by Jeff Zentner
“That works. Travis, you were born to a wizard family, and adopted by a normal family. But a very powerful sorcerer enchanted you so that if you ask more than…oh…say, three questions on your birthday, you’ll have horrific diarrhea.”
“It’s not my birthday, remember?”
“There’s a one-month window on the spell. And we’re a half hour from the next rest stop.”
They neared Nashville. Lydia’s GPS squawked directions to the airport.
“The airport…,” Travis started to say, with a questioning lilt in his voice.
Lydia raised a finger in warning. “Diarrhea.”
“…is a very cool place for airplanes to take off and land,” Travis finished.
They took the exit to the airport and approached the terminal.
“We’re right on time,” Lydia said, looking at her phone.
“On time on time or the Lydia version of on time?” Dill asked.
“No, genuinely on time.” Lydia pulled into a parking lot where cars waited to pick up people at the terminal.
They waited several minutes. Travis started to say something.
“Dude, trust me. You will not want to have diarrheaed yourself for this surprise,” Lydia said, cutting him off. “You’ll want to be at your most diarrhea-free for this surprise.”
Her phone rang. “Lydia Blankenship,” she answered. That was odd. That wasn’t how she normally answered the phone.
“Okay…okay…so you’ve got your bags. Okay, great. We’re in a light-blue Toyota Prius. Lots of stickers. Okay, great. Okay, see you in a minute. Bye.” Lydia hung up.
“And so it begins.” She started the car and drove to the terminal. They sat and waited. Travis stared ahead.
“Travis, look at that man over there in the coat and maroon sweater,” Dill said.
“Where?”
Dill pointed. “Over there. The guy with the—”
“Fisherman’s cap,” Lydia said, pointing. “Bushy white beard, glasses, portly. Holding a Cinnabon box.”
“Who does that look like?” Dill asked.
Travis laughed. “Oh wow, it totally looks like G. M. Pennington.”
He studied the man for a second more. His heart rate doubled. “No way,” he whispered. Lydia and Dill grinned. “It is G. M. Pennington! And he’s walking toward us!” Travis squealed. He bounced up and down in his seat. He frantically reached for his phone to text Amelia, and realized that he’d left it at home again by accident. She won’t believe this. She’s going to die.
“Calm down,” Lydia said. “Show a little dignity. You’re about to meet your hero.”
She got out and walked toward Mr. Pennington, extending her hand. “Mr. Pennington, Lydia Blankenship. Good to meet you. This way.”
He gave her a jolly grunt and tipped his cap. “Mademoiselle. I’ll follow where you lead.”
She led Mr. Pennington to her car. “Sorry, we don’t have something fancier.”
He waved off her apology. “I would gladly ride in such an ecologically righteous conveyance over the finest limousine any day. Limousines are for sociopathic oligarchs.”
“Mr. Pennington, I think we’ll get along fine. Dill, get in the backseat,” Lydia said. “Bestselling authors get automatic shotgun.”
Dill got out and shook his hand. “Sir, Dillard Early. Pleased to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine,” he said, sitting. “And please, all of you, call me Gary. My real name is Gary Mark Kozlowski, but who wants to read a fantasy novel by a Polish serial killer, right?” He chuckled. “But I’m told that one of you probably already knows my real name. You must be Travis.”
Travis sat paralyzed, his mouth agape, looking like he’d seen an angel. Which was, frankly, how he felt. “Me, sir. Gary,” he squeaked.
“Sir Gary? I accept my knighthood, Mister Travis. Pleasure to meet you.” He offered his hand and Travis took it, trembling.
“Gary,” Lydia said, “how long is your layover?”
“Three hours.”
“What do you want to do or see?”
He stroked his beard. “I judge a city by its ice cream. And there’s no conversation better than the kind you can have over ice cream. So lead on, friends. Transport me to your finest ice cream.”
“Done,” Lydia said. “I know a place.” They sped away.
“How—” Travis started to ask before he cut himself off.
