The Demon Queen and The Locksmith

by Spencer Baum

  She helped Kevin’s dad connect with other Hearers. A group of them met every Monday night at Kevin’s house. Craig Hoffman, Jacob and Joyce Medina, and Cassandra D’Antonia. Five adults, all seemingly normal people, gathering in Kevin’s living room once a week to be crazy together.

  They were all so weird about Turquoise Mountain. They didn’t want to be too near to it. They didn’t want to be too far from it. They had to arrange their chairs at specific and changing angles in relationship to it. Sometimes they stood on the porch, all evening, staring at it.

  “The hum and the mountain are deeply intertwined,” his dad said one night as he and Kevin sat on the porch looking at the mountain. “Every Hearer will tell you so.”

  “But you’re sure it’s not The Dunce Cap?”

  “I’m sure. The hum is so much more than some sound you hear. It’s inside my head. It’s telling me something. Signals from The Dunce Cap couldn’t do that, unless your old man is just a giant radio.”

  His dad laughed. Kevin didn’t.

  “Maybe we should move somewhere else,” Kevin said.

  “I can’t leave,” said his dad.

  Hearers had a thing for crystals. At every Monday meeting, the group laid crystals of various sizes, shapes, and colors across the coffee table and discussed their “chakras.” Jacob and Joyce Medina hung crystals under every doorway in their house and from the rearview mirror in their car. Craig Hoffman owned a shop on the south end of town, where he used crystals, incense, and candles to “heal” people.

  Thankfully, Kevin’s dad kept only one crystal in the house. It was small, and he wore it in a pendant around his neck. The crystal was a present, given to him shortly after Kevin was born. Kevin’s mom had found it on Turquoise Mountain.

  Kevin remembered feeling skeptical about his dad’s beliefs from an early age. Jokes about the Hearers were a regular part of schoolyard play in elementary school. In fifth grade, Kevin’s teacher tried to give a lesson about the history of The Turquoise Hum, but stopped when the snickers from the back rows grew into a classroom-wide teasing session directed at Kevin and his dad.

  At home, Kevin’s mom carefully balanced the needs of her husband with the needs of her son. Kevin didn’t fully appreciate these efforts until after she died. Without his mother there, Kevin was the one who had to listen to his dad speak about “balancing his chi.” Sometimes his dad worried openly about Kevin’s “aura.” One night Kevin’s dad announced he was becoming a “vegan.”

  “No animal products. No meat, no eggs, no cheese,” his dad declared. “You can still eat McDonald’s if you want. But I’m done with it.”

  So Kevin and his dad began eating separate meals. His dad cooked elaborate concoctions of vegetables and tofu, all while the Tingley 2000 churned and burped (Kevin found it odd that his dad was willing to give up all meat, eggs, milk, and cheese, but could not give up his beloved espresso), and Kevin rode his bike three blocks to Turquoise Good Luck Restaurant for carryout Moo Goo Gai Pan or Kung Pao Chicken.

  One night Cassandra D’Antonia told Kevin she saw “a disturbance in his energy body” and Kevin decided he’d had enough. That night he said some things to Cassandra and his dad that he later regretted. But at least the Hearers knew to leave him alone.

  Hum became a dirty word in the house. Neither Kevin nor his dad spoke of it in the other’s presence. Whenever The Hearers came over, Kevin went to his room, or left the house altogether.

  But on this night, after Kevin said thank you and goodbye to Mrs. Silver and prepared himself to leave the afternoon fantasy of butterfly chases and superhero abilities, a persistent buzz/ring/melody/hum…yes, hum, still in his ears, a crystal still in his pocket, all his certainty about his dad and the Hearers was gone.

  His newly acute hearing picked up the Hearers’ conversation on the other side of his front door before he opened it, and for the first time, Kevin gave serious consideration to how hard daily life might be for these poor people.

  He could hear Cassandra speak about a new art gallery in downtown Turquoise. She said she would be there all day tomorrow. Joyce asked if she could come too. Cassandra said no, that access tomorrow was by invitation only.

