by R. G. Thomas
“Did that get us a reduced room rate?” Thaddeus asked.
“That’s not for you to worry about, dear,” Miriam said, and gave him a quick smile. “You’re to focus on your chores.”
All of the kids, even Dulindir, groaned at that.
The adults laughed, and then his father sat beside Thaddeus and started to load up his plate with food.
“Hannah and I came up with a list of chores that need to be completed,” his father said. “Miriam and I have divided them up based on everyone’s skills. The list is hanging on the refrigerator.”
They all started to get up, but stopped when Miriam shouted, “Sit!” She looked at each of them and said, “First, we eat our meal together. Then you may get up and look at the list. And there are to be no arguments about who is assigned which task.” She gave Teofil and Astrid pointed looks, lingering a bit, Thaddeus noticed, on Astrid.
“Why’re you staring at me the longest?” Astrid protested. “What about Teofil? He’s probably a worse griper than I am, and Fetter is even—”
Thaddeus felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room and replaced with ice. Everyone had stopped eating and stared at her. Astrid’s eyes went wide and her face paled.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice a tremulous whisper. “I’m sorry. He’s always been there, and it’s hard sometimes to remember.” She looked down at her plate and moved some eggs around.
“Astrid, would you like to be excused?” Miriam asked in a gentle voice.
“Yes, Mum,” Astrid replied without looking at any of them.
“You may go.”
Thaddeus watched her push back from the table and slip behind Teofil, who tried to grab her hand. She shook her head and pulled free of his grasp, then hurried through the back door, leaving behind a quiet sob that slipped free before she could get outside.
“I should go after her,” Teofil said.
Miriam shook her head. “Leave her be for now, Teofil. She needs time to herself.”
“Will she still have to do her chores?” Dulindir asked.
Thaddeus let out a laugh, then covered his mouth and looked around at the others. He was relieved to see them all smiling and looking at Dulindir in surprise.
Dulindir smiled. “I did mean it as a joke. Get it?”
Teofil looked at Thaddeus and they shared a smile. Teofil shook his head and said, “You’re not half-bad, Dulindir. For an elf.”
“Thank you, Teofil,” Dulindir said. “You’re not half-good, for a gnome.”
Teofil paused with his fork in front of his mouth. “I don’t think you understand the saying.”
“I think I do,” Dulindir said, then pushed back from the table. “I would like to be excused.”
“That’s fine,” Nathan said. “Check the chore list and get to work.”
“And leave Astrid be for now,” Miriam added. “Sometimes she just needs some time to herself.”
Thaddeus finished breakfast just after Teofil, and they got up together to look at the list. Thaddeus groaned when he saw he had kitchen cleanup and exterior paint scraping.
“Problem, Thaddeus?” his father asked.
“No.” Thaddeus held out his hand to take Teofil’s plate and approached the sink. It was deep and ceramic—a farmhouse sink, or so it had been called by one of the numerous landlords he and his father had met during their many moves—and he scraped the few breakfast remnants down the disposal.
Teofil brought over Astrid and Dulindir’s plates and leaned in close. “I’ll be working in the yard, trying to get something to grow.”
Thaddeus smiled. “Will you be humming?”
Teofil smiled back. “I will. And I’ll start my work under the kitchen window here.”
“I’d like that.”
Thaddeus watched Teofil leave the kitchen through the back door, then returned his attention to the dishes. A few minutes later, he heard the rattle of gardening tools outside the window over the sink, which had been opened a bit to let in the fresh summer air. Teofil’s calm, deep humming wafted in on the breeze. Thaddeus was transported back to those first nights in Superstition, before he had met Teofil, when the humming had drifted in through his bedroom window. He remembered the thrill of talking with Teofil for the first time. The trembling combination of nerves and excitement as he’d finally stood face-to-face with his mysterious and attractive neighbor.
His father set his plate on the counter. “You look about a thousand miles away.”
