A Tangle of Secrets

by R. G. Thomas

“Thaddeus!” one of the young boys called, and Thaddeus recognized him as Martin. He was finally starting to be able to tell all of Teofil’s siblings apart and prided himself on that fact as he approached the edge of the pit and peered down.

  Teofil and Astrid stood outside a trio of entrances, looking up at him. They were covered head to toe with dirt and dust, leaning on the handles of their digging tools and their teeth shining white as they smiled.

  “Wow” was all Thaddeus could think to say.

  “Did you come to help?” Astrid asked.

  “I did,” Thaddeus replied.

  Her eyes went wide, and she looked at Teofil, then back up at Thaddeus. “Really? I was just joking with you.”

  “Come down here,” Teofil said, motioning toward the gentle downward slope of the ramp.

  Thaddeus greeted each of the younger kids as he walked past them. The cool, damp walls of the pit rose above him, and when he finally stopped in front of Teofil, he looked back along the line and asked, “Where’s Dulindir?”

  Teofil rolled his eyes. “Gone. Again. Right when we were lining up to get to work.”

  “He’s still looking for Lucian and Azzo,” Astrid whispered as she shot a glare at Teofil. “He didn’t leave because of our work.”

  “Okay, I just wondered,” Thaddeus said, then smiled as he looked at the work that had already been completed.

  Frames of dark, treated wood braced each of the three entrances. Beyond the doorways, flat stones had been laid as floors. Thaddeus entered the room on the left, and it was high enough for him to not need to crouch down. The short entry hall ended in a large, round room illuminated by several candles. Rudyard and Miriam knelt near the far wall, both absorbed in the task of fitting stones into the dirt floor. Heavy panels of wood formed the walls and ceiling, interspersed above between large crossbeams of a darker wood similar to that in the doorframe.

  “Oh my gosh,” Thaddeus said as he looked all around. “This is really beautiful.”

  “Oh, Thaddeus.” Miriam rose, still on her knees and covered in dust and dirt, and asked, “Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat?”

  Thaddeus laughed. “Um, no, I’m fine. Thank you, though. I came down to help.”

  “We can always use another pair of hands,” Rudyard said, then looked at Miriam and winked as he grinned. “You sure you don’t want to try for a fifteenth gnome?”

  “You stop that right now,” Miriam said, waving a hand at him as she grinned and blushed.

  Thaddeus blushed himself—he did not want to even think about Teofil’s parents trying for baby number fifteen!—then turned back to Teofil and Astrid.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “We’re digging out the third room,” Teofil said. “But Seamus and River could probably use a hand moving stones into place in the second room.”

  “Yes!” a voice echoed from somewhere outside the room. “Come help us!”

  Thaddeus paused to give Teofil a quick kiss—to which the younger kids lining the ramp all made exaggerated sounds of disgust—before he stepped through the middle door and into the partially completed entryway. A few candles had been affixed to the walls, and the flickering yellow light showed him two young gnomes kneeling a short distance away and moving a stone into place.

  “You guys have been busy,” Thaddeus said. “It looks great.”

  “We’re hoping this will be our room,” the older gnome said, and Thaddeus knew this was Seamus because of his thick, dark red hair.

  “Ours and Martin’s,” River added. “Dad said he’d think about it. We figure there’s enough room for three of us in here.”

  “More room than inside the house, huh?” Thaddeus asked as he got on his knees beside them.

  “That and we miss being underground,” Seamus said. “Our home in the forest was underground.”

  “That’s right, Teofil, Astrid, and Fetter said that—” Thaddeus snapped his mouth shut and stared at them as they stared back.

  “It’s okay,” Seamus said. “We talk about him sometimes too.”

  “I miss him,” River said. “Which is weird, because from what Mum and Dad have said, it wasn’t really him to begin with.”

  Thaddeus nodded. “That’s right. It wasn’t him.” He looked around the room and spread his hands. “Okay, I’m here to help. Tell me what I can do.”

  Hours later, Thaddeus groaned as he walked slowly up the gentle slope of the ramp to the grass of the backyard. The sun had already set, and the fairies spun and danced between the flowerbeds. As the younger gnomes plodded with tired steps toward the back door of the house, a few of the fairies dive-bombed them and zipped away, leaving behind high-pitched laughter and tiny sparks of magic.

