The Watcher Key

by Troy Hooker

  His mind raced as they inched toward the light. At any moment, he was sure he would wake up to a steaming cup of tea from Amos, but still the dream endured. He held Emma’s hand so tightly that he feared crushing it with his sweaty palm.

  The warm light hit his feet first. It was soothing, and he welcomed it with his eyes closed. A sudden calm rushed over his body once again, and then he couldn’t feel Emma’s hand—only the warmth from the light.

  Dizziness overcame him, and for a moment he thought he was rolling down a large hill, gaining speed with every rotation. But soon the spinning turned into an ocean of light, where wave after wave crashed through him. It was warm, and it soothed him to the soul. It was as if he was wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold day, without a care in the world.

  His feet felt like they were encased in stone, but as he looked down, he watched his feet moving. He had no idea where he was going, but Emma and the others were no longer with him. He only continued to walk, soaking up the warm light.

  Then, as suddenly as it had engulfed him, the light was gone. The wind and noise of the cavern had stopped. He was alone in the silence, his body still reeling from the enchanting light.

  ***********************

  It was then that Sam realized that his eyes were still closed. He opened them carefully, unsure of what they would show him. Slowly the cold met him, and the light and the warmth raced from his body as if they were released suddenly by their cold captor.

  His eyes adjusted to the scene around him, and he listened for anything that would tell him he wasn’t alone. The faint smell of pine filled the air around him, and he breathed it in deeply. Icy air filled his lungs and he expelled it quickly, realizing suddenly the depth of the frigid temperature where he stood.

  In front of him, his vision began to reveal the shape of a colorless tree, then another. The wind and the rain from the storm were gone, and no voices from the group could be heard anywhere. He wished again for the warmth of the light, but there was no summoning it back. He was alone in the darkness.

  As his eyes adjusted, the trees around him showed the triangular outlines of pines, much like the ones in White Pine. But these were larger, and much taller. There were no recognizable signs that he was back in White Pine. He only knew he was in the forest.

  Where was everybody? Why would they leave him alone like this?

  Seeing the outline of a toppled log in front of him, he carefully picked his way through the darkness and sat on the rotting tree to wait for the others. He could barely make out the small white patches that could only be snow … where was he? It was September in Upper Michigan, wasn’t it?

  Suddenly, behind him he heard a noise—like the soft crunch of pine needles.

  A chill instantly went up his spine at the sound, but when he strained to hear it again, he could only hear the occasional wind through the needles of the trees and the hot throbbing of his temple.

  Crunch. There it was again. He was hoping the first noise was his imagination, but this one proved he was wrong.

  Crunch. Crunch.

  Whatever it was, it was behind him, and it was big.

  Crunch.

  Sam readied himself to move fast. His mind raced instantly to wolves. He was told by his grandfather about the potential dangers of getting caught in the woods alone with a pack. If he was going to have to outrun them, he was going to have to be smart about it, maybe climb a tree quickly.

  Move fast through the trees, find one that is easy to climb, get up it as fast as possible.

  Seeing the outline of a fallen branch to his left, he snatched it up silently and held it stiffly like a sword in front of him, facing the unknown noise in the trees.

  CRUNCH.

  He decided he would make the first move on it, not allowing it to get the jump on him. Surprise it before it surprises me.

  Whatever it was, it was getting dangerously near.

  He gripped the branch tightly as he waited for something to appear in the trees. A shadow, a figure of something—anything. Wait. What was that? Something green was moving toward him. Are they eyes?

  “SAM!” he heard in the distance suddenly behind him, making him nearly topple over onto his makeshift sword. It was Emma.

  “Over here!” Sam hollered, refusing to take his eyes off the trees in front of him.

  “He’s over here—I found him!”

  The footsteps stopped as Emma came rushing through the trees, her blue lantern piercing through the darkness.

  “Sam! Are you okay?” Emma rushed to him, her eyes drawn immediately to the stick in his hand. “What happened? Did you see something?”

