by Mark Tufo
“I’ll come if you want,” Emma said. “You know I will.”
“I know.”
“So how long do we have to wait before we find out what the hell happened over there? You were there, right? Matt stared at them.
“They were,” Isabel said. I remember the night. I didn’t know Peter was there, but I do remember that night.”
Peter and Allyson recounted the details. Everyone stared in amazement. When Peter got to the part about plucking the hair, they all laughed.
“Where is it!” Emma practically shouted.
“God, it seemed so much like a dream, and then so real at the same time, I nearly forgot about it.”
He stood and pulled his pocket out with his left hand and slid his right down inside. He closed his fingers and pulled it out, careful to do so over the coffee table. If it fell on the floor it might be lost. But when he removed his hand, it was there. A dark brown hair.
Murdock Vickar’s hair.
Peter glanced sideways at Isabel. “Just what powers does he have if he can’t detect us, can’t control us, and . . . well, just what can this powerful warlock do?”
“Consider him a puppet master,” said Isabel. “He can cause great damage by controlling mortal humans. Multiple at once. In the past, when he has killed all of you, he has done so by manipulating other people and things, not you. It’s infinitely more dangerous; you’d not see the end approaching.”
“I guess we never have,” said Allyson.
“Let’s begin. I feel an urgency.”
Glenn had not said a word. But when Peter placed the hair on a sheet of white paper that Emma had put on the table for that purpose, he carefully picked it up and examined it.
“What are you doing, Glenn?” asked Matt.
“I don’t know. I look at this one tiny hair, and I can’t believe this is going to change me. What she’s about to do with this . . . insignificant little hair is going to create a Glenn that none of you have ever known. A Glenn I’ve never met.”
Peter knew exactly what he meant. If Vickar had taken control of him as a small boy –”
He turned to Isabel.
“Will Vickar know? Won’t he feel the loss of control of Glenn after so many years of affecting who he is?”
“His magic is powerful, but he only knows it works when his bidding is done. If he believes, through seeing Glenn’s actions that he is unchanged, he will not know. He is a master of sleight of hand. But not like any magician. There are no tricks. It is true magic. But he cannot transport, as you have, Peter. He cannot see the future, as Katherine could.”
“Why haven’t I seen the future yet, Isabel?” worried Allyson. “What does that mean? Does it mean we have no future to see?”
“I can’t answer that,” she said. “It could mean you have not yet reacquired that power. You may never do so.”
“It would help a lot if you think you could put it on your to-do list, babe,” said Peter.
Isabel had prepared a small, wooden bowl and in it poured the contents of a clay bottle she had uncorked. The liquid had a molasses-like consistency, and smelled of some spice Peter didn’t recognize.
“Someone, please go into the front yard, and turn the earth in the garden until you find a worm at least three inches in length.”
They all looked at one another, then Matt said, “Looks like I picked a bad month to stop drinking.” He got up and headed for the door.
“I have a gardening shovel in the garage. I’ll come with,” Emma said.
To Peter’s surprise, Matt held out his hand, and Emma put hers in his as they headed out the door.
“Something’s definitely going on there,” Allyson said. “I’m happy for them.”
“I can’t think happy, sad, giddy, nothing,” Glenn said. “I’m fucking nervous.”
“It’ll be okay, man. Don’t worry.” Peter put a hand on Glenn’s shoulder, then realized he hadn’t done that for years.
It seemed he was already seeing Glenn differently. But it made sense. Glenn was already different. Humbled, somehow.
In five minutes, Emma and Matt opened the door. Emma slipped her shoes off and Matt followed suit, wiping his hands off on one another. Emma entered first and knelt down next to the coffee table, opening her hands to reveal an earthworm about four inches in length.
“Will this do? If not, we’ve got lots of other choices out there.”
“It will do just fine,” Isabel said. She held the worm up and found its center.
“Glenn, are you ready?”
Glenn looked startled. “Ready for what?”
“Just breathe,” Isabel said.
Matt had taken a seat on the floor next to Emma and watched, mesmerized.
Isabel spoke her spell from memory:
Beneath the earth where no one could see,
This life that dwelled was hidden and free.
This creature from below will nevermore dwell
Its sole task now to withdraw Vickar’s spell.
Pressing her long thumbnails through the worm, she split it in two nearly equal pieces. Both ends wiggled and squirmed in her fingers, and she dropped them simultaneously into the bowl.
Nothing happened. The worm pieces roiled within, like tiny serpents, appearing, then disappearing. With a wooden stick, Isabel stirred the mixture thoroughly, then looked at Glenn.
“Are you ready to meet yourself, Glenn Webster?”
“Do I have to drink that shit?” he asked, stunned.
Isabel didn’t answer. She leaned forward and took the hair from the paper.
She dropped it in.
