The door opened, and Mama stood there in her apron, hair tied up in a kerchief, eyes red. Over her head, Matt saw Papa hefting boxes into a stack, his face grim. Matt’s heart sank.
Then Mama realized who was there. Her eyes went wide, and the gloom lifted. “Mateo!” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged. “So soon! What, did you forget something?”
“Yeah… you and Papa.” Matt grinned, hugging her, and carried her into the little hallway where he set her down.
Papa looked up in surprise. Then his grimness vanished and he came toward his son with his arms wide.
“So you couldn’t stay away, hey? Too late, though… dinner is over.” He embraced Matt, then held him away and looked up at Gilbert inquiringly.
“Uh, Mama and Papa, this is my friend, Gilbert,” Matt explained. “Gilbert, my mother and father, Jimena and Ramon Mantrell.”
“A pleasure, goodfolk.” Gilbert gave a little bow.
“As is ours,” Papa said, reaching out to shake Gilbert’s hand. The knight went along with the gesture, albeit awkwardly. “Jimena,” said Papa, “can’t we take something out of the refrigerator?”
“Uh, I’m afraid we don’t have time, Papa.” At his father’s frown, Matt explained, “We had a little run-in with the neighborhood gang, and they might call the cops.”
“Call the cops! Them?”
“Surely you did nothing wrong, Mateo,” his mother said anxiously.
“Just self-defense, but it’ll take an hour or two to prove it, and we don’t have that much leeway.” Matt bit his lip; his parents were proud people, and he had to phrase this just right. “Uh, Mama, Papa… I didn’t tell you all the news this afternoon.”
“Oh?” Papa frowned, braced for the bad stuff. “What else?”
“Good news,” Matt said, “but, uh… we were so locked away in our own little world that I didn’t know I could tell you about it.”
Gilbert frowned at him, puzzled. Well, Matt could explain it all to them later.
“I found the right girl,” he said in a rush.
“Oh, Mateo!” Mama cried with delight, and reached up to kiss him soundly on the cheek.
Papa’s eyes shone. He embraced his son, then held him at arm’s length, grinning. “I’m glad, I’m so glad! I was afraid she’d never come along! When is the wedding?”
“Well, we already have a house.” Matt was getting good at sidestepping questions. “We’d like you to come visit us.”
“We will, we will.” Papa’s smile slipped. “But first we have to… ” He waved at the stack of boxes and the stripped bookshelves.
“It looks like you’re moving out. Well, take it all along.”
“Oh?” Papa forced a weary smile. “Have you brought a moving van?”
“Isn’t one coming?”
Papa gestured with futility, tried to answer, then turned away.
“Even if we had money for the van, Mateo, we have no place to take the furniture,” Mama said softly.
“We can take only what will fit in the rental van, and keep at the motel.”
Matt turned somber. “You could declare bankruptcy.”
“We could have,” Mama agreed, “and Papa said to, but I knew it hurt him not to be able to pay his debts. We sold the house, and tomorrow we will rent the van and drive away with what we can. The Good Will will come to take what we leave.”
Matt frowned, looking out over the pile of boxes. “How much more do you have to pack?”
Now it was Mama who gestured with futility. “It is all here in the boxes, all that we cannot bear to leave … but the house, the garden, the memories… “
Tears filled her eyes. Matt said quickly, “Memories you can always take with you, Mama. I know it’s hard, but if you really have to go, then let’s go now.”
Papa looked up, frowning. “You brought a van?” Then he looked at Matt more closely. “You’re not surprised at any of this.”
“A neighbor told me,” Matt admitted.
Papa swore.
“What did she tell you?” Mama, at least, had no doubt about who.
“That the boys have harassed the store so badly your business went broke,” Matt said. Then he realized that he could take the offensive. He gave his father a look of hurt. “You should have told me, Papa.”
“It was not your fight,” Papa said stiffly.
“All your fights are my fights,” Matt retorted. “You taught me it should be that way with my friends. How much more with my parents?”
“I was being medieval,” Papa muttered.
“Yes, the medieval notion of keeping faith! How bad is it?”
Papa glanced at Mama; her look implored him, and he relented. “When I came home for lunch today, I had just finished closing up the store for good.”
“You knew that!” Matt accused his mother.
“We did not want you to worry,” she explained, then turned stubborn. “You might have dropped out of school!”
“But your visit was the perfect note to raise our spirits from defeat,” Papa said gently.
Matt wilted. “Okay, I’m an undutiful son not to have been checking up on you!” At least they didn’t know just how neglectful he had been.
“That doesn’t matter, Matt,” his father said softly. “Our problems are our own. You go build your life.”
“I will, but problems are for sharing… that’s another thing you taught me,” Matt said. “What does matter is that we can get you out of here.”
A siren wailed in the distance.
Gilbert looked up, tensed to fight. “What spirit is that?”
“No spirit, only an alarm,” Matt said quickly. “It’s the police coming… Liam did call them, the idiot!
And I’m sorry, Papa, Mama, but I can’t afford the delay!” He didn’t want to add that he might have a little trouble explaining Gilbert’s lack of identity cards. “Please, I’m going to have to ask you to take me on faith, no matter how crazy it may seem.”
Papa glanced at Mama. Their gaze held for a moment or two; then they turned back, nodding. “What harm can it do?” Mama asked.
“None,” Matt assured her. “Here, stand around your boxes and hold hands… Gilbert, you too!”
Frowning, Mama and Papa linked hands with them. Gilbert, of course, obeyed the Lord Wizard without an instant’s hesitation.
The siren wailed closer.
“Now, repeat after me,” Matt said.
“Lalinga wogreus maiwold reiger.”
Mama and Papa frowned, but repeated obediently,
“Lalinga wogreus maiwold reiger.”
“Athelstrigen marx alupta,”
Matt intoned.
Mama and Papa repeated, “Athelstrigen marx alupta… “
“Harleng krimorg barlow steiger,” Matt chanted.
“Harleng krimorg barlow steiger.”
Matt went on, repeating the words line by line until he’d finished the verse, then told them, “Again!”
He lined the verse out for them to repeat time after time, until they could recite it all the way through without him… giving him odd looks, but reciting.
The siren came closer and closer.
“Say it over and over, no matter what I say!” Matt told them. “Just keep chanting!”
They did as he asked, saying the words over and over. Then Mama’s eyes widened, and Matt knew the words were beginning to make sense to her.
Outside, the siren wailed to a stop. Orange and blue lights flickered through the windows. A car door slammed, and footsteps thudded on the outdoor stairs.
Matt threw back his head and called,