Dust by Arthur Slade
Very Creepy. That's the first thing to say. I will make this one short, too.
It's in a town of Saskatchewan, during the Great Depression. There's lots of droughts.
First thing, Matthew is gone. Well, most think he's kidnapped. He is. In a way. But short after, many others are, too.
Abram Harisch comes and shows them a huge mirror, which he claims is from Egypt, and shows what you truly want. Of course, since most people at the presentation and in his town are farmers, they see water pouring onto their crops, or rain. He seems to be mesmerizing people, and only Robert seems to be resisting the spell.
It does -it somehow mesmerizes them. The adults don't seem to realize that their children are missing. Even Robert, Matthew's older brother, can't get his parents to realize that everything was not okay and that it wouldn't be fine after Mr. Harisch's big rain-machine-thing. Mr. Harisch had planned out an enormous building thing that makes rain come, and many farmers had signed up to help build it.
Only Robert's uncle didn't. He had known something was wrong. Terribly wrong. And it wasn't rain, it was some magical something. When the rain came, it only came on those who signed up for the building got the rain.
On top of that, Robert had seen something very queer in the mirror. He had seen a man. That man was his uncle. The other uncle. His mother's other brother, other than the one alive (that didn't sign up for the rain making thing) was a soldier and died as a soldier on the battlefield, to what I remember. Why he was on the mirror screen, who knows, but it seemed to be gasping a word, seeming to be his last words. He was pointing at Mr. Harisch, saying "evil... evil..."
Soon afterwards, Mr. Harisch comes to school to present a huge butterfly. It has mysterious, magical powers, in which it attracts children.The kids in his class are staring at it, wanting to be able to look at it forever. After that, more children disappear, causing no worries. All the adults don't seem to notice. They are all mesmerized, not even realizing that they even had a child. Even Robert, every night, dreams of that same blue beautiful butterfly, beckoning for him to come, to follow the butterfly, to be able to watch it forever. He nearly sleep-walks out of his own house (to what I remember), but realizes that it is only a dream and thinks it must not be real and goes back into his house.
Soon, he learns that all the children are made into dust and put into the shape of a butterfly. The big blue butterfly, where it came from, he doesn't know, but it does attract a many lot of children. He must save his brother and everyone who has been trapped, gone, put into the shape of a butterfly. He realizes that since he is eleven, he is on the verge of a man and a child. Right on the border, between belief and fantasy AND reality and business. Meaning he cannot be fully mesmerized into believing Mr. Harisch's words that he has never been young (and follow him into caption), or be fully mesmerized that Mr. Harisch has made an invention to make rain come.
For one thing, he is old enough to know everyone has a childhood (though he does slightly believe Mr. Harisch, but never says so). And he is young, so he is not interested in business of making "his farm" prosper. He is right on the border. His age saves him from being mesmerized, and it is, well, his destiny to save his town from falling into Mr. Harisch's hands.
He saves the kids and the town by sneaking into Mr. Harisch's house, full of mysteries and queer things. He finds....
I choose to stop here. You know, I realized maybe I should leave out the ending. Yes, so some people out there don't have their endings-of-stories ruined. You'll see. And if you're dying to find out, ask your parents if they can go to the library, or the nearest bookstore! (Barnes And Noble)
The author is very clever. How he even came up with this story -he is an imaginative genius. Of course, most fantasy-fiction writers are imaginative geniuses. The small part of your brain that comes up with the antonym of reality.
It creeped me out, in the mirror part. And the worst thing is, when I read, I read in the night (bad habit, I know...), so I have a bit of a hard time falling asleep.
I am on the verge of an adult and a child, too, I realize. I'm eleven. I wonder if I were in his place, if I'd ever think of saving the people of my town. I'd be too scared. Maybe I'd even think it was a dream.
But it would be really fun to have an adventure. I'd pick a book, replace a character with myself, and BAM! I'd be transported into a life of adventure. How much fun it would be.
...
Maybe not.
Consider this.
Most of the adventure stories, when you think of it, they're scared. But they go and do whatever they do anyway. Maybe I don't want to be in place of that character. As my teacher (I forget who, but I know he/she was a teacher) said, humans are attracted to tragedies. If there's a car accident, most kids would say, "Mom, can you move closer? Lemme see! Hey! Bob! Move over! Who's that? Are they dead? Will CNN come?" Most big news on TV people get excited about are tragedies. (Haiti, Oil Spill, etc.) When you hear your brother watch a scary movie in the next room and you hear screaming and roaring, you would usually run into his room to see the exciting part of the movie.
So, when you read a book, and the monster Destructonoar is about to kill BillyBobJoe, and he's trembling with the sacred sword in his hand (please note I'm making this up), you get all hyped up and skip about every five words to see if he dies or not. You'd say, whoa, he's so brave, after you read that he's not dead. You'd say, I wish I were in his place, riding the huge magical cart across the world, how he went to the battlefield where the sword was made, to get the sword, to fight monsters and win a triumph, and go to the Death Castle, where he finds the Evil King, where BillyBobJoe doesn't shiver a single bit (is he, in his mind, though?) when the King does his evil laugh, how he, BillyBobJoe bravely goes up the stairs to find the most venomous, horrible, hideous, killing, deathly monster, and kills it?. But maybe, just maybe, have you thought, he wouldn't realize what great adventure he was in? Maybe BillyBobJoe's parents' death gave him a shock that all he has in mind is revenge? Have you ever thought, that maybe, he was so worried and scared throughout the whole adventure, he doesn't receive the excitement you get when you're reading, watching from the sidelines?
Maybe being the "bystander" is way more exciting. Have you ever thought that?
But all the same, when would you find yourself in this kind of state? With monsters and all that? Slimmer than the thickness of a paper. (meaning very very very very slim. ... If you haven't noticed.)
Keep thinking!
And you never know. You might find yourself facing the most horriblest, hideous, destructive monster yet!