Chapter 3: Blackton
Artemis carefully tore open the end of the blue envelope and tapped the contents out into his hand. He was right about what he had seen inside, there was a cream colored ticket that read, “Claim Check,” with the number #117 stamped on the end. Around the claim check was a piece of paper that Artemis recognized as coming from the pad that his Uncle Zachary kept in the drawer of his nightstand. He unfolded the note and read it softly to himself.
Dear Artemis,
If you are reading this it is because I have been called away on a journey that is not without danger. My failure to return home means that I will most likely never see you again. I apologize for the way in which I introduced you to the Continuum but I have no doubts that you will live up to your promise to keep the events of tonight a secret.
I realize that I have no right to ask anything more of you and given your reaction to what has happened I would not blame you if you refused. But I must ask you to do one favor for me. Please take this claim check to the address on the back. Ask for Mr. Cruft. He is an old friend of mine, a longtime member of The Guild who has traveled many times himself. He will know what to do. I wouldn’t ask this of you Artemis if it were not of the utmost importance.
You may have lost your trust in me Artemis and for all that I have done I am truly sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
Your friend for all time,
Uncle Zachary
Artemis turned the claim check ticket over in his hand and read the words on the back:
Cruft’s Curiosities
Items bought, sold and traded.
We specialize in the unusual.
6543 Murton St.
Suite 700
Blackton
He held the ticket in one hand as he slid the note back into its envelope. Artemis began to cry. Dark blue splotches formed where his tears fell on the envelope. He slumped down, feeling as if someone had just punched him hard in the stomach and he had trouble catching his breath. He reached up and closed the lid of the trunk and then lay his head on top and felt the rough wood against his wet cheek.
Over the past twelve months he worked so hard at keeping up hope of Uncle Zachary’s return. He had gone so far as to make a promise to himself that if Uncle Zachary didn’t come home then he would go and find him when he was old enough. He wanted to tell him how sorry he was for what had happened and how it was all his fault that he and Father had gotten into a fight. But now it looked as if he would never get the chance. The worst had come true and he would never see his uncle again.
Artemis could hear footsteps in the hall. Mother was coming. He jumped up and turned toward the window, wiping the tears away with his sleeve and quickly jammed the ticket into his pocket.
“I thought I heard someone in here,” his mother said. “Happy Birthday Artemis!” She walked across the rug and gave him a hug. “Artemis? Have you been crying?” she asked. “Oh Artemis, you still haven’t gotten over your uncle’s leaving have you.” Mother turned him around to face her and brushed his hair off his face. “I’m sorry that you miss him so Artemis, I truly am. You know what I thought about your uncle, you know how much his behavior concerned me, the strange way he acted. I won’t deny it, he worried me, especially being around you so much. It didn’t break my heart to see him go. But I also know how you felt about him and I’m sorry to see you hurt so.”
She may have understood how badly he missed Uncle Zachary, but she had no idea about what had happened the night he left, about the experience he had at the kitchen table and the way his uncle made him promise not to tell anyone about the Continuum. His finger moved nervously along the perforated edge of the claim check ticket thrust deep in his pocket.
“Do you think Grandpa might take me over to Blackton today?” he asked his mother. “I’d like to check out the bookstore. I know Grandma and Grandpa will be giving me some money for my birthday and I won’t have a chance to get there again ‘til spring and...”
“I don’t know Artemis, that’s kind of an all day affair and I’m pretty sure he had plans today, he...” Mother must have recognized the disappointment written all over his face. It didn’t hurt that his eyes were still red from crying. “Well, let me see what what I can do. It is your birthday after all. Besides you know as well as I do that under Grandpa’s gruff exterior is a man who adores his grandson.” Mother smiled and brushed her hand across his cheek wiping away the moist trail left from a tear. “We all do you know.” Now it looked like she was about to cry. but she caught herself and said, “But if you do go you be sure and be back by dinnertime. You know I’ll have a cake ready tonight just the way the birthday boy ordered. Chocolate cake with purple frosting if I recall correctly? And if you’re not here to explain that combination to your Father he’ll think I’ve lost my mind.” They both laughed at that and Mother went to convince Grandpa to get out the car.
As it turned out Grandpa was only too happy to drive over to Blackton. He needed a part to fix the transmission on “Thelma” the old tractor he kept in the shed out back and he thought the hardware store in Blackton might have what he needed.
Grandpa had been a miner in Blackton, back in the old days when times were good. Blackton was across the valley and as he drove the winding hillside roads he told Artemis how the town came to be.
“Blackton was a coal mining town Artemis,” Grandpa said. “As rough and tumble a place as any you’d ever find. It was a heckuva place in its heyday. Had the first streetlights of any town in these hills and the only skyscraper around. All seven stories,” he laughed. “The whole place was built by the coal company of course. The workers lived in company houses and shopped at company stores. Not much choice.” Grandpa gripped the wheel tighter, “Coal mining is a hard and dirty occupation you know, and the mine’s a dangerous place too.”
“In the morning we’d all grab our lunch buckets and head down to the platform at the mouth of the mine. A loud whistle would blow calling all the men to the entrance of the mine’s elevator. The men would fall into line and step into the elevator’s big cage one by one. When you heard the cage door slam shut you knew the last man had come on. The cage would give a bounce and shudder as the gears of the elevator engaged. We were lowered into the mine’s main shaft, a pitch black ride down into what seemed like a bottomless pit. It was a nerve wracking trip that usually took place in complete silence. We all knew that once you went down into the mine you were there until the shift ended, at the mercy of the coal companies one elevator.
