Zachary Pill, Of Monsters and Magic

by Tim Greaton

outside or looked out the living room windows where a small corner park with trees could be seen across the street. As always, Zachary’s thoughts turned down the familiar paths of missing her, wondering where she was, and hating her for not being there. He also wondered how much she had known about his father’s connection to magic.

  Zachary fumbled a plate. It clattered to the table.

  “Careful,” his father said.

  “Sorry.”

  His father placed his stirring spoon on the counter. “You feeling better?”

  Zachary hadn’t thought about it since waking, but his headache was gone, and the throbbing in his arm was minor compared to what it had been. Considering what a mess he had been when entering Doctor Gefarg’s clinic earlier that day, he felt much better.

  “I’m okay,” he answered.

  “That’s good, because we’ve got a busy few weeks ahead of us.”

  “Busy?”

  “We have to move, Zach.”

  “Because of the police?” Zachary asked, suddenly remembering his father’s mad race from the school to the cemetery.

  “I wish our problems were that simple, son. The truth is the police aren’t looking for me, not anymore. It seems they remember chasing a red sports car, not a white sedan. And they also remember seeing an Arizona, not a Massachusetts, license plate.”

  “How―?” Zachary started to ask, but he already knew. “Magic!”

  His father nodded. “That’s part of the reason we have to leave, and it’s a good lesson to remember: using magic leaves traces that can be followed like crumbs. You will always need to be careful.”

  “So, I’m like you?” Zachary asked. “Is that why I can jump so high?”

  “Not exactly,” his father said. “You get that from your mother. I’m pretty sure you can run scary fast, too.”

  Zachary pondered that. “But I don’t usually win races in gym class.”

  His father tasted the spaghetti sauce and nodded approvingly.

  “You don’t win races because you’re surrounded by the concrete and brick of a big city. If you were out in the woods, I think we’d both be amazed at what you could do.”

  “So I’m kind of like Tarzan?”

  They both broke into laughter.

  When the laughter died down, Zachary asked, “Do you think I’ll be able to finish my final exams?”

  Will I have another chance to see Stephanie Travis?

  “Yes,” his father said. “I’ll just have to make your principal realize you didn’t start either of those fights. I doubt she’ll have a problem when she realizes that boy Billy has been harassing you all year.”

  “You think she’ll believe you,” Zachary asked, “after the way Vice-Principal Galloway acted? They haven’t believed me all year. Besides, every parent probably says their kid is innocent.”

  His father nodded and stared out the window.

  “If your mother were here, she could convince her.”

  Zachary’s breath caught. That’s exactly what he’d been thinking! It was times like these that he missed her the most. Not only could she have easily convinced Principal Coldwell that Zachary was innocent, she would also have nursed him night and day until he felt better. He tried to hide the torrent of emotions. Why did he still miss her so much?

  “She loves you,” his father said. He was looking at Zachary now.

  “So why hasn’t she called, Dad?” Zachary shook his head and wiped at his eyes. When it came to his mother, it never took much. “Why hasn’t she come to see me? It’s been two years.”

  Shutting off the stove and pushing the spaghetti pan onto the back burner to cool, his father said, “There are things you don’t understand, Zach. Things about your mother, things about our families…. It’s complicated.”

  Emotions swirled like a storm in Zachary’s head. He was angry at his mother for abandoning him, but he knew he would forgive her if only she would come back. Mostly, however, he felt guilty that she might have left because of him. Maybe he should have kept his room cleaner or picked up around the house more. Maybe he should have gotten rid of his “mini-jungle,” as his mother called it. He would have, if only she would have changed her mind. Though he loved the plants that crowded his bedroom windows, they had always been a problem for her. That same fear of plants, Zachary suspected, might have been the reason she and his dad had moved to Boston in the first place. What better place to avoid plants than a city? Zachary remembered how she had always kept his bedroom door closed so she wouldn’t have to look at the greenery, and he remembered the way she used to walk backwards into his room whenever she put his clothes away or returned toys to his toy box—anything to keep from looking at his leaf-filled windows.

