished his lunch out.  Taking a quick glance in his locker mirror, he fixed his short brown hair.  Apparently, sleeping through an entire class makes ones hair look all messy.
	He walked into the cafeteria and looked around, he spotted a group of kids from his math class so he didn't really want to stick around and there weren't any free seats.  He never sat with anyone, as he didn't have any real friends.
"I didn't want to eat in here anyways" he said quietly to himself.  
Deciding it was best to find somewhere else to enjoy his lunch he turned around and headed outside where there was a big maple tree near the rear entrance of his school, it was one of James' favourite places to sit.  He enjoyed sitting under that tree whenever the sun was shining, and today was definitely one of those days.  He found his usual comfy spot, sat down, stretched for a minute to get the kinks of sleeping on his desk out of him then opened his lunch.  He looked into his lunch-bag, and with a grotesque grin on his face said, "Mom!  Tuna again?" 
He started eating it anyways, only because it wasn't completely gross.  A thought passed through his head, "It's amazing what I'll eat when I'm starved."
	James got to thinking about the dreams he's been having the last several nights.  They were the reason he hadn't been sleeping very well, and why he's been falling asleep in the middle of class.  The dreams were always of the same thing.  He would find himself in the middle of a Forest City, with odd-looking people that were three quarters his height and had pointed ears.  Each dream would find him walking around talking to people who seemed to be his friends, it was almost like he belonged there and people liked him.  It just seemed so real.  Everything about these dreams were absolutely real to James, the houses and buildings which seemed to be built into the trees, the sounds of the people going about their everyday business, right down to the smells of the beautiful flowers that littered the ground.  It's only until he wakes up and realizes he was only sleeping that he comes back to reality.
	"Friends," He sighed to himself.  "I wouldn't mind having at least one of those."
He rather enjoyed his dreams the last several nights because he had friends in them, people who he talked to, people who seemed to care about him.  However, he kept waking up in the middle of them because something always went horribly wrong, although he could never remember that part of his dreams.  It was almost like he didn't want to, or possibly something was stopping him from remembering.
	While finishing off his sandwich he suddenly saw a brilliant flash of light.  It was so bright that it made him drop the last corner of his tuna sandwich.  It didn't seem to be coming from anywhere around, it was almost like the flash was coming from inside him.  The flash forced his eyes closed and when the light had cleared he was left with a vivid image in his head, an image of a small hand reaching out for a silver necklace that was lying amongst a field of grass surrounded by trees.  
Opening his eyes, James felt startled.
"That field," he said to himself puzzled.  "I... I... know it, but I just don't know from where."  
There was something about that field that made him feet absolutely comfortable and it brought forth feelings of warmth and happiness within him.  This is something that has never happened to him before.  He wondered what it meant and what exactly triggered it.  
Deciding it was best to get this image down on paper as fast as he could, he cleaned up his lunch quickly, but took a second to notice a little squirrel with a grey streak down it's back scurrying up the tree that he was just resting on.
	James rushed back to his locker.  After fighting through the waves of teenagers he found himself at his next class of the day, which to his dismay was English.  
He never really enjoyed English much.  This was due to the fact that his teacher, Mr. Crisp, had it in for him.  Mr. Crisp always found ways of making James' life miserable.  From this one teacher, James has found himself in detention a half dozen times already this year.  It was January so he could only hope this last month of the semester would go by quickly.  
Mr. Crisp shot an evil glance at James as he flew through the door.
"Slow down!  Or you'll find yourself in detention... AGAIN!" snapped Mr. Crisp standing up over his desk and pointing a finger directly at James.  
James just stared at him and continued on, this time walking.
Finding his seat he looked up at the clock and noticed he had arrived in class ten minutes early, he was also the first one there.  
Sitting down, he immediately pulled out a pencil and paper.  He wanted to get everything from his vision as correct as he could so that he could go over it again tonight.  He drew the image and took notes of exactly what he saw moments ago under that tree.  Soon, other students began to pile into the small classroom, and English was about to begin.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.  James could barely keep his eyes open, but managed to learn a few useful things, not to mention he always seemed to be conscious just enough to hear the homework assignments for the next day.
When the final bell of the day rang, James took off to get some things from his locker before bolting out of the school.  He raced down the staircase as fast as he could, the grey blocks used in the schools construction flying past him with ease.  At the moment, his only thought was of getting home so he could go over his notes of his vision in a safe place, his room.
THUD!  He had turned the corner and ran into someone, someone big, his books went flying in every direction.  James lay on the ground, wondering what hit him. 
