Who is Audrey Wickersham?

by Sara Shrieves

  “What’s me? Who are you?” I stepped sideways so that I was behind Bruce and grabbed his shoulders, and then peeked out around him so I could still see the little old man. He had a full head of wild silver hair, and those eyes were electric.

  “You are infected with the Zomorwai, and you must be eliminated.”

  After a brief moment of shocked silence, Bruce and I both said, “Shit.”

  Chapter 7

  The awkward stand-off was broken when my dad walked up behind Bruce and myself and asked curiously, “Who is this?”

  Our heads swiveled simultaneously towards my dad and I whispered, “He’s here to eliminate me.”

  Bruce let out a slight whimper and slapped his hand quickly over his mouth. He let out a muffled, “Sorry,” when my dad gave him a penetrating look, then we both backed up as my dad started to shove the two of us gently out of the doorway, and back into the hall. He stepped forward to greet the little old man, and all I could see now was a little silver tuft of his hair sticking out past my dad’s waistline, which is where the top of his head reached. My dad did have the advantage of standing a step higher, but even still, he could just flick the old man and he would go flying.

  “Can I help you?” My dad asked using what he felt was his intimidating tone of voice. This was usually only reserved for telemarketers and boys that called me with romantic intentions. Seeing as the latter didn’t happen too often, and he had pretty much terrified all of the telemarketers that called on a regular basis into not calling anymore, he rarely got to use it. I could tell he was enjoying this.

  “I am here to fulfill my duty as a member of The Council! Please step aside sir!” The old man began trying to move himself around my dad’s huge form, but all I could see was his wooden staff waving around all crazy and his silver hair, bobbing around back and forth. He yelled again, slightly out of breath this time, “Please sir, step aside!”

  “Besnik?”

  I recognized Agnes’s voice, so I knew this meant she had arrived and was standing outside witnessing this. I didn’t understand what word she had said though, but I figured it must be the old man’s name. My dad just kept stepping side to side in the doorway, sticking his hand out, gently shoving the old man away from him.

  He was getting very worked up. “Sir, I assure you, I will cause you severe pain if I must!”

  “Agnes,” my dad said, “Do you know this man?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” she said, coming up on the porch.

  I still couldn’t see much except for both of their heads now. The old man (Besnik?) had turned towards her now, and she began whispering furiously at him. He didn’t seem to want to be so discreet though.

  “I shall not!” He shouted, turning back around and trying to break through the barrier that was my dad.

  Bruce began giggling, and I elbowed him in the side, but then started giggling too after a moment. The man just looked so comical, going up against my dad like that.

  “The girl is a danger to us all, and needs to be destroyed!” He reached his staff in past my dad’s shoulder and almost whacked my head with it.

  “Whoa there!” Bruce said, pulling me further back into the hallway. “Not so cute anymore.”

  “Hey!” My dad shouted loudly, yanking the staff out of the old man’s hands, holding it above his head, “You are not going to touch my daughter.”

  “Besnik you need to stop this now!” Agnes shouted.

  We heard an angry growl and saw Besnik jumping up, trying to grab his staff from my dad’s hand. “No way old man. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  “Hurt me?!” Besnik screeched, landing on the porch and glaring up at my dad angrily. “You have no idea what you’re holding there, do you? Well, you will know in a moment!” He started muttering words under his breath and my dad’s head was angled down towards him, and Bruce and I had shuffled back over to see what he was doing, when Agnes suddenly shouted out, “Restrasi!”

  Besnik’s eyes opened wide and he became stiff all over, and started falling forward towards my dad. He caught him easily with the hand that wasn’t holding the staff, and then he looked over at Agnes and said, “What am I supposed to do with him?”

  “Well, just lay him down for now. We can work out the rest later. Oh, dear.” She looked really worried and sad as well, and she gave a sympathetic look down at Besnik. “He really doesn’t mean to harm anyone. But his arrival is not a good sign. If he is here, that means more will be coming eventually.”

