"Unwanted Magic" 5

The Mom and Dad peddled the tandem bike over the bridge, pulling the wagon behind them with their son, Joey, and the magical dog inside it. Once they crossed over the bridge the gates closed and locked barring their return. Ahead of them, the landscape didn’t look welcoming.

Large multicolored boulders each fifteen feet in height lined the land as far as the eye could see.

“Where are we now?” The mom asked, taking a fortifying sip of coffee from her ever filling thermos.

Flint stared at the daunting formations. “It’s a rock maze,” he informed her.

“A maze?” The dad repeated.

“Yes, a maze,” Flint repeated, “You have to enter it, navigate its broken paths and find your way to the exit.”

“That sounds tedious; can’t we just go around it?” The mom asked.

Flint shook off his irritation at her question along with an annoying flea and explained. “There are no shortcuts; no way around those boulders. The only way out is through the maze.”

“It’ll be okay mom,” Joey told her, “We'll get through it, just like those mazes in the magazine of puzzles you buy for me. It’ll be easy.”

The mom, Jane, wasn’t sure it'd be easy but wouldn’t deter her son’s confidence. “Okay if you think we can; we can. Where do we enter?” she asked the dog.

“Hold on a minute,” The dad, Jack, spoke up, “what if we get lost in it? Are there are any rules we need to know before we enter and what if there’s a time limit; is there a time limit?” The dad turned sharp, questioning eyes on the dog. He'd learned the hard way what it meant not to have all the rules up front in a magical adventure.

Flint wolf-grinned. “Ah yes, the rules,” he nodded, “Let’s see what those might be.”  He turned to the boulder before them with a laser focused stare and soon, words appeared upon it.

Enter here if you dare
Entrance will disappear
Choose wise your steps within these walls
Pitfalls await a hesitant gait
Tick tock the clock
The hour drains
Step out before the striking
Before
The avalanche ensues 

 

“It’s not a very good rhyme; it doesn’t even rhyme,” the mom critiqued.

“Avalanche ensues?” The dad read the words aloud like a chilling question. He didn’t care about the rhythm structure of it; he was concerned about the warning.  

“I’d say that’s a definite pitfall,” Flint told him.

The dad gave Flint a look of disbelief. “Are you kidding me?"

"I rarely kid," Flint admitted, scratching behind his ear and thinking he may have chosen this form in haste.

'I’m not risking my family; we’re not going in there!” The dad declared.

Flint gave a wide, bored, wolf yawn. “There's no turning back; you’ll need to complete this to move on.”

"Not happening," the dad said crossing his shortened arms.

Joey tapped his finger on the dog's back and Flint turned to the boy. "You have a question?"

"Yes," Joey nodded, “What does it mean by Avalanche?”

“It means we’re not going in there,” his dad reiterated, giving the dog a mutinous look.

Flint ignored the dad and placed a paw on the boy’s shoulder; he gave a little paw-pat for courage and said, “It’s nothing to worry about if you're able to get thorough the maze…in an hour.”

“But…what if I can’t?”

“Then you worry,” Flint said simply, “Now let’s go; the entrance is-”

“Stop!” The mom commanded and slid off the bicycle to confront the dog, “This is ridiculous; we need your assurance that nothing will happen to us in there if we fail.”

“Wasting time,” Flint admonished her but her no-nonsense mom expression didn’t change; it told Flint she wasn’t going to budge. He gave her an exasperated woof and answered. “Okay, how about...if you don’t get through the maze in one hour, you can demand a restart?"

“A restart?” she repeating, thinking it sounded like a fair option.

“And how many times can we do that?” The dad questioned, wanting full disclosure from this magical dog who'd taught him a lesson on that iceberg, to never to take anything unsaid for granted.

“How many would you like?” Flint asked in a sarcastic-growl.

“Infinite.” The dad responded with a superior smile on his child sized, adult face.

“Then you’re willing to live here forever?” Flint asked with a calculated glee in his eyes.

The dad’s eye’s widened in late understanding of what he’d asked for. He was quick to retract it. “No…that’s not what I meant...I-” The dad’s words stopped as he tried to get down from the bicycle to confront the dog, but his pant leg had gotten caught in the chain; he was stuck.

“I can make it infinite.” Flint agreed in a threatening growl.

“No! No I don’t want that,” The dad yelled, still trying unsuccessfully to get his pant leg out of the chain.

“I have an idea,” Joey said to them, but his dad was focused on the fabric caught in the chain and now his mom was trying to help him get unstuck, so neither of them heard their son.

Flint looked at the boy with interest.  “And what would that idea be?”

“To have three chances and if we can’t find our way out of the maze, the adventure just ends. I don’t get to see Erifsnogard and we get to go back home. Can I do that?”

“That’s no fun,” grumble-growled Flint.

“I don’t want to hurt my family just to meet a dragon,” Joey insisted.

Flint gave the boy a head tilted look and considered his love for his parents, and his request. “Fine; I will grant you three chances and if you fail, the adventure ends.”

A loud ripping sound was heard as the mom freed the dad's pant leg but she'd heard Flint’s agreement with Joey’s request and decided it was good enough for her.

“Okay then, let’s go,” she said getting back on the front bicycle seat and peddling off before anyone replied.

The unstuck dad with the torn to the knee jeans was not so ready to agree. “Wait,” he called out from the back seat. He'd wanted to say that no one had addressed the time limit. Did they have to complete the three tries in an hour? And if not completed in that hour, was an avalanche still possible? But it was too late to question it; they’d just passed the boulder.

The entrance disappeared behind them and the ticking of a clock echoed off the rocks, giving the dad his answer.

The time limit was still in play and the dad was pretty sure...so was the avalanche.