a rabbit out of a hat?” Bret joked.
“So far all I can do is make it light up,” Zachary admitted, “but I’m not kidding, it’s a real magic wand. I saw my father use one.” Zachary stared at his new friend. He hadn’t realized how much he needed Bret to believe him.
Bret’s expression grew serious.
“It-It’s real?”
“I swear it is.” Zachary pushed some plants out of the way, opened his window and pointed the wand toward Gerald’s backyard. He shook it. Nothing happened.
“M-Maybe you need to say, ‘A-A-Abracadabra,’ or something?”
Zachary was relieved that Bret either believed him or was at least giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“You might be right,” Zachary said. “My father made some chanting sounds when he used his black wand.” He thrust the wand toward Gerald’s yard. “Abracadabra!”
Still nothing.
“M-Maybe it can do s-s-something else?” Bret suggested.
Zachary shrugged. “The only thing I ever saw my dad do was laser some bats. Maybe I’m the problem. Want to try?” He held out the flaring yellow wand.
His friend backed away.
“Uncle Ned said I might not be able to use magic,” Zachary confided. Frustrated, he threw the wand. It stopped glowing the second it left his hand and was dark green by the time it hit the cream-colored bedspread he and Brett had washed the day before.
“I already b-b-believe you,” Bret said. There was no hint of sarcasm in his voice or on his face. “S-Some crazy stuff happens here at S-S-Station End. I used to think that I imagined it, but I don’t th-th-think so anymore. And I don’t th-think you’re lying.”
Zachary looked with appreciative eyes at his new friend. How many kids would have taken his word for something as outlandish as this? He glanced over at the wand. Though it, apparently, wasn’t going to work, that didn’t mean his uncle hadn’t left him with other magical items. He dropped to his knees beside his father’s box and pulled open all four flaps.
Zachary lifted the first thing on top: a brown leather box about the size of his hand that looked like it might contain a watch. He placed it on the floor and flipped the cover up…and found four identical rings. Large and heavy, each had a cut green stone in the center with tiny words imprinted around the edge.
“Cl-Class rings,” Bret suggested, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Zachary squinted but couldn’t make out the tiny words surrounding the stones.
“Can you read this?” He lifted one of the rings out and handed it to Bret.
“D-Doesn’t look like English,” Bret said, holding the ring up to his eye.
Zachary reached for one of the other rings, and the second his fingers touched the metal surface, a wave of dizziness washed over him. Suddenly, his mind was filled with strange memories of hospitals and doctors’ offices. He remembered having to spend days, sometimes weeks in bed at a time. He remembered missing his parents, who seemed to be working all the time, and he remembered the humiliation and anger of getting picked on nearly every time he went outside his house. One particularly terrifying event happened when he was eight years old. All alone, as he often was, he had been sitting at the edge of the river fishing with one of his father’s poles when someone grabbed him from behind. He kicked and fought back, but his attacker was a much stronger kid who easily yanked the fishing pole from his hands and then proceeded to pull off all of his clothes. Zachary remembered trying to get up and run several times, but each time he would get knocked right back down. The day ended with him naked and crying on the shoreline as all of his clothes floated downriver. The last thing he saw was Kevin Stemson’s laughing face—no not Kevin exactly, it was a younger version of the bully, younger but with the same red cheeks and the same cruel smile.
How was this possible? Zachary hadn’t known Kevin Stemson when he was younger, and he’d never been in any hospitals or doctors’ office before his visit to Doctor Gefarg’s Chicago clinic a few days before. Even as Zachary tried to unravel what was happening to him, more memories flooded his mind. Many more of them involved Kevin Stemson’s cruelty, but even crueler was that most of his childhood memories took place alone. He remembered his parents being so intent on their medical careers that they were seldom home, and even when they were home they remained so absorbed with each other and stories of patients that Zachary might as well have been a piece of furniture in the room. Depression settled over Zachary like a heavy blanket. Lonely day followed lonely day, with him often being sick with the only bright spots in his life being a few kids he talked to at school and the one girl he talked to who lived across the street. Zachary’s mind reeled because the girl in his memories was the same red-haired girl from the picture, the one who lived in the house next door—no, across the street! Before he could unravel his confusion, more images flooded his mind. He remembered talking with a younger version of the red-haired girl about their common enemy, Kevin Stemson, and he remembered seeing a half dozen police cars swarm their dead end street the day her mother was arrested. Zachary remembered feeling bad for the girl, now having lost both her parents to the prison system, but he also remembered not trusting her quite enough to be her friend.
