by L. R. W. Lee
The King tried to hide how upset he was, but I could tell. His smile looked stiff. Hannah says she senses his sadness since the queen left, and that makes her sad, too. You and your mom sure do lead weird lives!
Alden
Andy chuckled at that last comment, but his laughter faded quickly as Alden’s words settled. Yara’s reaction had upset other guests. He reread the princess’s letter, longing again washing over him.
Two weeks later, with a finger marking her place in her latest novel, Madison yelled through the screen door, “Andy! One of those trunks from that place just arrived. Scared me to death.”
Andy scrambled off the stool at the counter where he had been eating his lunch and bolted for the backyard. He immediately spotted the offending chest teetering precariously on the edge of the picnic table where his sister had been reading. It was larger than the boxes Mermin usually sent, yet it still bore the distinctive markings of something skillfully crafted in Oomaldee with its rounded oak top and metal reinforcing bands. Andy unbuckled the leather straps then pulled open the lock that secured the middle. Madison scowled as Andy lifted the lid.
A shiny dome the size of half a soccer ball rested in the straw. The object was familiar and Andy jerked back, suppressing a gasp.
“What?” Madison questioned.
Memories of Mermin’s early attempt at inventing a fog-clearing device flashed through Andy’s mind, chased immediately by images of the hole measuring at least a foot deep and five feet across that the contraption had created when it exploded.
“Nothing,” Andy replied, trying to push his concerns away.
With trepidation, he lifted the device out and set it on the table, then inspected it more closely. The dome bore no marks or other indication of how to operate it.
“What’s it supposed to do?” Madison queried.
“No idea.”
Andy scrutinized it further, but Madison peeked into the trunk and retrieved a note. She began reading:
Andy,
I’ve been working on this zolt repeller day and night since you left, for we are gravely concerned for you and our queen’s safety.
Madison frowned. “What about me and Dad’s safety? What are we, chopped liver?”
“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Andy defended. He held out his hand and motioned for her to hand over the note, but she shook her head, flourished the paper, cleared her throat, and continued:
I’ve tested it the best I can. You’ll understand that an actual field test was not possible, although I do believe it will hold the enemy at bay. I’m working on a smaller unit for personal use but it’s experiencing a few glitches: it keeps zapping me. I’ll send two as soon as I figure out what I’ve done wrong.
Madison again cleared her throat.
Turn it on with the gold key. You’ll also need Methuselah. Once you activate it you can remove the key and your blade. Place the device somewhere near your residence before you turn it on for I fear you’ll be harmed if you attempt to move it after. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.
Mermin
Madison raised her eyebrows and glanced at Andy. “Good luck?”
Andy shrugged then headed inside to retrieve his sword.
He placed the dome near the edge of Mom’s flowerbed, then lay Methuselah next to it. With Madison hovering over him, he tipped it on its side to expose a keyhole in the center of the flat bottom. Andy inserted and turned the key then removed it again. He lay the device in the dirt, grabbed his blade, and stepped back.
A minute passed, then two.
Madison cleared her throat.
“Mermin’s a great wizard. It’ll work,” Andy assured, more to convince himself than the peanut gallery.
Five minutes later Madison’s patience expired and she rolled her eyes. It seemed the cue to make the zolt repeller engage for the sphere popped and sputtered and white vapor began puffing from around its circumference. Madison moved behind Andy and peered over his shoulder.
The cloud grew and quickly enveloped them—it tasted like dry ice. It continued expanding and soon encompassed the porch, then the backyard. It wafted upward, scaling the back of the house, then mounted the roof and moved toward the front yard. Andy raced through the house and out the front door with Madison on his heels. They emerged as billowing white vapor crawled down the sloped roof and dropped like whipped cream onto the driveway, making its way toward the street.
Andy watched the head of a passing motorist jerk toward the spectacle, then heard the woman hit the gas.
The cloud halted its progress when it reached the curb, then rose upward, filling in the area above until a nearly translucent dome arched over the property. Andy moved to investigate.
“I don’t know if I’d…” Madison hedged from the front porch.
Andy strode past the mailbox and up to the barrier. He swung his arm and it passed through cleanly, leaving the wall undisturbed.
“Cool!”
He pranced through it, reached the street, then turned and moonwalked back again. Andy stopped and stood so the wall looked like it cut him in half. Laughing, he did the conga, cutting the vapor curtain.
“If you can walk through it, how’s it supposed to stop those guys?” Madison accused.
“No idea, but if Mermin says it will, it will,” Andy hoped aloud.
Madison shook her head and turned to go inside.
Mom got home after Dad that evening, and once Andy explained the goings-on, she played the message Mrs. Bruce, nosey-neighbor #3 had left on her voicemail earlier in the day. She’d also heard from Mrs. Baldwin and crabby old Mr. Kyle, threatening to call the cops if the unsightly spectacle encompassing their house was not immediately removed.
“We seem to be the talk of the neighborhood,” Mom laughed then looked up at Dad and gave a wink, coaxing the hint of a smile.
