Surfacing (Spark Saga) (7 page)

             
I read the clue.

             
“
Mortal alliteration will give you piece of mind.”

             
“Mortal alliteration?”  Cricket scoffs.  “Gee, we have a poet on our hands.  Great.  Although, my English teacher would appreciate that, I’m sure.”  She jots down something in a small black notebook that she’s just retrieved from her pocket.  “What do you think it means?”

             
“Well… mortal means death.”

             
“It also means limited, as in limited time on this earth, like a human being or something.”

             
“Good point.”

             
“So… limited alliteration.”

             
“Alliteration?  That’s a big word.”

             
“It means when two words have a similar sound, but not a rhyme.  Like ‘tasty treats.’  The ‘T’ sound on the beginnings of the words make them alliterative.”  She paused.  “And actually the ‘li’ sound in ‘limited’ and ‘alliteration’ work.”

             
I sigh.  “Ok, thanks for the poetry lesson, but that doesn’t tell us where the thing is.”

             
“True.”  Cricket looks around.  “Read the clue out loud again.”

             
“
Mortal alliteration will give you piece of mind.”

             
She rolls her eyes.  “Oh crap, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.  I’m not this smart.”

             
Suddenly—don’t ask me why, but I’m standing there looking at those old bricks, and I notice how they are breaking up, the mortar falling in random chips on the ground.  “Mortar,” I say out loud.

             
“Mortar….” Cricket repeats.

             
“
Mortal
,” I add, looking at her intently. 

             
Her face is blank for a few seconds, then recognition.  “Mortal and mortar.”

             
“Alliteration, right?”

             
Cricket eyes the brick wall.  “It’s in the mortar.”

             
“Exactly,” I add.

             
We both start running our hands across the bricks.  “It could be anywhere,” Cricket groans.

             
“Wait.  What’s the second half of the clue?  Give me the phone.”  I read the clue again, focusing on
will give you piece of mind. 
“Did you notice how piece is spelled?  Like
a piece of something
—p.i.e.c.e. 
Not p.e.a.c.e.
”

             
“Ok that’s weird.  What does it mean?”

             
I examine the wall, then the ground.  “Well, have you noticed?  There are pieces of this thing scattered everywhere.”

             
Cricket grins with a nod, but still looks confused.  “Yeah…?”

             
“Maybe it means we will find the clue in the pieces…or in a piece…or maybe in the hole left where a piece was.”

             
“You’re a stinking genius,” Cricket says, looking more earnestly in between the cracks and crevices between the bricks.  “Come over here so we can see where the blue dot is.”

             
“Got it.”

             
We move along the wall, the blue dot flashing closer and closer to the target.  “It’s close,” I say.  “Here.”  I pause, my hand resting on the brick.  “It’s here.”

             
I reach into a crack and pull out a tiny cylinder. 

             
Cricket squeals with delight.  “Oh my gosh!  You found it!  Let me see!” 

             
I hand her the cylinder and she rolls it around in her hands.  “How the heck do you open it?”

             
I shrug. 

             
“Ok, this is like some childproof lid or something,” she says, grimacing and twisting the cap.  Finally, it pops off, and she reaches in with her pinky and pulls out a slip of paper.  “Oooh, I’ve got goose bumps!”

             
“What does it say?”

             
She unrolls the paper.  “Ok… it says: 
Congratulations.  You have found the first clue.  Are you ready to continue this adventure?  It begins where the trees are fuller than usual.”

             
She looks at me with a skeptical half-smile. 

             
“It’s another clue,” I point out.

             
“Of course it is,” she sighs, pulling out her notebook again, scribbling.  “Well, at least this will make for an interesting English paper.”

             
“No doubt.  Let me see that.”

             
I read the clue again.  “Well, the first question is:  Do we want to continue this adventure?  Yes or no?”

             
“Are you kidding?  I have a feeling this is more than a simple geocache.  Maybe there’s a real treasure hiding out there!”

             
“Doubtful, but ok.  So yes.  We are continuing.  Now. 
It begins where the trees are fuller than usual.
”

             
“We live in Colorado.  There are trees literally everywhere. In other words, I’m not too optimistic about finding this second clue.”

             
“Well, it says
where the trees are fuller,
so what do you think that means?”

             
“Who knows?  It may not even be about trees.  Remember, we’re dealing with a poet.”

             
“True.  Symbolism?”

             
“I am seriously not the person to be asking this.”

             
“All right.  Where would trees be fuller than normal?”

             
Cricket’s brow furrows.  “I dunno.  Somewhere really wild?  Unkempt?”

             
“Makes sense.”

             
“But remember, it may not be specifically about trees.”

