Mr. Linden's Library

OK, there are going to be more of these, so I've put a link over on the right to help keep us straight.

            Archie took the turn way too fast. He would’ve rolled across the intersection if he hadn’t been driving the Ferrari Mars Beam IV. But he was, so he didn’t. The six tires screamed in protest, but they kept their grip on the asphalt as Archie flew around the corner onto Elm Street.

            “WEEEEEEE!” Abby navigated. Foreign Espionage Day had been a huge hit at school that day. Hundreds of bad guys had been dispatched with excessive panache. A surfeit of explosions and witticisms had saved the world half a dozen times by lunch and the universe once before the final bell rang.

            Archie slammed on the brakes. The screeching sound was deafening, as it usually is when you go from six hundred kilometers an hour to zero in just ten meters. He crunched into reverse, backing up ten meters into the immense cloud of smoke that was still pouring off the burning rubber that used to be tires.

            “WHOA! Are the Russians tracking us?” Abby tried to pierce the haze with her x-ray glasses. Her British accent was terrible.

            “No, we lost them when we jumped the submarine,” Archie said in a surprisingly convincing Scottish accent. “Mr. Linden’s door is open.” The rubber fog parted enough for Abby to see straight up the walkway to Mr. Linden’s house. Sure enough, the door was hanging wide open.

            “What should we do?” Abby’s accent did nothing to disguise the quaver of fear in her voice. Archie opened his door, grabbed his sword from behind his seat and stepped out of the Mars Beam IV.

“We need to close that door, lass,” his accent was thick. “We need to keep the neighborhood safe.” Abby bounced out of the sleek sports car. She waited for Archie to come around to her side then grasped his free hand in hers. Together, they stepped onto the sidewalk.

The library had only one door. It was a huge oaken thing and it was never open. An intricately ironclad doorbell was embedded in the wall next to the door, but no one ever rang it.  A plaque that read “Mr. Linden’s Library” rested just above the doorbell.

Even on Halloween, especially on Halloween, no one went to Mr. Linden’s door. Rumor had it that the house used to eat kids. Archie and Abby hoped that the building had kicked the habit as they approached.

On either side of the walkway lay a chasm thousands of meters deep. Archie paused to kick a pebble over the edge. He watched it fall, thinking about Mr. Linden. No one had ever seen him, but it was well known that he was a warlock of the highest order. While other buildings might be struck by lightning from the sky, Mr. Linden’s Library was the only one to strike the sky with lightning. Archie never heard the pebble land.

Abby kept advancing toward the waiting mouth of the house. She could hear it breathing, but the rhythm was steady, suggesting it was asleep. She took the three steps up to the porch on tiptoe. Standing before the threshold, she made no move to close the door. There was a book just inside the doorway on the floor.

“Quickly, m’dear, we must forever lock away the horrors of the warlock’s lair!” Archie’s Scottish pierced the air. Abby bent to the book, but just before her fingers touched the evergreen cover, Archie shouted, “Touch nothing the library offers. It is cursed!”

Wordless, Abby grabbed the book and stood. With a single bound over an alligator and a crocodile, Archie landed on the porch. He poked the book with his sword, twice. The book did not show its teeth. Archie shrugged and turned to the open entrance.

The door was open just wide enough that Archie could not reach the knob without putting a foot inside. He was loath to do so, but there was no other option. Foreign operatives must not hesitate to do what is necessary to protect the Motherland.

“Return the book to whence it came,” he advised his sister. Abby clutched it to her chest with both hands.

“No, it has magical powers. I might need it to help me with my homework,” she replied.

“Books are dangerous. Trust me, lass, you’re better off with a highball,” Archie’s accent seemed to have a life of it’s own. “But I can see you’ll not be swayed. I can only hope the words in that book have as little power as my own.”

“Close the door, and let’s get out of here,” Abby’s accent had completely abandoned her. She stepped off the porch and headed down the walkway, making sure to stay in the center, well away from the sheer drop on either side.

