Diego paused, then looked sheepish. “I hope that didn’t sound like an insult.”
Charlie smiled back. “I didn’t know I was that tough either.”
Diego’s shouts of laughter and dashboard banging could be heard throughout the parking lot.
Chapter 40
Charlie heard voices coming from the living room as he opened the front door and walked inside. He put his house keys in the top drawer of the table in the foyer.
“Hey, Charlie. Come here for a minute. I want you to meet someone.”
He walked down the hallway and turned into the living room. Beverly perched on the edge of the couch next to a middle-aged man with shorn gray-brown hair and a trim beard. Teacups and saucers sat on the coffee table in front of them, along with a half-eaten array of fruit and cookies.
“Charlie, I’d like you to meet Malcolm Goedde, historian, teacher, and sneaky wise guy of this community. Malcolm, this is my nephew, Charlie.”
The man stood up, laughing. “Thank you, Beverly. Always the kind one.”
He stepped around the coffee table, walked over to Charlie, and shook his hand.
“Hello, young man, seems like there’s been an awful lot of buzz about you lately.”
The man’s eyes sparkled, and his hand was large and warm. At the same time, there was an edge to him that Charlie found unnerving.
He turned back to Beverly. “Ah yes, you’re right. He’s filled to bursting.”
“What he means,” said his aunt, gesturing for Charlie to sit with them, “is that you are ready to be popped. Quite ready, it would appear.”
“Is it too late?” asked Charlie, hoping for all he was worth that it wasn’t.
“No, kid, you’re fine. But another six to eight months, and it might be.”
Beverly went on to explain that there weren’t many people in the world who could open up a new witch’s ability. Malcolm spent most of his time popping kids, and then training them how to use their craft carefully.
“He’s a tough teacher. I can speak from personal experience. But his lessons will prepare you better than anything else out there.”
Malcolm lived up near Snoqualmie Summit, one of the mountains closest to Seattle. He traveled a lot, mostly in the States and Canada, but sometimes South America and Europe.
“Any questions, kid?” Malcolm asked.
“Um, when do we get started?”
The older man laughed. “That’s what I like. Lots of gumption.”
He turned to Beverly. “Leave us alone for a moment?”
She gathered the teacups together, but left the snack tray. “Charlie, make sure you eat something,” she said over her shoulder as she headed to the kitchen.
“Just a moment,” Malcolm said when they were sitting alone together on the couch. He reached up and pinched his nostrils closed with his fingers, then puffed his cheeks out. Charlie felt pressure against his eardrums, much like when he swam toward the bottom of the lake near his house.
“Okay, just a precaution. No one else can hear us now.”
Charlie’s eyes grew wide. “Um, okay, well, I’m ready, I guess. Do I have to, you know, do anything, or…”
“What? No, no no no no. I’m not going to pop you now. I need to ask you a few questions and give you some information.”
“Oh.” Charlie was equally relieved and disappointed.
“First off. Do you understand what popping is? Do you know what it will mean?
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Explain it to me, then.”
The man’s eyes lost their sparkle. He crossed his arms and waited. The intensity in his face increased.
Charlie took a deep breath. “I have witch blood in me, and even though some of it is leaking out, most of it won’t, and so I need to be popped so I can, uh, so I can use all the witch blood in me?” he finished with a question.
“Pretty good, pretty good. Though you might want to change your metaphor. You don’t have blood that is leaking out of you, like a wound. Your blood is very active right now. Think of it like vapor, or steam, rising from inside you. Your insides are hot, and so steam comes out. It came out in the form of the dream you had that Beverly mentioned to me, and what you did to that man down in California. That’s the steam. After a few months you’d cool down a bit, and then you might have echoes for the rest of your life, or you might have nothing at all. That’s how it works.
“Now,” he continued, “I want you to understand what this means, my boy. This is not a decision to be taken lightly. Everyone wants to be popped. But few really take the time to understand the implications of it. Most kids who get popped come from families with a long legacy. They wouldn’t dream of not becoming full-fledged witches.