             
“I know.  Ok. Let’s examine each word.”

             
“
It begins.
”

             
“Yeah, what is
it
?”

             
“The adventure.  Ok. 
Where.
  Definitely a place.”

             
“Good,” Cricket says with sarcasm.  “Isn’t that the whole point of this?  To find a place?”

             
“Shut up!  Ok. 
Where the trees are
.  A place with trees.”

             
“Again.  Good.”  She smiles.

             
“
Fuller.
”

             
Cricket gets a funny look on her face that I can’t place, and she gasps a little. 

             
“What?”

             
“Never mind.  It’s stupid.”

             
“No seriously.  What?”  Her eyes stare into mine, locked in something like knowing fear.

             
And then it hits me. 
Fuller.  Fuller Park.

             
Cricket says, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

             
Zach

             
My mom lets me sleep in on Saturday, which is a good thing, because I stayed up late reading last night.  When she knocks on my door at around 10:00 a.m., the first thought in my mind is the last chapter I remember finishing.  The Time Traveler comes across a strange tentacle creature that frightens him so that he scrambles to get back to the time machine and return to civilization.  I realize that I have had a night-long dream about that terrible beast.  I try to get back into the seat, to return through time, but I keep falling off, the thing getting ever closer to me.  I am covered in sweat.

             
“Zach, it’s time for breakfast!”  I hear my mom’s voice, a beam through fog.

             
“Ok, just a sec,” I mumble.  “Be right down.”

             
I kick off my covers and sit up on the edge of the bed, ruffling my hair. 
What a nightmare
, I think. 
Good thing time travel, by today’s standards, is relatively benign.  At least, I hope it is.

             
I throw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and head downstairs, smelling the bacon long before I reach the last step. 

             
My mom is standing in a cloud of steam.  “Good morning,” she chirps.

             
“Morning,” I say, planting myself at the table.

             
“Sleep well?”

             
I rub my eyes.  “Not so well.”

             
She turns and looks at me.  “Are you anxious?”  She says it like she’s my therapist or something.

             
“No, just a weird dream.”

             
“About what?”  She clangs some utensils and plates and presents a plate of pancakes and eggs.  “Bacon?”

             
“Yes, please,” I say gratefully.

             
“So, what was your dream?”

             
“I dunno.  I was reading late last night, probably something related to that.”

             
“What were you reading?”

             
“
The Time Machine.
”

             
“Ah.  H.G. Wells.”  She replies, with a knowing glance.

             
“How’d you know?”

             
“Your father used to talk about that book.  Even when we first met.  He was obsessed with it.”

             
Now my mind is turning circles.  Does she know about dad’s research?  Or is this a passing reference to something that interested him?

             
“Oh really?”  A safe response.

             
“Oh, you know…your father was into all sorts of offbeat things.”

             
A cryptic response.  “What do you mean?”

             
“Oh, you know….Books and scientific anomalies, mostly.”

             
“Scientific anomalies?  Such as?”  I take a healthy mouthful of syrup-laden pancake, topped with fluffy eggs, my favorite.  “Mmmm.  It’s good, Mom.”  I smile, with a full mouth.

             
“He was really into thunderstorms.”

             
“That’s not an anomaly.  That’s nature.”

             
“I know, but there was just something about them.  He studied them closely.  He mentioned once that there were ‘things in those clouds that no one can ever imagine.’”

             
The tone of my mother’s voice suggests to me that she’s on the peripheral of my father’s research, having had just enough information to be intrigued, but not enough to actually comprehend the scope of it.  “Interesting,” I say.  “Dad was one of a kind.”

             
My mother sighs and crosses her arms as if she got a chill all of a sudden.  “He certainly was.”  Her eyes drifted past me, toward some intangible, or inexpressible, memory.  I take this as my cue to drop the subject, for now.

             
I eat my breakfast with renewed hunger.  “What time are we headin’ out?”

             
“We’ll leave before noon and then stop for lunch on the way back.  Sound good?”

             
I nod.  It occurs to me that maybe I should take something to my father’s grave—some token or memento of some kind.  After all, I never have, and that’s just one of those things people should do at a loved one’s grave. 

             
As if my mom had read my mind, she announces, “I have some mums to plant around the headstone.”

             
I take note of her phrasing,
the headstone
, as if distancing herself from it as any sort of connection to the man who was her husband.  I agree, to say
his headstone
just seems wrong, somehow.  It doesn’t belong to him.  And, the thought of him actually being buried underground, in a box is wrong, too, now that I think about it.  For a man capable of traversing time and space, to be confined within a place forever is not only ironic, it’s unsettling.