The Mostly True Story of Jack (2 page)

“You interrupt me for ears,” his father barked. “Tell your mother.”

“I
did
. She says there’s nothing wrong with my ear and I’m making it up.”

“Well. Go to your room, then.”

“But I’m
not
making it up. I think there’s a bug in my ear or something. It’s itchy and squirmy and I can’t get it out. I can
feel
it. It keeps making a weird sound over and over. Like… bells or something.” His father raised his eyebrows. If Clayton had been paying closer attention, he might have seen the pale folds of his father’s skin grow a few shades paler. “It’s driving me
nuts
, Dad.” Looking desperately at his father, Clayton grabbed his right ear and pulled hard.

“This began today,” Mr. Avery said in a flat voice, as though it was a statement of obvious fact.

“This morning,” Clayton said, relieved that his father wasn’t mad at him. “But it’s been getting worse all day.”

“Interesting,” Mr. Avery said, bringing his fingers to his mouth. If Clayton noticed the slight tremble in his father’s large, gnarled hands or the quivering in his lips, he didn’t mention it. “Go to your room.”

“But—” the boy began.

“
Now!
” his father roared. Clayton scampered away as though burned.

Mr. Avery waited for his son to disappear down the hall. Once it was quiet, he closed the door to the Retiring Room and leaned against it. Normally, the very sight of the room, with its aura of opulence—its velvet chairs,
mahogany desk, and crystal goblets imported from Siberia—would have comforted Mr. Avery. But not now.

He would need information, research, reports. A few spies, too, most likely. He would not allow himself to make a mistake. Not again.

He would also need magic. And a lot of it.

J
ACK SAT IN THE BACKSEAT OF A RENTAL CAR, HIS SKETCH
-book open on his knees, drawing pictures of bells. His mother hadn’t spoken to him in the last four hours, not that it mattered. What was there to say, really? He’d already argued and cried and reasoned, but the result was the same: His parents, after years of fighting, were finally calling it quits. Jack was to spend an entire summer in Iowa with relatives he did not know. He couldn’t
believe
it.

Jack watched the passing farmland as it rippled and
swelled like a green ocean stretching from the pavement to the sky. A darkened smudge appeared at the very end of the long, straight road. Jack squinted, trying to get a better look. There was something
familiar
about that, he thought, as the smudge slowly grew into the shape of a hill, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember where—or
whether—
he’d ever seen it.

Jack closed his sketchbook with a firm slap and bound it tightly with a rubber band before slipping it into his duffel bag. He let his hand linger in the bag for a moment to run his fingers along the sandpapery surface of the skateboard hiding at the bottom. If his mother knew, he’d never be allowed to keep it. Still, as it was a gift from his older brother—and an unexpected one at that—it was the only thing that had even a remote possibility of making his time in Iowa bearable, and Jack wasn’t going to give it up. Not without a fight anyway. He zipped up the bag and looked outside.

“Is that where we’re going?” he asked, pointing to the hill ahead, but his mother was on her cell phone with her boss, and didn’t hear him. Jack decided not to mind.
Nothing new there
, he thought. His mother often didn’t notice him. Or hear him. Or even
see
him half the time. Same with his father. Not that he blamed either of them. They were, after all, very busy. His mother ran the communications department for the mayor of San Francisco, and his father was an architect—a
famous
architect, Jack liked to
tell people, though no one ever listened or cared. Most of the time, Jack was very proud of his parents.

It wasn’t so bad being invisible. Sometimes invisibility had its uses, though Jack couldn’t help but feel that since the announcement of the divorce, he was growing
more
invisible than usual. Or that the world around him had shifted just enough that he didn’t quite belong to it anymore. He worried he might disappear from their thoughts altogether. And though these worries troubled him, he tried to shrug them off. Why worry about what you can’t fix? Besides, the car was slowing down, and he didn’t really need an answer anyway.

The town rose up behind a tangle of gnarled trees on a gentle hump of land—the only hill for miles, as far as Jack could tell. A wooden sign stood at the side of the road, leaning slightly to the left. W
ELCOME TO
H
AZELWOOD
, it said in large black letters, though the paint was faded and chipped in places, exposing the graying wood underneath like tiny bites.

