by Tom Deitz
But now, this morning, Calvin at last had time on his hands, and chose to spend it by resuming the quest that had brought him to Willacoochee County in the first place: the desire to get his head straight about magic.
Yeah, maybe a couple of hours by Iodine Creek would mellow him out enough that he could focus on the finer points of lycanthropy.
Or perhaps not. For now that he was near enough to see the flash of sunlight on the narrow strip of white sand just south of his campsite, he was sufficiently close to hear the low murmur of voices. He tensed, fearful the authorities had chosen not to trust him again, though they already had David’s bow as further evidence of his forays into other Worlds, and he’d finally recovered the scale as well. He still had that.
But he need not have been concerned, for it was only Brock and Robyn, both looking clean and energetic and well-fed as a result of their twenty-four hours of alternating bed-rest, face-stuffing, and intensive interrogation. Calvin hadn’t been permitted to see them during that time, nor Don either—a shame because he’d long since started regarding them as friends.
Brock looked up from cramming a handful of candy wrappers into a plastic garbage bag and grinned wildly. “Calvin!” he shrilled, sprinting straight toward him, only to recover himself at the last minute and finish his approach with the languidly self-conscious nonchalance he doubtless affected with his mall-haunting cronies.
Robyn simply danced over to hug him, and—to his utter amazement—planted a wet one right on his mouth.
“You guys movin’ on?” Calvin wondered after they’d caught up on greetings and the happenings of the past day.
“Reckon so,” Brock replied sadly. “Mom sent us some money for airfare to England. She’s gonna settle things with the lawyers once and for all, then call us back. They’ve already applied for a restrainin’ order, or whatever you call it, on Dad. Seems they think Robyn’s…problem may finally convince some folks of how serious things are.”
“What about your…problem?” Calvin ventured, looking at Robyn.
She shrugged. “Oh, I’m gonna have the kid, then give it up for adoption in England.” Calvin thought she was trying to sound casual, though he suspected that a lot of angst had gone into that decision. “They’ve got socialized medicine over there, so it’ll be cheaper,” she added with unnecessary defensiveness.
“But…”
“Kid can’t help who its father is, Calvin. And neither can Brock and me. Only difference is, we can do something about it.”
“What about the DNA test?”
“Gonna have it and split. We’ll send taped testimony if we have to.”
“Sounds good. I—”
“Calvin?” Brock interrupted, looking very anxious. “Can…can I ask you somethin’?”
Calvin ruffled his hair. “Sure guy. You can’t possibly ask me anything I haven’t heard before.”
“I…would you teach me how to do magic?”
Calvin’s face clouded. He took Brock by the shoulders and regarded him seriously. “Are you sure you wanta do that? You’ve seen what it can do. But one thing it won’t do is make you happy.”
“But…”
“No, listen to me,” Calvin went on earnestly. “I know it looks like fun, looks like a way to get your heart’s desire—but believe me, it’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth. For one thing, you have to be really responsible ’cause you can’t always foresee the outcome of your actions, even when they’re well-intended. Like when I opened the gate between here and Galunlati and called the Little Deer, I had nothing but good in mind, yet I let Spearfinger into this World, and that cost four folks their lives and several more major-league psychological trauma, and those are both things I’m gonna have to live with for the rest of my days. Worse, it’s gonna cost a lot of folks their peace of mind, ’cause most folks don’t believe in other Worlds, only a lot of ’em suddenly have evidence to the contrary, and that worries me a lot, ’cause info like that has always been privileged, always been guarded—only all of a sudden it’s not guarded anymore. Suddenly me and my friends can’t control who knows. And that’s just one of the problems.”
“Yeah, but what about the neat stuff—shapechangin’, and all?”
“Yeah, well, there is that,” Calvin admitted. “But I’ve been a kid too, Brock, and not that long ago, however old I may look. I know the temptations you guys are under. You wouldn’t be able to help showin’ off, wouldn’t be able to resist hintin’ to the guys that pick on you that you could top them if you wanted to, that you’re somehow special. Except that that’ll only get you in more trouble. Trust me, I’ve been special one way or another all my life, and it’s certainly not a picnic.”
Brock’s eyes misted. “Gee. Cal, I thought at least you’d understand.”
