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“Zack doesn’t love us.” Logan says one day, without preamble.
Jamie looks over, his face a picture of shock. “What?! That’s stupid. You’re stupid, Logie.”
“No, think about it.” Logan sits up, his little face furrowed in a frown. “He never hugs us, does he? If we ask, he says no. And if we just hug him, he makes us stop.”
“Zack just doesn’t like hugs.” Jamie reminds him, with the air of a child who thinks that they are the most mature, despite being barely older than his little brother. “He doesn’t hug anyone. Not even mommy or daddy.”
“He avoids us. He barely talks to us.” Logan continues. “He won’t play with us.”
“Daddy says that he’s a grumpy teenager.” Jamie continues to defend his beloved big brother.
“He was like that even when we were really little. Do you ever remember Zack actually playing with you or hugging you? Holding your hand? Anything?”
“He walks us to school and he holds our hands then.” Jamie tries to sooth him. And of course Zack plays with them! Not often. And he has always been a bit distant. But he knows that Zack loves them.
“Yeah, with gloves on.” Logan frowns.
“Logie, you’re being silly.” Jamie scolds. “Zack’s just a bit different. He’s not-“
“He wouldn’t visit me in the hospital!” Logan suddenly yells. Jamie jumps. “When I broke my leg, he didn’t visit me once! Because he doesn’t love me!”
“Zack… Zack’s scared of hospitals. You know that.” Jamie shuffles closer.
“So are you. You starting crying when you saw that cast.” Logan remembers. “But you visited. Every day. Zack didn’t come once. If he loved me, he would’ve come.”
Tears are running down Logan’s face down. He picks up his tattered old bear and wipes his eyes with it. “You’re my favourite big brother. Not Zack. I hate Zack.”
“You don’t! You don’t hate Zack. He’s the best big brother in the world.” Jamie’s own voices rises with the upset.
“You’re the best big brother. He’s the worst.” Logan is full on sobbing now.
Suddenly, the door creaks open. And Zack is standing there, looking down in concern at his clearly upset brothers. “Lion? Are you-“
“Go away!” Logan throws his bear, as hard as possible. It hits the wall, but the feeling behind it is clear. “Get out! I don’t wanna see you!”
“Ok. Ok, I’m going.” Jamie can see the hurt in Zack’s eyes. “You want me to get dad?”
“I don’t want anything from you!” Logan roars, his young voice cracking with it. A tiny, hurt lion cub.
“Get dad.” Jamie says quickly. And Zack disappears like he was never there.
———
Jamie and Logan stand outside the door, listening intently. There are mage hunters at the door. And Zack isn’t home. And their parents sent them away, so obviously they are listening in.
But they can’t hear anything. Just low, concerned voices. “Do you think something happened to Zack?” Jamie whispers.
“I heard that there was a crime at the square today. Some mages tried to escape. Maybe one of them got him.” Logan whispers back.
“Got him? Do you think that they hurt him?” Jamie squeaks with fright. Everyone knows that mages are dangerous and scary. He doesn’t like the thought of them anywhere near his big brother.
“Probably. My friend Mary says that mages can suck all the air out of your lungs, or make you sick, or even force you to stab yourself.” Logan says. “And they’re all really evil so they do it for fun.”
“Stop!” Jamie claps his hands over his ears. “Why are you always so horrible?”
“Everyone says it.” Logan argues.
The door opens. The mage hunters leave. “What’s going on?” Jamie asks immediately.
Their parents look at each other. “Come sit down.”
So they do. And they look at their parents, and they wait patiently. For all of five seconds, until the waiting gets too much. “Where’s Zack?” Jamie presses.
Their parents sigh. And now Jamie notices that they both look even more stressed and sad than normal. “Zack is probably not going to come back.” Mom says.
“Why?” Logan pushes.
Another exchanged look. “You know about mages?”
“Yeah. Did they get Zack?” Logan asks. Jamie whimpers.
“Sort of.” Dad says. “Zack is… Zack is a mage. But he’s a good mage. He’s not like the mages you learn about, he’s good. But other people don’t know that. And he got involved in an accident with some bad mages at the square today, so he’s been arrested.”
