Elizabeth had me call the school and explain that Jade and Sully had been in a car accident up north and would be out for a while. I guess I pushed just the right amount on the phone with the school secretary, because she believed me and didn’t ask me any questions I didn’t have the brains to figure out before I made the call. She never asked what happened, or what hospital or anything.
She just asked me to keep her updated and give them the school’s best. I said I would, and hung up feeling even worse than before.
I spent most of my time at Serena’s house. At least over there I felt involved in making a plan or something. I just couldn’t face my mom’s eyes anymore. They were so hollow and without life.
She broke my heart.
At Serena’s house it reminded me of battle stations. I remembered what happened the day of the kidnapping. As soon as Serena figured out what went down, I got whipped into a lather to go straight to the drive-‐‑in, no matter the consequences. She soon reminded me just what those consequences could be. I quickly realized that an uncontrolled assault fell exactly into The Council’s top ten. And I knew just how ill prepared we were. She helped me to understand that she or I was their greatest prize, and that Jade and Sully were just the bait. And that as the bait, one false move and they were easily expendable. Serena calmed me down and made me understand that I could end my sister’s and my best friend’s life with one stupid move. So I sat down and I shut up.
Fast. Because these women, they knew what they were doing.
Only here at Serena’s, in the strategizing, did I develop my respect for Eden and her coven sisters. They had come here with an agenda and they had planned, longer than I even knew, had mobilized and gathered some of the foremost talents in their respective fields, and were prepared to do battle with the most vicious and unforgiving evil their world knew. Yeah, they had more than just developed my respect; they had earned it. I gave major props to this determined and single-‐‑minded group of women. And the more I watched Serena interact with them, the more I began to understand what made her so special. It wasn’t just the ‘unique’ gene she supposedly carried. It had so much more to do with the way she carried herself. She had a new maturity to her, a composure, probably only hinted at before, but that this crisis had uncovered. In the last week or so, I had watched Eden guide her to quietly, yet firmly, take over gatherings and strategy meetings with a self-‐‑assured air and what’s more, the other assembled witches not only allowed it to happen, they seemed to welcome it. It occurred to me that it appeared preordained, as if they were allowing a deposed leader take her rightful place.
She acted differently even with me now. At first, I had to keep telling her that I didn’t blame her for the kidnapping. She actually thought she carried that blame! As if she could be responsible for the genes she would pass on. I had to remind her that Eden and company claimed I had the same ones. It took forever for her to face me and not look like a wounded animal. I hated that. It took me even longer to figure out I could be the cause of it. Stupid jock. I had the accusing eyes! So I had a talk with myself. I reminded myself that no matter the events leading up to right this minute, which happened to be my bathroom, ranting at myself in the medicine chest mirror, she still represented the best thing that had ever happened in this stupid jock’s life. And that since my dad died, I couldn’t remember being this happy. So I had better just snap the heck out of it, and quit blaming her every time I got within ten yards of her.
After that it got better, but only marginally. Everyone expressed so much concern about Jade and Sully, everything else paled in comparison. Eden put a spell over Sully’s parents so they wouldn’t worry about him either. I marveled over how tangled this web of deceit had gotten.
Since we weren’t going to school, and Serena had to spend so much time with the coven sisters, I had a lot of free time on my hands. I begged for the opportunity to get out of the houses, of both mine and Serena’s just for a little while, and finally Eden said it would be okay, with a few conditions. I had to promise to just go for a short drive, I had to take Sage and Charlie with me and under no circumstances could I get out of the car or engage with anyone.
Eden explained that since we had been sequestered there had been a few more ‘changes’ in the town and she wasn’t sure who could be trusted anymore. I didn’t know what she could be taking about, but she got so stern and serious with me, and she had such a look on her face, I made sure to be the last person who would cross her.
Besides, I would have promised just about anything for the chance to get out, even if it meant just one drive.
Before I headed out, I went across the street and checked on my mom. As usual, I found her lying on the living room sofa, stroking Sheba’s fur and staring straight out the picture window.
