The first glimpse I get of my newest foster brother is from the other side of a newly broken window. I’m just lying on my bed, minding my own business, when the window in my closet cracks with a loud, crashing sound. I jump out of my skin and pause in my riveting game of Count the Ceiling Cracks, peeking cautiously into the closet first, then walking inside with more honest confusion than any real decision to do so. The window on the opposite wall is fractured, glass still holding within the frame, but cracked six ways to Sunday. It’s almost weird, the way that there’s no center point where something might have hit it.

I glance down, to the backyard, and see a kid with a wild tangle of light brown hair and an expression on his face better suited to a criminal caught in the act and currently running for his life than a smallish twelve year old. Prancing around him in an orbit of adoration is Pops, barking and popping up and down like his namesake.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I realize the kid is Theo, the latest in a string of foster siblings, but nearer to the forefront is the fact that he just broke my window.

I immediately dart out of my room for the first time in hours, since Maggie first brought me up. I don’t see her on my dash through the living room to the backyard door, so I figure she might be in the kitchen, preparing dinner or something. Getting her attention is the last thing I want right now though. If she sees the window, her first though is probably going to be that I did it! It’s just how it is when you’re the new kid in the house. But maybe if I can run some interference with the true guilty party, I can get away clean.

“Hey!” I yell at Theo, who is now trying fixedly to pretend like nothing happened, poking in the dirt with a stick like a little cave-goblin. Pops barks even more wildly, if that’s possible, at my arrival. “What was that? My window looks two seconds away from collapsing into a poor man’s shaved ice!”

Theo nods absently in agreement. “I wouldn’t suggest eating it. Not good for you.”

I stare for a moment, then sputter, “That’s not the point! If your mom sees it she’s gonna freak. I’d rather not be kicked out on my first day, thank you.”

“Don’t worry, she’s used to broken windows,” Theo explains, like that makes any sense at all. “You can tell her if you want. She’ll probably just make me weed the garden or something.” Pops starts gnawing at Theo’s poking stick; Theo throws it across the yard for him to chase.

“What kind of mom is used to broken windows?” I ask down at Theo, who starts pulling at grass now that he’s down a stick. I glance around quickly. “How did you do that anyway?”

Theo pulls up some wildflowers and starts weaving them into a circle. “Do what?”

I gesture up wildly and exasperatedly to my thoroughly smashed up window. “How did you break my window? A baseball? A rock? Did you lose it on the roof, ‘cause if you did, you deserve it.”

Theo looks up at me all confused, like I’m making no sense at all. “I wouldn’t throw anything at you,” he says dejectedly, and suddenly I feel like the worst person in the world, even though I know I’m perfectly justified in my righteous anger. “Things just get out of control sometimes. Like a firework, you know?” He makes a silly exploding sound, complete with hand gestures.

I let the silence sizzle for a second. “That answered absolutely none of my questions.”

Theo shrugs. Pops runs back, gone to retrieve the stick for a lot longer than I would think a throw by a twelve year old would require. I take the stick this time and throw it, and Pops darts off again. Theo suddenly stands, popping up so quickly his crazy mane of hair bounces, and holds out a hand.

“I’m Theo by the way, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he greets like he’s trying to sound all adult-like, even though it sounds pretty much ridiculous coming from the mouth of a twelve year old who’s been talking with me for about ten minutes already.

I feel compelled, for some reason, to take his hand and answer, “Mark. You too.”

It’s more than I got to with other kids at my past couple homes. I usually don’t even bother remembering their names. Speaking with Theo is something like being bowled over by a freight train, or swept up in a hurricane.

It isn’t until I make it back upstairs that I realize I never really got an answer for how Theo managed to break my window.

The next morning has me bored out of my skull after Maggie announces over breakfast that she has to actually go to work today, because it’s Monday and not all of us get summer vacation and both of you be good. I don’t know where she got the idea that we could be trusted alone all day in the house, but she’s out the door by 8, which means that it’s just me and the mystery kid.

Theo is immediately out of the back door with Pops in tow, and before I can get left behind with the burning responsibility of being the oldest and a dead leaf drifting from the crack in the open door, I quickly follow. Even though Maggie didn’t explicitly ask that I look after Theo, I figure it’s pretty much a given. “Look, don’t go too far, okay?” I tell him with as much gravity as I can muster with Pops trying to lick my face off. “I want to be able to see you from the house.”

Theo nods dutifully, but then he lights up with a grin like he just realized something. “Hey!”

