Moonset - Scott Tracey

His eyebrow raised. “Are you blushing?”

I turned away immediately, dropping my bag on the desk and resting my head on it. Mal didn’t press the issue.

On my lunch break, I went to the office to find out about switching lockers. The secretary first tried to assure me that I was over exaggerating about how big the mark on my locker was until

I pulled out my phone and showed her a picture of it.

“And this happened today?” she asked, looking at me with a hint of suspicion.

“I didn’t mark up my new locker,” I said, trying to suppress my annoyance. Finally she agreed to have someone from the maintenance staff look at it.

As I walked out of the office, I caught sight of Jenna coming towards me.

“And this is my brother Justin,” she announced, looking from her companion to me and back again.

I recognized the girl. “You’re Ash’s friend,” I said.

“Maddy,” the girl replied, a little frosty. “I remember you.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I remember you, too.”

Jenna looked between the two of us, a hint of a smile in place. Jenna found a friend on the first day? That was weird enough in itself.

“Listen, you guys should come hang out with us after school,” Maddy said, glancing down at her phone. “It’s this little hole-in-the-wall place that almost no one knows about. Ash’ll be there.

I know she’d like to see you.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I think we can do that.”

“Cool,” Maddy replied. “It’s called Mark’s. You know where the coffee shop is on Main

Street? It’s right by there, like a block away.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “We’ll try to stop by.”

“Well, this is an interesting place to bring me,” Mal said a half hour after we’d gotten out of school, squinting up at the building. “Is this part of some life lesson to make me appreciate all I have?”

I glared at Malcolm, but really, I was glaring at Maddy. Of course it had been a trick. She’d been too nice, and too helpful. And she’d taken to Jenna like a duck to evil, which only proved that she shouldn’t be trusted.

Mark’s, the hangout that she’d suggested we check out, turned out to be Saint Mark’s.A homeless shelter.

“I’d give her some points for moxie, but the prank itself is pretty lame,” he added.

“Shut up,” I said. “No one says ‘moxie’ anymore.”

“You’re just mad that no one says you’ve got moxie.”

“Stop saying moxie!”

It was like a spell of its own. I knew he was going to say it again. So I did the mature, responsible thing, and ran into the first store I could find just to put some distance between us. I knew Malcolm would never act like the embarrassment he was in front of an audience.

But the store I had chosen was so much more. The moment I crossed the threshold, it was stifling. The walls were simply drenched in hangings—paintings, art, objects, and garbage.

Shelves were crammed with knickknacks and weird bookends, one holding nothing but a series of bronzed elephants. Another table was weighted down by an elaborate crystal chess set.

When I picked up one of the pieces, not only did the table rock alarmingly, but I didn’t recognize the design in my hand. And the board was strange, tri-colored instead of dual.

It was nearly impossible to walk down the aisles because they were so narrow. Each step, I was afraid I’d bump into something and start a chain reaction that would topple everything in the building.

Mal had no similar feelings. He moved at ease through the store, occasionally picking up something that caught his eye and studying it from all angles.

“Welcome, boys!” A man literally popped up from behind a glass countertop in the corner. As we approached, I saw the sliding glass panel was open, and he was carefully removing everything from inside. From here it just looked like a lot of ugly, tarnished jewelry. “What can I do for you today?”

“We’re just looking,” Mal said. “But thanks.”

“Sure, sure,” he said, straightening one of the trays full of rings.

Mal and I continued browsing, but I couldn’t help but keep turning for the door. “Maybe I just got the name wrong, and the place she was talking about is right around here and we missed it.”

He saw right through me. “You have Ash’s number, right? Just call her.”

“I can’t just call her. And say what? ‘Your best friend sent me to the homeless shelter?’

Yeah, real nice.”

“You need to relax, man. She’s just a girl.”

“You’ve met her. She’s not exactly a normal girl.”

He held up a trio of books that were wrapped up in a ribbon. One of them was a copy of

Wuthering Heights. “She’s a girl. Get used to not understanding half of what she does. That’s how they rope in precious little boys like you.” He ruffled my hair and I jerked back, nearly bumping into a display full of postcards.

The man behind the counter piped up again. “Looking for a present for your girlfriend?”

I turned back to him, really seeing him for the first time. He was older, with thinning gray hair and dressed in plaid. He looked more like a librarian than a shop owner. “No, thanks. She’s not my girlfriend!” I said a little too quickly.

“Ahh,” he replied, “but you want her to be?” His eyes focused shrewdly on me. “I’ve got just the thing.”

He crouched down and started rummaging through the shelves he had been working on, eventually pulling out a tray filled with necklaces. “I’m sure she’ll love one of these,” he said.

