Two Weeks Later
After his flight, Arnold Leeson was ready to collapse into his bed, but unfortunately had a two hour drive to get back home to Lakeview. Grumbling to himself, the short bespectacled man found his car in the lot where he'd left it, loaded it up with his bags, and revved the engine to life. He'd been on an extended business trip the last two weeks and was looking forward to decompressing at home for the weekend, before he'd have to head into the office to report on the conference. Arnold worked in marketing for the regional branch of a major retailer and had been called to corporate headquarters to review the new product lines and the national ad campaigns he'd need to supplement and tweak on the local level. It wasn't the most exciting work but it was steady and he and his wife Barbara, who worked as an elementary school teacher, had a comfortable living.
Steady but unexciting could also describe the state of the Leeson's marriage, which like so many ran along on inertia more than anything. The couple had one child, Kyla, and even if they weren't exactly passionate anymore, they were relatively content. At that moment though, Arnold was excited to see his wife. Perhaps absence really did make the heart grow fonder, but after two weeks away, he was looking forward to hopefully having sex tonight.
As Arnold's old reliable chevy rolled its way into the outskirts of Lakeview, he was for the moment blissfully unaware that he was also crossing the threshold of the wishing stone's range. He was literally entering another reality, one that the rest of Lakeview's residents would remember as always having existed. Turning off the exit that would take him to his house, Arnold Leeson plunged into the unknown.
