A Tangle of Secrets

by R. G. Thomas

  “Andy?” Thaddeus sent a quick look at Teofil, not sure why he felt suddenly guilty about Andy standing beneath his window. “What are you doing here?”

  “I heard you got suspended because of Douchebag Dixon,” Andy said. “I wanted to stop by and make sure you were doing okay.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine, no problems,” Thaddeus said, then shrugged. “Except for the suspension and the black eye and being grounded for a week.”

  “Wow, you have had a busy day.” Andy’s quiet chuckle carried up to him through the night air.

  “Hey, did you flash a light or something in my window?” Thaddeus asked.

  “Yeah, this.” Andy shined a strong green laser pointer at the siding beneath Thaddeus’s window. “Makes signaling people really easy.”

  “That looks pretty strong,” Thaddeus said. “Aren’t they illegal?”

  “Only if I’m caught with it,” Andy said. “And I don’t shine it in cockpits or anything like that. I’m not a terrorist.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  They both laughed quietly. That was when Thaddeus realized Teofil had stopped humming. He looked over the fence and found Teofil staring up at him. Thaddeus lifted his hand in a wave, then wished he hadn’t.

  “Who are you waving to?” Andy asked.

  “Um, my, uh, my neighbor,” Thaddeus replied.

  “Thaddeus?” Teofil called quietly over the fence. “Are you talking to someone?”

  “Who is he?” Andy asked. “Are you in trouble now?”

  “No, not at all,” Thaddeus replied. “He’s my…. He’s my friend.” Thaddeus looked back at Teofil. “I’m talking to someone from school.”

  “But you shouldn’t be,” Teofil said. “Your father said you were groundling.”

  “Grounded,” Thaddeus whispered. “I’m grounded.”

  “So you shouldn’t be talking to anyone,” Teofil said.

  Thaddeus sighed. “I know. He just showed up under my window. I didn’t know he was here.”

  “Should I go?” Andy asked, stepping back into the shadows.

  “Yeah, it’s probably a good idea,” Thaddeus said. “Thanks for checking on me.”

  “No problem.” Andy waved. “I hope your eye feels better.”

  “It does, thanks.”

  Andy started to go, then turned back and said, “Oh, don’t go on Facebook or anything for a while.”

  Thaddeus felt as if a cold, tight fist squeezed his stomach. “Why not?”

  “Thaddeus, you should stop talking right now,” Teofil said in a louder whisper.

  Thaddeus waved to let Teofil know he had heard him but continued to look down at Andy. “Is it video?”

  “Video, pictures, memes, the usual stuff,” Andy replied.

  “Great.”

  “You might want to update your settings so people can’t post on your wall or tag you.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.” Thaddeus was startled by Teofil walking up to stand beneath his window. “Teofil. Hi.”

  Teofil looked at Andy, then looked up at Thaddeus. “Will you introduce us?”

  Nervous sweat broke out across Thaddeus’s back. What kind of questions was he going to have to answer from both of them? Not that he was at all interested in starting any kind of romance with Andy, but it would be hard to explain to Teofil how good it felt to be able to talk with someone about social media and school and other things outside of magic and dragons and witches and wizards.

  “Andy Harkin, this is Teofil Rhododendron.” Thaddeus watched nervously as Andy lifted a hand to give Teofil a wave.

  “Hey,” Andy said.

  “Hello,” Teofil said back. “Are you Thaddeus’s friend?”

  Andy gave a quiet laugh before he looked from Thaddeus to Teofil and back again. “Yeah, I am. Are you a friend of his?”

  Teofil looked up, and the concern Thaddeus could see on his face tripled his feelings of guilt.

  “I am his friend, yes.” Teofil looked back at Andy. “Do you do things together at school?”

  The light in the kitchen went on, its yellow glow spilling out the window above the sink. It lit up the stubborn grass amid the hard-packed dirt that separated Teofil and Andy, like some kind of spectral border neither boy should cross. They each stepped back from the light, both of them moving into the darkness again. The silhouette of his mother’s head and shoulders appeared in the light shining on the grass, causing Thaddeus’s heart to pound and all the spit to dry up in his mouth.