“When the cage hit bottom we’d all walk out with our kerosene lanterns in hand and head out for whatever part of the mine we was supposed to be working that day. There was one main shaft going down into the ground but once you reached the receiving room at the bottom, where the elevator set down, tunnels spread out in all different directions. There were so many tunnels and chambers, all twisting this way and that, why a fella’d get lost if he wasn’t clipped on to the rope that led back to the main room. It was your lifeline I guess you could say and the one time I lost the connection to that lifeline it gave me quite a fright I don’t mind sayin”
“I had been working down below for quite awhile and thought I knew the layout pretty well, until the one time I went to tug on my rope tether and found it had come untied sometime during my shift. That meant I wasn’t connected to the main line anymore. I didn’t panic. I was young and cocky and sure I could find my way back. Well let me tell you, it wasn’t long before I found out that I had no idea how to get back. I roamed around down there for what seemed like hours. My lantern was running low on kerosene and I knew if I lost my light I’d be done. Things were getting bleak and I started thinking about what your Grandma would do if I left her a widow. Now I was starting to panic. Right about then I came around a bend in the tunnel and stumbled into a huge chamber. It was so big my weak lantern couldn’t light the whole place up enough to see it all. It must have been a cave of some sort that the mine had run into because we miners never would have cut a space out like that one. I saw something kind of shiny in the distant gloom and tried to make my over to investigate. I wondered if I could have found gold down there. That’s when I reckon I slipped and hit my head. All I remember seeing after that was a flash of blue light and then, bingo. Nothing. Must have blacked out. After that I guess I wandered around in a daze. Luckily, you’re looking at a man with a natural born sense of direction, because I somehow managed to get myself back in a part of the mine I had been working in the week before. That’s when good ol’ Red stumbled across me. I had passed out again and was laying in a heap. I never could recall how I got there but I sure didn’t want to say anything especially the part about my not tying my tether tight enough, didn’t want to risk losing my job, so I kept the whole affair to myself. I never even told Red the whole story but that’s how we became such good friends.”
“By the end of a shift all the men would be exhausted, completely worn out from digging and loading the carts they used to move the coal. Another whistle down below would sound and we’d all head back to the cage again for the ride up top. Our mood was alway better going back to the surface even if every one of us was as filthy black as the rock we’d been digging.”
“Of course the equipment used to run the mine’s machinery did its part to turn everything black. It burned coal naturally and it belched out huge plumes of smoke that made the entire town sooty and dark. That’s how the town got its name, Blackton. Funny thing was, come sunset, the sky would often turn a fiery red because of all the dirt and soot the mines threw into the air. Sometimes I thought it looked beautiful. Other times I thought the sky turned red out of anger for what we was doing to it.”
Hearing about the sky turning red like that reminded Artemis of the mammoth story his uncle told him. He looked down at the dragon’s tooth hanging from the cord around his neck. He had dug it out from its hiding spot at the back of his dresser drawer and decided to wear it now on this trip to Blackton. It seemed right somehow wearing the necklace that Uncle Zachary had given him last year as he did this last favor for him.
“Us men alway made a good living working the mines so we put up with the filth and all, as bad as it was. But, nothing lasts forever, and eventually the vein of coal that ran through the hills of Blackton gave out. The coal company that built the town pulled out and with no jobs so did most everybody else. Almost overnight Blackton became a ghost town. But not everybody left. The company sold off some of the houses and the stores. They had no more use for them. So some people who had put down roots decided to buy ‘em up, to stay behind and try to eke out a living on their own. Red was one of those folks of course.” He owned the hardware store that they were headed to.
“Hope we can find a good parking spot, this being Saturday morning and all,” Grandpa said. This was a joke of course. There were rarely more than two cars parked on Main St in Blackton on any given day, Saturday or not. Grandpa parked the car and before he could get out the door Red was on his way to the front of the store. The few shoppers the store ever got meant that Red was constantly in the crow’s nest for the slightest hint of a customer. “Well now I wonder if they’ll have that part I need for old Thelma.” Artemis could see the look of anticipation on Grandpa’s face. He sprang out of the driver’s seat like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Grandpa,” Artemis asked. “Can we go look at the shop across the street first?”
“Across the street. Well I uh...” Red had now come bursting through the front door of the store and was waving Grandpa in like he was guiding a plane down on to a carrier’s runway. “I can go over there myself if you like. I don’t mind. Really. No problem,” Artemis told Grandpa what he was hoping to hear.
“Well, ok then. I mean if you don’t want me to go with you. I’ll go with you if you need me to.” Grandpa was drifting toward the door. Any closer and he would be captured by Red’s gravitational field.
“No Grandpa. Besides you’d be bored. I’ll come back over here and meet you when I’m done.”
“Alright. But be careful. Watch the traffic crossing the street.” Another joke. The only other car in sight was in the parking lot out back. It was Red’s. With Grandpa firmly tied down by his old miner pal, Artemis knew that he would have all the time he needed to find Cruft’s place.
He headed across the street and watched as Grandpa and Red went to the back of the store. He knew he was now safely out of Grandpa’s sight. He walked down to the next block and began to look for a street sign hoping to find Murton. But then it dawned on him that he had no need for street signs. Suite 700 meant the seventh floor and as Grandpa had said there was only one building in all of Blackton that tall. He swung around and surveyed the landscape. There it was, at the edge of town, Blackton’s only “skyscraper”.
