Secret of the Talking Leaves
featuring
~Brian the Brain~

by
Chris Conrad

Synopsis
    Thirteen-year-old wheelchair bound Brian has just moved from the big city to rural Sequoyah County, Oklahoma. His mother is Principal of his new school and his father is an FBI agent on assignment with the Parks Department. The night before a field trip and his first day of school, a disturbing dream foreshadows a crime at a National Historic Site. With the help of two new friends, a quirky home therapist, and cryptic e-mails possibly sent by God, he will attempt to solve a mystery of Biblical proportions.
*Full manuscript is 48,426 words.

Excerpt #1

Chapter One
    Brian Banes was flying. There was no plane or futuristic jet-pack or even wings for that matter. He was simply flying among the treetops over the city. He looked down and saw one of those huge old convertibles on the street below.
    Now he was in the driver’s seat of that car with the steering wheel in his hands. Trees and buildings passed by. Was he actually driving? How was that possible? His feet dangled high above the pedals. Who was talking to him? Was it Mom or Dad? No, it was that guy--that guy from...from the old television show about...
    What was he saying? He couldn’t understand. It was all garbled. Something about his dog? Yes, that was it. Brian’s dog was sitting on the front end of the car like a hairy hood ornament, barking out directions.
    Did ‘woof’ mean left or right?
    Before he could decide, the car careened around a corner without even slowing down. He tried to control the wheel but it spun wildly and he was thrown against the door. Somehow the dog stayed glued in place but the TV guy was crushing him! His cologne was nauseating.
    Wait a minute. Why would the TV guy smell like...?
    Mrs. Felcher, his second grade teacher, was now the one sitting beside him. They straightened out again and she was telling him...what? He was going to be late? Late for what?
    It was so hard to understand and the dog wouldn’t stop barking.
    She pointed a bony finger forward. The sun’s glare from her horn-rimmed glasses was almost blinding. He looked ahead and saw the school building in the distance. But even as the car seemed to speed up the building moved farther and farther away.
    He was going to be late for school! He tried to run but his legs wouldn’t move.
    Suddenly he was perched on the hood of the car and the dog was driving. Mrs. Felcher said it was okay though because...
                                          ...dogs have...
                                                                   ...four legs.

    whirrrr, thump!
    “Oww!” Did they hit a pothole? Had he fallen off the car? Why was it so dark?
    The familiar red numbers on his clock/radio brought him back to reality.
    3:37 a.m.
    “Stupid dream,” he mumbled groggily. “I don’t even have a dog.”
    Brian felt around and found the foot rests on his wheelchair and folded them up out of the way. With a little help from his legs he pulled himself up into the seat. His fingers fumbled around on the night stand for the touch lamp until the room flooded with light.
    There was a quiet knocking on his open bedroom door. Chandra Cole, his physical therapist, squinted through strands of mussed blonde hair. She clutched her pink flannel housecoat tightly around her and tied the belt.
    “I thought that sounded like a thirteen-year-old hitting the floor,” she rasped, helping him straighten blankets back onto the bed. “Another bad dream?”
    “The usual,” he replied groggily. “Just weirdness.”
    “Why didn’t the chair stop you? Wasn’t it against the bed?”
    “I guess I rolled over onto the switch. I hope the noise didn’t wake up Mom and Dad.”
    “I doubt it. Besides, they know if something’s wrong I’ll handle it.” She smiled weakly. “You want help getting back in or is nature calling?”
    “Calling, e-mailing, texting, faxing...”
    She gave a dismissive wave and turned to go.
    “Sorry you had to get up for nothing.”
    “It’s okay, kid,” she yawned. “All part of the job. Just glad you’re okay. Goodnight then.”
    “G’night.”
    Her slippers shuffled along the hardwood floor to her own room across the hall.
    Brian belched. He could taste the pizza from dinner. No wonder he’d been having such weird dreams. They were eating so much takeout because of the craziness of moving into the new house. He knew no one had time to cook though. His parents had already been there a week, trying to get his mom settled into her new job as principal at his new school. He and Chandra had stayed in Tulsa until the new house was wheelchair friendly and all that. The twenty-two year old had only been with them for a few months since finishing her college courses to become a licensed nurse. She was pretty nice, if a little dingy sometimes, and he was glad she’d decided to make the move with them. Maybe when she was through getting the house squared away she could start making real meals again.
    His stomach was gurgling like crazy. He’d had too much to drink before bedtime too. Pushing the toggle switch on the armrest, he sent the wheelchair into motion and headed for the bathroom. The familiar clicking and whirring of the electric motors helped to distance his mind from the silly dreams. But why did thinking he could run seem so natural in the dream when he’d never even walked right in real life? The muscular problems in his legs sent him from crawling, as an infant, straight into a wheelchair.
    A picture of Jesus stared at him from the end of the dimly lit hallway. God only knew the answer to those kinds of questions and so far He wasn’t talking.
    As he wheeled into the bathroom a motion sensor turned on the lights.
    His dad was making a huge transition as well, he considered, transferring to a new FBI office in Fort Smith, Arkansas, just across the state line. For several weeks he’d driven back and forth from Tulsa to make the switch. Maybe he could get a little more rest now.
    As long as they had to move though, Brian was glad they’d stayed on the Oklahoma side of the border in rural Sequoyah County. He’d be going to a school where his mom worked too so at least he’d know one person there. After all, his old friends were a hundred miles away now.
    Back in bed he tried to relax. Maybe he could get a little more sleep before time to get up. And maybe he wouldn’t have any more crazy pizza dreams. Maybe...if he could just…relax. Maybe he would...
                ...maybe...

