“Screw you!”
They glared at one another. Darlene shook her head in exasperation. When the battle recommenced, she tried keeping her tone civil.
“Look, I know this chunkie business has always been a pain in the butt. But you’ll be thirty years old in two months. At some point you have to realistically focus on making something out of your life. You have to accept the chunkies as a mild handicap and move on.”
Mild handicap? Aiden had to restrain himself from launching another attack.
“Start looking at things on the bright side,” his sister continued. “It’s not happening nearly as often, right?”
She was right about the frequency of the manifestations. They’d lessened considerably over the years. These days they only occurred about once a month. As a teen, Aiden had suffered a chunkie nearly every night. Back then, fear that he’d manifest one in his sleep had kept him from the kind of regular activities that his school friends enjoyed, such as sleepovers and overnight camping trips.
Despite his parents’ and sister’s attempts to convince him that the manifestations weren’t that big a deal, the reality felt different. He’d always been deeply embarrassed by them. The shame was probably akin to what a chronic bedwetter experienced. Although considering the composition of chunkies, an analogy to another bodily function was more apt.
Darlene droned on. “You can’t stay unfocused forever, aimlessly wandering through life.”
“Guess I’m just a screw-up and a loser,” he countered, smothering the words in sarcasm. Chunkies had trapped him in a lifelong prison of sorts. Maybe that was the true meaning of being behind bars in the green dream.
He tried to repress his bitterness and get the conversation back on track. “Just stop fixating on me for a moment, OK? Think about what might be best for Leah.”
“Fine. But I’ve never liked this Dr Jarek.”
“You’ve never met him.”
“Maybe so, but I think it’s a waste of your time getting involved with weird psychic research, or whatever the hell he does. Besides, he’s not a pediatrician.”
“The Doc has legit medical credentials. Maybe he’ll have some ideas that could help Leah or at least recommend someone who could.”
“Her nightmares are nothing to worry about. A lot of kids have them. It’s only been a little over a year since Tony passed. She still misses him.”
A shadow touched Darlene’s face at the mention of her husband. Tony, an Army staff sergeant, had been killed in Afghanistan.
“Anyway, it’s not a big deal. It’s just a stage Leah’s going through.”
“But what if it becomes a big deal later on? I know you don’t like to think about this, but what if Leah starts having chunkies? And what if it’s something that can be caught and corrected at a young age, maybe with medication.”
“My daughter is not going on any weird medications.”
Aiden shook his head in frustration. “You’re not being objective about this.”
“Trust me, Leah won’t inherit your problem.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
Darlene hesitated. She seemed about to say something when the phone rang.
It was the landline. Aiden thought paying for hardwired phone service when you owned a cell phone was a waste of money. But Darlene believed it was important to have a backup in case the cell network went down. The woman was prepared for everything short of Armageddon.
He was nearest the receiver and picked up.
“Hello, Manchester residence.”
“Aiden Manchester?”
The caller was male. He didn’t recognize the voice.
“Speaking.”
“Mr Manchester, I don’t know if you remember me. My name is George Dorminy.”
The name didn’t register. He waited for the man to continue.
“My wife and I bought your place up in Exeter.”
The memory returned. Aiden had met the couple more than fifteen years ago, in those harrowing weeks following the tragedy. After burying their parents, Darlene had sold the New Hampshire farmhouse where they’d grown up to the Dorminys, who’d been nearing retirement age. His sister, his legal guardian until he came of age, had moved them to Pennsylvania so she could attend nursing school.
“George and Irene, right,” Aiden said.
“Yes. How have you been getting along?”
“Fine. Living with my sister temporarily.” He glanced at Darlene. She was watching him closely, intrigued by the conversation.
“Darlene is here. Would you like to talk to her?”
“Actually, it’s you I was trying to reach. We’ve been remodeling the back part of the cellar in your old house. Making more room for my train layout, which, for better or worse, is growing larger than government debt.”
A faint chuckle sounded through the receiver. Aiden waited impatiently for Dorminy to get to the point.
“Anyway, last week the workmen found a secret compartment in the wall behind that old coal furnace. Hidden inside was a small safe. It has a very unusual lock. A note was found atop the safe, a note addressed to you from your father. It says that the safe is yours and that you possess the key to opening it.”
Aiden’s interest notched upward. He imagined newfound wealth, perhaps a family treasure concealed decades ago. But what sort of key was his father referring to?
“I’m sorry it took a while to get hold of you. Irene and I aren’t too computer savvy. We don’t know much about using the Internet to track people down. I gave your name to our grandson and he found this phone number. Southeastern Pennsylvania, right?”
“Birdsboro. Can you ship the safe down here?” Aiden asked. “Naturally, I’d pay the freight charges.”
There was hesitation at the other end of the line. Aiden wondered if George Dorminy expected a reward. Or maybe he was simply curious and wanted to see the safe opened in his presence.
But Dorminy had an altogether different concern.
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea. You see, there’s more to the note. It says the safe is booby-trapped and that any attempt to open it by someone other than you will, and I quote, ‘result in the triggering of a tamper-proof self-destruct mechanism.’ After I read that, I decided it was best not to jar it around too much.”
