Synopsis

Fourteen-year-old Ozzy lives near Portland, Oregon, and is desperate for help. His scientist parents have been kidnapped after discovering a formula that enables mind control. Their work was so top secret Ozzy is afraid to go to the police, but without help, he fears he’ll never find his parents. Then he stumbles across a classified ad in the local newspaper that says “Wizard for Hire. Call 555-SPEL.” Ozzy has read about wizards in books like Harry Potter, but wizards couldn’t actually exist today, could they? After Ozzy meets the wizard Labyrinth–aka Rin–he’s even more skeptical.

Sure, Rin dresses like a wizard, but the short robe and high-top tennis shoes seem unorthodox, as does Rin’s habit of writing notes on his shoes and eating breakfast for every meal. Plus, Rin doesn’t even cast any magic spells, which means that the unexplained coincidences that start happening around Ozzy are just that–coincidences.

With the help of a robotic-talking raven invented by Ozzy’s father, a kind and curious girl at school who decides to help Ozzy, and, of course, a self-proclaimed wizard who may or may not have a magical wand, Ozzy begins an unforgettable quest that will lead him closer to the answers he desperately seeks about his missing parents.

Excerpt

Chapter One

In the dense Oregon woods, there was a small cabin, a little wooden home with a crooked green roof and round windows. The cabin was surrounded by aspens and oaks and topped off with clouds that loved to huddle above it. Behind the home was a thin stream that ran parallel to a tall wall of black mossy stone.

As the noon hour arrived, a small hole opened in the clouds, allowing a loose rope of sunlight to drop down. The light coiled up into a mound of warmth, flopping against the ground and lighting up the front steps of the cabin. A man with a dark mustache and thick brown hair sat on the steps. He lifted his right hand above his eyes to look up at the light. Next to the man was a woman with glowing skin and hair the color of milk chocolate. The man was Dr. Emmitt Toffy—the woman, his wife, was also a doctor, but her name was Mia.

Two charming people sitting in front of an interesting cabin in the middle of a lush forest.

Make that three.

Because, next to Mia was Ozzy, their seven-year-old boy with wide, grey eyes. His complexion was dark and his hair was thick and black, like a night with no stars. At seven he was already tall for his age, but thin. He had a deep purple birthmark that covered the pointer finger on his left hand like a single-finger sheath.

Despite the dark complexion, hair, and finger, Ozzy’s face was giving the sunlight some competition.

The boy smiled at his parents as he played with a plastic dragon on the steps near his mother.

“I never get tired of this sunshine,” Ozzy’s father said, still looking up. “I have an affection for light.”

“It is wonderful,” his mother observed. “The forest is perfect, Emmitt. I’m afraid I don’t miss the East at all.”

Two months before, they had moved with Ozzy into the isolated Oregon forest. Emmitt was a neuroscientist. He was also an inventor. Mia was a brilliant theoretical psychologist, studying how people thought and acted and dreamed. They had lived successfully back East for many years, but they had recently sold everything and, under the cloak of darkness, taken Ozzy across the country to Oregon.

The cabin they had purchased was hidden from the world. There were no roads leading up to it or even trails. They received no mail, had no visitors, and since they had arrived, Ozzy had seen no one other than his parents. The inside of their wooden home was filled from floor to ceiling with boxes that had yet to be opened or organized. The only place that had any semblance of composure was Ozzy’s space. His room was in the attic, which was accessible by climbing twenty thin wooden stairs. Engraved on the front of each stair were dozens of small black stars that made it look like Ozzy was traveling the cosmos to reach his room.  Other than that, the inside of the house looked like a convention of cardboard and chaos and it didn’t seem as if the doctors were in any hurry to remedy that. They had unpacked only the essentials for the moment.

“The boxes can wait,” Dr. Emmitt always said. “Today is about what’s already unpacked.”

About the Author

Obert Skye is currently writing this short bio you are now reading. He is worried that saying he has many best-selling books and has won numerous awards might sound braggy. Likewise, he is concerned that listing some of his titles—like the Leven Thumps series, or the Pillage trilogy, or The Creature from My Closet, or Mutant Bunny Island—might sound brash and uncouth. Sure, he’s good at doing underwater handstands and reciting the alphabet by memory, but pointing out things like that only feels as if he’s showing off. And is it too personal to mention that he is married and has multiple kids and lives somewhere warm? Who knows?

What’s important is that Obert Skye is coming to the end of writing his current bio and is wrapping things up by saying that the best way to question or bother him is by going to his website or finding him on Twitter.