Based on characters from Fablehaven© by Brandon Mull. The original characters and plot details are my property. No copyright infringement intended.
The next summer after Seth turned sixteen, he was constantly going on treasure hunts using his Shadow skills. His reputation of being able to unlock almost any lock spread fast so as he got older he was getting more and more 'work'. He had even learned how to open some spell held locks if, that is, they were done by a magician or an inexperienced or poor wizard. Expertly done lock spells were still beyond him.
Along with the sanctuary sponsored hunts, the people within the sanctuary system knew of his talents and they and their relatives sometimes called him for help. Occasionally his other talent of speaking to ghosts and getting them to do what he wanted gained him work. Speaking to ghosts had its benefits but breaking into things was the real money maker.
His clues were few but Bracken had told him that Shadow Charmers used their minds to disengage locks. So when he first learned he had the mental capability to break into locks it became his main focus. Since he loved getting into things he wasn't supposed to get into he set about learning how to do it. He learned that it wasn't as easy as it looked and as with everything to do with his Shadow skills, it had a price.
One morning, two years earlier, he sat on the floor of his attic room with an old padlock from his school locker in his hand. He had forgotten the combination and couldn't use it any more. He was unsure why he had kept it. He looked at it, hefted it and looked at it again. He sat there staring at it long enough that his mind went blank as he gazed at the lock. Slowly the mechanism appeared as a puzzle in his mind. He could slip in and out of the recesses that he pictured. He figured out the puzzle and manipulated the moveable parts and when he heard an audible click, he snapped back suddenly aware of his surroundings.
"Whoa, that was cool," he said out loud to himself. He looked at the padlock, it sat unlatched in his hand.
"Seth it's time for lunch," his mother called from the stairway.
He looked up at the clock. He had been sitting there for three hours. He started to get up and found he was weak, sweaty and his legs were asleep.
"I'll need practice doing this but now that I've done it once it should be easier," he told himself as he eased himself up from the floor his legs tingling as the blood rushed back into them.
"Ouch! Crud!" he cried and stood still as the painful pins and needles part of re-awakening legs hit him.
After eating a huge lunch, he tried again and opened the same padlock in less than a minute. His third try on the same lock he opened it almost instantly.
He was disappointed when later that afternoon he tried to open a keyed padlock that had been sitting in the kitchen junk drawer. He looked up when the lock sat unlatched in his hand and saw that almost two hours had passed. He was disillusioned. It took him almost as long to open it as the first lock. He was happy he was lying on his bed this time so his legs hadn't fallen asleep. He tried again and he was able to open it almost instantly. That evening he was again very hungry and ate a huge supper.
The next morning, he gathered up several padlocks, combination and keyed, that were stored in the pantry. He concealed them in his pockets. He told his mother that he was studying and didn't want to be disturbed until lunch. She looked at him suspiciously; at fourteen he usually didn't volunteer to study.
"Shadow stuff," he said innocently, knowing that it would keep her away from his room. He didn't want her to know he was learning how to break into things so he didn't want her sneaking in to see what he was doing. This was a shadow skill but not what she was thinking which suited him just fine.
"Oh right," she nodded that made more sense. She didn't like what he could do but she understood that it was something he needed to study and control. It was a dangerous talent and he needed to develop his skills. She was more comfortable with him studying protected in his securely warded room.
He was ready for a marathon of lock picking when he took the five locks into his room and closed the door.
He held the first padlock in his hand and cleared his mind. The lock's combination was so blatantly clear that he popped it open instantly. The next one was the same. He found that these new locks were so similar to the others he had opened he was done with each one in seconds. He was pleased that he had the technique down.
Now that he had with nothing to do his big mouth had basically exiled himself to his room for four hours, he sat on his bed trying to figure out what he would do now. He looked around the room for something else to unlock and saw the rocking horse shoved against the far wall. It had a small lock on it. Then he remembered the locked jewelry box on the bookshelf and the lock on the bedroom door. These had different locking mechanisms than the padlocks.
"I guess since there is nothing else to do," he sighed. He got up and sat next to the rocking horse. A few minutes later the little hatch in the belly of the horse popped open. It was still empty. He clicked the hatch closed and by design, it relocked.
He wondered if he could relock the ones that didn't automatically re-latch like the padlocks and the rocking horse and sat on the floor in front of his bedroom door.
He stared at the lock, cleared his mind and slowly the puzzle appeared there. It was a very different sort of puzzle and intrigued Seth with its complexity.
The trouble with this puzzle was there were multiple ways the pieces could move around where with the other locks there was only one. He struggled with the concept, was he going to grab, push or pull the pieces? He realized that the puzzle pieces he had pictured were the actual lock pins.
Once he discovered the way to move them where did they need to go? His manipulations revealed a faint telltale sign that let him know where the open position was for each pin and he finally was able to open and close the lock.
He was excited that he could lock or unlock the door. Now he could unlock something and lock it back, hopefully undetected. He was happily moving the pins around when he heard his name. Suddenly yanked back to the physical world he was sitting on the floor staring at the door and the door knob was shaking violently.
"Seth, unlock this door! I've been calling you for ten minutes, it's time for lunch," his mother yelled, irritated.
"Okay," he answered and the door went silent.
He closed his eyes saw the pin that was in the wrong position and unlocked the door. He stood up wobbly relieved his legs hadn't gone to sleep from sitting still for almost four hours. He sighed, but sweat covered his entire body saturating his clothes. He wiped sweat from his face with his wet shirt sleeve.