Months of unhappiness and boredom passed as they always did until one night a soda truck rumbled down Station End and parked across the street in front of Madame Kloochie’s store. A muscular driver got out of the truck and disappeared around to the other side. He heard metal doors roll open then under the streetlights saw a boy about his age appear at the rear of the truck. He was pointing angrily at the back of the truck. Soon, the big man got back into the delivery vehicle and drove off, leaving the new boy standing beside a heap of boxes and suitcases late at night. Though Zachary wasn’t used to making friends, he remembered walking over to introduce himself to the late-night arrival with green hair and a space between his teeth—
Suddenly, Zachary understood. He was experiencing Bret’s memories through Bret’s eyes. He also realized something else: as difficult as things had been for him lately, his life had been wonderful in comparison to Bret’s. Though both were gone at the moment, Zachary’s parents had loved him and always made sure he knew it. For most of his childhood, Zachary had lived in a loving home where both his parents doted on him, loved him and made sure he always felt wanted. Maybe most important of all, one of them was always home. Until the last few days, Zachary couldn’t remember ever being without one or the other of his parents.
As the wave of dizziness passed and Bret’s memories were absorbed, Zachary’s mind returned to the present. He was standing in his room, staring down at Bret who had never enjoyed the warmth of a loving family. He’d instead been forced to live his life mostly alone and always lonely. Though his parents provided a home, food and clothing, they had never given him the one thing that was even more important: love.
Bret gasped, dropped the magical ring to the carpeted floor, and fell sideways on the bed. Zachary had seen his asthma attacks several times before and realized his friend was struggling to breathe. Terrified, Zachary grabbed the inhaler from Bret’s dress pants pocket and held it to his friend’s mouth. He didn’t realize he was holding his own breath until Bret drew in several strong breaths and took the medicine into his own hand. Confused, Zachary remembered having dozens of similar asthma attacks of his own, but they weren’t his memories.
Bret sat up and stared at Zachary, his blue eyes wide.
“Your mother was beautiful,” he said.
“It happened to you, too?” Zachary said.
Nodding, Bret pointed to the ring on the floor. “Must have been when we touched those.”
“Magic memory rings,” Zachary breathed.
“Friendship rings,” Bret corrected.
Zachary stared at this sickly boy who he now knew probably better than he knew himself. If anyone deserved a friend, it was Bret. But more importantly, if anyone in the world could ever be trusted as a friend, it was him too. He smiled.
“Yeah, friendship rings.”
“Your parents,” Bret said, “loved you so much.”
Zachary knew boys their age weren’t supposed to talk about love, but there could be no secrets or embarrassments between them now. After all, they had shared the best and worst events of each other’s lives. Already, Zachary found his brain organizing the memories into two sets, his and Bret’s. They might as well have been brothers.
“I miss her,” Zachary said.
Nodding, Bret said, “It’s really weird but so do I.”
Zachary paused and thought about that for a moment. Was it possible that by sharing his memories of a caring family, Bret had washed some of the unhappiness from his own life? He hoped so. Bret deserved that.
“Where’s the wand?” Bret suddenly asked.
Zachary’s eyes snapped to the bed. At first, he thought Bret might accidently have pushed it onto the floor when his asthma attack struck, but he had slumped the other way. There had to be another explanation. Making sure neither of them had unknowingly moved the wand while sharing memories, Zachary glanced down at the friendship ring in one hand and the ring box on the floor.
“One of the rings is missing, too!”
He picked up the box and held it out so that Bret could see there was now only one ring left in the case. There had definitely been four to begin with. Mentally, Zachary counted