by R. G. Thomas
Chapter TWENTY-FIVE
THADDEUS RODE his bike into town the following day. The business district looked just as he remembered: the grocery store, the general store that was a little smaller than Heap’s General Store had been, and a number of souvenir and curio shops with names like Superstition SuperStore, Superstitional Things, Things That Go Bump, The Grackle’s Roost, Finer Things, and Wards and Wonders. After his long journey, it was soothing to see the familiar stores. He coasted his bike past each one, smiling the entire way.
At the end of the block, he crossed the road and stopped before Superstition Sporting Goods where he and his father had once worked. The windows were covered in newspaper and the CLOSED sign hung at an angle between the glass and paper. Edgar had closed up shop and, Thaddeus assumed, left town. Perhaps he’d joined up with Lucian, or Logan the Bearagon had returned and they’d headed off someplace together to plan a future attack. No matter what the reason, Thaddeus felt confident he and his family, both by blood and extension, could handle them all.
He pedaled home and found his mother standing in the back yard staring at the wooden fence. He approached and stood beside her, looking at her profile with a sense of hope and love. She looked like the woman in the photograph his father kept on his dresser, the only difference being the cautious expression and the fiery orange stripe in her thick, dark hair.
“Do you remember that fence?” Thaddeus asked.
She shook her head slowly, her gaze still locked on it. “No. But it and the place beyond call to me.”
“That’s where you were sleeping when we found you,” Thaddeus said. “Do you remember that night at all? When Teofil and I set you free?”
She looked at him with a frown. “It was you who freed me?”
“Yes. Once Leopold knew the Bearagon was going to get through the gate, he had us pull up the drachen narcosis that had kept you sleeping for so long.”
“I remember none of it.”
Thaddeus took her hand and led her around the fence to the gate. Someone had repaired it—Rudyard, most likely—and Thaddeus was glad to find it unlocked. He led his mother into the yard, and they walked around the divots in the lawn and the torn up flower beds to the large hole in which she had slept for so long. As they stood in silence and looked down into the hole, Thaddeus was glad she still held his hand. There was no heat in her touch now, and he figured that meant she wasn’t feeling angry or threatened.
“I remember waking up,” she said, her voice so quiet he had to strain to hear her. “I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn’t breathe, and it was dark and damp. I felt… different than I had before. And I was angry and hurt and afraid. I just wanted to get out from where I was and get away. I needed to be someplace safe, someplace familiar.”
“When you came up out of the ground, you stopped and looked me over, and you sniffed me. It was like you recognized me.”
She gave him a tentative smile. “I do remember feeling for a moment like I was safe.” Her expression darkened and she shook her head and looked back into the hole as her hand warmed a bit. “But then something happened. There was pain, and I needed to run.”
“That was the Bearagon attacking you,” Thaddeus explained. “You flew off with it in your…. Well, in your claws, I guess. You saved me.”
She turned to him and took both of his hands as she studied his face, the warmth leaving her grip. “You look very much like my father, your grandfather.”
Thaddeus smiled. “I never knew any of my grandparents. Were they nice?”
“They were,” she replied. “I was their only daughter. The only girl out of six.”
Thaddeus laughed. “Five brothers?”
She laughed as well, and the sound gave Thaddeus hope that things might be okay after all.
“Five brothers!” she repeated. “They taught me how to fight and how to pull pranks and climb trees and swim and hunt.”
“That sounds like a great childhood.” Thaddeus smiled. “I’d like to hear more.”
She nodded. “I’d like to tell you. But not right now. Come on, let’s get back. We’re having a big dinner tonight.”
Thaddeus frowned as he followed her to the gate. “We are?”
She smiled at him, her hair blowing around her face and sunlight gleaming off the orange stripe. “We are. It’s a potluck, and everyone’s coming. Apparently your father and Vivienne have some news.”
Not long after that, Teofil showed up with Astrid and Dulindir. Thaddeus grabbed him in a hug and then gave him a firm kiss.
“I’ve missed you,” Thaddeus said.
“Me too,” Teofil replied.
“Enough of that, you two, it’s only been a day,” Claire said, and put them all to work in the kitchen peeling potatoes. The four of them talked and laughed and tossed potato peels at each other until Thaddeus’s mother scolded them and shooed them outside to set up tables and chairs. Rudyard and Miriam stepped out of the trees moments later with the rest of their children, and the scene quickly turned into mild chaos.
With steaming dishes of thick stew, jugs of fresh-squeezed lemonade, big salads made with vegetables fresh from the garden, and a bowl heaped with potato salad that Thaddeus’s mother brought from the kitchen, they were set for a feast. Thaddeus’s father and Vivienne showed up just as everyone was sitting down, and they took the two empty seats. Before anyone could dig in, however, Nathan stood up again and tapped his fork against the table.
“Hi, everyone, listen up please,” he said. “Vivienne and I have some information.”
Miriam and Rudyard shushed all of their children and, finally, gave Nathan their attention.
“We went through Leopold’s house after we got back and found that he had written a will,” Nathan said. “And in that will, he directed that all of his worldly goods, including his house, which is completely paid for, should be left to Teofil.”
