The Trap & Knowledge I Should Keep From Your Mother

*** continued from previous post ***


As I look around the interior I realize this may be a hologram.

Beyond the slate-tiled entry is a small room doubling as registration / gift shop. Beyond that another room with comfy chairs and bookshelves. The rest of the Lodge is hidden from our view. From what we can see, however, the exterior motif continues to the interior. Very woodsy. Very outdoorsy. Very parallel-universey. Very Canadian.

Before you can say "The Right Honourable Stephan Harper", a small woman with short, dark hair and a semi-hippy casual look about her springs forth from the woodwork - for I have no idea where else she could have been hiding, possibly another dimension entirely - and rushes to our side.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaims, takes a good look at us, and adds a troublesome, "Urk!", to the end of her sentence. "You made it!"

That's curious . . . she seems overjoyed that we are alive. Mom and I exchange blank looks. This is not the greeting we were expecting. It carried so much more concern than we are accustomed to from the hospitality industry in our country of origin. I immediately became suspicious. What's your game Innkeeper?

"Yes," Mom agrees, but casts a slightly scornful glance my way. "We made it."

"We were all so worried! We were getting ready to send a couple of cars out to look for you!"
"Really?" I ask, with true surprise.

"Oh yes . . . we've been waiting for you all day. On your reservation you said you would be arriving in the early afternoon. And then it got later and later and darker and darker and we didn't know which direction you had come in although since you're riding a motorcycle I assume you came up from Highway 40 . . . well, let's just say that this isn't the area you want to be riding a motorcycle in after dark!"

Concern shone in her eyes and relief poured from her body. And this wasn't fake 'how is your day going?' concern. This concern was genuine. Real.

This emotion, coming from someone we had just met, was disquieting to say the least. What fresh insanity was this? My mind worked like a jack-hammer. It was a trap. No human was this friendly. It had finally happened. They were going to kill us. Or quite possibly they were on drugs. In which case I hoped they would share. And was I imagining it or . . . did I detect a slight Nordic accent? I cast a sly eye about for Viking paraphernalia.

Through the addled oatmeal that was my brain, the phrase 'which direction you came in' stuck in my mind like a stubborn raisin on a spoon fourth time through the dishwasher. What craziness was she on about? There was more than one way into this fourth circle of Hell? And more importantly if this was true how could I keep this knowledge from your Mother?

*** the journey continues ***