Who is Audrey Wickersham?

by Sara Shrieves

  “Mmm hmm. I can see having him here is awful for you.” I laughed when he looked at me again, this time rolling his eyes and waving me away with the hand he wasn’t petting Phantom with.

  I began digging through the cabinets, looking for his food. I found the tuna no problem, but I couldn’t remember where his food was. How weird was this whole thing? It was like a tiny chunk of my brain had been eaten away. Why this part though?

  “It’s in the pantry, lower right hand shelf.” My dad said when he saw me opening cabinets and looking lost. He was standing near the island now, watching me.

  “I’m sorry Dad. I just…forgot.” I walked over to the pantry and grabbed the bag of cat food. I filled Phantom’s bowl, which was located near the island. I went to open the tuna can with the electric can opener, and as soon as it began running Phantom went nuts. He began meowing louder than ever and he jumped up on the counter and started trying to wind around the can opener. I stopped it mid-opening and pulled my hand back in surprise.

  “Don’t worry, Aud. It’s totally normal.” He laughed. “Tuna is Phantom’s weakness. He goes nuts just hearing that can opener now; he thinks everything is going to be tuna.”

  “Oh…okay.” I moved back towards the counter and continued opening the can and then managed to drain it and scoop it into a bowl for him before he could try and just steal it from me. He wound up scarfing it all down while perched on top of the island.

  “Well, I guess we should go.” I smiled down at Phantom curiously. Then I glanced up at my dad and he nodded his head in agreement.

  “Let’s hit the road. I am going to want an explanation of some sort while we’re driving at least; something to make me feel like I’m not being delinquent because I’m not just ignoring this ridiculous request of yours and taking you directly to the doctor.” He looked at me sternly as I began making my way over to the door that lead out to the garage.

  “Okay! I promise I will try to explain somewhat about what is going on. I don’t even really know yet myself, though.”

  “Well, then at least we’ll be in the same boat.” He opened the door for me and we headed out to the car.

  __

  My dad has this tank of a car. It’s a big 1972 Chevrolet Nova. It’s fast and loud, and it scares the crap out of me. I have driven it several times now since I’ve gotten my learner’s permit, and I always feel like I’m going to fly off the road if I tap the gas pedal too hard or something. My dad always looks equally freaked out on each of these occasions, with his back all rigid and one hand flat on the seat with the other hand placed bracingly on the ceiling.

  I could tell he was always trying to appear calm, but that he was actually in fear for both of our lives.

  It was for this reason that I was glad when we stepped into the garage that he automatically went over to the driver’s side. I didn’t think he would have encouraged me to drive in my current state anyway (I mean hell, what if I forgot what a stoplight meant?) but you never know when your parent is going to try and teach you some bizarre lesson about responsibility.

  “Hop up!” He shouted over to me, as we were getting into the car.

  “Dad there’s no need for me to hop anymore. I’m tall enough to see over the dashboard now.” He’d been saying that to me since I was a little girl, and we’d be going for a car ride somewhere, or a road trip. And he’d had this car for as long as I could remember.

  “Old habits, as they say.” He folded his big frame into the car, and slammed his door shut. I tried every once in a while to picture him in one of those newer economy cars that were coming out nowadays. It would definitely be a funny sight, seeing this huge guy in a teeny car. The Nova helped make him look somewhat normal when he was inside of it, due to the bench seats and the height of the ceiling.

  “Alright. I start driving, and you start explaining.”

  I started feeling queasy, and I couldn’t tell if it was because I was going to throw up again, or because I was just really nervous about what his reaction was going to be. I forged ahead and began telling him what had happened; starting from the moment Agnes had approached me in the store. At the point when I told him about the Zomorwai spilling all over me and then what Agnes told me about them, he became very pale and he seemed like he was going to pull over and stop the car. He just slowed down slightly though and after I prodded him with a, “Dad?” he sped up and kept heading toward Magick Eye.

