Lucid

by Brian Stillman

  “You’re going to be ok.” She didn’t ask it. She told me like she’d pored through the research and it pointed to that conclusion.

  “After all of this,” she continued, “there’s no way you won’t be. If you weren’t strong before, you are now. Everything that comes your way from this point on is nothing. Flight or fight. Flight. Or fight. You knew you had to do one or the other. All the tools you needed…”

  She got so energized, mouthing church sentiments I nearly thought she’d indicate my head and heart and make the ‘L’ with her arms.

  I didn’t tell her Sheriff Younger had called with a number for social services. And Carla had left a dozen messages on my phone. And I had no idea if I could ever go back to school. That I couldn’t really sleep. I didn’t want to eat. That every time I peed I stared into the bowl looking for blood, something to indicate that something even worse than that photograph had occurred while I was kidnapped. I didn’t pay the bills and those were probably coming due. And I was glad Nick was dead. And I was wishing Mr. Pederson were dead. And I was a little sad for Pat Corley, but not a lot.

  I didn’t tell her about those things.

  Instead I said, “Horace knew Aster was writing those letters to Mr. Pederson.”

  A car laid on its horn down on the street.

  Maddy lay her hand at her throat and self-consciously stroked the blue ‘L’ pendant strung on the necklace. I guess in these post-trauma days she needed to really show her faith.

  “You’re worth more to him as a martyr than as a living breathing human being,” I said. “Did he know you’re pregnant? If he did, he doesn’t care. He did as little as he could while you and I…While all of that was going on.”

  She rolled the pendant between her thumb and finger. Finally she looked at me.

  She got out, “How do you know?”

  “Aster told Ruth.”

  Her hand stopped rubbing the pendant. Her brow crimped.

  “Jesus, Lucy.” She sighed, the moments stress disintegrating like a downpour of warm rain coming right on the heels of a snowstorm.

  “I believe her.”

  “A drunk and a nut? You believe them?”

  “You trusted them,” I said.

  “Ruth Arnett? Never.”

  “Ok. No. Sorry. Not Ruth. But Aster. Aster. Maddy, she was Horace’s assistant. And they…they had something going on. You know. Romance wise. Even after she became your assistant and Jack’s. That’s how Horace knew. He must’ve seen a letter she was working on. He didn’t care.”

  Maddy looked over her right shoulder into the room.

  “Maddy. Please. At least ask Horace. See what he says. I believe Ruth. I know she’s a little rough around the edges and she’s upset about her sister and I know you have issues with her, but…”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll ask him.” She sprang from the chair and opened the door. She flung her left arm wide, inducing the room occupant to come on out and join us.

  “Just the man we were talking about.”

  Horace Walton looked at me. Today he wore a turtleneck sweater and a vest. He gripped the vest with his left hand, the ring with the cerulean ‘L’ glinting under the sun.

  “Nothing bad I hope.”

  Maddy cocked an eyebrow and looked at me. The look that said ‘Go on. Tell him what you just said to me’.

  I could remember little from Sunday Bible school. I could remember the episode where Christ was tempted by the Devil, in the desert. One of the other kids found a picture of the Devil in a Children’s Bible. It scared a lot of the other kids. I think there’d even be crying.

  At that moment, the look on Horace’s face, if he’d shown up in that basement room with its heater set too high so it smelled like wet clothes drying and the tacky wallpaper and the grim carpeting squashed flat to the cement, if he appeared and had shown that look to all us kids, there’d be crying but also outright shrieks.

  The Devil looked nothing like the picture in the book. That guy in the book was an amateur. Here was the true King of the Underworld.

  Chapter 66

  Horace didn’t pick me up and throw me to the streets below or suggest to Maddy that what would move her forward and only increase her power and influence would be to strangle me dead, dead, dead.

  Instead they talked about what I’d said. Right in front of me, most of the time like I wasn’t even there.

