The Specter Key

by Kaleb Nation

  The feeling of emptiness could have quite possibly been shared by all save for one in the room. Balder Wilomas—chubby, eight years old, and with a head of dark brown hair—had entrenched himself with a battery-powered black-and-white television safe from power troubles; the antenna extended many feet into the air and had a ball of aluminum foil on the end for better reception.

  Sewey finally coughed and started to reach for the tray of roast beef.

  “Might as well get started, shall we now?” he said, trying to break the silence, though it didn’t do much good. He stretched in his chair for the tray but couldn’t reach far enough. It sat directly in front of Balder, but he was too engrossed to even dream of helping.

  “Balder,” Sewey finally burst. “Come on, pass the beef before I pull a muscle.”

  Balder looked up, bending out a headphone. “What?”

  “The beef.” Sewey gestured. “Hand it over.”

  “But I’m busy watching the portable,” Balder whined, swinging the antenna. Baldretta ducked just in time.

  “Hand me the food right now!” Sewey demanded, and Balder banged on the table.

  “Wait till the commercial!” he shouted. Bran let out a loud breath and shoved the tray toward Sewey.

  “There,” he said. “Let’s all try to eat in peace for once.”

  “Daw, grumbles,” Sewey growled incoherently, spearing some roast onto his plate. Mabel took it afterward, sprinkling a bag of herbal tea over hers, and Bran helped fill Baldretta’s plate and cut her meat. Any other time, juicy roast beef, buttery corn, and sweet carrots would have been wonderful—except today there were none of those. The beef looked more like jerky, the corn like tiny black marbles, and the carrots were covered in piles of oatmeal flakes Mabel had mistaken for sugar. The only thing that had turned out right was the potatoes.

  Balder, who could not survive on much less than a prince’s ransom of food, eventually got to work eating, headphones still plugging his ears and the screen propped up against his glass. Mabel rattled a bottle of food enzymes about halfway through the meal, but it wasn’t until Sewey was almost finished that anyone spoke.

  “Fridd’s Day is impending,” he alerted them. “Balder, do you know what impending means?”

  Balder couldn’t hear him. He was still watching the television. Sewey scowled.

  “It means that something that could be quite terrible is rapidly approaching,” he went on. “Think of a big train coming around a bend while your car is between the crossing guards.”

  Baldretta giggled. They’d experienced that before. Sewey coughed.

  “And since this party is impending upon us this Friday,” he went on, “it would be best if we make a few plans for it before it impends itself upon us too harshly.”

  Sewey reached to his left, where his day book sat. It was actually not on the table but resting on top of a miniature mountain of envelopes that was so tall it had built itself up as an additional wing of the table. If someone had let out a great sneeze he could have possibly blown a snowstorm of bills throughout Dunce. The advantage of having such a large pile of bills next to one’s table was that it could be easily exploited by Sewey, who had decided to make it useful and placed a salt shaker, a lamp, and a few extra napkins on top so they were close at hand. He also had his glasses there, and he swooped them up and placed them over his eyes as he paged through his day book.

  “As planned,” Sewey said, “we will have caramel popcorn and yellow streamers and balloons decorating the house. There will be a dance to the Fridd’s Day Song and maybe even the Saltine or a waltz. And you, Bran, will dance with Madame Mobicci.”

  “But I don’t know how to dance,” Bran protested.

  “Well, you had better learn,” Sewey retorted. “This is Fridd’s Day, and we jolly well will look good to these rich people or else!”

  Bran knew better than to argue any further. When they had finished eating, he picked up the dishes and started for the kitchen. It was already late, and there were piles of things to be washed. None of the Wilomases lent a pinky to help—except Baldretta, who helped carry silverware down the stairs.

  It took over an hour for Bran to get all the mess cleaned up from Mabel’s cooking fiasco, and by the time he was finished, the rest of the house had gone quiet, the Wilomases having gone to bed for the night. Sewey, taking an unannounced interest in conservation after the lighting incident, had turned off every bulb in the house for fear the world was running out of power. When Bran finally left the kitchen, he had to feel his way up the stairs.

  He slid his hand across the wooden railing of the balcony as he headed for his ladder. The carpet upstairs was soft under his toes, and the house was very still. When he came to the ladder he started to pull himself up, yawning.

  Just as his foot hit the second step, there came a low but sharp sound from down the hall. It immediately made him stop and stare into the darkness. No one was there, not even Pansy the cat—but there was one door at the end of the hall. It was the door that had once led to Rosie’s room.

  The door was closed, as it had been since she had left. No one wanted to think of using the room for anything else—it just didn’t feel right. But as Bran stood there, frozen against the ladder in the darkness, he heard the sound again: a sharp tap.

  “Balder?” Bran whispered. No one replied. He stepped down to the floor, pressing himself against the side of the wall, fearful and curious at the same time. The tapping had ceased. But then he heard it once more, sharply. Someone was in Rosie’s room.

  He tightened his fingers into fists, and the instant he did, he felt the powers within him slide into his grasp. They came more easily now, like drawing out a sword the moment his mind triggered that he might need them. He knew he couldn’t let himself do magic, at least not if he could be seen, but it was ready nevertheless.

