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

by Jeff Jacobson

  Charlie looked away, feeling embarrassed. As usual, there wasn’t anything clear inside his head to say. But he knew that Malcolm expected something from him.

  “I thought a lot about what you said, about not being able to be one person while hiding another part of myself. I didn’t know what to do about any of it. But that boy, he sort of, uh, he brought it up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He asked me if I liked him. You know, in that way? I wasn’t sure. I mean, I thought I did. Or I think I do. But it all felt so confusing.”

  “So what happened?”

  Charlie didn’t want to say more. He wanted to run away instead of having this conversation with a man who was still a relative stranger. But he felt sobered by Rose’s story, and was tired of playing at hide-and-seek. Additionally, he’d begun to trust Malcolm, with his consistent encouragement and the no-nonsense way he talked. Charlie figured he could be no-nonsense too.

  “He kissed me.”

  “Wow, kid. Are congratulations in order?”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t really want it to happen.”

  “He forced himself on you?”

  “What? No, nothing like that. He didn’t understand me, and I think he thought I wanted to. The thing is, I kissed him back. Later. In the park. A lot.”

  “Oh.”

  Charlie turned his head, unable to look Malcolm in the eye.

  “It’s okay, Charlie. It really is. You acted on your heart, and you have the guts to tell me about it now. Your honesty will help you go far, kid.”

  “Really? You don’t think that I’m, like, gross? Or weird?”

  “Of course not. Who knows why we like what we like? Look at us, a pack of witches, kings and queens of the air. And we can’t figure it out either. I think we’re all pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff. So if anyone tells you what you’re doing is wrong, just remember this: What the hell do they know?”

  Malcolm tousled the top of his hair. Charlie pulled away, but grinned in spite of himself.

  “You do realize, don’t you,” the man said to him, “that because you were brave and honest with yourself, you cleared things so the Words could find you?”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Kid, remember what we talked about? I told you that you couldn’t be a witch while hiding something big from yourself. You stopped hiding, which let everything inside of you relax. That made it easier for the Words to find the witch in you.”

  “Oh. I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

  “Well, that’s how it works,” Malcolm said, folding his arms across his chest and nodding, as if he were explaining the laws of gravity.

  Charlie smiled in response to Malcolm’s praise, even as his face turned red.

  “Go get some sleep, kid. You deserve it.”

  “Okay,” he said, standing up.

  “Malcolm?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for today. It was really, really great,” he said.

  “You’re welcome, little man.”

  Chapter 56

  “So did he have that whole conversation with you about Maria Callas and Michael Jordan?” Beverly asked, the liquid in her wine glass swirling plum-red as she brought it to her mouth.

  “You mean about whether witchcraft is a religion, or just a skill?”

  “Yeah, that one. Seems like he’s been using it forever. No offense to Maria or Michael, but you’d think he’d come up with new examples after all these years.”

  “I didn’t even know who Maria Callas was at first, until he explained everything.”

  Aunt, uncle and nephew sat together at the dining room table the Sunday night of Charlie’s training weekend. Rain pelted the windows at the back of the house. The temperature had dropped from chilly to downright cold. A fire blazed in the hearth, where Amos lay, kerfluffing in his sleep. They ate a shellfish stew, red and savory, with thick slices of bread and a leafy spinach salad.

  “Um, this is really good,” said Charlie, his mouth full of bread.

  “It is, isn’t it? Thank you,” Beverly nodded. “I’m happy to feed my two guys.”

  “Wait a minute. What’s the story about Michael Jordan and Maria Callas?” Randall asked, a look of disbelief on his face. “Are they witches too?”

  Charlie laughed just as he was taking a drink of water. He was barely able to keep from spraying it all over the vase of flowers at the center of the table.

  “Honestly, Rand!” said his aunt, laughing too. “No, they are not witches.”

  “Well? How am I supposed to know? Are you two gonna have all of these mysterious conversations now? That I won’t understand? All these secret witch handshakes?”