  Horace moderated. Asked Maddy how she felt right now. How she thought pre-Becoming Maddy would feel. And how did that make her feel, not to have those fresh eyes and those honest if not mixed up, pre-Becoming reactions.

  Maddy fixed on him like I wasn’t even on the balcony. It was like Mojo noticing you had a stick in your hand. She zeroed in on that, the rest of the world inconsequential. I could’ve gotten up and balanced a hip on the balcony rail, told them I was going to jump, actually jumped, and I don’t know that Maddy would have noticed.

  Maddy teared up. Hunched over and talked to herself, whispering, rocking back and forth.

  “Can I hug her?” asked Maddy. She sniffled. She sounded like a little girl.

  “Lucy? You want to hug Lucy?”

  She nodded. “Yes please.”

  Standing over her, standing much too close to her, Horace looked at me. His lips didn’t pull back into a death’s head smile, but the unblinking eyes transferred the unspoken truth between us.

  His hold on Maddy was complete. She couldn’t sneeze and wipe her nose without his okay.

  “Of course, Madeline,” said Horace. “Of course you can.”

  She hugged me. Slowly she shook off the lost little girl she’d reverted to consulting with Horace.

  She told me she knew I was confused and wanted someone to blame for everything. Told me she knew I loved her and worried about her, but people like Ruth Arnett were poison. Ruth was like a dog that wanted to chase its tail and if you got caught up in her whirlwind, she didn’t care. You could get loopy from being trapped in her wake, loopy enough you fell down. She’d never notice. She might stumble over you a little, but so long as she could chase that tail. That’s what counted.

  While she hugged me, Horace touched her right shoulder and my left shoulder like he was blessing her consoling me. He did not touch my bare flesh, but still I wished I could scrub at that spot. A chill swept through me. It was a violation. I could only imagine how much worse it’d been for Kitty when Nick hit on her.

  Back inside the hotel living room Maddy hugged me. Jack hugged me. Horace told me to listen to my sister. She was young, compared to him most people were (and he paused, smiling, helping us all along in smiling, too, at the joke), but even so, Maddy was very wise.

  Then they talked logistics. Everyone was boarding Horace’s personal jet – one of the Lucentology fleet - and flying directly back to LAX. Nawzat was grabbing Starbucks. Dina was downstairs with the SUV and Trent was already at the airport.

  Maddy saw me to the door for one last long hug.

  “I’ll call you,” she said. “Lucy. I know everything is rough right now. It is. But I know you can make it through. I know you can.”

  “Ok.”

  “Call me. Anytime. Let me know what they try to do with you. With the house.”

  “Hopefully I don’t go to a foster family.”

  “Fuck no,” she said. “Absolutely not. They try anything like that, call me. We have lawyers from hell. I swear. I swear we do. Our lawyers will destroy theirs guaranteed.”

  She let go of me and stood back as Rocco opened the door for me. Out the corner of my eye I could see him smile and dimple.

  “Bye Lucy,” he said.

  I nodded and exited and listened to the door shut behind me.

  No one stood in the corridor of the top floor. Just me and a lot of paintings of the wheat fields.

  I checked the contents of th
e pockets sewn into the lining of the jacket. I took a deep breath and asked the universe to please, please help me not screw up and die in the next few minutes.

  Rocco opened the door when I knocked. He looked intense like I was a bothersome stranger even though he’d likely peered through the peephole before opening up.

  “I left my phone,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Immediately he smiled, showing off the dimples. He opened the door and stepped back. Once I was inside he turned his back to me and closed the door. When he turned around the dimples froze. And fell.

  I pointed Ruth’s gun at him.

  I held Pat Corley’s handcuffs in my other hand.

  “Lock the door,” I said. “And then lie down on the floor, face down, your hands behind your back.”

  When I walked in from the foyer Jack saw me first.

