The Mostly True Story of Jack (7 page)

Finally, Jack couldn’t stand it. “Why haven’t my parents called me?”

Clive choked on his meat loaf. Mabel nervously drank her ice water.

“I’ve been here for more than a week. Why haven’t they called me? Don’t they care?”

“Well,” Clive said slowly, “have you”—he cleared his throat—“called either of them? Successfully, I mean?”

Jack looked at Clive, his black eyes, the pleasant crinkles across his forehead and fanning down his face.
He knows
, Jack thought.
He knows and he’s not telling me.

“If you’re having trouble, perhaps it’s time to start asking—”

“You’re not answering the question,” Jack said, staring at his hands. He couldn’t look up.

Mabel took Jack’s hand. “Honey, I know how hard this is, and I know how you feel that things are, well,
unraveling
.” Jack flinched at the word, though he didn’t understand why. He noticed the skin on his arms was prickling painfully into goose bumps.
What’s happening to me?
he wondered.

“But that’s all normal,” Mabel continued. “They are figuring things out and so are you. Everything will find its own place in its own time.” She paused and leaned in closer, her gray eyes crinkling at the edges. “Do you understand what I’m saying, honey?”

Questions hammered inside his head, jumbling his thoughts.
Why aren’t we talking about how I took off last night? Why did you put that book back in my room? Why did my letters to my parents disappear when the notes to
myself
stay the same?
But he couldn’t ask any of them. They were
too strange, too… abnormal.
I just want things to be
normal, Jack pleaded silently.

Mabel crossed her arms tightly across her chest and leaned against the back of her chair, “Clive,” she said sharply, her eyes narrowing on her husband. “This has gone far enough.
Look at him.
” She pounded the table with her fist. “This is bordering on cruelty. The child is
suffering
, and he needs to know
something
.”

Clive shook his head. “Does a student learn the theory of relativity before he’s learned to add? Does he read Shakespeare before he’s learned his letters? Of course not.” He turned to Jack. “My dear boy, if I was to tell you that a wellspring of magic exists right beneath our feet, what would you say?”

“I wouldn’t say anything,” Jack said. “Because that’s
insane
.”

“Of course, my dear, of course. And if I was to tell you that, once upon a time, a creature—a magic ‘Guardian,’ let’s say for argument’s sake—used to move through all living things within reach of the wellspring? And She diverted the Magic into the land, and the land was abundant and green and good. What would you say to that?”

“That there’s no such thing as magic,” Jack said, putting deliberate emphasis on each and every word. “And, by the way, that you’re—”

“Indeed. And if I was to tell you that certain people have attempted to manipulate that magic for personal gain, and in their attempts to turn magic into money and
power, ended up transforming what once was
good
into something grotesque and rotten, what would you say to that?” He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the tips, gazing mildly at Jack.

“I don’t…” Jack paused, gritting his teeth. His voice wavered dangerously. His uncle was making fun of him, that much was clear. Taking a deep breath, he stammered out the rest. “Fairy tales
aren’t
real.
Everyone
knows that. I don’t know why you’re telling me these things. I don’t—understand—
anything
.” He picked up his dinner plate, stood, and left the kitchen without another word.

As he walked up the stairs and down the hall to his room, he heard his aunt and uncle whispering.

“It’s happening too fast,” Mabel said. “It’s unreasonable what you’re expecting him to do. He’s just a
boy
.”

“For now,” Clive said.

F
RANKIE PRESSED HIS HAND TO THE SIDE OF HIS FACE
, trying to dull the pain. This wasn’t the first time that his scars had flared. That they’d started burning again, like… well, it was hard to say. It wasn’t that Frankie
didn’t
remember. It was just that the memory was dark. And terrifying.

Still, there was a question that needed to be answered.

His mother and Wendy were in the other room shouting at each other.

“
Do you want your father to lose his
job
?
” his mother shouted.

“
Do you want Frankie to be tormented for the rest of his life by—by—
bullies
?
” Wendy shouted back. Despite the bloody nose and the hunk of meat on her blackened eye, Wendy wasn’t about to back down.