Artemis walked quickly toward the building both because he was keen to see what the claim ticket was all about and because he didn’t want to be away too long even though he figured Grandpa would be busy for hours.
It had been a long time since the big coal company left town but the evidence of Blackton’s past remained. The buildings all wore a thick layer of dark grey soot and even though it was sunny today, a rarity this time of year, the town was still a bleak looking place. Many of the stores in town were boarded up and abandoned due to a lack of business. There were vacant lots in between many of the buildings. They had become a dumping ground and were piled high with cinders and ash. The streets had been paved with leftovers from the mine and they kicked up dark clouds of dust when you walked across them. Even weeds had a hard time sprouting up from the cracks in the sidewalks and the few that did make it were coated with grit.
Artemis had broken out in a trot now and arrived in front of the building sooner than he had anticipated. The “skyscraper” may have been the crowning glory of Blackton once but now it was as run down as everything else in town. It was a square, red brick building with peaked towers that jutted up into the sky at its four corners. The roof was a greenish-grey slate, the trim painted to match. Around the front doors were decorative panels. They had some type of figures that reminded Artemis of mermaids carved into them and sets of wavy lines. It was an imposing structure and must have been the coal company’s headquarters. He tried to read the letters carved into the panel above the front door but it was too hard to make them out from where he stood. All he could read was “MER” at the beginning and “Co.” at the end. all the others faded away into a black mush.
He didn’t see a single person anywhere. The building appeared to be totally deserted. An old newspaper blew by in a grey swirl as Artemis walked up to the doors in front of the building and gave one a sharp tug. It was locked. So was the other. “Now what am I supposed to do?” he thought. He walked around the side of the building and next to a huge pile of black cinders, all the way toward the back, he noticed a door with a small sign next to it. He made his way back to the door to read the sign, his fingers crossed, hoping this wouldn’t be it. No such luck. “Cruft’s Curiousities,” read the handwritten sign. “It figures,” he thought. It had an arrow drawn under the letters pointing upward at an angle. Unlike the doors at the front of the building this door had a round knob that at some point had been mashed flat in front and it drooped downward. He hadn’t noticed it at first, probably due to the fact that the door was covered with so many layers of soot and grime like everything else in this filthy place, but the door was covered with all kinds of strange symbols like hieroglyphs. He tried to get a closer look but when bent forward he accidentally touched the door. It left him wearing a nice black dot on the end of his nose.
Artemis grabbed the knob and gave the door a shove. To his amazement it flew open and banged hard against the wall inside. He stepped through the doorway and saw that he was in a small vestibule at the base of a staircase. It was hard to see after being outside in the sun, there was so little light here. There was no elevator to take him up to the seventh floor. It was the stairs or nothing. He left the door standing wide open to help light the way and began to make his trek up the staircase. Without thinking he put a hand out to grab the railing. He immediately felt how gritty it was and even in this weak light he could see that he now had a blackened his palm to match the end of his nose. He tried without much success to wipe the black smudge off on his pant leg as he tilted his head back and looked upward. The only light available was whatever sunlight had managed to struggle down through the dusty atmosphere from the skylight above. Seven stories of stairs was no problem for Artemis. Being raised in the Highlands meant climbing up and down any time you went anywhere. When he reached the top of the staircase he glanced over his shoulder. He was much closer to the skylight now and the sunlight was stronger. For the second time today he saw specs of dust floating in the air and he thought about Uncle Zachary’s parallel worlds. He wondered if there could actually be such a thing and if any of them had a boy named Artemis living there.
There was a single door at the top of the stairs with “Cruft’s Curiosities” lettered in gold. Artemis ran his hand along its surface. It appeared to have some of the same symbols carved into it as the door at the bottom of the stairs although it was hard to tell because the door had a heavy layer of paint on it that was cracked and peeling. There wasn’t a sound coming from the other side. He stood alone in silence at the top of the stairs. He had the idea that it might make sense to take the ticket out of his pocket, to have it ready as soon as he went through the door. It was probably best to deliver it to Mr. Cruft as quickly as he could and get back to Grandpa. “After all,” he thought, “I don’t want him to worry.” He looked down at the motto printed on the back of the ticket, “We specialize in the unusual.” His head still down, Artemis reached out a nervous hand, slowly pushed the door open and walked in.
Artemis looked up to his left and immediately jumped backward in shock. He stumbled over his own feet and fell back against the door shutting it tight. The latch clicked. He slid down the wall to the floor his eyes glued on the figure of a man who loomed over him his hand reaching out to grab hold. It was an embalmed corpse, wrapped in natron scented linen. He recognized it immediately. Standing over Artemis, ready to pounce, was a six foot tall Egyptian mummy.
Chapter 4: The Curious Mr. Cruft
“I see you’ve met Amunhotep.” Artemis heard a thin reedy voice from across the room. He could feel his face turning red with embarrassment as he sat on the floor. The mummy that nearly scared him out of his socks was a only a display piece.
