Chapter Text
Some stories are told with quite reverence. Some are told with feeling and elation spilling out with joy and happiness. Some are told through gasp of breath with tears streaming, moments of silence and shaking voice. The stories we hear and the stories we tell shape us into who we are, the memories of the past become the future.
In the McDonald household there was never a lack of stories, verbal or written. It was Caleb’s favorite thing about his home. There were so many stories told so many ways and by so many people, people who he loved and looked up to. Who he admired and strove to be like, because one day he would have his own stories and he wanted them to be just as fantastic as his families.
It wasn’t uncommon for Caleb to be caught with a book in his hand or bugging his uncle’s for another story. Often times Caleb would invade the McDonald’s library to see if there were any new stories he hadn’t read, there never were so he reread them again.
It was on such a day that Caleb discovered something new. It had been by complete accident and if anyone had asked he most certainly didn’t pick the lock to his father’s private area of the library, the door had definitely been left ajar. Once in the room there were stacks of books his father used for teaching, some theories and thesis written on many different discarded notebooks, and of course his father's prized possession, a collection of the Caleb Cleveland: Kid Cop series signed.
None of this interested Caleb, these weren’t new books he had already read them, although he wouldn’t mind reading the Cleveland novels again…they were just too good. No what caught Caleb’s eye, after certain amount of digging, was a chest in the corner of his father’s work space. It had been covered by some discarded books, an old cloak that looked too small for his father, and a lock.
Caleb examined the trunk closer and noticed that the lock was unusual in that it only seemed to be for show. Which meant that the real lock had to magical, his father would never let something be so easily opened it was part of growing up in the McDonald house; everything was a puzzle here.
Caleb silently cast Mage hand, a spell he had been practicing with his sisters, and a small purple hand only slightly bigger than his own appeared out of Caleb's wand. He gently reached out with the phantasmal hand, but was stopped by a barrier right before reaching the chest. Caleb tried to move the hand at different angles, but it seemed magic wasn’t allowed to passed a certain point.
Caleb dismissed the spell with a grunt of frustration tucking his wand into his back pocket. He kicked at the chest with his foot, doing nothing except creating a dull pain where he had hit it. Caleb spent the next hour trying various different ways of getting in the chest, including trying to pry it open, but none seemed to work. He had been in this room for almost an hour with no success and none brewing on the horizon. He was definitely not going to let a simple chest stop him from satisfying his curiosity, but he was running out of ideas.
“Come on, please open!” Caleb huffed in frustration.
Suddenly there was a small click from the chest. Curious and a little wary Caleb reached for the lid of the trunk which now was slightly upraised having opened.
He lifted the lid and saw a note attached to the underside written in his father’s handwriting, “The greatest lesson to learn is sometimes you simply have to ask.”
Caleb giggled with delight as he began to dig through the contents of the chest wondering why his father felt the need to throw what appeared to be a bunch of junk into it. There was an old newsie hat that Caleb found fit him perfectly, a fake sheriffs badge next to what looked like an old magnifying glass.
The strangest thing Caleb found was sitting at the very bottom of the chest with a small arm band on top of it. The arm band itself was pretty plain being silver in color and small in size; it had only one decorative feature on it and that was a series of four triangles all touching at their tops forming a diamond shape in the middle. Caleb didn’t know what it was, but it looked cool as he slid it onto his arm, although it was a little loose and he kept having to push it back to get it to stay.
Caleb then examined what had been under the bracer, a thick stack of papers all bound together with a thin piece of green string. There was nothing over the top of the front page only the Title itself and its author adorned it reading, “The World’s Greatest Detective in Mirror Image” by Angus McDonald.
Caleb was overly excited, he had read some of his father’s writing before, but most of it was academic or analytical in themes. This writing looked like a true and proper story one that apparently his dad had written. Why had he never seen it before and why was it in the bottom of a chess full of weird things, Caleb still didn’t understand the multitudes of bow ties.
Caleb opened up the stack of papers and took a quick peek inside, there was a lot of scribbling on the margins. Different colors and what looked like different hand writings, he didn’t recognize any of them except his fathers whose annotations could be seen in red throughout the whole book. This was obviously a rough draft, the spelling corrections and notes were a testament to that, but Caleb decided that it was enough for him.
Quickly he put everything into a pile and grabbed one of the discarded messenger bags on the floor and gently stuffed everything into it. He closed the chest and replaced the lock and listened for anyone near him and once he was satisfied the coast was clear he ran to his room with his bounty.
That night’s dinner was loud and boisterous has usual, not unusual especially when you had almost fifteen people sitting at the table. Caleb smiled and laughed along with his family and kept secret about what he had found today. He watched everyone at the table, his sisters interacting with Grandma Lucretia asking to see her latest drawings, His dad arguing with Uncle Kravitz and Uncle Barry about something Caleb didn’t hear, and of course Grandpa Magnus and Uncle Taako teasing Grandpa Merle about his beard which almost completely white now.
Caleb was to busy trying to listen in on every conversation that he almost jumped out of his seat when someone next to him gave him a nudge.
“You know if you keep watching everyone with those big old eyes someone is bound to notice.” The person whispered to him.
Caleb turned to see his favorite aunt sitting next to him, “Oh Hello, Aunt Lup! I was just, there was a lot of you know…talking, I didn’t want to miss out on any of it.”
Lup grinned at him and leaned down closer, “So what are they all talking about, tell me that sweet gos little man.”
It was nearly midnight when Caleb pulled out the book from under his pillow where he had stashed it earlier that day. The messenger bag was hidden in his closest with minor illusion cast on it to make it appear as if it was just another hanging shirt.
Caleb grabbed his flashlight on his bed side table listening one last time for any approaching adults. He could definitely pinpoint Magnus’ snoring from the other room, but all else was silent. Smirking Caleb pulled the comforter over his and flipped on his flashlight. With excited hands he flipped to the first page which held similar markings to ones he had seen on the other pages and Caleb began to read.