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

by Jeff Jacobson

  They stopped inches from the barrier surrounding the front yard and the circumference of the house. This barrier was invisible to the naked eye. It had been set in place by the formidable witch who resided in and watched over the home, and its purpose was to keep people like them from entering the property. It would have worked, except…

  Except that Grace had given them the way in. Years ago, when she’d learned all the community’s secrets from its careless and lusty leader, she made sure to study the ways it protected itself.

  She had passed these ways on to the two figures now looking at the house. If used correctly, they’d be able to breach the wall. And get inside.

  They said their Words in unison. Their hands made movements in the air. It did not take long.

  At first, just a small snap. Then, tiny fissures spread out along the invisible wall, like cracks on a windshield. The barrier didn’t collapse. It was too strong to destroy completely. It simply began to weaken.

  The strangers said more Words, made more hand gestures, until a perfectly round hole formed, large enough for them to slip inside. Just like Grace had said it would.

  The man, Tony, spun in place and wiggled his hips, his own version of a silent celebration. The woman, Claudia, rolled her eyes. He bowed and made a chivalrous gesture. She nodded, then took a short breath, and caused her own form to turn to vapor. The vapor poured through the hole like smoke through an open window, and before two seconds had passed, she was crouched on the ground inside the property. She paused, listening for any signs of disturbance. When satisfied that she was in the clear, she signaled to Tony behind her, whose own form vaporized and poured through the round gap.

  Together they remained near the ground, their senses alert to any alarms sounded. Nothing. Not a change. Nothing to indicate that the home’s security had been breached. Still, they waited. The witch inside was known to be quite strong.

  ––-

  Charlie was dreaming. In the dream, he was teaching a Chinese class. He sat at his desk looking at his materials, all of which were written in Chinese characters. He couldn’t understand anything.

  He looked up from his desk to see that every student in class was Chinese. They sat still, waiting for him to say something. He realized with horror that he couldn’t speak anything other than English. Sweat filled the worry lines on his forehead.

  One of the students sitting in the front row, a nine- or ten-year-old girl in black braids, raised her hand. Charlie nodded to her.

  “Teacher, blah blah wingwangwingwang blah blah wingwang Puget Sound chingchongchingchong witchcraft,” she said.

  The rest of the students nodded and smiled. What she had said made perfect sense to them, yet he could only make out a few words.

  Charlie heard a noise at his feet. He looked down, and saw Amos lying on the floor to the right of his desk. The dog trembled from head to foot. He whimpered. He seemed to be suffering.

  Charlie felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to see the young girl with the braids standing by his side. “I think you’re in trouble,” she said in plain English. She was missing her two front teeth.

  “You mean the dog, right?” he said to her, confused.

  “No Charlie. You. You’re in trouble. Hen weixian,” she said.

  ––-

  Claudia and Tony stood over the boy as he slept in his bed. The curtains from the opened window floated in the night breeze. The large dog lay trembling in the corner, unable to get up or make a noise. A few simple Words had subdued it.

  The boy had bright yellow curls spread about his pillow. Apples added color to his otherwise pale cheeks. His face was knotted and tight as he slept, as if he were lifting something heavy.

  The two strangers stared at the boy. They were pretty sure it was him. They’d been given a clear description. That, and the fact that they knew they were in the right house, confirmed that it had to be the boy they were looking for.

  ––

  Two cats ran down a succession of alleys in the neighborhood, loping along in their thin-bodied, silent-footed way. They were soon joined by another, then another, and even more still. The cluster ran together for several blocks, until a few of them split off down side roads.

  One of the cats turned down Washington Street. Jumping into the air, she dug her claws into a tall pine tree in the yard of the large white house and clambered halfway up, then raced out onto a thick branch. Just before reaching the end of the branch, the cat leaped from the tree and landed on a window sill. She pawed loudly at the glass until the human female, the one with the long dark hair, parted the curtains and looked out. The human stared at the cat’s face for a moment, until her brown eyes grew round. In a flash she was gone from the window, the curtains closing again.