  “Probably. What are you gonna do about it?” Beverly teased.

  “I’ll make up my own stuff. And only talk to Amos about it. Isn’t that right, Amos? Abracadabra bark bark!” Charlie’s uncle turned his head and broad shoulders to the fireplace. Amos thumped his tail on the ground, but remained prone, the warmth of the fire too satisfying to warrant standing up.

  “Some witches believe,” said Beverly, ignoring her husband’s antics, “that our craft is a religion, or at least lends itself to religious doctrine. Others completely disagree. No research has come up with anything definitive on the nature of God in relationship to witchcraft. They feel that it’s more like a unique talent, not limited to one philosophy.

  “For example, I can take this here…”

  The silver napkin holder next to her soup bowl rose a foot into the air and began to spin in place, throwing shadows from the candlelight against the wall.

  “…and do this. But does it prove the existence of God? Does it show me what will happen in the afterlife? No, it doesn’t. I can do this and call myself a Christian. Or a Muslim. Or an Agnostic.”

  “Or a Jew,” Randall added.

  “Or a Jew. I can do this thing, then attribute it to whatever philosophical or religious beliefs I have. The opera star Maria Callas had a freakishly good singing voice. That didn’t make her a devotee of the religion of opera. Michael Jordan has inhumanly good basketball skills. He practically flies through the air. But it doesn’t mean he has to see life a certain way. He could be a Buddhist or an atheist, and still have made slam dunks and winning seasons for the Chicago Bulls. That’s the debate.”

  Randall made a tut tut noise, raised his eyebrows at Beverly, and pointed to the napkin holder still spinning above their plates.

  “Oh. Sorry,” she said. The metallic ring floated back down to her place mat.

  “What do you believe?” Charlie asked.

  “I believe it’s a little of both, actually. I mostly agree with Malcolm, who thinks our craft is just a unique ability. Especially when I look at the demographics in our community. We have some highly philosophical witches among us, while others are much more secular. Some of them have strong religious practices. Others have never stepped foot into a place of worship in their lives. What we can do isn’t necessarily affected by what source we believe it comes from.

  “But,” she added, looking into Charlie’s eyes, “I do believe that our craft affects how we view the world. Before I was popped I had never heard that music, that song that seems to come from all living things. Sometimes when I hear it today, I find myself weeping because it’s so beautiful. I believe it allows me to sense a certain beauty in the world that I wouldn’t have been able to if I didn’t have this legacy in my blood, or if I wasn’t a full witch. I care deeply for this planet and its welfare. It definitely has affected my philosophy of life.”

  Randall interrupted. “Yeah, but Grace can do all the stuff you can. Doesn’t sound like she has much concern for the planet, other than what she can get out of it.”

  “True. To me it isn’t as cut and dried as the people on either side of the debate try to make it. I mostly know that I stand with the secular side. But I can’t help wondering how Maria Callas’s talents affected her worldview. Or Michael Jor
dan. Look how strong, how elegant, he is. His ability to manipulate the ball like that, or his shooting precision - don’t you think that if he were just an average guy, he would experience life differently?”

  They ate in silence for a while, each lost in thought.

  None of them noticed the slight change in the way the fire flickered in the hearth, as if a sudden draft made the flames flutter.

  None of them noticed one flame licking at the air, higher than the others, stretching slightly, becoming more solid. As the three people continued to eat their dinner, they were unaware that several flames leaned in together, looking for a moment like bound stalks of fiery wheat, bending forward as if listening.

  Charlie talked more about his training weekend, especially about his maiden voyage on the broomstick.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I slipped off. My head almost hit the ground while the broom was jerking forward. But then, when we rose up in the air…”

  Amos awoke, walked over to the window, and stretched. He looked out into the night, and began sniffing the air near the windowsill. Then he ambled back and peered at the fireplace, his head cocked to one side.

  “…other kids seemed to get it too. More of them did today. So that by the time we left, everyone had been able to work at least one spell.”

