Locksmith

by Nicholas Maes

  “Bury him?” Adelaide shrieked. “You want to bury him in this awful region? Here in Alberta, a million miles from home? Never! I won’t hear of it!”

  She dissolved into tears. Everyone felt terrible and didn’t know what to do. That was when Todrus opened his palm and disclosed a silver vial inside. It bore a tiny cap, which he struggled to open with his oversize flippers.

  “I recognize that vial,” Lewis croaked. “That’s the one Elizabeth Grumpel was wearing. She lost it on the chopper when we knocked into each other.”

  Todrus chuckled. “Actually, I stole it from her.”

  “Stole it?” Lewis said. “Why?”

  At that moment the cap popped open, and a pill rolled out. Todrus caught it just in time.

  Despite their grief, the group stared at the pill. It glimmered in an unearthly fashion and wobbled slightly as if it were alive.

  “Back in Grumpel’s office,” Todrus said, steadying his flipper so the pill wouldn’t slip, “Elizabeth mentioned an elixir vitae, and Grumpel quickly shut her up.”

  “Who cares? My brother’s dead. What difference —”

  “He’s dead, exactly” Todrus agreed. “So it doesn’t matter if I experiment, does it?”

  He opened Alfonse’s mouth, placed the pill inside, and closed the jaw quickly as if worried the substance might fly away. Everyone watched with bated breath.

  A minute passed and nothing happened.

  “I don’t understand,” Adelaide said. She was thinking how her brother’s death would come as such a blow to her parents. “What are you expecting this pill to do?”

  “For centuries chemists have searched for a mixture that would bring a dead man back to life. They called this substance the elixir vitae — the recipe of life. While no one ever found this elixir, I suspect this pill is what they were seeking.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Adelaide cried. “Once someone’s dead, he’s gone forever! You shouldn’t be talking such hocus-pocus!”

  She was about to turn away when Lewis grabbed her and pointed at her brother’s eyes. Was something happening, or was it a trick of the light? Yes, there, the pupils were changing. Whereas they had been blank the moment before, their sparkle of old was quickly returning. His body, too, was suffused with a glow — the same radiance coming from the weird-looking pill — and the pallor was being drained from his cheeks like ice cream melting beneath a summer sun.

  “What on earth?” Adelaide murmured. In his excitement Gibiwink had looped his tongue around her neck.

  “His heart’s beating!” Todrus whispered, measuring Alfonse’s pulse.

  “And the blood on the ground is disappearing!” Lewis cried, pointing to the stain that was rapidly fading as if Alfonse were absorbing the blood like a sponge. By now his chest was heaving visibly, his lips were twitching, and his skin was pink.

  “But has his brain been affected?” Adelaide asked.

  “Justice and thunder,” Alfonse moaned, a favourite saying of The Bombardier.

  “He’s the same!” Lewis yelled with relief.

  Adelaide laughed. “I never thought I’d be so happy to hear those words!”

  As the group looked on, Alfonse stood up, glanced at his surroundings, and collected his thoughts. Lewis worried again that Alfonse’s brain wasn’t right, but when his friend delivered him The Bombardier signal — three winks and a wriggle of the thumbs — he was sure Alfonse was back to normal.

  Or was he?

  “What’s that smell?” Alfonse asked, sniffing the air.

  “What smell?” everyone wondered.

  “It smells like candy, no, like caramel,” Alfonse said. “And keep it down, will you? There’s no need to shout.”

  “Caramel?” The frogs were sniffing, as well. “That’s strange. We can’t smell anything.”

  Alfonse waved to their left. “It’s coming from over there. Past that bush with the bird’s nest and the patch of grey moss.”

  The group followed his finger. All they saw was an unfolding meadow with clumps of grass and meandering patches of mist.

  “It’s before that forest and the mountain that’s covered in fog,” Alfonse cried, like an adult explaining simple facts to a child.

  Forest? Mountain? They shrugged at one another.

  “This is ridiculous!” Alfonse spat. “Just follow me!”