I wait a second and then, when no answer is forthcoming, give in and ask, “What?”

“You should come with us! We’re going to the creek today, and we need ourselves a navigator. Do you consider yourself someone who can read the wind to tell us where we are, or are you more of a stars sort of guy, ‘cause the second one’s sorta a deal breaker.” Theo points to the clearly star-less sky, given that it is 8:30 in the morning.

I want to say no, I really do. Getting attached is a no-go for a kid in my situation. But the thought of going back inside and continuing my game of Count the Ceiling Cracks feels like actual, physical torture, so I find myself saying, “Sure,” before I even have all that much time to consider.

Theo cheers and does a brief, mutually-enthusiastic dance with Pops, before grandly telling me to, “Lead the way, sir navigator.”

I do so, mostly to avoid Pops’ increasingly high jump-assaults on my person. I ask absently as I push away a low-hanging tree branch, “What are you going to be then?”

“I’ll be the Mage, of course, to fight off the bad guys with magic,” Theo answers, like it’s obvious. “And Pops is the muscle.” Pops barks.

I can’t help smiling a little bit.

I look around for a minute as Theo chatters on behind me, either to me or Pops I find it hard to tell. It’s hard not to see the similarities-- the way the wind rustles through the full green leaves, the speckled sunlight filtering down from above. I grasp at my pendant unconsciously; the corners of it digging into my palm helps ground me. Not enough, though. Never enough.

I stumble backwards, and I recognize the familiar feeling of the world closing in around me. I have to get out of here. I turn to Theo, who takes one look at my expression and falls silent, and even though I feel terrible for doing it, I stutter to him, “Never mind, I’ll be-- back at the house,” running off before he has a chance to respond.

The running doesn’t help my ragged breathing, which feels like it’s filtering through one of those coffee stirring straws that don’t really deserve to be straws. The world feels kind of uncertain around me, and the sound in my ears is like a vacuum tunnel. I can barely make it back to my room before I’m slouching against the door and sobbing my heart out in that way that I can’t seem to outgrow, clutching my mom’s pendant in my hand.

I was so dumb to think I was finally ready.

An indiscernible amount of time later, reality starts flickering back into place around me, mostly because of the insistant knocking coming from behind my back-- the other side of the door. I clear my throat and rub at my eyes, which have long gone dry, and turn the knob to find who else but Theo standing on the other side, hands behind his back and as solemn as I’ve ever seen him.

He looks up at me and asks, “Are you okay?”

I gaze back down at him, and I don’t really know how to answer. It’s pretty obvious, after all.

Theo’s eyes flicker away. “Right. I, uh, brought you something.”

He holds out a hand, and in the center of his palm is a little swatch of what looks like wood, about the size of a matchbox. It’s dark colored and perfectly square, with a detailed design of a willow tree in the middle. My eyes widen, and I reach out to take it, but hesitate at the last second. “Where did you get this?”

Theo gives a strange sort of smile, like he knows something I don’t. “I made it for you. It’s to help you when you get scared.”

I give him a weak glare, even though my heart’s not really into it. “I don’t get scared,” I say, even as I reverently lift the charm from his hand. It definitely doesn’t look like something a twelve year old could hand carve during the span of a single morning, but looking at Theo’s face and still shaky in the aftermath of my panic attack, I just wordlessly thread the pendent through my chain, watching as it knocks against my mother’s with a dull clack.

Theo grins, and I find myself once again unable to resist smiling back. “As long as you have that on, you don’t have to be afraid of anything.”

I snort. “Anything, huh? That’s a relief, because I was just about to go get us some lunch, and the stove is pretty much my greatest fear.”

“Really?” Theo says incredulously.

I glance out the hallway window as I pass on the way to the kitchen, considering the swaying trees, and even as I feel my smile slip just a little, I say, “Really.”

It’s something of a relief when Theo has to stay inside for the next couple of days, as the weather decides to take a turn for the wet and rainy. It doesn’t mean he’s happy about it, sulking around wistfully by the window and sighing despairingly like a pint-sized martyr. We’re both going a bit stir crazy, but I didn’t expect it to explode in quite the way it did.

During one of Theo’s window-staring sessions, he suddenly gets up and asks me, “Can I go outside?”

I turn away from my book to look at him, unimpressed, then outside, where the rain is pouring down so hard I can barely see three feet outside. “I don’t think so. You’re gonna get sick.”