  –––-

  Claudia took several strips of the gauzy material that Tony held out in his hands and leaned over the sleeping boy, peering at him until she was inches from his face. She knew not to use any Words on him until she could block his mouth. It might not be needed, but she couldn’t be too cautious.

  Without warning, the door to the bedroom crashed open. The witch of the house rushed at them, her long, dark hair streaming behind her as she attacked, Words hissing from her mouth, hands outstretched.

  Tony spun to his side and threw a bladed metal disk at the witch. Before it could touch her, it skipped past her head and stuck itself in the wall behind her. Tony dove sideways as a bolt of light shot from the witch’s hands and blasted into the carpet where his feet had been.

  Without pausing, Claudia threw strips of the gauze at the boy’s mouth and each of his hands. The material fastened itself to his skin faster than a striking snake. The boy’s eyes flew open. Before he could sit up, Claudia flicked her wrists, forcing the bedclothes to stiffen and trap the boy’s legs.

  The witch turned her attention from Tony and flew through the air to her nephew’s bed. She slammed into Claudia’s body and tackled her to the ground, her hands squeezing the air from the woman’s throat. As the witch’s mouth moved, sparks shot from Claudia’s ears and scalp. She writhed and screamed in pain.

  Tony’s body blurred as he ran to the bed, threw the boy’s bound form over his shoulder like a sack of laundry, then jumped toward the open window.

  “Beverly,” he said, “Stop moving or I toss the boy out, head first.”

  Beverly released her grip on Claudia and looked at him, pure venom in her large brown eyes.

  ––-

  Charlie wriggled in the man’s arms. The stretchy material trapped his limbs, and even though he kicked hard at the man’s back, it had no effect.

  “Get off me, bitch,” said the woman pinned beneath Beverly. “Get off me before I…”

  From his vantage point hanging over the man’s shoulder, Charlie watched as Beverly stood up. She was wearing a long white nightgown. The strangers wore black. The good guys versus the bad guys. His aunt stood very still, arms at her sides, her eyes locked on the man and Charlie. The woman got up from the floor and walked over to them, rubbing the back of her neck.

  “Here’s how this is gonna go,” said Claudia. “We leave with the boy, and you stay put. If you even begin to move your lips,” she said, pulling a long curved dagger from the pocket of her jacket, “then this goes into the boy. Got it? If so, nod your head to Mama Claudia here,” she said, pointing to herself.

  Beverly nodded.

  “That’s good, missy, that’s purely psychological,” said the man, doing a strange pelvic thrust in Beverly’s direction. “You are down with it, Mama, aren’t you?”

  The woman turned to look at the man. “Shut up, Tony. Come on. We’re leaving.”

  With a swirl of white material, the spot where Beverly stood was now empty. She didn’t vanish so much as sparked across the room. A bright blue streak of electricity charged toward them.

  The woman screamed, then flew up against the ceiling as a strip of gauze sealed itself across her mouth. Blue light shot along the sides of her b
ody, forcing her to drop the dagger.

  Beverly’s white nightgown blurred again, coming toward the man so fast that Charlie almost didn’t see it. The man grunted and bent over, but turned and tried to move toward the window. Charlie felt himself sliding downwards, his own hip bumping against Tony’s.

  He fell to the floor on his back, and watched as the man’s body lifted into the air and slammed against the ceiling directly above, alongside the woman. He yelled out, “Holy friggin’ WITCH!” before a strip of gauze stuck itself over his lips and cut off his words.

  Beverly rushed over to where Charlie lay and pulled him away from the window toward the bedroom door.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. He nodded, unable to speak.

  She turned her head and looked over to the corner. “Amos, buddy, I’ll be right there, okay? First I have to…”

  A shadow passed through the doorway.

