[The Jack of Diamonds and the Wonky Box] 2,500 years ago, The man and woman emerge from the portal and stand looking over the first few mud huts of the small village. The man holds a plain oddly shaped box and the woman an ornate jar. “We must hurry, the other four gates are closed,” the woman says. “If we do this we will never see each other again,” the man says. “The time of the Gods is over, we must close the gates and give the worlds to the mortals,” the woman says. “And the five worlds will be forever alone,” the man says. The woman says nothing further and carrying the jar, turns, and steps back through the portal. The man watches and waits, and a moment later the portal closes, she has done it, all the magic of her world is sealed within the jar. The man casts a last spell and creates two hats and sets them aside. He considers for a moment and then reaches into one of the hats and retrieves a small scroll with the image of a Jöðurr, the guardian, on it. He releases the scroll to seek out a mortal worthy of the Jöðurr rank; whoever the scroll finds will be Jöðurr of this world, and all his descendents for the rest of time. Rock Topeus Soupstone then holds the oddly shaped box above his head and all the remaining magic of his world enters the box, and he seals it. Today, My name is Jack Tumbleweed Wrakleday, also known as The Jack of Diamonds, and I am about to die. I am running through the woods, and it is dark, and the trees reach out with crooked knobby arms to slow my escape, the end of each branch a long twisted hand grabbing at me. My wonderful new dark-red boys coat is ripped and torn, and hangs off me in shreds. I have no idea which direction town is located, and my feet are quite frozen and my shoes wet from the snow. I am hungry, but more important--something big and sinister and evil is chasing me, and I believe it also to be hungry. I do not want have to say that I am in a condition of panic, but the truth is, I am. The situation is so dire that my extra-long shoe-laces for double-knotting have become untied and I have been tripping over them as I flee through the dark woods. I fall again, and land hard on the frozen snow-covered ground, and cry out as I sprain my ankle. I think I am finished and can run no further. I will sit here shivering in my torn coat, and the big and sinister and evil thing will take me. Even a good boy can only run for so long, and I have run for a very long time. I am tired, and close my eyes, and wait for my horrible end. I should imagine that by now you would think this story is about me, but it is not. This story is about the Mysterious Magic Wonky Box. The day started out well enough, as such days do. I walked to school with Lilly Palor Tiptus, and I had lunch with my friends at the little courtyard behind the school, and after school I walked to Grimbina Department Store, and began my performing my duties as stock boy. I carried boxes in need of carrying out to the different departments and stacked merchandise. I finish quickly and Aunt Grimbina tells me to begin making deliveries and I returned to the storeroom to get ready. I wonder if anyone has made deliveries for several weeks as the shelf with the packages for delivery is full. I load all the packages into a little wagon with big rubber wheels that I will use to pull around town and deliver the packages. The wagon bounces along over the cobblestone streets behind me as I search out each address labeled on the packages to deliver. I suppose Aunt Grimbina could have used the Post to deliver the packages, but it is a small enough town and no sense wasting postage on a box that a good stock boy can walk a few blocks and deliver. A light snow begins to fall and I think the streets will soon be covered in snow and ice, and I wonder how I will deliver packages then, the wagon would get stuck in the snow. I think Aunt Grimbina must already have a solution for it; perhaps there is a sled I could pull along. I am warm and cozy in my puffy dark-red coat with the fur-lined hood. I wonder what is inside the boxes I am delivering and imagine all sorts of wonderful things. Perhaps there is a new thick winter shirt with long sleeves and big buttons in that one, and maybe that one has a replacement tea cup for one that slipped through someone's finger and fell to an unfortunate end on the kitchen floor. I make a game of guessing the packaged contents as I deliver them, though I am certain never to find out, it is still a fun game. I also discover a wonderful bonus to delivering packages with a smile and proper manners. Aunt Grimbina told me never to ask, and never to expect, but people might want to give me a tip for delivering. I am permitted to accept the tip, provided I do so graciously and thank them. I never really thought anyone would offer me a tip, but here I am only half-way through the packages in the wagon and I have made more in tips than I do working for Mr. Hornpickle for an entire month. I think of all the fine luxurious things I could buy with my new fortune, and then almost immediately I turn red in the face from shame. How could I think of buying fine luxurious things when my dearest mother is working three jobs? I could probably make enough from my tips to pay the rent and my mother could quit at least one of her jobs. I know the town of Waddlebrooke fairly well, but still, there are a few streets I have never been on and it takes me a little while to find a few of the addresses. The wind is cutting between the buildings and even with my new coat, and the gloves Mr. Hornpickle provided, it is a little cold. Though, I would certainly never complain about such a little thing of no matter when I am so fortunate to have a job at all. I am just coming back down a hill from delivering a package to a house on a hill when I see Lilly Palor Tiptus running