  He tilted his head to the side like he couldn’t quite put it together. He was familiar with the girl. The girl with the gun not so much.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Behind Jack, phone pressed to his face while he scratched the top of his lank hair, Horace walked back and forth in front of the windows. Belknap Towers was the tallest building downtown Ashmond. From where I stood nothing but a limitless sea of sky in view right behind the head of the Church of Lucentology.

  I didn’t see Maddy.

  Horace looked at me, briefly, kept talking and walking. Then he halted. He stopped scratching the top of his head.

  “Lucy,” said Jack. “Lucy.”

  “Jack, don’t come near me.”

  “Lucy,” hands up, he backed up towards the nearest chair. “Lucy. I want you to look at me. Luce. Please.”

  Horace didn’t move. He stared at me. He didn’t grin. I could hear whoever was on the phone with Horace, talking, unaware that he’d taken the phone away from his ear, his attention fixed elsewhere.

  “Maddy,” I yelled. “Maddy come out here.”

  The bedroom door was in the far left corner. Maddy came out, a baseball cap on her head. She dropped her purse at sight of the gun.

  “Tell her,” I said to Horace. “Tell her the truth.”

  Horace had let his hands drop down to his sides. The phone remained in his hand.

  “Tell her what?”

  “That it’s all true. Aster and you. You not caring whether or not Maddy lived. That ‘what’.”

  “Under duress? I think not. That doesn’t hold a lick, Miss. Not in court. Not here. Not right now.”

  Jack’s phone rang.

  A moment later Horace’s phone rang. He looked at it, at me. I could hear something rattle from the foyer, a sound like the door handle clicking.

  “Rocco,” called Horace. He called him a second time.

  “I made him put on handcuffs. He can’t help you right now.”

  Jack’s phone stopped ringing. And then it immediately started ringing again. So did Horace’s.

  Maddy whimpered. She looked at Horace and Jack and me. No one was helping, telling her what was going on.

  “Answer your phone, Jack,” I said. “It’s ok.”

  I stepped back until my left elbow brushed the wall. I kept the gun aimed at Horace. I could see Jack if I rolled my eyes right.

  Maddy said, “Lucy. Honey. I know you’re upset. Lucy. Squirt.”

  “You’re wasting your time. She’s beyond help,” said Horace. “She’s under some foreign influence. She’s chock full of body negatives. Chock full. Poison. She’s been poisoned. She is poison. Pure poison. She’s lost to you, Madeline.”

  “Shut up!” I took a step towards Horace.

  “Your hand is shaking,” he said. “You shoot you might hit your sister.”

  “Then maybe I’ll just get a little closer, Horace.”

  Horace noticeably swallowed.

  “Luce.” Maddy had her hands up. “If you shoot him…”

  “I know. Maddy,” I said. “Please stop walking towards me. Please. Maddy!”

  She did.

  “Really,” said Jack, on the phone. He kept saying it, over and over again.

  “What are you hoping to accomplish, Ms. McCall?” asked Horace.

  “To kill you. To get you away from my sister.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

  “And then what? Go to prison like your father will? Your uncle?”

  I stared at him.

  “It’d be worth it.”

  “Lucy.” Maddy could only whisper.

  Jack told the person on the line he had a situation. He’d call back. He thanked them and he hung up. Horace’s phone had started ringing again.

  “There’s,” said Jack. We all waited for him to elaborate. He shook his head.

  I guessed. I said, “Jamie Jane.”

  “Yes,” said Jack.

  “Aster.”

  “Yes.”

  Jack’s phone started ringing again.

  “Answer it, Jack. And answer your phone, Horace.”

  After giving me a look like he didn’t trust me and thought I might shoot him for so much as raising his elbow, he did. It was Nawzat. He snapped at her. Told her he knew the door was probably locked. They had a situation. Apparently so did she. He quieted down. I watched his face. He blinked. Then he blinked a lot.

  My phone rang. Trying to fish it out with my left hand took close to forever. I only took my eyes off Horace once to make sure I answered and didn’t disconnect. Maddy stared at me.