  He started toward Rosie’s room, hesitant with each step he took. Everything had gone silent again, so he almost turned back, but he reached the door and stood very still, listening. Nothing. But he knew he had heard something. He touched the door handle. It was cold, and he gripped it tightly, listening for anything that might tell him if he was walking into a trap.

  Very slowly, he turned the handle, and it twisted silently. Cautiously, he pushed on the door, swinging it inward on the hinges, and the moment he did, there was a sudden flurry of clicks in the room beyond.

  He’s seen me, Bran thought. He didn’t want to give a second for the intruder to regroup his senses and, with a quick push, shoved the door open all the way. He jumped through, ready for anything.

  His eyes swept the room. It was tranquil and clean, the furniture still where Rosie had left it. Empty. Not a thing out of place. He turned quickly, alert for any movement. A single, plain picture of a flower was on the wall next to the closet, the doors of which were closed. There were two windows, one directly behind Rosie’s old bed and another on the far wall, curtains drawn over the glass.

  He thought if it was a burglar, he would have gone out through the window, and so Bran quickly moved for it, pulling the curtains aside. They swept apart, light from the moon pouring in over his face, but the window was closed and locked. All the houses down Bolton Road were dark and still, not a single movement outside to tell him if someone had escaped. What made that noise? Bran thought with alarm, turning to look at Rosie’s bed, then to the dresser, hoping to see something that might have caused it. Maybe I imagined it, he thought. It made him feel a bit ridiculous.

  Suddenly, there was another loud tap, only inches behind him. It made every muscle in Bran’s body tighten and freeze at once, every inch of his skin feeling as if it had been pricked by an icy needle. He spun to see who was there.

  Still, as before, he was alone in the room. His gaze jerked along everything he could see, to the closet, to the door, to the dresser, down to the desk across the room. His eyes caught on something
sitting on Rosie’s desk.

  It was her typewriter, old and rusted, the blue paint peeling and the round keys without labels—the old one she kept mostly for sentiment’s sake. There was a single piece of paper in it, situated about halfway down the page. Bran couldn’t imagine why it would have made a sound. He peered closer, the moonlight illuminating the page, and it was then that he noticed a long row of Xs printed on the previous line.

  “Strange…” he said. He hadn’t noticed it before, but then again, he hadn’t been in there for a while. What puzzled him the most was how the typewriter had made a sound. It wasn’t like the fancy electric ones, or else he would have blamed it on the strange power surges earlier. The only way a key could have moved was if someone had pressed it.

  Then, right in the middle of Bran’s thoughts, there came a sudden flash of movement from the typewriter that made him jerk back. One of the keys had been punched, as if someone had struck it, sending one of the metal arms up onto the page, printing a letter. Bran gasped with shock, and then there came another tap, and another, all on their own.

  It tapped twice more and then stopped, the keys moving right before his eyes with no one pressing them. He didn’t know what to do, and when the movement ceased, he was still frozen in place, feeling the back of his throat go dry and his palms begin to sweat.

  Very slowly he stepped forward until he could see the paper clearly in the light of the moon.

  And printed on the page were two words:

  Hello Bran.

  Chapter 6

  The Typewritten Message

  Seeing the words on the page sent a shiver across Bran’s skin.

  “What’s going on…?” he whispered, reading them and not entirely believing what he had seen. Bran was very alert now, sleep forgotten.

  The keys had been typing Xs before he had come in the room; it had known he was there and had drawn him in. Fearful, he took another step closer, reading the page again and looking around the room. Was it a ghost? Something trying to communicate with him? Bran moved until he was standing right in front of the desk, looking down at the words.

  Suddenly, as if to prove to him it wasn’t imaginary, the carriage gave a jump, sliding across the page to a fresh line. The keys started to press down by themselves again, the little metal arms striking against the page with rapid speed. The keys were pressed so quickly it was like a motor, the carriage jerking back into position in less than a second.

  There isn’t much time.

  Bran swallowed hard, staring at the freshly inked words. It knew his name, which was enough to send terror through his skin.

  “W-what’s going on?” he asked aloud, unsure if it could hear him. There was a second of a pause, and then the keys flew to the page once more.

  Help us.

  The carriage leapt back across to a new line. He took a glance around the room. He was alone. He didn’t waste another second, pulling the chair out and sitting in front of the typewriter.

  “What’s happening to you?” he whispered frantically, talking to the typewriter as if somehow they could hear him through it. The letters clicked across the page in a fury.

  We cannot escape.

  It went to a new line. Bran read the words, every nerve on edge. He couldn’t think of what to say next. But he didn’t want to let them go, whoever it was on the other end, so he stammered for something.

  “Where are you?” he asked, keeping his voice low. The keys moved again.

  Trapped.

  It leapt to a new line.

  She has enslaved us.

  It crossed again.

  Help us.

  And then, in a furious scramble of keys:

  There isn’t much time.

