A Tangle of Secrets

by R. G. Thomas

  He sent a note back telling her about his assignment about what he did over the summer, and they shared a few messages that consisted mostly of LOLOLOL. She ended the exchange by letting him know her mom had come home from work and they were going out to dinner at the one restaurant in Iron Gulch that had finally reopened.

  Thaddeus snapped his phone shut and lay back on the bed. He remembered his mother in dragon form soaring over Iron Gulch, spewing fire over businesses and homes. She had been forced to attack the town by Isadora, and he knew she still felt guilty over the damage she had caused.

  His father called him down for dinner, interrupting his thoughts. Thaddeus stopped at the bathroom across the hall from his bedroom to wash his hands before descending the steps and walking into the kitchen. A hearty meatloaf lay on a plate, sliced up and ready to serve. A heaping mound of mashed potatoes sat in a serving bowl, and his father had also steamed broccoli.

  “Looks good,” Thaddeus said as he sat down. “Are those real potatoes? Not from a box?”

  “Hands washed, funny guy?” his father asked.

  “I’m not three, Dad.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” his father said as he served Thaddeus’s mother.

  Thaddeus let out a heavy sigh. “Yes, I washed my hands.”

  “Thank you.” His father grinned and served Thaddeus a hearty scoop of mashed potatoes.

  Conversation was a bit stilted over dinner. Thaddeus’s father tried several times to bring up topics all three of them could talk about, but after a while only the sound of their forks against the CorningWare plates broke the silence. As he ate, Thaddeus tried not to feel impatient. As long as he could remember, he’d wanted his mother to be part of the small family made up of him and his father. But in those imagined scenarios, his mother was far different from the nervous, edgy woman who now sat between them. The mother from his thoughts and dreams had laughed and known the right things to say to make him feel good about any situation. She didn’t set fire to her bed because of her nightmares.

  He guessed, when he really thought about it, Thaddeus had fashioned the idea of his mother from the relationship he had with his father. That sudden insight made Thaddeus stop with his fork halfway to his mouth, and he looked across the small table at his father. The journey they’d taken had been hard on him. Thaddeus could see it in the shadows under his father’s eyes and the weight he had lost. His father’s condition worried Thaddeus. Perhaps the days his father had suffered with troll poison in his system had had a more debilitating effect than first thought. And being reunited with the woman he loved only to find her damaged and dangerous probably had been affecting him as well.

  His father glanced up, caught him staring, and smiled.

  “Is it good?” his father asked.

  Thaddeus returned his smile and nodded. “It is. Very good.”

  “Better than mooshberries?” his mother asked.

  A laugh surprised Thaddeus, and he was glad to see his father laughing as well.

  “Yes,” Thaddeus replied. “Much better than mooshberries. Thank goodness!”

  The laughter seemed to knock down the walls, and the conversation after that flowed easily. Thaddeus told them more about his classes and the kids he had met.

  “Theater kids, huh?” his father asked with a grin as he helped himself to seconds. “Are we going to have to sit through another production like the play your fourth-grade class wrote?”

  His mother’s smile brightened. “I love the theater! Did you write the play yourself?”

  Thaddeus shook his head even as he laughed and shot his father a dirty look. “No, it wasn’t like that. We wrote the play as a class, with our teacher giving us prompts. We were in Texas, I think, right? Or Arkansas?”

  “Texas,” his father replied without hesitation. “That’s why you suggested the title Houston, we have a problem!”

  “That’s right!” Thaddeus said and laughed along with his father.

  His mother’s smile slipped a little as she looked between them. Her confusion was evident in her expression, and Thaddeus realized she had no idea about the significance of the movie line.

  “Mom,” he said, reaching out to touch her hand.

  His mother jerked her hand out from under his. In her haste to pull away, she knocked her water glass to the floor, and it shattered.

  “I’m sorry,” Thaddeus said. His heart pounded hard, and his dinner sat like a stone in his belly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to….”

  His mother was on her feet, wringing her hands and looking between the broken glass and Thaddeus.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said, her apology mingling with Thaddeus’s. “It was a reaction, that’s all. I didn’t want to burn you by accident. I’m so sorry.”

