The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories)

by Jeff Jacobson

  But clearly she was missing something. There was some need they had, that she and the others provided. The other halfies, as she liked to think about them. What a joke, though. More like a half of a half of nothing.

  She told Claudia about the different networks operating around the city; about how they’d infiltrated the courtrooms downtown, about the new school board superintendent that they’d put in place, about the kids over on Beacon Hill. To be honest, it wasn’t much. But she had to stretch it out to make sure that Claudia knew she was doing her job.

  Mavis had considered not mentioning the unpopped boy at the farmers market. She really didn’t want to be on Beverly’s bad side any more than she already was. But if she didn’t, and her little omission were discovered, she’d be on Claudia’s bad side too. And when you were on Claudia’s bad side, it was only a matter of time before you were on her bad side, and when that happened…

  ‘Jesus,’ she thought to herself for the hundredth time that day. ‘Can’t I just get out of this? Can’t I just go back to being a hag with no real abilities to speak of? I just want to be home, I just want to be…’

  She stopped. Whining to herself would only have her lose focus. Not a good thing to do when sitting on a park bench, now in the dark, with someone like Claudia. Besides, she needed to make sure that Claudia and the others knew she could still provide value. She told the woman about her encounter at the farmers market.

  Claudia listened quietly. Even though Mavis looked straight ahead, out over the dark waves of the Sound, she could feel the twin emeralds of Claudia’s eyes pressing against the side of her face, pulling at her.

  When she finished talking, Claudia said, “So. Mama bear felt threatened today, did she? Interesting.” Her last word seemed to linger. Mavis could almost see it as a smoke ring, thick and solid, floating up in the night air.

  “Thank you, Mavis. You’ve been a very helpful kitten today.” Claudia stood up from the park bench.

  “Don’t mention it,” Mavis replied, hoping she sounded nonchalant.

  “Keep up the good work, okay?” The beautiful, young witch cooed at her, as she turned her back on the park bench and walked across the cement path, leaving a faint waft of wet wood lingering in the air.

  Mavis couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder. Weak yellow light from the lamppost a few feet away showed Claudia reaching into her pants pocket and pulling out something the approximate size of a single chopstick. She threw it to the ground, and Mavis heard a cracking sound, then watched as the chopstick shot out into a full broomstick, its bristles extending outward in a soft whoosh.

  The witch picked up the broom from the ground, placed it between her legs, then waggled her fingers in Mavis’s direction.

  “Toodle-oo,” she said. Her face was covered in shadow, but Mavis knew she was smiling. She pushed with her feet and sailed off into the night.

  Chapter 27

  Glasses clinked, candle flames flickered, Amos sighed on the floor near the table. They sat in the dining room, all six of them. The sun had nearly set, and Randall dimmed the lights until they shone with a soft glow.

  At first Charlie thought that he shouldn’t be wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. The silverware sparkled on the table, and to him the dining room looked like the kind of restaurant he’d seen on TV, the kind he’d never been to before. But the others were also casually dressed, and seemed very relaxed with each other.

  His aunt and uncle sat on either side of him. Across from him and to the left sat Daniel Burman, a thickly-built quiet man with hair cut close to his scalp. He worked as a detective in the Seattle Police Department. His eyes were pale gray and seemed to bore into whatever caught their attention, including, at times, Charlie. The man appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties.

  Next to Daniel sat Rita and Jeremy Lostich, a married couple in their late twenties or early thirties who owned several coffee shops around town. “Local, and fair trade, of course,” said Rita, winking at him and laughing. He didn’t know what that meant, but found himself smiling back at her. She had curly, dark blond hair that fell halfway down her back. She smelled of spice, and wore a loose, sleeveless shirt. A small ring pierced her nose. She had a generous laugh.

  Her husband Jeremy had a beard and shoulder-length dark hair, which he wore parted down the middle so that it hung down and over each side of his forehead like opened curtains. He had kind eyes and an easy smile. Charlie thought he could play the role of Jesus in an Easter movie.

