phone with La-La. The words were unfamiliar to Zak, whose Spanish was passable, so that meant they were probably swear words.
Dad shot a glare at Mom. He didnât speak much Spanish, but he knew the bad words pretty well.
âAm I punished?â Zak asked, even though he knew the answer already.
âAre you kidding me?â Dad asked. âI canât believe you even need to ask that question.â
âYou are so punished,â Mom said, âthat I donât even know what the punishment is yet. I amââ She broke off, sighed, then said, â We are so angry at you right now that we canât even begin to imagine an appropriate punishment.â
So maybe we just skip the punishment this time , Zak thought, but was way too smart to say out loud. His parents wouldnât appreciate the humor. Not now.
âGo to your room,â Dad ordered. Zak nearly jumped out of his chair at the opportunity to get away from his angry parents. âYour mother and I will figure out a fitting punishment.â
âAnd then weâll double it !â Mom shouted as Zak disappeared into the hallway.
Zak flung himself onto his bed with all the outrage he could muster. He didnât deserve to be punished. Heâd seen something. Heâd heard something.
If there really was a flood, theyâd be singing a different tune , he thought. I would probably be on TV as a hero for running and getting someone. And my parents would be all, âOh my God, Zak, we thought we would lose you! You were so brave! Weâre so glad you got away!â
Yeah.
If there had been a flood.
But there hadnât.
There had been water, though. Right? The voice had told him to run before the pipe sprayed him. There was something going on, something strange, something he couldnât identify. Even if heâd imagined the flood, he hadnât imagined the pipe and the water.
Whatâs happening to me? Zak thought.
He rolled over onto his stomach. Even though it was still early, he was suddenly very tired, and the muted back-and-forth of his parentsâ voices through the wall lulled him to the edge of sleep.
And his guardian angelâs voiceâa sad, yearning, almost desperate whisper just as he drifted off: Iâm sorry.
Or maybe he just imagined that.
Â
THREE
Iâm sorry was the most the guardian angel had ever said. It was actually a complete sentence. Usually, it was just a word or two, like Run! or Run now! Simple things. The voice couldnâtâor wouldnâtâsay much. Sometimes Zak wasnât even sure it was a voice so much as a sense of the word, the underlying imperative of it.
But as he woke in the middle of the night, he heard wordsâmore than one or twoâjumbled together, as though fighting each other for primacy.
âfreeâ
He blinked sleep out of his eyes.
â God â
God?
â Zak!
He sat up straight and slapped at the light switch, turning on the lamp, a scream tucked right behind his lips, eager to explode forth.
His name. It had said his name .
And for the first time, the voice was familiar. Not merely as the voice of his guardian angel. Heâd always known and trusted the voice. And now he knew why.
âthe secrecyâ
âTommy?â he asked the empty room. And a chill raced up his spine before evaporating at the base of his skull.
Tommy . Tommy, his imaginary friend. Tommy, who had gone away around the same time Moiraâs family moved to Brooklyn from Dublin. Zak hadâif he was being honestâpretty much forgotten about his invisible buddy until this very moment, this moment of late-night/early-morning darkness and solitude. Being alone was nothing new to Zak. He hated it, hated the isolation and the sense that the world could have vanished outside his door and he wouldnât know. Maybe it came from being an only child.
But there was a special kind of aloneness that only filled the wee hours
Dad shot a glare at Mom. He didnât speak much Spanish, but he knew the bad words pretty well.
âAm I punished?â Zak asked, even though he knew the answer already.
âAre you kidding me?â Dad asked. âI canât believe you even need to ask that question.â
âYou are so punished,â Mom said, âthat I donât even know what the punishment is yet. I amââ She broke off, sighed, then said, â We are so angry at you right now that we canât even begin to imagine an appropriate punishment.â
So maybe we just skip the punishment this time , Zak thought, but was way too smart to say out loud. His parents wouldnât appreciate the humor. Not now.
âGo to your room,â Dad ordered. Zak nearly jumped out of his chair at the opportunity to get away from his angry parents. âYour mother and I will figure out a fitting punishment.â
âAnd then weâll double it !â Mom shouted as Zak disappeared into the hallway.
Zak flung himself onto his bed with all the outrage he could muster. He didnât deserve to be punished. Heâd seen something. Heâd heard something.
If there really was a flood, theyâd be singing a different tune , he thought. I would probably be on TV as a hero for running and getting someone. And my parents would be all, âOh my God, Zak, we thought we would lose you! You were so brave! Weâre so glad you got away!â
Yeah.
If there had been a flood.
But there hadnât.
There had been water, though. Right? The voice had told him to run before the pipe sprayed him. There was something going on, something strange, something he couldnât identify. Even if heâd imagined the flood, he hadnât imagined the pipe and the water.
Whatâs happening to me? Zak thought.
He rolled over onto his stomach. Even though it was still early, he was suddenly very tired, and the muted back-and-forth of his parentsâ voices through the wall lulled him to the edge of sleep.
And his guardian angelâs voiceâa sad, yearning, almost desperate whisper just as he drifted off: Iâm sorry.
Or maybe he just imagined that.
Â
THREE
Iâm sorry was the most the guardian angel had ever said. It was actually a complete sentence. Usually, it was just a word or two, like Run! or Run now! Simple things. The voice couldnâtâor wouldnâtâsay much. Sometimes Zak wasnât even sure it was a voice so much as a sense of the word, the underlying imperative of it.
But as he woke in the middle of the night, he heard wordsâmore than one or twoâjumbled together, as though fighting each other for primacy.
âfreeâ
He blinked sleep out of his eyes.
â God â
God?
â Zak!
He sat up straight and slapped at the light switch, turning on the lamp, a scream tucked right behind his lips, eager to explode forth.
His name. It had said his name .
And for the first time, the voice was familiar. Not merely as the voice of his guardian angel. Heâd always known and trusted the voice. And now he knew why.
âthe secrecyâ
âTommy?â he asked the empty room. And a chill raced up his spine before evaporating at the base of his skull.
Tommy . Tommy, his imaginary friend. Tommy, who had gone away around the same time Moiraâs family moved to Brooklyn from Dublin. Zak hadâif he was being honestâpretty much forgotten about his invisible buddy until this very moment, this moment of late-night/early-morning darkness and solitude. Being alone was nothing new to Zak. He hated it, hated the isolation and the sense that the world could have vanished outside his door and he wouldnât know. Maybe it came from being an only child.
But there was a special kind of aloneness that only filled the wee hours