surveyed the wreckage from last night glumly. Glasses half full of unfinished milk from supper stood huddled together on the dull green Formica countertop, and dirty plates were piled high in the sink. An empty Absolut vodka bottle lay at a drunken angle against the base of the refrigerator where Mama had thrown it, and a fleet of cigarette butts floated grotesquely in a pool of spilled beer on the floor. A slightly dried-out meatball lay in solitary splendor under Brandon’s chair on a thin veneer of splattered spaghetti sauce.
There was more, but Brian had seen enough. The cleanup job would be bad enough without having to think about it ahead of time. He crept a little nearer to the archway that separated the kitchen from the living room, to see if Mama was still asleep on the sofa. She wasn’t, but someone had turned on the TV, and presently he noticed muffled sounds of movement coming from the bathroom. It sounded like Mama was brushing her teeth, and before long he heard something clatter on the floor and the sound of cursing. It sounded like she was in an especially nasty mood, and he felt a strong urge to disappear again.
He suffered a fresh twinge of worry about leaving Brandon alone with her, and he glanced upstairs one last time with furrowed brow, half tempted to put off his expedition for another day.
But Brian was fourteen, and the thought of waiting for anything was hard to endure, let alone something as amazing as this. Therefore he tiptoed quietly across the faded yellow linoleum to the back door, reminding himself once again that Brandon was still asleep, and that the quicker he left, the quicker he could get back.
He shut the screen door slowly behind him, careful not to let the rusty hinges squeak too loud. It didn’t seem to matter how often he oiled them, that high-pitched squeal always came back in a few days. He listened to make sure Mama hadn’t noticed, and then he set off purposefully across the pasture.
He quickly covered the open ground and slipped through the rusty barbed wire fence on the far side, careful not to let his jeans or his shirt get snagged. Ripped up clothes were too hard to replace.
His bare feet crunched wetly on dead vines and pine straw as he followed the little path into the woods beyond the fence, and once or twice he had to wade through a flooded spot. That was all right, though; he knew the way. By and by the trail curved away northward, following the little valley up into the mountains, and before long he came to higher and drier ground again.
At one place, an outcrop of stone jutted out over the creek, with a beautiful view of almost the whole valley to the south and a deep swimming hole underneath where you could cannonball off the rock if you were brave enough, and beyond it there was the wooded mountainside where no one ever went. That’s where Brian was headed.
He and Brandon had always called that place Black Rock, though Brian couldn’t remember why. It didn’t really look black, except when it was wet. It was Brandon’s favorite spot when the weather was nice, because there were lots of lizards and bugs to catch while they basked in the sun, and there was a sandy beach beside the creek that was perfect for castle building. Brian liked to go there and read or throw rocks even when Brandon wasn’t with him, because it was a good place to be alone with his thoughts, and in the fall he sometimes hunted on the mountainside.
Not always in the fall, actually, although he didn’t like to talk about that very much. Hunting deer out of season was always risky, but there’d been several times when it was either that or go hungry. Not much of a choice, when you thought about it.
But for now, the most important thing of all about Black Rock was that Mama absolutely hated the place and never went there. Brian had no idea why she felt that way, but he was glad she did.
A low growl of thunder rolled through the dense pine woods, and he looked up at the sky anxiously. The clouds were still dark and heavy with rain, and he wondered for a second if maybe his expedition hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
He hesitated again, not wanting to get soaked, but eventually curiosity pulled him onward. He could always stand under a tree for a while if he had to. It wasn’t quite ten minutes later when he finally emerged from the woods and stood on top of the big stone outcrop. All around the Rock was a little meadow maybe a hundred feet across, full of wildflowers when the season was right, although at the moment it held nothing but thistles and sedge grass, most of it dead from the summer heat.
The castle he and Brandon had built last week on the sand bar had melted into a shapeless blob coated with pockmarks from the rain, and there were several fresh deer tracks coming down to the water to drink. Little bits of embedded mica twinkled on the surface of the Rock, which was still dark and wet in most places.