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “He is a retired member of The Council, which is the group that rejected my visit when I went seeking information about the Zomorwai in Romania.”

  My dad pulled Besnik into the living room and left him lying beside the couch on the floor. He went and closed the front door and asked, “So what exactly did you do to him?”

  “It’s just a simple inhibition spell. It keeps the person frozen for a certain amount of time, almost as if they’re in restraints--vocally, as well. It should only last for an hour or two.”

  “Wow,” Bruce said, “are you giving lessons?”

  Agnes laughed a little and said, “No, no. That is something not learned overnight dear. By ‘simple’ spell I mean there is nothing involved as in mind control, or anything having to do with forcing his will. It is not as simple to learn though.” She smiled warmly and said, “You must be Bruce. I’m sorry we have to be introduced under such circumstances.”

  “Don’t be crazy!” Bruce said. “I am thrilled to be meeting you this way! What a first impression, let me tell you.” He swept her up into a huge hug and placed a kiss on her wrinkled cheek. She blushed a little at the attention and patted him on the arm when he let her go. She smiled at all of us then.

  “So now that you have met,” my dad said, “why don’t you tell us who in the hell Besnik is.”

  “Right,” Agnes said, becoming serious. “Of course. I’m so sorry he came here like this.” She looked over at me, “Audrey, you are all right, aren’t you? You are not hurt?”

  Before I could even open my mouth to respond my dad said, “Of course she’s all right. I wouldn’t let some crazy old man harm her. But she’s getting worse every day. She’s having horrible headaches and she needs help as soon as you can figure something out with Bruce. But now you need to tell us who this old man is that’s trying to (as he puts it) ‘eliminate’ her.”

  “Well it won’t be just him, unfortunately. If he’s here first though, then the others are not informed yet, but they will be soon.”

  “And how does he know about this at all?” My dad asked.

  “Well…he was my friend; the one who helped me out when I travelled to Romania, years ago.”

  “The one you stole the Zomorwai from?” I asked.

  Agnes went over and sat down in my dad’s chair, next to the couch. She cleared her throat nervously and began kneading her hands together. “Yes, that would be the one.”

  “I’m missing something here,” Bruce said.

  “Agnes took the Zomorwai from a fellow witch while she was in Romania, because she found out about it all from some old book that a witch had written or something. Long story,” I said hurriedly.

  “Soo…did you two like, do the naughty or something too?” Bruce asked Agnes, looking at her with a slight smirk on his face.

  “Oh my gosh, gross,” I said, going over and laying down on the couch.

  Agnes had begun blushing furiously and wouldn’t look any of us in the eye. “It was a long time ago. And I needed to get a sample of the Zomorwai! I had to distract him.” She said this last part quietly and then suddenly dropped her head into her hands and moaned sadly. “It was only the one time.” It came out muffled.

  My jaw dropped open in surprise and I looked over at my dad to see him looking away in embarrassment.

  “Shhh…” Bruce said, going over to her in the chair, sitting on the arm. He began patting her gently on the back. “We’ve all had one night stands we regret,
sweetie.”

  My dad cleared his throat loudly and Bruce said, “Oh right, except for Audrey of course.”

  I rolled my eyes and said, “Can we please talk about the whole Zomorwai thing now? And not all of your sex lives? I’m sick enough without thinking about that as well.”

  “Yes, please,” my dad said.

  “Of course,” Agnes said, composing herself and smiling quickly at Bruce. “I’m so sorry, again, about Besnik showing up like this. We just need to keep him isolated so that word cannot get back to The Council about Audrey. He was most likely scouting.”

  “Well I have things to tie him up with over at my house, for when your little spell wears off, if you need anything,” Bruce said reassuringly.

  “Oh man, this just keeps getting better and better,” I said, closing my eyes. “Image be gone!”

  “Yes, Bruce…please,” my dad said. “If we really need that, we can talk about it when the time comes. But just never what their original purpose was. Ever.”

