A Tangle of Secrets

by R. G. Thomas

  “When will you be home?” Teofil asked and nuzzled Thaddeus’s neck.

  “That tickles,” Thaddeus said as he pulled away. His laugh faded when he turned and saw Teofil’s serious expression. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Teofil looked away. He hesitated a moment, then shrugged before looking back at Thaddeus. “I guess I’m mad at myself for sitting up here reading these last few days when we didn’t have much time left to spend together.”

  Thaddeus frowned. “You make it sound so dire. I’m only going to school, Teofil. I’ll be home after three.”

  “It will seem like forever.”

  Teofil stepped close and kissed him. The resulting shiver that went through Thaddeus made him realize how much he’d missed spending time with Teofil. He returned the kiss, then stepped back. “I need to go.”

  “I hope it goes well,” Teofil said. “Are you nervous?”

  Thaddeus had been nervous, but Teofil’s kiss seemed to have smothered that feeling with a warm glow of satisfaction and love. “It comes and goes. I’ve done this a lot, so I think I’m prepared for it.” He hesitated before saying in a lowered voice, “But this time feels different than all the others.”

  Teofil nodded and took his hands again. “This time you’re starting school as a wizard.”

  “Yeah,” Thaddeus said with a nod. “It adds a different layer of… I don’t know…. Complexity, I guess? Another secret I have to keep from everyone. Not only am I gay, I can do magic too. And while it’s really awesome and I’m happy I know the truth about my heritage and have learned some amazing abilities, it also makes me even more of an outsider, you know?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Teofil replied. “I’ll be right here waiting for you to come home.”

  “Thaddeus!” Miriam’s loud voice echoed up the steps and into the library. “You must leave now!”

  They grinned at each other, and Teofil said, “I’ll be waiting, and so will my family.”

  “I see that,” Thaddeus replied and chuckled. He gave Teofil a final quick kiss before heading toward the door, calling over his shoulder, “Go downstairs and eat something, and then get some sleep.”

  “I will,” Teofil said.

  Thaddeus hurried down the steps to the first floor and wound his way around the children in the living room. He walked quickly past the older kids eating breakfast at the dining room table, through the kitchen where Miriam and Astrid, Teofil’s older sister, were finishing up breakfast and Rudyard, Teofil’s father, stood sipping tea from a mug.

  “See you all later!” Thaddeus said, and they wished him luck.

  He banged out the back door and trotted down the steps to the trampled-down grass. Grabbing his backpack off the ground, he took hold of his bike and headed toward the gate. It had closed behind him, and he smiled as he waved his hand while he ran. The warm flow of magic traveled through him, and the gate flung open. He’d been practicing different spells over the last couple of weeks and thought he was getting pretty good at a number of them.

  When he was out of the yard, Thaddeus jumped on his bike and pedaled around the corner of the fence. He flicked his fingers over his shoulder and heard the solid thump of the gate closing behind him. He rode down the driveway and into the street, aiming his bike toward Superstition High School and the start of his sophomore year.

  Chapter TWO

  SUPERSTITION HIGH was pretty much like every other school Thaddeus had attended. The same brick walls and tile floors. The same clamor of slamming lockers, mobile phone text message alerts, and shouted greetings and insults. His first day of school—be it at the beginning of the school year or somewhere in the middle—always started this same way. All over the country, kids were going through this same scenario. Yes, all of this looked and felt so very familiar to Thaddeus as he shouldered his way through the hallway crowded with strange faces conveying a mix of expressions. He could practically pick out the kids who would soon find a way to bully him. It was always the same old song and dance.

  The only thing different this time was him.

  His experiences over the summer had changed him. He felt it, and he knew his father had seen it in him as well. This year may be starting out like all the other years before it, but it was going to be very different. Thaddeus would see to that.

