The Wizard's Heir

Chapter 1

The last person finally put his feet out of my mother’s house. I closed the door and locked it. I looked around and was grateful for the few last people who decided to help me clean up. I stared at the urn which sealed my mother’s ashes on the top of the fireplace. My family has always thought that cremating should be the way their body would return to the earth.

I sat on the couch where my late father used to sit on while watching the television and looked around. As much as I love this house I know I couldn’t afford to maintain it. My life in Maple Bay was gone. Back when I was in school, I was the quiet kid. I didn’t mingle with anyone except for doing group projects and stuff. It wasn’t that I chose to be a recluse. I felt that I didn’t belong here. As soon as I graduated high school, I enrolled in a public college at the other side of the country and later got a job as a graphic designer.

My mom knew and understood what I was going through and she was supportive of me all the way and I loved her for it. She was my favourite person. I would talk to her about my troubles and as if she had a magic or something, my troubles would go away almost instantly. It almost killed me when I told her of my plan to college, expecting her to cry or be dramatic about it. But instead, she took it calmly and laughed. “Well, what’s holding you back?” she had said and my heart fluttered.

I sighed deeply, trying to fight back the tears. I went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. I took the ice cream out and began to eat it while watching youtube until I fell asleep.

When I woke up in the morning, there was a deafening sound. Reality finally hit me. I was alone.

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I walked into my office building and found my way to my desk. I saw condolence cards sprawled on my desk and I smiled at them. My colleague, Kent was sitting next to my cubicle cleared his throat. I looked at him and smiled. ‘Thank you,” I said gently.

I collected the cards and put them nicely at one corner on my desk for display. “Tristan,” Kent called my name as soon as I opened my emails. There was one condolence email from my company and I smiled at the gesture.

“Yes?” I turned to him. “Your birthday is tomorrow, right?”

I could feel the surprise on my face. With my mother’s funeral and will and stuff, I was forgetting my birthday was coming up. And it was tomorrow. “Yep,” I said. Birthday was nothing to me, really.

“Do you want to go out tonight? To celebrate?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

I glared at him. I just joined the company almost a year ago and Kent was my first friend there. “Where do you suggest?” I replied.

He shrugged. “Your pick,” he said. I thought for a moment. “I don’t really know any place. Other than KFC, Dominos, Starb—“

“Okay, okay! I get it. I’ll choose. We’ll leave right after work. Is that okay with you?” he chuckled. “Anywhere that’s not too rowdy,” I smiled and we both went back to work.

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The whole day went by with Tristan working his ass off at his computer when in fact he just couldn’t face anyone else at work. They would look at him with pity, now that he had no family member left. He didn’t want to face with all the condolences and wishes. He wanted to take his minds off of the things that happened for the past few days.

He was so engrossed in his work when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and saw Kent was standing behind him with his bag over his shoulder. “Tristan, it’s almost 7. Let’s go,” he motioned. Tristan looked down at his computer clock and he didn’t get off from his chair for 6 hours straight.