Search for the Shadow Key

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  “Like I would ever marry Jack Frost,” Amy said, giving Archer a playful shove.

  Archer’s cheeks, already ruddy from the cold, turned beet red. “Enough marriage talk!” he said, shaking his snowy glove above Amy’s head.

  “Hey! Like I need more snow in my hair? Really?”

  “Race to the bottom?” Buster challenged.

  “I’m in!” Amy said. She dropped her sled and lay on top of it. “But I get the left side. It’s more packed down . . . faster.”

  “Sure!” Buster said. “Still have no chance.”

  “Neither one of you has any chance,” Kaylie said as she plopped into her sled and shoved off. She was ten yards away when she called back, “I’ll beat you both!”

  “Kaylie!” Buster growled. “That’s just so wrong.” He gave a twist of his torso and took off after her. Amy did too.

  But not Archer.

  The surprise snow day off from school had been a great blessing. Chocolate chip cookie dough waited in the fridge for baking. Hot cocoa too, but Archer just wasn’t feeling it. He stood alone by the well, watched the snow falling, and was enveloped by the forlorn silence.

  I am alone.

  The thought came unbidden, but Archer couldn’t shake it. Kara Windchil, his old best friend, avoided him now. His father was still detached and distant. And, of course, Archer was the only Dreamtreader left. Duncan and Mesmeera were gone, and Master Gabriel had yet to select two more to fill their roles. The events of the previous summer came rushing back in a fiery vision.

  The Trees of Life and Death. Archer had been deceived into thinking that destroying those trees was the key to taking down the Nightmare Lord. The inferno Archer created had reduced the trees to smoking cinders, but among the ashes were the remains of Duncan and Mesmeera.

  My pride, Archer thought, my impulsive . . . desperate need to win, and it all turned to death . . . and ash. Archer laughed humorlessly at the irony. And now, I almost took myself out.

  He shook his head and exhaled, muttering, “The Windmaiden got me to my anchor ten times faster than I ever could have, but I heard Old Jack’s toll. I missed my Personal Midnight. So why didn’t I get trapped in the Dream?”

  It was one of a dozen questions that would have to wait for his next meeting with Master Gabriel.

  Archer leaned over the cobbled stone edge of the well and gazed absently into the darkness below. This old well had been on Keaton property for more than a hundred years, long before the Keatons owned the land. It was nothing fancy, just an artesian well built of cobbled stone with a wooden frame where the rope and bucket hung beneath a little shingled roof. But it was Archer’s mom’s favorite. She said it made their house a home and their property something to be proud of. The water from it, she claimed, was the purest and coldest freshwater to be found anywhere. She’d always believed it was special.

  “It is special, Mom,” Archer whispered. He picked at a little fleck of mortar from the seams between stones and then dropped it into the well. It made a dull plunk in the yet unfrozen water. “It was special because you loved it.”

  He listened to the snowy silence. Snow falling always muffled the noise: traffic, neighbors, wildlife. It was peaceful, but not pleasant for Archer. The cancer had taken his mom away eight years earlier . . . on a snowy morning.

  But Archer had kept the well close to his heart, making it his Dreamtreading anchor and, through all the crazy stuff of life, always bringing Archer back to the important things.

  Like family and friends, maybe? The thought broadsided Archer. What am I doing being so mopey on a snow day?

  As Archer walked away, the roof of the well caught his hat. He spun to grab it but accidentally knocked it over the edge. It disappeared into the well.

  “Snot rockets!” he exclaimed. “That was graceful.” He laughed and winced. “Ribs are still sore.” Archer shrugged it off as best he could, plopped down on his sled, and shoved off. “Oh, Buster, I hope you’re walking back up the hill. I have a little something for ya!”

  “That was crazy!” Amy said, raising her fist in the air. “But I won, yep.”

  “I thought we had, like, a no-contact rule,” Buster replied. He huffed to catch up to Amy on the hill, by the well.

  “You had it coming,” Archer said, right behind them. “Trying to cut in front of us like that.”

  “She knocked me clear off my snowboard!” Buster complained. Then he grinned and winked. “Gnarly bump though. Kinda fun.”

