Well, Lizzie decided, maybe he was just giving her a chance to show her manners. “I'm sorry. What's your name?”
“I haf had many names through ze ages.” She couldn't tell if he smiled behind his beard, but his eyes twinkled. “In some tales I beat bad children wiz a rod, and in others zey call me Santa's little helper. Truly, I am not haf so bad nor haf so goot. But eyeser way, ze name zey give me is Knecht Ruprecht.”
“Ka...Nick Roo...Roo...” Lizzie just couldn't get her tongue around his name.
“Ha ha,” the gnome said, not quite laughing. “Nick. You call me Nick zen. Yah?”
“Okay. Nick.”
He tilted his head to one side. “Now why, I wonder, do you come to my woods shootink ze helpless bunny wiz your arrow?”
“Oh I'm so sorry,” Lizzie said. She meant it. It had been horrible—all that screaming, all that blood. “I didn't know it would be like that. I didn't think that—”
“You didn't sink.” The gnome cut her off. “You mortals never sink! Always rush, rush, rush—never sink.”
“Well I'm sorry. Nobody's perfect,” she said shortly.
“Okay. Okay.” Nick put his hands behind his back. “So zen, Lizzie Long, you won't go huntink again with your spear?”
“My spear?”
He studied her carefully, but then he raised his bushy eyebrows and gave a little bow. “Oh, sorry, my English it isn't so goot. Bow and arrow, zis is what I meant. You probably don't even own a spear,” he said, but then added, leaning his head closer, his eyes probing, “You don't, do you?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. What a bizarre question. What was he getting at?
“Well zen, as I was sayink, you come wizout your bow and arrow when comink to ze woods. If you like, zen we be friends...yah?”
Lizzie smiled. If gnomes were real, having one as a friend would be cool. “So, I'll see you again?”
“Yah. Just walk into ze woods here and call for me. I shall come.”
Lizzie looked around and saw the Muddy Brown Bayou. “Right here?”
“Anywhere in ze woods...just call me.”
“Good. I just barely made it across the creek and I'm not really looking forward to jumping it again.” She sighed. “You wouldn't know another way, would you?”
“Come. Your friend Nick will show you.” The gnome turned and motioned for Lizzie to follow. He moved very fast for such a small guy—it helped that the briar and the thistle moved out of his way as he approached. Before long they reached a tree lying on its side. On their side of the creek the roots were pulled out of the ground and spread out in a high arc. The once tall tree spanned the creek and the top of it lay hidden in the woods on the other side.
While they had been walking, questions filled her mind. Now that they were stopped, she could ask. “I come to the woods a lot. Why haven't I seen you before?”
“I hide very well.”
“So you have been here awhile.”
“Yah. Some time now.”
“And no one knows you are here?”
“Yah. I show myself to no one.”
“Except me?”
“Yah. Just my friend Lizzie Long.
“But why me?” she asked.
“Smart girl,” he said. He stroked his beard, but said nothing more.
“Well?” Lizzie prompted him.
“Because you are Long,” he answered, his eyes narrowed and fixed on her. “It is true. But you do not know what you are.”
“What?”
“You will know soon enough, I sink.”
Lizzie studied Nick as if by doing so she might be able to figure out what he was talking about.
“So you come back zen,” Nick said. Then he shook a finger at her. “But you come back alone. And you tell no one about your friend Nick. You make promise, remember?”
Lizzie nodded, then turned and walked across the fallen tree, her arms held out for balance. When she jumped off and looked back the gnome was gone.
Chapter 3 – The Sorcerer
Manuel stared at the candle and he concentrated on the flame. He pushed it to the right and held it there.
“Now the other direction,” the Magician said.
Manuel concentrated and pushed it to the left.
“He’s breathing on it,” the shrunken head complained. How the head could see with its eyes sewn shut Manuel couldn’t guess. But then he had seen quite a many strange and unexplainable things here in the Magician’s trailer. And now he was doing something strange which he could not explain. ‘Pushing’ is what it felt like, ‘pushing’ is what he called it. But how can you push anything with your hands in your lap while sitting in a chair? How can a flame be pushed at all?