  “What the hell?” said Randall, eyes trying to focus in the faint light as he stepped into the bedroom. Charlie could see that his face was puffy from sleep. He must have only just heard the commotion in the room.

  “Randall, get back!” Beverly hissed. She stood up and put her body in front of her husband and her nephew. But the shift in her attention seemed to be all that the two intruders needed. They fell toward the floor and landed feet first, right as cats. Without pausing, they ripped the gauze from their mouths.

  Beverly reached her hands out in front of her, preparing for another attack.

  But the man and the woman moved to the window. The woman slipped through first and jumped out into the empty air. The man looked over his shoulder, and just before stepping up onto the windowsill, said, “You are one kickass lady. Holy ninja witch!” He smiled his toothpaste commercial smile, winked at them, and then he too was gone in an instant. The smell of damp, freshly-cut lumber filled the room.

  Charlie watched as his aunt ran to the window and looked out. Eventually she turned around to face them, shaking her head. “They’re gone,” she said. “I think we’re safe for now.”

  Chapter 35

  An hour later, the coffee machine sputtered in the corner, while fruit and bagels were pulled from the refrigerator and passed around. The kitchen was filled with conversation as Charlie’s aunt and uncle, along with Rita, Jeremy, and four other adults he didn’t know crowded around the island in the middle of the floor. Earlier, while still upstairs in Charlie’s bedroom, Beverly had snipped the gauze from his hands and feet and carefully peeled it away from his mouth. “Okay, stand still. I need to check to make sure that you’re okay, and that they didn’t leave anything behind that could hurt you.”

  She placed both of her hands on the side of his head, leaned in close enough to his face that their noses were almost touching, then inserted a finger inside each of his ears. The sensation was disorienting.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, taking a step back from her.

  “Charlie, I don’t have the time nor the energy to explain this. I know it’s weird, and I’m sorry. But please just stand still.”

  Her expression was all business, and her voice was low and dark. He thought about how fast she’d attacked the two intruders, how she’d made the bolt of light shoot from her hands. His knees weakened. Without a second thought, he stepped forward and closed his eyes.

  Her fingers slip inside his ears again. He kept his feet planted. For a brief moment, a buzzing pressure filled his head and spread down his shoulders. And then it was over.

  Inspected to her satisfaction, Beverly apologized and told him he was clean.

  “Oh, and Charlie? For the time being, please wear the bracelet when you sleep, okay?” she said, nodding to his nightstand where he had set the bracelet before turning off his light last night. “We can’t be too careful.”

  Now he sat on a stool at the far corner of the counter as the adults moved about the kitchen in various stages of pajamas, sweatshirts, and overcoats. It seemed part emergency meeting, part adult sleepover.

  “I don’t know how they got in, okay? Jesus, Emory, I checked the wards last night before I went to bed, like I always do.”

  “Okay, okay,” said a short, chubby redheaded man, standing with his hands behind his back and looking at Beverly. “I just assumed those things were tamper-proof.”

  “So did I!” she yelled at him. “Don’t you think I assumed the same thing?”

  “Hey, come on guys,” said Jeremy, hands spread in a calming gesture. “We’re all a little upset. No need to take it out on each other.”

  The front door opened, and Charlie heard footsteps walking down the hallway. His jaw dropped as his Chinese teacher, Chen Laoshi, walked into the kitchen.

  “Hi Julia,” said Randall, giving her a hug. “Want something to drink?”

  She winked at Charlie and said, “Tongxue hao.”

  Without thinking, he said, “Chen Laoshi hao.”

  She walked over to him and leaned over the counter. “Yes, it’s true, I’m a member of the secret club. We’re not all white, you know.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t thinking…”

  But she turned away from him and grabbed a banana from the bowl on the island.

  “Will somebody please explain to me exactly what is going on?” she demanded, commanding the same respect that she used in her classroom.

  ––—

  “I grabbed some of the woman’s hair while we were fighting on the floor, and I used it to create a binding.”