  “The fairies are glad to have so many of us around,” Teofil said.

  “I can see that,” Thaddeus said, then ducked as a fairy zipped past doing a barrel roll.

  “Look at how dirty you all are!”

  Thaddeus turned to see his parents coming in through the gate, his mother’s smile wide as she looked the group of them over. Vivienne followed close behind, and everyone greeted her.

  “Another glamorous day in the life of a gnome,” Miriam said with a laugh. “How are you all?”

  “I’m well,” Vivienne said with a shrug. “Working a lot at the library to make up the hours I missed during our time in Iron Gulch.”

  “And I’m still looking for work,” Nathan said.

  Claire touched his arm. “You’ll find something soon.”

  He nodded before looking back at Miriam. “We’ve got some tables and chairs set up in our backyard, and several large bowls of pasta. You’re welcome to bring some food over and join us for dinner.” He waved to Vivienne. “Vivienne is staying as well.”

  “That sounds wonderful.” Miriam turned to Teofil and Astrid. “Help us get your brothers and sisters cleaned up, and then grab what’s in the cold box and take it next door.”

  “It’s called a refrigerator, Mum,” Teofil said.

  “Oh bother,” Miriam said with a wave of her hand. “Help us get things together.”

  Thaddeus helped get each pair of hands and some faces washed and made sure every child heading toward the gate was carrying a dish of some kind from the refrigerator. He and Teofil followed the last of the younger kids out the gate and around the fence to his own backyard. The fairies spun and looped around the strings of white lights hung in the tree branches above the long tables set up end to end.

  Dinner was a loud and boisterous event. The younger gnomes helped their even younger siblings take servings and eat. Jokes and stories were told, involving most of the family. When everyone was finished, Thaddeus, Teofil, and Astrid helped clean up dishes and break down the tables as the younger gnomes ran around the yard playing tag. Vivienne, Miriam, Rudyard, and Thaddeus’s parents talked as they sat in chairs beneath the tree.

  After they’d put away the final dish, Teofil took Thaddeus by the hand and, holding a finger to his lips, led him along the fence and around the corner to the gate. As the rest of the Rhododendron family cavorted in Thaddeus’s backyard, Teofil led him to the back door of the Rhododendron house. They stepped inside, and the heavy, empty silence of the house sounded so unnatural after all the noise and chaos Thaddeus was used to hearing. Teofil paused in the kitchen to steal a quick kiss.

  “What are we doing?” Thaddeus asked, keeping his voice low even though everyone else was next door.

  “I want to show you something. Come on.”

  Thaddeus followed Teofil through the living room and up the stairs to the third floor. They entered the library where a small desk lamp on the table was already on. The lamp illuminated a large book that lay open to pages filled with words written in Leo’s slanted penmanship.

  “One of Leo’s journals?” Thaddeus asked as he followed Teofil to the table and stood looking down at the book.

  “Yes.”

  Thaddeus lightly ran his finger across the page, tracing a lin
e of writing. Leopold had squeezed a lot of writing onto the unruled pages, and Thaddeus had to squint to be able to read a majority of the words.

  “How can you sit up here for so long and read such tiny writing?” Thaddeus asked.

  “It’s not easy,” Teofil replied with a heavy sigh.

  “Have you found anything?”

  “Something just today, actually.” Teofil sat in the straight-backed chair and ran his finger back and forth across the page as he read the words, looking for just the right spot. “Here it is. At the beginning of this year, he wrote the following: ‘I happened across a leprechaun while returning from the Rhododendron grotto.’”

  “Hold on.” Thaddeus put a hand on Teofil’s shoulder and looked at him with wide eyes. “Leprechaun? There are actually such things as leprechauns?”

  Teofil smiled. “Yes, Thaddeus. Just like there are gnomes, fairies, elves, witches, wizards, dragons, ghouls, and goblins.”

  “Yeah, okay, I see what you’re saying,” Thaddeus said. “But leprechauns are just so….”

  Teofil cocked his head. “So what?”

