I’ve been playing with a new YA novel, perhaps a series, if it’s of interest to anyone.

Doorknobs & Boomsticks
A Tale of Perceptions

Chapter 1: Red Light, Tweed Man, and a Doctor’s Bag

Tink was unique.

Not in the “everyone is unique” way you hear from parents and teachers. 

No. 

Tink, all of 12 years of age, red curls and freckles, bookish, and clever, was unique in that of all the times on this planet; of all the parallel worlds of Earth, she and only she was the ‘Tink’ that existed.

You might think that’s impressive. You might think that’s expected. 

You might even think that’s sad.

You definitely wouldn’t think it was dangerous.
Tink didn’t think about it at all.

Instead, she was twisted under the sheets with a silver flashlight balanced in the crook of her neck reading her favourite book.

“Yes!” she said triumphantly and then bit her lip. While she occupied the only room in the attic, the old house’s registers echoed her voice downstairs even as they blew heat up, and she didn’t need her parents marching upstairs to tell her “After ten is lights out!” again. 

But, still, the diode called her name. She knew if she used it with her latest invention it would-

Her thoughts were cut short by buzzing static from the radio set on her desk. Leaping gingerly to her feet, she thrilled at the icy chill of the creaky wooden boards. Scooching on to her chair, she depressed the microphone transmit button. 

“Tink?” the voice wafted from the ether.

“Jack? I thought you forgot!” Tink whispered harshly. 

“Sorry… I was out late at Scouts…” 

“My parents’ll kill me if they think I’m still up.”

A hesitation before Jack continued, “Dad and I worked on the Cub Car in the Hall. He wanted to paint it like Black Beauty”.

“The horse?”

“Green Hornet’s car…” Jack West’s voice was followed by a tinny sigh. 

“Don’t worry about that now.” Tink said. “We need to go scrounging!”

Jack was all business. “What d’ya need?”

Tink snagged the copy of The Boy’s First Book of Radio and Electronics from her bed and rifled through the pages. “I need a ‘Germanium diode’…”

“What’s it look-”

Suddenly, the bedroom door wrenched open in a shriek of hinges. Standing akimbo in tight curlers and a flowing pink dressing gown, was the furious form of her mother.

Like an angry boulder picking up steam rolling down a hill, each word threatened to bowl over Tink.

“Theodora. Eunice. Masterson!” 

Now Tink Masterson had a problem with being startled. It always seemed to render her near mute. It was like her brain was firing in all possible ways to discern the nature of a threat and what she could do. It paralyzed her throat worst of all. Try as she might she couldn’t get the barest of excuses out when she was truly frightened or shocked. Tongue as thick as lead. Throat as dry as sandpaper. She stared helplessly at her mother for a moment.

The curlers raised up like hackles on Mrs. Violet Masterson’s head.

“Do you know what time it is?!”

“I should be in bed.” She finally croaked. As angry as moms can get, they were a ‘known threat’. 

Tink choked out her response in the microphone as much for Jack’s benefit as her mother’s and leaped from the desk back under the sheets. Her mattress wailed and she tossed the covers over her like a shroud. Only her panting under them identified that she was still wide awake. 

“Darn TOOTIN’ you need to be in bed! You’ve got school tomorrow, young lady!”

Her mother pointed one perfectly manicured fingernail towards the firefly glow under the blankets, and as if reading her mind, Tink clicked the flashlight off.

Violet’s stark frown melted. “Tinkerbell…” she began. 

With a crack, a flap of blankets folded over. Tink’s face screwed up in disgust. 

“You know I hate that name.”

“Oh, I know. Tinkerer…” Violet chuckled and folded the blanket with military efficiency. She touched her daughter’s nose playfully.

“Jack should be asleep too, you know.” 

“He called me. Late from some… Boy Scout meeting.” Tink’s eyes rolled disapprovingly.

Violet nodded and glided off the bed. “Now-now, everyone is  different, you know.” 

She paused, tapped her fingers on her chin. “Yes, his father adores scouting…” She paused. “If only your own father took such an interest in the community.”

“Dad says being a comptroller is all the community time he can stand.”

Violet smoothed her pink nightgown. Nimble steps stopped by the doorframe. She hesitated again before turning off the overhead light.

