The Finders Keepers

by R.G. Strike

  There was a long and dreadful silence that stretched across the dim hallway. A minute or so had passed and there was a tiny and sharp tingling noise that erupted from Godfrey’s side pocket. Struggling to draw out what it was, he was unsure whether it was coming from the wand he just placed on the floor.

  It had momentarily vibrated and was now shaking as it hissed. Godfrey stared at it. The wand was stumbling, as though it was struggling to stand up. Then the ringing raged louder; Kimberly snapped him with her look.

  “Answer it!” she shouted loudly. “Answer it!”

  “Answer the what?” Godfrey said defensively.

  “The wand – fool, answer it!”

  “I don’t know –”

  “Shake it – just shake it!”

  Godfrey immediately grabbed the wand, raised it in the air, and shook it madly. A soft sound of a rubber being stretched was heard; a small bubble of light was coming out of the tip like an inflating balloon. A minute or two of silence had passed, and it exploded into splinters of multicolored kaleidoscope.

  Everyone ducked except Kimberly as the light ignited the whole room so that there was nothing else to see other than excessive brightness. Then it stopped just like that.

  Godfrey jumped, surprised.

  “Eliezer!” he yelled surprisingly. Alex and Mr. and Mrs. Luciens turned to look.

  She was, in fact, appearing inside a tiny cone of inverted pyramid light protruding from the wand Godfrey was holding. When she smiled, Godfrey was amazed as they were once again talking closely.

  “Where are you?” Godfrey demanded.

  “It won’t matter, Frey,” she said impassively, so clear as if they were nose to nose. “What matters is for me to say that you should go back here.”

  She spread her arms so that she happened to be showing that she was in a collation of closely-growing pine woods. There were other sounds aside from hers that was drawing somewhere on her right.

  “. . . are you done?” a female voice had shouted.

  “No – you wait!” Eliezer replied madly.

  The voice seemed familiar to Godfrey and it had drawn much of his curiosity. Eliezer shouted back and looked at him again like no one had interrupted.

  “Who was that?” Godfrey and Alex said at once.

  “None that concerns you,” she said straightly. “I mean that I need to say this, once and for all. You need to go home! Dad is so outraging he is not firing and punishing servants that are suspects to the lost Leviota.”

  “Impossible, El, we’re stuck here like –”

  “I told you to go home! Dad is mad – really mad. If you insist that thing that you’re claiming, perhaps . . . .” She trailed off as a total silence burgeoned.

  “What – tell me!” Godfrey shouted now.

  Alex inched closer to have a clearer view of Eliezer.

  “What?” Godfrey repeated forcefully.

  “He’s on search to kill Mr. and Mrs. Luciens,” said Eliezer in a low tone but not falling in a whisper. “He thought they kidnapped us. Well, that’s on every post in the woodland. You should probably know that, Frey.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said.

  The sudden shock was visibly painted on the faces of both Mr. and Mrs. Luciens. They gaped, not exaggerating at all, especially Mrs. Luciens who was now absentmindedly staring at something that was neither Godfrey nor Eliezer.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Luciens,” Eliezer muttered sincerely. She returned to look at Godfrey with her informative stare. “Well, the truth sounds there. Mad people are mad, Frey. Dad thinks they added his burden when we got lost, and some foolish people saw us with them and informed him. Couldn’t – couldn’t it be Nolfavrel?”

  A pang of silence followed her last statement, echoing as though she had just said something terrible. There was nothing as clear as pure silence around them. Eliezer scrambled to face Alex after a very short while.

  “What’s the silence all about?” she asked.

  “He passed, Eliezer,” Alex said.

  Eliezer’s pair of eyes widened and her haw dropped. The portion of light in which she appeared was apparently faltering. She was sobbing.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why – how did he . . . ?”

  Godfrey gulped; Mr. and Mrs. Luciens must have gulped too at the thought that Alex would not answer Eliezer in the proper way, but he did. In fact, he spoke in barely a second or two.

  “Because . . . because he p-protected you.”