“But it’s not all good, okay? You will see the world, you will feel the world, very differently from how you do now. I’m sure they explained to you how disorienting it is right after you’re popped. That’s true. But it’s not like everything goes back to normal. You’ll never be normal again. Ever. Even if you try to do what your mother did, forsake her legacy and let her ability mostly dry up, it’ll always be there. And a witch who lets his or her abilities get weak is just asking for danger. Witches sense each other. They sniff each other out like dogs.
“Yes, I know, I know, there are wards, and bracelets,” he went on, pointing to Charlie’s wrist, “but still. We can always smell each other eventually. If you stay unpopped, you might be able to avoid that whole thing. Avoid being on the radar screen. But if you get popped and then decide, ‘Oh, I don’t want this anymore,’ you’re in trouble, kid. You might as well paint a big bulls-eye on your face and walk around town yelling, ‘Shoot me!’
“Now, your mother’s a bit of an exception. Even though she isn’t a very strong witch, and has let most of her abilities atrophy, she can lay low and stay under the radar screen better than most I’ve seen. And I’ve met a lot of witches in my day.
“And even she was found, eventually. Well, to her credit, I think they sensed you, not her. But see, she couldn’t keep you hidden. And I doubt you’ll be able to keep yourself hidden either.”
He paused. “Is any of this making sense?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “If I get popped, I won’t be able to go back to how I was before, or how I am now. And it’ll make me stand out more to other witches, good and bad. If I do it, then I have to learn how to protect myself.”
“Well said, kid, well said,” Malcolm smiled. He reached over and gave Charlie’s shoulder a hard squeeze.
“Okay. On to the next thing. What’s her name?”
“Whose name?”
“Don’t be shy with me. We gotta put it all out on the table if we’re gonna make this work. The girl you’re so crazy about.”
“Girl? There’s no girl…”
“Oh. Pardon me. What’s his name?”
Charlie felt a chill in his heart. Did he mean…? But they were just friends. Besides…
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Okay, little man. That’s your first lie to me. You better make them few and far between, or our relationship isn’t going to go so well. Now, I don’t know if you’re only lying to me, or to yourself too. But…”
Charlie stood up. “I don’t think we really need to…”
Faster than he would have guessed, the man was up and shoving Charlie back down on the couch.
“You think this is a game, kid?”
“No, I…”
Malcolm stood over him for a moment, arms crossed, then was sitting down next to him before Charlie could register that he wasn’t standing anymore. His face was inches from Charlie’s, the smell of tea and cookies sweet on his breath. The man’s voice dropped low, becoming ominous. Charlie’s legs began to shake. “You think this is just something you get to control? You’ll just get popped, and you’ll be able to do all the neat stuff Auntie Bev Bev does, and everything will be fine? You’ll learn hocus-pocus, and fly around at night stopping all the bad guys
? Poof, like that?” His mouth had curved into a taunting smile, and his eyebrows arched up toward the top of his head.
Then the smile vanished.
“Now you listen to me, and you listen good. I don’t give a rat’s ass whom you love or what kind of person floats your boat. It’s none of my business. What is my business is training you to use your craft with skill, caution, and most of all, a level head. You’re asking me to turn you into a weapon that makes an entire S.W.A.T. team look like a bunch of crossing guards. You don’t think I have a sense of responsibility here?
“If you lie to yourself, then how do you think you’ll do when you learn your first Words? Words that shift and change things, Words that give you power over normal human beings? You gotta be clean with yourself, little man, when you start wielding Words. If not, wouldn’t it be easy to push somebody around a little bit? Or a lot? Maybe steal something at school? Just that one time? Maybe force people to do things against their will?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t…”
“Or the flip side. Be so worried about it that you become a recluse, hiding from everyone, living in a little hut somewhere eating tree bark because you can’t reconcile what you can do with how the rest of the world works? Like your mother?”
