Will Wilder #3

by Raymond Arroyo

  “The beat is probably throwing you off,” Cassian said, walking to a table near Lucille. She noticed that there was a collection of black onyx bull and ram figurines on the table. In the midst of them sat a weathered black-and-gold box. “The kids enjoy the beat. But it’s unimportant, really. Melody is the thing that touches us. Melody is timeless. Don’t you agree, Lucille?” He tilted his head and laid a hand on the large box. “Open it. Go on.” He was playful, tapping his fingers on the lid. “Are you afraid, Lucille?”

  She felt a chill. That’s exactly what Cosmo used to say: “Are you afraid, Lucille?” She studied his face. He even smiled like Cosmo. The way he tilted his head, the earnest, boyish pleading…

  “Well, ARE you afraid, Lucille?”

  She defiantly flipped open the box’s lid just to spite him. Soft, jangling music poured from the box, filling the room. It was Cosmo’s tune! The same tune he would whistle or hum when they were together. She wanted to cry—and laugh. How often he sang that song on one of their long drives and even the last time she saw him.

  “I knew if you gave the music a chance, you’d enjoy it.” Cassian smiled, bobbing his head in time with the gentle melody. “Music is powerful. It can take us wherever we want to go and bring us the things we most desire.”

  “Where did you get that tune? That song?” Lucille was stone serious, a tremor in her voice. “Are you Cosmo Doheney? Are you?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “Cosmo was a boy I was very close to. The night my mother and father died, he picked me up for dinner. We were eating and laughing…During dinner he hummed that song. He was always humming that song.”

  “So you like it? I can tell you do.” He laughed and spun around, almost dancing to the slow waltz.

  “Where did you get that music box?”

  “I don’t know any Cosmo…whoever he is.”

  “Oh yes you do.” She pursued him. “You move like him. You smile like him. And you are playing HIS song—selling it, recording it, spreading it. Either this is some grand trick or you are Cosmo Doheney.” She got in his face. “Why have you come back?”

  “Back? Easy, Lucille. Have a seat.”

  “I don’t want to sit.” She pushed her sleeves up her forearms.

  He began humming the song from the music box.

  “Please don’t do that,” Lucille said, shaking.

  “I can’t hum my own songs?” He gently opened his big hands. “Calm down. I’ve heard that song since I was a kid. The box has been in my family for generations.”

  “Take off your glasses. I want to see your eyes.”

  Cassian smirked. “All the girls want to see my eyes. A fellow has to retain a little mystery.”

  “You’re a man of mystery all right, Mr. Modo. Please do me the favor of removing your glasses. Then I’ll go,” Lucille said, staring holes into him.

  He slowly pulled the glasses down the bridge of his thin nose. “Are you satisfied now?” One steel-blue eye met her stare; the other, dull and hazel, drifted off to the left. “I told you I wasn’t your man.”

  He was right; his eyes were nothing like Cosmo’s. Maybe the song was a coincidence, but his fluid hand movements, his world-weary smirk, the way he tipped his head to the side were so like Cosmo. She could almost smell the musky fragrance of Cosmo’s aftershave. There was something sweet about Cassian. He had a kindness about him that she thought…

  In a sudden movement, Lucille slammed the music box shut to stop the music. She closed her eyes for a moment and whispered a few words of Latin to herself.

  “What are you saying, Lucille?” Cassian asked, getting close to her.

  “I’m very sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Modo.”

  “Well, you can’t go now.” Cassian laughed, pushing his sunglasses back into place. “Stay for a drink or maybe a round of poker?”

  “I have to be going.” Lucille stomped deliberately to the door.

  “Would you like a CD? Or an album?” He held up one of each.

  “No thank you, Mr. Modo. I’ve heard your tune before. I don’t like how it ends.”

  She ripped open one of the double doors and walked out into the hall.

  “La-dee-dah-dee-dee-dahhhh.” Cassian sang the haunting tune from the music box at the top of his voice.