  It was a powerful statement that brought hooligan impact on Eliezer. She stared at Alex, momentarily unblinking, and closed her open mouth when she realized the sincerity and factuality of Alex’s words.

  “He did?” she verified pitifully. “Oh my God. . . .”

  “It’s okay, El,” Godfrey snapped. “Where are you, by the way?”

  “I’m at –”

  The protruded light blinked out.

  “Where did she go?” Alex barked.

  “Shut up – I don’t know!” Godfrey spat, swishing and shaking the meter-long wand as though he was shaking a pen to get the ink down, but Eliezer never reappeared whatever he was doing with the wand, and the time dragged longer as it seemed.

  Godfrey surrendered it and faced them as they did in return; all eyes misty with the unbearable subsequent happenings.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” he told them quickly. “It’s important if you listen because we’re getting things done fast. Eliezer just said it. Dad’s mad because he thought that Mr. and Mrs. Luciens took us. Now all that’s left before we do that is to move under Nolfavrel’s order to go to the Elysian Fields.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Luciens nodded, but Alex sounded uneasy. He was trying to look away from Godfrey’s stare, but Godfrey caught him just in time to ask what he was doing.

  “It’s just that,” Alex began, “I’m not supposed to be here fitting myself on your own problems, but I want to offer help in case you find it important –”

  “Well, of course, it’s important!” Godfrey bellowed. “Alex, please think! You’re really having sort of nonsensical thought! What do you think you’re doing here, then, if you’re so clever?”

  “It was an accident!” he exclaimed, irritated. Godfrey eyed him for a few seconds then waited for his response, but Alex did not continue the longer it seemed to have gone.

  “It was,” said Mr. Luciens, “an accident. We are perfectly aware of what an accident is, Alex. Accident happens without intention. Your case, however, is different, very different. I’d say that someone summoned you from the human world to, well, make. . . . I think we all understand now what your arrival means to what is literally happening now.”

  Mrs. Luciens remained perfectly still, though she seemed to be able to hear and know what her husband was saying. She was obviously being numb from Nolfavrel’s death.

  “So,” said Godfrey, “thank you for those . . . very informative sentences. How is he related here, then?”

  Mr. Luciens’s eyes darted towards the ceiling, then back on the floor, anxious to speak about his own thoughts. Merely a minute or less passed, he decided he could trust them.

  “This is just my speculation – I don’t need to sound very confident as though it was a matter-of-factly one of the things that could come true one time. But, as I might not have said it, Alex – someone summoned him from the human world. Who did it, we don’t know hitherto. What we could just conclude is that it was someone who had foreseen this one coming.”

  Alex’s heart sank deeper the harder it had pounded. He gulped uneasily as his eyes fell upon each of them.

  “I was summoned?” he questioned dryly.

  “Yes,” Godfrey snapped. “As I was saying moments ago, we need to move under Nolfavrel’s last words before we could return back to the palace and explain to dad that Mr. and Mrs. Luciens did not kidnap us, never, as it seems.”

  “But,” Alex whizzed on, “what happens to me after we’re done moving under his orders?”

  “I’m going to kill you!”
Godfrey shouted angrily. “I’m going to kill you – that’s what I’ll do after it.”

  “Godfrey, please, dear,” Mrs. Luciens finally said comfortingly. “This must be done smoothly.”

  “He’s a stupid man!” Godfrey yelled. “He keeps on saying out nonsensical stuffs when he knows that we’re heading to peril!”

  “I was just asking, Godfrey,” Alex said weakly. “It’s fine if you don’t want me to come on your journey.”

  “YOU SEE?” Godfrey thundered. “HE SAID IT AGAIN – HE SAID IT HE’S NOT COMING! USELESS THOUGHT!”

  “Shhh! Calm down, dear,” Mrs. Luciens said. “He didn’t mean what he said. Don’t argue now, okay? We’re the only ones left, therefore we need to unite. There’s no actual point for any piece of quarrel.” She slowly faced Alex and lingered with his flustered eyes. “Alex, dear, you don’t need to know what happens after the task – God knows what to do . . . whether we deserve any reward.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Okay, I’m wrong. Sorry Godfrey.”