“You’re lucky; I’ve been cleaning out the stock all week, weeding out the things that aren’t selling.”

I wanted to tell him that it looked like most of the stuff here wasn’t selling, but I didn’t want to be rude. Curious more than anything else, I walked to the counter. There was a hallway opened up behind the counter, leading into a kitchen badly lit with fluorescent lighting. That and the yellowing wallpaper made it look like some tragic seventies parlor.

“Ethan Alexander,” a raspy voice bellowed from somewhere beyond that kitchen, “where the hell is my TV Guide?”

“Oh, hell,” the man muttered quietly. “Be right back,” he said, although I noticed he pulled the tray back and slid it back under the glass before he turned. “Coming, Dad!”

He didn’t need to bother. A much older man hobbled his way into the kitchen and from there into the hallway, moving with a determined gait. He favored one hip and kept a hand on one of the walls as he walked. “I told you not to touch my TV Guide,” he bellowed louder.

“Dad, I’m with a customer,” the man pleaded. I saw a moment of fear in his eyes—being embarrassed in front of a total stranger by his father.

“Always with a customer,” his father growled, finally halting in the doorway. “Where’d you put my—oh my sweet Jesus.”

I didn’t want to watch the man get tongue-lashed by a father who clearly needed medication, so I’d knelt down and started looking at the jewelry through the glass. But at the man’s gasp, I looked up again—to find him staring right at me.

“Can’t be, can’t be,” he muttered, suddenly wringing his hands in front of him. “Dead and buried, Sherrod Daggett is. Always knew he’d come back from the dead. Back for me!”

The old man swiveled back to his son, as though all his hip problems were nonexistent. “I told you he’d come back for me! He always said he would!”

I stiffened, looking to Malcolm, but he’d heard it as well and was walking up right behind me.

“Dad, it’s just a customer,” his son said, holding his hands out. He turned to the left to catch my eye. “Sorry about this,” he murmured. “Come on, Dad. Let’s go find your TV Guide.”

The man voice got thicker the more worked up he became. “You don’t never listen, boy!

Sherrod Daggett! I told you he’d come! I told you.” The man stared holes into me. “You won’t get it back! You know it’s mine.”

Malcolm’s hand settled on my shoulder. “Now we know what they were hiding,” he said quietly.

“Dad!” Ethan started shuffling him back into the hallway.

“He said he’d come back for it, don’t you remember? I told you!” There was a sudden plea, a need for his son to understand him.

“You gave it back to him,” the son said gently. “Come on, your shows are about to be on.”

“My shows,” the man said, suddenly melting down. “I gave it back?” he asked, sounding completely lost and uncertain.

The two of them disappeared back into the kitchen. “Everyone knows you look just like him,”

Mal said quietly from behind me.

“But he recognized me,” I said. “He knew Sherrod’s name. He knew he was trouble.” That shouldn’t have been the case if the man wasn’t a witch, but neither he nor his son had shown any sign that they knew anything about magic. If nothing else, the son would have recognized us the moment we walked into the store, and that hadn’t been the case.

“I am so sorry about that boys,” Ethan came back into the shop with false cheer. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, and his smile was just a bit too wide. “My dad doesn’t always remember to take his pills.”

“It’s no problem,” Malcolm said, taking point. I don’t think I could have lied very effectively at the moment. The man’s accusation was like a sucker punch to the stomach.

“He’s been getting so confused lately,” he confided. “He’s convinced all the people he used to know have turned into monsters. Half his stories are about evil children who want him dead.” He laughed a false, overcompensated laugh. “Can you imagine?”

“So whoever he was talking about was some kind of student here?” Mal asked. The question was laced with casual interest.

Ethan shrugged. “How would I know? Dad was the head of the history department for near on thirty years. Didn’t make much sense, he hated kids.” He picked up where he’d left off, pulling the tray of necklaces back out of the cabinet. “So … how about that girlfriend of yours.”

“We’ve actually got to be going,” Mal said, clapping his hand on my shoulder again. “Justin here has a lot to do before school in the morning.” His grip on my shoulder tightened, and I half walked, and was half pushed back the way we’d come.

The shopkeep’s eyes squinted, but he didn’t argue. A silver chain dangled between his fingers. Mal led me to the door.

My father had been here? And people in town knew him? Had he gone to school here?

Was this where Moonset began?

Fifteen

“There was a growing unrest between the classes of witches. The Covens had held power for so long, they expected to hold it forever.

They were nearly untouchable. All that changed on

Dark Monday, with the London bombing.”