  Before they could stop him, he started off. Because his legs were so much shorter than average, Alfonse had never been much of a runner. When he set off after the caramel smell, however, there was no keeping up. He ran like a cheetah and was gone in a flash. His friends were dumbfounded.

  “It’s the pill!” Todrus said as they rushed off in pursuit. “Besides bringing him back, it’s enhanced his senses.”

  “That … sounds … about … right,” Lewis gasped.

  “Let’s … find … him,” Adelaide panted. “Don’t … want … him … dying … again!”

  For fifteen minutes they ran full throttle. As he tried not to trip in the odd, hidden hollow, Lewis thought about his friend’s rescue from death. Of course, he was delighted. At the same time, though, he found Alfonse’s recovery disturbing. There was something about these chemicals that made him suspicious. Life was never supposed to be this easy. It wasn’t right that food appeared from nowhere, requiring no time to be gathered and cooked. And languages weren’t supposed to come in a pill. As for death itself, well, as frightening as it seemed, and as glad as he was that Alfonse was alive, surely it was a force that was bigger than humans. In other words, these chemicals were a mockery of nature —

  “There!” Adelaide cried, interrupting his thoughts. “Alfonse … right … really … is … bird’s … nest!”

  Sure enough, beside a long patch of moss, a gorse bush sheltered a nest in its middle.

  “We’re in luck,” Todrus added. “He’s left prints in the moss and we can follow his trail.”

  “Must … run … faster,” Adelaide urged them. “Can’t … lose … him … again!”

  They ran full tilt for another five minutes, crashing through the grass and dodging the odd thicket. A spiral of mist absorbed them briefly, then the view in front of them was suddenly clear.

  Alfonse was standing a hundred yards off. He was poised on an incline at the start of a clearing and was gazing ahead with his hands on his hips.

  “Alfonse!” the frogs and the Stranger cried. Lewis and Adelaide couldn’t spare any breath.

  “Didn’t I tell you not to shout?” Alfonse snapped.

  At the foot of the incline they dropped to the ground, puffing hard and trembling all over. Alfonse for his part was completely relaxed and looked as if he could keep on running forever. It was eerie, this newfound power of his.

  “I told you I smelled caramel,” he observed. “It’s coming from those flowers.”

  Lewis flinched. He had been running so hard that he hadn’t noticed the smell. Alfonse was right. It was just like caramel. But what flowers was he pointing to?

  “Let’s see,” Lewis said wearily, joining his friend on the incline. With a groan the others clawed up behind him. The sight that greeted them was worth the effort.

  They were standing on a shelf of earth that overlooked a field. The tract ran on for perhaps a mile and was festooned with flowers by the thousands and thousands. The flowers were laden with shocking pink petals, and a smell of caramel hung over the soil.

  Beyond the flowers was the start of a forest, whose trees had obviously been through a fire. And beyond their ruined trunks — a heartbreaking sight — a rugged mountain loomed over the land, shrouded in mist and barely visible. Alfonse was studying its crest with interest.

  “The swamp’s past that mountain,” the Stranger said.

  Adelaide laughed. “Forget the mountain. How often do you see daffodils like these?”

  “Daffodils!” Lewis cried.

  “They’re pink and smell like caramel,” Todrus said, grasping Lewis’s train of thought. “In fact —”


  “They’re the flowers in the poem!” everyone yelled.

  “So what are we waiting for?” Alfonse demanded. Without hesitating he jumped into the thick of the flowers. Not wanting to lose sight of him, the others followed.

  The flowers were even prettier than they had seemed from afar. Each was maybe three feet wide and heavy with petals that were smooth and fleshy. As he passed these fleecy masses — they reminded him of mattresses — Lewis was tempted to lie down and sleep.

  Then his foot caught on something. It was long and hard and rough to the touch. He sprang back in alarm. Sprawled at his feet, half buried in flowers, was a salamander that was easily the size of a car. Its long, lean body projected prodigious strength, its feet were armed with deadly claws, and its massive tail could have been used as a bludgeon.

  Fortunately, the creature hadn’t spotted him yet. It was lying still and paying no notice. Fixing his eyes on the beast, Lewis backed away … only to knock into a giant snake!

