SIXTEEN

Thomas watched from the kitchen window as his mom unplugged her car and climbed into the driver’s seat. The sleek little vehicle backed into the street and pulled away, moving silently beneath the canopy of purple blossoms. Matching petals swirled in her wake, making the street dance with splotches of color as the car whooshed toward the supermarket.

As soon as the car turned onto Bristol Street, Thomas dashed upstairs. Although the joy that normally accompanied the start of a long weekend was diminished by Enrique’s absence—the Rodriguez family was camping in the mountains all weekend—there was a silver lining: The Book of Sorrows.

Excitement flooded Thomas’s body as his fingers wrapped around the box, breaking a chain of monotony that had started Wednesday morning. The second half of the school week had been test-filled and unconscionably dull, almost like the teachers were punishing them for getting a day off. The only highlights had been pulling a laugh out of Enrique during their doodle war and a hurried read of the fourth chapter of The Book of Sorrows.

As far as Thomas was concerned, the lack of excitement wasn’t so bad. There had been no van sightings, no sign of the man in the olive overcoat, and no run-ins with Sean Parker. All in all, that was a win. He settled into his bean bag chair and reached for the key. The usual shock rippled up his arm, stronger this time than before. Thomas shook out the tingling in his hand and unlocked the clasp.

The breath caught in his throat. Eyes stared at him from above the bushes. Not between them. Above them!

And the rest of the picture? It was dotted with splotches of purple, red, orange, and green, the colors faint but unmistakable. He ran his fingertips softly over the confounding image and shivered. There was no plausible explanation for what he was seeing, leaving only implausible explanations he hardly dared consider. He forced himself to lift the cover and turn the page.

The previous chapter had confirmed Isham’s deepest fear. The giant lion-monster had come to life for real, destroying a neighboring village and killing a bunch of villagers. Now the people of Asharia had to find a way to destroy the monster, but was that possible? And if they did, would they discover a hidden treasure like the people in Isham’s story had?

There was only one way to find out. He opened the book and—

Thump thump.

A knock on the front door interrupted his musings. He looked up, confused. His mom hadn’t mentioned any visitors, and Enrique was out of town. Maybe it was a delivery of some kind, a package from Amazon or something. If so, they’d leave it on the porch. He flipped forward to the bookmarked page.

The doorbell rang.

“Hello!” A loud male voice echoed through the house. Thomas peered through his window. A run-down sedan was parked on the sidewalk, the back seat completely covered with boxes and junk. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the intrusion. The doorbell rang again, followed by another round of heavy knocks. “Hello! Is anybody in there?”

“Just a second!” yelled Thomas. The annoyance in his voice was clear even to his own ears. This better not be a salesman. “I’ll be right there!”

He tucked the book away and jogged downstairs. Thomas pulled the front door open, revealing a shaggy-bearded bear of a man with piercing brown eyes partially hidden by heavy eyebrows.

“Thomas? I’m William Reilly. Professor Reilly. Your mum said you’d be expecting me.”

The man had a deep booming voice and a slight but noticeable accent. Australian? Maybe British? Wherever he was from, the accent had been thinned out by his time in America. He wore a wide smile and stood with his right hand extended. Thomas gathered his composure and reached for the large hand.

“Hi. It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you, Professor Reilly.”

The professor pumped his hand with so much energy that Thomas’s entire body wobbled. “And you, Thomas. Let me take a look at you.” The professor looked intently at Thomas and laughed. “Ha! You’re exactly what I would have expected. A bit of your mum and a great deal more of your dad.”

“Uhh, thanks, I guess.” Thomas paused, not sure what to say next. “I—I wasn’t expecting you for another couple weeks.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be here for another couple of weeks. As it happened, my apartment opened early and the movers were available.” He shrugged in a way that seemed to suggest he was perfectly happy things hadn’t gone as planned. “And voila! Here I stand.”

“My mom says you teach interdimensional physics. That sounds pretty cool.”

“Ha! Only the son of John and Susan Wildus would think so. But yes, it is cool. Far cooler than most people could ever imagine. She says you have a knack for the sciences, but we’ll put that to the test, won’t we? By the time we’re through, you won’t know which way is up, down, left, or right. Or better said, you’ll know there’s no such thing as up, down, left, or right.” Professor Reilly laughed again, apparently amused at the expression on Thomas’s face. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be thirteen in a couple months,” said Thomas.

“Almost thirteen, eh?” Reilly studied at him from behind the beard and bushy eyebrows. “You’re a bit smaller than I would have expected, being your dad’s son and all. Well, I reckon it’s the engine that matters, not the accessories. And not to worry. Time and testing will toughen you up.”