“Tell you what,” Calvin drawled after a pause. “I’ll do this much: I’ll meet you a year from now at this same place—or any place you choose. And if you still want to do it, I’ll show you how to do one thing. Meanwhile, I’ll try to talk to my teacher about you—I’ve got a feelin’ he’s gonna be gettin’ in touch with me real soon. If he sounds interested, I’ll pass you on to him. That’s as much as I ought to do now.”
“Yeah, well…thanks.” Brock smiled tentatively and stuck out his hand, as if to say, “No hard feelings,” but Calvin could still see his disappointment.
“Sorry,” Calvin whispered, with another muss of his hair. “But remember, I didn’t say no, just maybe later.”
“Later’s a long time for a kid,” Robyn noted, but the relief on her face told Calvin that from her point of view, he had made the right decision.
“But a life’s too precious to waste chasin’ after things that won’t make you happy,” Calvin replied.
“Yeah, and speaking of that, I can’t help but wonder what might have been.” She glanced at him with a coy smile.
“Yeah.” Calvin grinned. “Like maybe if we’d met two years ago.”
“Yeah.” Robyn grinned back. “Like that.”
“There’s better guys in the world for you than me, though,” Calvin assured her. “I’d be nothin’ but trouble. And you never could tell who you were gonna get for company.”
“But it’d be really nice to have you around while we’re working through this.”
“Got ears, got money, you’ve got my number, all you need’s a telephone.”
“Thanks,” Robyn sighed wistfully. She took his hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it, then returned to her packing, rather less energetic than before.
Brock was still hanging around, though, and Calvin realized suddenly that he was really going to miss the kid. That seemed to be a thing with him: he’d just start getting to know somebody and then lose them. That he’d actually managed to make friends with Dave was something of a miracle.
“Well, at least your problem’s settled,” Brock mumbled awkwardly.
Calvin shook his head. “Not hardly! I’ve still got to go before the grand jury sometime, and talk to the district attorney. And somehow I’ve gotta try to keep this as quiet as I can, and get word to my friends about what’s happened so they can be on guard. And I’ve gotta think about some dead people,” he added. “It’s a hard thing, Brock, to have people’s deaths on your conscience.”
“Yeah.” Brock said. “I know.”
Calvin regarded him curiously. “Yeah,” he echoed, “I think you do. Least you know it’s not all Saturday mornin’ cartoons and RoboCop and Rambo.”
“Yeah.”
“One thing puzzles me, though.”
Brock cocked an eyebrow expectantly.
“Why in the world did you choose that song to counteract Spearfinger?”
“It’s the only one I could think of,” Brock admitted. “Scared me too, once I got started, ’cause I sure didn’t know all the lyrics.”
“I noticed.”
“It saved your ass anyway.”
“Tisk, tisk, what would Robyn say?”
“She’d say—”
“Yo, Calvin!” a new voice broke in, and Calvin glanced over his shoulder to see Don Scott bouncing down the deer trail that served as a path almost all the way to his house.
“Enough of this foolishness,” Calvin told Brock hastily. “I kinda need to have a word alone with Don.” And with that he trotted over to meet the new arrival.
“I just wanted to say thanks,” Don told him. “Mom says thanks too—more or less. Well, she didn’t actually say that, but I think she more or less understands what’s goin’ on. Robert’s been talkin’ to her a lot.”
“You didn’t tell her, did you? Not the whole thing?”
Don shook his head. “I let the coroner take care of that. But she knows you’re not guilty. She believed that bag lady stuff, I think.”
“What about Mike’s dad?”
“He believes the same thing, don’t wanta know more.”
“Probably just as well.”
“Yeah.”
“What about you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Tough?”
“Yeah, tough.”
Calvin gave him a brotherly hug around the shoulders.
“Know something, Don-o?”
“What?”
“I know somebody I bet was just like you at your age—somebody just like you’re gonna grow up to be.”
“Who?”
“Name’s David.”
“What about me?” Brock interrupted, rejoining them.
“You know anybody like me?”
“Yeah.” Calvin grinned. “And his name’s David too!”
“Brock!” Robyn yelled. “You ’bout ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Brock called back. “Just a sec.”
“Go?” Don cried in horror. “Go where?”
“To town,” Calvin told him. “They’ve gotta stick around here a couple more days.”
“You too?”
Calvin shook his head. “Leavin’ tonight, comin’ back late Sunday—but I’m gonna be hangin’ ’round Whidden till then.”
“Want some company?”
“If you do.”
“Sure.”