  “The Lostichs are my favorite hippy-chic couple,” Randall had told Charlie as he’d made introductions.

  Where the Lostichs were quick-witted and giggly, Daniel Burman remained solemn, almost brooding. Neither, however, appeared bothered by the other. Only Charlie seemed surprised by the contrast.

  The guests oohed and aahed over his aunt and uncle’s cooking. The meal was halibut, steamed in a banana leaf, with rice, soy sauce, green onions, ginger, chilies, and sesame oil. They had roasted summer squash, and there were fresh greens with berry something-or-other (“It’s just a fancy name for a sauce, Charlie. Remember, these witches are insufferable!” Randall had teased) that was tart and refreshing.

  Charlie was pretty sure his aunt had informed the guests ahead of time that he was shy, because they didn’t pry him with questions. Rita told him that she had lived for several years in the Lake Tahoe area, and knew the foothills quite well.

  “I used to hang out in Nevada City as a teenager.”

  “Yeah, NC is pretty cool.”

  “Did you ever go to Fairplay?”

  “Yeah, it’s about forty-five minutes away from Clarkston. Closer to Forkville,” Charlie said. Then he remembered the newscast he’d seen with his mother, and the photo of Ted Jones, the Forkville high school senior beaten and left by the roadside. He had forgotten all about him in the tumult that had preceded coming to Seattle.

  Daniel was staring at him from across the table, as if waiting for him to say something. The candlelight made his gray eyes look silver. Instead of saying more, Charlie looked down at his plate and stabbed the last bite of fish with his fork.

  “Well,” said Rita. “I heard a rumor there was dessert?”

  Randall and Beverly served homemade green tea sorbet with ginger cookies, accompanied by late-summer peaches from the farmers market, which brought more expressions of delight from the guests.

  “So what happened earlier today, Ms. Geehan?” Jeremy asked after licking a drop of sorbet from his spoon. “You were so cryptic on the phone.”

  Charlie looked up at his aunt. Geehan? That was her last name? It dawned on him that he hadn’t known his aunt and uncle’s last name, even though he’d been living with them for over a week already. Maybe he’d heard it during the mad dash to get him registered at Puget Academy. He couldn’t remember. There was still so much he didn’t know.

  Beverly began. “Randall, Charlie, and I went to the West Seattle Farmers Market this morning. I was pricing some orchids. When I looked up I saw Mavis O’Malley, of all people, sitting behind a booth, holding on to Charlie’s arm.”

  All three dinner guests reacted.

  “What?” said Daniel.

  “No way!” said Rita.

  “You gotta be friggin’ kidding me,” said Jeremy, his rough response tarnishing his Jesus-like image.

  “It’s true. Charlie,” now Beverly turned to him, “it would be easier if you told this part of the story. Do you mind?”

  He had hoped that he wouldn’t have to talk much in front of these new adults, let alone recount the events at the farmers market. But everyone was looking at him. He opened his mouth to say something, but his throat was bone dry.

  He took a long sip of water from his drinking glass, then felt his face redden as his mouth made a loud sucking noise.

  “It’s okay, buddy,” said Randall, ignoring the sound. “Just tell them what you told us.”

  “Yeah, well, um, I just wandered by her booth, not really paying attention
to anything, you know?” He left out the part about meeting Diego.

  Everyone nodded, so he continued, explaining how Mavis had grabbed his arm, what she’d said to him, how he’d felt dizzy and couldn’t see very well.

  “That goddamn hag!” Rita exclaimed, slamming her hand down on the table, causing the dishes and silverware to rattle. “What was she thinking, doing a drain like that?” Charlie wondered if maybe the Lostichs weren’t as “peace and love” as Randall had led him to believe.

  “More importantly, how did Mavis O’Malley learn to do a drain anyway?” asked Daniel.

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Beverly.

  “What happened after that?” asked Jeremy.

