“Something seems… different.”
This innocent phrase came from a young blonde boy, lying on his back on a grassy knoll. He was observing the vast, blue sky above him, which should have been devoid of clouds on such a hot, summer day. However, framed in almost the center of the sky, was the wisp of a cloud.
The boy had noticed this cloud before; it seemed to follow him wherever he went since he was a baby. Whenever he asked Grandma or Mother about it, they at first tried to convince him it was not strange, then outright denied its existence. But the boy knew the cloud was there. It was always there.
It was one of the many absolutes in the boy’s life. He always woke up at the same time, ate the same breakfast, played the same thing with his mother in the morning (hopscotch), went to the same school, learned the same things, ate the same lunch, did the same homework, ate the same dinner, and went to bed at the same time. His life was routine, but the boy did not know what routine meant. The boy’s name was also Crane. He had no last name or first names, as he didn’t know what those were, either.
The cloud was the same, too. Always white, circular with a small tail at the end, and having the same darker center. But today was different. Everything had been different since he met Swan a week ago.
Swan was a girl his age. She resembled him in many ways physically, and also mentally. They had the same routine, except Swan had a Father instead of a Mother. However, her Father was rarely around, so she was mostly raised by her Grandmother. She suddenly appeared a week ago, introducing herself to Crane at school, which was only populated by six other students, three boys and three girls. Swan suddenly appearing was a wrench thrown into the tedious life that Crane lived. However, Crane didn’t mind it at all.
Swan was smart. She knew things that Crane didn’t. She even noticed the cloud that followed him the first day they met. Swan knew all her alphabet, could do times tables up to 12, and had a lot of books. One day, she loaned him a book in secret. The book was called Great Expectations, and was written by someone named Charles Dickens. When he asked who Dickens was during lunch one day, Mother had stiffened up and asked him who he had heard that name from. He lied, and said it was Falcon, a boy in his class. He asked Mother who it was once again, and she claimed not to know. The next day at school, Falcon was not in the classroom. Swan noticed his disappearance as well, and they discussed it that pitch-black night.
“What do you think happened to him?” Crane inquired, chewing a carrot Swan had brought from Grandmother’s house.
“He might have gotten sick” she answered, shrugging.
Crane considered for a moment, then asked the question that was on his mind. “What does ‘sick’ mean?”
Swan sighed, and answered. “‘Sick’ means that you aren’t feeling well enough to go to school.”
“I’ve never been sick before,” Crane mused, looking into the empty blackness of night. “I wonder what it’s like.”
“Not very good,” Swan added, propped up on her elbows on the hill. Her long, curly blonde hair hung back from her head. “At least, that’s what Father says.”
They looked at the darkness enveloping them for only a few more minutes, no words exchanged between them, then snuck back home without a word.
The next day, Swan wasn’t at school.
The day after, the cloud changed. Swan was smarter than Crane, but Crane was still incredibly smart, and he knew these two things were connected. Somehow, the cloud was responsible for what happened to Swan. And Crane was going to get her back, somehow, someway.
Chapter One: Westward Journey
Paul Kowalski never stopped for hitchhikers. He had heard stories about hitchhikers murdering their drivers, people unknowingly picking up escaped criminals, or just people being just plain weird. Hitchhikers were the lowest of the low, punks and hippies too poor or too stupid to buy their own car and travel wherever they want, whenever they want. For whatever reason, Paul changed his mind about hitchhikers the day he picked up the strange young blonde man. And the world, no, the universe has him to thank for that.
Paul was on one of his routine runs to Clearwater from his farm to get groceries when he spied the kid walking aside the road, limping and disoriented. He stopped without even realizing next to the kid and rolled down his window to talk to him.
“Hey, young man, what you do doing out here by yourself? Need a ride?”
The kid looked up quickly, meeting Paul’s eyes almost like a deadlock. His eyes were as gray as a rumbling thunderstorm, and he seemed troubled. In an instant, the kid’s demeanor changed to that of a laid-back smile, his eyes moving to a more comfortable blue.
“Thanks, sir. Can you drive me to town?” He spoke with assurance and ease, but also a hidden intelligence and grace that made Paul think he was a city folk.
“Sure, hop on in. Move over, Kent.” Paul prodded his dog with a finger, and the big Labrador scooted closer to him with reluctance, eying the strange newcomer with contempt for taking his sacred seat. The kid sat down in the seat of the truck, sighed, and thanked Paul again. He glanced at Kent, who was still keeping an eye on him.
“That’s a lovely… cat.” the kid said, furrowing his brow to come up with the last word, then seemingly became relieved that he got the right word. Kent’s ears perked up at his trigger word, and began sniffing the young man for any piece of a cat, even something as inconsequential as a skin cell. Paul held back laughter, more convinced than ever of the kid’s urban origins.
“That’s a dog, that’s Kent.” Kent licked his master’s hand in response to his name, and Paul returned the favor by petting him a few times. “My name’s Paul Kowalski, most people call me Church around these parts. What’s your name?”
“My name is Crane. Crane… Kowalski” Paul raised his eyebrows and looked at the kid hard. Not even city folk would name their son Crane, and the possibility that this kid shared his last name was too consequential to be true.