Chapter One: Questions and Lies

Melissa Carter looked at the boy sitting across from her, wondering what to do with him. He sat in the chair on the other side of her desk, dark eyes seeming to bore holes into her flesh. His attire was something that belonged in a Renaissance fair or something else of the sort, but that had been a dead end. There was not one within two hundred miles of where they were now and none in the tri-state area were missing a teenage boy. She now sat across from him, trying to get him to tell her anything. After nearly an hour of trying, Melissa was beginning to wonder if this mysterious boy would ever speak.

"What's your name?" she asked for what seemed to be the millionth. "Don't be afraid. You can tell me."

The boy was silent for a long moment before he spoke. "Bae," he said, almost inaudibly.

"Do you have a last name, Bae?" He shook his head. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"Where do you come from?"

Bae wasn't stupid. He knew the people in a world lacked magic would never believe him if he told them of his true origins. They wouldn't be able to wrap their brains around the fact that magic had brought him here, that he came from a place where people used it every day. "Far away. I lived in a place far away from here."

"And where might that be?" He wouldn't answer that. Melissa knew that would be the case. After a few beats of silence, she asked another question. "How did you get here, Bae? By bus, by car?"

Bae looked confused, as he had no idea what she was talking about. He had been scared of her car when she picked him up from the hospital where they had examined him. He had refused to get in for the longest time. It had taken Melissa fifteen minutes to coax him into the backseat and he had been tense the entire drive to her office, staring nervously at the traffic surrounding them. Melissa was almost positive he hadn't gotten here by motor vehicle, because it was almost as though he had never seen one before.

"I brought myself here."

"But how did you do that?" He was silent; staring at a spot on the wall over Melissa's left shoulder. She tried asking her question, but he acted as though he didn't hear her. She decided to try a different question, hoping for a better result. "Where are your parents, Bae?"

Bae bit his lip; unsure of how to answer this question, not even really sure he wanted to. He had yet to lie to Melissa. He didn't like lying. It left a sour taste in his mouth and afterward, he felt extremely guilty. But this might be one of those times that lying was beneficial to him. It would make it so much easier. "They are dead." That was Bae's first lie.

Melissa's face didn't change but in her eyes, Bae could see pity. The metallic taste of lies filled his mouth and he wanted so badly to tell her the truth, where he came from, how he got to this strange place. But she was a stranger to him. He only knew her name and that he would not believe him if he told her the truth. So he let the lie hang in the air and the pity remain in her eyes.

"What happened to them?"

"It was an accident." Lie number two

"What were their names?"

Bae wasn't quite sure how to respond to this either. Truth be told, he barely remembered his mother. She was a faint charcoal sketch in his mind, one that was becoming cruder every day. He could no longer recall her name. His father had raised him for most of his life, but at the moment, he didn't even want to think of his father. The wound was still too fresh. "Coward," he murmured, eyes beginning to tear.

"Are you okay?" Melissa asked, true concern evident in her tone.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Bae answers. "I am fine." Lie number three.