  The salamander was tiny compared to this new, lurking danger. The coils — a loathsome green and unthinkably destructive — were maybe eight feet wide and twisted in and out of the flowers. The serpent’s head was no less frightening. It stood a couple of yards from Lewis and was as big as a fridge and covered with scales. While the eyes were closed, the mouth was open and revealed fangs as long as an elephant’s tusks.

  As Lewis eyed this reptile, its eyes flickered open. Yellow, hard, and inhuman they were, bigger than searchlights and projecting … death. At the same time its tongue came lunging forward, bloody pink and clustered with veins. Its tip rubbed his ankles and … He almost screamed. Before the sounds could escape, however, the tongue curled past him, latched onto a flower, plucked several petals, and returned to its mouth. The snake’s eyes closed, and it went back to sleep.

  As Lewis searched for his friends — they were standing nearby — he saw that the field was crowded with creatures — frogs, salamanders, turtles, and snakes. All of them were giant-size and all were sleeping.

  “I don’t like this,” Alfonse said, tiptoeing next to Lewis.

  “I don’t, either. I’m just glad that snake’s a vegetarian.”

  “Let’s not take any chances,” Adelaide warned. “Let’s pluck a petal and get out of here before these creatures catch wind of our presence.”

  “They’re not interested in us,” the Stranger said. It was standing near the snake and had an ear against its coils.

  “How do you know?” Todrus asked, studying a frog that was twice his size and lying in the flowers with a dreamy expression.

  “This snake is talking in its sleep,” the Stranger answered. “That translation brew is affecting me still and I can understand it.”

  “What’s it saying?” everyone asked at once.

  “It keeps repeating ‘Flowers, forget, sleep, forget’ over and over. The other beasts are saying the same.”

  “How did that poem go?” Lewis asked.

  “‘Unless joined with forgetful daffodil / with petals pink and scent of caramel …’” the Stranger recited.

  The group put two and two together. The flower contained a chemical that caused a creature’s memories to fade. These beasts weren’t asleep but in a state of oblivion and had forgotten everything about their past. The snake hadn’t bothered with Lewis because, thanks to the petals, it didn’t know about its fangs.

  “I imagine,” the Stranger said with a frown, “that these creatures can probably think like us. They must have found this change confusing — if you’re not used to it, a powerful brain can be dreadful — and when they learned these flowers would let them forget, well, you can see the results for yourselves.”

  Everyone nodded, their expressions pale. Now that they understood the daffodil’s effects, that its chemicals would rob them of their memories if eaten, they found it more frightening than the reptiles around them. The thought of lying there for months on end unable to remember themselves or their friends, with no clue whatsoever who they were … It was the worst possible fate they could think of.

  “I’ve stored a petal in my pouch,” Lewis said.

  “Then let’s go,” Adelaide recommended.

  That said she ran toward the forest in the distance, her eyes searching for any creature in her path. The others bounded after her, Lewis last of all.

  For the first hundred yards he was as scared as the others. As he watched them dodge among the flowers, however, and flinch every time the petals grazed their skin, he began to reconsider his fears.

  Forgetfulness. Yes. On the one hand, it seemed awful — was there anything worse than forgetting all your memories? On the other hand, he was tired of the constant ache. He was tired of feeling sorrow when he saw his mother’s picture or worked with his locks or watched children with their parents. It was always there, always. And his father, too, was on the verge of disappearing …

  The others were well ahead of him. They were anxious to reach the end of the field and hadn’t yet noticed that he had fallen behind. In fact, he was gazing at the sleeping creatures and envying them their tranquil state. The flowers, too, grabbed his eye, with their luxuriant petals that promised freedom from the hardship and sadness of the world. His hand reached out and stroked one petal. With the slightest tug he freed it from its moorings. To sleep, to forget, to escape the pain. The petal was more than halfway to his mouth …

  And yet …

  His memories of his mother’s smile, her songs and laughter, their lessons together — weren’t these keeping her alive in some sense? As soon as he forgot her loving kindness and allowed her actions to slip away, wouldn’t he be killing her all over again? His ache, as hard as it was at times, was a tribute to his mother, a recognition of her presence. It was, in fact, his most precious possession.

