Locksmith

by Nicholas Maes

  Lewis waited. Was it working? He didn’t feel any different. Sniffing with impatience, he glanced up at the sky. A chip from a tree was falling toward him, bullet-shaped and black as coal. He tried to catch it, but a wave of grey bowled him over.

  He was falling, falling, falling. A corridor appeared. It was lined with a trophy case and newspaper clippings, each with a story about Ernst K. Grumpel. One headline read METEORITE IN MASON SPRINGS! while a second trumpeted PHARMACIST SCORES TRIUMPH! A moment later he was at the door to a pool. The chain on its handles opened without warning, and three hulking figures emerged. One pointed a rifle at him. He cried, “Don’t shoot!” But the figure only laughed and pulled the trigger.

  Lewis awoke with a start. Despite this jarring nightmare, he had slept like the dead and had never felt quite so rested before. He yawned, stretched, and thought about his dream. Then a bolt of panic caused him to tremble. How long had he been down? Four hours? Six? Eight? Ten? Twelve? His father was clinging to life by a thread and he had dared —

  A wood chip hit him. It was bullet-shaped and black as coal. Lewis frowned, then laughed. It was the chip he had spied before the brew had kicked in and, as incredible as it seemed, he had been asleep for five seconds!

  “Alfonse!” he cried, scooping up some gel. “Try this mixture! It’ll leave you feeling rested.”

  Because his friend didn’t respond, Lewis fed him the substance. He repeated this process with the rest of the gang, opening their jaws and placing the mix inside. By the time he had finished, the gel was taking effect.

  “Boy, did I sleep!” Alfonse declared.

  “Me, too!” the rest of the group sang out. Weak and exhausted only minutes before, they were all on their feet and itching to move forward.

  “All right,” Lewis said, “we know where to go to find the weed. Let’s head for the mountain, track the weed down, and end this mission once and for all!”

  His friends thought this was an excellent idea. With a heartening shout they set off together, leaving the open field behind and plunging into the thick of the forest. As they marched, they swapped jokes and encouraged one another, confident their goal was finally within reach.

  A minute later their spirits sank once more.

  The woods had been blasted through and through. Once a collection of birch, pine, and alder, it was now black and charred and maimed all over. Not a single speck of green was visible, and the branches were scarred, gnarled, and twisted, as if they were doubled over in pain. The bark, too, was hideous, like the skin on someone who had been burned all over. The worst part was the silence: there were no bird songs, no cricket calls, no rustling leaves. And at every step they sank up to their ankles in ash.

  What a pity, Lewis thought. Normally, he was fond of nature — he loved the Canadian wilds, for example — but this forest’s desolation made him sick at heart. To distract himself and his friends from the carnage, he described his dream about the trophy case and clippings.

  “You were back in school,” Alfonse suggested.

  “Yes. The clippings were about that meteorite and how Grumpel became a sensation soon after —”

  “Like in real life,” Adelaide interrupted, half stumbling in the ash.

  “That’s my point. The dream was telling me something.”

  “Like what?” Todrus asked.

  Lewis replied that he didn’t know. On the other hand, he had a discovery to share — how the chemicals in their belts had something in common. Before he could explain further, the forest erupted.

  There was no wind present, yet the branches swayed and creaked on high, never mind all of them were horrifically battered. The friends glanced up. The trees were rubbing their boughs together, not casually as happened when a breeze arose, but like fiddlers sawing away on their bows.

  “I know this sounds crazy,” Lewis shouted to make himself heard above the wild scratching, “but I’d swear these trees were talking to each other!”

  “They are.” Again, because of the translation brew, the Stranger was able to decipher these sounds. “They think you’re murderers, as a matter of fact.”

  “Murderers? Us?” the group cried out.

  “That’s what they’re saying,” the Stranger insisted. “I think it has something to do with your outfits.”

  “That’s crazy!” Alfonse argued. “These outfits aren’t ours! Grumpel forced us to put them on.”

