severed hands, but it wouldn’t budge.
“You are young Zachary Roger Pill,” the woman said.
“How do you know that?” Zachary asked.
“I am Medusa of the Gorgans, and as a representative of the U-ghoul system I know many things. Would you now like to review your messages?”
“Are any of them from my dad?” he asked.
Medusa’s eyes turned white for just a fraction of a second. “There are no messages from Roger Penbolt Pill.”
“Are any from my Uncle Ned?”
Again her eyes went white momentarily. “There are no messages from Francis Neddleson Pill, either. Shall we continue guessing endlessly,” she asked, “or would you prefer to know from whom the messages originate?”
Zachary glanced over at Bret, who was pressed like a poster against the door. His friend’s eyes were glued to the snakes that writhed and weaved like dancers atop Medusa’s head. Zachary looked back to see the woman’s piercing black eyes.
“Who, uh, whom are the messages from?” he asked.
“‘Who’ would the correct locution,” Medusa said. “One message is from the U-Ghoul system, welcoming you to our service. The other five thousand, four hundred, and thirty-seven messages are from His Lordship Ker Sevikrage of Pandemone.”
“Krage,” Zachary muttered. “But how did he find me?”
“You would be wise to use his full title when addressing him directly,” Medusa said. “However, to answer your question―”
Zachary heard a loud wheezing sound and turned to see Bret inhaling heavily from his asthma puffer. “You okay?”
Bret nodded but kept the puffer pressed to his lips.
Medusa cleared her throat and continued, “His Lordship Ker Sevikrage found your address by doing a simple search of the U-Ghoul system, one of the most complete data systems available to wizards, gnomes, trolls and all other supernatural and corridor realm beings.” She sounded suspiciously like an advertisement, which made Zachary wonder something.
“Are you a real person?”
“Of course,” Medusa said. “I am half-mortal and as real as you are.”
Zachary nodded as though he knew what half-mortal meant. Obviously she wasn’t a machine, though. “Can you erase my messages?” he asked.
“Certainly,” she said, “though that would alert His Lordship Ker Sevikrage that you had done so.”
“N-No!” Bret advised from his ready-to-run position at the door.
“I guess I’ll leave the messages,” Zachary said. “But if I use the—what’d you call it?”
“U-Ghoul system,” she said.
“But if I use your system again, can you separate his messages from anything I get from my father or uncle?” Zachary still couldn’t get over how the ghoulish green hands typed every word he said. How could they even hear him without ears?
“Theoretically, the messages are already separated,” Medusa said, “but you can, of course, ask for all messages other than those from His Lordship Ker Sevikrage at any time.”
Zachary gestured toward the smoke desk apparatus and asked, “How do I turn you―I mean the system―off?”
“Roger Penbolt Pill never taught you any of this?” Medusa asked.
“You knew my father?”
“I know everyone in the supernatural and corridor realms, Zachary Roger Pill. That’s my job. If your father never taught you how the U-Ghoul system works, then you probably don’t realize that anything we talk about or anything that I observe during our conversations goes directly into the U-Ghoul database.”
“Is that important?” Zachary asked.
“Under the current circumstances,” Medusa said, “as soon as our communication ends, His Lordship Ker Sevikrage will be able to search the U-Ghoul system and find out where you are, which I assume from your earlier comments is intended to be a secret.”
If Krage finds out, I’m dead!
Zachary envisioned bats raging through Madame Kloochie’s house.
“But I haven’t told you where I am,” Zachary countered.
Medusa’s eyebrows rose. “I can see out your window that the sky is clear and the trees beyond that first rooftop are a mixture of small-leaf maple and oak. I can also see evergreen and birch to a lesser degree. That would mean you are somewhere in the Northeast United States. Furthermore, I can see protection spells crisscrossing your windows. Since they are of fae origin, I can only deduce that you are currently residing in Madame Kloochie’s home.”
Zachary understood little of what she said, but the important thing was that as soon the conversation was over, Krage would know where to find him!
I never should have touched Dad’s stuff!
“Wh-What if Zachary l-l-leaves your system on?” Bret asked.