“Good night…my Tinkerbell…” Violet twisted her lips in a private smile.

Hidden in the shadows, Tink’s sigh connected to another eye roll. “Night”

She waited until the door clicked shut and her mother’s slippers shuffled down the curved stairs before pulling her arms out from the tautly tucked blankets. The flashlight flicked on and off in her hand, halos marking the ceiling in thought.

She frowned, blinking. A ruddy glow spoiled the darkness at the end of her bed. Propped up on one elbow, Tink spied the closet next to her bedroom door hum in a growing scarlet pulse. The odd light made her bolt upright in bed.

The light hummed, rattling the closet door once, twice, and then it flung open in a sunburst of light radiating inwards. 

She held her hand up to shadow her eyes from the brilliant flashing but as suddenly as it had invaded her room, the blinding light winked out, and her room returned to Stygian darkness. She heard her Mickey Mouse clock tick in the silence. Panting and shaking, Tink realized dumbly that her hand still gripped her flashlight. 

A trembling flick of its switch and she sent the feeble beam in the direction of the closet. 

The beam ran down the foot of her bed and flashed into the eyes of a stranger blinking back at her.

Tink  nearly dropped the flashlight.

Before her, clutching on the footboard of her bed for balance, crouched a strange looking man in a tweed vest with a matching tweed-fabric bowler’s cap. 

Both Tink and the man stared at each other by the weak illumination of the flashlight, panting almost in time together. Still unable to speak, Tink took in everything of the scene in slow motion. 

He was rotund in shape, about her father’s age. He seemed to be balding under his hat and in his vest pocket was a gold chain which led to what looked to be an antique pocket watch. On the floor beside him was a leather case that looked much like a doctor’s bag. It listed to the side spilling some of the contents. The man saw Tink’s eyes roam across it and he stumbled to his knees and wheezed out a single word, hands trembling to right the doctor’s bag and contents.

“Please…” His voice wavered.

Frozen voice or not, Tink sprang into action. The man was obviously as out of place in the world as he was in her room. She padded across the floor, flashlight in hand and tried to steady him. Her hand gripped his elbow. He wore a white shirt with frilled cuffs like a pirate of old, and she noticed with horror a darkened stain along the front of his vest. She started to whisper words of concern, when she saw him pick up one of the fallen items of the bag. He held it out to her, and she shook her head as if he were offering a gift.

“No.” He said, coughing wetly. “Th-they’re coming…”

In his palm was the oddest thing.. He held an antique glass doorknob. The facets sparkled catching the light. The man struggled to his feet and wheeled a little drunkenly holding the bag and himself up leaning against the wall between both her closet and the door downstairs.

“Who… Who are you?” Tink whispered. 

Her bedroom smelled of ozone, like lightning after a summer night’s storm. Releasing his arm, Tink flicked on the bedroom wall light switch.

Eyes closed trying to regain his strength, the man held one hand against his vest. The dark red patch now dabbed into his white shirt. He looked once back to the closet door and pushed it shut protectively. He turned back to Tink’s other door in thought. She thought he meant to leave down the stairs and turned the knob, opening the door a couple of inches. Bloodied fingers slammed it shut again, and Tink’s eyes grew wide as he leaned against her weakly. She tried to protest but he squeezed the glass doorknob in her hand and pressed it tightly against the bedroom door, just between two hinges.

“They’re coming…” He croaked again and turned the doorknob with Tink’s hand. It chunked, fastened to the wood, and smoothly turned some hidden mechanism. Impossibly, the door opened hinges-first towards Tink. A ray of bright red light exploded from the door frame like sunrise at dawn.

“Ah!” Tink said, finally swallowing down her thick tongue. The light seared her eyes. She turned to face the man, light shadowing her form where the stairs should lead down to her parents.

“Please. Keep this.” The man said. Tink recognized a thick German accent in his voice just as he thrust the doctor’s bag into her arms, against her chest and shoved her hard through the portal of light. 

“I’m sorry…” She heard him call from a distance as she fell into the copper-coloured brilliance. 

All at once, the portal winked out, like an eye blinking shut.

And for Tink, all went black as she fell hard into the darkness.