"What the...?" he slowly got up and gave his head a shake.  Everything seemed to be in working order.  
He looked down and there sat Mr. Crisp.  James' heart sank deeper within his chest, "oh!  Mr. Crisp!  I'm so sorry sir.  I didn't see you.  I really didn't." he pleaded.
"What did I tell you about running in the school Mr. Jacob?" cracked Mr. Crisp as he rubbed his head, "I gave you one warning already today!  It's straight to detention with you now!  Your brother was never this much trouble."
He seemed to have a noticeable smile on his face, almost like this one moment made his day.
James's brother was one of the 'jocks' of the school.  Being into sports, he had all the girls hanging off of him and never found himself in detention.  Sometimes James felt like he got the short end of the straw when they were picking out lives to live.
At this point James was at a complete loss for words, utterly speechless.  He barely managed to sigh out an, "Ok."
"Follow me, James," demanded Mr. Crisp.
Having been to the detention room on more then one occasion, James knew exactly where Mr. Crisp was leading him.  After a couple minutes of silence they came upon room 110, the "Detention Room".  The room where all the delinquents were sent after school, or at least those unfortunate enough to be caught doing something they weren't supposed to be doing.  Mr. Crisp was the only teacher to give James detentions, a simple fact that he wasn't quite sure as to why.
Mr. Crisp gave James a stout shove into the detention room and walked over to Mrs. Whalin, the supervising teacher.  She was apparently reading a novel, and by the flushed look in her face it was a romance novel, but at the sight of Mr. Crisp she put the book down.  James could see them talking, but couldn't make out anything they were saying.  He figured Mr. Crisp was telling her what had happened.
The Detention Room wasn't all that bad really.  It wasn't a very big classroom, but it was decorated kind of nice.  During the day it was used as the history room, so there were little bits of history lessons posted all over the walls.  During the afternoon, the sun shone through the windows lighting up the room in such a way that it raised James' spirits a little, and he desperately needed that.
There were 3 students who made their home in the Detention Room, as they were always there.  They were the wanna-be Goths of the school.  Their names were Michael, Gary, and Rebecca.  They were in James' grade.  Michael was sitting in front of James, with Gary on the left and Rebecca on the right.  Most students at Morgan High knew enough to stay away from those three, as they were nothing but trouble.
Mr. Crisp had left and Mrs. Whalin was now eyeing James the same way Mr. Crisp always did, but she eventually went back to her novel.
The kid in the middle, Michael, turned around.
"I know you.  You're that little loser kid from homeroom," James ignored him.  "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"
"Michael!  Turn around, no talking!  You don't want to spend another hour in here tomorrow, do you?" interrupted Mrs. Whalin, she then spoke to James, "please move one seat back Mr. Jacob and be quiet."
Michael shut up quickly, only because he didn't want to spend all week in detention.  James smiled sheepishly at the back of Michael's head, got up and moved two desks back for good measure.
Two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes rolled by sluggishly, detention was always boring.  The three kids in front of him were drawing on their desks.  James decided to look at his notes that he had made earlier about his vision he had at lunch.
"I wonder what that was I saw," James quietly whispered to himself.  "It was so strange, but yet relaxing at the same time.  Couldn't of been anything bad."
He began reading over his notes to himself.
"A city in a forest... short people with pointed ears..." he was beginning to baffle even himself now.  "I just can't put it together, it must mean something"
Detention was dragging on and on, and James was feeling more and more tired with every passing second.  
A sound caught his attention and he turned his head to look outside the window to his right.  It sounded like tiny squeaks, but all that he saw were the trees and green grass.
Shrugging off the noise, he laid his head down in his arms on his desk and closed his eyes to relax a bit.
 "Cirdan!  Wake up!" a voice said urgently.  "Cirdan, wake up!"
Feeling someone shaking him lightly, Cirdan's eyes opened a little.
"Wha... what's wrong?" he asked.  "What are you doing in my room?"
His room was brilliant, it looked like a hollowed out tree stump, coincidently a stump big enough to fit a nice sized bedroom.  All the furniture looked like it had come straight from the forest.  The bed, the dresser and the shelving were all made entirely from tree parts.  The windows were nothing more then circles cut in the wall, but the sun still shone through them brightly, with glass inserted in them.  Above the doorway was a certain design, it looked to be the number "7" with an "O" beneath it, joined.
 "You were restless and mumbling in your sleep," replied Saralond worried.  "I was worried.  I know I should let you sleep, you are ill."
