by Chase Connor
I waited for the space of several breaths until a shiver danced along the back of my neck, and I couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“You feel like what?”
“Like something is draining all of the magic from Point Worth.” He swallowed hard.
The words felt like a knife in my gut. I wasn’t sure why, but those words meant something to me.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I hid a shiver by letting go of Lucas’ arm and snatching up his shirt.
Lucas watched me as I ripped one of the arms off of his shirt and began wrapping it around his elbow.
“You know it’s not ridiculous,” Lucas stated calmly. “I can tell. I saw it in your eyes just now. Something is majorly wrong. Things are changing.”
For a few moments, I focused on tying the sleeve of Lucas’ shirt around his wound, making sure it was secure. A makeshift bandage, but a bandage nonetheless. Finally, I let go of his arm and looked up at him once again. Lucas’ eyes were placid, he wasn’t fearful. But I could tell that all of his synapses were firing. He was thinking his problem out over and over, trying to figure out why he felt the way that he felt.
“Why are you immune to werewolf bites?” I asked suddenly. “Am I?”
“Well, I don’t know if you are,” Lucas answered automatically.
“Don’t you just know things, damnit?” I barked, which hadn’t been my intention at all.
Lucas just stared back at me.
“Sorry.” I corrected myself.
“I don’t know, Rob,” Lucas stated evenly, controlling himself. “I feel that I should, but I don’t. Okay? It’s like a secret locked in a cage in my mind. I feel like…I don’t know…maybe I don’t know on purpose.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like I intentionally forgot why I’m immune.”
“Why would you do that?” I snapped, again without meaning to.
“That’s something else I don’t know.” He bit the words off sharply. “If I forgot on purpose, I probably forgot why I forgot on purpose, too, right?”
I sighed.
“But…and you won’t believe me…but I’m suddenly remembering something. Jason bit me in high school. After a football game one night. I had forgotten that, too. Until now.”
“Why?” I barked, not caring if anyone heard. “Why did you forget that?”
“Why did you forget you could shoot lasers and fire from your hand, Rob?” Lucas was so calm I knew that he was controlling himself for my sake, so he wouldn’t snap back at me and make our situation worse. We didn’t need to fight. Not now. “You don’t know either. So, kindly stop giving me the third degree. I already have a bite. I don’t need a burn.”
He smiled impishly.
I did my best not to do it, but a smile slowly formed on my face.
“Fine.” I huffed, but my heart wasn’t in it. “What happened when he bit you?”
“Same thing as now.” He shrugged. “Didn’t you wonder why Jason was so nonchalant that night out on the Maumee when I got bit? He was too blasé about the whole thing. He knew I wasn’t going to turn, even though he said it would take a few moon cycles. I told grandpa about it happening—when Jason turned into a werewolf and bit me after the game way back when. He told me to pretend it never happened. So…I just did. I forgot about it. Something…I don’t know what…made it easier to do.”
My brow was practically a canyon as I frowned at my boyfriend.
“Okay.” I held my hands up. “But wait. I found out that those guys at the Maumee were actually Jason’s. Why would he send them to bite you if he knew it wouldn’t turn you into one of his pack, huh? Why go to all that trouble and risk losing two of your pack members if it wouldn’t get results, Lucas? Answer that.”
“It was a scare tactic.”
“What was he scaring you for?”
“He was trying to scare you.” Lucas shrugged.
“What?”
“Haven’t you wondered why things have gotten weirder and weirder the longer you’ve been here, Rob?” Lucas urged me on, his eyes pleading with me. “I really think…shit. I really think everything and everyone is trying to make you leave again. But you waited too long. And you decided to take me with you. We fucked up their plans, babe.”
I couldn’t help it. I rolled my eyes.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” Lucas snorted. “Weird shit at Esther Jean’s house. The weird cloaked person in the back yard—that we know wasn’t him? The guy on the cliff overlooking the lake? Weird sights and sounds. Sudden werewolf attacks. Andrew? Nothing odd happened while you were gone. And Point Worth is pretty fucking odd. Then you show back up…and it’s like this town is putting on a show for you, Rob. Like everyone and everything is trying to remind you why you shouldn’t be here. Once we got involved…well, I got pulled into this shitstorm.”