  Godfrey shot him a sharp eye. “What for? Saying sorry doesn’t lift up –”

  “Would you mind,” said Mr. Luciens, inching beside his wife, “to keep calm, Godfrey? He’s saying sorry and yet you –”

  “Okay, okay!” Godfrey injected. “Yeah, you’re sorry!”

  “Say it,” said Mr. Luciens authoritatively, “one more time. Say it sincerely. You’re forced to say it, I know.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” said Godfrey sarcastically. “You know what – hey! You know I love it – then you’re sorry.”

  “That’s better,” said Mr. Luciens, though he knew for sure that Godfrey was just faking.

  “Then we should move now!” he said. “On Nolfavrel’s order! We can’t disobey him at the very least. What was the place called – Elysian Fields?”

  “Uh, yes, it’s Elysian Fields,” Alex answered without the question being directed to him. “Let’s see the notebook. . . .”

  Godfrey ignored this as he went and sat in front of the notebook. He propped it open on the fragile binding, and was astonished to see the rough and brown pages blank. He was openmouthed for a few seconds. It was not bearing any significant label except a line on the front page read:

  TRAVEL HERE. TRAVEL THERE.

  “How are we going to use this notebook?” Godfrey demanded very impatiently.

  “Nolfavrel said we need to step on it,” Mrs. Luciens replied eagerly. “But I suppose the binding will break if we do that all.”

  Godfrey smiled. “I think it won’t. I have an idea.”

  From beside him, Godfrey drew out the wand and showed to Mrs. Luciens.

  “We’ll have to say a few words,” said Godfrey.

  “No, I’ll do it!” Alex wailed.

  Godfrey made out a face of corporeal disgust. “It’s you,” he said, “again?”

  “Er, yes, I suppose so,” Alex answered. “I have a wand too that would be useful.”

  “You have a wand too?” said Godfrey, unsurprised. “I didn’t ask about it!”

  He turned his back on Alex and held the wand cleverly. “Elysian Fields.”

  A small scene chink blotched on the middle of the page, widening around so that the open notebook looked like a window.

  “Wow,” said Godfrey, amazed.

  There was nothing in the scene aside from a blue cloud that was dashing very slowly and boringly to the right, but it was effective in their eyes.

  “So where is the field there?” Alex mumbled.

  A moment of silence; Godfrey’s blood boiled at the sound of his questioning voice. Carefully, he turned over to look at Alex, who had stopped terrified as if threatened by the silence.

  Godfrey opened his mouth; Mr. Luciens caught him.

  “Let us go now!” he said.

  Godfrey averted his eyes on him. Mr. Luciens nodded at Godfrey and held his wife’s hand tightly that she seemed to squeal. He blinked and said, “We need to go on by twos, okay?”

  “What?” Godfrey shouted. “I’m going with him?”

  “Yes.”

  Without any word, Mr. and Mrs. Luciens faced the notebook, sighed and stepped on it. It was as if they were reduced into smaller size as they sank in deeper until they had totally vanished. Godfrey watched them closely and looked at Alex.

  “As you’ve heard it,” said Godfrey, “we need to go by ourselves.”

  “No,” Alex objected. “Mr. Luciens told us to go by twos.”

  “Nah, okay. Hurry up, then!”

  Godfrey put his hands over Alex’s shoulders, and both of them stepped on it.

  “Let’s go, dude.”

  Alex twisted his head towards Godfrey, but before he could abduct any words back, he felt his skin getting warm and he felt a weird sensation as he was compressed to fit in the book. Godfrey was experiencing the same thing.

  A few hopeful moments passed by, and they were standing on a clear and reflective surface of a large waterbed, neither lake nor ocean, that stretched across a wide smoky place that was undistinguishable. A few of the blurring fogs drifted with the cold debris of dead air, causing confusion whether Godfrey and Alex were staring at ethereal imperfect shapes of spirits.

  “Whoa!” Godfrey moaned. “Elysian Fields, amazing!”

