Hunter Brown and the Eye of Ends by Chris Miller

Author:Chris Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Magic, Fiction, Friendship, Space and time, Books and reading, Adventure and adventurers, Allan Miller, Christopher Miller
Publisher: Warner Press
Published: 2012-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

My Father’s World

I must have imagined the reunion with my father a million times over. He’d walk up the sidewalk, through the front door and back into our lives, wrapping me up in a great bear hug. All the missing years would be explained, all the hurts forgiven and our family would return to normal once again. I should have learned the lesson by now that we rarely get what we expect.

“Dad?” I whispered, spinning around to scan the room for any sign of him. A head of thick blond hair peeked out from behind a particularly tall stack of books, and I looked into my father’s piercing blue eyes for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

“Son…it’s really you!” Dad said, looking as shocked as if he’d just been visited by a ghost from his past. “What are you doing here?”

“Dad!” I shouted, all at once feeling like a child again. Overwhelmed by the emotions, I found myself giving in to the boyish urge to run over and tackle my long-lost father. Whatever obstacles had been stacked between us toppled easily as I raced toward my father; nothing would stop me from reaching him. Unfortunately, “nothing” did.

“Hunter, wait!” Dad warned, raising his arms to halt me.

As I fell forward toward his outstretched arms, I unexpectedly found myself grasping thin air, having somehow passed right through him, crashing awkwardly on the floor. I was stunned.

Dad laughed as he apologized, “Sorry about that. I was trying to tell you that you can’t touch me here.” Being the one with the bruises, I somehow missed the humor of the situation.

“What do you mean?” I asked, rubbing my shoulder. “Why? What’s happened to you?” From where I sat sprawled on the ground, he looked well enough to me—just like I remembered him, only with slightly longer hair than before. He was still standing in the exact spot I’d seen him, so I knew I hadn’t missed him. That’s when a horrible thought suddenly crashed in on me. I gulped before giving the idea a voice.

“You’re not…I mean, are you…?” I couldn’t bring myself to suggest it.

“Dead?” Dad finished my words for me. He laughed at this too. “No! Far from it, in fact.”

“But, I just fell right through you—like you’re a ghost,” I said in disbelief, picking myself up off the floor. “People don’t just walk through each other. It’s impossible.”

“Yeah, well, that’s my fault. I haven’t gotten around to building interrelational collisions between humans into my design yet. Being the only one here, it really hasn’t been an urgent need. I’m not entirely sure this place can handle it. I wasn’t ready for this yet. Everything seems stable but….” His mind started to wander and he acted for a moment as if he forgot I was there.

I stared at him blankly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Dad smiled, ignoring my confusion, and took a step back to look me over. “Look at you. You’ve grown so much,” he said, letting out a sigh.

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