“You know,” Calvin mused, when he and Don had rejoined Robyn and Brock, “I really could get into showin’ all you folks around the mountains.”
“That’s real interesting,” Robyn laughed. “’Cause I bet all three of us could sure get into being shown!”
Calvin’s reply was to whistle, very softly, the “Werepossum Blues.”
Epilogue II: Roadkill
(Enotah County, Georgia—Friday, June 20—late afternoon)
“Hey, Alec, come here—I wanta show you something!” David Sullivan cried with wide-eyed urgency, snagging his best friend by the collar and steering him around the corner of the rambling wooden farmhouse he shared with his parents and brother. It was still an hour before suppertime, but the mountains that rose close behind the Sullivan homestead were already darkening ever so slightly, though the rounded ridges across the hollow still shone luminous green. In a little while David and his buddy would be leaving to attend Gary Hudson’s rehearsal dinner. A bachelor party would follow, and tomorrow the first of their high school chums would be married. They were to have their first go at being groomsmen, another taste of impending adulthood.
That was scary to think about, too, but for now there was still time for hanging out, time for just being kids.
David had just returned from lugging a bag of particularly odorous garbage to the family burning pit—a chore Alec had understandably elected not to accompany him on, preferring a second helping of Mama Sullivan’s Red Velvet Cake.
“What is it now, oh Mad One?” Alec chided as he trotted dutifully along behind his friend. “We’ve gotta get goin’ in a minute.”
“Something strange,” David replied ominously. “Real strange.”
“How strange—David, you’re not gettin’ mixed up with magic again, are you?”
David shrugged. “I hope not. But see for yourself.”
They were behind the barn now, right at the edge of the forest. A rock outcrop rose up there, one they’d played cavemen on when they were little. A thousand imaginary dinosaurs had been hurled to their death from the top of that slab of granite.
But it was different now, and when David stepped aside, Alec saw how much it had changed.
For, emerging from the rockface exactly at David’s eye level, with its back still imprisoned in solid stone and its face contorted with fear and shock, was the frozen figure of a young man wrought from thousands of pebbles. And it looked exactly like David.
“Weird,” Alec ventured.
“Yeah,” David agreed. “You could say that.”
“All we need’s another mystery.”
David rolled his eyes. “No kiddin’! Hey, maybe—”
But he was not allowed to finish, because his younger brother, Little Billy, came charging up all out of breath. “You’ve got a call, Davy! It’s from Calvin. Says it’s urgent.”
David and Alec exchanged wary glances. “Wonder when he’s gonna be gettin’ here,” Alec mused as they started back at a jog. “I figured he’d have checked in by now.
“Search me,” David yelled over his shoulder as he poured on a burst of speed and raced ahead. “Wonder what he’ll say when we tell him we’ve got another blessed magical mystery.”
“What indeed?” Alec said to the silence of the mountains.
But if the mountains could answer, they chose not to.
About the Author
Tom Deitz grew up in Young Harris, Georgia, a small town not far from the fictitious Enotah County of the David Sullivan series. When he was a teen he discovered J.R.R. Tolkien, a writer who awakened his interest in fantasy and myth. He pursued his fascination by earning two degrees, a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts, from the University of Georgia. His major in medieval English literature led Mr. Deitz to the Society for Creative Anachronism, which in turn generated a particular interest in heraldry, historic costuming, castle architecture, British folk music, and all things Celtic. Readers will also quickly realized that Tom was—as he said—a car nut who loved automotive details.
In Windmaster’s Bane, his first published novel, Tom Deitz used his interests and background as he began the story of David Sullivan and his friends, a tale continued in Fireshaper’s Doom and more books in the series. He won a Georgia Author of the Year award and a Lifetime Phoenix Award from Southern fans for his work. In addition to his writing, Tom was also a popular professor of English at Gainesville State College (today the Gainesville campus of the University of North Georgia), where he was awarded the Faculty Member of the Year award for 2008.
On the day after his birthday in 2009, Tom suffered a massive heart attack from which he never fully recovered, and in April of that year he passed away at the age of 57. Though he was never able to realize his dream of owning a small castle in Ireland, Tom had visited that country, which he loved, and at the time when he was stricken with the heart attack he was in the planning stages for a Study Abroad trip to Ireland that he would have led. The trip took place, and to a dirge played by an Irish musician on the uilleann pipes, some of Tom’s teaching colleagues scattered his ashes in a faery circle.