“It’s okay, Travis. You can start asking questions now. The spell is lifted.” Lydia looked over at Gary. “Don’t ask.”
“How?” Travis asked.
“I’ll start,” Lydia said. “I wanted to make this happen for you before I left for college, so I called my friend Dahlia, whose mom is the editor of Chic. She put me in touch with her mom’s literary agent. Her mom’s literary agent knew Mr. Pennington’s agent. I got his schedule and found out he was stopping over in Nashville on his flight home to Santa Fe from meeting with his publisher about the upcoming Deathstorm release.”
“But,” Gary said, “that’s not the whole story. Lydia clearly did her homework and discovered an obscure interview I did before any of you were born, in which I talked about what a special place I have in my heart for my rural fans who dream of a bigger world than the one they inhabit. And I know this because Miss Lydia had at the ready for my agent the population statistics for…” He snapped his fingers.
“Forrestville,” Lydia said.
“Ah, yes. Forrestville. And my agent would be in big trouble if I weren’t at least given the opportunity to spend some time with one of my small-town readers who made the trip all this way. So we changed my flight to the red-eye so I’d be able to spend some real time with you.”
“I can’t even tell you both what this means to me,” Travis said. He wanted to cry. This was already the best night of his life.
“My pleasure,” Lydia said. “I had to go big.”
They arrived at Five Points Creamery and got in line.
“Mr.—Gary, please let me pay for you,” Travis said.
Gary laughed. “My boy, it’s no secret to you that I have sold many books. I am a millionaire many times over. I will be buying the ice cream this evening for all of you, thank you very much. Buy Deathstorm when it comes out if you must repay me.”
“Oh, I will. You better believe I will.”
Gary approached the young man behind the counter and pulled a fat, intricately tooled wallet from his pocket. “I’ll be paying for my young friends here. And whatever they order”—he leaned in with a conspiratorial wink—“make it a triple. All around.” He drew a circle in the air with his finger.
They all sat down with their ice cream.
“So, Travis, what house are you?” Gary asked, spooning ice cream into his mouth and grunting with delight.
“Oh, Northbrook. Definitely Northbrook,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation.
Gary pointed his spoon at Travis. “Indeed! I had you pegged as a Northbrook, but I was prepared to talk you out of whatever other ideas you may have had. House Tanaris? House Wolfric? Who knows how people think.”
Travis beamed.
“All right, then,” Gary said. “Let’s put your friends in their rightful houses, shall we?”
“Yeah! Dill’s a musician. So…”
“Minstrels’ Brotherhood,” Gary and Travis said simultaneously. They grinned.
“All right, Lydia…she’s supersmart and she loves to read and write…so…House Letra?” Travis said.
“Yes, yes,” Gary said, rubbing his chin. “Or…The Learned Order?”
Travis considered the proposition tentatively, not wanting to contradict his idol, but realizing he might have no choice. “Only thing is that there’s a lifelong chastity vow.”
“I forgot about that,” Gary murmured.
“Nope,” Lydia said. “My chastity vow extends only to high school. I’ll take the other choice. Hey, I don’t want to interrupt the Bloodfallery, but Gary, how did you become a writer?”
/> He finished a bite of ice cream. “I grew up on a farm in Kansas. Wheat. Corn. We had some animals. We worked from dawn until dusk. I loved the books of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Robert E. Howard. As I worked, I would create worlds in my mind. Characters. People. Languages. Races. Battles. It was my escape. Pretty soon, I had too much for my head to hold and I needed to put some on paper.”
“I do that!” Travis said. “I work at a lumberyard and I imagine stuff while I work. What did your parents think about you becoming a writer?”
A wistful smile. “My father…was not a kind man. He drove me hard and he thought writing was foolishness. And maybe he was right. But you couldn’t have told me that then and you couldn’t tell me that now.”
A moment of quiet. Gary finished another bite of ice cream. “Are you a writer, Travis?”
“Oh no.”
“Why not?”
“I mean…I can’t write.”
“Well, have you ever tried?”
“No.”