Thomas was saved from responding by a car pulling into the driveway.

“Bill! You’re here sooner than I expected. Welcome!” Susan climbed out of the car, smiling brightly.

“Susan, my girl! How are you?”

They hugged. Thomas looked at his mom sideways. She’d hardly been gone five minutes. Had she found out that the professor was coming?

“I see you’ve already met Thomas. I hope the two of you have been getting along?”

“We have indeed.” Professor Reilly winked at Thomas. “We were just starting to get acquainted.”

“Wonderful! Please come in,” said Susan. “Thomas, you’re going to laugh, but I got halfway to the store and realized I’d left my purse in the kitchen again. We’ll have to go out again later and stock up for the weekend.”

Thomas laughed. It wasn’t the first time she’d done that. “No worries, Mom. If you go later, maybe I’ll come with you.”

“That would be perfect.” She walked into the living room and gestured toward the couch. “Bill, can I offer you something to drink?”

“A short glass of Scotch would be wonderful,” said Professor Reilly. “If you have any, that is.”

“We do. On the rocks okay? Great. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” She sped through double doors and into the next room, leaving Thomas alone with the professor.

“Almost thirteen, you said. I suppose that would put you in seventh grade, give or take a year. An interesting age for a young man.” Professor Reilly’s eyes twinkled and one of his heavy eyebrows lifted knowingly. “Yes, an interesting age indeed. Especially for a Wildus. Tell me, Thomas, has anything unusual happened in your life lately?”

“That’s kind of a complicated question, Professor.”

“Complicated. Ha!” Professor Reilly slapped Thomas on the back and let out a belly laugh. “I imagine that is quite the understatement, my boy.”

“Here you are, Bill.” Susan handed over a glass of amber liquid.

“Thank you, dear.” Professor Reilly smiled and took a sip. “Ahh. Just what an old man needs to put himself at ease.”

“You’re very welcome,” said Susan. “I thought you were still a few weeks out. Have you managed to move in already?”

“More or less.” Professor Reilly took another sip of his drink and sighed contentedly. “Less, really. It feels like my entire life is in boxes. Between home and the office, I’ll be unpacking until the start of summer.”

“It was like that when Thomas and I moved, too. I didn’t see the bottom of the last box until we’d been here the better part of a year.”

Professor Reilly’s eyes widened. “That long?”

“I’m sure you’ll do much better than we did.” Susan ruffled Thomas’s hair. “Thomas was only five at the time. Getting things done while he was awake was impossible, and I was exhausted by the time he went to bed. Now he helps around here more than I do.”

Professor Reilly nodded appreciatively. “I’d expect nothing less. How about you, Susan? I feel like we barely scratched the surface when we talked by phone. Besides raising this fine young man, what have you been up to lately?”

Thomas listened as his mom and Professor Reilly shared the details of their recent projects, his attention fading in and out as they dug into the technical details of their work. The conversation was full of enough jargon that he only understood some of what they were saying. Then, almost without warning, the conversation shifted to a topic he found intensely interesting.

“John was the one who originally came up with the solution.” Professor Reilly had been talking about a research paper that was almost nine years in the making. “His idea was so simple and clever that it took the rest of us five years just to understand what he was getting at. After we finally figured it out, the rest of the project was easy. Remarkable, that man’s mind. Truly remarkable.”

Thomas sat up straighter. It felt strange to hear about his dad after so many years of silence, but now there was an opening, a chance to ask questions. His cheeks flushed, and his palms went sweaty, but he couldn’t let the opportunity slip away. “Hey, uh, how did you meet?” he interrupted. “You and my dad, I mean.”

“Ah, now that’s a great story.” Professor Reilly sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his beard. He smiled and shook his head. “It was up at Stanford, and I was giving a guest lecture for a friend. Afterward, as I was packing up my things, this blue-eyed tornado comes charging to the front of the lecture hall. He had questions. Good, insightful questions, mind you. Not like the normal drivel I usually hear. Well, we get into it so deep that the professor for the next class has to kick us out so she could start her own lecture. It must have been an hour, maybe longer.

“Anyway, your dad and I weren’t anywhere near done, so he offered to buy dinner. Ha! If I’d known he wouldn’t let me escape until after two in the morning, I’m not sure I’d have agreed, but I did, and thank the great maker for that. Before the night was over, I’d promised to take him on as a postdoc. One of a kind, John Wildus. One of a kind.”

The conversation shifted back into other topics, but Thomas wandered through the rest of the afternoon on a cloud. He didn’t even argue when his mom picked out healthy snacks at the supermarket. A window had opened into a part of his life he’d almost given up on, and it felt really, really good.