The Magician reached over and cupped his hand gently over Manuel’s nose and mouth. “To the right again.”
Manuel pushed the flame to the right.
“Ha!” the Magician cried. “No doubt the kipper’s doing it!”
When the circus left town, the Magician had stayed. He parked his trailer, still bearing THE AMAZING GORDON in bright red letters on its side, in a local trailer park. Manuel could ride his bike along the Mingo River trail and be there in fifteen minutes. During the summer he had spent much of his time here during the day while his mother went to work. His mother had met Gordon, and seemed glad that he wasn’t spending his time alone and unsupervised in their little two bedroom duplex. Now that school had started again, Manuel spent his afternoons here until time for supper.
“Why is he so suspicious?” Manuel asked, looking at the shrunken head.
“I’m right here,” the head said instantly. “Don’t talk about me as if I’m a piece of furniture.”
Gordon laughed. “He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”
Manuel nodded.
Gordon looked at the shrunken head. “Everything base about me—my anger, my greed, my distrust—I separated this part of my character—”
“His intelligence,” the shrunken head interrupted.
Gordon laughed. “Maybe a bit of that too. Yes, I separated it and put it in the shrunken head.”
Manuel stared at the head. “Why did you keep it?”
The shrunken head shrieked, “You blighter, you pathetic ignorant awful—”
“Enough,” Gordon said. “Enough.” Then, after glancing a moment at the head he added in a whisper, “He’s a part of me. But I do wish there was an off switch.”
“Really? Do you?” the shrunken head said. “Then I probably shouldn’t tell you that someone is walking up to the door.”
The knock came a moment later.
“Anyone we know?” Gordon asked.
The shrunken head shook its head as anyone else might, a strange sight for Manuel considering that it had no neck.
Manuel followed Gordon to the door. When he opened it, a man wearing a gray suit and mirrored silver sunglasses looked up at them. A crow cawed and Manuel looked up to see the raven sitting on top of a nearby wooden telephone pole lamppost.
“The Amazing Gordon, I presume?” the man in the suit said, a hint of Southern twang in his accent.
“That’s me,” the magician said. “What’s your business?”
“May I come in?” The man asked while reaching up and rubbing his mustache.
Gordon nodded and stepped back. The other man walked in. He did not remove his sunglasses.
“Have a seat,” Gordon said, motioning toward the booth table typically found in RVs.
Instead, the man looked slowly around the trailer until his eyes came to rest on a shelf with the bottles of powders and fluids, the books, and other bric-a-brac, that Gordon kept. The shelf had metal wire doors, presumably to keep the bottles and other stuff from crashing to the ground when the trailer was on the road. The man walked forward and tried to open the wire doors. They were locked.
“Making yourself at home?” Gordon asked with indignant sarcasm.
The man turned and again his finger went to his mustache. “I am a collect
or of certain arcane curios,” he answered with an indifferent air, but Manuel saw how intently he had studied the things on the shelf. “Like these pendants here, for example.” He pointed at a metal tree on the shelf from which hung chains and medallions.
“The dodgy mustache and the sunglasses don’t fool me, and they make you look wally,” Gordon said. “I know who you are, Congressman. Madison Akers. Mississippi?”
Congressman Akers nodded, removed and folded his sunglasses, and put them into his breast pocket. “You are most observant.” Manuel thought he recognized the face from TV, but he wasn’t sure.
“What do you want the sigils for?” Gordon asked. “And how did you know that I had them?”
“Oh,” the collector said while rubbing his hands together, “I just collect these things. I find them fascinating, and there is so much history behind them.”
“They bloody well are not for sale,” Gordon said.
“One hundred thousand dollars,” the Congressman said. “Right now.”
“Not for a bleeding million. You know they are not collectibles. You bloody well know what they are for. And I don’t trust you. If you don’t cock up and kill yourself with them, you’ll cock up and kill others. Maybe you mean to.”