  Kaylie giggled and bounced at Archer’s elbow. “Hot cocoa time!” she said, her breath in little puffs of white. “Can we, Archer? Can we now?”

  Archer shook his head to get the snow out of his hair. “Yeah, I could use a break,” he said. “Getting cold out here.”

  “Where’s your hat?” Amy asked.

  Archer laugh-snorted.

  “Awww,” Amy said. “Your laugh is so cute.”

  “Ewww,” Kaylie said. “Sounds like a cat when it has a hair ball.”

  “Does not,” Archer said, but his snorting laughter continued. “Okay, maybe it does a little.”

  “What’s so funny?” Amy asked.

  “My hat,” he said. “I accidentally dropped it in the well.”

  “Nice one, chief,” Buster said.

  Amy tromped to the side of the well and looked down. “It went all the way down?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “It’s dark down there,” she said. “Can’t see anything. We could get some fishing line and a hook . . . maybe fish it up out of there?”

  “It can wait,” Archer said, chuckling.

  They continued walking up the hill, far past the well, when Kaylie stopped dead in her tracks. “Hold on.”

  Archer didn’t like the tone of her voice: high, thin, and brittle. She was afraid. “What’s wrong?”

  Kaylie pointed down into the snow near the base of the well. “Weird footprints,” she said.

  Archer shook away the chill and went to Kaylie’s side. He put his arm around her and asked, “Where?”

  “There,” she huffed impatiently. “By the well . . . it kinda goes off into the pine trees.”

  Archer stepped around to Kaylie’s right and gazed down. The chill came right back, sliding down his neck and spine like icy drizzle. There could be no doubt. There were footprints. The way they were spaced, like a right foot then a left and so on, showed something had walked in the snow there.

  “I didn’t see those before,” Buster said. “Creepy.”

  Creepy doesn’t begin to cover it, Archer thought.

  “There are more.” Amy pointed to several other tracks. Some of them overlapped or crisscrossed the others. But they all led into the pines.

  “Kaylie,” he said quietly, “what could make prints like these?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “They’re bipedal.”

  “What?” Buster blurted. “Speak English.”

  “Bipedal,” she repeated and rolled her eyes. “It means they walk on two feet. You can tell from the spacing.”

  “But they’re smaller,” Archer said.

  “I don’t think these are human,” Kaylie said, bending over and pointing. “Look. These aren’t toes. These are claws or maybe talons. Look closer.”

  Kaylie was right; Archer had never seen footprints like these. They’d had deer on the property, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and even a stray black bear cub once. But those critters left prints any western Marylander could recognize. Each of these was long, like the mark left by a person’s bare foot, only smaller, like a child’s size. But where the toes would have been on a human footprint, there were six blade-thin gouges. Two similar cuts dug into the snow at the heel. On top of that, the snow was discolored to an ashen gray tint. It reminded Archer of the nasty chemical-infused slush left on the roads by snowplows and salt trucks after they passed.

  “In fact,” Kaylie went on, her eight-year-old fears giving way to her off-the-charts-advanced intellect, “with the ones near the heel,
I’m thinking these might be from some birds.”

  “Birds?” Amy echoed.

  “Had to be,” Kaylie said as if the conclusion were obvious.

  “Strange birds . . .” Archer didn’t get it. “Why?”

  Kaylie blinked up at him, squinted, and said, “The prints are all one direction.”

  “So?”

  “So, whatever they were, they didn’t walk out of the trees up to the well and then back. The footprints all lead from the well to the trees. They had to fly in.”

  “Why would birds fly to the well?” Amy asked.

  “Maybe to get water,” Kaylie said. “Maybe there are bugs down there.”

  “Whatever,” Buster muttered. “Let’s get some cocoa.” The most energetic Keaton sibling charged up the hill.

  Amy and Kaylie followed, with Archer just behind. He walked slowly, the gears in his mind still spinning. Kaylie had said the footprints leading away from the well meant that birds had flown to the well and then walked back to the woods. For all her brilliance, Kaylie had seen only one possibility. But there was another possible conclusion.