“Sorry?”
“I don’t mean this is your fault, babe.” His expression softened. “I just mean that I’m collateral damage.”
“Fine.” I threw my hands up. “Why would Oma have been so upset about me leaving? Huh? She’s done nothing but give me shit nonstop for a decade for leaving Point Worth. Explain that.”
“Why would she be nice to you?” He shrugged. “That would make you want to stay more. And maybe she wanted you gone, but she also hated to see you go. Having to do something and liking what you have to do are two separate things. Besides…who has been messing with our memories, babe? Santa Claus?”
“I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he landed on the hood of this car right this second,” I mumbled. “With every single goddamn reindeer in tow.”
Against our will, both Lucas and I turned our eyes to look out the windshield. Suddenly, we were looking at each other and having to slap our hands over our mouths to keep from laughing at the absurdity of such a thing. Santa Claus wasn’t going to appear on the hood of the car. However, with all things considered, it wasn’t completely crazy to imagine it.
“Look, Rob.” Lucas shook his head. “I vaguely remember the man in the black hooded cloak. But I know I’m not supposed to remember. And for a good reason, I think. Something that happened when I met him…I’m not supposed to think about. Talk about. Or remember. For my own safety. Maybe other people’s safety. I don’t know. But I also don’t know if I made myself forget or if this is Esther Jean Wagner’s work at play. I…just…don’t…know.”
Slowly, I breathed out, unable to connect the dots as to what was going on in the little town of Point Worth, Ohio. Or what my life was even about. Just as I had been thinking before the wolves had attacked us, Lucas put into words what I knew to be true. We couldn’t trust any of our memories.
“Jason said something to me.” I sighed. “Last night. When I decapitated him.”
“You’re going to have to get better at that.” Lucas teased.
“Next time, I’m taking his head with me.” I snorted. “Or burning him until he’s nothing but ashes. But…he said that my magic is the only magic in town that doesn’t have anything to do with…him.”
Lucas was nodding along, looking thoughtful.
“Do you think,” I chewed at my lip, “do you think everything in this town that is some part magical has something to do with him?”
“Maybe?”
“He’s coming,” I said. “Maybe he’s draining all of the magic he’s put out there so he can use it?”
“For what, though?”
“Well, it ain’t to pull a bunny out of a hat, babe.”
Lucas chuckled ruefully.
“He’s planning something big,” I said. “I feel like he’s been stocking away ammunition…waiting for the right time…and now, he’s ready to use it.”
“But for what?” Lucas repeated. “If we knew what he had planned, maybe we could figure out what the hell is going on. Make some sense out of all of this. Maybe we could actually freakin’ remember things, and our memories wouldn’t be a fog.”
<
br /> Lucas and I both slumped back in our respective seats. For several minutes, we sat there, just staring out of the windshield into the darkness. Lucas finally pulled his shirt on and buttoned it, looking slightly silly with one sleeve missing. However, the choice between looking silly and bleeding was an easy choice to make.
“We have to see Esther Jean,” Lucas said with finality.
“No,” I said. “I can’t trust her.”
Lucas slumped back in his seat, a harrumph escaping his lips.
Chapter 5
“Open up, Esther Jean Wagner!” Clancy Kelly pounded on the front door of the large house. “We know you’re in there! You open up right this second!”
Clancy, Darby, and their son, Aiden, all stood on the front porch of Esther Jean Wagner’s house, red-faced and angry, ready for a fight. They had allowed things to go on for as long as possible, but their patience was running thin. Robbie was nearly sixteen-years-old. Everyone was getting anxious, fearful that the day would come that it was too late to enact the plan. Esther Jean Wagner needed to do as she said and stop pussyfootin’ around about it. The boy had to go—one way or another. The Kellys had a new plan of their own. They weren’t going to wait for Robbie to go away. They’d take care of him themselves.