Zachary waited for Medusa to answer. When she didn’t, he finally asked, “Aren’t you going to answer him?”
“The U-Ghoul system has strict rules against interaction with humans,” Medusa said. “You are taking a large risk with the magistrates by merely allowing him to be in the same room as my system.”
“I don’t know what the magistrates are,” Zachary said, though his uncle had mentioned something about them during one of their phone conversations, “but I do know Krage has it in for me and my family. Would you keep my secret if I never turned your system off?”
Medusa shook her head, and at least half a dozen of the snake heads mimicked her action. “Whether or not your viewer station is on, all information from our conversations is drained automatically into the U-Ghoul data core. Within just a few minutes that information will be available to him.”
“So that’s it,” Zachary said. “I have no way to keep Krage from finding me?”
“There is an option available to you,” Medusa said. “If you had asked me earlier, I would already have given you the solution.”
“Solution?”
“You can purchase our U-Ghoul Deluxe Privacy Package to go with your service,” she said.
“Privacy Package?”
“With the purchase of our never-share Deluxe Privacy Package, you get one hundred percent drainage separation of any learned information regarding your interactions with the system.”
“So you would promise to not add information about me into your databas—data core?” Zachary said.
Medusa and many of her snakes shook their heads. “Actually, we would continue to drain your information, but it would be inaccessible to anyone other than you.”
For just a moment, Zachary was relieved but then remembered something.
“I don’t have any money.”
Medusa shook her head and pouted her lips, reminding Zachary how pretty she would have been without all those snakes on her head. “The U-Ghoul system has no use for money, at least not the kind of which you are thinking.”
“Then what?” Zachary asked. “How do I pay for the Privacy Package?”
Medusa’s mouth drew tight. “The U-Ghoul system has a way of collecting its dues. One day a request will be made, and you will have no choice but to grant it.”
“What if I don’t like the request when it comes?”
“That would be unfortunate,” Medusa said. “But I will need to ask for your commitment to the U-Ghoul Deluxe Privacy Package soon. At any moment, His Lordship Ker Sevikrage could access our data core and determine your location.”
Panicked, Zachary looked to Bret who nodded. What choice did he have?
“Okay, I’ll take it,” Zachary said. “I’ll take the Deluxe Privacy Package.”
After they had concluded their business, Medusa explained that shutting the system down was as simple as tapping on the coffin. Since he had no intention of rubbing against the putrid zombie flesh, Zachary got up and moved around to the other side of the table to do it. As he touched the lid, Medusa and the furniture disappeared in a roiling cloud of black smoke that swirled like a tornado before getting sucked back into the little casket. The floating green hands deposited the tiny coffin softly to the carpet f
loor before shriveling back to miniature size and fluttering inside. Before Zachary could close it, tiny green fingers pulled the lid shut.
Bret still had the asthma puffer pressed to his lips. The sight of his friend’s white knuckles and horrified expression shamed Zachary. His friend had lived a difficult life and he was making things worse.
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Zachary said.
Not surprisingly, Bret nodded his agreement.
19) Hospitals and Blood
By the time Zachary finished washing the dishes, it was already dark outside. Bret had left several hours before which, for better or worse, had given him a lot of time to think. Apprehension about his dad had been wearing on him, but he also bore the burden of having exposed Bret to magic and the danger that Krage represented. The look of sheer terror on Bret’s face when Medusa appeared was something Zachary never wanted to see again.
“Good night,” he said to Madame Kloochie, who was in her usual spot, sprawled across the couch with the living room TV blaring. She grunted as he passed through the dining room to his bedroom.
Zachary kicked off his sneakers, flipped the light off and collapsed onto his bed. The moonlight through his plants cast forest-like shadows on the ceiling over his bed. He watched the leaf shadows sway with the evening breeze as he tried to unravel the mess his life had become. Not only was Krage out to get his entire family—
Only three of us are left!
—but the evil wizard king seemed to be zeroing in on Zachary’s location. On the one hand, he felt he needed to learn about magic as fast as he could in order to help his dad and defend himself. But on the other, he didn’t want to drag