When I opened the front door, I cringed, knowing she would jump up and rush into the hall with that open, expectant face, hoping I’d be Jade and knowing her face would fall when I would be me, and not her kidnapped baby. She would try and recover quickly and mask the dejection and disappointment, but it always came too late and it killed me every time. She would fake a quick smile and hug me fast, so I wouldn’t see her real agonized face and I would fake a smile right back and we would both pretend we were okay. So, we did our little dance for a few minutes and thankfully this time, Elizabeth appeared and rescued us both.
“Hey, Logan. You’re all flushed. What’s going on?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s no big deal. I’ve been cooped up and Eden said it would be okay if I went for a short drive.” My mom’s head whipped around and right away I recognized how this was a big mistake for her to know. Quickly, I tried to run spin control.
“I’m taking Sage and Charlie with me, and anyway, it’s just a drive, we’ll never even get out of the car. I’m just getting cabin fever and I’ll go bonkers soon if I don’t get a change of scenery.” I glared at Elizabeth and pleaded with my eyes for her to help me out of this one. I couldn’t have been more grateful than when she did. “Oh, I think you’ll be fine, Logan. Sage and Charlie together? They’re formidable. Plus, like you said, you’re not even getting out of the car. A nice drive will do you a world of good.
What a great idea!” Elizabeth winked at me and I thought, don’t oversell it now, just let it sink in and let’s see what she does. It seemed like an hour and I held my breath. Would she blow her top or not? My mom reached out toward me and I had a crazy vision of her grabbing me by the collar and dragging me through the house screaming, “Not my other one, they’re not getting my other one!”
But that wasn’t what happened. Instead, she reached up and ruffled my hair like she had a million times in what seemed like another life now and said, in a barely audible voice, “Please be careful, son.”
I glanced at her and she seemed so small and defeated I wanted to hug her until I could feel her bones cracking. I wanted to tell her that I would get her daughter, my sister, back and I would make this madness stop. I wanted to vow that I would find a way to her true smile again. Instead, I reached for her hand and promised, “I will Mom. I’ll be careful,” and the two dogs and I left the house.
****
I won’t say I didn’t keep looking behind me as we got in my car. That would be a lie. But I will say that as I got in the front seat of my trusty car and got Sage and Charlie situated in the back seat, I hadn’t felt this eager in a long time. It felt a little bit like being released from prison must feel like. I knew I loved Serena and I had been prepared to embrace her world and make every single part of it, the good, the bad, the freaky, my own. But the idea of just getting in the car and driving until I ran out of gas took hold of me in a powerful way right about then.
“Okay, girls,” I said to the dogs, “let’s get this show on the road.” Sage and Charlie were as excited as me. If you asked my opinion, Sage had been acting as depressed as my mother. She wouldn’t eat and I know she hardly slept, because I kept waking up to the sound of her doggy toenails clicking ar
ound the house at night. I’m no dog psychiatrist, especially not of paranormal dogs, but I was almost one hundred percent certain Sage blamed herself for Jade and Sully getting kidnapped by whomever or whatever related to the Council. Raven got a lot of information from communicating with Sage after everything that went down that day. Apparently, Jade and Sully had left their respective classes early, so excited were they to get together later that day. Also, the Northern Lights Drive-‐‑In had been a favored trysting spot.
The Drive-‐‑In stayed open all summer long showing double and triple-‐‑features, but it closed during the winter months and didn’t re-‐‑open until just after spring. That alone likely made it the perfect spot for clandestine meetings. During the summer for the movies, you could bring carloads of kids or family, stay in the car or pitch a tent on the soft summer grass. The grass froze during the winter and after the thaw, it grew wild. Unchecked, I bet it made a nice ground layer for picnics and the like. I laughed thinking of big Sully lying on a checked blanket eating fried chicken with my sister. I’d had time to get used to that idea, and even though I wasn’t thrilled with the whole sneaking-‐‑around part, I no longer hated the thought of them together. Sully had always been a good friend of mine and I did think of him as a stand-‐‑up guy. He had smarts, and good parents, and best of all he had a good heart, like my sister. When I got down to brass tacks, they were a lot alike. So, it made sense that they would gravitate toward one another.
