Thwortle: Jeli Series, #1

By D J Walker

    Fleeing from the terrifying Shades, Mark escapes to magical Nolin, arriving with a 'splash' in the home of the wizar Miles and his two daughters. Warily, Miles welcomes the stranger — in  Nolin's language, 'Thwortle' means 'Welcome'.

    Mark soon discovers that he too has magic. But the Shades' magic is much stronger, and they have followed him to Nolin.

 

    Thwortle is the first book in the three–book Jeli Series, about a rift between African and Mycenaean god families.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D J Walker
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987455371

D J Walker

Author of fantasy books, including for YA and upper-Middle readers. Interest in myths of all kinds.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The maternity aide’s double shift at the big Brooklyn medical center was finally over. Her feet ached. She was tired, and she just wanted to get home to her kids.

But she heard a baby’s cries coming from a room that was supposed to be empty, and that was not something she could ignore. She went into the dark room, where she found a small infant all alone, in one of the ward’s wheeled carts, with no ID band around its tiny brown wrist. She judged it couldn’t be more than a few days old.

She was fairly sure that it was not one of the babies on the ward’s roster. She didn’t recognize it, for one thing, and for another, its diaper wasn’t the kind they used.

She rubbed its chest and made soothing noises, crooning, Where on earth did you come from, little one?

*   *   *

It was a question that no one was able to answer.

The ward’s security feed showed that the baby was carried into the ward by a skinny old white guy wearing scrubs. He put the baby into one of the carts lining the hallway. He rolled the cart into the empty room, and he walked out of the room and away.

A wider review of the feeds showed the old guy bringing the baby to the medical center’s clinic, as if for an appointment. He went into a men’s room wearing street clothes, came out wearing the scrubs, and carried the baby from the clinic over to the maternity ward.

The guy was brazen, but nondescript. The video images were blurry. No one was able to identify him, and no one ever claimed the baby.

Hospitals cope. The baby received care and a ‘Baby Doe’ band on his wrist.

A week later the baby was given over to one of the better foster care agencies for placement. The agency gave him the name Mark Smith — ‘Mark’ picked off a list of ordinary boys’ names, and ‘Smith’ because it too was a common name.

Mark was placed out and over his fourteen years he had good, bad and indifferent foster parents — mostly good or at worst indifferent, by his lights. Usually they changed every three or four years, for one reason or another. Mark learned to adapt and get by.

There wasn’t anything special about him. He wasn’t athletic. He thought science and math were interesting, but he wasn’t a whiz at either. He showed no artistic or musical talent.

He was just an ordinary city boy, and there was nothing at all unusual about his everyday life. Except for The Smirking Girl.

He called her The Smirking Girl — or just The Girl for short — because she always seemed to have a superior smile on her face, and he was never able to find out her name.

He thought she was about his age, or a little older. He’d been seeing her around wherever he lived for as long as he could remember. But the moment he tried to approach her she’d slip behind someone or around a corner.

He’d tried sneaking up on her. He’d tried rushing her — like the time in sixth grade when he blitzed her in the hall between classes, calling out, Hey, what’s your name?! Instantly she slipped behind some girls. By the time he got there she was gone. But the girls weren’t. They all stared at him — a Boy In Their Midst. "Well, I’m Rachael," one of them said with a swagger, and they burst into screechy giggles. All Mark could do was mumble about a mistake and beat a quick retreat.

When he was in the eighth grade he got a new foster mother. He knew right away that Estela was going to be one of the good ones, but her home was in a different part of Brooklyn, which meant he had to change schools again.

Not long afterward he saw The Girl again, at his new school. There she was, leaving the gym with a girls’ class as his class was going in.

After that he noticed he was seeing her around more often, but she was still just as elusive as ever.

He’d never told anyone about her. What was there to tell? ‘I keep seeing this girl at school and around the neighborhood, and I think she’s laughing at me but I can’t even get her name because when I try to, she just disappears.’ They’d think he was nuts, or was making it up to get attention.

So he never told anyone about her. At least, not until he told Luis.

Luis was Estela’s other foster kid. He had been with Estela for two years.