Theo pouts. “No, I won’t. I’ll bring a jacket. And rain boots. I’ll even put on a hat if it makes you feel better.”

I pretend to consider. “No.”

Theo slaps on a big smile and draws out a, “Please,” for so long I thought he would run out of air.

I sigh and reread the same line to see if it’ll stick this time. “No.”

“Come on, just for a little while?”

“No.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

I turn a page. “No.”

Theo makes a sound of unintelligible frustration, something like a pained scream, and all of a sudden a window shatters, the same window Theo had been staring out of for the better part of the afternoon. Pops’ head shoots up with the noise, her ears pointed directly up, clearly startled. My own eyes go wide, and I rush over to Theo to grab him away from the rain that’s now freely pouring in from outside.

Theo is very still and quiet during the fiasco that follows-- mainly me, trying to get a plastic tarp over the broken ruins of what used to be a perfectly functional living room window. Pops is mostly just happy with the novelty of water inside. Once the hole in the side of the house is patched up to the best of my abilities-- thank you, duct tape-- I collapse onto the floor next to him, and after a moment he murmurs, “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

I stare at him, and he looks so sad and downtrodden I sort of have to at least try to comfort him. I settle for awkwardly putting my arms around his shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. I was being a jerk anyway, I shouldn’t have been ignoring you like that.” Theo doesn’t say anything beyond looking like he’s about to cry, so I go on a bit desperately, “And, hey, freaky things happen during storms all the time! No need to be scared by the window breaking, your mom’ll get it fixed up.”

Theo looks up at me in disbelief, then with a quicksilver flit of something like relief before he’s sniffing and giving me a weak smile. “Yeah, sorry. It just scared me.” After a moment, he snorts. “I don’t think I want to go outside anymore, though.”

It’s not even that funny, but we both laugh kind of hysterically before subsiding.

There’s a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Then I say, softly like I’m revealing a secret, “That whole window-breaking thing was pretty freaky though.”

Theo goes still and quiet again. “Yeah. Freaky.”

“Catch me if you can!” Theo yells, diving out of the path of my tackle. “Or not!”

The rain has finally, finally, finally gone away, and I hope it never comes again another day. I don’t think my mind could take another day locked in the house with a hyperactive twelve year old and an equally hyperactive dog. The time for revenge, and rough-housing, has come though. The air is still heavy with the scent of moisture and the earth soft underfoot, but by all things good and holy, I will catch this little terror if it’s the last thing I do.

Theo moves in another dodge that I refuse to find impressive and darts away. Expecting that, I move in a side tackle and we both fall to the ground, Theo face down in the mud. He doesn’t seem even mildly perturbed, snorting with laughter and smashing a handful of mud into my hair.

“Really?” I say, shaking it out and proceeding to give Theo a mud shower, complete with a delighted Pops licking all over his face. Theo, wisely, declares defeat. “Okay, okay, stop it, I give!”

I snort and let him up, and he tries to get some of the dirt out of his hair with minimal success. I know that’s going to come back to bite me when Maggie gets home. Still worth it.

“Ahhhh,” Theo sighs blissfully, tilting his head up into the sun. “Sweet outside air how I’ve missed you.”

I’m tempted to push him back into the mud on principle, but lose my chance when Theo suddenly darts over to the edge of the forest. “I know what to do to mark this wonderful occasion! I’ll show you one of my favorite spots.”

Theo waits right there by the edge, not forcing or cajoling, just waiting for me to say yes or no. We both remember the first incident in the woods, and I don’t think either of us want a repeat performance. Still…

I grasp my two pendants, wood and metal beneath my fingers. “Lead the way, sir navigator.”

Theo beams like I just handed him a million dollars and walks off, leaving a trail of small, muddy footprints in his wake. “Come on, then, we don’t have all day!”

I take a deep breath, then follow, Pops at my heels. Theo is chattering, just like that first day, but unlike back then, this time I stay calm. I just try to focus on Pops’ damp fur when I pet his head and Theo somehow keeping a steady conversation with himself in front of me. The wood pendant is warm beneath my fingers.

“Here we are!” Theo announces grandly, gesturing to… a pile of rocks and a large, dead tree.

I blink once. Twice. “Theo, are those rocks?”

Theo beams. “Yep!”

I sigh. “Theo, why did you bring me to see a pile of rocks and a dead tree?”

Theo laughs, like what I said was funny somehow, and then just sits right down, the rocks in front of him, the tree at his back. “Watch.”