  “I guess it’s because they’re such a common and legendary myth, that it’s difficult for me to imagine them as real,” Thaddeus said. “Have you ever met a leprechaun?”

  “Sure, lots of times,” Teofil replied. “Leopold had a few of them stay with us once a few years ago.”

  “Really?” Thaddeus couldn’t help his smile. “That’s so cool! Dang, I wish we’d been living here then.” He stopped and said, “Huh.”

  “What?” Teofil asked.

  “I’ve never said that before about any of the places my dad and I have lived.” He smiled as a warm, tingly feeling bubbled through him. “I like that.”

  “I like that too,” Teofil said.

  “Okay, sorry I interrupted you.” Thaddeus waved to the journal. “Go on.”

  “Where was I? Oh yes…. ‘Once I proved my magic ability, this fine fellow confided to me that his name was Aodhan, and he gladly accepted my invitation to accompany me back to the house. We discovered Teofil soundly asleep in his bed, but Aodhan wondered why I had a gnome living with me. I led him around the gardens, and Aodhan was impressed with Teofil’s work.’”

  “Hold on a minute,” Thaddeus said and leaned down to squint at the journal. “You’re saying ‘Aidan,’ but it looks like it’s spelled differently.”

  “That’s the Celtic spelling,” Teofil explained, then continued. “Aodhan had heard of Isadora and Lucian’s attack on the village, but had yet to meet any of the survivors. I trusted this leprechaun with my true name, knowing that his race above all others are excellent keepers of secrets.”

  “Is that true?” Thaddeus asked.

  “It is,” Teofil replied. “It’s near impossible to get a leprechaun to reveal a promised secret. That’s why it’s next to impossible to find the gold they spend their lives gathering and guarding.” He bent back to the book and continued to read. “Aodhan so appreciated my trust and high regard of him that he whispered to me the name of a town he thought I might find of interest. The name he whispered was ‘Northglenn,’ which I discovered later is eighty miles from Superstition. I will drive there and see if I can discover what Aodhan believed I may find of interest in Northglenn.’”

  Teofil stopped reading and sat back to rub his eyes.

  “Don’t stop,” Thaddeus said. “What did he find in Northglenn?”

  Teofil shrugged and looked up at him, his eyes red and watery. “I don’t know. I haven’t found another mention of Northglenn in this journal.”

  “He didn’t go?”

  “He might have, but maybe he didn’t find anything worth writing about.”

  “But we need to know for sure,” Thaddeus said. “This could be the clue we’ve needed to find them.”

  “I know,” Teofil said. “I need a little more time to read through more of this journal and try to find the next one.”

  Thaddeus nodded as he started to pace. “Yes, you could do that. But that will take a lot of time, won’t it?”

  “I’m afraid it will,” Teofil said. “As much as I want to find them, I can only take so much of Leo’s small writing.”

  “What if we went to Northglenn ourselves?” Thaddeus asked. “I know his journal entry was from years ago, but if Lucian was staying there, he might still be around.”

  Teofil sat up straighter in his chair. “Go and have a look around and see what Leopold might have found?”

  “Yes! We could get my dad to drive us—”

  “Do you think he would?” Teofil asked.

  “Why not?”

  “Would he think it was dangerous?”

  Thaddeus folded his arms and frowned at Teofil. “After what we all went through at Iron Gulch?”

  “True,” Teofil said. “But we’re not sure this will amount to anything. And I’m not sure I want my mum and dad to know what I’ve been doing up here. They might think it’s too dangerous.”

  “I guess we could find another way to get to Northglenn,” Thaddeus said. “How far away did Leo say it was?”

  Teofil consulted the journal again. “Eighty miles.”

  “Much too far for walking or bikes,” Thaddeus said. “Do you have a map of the area?”

  “We have lots of those.”

  Teofil got up and crossed the room to a set of shelves stuffed full of what Thaddeus realized were folded maps. He smiled at the sight as a happy memory surfaced. During each of the moves he and his father completed, Thaddeus had played navigator as his father drove. He’d enjoyed sliding his finger across the smooth paper of the map his father would buy at the first gas station they stopped at after crossing a state line. He would trace their route along whatever road or interstate they traveled, calling out the names of cities and towns as they came upon the exit.