Jamie just stares. “What?” That doesn’t make any sense. How can Zack be a mage? “He’s not a mage.”
“He is, sweetheart.” Mom strokes his hair. Brushes a stray curl off of his forehead. “But he’s not a bad mage. He was just… ill.”
The word settles in Jamie’s head. He spins it around a few times. Ill. That’s what Zack always said he was. And now Jamie knows the sickness. “I didn’t know that good mages exist.”
“The teachers helped him be good.” Dad explains.
Logan is very quiet, while Jamie just keeps bombarding his parents with questions. And then he speaks. “Oh, that makes sense.” He scratches his head, his childish logic connecting the dots the best way that he can. “He’s a mage. That’s why he doesn’t love us, mages aren’t capable of love. Its not our fault.”
The room goes very, very quiet.
“No. No, Logan, that’s not true.” Mom says. “Maybe other mages are like that, but Zack is absolutely capable of love. And he loved you two, so so much.”
“He didn’t. And now I know why.” Logan decides, his little brain set.
“Stop!” Jamie yells, a rare display of temper from the usually more placid brother. “Shut up, Logie! Zack does love us, he does!” His temper comes partly from his desire to protect his beloved brother. But it also comes from being a bit older. A little bit wiser. He knows what happens to mages who disappear. “You’re just stupid!”
“Boys! Boys, this is no time to fight.” Dad says.
“Logie’s being horrible! Make him shut up!” Jamie yells.
“Make Jamie shut up!”
“Boys!” Mom stands. Logan huffs and storms out, slamming the door behind him.
Jamie slumps back in his chair. “You’re gonna go get Zack back, right? They kill mages because mages are bad, and Zack’s good. So if you tell them that, they’ll let him go.” He says hopefully. “Can’t his teachers tell them?”
“We‘ll try everything that we can, Jamie.” Mom pulls him into a tight hug. She rubs his back soothingly. “I promise.”
———
Every night, Jamie asks the same question. “Is Zack coming back now?”
And every night, he gets the same answer. “Not yet, sweetheart.”
His parents are sad a lot. They cry, when they think that he can’t hear. He cries too. He sits in Zack’s room and he cries, hugging himself tightly. Big, bubbling, gulping sobs.
One day, his classmates approach him in the playground. “My mommy said that your big brother is a mage.”
“He’s a good mage.” Jamie defends. “And he’s coming home soon!”
He is taken by surprise when one of them shoves him. “There’s no such thing as a good mage!” He crashes onto the hard ground, yelping. “They’re all evil.”
“They hurt people.”
“They kill people!”
“They’re gross!”
Jamie scrunches up, confused by his classmates yelling. Sure, they get told all of this in school. But his parents have never been too strict about reminding him at home. And Zack is a good mage. “Shut up!” He yells, covering his ears.
“Are you a mage too?” Someone jeers. He thought that he was friends with that boy. He thought that he got on well with most of his classmates. “Anyone got something iron we can test him with?”
Someone throws something at him, something hard and metal. It hurts, but it doesn’t burn. That doesn’t stop his classmates teasing and jeering.
No one really sits with him at lunch anymore. No one plays with him. Not everyone is mean, but even the ones who aren’t mean avoid him. Avoid him like he has some mage disease that he could pass onto them.
The teachers don’t stop any of it.
And Zack still doesn’t come home.
“Mommy? Is Zack… is Zack dead?” He asks one night, eyes burning with tears. His arms are wrapped tightly around himself.
Mom sighs. She puts a hand on his head. “Zack ran away from the mage hunters, sweetie. Now they’re looking for him. So he’s alive, but he probably won’t be able to come home.”
On the one hand, Jamie is relieved. His brother is alive. And he might get to have cool adventures, like people in stories.
On the other hand, his brother is in danger. His brother might get hurt. And his brother isn’t going to come home. He just wants him back, and it’s not fair that he can’t come. Zack’s a good mage, he’s not evil or bad and he would never hurt anyone.