The moment the hair came in contact with the mixture, it began to bubble and froth. The worm halves came to life anew, and it churned faster and began to smoke.
Peter watched, glanced at Allyson and the others, but they could not look away. He returned his gaze to the bowl, which now looked as if it would overflow, like a pot boiling over on the stove.
The smoke-steam was billowing out now.
“Glenn!” said Isabel, lifting the bowl to his face. “Breathe in, deeply. No matter what happens, just breathe in and out, as deeply as you can.”
Glenn leaned forward, then got off the couch and knelt in front of Isabel. He lowered his face to the bowl, and the clouds of whatever it was began drifting into his nose and mouth with each intake and exhalation of air.
But soon it changed. It was going in, and even when he breathed out, it kept going in.
Glenn choked and threw his head back.
Peter looked down at the bowl. It was empty.
Glenn’s face was reddish purple, his eyes were closed. It appeared his throat was constricting, and Peter was sure he wasn’t breathing.
“Isabel!” Peter screamed. “What’s wrong with him?”
“It is working,” she said, no panic in her eyes or in her voice.
And suddenly, Glenn gasped a huge gulp of air, and his face dropped again toward the bowl. He opened his mouth and something started coming out.
Something big and alive.
The brown skin of the earthworm. Only it wasn’t the tiny worm it once was. It was three inches in diameter now, and its skin shifted over its body with a shimmering sliding movement.
Glenn continued to choke on it and opened his mouth wider yet. The engorged worm gave one last sharp wriggle and dropped from his mouth into the bowl.
“Shit!” Matt said.
“I am seriously gonna puke,” said Emma, her face pale.
But Glenn wasn’t done. The fat worm in the bowl was at least six inches long, twisting against the wood with frantic movement.
Glenn gagged again and again, and coughed one last time, spitting the other half of the worm out.
Only it wasn’t half a worm. It was exactly as it had been when Isabel had first taken it from Emma.
Glenn hyperventilated for what seemed like forever to Peter. Finally he struggled back to his feet and collapsed onto the sofa with a heaving breath.
&nb
sp; “Emma, please put the worm back in the garden.”
“The small one?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God.” Emma picked up the earthworm, which had landed on the table, and ran to the door. In seconds she had returned.
“This worm has extracted all magic from your soul, Glenn. It has engorged itself on the black power that controlled you, and has left your soul clean. You are free of Vickar’s control now.”
“What the hell do we do with it?”
“We burn it. It is not a creature of this earth. Emma has already returned that creature to its home.”
With that, she lit a match and touched it to the writhing thing in the bowl.
Like an old flashbulb, it disintegrated with a bright flash.
And again, the bowl was empty.
Glenn wiped his hands with his face, burying the heels of his palms into his eyes. He smoothed his hair back and looked at the others.
They all gasped at once.
“You look like Peter,” they almost all said in unison, only Peter said “me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your face, man,” said Matt. “You guys are identical twins, but I’ve never really thought you were identical. But right now, if the hair was the same, I might not be able to pick you out.”
Glenn got up and went to the mirror in the hallway. As he stood there looking at himself, Peter walked over and turned on the light, standing beside him.
Together, side-by-side, they stared into the mirror.
“Welcome home, brother,” Peter chided. “I’ve missed you.”
*****
Peter again settled on the sofa next to Allyson. He occasionally looked up at his brother, marveling at his transformation. It wasn’t that his personality seemed so different; Glenn could be charming at times, and had to be to win over judge and jury.
It was his face, his posture. He was relaxed, approachable. Two words Peter never would have used to describe him before. And he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, the kind who wouldn’t hurt anyone intentionally.
Glenn sat quietly. He seemed to be deep in thought.
“Hey,” Peter said. “You doing alright?”
“Not really,” answered Glenn. “I’ve got a lot to do. A lot of . . . well, atonement, I think.”
“I already told you, we don’t blame you at all, man.”
“It’s not you guys, though you deserve apologies, I know you don’t expect them and I understand that. It’s my wife. She’s young, and I know she didn’t really comprehend the kind of asshole she was marrying. She’s a great girl, but now I have to wonder if that other Glenn hasn’t destroyed her already. If she could ever accept that I’m not the same man she married. Plus there are other things. I’ve had a lifetime of doing bad shit to other people, and I don’t know how I’ll make up for all of it.”
Peter wondered the extent to which Glenn had mistreated Lisa, a sweet girl to whom he’d been married about two years now. If necessary, he would talk to her.
“I know you probably can’t tell her you were under a spell,” Emma said. “But just sit down and have a talk with her. Tell her how lucky you are to have her, and that things are going to be different now. Then prove it with your actions. You don’t have to do anything else.”
“She’ll come around, and things’ll just get better,” added Peter. “Now let’s figure out how we’re to get rid of Cudrick, or Vickar, or Ferguson, or whoever the hell he is these days.”