towards me. I worry that something might be wrong, but it is not. "You forgot a package," Lilly Palor Tiptus says. I am certain I did not, I checked the shelves very carefully before I left and there were no other packages. I tell Lilly Palor Tiptus this and she shrugs and tells me that perhaps there was a late order that arrived and one of the sales attendants put it on the shelf after I had already gone out to make deliveries. She shows me an odd shaped package and I look at the address, I do not know the address but think it might be a road on the edge of town. I drop the odd package in the wagon and then Lilly Palor Tiptus lifts a small thermos with a picture of a little white rabbit on it from her coat pocket and twists the lid, steam rises from the open thermos and I put my face over the thermos to smell it. I am fairly certain Lilly Palor Tiptus likes little white rabbits. "Hot chocolate?" I say. She nods, and pours some of the hot chocolate in the lid that also serves as a small cup and hands it to me. I pull my gloves off and enjoy the warmth, and then sip at the hot chocolate. We share the cup back and forth between us, and Lilly Palor Tiptus giggles, and I grin--though I am uncertain why. We share one more cup of the hot chocolate, both of us blowing on the liquid to cool it down and then she twists the lid-cup back on and says her break time is almost over and she needs to get back to Grimbina Department Store. The snow is starting to fall a little harder and I wonder if school will be cancelled in the morning. I take the handle of the wagon with the big rubber tires and head off to make the last deliveries until at last only one package remains, the odd shaped box that Lilly Palor Tiptus brought me. I look down at the address again and head to the edge of town where I think that road is. I reach the edge of town without finding the road, perhaps the road is farther out, and I decide to walk just a bit more. I do find the road, a lonely thing with snow piling up. The truck that clears the roads does not usually clear side roads. I decide that pulling the wagon with the big rubber tires will be too difficult and pick the odd shaped box up. The odd shaped box is no bigger than my hand but much heavier than I would have imagined it to be. I leave the wagon and walk along the lonely side-road, the walk is not easy as the snow is getting deeper and slippery at some parts. I walk for maybe a quarter mile but I see no house to deliver to, and I start to think perhaps it not such a good idea to go on. The snow is picking up and I turn around. I can see the wagon out at the road where I left it and look down to check the address again. And this is where everything went terribly wrong, and when things go wrong in Waddlebrooke, it is never just a little bit wrong, it is really wrong. I look up again and the wagon is gone, the road is gone, the trees are gone. Or better said--the trees have moved some distance away. I am now standing on the middle of a frozen lake, and it is far too early in the winter to be out standing on a frozen lake. I hear the horrible cracking of ice. I have lived in Waddlebrooke my entire life and ice skating on frozen lakes is a wonderful part of living in Waddlebrooke, but I also know what the sound of cracking ice means. I flatten onto the ice and spread my arms and legs out, the cracking sound stops, but I am in trouble. I crawl towards the edge of the lake as an inch-worm would crawl, it is a terribly slow crawl and I am cold and getting colder by the moment, but I knew if I were to fall through the ice I would be much colder. I looked at the ice, it is clear and smooth like a mirror, but I could see beneath the ice, and the things I saw I did not want to see--almost as if an entire other world existed beneath that ice. I crawl faster. As I near the edge of the frozen lake I can hear the ice beginning to crack again, which makes sense as the ice is thin to begin with being that it is too early in the winter for good strong ice to skate upon. The ice cracks and I have an odd feeling that I was crawling across a spider's web. I am close to the edge of the lake and decide to play my luck card. I stand and shout. "I am The Jack of Diamonds!" At the moment I shout my name I have the oddest feeling that every tree, and rock, and the things beneath the ice, and something else, something sinister and evil, turn and stare at me. I make a mad slippery dash for the shore of the lake and my luck card holds. The ice seems to harden, and the cracks in the ice stop, and I jump off the lake and onto the snow covered ground. I turn around and look back at the ice and can see creatures beneath the ice pounding on the ice, but the ice would not break. I fell something squirming in my hand and look at the odd shaped box, it is wiggling. I want nothing more to do with that odd box and I throw it out onto the frozen lake. The box lands on the ice and slides for some way before stopping, and what happened next is the thing of nightmares. A shadow spreads out from the box and rises up and starts pounding on the ice, but the ice would not break. I hear a sound from the shadow as if it is screaming in anger and then it looks at me. I am fairly certain that all this must be in my imagination and I must surely be laying in the snow someplace freezing to death and hallucinating in my final moments, but it feels so real. The shadow starts towards me, and real or not, I turn and run. I have no idea which direction the town is in, so any direction works fine for me, I run into the woods and I run and run and run. The trees seem to be like living things reaching out and trying to grab me with their long twisted and boney fingers, ripping at my wonderful coat until it is shredded and hanging off me like so many ribbons on a Maypole during the Mayday