Aiden smiled. His father had been an engineer and dedicated home tinkerer, and was certainly capable of designing such a protective device. But Dad also possessed a sharp sense of humor and was a big fan of James Bond-style intrigue.
In all likelihood, the booby trap warning was simply a way to discourage potential thieves. And even if the safe was rigged, his father never would have designed it to pose a danger to anyone.
“You want me to come up there.”
“I think that would be best.”
Aiden promised to call back as soon as he’d made travel arrangements.
“Oh, one more thing,” Dorminy said. “The last line of the note says, and again I quote, ‘The contents of this safe will change your life.’”
FOUR
Aiden left Friday morning for New Hampshire. He’d offered to wait another day until the weekend so the three of them could make the trip together, but Darlene insisted he needed to do this alone. There’d been something odd in her tone, something hinting that she knew more about the mysterious safe than she was letting on.
Aiden had flown a few times in his life but had never felt comfortable in planes. He imagined drifting off to sleep and manifesting a chunkie, which would get caught in some piece of vital control wiring above or below the passenger cabin, sending the plane into a death spiral. Whenever possible he avoided flying.
He didn’t want to drive all the way either, which left Amtrak the best option. He drove his old Chevy Malibu to Philadelphia and caught the early morning Acela Express from 30th Street Station, paying for first-class travel with his credit card. Whatever the safe contained certainly would offset the expense. His plan was to take care of busine
ss with the Dorminys, stay in a motel overnight and catch a morning train back to Philly.
The express eased into Boston’s South Station shortly before noon. An hour or so later, a rented Hyundai Sonata brought him to the southeast corner of New Hampshire.
He lowered the window, felt a dash of surprisingly cool air against his face. Even though it was May, the weather up here tended to cling to the past, hanging onto wintery chills longer than Pennsylvania.
Childhood memories flooded back as he cruised into the small town of Exeter and onto Water Street. He recognized stores he’d haunted as a youngster, some unchanged since he’d last been here. Driving past the circular bandstand near the center of town triggered thoughts of Mom. She’d been a big supporter of the brass band that performed there and had dragged Aiden along to more than a few concerts.
He continued north, out of town. It took twenty minutes to reach the tree-shaded driveway that curved into his former home.
The old stone farmhouse occupied a small tract shielded on three sides by forest. Decades past, it had been a working farm. Most of the original acreage had been sold off well before his parents had moved here when he was a baby.
He parked beside a vintage Chrysler Imperial and headed up the flagstone path to the familiar white door. Another memory skated into view. He was maybe seven or eight, helping a teenaged Darlene shovel the driveway after a massive snowfall. Suddenly, the two of them had been attacked by Dad, who pelted them from his latest workshop invention, a toy rifle that machine-gunned tiny snowballs. The memory of the impromptu battle, including a counterassault organized by Darlene, remained as warm as that day had been cold.
George Dorminy opened the door on the first ring. He’d aged considerably since their last encounter and walked with a cane. Tall and slim, he had thinning white hair. But his handshake remained firm and his demeanor gracious.
“Irene and I are just sitting down to lunch. We insist you join us.”
The kitchen had been remodeled. Gray marble had replaced his parents’ old Formica countertops. Irene Dorminy, short, plump and beaming with pleasure, ushered him to the table and doled out clam chowder and sandwiches.
Aiden was hungry and dug in. The three of them chatted amicably while they ate. The Dorminys oohed and aahed as he displayed wallet photos of Darlene and Leah.
“I guess you’re anxious to see the safe,” George Dorminy said, downing a trio of pills with his last gulp of water. Balancing himself with the cane, he walked toward the door to the backyard. Aiden was surprised their destination wasn’t the basement.
“That business about the self-destruct mechanism was a bit worrisome,” he explained. “I had our grandson carry the safe out to the shed. He was extremely careful not to jar it, just in case.”
Aiden followed him along the brick path bisecting the neatly trimmed lawn. Irene called out to them from the door.
“Try not to blow yourselves up.”
The shed was new. Made of cedar boards with a shingled roof and nestled against the tree line, it fit the property’s rustic tone. A pair of windows flanked the door, providing enough natural light to reveal a small lawn tractor, gardening tools, and filled trash bags.
The safe squatted atop an old wooden desk in the corner. Aiden pulled out the matching chair and sat down. Dorminy perched on a stool behind him.
“Actually, I wasn’t too worried about us blowing up,” Dorminy said with a chuckle. “Putting it out here was mainly for Irene’s peace of mind.”
The safe was about fifteen inches high and eight inches deep. It looked to be made of burnished steel. Dorminy had described the lock after Aiden had called back with the details of his arrival. The man was certainly right about its unusual nature.
The mechanism protruding from the door consisted of a pair of old-time rotary phone dials, the upper one black, the lower one red. The original door handle had been removed and its opening plugged. Aiden knew at a glance that the modifications were his father’s handiwork.
He withdrew the dusty note from the envelope atop the safe. It was typewritten except for his father’s signature in ink. The note contained nothing of relevance that Dorminy hadn’t already mentioned. In addition to the self-destruct warning, it spelled out his name and said he possessed the key to opening the safe.