  “I should go,” Andy whispered and lifted his hand in a wave. “See you back at school.”

  “Bye,” Thaddeus whispered back.

  Andy gave Teofil a quick nod before turning to jog off into the night. Thaddeus looked around for Teofil, but he was already walking across the yard, heading for the corner of the fence.

  “Teofil!” Thaddeus’s whisper was harsh. “Come back!”

  Teofil either ignored him or didn’t hear him. Either way, he continued on to the fence where he vanished around the corner. A few seconds later, Thaddeus watched him enter the backyard through the gate and close it tight behind him. Teofil walked through the yard and, without a glance in Thaddeus’s direction, climbed the steps and went inside the house.

  “No, Teofil….”

  Thaddeus pulled back inside his room and shut the window. He stood looking out at the backyard Teofil tended to so carefully, trying not to feel guilty about what had happened. Should he have told Andy that Teofil was his boyfriend? He hadn’t told Andy that he was gay, and Thaddeus didn’t know if Andy was gay himself.

  Teofil is jealous and possessive.

  “Things shouldn’t be this hard,” Thaddeus grumbled as he flopped across his bed.

  The next day Thaddeus spent the morning watching the Rhododendron family work on their underground rooms. He envied their seemingly easy relationships with each other. Even though they bickered and argued and lived in what seemed to be continuous chaos, Thaddeus could tell there was a deep and true familial love between them all. The concern he had felt the night before after Teofil had met Andy grew into a nagging worry when he realized that Teofil wasn’t even looking in the direction of his house. He was sure that once he was able to speak with Teofil again he would be able to explain everything.

  Well, he hoped so at least.

  He’s going to turn on you when you least expect it.

  Thaddeus turned away from the window, then checked to make sure his parents were downstairs before he logged into his Facebook account. He felt worse and worse as he read through the posts calling him out as a “faggot” and a “weirdo” and a “freaky, weak ass faggot.” Included with many of these posts were videos taken by a number of different students, all of them at varying angles to capture Dixon pushing and hitting him. As tears trembled in his eyes, Thaddeus left the newsfeed and clicked around until he managed to update his account settings so no one could post to his wall or tag him. It wouldn’t stop the torment, but at least he wouldn’t see it happening.

  He showered and afterward checked his eye in the mirror. The swelling had gone down quite a bit, and the bruising had faded almost completely. Another one of Miriam’s mixtures saved the day. He reapplied the stuff around his eye and returned to his room.

  As the hours dragged on, Thaddeus paced, then lay on his bed, then did some sit-ups and push-ups. He tried to read, but his brain wouldn’t settle down enough for him to follow the plot of any book. With nothing to occupy him, he grew bored and restless. He had been bored before, but never quite like this. He hated to admit it, but without being able to watch TV, play video games, or use his computer for fun, he was so bored he actually looked forward to going back to school.

  His thought about school reminded him that he needed to keep up with his assignments. Since he’d spent the previous day too upset to try logging into the school’s website, he decided he’d better get to it since he was due to return on Thursday. Thaddeus opened his laptop and navigated to the school’s URL. He star
ed at the login fields for a moment, frowning as he tried to recall if he’d been given any kind of ID or password. Then a vague memory surfaced of Mr. Winslow mentioning something about his student ID and PIN on his first day of school. Where had it been listed?

  His class schedule. That was it. His student ID and PIN were at the bottom of his class schedule. He picked up his backpack and pulled out his textbooks and notebooks. His schedule was not in any of them, so he opened the zipper wider and reached down into the bottom. His schedule had to be there somewhere.

  Something sharp pricked the tip of his index finger, and he let out a hiss of pain as he jerked his hand out of the pack. A dot of blood had welled up from the wound, and he stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked it a moment.

  “What the heck?”