    Brian was in a parking lot. There were no cars but he could see the stripes on the pavement. Woods to the left. A small cemetery to the right behind a chain link fence. Black cows grazed beyond the tombstones. Everything was so vivid.
    Nothing looked familiar but somehow he knew he was facing south. Straight ahead twin wrought-iron gates blocked the only opening in a brown rock wall. A light breeze made them stir a little, creaking and moaning their resistance. Suddenly a gust forced them open with a horrible rusty groan. A large sign on the left blurred as if his eyes simply refused to read it. The view ahead was clear though; a stone walkway stretching beyond, half buried in dead leaves.
    The breeze tossed his hair about and he could smell autumn. Falling leaves danced on the wind around his chair, many suspended in a sort of swirling motion. More and more joined in and gathered momentum. Soon he was in the eye of a small storm of them, weaving a colorful curtain around him.
    A whisper.
    What did it say? He listened more intently.
    Another whisper and then another. Others blended in, stronger and louder. The whirlwind of leaves tightened, moving even faster, the voices more insistent. He could feel the pressure growing from all directions.
    What were they saying? It sounded so foreign. What did they want? He couldn’t understand. The pressure was terrible!
    As quickly as it had begun it was over. Only a faint whisper of leaves brushed across his body and a weak spiral of them played out on the asphalt between his chair and the gates. The only sounds left were from a few errant ones skittering aimlessly here and there across the pavement.
    Suddenly, without knowing how, he was sitting just inside the entrance. The trees still had some leaves but there were so many more on the ground like a carpet of orange and yellow, brown and red. He knew there were various buildings to either side but they were just a blur like the sign. For some reason he could only see clearly forward. A small structure spanned the walkway in the distance. It wasn’t a building but more like a little wooden carport covering the largest kettle he’d ever seen.
    He thought he heard the whispers again. Or was it just the wind? Small gusts skipped across the tops of the leaves, twisting them up in little tufts.
    Another whisper in his ear.
    Instantly he was right next to the huge black iron kettle. It looked like a Halloween witch’s cauldron or something out of an old movie about cannibals.

Excerpt # 2

    The walkway branched off to the right and disappeared around the building. To the left, near the main walk, sat a statue facing away from the building among some small trees. It was very dark, maybe cast iron like the kettle. No, a statue would be bronze, darkened from weathering. It looked like a man sitting on a tree stump, looking upward.
    No sooner had he wished for a closer look than the breeze stirred and his chair was sitting right next to it. The turban clad head was turned away toward the eastern sky but his body faced Brian. A big thick book sat at the man’s feet and a powder horn and long stemmed clay pipe lay on top of it. He was dressed in buckskin and held another book or tablet on his lap, a quill pen poised above it. Perhaps then the horn was for ink instead of powder.
    Suddenly a tight twist of leaves shot up high into the air behind the statue’s head. In that instant Brian found himself looking down into the bronze figure’s face. He was flying again, like in the pizza dream. But this was different, wasn’t it? It was so clear to all his senses! How could it not be real?
    He was circling high above like one of the leaves. And he could hear the whispering voices again.
    The statue’s features softened and suddenly it looked more like a real man. It seemed aware of what the voices were saying and began to write.
    He couldn’t believe it. It was moving!
    The man looked up time and again as the leaves, Brian with them, swirled around him.  The whispering grew more intense and the man’s scribbling more fervent. Brian and the leaves moved lower and began to circle faster. There were more whispers in the strange tongue, growing louder and more insistent.
    Lower and closer and faster. More whispering. Around again. Lower, closer, faster. Tree limbs flying past--the building beyond--the kettle--the man writing.
    He was very close now, just above the man’s head, coming around the back again. Lower, closer, faster. The voices were still like whispers but together they were so loud!
    Then silence. The statue’s head snapped up into its original position, quill freezing in midair above the tablet.
Like a shot, Brian came around, only inches from the face. The center of the statue’s nearest eye became a gaping void that pulled him in against his will. Just before darkness swallowed him whole, the mouth moved.
    “God…is…watching!”

Chapter Two
    Brian shot straight up in bed, eyes wide, breath ragged and heart pounding, the ghostly voice still ringing in his ears.
    Chandra shuffled slowly past his door, barely glancing in. “Oh good,” she yawned. “You’re up.”

Excerpt #3

    Brian was so busy talk