It won’t. That’s the answer. The Apothakery never felt the same after Momaw died, and it won’t if my mom is gone. But that doesn’t mean a place can’t still feel alive. It doesn’t mean the farmhouse can’t still feel like home. Finally, I understand why the Warlock wished to go back, to make a second chance worthwhile. He was looking for a home. The last one he really knew.
I kneel in front of Lazlo. “Remember what I told you.”
“Goldfish aren’t a food group.”
“And?”
“And I should make friends.”
“Good man. I’ll miss you.”
“You weren’t so bad.” His smile is going to be the thing that sends me to tears, I know it.
“I’ll see you soon, yeah? I’m your neighbor. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
“And happy birthday to you, too. Goodbye, Mr. Knight.”
The boy perks up, hearing his name. As if he only just remembered it belongs tohim.
My friends in the room make various noises of surprise as they begin to understand.
It was never a question of finding Lazlo’s cure.
It was a matter of finding his home.
Lazlo gives the Warlock one last hug and then approaches the waiting couple. The Warlock’s parents.Hisparents, too.
They open their arms, smiling. He takes his place between them, the shimmering outline of his form blending with theirs. No longer just Lazlo, but Mr. and Ms. Knight and their son.
Not ghosts or spirits. Memories.
Versions of themselves from when they lived at the Manor, years ago, thumbprints on the surface of time. More echoes or reflections than the true originals. But that doesn’t make them any less real. The Widow Witch helped me dust off these last heirlooms of truth.
Unsteady, the Warlock—myWarlock, with the gray temples—takes a cautious step toward the memories of his parents.
Margaret Cho Knight reaches for her son, her translucent hand palm up. But the hope on her face isn’t intangible. It’s as lucent as Lazlo is all the time. And that raw emotion makes me wonder—are there arguments my mom and I should have now, regrets we need to settle in the days she has left? How do we forgive someone who’s long gone before their mistakes are?
No. Going backward will only turn what time I do have left with her into a deep well of only potential memories, instead of livedones. What good is a second chance if we don’t learn anything from the first one?
The Warlock takes the tenuous hand of his mother’s memory.
She mouths something in a language I don’t catch. But I can guess.I’m sorry.
“I know. Thank you.” He says something else, in what might be Cantonese.
Ms. Knight whispers back to her son, glancing at me as she does. He nods, and an entire conversation happens between them in just a sentence or two. Then the Knights vanish in a gust of wind and glimmering, fractured light.
No one in the kitchen speaks. Beauregard doesn’t even bark.
The Warlock stands alone, but very muchhere.
His extremities slowly become visible again, and his body flushes with the normal color of his only mildly pale skin. I think I see his sun spots sprout back onto his flushed cheeks.
Just then, a frantic commotion from the front of the Manor echoes down the halls all the way to the kitchen, and the indistinct shouting we heard outside turns cacophonous. With the Manor void of the Warlock’s usual power, and with no wards, the house can’t keep the outside worldoutany longer. The front door must have finally given up.
The Warlock comes to the same conclusion. He takes off toward the noise, a renewed energy in his step. Furious energy. The rest of us follow, and we crowd into the foyer at the same time Oris Webb and his cavalcade of followers ooze through the front door.