  For a moment Lucille stopped walking. She turned back to see a parade of young women returning to the office, squeezing past a smiling Cassian. Once all the women were behind him, he clutched the knobs of the double doors and started to close them.

  Leaning his body into the hall, tilting his head, in a stage whisper, he asked, “What are you afraid of, Lucille?” Before she could answer, he slammed the door shut and continued to sing the muffled melody to the women within.

  While he changed, Will could hear Caleb and his pals talking about him on the other side of the lockers. Much of it was hard to make out. Caleb angrily vented to his teammates in a harsh whisper about that “little runt Will.” He called one of the boys “chicken” and then said something like “he might be able to take one of us down, but he can’t take us all down.” By the time Caleb mentioned “pounding him to teach him a lesson,” Will had heard enough.

  He wanted out of there as quickly as possible, so he ran out the side locker room exit without even telling Andrew goodbye. He could handle these guys individually on the field, but maybe Caleb had a point. Will wasn’t sure how he would hold up against a squad of these big guys. He definitely wasn’t looking for a fight. He just wanted to get home in one piece.

  It was getting dark and the cool fall breeze moved with him as he walked along Main Street. He made it as far as Perilous Falls Elementary when he heard the sound of running feet behind him. In the lamplight he saw Caleb, Harlan, Boyd, and Todd racing his way.

  He crossed Falls Road and ran into the shadowy cover of the Perilous Falls Elementary School playground. He had played there since he was a kid and knew it like his own backyard. Will ran up a slide and sheltered inside a playhouse at the top. He crouched there, quietly watching the guys on the street through a rounded opening.

  Caleb motioned to the boys at his side, pointing toward the playground. They checked around the school building, among the stacked planks near a half-constructed fence, and then they surveyed the yard before moving near the play set.

  “Where did he go?” Caleb asked his posse.

  “Dunno,” Harlan said, looking back at the street.

  “Will! You here, Will?” Caleb shouted. “You scared now? We just want to talk, big man. Just want to get to know our new teammate a little better.”

  Two of the boys sniggered at that.

  Will didn’t move a muscle.

  “Fan out, guys,” Caleb whispered, huddling with his crew. “You go there. You check along the fence. I’ll look over here. First one who sees him, holler. Then we pound him.” The three boys nodded and spread out. Caleb walked around the play set, thinking Will might be hiding in the rear.

  Will’s nose started to itch. He snatched a look out of the plastic portal on the playhouse. Caleb stood nearby. The other three boys were out in the yard. Waiting was not an option. Better to face them one at a time than as a pack. Will jumped down from the play set right behind Caleb.

  “You plan on doing to me what you did to Renny Bertolf?” Will asked, assuming a fighting posture.

  “I never touched that kid. Hey, guys, he’s over here,” Caleb yelled. Without waiting for his friends, Caleb lunged at Will with everything he had. Despite the incredible force coming at him, the smaller boy didn’t move an inch. It was as if Caleb had tried to push a house down.

  Stunned, Caleb backed up and stared at Will, his mouth agape. Before he could formulate a sentence, Will grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him up the slide, cramming him into the playhouse.

  By th
e time Will had finished, Harlan and Boyd were almost on top of him. He jumped down and planted his feet at the bottom of the slide. His attackers rushed him simultaneously. Using their shoulders to propel himself upward, Will leapfrogged over the players. They smashed, headfirst, into the slide and into each other. Will pushed the two disoriented boys up the slide as well, throwing them against Caleb in the playhouse.

  Only Todd Ferguson remained in the yard. He was so big, it took him a few extra minutes to reach Will. But once he heard the other boys groaning inside the play set, he stopped short. “No hard feelings, Will,” Todd said, backing away. “I always liked you. Caleb wanted to do this, not me. I can go now, okay?”

  Will took two steps in Todd’s direction and the hefty boy hightailed it all the way to the street. Caleb stuck his head from the opening at the top of the slide.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Will crowed, running up the slide and pushing Caleb back into his two friends.

