The Lost Heir: Journey to Elholavina

CHAPTER ONE

                                                                                                  ONE
                                                                                       Into the Woods

Jamie Carson had always been a dreadfully boring boy.
Without any friends to play with or siblings to tease, he was often left to his own devices and that, as Jamie quickly discovered, was the most boring thing of all. His days would be spent just as they are right now, flat on his back, staring up at the night sky, wondering what to do next.

It had just gone ten past eleven, and while his mother and uncle lay fast asleep in their beds, oblivious to little Jamie sprawling like a starfish on the dewy grass so late at night, Jamie felt as though he could do a hundred cart-wheels and still have enough energy left over to run fifty laps around their giant wooden hut of a house. The moon sat up high in the blanket of darkness, and though there was not a cloud in sight, the sky was robbed of the usual glistening sparkles Jamie had so loved looking up at each night. His mother had told him that each star represented a lost soul in the world, a loved one who had passed, and Jamie often passed the time by guessing their names and what they did and if they liked spiced apple pie just as much as he did.

One lone star glistened against the moonlight and Jamie fought the urge to feel sorry for it. How lonely it must be, he thought, to be so far away from the people you love the most. After much deliberation, Jamie decided this star belonged to a soul called Jennifer and that she did, in fact, like spiced apple pie as much as he did. She had been a dentist in her past life and a grandmother of three, and she loved to knit and bake. She smelled like tangy oranges and always had homemade caramel fudge ready and waiting for every visitor who brightened her doorstep.
Jamie wished he had a grandmother of his own. In his family, it was just himself, his mother, and his Uncle Dan, who had moved in with them after his brother (Jamie's father) had passed away seven years ago.

He did not know of any grandparents or aunts or even cousins outside of his own little family. He often wondered what his own grandparents were like. Was his grandmother like Jennifer, who made caramel fudge from scratch and knitted him a woolly jumper every year for Christmas? Was his grandfather like his uncle Dan who smoked cigars and read The Financial Times and wore his dark blue jeans a size too big? There were no photographs. No stories. Virtually no evidence to suggest they even existed at all. But Jamie knew they did. They had to.

Time continued to march on as Jamie rolled restlessly along the grass, dirtying his hair, his pyjamas and his bright blue socks, but he couldn't help it, he was bored, bored, bored and nothing or no one could fix this problem. Uncle Dan had bought him a motorised truck for his twelfth birthday last month but the silly thing was no use when he had no friends to play in it with. He'd ridden it a few times here and there over the last few weeks, doing laps of the house, speeding down the length of the small field behind their house and back again, but any sense of thrill Jamie had felt quickly disappeared when he halted to a stop and realised he'd no one there to share the thrill with. Laps around the house got boring and his mother had told him off about spinning around in circles as the tyres were destroying the grass and soil, and eventually, Jamie gave up altogether. The truck sat at the end of the garden wrapped in a black tarp, doomed to be as bored and as useless as Jamie felt right now.

Clambering to his feet, Jamie made his way toward the truck and peeled off the tarp in one swift motion. It frittered to the ground a few paces away, unleashing the giant black truck his mother had almost fainted upon seeing. He wasn't allowed to use it without an adult nearby.
He also wasn't allowed to be up and out of bed wandering around the garden at twenty past eleven at night either.