Chapter 2: Home At Last

	The doors of the school swung open, making a loud noise as they banged against the walls.  Appearing though them was James.  He took off running in the opposite direction away from the school.  He got as far as Glen Forest.  
	Glen Forest was about a half mile from Morgan High School and was a nice, quiet forest near both James' school and his home.  The trees were mostly tall, mighty oaks.  There was a slightly beaten trail running through the forest.  Only slightly because not many people found this particular forest inviting, except James, that is.  James loved the forest, he felt almost at home in it.  
The thoughts of what just happened were still fresh in his mind.
 "The chair... moved by itself?" he thought in his mind as he settled down on the ground next to an old tangled oak tree facing away from the forest.  "Nah, she must have been seeing things."
Then there was still the issue of the vision he had at lunchtime.  What did it all mean?
While pre-occupied with the events of today a hazy figure standing off to the left in the forest startled James.  When he turned to get a better look of what it was, it was gone.
"Hello?" he hollered into the forest, but there was no answer
	Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he stood up and walked over to where he had seen the figure.  There, on the ground, was what James was expecting to see: footprints.  They were the size of a child's.
"Hello?" he called out, except for the birds chirping happily everything was peacefully quiet.
As James was turning around, he again saw another hazy figure off in the distance.  It was standing a little deeper in the forest and this time he got a better look at it.
The form looked to be standing about four to four and a half feet tall, with long blonde hair.
"What's a child doing in the forest alone?" he thought to himself.
"Hello?" he yelled at the figure, but it had run and James lost track of where it was.
Running towards where he just saw the figure, he noticed something funny on a nearby tree.  It was a design and it was carved into the tree perfectly.  The artist obviously was well trained.
As he approached, the symbol started to glow green.
"What's this?" he ran his hand over the interesting pattern.  "Why is it glowing?"
The design looked like the number "7" with an "O" on the bottom.  Strangely, James had a vague familiarity of what it was.
"I've seen that before..." thought James to himself.  "But where... yes!  In detention!  In that tree... room, or something.  It was above the door.  It's... it's... Elven?" he said.
He didn't know what the symbol was or how it got there, but for some unknown reason he knew it was an elvish symbol.  The only reference to Elves that James had ever encountered was in books.  They were the stuff of myths and legends.
"Seems like they're more then just myth," James said to himself.  "Unless someone's screwin' with me."
Having the inquisitiveness of a cat made him want to know everything.  
For a reason that even James wasn't aware of, he felt himself being drawn deeper into the forest.  Following his instincts he found the slightly beaten trail and followed it ever deeper, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.
Ten minutes had passed, and the forest crept more and more around young James.  He felt eyes pressing upon him from somewhere in the dense trees yet he couldn't tell from where.  
The deeper he moved within Glen Forest, the more urgent the feeling became until it stopped him in his tracks.  Feeling that the eyes were now moving closer and closer to him, he turned around.
What he saw jolted him back a couple feet.  It was a tiny squirrel with a grey stripe running down it's back standing on it's hind legs.
Regaining his balance, James recognized it as the same squirrel from lunch and the detention room at school.
The little grey-backed squirrel exchanged glances with James for a minute.  Then, taking a few steps back it started to glow.  The glowing became brighter and brighter until it was a giant white ball that lit up James' face and his immediate surroundings.
When the ball became James' size, it started to take a form.  James could make out a humanoid shape.
As the ball began taking form the light dimmed, until there was a rather short woman standing there.  She was clad in very unusual clothes.  The most noticeable features were her pointed ears, a bow and a quiver of arrows on her back.
James' was shocked to realize that he knew her.  He's seen her before, in his vision before lunch, in math.
"You..." his mouth dropped open not quite willing to believe the scene in front of him. "I've seen you before.  Who are you?"
"Yes James, you have seen me," said the woman convincingly.
"Where?"
"I am Saralond... Cirdan's sister."
"Sitting next to me... umm Cirdan on the bed... yes, I remember that clearly now."
 "Yes James, " replied Saralond.  "I've been watching you the past couple of weeks now.  We wanted to make sure that we were right about you... that you... you are what we thought you are."
"That I was what?"
"Let's start with your dreams first," directed the elf.  "You've been having some interesting dreams lately, haven't you James... dreams of places and people whom you've never seen before?"
James raised an eyebrow to what the woman was saying.
"How do you know about my dreams?"
"Because we've given them to you," she responded. "To learn from."
James was floored, yet again.
"You what?" he exclaimed.
