The Demon Queen and The Locksmith

by Spencer Baum

  “I told you!” Joseph shouted, and gestured at the tree stump, inviting Jackie to have more.

  She obliged, and for a few glorious minutes, the three of them licked up every drop of sap the tree stump gave them. They took turns, each as eager as the others, but all content to share.

  “It’s like liquid happiness,” Joseph said.

  “If we could bottle this and sell it, we’d be millionaires,” said Kevin.

  “When I get home, I’m finding out what this is,” said Jackie. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this before. Surely we’re not the first to discover it.”

  “Who knows? Maybe we are,” said Kevin. He felt like the world might be full of surprises he’d never considered before. Maybe there was delicious sap or something like it inside every tree, if one only knew where to look.

  Joseph scraped the inside of the hole with his finger. “I wonder where the termites went.”

  “They might have a nest under this tree,” said Jackie. “I definitely want to research further, and maybe come back when I know more about what to look for.”

  “Bugs and trees and a quiet afternoon in the park – this is like your dream come true, isn’t it?” said Joseph.

  “Pretty much,” Jackie said with a big smile. “Look Kevin, you’ve got a friend!”

  “I know,” Kevin said. He turned his head to look at the butterfly perched on his shoulder.

  “I think this is the same one that was in the tree earlier,” he said. Something about the way the sun reflected off the butterfly’s back, its regal stance on his shirt…Still in a spell of happiness, Kevin allowed himself to become mesmerized in the butterfly’s orange and black wings. Warmth radiated from his stomach through his body, and he felt himself growing calm as he looked at this peaceful butterfly.

  Even though he felt a quiet inside him, the world around Kevin was a symphony of sounds. He could hear Joseph’s breathing, Jackie’s heartbeat. A robin chirped from a nearby tree. The sap had made him so high, so alert, that his ears were doing things they had never done before. They were finding the clicks and rattles of beetles from the far corners of the park. They were relaying information, if not sound in the normal sense, from the air, the ground, even the tree stump. They were picking up some quiet and beautiful sound of the butterfly, a tiny flute on his shoulder.

  With two flaps of its wings, the butterfly took off. As the butterfly flew away, the peaceful bubble that had been Kevin’s world began to stretch. There was a strain on imaginary walls. For some reason, Kevin didn’t want the butterfly to leave. There was so much peace in that butterfly.

  “We should follow it,” Kevin said.

  The butterfly bounced through the air, drifting away from them.

  “Yes,” said Jackie. “We should.”

  Chapter 2

  Turquoise, New Mexico is named after a mountain that overlooks the city. The people of Turquoise have a complicated relationship with their mountain. Some believe you aren’t truly a citizen of Turquoise unless you regularly hike the mountain. Others believe the mountain wishes to be left alone, that it’s rude to get too close. Turquoise Mountain is so named because its peak turns a blue-green color when it reflects the afternoon sky, leading early settlers to believe the mountaintop was covered in valuable turquoise gemstone. Many residents still think the mountain is loaded with the blue-green rock, even though no evidence of a turquoise deposit has ever been found there.

  In the 1980’s, Wideband Communications Company built the world’s highest radio tower on top of Turquoise Mountain. They claimed the mountain was the perfect place to broadcast microwave signals to and from satellites orbiting the earth. The people of Turquoise called the tower “The Dunce Cap” in reference to its inverted cone shape, and demanded that it be removed. To protect the tower, Wideband Communications made a deal with the city council to share the lucrative revenue generated by The Dunce Cap. The deal divided Turquoise in two: those who favored the tower and the money it generated, and those who thought it an eyesore not worthy of their mountain for any price.

  The money won and the tower stayed, but over the years it became the subject of even greater controversy. Many people came to believe The Dunce Cap was the source of The Turquoise Hum.

  For Kevin, Turquoise Mountain, The Dunce Cap, and the controversy of it all loomed large. Turquoise Mountain was central in the life of his dad and the death of his mom. After his mom died, Kevin and his dad made a trip to Turquoise Mountain. Neither had been back since.