A stunned silence fell over them all.
“What?” Teofil said, his eyes wide.
Thaddeus was unable to keep from clapping. “You’ll be next door again!”
“Wow,” Teofil said. “That’s a big house. With a lot of bedrooms.” He looked to his parents. “Can we all live there?”
“I should think so!” Rudyard exclaimed, and slipped a flask from his pocket to pour something into his lemonade before he took a big gulp. “Our house in the woods is getting a mite small.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Miriam said with a shake of her head. “Let’s look through the house and see how we might arrange things.”
Rudyard nodded, but when Miriam looked away, he gave Thaddeus and Teofil a big smile and wink followed by a nod. Thaddeus laughed, and the action seemed to release some final pent-up tension he’d had since they’d returned. Things weren’t the same as they were before, but they would be good again. Maybe even a little bit better.
After dinner, the adults cleared the table and the children ran around the yard playing hide and seek. Thaddeus taught the others how to play statue tag, laughing at Teofil’s annoyed expression as Dulindir crawled through his legs to unfreeze him after he’d been tagged. They played the game until dark, and then the little ones chased the fairies that floated in from the woods while the older kids and adults sat in lawn chairs and watched.
“I still want to know what happened to our brother,” Astrid said, sitting between Teofil and Dulindir. “I don’t like not knowing what she did to Fetter.”
Teofil nodded. “We’ll find out, Astrid. Don’t worry.” He looked over at Thaddeus, sitting on his opposite side, and smiled. “I’m going to be your neighbor again. Will that be okay with you?”
Thaddeus smiled and took Teofil’s hand. “I think I could get used to it.”
More from R. G. Thomas
The Town of Superstition: Book One
Thaddeus Cane and his father have moved thirty-two times in all of Thaddeus’s fifteen years. Every time his father uproots them without a reason, it leaves Thaddeus friendless once again. Superstit
ion is the town they’ve settled in this time, and despite its name, it seems like every other little town, except for one thing.
From the window of his bedroom, Thaddeus can look into their neighbor’s backyard. And every night, after dark, he sees a guy his own age putter around in the immaculately maintained garden. When Thaddeus visits his neighbor, the crush already blooming underneath surfaces, and Teofil, the midnight gardener, reveals he’s actually a garden gnome. When Thaddeus’s father finds out, more secrets are exposed, and Thaddeus embarks on the adventure of a lifetime.
Sequel to The Midnight Gardener
The Town of Superstition: Book Two
Thaddeus Cane is on the journey of his life. Having just discovered he is the son of a wizard and witch, he sets off on a quest to find his mother, who was cursed when Thaddeus was just a baby. He is accompanied by his father, Nathan; his new love, Teofil Rhododendron, the garden gnome who lives next door; and Teofil’s mother, brother, and sister. Though the world they travel through is familiar to him, they encounter a number of magical beings, some friendly and others quite deadly. When Nathan is gravely wounded, Thaddeus must choose between finding his mother and saving his father’s life.
Readers love The Town of Superstition series by R. G. Thomas
The Midnight Gardener
“I really enjoyed this young adult, LGBT urban fantasy.”
—Joyfully Jay
“This is an exceptional young adult novel, full of intrigue and mystery, with enough of a dash of romance to keep you smiling.”
—Vampires, Crime & Angels… Eclectic Me
“This book was amazing. I love the story.”
—Inked Rainbow Reads
The Well of Tears
“…I wholeheartedly enjoyed Thomas’s way of describing the atmospheric surroundings …”
—The Blogger Girls
“I loved the sweet moments between Thaddeus and Teofil…”
—My Fiction Nook
“Magic, Goblins, Faeries, a Dragon, and secrets. The journey of a lifetime and first love? Seriously, what else do you need?”
—Prism Book Alliance
R. G. THOMAS has been reading books from an early age. As a young gay man, however, he found very few characters with whom he could truly identify. Now that he’s an adult—or at least older than he used to be—he likes to write stories that revolve around gay characters. The Town of Superstition is his YA fantasy gay romance series that includes wizards, witches, and other magical creatures.
When he’s not writing, R. G. loves to read, go to movies, watch some TV, and putter around in the small suburban patch of ground he calls a yard. He visits his mother once a week, not just for the free cookies, and enjoys spending time with close friends drinking wine and making up ridiculous things that sometimes show up in his books. Although he hates the process of travel, he does enjoy experiencing new places. His dream trip is to one day visit the country of Greece, and he is currently saving his nickels and dimes to make that a reality.
Twenty years ago he met a man who understood and encouraged his strange, creative mind, and who made him laugh more often and more freely than anyone else. Today they are legally married and still laugh often as they live in a suburb just north of Detroit with their two cats who act as both muse and distraction to him while he writes.
By R. G. Thomas
THE TOWN OF SUPERSTITION
The Midnight Gardener
The Well of Tears
The Battle of Iron Gulch
Published by HARMONY INK PRESS
www.harmonyinkpress.com
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Battle of Iron Gulch
© 2017 R. G. Thomas.
Cover Art
© 2017 Anna Sikorska.
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-63533-244-5
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63533-245-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016914555
Published January 2017
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America