  Thinking fast, he jumped off the slide and unlatched a couple of swings from the other end of the play set. He then collected a few fence planks. Jamming the planks over the two openings in the playhouse, he trapped the boys inside the plastic cubicle. To make sure they weren’t going anywhere soon, he circled the entire structure with the swing chains, moving like a dervish. Knotting the chains, he yanked at them until the links began to fuse to one another. The boys beat on the planks, trying to get out of the improvised prison.

  “Be quiet. Don’t test me, guys,” Will said, smacking the edge of the playhouse. He straightened his pith helmet and headed toward the street, fist punching the air cockily.

  Behind a tree on Falls Road, Cami and Simon couldn’t believe what they had witnessed. “We’ve got to ask him what’s going on. This is ridiculous,” Simon hissed. “He rounded those guys up like a bounty hunter. I’m going to—”

  But as Simon went to leave their hiding spot, Cami yanked him back, pulling him to the ground. “Not yet,” she said. “I want to see this. Black-haired cheerleader at nine o’clock.” Sure enough, Lilith Lorcan walked into the schoolyard in her red-and-black cheer uniform. She too had been watching Will’s amazing display from afar.

  “Impressive,” she said. “I watched the whole thing from over there by the school entrance.”

  “You did?” Will swallowed.

  “I sure did.” She batted her long lashes and squeezed his arm. “You’re really strong.”

  Will could say nothing.

  “Can I ask you a favor?” She parted her long hair so he could see her green eyes. “Promise you’ll tell me the truth?”

  Will nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “How did you get so strong?” She looked from side to side. “You can tell me. Whisper it if you want.” She moved her ear inches from his mouth.

  Will laid his hand over the amulet beneath his shirt. “Just a lot of working out, I guess,” he said, louder than expected.

  “It’s gotta be something more than that. Every guy on that field—and those guys in the playhouse—works out. You’re stronger than all of them. What is it? Can’t you tell me?”

  Will shrugged. “Focus. Mental focus, I guess.”

  “Let me ask you another way: Can anything stop you?”

  Will began to giggle. “Well, I mean—if somebody threw chains on me, that would probably stop me, but I don’t know….”

  Lilith turned to check on her three friends standing at the bus stop up the street. “I’d better go join my girlfriends. Bus’ll be here any minute.”

  “Sure. Yeah. I have to get home too.” Will pointed lamely behind him with his thumbs.

  Lilith gently pulled at one of the curls poking from beneath his pith helmet. “You’re full of surprises, Will Wilder. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Not that I can…I don’t…no.”

  From behind the tree across the street, Simon held Cami by the arm to keep her from running out. He placed a straight finger over his mouth to encourage her to keep quiet.

  Just then a bus rumbled up Main Street. “Will I see you after the game on Friday? We’re playing you all and, um, maybe we can get a milkshake or something afterward? At Bub’s?”

  “Sure thing,” Will said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  Lilith sashayed away slowly and without turning back said, “Maybe you’ll be ready to share your secret then.” When she reached the bus, she spun around and shot Will a smile that made his knees buckle. He waved at her like a little kid, savoring every glimpse of her through the bus window until it pulled away. Once it was gone, he practically skipped home, punching at the air as if he had just won the Super Bowl.

  Cami and Simon remained in hiding, even as Will passed just a few feet from them. “I don’t like that girl,” Cami said once Will was out of earshot.

  “She seems to like Will,” Simon said. “She’s appealing. Kind of old, but appealing.”

  Cami swatted him on the shoulder. “You’re no help at all. Something about her I don’t like. She’s sneaky. Let’s go to my house. I’ll have my father drive you home.” Cami lived across the street from Perilous Falls Elementary. But with her various complaints about “that girl from Sorec,” even the short walk was not a happy one for Simon.

  * * *

  The Wilder home was usually alive at dinnertime with the sounds of Will’s brother and sister bickering, his mom trying to restore order, and his dad reading out news from his cell phone. But when Will walked in the house this night, there was only music playing. He ventured into the kitchen to find his mother listlessly putting food away. “Oh, hi, Will,” she said with no enthusiasm. “Your food’s there.” She pointed to the tin-foil-wrapped plate. “We already ate.”