  “Yeah,” Alex agreed haughtily. “Amazing!”

  “It’s great.”

  “Yeah,” Alex had agreed once again. “It’s great!”

  “Don’t copy me!” Godfrey barked.

  “Why is it,” said a familiar voice from his back, “that until here, you are bringing that tosh quarrel?”

  Godfrey was instantly plagued to see that it was Mr. Luciens, walking hand in hand with his wife; a band of chuckling and mirthful pearly spirits were gliding behind them. They seemed to look rather intensified to see live earthly bodies step on their sacred place.

  Alex’s inside was squirming, and so was to Godfrey. He felt something terrible as a chilling goose bump crept along the veins of his body. He shrugged flamboyantly, as though he was being so much sensitive with everything that was happening.

  Other unrelated ghosts were crisscrossing each other around them, paying uninterested glances and attentions to this; they seemed to be hurrying about almost anything, as though there were still things they were tasked to accomplish.

  A familiar man with shaggy hairs was helping a lump woman through the squeezing crowd of silvery ghosts, drifting towards different directions. It was not a man he had known since birth. The man was utterly looking like he had taught him his early alphabets.

  “Nolfavrel?” he yelled, ignoring the arrival of the ghosts and Mr. and Mrs. Luciens. “Nolfavrel?”

  The man looked at him. He was, after all, Nolfavrel’s spirit, but he seemed not to know or recognize Godfrey so he simply smiled and poured his whole attention to the helpless woman he was holding and they walked slowly until they were lost in the crowd of clouds, smokes, and fogs.

  “Nolfavrel!” he called out, though he was reminded to the reality that the man would never respond no matter how hard he shouted.

  “It’s because you can’t do anything,” said a slim lady ghost, whose curly hairs had reached near her waist. Another lady at her height and gown was floating beside her; her shoulder-level hairs were straight as unlike the other one. “You can’t bring Sir Holoferness to normality. That was his choice, all because of you and, as always, for the empire.”

  “What – what,” said Mr. Luciens. “Who is Sir Holoferness? I understand that he was called Nolfavrel Ridgway.”

  The straight-haired woman chuckled.

  “Silly that Nolfavrel, wasn’t he?”

  “You mean Nolfavrel Ridgway?” Mr. Luciens elaborated.

  “He’s really funny, that knight,” she continued. “I wonder how much of the adversities he has passed through. By the way, my name is Emily Meadslev, sister of Kimberly Meadslev, as it obviously sounded.”

  “Meadslev, you say?” Godfrey questioned, entirely surprised. If they were Mead
slev, then could they be, by any chance, related to him or anyone in their family? “I’m – I’m a Meadslev, too.”

  “Yes, we are aware of that,” snapped Emily. “As Flynt and Sir Holoferness have done, they did everything to hide us from father Elvandork.”

  “M-my father is your father?” Godfrey asked, rather interested yet shocked at the same time. “Is it nice to keep joking? My life is totally dilapidated.”

  “Dilapidation has nothing to do with the current stuffs,” the curly-haired lady had intervened. “Even though you believe or not, Emily is your fatherly sister, and so is Kimberly.”

  “How could that happen?”

  “Simple,” said Emily. “Lara Dogworth might have known it at the very least, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I think so,” the other lady answered. “It’s best if you tell it yourself, Emily.”

  Alex and Mr. and Mrs. Luciens were as eager and as curious as Godfrey. They stirred their eyes towards the two towering lady ghosts; Godfrey was leaning his ears closely to listen at every word they uttered.

  And as Godfrey waited calmly, his world was apparently disengaging; the more he was introduced to shocking and painful facts, the more his bravery and confidence was ebbed. He stood there like a motionless statue, watching closely for either Lara or Emily’s lips to part.

  “Father married our mom named Dolores, but Kim and I had witnessed the weakness of their marriage a few years before he became the king of Switzarnel. They hit each other day and night, and there was nothing as horrible for us as going home to discover our house scattered with plate splinters and smithereens.”

  “That – that’s sad,” said Godfrey, scared. “I hope our mom won’t do that to us.”

