Jicky Jack and the Ominous Promise

by C. D. Bryan

  “I see the shape of a pyramid in the wall,” said Pip.

  “Pip, I know there’s a pyramid but what else do you see?” J.R. asked, dragging the pointed edge of his rock hammer along a grooved outline in the cliff wall.

  “Ok. Wait,” she said, “yeah, I see the pyramid and it’s hovering above a square or . . .” She pulled the magnifying glass away from the paper, stretching it out from one of her eyes toward Thomas, looking like a Cyclops, “ . . . or the chest.”

  Both Thomas and Pip looked at the chest and then looked at J.R.

  “Yes,” said J.R., “and what else do you see?”

  “Just a bird and the . . . the—”

  “The what?” asked J.R.

  “The sun.”

  The three of them stopped talking as J.R. wiped his hands across the surface of the wall and then jumped down. As he did, clouds began parting in the sky and the Timble-Ticker began glowing in Thomas’s hands.

  “Ah, guys?” yelled Thomas. “This thing is coming alive.”

  “Yep,” said J.R. “Something’s about to happen, I can feel it.”

  “Ah, it’s already happening,” whined Thomas, staring down at his hands. “Look.”

  “No, look at the wall,” said J.R.

  The sun fully emerged from the clouds. J.R., Pip and Thomas watched as the outline of the pyramid, and the square below it, began to glow a golden yellow, as if the sun’s rays were piercing the cliff. The glow intensified, giving the illusion that the space between the outline of the pyramid and the outline of the square was closing, an illusion that the two images were connecting as one. At its pinnacle, the light turned a cool radiant blue then disappeared as did the sun behind the clouds.

  “Ah, maybe it’s time to go home now,” said Thomas.

  “Yeah,” said Pip. “I’m kinda agreeing here.”

  J.R. studied the lightless images on the wall for a second. “That’s it. Where’s the chest?”

  “Here, I’ll get it,” said Thomas, happy to hand the glowing Timble-Ticker to J.R.

  “Hurry, Thomas,” said J.R. “Hurry.”

  Thomas came running out of the clubhouse, and handed the chest to J.R.

  J.R. set the chest on the ground. He saw what he was hoping to see. He looked at the cliff one last time, studied its image, and then placed the Timble-Ticker’s base into a triangular cavity on top of the chest. And suddenly he was reminded of his Grandfathers words and whispered them, “it fits like a key to your destiny.” And just as suddenly, the Timble-Ticker stopped glowing and its triangular tip began clicking in a clockwise direction. And somehow, as if fate were taking control, the sound of winding gears followed until finally the three sides of the pyramid slowly folded open, exposing its contents—an orange gaseous sphere.

  J.R. cupped his hands next to the sphere and nudged it into his palm.

  “Look,” said J.R. “It looks like the surface of Earth . . . a miniature globe. See the outline of the continents and the oceans.”

  Without notice the triangular pyramid top began sliding down a tiny rod and when it settled on the surface of the chest, the redwood sides of the chest shot open, like fireworks blasting off, and bottled air too swooshed out, blowing dirt and dust all around. The three of them jumped back in fright and watched as the orange sphere turned to a liquid and slowly melted into J.R.’s palms, leaving behind small blackish-gray marks.

  Pip and Thomas stepped away from J.R.

  J.R.’s hands began glowing orange, and the glow traveled up his arms and branched out to the rest of his body, from head to toe. Then, in a flash, the radiant orange glow turned blue and disappeared and J.R. fell to the ground.

  “J.R., you Ok,” yelled Pip, running to his side and wiping dust from his face.

  “J.R., can you hear me?” yelled Thomas.

  “Yeah, I can hear you, Thomas. Please don’t yell.”

  “Sorry,” whispered Thomas. “Are you Ok?”

  Thomas and Pip pulled him up to a seated position. He was completely dazed and wobbling from side to side. J.R. looked at his hands and the three of them watched in disbelief as the spots in J.R.’s palms faded away.

  “Quick,” said Pip, looking at Thomas, “let’s get him and the chest into the clubhouse.”