"I was just having a wonderful dream," said Cirdan contentedly.  "I entered a cave, and sitting there was mother, she asked me what I was doing there..."
"Cirdan, mother died many years ago," said Saralond matter-of-factly.  "You shouldn't worry yourself about stuff like that.  For the time being, just get lots of sleep, you're not going to feel any better until you do."
There was a small bowl of water next to his bed.  Saralond wetted a small cloth and placed it on her brother's forehead.
There was someone else in the room as well.  A young man standing in the only doorway out of the room, observing what was going on.
"Who is that?" said Cirdan inquisitively.
"Just someone I'm showing around, nothing you need worry about." She replied smiling.
Saralond walked over to a small table on the other side of the room and picked up a small bottle.
"You have to keep taking your medicine Cirdan," said Saralond.
"Why?" asked Cirdan.  "It doesn't seem to be doing very much good."
"Well, that doesn't matter.  The elders said to make sure you finish the bottle," ordered Saralond.  "You wouldn't be in this mess if you had just listened to me before, but no you had to lose fathers necklace."
"I said I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," said Cirdan tears starting to well in his eyes.  "I don't even know what happened..."
	BANG!  There was a loud crash as James fell out of his desk.  Michael apparently had enough of being good and decided to throw a pen at James' head, nailing him square between the eyes.  Mrs. Whalin slammed her book down and got up out of her desk.
	"Mr. Sizemore!" she bellowed, "to the office, now!  You're going to be stuck here every day for the rest of the week."
	At hearing this, Gary and Rebecca swung around staring James down like he was their next meal.
	The hour detention was up.  Mrs. Whalin escorted Michael down to the principals' office, a place where he was well known.  Gary and Rebecca were slowly getting out of their seats with looks of distain, making their way over to James who was desperately trying to find a way out of the predicament that he currently found himself in.
	"Umm, guys?" he pleaded, "Can't we talk about this?  I didn't do anything!"
	The two bullies kept inching closer and closer towards the frightened James.
"Right," Gary said while grinning mischievously.  "We're just going to make sure you don't do anything again."
The room all of a sudden became much smaller and darker.
James began back peddling his way slowly into the corners of the room.   Gary was coming up on his left and Rebecca on his right.
Gary began cracking his knuckles in his fist, while Rebecca tossed a smirk James' direction and started laughing quietly to herself.  She knew what was going to happen and unfortunately James did too.
"Guys?" he continued pleading. "C'mon guys, you don't want to do something stupid..."
"Hear that Becks?  Now the little loser is calling us stupid now."
"Yeah, I heard him.  I say we make him pay for that." Rebecca answered back, grinning and giggling maliciously even more then she was before, if that was even possible.
The wall finally caught up to James, and he soon found himself toe-to-toe staring into Gary's big wicked brown eyes.  
Gary was much bigger and was one repulsive looking kid.  Dressed all in black, he was quite a fearful sight to behold.
He grabbed James' collar with both fists.  Struggling to free himself, James managed to kick Gary in the shin.
 "Ouch!" Wincing in pain, he cocked a fist back, ready to strike James.  "You're going to get it now!"
"Get him good Gary!  Make sure he doesn't have a chance to tell anyone!" 
Instinctively, James threw up his hands in an attempt to protect himself from Gary's strikes.
At that moment, James' eyes started to glow behind his protective arms. 
All James heard was a thwack and a thud.  Before the first punch was even thrown Gary got hit by something and was thrown to the ground.  The room went completely quiet, so quiet you could hear the birds chirping outside the window.  
The scene Rebecca just witnessed was astounding.  She stood there totally in awe, staring down at her fallen comrade and the chair that had hit him a split second ago.  Gary was knocked out cold.
Peeking through his hands to see what the sound was, James saw Gary lying on the ground next to Rebecca.
"You're a freak!" snarled Rebecca half scared, and half angry.  "How did you do that you freak?"
"Do what?" James responded mystified.  "I didn't do anything."
"Like hell you didn't, chairs just don't fly across rooms by themselves!"
"What?" said James still completely confused as to what exactly had just happened.  "The chair... moved by itself?"
Glancing behind Rebecca, James saw on the windowsill a tiny squirrel with a grey stripe running down it's back.
Gary started to move, indicating he was waking up.
Not wanting to get into any more trouble, or wait to see what Gary was going to do to him, James got up and ran out of the room and right out of the school.  He was sure Rebecca or Gary wouldn't say anything about the altercation, although they were the type to want revenge.