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The Book of the Phoenix

Rise of the Warlock PrinceBy M. Dwayne Jones

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 M. Dwayne Jones
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-9061-6

Chapter One

Ever since I could remember, I felt as if I was a special person, as though I was meant to do something great. When I turned eleven years old, I found out why. My name is Sebastian Phillips, and these are my adventures.

I woke up in the morning gasping for air as I tried to breathe through my mouth and then my nose. I knew I had to make another trip to the hospital to get on a breathing machine so that I could breathe easier.

"Wake up, Sebastian, it's time for school!" said my dad in a cheerful way, like always.

He cracked open my door and yelled into my room. He had no idea that I was already awake. My dad is great! He is a scientist who studies unusual occurrences. He travels around the world looking into things that people report as suspicious, and in the summer he allows my two best friends and me to go with him. He has looked into everything from ghosts in haunted houses in New England to walking mummies in Egypt, and has been recognized by some of the leading minds in the world.

Yep, my dad, Dr. Martin Phillips, can solve any mystery, except for the mystery of the disease that I was born with called cystic fibrosis. Sometimes my lungs fill up with thick fluid that makes it hard for me to breathe. This has never been too big of a problem for me; I live life just like any other eleven-year-old.

After my dad yelled and woke me up, I let him know that I was having trouble breathing, and off we went to the hospital for my treatment. It went well as usual. When we got home, my mom was cooking breakfast. I could smell the eggs and bacon from outside. When we walked in, I sat down at the kitchen table beside my dad while he read the newspaper while my mom finished cooking. My mom fixed my plate, placed it in front of me, and kissed me on the forehead.

"It's your last day of school, Sebastian—are you excited?" she asked as I tried to peek over my father's newspaper to see what he was reading.

"Yeah, I'm excited to go on my next adventure with Dad. Dad, where are we going first?"

My dad lowered his paper and moved his glasses to the tip of his nose and said, "Well, son, all signs point to Norway."

"What are we going to do in Norway?" I asked.

"I received a call from a friend of mine. It seems as if he thinks that they have a problem with witches. Imagine that, witches in 2011."

My eyes lit up. I couldn't wait to tell Parker and Hunter that we were going on a witch hunt, just like the ones we had read about in books, and that we would get to do it in Norway!

Norway is in Europe near the countries of Russia, Denmark, and Sweden. I had never been to Norway and was looking forward to it. I was all about adventure, and it sounded like this one would be great.

I made it to school and ran into Hunter and Parker, who were in the hallway standing by their lockers. We had known each other for five years and were close as close could be.

Even though she was a girl, Parker was fearless. She had practiced karate since age five and had never met anything that she couldn't beat, but she suffered from cancer. Cancer caused Parker to feel really sick and weak at times. She had to have chemotherapy to help fight it. The therapy caused hair loss, and that was the reason she was bald. She always wore a skirt with combat boots. Freckles covered both of her cheeks.

Hunter was the cool one. He had always been popular and really smart. His hair was short, and he had a dimple on his left cheek that stood out when he smiled. Everywhere he went he always wore a jacket with the letter H on the shoulder. He played every sport you could name even though he had a disease known as juvenile diabetes.

Juvenile diabetes caused Hunter to have to eat food that had carbohydrates in them to get his blood sugar at a normal level. Instead of his body storing the sugar for energy, his body released the sugar into his bloodstream. When his blood sugar was low, he could become confused and could even pass out. He had to take insulin injections from a needle or use a pump so that his blood sugar wouldn't get too high. A lot of people thought that he had diabetes because he had some type of problem overeating, but that wasn't true. He was born with the disease through no fault of his own.

As for me, I was just like my dad. I was a scientist in the making. I always wore khaki pants and a polo-type shirt. My big ears always bothered me. Most times, if I could get away with it, I would try to wear a hat that would cover them.

They could see the excitement on my face as I quickly walked up to them. Parker walked to the middle of the hallway, stopping me in my tracks.

"Hey, Sebastian. What are you so excited about?" she asked.

"Yeah, what gives?" asked Hunter.

"Guess what, guys! We are going to Norway to hunt witches," I answered with a smile on my face that was as big as the ocean.

Hunter walked around me and threw his arm around my neck. We started walking down the hallway.

Parker walked on the other side of me. She tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "You mean we get to hunt real live witches?"

"Well, we get to look for them. I don't know if they really exist," I answered.

We walked into the library as we usually did before class and took seats at a table.

"You guys, I have been meaning to tell you this for a while now," Hunter said as he began to rub his hands together. "Something weird happened to me. I walked past our fireplace, and the logs were lit before I got near it, but when I passed it the fire went out. I got closer to the fireplace and waved my hand in front of it, and poof the fire came back. Weird, huh?"

"Yeah, it's weird that you would have the fireplace on in the summer," I said.

"You know my grandma is always cold," said Hunter.

"Not as weird as what happened to me," said Parker as she leaned forward and began to whisper. "Do you remember last week when it rained hard right after school?"

We both nodded our heads yes.

"Well, I was upset because I left my umbrella at home. So I began to walk home in the rain. I was so upset that I kicked every water puddle I could find. The madder I got the more the rain would stop. I stopped for a minute and looked up at the clouds, and then it began to rain hard again. I don't understand it—it was like I was controlling the rain with my anger."

Chapter Two

I immediately began to think about the dreams that I had been having and wondered if they were as strange as the stories that my friends had just told me. I began to wonder if I should even bring it up. Mine were not as cool as theirs. But then, I thought, Oh, well, it can't hurt.

"You know, I have been having some weird dreams too," I said.

"What kinds of dreams?" asked Hunter.

I told them that I had had about five of them. In each, I didn't really know where I was but it seemed like I was in some type of forest. The most recent dream had been the weirdest. I was walking down a path. A thick fog began to form all around me. Then, out of nowhere came a huge bear running toward me. I walked backward until my back was up against a tree. I was thinking, This is it. I couldn't go anywhere else. The bear's eyes were as big as saucers. He growled, and his teeth looked like thirty knives. When he was directly in front of me, he stood on his hind...