  “That’s amazing, Charlie,” Beverly said. “It’s not uncommon to have less than half the group able to do anything that Malcolm taught them.”

  The dog moved closer to the fire. He sniffed more of the air, and then barked twice in quick succession.

  Beverly, Randall and Charlie jumped.

  “Amos!” Randall began. “For God’s sake boy, you scared the…”

  His wife’s hand, extended forward in a warning gesture, cut him off. She stood up from the table and walked into the living room.

  “What is it, boy? Did you see something?”

  The dog’s tail wagged, and a slow, deliberate whine came from his muzzle.

  “Is there something…?” she asked, bending down and peering into the fireplace, having just missed the flames shrink a half inch, returning to their normal size. The whiff of damp wood was too faint for her to notice.

  “Huh,” said Beverly. “Guess it was nothing.” She returned to the table and announced that she’d made an apple tart for dessert.

  “My boy,” Randall said to Charlie as he began to take the dinner dishes into the kitchen. “You are in for a treat. Try to take a bite of it and not weep for joy. As a matter of fact, just see if you don’t convert to the religion of Apple Tartism.”

  Charlie laughed. “Sounds better than any religion I’ve ever heard of,” he said.

  Beverly and Randall smiled at each other while Charlie helped clear the table.

  ––

  In a bedroom across the city, a vertical length of fire, the approximate size of a human body, burned just above the floor. Gradually, the center of the fire changed. A woman’s face emerged, then hair, shoulders, a body wrapped in a silky, peach-colored dress. The flames hovered above the woman, then shrank to a thin jet of fire that ran along her right arm as her bare feet floated down to the carpet. She pointed her hand toward a candlestick on her boudoir, and the fire leaped from her fingers. By the time it touched the wick, it had dwindled to a small bud of flame.

  “So, the boy’s home from witch camp, is he?” she said out loud, her dress fluttering as she turned and walked over to a small table. She flipped her ginger locks from her shoulders and sat down on a wooden chair, examining the objects lying there.

  “The good news is that Beverly’s wards are weak. Easier to penetrate than I thought they’d be. The bad news,” she paused, holding two small glass vials in her hand, “is that they have a dog.”

  Setting the vials down, she reached over and picked up a small white apron.

  Tying it around her waist, the woman gestured in the air behind her. Her bedroom window opened wide. A large crow hopped onto the window sill, gave a loud caw, then spread its wings and flew into the room, landing on the table in front of her.

  “Hello,” Grace said to the crow. “Thank you for coming.”

  The bird bobbed back and forth, its head bowing up and down, claws making a skittering sound on the shiny wood of the table’s surface. It turned its head to the side and looked up at the woman with one of its black-marble eyes.

  After she stared into the eye for several seconds, the crow stopped moving. It didn’t make a single noise as she removed a hairpin from her tresses and drove it straight into its breast. Its body shuddered as blood seeped from its feathers, pouring into an unstopped vial the woman held in her hand.

  After a time the crow fell to its side on the table. She placed the cork back into the small bottle, then wiggled her fingers. The bird carcass lifted off the table and floated out the window.

  “Always good to stock up on supplies,” Grace said, wiping her hands off on the apron. She walked over to the far side of her room and regarded the person who was tied and gagged, bound to a chair in the corner. Eyes white, body straining against the rope that bound it, feet trying to push away from her.

  “Now, what are we going to do with you?”

  Chapter 57

  Diego and Charlie walked down A-wing together after Chinese class, headed toward Biology. It was the Monday after the first training weekend up at Malcolm’s cabin. The nervousness Charlie felt now had nothing to do with whether or not he thought he was good enough to be Diego’s friend, or even whether or not Diego thought Charlie worthy of his attention.

  After the Saturday at Diego’s house, and the surprise kissing at Lincoln Park, the two boys had avoided each other at school. They’d thought it best, lest people get the wrong idea. Actually, Charlie had thought it best.