  “But how did you do it so fast? That’s what I want to know,” said Rita, looking at Beverly with awe.

  Now they all sat in the living room, spread over the sofas, small couches, and chairs.

  “Oh please. I was pumped up on adrenaline. Anyway, thanks to a story Charlie told me of something that happened in California, I got the idea to use the binding to stick her to the ceiling.”

  Charlie couldn’t believe that he had in some way helped foil the intruders.

  “I think it scared the man – apparently his name is Tony – it scared him enough to try and escape with Charlie in that moment, rather than attack. It gave me the chance to rush over and get some of his hair too.”

  “So, you could call it a ‘double bind?’” Randall interjected.

  “Ha-ha!” laughed Jeremy, rolling his eyes. “Your forays into witch humor once again underwhelm us!”

  “No, the only double bind came when Randall walked in and wanted to know what was going on. He broke my concentration and I couldn’t hold the bind anymore. They came off the ceiling and escaped out the window.”

  “Nice going, badass,” said Emory, swatting at Randall’s knee.

  “Well, I didn’t know what was going on. I heard loud noises coming from Charlie’s room and went to investigate.”

  “You were very brave to walk in there, honey,” said Beverly, giving him a peck on his cheek.

  “But clearly they were afraid to attack anymore, Beverly,” said Chen Laoshi. “You must have shown considerable strength and fortitude.”

  “They don’t get to touch my nephew,” she responded, eyelids lowering in menace as if the intruders were still standing in front of her.

  They talked more about the breach of the ward, which seemed to be some sort of witch security system that was supposed to keep out what didn’t belong. Apparently all of the witches used something like it at home for protection. They debated whether they could rely on them anymore.

  “Grace must be behind it,” said Emory. “She’s the only one who knows the spells,” he said.

  “I’m afraid I have to agree with you, Em,” said Beverly. “I didn’t know you could find out how someone else’s ward worked and breach the thing.”

  “This means our ability to be secure has just plummeted,” said Chen Laoshi in a low voice. The others looked around at each other.

  “Think of the implications,” she said. “Grace and her kind storm in to our homes in the middle of the night, wreaking havoc among us, learning our secrets,” she paused,
then looked over at Charlie, “and taking our children.”

  Several of the adults looked at Charlie too, and for once he didn’t turn his head away or blush red like Christmas tree lights. Instead, he returned their gaze, realizing that there were much scarier things on the planet than being looked at by grownups. Strangers breaking into your home at night and trying to kidnap you was now at the top of the list.

  Finally he directed his attention back to his Chinese teacher. “Chen Laoshi, what does ‘hen weixian‘ mean?”

  “It means ‘dangerous,’ Charlie. ‘Very dangerous.’ Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just heard someone say it in a dream.”

  Chapter 36

  It was like a gun had gone off, for all the adults started speaking at once.

  “Uh-oh!”

  “What dream? When?”

  “Who said it?”

  “Do you have other dreams in Chinese?”

  His reserve didn’t last, with all the adults gathering around him and talking at once. Charlie froze, not knowing what to do or say. Randall pushed himself into the middle of them and said, “Hey! Hey! You’re overwhelming the kid. Just slow down.”

  “Butt out, Randall,” said one of the women Charlie didn’t know. “This isn’t any of your business.” She was short, plump, and had shorn gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses. She looked like the kind of person you saw staffing the information desk at the library.

  “Look here, Joan,” his uncle said, pointing his finger at the woman and glaring down at her, “this is my house, and it’s my nephew, and it’s all my business, so if you can’t pipe down when I say to, then you can go…go…suck a duck!” he finished, eyes wide and nostrils flared.

  The woman’s mouth flew shut. She glared back at Randall but didn’t say anything.

  The rest of the group stared at his uncle, and a few even smiled with respect.

  A snort and a giggle came from somewhere amongst the group. Charlie looked over and saw Jeremy with a hand pressed to his mouth, trying to stifle his laughter.