Authors: Brandt Legg
I moved my gaze to Kyle; we both knew what
he meant. Sanford Fitts was my target. Where was he vulnerable? Could I choose
the right time?
“I have more wood to sell. But you and I
have an appointment tomorrow. Don’t be late,” he said and walked off.
“Wait, when? Where?”
“You’ll find me.” He was gone.
An hour later Kyle and I were sitting
around the fire, pondering the two objects from my dad’s desk, determined to
figure them out. I’d already tried reading them and again with no luck. Kyle held
the wood piece and I the gold box when Old Man showed up again. He’d finished
his wood-selling rounds.
“Here are a few scraps I had left over.” He
handed over some old two-by-fours. “You may need them, going to be cold
tonight.”
“Thanks. Any idea what this is?”
“Looks like a gold box to me? Sure is a pretty
one. Maybe Mayan.”
Could there be a connection to the lifetime
with my dad and the Conquistadors, I wondered. “I want to know what’s inside.”
“Why? It feels empty. What you want is
probably on the outside. The patterns of the inlays are the message.”
“Do you know what it says?”
“No, the message is for you. You must
discover it.”
“What about this?” Kyle threw the carved
piece to him.
He gave it a quick look. “This one’s easy.”
He tossed it in the fire.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” I tried
to pull it out but it was too late.
“Let it show you,” he said calmly.
We watched the wood burn away. The ends
melted like a hard brown wax, and there in the fire a shiny silver key emerged
from the burnt wood. I quickly fished it out with two sticks and let it rest on
the ground to cool. It was no ordinary house key, but old, like three keys
pressed together.
“What’s it go to?” Kyle asked.
“How should I know? It’s not
my
key,” Old Man answered.
“How did you know it was in there?” I
asked.
“The outside carvings revealed that what
you’re looking for is inside.”
“It just looked like a bunch of leaves and
symbols to me.”
“Languages aren’t always words,” he said,
walking toward the trees. “Sometimes what you think you need to go after isn’t
always what you really need to be going after.” He disappeared into the
underbrush but yelled back, “Strategy, remember?”
It wouldn’t be long before I learned what
the strange key unlocked, and it would turn out to provide my best chance for
survival.
47
Monday, September 29
The rising sun warming the tent woke me. I
vaguely remembered Kyle leaving hours earlier while it was still dark. By now
he’d be at school, having driven more than two hours to make the morning bell.
Finding a soda in the cooler, I decided on a breakfast burrito and managed to
heat it on the propane stove.
I hiked around the lake in search of the
Old Man. Every so often I tried to get a signal for my cell phone to call my
mother and Amber, but there was no reliable service.
Soon it was obvious I was being followed.
There was no heat so it probably wasn’t someone dangerous, but there was no
reason to take chances. I broke into a run. After a quarter-mile sprint, it
seemed safe to look back. I turned, crashed into the Old Man, and fell back on
the ground.
“Blast! What’s the matter with you? First
you haul off and run away from me like a scared rabbit, and then you knock into
me and fall on your ass. Are all teenagers this dang foolish?”
“Why’d you sneak up on me?”
“I don’t sneak. This is my place.” He swept
his arms in a grand gesture.
“That’s why I’m here.”
“You’re late.”
“Why are you so grouchy?”
“Why are you so ornery?”
“I’m reacting to your mood.”
“That’s foolish. Why don’t you learn to
control yourself instead of letting others determine how you feel?”
“Okay fine, I’m in charge. I’m not looking
for lessons right now. I need help rescuing my brother. Can you do that?”
“Every word I utter in your presence will
help you get your brother because it will help you grow into someone who can do
such things. Are you going to listen, boy?”
“You seem so angry.”
“I’m the Old Man of the Lake, remember? I’m
just a reflection. A reflection of you.”
I took a deep breath and thought of Thich
Nhat Hanh. He said, “Just because anger or hate is present does not mean that
the capacity to love and accept is not there; love is always with you.” Maybe
the Old Man was right and he was a reflection of me. I was definitely angry,
and it had been building for years: my dad’s death, Dustin’s imprisonment,
Mom’s disconnect--my family had left me all alone. And in the last few weeks
everything had accelerated with my finding out about Dad’s murder, Aunt Rose’s
kidnapping, Mom’s accident, the attempts on my friends. Why? I’d done nothing
wrong, committed no crime, and yet I was being hunted and those close to me
hurt. I wanted my life back, wanted my dad back. Damn right I was angry. The
Old Man was pulling it out of me, showing it to me. I screamed, a loud visceral
sound.
“Good boy. Get it out! Better than taking
it out on me.”
“Why?” I screamed again, sinking onto a log
and burying my face in my hands.
“Are you going to cry now?”
“No.”
“Good. By now you’ve figured out you’re no
ordinary boy, so all that’s left for me to do is guide you to some answers for
questions you ain’t thought of yet.”
“My brother?”
“We’re not going to start that again, are
we?”
“Patience?”
“Yeah, patience. Good to see there is a
brain in there somewhere.” He lightly knocked on my forehead. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk. I’m emotionally
damaged, not physically damaged.”
He winked and led me down a very steep
cliff, impossible without Skyclimbing. At the bottom he moved between two
evergreens to a small sheltered cove in the cliff, about twenty feet above the
water. “Sit,” he said, pointing to a slab. “This lake is the center of the
universe.” He began lecturing like a professor. “Not actually, but it is as far
as you’re concerned. You have much ahead of you and I’m far from convinced
you’ll last, but it’ll be fun to watch you take a shot. You’re brave to try,
I’ll give you that, boy.”