  But they texted each other. They talked every single night on the phone. And on Wednesday afternoon they snuck into Diego’s car, parked a few blocks from school near a small neighborhood park, and kissed for quite some time.

  “I can’t stop thinking about you,” Diego had said when Charlie pulled back to catch his breath.

  Charlie’s mind had clouded with conflicting thoughts. Ever since he lay back on the cement path at Lincoln Park and let himself kiss and be kissed by Diego, sinking deeply into the confusing desire he felt for the boy, he hadn’t been able to think clearly about what he wanted, or what he should be doing. Diego’s charm, his personality, was so big, so enticing, it seemed easier to give in and…

  And yet, he was afraid. He was afraid of what it all meant. He was afraid people would find out. People like Julio and Dave Giraldi. What if they teased him in front of everyone? Or beat him up? He wanted to keep things quiet, to slow things down. And yet nothing else seemed to slow down. Not his escape from Clarkston to Seattle, not the whole witchcraft situation. Why should he expect this to be any different?

  Charlie wasn’t ready to tell his aunt and uncle anything yet, so Diego agreed, albeit reluctantly, not to see him after school all week. Wednesday in the car was an exception for both of them, a rule that in the end Charlie was glad they’d decided to break.

  On Friday, before heading up to Snoqualmie, he’d told Diego that he was going camping with his uncle and some friends. Diego looked surprised, then sad.

  “I can’t see you this weekend? I thought we could hang out some more.”

  Charlie assured him that they would see each other at school the next week.

  As they walked past the lockers and school posters (“Girls’ Swim Team Bake Sale Thursday – BRING CASH!” and “Get Well, Principal Wang, We Love You”) he knew he wasn’t nervous because of what Diego thought about him. He was nervous because he was sure everyone in school was talking about them. Not because he could hear anything from his newly acquired listening abilities, which had decreased in intensity, just like everyone had said they would. It was because it felt like he was walking around with a sign taped to his shirt that read “We’re kissing now!” and was paranoid that he and Diego were the talk of
the school.

  Diego sauntered down the hallway with a smile as big as Texas, waving to people, holding himself tall. Charlie wanted to duck into the bathroom and hide in a toilet stall, or at least splash water on his face. Alone.

  He also worried about the excitement he felt when he was with Diego. He couldn’t stop thinking about him. Images of the boy flooded his brain when he tried to concentrate on all the makeup homework he had to do since the week of school he’d missed after he’d been popped. Memories of how it felt when he bit Charlie’s lower lip, when he ran his hand along Charlie’s lower back, his legs…

  Diego had asked him if he could walk Charlie to Biology on Monday.

  “I miss you. It’ll be fun. No one knows.”

  At this point Charlie was sure that everyone knew, and that Diego was either clueless, didn’t care, or wanted to flaunt it in front of the whole school.

  “Yeah, sure,” he’d said.

  “How about coming to the GSA meeting tomorrow after school?” Diego asked as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. “You’d like it.”

  “Um, well, I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Come on. It’s really chill, and Ms. Boyd is awesome.”

  “Ms. Boyd? Everyone says she’s the hardest teacher here.”

  “She is. As a history teacher. But as the GSA faculty advisor, she’s totally chill.”

  Charlie didn’t want to go. But he felt badly that he had to lie to Diego about camping over the weekend. He was trying to think of a way he could say no, when he heard a girl’s voice coming from somewhere behind them.

  “Hey boys, what are you up to?”

  They both spun around. There stood Tawny with her long blonde hair, and a look of surprise and delight on her face.

  “You two look so guilty!” she said, laughing. “Did I catch you doing something?”

  Diego had asked Charlie if he could tell Tawny about them. Charlie still wasn’t sure what “them” meant, but he’d relented. He felt his face burning as Tawny looked at him now.

  “Relax, Chuck, really,” she said as she walked in closer. Then she whispered, “Your secret’s safe with me.”