A foggy dawn was swirling through the aspen trees when Corvan opened his eyes. The screen door banged, and he could hear his father singing as he washed up on the back porch over the hum of the rain. The song floated into Corvan’s room and filled the misty air with images of ancient battles and long-lost civilizations. After his father went back into the house, the refrain, like the chant of prisoners in chains, continued to cycle through Corvan’s mind.

The smell of bacon wafted up the stairs. It had been a long time since they had enjoyed a real breakfast. “Corvan,” his mother called from the foot of the stairs, “food’s getting cold. Make sure you wash your hands.”

“Coming!” Corvan called back as he was already throwing off the quilt and stepping over to the washbasin.

The black hammer lay in the shallow water of the basin where he had dropped it as he stumbled back to bed. After the strange events of the night before, he had no desire to pick it up and see what it might do. He needed more time to figure things out. Dipping his fingers into the water, he wiped his hands on his jeans then shut his bedroom door firmly behind him.

His father waited at the table with a mug of steaming coffee in his hands. He looked up at Corvan. “You sure are getting hard of hearing these days. Must come from being outside in a thunderstorm.”

“That makes two of you,” his mother said as she brought a plate of pancakes to the table.

His dad patted her arm as she sat down. “It’s impossible to stay inside on a night like that. I might even enjoy farming if I could do it in the dark.”

He passed the pancakes to Corvan. “Do you remember running past me last night by the outhouse?”

Corvan’s heart skipped a beat, but he tried to look nonchalant. For the time being, he wasn’t going to share his discovery with anyone else. “I didn’t see you.”

“I was right by the path when you came bolting by.” His father’s brow furrowed. “You looked like you’d been wrestling some poor creature out of a mud hole. What did you find this time?”

“Nothing. I just needed to get the mud off my hands.”

Corvan shoved another piece of bacon into his mouth. Why was his father always so interested in everything that happened out at the rock? The Castle was his special place, and his father rarely went there. He looked intently at his plate and speared another piece of bacon onto his fork. “It was just the mud. I didn’t find anything this time.”

Corvan kept eating, but it seemed like forever before his father spoke to Corvan’s mother and suggested they go into the city to pick up a few things.

“Would you like to come along?” his mother asked. “Maybe you could pick out something for your birthday. I’ve saved a bit of money, and it’s just over a week until your big day.”

“I’d better stay here,” Corvan said. “My fort fell apart in the storm, and I need to fix it up.” It was partly true, but what he really wanted was to be left alone to find out more about the hammer and where the water had been flowing under the central rock.

“You’re welcome to come along, but if you stay home, remember to stay out of the cellar,” his father said. “It’s not your birthday yet.”

As soon as his parents began to discuss the trip to the city and what they could afford to pick up, Corvan took the opportunity to mumble a quick, “Thanks for breakfast, Mom,” grab his rain jacket off a peg, and exit out the back door.

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The rain had tapered off into a light mist. The dull sky mirrored his feelings as he passed under the dripping trees and skirted the mud puddles on the path. He cut out toward the steep side of the rock beyond the outhouse. He wanted to get to the top and out of sight as soon as possible.

As Corvan stepped into the ring of stones, the screen door squeaked. He crouched down behind the nearest rock.

“Corvan,” his mother called out, “we’re ready to go if you want to change your mind.”

He was sure she knew where he had gone, but he stayed low and still. A few minutes later, he heard the truck bumping down the lane. As soon as the sound faded away, he headed back toward the house and sprinted up the stairs to his room.

He stood a long while at the washbasin, just admiring the hammer’s cold beauty. His grandfather had intended to give it to him from an early age, and it contained some sort of power. If he learned how to use it, he could change how people viewed him. He leaned in closer, glad now that he had not told his father about it. Lately, his dad was only interested in him when he was pressing him for information about the Castle Rock. If he needed to lie to his father to keep the hammer a secret, so be it.

He reached into the basin, and a blue glow lit up the markings on the bottom of the shaft as his fingers touched the handle. Mesmerized, he lifted the hammer from the water. A sense of power flowed up his arm and into his chest. He held it higher. Strong emotions surged, and he spoke fiercely. “This hammer belongs to me now. I won’t let my father or anyone else take it away.”

A flash of electric blue light shot out from the end of the handle, twisted down his arm, over his shoulder, and toward his face. The crackling shaft of light shoved him away from the washstand. He fell hard against the wall next to his bed.

Sagging to the floor, Corvan thought it sounded like a swarm of bees buzzing around his room. He shook his head and blinked his eyes until they cleared. The sound came from his washstand, where a column of steam was rising from the basin.

Crawling along his bed he grasped the bedpost, pulled himself upright, and peered into the basin. The water was gone. The sides of the basin were scorched and warped. Small flakes of enamel had cracked from twisted edges to created a speckled ring on the washstand.

The hammer must be radioactive. It was the only logical explanation. And now that he had brought it inside, his family would get sick and maybe even die!

Corvan shook his head. That didn’t add up. The hammer had been stuck under the boulder in the center of his fort for years, and it had not made him or Kate sick from playing over top of it. He moved closer. The water was gone, and the last wisp of steam melted away. The hammer lay inside the bowl, and there was no glow on its base.

Where had his grandfather found it? Could it be from his grandmother’s side, the native people of the area? His father had collected a lot of native artifacts by the river caves, but none of them looked like the small hammer or had any sort of internal power.

Could it have been left on the rock by people from outer space? Some believed that Stonehenge was built by aliens, so maybe they had also created the Castle Rock and had left the hammer behind as a gift for mankind? When his grandfather said it needed to go back, he may have meant to its home world? Maybe the lizard was an alien who had been left behind to keep the hammer safe?

There were so many possibilities, but regardless of where it came from, it had both warmed his hand when he was cold and then shocked him when he was angry with his dad. The hammer must be able to sense his emotions and was defending itself.

He took a deep breath, and he moved squarely in front of the basin. “I know the hammer is not mine,” he said quietly. “I will put it back on the Castle Rock where it belongs.”

The memory of the searing blue light made his heart flutter, but as his hand hovered over the handle, he sensed that it was not going to hurt him this time.

As he closed his hand around the shaft, he first felt a tingling sensation and then only the warmth of the stone. Corvan carried it to his bed, lay on his back, and held it overhead. The warmth flowed down his sore arm. The pain melted away.

He drew it down to his chest, and a sense of peace wrapped itself around him like a warm blanket. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, exhausted from the long night and everything that had happened.

As he faded into sleep, the nightmare tunnels returned, but this time, as he wandered through the caves, he felt strangely at home in the darkness. The monster and green rope were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a rectangular opening appeared in the cavern wall up ahead. It was a wooden window frame, complete with a screen.

As he drew closer, a shadow fell across the rusty metal mesh.

A razor-thin claw thrust in near the top and shredded its way down to the bottom.