  Cassian’s music filled the kitchen.

  “Where is everybody?” Will asked, surprised by the empty room.

  “I don’t know, Will. I don’t know where everyone is. I just cooked a meal, edited three pieces today, helped two children with their homework, and am now cleaning up dinner. Forgive me if I don’t know the whereabouts of every member of the family,” Deborah fumed.

  “It’s okay. I was just wondering.”

  “Wonder somewhere else. I need a moment of quiet here. Okay?” She turned up the Cassian melody. His ears actually hurt from the loud drumbeat.

  Will threw his bag in the foyer and went upstairs. His brother Leo’s head appeared in the narrow opening of his bedroom door. “Come in here,” he said.

  When Will entered the room, he found Marin doing cartwheels near the window. Leo closed the door and flopped onto his bed. “I have a question: What is up with Mom? She’s been biting our heads off all afternoon.”

  “She made me do all my homework for tonight—and tomorrow,” Marin groused, waving her small hands in the air. “She didn’t even give me a snack when I got home.”

  “Okay, Marin. Go back to flipping,” Leo said, looking over the lenses of his wire-frame glasses. “Seriously, what happened to our mom? And how do we get her back?”

  “I think it has something to do with that music she’s playing.” Will took off his pith helmet and sat on the bed. “The whole town is acting crazy. That guy Cassian’s music is weird. And there are imps, little black devils, running all over Perilous Falls. I saw them.”

  “So what should we do?” Marin lisped.

  “I’m going to call Aunt Lucille.” Will got up to leave. “Where’s Dad?”

  “He was in the kitchen with Mom, but after she screamed at him for the twelve-thousandth time, he got real quiet and went into the garage.”

  “You better go check on him,” said Marin.

  Will took up his pith helmet. “Do you guys want to come?”

  “Nope-see,” Marin said, her eyes wide with mock fear.

  “Why do you think we’re up here? Mom’ll scream at us if we go downstairs. She’s very grumpy.�
� Leo pushed Will into the hall. “You’re on your own,” Leo said before swiftly shutting the door.

  Will pulled out his cell phone and called Aunt Lucille. “Do you have a minute?” he asked her. “A lady came up to me today. It was very strange.” He described what she looked like and told Aunt Lucille about the dog. “She said that Baldwin might harm me and that he was under the control of some witch….Yeah, a witch, from across the river in Wormwood…No, I’ve never seen her before….She was real insistent that I tell my family, so you all could ‘be on guard.’ ”

  “Whoever she is, the advice sounds wise, dear. When you come on Thursday, go to your training per usual. We’ll be watching to make sure Baldwin is on his best behavior.” Aunt Lucille alluded to her “odd encounter” that day with Cassian and promised to share more when they saw each other on Thursday. He agreed to see her then, quickly informed her of his mother’s continuing behavior, hung up, and headed to the garage.

  The repetitive melody was still playing in the kitchen.

  Cracking open the garage door, Will could hardly believe what he walked in on. His father somersaulted forward across the length of the pristine garage. When he landed on two feet, Dan pushed his two hands together, extending his palms forward. He stopped just inches from Will’s face.

  “Son!” Dan Wilder assumed his normal ram-rod posture and brushed his hands on his thighs, as if he’d been caught dancing an illegal ballet.

  “What are you doing?” Will asked.

  “I…was…uh…working out. Some calisthenics. You know.”

  “Looks very familiar,” Will said. “I mean the flips and all. Aunt Lucille showed me some moves like that….”

  Dan wiped the sweat from his brow and ignored the observation. “You need a haircut, Will. Have you seen your mother?”

  “I saw her.”

  “She’s in some kind of…phase. I hope she’s okay.”

  “Dad, it’s not a phase. Look around. The whole town is freaking out. Have you seen the people downtown?”