There is only one house on this road.

The crumbling Victorian mansion is said by passersby to rise suddenly out of the rolling country side, as though it exists on the other side of a strange veil and only becomes visible to those moving through. Ugly cracks in the once elegant white siding are exacerbated by snaking vines slowly reclaiming for nature what was taken by man. The roof leaks. The lights flicker. Several of the upstairs windows are cracked and dirty, occasionally casting the eerie illusion of figures staring out at the road below. And yet, always there are signs of life. The vegetable garden is well kept and freshly weeded. Cars are in the driveway each day, parked next to the shabby old wood sign spray painted with the words 'Lockwood & Sons Glass Curios.'

Smoke rises from the chimney. The Lockwood family forge still burns, even with the fresh memory of death and the ever lingering smell of charred flesh.

__________*

John Lockwood sat at the bottom of the stone steps at the entrance to the forge room, resting his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. In that moment, he was the most unremarkable young boy in the entire world, and perhaps the most utterly bored as well. His usually scruffy black hair was even more disheveled from just having gotten out of bed, and his brown eyes spoke sleepily to his disinterest in watching his uncle Rufus as he shoveled coal into the glass furnace. John was meant to be observing and learning his family's trade, and although he wasn't normally lacking for enthusiasm about this, today his mind was elsewhere entirely.

Rufus finished add coal and then knelt over, holding his hands up near the glowing furnace carefully, checking the temperature to see if it was satisfactory.

"You get an instinct for it eventually, knowing when its ready for the glass." He looked up at his nephew squarely, seemingly aware that his student wasn't focused on the lesson. "Ay, John? Does that make sense?"

"Yup." John was looking down, aimlessly rubbing his shoe around in the ancient layer of coal dust on the forge room floor, revealing the black-stained brick underneath.

Rufus never talked to John as a son or even as a child, but as his young apprentice. They had always had a strict business relationship; John had attempted his entire life thus far to make his uncle the father figure that was absent from his world, only to be unceremoniously pushed away for reasons he had no means to understand. Despite this, Rufus had always provided for his nephew's needs and was never cruel. Still, John often wished for other company, whatever that might mean.

"You're not paying attention to what I'm saying." Rufus leaned on the wall, wiping his forehead with the handkerchief he kept in his pocket.

John stopped playing in the soot and looked up to meet his uncle's gaze. He immediately looked back down again, shying away from the frustration he saw. He said nothing.

"Go on then. If you're not going to learn anything today then there's no reason for you to be here."

John lingered for a few minutes more, before standing and walking back up the long, dark staircase with his hands in his pockets.

His feelings what had happened where mixed; he was glad to be set free, but also worried he had let down his uncle with his lack of attention on that particular day. He shrugged off the confused thoughts as he emerged upstairs into the enormous dining room, wincing in the morning light pouring in from the big bay windows. Nine chairs sat in a neat circle around a large oval table of polished wood, a dusty white cloth draped over it. The room should have been inviting; it was cheerfully bright and filled with homey kitchen decor, but like the rest of the big empty house it always John feel small and lonely.

On the walls where pictures. John wondered about the people in them often, but never asked his uncle any questions, because he feared the answers.

In one photo an owl-faced man stood surrounded by his four children, next to the Lockwood & Sons Glass Curios Sign. There were two boys with their arms around each others' shoulders who looked nearly identical, both of them redheads. John knew one of them must be Rufus, but he could barely tell them apart. There was a sister wearing a sun hat with brown hair down to her knees, one hand on the sign and the other over her mouth in the gesture of a laugh. The youngest one, a boy, had a strange, secretive smile and prominent cheek bones brought out by his grin. There was untrimmed peach fuzz on his cheeks and chin, as though he had been trying to grow a beard at the time the photo was taken.

There where other pictures.

The sister, sitting with two cats on her lap and one in her arms. A different woman, standing by herself in the vegetable garden, wearing a green silken dress that blew in the breeze. The owl-faced man posing next to a grounded hang glider at a beach somewhere, his eyes obscured with sunglasses. The boy with stringy hair flying a kite while the man who resembled John stood nearby. A young girl who he thought resembled Rufus cradling her infant brother and smiling down at him. The baby, now a young boy, sitting on Rufus's shoulders. All in all, there where ten people represented in the photographs, again and again. And yet he always found himself returning to that man who shared his cheeky smile.

