Excerpt from Draft 6 Book #5 about Ty

Here is an excerpt from Draft 6 of the forthcoming Book #5, The Owl from Oblivion, where Ty has just appeared on the reality timeline. This a draft so there may be errors in the copy.

Eight-year-old Ty awakens in his house feeling disoriented, still wearing the black shirt with the Saeshell fairy-looking emblem on the front. His bed, its comforters and sheets decorated with moons and falling stars in a fairytale art style, dwarfs his unusually small body. 

The blinds are closed in his upstairs bedroom, the bright morning light pouring in around them. A three-foot-high built-in bookcase wraps around the room on two walls, filled with fantasy storybooks and bound sheet music collections. On top of the bookcase is a computer-like device with a list of pictures of classical music albums that can be touched and played. A light-colored wooden study desk sits against the non-bookcase wall with a touch panel displaying a logo and the words, “Cambridge University Library Research System”. Ty’s father had assembled the tablet system, software, and dedicated link to the library system to feed Ty’s insatiable thirst for knowledge while catering to Ty’s delayed psychomotor development. Two letters are pinned to the wall behind Ty’s desk. One is a congratulatory letter certifying that Ty is ready for the AS Level exam (end of eleventh-grade exam). It is signed by Professor Alex Kettil, Professor Johnathan Wise, and two other Cambridge University professors. Ty has stuck stickers of different kinds of fairies along the perimeter of the letter, framing it. The second letter is a request to an educational administrator for a self-directed study program for Ty. Ty has covered the administrator’s name on the letter with a Skull and Crossbones poison sticker.

Ty starts; He sits up in his bed and looks around his room. He feels disoriented and confused, having just finished talking to Paul7 and his dad. Ty does not understand how he could be on Sophista one moment and then abruptly in his bedroom at home in a flash. He screams, “Daddy!”

His father calmly floats into his room on quiet feet as if he is still a covert operative, and sits on the edge of Ty’s bed, hugging him. “Did you have a bad dream?” He lays Ty back down on his bed and begins stroking his hair, gently running his fingers through Ty’s blond curls. He reaches under Ty’s long hair and gently plays with the rounded points at the top of Ty’s ears, knowing that to be a key to relaxing Ty. Fredrick deliberately kept Ty’s hair long so that people would not know of his oddity, disguising Ty’s fairy-like appearance as much as possible.

Ty begins chattering rapidly. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I am here. I was on Sophista. Is mummy around?”

“What’s Sophista?” asks Fredrick. “Where did you hear that word? Is this something that you remembered?”

Ty starts crying and hugs his dad. His father hugs him tightly, shedding a few tears of his own. “Don’t you remember?” his father asks. “Dad, uh, found you and took care of some problems you had.” Fredrick had adopted Ty—a child of mysterious origin.  

Ty becomes confused as the memories of this new timeline streams into his mind.

“Do you remember the hospital you were in for a time with all the doctors?” asks Fredrick.

“I don’t want to. It was so scary and it hurt a lot. I remember the big letters ERID on the wall. I was so glad when you decided to take me home.”

“Who wouldn’t want to be the father of a smart, loving child like you? I could never be without you.”

“Me neither.” Ty begins to think… “This is all different. Where did all these memories come from? This is not how it was. I remember mummy, but I remember this too. Here I don’t have a mummy. It’s so scary. Here, I don’t know where I came from. I remember Syon from Professor Kettil’s class, but I didn’t go to his class before. Syon was Stefan’s son from the future. Now Syon is a gutter kid with a mean mum and dad. Father wants to rescue him. Tyco! Where is Tyco? I can’t be alone again. He is the only person that truly understands me—that keeps me safe when I am without Father. Now… Now…” More memories rush in. “No! He only visits occasionally from the States. He stays with Stefan. Why? Stefan doesn’t need him. Stefan doesn’t know how to help Tyco.” He ponders the new reality for a moment. “Do I know how to help Tyco anymore? He is quite different… I am alone and a freak… No kids are supposed to be like me.”