Akers frowned. He tried, and failed, to hide his anger. Manuel guessed that people didn’t say no to him often. “This country is going down the drain,” Akers said. “It will take a strong hand to put it back on track.”
“That’s a mixed metaphor,” Gordon replied, “And a mixed-up excuse. You don’t want to put the country back on track. You want to rule the country.”
Congressman Akers stared at Gordon for a long time before saying, “I won’t deny that I am disappointed. These pendants would have looked very nice in my collection. But I see that your mind is made up.” He took his sunglasses from his pocket and went to the door.
Once the door was swung open, Manuel could see that the crow still sat on the lamppost. Its beady black eye stared down at them.
“Good afternoon,” Congressman Akers said.
Gordon pulled the door shut without an answer.
“He’ll be back, you know,” the shrunken head said. “He’s going to try to nick the sigils.”
Gordon nodded in agreement.
“Why did he want the pendants?” Manuel asked.
“The pendants are sigils, Sparky,” the shrunken head said in the condescending tone he often used with Manuel.
“Each sigil is the name and essence of a demon or other non-mortal. They are used for summonings,” Gordon clarified. “It seems our guest, in addition to being a Congressman, is also a sorcerer.”
“Like a magician?” Manuel asked.
“Ha...like a magician indeed!” the shrunken head scoffed.
“As you know, magicians make their own magic,” Gordon explained. “Sorcerers have no power of their own. They summon demons to do their will.”
Manuel thought about this. “Then why do you have the sigils?”
“I have them,” Gordon said, pointing toward the door, “so blokes like Madison Akers won’t.”
Chapter 4 – The Keys
Lizzie had thought about Nick a lot over the past few days. Sometimes she wondered if she’d dreamed the whole thing. Mostly she wanted to run out into the woods to find him again. But she didn’t, partly because the gnome had told her to come back when she knew who she was. And she wondered what she would tell him when he asked.
Also, she felt a little uneasy about meeting him again. Stranger-danger is what mom and dad called it when she was little. She didn’t know him or what he was all about. Why did he seem so interested in her? Specifically in her and not some other kid in the woods. Something here didn’t ring true, she thought.
At this moment, Lizzie and Lori were playing an unofficial game of hide and seek—‘unofficial’ because Lori didn't know they were playing. Lizzie had jumped into the coat closet and hid in the dark when she heard Lori yelling for her. She didn’t do it just to be mean; she just wanted time alone—time to think.
While she moved amongst the coats, she heard a little jingle. She shook the coats and heard the jingle again...there were keys in somebody's pocket. Maybe they were looking for them. Jostling each coat individually, she eventually found the one with the keys.
Still holding onto the coat, she cracked opened the door to let some light in. She recognized it instantly—it was Grandpa Long's black raincoat. He had been at Lizzie's house when he started having chest pains. The ambulance had come and the grim-faced paramedics rushed him away. It was the last she'd seen him alive.
It made her sad to think about that, so she focused her attention on the keys in her hand. Three keys on a key ring: two regular door keys, and a smaller, intricate silver key. She had seen her Grandpa use these keys—they were to the study that he shared with her dad.
There was no doubt she would give the keys to her father. But, as she studied the keys, the gnome’s words came back to her. She didn’t know who she was.
No, that wasn’t it. That’s not what he had said. He said she didn’t know what she was.
People could be a ‘what’ as in a geek or a genius. Or they could be a ‘what’ as in a goalie or a black-belt. Or they could be a ‘what’ as in a doctor or a fireman.
She jingled the keys and thought: what is my dad? He always said he was a business consultant when asked.
But now as she thought about it, she wondered, why hadn’t she ever seen him doing any business? She’d never seen him reading financial magazines, or looking at business graphs, or looking at business operation books. When Grandpa came over he never talked with their father about the work that they did together. They never talked about clients. They never said anything about it...they behaved like it was a secret.