  He could tell by their voices where they were sitting. Cassandra’s voice was loud. She was sitting in the chair that faced the door. Joyce and Jacob’s voices were soft. They were sitting on the couch, their backs to him. He could smell the espresso they were drinking. There were layers of it in the house. His dad had fired up the Tingley 2000 Home Barista for at least two rounds. He imagined them joking with Cassandra, who refused to drink espresso and called it “an infernal concoction that should be banned.”

  Kevin opened the door and took in a world of sound that should have been familiar, but wasn’t. The second hand on the wall clock pounded like a sledgehammer, a sound that had always been there, but had never made itself known before. The floor lamp was no longer content to simply illuminate, it now had to spew forth an irksome electric whistle. His first step on the hardwood floor was a thunderclap. The Hearers stood from the couch to greet him, and in so doing, unleashed a swirling cacophony of feet, joints, couch cushions, breathing, and heartbeats. In his own house, with his own expectations of what life should sound like, this new way of hearing threw him off-kilter. And the music remained in his ears, sliding around all these sounds, amplifying them as it became part of them. Seeing The Hearers, this odd group of middle-aged misfits whose entire lives were upended by something they heard, forced the question to a place in his mind where it could no longer be ignored. Could it be that I’m a Hearer too?

  Could it be that, all this time, his dad wasn’t crazy after all? Could it be that the hum was indeed “a higher state of sound, something that only exceptional people could hear,” as his dad claimed? If the sap from the fallen elm had given Kevin enhanced strength, enhanced agility, enhanced sight, and enhanced hearing, and on top of all this, he now heard the hum…

  “Where you been, Sport?” his dad said. With that question, Kevin knew his dad had been worried. His dad never called him ‘Sport.’

  “Sorry, I met up with some friends and lost track of time,” Kevin said.

  His dad smiled. Kevin expected that, were it not for the presence of the Hearers, his dad would be genuinely interested to know more. It wasn’t like Kevin to meet up with friends after school and lose track of time.

  “Well, good. Looks like you had fun.”

  Kevin nodded. Now there was awkwardness in the room. He wanted to leave.

  “Were you playing football or something?” his dad continued.

  Football? Kevin realized his shirt was still mud-stained from the morning fight with Ruben.

  “No, I just took a spill,” Kevin said.

  “Boys will be boys,” said Joyce Medina. Her comment was followed by long seconds of silence.

  “How do you feel tonight, Kevin?” asked Craig.

  How did he feel?

  “Fine,” said Kevin. “Why?”

  Several more seconds of silence, broken when Joyce Medina put her hands over her face and began sobbing. Jacob put his arm around Joyce and kissed her head.

  “You’ll have to forgive us,” said his dad. “There was an explosion at Turquoise Mountain. I know you don’t want to talk about…what we hear…”

  “Oh,” said Kevin, suddenly feeling like he wanted to disappear into a corner. He had been so caught up in the crazy events of his own afternoon that he hadn’t thought about what an explosion on Turquoise Mountain meant to the Hearers.

  “We’re going to eat some of Craig’s famous tofu quiche,” said Kevin’s dad, forcing a smile. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  “That’s alright, thanks.”

  “I bought some frozen dinners too,” his dad said.

  Joyce Medina gurgled another sob into her hands. Kevin’s eyes went in Joyce’s direction, and on the way connected with Cassandra. The way she looked at him -- he felt terribly unwelcome in this group.

&n
bsp; “I kind of wanted to talk to you about something,” Kevin said to his dad.

  “Oh…okay, sure Kevin.”

  Kevin ran a quick, condensed possible version of the next few minutes through his head. He and his dad would go somewhere else to find privacy in their own house, Kevin would tell his dad about a sound in his ears, his dad would get excited, he’d want to know more, Kevin would have a huge, outrageous story to tell – would he talk about Turquoise Mountain? If he said too much, his dad might figure out that he and his friends were at the explosion site, that they were being mentioned as suspects on the news. And what about the crystal in his pocket?

  “You know…not now. Maybe we can talk some other time,” Kevin said.