All three of the Kellys jumped back as the door finally swung wide, revealing Esther Jean Wagner, still in her bib overalls, plaid farmer’s shirt, and gardening clogs, her arms crossed under her breast. The Kellys, filled with piss and vinegar only moments prior, found themselves inching backward on the porch, putting more space between the open door and themselves. Esther Jean Wagner merely glared out at the three of them and their shotguns, not looking the least bit concerned by the firepower they had brought with them.
“What are you fools doin’ on my damn property?” Esther Jean Wagner barked. “Robbie’s in bed. If you wake him up—”
“We’re here for the boy.” Clancy Kelly managed to choke out, though the crack in his voice betrayed him.
“That so?” Esther Jean’s eyebrow raised precipitously.
“Give us the boy, Mrs. Wagner.” The Kelly’s eldest commanded in a voice no more authoritative or confident than his father’s. “Give us Robbie, and we can have this all done with once and for all.”
Esther Jean chuckled.
“You think that’s gonna stop anything, ya’ damn idjit?” She asked, her eyes boring into each of the Kellys eyes in turn. “You’re just gonna do away with him, and then you ain’t gotta worry no more?”
“That’s about right.” Mr. Kelly glanced at his wife, whose eyes were fixed on the floorboards of the porch, afraid to look up. “We’re tired of this nonsense. We want to end it once and for all.”
“He’s the last.” Esther Jean’s eyes shot over to Clancy. “There ain’t no more after him. You ain’t even givin’ him no chance to have any kids his own. There might be a distant relative, I supposed, but if you kill him—”
“Then we’re rid of this curse!” The eldest son of the Kelly’s barked, a little braver than he had been.
“You are the dumbest sonsabitches I ever had the bad fortune to look at in my life. Ugliest, too. If there was an award ceremony for stupid, you’d sweep the whole damn thing.” Esther Jean leveled them with her eyes. “He’s comin’ back one way or another. Somehow or some way. If you get rid of the boy, ain’t no one savin’ your sorry asses then. We’ll all be up Shit Creek without a paddle in a glass-bottomed boat.”
“We got a chance to end this for good, Esther Jean.” Mr. Kelly pled with her, no longer angry, simply lost for other solutions. “I don’t like it none—”
“I think it’s time for you, Clancy. Darby. Y’all need to retire down to Florida.” Esther Jean stated evenly, her pupils dilating until her irises disappeared into a black hole. “Get away from things.”
All three Kellys stiffened as their eyes locked onto Esther Jean Wagner’s.
“And you should just forget this ever happened, Aiden.” She addressed their eldest son. “That’ll get us right back on track.”
All three Kellys slowly nodded.
“We can’t leave.” Mr. Kelly seemed to have a thought, his voice pouring forth from his lips robotically. “He’ll never let us leave.”
“Well,” Esther Jean fluttered a hand in the air as if this meant nothing to her, “you’re just goin’ for an extended vacation. You ain’t tryin’ to escape, is ya’? So what if it’s a really long damn vacation? You drive on out of town feeling like you plan on comin’ back sometime in the future. But…don’t.”
Again, all three of the Kellys nodded along.
“Now,” Esther Jean Wagner’s irises emerged from the black hole of their pupils, “y’all get your pug-ugly asses off my porch, ya’ hear?”
The Kellys all shook their heads as if coming out of a dream.
“I don’t want to see none of y’all on my property ever again!” Esther Jean warned them. “If I do, I’ll be the one using a shotgun, damnit. That’s a damn promise.”
The door of the big house was slammed in the three adults’ faces. Mr. and Mrs. Kelly looked at each other, confused for a moment, then turned to walk away. Aiden, their eldest, simply fell in behind them.
“All she’s done is lie to me. To us.” I muttered under my breath. “I can’t trust her. She’s not my grandmother.”
“Babe,” Lucas reached over, his hand landing on my thigh gently, his fingers giving the flesh there a squeeze, “no offense, but what other bright ideas do you have?”