  I wrapped up my story with a closing line of, “And now I don’t know what cats are for some reason.” And he laughed a little, at least.

  “Yeah, that’s when I knew something was extremely wrong with you. You love that damn cat.” He shook his head disapprovingly.

  “You try to pretend you hate it, but I think you love it too.”

  “Yeah well, it’s not so bad all the time. He’s not your typical cat. But don’t try to throw me off the main topic. This is some seriously scary shit, Audrey. Sorry for my language, but what have you gotten yourself into?”

  I looked down at my hands on my lap and said quietly, “I have been thinking about that non-stop since I got into the car. I am totally freaked out. That’s why we need to just see Agnes and see if she can give us any information. She said if I started feeling sick or anything to come and see her, so that’s what I’m doing.”

  “Well, it looks like we’re here,” he said, as we were pulling up the side street near the shop. My dad had picked me up here numerous times, and had also been into the shop himself and found that he approved of it. So he was really surprised when I told him anything weird had happened to me here.

  I hesitated in the car, not wanting to get out and find out how bad my situation really was.

  “Are you ready?” My dad asked.

  “Yes,” I sighed. “I just don’t want this to end up like some cheesy horror movie where we go in there and they say they’ve never even heard of anyone by the name of Agnes, you know? I don’t think I could handle that.” I smiled at him weakly.

  “Well the only thing we can do is go in there and find out. What happened to you so far seems like something out of a cheesy horror movie, doesn’t it?”

  I laughed loudly and nodded my head in agreement. “You’re right. Let’s go.” I opened my door and went to discover my fate.

  Chapter 3

  As I stepped up onto the curb with my dad following behind me, the wind began to really pick up and blow all of the leaves around everywhere. There was an overall ominous feeling to the day, and I started to grow more nervous.

  “Could this get anymore cliché?” I looked back at my dad, and he smiled and kept walking. I turned back around to face forward and felt my foot catch on something. I began to fall and started waving my arms around aimlessly to try and grab a hold of something that wasn’t there. I started falling facedown onto the sidewalk, but I at least managed to get one hand underneath my face, which wound up becoming sort of a cushion for my cheek.

  “Audrey!” My dad was immediately at my side, starting to pick me up.

  “Wait. Just…let me lay here for a second.” It felt as if I had skinned the hand that I landed on and I didn’t want to move it yet because I could imagine it starting to drip blood when I got up. I hated blood. I really hated my own, but I think I hated other people’s more.

  “Let me just sit you up at least,” he said. “I don’t want you lying on this sidewalk. It’s disgusting.”

  I would have laughed at that moment, but I think the few words I had spoken were all I could muster at that point. I grunted a response instead, hoping he would understand I was saying, “Okay.”

  He got my meaning and slowly began putting me into an upright position. I inhaled sharply, anticipating the pain that would inevitably come along with the wound I knew I now had, but I didn’t feel a thing, besides the embarrassment that I had completely eaten it in public.

  “Alright,” he said, shuffling around and wiping me off, “let me look at you to assess the damage.” He was shaking his head in d
isapproval and I got kind of annoyed.

  “I didn’t do it on purpose Dad. Since yesterday I’ve just been clumsier than usual.”

  “I’m not mad, I’m just concerned. Now be quiet and give me your hand. Is that what you used to break your-” He had been pulling my hand away from my body, because I had been holding it against myself as if it had broken or something, and he stopped mid-sentence, so I figured I must have skinned it up pretty badly. I was looking off to the right so that I wouldn’t see any blood or anything. He didn’t start talking again though so I said, “Well? Is it bad?”

  “Audrey…I don’t…”

  I looked up at his face and avoided looking at my hand and saw that he looked completely terrified, and also disgusted. I looked down at my hand and felt my eyes almost bulge out of my head.

