A Tangle of Secrets

by R. G. Thomas

  Thaddeus looked over and saw Teofil smiling as he looked at the houses and small shops they passed. Thaddeus really wished he felt comfortable enough to reach out and take Teofil’s hand. But they had no idea of the temperament of Northglenn, and he wasn’t that big on public displays of affection anyway. Of course, he’d never been on the “displaying” end of a PDA before, only the observation side.

  They reached the address in less than an hour and stood on the sidewalk assessing the place. It was a tiny house, covered in white aluminum siding that had faded over the years. It was only one floor and most likely had only two bedrooms from what Thaddeus could see. In one of the many towns he had lived in, he and his father had rented a house very similar to it, and he could still remember the layout of eat-in kitchen, living room, a bathroom in the hall leading to the two back bedrooms.

  They walked up the cracked and weed-cluttered walk to the porch, and Thaddeus knocked on the door. Moments later it was opened by a man who looked to be in his midthirties.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Hi, um, we read an article about someone who lived here seeing a large animal in the yard,” Thaddeus said. “We were wondering if he still lives here, and if so, if we might talk with him?”

  The man frowned. “You’re too young to be reporters. May I ask why you wish to speak to him?”

  “We’re from the town of Superstition,” Thaddeus explained. “And we’re working on a school newspaper article about unexplained sightings around the area.”

  “Sounds like you’re going to mock the people who have reported the sightings.”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “Not at all. There have been sightings in Superstition as well. We think there’s something connecting all of these sightings together, and wanted to interview eyewitnesses.”

  “News really travels far around here,” the man said and folded his arms. “Superstition’s a pretty good distance away.”

  “We tend to hear about all of these kinds of things,” Thaddeus said. “I guess it’s because of the name of our town.”

  “Hmm.” The man looked between them before settling his gaze on Thaddeus once again. “You don’t have a notepad for notes or anything.”

  Teofil pointed to his temple. “I have a very good memory.”

  Thaddeus managed to hold back a smile. “It’s true, he does.”

  “All right,” the man said. “You want to speak to my father. His health has declined since that night, so I’ve moved in with him. He’s sitting on the back porch, and I’m sure he’d appreciate the company. Come on.”

  The man stepped out of the house and led the way off the narrow concrete porch and around the side of the house. A small wooden deck had been built off a back door that looked as if it led to the kitchen. An elderly man with a full head of thick silver hair sat on the deck in a lawn chair, a blanket covering his legs and the back of the chair pushed right up against the house. As the young man approached his father, Thaddeus looked around the yard, taking note of the clothesline poles set in the back of the property near a heavily wooded section. He could very easily imagine the Bearagon lurking in the dense shadows among the trees and shivered despite the warm sun on his shoulders.

  “Come on closer and introduce yourselves,” the younger man called. “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you my name at the front door. I’m Kevin, and this is my father, Albert.”

  “Hello, sir,” Thaddeus said as he and Teofil stood at the bottom of the wooden steps. “I’m Thaddeus and this is Teofil. We’re interested in what you can tell us about the animal you saw in your yard back in August.”

  Albert frowned as he looked between Thaddeus and Teofil. His hands tightened, pulling in fistfuls of the blanket that covered his legs. “Who are you?”

  “We’re students at Superstition High School,” Thaddeus said. “We’ve come to talk to you about what you saw back in August.”

  “Superstition?” Albert looked surprised. “You’ve come a long way.”

  “We have,” Thaddeus said with a nod. “We took the bus here.”

  “Why do you want to know about that thing?” Albert asked, his voice shaking.

  “Hey, Dad, it’s all right,” Kevin said as he placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “They’re here to ask about the bear you saw in the woods out here. Sounds like people in Superstition have seen it too.”

  “It wasn’t a bear,” Albert snapped. He slid an angry look at his son, then glared at Thaddeus. “Are you here to make fun of me as well?”

  “No, sir,” Thaddeus replied. “And I want you to know that we both believe you when you say it was not a bear.”