  “But don’t you see?” Adelaide interrupted. “His henchmen wrecked this region, along with these trees. And I suspect —”

  “They were dressed just like us,” Lewis finished. “And that means these trees think we’re working for Grumpel.”

  They hurried on in silence. The trees continued to scratch and saw, then started spitting bark at the group. Now that the Stranger had translated the racket, everyone could sense the raw hatred. Infuriated on account of their wounds, these trees were intent on exacting revenge.

  Lewis felt uneasy, if not for himself, then for his mother at least. He thought back to Elizabeth’s statement about his mother. She had told him that his mother had informed Grumpel about Yellow Swamp’s existence and that, if not for her, this part of Alberta would be unscathed. Although his mother had loved nature deeply and would never have been part of Grumpel’s scheme — if she had known it would mean the swamp’s ruin — this disaster was partially her doing. She had been so intent on building an unbreakable lock that everything else had been forgotten.

  “Ow!” Todrus wailed as a piece of bark struck home. The trees were now attacking in earnest and tossing large parts of themselves at the group, in some cases branches that could crush them flat. And the scratching was loud, not to mention insulting. If they stayed there much longer, they would be killed for sure.

  “Let’s run for it!” Lewis yelled, pointing at the mountain ahead. A hundred yards off, in the midst of the forest, a mass of rocks rose up from the soil and stormed its way straight into the clouds.

  With the trees hurling threats and jeers in their wake, not to mention a volley of missiles, they doubled their speed and dodged a tangle of roots. One branch fell straight toward Lewis and would have crushed him had the Stranger not knocked it aside. One second later and —

  “Thanks,” Lewis gasped.

  “My pleasure,” the Stranger answered, returning his gaze.

  Again, for an instant, Lewis spied something familiar.

  The trees were so furious that, even when the travellers reached the base of the mountain, they didn’t pause to catch their breath. Instead they scrambled toward its boulders and started climbing for all they were worth.

  The ascent wasn’t difficult, in the technical sense, since there were plenty of ledges and cracks to clutch onto. Still, the face was frighteningly steep. By the time they had covered the first hundred yards, the easiest part of the climb, everyone was sweating and fighting for breath. It wasn’t wise to look down, either. There were no lack of footholds, but the drop was … lethal.

  They continued climbing for the next half-hour, unable to speak because they were puffing so hard. By now the trees were far below, yet they had conquered only part of the mountain, as if they were ants on a human being and had only reached the start of his knees. The rock was sharp and cut their skin, yet they clung to it the way a baby nuzzled its parent.

  “Ooh,” Gibiwink moaned, pausing to glance below. “Did I ever mention I’m hydrophobic?”

  “You’re scared of water?” Todrus panted.

  “Is that what it means? Then I’m looking for another word … xenophobic?”

  “The proper word is acrophobic — a fear of heights,” Todrus lectured. “Xenophobia is the fear of strangers, anyone who’s not from the same place as you.”

  “Speaking of things from somewhere else,” Lewis gasped. “Have any of you noticed something strange about the chemicals we’ve been using?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Alfonse asked, dropping a stone and watching it fall to the soil. “I mean, these ch
emicals are only strange.”

  Lewis produced a handful of vials. He then read the words printed on the labels. “Alienophloxyxene, hydralienoplasmic acid, tyralienahippaceronase, meninaeidealienotheacide …”

  “I don’t get it,” Alfonse said.

  Lewis laughed. “It’s staring you in the face. Each vial contains something with alieno or aliena in the name. Let’s call it Alienus. You’re a chemist, Todrus. Does that sound familiar?”

  The frog frowned. “Alienus? Hmm, there’s no such thing.”

  “You mean, there’s no such thing on Earth,” Lewis corrected.

  “Now hang on a second. Are you suggesting …?”