Theo grabs one of the medium sized rocks from the pile, and sets it down at the base of the tree. The rock starts vibrating in place, then tapping, then twirling like a top. Then it starts floating, still spinning, directly up into the air. My mouth is probably gaping open in complete shock because what? Then the rock is glowing, the gray surface chipping and peeling away to reveal a purple, shiny inside, like some sort of gemstone. There’s something like a monotone hum in the air, and I’m moving towards the hovering rock without the conscious thought to, drawn to it. The pendant Theo gave me lifts up to point straight at it.

Then suddenly the hum stops, and the gemstone drops into Theo’s hand, nothing but a dull rock once more. The necklace swings back down to tap against my chest.

“What,” I say blankly, “was that?”

Theo looks at me, then starts laughing hysterically, snorting out, “Your face! You look like you just saw something horrible.”

I finally turn back to him, asking, “Well, what did I actually see?”

Theo twirls his fingers with a mischievous smile. “Magic.”

The next day, I look up everything from ‘dead trees’ to ‘glowing rocks that look like they were spawned from the ether to end the world’. Unsurprisingly, there were no worthwhile results. And even though Theo did technically answer me when I asked him what I saw, I’m going to take anything a twelve year old terror said with a grain of salt.

It’s around this point that I am reminded with the suddenness of a rug being pulled out from under me that I am still just a foster kid, and this is just another temporary rest stop.

Mrs. Cowen comes back to check in on how things are going. This is usually a turning point-- either Maggie is going to say that she’s about done with me, or Maggie will take one for the team and I’ll get to stay another month.

Neither of these things happen.

Instead, Maggie tells Theo and me to go outside and play while she and Mrs. Cowen talk shop. This is pretty much the most terrifying moment of my life. Theo seems to sense that I’m in no mood to play, and just sits down next to me in the grass, fiddling with it in the same way he did on that first day, when I came to confront him about the broken window. It hurts about a million times more than I thought it would, the thought of leaving. The thought of not being able to wake up in my newly furnished room with Pops barking excitedly at my door. The thought of Maggie not being there to say good morning, and give me breakfast, and a goodbye hug on her way to work. The thought of Theo, back to playing outside all alone with only his dog for company.

My fingers find there way around Theo’s pendant, tracing the tree design. If I leave, I’ll never be able to get the answers about what happened in those woods, with the rocks and the tree, even the windows now that I think back on it.

Theo suddenly jolts me out of my thoughts with a nudge. “You okay?” he asks, verbatim from that afternoon when I had my heart all over my sleeve for him to see, after my panic attack in the woods.

This time, I answer, because Theo definitely deserves that much. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just gonna miss it here, you know? I actually kind of…”

I trail off, because it would be physically painful to push the rest of the words up past the knot in my throat.

Theo looks at me with wide eyes abruptly filled with understanding. “Oh. Oh! You mean you think--”

 “Boys!” Maggie calls from the porch, waving us over. My whole legs feel like lead, but with Theo’s help-- who suddenly looks nearly incandescent with glee, what the heck-- I manage to get to my feet. Maggie looks happy to get rid of me, smiling widely with a sheaf of papers in her hand.

“Sorry for the secrecy, Mark,” Maggie tells me. “But we wanted to make sure it would work out. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, just in case… well, just look.”

She hands me the papers, and I read the words over. Once. Twice. By the sixth time I have to stop because I can barely make out the words from behind a watery film of tears. I don’t give myself time to be embarrassed before I ask, “You want me? Really?”

Maggie has something complicated going on behind her eyes again, nothing like the fury from when she watched Mrs. Cowen drive away that first day, but something softer. More tender. “Of course I want you. Why else would I have made you my ward?” She ruffles my hair. “You’re kind, and patient, and I’ve never seen anybody keep up with Theo like you do. I think you’re a perfect addition to the family. You always were.”

Theo is suddenly hugging me, and Pops is laying down at my feet, and Maggie is watching over us all with that mother’s fondness. Just a few years ago, I stumbled blindly through the dark woods behind my house. I heard monsters around every corner, each cricket song like a ringing gunshot and the wind like a muted scream. With crimson blood congealing in my hair and my mother’s silver pendant hanging from numb fingers, my peace was suddenly and decisively torn away.

But with this forest out back filled with mysteries and magic, with Theo at my side, and with a real home waiting for me just a few feet down the path, my heart settles into something that feels like peace.