  As Kevin, Jackie, and Joseph chased a butterfly through the back streets of town, as they scaled wooden coyote fences, trespassed on other people’s property, ran through back alleys and across dirt roads, Kevin realized that this chase might well end at the mountain. He also noticed a strange ringing in his ears.

  Both observations made him uncomfortable, and he tried to put them out of his mind.

  The butterfly bounced just above Kevin’s head, always a few feet in front of him. Joseph and Jackie ran on either side. It flew much faster than Kevin would have expected, but, then again, he had never chased a butterfly before.

  It led them across Eastern Avenue, past the old mission church which marked the edge of town, and into open space, where it increased its speed.

  “You guys, look how fast we’re running!” Jackie yelled.

  Kevin looked at the ground underneath his spinning feet. Tall grass, sagebrush, and rabbit-holes flew past, almost like he was looking out the window of a moving car. And even after a few minutes of crazy fast running, Kevin felt good, like he could run a marathon if he had to.

  He turned to look behind him. In barely a minute, they had run so far that the old mission chapel was small in the distance. A few hundred yards to their right was State Road 150. A lone car, a black Neptune with dark tinted windows, drove in the same direction they ran. From the distance, it appeared the car was going no faster than they were.

  The butterfly led them on a diagonal away from the highway. Kevin wondered if they’d be able to find their way home. He took another look back. Joseph and Jackie both had their eyes glued on the butterfly. Jackie was smiling.

  In the midst of a full-on sprint, Jackie had a grin on her face that made Kevin feel good. Her grin made him wonder if this would be a moment they would remember when they were old. Having never spoken before today, the three of them had witnessed the toppling of a giant elm tree, had eaten the sap inside, and now…

  Now they were following a butterfly out of town?

  It was strange, but it felt right. And it wouldn’t have happened if Kevin was still in school. This adventure had started when Ruben beat him up.

  That’s why we have to keep going, Kevin told himself. The day had started out terribly, and now he was making it into something good. The past year of his life had been unspeakably miserable, but maybe now it was turning around. He was supposed to be in school, he would probably be in trouble tomorrow for this little adventure, but Jackie was smiling. He and his new friends were doing something spontaneous that just felt right, and any adult who wanted to yell at him about it later could go to hell for all he cared.

  It was difficult for Kevin to latch onto the reality of what was happening. Were they really running this fast? Did he really feel this good? His level of awareness was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Even as the landscape flew past, Kevin could pick out any rock, any pebble, and view it with high definition clarity in the quarter second before it was gone from his field of view. And his ears – what was going on with his ears? The odd sensation he had experienced at Blackstone Park, the sense that all the sounds around him somehow melded into a beautiful, sensible music, remained.

  Kevin turned his focus back to the butterfly. It approached a long chain-link fence with a roll of barbed wire along the top. This was meant to be the end of the road. The butterfly would cross over this fence and they would lose it. But an outrageous thought grew in Kevin’s mind as the fence came closer.

  Ju
mp.

  There wasn’t time to think about it. He would either have to stop cold or do it. Ten more steps, five more, two more…

  Kevin’s feet sprung from the ground and he soared with ease. He tucked his legs underneath him, and cleared the fence like an Olympic hurdler. He landed gracefully on the other side.

  “Did you guys see what I just did?” Kevin called back.

  “Woohoo!” Joseph shouted, right behind him. Joseph was so high in the air he briefly blocked the sun from Kevin’s eyes. He soared over Kevin’s head and landed on his feet, a stone’s throw or more from Kevin’s landing point.

  Jackie was next. Watching her jump from start to finish, several seconds in the air, clearing the fence, Kevin allowed himself to realize just how abnormal this was.

  “What’s happened to us?” Jackie said, her face a burst of excitement.

  “The butterfly’s getting away!” Joseph yelled. He took the lead, and they followed, leaving their questions for another time.

  In the open field at full speed, it was clear where they were going. The butterfly was taking them to Turquoise Mountain.