  “No, I didn’t … but I heard …” he stopped. “I’m not sure what it was …”

  “Sam! Dear boy! Are you alright?” a concerned Mrs. Sterling came huffing out of the dark trees. Mr. Sterling was right behind her, holding another odd blue lantern.

  “He must have let go right at the turn,” Mrs. Sterling huffed as she looked him over with concern.

  Soon the others emerged to join the commotion, and where he was completely alone before, now he was surrounded by concerned blue faces, each doting on him to ensure he was indeed all right.

  Emma whispered something to her father, and suddenly Mr. Sterling was instantly at Sam’s side.

  “What is it boy? Is there something out there?”

  Although reluctant to do so, Sam pointed at the trees where he heard the noise. Mr. Sterling glanced to the spot where he had pointed into the darkness, then turned his attention back toward Sam, drawing him close to him.

  “If you did see something, Sam,” he said quietly with concern thick in his words, “I need to know right now.”

  As he looked once again toward the woods where he saw the green eyes, a shiver crawled up his spine. It was so close, like it could have attacked him at any time. Those eyes … did he make them up? Was it all part of the grand illusion he was experiencing? Perhaps he was still dreaming, and his body refused to allow him to know it.

  “No, nothing. Just footsteps in the woods,” he lied.

  Mr. Sterling scowled and put his finger out in front of him, using it to draw silently in the air. Immediately trailing his finger was a gleaming blue fire that spelled out the letters as he wrote them, similar to the blue that shone out of the lanterns. Then with a swipe of his hand, he snatched the gleaming words out of the air and packed them into a bright, glowing orb. He tossed it gently into the air. The orb rose slowly above them until it reached the treetops where it hovered only briefly and then streaked away into the night sky.

  “Poor boy! You must be freezing! Let’s get you inside. The cabin is just over the rise,” said Mrs. Sterling, who had slipped another jacket on Sam’s shoulders without his knowledge, and who now took hold of his arm and turned to demand a lantern from her husband, to which he complied instantaneously.

  “Jack, I’m taking the kids to the cabin for a bit of coffee and to get them properly dressed,” she announced with unease in her voice. “Let’s go, all.”

  “What was that?” Sam mimicked to Gus the writing in the air that Mr. Sterling had done only moments prior. Mr. Sterling, Miss Karpatch, and Cooley had stayed behind, no doubt to investigate the possibility of an intruder in the trees, even though Sam didn’t allude to it.

  “It’s the way we communicate through long distances. Kind of like a telegram with light,” Gus huffed as he struggled to keep up with Mrs. Sterling’s quickened pace. “Called a Lightscribe. It’s really pretty neat. Each person has a unique Light signature that we are able to use to personalize each message, and only that person will be able to retrieve it.”

  “Like a coded email. Do you know what he was writing?” Sam pressed as they weaved their way through the silent trees.

  “Most likely something about our arrival. It is standard procedure that when anyone enters or exits
through a gate to alert of safe travel. These gates,” Gus motioned behind him, “are great ambush sites, not to mention Mr. Sterling is on the Council, and Mr. Cooley is head Seer, so there are most likely high profile targets traveling through. We are taught to travel the gates cautiously.”

  Sam had more to ask, but he could tell Gus was not likely to talk. He, like the others, seemed to be giving information to Sam on a need to know basis only. Somehow Emma had known enough about him, however, that she believed he would choose to go with them. But the light—the gate, traveling through to another place, was incredible. It was almost too much to conceive, and his mind raced to make up answers in the void of their secrecy.

  He had to know what they were and where they were. And why bring him? It was strange—and they weren’t telling him. But he would not demand more information now. He was too cold. His mind kept returning to the coffee Mrs. Sterling had promised. He would press for more information later.

  They wound up a gentle rise in the trail by the light of the dim blue lanterns, which reflected eerily around the large pine branches above them. Here and there Sam could see small patches of snow around the faint trail, cast blue whenever the group passed near them. Sam judged by how heavy he was breathing that they were at a much higher elevation than White Pine. There was no doubt now that passing through the arch brought them many miles away in a few moments.