Their mother calmed her voice. “Wendy, your brother is
special;
we all know that. There’s no reason to think that he under—”

“Don’t tell me he doesn’t understand. He
does
!”

“I know you think so, honey, but the doctor—”

Wendy screamed in frustration.

It was a long-standing argument, one that neither mother nor daughter had ever been able to resolve. It had started, as usual, when Clayton Avery—not only the son of the richest and most powerful man in town but also the son of her father’s boss—threw rocks at Frankie and called him Freak Show. This inspired Wendy—once again—to shove the Avery boy to the ground and bury her fists in his fleshy, horrible face. Fortunately for Clayton, Mabel Fitzpatrick happened to drive by. She grabbed both by their collars, told them off, and drove Clayton and Wendy and Frankie to their respective homes.

“If anybody insults my brother—” Wendy began.

“Then you will have to fight an awful lot of people,” her mother countered calmly.

It wasn’t often that Frankie was able to slip out from under his mother’s hawkishly observant care. The only
time that Wendy commanded her full attention was when she was in trouble. Frankie, on the other hand, was watched, monitored, and loved to bits. His mother spent most of each day talking to him or reading to him or trying new exercises to stimulate his damaged mind. Each day she would kiss his scars, then press her palm to her mouth and turn away, her eyes bright with tears.

“Listen, Wendy,” their mother said in the other room. “This is important.” Frankie seized his chance.

He slipped out the back door before he heard any more. His mother, he knew, was about to launch into a lecture that Wendy liked to call “The Value of Good Sense,” or “How Not to Be a Pain in Your Mother’s Rear End.” He figured he had at least forty-five minutes—maybe more. He eased the screen door shut, hopped on his bike, and rode swiftly to the edge of town.

Someone
watched him.

She had been sleeping—a long, troubled sleep. And
something—
She did not yet know what—had woken Her. Partially. She couldn’t move, though. Not yet.

She watched the boy with the knot of scars approach. She felt him breathing. It was bad business, She knew, what had happened with that boy, but the details escaped Her—the memory had broken into glinting, painful shards, and the world had gone dark. She tried to yawn, but She had no mouth. She had no body, so She could not stretch. She wanted to stretch. Mostly, She simply wanted out.

She watched the boy with the ruined face. The boy was
interesting
.

She had been told he was an imbecile. She had been told it was
obvious
.

She watched his scars. They curved inward and out, like the inside of a snail’s shell. She knew they followed the exact curves of snail shells. She knew a lot of things. She had administered the scars Herself. The boy hadn’t even winced.

An imbecile, of course, was not suitable for a trade. Of course the deal was off, but something had gone wrong and She had fallen asleep. She
disliked
sleeping.

The boy spat on the ground and used his finger to draw curves in the mud, curves that split apart and came back together. Curves that met in the center. Like a snail’s shell. Suddenly, She felt a shock, or not a shock but a wave.

She gasped.

The boy looked up. Saw Her. Saw right through Her. He stood, turned, and ran.

If She had a mouth, She would have screamed.

A
FTER CRAMMING HIS BREAKFAST INTO HIS MOUTH
, J
ACK
went back up to his room. The morning light filtered and greened through the increasing thicket of leaves outside the window. A few strands of vines had pushed through the gap between the screen and the sash and had started snaking their way across the wall. It couldn’t be good for the wall, but still, he liked the look of it, so he left it there.

He pulled his duffel bag out of the closet and threw it onto the bed. At the bottom, surrounded by T-shirts and
tied tightly in a towel so his mother wouldn’t know about it, hid the skateboard. Jack pulled it out, sat down on the bed, and laid the board on his lap. Every edge was scuffed, the wheels were worn, and the stickers, blaring the names of bands or slogans, curled at the corners, barely hanging on. Still, it was rough and heavy and real. Something to believe in.

And Jack
did
believe in the skateboard.

The night before Jack’s trip to Iowa, when, over dessert, their parents told Jack and Baxter about their new apartments and their new, separate lives, and that Baxter would be spending almost the entire summer with two of his best friends while the households were separated (they didn’t mention Jack, nor did they look at him, and Jack had the distinct impression that his parents had forgotten about him altogether), Baxter did something amazing.