How good are you in a fight? was one of the first questions Luis asked Mark. Luis was only a year younger than Mark, but he was small for his age.

I can hold my own. I guess. I think. But Luis gazed at him as if he doubted it. Not very, probably, Mark admitted.

Luis nodded. Yeah. Thought so.

Mark had actually had some success — or luck — in the few shove ‘n punches he’d been involved in. But Luis looked so down, he didn’t take it personally. Who’s after you? he asked.

Just some dudes.

How many? And, um, how big?

Usually three. Bigger ‘n you.

What have they got against you? Mark asked, but Luis just shrugged.

When three tough boys jumped Luis the next day, Mark waded in to help his new foster brother. He didn’t want to — the three boys were bigger than he was! But the fight ended when some burly men came out of a corner bodega and yelled at them all to get lost. Mark and Luis melted away while their three tormentors turned on the men and hurled insults at them, though from a distance.

Estela was not pleased when Luis and Mark got home with bruises and torn clothes. She escorted them to and from school for several weeks afterward, exuding a fierceness that was almost comical, coming from such a small, wizened old woman. The three tough boys passed them once, snickering.

They’ll wait ‘til she stops going with us. Then they’ll get us, Luis told Mark glumly.

To take Luis’s mind off his troubles — their troubles now — Mark told Luis about The Girl. Luis listened, willing to believe Mark at first, but then . . . not.

You’re just making it up to get attention, Luis told him.

Nope.

Okay then! Next time I’m with you when you see this girl, point her out to me. Agreed?

Mark tried to do just that. But each time she was gone before he could tell Luis where to look, and which girl she was in the crowd.

Luis never did manage to see The Girl, until the day at the hospital.

The previous week Estela had suffered a stroke — a bad one that could have killed her. But Mark and Luis realized that something was seriously wrong, and they got her rushed to the hospital. Her life was saved, but recovery would be slow. The agency sent Mark and Luis to one of its group homes.

Soon after Estela stabilized she asked to see them. Someone from the home took them to the hospital, and stood chatting at the nurses’ station while the boys went down the corridor to Estela’s room. When they got there, The Girl was beside her bed, watching her as she slept. Mark was so surprised that he stopped in the doorway and Luis bumped into him.

That’s her! Mark whispered to Luis.

Who? Luis asked, peering around Mark. "Oh! Her."

Mark nodded and stayed rooted in the doorway. There was no other way out of the room. After all these years, the mystery of this girl was going to be solved today. Now.

The girl turned and Mark saw her for the first time without that smirk on her face. It made her look at least ten years older. He was still adjusting to this when she walked right up to him, for the first time ever. Close up, her eyes looked bleary, as if about to brim over with tears. Except they didn’t brim over, and the girl didn’t look like she felt like crying. Instead she looked bossy.

You gotta wash out, she told him in a rough, gurgly voice.

I gotta — what?

Wa – t – sch out, she enunciated impatiently. You gotta look out for yourshelf now.

Mark couldn’t believe it. Miss Unreachable, Miss Oh–So–Superior–Smile, was Miss Really Bad Lisp.

The girl continued. If shomething way weird happensh, get to the river. Fasht. And call my name when you get there.

The . . . what? Mark was nearly speechless, but Luis piped up from behind him. "And just who are you, Boss Girl?" he asked.

First the girl locked gazes with Mark. Remember. Shomething weird. You’ll know. Then she glared at Luis. The name ish Nada, she told him. Her watery eyes slewed back to Mark. You got that? she asked, with a hint of her superior smile.

She tossed her head, and loud beeping erupted from the equipment at Estela’s bed. Mark thought maybe he should call the nurse, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off the girl. She had a way of disappearing the moment he —

Excuse me, boys. I must get to Mrs. Martinez. The nurse hurriedly brushed past Luis and passed between Mark and Nada.

Mark knew from long experience that the girl would disappear while the nurse went between them. But this time he was ready. He slipped past Luis into the hall, and was close enough to the departing girl to get a fold of her jacket between his fingers.