The final sentence, that the contents would change his life, reignited fantasies he’d been having about discovering a long-lost family treasure and leaving here a wealthy man.
Amid those flashes of wishful thinking, however, he’d given serious thought as to how he was going to open the safe. The rotary dials suggested that the key was an alphanumeric code, a series of numbers and letters that needed to be dialed into one or both of the finger wheels.
Aiden had come up with a list of possibilities during the train ride. Although it seemed unlikely, he tried the obvious one first, their old home phone number. He dialed the ten digits into the black dial, then into the red one, and then alternated the number between the two dials. None of the attempts met with success.
Next he tried birthdays and other dates germane to the Manchester clan. After exhausting those entries, as well as the local zip code, the license plate of Dad’s favorite Chevy and Aiden’s sixth-grade locker combination, he switched to letters. He rotated the finger wheels to spell out the names of people, places and things that had been important in the lives of his family.
A half hour of futile efforts followed. Dorminy called it quits after fifteen minutes and excused himself to work on his model trains. The old man asked Aiden to give a holler if a solution presented itself.
None did. Another half hour went by. Aiden’s fingers were beginning to tire from the constant dialing and he was getting frustrated. He needed a break.
He headed out into the yard. It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun felt good on his skin as he strolled through the short grass, trying not to think about numbers and letters and codes, trying to let his mind drift free in the hope that some fresh line of attack would slip into consciousness.
A black walnut tree at the western edge of the yard snared his attention, bringing forth another spate of childhood memories. He had often played in that tree, venturing out onto one of the horizontal limbs in imitation of a high-wire performer. Mom had caught him a few times, yelling for him to get down before he broke his neck.
The recollection jarred his mind onto a fresh tangent. Maybe the secret to unlocking the safe was some special word or phrase that his father or mother had uttered around the house. He doubted Mom’s warning was a candidate. But there were certainly other possibilities, comments unique to the family.
“Blackie Redstone!”
He knew the instant the words popped from his mouth he’d found the key. It was so obvious he was surprised he hadn’t thought of it sooner.
He raced back into the shed. The top rotary dial was black, the bottom one red – clear evidence to support his conclusion. But the primary clue was the nature of that faux-name and what it signified within family lore.
FIVE
Aiden had been passionate about rocketry as a kid. He played spaceflight simulator games and built models of NASA launch vehicles, some with motors. With Dad’s help he’d sent the rockets aloft from a field near their home. The thrill of those launches had been amplified by fantasizing that he was aboard the spaceship, piloting the craft into the unknown.
One summer, in the pre-chunkie era, Dad had taken him on a memorable camping trip upstate. They’d stopped in Warren, a town even smaller than Exeter, whose claim to fame was a seventy-foot-high Redstone rocket in the village green.
The Redstone was America’s first large ballistic missile. Warren’s had been donated to the town in the name of a longtime New Hampshire senator. It served to honor another Granite Stater, Alan Shepard, who in 1961 boarded a capsule atop a Redstone ascent vehicle and became the first American in space.
That missile became engraved in Aiden’s memory for what had occurred the day of their visit
. A local daredevil – a man with obvious mental health issues – had somehow lassoed the conical apex of the Redstone and climbed to the top. Aiden and Dad had witnessed numerous attempts by the police, the man’s family, and a psychologist to talk him down. All had failed. Finally, two burly firemen had wrestled the man onto the extended ladder of their fire truck and whisked him away to some unknown fate.
The man’s nickname had been Blackie. From that day on, Dad had adopted the phrase “Blackie Redstone” as a gentle means of castigating Aiden for behavior he deemed wild or foolish.
“Don’t pull a Blackie Redstone,” his father would utter. “Always think smart. That’s the only way to stay ahead of your troubles.”
To outsiders, a connection between the safe and his father’s use of the “Blackie Redstone” phrase might have seemed tenuous. But to those who knew Dad well enough to have experienced his agile mind and offbeat sense of humor, the conclusion was inescapable.
Aiden dialed 2-5-2-2-5-4-3 into the upper black dial to spell out “Blackie” and 7-3-3-7-8-6-6-3 into the lower red one for “Redstone.” No sooner had he entered the final digit than a sharp click sounded. It was followed by an alarming hiss of air rushing into the safe as the door opened a crack.
He gripped the door’s edge and gingerly drew it all the way open. An odd contraption occupied the safe’s cavity. It was attached by a series of thin steel shafts to the inside of the door, with the shafts entering holes drilled through the metal to connect to the rotary dials.
A pair of glass test tubes, each half filled with an amber liquid, hung from the bottom of the contraption. A small gyroscope was attached to the test tubes, which were hinged to a complex mechanism of levers and gears that reminded Aiden of the innards of an analog wristwatch.
Glued to the floor of the safe was a plastic tray. In the bottom of the tray was a sealed white envelope. Printed on the envelope were the words Aiden Manchester: For Your Eyes Only.
Aiden studied the contraption before touching it, concerned that his father might have incorporated some unusual bit of trickery. But, after a time, he felt he had discerned its basic operation.
Refraction Page 3