A Tangle of Secrets

by R. G. Thomas

  “It will,” Teofil said, smiling back. “I feel better than I have in a while.”

  “That’s because we have a plan of action,” Thaddeus said. “Although I’m not sure if we’ll find anything in Northglenn, at least we have a place to start.”

  “And I can keep reading Leo’s journals too,” Teofil said. “We may find more clues in later entries.”

  “Just don’t ruin your eyesight doing it.”

  “As long as I can see you clearly, I don’t mind.”

  Thaddeus smiled and blushed. “You’re full of compliments.”

  “Mum calls that kind of talk ‘honey on top of sugar,’” Teofil said.

  “Your mom is right about that.”

  Thaddeus kissed him, then led him by the hand toward the door. “Let’s get back down to the yard before they come looking for us.”

  They held hands as they walked down the steps, through the house, and out the back door. The laughter and shouts of Teofil’s siblings running around Thaddeus’s yard made them both chuckle, and they hurried through the gate and around the fence to join in.

  Chapter SEVEN

  THE FIRST bus to Northglenn departed at 9:35 from in front of the Superstition post office. Thaddeus had been nervous about the cost for tickets, but he had more than enough to cover two roundtrip fares. Because they had gotten up so early, there was time to step into SuPERKstition Coffee, the small coffee shop a few doors down the street. As they stood in the short line, Thaddeus explained some of the drink names to Teofil.

  “Leo drank a very dark, strong coffee,” Teofil said, making a face. “I never liked it much.”

  Thaddeus nodded. “I don’t like coffee either. I usually stick with tea or hot chocolate.”

  “My mum makes some good hot chocolate,” Teofil said. “The best around.”

  “I have a feeling this won’t measure up to hers,” Thaddeus said as they stepped up to the counter. “But it should help us stay awake on the bus.”

  He ordered two hot chocolates, and in a few minutes, he took two cups from one of the baristas. After handing Teofil his cup, Thaddeus led the way out the door. Thaddeus stopped to take a careful sip of the hot chocolate and savored the sweet, creamy flavor.

  Teofil sipped his drink as well, made an appreciative face, then smiled and said, “It’s good, but it’s not as good as Mum’s.”

  “I’m not surprised by that at all,” Thaddeus said.

  At that moment the bus pulled around the corner and slowed to a stop in front of the post office. A few people got off, and Thaddeus and Teofil stepped on, handing the driver their tickets. They found seats in the middle, and Thaddeus let Teofil sit by the window.

  “We’ve got lots of time now,” Teofil said once the bus got moving. “Tell me all about your first week at school.”

  Thaddeus sighed. “It was kind of weird going back to school after everything that happened over the summer.”

  “How so?”

  Thaddeus looked around to make sure no one was listening. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “With everything I learned about my family, and all the new people I’ve met, most importantly you, I really and truly felt like I didn’t belong at school. I mean, I had always felt out of place before because I usually start school without any friends, but this time that was all amplified like a thousand times. I felt like I had to leave the safe place I’d finally found at home where my dad and mom were finally together and you and your family lived next door. And I can’t talk about any of the things I’ve learned over the summer that make me really special, you know? While I’m at school, back to the boring regular life, you and your family and my parents are at home living magical lives.”

  Teofil chuckled. “We’re digging out extra bedrooms in the ground. By hand. Nothing very magical about that.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Thaddeus said. “But at least you’re back living with your family.”

  “So many of them.” Teofil rolled his eyes. “It’s a lot more crowded than I’m used to.”

  “I guess I forget about that sometimes. You must have spent a lot of time on your own like I did.”

  “I did,” Teofil said with a nod. “I love my family, but they can be a lot to handle sometimes.”

  Thaddeus grinned. “That’s for sure.”

  Teofil took Thaddeus’s hand. “I wish I could go to school with you so you’d have at least one friend there.”

  Thaddeus squeezed his hand. “I wish you could too. But it’s not the place for you or Astrid.”

  “You don’t think we’d fit in?” Teofil smirked. “I know you’re right, but it would be fun to go to school with you. I bet you look cute when you’re studying.”

  Thaddeus blushed. “I don’t know if I’d call myself cute at, like, any moment in time.”

  “That’s okay,” Teofil said, leaning in a little closer. “I’ll call you cute whenever you want.”

  Thaddeus told Teofil about Aisha’s messages and then had an idea. His flip phone had a camera, albeit a crappy one, and he leaned in close to Teofil to take a selfie of them both. He squinted at the tiny image and decided he was getting pretty good at lining himself up in the center of the frame. With some quick taps on the number pad, he sent the image to Aisha. In a few moments, she wrote back and he read the note quietly to Teofil.

  “She says, ‘Two handsome dudes out looking for trouble. Remember I’m not there to help you out this time.’”

  They laughed together, and then Teofil said, “She was very brave that night.”

  Thaddeus nodded. “She really was. We all were.”

  They were quiet for a time, watching the trees pass as the bus sped along the two-lane highway.

  “There’s so much I have to learn about magic,” Thaddeus said in a quiet voice. “My dad’s been busy helping my mom get settled and feel more sure of herself, so he hasn’t had a lot of time to work with me.”

