Chapter 4

  The Family I Needed

  If it had not been for the small animals, the lion, and the birds flying overhead, Max might have felt like he was alone on the savannah, something he had never felt before.

  “Well,” Max said, “it seems they all left me.”

  Max was a little disappointed, more than a little disappointed. In disgust, Max said, "They weren't my real family anyway."

  But as he said, darkness touched his heart, and Max knew that was wrong.

  “I could just make my way back to my real family,” Max said, trying to shake the feeling.

  Max remembered a story about a place called the Bridge of Hope on the western side of the lower plains. A bridge built by dwarves hundreds of years before. It was said that it could be seen for miles. Max thought that if he headed in the direction, he could find his own way home.

  He didn't need, but no, he was wrong. Max thought he felt something coming close to him. But he ignored the feeling and thought about what the right thing was to do.

  Focusing on doing right, Max said with new appreciation, “They may not have been my real family, but they were the family I needed. I owe them.”

  The right thing to do, he knew, was to find his adopted family. Find the ones who had helped protect him for all those years and let them know that he was alive. They may not be talking elephants. They may not be able to reason like the talking beast. But Max knew he had spent enough time with them, enough seasons to know they felt pain, they felt loss. They cared about those in their herd, and even those who weren't in their herd. Just their act of kindness, such as moving the bodies or bones of elephants, not even their herd, into the grass so they would not be disturbed, was proof.

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  Max said aloud, “I have to find my adopted family.”

  And in that moment, the presence that just seemed to be so close seemed to move away. Max looked around, and no one was near. Max didn't know what it was, but he knew he had made the right choice.

  Max’s head still throbbed, but he was determined, "I'm going to find my family."

  And with that, Max turned toward the north to walk along the stream that merged with the river, hoping to find his family. He knew that this was the way that they went as the summer got hotter.

  As the seasons got hotter, that this watering hole would dry up. And though it was typically a little early for that, Max could think of no other place to go. So he tried to move a little faster in that direction.

  Looking around again, Max was amazed at the number of animals that just weren't there. He saw some starting to come out. But they acted afraid, as something had come through and had done something to make them fear for their lives.

  But other than the lion he saw earlier, Max saw nothing else that could cause such fear in all of the animals to keep them away from the water.

  But as Max moved, it was as if his presence standing there gave the animals courage to return to the water. More and more animals walked out and filled the watering hole behind him. First, small ones and large ones came out from the grasses. Finally, birds came down, filling the stream, drinking, and trying to find something to eat. Life, as it was, was returned to normal on the savannah, except for one very large missing piece. The elephants were missing.

  Max moved on. He didn't know what could be out there. He didn't know what there was to fear.

  “Something caused these animals to be afraid,” Max said aloud. With the pounding in his head receding, he was still moving northward.

  Max set his jaw and said, "If I have to fight a lion, I'll fight it to find my family."

  A lion was the scariest animal Max could think of. It would be, of course, something Max couldn't imagine that Max was going face. It was something far, far worse than almost any lion.