Ch3: A Hidden Treasure

    "Wait up, Clay!" Noah laughed.

    Clay picked up his pace, sprinting down their usual trail. "Gonna have to catch me!" He spared a glance behind his shoulder. Noah was the slowest runner he'd ever met.

    "Noah!"

    Finally, Noah appeared at the crest of the trail, and hobbled the last few feet down the slope where clay was waiting for him. Clay rolled his eyes.

    Noah did have an excuse for being a slow runner. He had a condition which made it so that his heart couldn't spread blood to the different parts of his body fast enough to run, so if he ran too fast for too long, he collapsed. Another reason his father(who was not Clay's father) wanted to keep an eye on him all the time. Noah was finally old enough to attend Hogwarts, but thanks to his father, he wouldn't be able to.

    Still, Clay loved racing with Noah because he knew he'd always win. He never pushed Noah to close to his limit, though.

    Noah seemed to have caught his breath.

    "C'mon," said Clay. "I wanna show you something."

    He and Noah descended down the steep slope of the trail, and Clay led them away from their usual route, down a far smaller, less noticeable trail. Even steeper was this path, winding and turning and coming to so many crossroads that Clay had had to pull out a map he'd drawn of how to get to his secret location. He carried it with him, everywhere and always.

    After a while, the trail widened to almost the size of their ballroom. Their ballroom was very large. Clay nudged Noah's shoulder and grinned. Noah returned his smile.

    They walked to the other side of this amphitheater-like clearing and Clay parted the hanging leaves of the willow trees to reveal something that dwarfed even the clearing they were standing in.

    "Woahh..." Noah breathed. "Erm...what are we doing here?"

    "You're going to learn to swim," Clay explained, then laughed as Noah backed up fearfully. "Kidding!...Did Dad give you the letters I sent you last school year?"

    Noah puzzled expression answered his question perfectly.

    "Right, yeah. Well, this year, I'm going to be sending all my letters here."

    Noah nodded.

    "So...I should come here every day to see if you've sent me anything?"

    Clay nodded. "Clever." He said, taking out the map and handing it to his brother. Noah beamed. "Now let's go home."

    Well, your home.