“Then of course you can’t! Writing is something you can learn only by doing. To become a writer, you need an imagination, which you clearly have. You need to read books, which you clearly do. And you need to write, which you don’t yet do, but should.”
“Don’t you need to go to college to be a writer?”
“Not at all. Listen, we live in a remarkable time. There’s free advice everywhere on the Internet. Have you ever read Bloodfall fanfic?”
“Yes,” Travis said, hesitating. “But I’ll stop if you want me to.”
Gary laughed. “Nonsense. Start there. Write some Bloodfall fanfic. Borrow my characters. I give you permission. Get practice writing. And then begin to create your own. I sense something special in you. A great imagination. I sense that you have a story to tell.”
Travis glowed. Something began to grow inside of him. Something that might be able to grow through the rocks and dirt that his father had piled on him.
He and Gary spent an hour and a half discussing the Bloodfall series while Dill and Lydia sat outside and talked. Travis told Gary about Amelia. He borrowed Lydia’s phone and they took many photos together. The time came to leave. They returned to the airport.
“Before you go, can I tell you one of my favorite parts of all of the Bloodfall books?” Travis asked.
“Please,” Gary said.
“I don’t know why I love this part so much. But I love the engraving Raynar Northbrook put on Baldric Tanaris’s tomb after the Battle of the Weeping Vale.”
Gary gave a melancholy smile. “I remember that part well. I wrote it right after my first wife passed away. I was deeply depressed, and I was thinking a great deal about what it meant to live a good life. And I decided that it was so your friends could write something of that nature about you when you were gone.”
“I think that’s why I like it,” Travis said. “It makes me want to live a good life.”
Gary beamed. “Good,” he said softly.
As Gary was about to get out, Lydia gasped. “Wait! I almost forgot!” She pulled a hardcover edition of Bloodfall from her bag and handed it to Gary. “Please sign this for my friend Travis.”
“Indeed, indeed!” Gary pulled a gold fountain pen from his jacket pocket and signed the frontispiece with a flourish. To Travis of House Northbrook, my new friend, large in stature, strong of imagination. Become who you were meant to be.
Lydia handed the book to Travis. “You need to lend me your old copy of Bloodfall, since I need to read it.”
Travis got out to give Gary a last handshake. Gary chuckled. “We’re friends now, Travis. I hug friends goodbye.” He grabbed Travis in a huge bear hug and they took one last picture together.
“I can’t believe this night happened. I can’t believe this really happened. Lydia, you’re so amazing.” He repeated this mantra. His bouncing up and down in the backseat made the car rock.
“I’m pulling over if you don’t stop.” Lydia had a teasing lilt in her voice. “You’re going to make us run off the road.”
“Sorry. Y’all, I’m going to do what he said. I’ll start writing. Maybe I can take some classes at the community college in Cookeville or something.”
“Do it, Trav,” Dill said. “You’ve got what it takes.”
His mind buzzed the whole way home. It was rare for his real life to be so good that it would displace his imaginary life. But this time it was.
He formulated his plan. He’d get some sleep (yeah right, especially once I start texting Amelia), and the next day, when he was done at school and the lumberyard, he’d get on the Internet and start looking for writing advice. Maybe I should get a notebook to keep it in. I should start saving up for a new laptop and writing classes. And I should get someone who knows writing to read it. Maybe Lydia will. But I better write fast before she leaves for college and gets too busy. Exuberant purpose filled him.
They dropped him off after more fevered thank-yous. As he walked up to his house, he again lamented that he forgot to bring his cell phone. Yes, Lydia got plenty of pictures, as usual, but he wanted to send Amelia photos of himself and the master and upload them to the Bloodfall forums as soon as possible. They’ll never believe that G. M. Pennington—sorry, “Gary”—bought him ice cream and hung out with him for more than two hours. Oh, and the signed copy of Bloodfall.
He entered the dark house. His father sprawled on the couch in the flickering glow of the TV. When he saw Travis, he picked up the remote and turned it off.
“Where were you?” he asked, slurring.