John left the dining room and went out the front door onto the gigantic white porch that always made him feel like an ant. Vein-like cracks ran through the tall, elegant pillars supporting the awning, making him suspect it could collapse on him at any moment- he didn't stay on the porch for very long. He briskly walked down the steps and across the gravel driveway where his bicycle was propped up against the far side of the house. He wheeled his bike to the end of the driveway, before pausing and looking in both ways down the road. A light breeze blew past, and he squinted although he found it a refreshment from the heat of that day. Nothing but knee-high cornfields and the occasional broken up stand of trees was visible in either direction. These few lonely miles where his entire world; the only one he had ever known.

Once he was sure no cars where coming, he hopped on his bike and took off, leaving the sombre shadow of his home far behind.

Not too far away part of the road cut away into a paved dead end; perhaps there had been a house here at one time, or maybe one had been planned and never built. Either way, all that remained now was an empty patch of cleared away land next to a small cluster of trees, and an artificially built up pile of dirt with a wooden plank leaning against it. John came here often to ride his bike off of the ramp, which he'd built himself. There was little else to do when he wasn't helping Rufus with the forge or standing behind the counter at the glass shop. He had all of the time in the world to invent such simple games.

He took his bike to a spot several feet behind the ramp, inhaling and then exhaling deeply, as if preparing for an incredible task.

"Now, John Christopher Lockwood the Third prepares to attempt the impossible." John made a dramatic, sweeping gesture with his hand to an invisible audience. Then he bowed.

Jumping back on, he began peddling hard towards the wood plank, bringing himself to a reckless speed. Wind rushed past his face as he flew his bike off of the ramp, turning the wheel just in time to skid to a stop as he hit the ground. He laughed as the cloud of dirt around him settled, please with his feat, and then returned to try it again. John launched himself off the makeshift ramp many more times this way, each time managing to land safely on the other side.

Some time he was sufficiently tired, dirty and hungry, and his thoughts turned to going home to see if Rufus had made lunch yet. He decided to make one more jump before leaving, deciding that it would be his greatest achievement yet.

This time however, as he sped off the ramp, something went wrong. Perhaps he was just weary from too many jumps, or he let go too soon, or he moved to try a new midair stunt and failed to pull it off. It happened too quickly to know for sure. He remembered the sound and the visual thud of his bike hitting the ground, and he remembered rolling across the dirt, cutting his face and arms on weeds and rocks as he did so. He remembered the voice yelling 'oh no' over and over as it all played out over the course of a few short seconds.

He didn't remember ever opening his mouth.

It was impossible for John to know if he had truly blacked out or if he simply had a moment of empty thought from the wind being knocked out of his lungs. Regardless, when he was able to think clearly again, he was laying on his back in the ditch by the stand of trees. His initial reaction was to be thankful that Rufus always scolded him into wearing his helmet. Then he felt the searing pain in his ankle. Surprised into action, he sat up immediately and saw that it was red and swollen. He choked back tears. He knew his uncle would have teased him for crying at a time like this.

Not knowing what to do, or if he could get up and walk, he looked up through the trees at the light flittering down between the leaves and around him. To his astonishment, he caught site of a bright flash of red plastic paper rustling in the soft breeze, glinting in the same light he was staring at. Disoriented and upset as he was, it took his mind a few moments to register what he was looking at.

A kite?

He fixed his gaze on the shiny, rustling thing, mesmerized by it.

"That looks like it hurts. I'm so sorry."

The oddly familiar voice, which resembled that of a boy close to his age, shook him out of his fixation on the kite. His pulse raced. A stranger? He didn't know who was speaking to him, and yet he felt like he somehow should.

"Who are you?" There was an attempt at intimidation in John's voice; he practically shouted at the person addressing him, channeling the pain of his injury into an aimless anger.

"My name is Lucien. Can you get up?" The voice remained calm and collected and as close as ever, despite John's sideways attempt to scare it away. With some effort, John got to his feet. He leaned on his right leg; putting pressure on his left ankle was impossible. And yet, he managed to stay standing.

"Oh, good, you didn't break anything." By his tone, Lucien seemed genuinely relieved, although John still couldn't see him.

