The Last Martin (15 page)

I’m up all night, trying to Google my way out of this curse. I’m stuck. I’ll need help. Poole’s help. Julia’s help. Anybody’s help.

Morning finds me flat on my back — a Martin-shaped floorboard. I toss a baseball up, palm it when it drops.

Up and down.

Up and down.

“Come out of your room, Martin. It’s time to get you some help.”

“Sorry, Mom. I’m kind of busy.”

Up and down.

Mom bursts in. She sees me and gasps. “Parasites. If you could see the millions of parasites that cover the floor —”

“Can you see them?” I ask.

Up and down.

She taps her toe and checks her watch. “I made you an early appointment with Dr. Stanker. You may continue your unsanitary activities after we return.”

“I don’t want to see him. I don’t need rest.” Up and down. “I want to go to school.”

“Not in your condition. Come.” She takes three steps down the stairs, turns and motions to me. “Come!”

I exhale long and slow. Up and dow — “Ouch!”

Maybe we can talk about the divot in my head.

I trudge to the car and throw my pack into the backseat.

Julia’s drawing. Forgot all about it!

I grab the sketchbook and set it on my lap. Better to examine it at the doctor’s office. If I ooh and aah now, it’ll just be more questions from Mom.

We arrive at Dr. Stanker’s office building. It’s bleak and drab. A lot like detention, without Julia.

“Now Martin, I know that you haven’t always felt … comfortable with me.” Mom pauses at the elevator and her gaze drops to the ground. “I suppose I can understand some of that.”

I blink. It’s the most human I’ve ever seen Mom. No Barn Owl in her. It’s almost a normal, nice thing she just said and I don’t know what to do with it, so I turn and stare at the up button.

“But I want you to feel free to open up during your session. Tell him anything.” She grabs my arm and I peek at her. “It’s just not normal for you to smile so much. We need to get that insidious urge under control.”

Mom’s back.

“Right,” I say. “I’ll open up for one hour.”

We hop on the elevator.

“Dr. Stanker is an old friend of your father’s. He specializes in death, death obsessions, death fixations, death fetishes …”

The door opens and I jump out, Mom spewing Death behind me.

“… death manifestations, death — “

I knock on the door to Stanker’s suite; Mom fires her hand into her pocket and squirts my knuckles with hand sanitizer. She’s like Jesse James.

I wipe gel off my fingers and the sketchbook. “I’m going to buy you a holster for Christmas. At least I would if I was around —”

“What’s that? What were you just going to say?”

The door swings open. “Welcome, Martin, no need to knock. There’s a waiting room inside.” The exceptionally cheery receptionist smiles at me. I smile back, turn, and smile at Mom.

She scowls and shakes her head. “This will take deep therapy. Mark my words.”

“Mahtin, Mahtin Boyle?”

“It’s Martin.”

“Yeah, yeah, Gavin’s boy. Come in.”

Dr. Stanker must be from New Yoke or New Joisey, and I can hardly understand him.

“Sit. Sit.” He points at a couch. It looks comfy, but it’s cold to my hands.

He takes a seat on another couch, grabs a manila folder, and squints.

“It says here, you plan on dyink soon.” He peeks at me. “Speak to me.”

I peek at the end table, reach for the thick book that rests there.

Death and You.

“Yep, I do. We’re down to under two months, and I, Martin Boyle, will be in the obituary page. Knowing Mom, I’ll be in color; you might want to keep an eye out.”

“Wonderful, wonderful.” He wrings his hands in delight. “And how do you plan on dyink?”

“You have some trouble with your g sounds.”

“Just answer the question.”

“I can’t.” I rub my head. “I don’t know how that part works. And I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about that. I mean, will I just fall asleep? Will my heart just run out of beats? Will I
mysteriously
fall down a hole or
happen
to get run over by a truck? Or let’s say I never leave my house. What if I sit in the hospital lobby holding Mom’s danger bell? What would happen then?” I lean forward. “Have you ever died before?”

“No, I don’t imagine I have.”

“See that’s just it. You’re clueless too, no offense.” I lie down. “If you knew anything about curses, now
that
would be helpful.”

“Coises? I’m from Boston, home of the Red Sox. And the boy asks if I know about coises.”

I leap to my feet and raise my hands to heaven. “I’m now thankful for this curse expert!”

I smile sheepishly and ease back down. My shrink sets down his pad and stares.

“Sorry,” I shrug. “I forgot to scream today. It’s a prayer.”

“This is a prayer? Do you think God is deaf?” He rubs his right ear and winces. “That was a thankfulness scream. Why are you thankful? You’ll be dead in eight weeks.”

Again, I rise and walk slowly around his office. “I don’t know. But seems like I really am, like it’s more than a bargain I made with Poole. I can’t stop thanking. For Poole and Julia and Dad and Lani and sometimes Mom and now for you, my curse guru.”

He frowns. “A boy who yells his prayers.”

“What I told you.” I catch his gaze. “I’m making up for lost time. I didn’t pray before. Now that’s interesting.” I scratch my head and restart my walk. “Why thank God now? I mean, I’m mad at him too. Can you be mad and thankful at the same time?”

He straightens his glasses. “Let’s get back to the death fetish —”

I pause. “No way. I’m doing deep therapy here. Can you be mad and thankful at the same time?”

“Yes. Now regarding death —”

“That settles it. I’m thankful and mad. It’s possible. There’s a nugget you can share with your other shrinkees.
Now, about the curse — “

I spend the rest of my time explaining my wretched condition. He doesn’t say or write a word. He sits and eats mints, little pastel pillow-shaped mints that grandmas have on coffee tables.