He rubbed the back of his head where it had bumped the door as he fell noticing at the same time that the shop had that old musty smell just like Uncle Zachary’s trunk did. When he looked around Artemis could see why. Like the old trunk Cruft’s was jammed with all kinds of odd, old junk. It was like he had sat himself down into the middle of the trunk’s big brother. Once his eyes got past the mummy he could see row after row of dusty boxes and beat up crates stacked on the floor creating a maze-like pathway through the shop. They in turn had stacks upon them of large old books and papers and antique objects. There was an old dented helmet atop one box and some kind of animal horn that had been polished and mounted into a gold colored holder. Artemis thought it looked like something a Viking king might have used to drink from. The walls were lined with shelves crammed to overflowing. He spotted an old box camera with a broken lens and some dirty paintbrushes, a near empty wine bottle with a broken cork stopper, a tall skinny black typewriter with some of its ivory keys missing and a half finished page of yellowed writing paper sticking out the top, a row of brownish colored skulls that appeared to be human except that they were much, much too small. There was an odd looking rifle with a wooden stock. It had multiple ribbed, brass tubes running down its length that had turned green with age and a woven strap that was moth eaten and frayed. He saw a pair of snowshoes lashed together with a red cord resting against an old console radio.
Artemis took in rows of glass jars on one side of the room whose contents floated about in various colored liquids. There was something that looked like an oversized frog except that it had large fins sticking up. It stared blankly out into the room through pale, bugged out eyes. Another jar contained something purple and hairy. A third would let out a blurping sound from time to time as if it contained a living creature. On the other side of the room hung a sword that looked to be of middle eastern origin, like one he would imagine Ali Baba would have seen swung at him by one of the forty thieves and above that someone’s idea of a dragon’s head, mounted as if it were a big game hunter’s prize trophy. There were piles and stacks and collections of bits and pieces in every direction. The entire room was as disorganized as one could possibly imagine. If a giant’s hand would have taken up the entire shop and given it a good shake it couldn’t have been more in disarray. And woven throughout the entire mess were dozens and dozens of books and charts and maps. Artemis couldn’t help but think his uncle would have loved this place and were he to ever hire an interior decorator this is what he would want the end result to look like.
But the most interesting part of the whole room, the crown on this chaotic pile of clutter, was the ceiling, in the middle of which was a skylight very similar to one Artemis had seen in the stairwell. Surrounding it was a map of some type which had been painted on the ceiling with a luminescent paint so that it glowed. Artemis had seen many maps over the years but he had never seen anything like this one. There were arcs and circles and dotted lines that flew haphazardly off in every direction and he recognized none of what he assumed were the masses of land represented on its surface. Hanging directly underneath the map, colored by its glow, was a large, red, tentacled beast that he knew from his uncle’s stories had to be the legendary Kraken, the giant squid-like creature that ripped apart ships and ate their crews.
All in all this was the most exotic and unusual collection of the bizarre and wonderful that he had ever imagined could possibly be assembled together in one spot.
Artemis now moved his gaze toward the end of the room. Standing behind a long dark counter was a short, squat looking man. He held a cane in one hand that had a round knob on the top and a small knife in the other. On the counter in front of him was a tray and to the side was one of those large jars like the ones on the shelf. It had some pale round objects floating in a greenish fluid in it. “Are you Mr. Cruft?” Artemis asked, his voice cracking just a bit.
“I might be... and then again, I might not. It really doesn’t matter you see because its Saturday and we’re closed. So please leave. And be sure to close the door behind you on your way out,” the reedy voice said.
Artemis couldn’t make out the features of the man across the room because he stood in front of a window which blocked out the light keeping him cloaked in shadow. But Artemis could see the silhouette of the man’s fingers rolling the knife back and forth.
He cleared his throat and said, “I have something here that I am to give to Mr. Cruft.” He was standing by this time and held up his hand. “My uncle sent me.”
“I don’t care if you were sent by the Queen of Sheba herself, boy. I told you we’re closed.” The man leaned the cane against the counter. He began to scrape the nails of his right hand with the blade he held in the left.
“All I want to do is give this to Mr. Cruft. I promised to deliver this for my uncle, Uncle Zachary,” Artemis replied. “If you’re not him then just tell me and...”
“Did you say Zachary, boy? Zachary who?” The thin voice had become stronger.
“Brazewell. Zachary Brazewell. He’s my uncle.”
“Come here boy. Step over to me, into the light.” The man had stopped cleaning his nails now and gripped the knife tightly.
Artemis wondered if the room was suddenly getting warmer. He broke out in a sweat. He swallowed hard, stood up as straight as he could, pulled on the bottom of the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing, (it had gotten very twisted when he fell), and began to make his way through the maze of boxes to the counter ahead. As he got closer he could see that there was a plate on the tray in front of the man. He could also smell an obnoxious odor coming from the open jar with the whitish balls floating inside.
As Artemis drew nearer the counter he could see the man much more clearly. He was small and kind of hunched over. He had beady eyes and wore glasses with little rectangular, blue lenses. His nose was rather flat and looked as if it may have been broken sometime in the past. Long sideburns descended from his black cap and ran almost to his chin. His lips were thin, his mouth like a quick slash across his face. He was wearing a dark green silk jacket with gold dragons embroidered on the front. Artemis was now standing directly in front of the man.
“You say your Zachary Brazewell’s nephew, now, do you?” said the man and the corners of his mouth began to turn up at the ends into a crooked smile as his eyes flashed. He grabbed the knife with his left hand as he reached into the jar on the counter with his right. His stubby fingers reached into the cold soup of floating white orbs. He fished one out and set it dripping on the plate. Artemis wondered what on earth the man was going to do with it.
“You’re Mr. Cruft then? Artemis asked, sounding as tough as his nerves would let him.
“Oh yes my boy,” he replied with a grin, “that I am.” Mandalious P. Cruft. He grabbed the knife in his left hand, raised it in the air and struck.