  Lewis nodded. “This substance is from another planet. And it arrived on the meteorite that fell on Grumpel’s farm, the one reported in that newspaper clipping.”

  “You mean Grumpel’s inventions —” Alfonse asked.

  “Exactly. How else would he have become an overnight sensation? When that meteorite landed, it was carrying an element.”

  “Alienus,” the Stranger mused.

  Lewis smiled. “Which can trigger all sorts of amazing reactions. Grumpel must have found that out and quickly built an empire for himself.”

  The group exchanged worried frowns with one another. They didn’t like this conversation. The thought that they were carrying a foreign substance like that, an element from a far-off galaxy perhaps, sent tingles up and down their spines. Was there life on other planets? Was something, somewhere, watching from … out there?

  “And that’s why he’s been closing his factories,” Lewis added. “He’s running low on Alienus and can’t mass-produce his inventions any longer — just as Todrus argued.”

  Alfonse whistled. “So that’s what he’s hiding in Yellow Swamp. Piles and piles of Alienus.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Adelaide said. “I mean, he could have hidden this stuff in New York City and had it available when the first batch failed. So what’s it doing in northern Alberta?”

  “And why did he cause that chemical spill?” the Stranger added.

  “You’re right,” Todrus said after a pause. “We haven’t solved the entire riddle. Still, we won’t find answers by lounging about. Let’s collect the weed, get to the swamp, and see what this mystery’s about for ourselves.”

  They continued the ascent. Apart from the heavy effort it required, the odd, tense moment when someone missed his footing, and the breathtaking but dizzying view of the landscape, the rest of the climb was uneventful. Eventually, Alfonse mounted a boulder, only to discover he had reached the top.

  “We’ve done it!” he cried. “We’re at the crest!”

  “Thank goodness,” Gibiwink sighed, his flippers scraped all over.

  “Let’s celebrate,” Todrus wheezed. “And fix ourselves a snack.”

  “We’d be celebrating too soon,” Adelaide objected.

  Everyone followed her pointing finger, and one by one their looks of triumph faded. The mountain had so distracted them, as had their talk about Alienus, that they had forgotten why they were scaling its heights.

  A gargantuan oak stood a short distant off. Its trunk rose hundreds of feet into the air, only to vanish in a bank of mist. There was no saying how tall it was. Its width, too, was just as impressive. If they joined hands, they would encircle half its trunk. No branches were visible, high or low, and the bark had the same smoothness as steel.

  Lewis gulped and passed a hand through his hair. The real climb hadn’t even started yet.

  CHAPTER 15

  “So how are we going to climb this thing?” Alfonse demanded for the umpteenth time. They were sitting in a circle and picking at some goop. Every so often they paused in mid-bite, craned their necks, and studied the oak. It didn’t seem like a tree as much as a pillar holding the sky in place.

  “The question is ‘who?’ not ‘how?’” Todrus mused. “I, for one, am a terrible climber. There’s no way I can scale a tree like that.”

  “I’m scared of heights,” Gibiwink whined, a statement the Pangettis and the Stranger repeated.

  Lewis had been flipping through his manual all the while. Now he spoke. “My dad’s the one in danger. I’ll climb that tree.”

  Ashamed, the others stopped eating. Explaining how they hadn’t meant to stick him with this job, they suggested they should flip a coin or something. But Lewis had decided. He himself would go.

  “But how?” Alfonse asked. “The trunk is huge, the bark is smooth, and you can’t even see where the branches begin.”

  “This is a long shot,” Lewis admitted, “but there’s an entry in the manual for metallization. It lets you coat any surface with a layer of steel.”

  “How’s that going to help?”

  “I’ll mix the brew and you’ll see what I’m thinking.” Lewis took three vials from his belt and combined their contents on a wide, flat stone. Then he retreated several feet as the rock changed colour.

  “It smells like something burning,” Alfonse commented.

  “No wonder,” Adelaide said, examining the mixture. “The stone’s been changed to liquid metal.”