John looked up at the kite again, his curiosity yet unfulfilled. That was when he saw something truly bizarre; coming off of the first kite was a long, impressive tangle of kite strings, wrapped around tree limbs and snaking back farther into the stand of trees, out of his range of site. A collection of various other kites, in a variety of colors and shapes, hung off of the strings at their ends, with many more deeply entwined in the mess. He was baffled. He pinched himself, but nothing happened. He was awake, although it hardly felt so.

"Alright, then where are you? I can't see you." He called out to the boy named Lucien as he stared up at the kites and strings, trying to wrap his mind around the astonishing things he was seeing and hearing.

"Follow the kite strings." And then, to his surprise, he heard Lucien giggle. There was a familiarity in the gesture, and then he realized that it echoed his own laugh.

Never diverting his gaze from the tangle, John limped farther into the stand of trees.

"How come I've never met you before?"

"Uhm, well, I guess I'm a little shy...I've seen you playing here before, but I was always afraid to say hi."

John shuddered at the thought that someone had been watching him play all this time without his knowledge. There was little more conversation between the two of them as he went deeper and deeper into the trees, realizing that this particular thicket was somehow much bigger then he had envisioned it. The string and kite tangle never waned the whole way; in fact it seemed to grow larger and more mind-boggling as he went, as though it was converging on a particular spot. The sun was beginning to grow dim behind it, and John suddenly felt frightened for the first time. Still, he continued on.

"You never told me your name!"

After the period of silence, Lucien's somewhat shrill voice startled him.

"I'm John." He put simply, his voice small.

"That's my dad's name." Lucien betrayed no emotion in this statement, as though it had no sentimental meaning to him either way.

"It was my dad's name too! And my grandpa's. I'm John Lockwood the Third." John boasted proudly, distracted from the situation for a brief moment. As scared he was, he was glad to have someone to talk to.

The tangle was now so absurd he could barely comprehend it. In his field of vision was nothing but a mass of strings and kites, with only the occasional flash of green leaf poking through. The world had grown dark and quiet around him. All his life he had thought he was lonely, but now it occurred to him that this must be what loneliness truly felt like.

"Lucien?"

There was no response now. His heart suddenly grew still and cold. Had the other boy really ever been there, or was he fooling himself? He stared ahead, heart thumping, mind blank.

And that was when he saw it.

There, at the center of the unbelievable mass, was another kite. This one however, was much larger then the others. It was in the shape of a cartoon dragon, its face and body scribbled on with crayon. The longer he looked at it, the more he saw that it was not whole- its paper body was ripped and torn in multiple places, and it was draped over the limbs of the tree as though it had been soaked through with rain many times. It had clearly been there for many years. He looked at it curiously, and approached with caution, almost drawn in to its large, sad eyes.

Then, to his great horror and disbelief, the dragon kite stirred.

There was no breeze.

"Lucien?" John managed to utter in a faint whisper.

"Yes." The kite stirred again, its movements echoing the voice.

"What are you?"

"I was your big brother."

In an instant, all of the courage that John had displayed up until that point slipped away from him. No more did he try to rationalize the situation. He didn't remember a moment of fleeing the forest later on, only the soft sobbing that followed him back through the trees, then grabbing his bike where it still lay on the ground and racing away. His ankle no longer hindered him, the adrenaline was a pain killer enough.

The next thing he knew, he was standing back at the edge of the driveway, home.

Rufus was leaning on the railing of the porch as his nephew limped up to him, scratched up, caked with dirt and pale in the face. There were tears streaming from John's eyes now, and he didn't care anymore if he was made fun of for it.

To John's surprise, there was no teasing. Rufus's expression sank into a look of deep concern. He put a hand on his nephew's shoulder and gently led him into the house. He sat John down at one of the dining room chairs, and then sat across from him, clasping his hands together in a gesture that was the opposite of anticipation.

"What have you done?" Rufus looked sombre and grave, as if he, to some extent, already knew the answer.

"The kite talked." It was all John knew what to say of his experiences that day. He looked down, at nothing.

"Yes."

The one word answer, affirming as it was, caught John off guard. He looked up at his uncle, to see that he was gazing deeply at the many pictures on the wall. His mind seemed to be far away.

"Uncle Rufus?"

Rufus never for a moment looked away from the photos.

"Boy, its long past time that I talked to you about our family."