Artemis carefully tore open the end of the blue envelope and tapped the contents out into his hand. He was right about what he had seen inside, there was a cream colored ticket that read, “Claim Check,” with the number #117 stamped on the end. Around the claim check was a piece of paper that Artemis recognized as coming from the pad that his Uncle Zachary kept in the drawer of his nightstand. He unfolded the note and read it softly to himself.
Dear Artemis,
If you are reading this it is because I have been called away on a journey that is not without danger. My failure to return home means that I will most likely never see you again. I apologize for the way in which I introduced you to the Continuum but I have no doubts that you will live up to your promise to keep the events of tonight a secret.
I realize that I have no right to ask anything more of you and given your reaction to what has happened I would not blame you if you refused. But I must ask you to do one favor for me. Please take this claim check to the address on the back. Ask for Mr. Cruft. He is an old friend of mine, a longtime member of The Guild who has traveled many times himself. He will know what to do. I wouldn’t ask this of you Artemis if it were not of the utmost importance.
You may have lost your trust in me Artemis and for all that I have done I am truly sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
Your friend for all time,
Uncle Zachary
Artemis turned the claim check ticket over in his hand and read the words on the back:
Cruft’s Curiosities
Items bought, sold and traded.
We specialize in the unusual.
6543 Murton St.
Suite 700
Blackton
He held the ticket in one hand as he slid the note back into its envelope. Artemis began to cry. Dark blue splotches formed where his tears fell on the envelope. He slumped down, feeling as if someone had just punched him hard in the stomach and he had trouble catching his breath. He reached up and closed the lid of the trunk and then lay his head on top and felt the rough wood against his wet cheek.
Over the past twelve months he worked so hard at keeping up hope of Uncle Zachary’s return. He had gone so far as to make a promise to himself that if Uncle Zachary didn’t come home then he would go and find him when he was old enough. He wanted to tell him how sorry he was for what had happened and how it was all his fault that he and Father had gotten into a fight. But now it looked as if he would never get the chance. The worst had come true and he would never see his uncle again.
Artemis could hear footsteps in the hall. Mother was coming. He jumped up and turned toward the window, wiping the tears away with his sleeve and quickly jammed the ticket into his pocket.
“I thought I heard someone in here,” his mother said. “Happy Birthday Artemis!” She walked across the rug and gave him a hug. “Artemis? Have you been crying?” she asked. “Oh Artemis, you still haven’t gotten over your uncle’s leaving have you.” Mother turned him around to face her and brushed his hair off his face. “I’m sorry that you miss him so Artemis, I truly am. You know what I thought about your uncle, you know how much his behavior concerned me, the strange way he acted. I won’t deny it, he worried me, especially being around you so much. It didn’t break my heart to see him go. But I also know how you felt about him and I’m sorry to see you hurt so.”
She may have understood how badly he missed Uncle Zachary, but she had no idea about what had happened the night he left, about the experience he had at the kitchen table and the way his uncle made him promise not to tell anyone about the Continuum. His finger moved nervously along the perforated edge of the claim check ticket thrust deep in his pocket.
“Do you think Grandpa might take me over to Blackton today?” he asked his mother. “I’d like to check out the bookstore. I know Grandma and Grandpa will be giving me some money for my birthday and I won’t have a chance to get there again ‘til spring and...”
“I don’t know Artemis, that’s kind of an all day affair and I’m pretty sure he had plans today, he...” Mother must have recognized the disappointment written all over his face. It didn’t hurt that his eyes were still red from crying. “Well, let me see what what I can do. It is your birthday after all. Besides you know as well as I do that under Grandpa’s gruff exterior is a man who adores his grandson.” Mother smiled and brushed her hand across his cheek wiping away the moist trail left from a tear. “We all do you know.” Now it looked like she was about to cry. but she caught herself and said, “But if you do go you be sure and be back by dinnertime. You know I’ll have a cake ready tonight just the way the birthday boy ordered. Chocolate cake with purple frosting if I recall correctly? And if you’re not here to explain that combination to your Father he’ll think I’ve lost my mind.” They both laughed at that and Mother went to convince Grandpa to get out the car.
As it turned out Grandpa was only too happy to drive over to Blackton. He needed a part to fix the transmission on “Thelma” the old tractor he kept in the shed out back and he thought the hardware store in Blackton might have what he needed.
Grandpa had been a miner in Blackton, back in the old days when times were good. Blackton was across the valley and as he drove the winding hillside roads he told Artemis how the town came to be.
“Blackton was a coal mining town Artemis,” Grandpa said. “As rough and tumble a place as any you’d ever find. It was a heckuva place in its heyday. Had the first streetlights of any town in these hills and the only skyscraper around. All seven stories,” he laughed. “The whole place was built by the coal company of course. The workers lived in company houses and shopped at company stores. Not much choice.” Grandpa gripped the wheel tighter, “Coal mining is a hard and dirty occupation you know, and the mine’s a dangerous place too.”
“In the morning we’d all grab our lunch buckets and head down to the platform at the mouth of the mine. A loud whistle would blow calling all the men to the entrance of the mine’s elevator. The men would fall into line and step into the elevator’s big cage one by one. When you heard the cage door slam shut you knew the last man had come on. The cage would give a bounce and shudder as the gears of the elevator engaged. We were lowered into the mine’s main shaft, a pitch black ride down into what seemed like a bottomless pit. It was a nerve wracking trip that usually took place in complete silence. We all knew that once you went down into the mine you were there until the shift ended, at the mercy of the coal companies one elevator.
