Something Wicked

by Brian Harmon

  “A few hours,” said Eric.

  Poppy’s face spread into a mischievous grin. “So are you head-over-heals in love with her yet?”

  Eric glanced over at Holly, surprised. “What?”

  “Really, Poppy?” said Holly, embarrassed. “He’s married.”

  “So? It doesn’t matter. Everybody falls in love with you.”

  “They do not.”

  “Of course they do.” She turned her dark, smiling eyes back to Eric. “Everybody loves Holly. They can’t help it.”

  “She’s sweet,” agreed Eric.

  “She is. But it’s not because she’s sweet. It’s because she’s a witch.”

  “There’s a math teacher I work with who everyone calls a witch,” Eric informed them. “Students and staff, both. Nobody loves her. Kind of the opposite.”

  “Different kind of witch,” Poppy told him, amused.

  “I think you’re right. My wife says she’s a ‘B-class’ witch. Is that a real thing?”

  Both girls giggled at this.

  “We’re all witches,” continued Poppy. “We all had something special about us, right from the start. Some of us, like me, are just kind of…precognitive, I guess. I can see glimpses of the future. They’re brief and they’re usually vague, and never very far out, but they help me keep out of trouble. Usually.”

  Eric recalled how quickly she’d rushed to the aid of the small, bruised woman as the imp bore down on her. He’d been surprised by her speed, but thinking about it now, he realized that she must’ve already been moving, even before the woman screamed. “Sounds handy.”

  “It is. But Holly’s magic is a little different.”

  “She’s an unnaturally good judge of character,” Eric recalled. “I know.”

  “Yeah, there’s that. But she also has a very useful way of making people do what she wants.”

  This caught Eric off guard. “What?”

  “Yeah. I don’t even think she knew she could do it. But everywhere she goes, people will give her what she needs. It’s how she survived on the streets. It wasn’t just that she could find good people to help her when she needed. It was that she could encourage people to want to help her.”

  In a strange way, Eric thought that made sense. While he was optimistic enough to think that most people were inherently good deep down, it seemed like the vast majority of them needed some kind of push to really make that step to reach out and help somebody, especially a stranger.

  “I’m not like that,” pouted Holly.

  “And she’s such a little princess. She wants everybody to love her, so everybody does. I’m pretty sure she could take over the world if she wanted to.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Holly.

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t make people do things.”

  “Yes, you do. All the time.”

  “I do not! I don’t use people!”

  “Relax,” said Poppy. “You do what you have to do. I get it. But it’s true. You want everyone to love you, so everyone does.”

  “What’s wrong with wanting to be loved?”

  “Nothing. I’m just saying.”

  Eric’s phone chimed and he glanced down at the screen.

  IT MAKES SENSE, said Isabelle. SHE’S INSTANTLY LIKEABLE

  “It’s true,” agreed Eric. “I remember thinking when I met her that she was strangely endearing.”

  “That’s Holly, all right,” said Poppy.

  “Now you’re just embarrassing me,” said Holly, pouting.

  “I’m sorry,” said Eric.

  “Yeah,” said Poppy. “We’re sorry.”

  Eric’s phone rang. It was Delphinium again.

  “Did you find Poppy?”

  “Present and accounted for,” Eric assured her.

  “Thank Goodness. I thought I felt her coming this way, but I wasn’t sure. Did you have any trouble?”

  “Quite a bit of it, to be honest.”

  “Oh no…”

  “More imps.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Not at all.”

  “How many this time?”

  “Almost a dozen, I think.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Apparently not.”

  “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “What part? The fact that we’re talking about imps? Or the fact that there seems to be an army of them?”

  “I wasn’t even sure they were real until you told me about the first one. I was prepared to believe it, but that there could be so many… It would take a massive amount of magical power to conjure just one. Even Grandpa couldn’t do it, as far as I ever knew. To make so many… How do we even begin to fight something so powerful?”

  “Don’t start doubting yourself now.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Whoever this freak is, he’s turned up everywhere we’ve gone. It’s like he’s following us or something.”

  “I was starting to think the same thing.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Come back here to me.”

  “What if he follows us there?”

  “He can’t. My magic should make it impossible.”

  “You thought the imps were impossible.”

  “Yes… True. But I need Poppy to help me strengthen the spells. I think it’s our best bet to keep the other girls safe. And my spells agree.”

  “Well, if your spells agree,” decided Eric. Although he had little reason to believe that Delphinium’s spells held any merit at all. She claimed that a spell told her to wait for his arrival, but he still wasn’t sure that the right thing wasn’t to call all the girls home at once. It just seemed like there would be safety in numbers.

  “Just get back here as quickly as possible. We’ll let the spells tell us what to do next.”

  “On our way, then.”

  “We’re going home?” asked Poppy as Eric dropped the phone back into the cup holder.

  Eric nodded. “Let’s hope she’s right about her magic keeping the magic man out.”

  Holly looked back at Poppy, her expression full of worry. “Do you feel anything? Can you tell if it’s going to be all right?”