  “Your mom’s been through a lot.”

  “More than I could ever imagine.” Thaddeus nodded. “But I do miss my dad sometimes. As much as he nags me about stuff, we really did rely on each other as I was growing up.”

  “Do you think you can get some time with him later tonight or maybe tomorrow?”

  “I can try to do that.”

  The bus started to slow, and Thaddeus peered around Teofil out the window. The sign they passed stated that they had arrived in Stoker’s Mill. Thaddeus sighed and checked the time on his flip phone. “This is taking longer than I had hoped.” He checked the bus schedule he’d grabbed at the post office and reviewed it. “Looks like there are six more stops until we reach Northglenn.”

  “We’ll get there,” Teofil said. “Be patient.”

  “Yeah, I know. Unfortunately that’s not one of my strengths.” Thaddeus folded up the bus schedule and settled back in his seat.

  Almost ninety minutes later, the bus finally pulled into a small station and eased to a stop. They disembarked with a few other passengers, and Thaddeus approached a large map of the city hanging on a wall. A You Are Here sign in the shape of a star had been placed over the position of the bus station.

  “So many streets,” Teofil said. “The city is bigger than I had expected. Where do we start?”

  Thaddeus thought a moment, then asked, “How long ago was that entry about Northglenn in Leopold’s journal?”

  “Several years ago,” Teofil replied. “I can’t recall the specific date.”

  “Let’s find the library,” Thaddeus suggested. “We can check local newspapers from a few years back and get online and look for articles as well.”

  Thaddeus consulted the map and located the library. He plotted a course, and they set off from the bus station. The town was laid out in a similar fashion to Superstition, except Northglenn had a large square park in the center of town around which had been built the city offices, police and fire departments, and library. Several people were in the park with small children. Others walked dogs, and a young couple sat close tog
ether on a park bench beneath a tall tree.

  The interior of the library was cool and quiet. An older man with gray hair sat at one of three computers, and two women browsed the New Releases shelf. As Teofil stepped into the men’s room, Thaddeus approached the front desk where he asked about local papers dating back several years.

  “We only have physical copies of current-year issues,” the woman behind the desk explained. “All other years can be found online.”

  Thaddeus considered his options, then decided to browse through the current copies first. Maybe something would stand out to them.

  By that time Teofil had joined him, and they followed the woman to a set of long, shallow drawers where the local newspapers were separated by month. Thaddeus thanked her, and he and Teofil each selected a paper from the January drawer and carried them to a nearby table.

  “It looks like the Northglenn Tribune comes out twice a week,” Thaddeus said. “Tuesdays and Fridays.”

  “Like the Superstition Chronicle,” Teofil said, then smiled. “Leo subscribed. He would read the articles to stay in touch with the un-gifteds around us, and then I would do the Word Find and brain teasers.”

  “That sounds like a really nice tradition.”

  “It was,” Teofil said. “I have quite a few issues of the Chronicle waiting back home. I haven’t had time to look through them since we got back from Iron Gulch.”

  They fell silent as they each started looking through their issue, the only sound the turning of the pages. Thaddeus found nothing of interest in the articles or local crime section, and he got up to return his issue and select the next.

  It took them a little more than an hour to go through each physical Tribune issue, and when they had finished, they had found nothing that appeared at all magic related.

  “We still have the online versions to look at,” Thaddeus said.

  “Could we have done that from back home?” Teofil asked.

  “I think they have them on an internal server here,” Thaddeus replied.

  Teofil frowned. “A what?”

  “Sorry, I forget you’re not really technical. Come on, let’s go find out. I’ll explain later.”

  They learned the previous year issues were accessible from the internet, but the site was not easy to navigate, and Thaddeus had to ask for the librarian’s help several times. When he finally understood how to complete a specific search within a date range, Thaddeus typed in a variety of words and phrases with no results returned. He sat back with a sigh and looked at Teofil beside him.

  “I’m not having any luck,” Thaddeus said.

  Teofil looked around to make sure no one was near before he leaned in and lowered his voice. “Try something less specific, like how an un-gifted would explain something unusual.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  Thaddeus stared at the computer screen as he thought about Teofil’s suggestion. A thought came to him and he leaned forward again to type. He had no luck with the words strange, unusual, weird, or odd. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling as he thought about all of the things he had seen. The trolls near the Lost Forest, the reaper grub they had saved Dulindir from, and then the water sprites in the Wretched River. All of those creatures paled in comparison to the goblins and ghouls, which in turn had fallen under the terrible claws of the Bearagon inside the mine.

  The Bearagon.

  “I’ve got it,” Thaddeus whispered.

  “What?” Teofil looked to the screen. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Not yet.” Thaddeus typed WEREWOLF and pressed Enter.

  One article was returned, and Teofil drew in a sharp breath.

  “The Bearagon,” he whispered.

  They smiled at each other before Thaddeus clicked on the link. The article was from the previous November and told of how two hunters from out of state were stalked by a large animal while camping one night. They had first thought the animal to be a bear, but when they left the tent to investigate, they found a much larger and more ferocious beast waiting. One of the men went so far as to call it a werewolf.