"I know this is going to be hard to believe, but you have to," said Saralond.  "It was a decision made by our elders to help you understand what's going on.  We've been showing you our world."
James was starting to feel a little more relaxed around this woman.
"I'd be lying if I said I thought you were human," said James.  "The pointy ears are a dead giveaway."
"Yes," said Saralond.  "The world I'm from, we call Allassea.  The city we've been showing you in your visions is Valendale, my home.  You see, James, we have chosen you."
"What?  Chosen me... for what?" said James.
"As I said before we've been watching you for a while now and you show promise. " said Saralond with a gleam in her eye.  "We choose one human every 100 years, one human that is above and beyond the rest of humanity, and well... we train them.  Earlier today in that... what was it called?  A... detention room?"
"Yeah, it's a place where teachers send kids when they've done something wrong... it's more of a joke then anything else, nobody takes them seriously," answered James sarcastically.
"Ah, ok... detention room.  Anyways, I was there watching while that fat, ugly human was attacking you," she again replied, the gleam that started out as a small twinkle became brighter and brighter.
That's when it dawned upon James, "The chair... that was you?"
"No James, that was you... all you."
James eyes lit up brighter then a Christmas tree on Christmas morning.
"I... I did th... that?" said James amazed.  "What was it?"
"That was what we call Spontaneous Telekinesis," said Saralond matter-of-factly.  "There haven't been many humans who have mastered that particular ability, this is why we've chosen you to come to our world, so we can train you in its use.  Most elves have the ability too, which is why we find it intriguing when a species outside our world has it."
"Spontaneous Tele-what?"
"Spontaneous Telekinesis," she answered him. "It's the ability to move objects with your mind.  With a little bit of training, I'm sure you'd become strong, very strong.  To tell you the truth, this is the first I've seen of an untrained mind being able to throw such large objects as that chair, especially that far and that fast, it was a thing of beauty, not to mention the young man had it coming, wouldn't you agree?"
"That guy's a living terror... so yeah, he had it coming," he said boldly, nodding.
Saralond smiled at James.
"So, you guys want to train me... to use this tele... telekinesis?" asked James curiously.  "Is that the only power that I have?"
"Nope, " said Saralond.  "There are many other latent abilities that are sleeping inside you at this very moment, I can sense them within you and when this is all over you'll be able to sense them in others too."
"Cool!  So what else can I do then?"
"They will be revealed with your training... if you so choose to undertake it."
"When and where does this training take place?" asked James.
"You'll come to Allassea with me, you'll be trained there."	
James liked the idea of having cool powers, but he didn't really want to leave his home and family.
"What if you're just some monster that wants to take me away and eat me?" said James curiously.  "Before I go anywhere with you, you're going to have to prove to me you are who you say you are, we don't exactly see many elves around here as you can imagine."
"Very well James, you leave me no choice, see that?" said Saralond pointy at a small rock on the ground a few feet from them.
"The rock?  Yes, I see it."
"Close your eyes and I want you to focus on it," asked Saralond.  "Focus on it completely, as if you and that stone are the only two things in the universe."
James struggled for a second, but eventually caught on.
"Yes, that's it James," said Saralond encouragingly.
Through his closed eyes, bursts of faint light streamed out.
He was concentrating so hard that a drop of sweat trickled down the side of his face.
"Open your eyes a bit James, take a look at what you're doing"
Not wanting to let his concentration go, he crept his glowing eyes open ever so slowly, he was amazed to see the small stone was shaking violently as if it wanted to get up and fly away.
James let his concentration slip and the rock stopped moving and his eyes returned to their normal colour.
"You were doing that!" snapped James at Saralond confused.
"It was all you James," said Saralond in her usual calm voice.  "I'll tell you what, you try again, this time you pick the item to move, but don't tell me what it is."
"Ok," agreed James.
He looked around for a moment, finding a suitable object to try his newfound powers on, hopefully one that his guest wouldn't be able to guess.
Browsing over the wooded area James saw many potential targets.  There were twigs everywhere and other tiny stones lying about as well all lit up by the sunrays beaming in between the treetops.  In the end, he picked a small apple that had fallen to the ground from an adjacent apple tree.
"Ok, I've picked an object," said James confidently.
"Go ahead then James," she replied.
Again, James closed his eyes and concentrated on the small apple.  His concentration was so good that he completely focused every sound from the forest out of his mind, the birds stopped singing, the animals stopped scurrying about, and the breeze rustling the trees ended.
When James slowly opened his eyes, he was met with the wondrous sight of the tiny apple jiggling on its spot on the ground, that's when James' excitement broke his concentration.
