Part One: The Wand

Chapter One
Libraries and Storms

​At nine in the morning, Ellis Hartley’s alarm clock rang. Ellis was only known for his drawings that seemed to come true.
​He had a calendar on which days he would do positive drawings, and which days he would do negative drawings. This was a negative day.
​Today, the day before school began in the city of Hartford, Ellis’s family was scheduled to go to the library at ten-thirty. But, Ellis thought as he drowsily woke up, the clattering of large raindrops hitting the house, could delay it.
​That’s when he had an idea. A flash flood would be perfect for drawing! The scene was clear and vivid in his mind, although the actual drawing would not be the best to experience. That was the whole point of two types of drawings, though.
​Ellis got out of bed, yawned, and got some loose-leaf paper, along with his colored pencils.
​Fifty minutes later, a plain piece of paper was transformed into a colorful scene of a flash flood.

(There should be a drawing here.)

That picture above was nowhere near the beauty of what Ellis had drawn. Little did he know it would come true…
​It was now ten in the morning, and Ellis’s mom began waking up. He heard a yawn from his brother, Max’s room, and his parents’ room. He walked over to his little brother’s room, and he said in a voice that was a cross between a raspy, medium-sound voice with a whisper, “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
​Seven-year-old Max perked his ears like a dog and rolled out of bed, barely visible in the darkness, but the bare sunshine from the nearby window allowed Ellis to be able to see Max better.
​“Hi,” Max said as he rolled through the doorway and into the upper floor hallway.
​“Come on, we’re going to the library. Get your pants on!”
​Max, who was in his underwear, reluctantly sighed and got his shorts on. A minute later, their dog, Lexie, came up the stairs to sniff Max. She almost seemed to regurgitate her dog food breakfast.
​“Eww!” Ellis said to Max. “When was the last time you took a shower?”
​“Last week,” Max replied.
​“Eww!”
​Lexie growled at Max, but didn’t harm him anyhow.
​A few minutes later, their parents came out, dumbfounded why Lexie was growling at Max, why Max was rolling around, and why Ellis was holding his nose. It was quite unusual for a normal family. Or so they thought.
​The thing was, Ellis was a demigod, from his dad. Apparently his mom wasn’t magical, though.
​This half-god thing made Ellis twice as vulnerable, but twice as exciting… although maybe there were some twists and turns. They lived in Connecticut, which is where Hartford is.
​Hartford, Connecticut.
​His dad wasn’t really his dad. It was the god Apollo who was his dad.
​A musical note seemed to play in the distance. Ellis began to hum. Max didn’t, because the dad in front of him was his real dad, but not Ellis’s.
​Ellis didn’t know that Apollo was his dad.
​It was almost time to go to the library and check out some books when a humming sound was heard again. Ellis hummed back. And then a jingling sound came, which Ellis knew was the family tablet. He grabbed it from its spot on the hallway wall and looked at the notification:
​Flash flood watch in effect.
​“Uh-oh,” Ellis said.
​Everyone was oblivious to the fact that there was a humming sound, or even that Ellis realized there was a flash flood watch. All of a sudden, a huge round of raindrops came pouring down in blankets of water. Staring out the window, Ellis could see a fuzzy sight of a person in the flooding that was occurring on their street.
​Lexie began whimpering and jumping like a maniac. Max was shivering because the thermostat temperature went down. But how?

(I decided to not blurt the whole chapter here, because this is a good mid-chapter cliffhanger.)