  “NO. No, no, no, no, NO.” I yanked my hand away from him and started sliding back towards the storefront wall of Magick Eye. I had fallen right in front of it. I couldn’t get far enough away from what I was seeing though. That was coming out of my hand. How could that be possible?! I jumped up and held my hand out in front of me and began marching towards the annex entrance in a sudden blind fury. Agnes was going to be there and she was going to explain what the hell was going on.

  “Audrey wait! What- Aren’t we- Okay…” He sputtered as he followed after me because we passed the main entrance but he saw I was headed for the next door down. He came up right behind me and I began pounding on the door, and started calling out, “Agnes, damn it get out here!”

  “Okay, hold on.” He nudged me aside and pulled on the door, glancing down at me skeptically as it opened, and then swept his arm in a gesture that meant I should enter first.

  “Agnes!” I called out, as I walked into the dimly lit shop. “Are you in here?”

  “Hello?” I could hear her, coming out from the back room. “Who is that?”

  “It’s Audrey! And I want you to look at something. I think you’ll find it really interesting.”

  I felt like rubbing my hand in her face as soon as she appeared, so she could get a good look right up close of what she had caused. Maybe I should slap her with it too, while I had the chance. I wasn’t normally the violent type but I think a moment like this called for it. I knew deep down that it was partially my own fault for messing with that damn jar in the first place. But I didn’t care.

  Agnes appeared from the back room and looked surprised to see me. “Audrey! I didn’t think you would be back already. I thought maybe a week at the earliest, if there was trouble…” She trailed off at my expression, and also when she caught sight of my hand, which I was holding out to my side, palm up. “Oh my goodness,” she whispered in a sudden rush, raising her hands to her mouth. Her eyes opened wide and she glanced past my shoulder up towards my dad, since he was still standing behind me hovering in the entryway.

  “Ralph Wickersham,” he introduced himself. “Apparently you have some sort of explanation of why all of this is happening to my daughter?” He stared at her as she looked back and forth between the two of us.

  She began shaking her head slowly back and forth, and lowered her hands to her sides. “I’ve never seen this happen before. Audrey…it appears that your insides have turned green. What- What did you do??” She began approaching me, slowly looking at my outstretched hand.

  “What did I do?! You know damn well what happened! The friggin’ Zomorwhatever fell on me! Now this,” I shoved my hand close to her face, as she had moved right in front of me, and she flinched, “is the result! I want an explanation. I brought my father and he wants one too. You said to come if any changes happened to my body that I wasn’t accustomed to. Well, last I heard my insides weren’t supposed to be turning green!”

  “Audrey…” My dad said in a warning tone. I could tell he didn’t like me yelling at an old woman, but I felt it was called for in this situation.

  “Dad I can’t help it.” I turned around to face him, and held up my hand so he could look at it again. “This is insane! I can’t just put a band-aid on this and hope it goes away.” I looked back at my hand and saw that it had started to ooze. I felt myself gagging and had to move it back down to my side again. “Is this all throughout my body?” I asked weakly, to no one in particular. Suddenly I felt all of the anger draining out of me as well as any strength I seemed to have and my knees seemed to be bending on their own. I felt my dad grabbing a hold of my elbow, and Agnes caught me from the other side. I’d forgotten how strong she was, even though it was just yesterday that I saw her.

  I looked at her pleadingly and asked, “Is this going to happen everywhere Agnes? Or has it already?” They had lowered me to the floor for now and she was just staring down at me, with her eyes sliding over to my hand and then back to my face.

  “I honestly don’t know,” she replied worriedly. “I want to explain what I do know, to you and your father. Let’s try and wrap your hand as best as we can for now, and we’ll head to the back and sit down. Does that sound acceptable?” She looked up at my dad, obviously hoping he would immediately agree, but I could see for myself that he wanted to pick me up and walk right out of there.

  He started rubbing the top of his head with both of his hands, a habit he had when he was annoyed or nervous, especially while he was thinking. He had a buzz cut so it made a loud bristly noise when he would do that. It usually made me laugh, but not right now. He brought his hands down to his sides after a moment and stared at Agnes for a good thirty seconds. I didn’t envy her in that moment. If it was possible, she seemed to grow smaller than she already was.