"Sorry mom, I was really concentrating," he apologized as he opened the door. He ran his fingers through his wet hair. He felt like he had taken a shower in his clothes.
"What are you doing in there?" she asked looking around the room.
"You don't want to know," he said mysteriously, knowing she didn't like him to talk about what he did.
"You are probably right. Come on down and eat," she said and walked away. She hadn't notice that he was standing there drenched in sweat.
"I'll be right down," he said. He knew he couldn't go down like he was. His hair was actually dripping wet. He quickly grabbed a change of clothes and rushed down the stairs to the bathroom. He shoved his wet clothes into the hamper and rubbed a towel over his still damp body before he changed clothes.
At lunch, he ate like a starving man and he was so thirsty he drained his glass twice and still asked for more water. He had no idea he had used up so much energy. The use of his skill had an effect on his body he hadn't expected.
The next time he tried a door lock it was much easier. He began trying his skill in various places and was pleased with his success. After practicing a while he was able to open a lock from another room – if he knew exactly where the lock was. He also noticed that he tended to feel hungrier and thirstier after each use of his skill.
Now, two years later, he used his skill with confidence and less energy. Still he always carried protein bars and lots of water with him to replace the energy it took.
He normally cleared the non-Sanctuary 'jobs' with his dad and grandfather to make sure it was a legitimate 'treasure hunt' not a theft. He would retrieve the item or items, deliver them to his client and claim any other treasure or collect the reward. He shared the proceeds with his sometime partners, the satyrs' Newel and Doren. He made a pretty good profit.
His biggest paydays were usually rewards for finding missing or stolen Sanctuary items and occasionally a magical individual.
He surprised his mother when he stashed some of the cash away in a bank account. He did spend some though. He bought a big pickup truck with room for his partners Newel and Doren inside the cab. They, on the other hand, spent their earnings on a larger big screen TV, a solar powered refrigerator and cases of snacks.
He could now drive himself around the country in style. He looked rather ridiculous running around with two goats, which is what Doren and Newel looked like to normal humans. Seth was very self-assured and never let it bother him though. He barely noticed the strange stares and shaking heads as he continually talked to his 'goats' like they were human. No one really noticed that the baaing was the 'goats' actually answering back.
Doren and Newel enjoyed their occasional treasure hunts with Seth, when they weren't dangerous, of course. They were notorious cowards and extremely lazy. At first Seth could get them to do pretty much anything for Ding Dongs and Doritos.
They had finally gotten over their initial idea of living off the preserve when they understood that many people ate goats… regularly. They realized they ran a real risk of being someone's lunch.
Now that they had their own money and could buy all the snacks they wanted, they passed on more and more hunts and Seth found himself alone. He complained to Kendra, Raxtus and Bracken that he needed a reliable partner.
Occasionally Seth would discover small stashes of scrolls, books and/or magic items along with his treasure. Seth brought all such information and artifacts home or got someone to come out and gather it if he thought it was really dangerous. Wiser people needed to go through the really scary stuff. But he only ran into scary magical stuff a few times and by watching them, he learned how to handle magical items safely.
In mid-winter, Seth received a strange commission for a treasure hunt. It was quite an interesting proposition. All of the non-magical treasure, gems, gold and silver he had to give to his client but not the magical items. All magical items, even if gold and jewel encrusted, were Seth's to keep. He was very curious about what he would find, if anything.
He accepted the commission with the stipulation that he couldn't go until March. He had to abide by the school calendar even though he thought it was silly, since he was home schooled. He had to wait until Spring break to go on the hunt. They accepted his offer and sent him the map to the New Mexico desert sight. Stan and Seth's dad Scott approved the desert treasure hunt.
When the day arrived for him to travel south for the exploration, Doren and Newel declined the job. They weren't interested in going to New Mexico with him. They said the arid air dried out their hooves. They had just had another one of their arguments so Seth thought it was the three days stuck in the truck cab with each other that was the problem. But it could have just as easily been the Gilligan's Island marathon they were watching. Either way he was on his own – again.
His drive to New Mexico was uneventful. Because he didn't have to deal with finding accommodations that would accept two pet 'goats' his normal choice of motels was widely expanded to include hotels. He enjoyed his evenings with good meals and a cleaner room with a view.
The third evening he filled his cooler with ice and food and bought ten gallons of water preparing for the next day when he expected to arrive at his destination.
Early the next morning he arrived at the dirt track shown on the map and turned onto it. He opened the rickety barbed-wire fence gate and drove through. The map's instructions read that he didn't have to reclose the gate until he had completed his time at the location.
Setting his odometer to travel exactly ten miles, he followed the eroded trail into a rocky barren area before heading due west into the desert. In the distance he saw a looming mesa. As he neared the cliff face, it looked dark and unwelcoming. He could feel the fear and dread long before he reached the cliff face. Although the fear didn't affect him he knew the effects were there. The dreadful emanations were strong enough to run all creatures away there was no wildlife nearby.
He brought his truck to a stop outside a deteriorating house made of wood and adobe built into the cliff wall. The locked front door held no challenge as he easily unlocked it with a quick thought. He pulled the door open and it almost fell off its own hinges. The wooden door had dry-rotted and was crumbling into sawdust.
He made his way through the maze of rooms through many locked doors. Following the direction toward the strongest emanations of fear he found a poorly hidden secret door, behind it he found a cave. No other human except a shadow charmer, even if they had a very potent bravery potion, could have made it this far. They would have collapsed in terror long before reaching the cave entrance. He could tell that it had gotten much worse as he ventured deeper into the house.