  His father had grabbed a dish towel and was on one knee alongside his mother’s chair, mopping up the water and picking up glass as he tried to reassure both of them. “It’s okay. It’s not a big deal. It’s only a drinking glass.”

  Thaddeus had lost his appetite, but he remained at the table, moving his food around on his plate. His mother paced a bit, then finally took her seat again. An awkward, awful silence sat in the room like a fourth member of their family.

  “Are you finished, Thaddeus?” his father finally asked.

  “Yes, I’m done.”

  “You may be excused,” his father said. “But don’t forget to come back down and do the dishes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Thaddeus got up and carried his plate to the sink. He turned back to the table, hesitated, then slowly approached his mother and leaned down to put his arms around her from behind in a hug. She stiffened but slowly relaxed, and she even put her hands on his wrists and gave him a gentle squeeze.

  “I’m sorry I startled you,” Thaddeus said before taking a step back. “It’s good to have you here at home with us.”

  “I’m glad to be here with you.” She looked at his father. “With both of you.”

  “It will get easier,” his father said. “For all of us.”

  Thaddeus hurried up the steps and fell on his back across his bed. He stared at the ceiling and thought about dinner. It had been good for a few moments, and for that he was grateful. But these days the good never seemed to last. At least not yet.

  He hated to admit it, but he felt more than a little resentful of his mother’s presence. When it had been him and his father, Thaddeus thought things had been good. They’d been on their own for so long and knew each other so well that things like dinner or even sleeping at night were never a big deal. He missed those easy days he’d had with his father. As lonely as both of them may have been all those years, it had at least been less complicated.

  While he’d been lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, Thaddeus’s attention had been turned far inward as he tried to manage his racing thoughts. He soon became aware of a quiet, persistent noise at his window and sat up on his bed to look in that direction.

  A tiny glowing figure hovered outside the glass. It was a garden fairy, a friend of Teofil’s. Thaddeus got up and crossed the room to raise the window. The fairy zipped into his room and dropped a tiny, perfect daisy on his pillow.

  “Oh, thank you,” Thaddeus said. “I take it that’s from Teofil?”

  A very quiet and high-pitched giggle from the fairy suggested his guess was correct.

  Thaddeus squinted to try to see the fairy better. “Do I know you? Have we been introduced?”

  The fairy flew down to the flower and circled it several times.

  “Daisy?” Thaddeus asked. “Is that your name?”

  A loop-de-loop was the response, and Thaddeus laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes. Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Daisy. Thank you for bringing me a flower.”

  Daisy circled his head a few times, giggling as her tiny wings beat fast enough to lift a few of the hairs from his forehead. She then flew out the window and down into the yard next door. She rejoined the other fairies h
overing around Teofil as he moved through the lengthening shadows of the evening, going from flowerbed to flowerbed. Now that he had the window open, Thaddeus could hear Teofil’s deep, resonant humming, his way of communicating with the plants he tended. The sound was calming and urged him to leave his bedroom, walk down the stairs, and out the side door.

  When he stepped into the Rhododendron’s backyard, Thaddeus paused to watch Teofil at work. He was broad across the chest, and tall for a garden gnome—just an inch or so shorter than Thaddeus’s five foot seven. His strong hands dug into the earth and carefully, expertly extracted plants, which he moved to new locations away from the hole his father was busy making into rooms for the family.

  A group of fairies—tiny, illuminated bodies so similar to fireflies—spun above Teofil’s head. One of them dipped down to whisper something in Teofil’s ear, and he turned to smile at Thaddeus.

  “Hi there,” Teofil said as he sat back with his legs beneath him and his hands on his thighs.

  “Hi.” Thaddeus approached and sat beside him. “Thank you for the flower.”

  Teofil kissed him. It was a slow, lingering kiss that sent a buzz of attraction through Thaddeus. “I’m glad it brought you outside.”

  “Me too.”

  Teofil resumed working with the plants. “How was your first day?”