Malcolm’s words felt like gravel pelting Charlie’s face. “What? No, she…”
“You think that’s what I want to create? You think that’s what this community needs? At a time like this? A hermit? Or some kid who lies to himself about what turns his crank and then goes around causing collateral damage?”
Malcolm sat back and glared at the boy for a moment. Then the expression on his face changed, looking more than a little satisfied, like a lion after finishing his kill. Charlie half expected him to lick his lips.
What was Malcolm saying? That Charlie liked Diego? That he was gay? How could that be?
“How did you know?” Charlie whispered. “Is it that obvious?”
Malcolm’s face softened. “Kid, this is what I do. I gotta make sure people are very clear what they’re getting into before I hand ‘em the keys to the car, so to speak. Believe me, I’ve made mistakes over the years, mistakes that have cost lives, because someone I thought could handle their gifts, couldn’t.
“You need to know something. Witches can’t read minds. I don’t care what anybody tells you. It’s one of the nuts we haven’t been able to crack. And I’m personally glad we can’t. It would be too unfair to normal human beings, and I think it would make us crazy. So no, I didn’t read your mind. You don’t need witchcraft to see that everyone on this planet has a secret or two. I just make it my business to see what unpopped kids are hiding. It’s always stuff nobody wants to admit to, like you, so I have to ‘help’ them,” he said, making quotes with his fingers in the space between their faces, “to see what secrets they have before I agree to pop them.
“And you’d be surprised how common the secrets are. ‘I want so-and-so to love me.’ ‘I took money from mama’s cookie jar.’ ‘I touch myself at night,’ he finished, his voice high-pitched and mocking. “Make sense?”
Charlie nodded. Only moments before, he’d felt the thrill of not hiding anymore, of sitting in Diego’s car and tasting the freedom of just being himself. Now it didn’t seem thrilling at all. It seemed awful, terrible, the worst of the worst.
Horrified, he realized that fat tears had welled up in his eyes, and his whole body had begun to shake.
“I know I came down on you pretty hard,” Malcolm continued. “It’s nothing personal. Everyone gets a come-to-Jesus talk with me. I’m sorry it had to be like this, but there’s no other way around it. And by the way, you can still decide not to do this. Your secret stays with me. I’ve heard ‘em all, kid. This one doesn’t faze me a bit.
“But,” he went on, “If you do want to get popped, it can’t be a secret anymore. I’m not going to publish it in the newspaper. It’s up to you how you handle it. But if you lie to yourself, you’re going to have a helluva time learning how to use the craft. It would be like trying to learn to drive with your eyes closed. You might feel the steering wheel and the gas pedal, but you won’t know what’s coming at you, and eventually you’ll crash into something.”
Charlie’s breathing came in gulps, while more tears fell down his face. He stayed as quiet as he could.
“Kid, can I be honest with you?”
Charlie nodded, thinking bitterly to himself, ‘Haven’t you already been?’
He gripped the arm of the couch, ready for another onslaught of words.
“I’m glad I’m not gay. I don’t care how open the world says it is these days. I don’t think there’s a very big welcome mat out there for people like you. I think it would be rough.
“But you gotta get this, that if you see it as a problem, then you’re inviting everyone else to do the same. If not, and if other people still have a problem with it, well then, so what? You have bigger fish to fry.” He paused, waiting for a reply from Charlie. When the boy didn’t say anything, Malcolm continued.
“I’m sorry it’s gotta be this way. But you don’t get to have one without the other. You can’t pretend to be someone you’re not, and use what you got. It just won’t work. And I won’t let you try.”
He reached into his pocket and handed Charlie a card.
It read “Malcolm Goedde” and had a phone number and an email address printed on the front.
“The last name’s German. Throws everyone off. Just think ‘Geddy,’ like ‘G-E-D-D-Y.’” He looked hard at Charlie, as if sizing him up.
