The Path We Choose

Chapter 5: The Decision

We followed the man, who later told us his name was Shamm Shingleton, through the park, to a piece I had never been to before that was heavily populated with trees. He stopped under one of the largest ones and sat down cross legged. We all sat down across from him and waited for him to speak. After what seemed like forever he finally spoke.
"I h-h-heard you w-were v-v-very fond of the A-A-Adventures in W-W-Wingleton s-series" he said.
"How did you know that?" I asked, slightly nervous now.
"W-W-Well we W-W-Wizards have a way of f-finding these things out." He said as if I should have already known that.
"What are you talking about? Wizards aren't real! It's just a book series!"
"T-T-That's what y-you think," he said "b-b-but you're w-wrong!"
"Oh yeah?" Jake said "Prove it"
"Oh-oh-okay i-if you ins-sist." The man said pulling a long stick out of his sleeve. It was what appeared to be a magic wand.
"Is this guy for real?" Jake whispered to me rolling his eyes.
"S-s-silence p-please" the man said glaring at Jake. He stood up and motioned for us to do the same. When we were all standing Maddie, who looked terrified, took my hand.
"A-alright are you r-ready?" The old man asked.
"Ready? For what?" Jake sneered.
The man ignored him and started to wave his wand in the air. After a few seconds he started chanting in a language I didn't know, his stutter was completely gone. He continued chanting for a few minutes and I realized that there was some sort of a pattern to the way he was flicking his wand. Finally he tapped the large tree three times with the wand. Nothing happened at first, but after about ten seconds the tree started to split in half, top to bottom. There was a strange glowing coming from inside the trunk and as the two pieces continued to split I realized that the rest of the park wasn't on the other side, but  instead there was a tunnel.
"W-W-We need your help in Wingleton." the man said, his stutter back again. "W-W-Will you h-help?"
"I don't know about this Mags" Jake said cautiously. "It seems a little sketchy to me."
"Why do you need our help?" I asked him. "I mean out of all the people in the world, why us?"
"W-well the prophesy of c-course"
"What are you talking about?" I asked
"I d-dont have time to exp-plain right n-n-now. I n-need to get you to the p-p-princess."
"Look, can you just give us a sec? We need to talk." Jake said grabbing my arm and pulling Maddie and I away from the man. "Are you actually thinking about doing this?" He asked me.
"Yeah, I am. What do I have to lose besides you two? It's not like I'll be gone forever anyway, but I understand 100% if neither of you come with me." I said.
"I'm going too!" Maddie said "There is no way I'm gonna pass up an opportunity to go to a land that I thought was fictional! Mom will be okay until we get back though right?"
"Dont worry Maddie, mom won't ever know we left."
"Well I would be crazy if I let you two run off by yourselves with a random stranger into a tree, so I guess I'm coming too" Jake said.