Spill The Milk

Tom crouched on the floor of the hallway, panting for several minutes, exhausted and unable to move another inch. He kept looking at the crack under the bathroom door, sure the Death Sleep would follow him, but nothing came out. Silver Head had told him the Death Sleep couldn't move very much once they were positioned and formed. Their weapon was eternal sleep.

He finally stood, his nerves and heart settling back to normalcy, filled with relief. Tom felt sure the creature had gone away. Shaking his head as he remembered the horrible feeling of running through the Death Sleep, he set off for home, knowing what he had to do.

It was time to have a little chat with Dad.

                                       ~

The next few hours seemed to take days. Tom did his best to act normal; showering to wash away the icky feel of the Death Sleep, joking around with Mom and Lorena, reading, playing video games. When his dad finally came home from work, Tom wanted to take him up to his room right that minute and spill the whole story. He couldn't do this alone anymore. He needed support, and Hana was just too far away.

But Tom had to wait even longer because, after dinner, Dad challenged him to a game of chess, which he usually loved, but tonight seemed to drag on longer than ever before. To liven things up, he put down the Fool's mate tactic, at which his dad had a fit, demanding a challenge. He held in a snicker as his dad lost the challenge and had to pull out the well-learned tactic, losing his turn. He still won by six to five points.

Finally, as they were cleaning up the game, Tom managed to casually ask his dad to come up to his room for a minute.

"What's going on, son?" His dad asked, sitting on Tom's bed, one leg folded up under the other. "You have been acting a little strange lately."

Tom paused, running through the decision in his head one last time. This was it, no turning back. He couldn't tell his dad about everything tonight and then say he was kidding tomorrow.

All or nothing, now or never.

He chose all and now.

"Dad, there's a good reason I've been acting so crazy." Tom leaned down and pulled out his Dairy of Mysterious Clues from underneath the bed, where he'd stowed it away that morning. "Remember that letter I got a few weeks ago? The one from Alsace."

"Yeah, let me guess—it wasn't from a nice penpal buddy?"

"No, it was from a stranger, saying he was going to send me a bunch of clues in the hopes I could figure out something important that could end up saving a bunch of people." He paused, expecting his dad to say something, but he only got a blank look. He was ready to hear more. "At first, I thought it was a joke, but then strange things began to happen—like the crazy gnomes—and I began to receive the clues. I've met some very interesting people, and I believe it's true, Dad. I know it's true."

Tom expected a laugh, a chastisement, a lecture on not playing make-believe when you're fifteen years old. But his heart lifted at his dad's next words.

"Tell me everything, from the beginning."

And Tom did.

                                          ~

It took thirty minutes, and Tom showed his dad every page and note of his diary, hiding nothing, repeating every word he could remember of his conversations with Silver Head and Machina. He said it all, and when he finished, he felt like three loads of concrete had been lifted from his chest.

His dad held the diary in his hands, staring at the front cover for a long minute. Tom waited anxiously, hoping with all his heart that his dad would believe him and offer help.

"Tom, you're my son, and I love you more than any important thing in this world. This family is the only thing in the universe I give a crying hoot about, and I'd do anything for any one of you guys. But I needed some time to digest this, okay?"

Tom nodded.

  "I'm going to take your diary. I'm going to study it tonight. And I'm going to think long and hard about everything you've told me. Tomorrow night, we'll meet here again, right at this same very spot. And if anything weird or dangerous happens, you find me, you call me, whatever you have to do. Deal?"

"Deal. Just let me copy down the fourth clue so I can work on it while you have my book."

When he had finished, the two hugged, his dad left the room, and Tom fell asleep with no problem at all.

                                           ~

The next night, Tom sat at his desk in the soft golden glow of his table lamp, studying the fourth clue he'd scribbled on a piece of paper, waiting for his dad to come. Something about this riddle made him think it wasn't as hard as it first seemed, and he read it again, thinking carefully about each word.

The place is for you to determine and can be your town. I only ask that the name of the place begin with a letter coming after A and before Z but nowhere in between. You are allowed to have as many people around you as you like, as long as they're dead by the time you say the word related to Open Sesame. But, by the teleporter, make sure you're not dead. Of course, that would truly throw a wrinkle in our plans.

Tom closed his eyes and thought. It really came down to two hints: the letter the place begins with and the thing about dead people. The word that kept popping into his mind when he thought about the letter was cemetery. It matched the clue perfectly—a lot of people would be there, and they'd all be dead. The way M.S. worded it made it sound like Tom would have to kill people or something, but obviously he didn't mean that, it was just a clever twist of language. The place where he was supposed to go on August the sixth had to be a cemetery.

And yet, what about the letter it begins with? After A and before Z, but nowhere in between...

  "Son?"