“When the cage hit bottom we’d all walk out with our kerosene lanterns in hand and head out for whatever part of the mine we was supposed to be working that day. There was one main shaft going down into the ground but once you reached the receiving room at the bottom, where the elevator set down, tunnels spread out in all different directions. There were so many tunnels and chambers, all twisting this way and that, why a fella’d get lost if he wasn’t clipped on to the rope that led back to the main room. It was your lifeline I guess you could say and the one time I lost the connection to that lifeline it gave me quite a fright I don’t mind sayin”
“I had been working down below for quite awhile and thought I knew the layout pretty well, until the one time I went to tug on my rope tether and found it had come untied sometime during my shift. That meant I wasn’t connected to the main line anymore. I didn’t panic. I was young and cocky and sure I could find my way back. Well let me tell you, it wasn’t long before I found out that I had no idea how to get back. I roamed around down there for what seemed like hours. My lantern was running low on kerosene and I knew if I lost my light I’d be done. Things were getting bleak and I started thinking about what your Grandma would do if I left her a widow. Now I was starting to panic. Right about then I came around a bend in the tunnel and stumbled into a huge chamber. It was so big my weak lantern couldn’t light the whole place up enough to see it all. It must have been a cave of some sort that the mine had run into because we miners never would have cut a space out like that one. I saw something kind of shiny in the distant gloom and tried to make my over to investigate. I wondered if I could have found gold down there. That’s when I reckon I slipped and hit my head. All I remember seeing after that was a flash of blue light and then, bingo. Nothing. Must have blacked out. After that I guess I wandered around in a daze. Luckily, you’re looking at a man with a natural born sense of direction, because I somehow managed to get myself back in a part of the mine I had been working in the week before. That’s when good ol’ Red stumbled across me. I had passed out again and was laying in a heap. I never could recall how I got there but I sure didn’t want to say anything especially the part about my not tying my tether tight enough, didn’t want to risk losing my job, so I kept the whole affair to myself. I never even told Red the whole story but that’s how we became such good friends.”
“By the end of a shift all the men would be exhausted, completely worn out from digging and loading the carts they used to move the coal. Another whistle down below would sound and we’d all head back to the cage again for the ride up top. Our mood was alway better going back to the surface even if every one of us was as filthy black as the rock we’d been digging.”
“Of course the equipment used to run the mine’s machinery did its part to turn everything black. It burned coal naturally and it belched out huge plumes of smoke that made the entire town sooty and dark. That’s how the town got its name, Blackton. Funny thing was, come sunset, the sky would often turn a fiery red because of all the dirt and soot the mines threw into the air. Sometimes I thought it looked beautiful. Other times I thought the sky turned red out of anger for what we was doing to it.”
Hearing about the sky turning red like that reminded Artemis of the mammoth story his uncle told him. He looked down at the dragon’s tooth hanging from the cord around his neck. He had dug it out from its hiding spot at the back of his dresser drawer and decided to wear it now on this trip to Blackton. It seemed right somehow wearing the necklace that Uncle Zachary had given him last year as he did this last favor for him.
“Us men alway made a good living working the mines so we put up with the filth and all, as bad as it was. But, nothing lasts forever, and eventually the vein of coal that ran through the hills of Blackton gave out. The coal company that built the town pulled out and with no jobs so did most everybody else. Almost overnight Blackton became a ghost town. But not everybody left. The company sold off some of the houses and the stores. They had no more use for them. So some people who had put down roots decided to buy ‘em up, to stay behind and try to eke out a living on their own. Red was one of those folks of course.” He owned the hardware store that they were headed to.
“Hope we can find a good parking spot, this being Saturday morning and all,” Grandpa said. This was a joke of course. There were rarely more than two cars parked on Main St in Blackton on any given day, Saturday or not. Grandpa parked the car and before he could get out the door Red was on his way to the front of the store. The few shoppers the store ever got meant that Red was constantly in the crow’s nest for the slightest hint of a customer. “Well now I wonder if they’ll have that part I need for old Thelma.” Artemis could see the look of anticipation on Grandpa’s face. He sprang out of the driver’s seat like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Grandpa,” Artemis asked. “Can we go look at the shop across the street first?”
“Across the street. Well I uh...” Red had now come bursting through the front door of the store and was waving Grandpa in like he was guiding a plane down on to a carrier’s runway. “I can go over there myself if you like. I don’t mind. Really. No problem,” Artemis told Grandpa what he was hoping to hear.
“Well, ok then. I mean if you don’t want me to go with you. I’ll go with you if you need me to.” Grandpa was drifting toward the door. Any closer and he would be captured by Red’s gravitational field.
“No Grandpa. Besides you’d be bored. I’ll come back over here and meet you when I’m done.”
“Alright. But be careful. Watch the traffic crossing the street.” Another joke. The only other car in sight was in the parking lot out back. It was Red’s. With Grandpa firmly tied down by his old miner pal, Artemis knew that he would have all the time he needed to find Cruft’s place.
He headed across the street and watched as Grandpa and Red went to the back of the store. He knew he was now safely out of Grandpa’s sight. He walked down to the next block and began to look for a street sign hoping to find Murton. But then it dawned on him that he had no need for street signs. Suite 700 meant the seventh floor and as Grandpa had said there was only one building in all of Blackton that tall. He swung around and surveyed the landscape. There it was, at the edge of town, Blackton’s only “skyscraper”.