I let my thoughts turn over in my head and rolled the back windows down for the dogs. They may have supernatural powers, but they were still dogs at the core, I noted, because the second the windows were down, their heads were out, and their ears were flapping in the breeze, tongues not far behind. I picked up a little speed as I opened up and headed into town, and that’s when I started noticing that things just weren’t right. I remembered what Eden said before I left, something about some ‘changes’. Calling them changes would have been an understatement. They began appearing infrequently, but the closer I got into town, the more of them I discovered.
First thing I noticed were the stoplights. Lancaster wasn’t a bustling town in the way of traffic, but we did have stoplights.
They usually hung from thick cable wire over the intersection, the standard three-‐‑color affair. Red for stop, yellow for caution, green for go. The first four-‐‑way intersection I came to used to have such a stop light, but now it was hanging crooked and the colors were all wrong. Instead of the normal red, yellow and green, it flashed blue, purple and pink. I tried to figure out how the heck it became those colors when I noticed two cars approaching from opposite sides. I realized these were the first cars I had seen in several miles. I started thinking where were all the other cars and what they would make of the funky stoplight colors and wondered what color meant stop now. I quickly realized it didn’t matter what color the stop light frantically blinked now; neither car made any effort to stop. I flipped a hasty left turn, out of the way of the two oncoming cars and watched in horror as they both entered the intersection at the same time and collided, head-‐‑on, in the middle of the road. I cringed at the terrible noise as they connected, a grinding crunch of metal to metal. In the same instant, the crazy colored stoplight snapped from the suspended cable and crashed onto the hoods of the now entangled cars.
Every instinct in me made me want to get out of the car to try and help somehow. The Boy Scout in me, I guess. I reached for the door handle, but as I did, Sage began barking like mad and Charlie bounded into the front seat and jumped hard into my lap.
With thirty pounds of dog in my face and another barking in my ear, I got the message: don’t get out of the car. I took my hand off the door handle and the pups quieted. I wanted to know if anyone would get out of the cars. No one did. Just as strange, no police or ambulance arrived. I scanned up and down the street, at the businesses surrounding the intersection, wondering why no one rushed to the two motorists’ aide, and that’s when things got weird. On the north side of the street stood Ladybug Wash and Kleen, a combination Laundromat and dry cleaner, a barbershop and a travel agency. The biggest business on the other side of the street consisted of a little mini-‐‑mart on the corner. The Ladybug, had a giant fake ladybug perched on the top of the building. I thought to myself, I have probably driven past this giant stupid bug a million times and never noticed it. It had been there ever since I could remember. During holidays, the Laundromat/dry cleaner owners even hung Christmas lights on it. The bug had a big red bow on its head and a little grin, like it had a secret about getting your whites whiter than white and your shirts their starchiest best that maybe, just maybe, it might share with you if you brought your business to the Ladybug Wash and Kleen. I always thought it was kind of cute. Except today. Today it was definitely not cute. Today it was not even a ladybug. Somebody or something had changed it or morphed it and what remained mounted up there above the Wash and Kleen didn’t even seem fake. It had morphed into a live, billboard-‐‑sized cockroach, tethered to the side of the building by a super-‐‑sized spear, some kind of gelatinous substance oozing out around the puncture. All its legs were wriggling and curling in and out, in some kind of death throe, but I doubted it would be anywhere near checking out. The ooze dripped down to the sidewalk and made a huge puddle in the front of the Wash and Kleen and Carmichael Travel’s doors. It smeared down the side of the building and obliterated the view inside the dry cleaners. It made me suddenly glad I couldn’t get a glimpse inside. All of a sudden I got super glad the dogs did not let me out of the car.
Carmichael Travel had not fared any better. The bright colored posters with their promise of far-‐‑away places and exciting adventures were torn away from the glass windows. The disgusting ooze from the gouged cockroach slimed down the windows here, too. The whole place appeared deserted. I thought, I know it wasn’t ever a mecca of activity, but at least Mrs.