  Beverly took over the recounting of the incident. “I walked right over to her and told her that if she messed with me and mine, I’d mess with her.”

  “You didn’t!” said Jeremy, impressed.

  “You bet I did. I told her to leave the farmers market and not come back. I know it scared her.”

  The adults all looked at each other, then at Charlie.

  It was taciturn, distant Daniel Burman who spoke next. “I’ll get my inside team to investigate. Something is afoot among the echoes here in Seattle. I don’t like it.”

  Chapter 28

  Beverly led Charlie through a trail at Carson Park, Amos pulling hard at the leash in her hand. It was Monday, after school. “We’ll get there, buddy, we’ll get there,” she said to the dog.

  When Charlie had walked into the house earlier that afternoon, his aunt had approached him from the kitchen.

  “Would you be up for a walk with Amos and me today? There’s something I’d like to show you, and I thought it would be fun to have a little outing at the same time.”

  The weather was cooler today. Charlie had watched a cold full moon rise in the near-black sky the night before from his bedroom window, soon after he’d explained what Mavis had done to him and the table-side discussion had wound down.

  He felt a chilly touch of autumn in the air as they walked along. The afternoon light glowed and the undergrowth shone bright green against the dun walking trail, as if everything were preparing for the full color display of the upcoming season.

  “…and the reason I decided to keep my last name was because it was part of who I was, part of my community,” Beverly was saying.

  Charlie hadn’t been paying attention, caught up as he was in the lushness of the woods.

  “Wait, so your last name is ‘Geehan’ but Randall’s is ‘Ruben’?”

  “That’s right. ‘Geehan’ is my family name. It’s your Mom’s too. Or it was, before she changed it to ‘Creevey’ to hide her identity. Amos! Get away from there!” Beverly yelled, then laughed as she yanked on the leash, trying to keep the dog from sniffing at a small pile of animal scat on the trailside.

  Charlie wasn’t really sure why she was telling him this, but he found himself enjoying the conversation nonetheless. More than once in the last week he had observed Beverly talking to him like he was someone with thoughts and opinions about things. He’d never really regarded himself that way, but maybe he was that kind of person. Or maybe he could become one.

  “So that’s why you both decided to keep your own last names?” he said, as they stepped over a sodden log laying in the middle of the path. Amos took the opportunity to lift his leg on a bunch of devil’s club, a stalky, spiked plant that Beverly had pointed out earlier.

  “That’s right. Randall has extended family all over the US and Europe. He isn’t religious, but his Jewish roots are very important to him. He likes being part of that group of people, or ‘tribe’ as he calls it, even if he doesn’t know most of them. It gives him a sense of place in the world. A sense of belonging.

  “It’s the same thing with me. The legacy of my family is such a strong part of who I am. It ties me to my community. Not just the Irish part, but the witch part, too. I thought about changing my name to ‘Ruben’ when I got married, but it felt like I would be losing who I was.”

  Charlie wondered if that meant he was Irish too. Like everything else, his mother had never told him about his ancestry.

  They took a right turn and ducked under several cedar branches, which hung over the path like mossy green flags.

  “Can I, um, ask you some more questions?” Charlie asked once they’d begun to follow a wider trail.

  “Shoot.”

  “Well, really, …I have a bunch.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He paused, then took a deep breath.

  “I’m a witch, right?”

  “Yes. Or, more technically, you have the legacy in you. Your mother carried it very strongly, so you do too.”

  “What about my dad? Was he a witch?”

  Beverly didn’t say anything for quite some time. He wondered if he had said something wrong. The trail climbed up for about a hundred yards, so that when they reached the top, they were both out of breath.

  “Whew!” she said, hands on her thighs, inhaling and exhaling deeply. After a moment, she continued.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even know you existed until last week. I thought your mother would be more forthcoming, but…” she trailed off.

  Then she surprised him with what she said next.