“I don’t.”
“Exactly.” He nodded firmly. “Who else is going to help us now?”
“How about,” I searched my brain for the name of anyone other than the woman claiming to be my grandmother but wasn’t, “Carlita?”
“We can’t get out of Point Worth.” Lucas frowned at me. “How are we going to get to Toledo to get help from her? And why did you think of her anyway, babe?”
“She’s an oracle.” I shrugged impishly.
“Good information to have had a while back.” Lucas’ frown deepened.
“Sorry.”
Lucas shrugged. “Doesn’t matter much now.”
“How about Mr. Barkley?” I asked quickly. “Surely your grandfather knows something about—”
“Really?” Lucas snorted. “You think grandpa can protect us from anything? Can he fix our memories, babe?”
“Well, no…”
“Exactly. We have to see Esther Jean, Rob.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Lucas groaned. “I know you don’t trust her, but it’s not like we have any real friends left, Rob. We have to trust someone, even if it’s a little foolish. Someone has to help us, and she’s the only one I know with magic and maybe some information.”
“I wish the book had been some kind of help.”
“A storybook isn’t going to help us, Rob.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“Look,” I turned to look at Lucas, “Esther Jean Wagner—if that’s even her real name—is a goddamn liar, Lucas. Suddenly, the other night, it just really sunk in. I didn’t know her before my parents disappeared to…wherever they disappeared to, okay? Hell. She could have been the person who made them disappear for all I know. Especially with my lapse in memory here. Regardless of why my parents are gone, where they went to, if she had anything to do with it—I don’t have any memories of her before they disappeared. It also makes me question everything about whether or not she has anything to do with our memory problems because…”
“Because what?”
“If she fucked with our memories, why didn’t she just give me some fake memories about her when I was a small child?” I shrugged. “I mean, that’s a real lapse of judgment on her part, right?”
“I suppose…”
“One day, some weird shit went down at the house. I was a small child. My mom was making breakfast in the kitchen, and shit…just went down. And she was gone. I don’t know anything more
than that to tell you. Then I remember my dad tucking me into bed that night. Then he was gone in the morning, and this…person…showed up and said she was my grandmother. I can remember that now. I came downstairs because someone was knocking on the door. It was that…woman…and when I asked her who she was, she said she was my grandmother. I remember that now. But I don’t have any memory of her before that moment. If she was really my grandmother, I would have some sort of memory of her at Christmas or Thanksgiving…or a family reunion or talking to her on the phone during the holidays at the least. But…nothing, Lucas. She didn’t exist to me before that moment.”
“That’s crazy.”
“I’m not crazy!” I barked.
Lucas smiled gently at me.
“I meant that the situation is crazy.” He squeezed my thigh again. “Not you, babe.”
“Oh.”
“I’m on your side, remember?” He reminded me. “We’re a team.”
“Yeah.” I sighed as I laid my hand on his, letting our fingers intertwine. “Sorry. I’m kind of on edge here.”
“I don’t know why.” Lucas teased.
Darkness was creeping in on all sides of the car. The woods around us were deathly silent, making our low voices sound like we were giving commencement speeches in a huge auditorium. At least, that’s what it felt like. When a person is scared that they might be drawing attention to themselves, every little noise they make sounds amplified.
“Everything she has told me is a lie.” I reiterated. “Well, maybe not every little thing. No one can lie about absolutely everything. But the important stuff was all lies. She knows what happened to my parents. She knows I’m not her grandson. She did something to our memories—just like you said—I believe that to be true. And she has something to do with all of this shit going on around us. We can’t trust her.”
“Do you think we can’t trust her to tell the truth, or we can’t trust her to keep us safe?”
“What’s the difference?” I let go of Lucas’ hand and turned to look out my window into the darkness. “Trust is trust. If you can’t trust a person, you don’t know if they’ll sell you up the river the first chance they get. How do we know she won’t help us until the man in the black hooded cloak shows up, Lucas? Then she just…tosses us to the wolves. No pun intended.”