The other thing that didn’t make sense was all the visits from the Catholic priests. Several times a year they would come. Not the local parish priest, but priests from all over the world. At some point during the visits, Grandpa and her dad would go with the priests for a closed door meeting in the study.
Perhaps, if she knew what her father was, she might have some idea of what she was. Besides, she was curious now. Could it hurt if she took a look-see in the study?
They had always kept the study locked, except while they were working. 'Working' meant reading. There was always plenty of mail, usually in big thick brown envelopes, and they went through stacks of newspapers that came from all around the world, Grandpa sitting behind an enormous ancient desk, and dad sitting at a table stacked with folders, papers and books. When Grandpa had died, her dad took over the desk.
So why, she wondered, did they always lock the door? What was the big mystery?
She walked casually to the office door, and stood there a moment listening to make sure no one was coming. With shaky fingers she picked one of the keys from the key ring and, though poking and missing at first, slid it into the deadbolt. But it wouldn't turn. She started to pull the key out before remembering how her dad always pressed against the door as he unlocked it. Using her shoulder she leaned into the door. The lock turned with a click. She slipped in, easing the door shut behind her.
The antique desk sat at the far end of the room. Behind the desk was a large window, blinds closed. The walls were built-in bookshelves floor to ceiling, filled mostly with dingy and ancient looking books. The room even had a musty smell like in a used-book store. Next to the desk were four tall filing cabinets, and on top of the cabinets were stacks of green hanging folders.
Just to her right the closet door stood open a crack. She stepped over and looked in. It was crammed with all kinds of clothes—clothes you'd expect to see people wearing in different countries. There were long gowns like Arabs wear, big heavy coats that made her think of Russians, Safari-like khaki pants and shirts, and much more. On a shelf above there were turbans, Cossack hats, pith helmets, and all kinds of headwear. On the floor were a mass of boots and shoes; it was this pile of shoes that p
revented the door from fully closing.
Lizzie walked to the desk and sat down. She opened the middle drawer. Just the usual stuff in there: pens, pencils, erasers, paperclips. She opened the drawers on the right side of the desk, but it just contained stationary, computer cables, power cables, computer disks, and stuff like that.
On the left side of the desk were two drawers, a medium size drawer above and one deep drawer below. They were locked.
Lizzie picked up the keys from where she had placed them on the desktop and jingled them thoughtfully. Sneaking into his office was one thing, going through his desk drawers another. There might be personal, private things in there. But after seeing what was in the closet, seeing all those clothes that could be used for disguise, she had begun to wonder if her dad wasn't actually a spy. Maybe he worked for the CIA.
The intricate silver key worked in the lock. In the upper drawer she found a lot of envelopes from the Catholic Church with various saints, or crosses, or Virgin Marys on them. She didn’t see anything related to the US government, so the CIA theory was growing weak. But still there was this weird connection with the Church.
In the lower drawer she found only a wooden box, looking rather small in the bottom of that large drawer. Lizzie lifted it and put it on the desk. An image of Jesus nailed to the cross had been carved into the lid, head hanging forward, and a Roman soldier stabbing him in his side with a spear. Hairline cracks marked the wood and the paint was dull and faded. It was obviously very old, so she handled it with extra care.
Inside, wrapped in a velvet cloth, was a gold necklace with a golden egg-shaped ornament, in the middle of which were two blood-red rubies that stared at her like a pair of eyes. It was very pretty and she liked how it felt heavy in her hands.
She held the pendant in her hand, sitting in the big chair. There were a thousand clues, but to her it all added up to nothing. She still had no idea about what he was.
Turning the pendant over she saw the words Deus Vult inscribed in gothic lettering. Perhaps that was a clue. She decided to put the pendant in her pocket so she could Google the words later.
When she left the room she was careful to lock the door on the way out.
Chapter 5 – Margie
“Man-You-El,” Margie cried. “Man-You-El.”
Manuel clenched his teeth. He’d hoped that Margie might go to a different school instead of following him to Carver. But here she was, and it seemed her infatuation for him hadn’t diminished over the summer.