  Pip and Thomas helped him to his feet. Then Thomas grabbed the chest, and as he did, tiny silvery-glowing balls of light began flying out of its sides; each of them leaving behind a streaking trail of silver light.

  Pip closed the door against drifts of salty wind pushing on the clubhouse, causing it to creak and rock. The three of them, J.R. still in a daze, sat quietly in astonishment, staring at the flight of thousands of tiny glowing balls of light leaving the chest. The clubhouse was full of them, and filled with a barely-audible chorus of cheer and song too.

  “It sounds like they’re signing the word ‘Gleam’,” said Pip. “You think that’s what they’re called, gleams?”

  “I don’t know, sounds good to me,” said J.R., staring at the chest. “But what I do know is that no one we know has ever seen this kind of thing before.”

  J.R. dropped to his knees and lifted away the top of the chest to reveal its secrets. As he did, a beam of pearl-blue light traveled from his hands into the box, and then reflected out into the clubhouse in a giant burst. Pip and Thomas fell off their wooden seats. Then, as sudden as it came, the light drew itself back into the box. And the gleams disappeared.

  The three of them leaned forward to peer into the chest.

  “What’s in it, J.R.?” asked Thomas in a whisper.

  “There’s some kind of leather book or journal, a quill, seven gold coins and… and some marbles of all things.”

  “And look,” said Thomas, “there’s a marble missing.”

  J.R. reached inside the box and picked up the leather journal. It felt familiar in his hands, as if he had held it before. He opened it.

  “What’s in it?” asked Pip. “What’s it say, J.R.?”

  J.R. looked at the inside page. It was blank. Then he closed his eyes, smiled for a moment, took a deep breath of the salty sea air, listened to seagulls in the distance, and relaxed. And when he opened his eyes the pages filled with words.

  “It says,” J.R. cleared his throat before reading to them. “Hello, J.R. Timble. You have found your way, and in that way you have found a friend. Keep this journal with you at all times, for when the time is right, it will reveal answers. You’re the successor to another. You must find him and complete the transition from him to you. Who he is will be revealed to you in your decisions. Your fortune in having made it this far has been one of fate, but use caution. Others lurk in the darkness, waiting to rob you of what you hold.” He paused and glanced up at Pip and Thomas in silence.

  “Yes?” said Pip. “What else does it say?”

  “It says, avoid the valley,” said J.R. as he pulled the Blue Blink-Eye marble out of his pocket and placed it in the velvet-lined cavity next to the other seven marbles. “Sounds like trouble. What could that mean?”

  “It has to be Pinecone Valley,” said Pip. “That’s the only one around here.”

  “Yeah,” said Thomas. “It’s a place on an old map I saw in the historical society. Pip and I’ve been there. But it’s not called Pinecone Valley anymore. Everyone calls it . . .”

  Suddenly, Thomas stopped speaking. He seemed to want to utter more but his eyes widened in shock. He glanced at Pip.

  Pip nodded her head and said what Thomas could not. “Everyone calls it Whittler’s Creek,” said Pip. “But on the historical society map, the creek that runs through the valley is called Whiffler’s Creek.” She smiled with excitement. “I think it’s our first real Whiffler lead. How could we have missed that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Thomas. “But it can’t be just a coincidence.”

  “Exactly,” agreed J.R., writing out the word Whittler’s in the dirt and then under it writing the word Whiffler’s. “Look at the spelling. It’s identical, except the two T’s a
re replaced by two F’s. Whittler’s. Whiffler’s.” J.R. circled the T’s and the F’s. “Thomas, where’d you say you saw that map again?”

  “I saw it at the historical society,” answered Thomas.

  Just then, the journal flipped to the next page and began glowing with a pearl-blue light that melted from the top of the page to the bottom. J.R., Pip and Thomas watched in disbelief as it left behind a message.

  “What’s it say, J.R.?” asked Thomas.

  “It says ‘Follow your willing heart, J.R. Timble.”

  “Then what’s your heart willing, J.R.?” asked Pip and Thomas in unison, looking at one another in surprise.