  She was right. Before them was a pool of grey that a breeze was rippling slightly. Lewis drew near it. His feet were bare.

  “What are you doing?” the Stranger asked as Lewis stooped and spread his fingers wide. “And why did you remove your shoes and socks?”

  “Lewis!” the others warned … to no avail. He dipped his fingers in the pool as far as the first joints. Grimacing as his fingertips turned to metal, he then stuck his toes into the mixture, as well.

  “Have you gone crazy?” Adelaide fumed as Lewis flexed his fingers and toes to prevent the joints from hardening. A moment later he tapped them against a stone. Just as he had hoped, the tips were hard and razor-sharp.

  Lewis leaped at the tree and struck it with his “claws.” They sank into the bark and let him cling to its surface. His belt, however, got in the way. Jumping to the ground, he unfastened its straps — being careful not to slash himself — and handed it over to Todrus for safekeeping. It pained him to leave his supply belt behind, but the climb would be more manageable without it. Unencumbered, he “jumped” the tree a second time.

  “That’s clever,” Todrus said as Lewis clung to the bark. “But do you think you can make it to the top and back?”

  “And your Heliform patch is gone,” Alfonse warned. “If you fall —”

  “I have no choice,” Lewis said, extracting his toes to dig them in higher, then doing the same with both his hands. He would be okay as long as his strength held out … and he stopped himself from looking down.

  “Be careful!” the group advised as Lewis set off in earnest.

  It was a lot like swimming. Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, over and over — there was nothing to it. And his progress was impressive. Within minutes he climbed more than fifty yards. At that rate he would reach the top in no time at all.

  Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.

  After two hundred yards, he crossed into the mist. It was nothing like the Pother — he could see his fingers still — but it stopped him from hearing his friends’ shouts below. With luck he would stumble on a branch soon enough.

  Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.

  He was panting like an engine, and sweat was stinging his eyes. As much as he wanted to wipe his face, he couldn’t risk taking a hand off the bark. His joints were sore and his muscles burned. When would those low branches appear?

  Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.

  How high had he climbed? How much higher could he go before his strength petered out — three hundred yards, if even that? And was that enough to get him to the branches, assuming there were branches? And if he did reach the branches, how much farther was the top? And would he find the weed as Alfonse had predicted?

  That was odd. His left grip was unsteady and his pinky was sore.

  Left foot, right hand,
right foot, left hand.

  The pain was getting worse. Ignoring the risk, he paused and peered at his hand. His blood ran cold. The coating on his pinky had failed! He had known the brew wouldn’t last forever but had thought it would be good for several hours at least. This was bad. This was very bad.

  He climbed more frantically. Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.

  Ow! His left index finger was bare, his right pinky, too, and various toes were starting to go. His hold was growing more and more precarious.

  Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot, right foot, right hand.

  No! A mere two fingers on his right hand were metallic. The bark of the tree, obscured by the mist, smiled at him mockingly, as if it liked the idea of him falling to earth in payment for the wounds his metal claws were inflicting.

  Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.

  Most of his fingers and toes were useless. His muscles were shaking and his strength was almost gone. If only his Heliform patch were intact!

  Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand.

  What remained? His right thumb, left index finger, and maybe three toes. In another thirty seconds, if not sooner, he would plunge through the air with nothing to catch him. He pictured his father, weak and frozen over. Once Lewis crashed to earth, his companions would leave — probably to meet up with some horrible end — and Grumpel would starve his father to death. So it had all been in vain. The quest was a failure.

  Left foot, right hand, right foot, left hand, left foot, right hand.

  Lewis’s grip was weakening. Numbly, he wondered what death was like. According to Alfonse, it wasn’t that painful. How had his friend described it — that he had felt far away. Lewis had asked his mother about death, years before, when he was four or five. She had said it was a mystery but that the best parts of people lingered on because nature would never let love go to waste. In a matter of seconds he would find out for himself.