Baxter—normally very good at ignoring his brother—put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “But,” he said, “what about Jack?”

After a few moments of confused silence, some clearing of throats, and a hasty dash to the back room, where they conferred for a while in low voices, his parents said, “Iowa. Aunt Mabel and Uncle Clive. Won’t it be wonderful?” And with that, Jack’s mother dashed to her desk to purchase airline tickets on her computer.

Later that night, Baxter came into Jack’s room with the skateboard. “Don’t let Mom see it,” he said, handing the board to Jack. “I had to hide it until I broke my elbow,
and even then I told her that I just tripped in the street. If she sees it, she’ll just start spewing statistics about how many kids break their necks and other nonsense. Anyway, it’ll give you something to do in Iowa.”

Jack stared at his brother—the sunburned, freckled face, the strong chin, strong shoulders, strong back. It was the only time that Baxter had ever given him anything, and though Jack was sure he must have had other conversations with his brother, it was the only time that he could remember Baxter talking to him directly.

“Thanks,” Jack said, finding his mouth had gone quite dry.

“Don’t forget me,” Baxter said, turning to leave.

Jack frowned. “How can I forget my own brother?” he called, but Baxter was already in the hallway and didn’t respond.

Jack left the next morning. Baxter forgot to say good-bye.

Now, with his mother thousands of miles away, Jack would learn how to ride his skateboard.
Honestly
, he thought,
how hard could it be?

He set the board in the center of the room, stepped on, and balanced. Normally, Jack had excellent balance and could climb trees and walk casually down their long limbs as easy as anything. But balancing on the plastic wheels was something different altogether.
Better try it outside
, he thought.

Jack walked quickly down the shadowy hallway, his skateboard clutched in his left hand. When he passed his uncle Clive on the stairs, he immediately hid the board behind his back, standing perfectly still, an evasive maneuver that almost always worked on his parents. Clive carried a tall stack of leather-bound books with gold lettering on the spines. Though the books were large and heavy, he barely looked winded, and instead bounced from stair to stair.

“Off for a run on the skateboard, then, Jack?” he said from behind the stack of books.

“Um, yeah,” Jack muttered guiltily, his eyes focused on the worn red carpet. He clutched the skateboard in his fingers, silently determining that Clive wouldn’t take it without a fight.

“Splendid, splendid. I’ll be up in the study if you need me. Your aunt is off to the gallery this morning, but she’ll return by lunch. I do hope you’ll join us. She has made a lovely Jell-O mold.” He lowered his voice. “She stole the recipe from Mrs. Emmer, but you didn’t hear it from me.” He winked and disappeared into his study, shutting the door behind him.

After trying for two blocks, Jack realized that there was more to this skateboarding business than he had originally thought. Already, he had the beginnings of a large bruise on his left hip and an angry scrape on his right elbow, and both of his hands were red and raw. In truth, he was
glad to make his first attempt here in Iowa rather than in San Francisco, with its unforgiving hills.

There had to be a rhythm to this thing, he told himself. Push, push, balance, balance. Push, balance, push, balance. Trouble was, he found himself traveling this way and that, forcing him to think about changing direction rather than staying upright. After his fifteenth fall, Jack got up, brushed off his shorts, and dislodged the bits of gravel that had embedded themselves into the skin of his knees and elbows. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

He stopped when he reached the park at the end of the road, walked to the swings, and stepped onto one with his left foot and began swinging standing up. He pulled and leaned, closing his eyes into the wind of his own creation. This felt good. It was something he could do.

Without warning, something knocked Jack hard on his back, launching him into the air for one brief, thrilling moment, before he fell with a thump on the dusty patch of bare ground.

“Welcome to Hazelwood, Four-eyes.”

It was a boy, Jack noted from his vantage point on the ground. And while most, if not all, boys his age were bigger than he was, this boy was huge: big feet in big leather shoes; wide, muscular thighs; chunky arms; and a chunkier middle. He had a baseball hat pulled low, but Jack
could see that he had two blackened eyes peeking out from under the brim.