He’s taking it better than I expected considering we seem to have become “those” neighbors. Andy grinned.
Two days later, Andy suggested calling Papa Paul’s Pizza to have them deliver lunch. With the trauma of the zolt attack still fresh in her memory, Madison balked.
“Oh come on, you don’t think we’ll be attacked again when the guy delivers it,” Andy campaigned. “Want me to call?”
The threat finally won her over and Madison made the call. As they waited, Andy picked up Mom’s book of riddles from the coffee table. She enjoyed brain teasers, saying they kept her mind sharp—which, considering she was over five-hundred-years old, he could not argue with.
Always old, sometimes new.
Never sad, sometimes blue.
Never empty, sometimes full.
Never pushes, always pulls.
What am I?
“What’s that sound?” Madison cocked her head and closed her eyes.
Andy lowered the book and listened. “Sounds like thunder.”
“But it’s sunny.”
A shout pierced the quiet and they scrambled for the dining room, pulled back the curtain, and peered out into the front yard.
“That’s not thunder! It’s no pizza delivery guy either!” Madison shrieked and raced upstairs, slamming her bedroom door.
Andy grabbed Methuselah’s hilt from the end table in the family room, even though he knew it would not extend, and returned to his lookout post to watch a flock of no less than thirty zolt materialize on the far side of the street, broadswords drawn.
CHAPTER TWO
Summer Job
The three beefiest foes lowered their swords, bellowed a war cry, and charged.
Andy wiped a clammy hand on his shorts. I sure hope your invention works, Mermin.
The trio slammed into the barrier and bounced off, falling to the ground. Incensed, the rest of the hoard thrust their swords overhead, shouted a rallying cry, and raced forward, to the same end.
“Mermin did it! He did it!” Andy danced through the front hall and celebrated up the stairs, popping his head into Madison’s room. “You can come out now. They c
an’t get through the barrier!”
Madison inched her closet door open.
“Come see.”
“We’re never ordering pizza again!” Madison declared as she hesitantly followed her brother to the adjacent bathroom overlooking the front yard. The zolt continued their assault without success.
Within minutes, sirens screamed down the street. Andy watched police cars screech to a halt. In a flurry of movement, officers opened the doors of their squad cars and crouched, taking cover with weapons drawn. Their lead officer yelled instructions at the zolt over a bullhorn, but the enemy ignored him.
Andy glanced up and down the street and noticed the curtains of no less than twelve neighbors’ homes drawn back, watching the disturbance.
The sound of a helicopter overhead soon drowned out ground noise.
“Looks like we’ve made the evening news,” Andy noted, pointing at the News 36 logo on the chopper hovering above.
Madison spied it too and whispered, “Dad’s gonna have a cow.”
Tear gas deployed several minutes later finally brought the episode to an end. Andy doubted the uproar in the neighborhood would die quite as quickly.
That night Andy’s dreams found him in the shadowy interior of a dark castle. Too familiar statues of men, women, and children dressed in Oomish styles stood on black stone pedestals around the perimeter of the space. A sense of horror filled him as it did every time he visited Abaddon’s lair. He made his way toward the far end of the room where the seven-headed dragon sat erect on its throne. The sovereign was not alone.
To the right of the dais, a being clad in black robes hovered, arms crossed. Long gray hair extended from his hooded head, and Andy felt a wave of regret wash over him. Fides.
Dagon, Abaddon’s first lieutenant, stood stiffly to the left beside Gozler and Maladoca. Only their bulging eyes betrayed movement as, from behind their lowered beak-like noses and raised brows, they scrutinized the zolt standing before them.
Razen bowed low. “My liege.”
“Report,” Abaddon commanded.
“I came as quickly as I could. Our forces launched an attack on the boy and that woman, but despite their valiant efforts, they were unsuccessful.”
“What?” The roar sounded from all seven of Abaddon’s mouths as he bolted up.
“My liege.” Razen raised his overly long arms, beseeching.
“What happened?”
“A force field enfolds the house. Our forces could not penetrate it.”
“Where? How?” The growl escaped one of Abaddon’s mouths.
“I could not quickly determine its origin, but I speculate the King of Oomaldee’s wizard may well have concocted it.”
The sovereign sat down hard and smashed a fist against an arm of the throne.
Dagon took two strides forward and hissed into Razen’s ear, “You speculate? You don’t fool me. You probably helped the mage.”
“Was not determining a way for our liege to live forever sufficient to dispel your concerns of my loyalty?”
Andy gasped as his dream began to splinter.
*****
The stifling heat of July arrived in Lakehills, Texas, and with it Andy’s thoughts of Yara grew warmer. I want to buy her something, but I don’t have any money.
Having thought hard all day to no avail, Andy threw the question out at dinner. “What can I do to earn some money?”
Dad looked up from his baked salmon and a smile flickered across his lips. “I’m glad to hear you ask, Andy. It’s high time a boy your age started earning his spending money.”
Andy held a smile as Mom cocked her head from the other end of the table. Madison’s look told him he had sufficiently repulsed her.