  The flat desert gave way to a slow, steady hill, with a few trees speckling the open terrain. Wildflower blossoms and juniper berries began scenting the air. Open grassland became sparse orchard became mountain forest. The butterfly danced between the branches of aspens and pines as they wove through the tree trunks below. Sunlight and shadow flickered in Kevin’s eyes as he ran. His thoughts drifted into the past for an instant, and although his eyes stayed on the butterfly, his mind didn’t, and he lost it.

  “Where did it go?” Joseph said. The edge of panic in Joseph’s voice brought Kevin back to the present. After an exuberant chase that took them to the base of Turquoise Mountain, the butterfly was gone.

  His ears were ringing. He had denied it the entire way, but it was happening. A low, resonant noise, rich and deep -- it seemed to vibrate his skull.

  “Do you guys hear something?” Kevin asked.

  Joseph threw Kevin a look of confusion that answered his question.

  Kevin covered his ears. No change. He bent down. No change. Leaning over, his eyes caught something sparkling on the ground.

  A shiny rock, half-buried amidst fallen pine cones. Kevin took two careful, quiet steps, each one feeling loud and deliberate after miles of running. Kevin felt like he had been to this exact spot on the mountain before.

  A few paces behind the shiny rock lay a steep downward slope, one wall of a natural ditch cut into the mountainside by a small creek. Kevin knew the creek by the sound of its flow. A memory crawled forward in his mind: cool mountain water, splashed on his cheeks, washing away tears.

  He reached into the jumble of pine cones and twigs and retrieved the shiny rock. The size of a baseball, clear and finely cut, it wasn’t the sort of rock one just finds out in the forest.

  Kevin picked it up.

  “What is that?” Joseph asked.

  “It looks like a crystal,” Jackie said.

  Kevin shuttered. Crystal was a dirty word in his mind, closely intertwined with the hum and years of resentment.

  The crystal broke the midday sunlight into a prism of color. Something familiar about the sounds and scenery set off a tickle in the back of Kevin’s throat.

  “Are you alright?” Joseph said.

  It took Kevin a second before he realized Joseph was talking to him.

  “Kevin?” Jackie said. “Kevin, are you crying?”

  The breeze was cool on Kevin’s cheeks. They were wet.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve just got some memories of this place.”

  “There it is!” Joseph shouted, pointing at the butterfly. It was ten feet ahead of them, bounding downward into the ditch. It took up a path directly above the creek.

  “Do you want to stop, Kevin?” Jackie asked. “You seem like you’re not having fun anymore.”

  “Oh no, we have to keep going now,” Kevin said. “I’ll explain later.”

  Kevin put the crystal in his pocket and they took off after Joseph, skipping down the dirt wall of the ditch and into the creek below.

  The current was stronger than Kevin remembered. A cool sheen of water, flowing over a bed of rocks, it was deep enough to cover his sneakers as he ran. Everything about this place was familiar now. Just a few more yards into a hidden valley, walls of spruce would rise up around the stream, they would round a bend….

  Kevin knew the emotions on the other side of that bend would be overwhelming. He didn’t expect them to knock him off his feet. Everything he remembered was intact, but there was a new addition of such beauty that Kevin could hardly stand it. So he stopped. He planted himself in the middle of a moving stream and fell awkwardly to his knees and then onto his hip, submerging himself from the waist down.

  Jackie came up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

  In front of them, rooted on the ground at the edge of the stream, was a fully grown cottonwood tree. Behind the tree stood a granite face of the mountain, a shear wall rising more than a hundred feet from the earth. The last time Kevin was here, he had decided it was the prettiest place on Earth. It was even more stunning now.

  The last time, the cottonwood was a majestic green, its leaves forming a shiny, vibrant tent. Now its leaves were hidden, as were its branches and trunk, buried underneath a spectacular sight. From the exposed roots on the ground to the top of the highest branch, the entire tree was covered with thousands upon thousands of bright orange butterflies.

  “What is this place?” Joseph said.