  “Hello?”

  “Lucy?” asked Jamie Jane.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see it? I’m sorry I didn’t call you, but,” she laughed, “I’ve kind of been busy.”

  “Did you find Aster?”

  “You mean you haven’t seen it? Any of it?”

  “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

  “Right. Right. I did. She spilled. She’s really kind of nuts, but…It’s unbelievable. And at the same time it totally makes sense. She spilled. A bomb just went off in Hollywood. Well. Another one after all the others of late.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No way. Are you kidding? Thank you. I owe you. You name it. I totally, totally owe you.”

  Until the moment I hung up, Maddy was surrounded by people on their phones.

  She looked stressed out, close to collapse. I leaned my weight against the wall and sighing, lowered my right hand. I dropped the gun to the floor.

  I looked at Jack and then movement in my peripheral vision turned me around.

  Dina stood at the edge of the foyer and the living room.

  She had her gun out.

  Pointed at me.

  No wonder Maddy looked close to collapse. She’d nearly seen her little sister get shot.

  “Hey, Dina,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything.

  I slid down to the floor. My foot kicked Ruth’s gun further away. I turned on my butt, and deflated, my back up against the wall. I needed the support otherwise I’d lie down on the floor and melt from sight like a puddle drying. Dina slowly lowered her aim, but kept the gun in hand.

  “I took the clip out,” I said. “I took it out already. I had to look it up online to see how to do it right.”

  Over in front of the wall of windows, Horace spoke in a whisper. Stabbed the air with his finger. The way he talked reminded me of seeing over-controlling boys talk to their girlfriends.

  That lack of self-confidence that led them to be suspicious of every last little interaction the girl had with anyone else. They needed to have complete control. If they didn’t, there was a penalty to be paid.

  Dina knelt and scooped Ruth’s gun up from the floor.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Sorry. I couldn’t think of any other way. I tried. I really did.”

  Crouched beside me, Dina checked the gun
, the absent clip, and her mouth twitched, but she didn’t give me the same warm vibes as previous.

  Nawzat entered the room tentatively. She looked terrified of taking a wrong step or speaking the wrong words less she trip some sort of trapdoor set in the floor. By way of miracle she kept the cardboard tray of Starbucks balanced in her hands. Rocco hung back in the foyer too pissed or too ashamed to be seen.

  I kept sitting in my new favorite spot even when Maddy turned on the TV and turned the channel to E!

  Jack had tried to tell her what the incoming phone calls were about. People from the organization freaking out and calling to let Jack and Horace and Maddy know that Aster had just given an exclusive interview.

  They played snippets of the exclusive interview on the channel, the hosts reminding viewers the whole thing could be seen – uncut – on E!’s website.

  Aster looked relatively put together, her normal look, the librarian with bright eyes and great bone structure. While she talked video footage from premieres and public outings played, Aster with Maddy and Jack or Horace.

  The last part of the interview they played, Jamie Jane asked Aster, “These allegations you’ve made are astonishing. Would you say that there’s something wrong with the entire organization, or is it a case where only one person is the problem? In other words, is Lucentology the problem or is Horace Walton the problem?”

  Aster smiled.

  “That’s an easy one.”

  “And you’d say…”

  “Horace,” said Aster. “Horace Walton. He’s a monster.”

  Chapter 67

  Over the summer Sherman and I broke up.

  No big fight. No scene. We just put an official stamp on what we’d known for a while. We were good friends, but he needed a girl that was more receptive to affection. I tensed up whenever he took hold of me. It creeped him out. I couldn’t help it, but the after effects of the kidnapping and the photo were proving hard to shake.

  He didn’t end up with SharDi. She was doing just fine dating a student from Ashmond Community College.

  A couple of new girls joined the junior class in September. One of them thought Sherman was the funniest person she’d ever met. Also, the scar on his hand was, in her words, “the shit”. She was very gifted cleavage wise, too. Sherman was ecstatic.