  “Kind of stupid.” Thaddeus related everything that had happened at school.

  “That does sound pretty stupid,” Teofil said once Thaddeus had finished. “I’m glad Leopold never made me go.”

  “Really?” Thaddeus asked. “Not even to, like, gnome school or anything?”

  Teofil smirked. “Gnome school?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Like a school about how to talk to plants and get them to grow so well?”

  “No, there isn’t anything like that. At least not anymore. I pretty much knew how to do that from when I was really young. Leopold did teach me a lot of history within the magical community, though.”

  “He did?” Thaddeus sat up straighter. “Are those books still up in his library? I’d like to see them.”

  “I’m sure they are,” Teofil said. “I’ve been focusing more on Leopold’s journals.”

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time up there.”

  “I have.” Teofil looked around before scooting closer to Thaddeus and lowering his voice. “You know I’ve been reading Leopold’s journals, right?”

  A narrow band of nervousness slowly tightened around Thaddeus’s belly as he nodded. “Yes, you told me.” He didn’t want to know if Leopold had any dark secrets he’d kept hidden until his death on Wraith Mountain. Thaddeus preferred to remember Leopold as the sometimes-gruff but always-helpful wizard he’d come to know better in Iron Gulch.

  “You know, all the years I lived here with Leo, I had never been in that room before. He only told me it was his private study and kept the door locked at all times.”

  “Locked?” Thaddeus widened his eyes. “How’d you get inside? Did you know where Leo kept the key?”

  Teofil shook his head. “No. And, to be honest, once we got back and learned Leo had left the house to me, I didn’t even think of it. Not until….” His voice trailed off, and he dropped his gaze.

  “What?” Thaddeus asked, then put a hand on Teofil’s knee. “You can tell me.”

  Teofil took a breath and moved an inch closer as he lowered his voice even more. “I started to see him.”

  “See him? See who?” Then Thaddeus understood and he gasped quietly. “Leopold?”

  Teofil nodded.

  “Like a ghost?”

  “I don’t know,” Teofil replied. “I guess so. I saw him from the corner of my eye at first. Just quick glimpses of him. He was always in motion, but when I tried to look right at him, he was never there.”

  Thaddeus shivered. “Scary.”

  “It was. And it kept me awake quite a few nights.”

  “Has he tried talking to you?”

  Teofil nodded. “I only caught glimpses of him at first, and only when I was by myself. But then I started being able to look right at him, although he was pale, and I could see right through him. After another few days of seeing him across a room or out here in the yard, he finally approached me and said a few words.”

  Thaddeus’s eyes were wide as he asked in a quiet voice, “What did he say?”

  “At first all he said was ‘Upstairs,’” Teofil replied. “Then he would vanish. I went upstairs but didn’t see anything unusual. The next night he showed up again out here in the yard, and this time he said, ‘My study,’ so I knew he meant I should go to the third floor.”

  “So creepy,” Thaddeus said. “But kind of cool too.”

  “Yeah,” Teofil said. “And it’s also making me a little sad.”

  Thaddeus put an arm around Teofil’s shoulders. “I’m sure it is. I’m sorry you lost him.”

  Teofil nodded, then said, “He only seems to be able to say a few words at a time, and each time I see him, I have to listen harder because his voice is more quiet.”

  “But he must have shown you where the key to the study was hidden?” Thaddeus asked.

  “He did. That night he didn’t speak. He pointed to the third-floor windows, then at me before he disappeared. When I got to the third-floor hallway, he was standing there waiting for me. He pointed to the lock in the door, then up to the top molding around one of the other doors. I was too short to reach, so I had to get a stool from the kitchen to stand on. When I felt around on top of the molding, I found the key to the study door.”

  “Wow,” Thaddeus said, then looked around the yard. “Do you see him here now?”

  Teofil shook his head. “No. Not right now. No one else has seen him, and you’re the only one I’ve told about him.”

  “Thank you for trusting me,” Thaddeus said.

  A sound from the gate startled a shout out of them both. A figure stood a short distance inside the yard, the light of the moon backlighting it so the face was in shadow.