  Poppy shrugged. “I don’t know. I can never see very far ahead.”

  “Isn’t that how it always goes?” asked Eric.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They arrived back at the farmhouse a little less than an hour later without further incident.

  Jude ran out to greet them as they pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse. “I heard about Sylvia,” he told Eric. “That sucks so bad.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “But you saved Poppy!”

  “I did manage that.” Eric slid open the side door of the minivan and lifted Poppy into his arms again.

  “I can help,” Jude informed them. “If you want. I don’t mind.”

  “You just keep your hands to yourself,” Poppy told him.

  As the boy slunk away, she softly said to Eric, “He’s a nice kid, and I’m glad to see him, but he’s all eyes. I’m always catching him trying to look down my shirt.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed. I don’t think my wife will ever allow him back in the house.”

  She gave a snort of a laugh. “Nice.”

  Eric carried her into the house and lowered her gently onto the sofa as Delphinium swept into the room and sat next to her, grasping both her hands.

  “Hi, Del.”

  “I’m so happy to see you.”

  “Me too. I heard about the others.”

  Delphinium sighed. “I just can’t believe it. I should’ve done more to protect you all.”

  “How could you know?”

  “What’s done is done,” said Eric. “Right now we all need to be thinking forward.”

  “You’re right,” agreed Delphinium. She stood up and faced him.

  Surprised, Eric took a step back.

  “First thing we need to do is take a closer look at those
injuries.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” She lifted his hands and examined the small crescent-shaped wounds. The middle and index fingers of his right hand were still covered in dried blood, but the bleeding had stopped. “An imp did this?” She looked confused.

  “It did. Lucky for me, their teeth are small.”

  She tugged at his collar and examined some shallow claw marks.

  Eric felt embarrassed. He was fine. It barely even hurt anymore.

  “Did anyone else get hurt?”

  “Just scratched,” replied Poppy, revealing several long, but superficial marks running down one arm.

  Delphinium turned and examined her arm, then looked at Eric’s injuries again. Finally, she met his eyes. “Odd.”

  “What?”

  She caught sight of the wound on his ear and examined it closer. “Here, too?”

  “Oh yeah. Keep forgetting about that one.”

  “All these wounds look at least two days old.”

  Eric stared at her. “What?” He looked down at his hand and saw that she was right. They no longer looked like fresh injuries. Each one was completely scabbed over. But it hadn’t been a full hour yet. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re a remarkably fast healer.”

  “How…?” But suddenly Eric remembered something he’d all but forgotten. Something someone said to him once after he first discovered that the world was full of unexplainable and frightening things. He was sitting on the ground, near a gigantic hole inside which he’d very nearly died, suffering from the unthinkable burden of knowledge so powerful and so profound that he thought it might kill him. But he couldn’t remember what that knowledge was. A very small man came and took the knowledge, and all the pain that came with it, and hid it away deep inside him somewhere, where it could no longer harm him. The whole thing was a little murky in his memory now, and he’d almost forgotten it entirely, but he thought he recalled being told that things would be different. His dreams would be enhanced…whatever that meant… And something about…healing a little faster…

  Eric sat down in the chair. He felt as if all the energy had left his body. “Oh…” was all he could manage.

  “Eric?” said Delphinium, kneeling down in front of him. “Are you okay?”

  But Eric wasn’t sure if he was okay or not. He tried to remember. His injuries from that journey had healed quickly enough, but he didn’t think it was unnaturally fast. Of course…the only injury that had been worth examining was the claw mark on his shoulder. That had remained bandaged for several days before he even dared to look at it. He recalled being relieved to find that it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be…

  And then last summer… He’d suffered a few cuts and scrapes and quite a few bruises, which all healed quickly enough, but he hadn’t thought they were all that bad to begin with.

  He even remembered Karen making an offhanded comment about him being a quick healer now that he thought about it…

  “Are you all right?” pressed Delphinium.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just…”

  “Do you need to lie down?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I was just remembering something I’d forgotten.”

  “That you’re really Wolverine?” asked Poppy.

  Eric gave her a small chuckle. “No. Not quite.” He pushed up the sleeve of his tee shirt and looked at his scarred shoulder. Now that he really thought about it, those wounds had healed remarkably fast without any stitches.

  Delphinium gasped a little at the sight.

  “Whoa…” sighed Poppy. “That’s pretty hardcore. What did that?”

  “Golem,” replied Eric absently.

  “Golem?” said Jude. “Isn’t that the little guy from Lord of the Rings?”

  “I don’t think so,” replied Poppy.

  Eric ignored them. He didn’t understand all this.

  Delphinium offered him a smile. “When I cast my spell, it told me you were special, and in ways that even you weren’t yet aware.”

  “Is he really our only hope?” asked Poppy.

  “The spell never lies,” Delphinium assured her. She looked at Eric, her eyes shining in a curious way that made Eric feel like a Justin Bieber poster at a junior high girl’s slumber party. “He’ll save us. I know it.”

  “Who are we going to save next?” Holly asked.

