The Rune of Zachary Zimbalist — Pamela Keyes

At the age of five, Zachary Zimbalist meets a Mexican ghost named Maria who tells him that the nicho - a small alcove in the wall of his Tucson living room - is a doorway to another dimension. But by the time he's twelve years old, Zachary has forgotten about Maria. He's lonely and bored, and the only friend he has is his cat, Eddy Aby. In an impulsive attempt to keep a local gang from beating him up, Zachary agrees to get a tattoo and unwittingly becomes marked with the Rune of the Scatterers. The Scatterers are malicious souls who love to change history and create chaos in their wake. They've decided Zachary and his powers belong to them.

Maria reappears in the nick of time to whisk him off to the timeless land of Connedim - the Connecting Dimension between past, present, and future. In Connedim, Zachary finds out Eddy Aby is really an Egyptian Pharaoh and the founder of the Interhistorical Alliance. Helped by his ghostly mentor Maria, Zachary becomes an apprentice in the Alliance, defending history from the Scatterers through his powers of parlance. Between mastering his parlance and dodging the Scatterers, Zachary finally learns why he alone is marked with the Scatterers' Rune. For only Zachary has the power to save the history of the Alliance itself!