Carmichael would be seated behind the desk, her hair in a tight bun with a pencil jammed in it, making the occasional travel arrangement for an out-‐‑of-‐‑town funeral or an overnight business meeting in Boston or something like that. Vaguely, I wondered what happened to Mrs. Carmichael and involuntarily I shuddered.
Best not to dwell on it. I found myself hoping Mrs. Carmichael didn’t come to work today. I hoped she might be sitting at her kitchen counter, reading a morning paper, maybe nursing a cold and deciding to take a rare day off with Mr. Carmichael.
I knew she wasn’t.
Beside me Charlie uttered a low moan and Sage started to growl and bare her teeth. What now? I followed what might be grabbing their attention and found we were all looking at the mini-‐‑
mart. From outside I could tell that the shelves had been knocked over and snacks and junk food products were ripped open and strewn all over the floor. I pulled my car up until it put me right across the street from the store. From this vantage point I could peek right in the open doors. Because they were open. No one appeared to be in the store, but it stood open. The doors were propped open on the right with metal shelves normally crammed full of Twinkies and Ho-‐‑Hos and fruit pies. But now the shelves were empty because the treats were all over the floor, shredded and sliced open. Smooshed cream filling smeared the bars of the shelves and colored fruit filling resembled blood smears on the floor. It was a technicolor carnage. The hard metal shelves were dented right down the middle, bowing the dessert cart like a super-‐‑human hand had…karate-‐‑chopped it? I still pondered that possibility when I spotted them.
The pair of them came running out of the mini-‐‑mart with handfuls of handi-‐‑snacks, leaving trails of napkins and opened bags of peanuts and chewed up Slim Jims. At first glance, I thought they most resembled those little troll dolls Jade used to collect.
They had short arms and legs and a shock of long green hair. Only these weren’t dolls and they didn’t have the sweet smiles that my little sister’s dolls did. These were little monsters, probably some of the Council’
s demons. This pair from that rat pack had squinty eyes with bushy eyebrows, the same color as their matted, sticky-‐‑
looking hair. Upon closer inspection, I guessed their hair would be sticky from the serving area of the slushy machine in the mini-‐‑mart, which appeared flooded with over-‐‑run taps of cola and cherry-‐‑
flavored syrups. They had giant mouths, with rows and rows of teeth, Jeez, how could you get that many teeth in one mouth? I swear I had never seen teeth so sharp. I suddenly understood why all the snack bags were shredded open. They had not been torn apart. They had been ripped apart by those lethal teeth. The trolls raced up the street and launched themselves onto the hoods of the two crashed cars still in the center of the intersection. I didn’t want to wait around for what happened when they got inside the windows of those cars. All at once, I didn’t want to be anywhere near there. This wasn’t my town. Lancaster wasn’t where I wanted to be. As if in agreement, Charlie and Sage began to whimper and howl. I thought despairingly of my beautiful, sweet sister and my friend Sully and suddenly I wanted so much to go home.
I whipped my car around and punched my foot down on the gas as hard as it would go. My car protested, but bless her heart; she didn’t fail me when I needed her. She lurched, then leapt forward and soon we were sailing back down the road, the way we’d come. I rolled up the windows in the back now; this drive no longer being a pleasure cruise for anyone, neither dog seemed to care. Charlie had never left the front seat and now she laid her head in my lap as I drove. Sage remained in the backseat but she stuck her snout in the space between the front seats and made contact with me by rubbing it under my elbow. We all three were connected. We needed to be. I felt as though I’d begun to understand these dogs and together we had all just been through something. Even though we had never left the car, what we had seen had been experienced by all three of us and in experiencing it I understood that Lancaster had changed, just as Eden said it had. I knew now, why she didn’t explain what she meant by that. How in the world would she have? I mean, where would she start? I think she knew, or at least suspected what I would find and understood that I would need to do it for myself. As I worked through this in my thought process, Charlie and Sage gave an occasional moan or whimper, almost in approval or agreement. The farther away from town we got, the more relaxed they both became. By the time we got to our street and parked into my driveway, both dogs were asleep, lulled by the hum of the car engine.
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