  A wave of shame poured over him. Dropping the petal, he turned toward his friends who had reached the field’s limits by now and were urging him forward. He bounded toward them. Skirting one creature after the next, he pushed himself as hard as he could to escape this paradise that contained death at its centre.

  CHAPTER 14

  Lewis was trying to keep his eyes open. For the past half-hour, over a meal of goop, the group had been discussing their best course of action. Should they camp where they were on the verge of the forest and scour the region for the last ingredient? Or should they search for it en route to Yellow Swamp, on the grounds they would be killing two birds with one stone? They were exhausted and couldn’t make up their minds.

  “It’s like a needle in a haystack,” Adelaide grumbled for the third time in the past ten minutes.

  “Then let’s head for the swamp now,” Todrus yawned. “At least we’ll make some progress that way.”

  “But we’ve got to find the weed,” she protested. “And that might mean retracing our steps.”

  “Unless the weed’s near the swamp,” Gibiwink argued. And so the discussion dragged on and on.

  There might have been a quarrel had Alfonse not spoken up. He had been strangely quiet for the whole exchange and was seated several feet away from the group. “I know where we can find that weed.”

  Everyone started, and Lewis’s eyes jumped open.

  As the group pressed Alfonse to explain himself, he gestured to the mountain that overshadowed the forest. “When we were on that hill overlooking the flowers, I managed to get a close look at the mountain and saw a giant oak growing on its crest. In its highest branches there’s a yellow-tipped weed, exactly like the one described in the poem.”

  “Are you sure?” Todrus asked. “Your eyes would have to be sharp.”

  “I’m sure,” Alfonse snapped. “You’ll find the weed in that tree.”

  “You should have said so earlier!” Adelaide muttered. “We’ve been discussing our plans for over an hour.”

  Alfonse shrugged. “I was distracted. My powers are gone.” That said, he moved away from the group and propped himself at the foot of an alder.

  Feeling bad for A
lfonse, Lewis strolled over. “Move over.” He sat next to his friend. “I’m sorry about your powers.”

  Alfonse yawned. “You shouldn’t be. I’m happy they’re gone.”

  “You are? You don’t mind?”

  “I know this sounds strange, but those powers were creepy. When I was running fast and could see things at a distance, it felt like a stranger was working inside me. Besides, I should be dead right now.”

  “What’s it like?” Lewis whispered. “Being dead, I mean.”

  “It felt … it was like …” Alfonse sought the right words. “I was far away, very far away, beyond the reach of everything, both good and evil. It’s nice to be back, that’s all I can say, and you won’t ever hear me complaining again.”

  Lewis stood and tapped his friend’s shoulder. He was about to suggest the group start moving when he noticed that the others had fallen asleep. Lewis shook the frogs vigorously but couldn’t get them to stir. Glancing back, he saw that Alfonse had dropped off, too.

  As Lewis stood there wondering what he should do, exhaustion hit him with the force of a hammer, almost knocking him off his feet. Maybe a nap would do him good, he thought. After all, as his father often argued, rest was the formula for all success.

  His father. Lewis frowned. Again he saw his dad in that sunken chamber, frozen, weakened, with those guards poised above him. He had looked so helpless, so utterly defeated.

  “I can’t afford to sleep,” Lewis gasped, reaching for his manual. “He’ll die if we don’t reach him soon.”

  Focusing hard to stay awake, Lewis searched the book for a possible solution. He wound up making two discoveries. The first involved the chemicals themselves — it turned out they were all related to one another. Even as he kicked himself for having missed this connection, he came across a most promising entry: “Sleep compression,” the index read.

  Following the directions, he pulled out vials of hydralienic microsulfate, alienodextrose, and chlorolacticalienamalinamine. He was barely able to keep his eyes open, but he managed to pour these ingredients onto a handful of dirt and grimaced when a slimy violet gel took shape. Steeling himself, he swallowed part of it. Yuck!