“I don’t remember deciding to try. It was
sort of thrust upon me.”
“Circumstances define the man. No one wakes
up and decides to be great. It’s the events he’s thrown into that determine if he
is truly great. Survive or not is to be great or not.”
“I’m not doing anything until I get my
brother and aunt back. How is what you’re saying going to help me get them?”
He ignored my question. “It’s begun, boy.
Too late to turn back now, as it’s already begun.” He squinted at me and paced
for a couple of minutes. “You’ll encounter fifteen mystics.”
“Why so many?”
“If you stop and think how much there is to
learn, you might ask why so few.”
“Maybe you could explain exactly what a
mystic is.”
“It’s someone who pursues awareness by
searching for ultimate reality, the soul. This quest for spiritual truth is
from within as he seeks experiences through instinct, intuition, and insight. A
mystic grows closer to its soul by sharing knowledge with others on the path.” He
stopped speaking, I assumed, to allow me to absorb his words.
“You’re a mystic, aren’t you?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m the first one you
found. And you were more than early. I’m not talking about a week early.
Originally, you weren’t due here for fourteen more years. But some series of
unknown calamities in the world forced this premature debut.”
“How many have I met so far?”
“You tell me.”
“Spencer, Gibi, Amparo, Crowd, and you make
five. So ten more to go?”
“Correct, they’ll come five at a time.
There are three periods until you complete your journey. You’re in the first
one now. After you encounter the fifteenth, you’ll be a mystic yourself. But your
journey is long.”
“Really? I’ll be a mystic?”
“Probably the youngest one in modern times--in
human terms, anyway. It’s not like you’ll get a plaque or anything, boy. You
keep seeking by sharing your knowledge. The more you share, the more you’ll
find.”
“So where are the remaining mystics?”
“They’ll appear when you’re ready. Could be
fifty years from now the way you act sometimes.”
“If you’re so enlightened, why are you so
negative?”
“Just reflecting that aspect of you,
Nayyy-thonn. Suppose your friend Linh was here and I was helping her. You might
wonder if I was some saint of sweetness and light. It all depends on the
student. Think of me as a mirror.”
“I’m not like you.”
He laughed hard and loud, calming just long
enough to say, “Well, you shouldn’t be, boy, that’s for sure.” Then he laughed
some more.
What did he mean? I didn’t act like him. I
didn’t talk to people like he did--well, maybe to my mother, but that was
complicated. If my anger came out like his, why did I have such good friends?
He stared into my eyes, “When you’re ready,
I’ll show you the entrance.”
“The entrance?”
“Come back here in an hour, and I’ll take
you there.”
I went back to the tent, filled my water
bottle, ate, and tried the cell phone again in a few new spots. At the far end
of the campground, I found that by standing on a picnic table and leaning a
certain way there was just enough coverage for a call; the phone at the
hospital rang. I waited, hoping the call wouldn’t drop, while they connected me
to Mom’s room.
“Nate, I’ve been so worried. The doctor
plans on releasing me tomorrow sometime.”
“That’s great news. Hey, have you heard
anything from Tanya?”
“She came by to see me a little while ago.
They let her go home. Have you seen Dustin?”
“He’s okay. We’re getting him tomorrow.”
“How? Do you have help? I don’t want you
doing anything crazy.”
I shouldn’t have told her, but I knew she
wasn’t going to wait much longer before going to the police or the press. “I
have more help than you can believe, Mom. He’ll be free tomorrow. Trust me.”
“I do, Sweetie. Just be careful. I just
spoke with Sam. He called the restaurant when you didn’t show up for the
conference call with his sister this morning, and they told him I was here.
Even if you get Dustin, we still need an attorney to sort this out and locate
Rose. His sister sounds perfect.”
“There was no way to make the meeting, and
phone coverage here is no good. I’ll call him tomorrow when I’m back in Ashland
to set up another one.”
“Okay. When there’s news, you can get me at
Josh’s. I lost my phone in the accident. He’s picking me up tomorrow, and I’m
going to stay with him for a day so I’m not alone.”
48
The Old Man was waiting at the cove.
“Where would you put a portal to a
crossroads of multi-dimensional fields?” he asked.
“Wizard Island?”
“See, boy, you’re much smarter than you
look.”
“How are we going to get out there?”
“Can’t you swim?”
“Sure, but not in that cold water.”
“Follow me.” We took a trail to the shore
where he knelt down and said, “Get on my shoulders.”
He pointed to his shoulders and had a
don’t-argue-boy, look. Once I was on, he pushed out into the water. Instantly,
I was standing on top of the tree trunk moving swiftly toward the island. I
knew he was the floating tree! I couldn’t wait to tell Kyle. The top of the trunk
was wide enough to be very comfortable and, other than the bobbing, it was a
smooth ride. Being on the Old Man of the Lake floating across the ancient
volcanic crater made me feel as if I was at the center of the universe.
I gazed down at our reflection in the
water, almost a perfect dark mirror. The Old Man was right; he was a reflection
of me. The cliffs rose dramatically from the blue liquid, which couldn’t
possibly be water. Trees, oversaturated green from a dream, all looked like
something Gibi had invented for my mind alone.
We came ashore on Wizard Island and once
again I was on his shoulders, unsure how it happened. He sat on a boulder,
which made it easy for me to climb off; I wasn’t the least bit wet.
“You really are the king of shapeshifters,”
I said with a smile.
“I’m not the king of anything except maybe
this lake. If you live long enough, I may teach you how one day.”
“I’ll remind you.”
“You do that.” He laughed.