  “You do?” Kevin asked and looked between them and his father with a frown.

  Thaddeus ignored Kevin and kept his gaze on Albert. “It was bigger than a bear, wasn’t it? Similar in shape, but with different features that shouldn’t be found on a bear.”

  Albert’s eyes widened. “You’ve seen it.”

  “I believe so,” Thaddeus said with a nod.

  “I thought this was about an article for your school paper?” Kevin said. “Look, I’m not sure this is a good idea. I think you should leave.” He descended the porch steps toward them.

  “No!” Albert demanded in a loud voice, which triggered a fit of deep coughing.

  “Dammit, Dad,” Kevin said with a sigh before turning away to hurry into the house through the back door.

  Albert stopped coughing the minute the door closed behind his son. He fixed Thaddeus with a stare and said in a low voice, “It was the most awful thing I have ever seen. It wasn’t natural. I stood right in the middle of my yard and watched it walk toward the woods. All I could think to do was keep quiet so it wouldn’t hear me and attack. There was something about it, an anger that I had never felt around an animal before. I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve seen elk and moose and bear and all manner of animal come through my yard. But I’ve never seen anything like this before. And especially nothing that would steal my clothes.”

  “Do you believe the Beara—the animal, stole your clothing?” Teofil asked.

  Albert moved his gaze off Thaddeus and settled it on Teofil for a long moment before he nodded. “I do.”

  “Had you ever seen it before?” Thaddeus asked. “Or since?”

  “No,” Albert replied. “And I hope to never see it again.”

  Kevin stepped out of the back door with a bottle of cough medicine and a tablespoon. He looked between his father and them, then frowned at Albert.

  “Did you fake a coughing fit to get me to leave you alone?” Kevin asked.

  “What?” Albert frowned and shook his head. “What nonsense is that? My cough cleared up, that’s all.”

  Kevin didn’t look like he believed him. “Well, despite it disappearing on its own, you should take a dose of this anyway.”

  “I’m fine, I tell you,” Albert said.

  “We won’t take up any more of your time,” Thaddeus said before nudging Teofil to move away from the porch. “Thank you for speaking with us, Albert.”

  “Don’t stay out after dark,” Albert called after them. “And stay away from the Delaney house, for God’s sake.” As they walked around the corner of the house, Thaddeus heard Kevin shush his father.

  “So the Bearagon was here,” Teofil said once they’d reached the sidewalk.

  “I think so,” Thaddeus said with a nod. “But what did he mean by the Delaney house?”

  “I don’t know,” Teofil said, then grinned. “Back to the library to check?”

  Thaddeus grinned back. “We have a few hours until the bus leaves for Superstition. Let’s go.”

  It didn’t take them long on the library computer to find mention of the Delaney house. It had once been owned by a family with the last name of Delaney. There had been numerous children, but illness and accidents took the lives of several of them. Devastated by their losses—and probably to escape the suspicious whispers Thaddeus knew could arise in a small town—the
family moved away. The house never sold, and the Delaneys finally defaulted on the loan. The structure was set back from the rest of town on the edge of the woods and was now uninhabitable. Several people had seen strange things in and around the Delaney house since the family left. Once he read a few of the articles, Thaddeus had a feeling about the Delaney house. It was possible Lucian and Azzo had spent their time in that house, probably using spells and the Bearagon to keep people too scared to approach.

  Teofil sat beside Thaddeus, reading along with him.

  “It could be them,” Teofil said. “How far away is the house?”

  “It doesn’t mention an address, but it does give a street. Let’s see where Partridge Bluff Lane runs through town.”

  Thaddeus clicked over to an online map service and zoomed in on Northglenn until the street names appeared. He located Partridge Bluff Lane and scrolled along the map to where it ended abruptly at a large swath of green he assumed represented woods. A single house stood near the green swath, and Thaddeus nodded.

  “It’s on the same side of town as Albert’s house, but a little farther along.”

  “Do we have time to walk there?” Teofil asked.

