Free The Warlock's Curse by M.K. Hobson

when he’d gone away to school three years ago. There were still dozens of dogeared dime novels (now thick with dust) shelved on a pair of milk crates stacked atop each other. There were a lot of Vanguard Girl adventures. Also the Rover Boys , Pluck & Luck , Diamond Dick , several numbers of the Tip Top Weekly , a few Brushfork Banditos —and dozens of editions of the most popular of the pulp series, the True Life Tales of Dreadnought Stanton .
    Oddly enough, of all the books on the shelves, only one was actually his. The Adventures of Pinocchio , the gift Uncle Royce had given him on his eighth birthday. He’d hated it from the minute the woodcarver Master Cherry hit the wood with the axe and the wood shrieked in pain. But apparently Father had thought there was something important in Uncle Royce’s gift; enough that he felt compelled to read it to Will. It was a trial for them both, and perhaps one of the only things they’d ever agreed on—they both hated that book as much as Uncle Royce seemed to find it admirable and instructive.
    All the other books were Jenny’s, brought out to the farm with her during the summers she’d come to stay. Like every other American kid below the age of dull maturity, she had adored dime novels, detective magazines, adventure serials ... anything with a generous helping of adventure and danger. She had been particularly partial to the Dreadnought Stantons, and there were at least four or five new ones of those every year, each more lurid and hair-raising than the last. Jenny found them especially interesting because they were about a real-life person—the warlock Sophos of the Stanton Institute in New York City.
    When he and Jenny were kids, the first thing she always did when she came to visit was show him the new books she’d brought. She’d always hoped Will would share her excitement over them.
    But Will never could. Reading had always been difficult for him—so difficult that a specialist doctor in Sacramento had been consulted. The doctor had said that Will suffered from a condition called “word blindness.” Will had (and still did) thought the diagnosis silly, for he could see the words just fine. It was just that they tended to slip and slide around, as if he were trying to pick a ball bearing out of a bowl of peeled grapes.
    As he’d grown older, Will had learned how to muscle his way through a text—he could hardly have kept up with his classes at the Polytechnic otherwise. But even now, he found reading a tedious, headachy chore.
    Not wanting to forestall her own enjoyment, but still wanting to include Will in it, Jenny had come up with the idea of reading the books to him aloud. And this Will had enjoyed very much, because Jenny had a flair for the dramatic. In this way he and “Scuff” had passed many a fine hour.
    But he wasn’t a kid anymore, and there was really only one thing up here that now interested him. Reaching past the books, he felt around behind them for the half-empty bottle of rye whiskey he’d hidden up here long ago. Like everything else, it was covered in a layer of dust, but he ignored this as he pulled out the cork with his teeth. He took a pull, finding it no mellower than it had been when he was fifteen, but the harsh burn of the alcohol nicely reinforced his feeling of being unfairly treated and all-around hard used.
    “Did you even read the terms of the apprenticeship contract, Will?” he mimicked Father’s voice to himself. He took another swig. “Bastard!”
    He threw back a few more angry mouthfuls, but getting plowed was not really what he wanted to do. He suddenly remembered the letter in his pocket—a letter from Ben! He drew it out quickly. It was thin and light in his hand, but at least it was something. First, he examined the seal. Will wouldn’t put it past Uncle Royce to have read the letter before handing it over. But the seal seemed intact, and if it had been steamed the ink would have smudged.
    He tore it open