  “We’ll consult the water,” Delphinium replied. “But first, we’re going to strengthen our protection spells and ask for guidance. Something’s not right tonight. There are blind spots that shouldn’t be there. Together, maybe we can finally figure out what’s wrong.” She looked down at Poppy. “I think we’ll bring the table in here. It’ll be more comfortable for you.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble on my account.”

  But she and Holly were already heading to the back room to retrieve the table and the bowls.

  “What’s going on?” asked Eric, smoothing down his sleeve again.

  Poppy smiled. “You’re going to get to see some real witch magic. Lucky you.”

  “You’re not all going to get naked and start dancing around a bonfire, are you?”

  “Well, I’m certainly not,” replied Poppy, gesturing at her legs and smiling up at him. “Maybe Holly will, if you ask her nicely.”

  “I heard that,” called Holly from the other room.

  Jude let out a loud sigh. “That’d be awesome.”

  “Keep it in your pants, wizard boy,” said Poppy, rolling her eyes.

  Eric had to remind himself that the kid was at that hormonal train wreck of an age and living with a bunch of young, attractive women who weren’t related to him. And one of those women was a stripper. It was a little surprising the boy wasn’t an emotional disaster, when he really thought about it.

  “Anyway,” Poppy went on. “That’s not really our thing. I’ve met some Wiccans that do that sort of thing. Something about being one with nature or something.”

  “Aren’t Wiccans witches?”

  “Different kind of witch.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “There are all sorts of different kinds of witchcraft. A lot of them, like the Wiccan, is something of a religion. We’re not anchored to any kind of belief system here. We don’t worship anything. We just harness energy. You might say it’s almost a science. Some of those others are way into the ritualistic magic, even dark stuff like blood and sacrifices. Most of it is bullshit, but some of it is as real as ours. I’ve even heard that there are some really scary ones out there, serious black magic, straight from hell kind of stuff. I don’t know how much of it’s true, but it scares the living hell out of me if I think about it too much.”

  “I can imagine.” Again, Eric thought about the witch Father Billy described to him, a terrifying woman with awful powers who refused to die… The thought always gave him a shudder.

  But these people were nothing like that horror. He looked at Poppy again. “How did you meet Delphinium, anyway?”

  She gave him a tired smile. “I was paralyzed in an accident when I was eight. I lost my mom in the same accident and ended up in the custody of my drunk stepdad. He was always a dick, but without mom around… Well, things got really bad. I won’t go into it, but for eight years, it just got worse and worse, until, one night, he kicked my wheelchair down a flight of steps with me in it. Three broken bones and a major concussion. I guess that was literally and figuratively the lowest point in my life. He got scared and ran away, probably thought he was going to prison for murder. I just knew I was going to end up in a foster home, but then Del found me in the hospital.” Her smile brightened a little. “She just helped me into my chair and then pushed me out the door. Nobody even seemed to notice us.”

  Eric glanced at Jude. It was the same trick he’d used to get inside his kitchen that morning.

  “She’s like my guardian angel. She’s done so much good for us all. I just can’t understand why anyone would want to hur
t her.”

  He didn’t understand it either. Who was this magic man? Why was he doing this?

  Eric’s phone rang. It was Paul. “Excuse me for a minute.”

  Poppy gave him a cute wave of her hand. “You’re excused,” the gesture said.

  He turned and walked into the kitchen as he lifted it to his ear and said, “Hey. Where are you?”

  “Fucking Kentucky!”

  Eric was confused. “What the hell are you doing in Kentucky?”

  “I don’t know! I finally found the interstate, after driving through about a dozen stupid little towns, and now I’m in Kentucky! I hate Kentucky!”

  “You went too far.”

  “I know I went too far! I obviously went too far!”

  In the background, he heard Kevin yell, “Will you tell him to just let me drive, already!”

  “I’m driving!” snapped Paul. “I’ll go crazy out here in this endless corn if I don’t have anything to do but sit there and stare at it.”

  Eric shook his head. “Karen’s not going to be happy with you.”

  “No shit, she’s not happy. She just got through chewing me out a minute ago.”

  “Bummer.”

  “It’s your fault. You’re the one who pissed her off.”

  “I know.”

  “And what’s this about you hanging out in a strip bar?”

  Eric rolled his eyes. “She told you about that?”

  “Oh yeah, I had to hear all about it. Your anniversary weekend and you’re off staring at some stripper’s ass and I’m too stupid to follow directions so I can get over there and keep you in line.”

  “I wasn’t staring!” snapped Eric.

  “You really went to a strip bar?”

  “I had to meet somebody. I didn’t even know what the place was until I pulled into the stupid parking lot.”

  “Without me?”

  “Not cool, dude!” added Kevin from the background. “That was very selfish of you!”

  “It was business, not pleasure,” Eric insisted.

  “Right,” chuckled Paul.

  “Don’t be an asshole.”

  “I have the right to be an asshole. I’m lost in fucking Kentucky because of you!”

  “I’m the one who keeps getting bitten by imps.”