Sunshine and the Shadowmaster by Christine Rimmer

too?”
    â€œYeah. He’s had a computer ever since he was five. He likes to play games on it. And do his homework. And write letters, too.”
    Heather smiled. “Well. He comes by it honestly, doesn’t he?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWriting.”
    That seemed to please Lucas. He actually smiled. “I suppose you could say that.” He readjusted his glasses. “Listen to this. This is from last February, about a month after he stayed here.”
    Lucas began to read.
    â€œMarnie, do you know that all of the time that there is is happening all at the same time? I don’t really understand that, but I read it and it made sense to me just for a moment, while I was reading, you know? And that there are particles smaller than atoms called quarks.
    â€œI miss you. And Kenny. I never had a normal life, you know? I’m real rich, I guess, because my dad’s rich and he says that whatever he’s got is mine, too. But it doesn’t matter. That was the thing, about last Christmas. I felt like I was normal. Just another kid. What I did was I pretended in my mind that I lived with Aunt Heather, that I would never have to leave there. Because being in North Magdalene was like I always thought it could be. To have friends. And just to be one of the kids. To go home at night and have Aunt Heather make me eat my squash.
    â€œI’ll be back in the summer. No matter what. One for all and all for one. Signed in blood. Your friend, Mark” The paper crackled a little as Lucas set it on the table. He took off his glasses and set them on the letter, then rubbed his eyes.
    Heather volunteered softly, “He wrote something similar to me, about coming back in the summer.”
    Lucas sighed. “I told him we’d try to come here as soon as school got out, when I finished the book I was working on last spring and before I started my next book tour.”
    â€œBut that didn’t happen.”
    â€œNo.” He looked up at her. “The book I was working on took a little longer than I thought it would. And then my publicist came up with five extra cities for the tour and the ‘Today’ show, too. It seemed too great an opportunity to pass up.”
    â€œSo you canceled the trip here.”
    â€œRight. Mark was upset when I told him. He begged me to call you and arrange for him to come alone. But I...” Lucas looked away, took in a deep breath, then finished at last, “...just didn’t get around to it.”
    Lucas picked up his glasses again, turned them over in his hands. “I could say I had a million things to do, getting ready for the book tour, and that that’s the reason I couldn’t pick up the phone and ask you if Mark could come for a visit. But you wouldn’t buy a lame excuse like that, would you?”
    Heather, still standing at his side, said nothing. He was right. She wouldn’t buy it—even if it was the truth.
    Lucas stared at the glasses in his hands, but Heather knew he wasn’t really seeing them. He was seeing Mark, picturing him, as Heather kept doing, all alone out there somewhere in the dark.
    â€œHe’s always been such a good kid,” Lucas said. “No trouble. Ever. It’s been too easy to do just what your grandfather accused me of today.”
    â€œYou talked with my grandpa?”
    He nodded. “Jack let me sit in on the interviews with Oggie and Kenny and Marnie.”
    â€œAnd what did my grandpa...accuse you of?”
    â€œOf pushing Mark to the side of my life.” A low groan escaped Lucas. “Sweet God, let him be all right.” He threw the glasses to the tabletop with more force than was good for them.
    Heather stared down at the dark crown of Lucas’s head. The urge to offer comfort was strong.
    She thought to herself, If he was Jason Lee... and knew that if he were, she would wrap her arms around him, hold him close, soothe him with her cherishing touch and the