  J.R. put the Timble-Ticker, along with the journal and quill in his backpack. Then he collected the eight marbles and coins into the palm of his hand and dropped them into his pocket. The journal said avoid the valley, he thought, but my heart says that’s where I needed to go next. “We need to go to the valley,” he announced. “I have to find out who this person is I’m supposed to succeed.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Fears Grow and Boulders Roll

  J.R. waved at Pip and Thomas who were both glancing back at him. “I’m right behind you, don’t worry,” he replied, all the while slowing down on purpose.

  “Hurry up,” yelled Pip

  Something’s wrong, J.R. thought, starting to feel that same panicked feeling he had when he woke up with the Fu Manchu mustache. Of course he quickly rubbed his upper lip and found nothing, so that wasn’t it. Then it hit him, he had that all too familiar feeling of a menacing stare on the back of his neck. So, he slowed his pace even more, carefully taking only a few more intentionally short steps, and then suddenly stopping as he planted his foot.

  That’s when he heard it. Another step behind him crunched the bed of needles on the trail.

  J.R. didn’t let on that he heard anything. But he immediately looked up for Pip and Thomas who where now out of sight. His eyes widened a bit and his heart jumped to a faster beat.

  Taking a second to think, he knelt down, pretending to tie his left show and glanced over his left shoulder ever so subtly. Then he switched, pretending to tie his right shoe and again glanced over his shoulder.

  He saw nothing.

  I know I heard that crunch, he thought, it was unmistakable. What else could it be but a step? He momentarily thought about why he was doing any of this. Why he was trying to find someone he didn’t know and why it was becoming ever more important to him to follow through with it. Grandfather, he thought, that’s why. J.R. felt his heart sink slightly. I wish he was still here… But he isn’t and I owe it to him to finish this. But Grandfather would say I owe it to myself first and to all the kids infected by the pandemic, which he knew were both true.

  Then, in a bold move he just turned to face whatever he thought he’d heard. But found nothing, nothing in plain sight anyway. So, he turned back to the trail and began jogging to catch up with Pip and Thomas.

  As he drew nearer to them, he felt the gray face of the valley walls and towering trees quickly closing in around them. And as they ventured deeper, J.R. found himself frequently glancing up for the occasional glimpse of Jicky-Jack flying above the treetops. It brought him comfort, in what was otherwise a considerably silent and ominously scary maze of giant gray boulders, trees and slabs of rock that had fallen off the valley wall.

  “Ok, wait a second,” said Thomas, stopping to stare up the side of the valley wall through an opening in the treetop.

  “What’s wrong, Thomas?” asked J.R.

  “That.” said Thomas, pointing up as J.R. and Pip stopped and looked in the same direction.

  “What about it?” said Pip, turning onward. “It’s just a fortress of some kind left over from World War II.”

  “Well, I didn’t see it last time we came through here,” answered Thomas.

  “That’s because it was almost dark,” said Pip, “and it was foggy, remember?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Thomas. “Well, I don’t like the way it looks. I thought it was a dead end up there.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Yeah, J.R.?”

  “Would you mind not using the words ‘dead end’? It’s bad enough the trail just ended.”

  “Sure, good idea,” answered Thomas.

  The two of them chuckled.

  “Come on, boys. Hurry up,” yelled Pip from far ahead.

  Thomas and J.R. took off running.

  “Do you hear that?” yelled Pip, “It’s the creek, Whiffler’s Creek.” She took off running just as Thomas and J.R. caught up. “There it is.” She ran to the creek’s edge. “Wow, it’s deep.”

  J.R. looked up through the parted tree tops along the direction of the creek hoping to see Jicky-Jack again, as a feeling of uneasiness filled his chest. “Something’s not right here guys.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Pip gazing at the partly cloudy, light-blue sky.

  “Are you sure this is the same place as last time Pip?” ask Thomas, spinning around on his heels. “What. . . Did you guys feel that?”

  “Feel what?” said J.R.

  Just then the ground beneath them began to shake.

  “That,” yelled Thomas, his voice shaking from the vibration in the ground.