“Aye, lass,” Archie said. He planted his right foot just outside the doorway and extended his left as far as he could before gently setting his toes onto the wooden floor. He felt warmth emanating up through his shoe.

He gently shifted his balance into the house as he reached for the doorknob. It was icy cold. He tried to jerk the door shut, but his foot was in the way. He couldn’t lift it. He began to turn to Abby to ask for help, but his hand wouldn’t let go of the knob.

“Uh, Abby? I think I’m stuck?” Archie’s accent was gone.

“Who’s Abby? I’m Double Dip Daisy,” Abby’s accent was back, but confused, almost Irish.

“Get over here and help me, Double Dip Daisy. My hand is turning blue.” It was true. Archie’s hand was a pale sapphire color.

“You can call me Triple D, if you want,” Abby babbled. “Just don’t call me late to dinner.” She held the book in one hand and reached the other one out to Archie. He clung to it.

“Ok, uh, pull!” Together the Burdicks pulled. Archie didn’t budge. If anything, his hand on the doorknob felt even colder and his foot inside felt even hotter. “Use both hands! PULL!”

Abby grabbed Archie’s free hand with both of hers without putting the book down. As soon as the green book came in contact with Archie, he came free. Abby and Archie went tumbling down the porch steps. The door slammed shut with a resounding THWUMP.

Archie and Abby made eye contact then scrambled to their feet. They took off running, leaving the Mars Beam IV in the middle of the street.

That afternoon Double Dip Daisy rode a huge white dog while Archie faced off against a pair of extra womanly sphinxes. They also tamed a young sasquatch before dinner was called. Their father demonstrated his Molecular Pie Coalescinator and their mother made him clean up the mess.

            They plodded up the stairs together. It occurred to Archie that he hadn’t seen the book since they had escaped the library.

“Hey, what happened to that book from Mr. Linden’s?” asked Archie before he went into his room.

“It’s in my room. Why?” Abby stood with her hand on the doorknob.

“Don’t read it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Bad feeling,” Archie shrugged.

“OK. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” Archie went into his room, Abby to hers. She didn’t want to argue with her brother, but she had every intention of at least seeing what the book was about. No need to worry him though.

Abby changed into her pajamas, turned on her bedside lamp, and slid under the covers. The green book looked innocent enough. She flipped through it, stopping randomly in the middle.

At a glance, everything appeared normal. Then Abby noticed that not all the words were in English. Some looked like Spanish, but most of them were indecipherable. There was no way she would be able to read it, so she began to close the book. That’s when the words began to move.

Abby’s eyes widened. She waited, hoping they would arrange themselves in a way that she could read them. Her brain felt like it was moving around in her skull. She felt dizzy. Her eyelids grew heavy.

Maybe this was why Archie didn’t want her to read the book. He had warned her about the book. Now it was too late. Abby’s eyelids drooped shut and she lost consciousness.

Thin green tendrils grew from the crease of the open book. Leaves sprouted on the squirming stems. They spread in all directions, slowly at first, but rapidly picked up speed. A white lotus flower popped up in full bloom.

As the plant grew to the size of a lazy cat lying in the sun, other things began to emerge. A pair of caterpillars inched off toward the foot of the bed. Three roly poly bugs rolled off the sheet straight to the floor. The sound of wings purred in the air as several hummingbirds thrummed out.

A glowing seedpod bounced out and under the bed. The pages of the book rustled faintly then spit out a double-headed snake with four-inch fangs. First one skinny leg poked out and then another, followed by an explosion of pink. The flamingo gracefully stepped away. The animals kept coming as if they were finally free from being cooped up in Noah’s Ark.

Sounds were emanating from the book. The chirrup of jungle bugs, the distant crashing of waves, the crackle of someone tuning a radio. A car horn blared over the background of whales singing while a lion roared its displeasure at a beeping alarm clock.