  Just over the rise the trees opened up into a small clearing, and a modest cabin overlooking a narrow but quickly moving river appeared in the moonlight. It was dark, and from the piling snow around its exterior, it looked as though it hadn’t seen inhabitants in a while.

  Mrs. Sterling stopped just inside the trees of the clearing and held up her hands for the others to stop behind her. In the silent darkness, she lifted her hands up toward the cabin, palms outstretched into the cold air. Suddenly there was a blue light much like the one in the lantern that began to glow in the cabin’s window near the entrance.

  She paused for a moment, then Mrs. Sterling marched the group forward across the small clearing and up the wooden steps of the cabin’s front porch. To the left of the porch stood a structure that looked like a shed on stilts, with the silhouette of a small narrow boat leaning against its side.

  Mrs. Sterling seemed unconcerned any longer with any danger that may have been present from the trees, and she opened the thick wood door to the cabin and shooed Emma, Sam, Gus, and Lillia inside.

  Immediately, the three girls set about starting a fire in the old cast iron stove in the small kitchen and making some strong coffee.

  Gus and Sam were charged with getting a fire going in the living room fireplace. After finding the small wood pile outside on the porch of the cabin, they soon had a blazing fire going that almost immediately warmed the cold little living room up to a tolerable temperature.

  Soon Emma brought Gus and Sam a cup of coffee and sat down to warm her hands by the stone hearth. The cabin was almost identical to his grandfather’s place—small, but very open feeling due to the vaulted ceilings and large windows. It was strange, though—the whole cabin took on a curious familiarity.

  His intention had been to ask a few questions when they had stopped for the evening, but after feeling the effects of a very long day beginning to sink in, he chose instead to join the others in watching the flames crawl around the logs in the fireplace and sipping his coffee in silence.

  “Don’t be up too late, you all,” Mrs. Sterling warned as she headed back to the kitchen, a steaming cup of coffee in her own hands. “We have quite a trek tomorrow, and you know how your father travels.”

  It feels so much later than when we left the festival, Sam thought.

  “It must be nearly midnight,” Gus echoed his thoughts.

  “Actually, it’s midnight right on the dot,” Emma added. “We took quite a bit of time finding Sammy boy here.”

  “Thanks a lot, Columbus,” Lillia chided with a grin on her face as she poked her head above the book she was reading.

  Emma chuckled and set her coffee cup down to help her mother get the beds ready for the night. There were log bunks in the living room, a couch, and a rather comfortable looking chair, but other than that there was very little floor space. Where would they sleep?

  Even with Cooley, Miss Karpatch, and Mr. Sterling still out in the night, the cabin was still rather crowded. But it was cozy. And no one seemed to mind.

  Suddenly Lillia slammed her book shut, creating a large plume of dust from its pages.

  “Well, that does it for me. I’m headed in for the night,” she said in her usual satirical way.

  “Oh, take these blankets up with you,” Mrs. Sterling hurried over and handed Lillia a stack of blankets from a large chest at the end of one of the bunk bed beds.

  “Lillia, I will help you. I’m ready to pack it in as well.” Gus set his cup of coffee down and got up to help Lillia with the blankets.

  Mrs. Sterling reached just above her head and grabbed hold of a handle with a string and pulled down a hidden set of stairs that led to a dark, unknown space above them.

  “Sam, when you have warmed up those skinny bones, you can take one of the bunks upstairs,” she said cheerfully, spreading out a comforter on one of the bunks near the fireplace.

  At her words, Sam felt the warm heaviness of exhaustion. Maybe it was the fire, or the leftover feeling of upchucking blue Icee into the trash bin—either way he was truly tired. Traveling to strange new worlds was tiring. If they were to travel further tomorrow, he would need to get some rest.

  “I think I am ready too.” He stood, looking around for a place to set his empty coffee cup. “Where should I—”

  “Here, give that to me. You just get upstairs to bed.” Mrs. Sterling snatched the cup from his hand.

  “Uh—thank you Mrs. Sterling.”