  “Oh crap, it’s an earthquake,” yelled Pip, her legs shaking in unison with the grumbling ground.

  “No . . . it’s not an earthquake,” yelled Thomas, pointing further up the Whiffler’s Creek. “Look.”

  The three of them looked on as a giant gray boulder was tumbling down the middle of the creek; pushing up a wave of water and snapping, cracking, and splintering all the trees along the creek’s edge, like toothpicks.

  “Hurry, get out of the way,” screamed Pip. “Look, down there.” She pointed downstream. “I think I see the trail again.”

  Thomas and Pip jumped into the water, which nearly came up to their knees, and they ran down the middle of Whiffler’s Creek.

  “Wow, this isn’t a creek,” yelled Thomas. “It’s a dang river.”

  “No,” yelled J.R. “It’s headed in that direction, and the creek is getting narrower and the trees are too close together. We’ll never be able to get out.” He ran toward them along the bank. “Hurry, climb back up here.”

  Thomas grabbed J.R.’s hand and pulled himself up the bank. But Pip, only steps behind, fell in the middle of the creek.

  “Help . . . help me,” she screamed in a panic, in between glancing at the fast-approaching boulder and the creek’s edge. “I’m stuck.” She twisted her leg with violent determination.

  J.R. ran into the middle of the cold, rapidly flowing creek.

  “Please hurry,” pleaded Pip.

  J.R. reached into the water. He could see Pip’s foot wedged between two tree roots. His eyes darted back at the crunching machine rolling in their direction. He saw Jicky-Jack circling overhead, and was reminded of what his grandfather said when giving him the gold pocket watch; you can’t stop time for life, but you can stop life for time. J.R. wasn’t sure he fully knew what that meant, but reached into his pocket and pulled out the pocket watch to tempt fate. He grabbed Pip’s hand, and pressed a tiny gold button on the side of the watch. The watch popped open. And sure enough life stopped; the water flow, the wind, the clouds, the trees, and even Thomas was frozen—like a statue, his hands covering his eyes.

  Pip continued screaming in terror, unaware of what had just happened, while J.R.’s shoulder and back were pressed against a wall of jelly-like water preceding the boulder, which had stopped just before crushing the two of them.

  “What . . . what happened?” yelled Pip, breathing heavily. “Everything stopped, the boulder, and Thomas . . . oh no, look at Thomas.” Pip began laughing nervously and coughing at the same time.

  “We stopped life for time,” said J.R. “My grandfather said it would.”

  “Oh, sure and who’s your grandfather?” insisted Pip, her eyes shifting between the boulder and J.R.’s hands in the now jelly-l
ike water. “Does he know someone really special? You know the one, the only special one?” She looked to the heavens.

  “No. I don’t think so,” said J.R. “Now don’t worry, we’re going to get you out of here.” He pulled vigorously on one of the roots until finally it gave way. “There, now let’s get out of here.”

  Pip pulled her foot out and the two of them waded through the jelly-like water and climbed up the side of the creek to where Thomas was standing. J.R. looked at Pip and smiled then flipped the cover of the pocket watch closed and the world around them came back to life. The boulder crushed and cracked its way over the exact spot where the two of them were standing, and continued a path of destruction all the way down Whiffler’s Creek until it was out of sight.

  “What happened?” asked Thomas. “One second you were stuck and the boulder about to crush you guys, and now you’re both standing next to me.”

  “We’ll tell you later,” said Pip.

  Pip glanced at J.R. “Thanks. I owe you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  The three of them moved away from Whiffler’s Creek just enough so they could still hear its running water. Suddenly, a crushing boom reverberated from deep within the valley. The three of them stopped.

  “The boulder?” asked Pip, looking at J.R. and Thomas who both nodded their head before they all moved on.

  “Hey guys,” said Thomas, “do we even know where we’re going or what we’re looking for? I mean we found Whiffler’s Creek. Now what? Is your willing heart telling you anything yet, J.R.?”

  “No,” said J.R., stopping for a second. “I guess we had better go back. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

  “Go back?” demanded Pip, frowning as she looked around. “I’m certainly not following the creek back.”