Brian pulled the amulet out of his pocket and toyed with it. The jeweled silver glittered like broken glass, even on such a dreary day. It was a beautiful piece of work, whoever made it. Strangely enough, there was no clasp or catch on it as you would have expected to find on a necklace. The chain was made all in one continuous piece. The only way to put it on was to slip it over your head.
Brian wasn’t sure he liked that idea much. He wasn’t on good terms with pain in any form, and he still remembered what had happened to his thumb earlier. It had only been just that once, sure, but what if the same thing happened to his neck or chest? He wasn’t keen to find out the hard way. But a necklace is meant to be worn, and with a deep breath he whisked the chain over his head before he could change his mind.
It hung lightly around his neck, the silver disk lying flat against his heart. He grasped it in his hand and held it as far away from his body as he could before he tried anything else with it, though. Might as well be as careful as possible.
His legs were coated with mud and dirt up to the knees from the flooded path, and he could feel scattered smudges of thick red clay slowly pulling hair as they dried on bare skin. His face was slick with oily sweat, curling down in streamers from his forehead. He felt grubby, and this gave him an idea for his first experiment.
“I wish I was clean,” he said, imagining himself just that way. Again he felt nothing at all, but when he looked down every particle of dirt had vanished from his body. His clothes were cool and fresh, and even his teeth felt newly brushed. Brian smiled with pleasure, more confident now. His eye fell on a nearby rock.
“Come here,” he commanded it, holding out his right hand. The rock trembled and then gracefully floated into his outstretched palm. Brian laughed with delight, throwing the rock into the creek and casting his eyes about for more things to work his magic on. Nothing could have knocked a chip off his satisfaction at that moment.
He played with the amulet fondly, dreaming such dreams as would have seemed unbelievable just yesterday. But now! Now all things were possible.
The summer sun had scorched the tall grass around Black Rock into a wide field of standing hay, which not even the recent rains had been able to bring back to life. The dirt was pale and rocky, full of little white stones that looked like the bleaching skulls of field mice, and Brian eyed all these things thoughtfully.
Moving rocks and cleaning off mud was all very well, but surely there was something more dramatic and interesting he could do. The dead grass and gloomy skies didn’t seem to offer very many possibilities at the moment, though.
It would have been a much different place in the springtime, full of wild flowers and swallowtail butterflies and sometimes a few deer grazing at the edge of the woods. That was Brian’s favorite time of year, and for a fleeting second he wished it was March instead of September.
A wild thought entered his mind, and he began to smile at the very audacity of it. He walked slowly to the center of the little meadow, and his left hand reached up to clasp the amulet curiously. Could he do it?
“Give me spring,” he whispered, conjuring up the vivid image in his mind. Before the last word fell from his lips, the meadow began to change before his eyes. The dry grass broke up into wispy fragments quickly swept away by the wind. Dormant seeds burst into n
ew life in a spreading pool of green around his feet, sending up pale tendrils already heavy with the buds of flowers. Lavender stars peppered the ground with a sprinkle of blooms, and chains of golden daffodils appeared across the far side of the meadow.
For a second he was awed by his power, and stood staring at the changes he’d made. He thought about gathering up armfuls of the daffodils and carrying them back home to brighten up the drab old house just a little. Mama liked flowers. She might even. . . well, what would she do, actually?
When he stopped to seriously think about it, he realized he was dreaming with his head in the sand. Mama wasn’t a fool. She knew it wasn’t the right time of year for daffodils, and at the very least she’d ask him where they came from. And then what would he say?
It wasn’t just the daffodils, of course. Anything strange that happened around the house might cause problems. Mama was suspicious, and he knew from experience that it didn’t take much to set her off. The least careless remark, the most minor incident; anything could cause an explosion.
It came to mind again that Brandon would probably be the worst problem he had when it came to keeping the secret. He was seldom out of Brian’s company, and he was way too