“Hello?” Jack’s mother raised her voice at the phone. “Hello? You’ve gone out on me, sir.”

“No service around here, Mom?” Jack said.

“There’s no service around here,” his mother repeated, waving her phone as if she could catch signals like butterflies. She acted as though Jack hadn’t spoken.

“Isn’t that what I just—”

“And always in the middle of something
important
.” She clicked off the phone and sighed. “Typical.”

It was clear that his mother wasn’t in the mood to chat, so Jack turned toward the window, examining the signal-free town.

The town was clean and quiet. Completely quiet. No cars moved, no buses groaned, no people jostled one another on the street. There weren’t even any barking dogs. Instead, a quiet block of perfectly mowed yards, where each green square of lawn fitted snugly against the one next to it, with a thin border of geraniums or gravel in between. Neat white house followed neat white house with porches and weeded gardens and sometimes a swing set. Although Jack usually liked things neat and orderly and
predictable
, the sameness in the town unnerved him. It was as if each house wanted desperately to be pink or orange or electric green but couldn’t.

Don’t be stupid
, Jack told himself firmly.
Houses can’t want things
.

The only people he saw were three kids—a girl and two boys—standing at the weedy corner of an empty lot, halfway through town. Three bicycles leaned on their sides at random angles, as though they had only just been cast aside, the front wheels still slowly spinning around and around. The kids watched the road, their shoulders pressed together and their heads moving in unison as they tracked the rental car. Jack pressed his forehead to the glass and cupped his hands around his eyes, trying to get a good look at their faces, but they were shadowed and too far away. It didn’t matter, he told himself, what
they looked like—or even
whether
there were kids in town at all. He didn’t have friends at home anyway, so he certainly wasn’t expecting to make any friends in Iowa.

But the house at the end of the road… well, it was different. More than different. It
announced
itself. Big, bright flowers and tall, tangled grasses grew wildly in the front yard, with the house rising boldly behind, its edges shimmering in the heat.

Please tell me we’re not going to
that
house
, Jack thought desperately. Sharp pinpricks of worry erupted at the back of his neck, and the hairs on his arms stood on end. He thought he was going to be sick, though he didn’t know why.

The car slowed down and they pulled up in front. Jack’s mother opened the door with a rusty sigh. She pressed her lips tightly together and crossed her arms. “It’s not supposed to look like this,” she said, shaking her head. “This house is all wrong.”

I
T WAS AN OLD WOODEN FARMHOUSE WITH A LARGE PORCH
, wide windows, and a small round porthole at the roof’s peak. And it was purple. A deep, rich purple so intense it almost seemed to vibrate. Jack squinted. The front door was bright green, and the trim of each window was painted a different color: red, yellow, orange, and blue.

“It’s
supposed
to be white,” Jack’s mother said, shading her eyes with her hand. “Perfectly white.”

Jack looked at the house. He tried to imagine it
white, but the bright colors asserted themselves, even in his imagination. “Maybe,” he said, “it just
wants
—”

His mother interrupted him. “My dad would turn over in his grave if he saw this.”

“Are you even listening—” Jack started, but his mother interrupted him again.

“And here they come,” she said, not looking at Jack.

The screen door opened and two figures stepped out.

“Well, bless my soul,” the man-shaped figure said. He pressed his hand to his chest and leaned against the railing for balance.

“Clive,” Jack’s mother said to her brother-in-law with a curt, firm nod. “Mabel. How nice to—”

“
Clairy!
” the woman-shaped figure said, and ran down the steps toward Jack’s mother, enveloping her in a hug. Clair stiffened. Jack’s mother was not a hugger as a general rule, but his aunt didn’t seem to know this. Jack wondered what
else
his aunt didn’t know about his mother.
Probably a lot
, he thought.

Aunt Mabel kissed Clair on both cheeks. Like Jack’s mother, she was tall and slim, with the same gray eyes with a shimmer of blue. But instead of a pressed suit, Mabel wore slightly frayed jeans. Instead of fancy shoes, Mabel wore sandals, her toenails painted a vivid shade of green. And even though Jack knew his aunt was fifteen years older than his mom, he was still surprised to see all that gray hair—or not gray
exactly
, but silver. It rippled and shone in slanting light.