  A boy with wide shoulders stood in the middle of the hallway. Students flowed to either side of him like water around an immovable stone. The boy was handsome with short blond hair, blue eyes, and a big, bright smile. A tight-fitting polo shirt flaunted his strong arms. He was talking to a pretty girl with her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She laughed at something the boy said and put a hand on his chest, directly over his heart. They looked like an advertisement for homecoming king and queen. Another stocky boy walked past and called out, “Hey, Dixon! Hey, Joy!”

  “Dude!” Dixon shouted back, giving the boy a high five as Joy shook her head and smiled.

  Thaddeus rolled his eyes and moved into the flow of kids going around the couple. A strong hand suddenly landed on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. Before Thaddeus could even turn his head to see who had grabbed him, he was pushed up against the lockers. A shadow fell over him, and he grimaced as his right shoulder was pressed hard against the metal locker and the hand tightened on his left.

  “Did I see you roll your eyes?”

  Looking up into Dixon’s cold blue eyes, Thaddeus wondered why every bully in every school he had attended looked the same. Did they come out of some weird duplicating machine?

  “What?” Thaddeus asked.

  Fingers tightened on his shoulder. “You heard me, new-kid freak.”

  “If I did roll my eyes, it wasn’t about you.” Thaddeus stared back at Dixon without flinching, no matter how much his shoulders hurt. He fought to keep in check the warm magic that wanted to flow through and out of him to toss the boy across the hall. Un-gifteds weren’t aware of the magical beings that lived among them, and Thaddeus didn’t want to be the one who revealed the well-kept secret.

  “Dixon, come on,” said Dixon’s pretty girlfriend, Joy. “Don’t get in trouble on our first day.”

  “Yeah, asswipe, get to stepping,” said a boy who had stopped to watch. “How would a suspension look when you apply for football scholarships?”

  “What did you say to me?” Dixon asked as he stared at the boy and continued to press Thaddeus against the locker. “Joy, did you hear this little shit talk back to me?”

  “Dixon, come on,” Joy said. “Leave these fags alone before Winslow makes one of his patrols.”

  The boy who had challenged Dixon widened his eyes and laughed. “Fags?” He looked at Thaddeus. “Is that one of the most lazy insults you’ve ever heard?”

  Dixon pointed at the boy who had challenged him. “I catch you outside school, you’re dead.” He then leaned in closer to Thaddeus. “Watch your attitude, new kid.” He pushed himself off Thaddeus’s shoulder with a hard shove and turned to wade through the students who had gathered to watch. Many of them put their smartphones back in their pockets, looking disappointed there hadn’t been a fight they could capture on video and post all over social media.

  “Thanks for saying something,” Thaddeus said as he rubbed his shoulder where he could still feel the pressure of Dixon’s fingers. “You didn’t have to do that, though.”

  The boy shrugged. “No problem. Us normal-sized guys have to stick together, am I right?” He grinned, displaying a narrow gap in his front teeth. He had curly red hair, a galaxy of freckles across his nose and cheeks, and dark brown eyes. “Anyway, that’s my locker he had you up against.”

  “Oh.” Thaddeus stepped away from the locker and turned away. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. You’re new here too?” the boy asked as he stepped up to his locker.

  Thaddeus gave him a quick smile. “Yeah. You are too?”

  “That I am,” the boy said, then stuck out his hand. “Andy Harkin.”

  Thaddeus shook with
him. Andy’s hand felt cool and dry. “Thaddeus Cane.”

  “Good to make your acquaintance, Thaddeus Cane.” Andy turned away to open his locker. “Where’d you move from?”

  “Another small town in the middle of nowhere,” Thaddeus replied. “How about you?”

  “Same.” Andy grinned. “We could start a club. Maybe go around and light some trash cans on fire and leave evidence pointing back to Dixon.”

  Thaddeus blinked in surprise at the dark turn the conversation had taken, but the thought of it made him grin. “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Andy thought a moment. “Maybe plant a gun in his locker?”

  His harsh-sounding laugh surprised Thaddeus, and he didn’t know what to say in response, so he remained silent. Despite the tendency to dip into dark humor—or maybe because of it—Thaddeus liked Andy.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me,” Thaddeus said. “You know you’re on that guy’s list now too, right?”

