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Adam had been sure he knew what his father being angry sounded like. Now, he wasn’t so sure. All of his past outbursts seemed to pale in comparison to how incredibly, Earth-shakingly furious he sounded now.
It had all started with an email Mrs. Young had gotten two weeks ago. Like most of her friends, she had signed up for an ancestry website when genetics had suddenly become trendy and fashionable. She’d forced Mr. Young and Adam to spit into tiny plastic tubes, which neither had enjoyed very much, Mr. Young because it was undignified and Adam because spitting was less fun when you weren’t competing to see who could do it farthest. However, also like most of her friends, she’d completely lost interest when there were no immediate signs of secret royalty in anyone’s family tree, and she’d completely forgotten. Until, of course, the email came.
It was from someone named Warlock, which, at first, made both the Youngs consider dismissing it immediately as a joke, but something about the idiosyncrasy about someone named Warlock also having the surname Dowling made them take it seriously. And it was quite a serious letter: apparently, young Warlock’s mother had gotten into the genetics trend as well, as it was as hip in Washington, DC as it was in Tadfield. She hadn’t had the chance to lose interest, however, because the initial result had been devastating: her son wasn’t her biological child.
It hadn’t affected their relationship at all, Warlock explained, because they would always be his real parents, but he had started to wonder about who his biological family was, and why they had not raised him. Searching the ancestry website gave him their names: Arthur Young, Deirdre Young, and Adam Young.
One first-class plane ticket and a paid car later, and he was sitting in the Youngs’ living room with Adam, petting Dog and politely trying not to listen to the complete freak-out happening in the kitchen.
Mr. Young was as close to apoplectic as Adam had seen since the actual Apocalypse had nearly happened – “It was twins, I knew it, I said it out loud, she lied to me, since when do nuns lie?!” – and Mrs. Young was quite busy trying to physically hold him back from phoning every major newspaper and the Vatican itself with his intent to personally sue the Pope for this heinous crime against his family.
Eventually, Adam stood, Dog immediately leaping off of Warlock’s lap to stand at attention at his side. “I want to introduce you to my friends. You’ll like them… You brought your bike, yeah?” Warlock nodded, and he grinned. “Good. C’mon.”
They found the Them outside of the ice cream shop, finishing up their cones. “Guys, this is the mysterious secret brother I’ve been telling you about,” Adam said. “Mysterious secret brother, these are my friends: Pepper, Wensley, and Brian.”
“Oh, is he actually real?” Pepper looked Warlock up and down with a critical eye. “I though you were making up stories again, when you said his name was Warlock.”
“My name is Warlock,” said Warlock.
“There is absolutely no way your parents named you that.”
Warlock shrugged. “Yours named you after a spice,” he said.
“Actually,” Wensleydale said, “that’s just her nickname. Her mother actually named her—“ But, taking Pepper’s cone to the forehead stopped him short, and Warlock would never actually learn Pepper’s birth name, which she was completely fine with.
“Are you a warlock, then?” Brian asked, reasonably.
“No,” he said. “I’m not really into magic or anything. I think it’s boring.”
“Well, our best adult friend is a witch,” Pepper said. “So, you better not have any problems with witches.”
“Your bike is really cool,” Brian said.
Pepper paused, noticing the bike for the first time. It was a well-kept BMX bike that was more expensive than any car the Them would ever own.
“That is a very cool bike,” she said, somewhat begrudgingly, which was about as close to open acceptance as Warlock was ever going to get.
Adam kicked up his stand, Dog yipping excitedly at his feet. “C’mon, guys,” he said. “Warlock only has a week here before he heads back to America, and I want to make sure he gets to see all the really good stuff before that.”
They began to ride off – all except for Pepper, who didn’t move, and Adam, who had his sleeve tugged on by Pepper as he rode past her, making him stop short. “What’s wrong?”
“Adam…” Pepper paused, thinking about the best way to say what she felt she needed to say. “This Warlock. He’s really your brother, right?”
Adam nodded.
“But, wouldn’t that have to mean that he’s, uh.” She glanced, pointedly, at the ground. “You know.”
“It’s like I said back then, Pep,” he put his foot on the pedal, starting off after the others, “my dad’s back at my house. That’s what makes us brothers.”