Alistair Grim's Odd Aquaticum by Greg Funaro Page B

not it had been glowing, well that was just silly, now, wasn’t it?
    “Never mind,” said the professor, blinking. “Just a trick of the light, I suppose.”
    “Yes, never mind,” Father muttered, eyeing the stone suspiciously; then he turned back to Bricklewick and, with a smile, said, “Well, Oscar, what do you say? Are we a team again or not?”
    Bricklewick took a deep breath and adjusted his spectacles. “Very well, then. Give me an hour or two to prepare and gather my things.”
    “Splendid!” Father exclaimed, and he looked at his watch. “We’ll rendezvous near the old Mill Pond at noon. Come along then, Grubb.”
    Father and I took our leave and began our journey back through the town. There were so many questions I wanted to ask him, but I was so bewildered by what I’d just learned—the least of which being our quest for Excalibur—that I couldn’t speak. Indeed, the surprise of the love triangle between my mother and father and Oscar Bricklewick weighed much more heavily on my mind—so much so that I found myself siding with the professor. Had Father really gone behind his best mate’s back and stolen his girl?
    I must have been wearing my thoughts on my face, for out of the blue Father said, “I should think you’d be more interested in our quest for Excalibur than my rivalry with Oscar Bricklewick.” I stared down uncomfortably at my shoes. “Just remember, son, there are three sides to every story: yours, the other bloke’s, and the truth. Unfortunately, the latter is not always crystal clear.”
    “If you say so, sir.”
    “Oscar Bricklewick was once my apprentice, you see. I was young, barely a competent sorcerer myself, when I took him under my wing here at Cambridge. A bit of a weed Oscar was back then, and perhaps it was out of arrogance that I made it my mission to change him. And I did, for that matter. Stiffened the space between his shoulder blades, built up his confidence and all that.
    “At any rate, we met Elizabeth O’Grady in the fall of our final year—at a reception honoring her father, who was a professor here before he died. We both fell head over heels, of course, but when Oscar revealed his feelings to me, I suppressed my own so that he should carry the day. They courted for nearly a year before…well, before your mother confessed that it was I she loved all along.”
    “Poor Oscar,” I said quietly.
    “Your mother didn’t think so. She felt as if she’d been under some sort of love spell—her words, not mine—and would never have allowed things to go so far had she not been blinded so. Naturally, we both suspected the spell had come from Oscar. However, afterward I learned that the O’Gradys themselves came from a long line of sorcerers, and I began to wonder if the spell hadn’t come from one of Elizabeth’s relatives. Anyhow, that’s the nub of it. And once I learned of your mother’s love for me, I was helpless to resist my own heart. For as you know, love is the most powerful Odditoria of them all.”
    I nodded, but my mind was racing. All this talk of sorcery surrounding the O’Gradys had got me thinking again about what I’d overheard in the engine room the night before. Did Father know that the Cleona was once betrothed too? And should I tell him that Dalach had accused him of bewitching her into joining him at the Odditorium?
    If I do, I thought, Cleona might get into trouble. After all, she shouldn’t have been down in the engine room talking to the Gallownog in the first place.
    “And speaking of Odditoria,” Father said, stopping me in the street, “let’s have another look at that warding stone.”
    He lifted the necklace off my neck and rolled the amulet between his fingers. “Nothing glowing as far as I can tell,” he said as he inspected it. “Nevertheless, best get this back into the demon catcher where it belongs.”
    Father made to stow the necklace in his pocket when, unexpectedly, it slipped from his fingers and tumbled