  New line. He felt the intensity of the room begin to grow. The page was almost to the end, and he didn’t know how much longer whatever magic was at work would stay active.

  “Who put you there?” Bran asked. Then the keys moved again, typing only four letters:

  Emry

  He blinked at the page, unable to do anything but read the name, twice, a third time, not believing what was there. His heart was racing, his hands shaking.

  What can they mean by that? he thought with alarm. He saw that the typewriter had moved to a new line. They were almost to the bottom.

  “Who are you?” he asked aloud. There was hardly room for one last line on the page. Sweat was gathering on his forehead. He gripped the sides of the chair in anticipation, hoping that it wasn’t too late, staring at the last words on the page. Had the spirits left already?

  But the keys snapped twelve more times. Before Bran could read it, there was one final push given to the page, and the paper went out the top and started to slide behind the typewriter. Bran caught it, bringing it up into the moonlight, so that he could see the final words written there.

  The Specters

  And that was all. The typewriter was out of paper.

  Bran stared at it in his hands, almost as if it wasn’t real, but it was there, as much as he didn’t want to believe it.

  “The Specters…” he said. An abrupt rushing sound filled the room, like a gust of wind, and a great, bright green glow erupted from the paper between Bran’s fingers. It burned to the touch, and Bran reflexively threw it onto the desk. In a second he saw that it had ignited with green fire, eating the page as if a torch had been held to its center.

  The glow blasted onto Bran’s face, and he leapt back, searching for something to throw on it. But in a second he was already too late, and the glow ceased just as quickly as it had started, engulfing the room in darkness once more. All that was left of the page and the words written on it was a crumpled, ruined piece of paper. Bran seized it, but the paper was so brittle it tore into pieces, still hot enough to make him drop it to the desk again.

  He quickly looked to the typewriter, but it was only metal and ink once more; whatever had possessed it had lost its strength and departed.

  ***

  Bran could find no use for the shreds of paper, but he kept them anyway, the darkened edges leaving black markings on his palms. He was bitter that his only clue had just burned itself up. He knew there was magic at work, strong magic, and someone who needed his help.

  He went up to bed, but he certainly couldn’t sleep, so he thought he’d do as usual and sit at his desk for a while until he was over it. However, when he got to his desk, he saw his blanket.

  The box, he thought immediately, sweeping the blanket off. It was still there, the shape of the moon facing up. It felt almost as if Bran had uncovered the face of a corpse instead of a box. He had just brought it home and already strange things were happening—strange magic seemed to surround it, as if something within was trying to break free.

  The Specters. Bran turned it over in his head. There was no disregarding what he had seen. He didn’t exactly know how to react to what had happened. The box could be haunted for all he knew. Perhaps something inside of it was listening to his thoughts at that very instant, waiting to be broken free. The label said Emry Hambric, after all. In one startling thought, Bran wondered if it hadn’t been left for him but contained something cursed from his mother’s criminal past. Perhaps the Specters were actually spirits trying to twist his mind into breaking them free.

  It scared Bran how little he knew. The desperation in the words on the typewriter played on his sympathies, despite the warnings in his head. He repeated what he remembered from them: “She has enslaved us.” If it was someone, or something, that his mother had cursed before her death, could they be reaching out to him as a last resort?

  The confusion nearly made him wish he had left the box with Adi. He ran his fingers along its intricate metal ornaments at the corners. He was at a loss for what to do next, so he finally set it back and just stared at it for a long while, presently pulling out the piece of note paper that had been tap
ed to the top.

  The words Nigel Ten stared back at him: this mystery man that nobody had heard of. Perhaps he had the key—or at least knew about the box? But how to find him, Bran did not know.

  ***

  The next morning he decided to go to Highland’s Books, where he knew Astara would be helping Mr. Cringan get ready for Fridd’s Day. Luckily, Mabel needed a new quart of echinacea, and the nearest herb shop was on that side of town, so he was easily able to use that as his excuse. It was a sunny day that smelled of freshly cut grass, since everyone was eagerly getting their houses ready for Fridd’s Day parties.

  There was a small group of people around the bookstore making up what remained of the repair crew. The outside had been completely rebuilt, with rows of shiny new windows on the front and red bricks all around. Already there were displays in the windows, waiting for the store to open, and some of the repair crew were doing bits of cleanup work outside. Over the door was a brand new sign with a banner pasted in front.

  Highland’s Books

  Grand Reopening – Fridd’s Day Eve

  Bran smiled when he saw it, for he knew that once the store was open, the last bit of remaining damage from what had happened to him months before would be gone. He parked his bike in the front and went inside.

  “Hello, Astara, anyone home?” he called. The workers inside ignored him as they went about, finishing up the hardwood flooring in a corner. Everything was brand-new, with rows of books already on some shelves.

  “Over here, in the back.” Bran heard Astara, and he started down the steps toward the door marked Employees Only—not that it had stopped him before. The back was more like a warehouse with towers made up of boxes of books, as well as files of public records which Cringan kept stored in the back. It was much emptier than it had been, mostly because it was where the fire had started and done the most damage.