  Andy rolled his eyes as he stuffed books into his locker. “I’ve been on worse lists than his, trust me. And he’s probably been hit in the head so often he can’t remember his own name half the time. I’m not scared of him, and you shouldn’t be either.” Andy looked at him over his shoulder. “You look like you can take care of yourself.”

  A quick memory flashed through Thaddeus’s mind of being inside the gymnasium at Iron Gulch’s only school and surrounded by ghouls and goblins. Yeah, he really could take care of himself. When he could use magic. Now the trick was learning to take care of himself without having to depend on the power he was supposed to keep hidden from un-gifteds. For everything magic simplified, it seemed to also complicate an equal number of things.

  “I try,” Thaddeus said.

  “Well, next time I’m pinned against a locker, you can stand up for me, how’s that?” Andy grinned and waved. “I’ll see you around, Thaddeus Cane.”

  “Yeah, I’ll see you,” Thaddeus said, grinning as he watched Andy walk off down the hall. Despite his unfortunate encounter with Dixon, maybe things weren’t going to be too bad here at Superstition High.

  A series of tones sounded, which Thaddeus took to be some kind of warning that classes were about to start, because a sudden spurt of frantic activity followed. Kids shouted, slammed lockers, walked faster, or broke into all-out mad dashes. Thaddeus pressed his back against a portion of brick wall between two sets of lockers to allow the rest of the students time and space to get to their assigned classrooms. When the hallway had mostly cleared of kids, he followed signs to the main office where he got in line behind a few other students.

  While he waited Thaddeus opened the flip phone his father had bought him to replace the phone ruined on their journey. It was a crappy little phone, but it was all his father could afford for now, and Thaddeus tried not to let it bother him. They didn’t have a lot of money because his father hadn’t yet found a job, and he knew the small bit of savings must be going fast.

  There was one message waiting for him. It was from Aisha Hutchins, the girl he had befriended in Iron Gulch.

  Good luck on your first day at school! Still no word about classes here.

  He wrote back a quick response, proud of how adept he’d become at using the number pad to spell out words.

  Lucky! I’m going to need that luck because I pissed off the school bully.

  The woman behind the counter called out, “Next!” and Thaddeus put his phone away as he stepped up. He slid the registration letter they had received in the mail across the counter and smiled. “I need my class schedule.”

  After a quick read through of the letter, the woman turned away and muttered to herself as she opened file cabinet drawers and flipped through folders. The longer she searched the louder she muttered, until she finally turned to him and said with an elaborate sigh, “Thaddeus Cane? C-A-N-E?”

  “That’s right,” Thaddeus replied. “Is there a problem?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said. “You gave me your registration confirmation letter, but I’m not finding your folder.”

  “What does that mean?” Thaddeus asked.

  “It means I have his folder.”

  Thaddeus looked at the man standing at the end of a short hallway that appeared to lead to counselor offices. He was tall and thin, with a fringe of dark hair running around the sides of his bald head. Dark-framed glasses sat on the bridge of a short, upturned nose beneath which grew a thick mustache.

  “Oh, well I wish you would have left me a note,” the woman said. “Could have saved us all a lot of time.”

  “I did leave you a note, Marlene.” He approached where she stood behind the counter, and Thaddeus heard the quiet sound of a Post-It note being peeled up from a surface before the man held it out to her. “See? ‘When Thaddeus Cane arrives have him see me—Bill.’”

  “Oh, well, I didn’t see it hanging there,” Marlene muttered.

  “Is there a different location I should have placed the note?” the man asked. There was an undercurrent of meanness in his tone that made Thaddeus fidget as he felt uncomfortable for Marlene.

  “No, no,” Marlene replied. “Now that I know where to look, I’m sure things will run smoother.”

  “Very good.” The man flashed a cool smile at Thaddeus and gestured for him to follow. “Mr. Cane? This way, please.”

  Thaddeus followed the man to a small office at the end of the hall. A nameplate affixed to the door read Bill Winslow—Counselor. The office was bisected by a metal desk before which two uncomfortable-looking chairs sat close together. Thaddeus dropped his backpack into one chair and sat in the other.