Artemis walked quickly toward the building both because he was keen to see what the claim ticket was all about and because he didn’t want to be away too long even though he figured Grandpa would be busy for hours.
It had been a long time since the big coal company left town but the evidence of Blackton’s past remained. The buildings all wore a thick layer of dark grey soot and even though it was sunny today, a rarity this time of year, the town was still a bleak looking place. Many of the stores in town were boarded up and abandoned due to a lack of business. There were vacant lots in between many of the buildings. They had become a dumping ground and were piled high with cinders and ash. The streets had been paved with leftovers from the mine and they kicked up dark clouds of dust when you walked across them. Even weeds had a hard time sprouting up from the cracks in the sidewalks and the few that did make it were coated with grit.
Artemis had broken out in a trot now and arrived in front of the building sooner than he had anticipated. The “skyscraper” may have been the crowning glory of Blackton once but now it was as run down as everything else in town. It was a square, red brick building with peaked towers that jutted up into the sky at its four corners. The roof was a greenish-grey slate, the trim painted to match. Around the front doors were decorative panels. They had some type of figures that reminded Artemis of mermaids carved into them and sets of wavy lines. It was an imposing structure and must have been the coal company’s headquarters. He tried to read the letters carved into the panel above the front door but it was too hard to make them out from where he stood. All he could read was “MER” at the beginning and “Co.” at the end. all the others faded away into a black mush.
He didn’t see a single person anywhere. The building appeared to be totally deserted. An old newspaper blew by in a grey swirl as Artemis walked up to the doors in front of the building and gave one a sharp tug. It was locked. So was the other. “Now what am I supposed to do?” he thought. He walked around the side of the building and next to a huge pile of black cinders, all the way toward the back, he noticed a door with a small sign next to it. He made his way back to the door to read the sign, his fingers crossed, hoping this wouldn’t be it. No such luck. “Cruft’s Curiousities,” read the handwritten sign. “It figures,” he thought. It had an arrow drawn under the letters pointing upward at an angle. Unlike the doors at the front of the building this door had a round knob that at some point had been mashed flat in front and it drooped downward. He hadn’t noticed it at first, probably due to the fact that the door was covered with so many layers of soot and grime like everything else in this filthy place, but the door was covered with all kinds of strange symbols like hieroglyphs. He tried to get a closer look but when bent forward he accidentally touched the door. It left him wearing a nice black dot on the end of his nose.
Artemis grabbed the knob and gave the door a shove. To his amazement it flew open and banged hard against the wall inside. He stepped through the doorway and saw that he was in a small vestibule at the base of a staircase. It was hard to see after being outside in the sun, there was so little light here. There was no elevator to take him up to the seventh floor. It was the stairs or nothing. He left the door standing wide open to help light the way and began to make his trek up the staircase. Without thinking he put a hand out to grab the railing. He immediately felt how gritty it was and even in this weak light he could see that he now had a blackened his palm to match the end of his nose. He tried without much success to wipe the black smudge off on his pant leg as he tilted his head back and looked upward. The only light available was whatever sunlight had managed to struggle down through the dusty atmosphere from the skylight above. Seven stories of stairs was no problem for Artemis. Being raised in the Highlands meant climbing up and down any time you went anywhere. When he reached the top of the staircase he glanced over his shoulder. He was much closer to the skylight now and the sunlight was stronger. For the second time today he saw specs of dust floating in the air and he thought about Uncle Zachary’s parallel worlds. He wondered if there could actually be such a thing and if any of them had a boy named Artemis living there.
There was a single door at the top of the stairs with “Cruft’s Curiosities” lettered in gold. Artemis ran his hand along its surface. It appeared to have some of the same symbols carved into it as the door at the bottom of the stairs although it was hard to tell because the door had a heavy layer of paint on it that was cracked and peeling. There wasn’t a sound coming from the other side. He stood alone in silence at the top of the stairs. He had the idea that it might make sense to take the ticket out of his pocket, to have it ready as soon as he went through the door. It was probably best to deliver it to Mr. Cruft as quickly as he could and get back to Grandpa. “After all,” he thought, “I don’t want him to worry.” He looked down at the motto printed on the back of the ticket, “We specialize in the unusual.” His head still down, Artemis reached out a nervous hand, slowly pushed the door open and walked in.
Artemis looked up to his left and immediately jumped backward in shock. He stumbled over his own feet and fell back against the door shutting it tight. The latch clicked. He slid down the wall to the floor his eyes glued on the figure of a man who loomed over him his hand reaching out to grab hold. It was an embalmed corpse, wrapped in natron scented linen. He recognized it immediately. Standing over Artemis, ready to pounce, was a six foot tall Egyptian mummy.
Chapter 4: The Curious Mr. Cruft
“I see you’ve met Amunhotep.” Artemis heard a thin reedy voice from across the room. He could feel his face turning red with embarrassment as he sat on the floor. The mummy that nearly scared him out of his socks was a only a display piece.