The apple stopped.
James stood there speechless he thought to himself, "I really am doing this."
"So are you convinced yet?" said Saralond.
"Almost, although you have to answer one more question first," said James.
"And what would that be?" said Saralond raising an eyebrow.
"Well... not to sound blunt or anything... but what do you and your elders get out of this deal?" asked James.  "It's just too good to be..."
"Quiet!" said Saralond as her ears perked up.
Stepping to the side, she caught an arrow that was aimed directly at her head.
"Goblin!" she yelled.
She drew her bow and loaded it with one of her silver pointed arrows and then she aimed it into the forest.  James couldn't see what she was targeting.
The bow moved as if it was following some invisible being that was wandering through the forest, then the bow let loose it's arrow with extreme vigour.
THUD!  She had apparently dropped something within the thick wooded area.
"What happened?" said James with a quiver in his voice and a dash of fright in his eyes.  "What was that?"
Saralond took James hand and lead him to what she had just struck down.
There lying on the ground was a small grotesque creature, it couldn't of been anymore then three or four feet tall, with pale green skin, the creature was most certainly dead, Saralond's arrow had flown true and pierced the little green monster's chest.
"Wh... wh... what is that thing?" said James standing there in disbelief looking down at the dead, green body.
"That, is a goblin," said Saralond.
"Where'd it come from?"  
"Truthfully, I'm not sure," replied Saralond.  "Nothing else came through my portal, I sealed it right after I came through, and only elves can open and close portals between Allassea and your world.
She bent down to examine the remains of the poor meagre goblin.
Ruffling through its pockets Saralond came across a small dagger and an even smaller piece of parchment.  Written on the parchment in another language that, glancing at it over Saralond's shoulder, James couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"I can't read goblin, so I'll just pocket this and give it to the elders to read," said Saralond
She folded up the little brown piece of parchment and placed it in her pocket for safekeeping.  
"This place isn't safe anymore," she said seriously.  "I didn't sense that goblin until it was almost too late, and I don't know if there are more lurking in the shadows.  You have to decide now... you can still come back after a short tour if you so choose afterwards."
James turned away from Saralond unsure of what he should do.  Never before has this big of a decision been set before him.  On the one hand he didn't really have any friends here and having that chance would be great, then there was the unknown of exactly what he was getting into.  He turned back towards Saralond.
"Do I have your word that if I choose so, you'll bring me back here?" asked James.
"You're no prisoner James, if I had wanted to take you... I would have," Replied Saralond.  "You're actually free to come and go as you please, as I said before, only in our world do elves have the power to travel between the worlds, in but we do pass that knowledge onto the chosen ones."
"So then what about my family and school?"
"For the time being you can come after school, then return home at night.  So, you see, you don't have to leave anything.  To be absolutely truthful here, we've never chosen someone so young before, so this is a new experience for us as well as you."
James peeked down at his watch.  It read 6:00.
"Wow, I completely lost track of time.  It's been two hours since that detention, and I probably missed dinner by now," said James not worrying about his parents.
"I'll tell you what then... we can go to Allassea for a little bit for you to check things out and we'll return back here in a couple hours, with more then enough time for you to get home," said Saralond.
James thought it over for a second, his face scrunching up as he made his decision.
"That sounds cool, I'll just tell them I had a hard day at school and decided to cool off before coming home," replied James.  "So how do you open this... portal anyways?"
"Step back a bit James, I need a bit of room for this," she ordered.
James stood there curiously staring at Saralond, wondering what was needed to open her portal to Allassea.
She pointed a finger and knelt down.  Her fingertip started to glow a searing blue and she drew a line with her finger parallel to the ground.  What startled James was that these weren't imaginary lines she was drawing, the blue light seemed to trail where ever her finger was and it was glowing even stronger then her fingertip.
She drew one - three foot long line parallel to the ground and two more lines meeting about three feet up to make a perfect triangle.  Then she enclosed the triangle in a complete circle.
Stepping back a bit, she raised her arms up in the air.
"Adaperio pseudothyrum!" she called out.
The floating blue frame suddenly turned a blazing white and when it slowly subsided, there in the middle of the small clearing in which they were standing, was an elf sized portal.  Through the portal James could see people walking around, they all had pointy ears like Saralond and looked like they were going about their business.
Saralond reached out and took James' hand.
"Come James," said Saralond.  "Time to meet your destiny."
Holding James' hand, they both entered the portal.  Walking through, it felt as if a warm blanket was being cuddled around him.  The last thought going through his mind was that he felt like he was finally going home.