“But what are you doing here?” she asked, looking from Jack’s mother to Jack and back again.

Jack’s mouth fell open.
What does she mean, what are we doing here?

Mabel turned to her husband. “Clive,” she said. Her voice shook and she looked back at the house. “We’re not ready,” she whispered.

“I…” his mother began, and then paused. She looked down at her hands and knitted her brow as though suddenly confused. Jack’s mother was a sharp, driven woman. She was never confused. Jack bit his lower lip. “Surely I called,” she said.

“No, dear, you didn’t.”

“We’ve separated. David and I. The proceedings should be final by the end of the month. I thought… well,
he
…” Jack’s mother pointed at Jack, her face slack and dreamy. She narrowed her eyes and snapped her fingers a couple of times as though trying to remember something.

Jack pressed his hand to his chest. “
Jack?
” he said, prompting her.

“Right,” she said, bringing her hands to her face and furrowing her brow. “Jack. Honestly, I don’t know where my head is these days.” She smiled and turned back to her sister, her face all business and control, like always. Jack relaxed. “He needed a place to be. For now.”

His aunt and uncle exchanged a look that Jack couldn’t quite understand. “Right,” Clive said, running his hand
along his wrinkled cheek and cupping his chin. “Things have unraveled. The poor boy’s been unstitched. It happens.” He winked at Jack with a smile that was somewhere between kindness and sadness. Jack attempted to smile back, though it felt more like a grimace. “He’s got to belong somewhere, right?”

“Of course he can live with us,” Mabel said. Was Jack imagining things, or was her lower lip trembling slightly?

“For now,” Jack’s mother clarified, looking at the ground and not at Jack.

Finally, Mabel cleared her throat, walked over to Jack, and gave him a hug.

“Honey, it’s so wonderful to have you back.” She squeezed him tightly and pressed her cheek against his. He couldn’t remember anyone hugging him like that before.

“But I’ve never—” Jack began, but his aunt ignored him. Surely she knew this was his first time in Iowa.

Mabel gave Jack’s shoulder a squeeze and, taking his mother’s arm, led her into the house. Jack was left with his uncle Clive, a short, scrawny man with a wizened face and a slightly forced smile.

“Well,” Clive said. “This is a surprise.”

“But…” Jack said, feeling slightly sick. “My dad said they talked to you.”

“Of course, of course. Parents say all kinds of things.” Clive leaned back on his heels, as though thinking. “I suppose,” he said slowly, changing the subject, “the ladies are
expecting the men to bring in the bags.” He fanned his fingers next to his face, flicked his wrists, and produced the keys. They jangled and rang like bells. “Shall we?”

“How did you—” Jack began.

“I have a way with shiny things,” Clive explained. “It runs in the family.”

Clive, despite his small stature, reedy arms, and narrow back, easily hoisted the large, heavy duffel bag onto his shoulder and practically bounded past Jack and up the stairs. It was as though he had springs in his legs instead of bones. That, plus the slight accent in his speech—English maybe, though Jack couldn’t quite tell—made Jack think of an elf.

Jack grabbed his backpack and followed his uncle toward the front porch, laying his hand on the railing. It was warm, then overly warm, then hot.

“What th—” Jack began, but before he could say anything more, a deep, painful shock ran through his body, as though the thing he touched was not a wooden railing at all, but a live electrical wire.

“Ouch!” he yelled.

“A bit of trouble?” Clive stood in the doorway, holding the screen door open with his foot. For a moment, the door, the wall, and the entire house seemed to ripple the way a flag flutters in the wind. But before Jack could mention it, or even wonder at it at all, the house grew still, solid and immobile. Surely he’d imagined it.
Definitely
, he thought.

“No. I mean, it’s nothing,” Jack said quickly, rubbing his palm against his hip and walking carefully up the stairs. “It’s just that I—ah!” He touched the screen door and again pulled his hand away as though something burned him. Or not burned
exactly
. It was another shock; he couldn’t explain it. “It’s nothing,” he muttered, and pushed past Clive into the house, ears ringing, trying not to touch anything else.