“Why don’t you think about it? Give me a call or send me a message when you’ve reached your decision, or if you have any questions. But don’t wait too long, okay? You already know what you need, and waiting forever will just make things worse.
“Remember, your secret stays with me, whichever way you decide. I won’t tell anyone. Not your aunt, not your uncle, not the mayor of Seattle.”
Charlie nodded, putting the card in his pocket and wiping his eyes with the back of his arm.
Malcolm pinched his nostrils again and puffed out his cheeks. Just like that, the pressure on Charlie’s eardrums released. He opened his mouth and wiggled his jaw, letting his ears pop.
“Okay, little man, enough for today.” He stood up. “Let’s carry these things into the kitchen, and I’ll say goodbye to Beverly.”
They walked into the kitchen together. Charlie’s feet felt like blocks of cement attached to dead tree-limb legs. He thought he might trip and drop the plates he carried.
Beverly smiled as she stood up from the kitchen table, a magazine laying half-open near her hands. Behind the smile, Charlie could see tension and concern in her eyes.
“Come here, gorgeous,” Malcolm said, giving her a hug.
She walked him out. Charlie heard her open the front door and say goodbye.
Then she came back into the kitchen and looked at Charlie.
“He can be intense, I know. But it’s really for your own good. Whatever the two of you talked about is your business. I’m sure he gave you lots to think about. Anyway, why don’t you run up and do some of your homework before dinner?” she suggested, and he was grateful for the excuse to go to his bedroom and think about, or try not to think about, everything that Malcolm had said.
Chapter 41
Charlie sat on the deck off the kitchen, watching the wind turn the gray waves of the Puget Sound white. Beverly was off doing something in the basement. Randall was reading the newspaper in the living room.
“Leave it alone,” Charlie scolded Amos, who was pressing his nose up against the glass on the other side of the sliding door and whining. He wanted to come out on the deck where Charlie was. The dog couldn’t hear him, but wagged his tail anyway, as if he could summon the boy to open the door through sheer animal enthusiasm.
He knew he should get up and go inside, or at least put on a jacket. Goose flesh covered his arms. He continued to shiver. Maybe he could blame his shaking on the c
old wind.
His thoughts were loud, as if he stood in a room filled with shouting people. He was having trouble keeping up with it all.
If you want to get popped, it can’t be a secret anymore.
Okay, little man. That’s your first lie to me.
But you don’t get to have one without the other. You can’t pretend to be someone you’re not, and use what you got. It just won’t work.
I’m not gay.
You think this is a game, kid?
No, no, he wouldn’t let it be true. He didn’t…
Boys’ faces that he’d known over the years floated into his head. Hadn’t they just been his friends?
No way. No way would he let this be true. He couldn’t…
More like butt toy.
Don’t you mean “Charlie Darling?”
He didn’t know what it all meant, and the terror he felt kept him from being able to figure any of it out, making everything stop short in his chest, his throat, cranking the volume in his head so high that the shouting voices blurred together, becoming mind-numbing rants.
Senior high school student, Ted Jones…
People are nice to me and all, but…
I’m the president of the GSA.
What was he supposed to do?
–––-
“How long have you been sitting out here?”
Charlie jumped. He hadn’t heard his aunt come out onto the deck. “A while.”
“It’s cold out here. You’re shivering. Shouldn’t you…?” She paused, then shook her head, as if her mothering were silly.
“Malcolm doesn’t exactly soften his blows, does he?”
Charlie stared at her.
“Becoming a full-fledged witch is a big decision. He wants to make sure that you don’t rush headlong into something that will affect you for the rest of your life. I’m sure he gave you the ‘once you decide, you can never turn back’ speech.”
He nodded, then looked out over the water as Beverly continued to talk.
“And the part about how being a witch isn’t just broomsticks and parlor games? He wants you to be very clear, because your decision will not only affect you, but countless others, throughout your whole life.
The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories) Page 22