“If she delivers on time, I figure I have about two months.”

He taps his temple. “You don’t want to die, do you?”

“Of course not,” I say.

He rolls his eyes, stands, and throws my file in the garbage. “Why did your parents bring you here? You don’t need help with dyink, you need help with livink.”

I bite my lip. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Here’s what you do, kid.” Dr. Death thrusts his raised pointer in front of my nose. “First, accept it. So you’re coised. We all are; you should meet my in-laws. But with coises, you got to find out where they started.”

“Where they started.”

“Yeah, where they started. For me, I should have known when Irene’s mother first looked — find where this coise started and then undo it.”

“Undo it.”

“Sure, undo it. Unless it’s an in-law, then you just keep — yeah, undo it.”

I stroke my chin. “You can do that?”

“Sure, kid. Whatever. If I can live through Irene’s mother, you can live through anything.”

“I think this is a little more complicated than your mother-in-law.”

“You listen.” Dr. Stanker leans forward, toting some serious anger-management issues. “We’d been married one day, one day! We were on our honeymoon. Irene looked beautiful. And her mother …”

I glance down at the sketchbook. I flip to the seventh page and stare.

In the center of the new drawing, a baby, held by his father. Proud men in robes and men in armor encircle the pair, each one laying a hand on the tiny child. And in the back, drawn so gray and black he almost fades into the castle wall background, is a sinister face I know well from the other sketches. His hand grasps the baby’s toe.

“The Black Knight,” I whisper.

“… you can be certain,” Stanker continues. “It was a very black night …”

I squint hard. Beneath Julia’s scene, she had penciled a small caption.

The “Blessing” of the White Knight.

“… so I tell Irene, our marriage is one day old and your mother has already cursed it …”

I rub my fingers over the child.
That’s me. I’m the White Knight. A hero cursed from birth.

I jump up.

“But you said I can undo it!”

Dr. Death scratches his head. “Oh, your little coise situation. Yes. Find the start and undo it.”
Find the beginning. Find the Black Knight.
I grab the sketchbook and squeeze it to my chest. “Julia, you’re a genius.”

I shake the doctor’s hand, hard. “You don’t know how much you helped me.”

“Glad to be of assistance. When you feel like dyink, then you come back and we’ll talk.”

I throw open the door into the waiting room, a smile so wide I feel it on my face.

“Oh, doctor!” Mom stands up. “What have you done?”

“Hi, Mom! Get me to school! I have a lot of work to do. It’s time to start Operation Save Martin.”

“Martin.” Mom’s fingers whiten on the steering wheel. “Are you listening to me? What did the doctor say to you?”

“Hang on.”

He’s talking to the old guy, blah, blah, okay.

“But how can I defeat an unknown enemy? This knight in black? Where does he come from? How does he draw his strength?”

The old man gestured to the single chair in the center of the hut. “Sit. I will tell you a story. I have not always lived a hermit’s life. Years ago, I lived at court in the employ of King Gav the Brave.”

“My father!”

“I was one of his most trusted advisors, but I was not alone. Another had the king’s other ear. Our counsels were never in harmony, and over the years, your father learned to heed my wisdom and the kingdom prospered.

“Still, the Dark Counselor remained. As the king had no heir, the counselor’s desire was for the throne. He was waiting for an opportune time to take your father’s life.”

“He would kill the king?”

The old man eased down onto the floor. “He would do much more. When the news came that Queen Ele was expecting a child, the Dark Counselor’s fury knew no bounds. Now there would be an heir. The kingdom would be out of reach for another generation.”

The old man bowed his head. “I cannot tell you how close he came to destroying the queen and the child. Their protection consumed my every thought.”

“I owe you a debt I cannot repay.”

“Perhaps, but I did not foresee the depth of the counselor’s treachery, the pain of which you now endure.”

“What? Speak.”

He inhaled deeply. “A child was born, a boy, handsome and perfect. But sadly, the child was stillborn. No breath of life filled his lungs.”

“But, I have no dead brother.”

“Quiet, sir. Your father ran the child into the court, lifted the boy to heaven, and prayed. Every court official and advisor gathered around the baby to lay hands on his tiny frame. Every advisor.”

“Including the Dark Counselor?”

“I did not see him, cloaked as he was. We prayed a blessing on the child and the kingdom. And the baby coughed. The baby came to life. But the Dark Counselor had not joined in our blessing. Instead, he placed a curse.”

A tingle ran down the White Knight’s back. “But I was that child. King Gav, that’s my father … Pray tell, where did the Dark Counselor lay hold of me?”

The old man reached over and removed the knight’s boot. He touched his foul toe. “Here.” The man smiled. “He thought that you would quickly die. You did not.”

The White Knight shuddered. “Who is this man? What is his name?”

“Get out of the car, Martin. I’m late to the library. You’ll have to go to school today.”

I blink and wipe sweat from my forehead. “Yeah. We’re at school? Okay.”

Find the beginning. Find the Black Knight.

I
CHECK IN AT THE OFFICE, LEAN OVER THE COUNTER and hand Ms. Corbitt a note.

“I saw a shrink. The man’s brilliant. If you ever need advice, I’ll set you up.”

Ms. Corbitt glares. “I don’t need a shrink, Martin.”

“Never can be too sure. What’s your first name?”

She yanks off her glasses and glares. “None of your business.”

I lower my voice. “Two questions. Were you named after a relative? And is that relative dead?”