  “No, no,” said his dad, “Now’s a great time--”

  “Some other time,” said Kevin, already walking toward the stairs.

  “Are you sure? I can come up in a few minutes if you’d like.”

  “It’s cool. I’ll be in my room.”

  As Kevin turned into the upstairs hallway, he heard Jacob Medina say, “Isn’t adolescence fun?”

  Out of habit, Kevin went to his bedroom, closed the door, and turned on his GameStation Console. All summer he had been playing a game called MegaDuck From Planet Xenon, and he was getting close to the final showdown with “King Sobbius” that would end the game. But as the game fired up, and the opening sequence rolled, showing a computer animated duck chasing a giant cobra through outer space, Kevin knew he didn’t want to play. Somehow all the challenge was gone. Without even beginning a game, he knew that today he would make it to the end and defeat King Sobbius without any effort. All the pathways through MegaDuck’s world were clear in his mind, and the hand-eye coordination necessary to maneuver MegaDuck past all the obstacles seemed like child’s play.

  He turned off the GameStation and sat silently on the foot of his bed, listening to the music.

  “Listening to the hum,” he corrected, in a whisper.

  Kevin took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. He really wanted to talk to his dad. Why didn’t he just do it? His dad had been more than willing. Kevin needed only step out of his room and call for his dad to come upstairs.

  Unresolved years of detachment, anger, and confusion might be put behind them tonight. He just had to say the words. “Dad, I think I’m hearing the hum.” He didn’t need to tell him everything else about today. He could just start with the hum and see where it went.

  “He’s had a big day,” said Cassandra, downstairs.

  “Those first days of freshman year,” said his dad, “they’re so exciting. New friends, new classes…”

  Their voices reminded Kevin of the night before. Cassandra had come over after Kevin went to bed. She and his dad stayed up late into the night talking about the hum. It irked Kevin that his dad was up late with this woman.

  It irked Kevin how little his dad knew him. There were no new friends at school, just new enemies. Seniors who wanted to ‘initiate’ freshmen. Juniors who wanted to be seniors. Sophomores who were eager to assert that they were no longer at the bottom of the ladder.

  Ruben was a sophomore.

  “I think it’s bigger than that,” said Cassandra.

  “I know what you’re talking about. I heard it too,” said Kevin’s dad.

  He wondered how often they talked about him. He wondered if he’d catch them saying something bad about him, something they’d regret saying if they knew his ears were like spy satellites now, able to pick up every word.

  “I could hear it when he came in,” Cassandra continued. “He was a completely different person.”

  Then why didn’t you say something? You just stared at me, you didn’t even say hello!

  Cassandra was always such a phony, smiley and nice, eager to be friends, but determined to speak with him like he was a little kid. Kevin sometimes imagined himself shouting ‘You are not my mother!’ at Cassandra, just to see how she reacted.

  She was the plainest, most boring person he had ever met. She never had anything interesting to say, she had no personality, she didn’t do her hair, she didn’t wear makeup, she wore the same plain black sweater every day.

  “It was his aura,” Cassandra said. “Kevin’s aura was glowing like the sun.”

  “I heard a change too,” said Kevin’s dad. “I wonder if it’s just puberty.”

  “No,” said Cassandra. “It’s more. It’s one of the healthiest auras I’ve ever encountered. You should find out what happened to him today, Benjamin. Auras don’t change like that without some sort of cleansing event. Something has been troubling your boy, and today he’s found peace I’m certain he has become connected in a big way.”

  Kevin sat frozen. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. All this time he had thought Cassandra was either crazy or full of it. But if there ever was a day that Kevin’s ‘aura’ had changed, it was today.

  The buzz in his ears grew more prominent.

  “I don’t hear anything different,” said Craig Hoffman.

  “Benjamin and I are hearing more than other Hearers, we think,” said Cassandra. “We discussed this last night.”

  “I’d like to hear less,” said Joyce Medina. The group laughed.

  “I bet if we could convince him to sit quietly and just listen, Kevin might hear the hum tonight,” said Cassandra.