  “Oh my gosh, you guys have such dirty minds.”

  All of us ignored him and my dad continued questioning Agnes, “So how do you know for sure that this council doesn’t know?”

  “Because they would be here now, and Audrey would be dead, as well as both of you and anyone else she may have come in contact with.”

  “Oh boy. This just got seriously intense. I think I need something to perk me up. Something stronger than a Shirley Temple,” Bruce said, heading towards the kitchen.

  “Why don’t you make me one too, Bruce,” said my dad. He started rubbing his head, making the bristly noise.

  “I’m sorry to scare you like this. It’s entirely my fault, really.” Agnes looked like she was going to be sick.

  “Well it’s already happened, so there’s no reason for me to start yelling and doing anything I might regret later. If there’s any chance you can help Audrey at all, I can’t let anything happen to you now either. We need to figure out what to do with Besnik.”

  “What the heck kind of name is that anyway?” Bruce said, coming out of the kitchen with two drinks. He handed one over to my dad.

  “It’s Albanian,” said Agnes.

  “It’s pretty funky…but I like it!” Bruce said.

  “In about ten minutes you’re going to like anything,” I said, smiling. My head was hurting again and all of their voices were kind of floating to me as if they were further away than they really were. I didn’t want to be sent away though. I wanted to hear what they had to say, so I decided to just throw in a few one-liners here and there, to make everyone think I was normal. Well, as normal as I could be.

  “I don’t care about his name. I want the two of you to start talking. That was the whole point of you coming over here Agnes. Your timing was good, but if you say he’ll be frozen for only an hour or two, that limits us.” He was silent for only a moment and then asked, “Can you do the spell again when it wears off?”

  “Doing it so suddenly after it’s already been done can cause damage to him mentally.”

  Bruce and my dad said simultaneously, “So?”

  “So I don’t want to do that! He is my friend.”

  They both stared at her blankly.

  “He is a good man.”

  “He just tried to kill my daughter!” My dad yelled.

  “He is only doing what he thinks is right!” She yelled back at him. “If this were happening to someone you didn’t know, and you saw the effects of what they could do once they had fully transformed, you would not be so quick in condemning him to mental anguish, for wanting to eliminate that person!

  “But,” Agnes continued, cutting my dad off before he could interrupt her, “since this is your daughter, and her circumstances are slightly different, we will do what we can to keep him restrained. I will use the spell again if I have to. But only if we are desperate.”

  “Fine. Until then, let’s start deciding on what can be done about helping Audrey. Have you come up with any spells or anything?” My dad didn’t look extremely comfortable talking about this stuff. I mean, just two days ago, I was his normal (if a little odd) teenage daughter who liked horror movies and books and was pretty antisocial, with a gay neighbor and a vampire for my best friends. Not that he knew about the vampire part yet.

  Bruce watched avidly as Agnes pulled out what looked like a huge old tattered journal, and then she began to flip through the pages slowly, saying, “There are a couple of spells I thought we could try. We will need a few regular items from around the house for them. Also, I will need an assistant.” She glanced up at Bruce and he suddenly began grinning from ear to ear.

  “Sweetie, you don’t even have to ask.” He clapped his hands together once, then turned and grabbed my dad by the shoulders and shook him a little in his excitement. My dad gently removed his hands and looked at him warily.

  “I think we need to take this seriously Bruce,” said my dad. “You’re treating it like you’re about to play some game at a slumber party.”

  “No! I’m just so excited to be helping someone who actually has some sort of power! I mean seriously, the last time I had any interest in this stuff was back in junior high when a bunch of my girlfriends wanted to play ‘light as a feather, stiff as a board’, and nothing happened.”

  My dad started to smile and quickly covered it up when Bruce glanced over at him.

  “I had so hoped it would work! And then…total failure.”