  Something might have come up out of the well.

  Six cups of hot cocoa and fourteen cookies later, Archer felt much less worried about creepy things crawling out of the well. At least he hadn’t lost his legendary appetite. Besides, he had other, much more important concerns.

  He passed through the den and looked to make sure his father wasn’t around. Archer hadn’t seen him all morning, but he could never be too sure. With the coast clear, Archer shrugged and marched up the stairs and stepped into his room. He shut and locked the door. He closed his blinds and curtains and then went to his closet. With one more look over his shoulder, Archer reached up to the highest shelf and felt around until his fingers touched a metallic edge. It was the new silver case he’d gotten for his birthday. His father had told him the case was military grade: tamper-proof, fireproof, even bulletproof—perfect for an extremely valuable comic book collection. Only Archer had chosen to use the case for something a little more important than his comics.

  Of course, Archer knew, no matter how strong and tamper-proof the case was, it wouldn’t be Kaylie-proof. More than a prodigy, Kaylie was smarter than anyone Archer knew. She was particularly brilliant with electronics and puzzles. The simple combination lock on his old case was no problem for her. More than once, she’d cracked it open to read his Dreamtreader’s Creed, the textbook of lore studied by all Dreamtreaders. Hence all the secrecy with his new case and its contents.

  Archer opened the silver lid, releasing a hiss of breathy air, a glimmer of blue light, and a hefty leather-bound book.

  At least she doesn’t know about the Summoning Feather, Archer thought, turning all the pages of text to get to the back of the book. There, a long pocket held a single white feather. Archer tossed the feather toward his ceiling. It spiraled down for a moment but then sparkled and transformed to a pair of radiant golden wings. These fluttered upward until disappearing through the ceiling.

  “What do you want now?” Master Gabriel asked from behind.

  “Why . . . do you always show up behind me?” Archer grumbled as he turned. “You could give a guy a heart attack—uhm . . . okay . . .” Archer was speechless for a moment. He’d been expecting the master Dreamtreader, commander, and teacher to appear in his Incandescent Armor, the glowing, medieval-cool battle gear he usually wore. But not today. “That’s different.”

  Master Gabriel straightened his bow tie and said, “What on earth is the matter this time?”

  “A tuxedo?” Archer asked. “Really? You going to an awards show tonight?”

  “I fail to see the humor. You know I am permitted but two garbs: the armor and the style of the day.”

  Archer looked his guardian over. It was a nicely tailored black-tie tux. Gabriel wore his wavy white hair back in a tail, and it seemed even his mustache and beard were neatly groomed. The dark shades were a nice touch too. Gabriel and his sunglasses, Archer thought before saying, “Look, that’s still not the style of the day. I mean, for a big dinner or some kind of event, maybe. Honestly, if you want the style of the day, just go casual. You know, jeans and a T-shirt or a hoodie.”

  Master Gabriel arched one eyebrow above the rim of his shades. “A . . . hoodie?”

  “Never mind,” Archer said, shaking his head. “We need to talk.”

  “The breaches. I know,” Gabriel said. “They continue to worsen.”

  “Hundreds of them . . . every night now,” Archer explained. He placed his Creed back in the protective case and then stretched to put it back on the closet’s top shelf. He groaned slightly and rubbed his side. “It’s insane. Even with Bezeal’s paste, I’m falling behind. And that paste doesn’t hold for long. Honestly, it’s like Whac-A-Mole up there. No sooner do I sew a breach up than another one rips open. We can’t go on like this. I need help.”

  “And help you shall have.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Archer continued. “I need more than Razz. I need partners. I need—”

  “You need two more Dreamtreaders,” Gabriel said, finishing Archer’s sentence. “Of course you do, and it’s long overdue that you muster the courage to ask. You cannot do it all because you were never intended to do it all. But this is a lesson hard learned for you, is it not?”

  Archer laughed sadly and winced again. “So . . . all this time . . . all I had to do was ask?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Master Gabriel replied. “Do you think I would risk letting breaches go unpatched just to teach you a lesson?”

  “Uhm, the thought had crossed my mind.”