  Thaddeus tipped the pack toward the window to allow the early afternoon light to stream inside. A few pens, some gum, the map of the school, and there, finally, lay his class schedule, crumpled up in a corner of his backpack. But he could see nothing that would have drawn blood. He tilted the backpack a little farther toward the window and slowly reached inside to remove his schedule. As he lifted the paper, a small round object rolled into the light. It was the size of a grape, dark brown in color, and covered with short, stout thorns. The thing looked like a heavy-duty burr or a seedpod of some kind, but he had no idea where it might have come from. He grabbed the spoon from a cereal bowl he kept forgetting to take downstairs and used it to carefully scoop up the pod and set it on his desk.

  “What is this thing?” Thaddeus whispered to himself as he sat down and leaned in close—but not too close, no telling what it might do.

  It looked like a seedpod, but not one with which he was familiar. He poked carefully at the pod with the point of a pen, but nothing happened. Maybe the thorns kept foraging animals from eating it? Whatever the reason, the thorns were effective, Thaddeus could attest to that.

  He opened the pencil drawer and used the pen to roll the seedpod to the edge of the desk. After it had dropped in, Thaddeus slid the drawer shut and inspected his finger more closely. A small red dot marked the spot he’d been stuck, nothing too horrible, but it still throbbed. He stuck his finger into his mouth again and with his free hand flattened out his class schedule on the desk. There at the bottom were his student ID and PIN.

  His finger felt a little better, and he was able to type in his information and log in to the school site. The assignments he’d missed appeared in a long list, and he stared at it in surprise. How much homework did these teachers give out every day? Well, there was nothing left for it but to get started.

  He’d made it halfway through the list of assignments by the time his mother called him down to dinner. He stopped in the bathroom to wash his hands and inspected the tiny wound left by the burr. The throbbing had softened to a steady, dull ache, and it didn’t appear to be infected. To be safe, he slathered some antibiotic ointment over it and then wrapped a Band-Aid around his fingertip.

  “What did you do to your finger?” his mother asked once he’d sat at the table.

  “I got poked by something,” Thaddeus replied without meeting her eyes.

  They ate in silence for a time, and then his father cleared his throat and said, “Well, you might be glad to know that beginning next week you won’t be seeing me in the mornings.”

  Thaddeus frowned as that inner voice said, Good, good riddance. Aloud, he asked, “Why not?”

  “I got a job today.”

  It felt as if a narrow band Thaddeus hadn’t realized had been wrapped around his chest was suddenly loosened. “You did? What is it?”

  His father shrugged and looked down at his plate. “Nothing big. It’s a position with city services. I’ll be leaving the house about six in the morning, so I’ll be gone before you’re up for school.”

  “Oh, okay.” Thaddeus took a few more bites of his meal. “What will you be doing?”

  “It’s kind of a catch-all position within the city,” his father said. “I’ll help out where I’m needed, you know?”

  “I think it’s wonderful.” His mother’s voice sounded forcibly cheerful. “And I think it signals a shift in our fortunes.”

  “Well, I’m glad for you,” Thaddeus said. “I know how you’ve been feeling about not being able to find a job.”

  “This is a really good thing, Thaddeus,” his father said. “Can we move past the hard feelings and get back to being a family?”

  Tell him you’ll think about it if he stops lying.

  Thaddeus pushed those thoughts aside and nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  “Good, so would I.”

  When they’d finished eating, Thaddeus stepped up to the sink to do the dishes. As he picked up the sponge, however, his mother took it from his hand and smiled at him.

  “I’ll take cleanup duty tonight,” she said.

  “But you cooked.” Thaddeus looked between his parents. “I thought doing the chores was part of my punishment?”

  His father sat back in his chair and smiled at him. “How about we continue with your magic lessons?”

  Thaddeus’s eyes grew wide. “Really? But… I thought you didn’t want me to know it.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want you to know how to use magic,” his father said. “It’s that you need to know when you can use it. I think that the more you use your power here with us, the more you’ll be able to control it outside of the house.” His father crossed his arms and gave him a stern look. “And the more you’ll be able to resist using it when you shouldn’t. Right?”