He rubbed the back of his head where it had bumped the door as he fell noticing at the same time that the shop had that old musty smell just like Uncle Zachary’s trunk did. When he looked around Artemis could see why. Like the old trunk Cruft’s was jammed with all kinds of odd, old junk. It was like he had sat himself down into the middle of the trunk’s big brother. Once his eyes got past the mummy he could see row after row of dusty boxes and beat up crates stacked on the floor creating a maze-like pathway through the shop. They in turn had stacks upon them of large old books and papers and antique objects. There was an old dented helmet atop one box and some kind of animal horn that had been polished and mounted into a gold colored holder. Artemis thought it looked like something a Viking king might have used to drink from. The walls were lined with shelves crammed to overflowing. He spotted an old box camera with a broken lens and some dirty paintbrushes, a near empty wine bottle with a broken cork stopper, a tall skinny black typewriter with some of its ivory keys missing and a half finished page of yellowed writing paper sticking out the top, a row of brownish colored skulls that appeared to be human except that they were much, much too small. There was an odd looking rifle with a wooden stock. It had multiple ribbed, brass tubes running down its length that had turned green with age and a woven strap that was moth eaten and frayed. He saw a pair of snowshoes lashed together with a red cord resting against an old console radio.
Artemis took in rows of glass jars on one side of the room whose contents floated about in various colored liquids. There was something that looked like an oversized frog except that it had large fins sticking up. It stared blankly out into the room through pale, bugged out eyes. Another jar contained something purple and hairy. A third would let out a blurping sound from time to time as if it contained a living creature. On the other side of the room hung a sword that looked to be of middle eastern origin, like one he would imagine Ali Baba would have seen swung at him by one of the forty thieves and above that someone’s idea of a dragon’s head, mounted as if it were a big game hunter’s prize trophy. There were piles and stacks and collections of bits and pieces in every direction. The entire room was as disorganized as one could possibly imagine. If a giant’s hand would have taken up the entire shop and given it a good shake it couldn’t have been more in disarray. And woven throughout the entire mess were dozens and dozens of books and charts and maps. Artemis couldn’t help but think his uncle would have loved this place and were he to ever hire an interior decorator this is what he would want the end result to look like.
But the most interesting part of the whole room, the crown on this chaotic pile of clutter, was the ceiling, in the middle of which was a skylight very similar to one Artemis had seen in the stairwell. Surrounding it was a map of some type which had been painted on the ceiling with a luminescent paint so that it glowed. Artemis had seen many maps over the years but he had never seen anything like this one. There were arcs and circles and dotted lines that flew haphazardly off in every direction and he recognized none of what he assumed were the masses of land represented on its surface. Hanging directly underneath the map, colored by its glow, was a large, red, tentacled beast that he knew from his uncle’s stories had to be the legendary Kraken, the giant squid-like creature that ripped apart ships and ate their crews.
All in all this was the most exotic and unusual collection of the bizarre and wonderful that he had ever imagined could possibly be assembled together in one spot.
Artemis now moved his gaze toward the end of the room. Standing behind a long dark counter was a short, squat looking man. He held a cane in one hand that had a round knob on the top and a small knife in the other. On the counter in front of him was a tray and to the side was one of those large jars like the ones on the shelf. It had some pale round objects floating in a greenish fluid in it. “Are you Mr. Cruft?” Artemis asked, his voice cracking just a bit.
“I might be... and then again, I might not. It really doesn’t matter you see because its Saturday and we’re closed. So please leave. And be sure to close the door behind you on your way out,” the reedy voice said.
Artemis couldn’t make out the features of the man across the room because he stood in front of a window which blocked out the light keeping him cloaked in shadow. But Artemis could see the silhouette of the man’s fingers rolling the knife back and forth.
He cleared his throat and said, “I have something here that I am to give to Mr. Cruft.” He was standing by this time and held up his hand. “My uncle sent me.”
“I don’t care if you were sent by the Queen of Sheba herself, boy. I told you we’re closed.” The man leaned the cane against the counter. He began to scrape the nails of his right hand with the blade he held in the left.
“All I want to do is give this to Mr. Cruft. I promised to deliver this for my uncle, Uncle Zachary,” Artemis replied. “If you’re not him then just tell me and...”
“Did you say Zachary, boy? Zachary who?” The thin voice had become stronger.
“Brazewell. Zachary Brazewell. He’s my uncle.”
“Come here boy. Step over to me, into the light.” The man had stopped cleaning his nails now and gripped the knife tightly.
Artemis wondered if the room was suddenly getting warmer. He broke out in a sweat. He swallowed hard, stood up as straight as he could, pulled on the bottom of the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing, (it had gotten very twisted when he fell), and began to make his way through the maze of boxes to the counter ahead. As he got closer he could see that there was a plate on the tray in front of the man. He could also smell an obnoxious odor coming from the open jar with the whitish balls floating inside.
As Artemis drew nearer the counter he could see the man much more clearly. He was small and kind of hunched over. He had beady eyes and wore glasses with little rectangular, blue lenses. His nose was rather flat and looked as if it may have been broken sometime in the past. Long sideburns descended from his black cap and ran almost to his chin. His lips were thin, his mouth like a quick slash across his face. He was wearing a dark green silk jacket with gold dragons embroidered on the front. Artemis was now standing directly in front of the man.
“You say your Zachary Brazewell’s nephew, now, do you?” said the man and the corners of his mouth began to turn up at the ends into a crooked smile as his eyes flashed. He grabbed the knife with his left hand as he reached into the jar on the counter with his right. His stubby fingers reached into the cold soup of floating white orbs. He fished one out and set it dripping on the plate. Artemis wondered what on earth the man was going to do with it.
“You’re Mr. Cruft then? Artemis asked, sounding as tough as his nerves would let him.
“Oh yes my boy,” he replied with a grin, “that I am.” Mandalious P. Cruft. He grabbed the knife in his left hand, raised it in the air and struck.