  “It’s my mom’s place,” Kevin said. “It’s where we came when she died. We spread her ashes on the roots of this tree.”

  Chapter 3

  “Benjamin, I want to tell you something, and I need you to put aside your feelings on the subject for a minute.”

  Kevin’s mom had returned from her daily hike. It was a summer evening. Kevin was watching basketball on TV. Normally, a conversation between his parents in the middle of a basketball game would have been annoying, but this was different. I need you to put aside your feelings on the subject for a minute. His mom was about to open a topic that had been closed for years.

  “Of course,” said his dad, “if it’s important to you.”

  “It is. Today, while I was hiking, I found a place. A wonderful place.”

  Kevin turned down the volume on the television.

  “You should hear this too, Kev,” said his mom. “I was following a butterfly. I lost track of it, but I did find a gorgeous mountain river. I followed it. It took me to a pristine valley, there was a cottonwood tree standing alone on the riverbank. It’s the only cottonwood I’ve ever seen on the mountain. It was the most stunning, lovely place I’ve ever been, and…I don’t know why it feels so important, but it does – when I die--”

  “What is this?” said Kevin’s dad. “When you die?”

  “Just hear me out, okay? It’s important to me. When I die, I want my ashes spread on the roots of that tree. I’ve drawn you a map.”

  She pulled a folded paper from her back pocket.

  “You want us to take your…you want us…” Kevin’s dad closed his eyes in concentration. “Out of the blue, today you’ve decided that when you die, you want your remains taken to Turquoise Mountain?”

  “Yes, and not out of the blue,” said Kevin’s mom, pushing the paper into her husband’s hands. “This place is special. I know this isn’t easy for you to think about.”

  “No, if it’s important--”

  “It is.”

  “Write it down in the will,” said Kevin’s dad, handing the folded paper to Kevin. “Lord knows you’ll outlive me.”

  A year later, Kevin and his dad were following his mom’s handwritten notes. Take State Road 150 as far as it goes. Park in the open lot at the end of the road. Walk north into the foothills. Find the Park Service
sign.

  They found the river and followed it into the hidden valley. They spread her ashes on the roots of the cottonwood tree. When they got home, Kevin’s dad went into the bedroom and didn’t come out until the next morning.

  Kevin knew his dad would never go back to the mountain after that trip. For Benjamin Browne, Turquoise Mountain was a difficult place even before the death of his wife. To him, Turquoise Mountain was forever tied to “The Hum.”

  The Hum. The Hearers. The flowing stream, the chirping birds, the buzzing insects, the music in his ears. It was the flute of that one butterfly, played a thousand times over, but blended together in a peaceful way. Sitting in a stream, looking upon his mom’s place, for a fraction of a second, Kevin allowed an unallowable question: Could I be hearing The Hum?

  He shook his head back and forth, trying to throw the thought from his brain.

  “What is it, Kevin?” asked Jackie.

  “Nothing.” He stood up. “I just have lots of emotions tied to this place.”

  “I bet you do. How old were you were when she died.”

  “It was just last year.”

  “I’m so sorry. That must have been hard. I can’t even imagine.”

  Kevin, Joseph, and Jackie were quiet for a time that might have been a minute or an hour. The butterflies took off. They flew up the shear wall and over the mountain, turning the sky orange with their flight.

  “We can go,” said Kevin. “Thanks for waiting here with me.”

  Kevin led them up a narrow trail that took them out of the valley. He removed the crystal from his pocket as they hiked, and they passed it among the three of them.

  “I’ve heard that the mountain is full of turquoise,” said Joseph. “This is definitely not turquoise.”

  “Those are just superstitions and misinformation,” said Jackie. “There’s no turquoise in Turquoise Mountain.”

  “Don’t the Hearers think that crystals--”

  “Check out these tracks,” Jackie said. Kevin was thankful for her interruption. Joseph was about to take the conversation in a direction Kevin didn’t want it to go. Jackie pointed at a line of animal prints in the mud. She made the group stop for a closer look.