He just wanted to ask her some questions, after all this time. He wanted it so badly that something inside him shifted and a strange feeling flowed to his arm and hand. It felt so dark and creepy, though, he quickly let go of her jacket.

At nearly the same moment the girl dissolved in a shimmer of evaporating water. A wet mist hung in the air, with a whiff of ocean.

Luis had followed Mark to the hallway and saw the girl disappear.

¡No me lo creo! Luis exclaimed. S’not possible!

Mark was used to the girl disappearing, though it had never happened like this before.

Where’d, whoa, where’d she go, Mark? Luis whispered urgently.

Mark just shrugged. He was glad that Luis had finally seen her, but still — she was as mystifying as ever.

Luis looked everywhere — down the hall, in Estela’s room, everywhere he could think of.

He asked the nurse at Estela’s bed if she’d seen where the girl went.

What girl? was the nurse’s reply, giving him only a fraction of her attention. She was busy adjusting Estela’s I.V.

The girl who was standing next to us when you came in here, Luis persisted.

No girl. Just you boys, the nurse replied absently.

She was —, Luis began, but Mark shook his head and shrugged again. Luis fell silent, but his eyes still darted around, searching.

*   *   *

They joked about The Girl later, over the next few weeks at the home. Luis dubbed her Mark’s ‘weird girlfriend’.

Seen your weird girlfriend today, Mark?

No, but I did blink a few times so I might have missed her.

Change your socks more often and she might stick around.

Just dumb stuff, on and on, from an edgy boredom. When a food fight broke out in the school cafeteria, Luis sidled up to Mark, wriggling his eyebrows and hissing, Head for the river — fassssshhhhhhht. After that, Luis only had to wriggle his eyebrows when something odd happened, and they’d both start chortling like idiots. But nervously — neither of them could quite forget how oddly serious Nada had been.

*   *   *

On a cold drizzly day near the end of February, when Mark and Luis had been at the group home for a couple of months, a woman from the agency’s main office came to get Mark, to take him to live with a new foster family.

Mark was sent to the home’s office when he got in from school. There the Director and the woman — Julie her name was — were going over the release papers. Julie was wearing an agency ID and seemed to have all the right papers with her. But the suddenness of the placement was odd. Usually there were lots of preliminaries, like meetings with the new family at an agency office, and weekend visits to the family’s home.

Mark started asking questions. The Assistant Director happened to come in and also asked questions — the same as Mark’s. But the Director showed her the agency’s papers, and as she looked through them her face got vague and her questions petered out. Soon she was agreeing with the Director and Julie, telling Mark that everything was fine, everything was in order. The three adults overrode his questions, waving the papers around, insisting he pack his backpack for overnight. His new family would come by the home tomorrow for the rest of his things, they assured him.

The more they looked at the agency papers the more in a hurry they got. The Assistant Director went upstairs with Mark and kept with him, kept at him, until his backpack was packed.

Luis arrived from band practice as Mark was going down the outside steps with Julie.

She’s from the agency. She’s taking me to a new foster family, Mark told Luis hurriedly. Julie was clearly anxious to keep moving, but Luis planted himself and his tuba case in the way.

S’not the way it’s done! he asserted.

Julie stared down at Luis. "Excuse me? Does this concern you?"

Where? Who? What’s the address? Luis insisted, but Julie ignored him.

Where? Luis asked again, looking back and forth between Mark and Julie.

Mark just shrugged at Luis. What good would it do to go through it all again? He wondered if just being within range of those papers was having an effect on him.

Julie edged around Luis’s tuba case and tugged Mark along with her. When Luis followed after them, she turned to face him.

Aren’t you going to go inside? she asked him pointedly.

A short battle of wills ensued, which Luis lost. He knew the woman would get someone from the home to take him inside if he didn’t go on his own. He would have braved that, but Mark was shaking his head. ‘It won’t do any good,’ Mark was warning him. ‘Better stay out of trouble.’

I’ll call you when I get settled in, Mark told Luis out loud.

Okay, Luis replied, and reluctantly backed away.

But before he turned to go up the steps, he wriggled his eyebrows at Mark, and Mark nodded. Neither of them grinned about it. Neither of them thought there was anything funny about it now.