  “Yes, because father used to be the one who do the attack,” said Emily sharply. “Then mom died. Father sent us to work and vanished without leaving anything to us. It was really a horrible start for real life, especially that we weren’t raised with the incredible skills or quirk.”

  “So,” Godfrey concluded. “When you mom died, dad went to marry our mom, Callie?”

  “Yes, but the courting was really long,” replied Emily. “They met each other while father is organizing and preparing his own platoon for their infiltration of Erikson’s domain, which was . . . which was something wrong.”

  She stopped, and Godfrey was partially mystified of what he had just heard.

  “What’s wrong with dad’s attack?” Godfrey asked. “Wasn’t – wasn’t it beneficial?”

  “Yes, it was to the blind eyes,” she answered; Lara nodded her head beside her. “Most people think Erikson Masefield was doing very terrible things for his personal gain. And he had not, by the way.”

  “But,” Alex suddenly said, “he’s mad!”

  Lara looked at him. “Oh, it’s you. Nice to see you here. . . . The time was not as soon as I’ve expected.”

  “I know he’s mad,” Emily agreed on a low tone. “Yes, but he had been moving for greater benefits under his brutal reigning. One possible factor we could say is that he was gay.”

  “What – Erikson is gay?” Mr. and Mrs. Luciens said at once, totally surprised.

  “If he’s gay, he shouldn’t have captured their son!” Godfrey told them.

  “Ah, yes,” Lara answered them this time. “That was not a sufficient supporting detail, but one massive evidence was when he tried to lure me so he could have an affair with my husband Flynt.”

  “And he succeeded?” Mr. Luciens asked.

  “Partly, yes,” Lara said, smiling. “But we all know that Flynt, for sure, would never engage into such affair. He had his ways to avoid Masefield’s nastiness, though he was still helping him after he got sacked.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Luciens exchanged suspicious looks.

  “They did?” Mrs. Luciens asked. “How could you know that?”

  “I have useful ways of knowing things, Sylvana,” Lara babbled. “The thing is the fact that Nolfavrel Holoferness was a knight inside the palace – that way things were then closely watched.”

  “That was one of the effective tactics that we set because, being Mark Scamander’s godmothers, we realized that he would soon want to know every single information he could bear,” said Emily. “As it was apparently happening, Erikson and Flynt had been partners in deciphering the so-called Sacred Prophecy made by his own father Abraham Masefield, as what king Elvandork and Adrianne were doing at the moment.

  “They thought they were lucky when they had unearthed the true meaning of that prophecy. They immediately set out the large number of brigade to go on a tight witch-hunt. The purpose of that action was to screen for their babies, take them and kill them. But Masefield and Flynt underestimated the capacity of the witches in concealing their babies. Their clever solution to this, however, was to extend the hunt to the magical-bloods, which apparently resulted to the capture of the son of the swordsman named Jether Louis Jacob.

  “A smart sorceress was ordered to bring the swordsman’s son to the real world.” Emily stared at Alex for long. Her eyes were turning mistier and sadder every moment that passed. “Jether is my husband, and you are my son.”

  Alex watched her openmouthed. “Mom?” he said, teary and broken-hearted.

  “Yes.” She sobbed even though there was no chance that beads of tears would emerge from her eyes. She glided to hug Alex, as though he was a dog who hadn’t returned for so long. Alex, on the other hand, had kept silently grieving for the death of his mother.

  “What happened?” he asked her, but Emily did not respond.

  “I r-raised a baby that was not m-mine. Kimberly, K-Katrina, and I did. . . .”

  “Yes,” agreed Lara kindly. “They were the ones who cared for my son. . . . Masefield’s purpose of taking Emily’s baby was the suspicion that he was the child mentioned in that prophecy . . . that maybe, if done right, the child will be deprived from the enormity of this empire, and the odd lord will never rise.

  “So the odd lord rose even the child was gone?” Godfrey asked; Alex and Emily still solemnly hugging each other.

  “Yes, and he was called –”

  “Alfrendo, yes we know that,” Godfrey injected.