  Master Gabriel glowered. “As you should know, Dreamtreaders are rare. It takes time to identify them, time to awaken them, and much more time to properly train them. But, as it happens, I have found a new Dreamtreader for Pattern. And you will train him.”

  “Me?” Archer plopped down onto his bed.

  “I will be quite busy with other things,” he said. “I think I have identified the third Dreamtreader, but there are concerns. You will begin with Duncan’s replacement for the Pattern District. His name is Nick Bushman. You’ll have to find him in the Dream and awaken him.”

  “I’ve never done that before,” Archer said. “How will I find him?”

  “You have enough skills and knowledge to get started, but . . .” Master Gabriel reached inside his tux coat pocket and took out a short roll of parchment. He seemed to weigh it in his hands for a moment before holding it out for Archer. “This will explain where to find Nick and how to awaken him safely.”

  Archer reached out for the parchment and felt a twinge of pain again in his ribs. “Safely?”

  Gabriel stared thoughtfully. “There’s a small chance that you could . . . drive him mad. But really, it’s an insignificant and unlikely chance. Just follow the instructions.”

  “Great,” Archer muttered. He coughed and held his ribs. “That sounds . . . fun.”

  “Fun is beside the point. Dreamtreading is a high calling, Archer. And we both have our jobs to do.”

  Archer fiddled with the seal on the scroll, tugging at the parchment on either side. “Hey, it won’t open.”

  Master Gabriel took off his sunglasses and gave Archer a flat stare. “It will open when the time comes. Keep it with you at all times and read it when it opens. And, Archer? Read it carefully. It will disintegrate in a matter of minutes.”

  “What is this, Mission: Impossible?” Archer laughed and winced.

  “Certainly this mission will be difficult but not impossible.”

  “It was a joke,” Archer explained, laughing harder and holding his ribs.

  “I fail to see the point of this humor. It’s in poor taste to laugh at my—” Master Gabriel cut his words short to glare at Archer. “What are you doing? Stop all that wincing. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Sorry,” Archer said. “It just hurts to laugh. My ribs are sore from Dreamtreading last night. That’s all.�
��

  The master of Dreamtreading lost his scowl and any hint of color in his face. There was a long, cold moment before he said, “You are not supposed to be sore from Dreamtreading.”

  “Well, anyone would,” Archer replied, squinting. “I mean, it was this nasty three-headed—well, it was multiheaded, actually—but anyway, I took a few hard shots to the ribs and—”

  “Archer Percival Keaton, listen to me. You are a Dreamtreader. You were in the Dream. You are not supposed to be sore.”

  Archer’s mouth snapped shut. He ran his fingers lightly over the sore spot on his ribs. Then, slowly, he lifted the corner of his T-shirt. The hem passed the pale pink of his abdominal muscles, rose a few inches more where his skin became a smoky bluish, and then rode over his ribs, which were an ugly dark purple.

  When Archer gasped, pain rippled across his ribs. He dropped the edge of his shirt. Duh, Archer thought, rolling his eyes. I should have thought of this earlier. He knew that wounds in the Dream should never have produced wounds in the real world. What’s going on?

  “Think, Archer,” Gabriel commanded. “Could that injury have occurred in some other way? I mean, some other way in the Temporal?”

  Archer felt as if Buster had shoved a handful of snow down the back of his shirt. “No,” he said finally. “I can’t think of anything I’ve done that could’ve cracked a rib. The bruises are right where the creature struck me. I healed them in the Dream, like always. But . . . wait.”

  “What is it?”

  Archer expelled a deep breath. “No . . . no, no, no. It wasn’t in the Dream. Sheesh, I’m an idiot.”

  “That is beside the point. Would you please get to it?”

  “I was sledding all morning,” Archer said. “The sled is an older one, all made of wood and metal. I let Kaylie ride on my back a few times. Must have put too much pressure on my ribs.”

  Master Gabriel sighed. “That is a relief. A huge relief. But you be mindful, Archer. There’s no telling what could happen if the Dream fabric is allowed to weaken.”

  Archer pondered that a moment.

  “When will you go Dreamtreading again?” Master Gabriel asked.