  My dad rolled his eyes and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Hey! That was a really depressing time for me!” He turned back to Agnes then and said, “But now look! Right here with us, someone who can actually perform true magick! And she’s going to try healing with it. Another thing I love!” He went over and gave Agnes a quick hug around the shoulders and smiled over at me. “Don’t worry Audrey, you’re in good hands now.”

  I smiled back at him and almost felt a glimmer of hope. Hell, if they could just make this headache go away, I would be ecstatic.

  “Okay,” my dad said, “so what do we do first?” He looked over at Agnes expectantly. “Or I guess I should ask what do you do first? Do you need any help from me?”

  “Hey!” Bruce said, looking stricken. “She said I’m going to be her helper!”

  My dad glared at him and opened his mouth to snap out some sort of reply, most likely rude, when Agnes spoke up, “Gentlemen, please! I can use all of your help.” She looked over at me and smiled gently. “And that includes you, Audrey. But you only have to lay there and stay conscious.”

  “Well thank the Zomorwai for that,” I mumbled.

  “Right,” said Agnes, looking at Bruce and then my dad. “What you two need to do now is acquire a few items for me.”

  “Of course!” Bruce said. He stepped forward eagerly, and my dad rolled his eyes at him again.

  “I’ll need a knife, a lighter or some matches, and a black pen.”

  My dad cocked an eyebrow at her and asked, “A knife? What do you need that for exactly?”

  Bruce made an annoyed huffing sound and walked past my dad into the kitchen, beginning to open drawers, searching for the items she had requested.

  “Only to carve into this candle, dear.” She pulled out a fat black candle from her purse (more like a satchel) and set it on the side table next to her. “I know that the curse cannot be directly addressed, but that doesn’t mean we cannot try to make contact with the Zomorwai.”

  “How do you plan on doing that?” My dad asked.

  “We’re going to try a very basic banishing spell. I thought that doing something simple might be more deceptive. And at this point we don’t have a lot of options.”

  “Okay!” said Bruce, running back into the living room. “I got the objects.” He stood looking expectantly at Agnes, holding them in his hands.

  “Alright Bruce,” she said, “You can put them down here with the candle.” She indicated the side table next to her.

  “Oh! Right, of course.”
He grinned at her sheepishly.

  She laughed at him and then began rummaging more through her bag.

  My dad came around the couch and kneeled down next to me, and started gently brushing my hair back away from my face. It made me feel comforted and sleepy.

  “You doing okay?”

  “I’m holding up. For now, I guess.” I smiled at him weakly and then flinched at a sudden sharp pain in my head. I sucked in my breath and put my hands up to my face, and sort of squeezed the sides of my head. I was trying to minimize the pain, which was obviously not working since my head felt like it was exploding internally, but I had to do something.

  “Audrey?” My dad asked, sounding scared.

  I just lay there, struggling with the momentary agony, trying not to pay attention to him as he began repeating my name over and over now. Geez. Couldn’t he tell I was in severe freaking pain?? Why wouldn’t he just shut up?

  Bruce was suddenly at my other side, leaning over me, trying to gently but firmly remove my hands from my head so that he could try and see what was happening. I could hear him telling my dad to be quiet. I was relieved when he finally was.

  Suddenly, just as fast as it had started, all of the pain stopped. I was breathing really hard so I think they all thought I was still in pain, and the two of them were both leaning over me. Agnes was hovering somewhere over near my feet. An amazing smell began to drift towards me. I don’t think I’d ever smelled anything like it. It was a meaty smell, and it made every single taste bud in my mouth practically burst with anticipation, and I instantly began drooling. “What are you cooking?” I asked out loud.

  “What? Sweetie, are you okay?” Bruce asked. He glanced up at my dad nervously and then back down at me. I still had my hands covering my face and he tried grabbing one of my wrists again. This time I let him. He felt my pulse and seemed satisfied after a moment.

  “Is she alright?” Agnes asked.

  “Her pulse is,” Bruce said. “Audrey, what’s happening? Are you okay? Can you open your eyes? What do you smell?”