  All of that, however, made it hard to understand why she insisted his father buy more plants for each of Zachary’s birthdays and on every Christmas. But then when the plants arrived, she would stay in the bathroom until his father could get them stashed into his room. The thought of her hiding like that made him cringe inside. He should never have accepted the plants. He should have lied and said he hated them. He should have refused to keep any of them!

  He tried to blink away the moisture in his eyes.

  “You’ll see her again,” his father said. “I promise.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to see her!” Zachary burst out, but they both knew he didn’t mean it; he would have forgiven her—had forgiven her—if only she would come back home.

  His father reached out and gripped his arm.

  “She really does love you.”

  Embarrassed by the tears running down his cheeks, Zachary pulled his arm back and sat at the table.

  “Then how come she abandoned me? How come she abandoned both of us?”

  “I can’t be sure, son. But I know she gave up a lot to be with us. All she ever wanted was for us to be happy.”

  Wiping the tears away with a napkin from the table, Zachary said, “I’m okay.” Besides, all the crying in the world wasn’t going to change the fact that she had been gone for two years. It seemed pretty certain to him that she was never coming back.

  His father grabbed the pan and settled down into his seat. He scooped a large tangle of spaghetti onto both their plates. Zachary breathed in the aroma and remembered how hungry he was. He took a bite. The first taste of tangy sauce was wonderful. For all his faults, his father sure knew how to cook. The chopped bits of green peppers made his tongue tingle.

  After a while, his father said, “So where should we move to? Hawaii? Africa?”

  “Could we really go anywhere?” Zachary asked.

  “I don’t see why not.”

  Zachary tried to imagine what it would be like to live on a warm beach where he could swim all year round, or maybe they could move into the mountains where their closest neighbors would be deer & moose. Then he wondered if there might be a place with both mountains and beaches. Suddenly, the energy drained out of him. How could they move?

  His father turned to stare out their fourteenth floor window at the thousands of lights that shone like funeral candles in the night sky. The distant look in his eyes suggested he already knew what his son was about to say.

  “How would she find us?” Zachary asked.

  “If—when—she comes back, I can make some arrangements,” his father said. “I’ll know when she comes around.”

  His father’s first word “if” struck Zachary like a slap on the face. For all the fights and discussions they’d had over the past two years, neither had ever talked about one thing: what if something terrible had happened to her? What if his mother had been hurt or worse?

  Zachary shook off the thought. Better to be angry at her for abandoning them than to believe that. He concentrated on the meal and began sucking in long strands of spaghetti. One especially long string was hanging from his mouth when he noticed movement in his father’s plate!

  Worms!

  Gagging and spitting spaghetti across the table, Zachary leapt back, knocking h
is chair over. He accidentally smashed his cast against the end of the table, which sent pain rocketing straight to his brain.

  “My cooking that bad?” his father asked.

  Zachary stabbed a finger toward his father’s plate which was now full of squirming worms.

  His father scrambled up and somehow managed to spit half-chewed pasta against the window as he, too, retreated from the slithering creatures. A quick glance assured Zachary there were no worms in his plate. But had he eaten any? The thought made his stomach wrench. Fighting the urge to puke, he poked at the strands on his own plate.

  Where had the worms come from? Wouldn’t his father have noticed them in the pan, and even so why hadn’t they died in the boiling water? Horrified, he watched the slimy things wriggle like miniature snakes.

  “Get down and stay down!” his father hissed.

  Confused, Zachary backed away from the table while his father scurried down the hall. Horrified, Zachary watched a shape form in his father’s plate—no not a shape exactly: one worm had curled itself into the letter “C”!

  He crept closer. It must have been a coincidence. What else could it have been? Worms moved wherever they happened to move. They didn’t know how to form letters.

  “Zach, get away from there!” his father ordered, coming back into the room.

  “They’re just worms, Dad.” But then his eyes swung down to see other letters forming. Disbelieving, Zachary saw the worms arrange themselves into a full word: “COM E.”

  More bodies wriggled and coiled, and two more words came into focus on the plate. A tremor ran up his spine. Horrified,