“What?” Thaddeus couldn’t help his blush.
Nathan cocked his head to listen a moment, then smiled. “Thinking about when you two first met?”
Thaddeus shrugged and scrubbed harder at some food dried on a plate. He didn’t want to talk with his father about his feelings for Teofil, mostly because he thought his father would tell him to slow down and remind him that this was his first relationship.
“I was also thinking of how it had felt to sit around the table with everyone,” Thaddeus said. “Like a family.”
Nathan turned to lean back against the counter and folded his arms over his chest. “It was a good feeling, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was. And it’s fun to see how Teofil and Astrid act together.”
His father was quiet a long moment. “I know you’ve missed not having a brother or sister to help you deal with me and all our moving around.”
“No, it’s not that,” Thaddeus started, but then he stopped and grinned.
They said at the same time, “Yeah, it is,” and both laughed, and Thaddeus went back to the dishes.
Then he gasped and turned once more to his father. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked if you had a brother or sister.”
“Oh? Never?” Nathan looked away, back toward the table where Miriam still sat, but Thaddeus thought he might not even be seeing her, as his eyes took on a far-away look.
“I guess since I didn’t have a brother or sister, I never expected you to have had any siblings,” Thaddeus said.
“It would have been strange if I had never mentioned that fact before, wouldn’t it?” Nathan asked, now looking at Thaddeus.
“I guess so.” Thaddeus shrugged.
“Well, there you go.” His father pushed up from the counter and crossed to the kitchen table, returning with Miriam’s dishes. “You forgot something.”
Thaddeus gave him a glare. “Funny.”
He grinned. “I thought so. I’ll see you outside for paint scraping.”
“I can’t wait.”
As Thaddeus started cleaning the silverware, he heard Miriam leave the kitchen with Nathan. Now that he was alone and not distracted by conversation, he could focus on Teofil’s humming. It soothed him and left him feeling dreamily adrift. The dishes were finished before he realized it, and once he’d dried the last plate and returned it to the cupboard, he felt calmer than he had in days. No wonder Leopold’s garden had flourished under Teofil’s care.
At the thought of Leopold, Thaddeus wondered when his neighbor might meet up with their group. He’d promised to do so, but perhaps he, Vivienne, and Teofil’s father, Rudyard, were all involved in adventures of their own, trying to root out Isadora’s followers. Whatever the reason, Thaddeus hoped they showed up soon.
He dried his hands and wiped down the counter, then headed outside to start his next chore.
THADDEUS HAD spent an hour so far scraping off the peeling red paint on the front of the inn when he stopped for a break. He removed the plastic safety glasses his father insisted he wear and took a long drink from a plastic water bottle as he backed up across the yard to inspect his work. His father had started scraping paint in the backyard, so Thaddeus was working on the front of the house alone, but he’d made good progress. Still, there was a lot more paint to scrape, and he blew out a breath at the thought and then took another drink.
“Why don’t you like using your canteen?”
The voice came from just behind him and made him jump. He turned to see a girl standi
ng just on the other side of the fence a few feet away. She was African American, with her hair done in a number of braids that stuck out from beneath a plaid driving cap. She giggled and covered her mouth when he jumped.
“Sorry I scared you,” she said.
Thaddeus furrowed his brow and fought back a feeling of mild irritation. “You didn’t scare me.”
“Could have fooled me,” the girl said and giggled again. “Are you new here?”
Thaddeus nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“Well, either you are or you aren’t. Which is it?”
He gave her an assessing look, and she met his gaze without looking away.
“It’s a little complicated,” he replied.
The girl sighed and rolled her eyes. “You sound like an adult. How old are you? Forty-two?”
“No, I’m fifteen,” Thaddeus said, not at all sure why he felt he had anything to prove to her.
She made a face. “You’re my age? You don’t act like it.”
“I don’t even know your name, and here you are telling me how I should act?” Thaddeus shook his head and turned away to walk back to the ladder.