  “Who’s there?” Teofil demanded, getting to his feet.

  Thaddeus stood as well, fists clenched as the skin of his arms tingled from the magic flowing through him, ready to be unleashed. The figure stood silent a moment longer; then its hair gradually brightened until it glowed with light. Thaddeus let out a breath of relief.

  “Dulindir,” Thaddeus said.

  “You might have announced yourself,” Teofil snapped.

  “I did not mean to frighten you,” Dulindir said as he approached them and smiled. His hair glowed with reflected starlight, illuminating his handsome face and pointed ears. “It is good to see you, Thaddeus. And you as well, Teofil.”

  “Where have you been?” Thaddeus asked. “You’ve been gone a long time.”

  “And you didn’t frighten us,” Teofil grumbled.

  “I’ve been traveling the nearby lands in search of Lucian or the Bearagon,” Dulindir replied. “But none I have encountered know of their location.”

  “Or maybe they’re not telling you,” Teofil said.

  Dulindir gave him a long, steady look. “You’ve been seeing him, haven’t you?”

  Teofil looked surprised and took a step back. “Who?”

  “Leopold.” Dulindir nodded. “You’ve been seeing him since we’ve returned from battle.”

  “How did you know that?” Thaddeus asked.

  “I had a feeling he would appear to Teofil,” Dulindir replied. “Leopold missed the last gateway.”

  “Gateway?” Thaddeus looked to Teofil to see if he understood, but Teofil was staring at Dulindir. Thaddeus looked back as well and asked, “What do you mean by gateway?”

  “His journey to the spirit world beyond this earthly realm,” Dulindir said. “It’s why spirits are sometimes glimpsed among the living.”

  “Explain yourself,” Teofil demanded. “Without riddles or confusing elf speak.”

  “When a soul leaves the mortal vessel it inhabits,” Dulindir said, “the only time
it is able to leave this world and enter the next is during a full moon. Sometimes, if a spirit has many things left to do or unfinished business, it might avoid the gateway for one or more phases of the full moon. It is why so many past cultures paid worship to the full moon.”

  Thaddeus looked up to where the moon floated above them. It looked a little lopsided, and he guessed it was still a few nights from full. “How does that work?”

  “The light of the moon shines the way for them to cross over,” Dulindir said.

  Teofil snorted. “I’ve never heard that before.”

  “Garden gnomes are not known for understanding the rules of the spirit world.”

  Thaddeus stepped between them before Teofil could respond or lash out. “Okay, enough you two.”

  “I was merely stating a fact,” Dulindir said.

  “You could state your facts in a kinder tone,” Thaddeus said. “So what keeps a spirit from avoiding the gateway at each full moon and staying here forever?”

  “Some do manage to do that,” Dulindir replied. “But they become angry and unstable. All that they loved in life moves on without them, and they are left with only their resentments. Soon they are unable to interact or become visual to the tangible world, and they lash out in other ways.”

  Thaddeus shuddered. “Lash out like move stuff around or slam doors?”

  “Or cause terrible accidents,” Dulindir said.

  Thaddeus let out a breath, then looked at Teofil. “You’ve been seeing Leopold for a couple of weeks now, right?”

  Teofil nodded. “Yes. He showed up a few days after we returned from Iron Gulch.”

  “He led you to his private study?” Dulindir asked.

  “That’s right,” Teofil replied.

  “He wants you to continue where he left off in his search for Lucian and the others,” Dulindir said.

  “Do you think Fetter will be with them?” Teofil asked.

  Dulindir was quiet a moment, staring back at Teofil, and Thaddeus started to get nervous about what his response would be. When Teofil was just a toddler, followers of Isadora had kidnapped his older brother, Fetter. Isadora had then disguised herself as Fetter and lived undetected within his family for years in an effort to discover the location of Thaddeus’s mother, gradually losing the ability to undo her own spell. When they had discovered the Well of Tears over the summer, she’d used the magical water to finally break the spell and reveal her true identity. Teofil and Astrid believed Fetter was still alive somewhere, and were determined to find him.