  Thaddeus checked the clock on the wall. “We won’t have too long to look around once we get there, but we’ll have time.”

  Teofil nodded. “Let’s go, then. If we hurry, we’ll have more time.”

  They walked at a brisk pace and even jogged a bit, though neither of them was dressed for it. By the time they reached the end of Partridge Bluff Lane, both of them were sweaty and panting. They stood at the end of the driveway of the last house on the road and stared at the structure. The windows had been boarded up, and many shingles had blown off the roof. A gutter hung from the roof and down behind a large, overgrown evergreen bush. The front door was boarded up as well, and the outer screen door had either blown or been torn off and lay on the overgrown lawn, grass growing up through the rusted frame.

  “This is the most possibly haunted house I’ve ever seen,” Thaddeus said, keeping his voice low.

  “You think it’s haunted?” Teofil whispered.

  Thaddeus shrugged. “It’s possible, I guess. You’ve been seeing Leopold’s spirit. Why not the spirits of the Delaney children who died here?”

  “That’s scary,” Teofil said.

  “Yeah, it is. Come on. Let’s look around.”

  The front door was secured with what looked to be long wood screws that had been driven into the door frame. When they checked the front windows, they found the same thing, and Thaddeus stepped back from the house with a sigh.

  “They really wanted to keep people out of there.”

  “Let’s look around back.”

  Teofil led the way up the driveway to the back of the house. A small concrete porch sat crumbling outside a back door that had also been securely boarded up. Graffiti that consisted mostly of obscene images and swear words covered the back of the house.

  “Looks like a lot of kids come out here,” Thaddeus said. “Probably daring each other to try and get inside.” He noticed something and stepped closer. “Those look like claw marks across the board they used to block the door.”

  “They do,” Teofil said. “But the screws are still secure, and they don’t look rusted, so they’re not very old. If Lucian and the others did stay here, I’m thinking they’re gone now. I doubt they would let a bunch of kids hang out back here.”

  “Unless they wanted to cook them for dinner or something,” Thaddeus said. At Teofil’s frightened look, he put an arm around his shoulders. “I’m kidding. There’s a belief among the un-gifteds that witches eat babies and children.”

  Teofil made a face. “That’s weird. Everyone knows that’s what trolls do.”

  “Well, yeah, they believe that too.”

  “So anything or anyone they don’t understand, they assume eats children?” Teofil asked.

  Thaddeus nodded. “Pretty much.” He looked out over the tall grass of the backyard to the line of thick trees. “It would have been easy for them to move around unseen if they did live here for a while. They could have left through the back door after dark and gone right into the woods.”

  “Thaddeus, look here.”

  He turned to where Teofil crouched by the cracked concrete porch. Stepping closer, he bent over and looked to where Teofil pointed. A grouping of plants with dark, velvety blooms grew in the corner where the porch met the chipped foundation of the house. The chill that went through him made Thaddeus shiver.

  “Nacht macabre,” he whispered.

  Teofil looked up at him. “They’ve been here.”

  Thaddeus nodded as he stared at the flowers. They’d found them planted all around Iron Gulch and thought nothing of it until Dulindir had explained that nacht macabre attracted men and creatures who harbored dark thoughts and evil power.

  “Yes, they have, but where are they now?” Teofil stood and looked toward the woods. “They could be anywhere.”

  “But they were here recently,” Thaddeus said. “So we’re not far behind them. Aodhan gave Leopold good information, he just never managed to track them this far.”

  “He could have saved all of us a lot of time and heartache if he’d found them way back then,” Teofil said, his voice quiet and sad.

  “He had a lot of other things to think about,” Thaddeus said. “He was keeping you and my mom safe and keeping you out of sight of Lucian and Isadora.”

  “Only, Isadora had outsmarted all of us,” Teofil said. “Years ago.”

  Thaddeus looked at the time on his flip phone. “It’s getting late. We should get back.”

  “Yeah, let’s go.” Teofil led the way down the driveway to the sidewalk, and they turned toward town.