festival. The night comes and I run in a mad panic through the woods, and I can feel the hungry sinister thing following me. I fall many times over logs and branches; the entire wood is alive and trying to stop me. I grow tired and fall one last time and sprain my ankle, I cannot run anymore and I sit and wait for my end. I look up and see lights bobbing between the trees some distance away and wonder what new horror is coming for me. I am so cold now and lay down and close my eyes and wait. "He's here, I found him!" shouts a voice. I open my eyes and am not sure what I am seeing, a man stands over me dressed in a fine double-breasted vest and coat, and a magnificent top hat upon his head. But at the same time I also see a great Knight in shining armor and a shield decorated with diamonds standing there as if to do battle. I recognized the man. "Mr. Soupstone?" I say. He didn't look down at me, and then I notice a boy standing next to him also dressed in a fine double-breasted vest and coat, and a very fine top hat perched on his head as well, it is Neal Larimstraum Soupstone III. And I thought for a moment that Neal Larimstraum Soupstone III is also dressed in a suit of shining armor and holding a shield decorated with diamonds. I am certain that I must have gotten lost in the woods and am most definitely hallucinating. "If I fall, son, it will be up to you, guard the Jack of Diamonds and spirit him away to safety until the day you can fight it," Mr. Soupstone says. "Yes, father," Neal Larimstraum Soupstone III says. Mr. Soupstone takes the top hat from his head and what I see is a massive sword and the top hat at the same time, as if they are very much one and the same thing. He walked towards the growing shadow that had been chasing me while Neal Larimstraum Soupstone III removed his own top hat and took a position in front of me--holding his own top hat that was also a sword in his hand. I must surely be close to death, a poor lost boy nearly frozen solid in the woods. None of this is real and I am only having one last dream before I close my eyes forever. The shadow fell on Mr. Soupstone and I watch a great battle, the massive sword swinging and ringing out against a thing that is only a shadow. I watch with a detached interest knowing that it is not real what I am seeing. Mr. Soupstone swings the sword over and over and the shadow crashes against his shield, then as quickly as the battle had started it was over and Mr. Soupstone is holding the odd shaped box I had thrown out onto the lake in his hand. He shoved the odd shaped box into his top hat and came back over to where I was laying in the snow. "I knew you could do it, father," Neal Larimstraum Soupstone III says. "It was very close, son, it wanted free very badly," Mr. Soupstone says. The lights I saw bobbing among the trees came next and I thought it looked as if the entire town of Waddlebrooke is here. Someone lifts me up and holds me tight and I realize it is Mr. Hornpickle. "I thought we had lost you, my boy," Mr. Hornpickle says. And then my mother is there and even in my dream I see a strange look pass between them and something at the edge of my understanding slipped into my awareness and all the years Mr. Hornpickle has watched over me made more sense, and then whatever it was I thought I knew was gone and I lay my head on Mr. Hornpickle's shoulder and fall asleep. I wake later, warm and cozy in a bed, the covers up to my chin. I hear voices speaking but keep my eyes closed. Grown-ups have a bad habit of stopping whatever they are talking about if they think you are listening, and I wanted to know what they are saying. I know, that is not a very good boy thing to do, but I am still sleepy and not thinking right yet. "At least we know now that he truly is The Jack of Diamonds," a voice says. "Yes, I was concerned that when his father died we had lost the Gate Guardian," another voice says. "What happens in our world happens in all worlds," the first voice says. "We can only hope the other worlds have kept their boxes sealed as well," the second voice says. "Who would be foolish enough to attempt to open the box," the first voice says. "I do not think they were trying to open the box, not if they handed the box to the only person in the world that can keep the box locked," the second voice says. "I think they only cracked it open slightly by accident." "You may be right, but now they may understand what the box is," the first voice says. "We need to move it to a new hiding place." "Hush, you two old fools," says a third voice. "He's waking." I know that voice, it is my mother. I open my eyes and see Mr. Hornpickle, Mr. Soupstone, and my mother are in the room, and it is my comfortable room with all my things around me. "I had a dream, mother," I say. "I know dear, it was just a dream, you got lost in the woods and we found you just in time," my mother says. "How did you find me?" I say. "You have a very good friend that told us where you were, she's waiting to see you," mother says. I smile because the only person that knew the address I had went to deliver the package at was Lilly Palor Tiptus, she must have gotten the town together and sent them to save me. I very much wanted to see Lilly Palor Tiptus. "Yes please, mother," I say. Mother opens the door and I lose my smile as if I someone told me I was about to eat a bug, and I was fairly certain the bug was at the door. Penelope Cornapeous Hornpickle runs into my room with big eyes full of tears, and throws herself on me. Her head is right next to my ear and she whispers to me. "I warned you something bad would happen if you cross me, say anything and next time it will be your little girlfriend out in those woods." Well, that is the story of the Mysterious Magic Wonky Box. I am The Jack of Diamonds. Hope to see you again soon. Bye now.