  “My daughter’s hand is green,” he said, breaking the silence. “Whatever that shit is that’s oozing out of it…I want it to be fixed. Can you do that?”

  Agnes looked frightened. She shifted her eyes away and began looking at the walls around her, filled with all of her powders and elixirs. “There has to be something here…” She kneaded her hands together nervously. “I think I can, but we really should talk about everything. I need to know her symptoms.”

  She looked back and met my dad’s stare. He waited a brief moment and then nodded his head once, quickly. “Fine. I’ll bring her back to your room and we’ll talk.”

  Agnes seemed relieved and started turning towards her back room.

  “But I’m bringing her to a doctor if anything else happens that I don’t like.”

  This made Agnes stop short, with her back still turned toward us. “Okay,” she said quietly. “I understand.” She began walking again slowly towards her back room.

  My dad had picked me up like a baby again and I let him. All the fight had drained out of me at that point. I really just wanted to know what was happening and if it was going to get worse, or if it could be stopped.

  I held my disgusting hand, palm up, against my chest, but I avoided looking at it as much as possible. It was strange because whatever was seeping out of my hand did not have the same consistency as blood. It wasn’t thick, like slime exactly…it was just sort of stagnant, I guess you would say. It made me shudder just thinking about it.

  We entered the back room, the part that was her office and also a storage room and she turned and indicated the big comfy chair for him to place me in.

  He set me down in it and then stood upright and turned around, regarding the room, and finally Agnes. “Do you have something to bandage her hand with?”

  “Oh!” She raised her hand up and pointed her finger, and began walking towards the room further back, the one she had let me change in. “Just let me grab my kit. I have it all back here!” She called out as she shuffled away.

  My dad sighed loudly and kept looking around the room. “Well, kiddo. This is all just…I don’t know.” He shook his head and then started rubbing one of his hands against the top of it, making that bristling sound again.

  “Let’s just see what she has to say.” I leaned back in the chair, trying to relax and let myself calm down. I felt my stomach clenching up, wanting to let go of anyt
hing it could. I placed my good hand on it and groaned inwardly. This really sucked.

  Agnes came back out with what looked like a regular first aid kit and placed it on the desk next to me. She opened it and began pulling out items and placing them neatly on the edge of the desk: gauze, medical tape, antiseptic. I didn’t think it would heal this abnormal wound, but at least it would cover it up for now.

  “Now, let me see your hand dear.” She watched as I placed it gently on the arm of the chair, palm up of course.

  “My, my, that is definitely quite something.” She “tsked” a little and shook her head, and grabbed the antiseptic from the desk, and some cotton balls out of the kit. “This may sting a little.” She looked closely at the wound as she tilted the bottle onto the cotton ball, seeming to reassess what she had said. “Or it may sting a lot.” She frowned a little and then set the antiseptic back down and grabbed the tips of my fingers, and began slowly dabbing the drenched cotton ball against the wound.

  I flinched, instinctively anticipating the normal amount of pain that usually went along with this kind of thing. I’d had some pretty major injuries back in the day. But I realized after a few seconds that I wasn’t feeling anything.

  “Anything?” She asked me, still dabbing the wound.

  “No…no pain at all. Maybe it’s just numb? It didn’t hurt when I fell, either. I figured I was just in shock.” I looked over at my dad and he was looking down at the wound, with a somewhat guarded look on his face. “What do you think that means?”

  “Well first I need to finish this up, and then I need you to tell me everything else that has happened to you.” She concentrated on the rest of the task she had to do and bandaged my hand very neatly.

  She wound up dragging another chair over for my dad, which had been hiding under a stack of boxes.

  “Thanks,” my dad said quietly. He was very solemn, and I could tell he was not happy to be here and he didn’t like Agnes. I didn’t necessarily like her at the moment either, but I didn’t think she meant any harm.