  “But I am sure that’s not essential if you were about to defeat him. I certainly believe, of course, that names bear crucial power, but knowing the history or the past is just as important.” She smiled. “Alfrendo was born as a normal Gornophine to a kind father and mother. They were not that wealthy to sit down and expect foods to appear in their front; they have to work fishing and leave Alfrendo inside their house, alone.

  “As one could famously think of a child’s behavior, he escaped home to try hunting for food himself and was quite proud of his achievement draining all the fruits from the entire tree he could see. He was not, at all, contented about this and sought for the higher level because his start turned out to be a challenge. He caused excessive wreckage of the villager’s poultry and tombs.”

  “He – he ate dead people?” Mr. Luciens snapped.

  “Yes, because it was his time of aggressiveness and hunger – his moment of fragileness, thus seeking outside sources of strength,” Lara answered. “And so when his parents discovered about his brutal actions defying the set boundaries of the Alliman rights, they were raging and very angry.

  “They locked Alfrendo in a tree house at the peak of the tallest tree in the Joussan Forest. That was apparently nonsensical to the view of Alfrendo because he found it challenging rather than a punishment. With his earned strength from the lot he ate, he broke out that tree-house and escaped.

  “It so happened that the current Chief of the Empire Brigade’s daughter, Delilah, was on camping with her caretaker at the foot of Alfrendo’s ruined fortress. What do you expect? He ate them both. That’s when Elvandork was triggered to prepare the brigade with Adrianne and launch to attack the Allimans infesting the forest. No one ever knew what happened next.”

  “Wait a minute,” Godfrey called out. “If you said that fa
ther launched an attack, then it’s possible that we’ve been on one of those wagons or chariots that had set off to destroy.”

  “That’s correct,” she said measly. “You did. As a matter of fact, I have set eyes on you during that time.”

  “Were you – were you there, then?”

  “No, silly boy,” she answered, sniggering. “Magic, of course – magic at its best utilization. Now, as I see, you must go now. Sir Holoferness won’t be happy to hear you’re enjoying chitchat.”

  “She’s – she’s right,” Alex suddenly said as he and Emily parted. “We need to go now and finish what it takes.

  “But,” said Godfrey, “where? I think Nolfavrel told us to go here and finish everything. It is finished, then – is Alfrendo dead?”

  “No, you misunderstood him,” Emily cleared. “He said that you should go to the Elcid Mountains and finish everything there.”

  “We thought it was Elysian –”

  “No, that was honestly incorrect,” she uttered truthfully. “Although it was crucial and important that you dropped here. . . . Destiny really happens to people with faith.”

  “Okay, then, let’s go,” said Mr. Luciens eagerly.

  “Wait,” said Godfrey and Alex.

  “I have one question,” Godfrey told the ghosts.

  “I have one question, too,” Alex said calmly. Godfrey glanced nastily at him as if to say, “Again?”

  “Ask them away,” said Emily triumphantly.

  “Why do you keep on calling him Sir Holoferness?” Godfrey giggled.

  “True to my own pleasure calling him, that’s his real last name. He hid himself from the magical-blood hunt, therefore changing names is necessary,” said Emily informatively.

  Godfrey opened his mouth for a back-up question but there was none, so he closed it once again. He gestured Alex to ask his own curiosity after a few seconds.

  “Where can we find the travelling notebook?” he mumbled.

  “It’s in your hands,” was his mother’s response.

  Alex hurriedly looked at his open palms, and there it was. He returned his stare to his mother and winked. Then he drew out a long sigh as he placed the notebook pen on the water’s surface.

  “Elcid Mountains,” he mumbled, pointing out the wand that Nolfavrel had given him.

  And there was, once again, a scene that spread over on the page.

  “By twos,” said Mr. Luciens, sounding calm. He gripped Mrs. Luciens’s hands and they sank on the page.

  Alex glanced at Emily’s fading figure. “Goodbye, mom.”

  He felt Godfrey’s hand on his shoulder as they stepped on the open notebook again.