The main character is a 12-year-old kid who is tall for his age with brown hair too long for a fine clean brow. At the beginning of the book, he is very depressed because his dad had just died and his mom is very sick. He is very bored in the place he is in and has millions of worries and thoughts jumbling through his head. His world is full of the death of his father and uncle Tommy. All his world is going downhill until he meets Lester speedy Parker which is black man with crinkly gray hair and heavy lines cutting through his cheeks and the one who teaches jack about the territories and sends him on his journey west after the talisman to save his mother and queen Laura De Loessian (which is the queen of the territories and Jack's mom’s twinner and also dying).