  “So we know where they used to live,” Thaddeus said. “But here’s the thing: the Bearagon was spotted in this area recently. Soon after the fight at Iron Gulch.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “So that would mean that it came back here looking for Lucian and Azzo. What if he found them gone? What if by the time the Bearagon had returned from his travels with Isadora, Lucian and Azzo had left this house? The claw marks on the freshly boarded-up door were probably from the Bearagon being ticked off that they’d left without telling him where they were going.”

  “So that’s why Albert saw him outside his house closer to town?” Teofil asked. “Because the Bearagon didn’t have anywhere else to go?”

  “Right!” Thaddeus said. “And that’s why he stole Albert’s clothes, so he could change back into a human form to move around more easily to search for them.”

  “And as Logan,” Teofil said. “He would be able to blend in with people.”

  “Right. I only wish we knew where he was headed.”

  “Back to Superstition?” Teofil suggested.

  “That would be my guess,” Thaddeus said. “But where in Superstition? And why? Because he knew that’s where we all live?”

  They were quiet as they walked for several more blocks, and then Teofil said, “We should tell our folks about what we found out here.”

  Thaddeus made a face but knew Teofil was right. “Yeah, I know. But I’m sure we’ll get a lecture about going off on our own to investigate things.”

  Teofil grinned. “Yeah, and a lecture from my mum is much worse than one from your dad, I’m sure.”

  “Be careful, because you might get that lecture from your dad instead.”

  “Ouch,” Teofil said, and they both laughed.

  Chapter EIGHT

  WHEN THADDEUS and Teofil returned home long after dinner, tired and hungry, they did, indeed, receive a lecture about going off on their own. And it was the same lecture delivered four different times, one from each of their parents. Once Nathan and Claire had finished with them, they marched Thaddeus and Teofil next door, where Miriam and Rudyard erupted into separate barrages of the same lecture nearly word for word.

  “Okay!” Thaddeus finally said, throwing his hands up in ex
asperation. “We get it. We shouldn’t have gone off on our own. But I’d like to point out that we were on our own in the Lost Forest when we rescued Dulindir and found the Well of Tears, which saved your life, Dad.”

  Nathan frowned and crossed his arms. “That was a very different situation, and you know it.”

  Thaddeus sighed. “Fine. You’re right. But, you were all really busy around here, so we went for a short trip to see what we could find.”

  “Based on a note Leopold left in a journal,” Miriam said.

  “And a note he wrote because of something a leprechaun told him,” Rudyard added in a gruff voice. “Leprechauns will sooner lie to you than trick you out of your gold.” Mud and bits of clay were stuck in his long beard from where he had been working all day on the underground rooms, and Thaddeus had to force himself not to smile every time he looked at him.

  “All right now,” Miriam said in a gentler tone. She placed a hand on Rudyard’s shoulder and smiled at Thaddeus and Teofil. “Personal feelings about leprechauns aside, it was a risky thing for you two to take on, considering the dangerous people and beasts still at large.”

  “Risky?” a voice asked from behind Miriam.

  Miriam stepped aside to reveal Astrid standing in the kitchen doorway, her dark blue eyes wide as she looked at the six of them in turn before settling on Teofil.

  “What was risky?” Astrid asked.

  “Never you mind,” Rudyard said.

  Astrid stepped into the kitchen and stomped her foot. “I have a right to know! Dulindir is back out there trying to find some information for us, and if this could help him, then it’s only fair I should be told as well.”

  “That makes no sense whatsoever,” Teofil said.

  “Does too!” Astrid shot back.

  “Does not!” Teofil snapped. “Just because your elf boyfriend has taken it upon himself to go look under leaves and rocks for whatever clues he thinks he can find doesn’t mean you need to poke your nose into everyone’s business here in the house.”

  Astrid took a couple of steps toward Teofil, and Thaddeus worried he might have to throw himself between them to keep the two from coming to blows. Were all gnomes this emotional?