“I’m Aisha Hutchins,” the girl called after him.
Thaddeus waved without looking around at her or responding, and ascended the ladder to resume scraping away the red paint.
“Don’t be rude, what’s your name?” Aisha called from the fence.
He stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Thaddeus.”
“That’s it? Just Thaddeus?”
He sighed. “Thaddeus Cane.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Thaddeus Cane. When did you get to town?”
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m kind of busy here.”
His hopes that she would take the hint and move along were dashed when she stepped through the gate and crossed the lawn to stand at the foot of the ladder. “I can help you.”
“Help me? Don’t you have something better to do on your summer vacation?”
Aisha shook her head. “Nope.”
“No friends to hang out with?”
“They’ve all moved away.”
“No TV to watch?”
“It’s all reruns.”
“Video games?”
“I don’t like ’em.”
“Books to read?”
“I’ve read pretty much everything in the library already, and the new stuff isn’t in yet.” She crossed her arms and frowned. “You seem like you don’t want me around.”
“No, it’s not that,” Thaddeus said.
“Then what is it?”
Thaddeus wished he could say it was because he was part of a group of magical folk on a dangerous mission to locate his mother and hopefully change her from a dragon back into her true form before an evil witch corrupted her for malicious purposes. But that would most likely make her think he was crazy and start some rumors to that effect around town.
“I was just kind of enjoying the quiet and getting into scraping,” Thaddeus said. “That’s all.”
“I can be quiet. Look.” Aisha picked up another paint scraper and moved down to the corner of the inn. She attacked the flaking paint, her movements wild, sending paint chips flying so fast Thaddeus worried she might get one in the eye.
“Wait,” Thaddeus said, his voice loud so she could hear him over her frantic scraping.
She stopped and gave him a challenging look. “What?”
He climbed down the ladder and took the scraper from her. “You’re gouging the wood underneath, see? Hold it flat, like this.” He held the scraper at an angle and peeled away a small patch of peeling paint. “See?”
Aisha nodded and smiled. “Okay. Thanks.”
“I should be the one thanking you for helping. You don’t have to help me, you know.”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
“Well, thank you.” He grabbed another pair of safety glasses from the tool bucket. “Here, wear these.”
Aisha put them on and struck a pose. “How do I look?”
Thaddeus chuckled. “Like a supermodel.”
“You know it!” Aisha said, and they both laughed as Thaddeus returned to the ladder.
For a long time, they worked in silence, their movements falling into a complementary rhythm. When Aisha spoke again, she pulled Thaddeus from thoughts about Isadora and how they might be able to leave Iron Gulch sooner than his father thought.
“You never answered my question.”
“What?” Thaddeus stopped scraping and looked down at her. “Which question?”
“Why you didn’t drink from the canteen on your belt.”
“Oh.” Thaddeus was quiet a moment, focusing on his task. “I guess I just like the taste of the bottled water better.”
“Then why are you wearing the canteen at all?”
He looked down at her. “You ask a lot of questions.”
Aisha shrugged. “I like to know things.”
“Yeah? What kind of things do you know?”
“I know this town is slowly dying,” Aisha said.
“What do you mean?”
“Ever since the mine collapsed, people have been leaving.”
“Yeah, Ruby told us about that last night,” Thaddeus said.
Aisha made a sound that was a combined snort and a sigh as she rolled her eyes. “Ruby. That woman never stops talking.”
Thaddeus grinned. “She does have a lot to say.”
“None of it seems to make much difference.” Aisha stopped scraping and shrugged. “It was mostly ’cause of her that everyone else voted to take the settlement from the company and not push to get the bodies back.”
“Oh? Sounded like everyone voted, according to what Ruby said.”
“Yeah, I bet she said that. She pretty much got up on her soapbox and told us all that it wouldn’t do any good to bring them back.”