  “Your birthday’s in December. December eighteenth.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah,” he replied, wondering what that had to do with anything.

  “Well, if you do the math, March is nine months before December. And March is when Lizzy left Seattle. That means that somewhere around the time your mother left, and when she got to California, she…” Beverly paused.

  “Oh. She met my father?” He finished. It hadn’t occurred to him to count the months backwards from his birthday after he’d read his mother’s notebook.

  “That’s what I figure. But that doesn’t really tell us anything about him, does it? Lizzy wasn’t dating anyone at the time she left town, at least not that I knew of. I had hoped there would be more clues in her diary. But your mother can be very, shall we say, secretive?” Charlie heard the frustration in her voice. “You’ll have to ask her about it, since it’s her story to tell.”

  Then she smiled at him.

  “But I do know that you have the legacy in you. Even if your father wasn’t a witch. The blood in our family is strong,” she said proudly, then continued along the path.

  Charlie wished he could find out more about his father, but knew that Beverly was as much in the dark as he was. So he switched topics.

  “Well, how do I become a witch then?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” his aunt said as they walked farther into the woods.

  Chapter 29

  Charlie felt the air grow cooler around them, and the trail that they’d been following, narrowed by brambles and the tree limbs crowding in on either side, expanded into a wide cement lane. He could hear the sound of a stream somewhere to his right, as well as cars passing nearby.

  It was the same spot where he’d encountered the dog last week, and the elderly witch who’d shooed it away.

  He tensed, expecting at any moment to see the same dog rounding the corner up ahead.

  Beverly pointed up toward the break in the trees. “See that?”

  At first, Charlie only saw the leafy branches of the trees, and the late afternoon sunlight filling the open spaces, turning everything green-gold. Then a massive concrete base, covered in graffiti, rose into view, leading up to the criss-cross of girders and eventually a wide, rust-colored bridge, spanning the airway at the point where the lane veered left and out of sight.

  He was surprised to realize that he hadn’t even noticed the bridge last week, seeing as how he’d been distracted by the dog’s presence. After the woman had told Charlie that everything was safe again, he had turned around and led Amos back home, having lost his stomach for more exploration.

  Walking closer, Charlie saw that the base marked the far left edge of the lane, while its
twin sat a good fifty yards across from it. In between the two bases, a small stream gurgled along, two steep banks flanking it on either side, and a wide stretch of dirt led from the stream bed to the opposite bridge base.

  It created a strange feeling. Most of these woods were cramped with trees, small paths running here and there. Other than at the wider entrance at the mouth of the park, you had to walk single-file on all of the trails. But here, everything spread out. The bridge seemed to pull at the treetops, stretching them higher into the air, creating an expansive, unexpected canopy.

  “I always liked it here, this surprise,” Beverly said. “You’re just walking along, with all this foliage blocking everything, and then, suddenly, a bridge!”

  She explained that it was part of Admiral Way, that he had driven over it with them when heading down from their house to Alki Beach. He remembered seeing it, with a sidewalk on either side for pedestrians. That would explain the car sounds he could hear. It was strange to be underneath it now.

  Beverly walked over to a wooden bench that sat on the bank overlooking the stream. She tied Amos’s leash to one of the bench legs, then sat down and motioned for Charlie to join her.

  The dry bank of the stream at their feet sloped sharply down about five feet, where it touched the pebbles of the stream bed. Another bank rose up on the opposite side before leveling off into the expanse of dirt ending at the farthest bridge base. Charlie could see empty beer bottles scattered near the base, as well as small piles of fast food wrappers.

  “You know, I’d chastise the kids who come here and litter like that,” she said to him, “except that it would be the pot calling the kettle black. I used to do the same thing when I was young,” a slight smile playing on her face. “But don’t tell anyone I told you so. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he smiled, enjoying sharing this secret with her.

  “Charlie, when I was your age, I had already known about the legacy for a long time. I didn’t need to have it explained to me in such a rushed way, like we’re doing with you.