  Thaddeus shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Let’s stop guessing and get to knowing, shall we?” He stood up and waved toward the basement steps. “After you.”

  Thaddeus hurried down the stairs. He was eager to learn more about magic and, he realized, spend time with his father again. Although that low voice grumbled in a back corner of his mind that this was a way for his father to control him, Thaddeus turned his attention to his father’s instructions and focused on his magic. The power came easier now, and he was able to move a full gallon jug of water right away. His father had him move heavier objects after that: an old metal toolbox, a single cinderblock from a small pile that had been stacked in the corner when they’d moved in, then two cinderblocks, and then three.

  “You’re getting stronger,” his father said, squeezing his shoulder as Thaddeus leaned forward with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

  Thaddeus smiled. “It feels good to be able to control it better. I never thought I’d be able to move all of those heavy things.”

  “And you’re doing it with simple movements of your hands too,” his father pointed out. “That takes some real skill.”

  “Thanks,” Thaddeus said. He hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry, Dad. I know it was wrong to use magic out in public like that.”

  His father nodded and gave his shoulder another squeeze. “It’s a very thin line we walk every day. There are a lot of good things we could use magic to fix, but then it puts us in the position of having to decide what situation is deserving of magic. That’s a lot of responsibility to place on a grown-up, let alone a teenager who only recently learned he could perform magic. I know it’s hard to keep such a big secret, especially now that we seem to have found a place to put down roots.”

  Thaddeus raised his eyebrows. “You’re planning to stay here in Superstition?”

  “What reason do we have to leave?”

  “None, but I’m still kind of surprised to hear you say that.” Thaddeus shrugged. “I thought maybe you’d gotten used to moving around so much.”

  “I only did that to keep us safe,” his father said. “And to follow up on leads about your mother’s whereabouts. Don’t you want to stay here with Teofil and the Rhododendrons?”

  “I do want to stay,” Thaddeus said as that dreary voice muttered, If Teofil ever speaks to you again.

  “Good. And your mother seems to like it here too.”
>
  Thaddeus glanced toward the steps and lowered his voice. “How’s she doing? Is she better, do you think?”

  His father lowered his voice as well. “She’s developed some powerful new abilities that she’s learning to control, but I think she’s settling in well. What do you think?”

  “I think things are much better than they were.”

  “That’s about all we can hope for, right?” His father gestured to the stairs. “One more day out of school, then you’re back on Thursday. Did you get all of your homework done?”

  “A good chunk of it,” Thaddeus said as he climbed the steps. “There’s a lot for it just being the first week of school.”

  “Think you’ll be able to keep up?”

  “Oh yeah,” Thaddeus said.

  They entered the kitchen, and Thaddeus started for the dining room, then turned back to hug his father. His father’s arms felt good around him. He pulled away, and before he went up the stairs, he paused to say good night to his mother where she sat reading in the living room. After washing his face and brushing his teeth, he applied more of Miriam’s mixture around his eye, even though the bruising was gone. He wanted to make sure it healed completely. Then he went into his bedroom and closed the door.

  He shut the light off and stood in the dark by the window. On the other side of the tall privacy fence, Teofil stood in the middle of the yard with his back to Thaddeus. A few fairies hovered around him, all of them motionless, which seemed unusual. The fairies were always very active, what could have possibly caused them to stop and stare?

  That was when he saw the shape standing in front of Teofil. It was tall and indistinct, flickering in and out like a poorly projected old movie. The realization burst inside Thaddeus, and he sucked in a breath of surprise.

  It was Leopold. Teofil was talking to Leopold’s spirit.

  Chapter TWELVE

  THADDEUS POUNDED down the stairs. He caught a glimpse of his parents’ startled expressions as he jumped down the last two steps and landed with a thud in the small front entry hall between the living room and dining room.