Far above a magical land, an enormous pumpkin flies across a bright sky with five-year-old Owen and his three-year-old brother, Oliver, riding on top. The two boys hang on tightly and laugh with pure joy as the beauty and wonders of the land below nurture their innocence and their imaginations. Even so, there is a darkness that threatens to extinguish the light of their childhood. Although they enjoy the home they have created in a cozy and shadowless cave, the boys miss their parents and long for a way back to them. Every night, the pumpkin sits motionless outside the entrance to the cave, keeping the boys safe from harm, but the pumpkin cannot protect Owen and Oliver from all danger. Shadow eyes wait in the darkness, and other creatures even more deadly. When the boys are torn from the pumpkin's safety, they must find strength and courage in their love for each other if they are to survive and find their way back home. This poignant fantasy tale explores the bond of love between two young brothers as they take an enchanted journey through the extraordinary miracle of childhood, through its hardships and fears, its discoveries and triumphs, its vulnerability and its resiliency. With only each other to depend on, the brothers must find their way through the darkness, and back to the light.

The Magic Pumpkin

By Benji Alexander Palus

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2013 Benji Alexander Palus
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-7048-7

Chapter One

The enormous pumpkin flew across the bright pink sky, leaving a trail made of little wisps of its magic glow: autumn colors of red and orange and yellow and green, and even a bit of violet which swirled and faded into nothing a few seconds after the pumpkin had passed. Atop the pumpkin rode two small boys, brothers named Owen and Oliver. Owen was five years old at the moment and Oliver had just turned three, though he didn't know it.

Being the older brother, Owen got to "drive." That is, he sat on top of the pumpkin with his legs around the giant stem and steered with a piece of deep green vine that grew out of either side of the stem into a loop, much like the reins on a horse. In fact, it was this loop of vine that had first given Owen the idea to climb up onto the pumpkin and pretend that it was a horse, only to find himself flying away from the ground and from Oliver, who had started to cry, but that is another part of the story. Oliver was not crying now. Quite the opposite; he was laughing, as was Owen.

Riding the magic pumpkin was the boys' favorite thing to do. They looked forward to it every day. After Owen was up and settled at the reins, Oliver would climb up after him. Oliver was much smaller than Owen and often had trouble getting on the pumpkin. Owen would always try to help him but Oliver was determined to do it by himself, every single time, no matter how many tries it took or how many times he fell down.

Sometimes Owen would get impatient and yell at Oliver to hurry up. "Come on already, Oliver! You're never gonna get it! No! Not like that, you're doing it wrong! Put your foot there!"

This would only make Oliver more frustrated and half of the time he would sit on the ground, crying and pouting and hitting the pumpkin. "Shut up, Owen! I hate this stupid punkin! I wish we never found it! I don't evuh wanna ride it again!" Of course, Oliver didn't mean any of these things, nor did he mean to yell at his brother, but sometimes his temper got the best of him. He was only three, after all, and was easily discouraged when things did not go his way.

Owen would usually feel bad when Oliver couldn't get on the pumpkin. He never meant any of the angry things that he said, either, and the sight of his baby brother crying would almost always make Owen's anger melt away. That's when he would gently or cheerfully say, "It's okay, Oliver. You can do it!" and then Oliver would do it, grabbing at the piece of vine that Owen pretended he hadn't lowered and scrambling up behind him with a giggle or two of excited anticipation as he squeezed both arms around Owen's middle, pressed his head tightly against Owen's back and closed his eyes tight, waiting for the moment when the pumpkin would rise into the air and tickle the bottom of his belly.

The pumpkin flew over the gently rolling hills, carrying the young brothers who laughed at everything, and at nothing. They laughed at the black birds that yelled at them for flying through their flock. They laughed at the singing fish. They laughed at the feeling of the wind in their faces and because the sun and the moon were rising over the horizon together. They laughed because it was so ridiculous and at the same time so wondrous that they were actually riding on the back of a pumpkin that could fly through the air. Mostly they laughed because they loved each other and because they were together.

As close as the brothers were, they did not necessarily look like brothers at first glance. Owen had dark brown eyes, straight and thick dark hair that barely touched his collar in the back, and at age five he was already a bit lanky. It was obvious that he would someday be very tall like his Daddy. Oliver had bright blue eyes and long, reddish-blonde hair that grew out of his head straight, but then landed in curls on his shoulders and just above his eyes. He had lean limbs like his brother but didn't seem as if he would grow up to be quite as tall as him (although at age three it can be hard to tell such things), and Oliver still had some baby fat in his face and a plump round belly that often poked out from beneath his shirt.

Although these differences were striking, if one were to look a little closer they would see that both boys had the same friendly, round nose - nice and short. They would also see that although their eyes were different colors, the shape was almost exactly the same: big and round and bright, and with long lashes. Both of the boys had the same mischievous curl in the center of their upper lip and the same clumsy-looking ear lobes.

Strangely, where the brothers were probably most alike was in their little boys' hands, not just in the shape but in the curious way that they moved them. It was as if each finely shaped finger had a mind of its own and could move how it liked without regard to the rest. That is not to say that their fingers were constantly wiggling in all directions like the tentacles of an addlepated octopus, far from it. Rather, they moved in the way that the fingers of a talented pianist moved over the keys of a piano; all doing what they're supposed to be doing and doing it where they're supposed to be doing it, but no two fingers in the same place, often nor at the same time. Of course, neither boy could play the piano, indeed they had no piano to play even if they could, but this was how their fingers and hands moved no matter what activity occupied them, whether they were buttoning their shirts, picking rainbowberries or waving goodbye to the cow-pies in Springland. Their hands looked nimble even when they weren't doing anything at all. Most fingers rest together, sometimes curled this much and sometimes that much and sometimes laid flat, but Owen's and Oliver's fingers would rest at different angles from each other without the boys even noticing it. It was as if they had been carved by a master sculptor who had studied for weeks to find the perfect position to convey fluid grace, and yet the boys' hands never came to rest in the same position twice. Sometimes Owen would cross his fingers when he was content and sometimes Oliver would lay one finger aside his chin while he thought; it was all very bizarre, this finger business, especially in contrast to how clumsy the rest of their little bodies could often be.

Owen's fingers tightened on the vine as he steered the pumpkin up and over a hillside covered with long yellow grasses and withering weeds. Leaving the fire trees behind, the brothers headed toward the Dead Wood Forest where they liked to chase the leaves that fell from the black hole trees and blew about in the gusty winds. The pumpkin flew lower as it neared a light wood of tall, soft-colored trees whose rich fall foliage seemed to brighten the sunlight that shone through it. The boys were in Autumnland and it was a perfectly crisp autumn day.

The pumpkin landed with a quick bounce and a fwump! in a pile of leaves, sending up a rustling shower of red and yellow and orange and brown into which Owen and Oliver jumped and were immediately buried. The boys' laughing heads popped up, bits of leaves in their hair and sticking to their sweaters, and they waded out of the leaf pile. For a while they took turns running and jumping into the piles of leaves, until they had spread them all about, and then the brothers left the leaves and the pumpkin behind and walked off toward the black hole trees, holding each others' hands and knowing that by the next time they visited that place, the wind...