Thaddeus climbed down the ladder and approached Aisha. She wouldn’t look at him, focusing instead on her scraping.
“Did you lose someone in the mine?”
Aisha lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.
“Aisha?”
“My dad and my two brothers.” She wiped away a tear and shook her head, still not looking at him. “It’s stupid, I know. They’re already in the ground, right? They’re buried. But there’s no… I don’t know.”
“Closure?” Thaddeus suggested.
She finally looked at him, her dark eyes swamped with tears as she nodded. “Yeah. No closure.”
“I understand.”
“You do?”
Thaddeus smiled. “I really do. And I’m sorry about your dad and your brothers.”
“Thanks.”
Before Thaddeus could say anything more or return to his work, his father came around the corner of the house and stopped in surprise.
“Who’s this?”
“Oh, sorry,” Aisha said, dropping the scraper and taking a few steps back. “Is this his punishment or something?”
Thaddeus and his father both laughed, and Aisha looked between them, then smiled. “You’re not in trouble?”
Thaddeus shook his head. “Not yet.”
“I wondered if that was why you’re wearing that canteen,” Aisha said. “I thought maybe your dad was making you do it?”
“No, I just like to keep it close to me,” Thaddeus said, dropping his hand onto the canteen. “That’s all.”
“Special memory?” Aisha asked.
“Yeah.” Thaddeus nodded, glanced at his father, and then looked away toward the mountain at the end of the street. “Special memory.”
“What’s your name?” his father asked, extending his hand. “I’m Nathan Cane, Thaddeus’s father.”
“I’m Aisha Hutchins.”
They shook hands and Nathan tipped his head toward Thaddeus. “Did he trick you into helping him?”
“Thaddeus?” Aisha shook her head. “He’s no Tom Sawyer. I volunteered to help.”
“Well, thank you for the help, Aisha. I’ll leave you both to it, then.”
They worked in silence for a time. The sun was warm against Thaddeus’s back and the top of his head, and that, combined with the Zen-like act of scraping away old paint, lulled him into a dreamlike state. His mind went still and calm. He felt no pressure at that moment to be doing anything other than exactly what he was doing.
Rock walls suddenly surrounded him, and it felt as if the cold and damp from his surroundings was seeping into his very bones. An angry voice was shouting nearby; from another direction came a cruel laugh. Horrible pain, followed by anger and fear, welled up within him. He wanted to run, get away from the pain and fear and lash out at anything and anyone that got in his way.
His chest tightened, and he suddenly felt weightless. Every cell in his body wanted to flee this place and every thought focused on escape.
“Thaddeus!”
The voice broke through the vision and brought him back to the moment just as he felt gravity grab hold. Suddenly he was falling, and before he could even shout, he landed on his left ankle. It twisted beneath him, and he cried out as he fell onto his back.
Lying at the foot of the ladder, Thaddeus stared up at the white clouds drifting across the top of the mountain and tried to make sense of what had just happened. His ankle throbbed, but he was too busy trying to retain the details of the vision he’d experienced to acknowledge the pain.
Teofil knelt beside him and took hold of his hand. “Are you all right?”
Thaddeus blinked and looked up into Teofil’s handsome face. His brow was creased with worry. “I think so.”
“What happened?”
They both looked up at Aisha. Teofil put up a hand with his palm facing out toward her. “Stop! Who are you?”
“Whoa,” Aisha said and took a step back. “I’m his friend.” She met Thaddeus’s gaze. “Aren’t I?”
Thaddeus nodded and sat up. “It’s okay, I met her earlier. She’s been helping me scrape paint. Teofil, this is Aisha. Aisha, meet Teofil.”
Teofil and Aisha exchanged subdued greetings, regarding each other with suspicion.
“What happened?” Aisha asked again.
“I don’t know,” Thaddeus replied. “I fell, but I’m not sure why. I had… I saw….” He stopped when he remembered Aisha wasn’t part of their group and might not understand what he had experienced.