Chapter 2

"Don’t be nervous, Mark. Your new family is gonna love ya."

Julie became talkative while they were waiting on the subway platform for the D train into Manhattan.

You’ve met them? Mark asked her.

Well, no. Carrie’s been handling your placement but, like I told ya, she’s out because she just had a baby n’all. The paperwork is in order, though. Everything’s all lined up.

Mark smiled back at the woman, polite but unenthused. This was not a situation for a genuine smile. Julie’s loud, brash voice had some of the people on the subway platform listening. Mark knew they listened out of boredom, just like he did sometimes. But it embarrassed him. He shifted his backpack and scrunched his shoulders against the rainy chill.

He watched Julie without being too obvious. She took the papers out of her bag and shuffled them. The more she shuffled them, the vaguer she looked.

The subway pulled in and they got on board. Julie continued to examine her papers in an abstracted way, while Mark thought about the best way to get away from her before they got to wherever she was taking him.

He didn’t know where he would go; he’d have to figure that out later. Despite Luis’s busy eyebrows, the river was the last place he’d go, especially on such a cold rainy day.

Since it was rush hour, Mark decided to just walk away from Julie when they got to the big transfer station at Columbus Circle. He’d melt into the crowd there. Julie was pudgy; if necessary he could outrun her.

But Mark never got a chance to melt into the crowd. At the station Julie waved the papers in his face: that was all it took. His legs wouldn’t move in any way except along with hers.

They caught an uptown 1 train and got off at 181st Street. Julie consulted some notes. S’about four blocks this way, she informed Mark and started off. Mark lurched along after her.

He made one last try. Why haven’t I met them yet? he asked. Aren’t I supposed to meet them first?

Carrie took care of everything. Julie seemed distracted and in a hurry. All I’m supposed to do is deliver you to this family.

This can’t be right, Mark protested, but Julie only walked faster.

Mark’s unwilling legs had to jog some to keep up. They paused only when traffic lights didn’t favor them, and Julie was practically running when she reached a row of anonymous brownstones. Huffing and puffing, she hurled herself up the steps of one near the middle of the row and rang the bell.

A dog’s barking exploded from deep inside the house. Mark could almost see the animal from its bark: this would be a very large dog that was extremely unfriendly. The barking got louder until it reverberated on the other side of the door. Suddenly it stopped.

The door opened and a white boy about Mark’s age stood there with the huge dog standing quietly beside him. Both the boy and the dog looked unpleasant.

But Julie’s face wore an expression of mindless serenity. I’m Julie Whitman, from the agency, she told the boy, and this is Mark Smith.

The boy stared at Mark. Mark tried to meet his unfriendly gaze but quickly gave up. Are you sure we’re at the right place? Mark asked Julie quietly.

This is the right place, the boy cut in. Come in, he ordered. First room on the right.

It was an ordinary room with several upholstered chairs and some end tables and lamps. One chair was much larger and plusher than the others. The boy sat in a chair next to it and motioned Julie and Mark into plainer chairs directly across from it. Footsteps approached and a tall, lean white man entered the room and eased himself into the best chair. He had a commanding presence, with harsh, chiseled features and an air of somber authority. He was dressed in black, and everything about him looked severe and grim to Mark.

The man glanced briefly at Mark and spoke to Julie. Well? he asked.

Julie was staring at the man as if mesmerized. At the sound of his voice she shook herself and nodded. Yes. Yes, Mr. Shade, she said. Everything’s in order. She got up and handed him some papers, which he signed and gave back to her. She turned to Mark. You’ll be fine here. Everything is fine.

Mr. Shade nodded. Kevin will walk you back to the subway, he told Julie.

‘So the man is Mr. Shade, and the boy is Kevin,’ Mark thought. ‘Nice of these people to introduce themselves.’

Julie followed Kevin out without saying goodbye to Mark. Mark remained in his chair, waiting for Mr. Shade to speak. When he didn’t, Mark breached the silence, commenting, These are nice chairs. Comfortable. But Mr. Shade made no reply. He seemed lost in thought.

After a while Mr. Shade roused himself and glanced at