Travis knew his father’s tone. His heart sank. Please not tonight. Please not tonight of all nights. Let me just have this. “With my friends, like I told you, remember?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
“Well, sorry. Anyway.” He started for his room.
“Get your ass back here. We ain’t done.”
Travis turned, yanked thoroughly back to Earth. And so it begins.
“I got a call come in at four-thirty needing a load of pressure-treated for a deck. Five-hundred-dollar order. And guess what? I didn’t have nobody to deliver it.”
Travis began to sweat. He felt queasy. “I’m sorry. I told Lamar, and he said he’d cover deliveries.”
“Lamar’s oldass brain forgot. You left me high and dry. I tried calling you. Bunch of times.”
“I forgot my cell phone.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Travis’s father stood up. “I got it right here in my damn hand.”
He hurled it at Travis. It hit him in the sternum with a meaty thud. He managed to grab it on the rebound before it hit the floor. He caught a glimpse of the screen. Fourteen missed calls. All from his father.
Travis’s father walked unsteadily toward him. “Five hundred you cost me today. What you got to say about it? Huh? Think we can afford that?”
“I’m really sorry, Dad. Can’t we deliver tomorrow? They probably didn’t think if they called that late—”
“No. No. We can’t deliver tomorrow.”
“Why not?”
“What’s that?” His father pointed at Travis’s newly signed copy of Bloodfall. “Huh? What’s that? More faggy wizard shit?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Huh? That what you cost me five hundred dollars for?” he shouted.
“I’ll take the delivery tomorrow. Before school. I’ll—”
Travis’s father tore off his baseball cap and whipped Travis on the back and face with it.
“Huh?” Whip. “Huh?” Whip. “That what cost me five (whip) hundred (whip) dollars?”
Travis tried to shield his face but one of the whips caught him across the eyes. They watered profusely. He blinked and wiped at them. He began to churn and froth inside. “You’re drunk, Dad. Please let me go to bed.” Please don’t make this the night. Please don’t make this the night you knew was coming. Please don’t make this the night.
His father grabbed for the book. “Gimme that.”
Travis yanked it away
. He heard his mother. “Clint, sweetie, you woke me up. What’s going on?”
His father lunged at him again. Travis again yanked the book from his reach. His father pushed him into the hutch where Travis’s mother kept the china and her doll collection. He shattered the glass doors. His mother screamed.
“Gimme that piece of shit,” Travis’s father seethed through gritted teeth. He managed to snatch the book. He turned away from Travis and started ripping pages out of it.
Something rent inside Travis, making a sound in his mind like a thousand tearing pages. He howled like a wounded animal and threw himself at his father’s back. It was a solid hit. Had this been a football game and had he not been the target, it would have made Travis’s father proud. Instead, it sent him careening into an end table, knocking a lamp onto the floor and shattering it. The book fell from his hands. Travis dove on top of the book and covered it with his body.
Travis’s father got up and stood over him. “You think I’m some beaner wetback kid you can take? I’ll whip your ass right now.” He slapped at Travis’s head, boxing his ears. He tried to get at the book, but Travis sheltered it completely. Travis’s father unbuckled his belt and whipped it off with a swift motion, popping loose one of his belt loops. He raised his arm and scourged Travis’s back with the belt. Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The belt whistled and cracked across Travis’s skin. Bear it in silence; it’s the only way you can win, Travis commanded himself, but he cried out each time it struck. It felt like someone was painting his back and ribs with stripes of gasoline and chili pepper and setting them ablaze. Travis’s mom jumped at his father. “Clint! You’re hurting him! Stop it!” She tried to catch the belt. Travis’s father grabbed her by both arms and pushed her onto the ground. Hard. Her head hit the floor with a thud and she lay there, weeping softly and holding her head.
But she’d managed to distract Travis’s father long enough for Travis to jump to his feet. His father turned, saw him standing, and swung the belt at him again. Travis snagged it with his free hand and tore it away. He stood there for a second—belt in one hand, book in the other—tears and sweat running down his cheeks, facing down his father, who glowered at him, ruddy and panting.