  “That’s got to be it,” Teofil said.

  Thaddeus nodded. “I agree. This was months before my dad and I moved to Superstition. The Bearagon was sighted here in the area before we moved to Superstition and it started stalking me.”

  “Does it say where they saw it?” Teofil asked.

  Thaddeus scanned the article. “Nothing specific. Just says in the woods northwest of town, a little north of Evergreen Pass.”

  “I wonder how far away that is?” Teofil sat back. “Maybe we could take a look there before we need to get on the bus for home.”

  “Let’s ask.” Before he got up, Thaddeus clicked the Print button and grabbed the printout of the article from a printer located near the front desk.

  When they asked the librarian about the location of the woods north of Evergreen Pass, she shook her head. “You’re much too young to be out there on your own. If you’re hunting, you’ll need a license and an adult to accompany you.”

  “We’re not here to hunt,” Thaddeus said. “We heard the view is especially nice in that area.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes. “You may fool your parents or teachers with that kind of malarkey, but you’re not fooling me. There’s been no sign of the monster for weeks. Now you both scoot on home.”

  “Weeks?” Teofil exclaimed.

  “We only knew about the sighting from last November,” Thaddeus said.

  “You’ll not be hearing anything more from me,” she said and turned away to check out some books for a woman.

  Thaddeus and Teofil returned to the room with the wide and shallow drawers. Pulling open the drawer marked AUGUST, Thaddeus grabbed all of the issues and carried them to the table they’d previously used.

  “We need to read more carefully,” Thaddeus said as he moved his gaze down the copy on the front page.

  “How did we miss it?” Teofil wondered.

  “We fell into a routine,” Thaddeus said. “Or they covered it up.”

  A few minutes later, Teofil let out a quiet gasp. “Here it is. The article’s title is a bit misleading, though. It says ‘Another Large Bear Sighting?’”

  “Where was it sighted?” Thaddeus got out of his chair and rounded the table to sit beside him. “Was it the Bearagon?”

  “I don’t know,” Teofil replied as he ran his finger down the copy. “It’s kind of vague.”

  They sat close, heads nearly touching as they both read the article. It was short in both word count and details, but as he read it, Thaddeus could put together the scene quite easily.

  On the evening of August 12—a couple of days after the battle they’d all endured at Iron Gulch—an elderly man who lived alone on the outskirts of Northglenn went outside to collect his laundry from the clothesline. The sun was setting and the light fading from the day. When the man stepped outside, he heard a low growl and a huff of breath, as if from a large animal. He thought it might be an elk or a moose, but when he looked around his yard, he saw a large bear-like animal entering the trees. He hurriedly collected his clothes off the line and it wasn’t until later that he noticed a pair of his jeans and a thermal shirt were missing.

  “It was him,” Thaddeus said as he finished reading and sat back. “It was Logan, still in the Bearagon form.”

  “He needed clothes,” Teofil said. “It must have been right after you wounded him inside the mine.”

  “Yes, a couple of days after that. He must not be able to travel by magic portal like my father and Vivienne.”

  “That would have saved us a lot of time today,” Teofil said with a sigh. “And you some money.”

  “I need to get back to practicing my magic,” Thaddeus said. “Anyway, let’s look at the map again and see if we can figure out the location of this sighting.”

  “Do you think it’s worth it?” Teofil asked. “Seems as though, if it were Logan, he was only looking for clothes he could wear in human form
.”

  “I’d like to see the area,” Thaddeus replied. “Maybe Logan was on his way to meet up with Lucian or Azzo Eberhard. We need to follow every lead, no matter how small.”

  Teofil nodded. “You’re right. The article lists the man’s home address, but how do we find it?”

  “The computer,” Thaddeus said with a smile.

  They returned the newspapers to the drawer, and Thaddeus led the way to one of the available computers. He opened a browser and typed the address into the search field. A map displayed, and Thaddeus clicked around until he was able to see directions for them to walk there.

  “It’s not too far,” Thaddeus said as he printed out the directions. “Looks like a couple of miles.”

  Teofil smiled. “We’ve walked farther than that.”

  Thaddeus grinned back. “That we have. And through much worse conditions. Come on.”

  The sun was bright, and a gentle wind rattled the leaves as they walked along the streets of town. Thaddeus paid attention to the small details all around them, trying to get a feel for the place. If Lucian or Azzo or even Logan were still living there, he imagined the residents would be suspicious or skittish, similar to what they had found at Iron Gulch. But there were a lot of people out on the streets, walking dogs, pushing strollers, or carrying bags of groceries. A majority of the people they encountered gave them a friendly greeting, or at the very least smiled and nodded.

  “It seems like a nice place to live,” Teofil said.

  Thaddeus nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  He felt good himself, in fact. No dismal mood was lingering over the events of the day. And even after spending so long at the library researching newspaper articles, he felt energized. Maybe it was the sunshine and cool autumn breeze. Or maybe it was being on his own with Teofil. It had been a long time since they’d been able to spend any time together away from the rest of the Rhododendron family members.