“When I was your age I delivered newspapers around our neighborhood. I’d get up at five o’clock every morning, retrieve the bundles from the front step, roll them all, then stuff them in two bags.” Dad smiled as he remembered. “I’d set out on my bike trying to balance them. I got some pretty good leg muscles biking all those hills. Took me two hours but I made a good bit of money. Why, I remember…”
Mom sent him a smile.
Before Dad could share more of his paper-delivery exploits, Andy interrupted, “But hardly anyone takes the paper anymore.”
“True enough,” Mom agreed.
“You should mow lawns,” Madison interjected. “Our new neighbors could sure use it.”
“That’s a great idea, Maddy!” Dad encouraged.
Mom nodded. “I think she’s right. I drove past the Mitchells’ house yesterday and their lawn could use some love. Certainly isn’t being cared for the way Scott used to.”
The Mitchells had relocated to Germany for three years and had rented out their home. They had left just three weeks ago.
“They seem to be a nice enough couple. Perhaps they’re just overwhelmed with home maintenance,” Mom posited.
“That’s not what I overheard Mrs. Branch and Mrs. Pelingham complaining about at the park yesterday,” Madison interjected. “They were saying the new neighbors are not friendly. Apparently Mrs. Branch took them some cookies and they practically threw them back in her face.”
“Good heavens. But then those two crows always do see the worst in things,” Dad added, not quietly enough.
Mom shot him the look and he fumbled, “Oh, uh. Well…”
Andy couldn’t stifle a chuckle.
“If you get up early, you can beat the worst of the heat,” Dad changed the subject.
“And based upon their landscaping proclivities, they shouldn’t have a problem with us, like some of the neighbors,” Madison added.
Proclivities?
Her comment threw a blanket of silence over the conversation, and Andy saw a muscle in Dad’s neck tense. The near-transparent bubble surrounding their house continued to be a source of contention for many of their vocal neighbors.
“Better to be safe than liked,” Mom countered, catching Dad’s eye.
Andy walked the block to the Mitchells’ house the next morning, strolled up the front path, and rang the bell. A beefy hand moved the curtain aside from the closest window and an eye quickly scrutinized before the curtain fell back into place. Andy waited several minutes before a large-boned woman with disheveled brown locks opened the door a shoulder’s width. She gazed intently over her too-broad smile, then reached for her soiled apron and wiped her hands. A small child with curly black hair wedged his grape-jellied face between her legs and peered up at Andy.
“How can I help you, young man?” The woman’s voice was saccharine sounding.
Andy cleared his throat. “I’m Andy, Andy Smithson. I live down the block.” He pointed toward home and the woman opened the door wide and stepped forward to see where he indicated.
“Which one?”
“The one with the bubble over it,” Andy mumbled.
The lady increased her smile. “Ah yes, several neighbors have mentioned it.”
I’m sure they have.
“Anyway, I know you’re new to the neighborhood,” Andy pressed on. “And I was wondering if you might like me to mow your grass.”
The child wiggled through the woman’s leg blockade and fell at Andy’s feet. His jellied fingers reached for Andy’s sneakers and Andy took a half step back.
Curiosity satisfied, the woman returned to the threshold and replied, “You think our grass needs mowing, do you?”
Andy hesitated, hoping not to offend. “Uh, yes ma’am.”
The woman ran her eyes up and down Andy as the child stood and made to hug Andy’s legs.
“I’m trying to save up some money,” Andy added, stepping aside.
“I see. What are you looking for in payment?”
Andy surveyed the yard. “I think ten dollars would do it.” The small menace rose and approached again, and Andy took a step in the other direction.
The woman nodded. “You have the proper tools for the job?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“A
ll right, go get your tools and get to work.” The woman turned abruptly and yelled over her shoulder for the child to follow. Just before the door slammed shut she added, “No payment until I’m satisfied.”
“Yes ma’am,” Andy replied to the white painted door. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head before turning for home and the mower. I don’t even know her name, he realized halfway down the block. “Oh well. But I’ve got my first customer!”
It being Saturday, Mom and Dad were home. Andy ran through the garage and announced the news to Mom who sat reading in the family room. “That’s great honey!”
He grabbed work gloves from the tool shed, then rolled the mower out into the shade of the backyard. He quickly wiped the dust off with one of Dad’s golf towels and, spotting the gas can, filled it before pushing it toward his first paycheck.
Andy had finished the front yard and was starting the back when the woman popped her head out the door and waved a summoning hand. He released the safety bar on the mower, bringing the motor to a stop, then approached.
“You look hot. I thought you might like some water.”
Andy wiped sweat from his brow, smiled, then followed her inside. “Thanks!”
He took a seat on a stool at the counter and looked around. He had never been inside the Mitchells’ house. Across a nearby table, he noticed several half-burned candles. He glanced about and saw dozens of candles in similar condition scattered here and there.
“By the way, what’s your name?”
“Mrs. Smith.” The woman turned from the sink and smiled as she handed him a full glass of water.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to tend to lunch,” the woman announced, then headed out of the kitchen.