  “Leo collected one from every place he visited,” Teofil said.

  “He went to all of these places?” Thaddeus asked as he joined Teofil at the shelves. “It looks like he has maps of every state in the country.”

  “He did travel a lot,” Teofil said.

  “Did you go with him?”

  Teofil shook his head and looked sad. “No. He needed me to stay here and work on the garden.”

  “He needed you to keep the drachen narcosis alive so my mother wouldn’t awaken,” Thaddeus said. “I’m sorry. You really missed out on a lot, didn’t you? Time with your family. Seeing the outside world. Friends.”

  “A lot like what you went through,” Teofil said as he turned to slip his arms around Thaddeus’s waist. “You and your dad moved so many times you never got the chance to make friends.”

  “Yeah, but I always had my dad there with me.”

  “Leo was good to me,” Teofil said with a shrug. “Even if he didn’t tell me the real reason I had come to live with him.” He dropped his gaze but kept his hands linked at the small of Thaddeus’s back. “I really miss him. I know it’s kind of funny to say, now that my entire family is living here with me, but I miss Leo. I never really got to say goodbye to him, or tell him that I wasn’t angry about him bringing me to live here with no real understanding why.”

  “Do you think you can tell his spirit that the next time you see him?” Thaddeus asked.

  Teofil made a face. “There’s not a lot of conversation. And I haven’t seen him for a few days. I’m concerned he’s moved on now that he showed me the journals.”

  Thaddeus had no idea what to say, so he leaned in to kiss Teofil quickly on the lips. “No matter how you’re seeing or talking with him now, he knew how you felt when he was alive. When he showed up in Iron Gulch, you two really got to connect again. And he knew how much he meant to you.”

  “I hope so.” Teofil gave him a slower, deeper kiss, and when they parted, he smiled. “You always make me feel better.”

  “You make me feel better too,” Thaddeus said. “And after my first week at school, it feels good to be here with you.”

  “I miss
you during the day,” Teofil said. “I wish I could attend school with you.”

  Thaddeus smiled as he imagined Teofil carrying an armful of books down the hall on his way to a class. He didn’t know if Teofil would really fit in with the other kids of Superstition, but it would be good to have him there.

  “Me too,” Thaddeus said. “But this isn’t helping us find Northglenn.”

  “You’re right.”

  Teofil stepped back and turned to the shelf. He selected the appropriate state map, and they spread it across a table. Thaddeus found Superstition on the map and then used the legend to locate Northglenn.

  “That is pretty far,” Thaddeus said with a sigh. “Too bad neither of us can transport ourselves there.”

  “You can’t drive a car?” Teofil asked.

  “Not yet. I’ll take driver’s education whenever the school offers it, probably next summer.”

  “And then you’ll be able to drive?”

  “Well, after that I’ll have a permit, and there are restrictions as to when I can drive and the people that need to be with me. After that I’ll take a test and, hopefully, get my license.”

  “That sounds complicated.”

  Thaddeus sighed. “You have no idea.”

  Teofil made a face. “We might need to tell our parents.”

  “Maybe,” Thaddeus said. “Or we could find another way.”

  “Like what?”

  Thaddeus grinned. “Like a bus.”

  “A bus? Oh, yeah. Leo and I took a bus one time to another town for a dinner.” Teofil smiled. “It was my thirteenth birthday. He wanted to do something special for me, and his car wasn’t working.”

  “That sounds like a nice time,” Thaddeus said. “Do you remember if you left from downtown Superstition on the bus?”

  “Yes, right outside the post office,” Teofil replied. “Is that where we should go?”

  “We’ll need to see how much a ticket to Northglenn costs,” Thaddeus said. “But it shouldn’t be too much. And I’ve still got some money from when I worked at the sporting goods store over the summer.”

  “I have some money too,” Teofil said. “Remember Leo left me money in his will.”

  “Yes, but you should hold on to that for now,” Thaddeus said. “You’ll need it for upkeep and property taxes and stuff.” He looked at the map again, then back at Teofil with a smile. “We’ll go to the post office first thing in the morning. Will that work for you?”