Archie burst through the door just in time to see an elephant’s trunk exploring its way out of the book. His jaw rested on the floor while he watched a toad jump out of the end of the trunk and land on the floor with a SPLOP.

Unsure of what to do, Archie picked up the bottom of his mouth and held it closed. He took a step toward the bed and froze when he saw his sister.

All he could see of Abby were her bulbous pink toes protruding from the mussed covers (probably thanks to a beaver that was rolling around), and a fluff of blonde hair. A mass a writhing green vines wrapped the rest of her body in a pulsing cocoon.

Archie rushed out of the room, making sure to close the door behind him. Seconds later he crashed back in. He was wearing a dusty brown cowboy hat and held a whip in one hand. In the other gleamed a machete.

He cracked the whip several times on his way to the bed to keep the hyenas at bay. With a short hop, he was on the bed and began hacking away at the plant. White lotus petals flew through the air as he chopped entire vines away. Thick green arms reached out for his arm, but Archie was too fast. Sap splayed off his well-honed blade.

Abby’s head was free in moments. Archie kicked the piles of inert plant mass into the void of the book’s open crease. The tome was bigger than Archie remembered it being.

A condor chick fluffed itself up when the beaver looked to defend its newfound territory. The ruffled feathers tickled Abby’s toes and her eyes snapped open.

“Archie, I’m sorry! I read the book. I tried—”

“No time, we have to get everything back into the book!” He cracked the whip in the face of an upset looking jaguar. Abby pried the rest of the plant off of her legs and scrabbled to her knees. She yanked a crab off of the lampshade, tossed it into the book-pit and took up the lamp in both hands.

Together, Archie and Abby corralled, prodded, carried, and chased the various creatures back into the book. A strange beast with tentacles like a squid and beak like a duck clung to the ceiling. Abby stood on Archie’s back while he bent over on the bed. A few whacks with the lamp on its giant snail-like shell finally knocked it free.

Whooping came from the closet. A troop of macaques spilled out when Abby opened the door. She and Archie wrestled them into the book and swept the roly polys up. As they did, a beam of light blasted up from the book. Steam flowed up. They could hear a train whistle in the distance. It sounded like it was coming closer.

They quickly scanned the room. It was clear. No, not quite.

“Abby, the toad!” It squatted, apparently content, in the corner. She dropped the lamp and ran over, picked it up and screamed. The amphibian dropped back to the floor.

“It peed on me! Ewww!” Abby wiped her hands on her pajamas in disgust.

“Abby, hurry!” The whistle shrieked its imminent approach. The light beamed a growing circle on the ceiling.

She bent over, grasped the slimy toad in both hands and chucked it to Archie. A trail of water (hopefully) traced its path through the air. With a whack of the flat of the machete blade, Archie knocked it into the spotlight.

As soon as it disappeared into the hollow of the book, Archie flicked the cover shut. Abby rushed over and placed the lamp on top of the book. The split second after, the book jumped violently into the air, shaking as if in anger. The lamp bounced onto the messy bed and the book fell to the floor.

“We need to put that where no one else can try to read it,” Abby said, eyes wide.

“We’ll bury it, right now,” Archie nodded. Abby got down on her knees and carefully picked up the book. She spied the seedpod that had bounced out earlier. It still glowed faintly. “We’ll bury that, too.”

“Yeah, no way I’m opening the book to put it back in,” Abby agreed.

The pair wasted no time. They went downstairs and out the backdoor and started digging. Ten minutes of work yielded a hole that they decided was deep enough. Abby carefully placed the book on the bottom of the pit, making certain that it didn’t open even the slightest bit. The luminous seedpod followed, albeit with less ceremony.

Five minutes later the hole was filled back in and the siblings returned to the house.

 “Well, goodnight. Again. You ready for Monster Day tomorrow?”

“Oh, you bet.”