  “Well, I don’t think we should bother him,” said Kevin’s dad. “If he’s meant to hear it, he’ll hear it in his own good time, and he can come to us. I’m not going to press the issue with him. The poor kid already thinks his old man is crazy.”

  No, Dad. I don’t think you’re crazy. Not anymore.

  Why was he thinking these things to himself and leaving his dad out there to speculate? If his dad had been right…

  If his dad had been right all these years, Kevin owed him an apology.

  The phone rang. Kevin stood up to answer it, but at the same time, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Jackie. Thinking his dad could answer the land line, Kevin answered his cell.

  “You left your backpack at the park,” Jackie said. “I went back and got it.”

  “Thanks,” Kevin said.

  “If it’s alright with you, Joseph and I will come over and drop if off,” Jackie said.

  “That would be great,” Kevin said.

  He ended the call, relieved for the excuse to put off speaking with his dad. He’d talk about the hum some other time. Maybe later tonight, after everyone left.

  A tap on the bedroom door.

  “Kevin, that was the high school on the phone,” said his dad. The door opened and his dad gingerly poked his head inside. “Did you miss a class today?”

  Kevin felt a groundswell of panic inside him. His mind raced through all the things he might say, and all the things that might happen.

  It took only a second for him to see the ends of all the paths. If he lied now, odds were good his dad would find out later. The school was calling. The school had a record of his attendance.

  And why lie about ditching? It wasn’t like he was cutting class to go smoke dope or something. He had been in a fight. He had lost.

  He had been to his mom’s place.

  He would tell his dad the truth. Just not all of it.

  “I was in a fight, Dad.”

  His dad pushed his neck out, like he didn’t hear what Kevin said. His face went blank with confusion.

  “A kid named Ruben punched me in the stomach,” Kevin continued. He had now let a lie into the conversation. Ruben had kicked Kevin in the stomach, but only after Kevin was already on the ground, having been floored by the punch to his face. But he couldn’t tell his dad about the punch to his face without telling him why any evidence of that punch was now gone.

  “Are you alright? Were you in the nurse’s office? Is that why you missed class?”

  Before Kevin had even processed the first question, his body reminded him that he was more than alright. Just the thought made him aware that a current of li
vely energy was inside him, waiting to be tapped. If he wanted to, he could jump up and touch the ceiling.

  “I’m alright, and I never went to the nurse’s office. I didn’t even tell a teacher. I left.”

  “You left?”

  “Dad, I lost. There was a crowd of people who watched, and when I lost, none of them stopped to help me.”

  “So you just left school? Where did you go?”

  “I went to Blackstone Park. I met some people there. Joseph and Jackie Silver. They’re homeschooled. They’re coming over in just a few minutes because I left my backpack behind.”

  Kevin’s dad nodded. Several times he opened his mouth to speak, but was unable to say anything. Finally he settled on, “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “I’m fine, Dad. Thanks.”

  “So, who did you get in a fight with?”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’s probably them,” Kevin said.

  “Can we talk about this again later?” his dad asked.

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  Kevin left his dad standing in the bedroom.

  Downstairs, Joseph and Jackie were already inside. Cassandra had let them in.

  When Jackie spotted Kevin, she held up his backpack for him to see. He smiled at her. It was funny how little his new friends understood how things worked for regular kids. If he hadn’t already confessed to his dad about ditching today, their appearance with his backpack would have ratted him out.

  “We can’t stay – we’re headed to a party tonight. My mom’s outside waiting,” she said, and handed him his backpack. As she put the backpack in his hands, she leaned in close and whispered. “We need to talk and Joseph says it isn’t safe to talk on the phone.”

  “Not safe to talk on the phone?”

  “Shh!” Jackie hissed. “Can you walk us out to our car? I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Kevin threw his backpack down next to the couch.

  “Hello, I’m Benjamin Browne,” said Kevin’s dad, extending his hand to Jackie. Kevin could read the confusion on his dad’s face. The poor guy had no idea how to handle the news Kevin gave him. Were these good kids who took care of his son after he lost a fight, or bad kids who encouraged him to ditch class? It was kind of fun to let his dad think he might be hanging with a crowd of rebels.