  Mr. Winslow closed the office door and sat behind his desk. A manila folder with Thaddeus’s name written on the tab lay between them. It was stuffed thick with papers, and a frightening thought skittered through Thaddeus’s mind. Could Mr. Winslow know about the magical lineage of Thaddeus’s family and what had happened over the summer, not only around Superstition, but at Iron Gulch as well? Had he been gathering research about the community of magical beings that lived on the fringes of everyday life? He swallowed hard and tried to appear simply curious and not defensive or scared as he leaned forward.

  “Is that my permanent record?” Thaddeus asked, trying for a joke but hearing instead his nervousness reflected in his voice. Out of all the schools he’d attended, this was the first time a counselor had taken him aside on his first day, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Usually he was handed a class schedule and left to find his way around the school on his own.

  Mr. Winslow granted him a brief flicker of a smile, and that was it.

  “I was in the office a couple of weeks ago when your father registered you for classes,” Mr. Winslow said. “I was sorting through files out in the main area for the new school year, so I overheard the conversation your father had with Marlene. Your father seemed a bit… anxious.”

  Thaddeus shifted in his seat. Of course his father had been acting anxious—they’d recently returned from Iron Gulch, and Thaddeus’s mother had moved in with them. But how could he explain a situation like that to someone un-gifted, who had no familiarity with the magical community? Who didn’t know about dragons and ghouls and that wicked witches did, indeed, exist?

  “It caught my attention,” Mr. Winslow continued. “So much so, that I decided to dig a bit into your academic record.” He tapped the file folder. “You can imagine my surprise when I discovered how many times you have changed schools.”

  “We’ve moved around a lot,” Thaddeus said and hated that he could hear a defensive tone creeping into his voice.

  “So it would appear,” Mr. Winslow said. “This is your thirty-second move. That’s a lot of moving around for a boy of fifteen.”

  “I’ll be sixteen in October.”

  A slow smile formed on Mr. Winslow’s thin lips, lacking any humor whatsoever. “Be that as it may, the number of moves seemed extreme, especially for a nonmilitary paren
t.”

  Thaddeus lifted one shoulder in a shrug and slouched a bit in his chair as he broke eye contact with Mr. Winslow. What was this all about? He really hoped this wasn’t going to be the start of some kind of social services investigation. There was far too much going on inside and around their house to be able to explain it all away.

  “And many of these moves were not simply within the same area,” Mr. Winslow continued. “A number of moves took you and your father nearly across the country.” He slowly flipped some papers as he looked over what Thaddeus assumed was a list of cities where they had lived. “It could almost be construed that you and your father were on the run.”

  A cold, hard knot of fear tightened low within Thaddeus’s belly. He forced himself to meet Mr. Winslow’s gaze and said in as calm a tone as he could manage, “Sounds like you’ve been reading way too many paperback thrillers, Mr. Winslow. My dad gets bored easily and looks for different work.”

  “I see.”

  Mr. Winslow closed the manila folder, interlaced his fingers, and rested his hands on top as he fixed Thaddeus with a steady look. Thaddeus felt as if everything important to him lay pinned within that folder under Mr. Winslow’s clasped hands. He wished he knew enough magic to do something about the situation. Maybe there was a spell he could learn that would freeze Mr. Winslow and allow him to steal the file folder out from under him. But then he realized that Mr. Winslow could simply print out another set of pages and most likely be even more suspicious. No, this would need to be handled as if he knew nothing about magic. He would have to work on remembering how it felt to be simply Thaddeus Cane, nervous, friendless new kid at school, and not a wizard in training, with a wizard and witch for parents, and a garden gnome for a boyfriend.

  Thaddeus settled on simple deflection in lieu of magic and asked, “May I have my schedule now? And a map of the school? I don’t want to be too late to my first-hour class.”

  Another slow, humorless smile from Mr. Winslow. The sight of it sent a chill through Thaddeus.