  “Oh dear boy, you are welcome,” she said with such a smile on her face that he thought her face was going to split wide open. Then she snatched him up in her arms suddenly. “Oh you poor boy, you must be so confused. Do get some sleep and we will talk it over in the morning during breakfast, alright?”

  Sam allowed himself a pause in her arms, feeling strangely safe and comfortable. She smelled of lavender and fresh linen, much like his maid Estella did back home. Estella would pull him aside and squeeze him around the neck on occasion, and mutter phrases like que lindo niño mio softly in his ear. She came to be the only person he really trusted, and he looked forward to those squeezes, especially when Sylvia was in one of her moods.

  Not that he would think of Mrs. Sterling as a maid, but that she was a genuine person who seemed to care for his well-being, and it was nice.

  “Yes ma’am, I will,” he yawned sleepily.

  He climbed the steps behind Emma, who was carrying a rather large bundle of extra fluffy-looking pillows with fresh smelling sheets.

  The loft was simple, but nice and inviting. There were two small armchairs in the corners, each with its own side table and little lamp in the shape of a log cabin. One wall of the room was made into a bookshelf and was filled corner to corner with books of all sizes and kinds. There was no bathroom inside the cabin, so he assumed the little shed outside served that purpose. One glimpse out the little loft window into the cold darkness made him glad he took care of that earlier in the evening.

  On the floor was a large brown and red area rug with an intricately woven winged creature of sorts. Lillia sat there, cross-legged with a book in her hand, intently reading in the dim light of a candle. Gus was changing into his pajamas in the closet that was closest to his and Sam’s beds, conveniently out of sight of the girls’ bunks and the center of the room. Sam hadn’t brought anything to change into except for his hooded sweatshirt, but then again he hadn’t had a whole lot of time to prepare either.

  “Sam, you take that bunk over there by Gus,” Emma pointed toward the small bunk undernea
th the loft window.

  He silently made the little bed with the sheets that Mrs. Sterling had given him, then tugged off his shoes and rubbed his heel. Out popped a rock from the cavern where the arch was held. He held it in his hand, examining its sandy exterior, wondering how a rock could have gotten into his boot.

  This must be a dream, he thought, staring at the rock. One large, inescapable, incredibly vivid dream. One of those dreams where the feelings of danger and confusion are so real, and even the rocks in your shoes hurt.

  “Hello there!” Sam heard Mrs. Sterling say from downstairs.

  “Hello there!” A muffled reply was heard outside the large wooden door.

  Mrs. Sterling creaked open the door and Mr. Sterling, Miss Karpatch, and Harper Cooley entered the small cabin living room. Immediately, Cooley began demanding coffee, to which Mrs. Sterling must have complied because he could hear the clanking of cups and saucers on the stove.

  Emma immediately bounded down the steps to her father. She embraced him on the steps as if her father had been gone for months.

  Feeling a twinge of jealousy, he fought to push it out of his mind like too many times before. He knew the feeling all too well—wishing the other kid’s parents could be your own, and the hole in your heart that just didn’t disappear. But over the years he had learned to control it. He had learned how to fight his emotions, and push back the anger. He was good at it.

  “Hello up there!” Mr. Sterling smiled up at him. “You gave us a bit of a scare Sam!” he said, his eyes glowing through his black-rimmed glasses.

  “Sorry about that,” Sam said sheepishly, stepping into sight of the stairs below.

  “It’s not your fault. You will get the hang of it.” He paused to kiss Emma goodnight and then shooed her upstairs, his curly sandy hair glowing in the firelight.

  “Sam, I was wondering if I could have a word with you for a moment?” he turned suddenly from his cup of coffee.

  Panic suddenly overtook him. Did he do or say something wrong? Was it about Emma?

  Without responding, he walked down the steps and followed Mr. Sterling outside, noticing the long glances that Miss Karpatch and Cooley gave him as he slunk past them. Once the door was shut, Mr. Sterling motioned for Sam to sit in one of the rocking chairs on the porch as he eased himself into another.