“I want to help,” Glenn said. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
Isabel nodded. “It’s important that you do so. You are not vulnerable to his control any longer, but remember, he can hurt you in other ways. Much as he has hurt these four in the past.”
“I don’t care,” Glenn said. “I’ll take the risk to put an end to this. I think over 300 years is too long.”
Matt nodded at his brother. “Do you know where he lives?”
Glenn shook his head. “Nope. I’ve only met him at his office in the Ziggurat. I could follow him, though.”
“What does he drive?”
“He drives two cars, actually. Mostly I see him in a Lincoln Town Car. Top of the line. Like a miniature limo. But the other car, man, that’s a classic. It’s an old Caddy. I mean like an antique, not vintage. I think it’s like a ’29 or something. Black, spoke rims, spare mounted on both sides, huge white wall tires. I’ve only seen him in it like twice.”
“He keeps it under wraps,” Peter said. “But it confirms everything we already thought.”
Peter told Glenn about his visions of Chris’ long-dead friend Stanley Ross, and of the Cadillac that ran him down.
“You wouldn’t happen to know the license plate, would you?”
Glenn looked at him sideways. “You know I’ve always been too self-absorbed to notice my surroundings.” He grinned.
“Good to see that smile,” Peter said.
“I’m still practicing it minus the facetiousness. Not easy.”
“We’ll need to follow him to find out where he lives. I think we need to put this to rest right away and seal the deal,” said Matt.
Emma nodded beside him. “We’re all on hold until we do. Once school starts again that takes Webby and Matty out of it.”
“Matty?” Matt said.
Emma shrugged and smiled at him. “I like it.”
The seriousness of the situation seemed to be escaping them every now and then, and Peter wasn’t comfortable with it. Of course they needed the occasional levity, but they had an important plan to put together – the most important, not only of their lives, but all their lives.
Something not too many people could say. In a way, Peter was proud that they would be the ones to put Murdock Vickar to his death for the first time and the last time. They had finally discovered their purpose after so many futile years.
Pride comes before a fall, Peter.
The voice in his head sounded like Chris Wickham. Peter thought it wise to heed the warning. He looked at his watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock.
“We’d better shut it down tonight. Ally needs to get home before her father gets back from his seminar,” Peter said.
“No, I don’t.”
Peter looked at her quizzically. “Ally?”
“I agree we should stop for tonight, because I’m mentally drained, but we have to meet first thing in the morning and make a plan. I mean, look at Glenn. Vickar will take one look at him and see that something inside him has changed.”
Glenn shook his head. “He never gives me that much respect, Allyson. He never really looks at me. Everything but. I never really noticed it before, I guess I just thought it was a wealthy man absorbed in his own bucket of problems. Now I know he did it because there was no reason to look at me.”
“Kind of like a picture hanging on your wall for fifteen years. After a while it’s just kind of there. Even if you do look at it, it’s more of a glance than anything else,” Emma said.
“Yeah, so I’m not too worried. I’ll just try to wear a scowl so I don’t look too soft.”
“Soft.” Peter said the word. “You think I look soft?”
“Not soft, just not hard like I was.”
“Got it,” Peter said. “Okay, so Isabel, is that good? If you have anything at home that can help us, it’ll give you time to think about it and grab it, and I’ll pick you up and bring you here like, 10:00 tomorrow morning?”
Isabel had been silent for most of the last conversations. Her face was almost a blank canvas, barely readable, but Peter was sure he saw some sadness in her eyes.
“Peter sees through my mask,” said Isabel, looking at them all.
Peter shrugged, but said nothing.
“He recognizes my inner struggle. Murdock Vickar is an evil man and always was. But, he is also my father. Blood ties are felt even when they are unwanted, and I hope you understand that I will do all in my power to ensure your goal is achieved.”
“We know you will,
Isabel,” said Matt. “Will you confront him?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“But don’t you have some things you’d like to discuss with him? How did he treat you as a child?”
“Seen and not heard, of course. Though he did not see me very much.”
“Okay, let’s wrap it up,” Emma said. “Tomorrow morning, 10:00. Be there or be square.”
They all walked out the door into the slightly cool California night.
Peter said his good-byes and drove home. As he turned into his driveway, a car pulled in behind him.
He turned off his lights, cut the engine, and looked into the rear view mirror. He was blinded by the headlights, but he could see a figure walking toward his car.
There was nowhere to go. Whoever it was, he could only face them.
Then Allyson’s face appeared at his driver’s side window and he breathed a huge sigh of relief. Peter opened the door and got out of the car.
“I’m staying with you a while,” she said, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
“But your father,” Peter said.
She shook her head. “I’m relinquishing his control over me back to me. I’m telling him everything tonight, so that ought to be the end of his lifelong domination of me.”
“Sure you’re ready?”
She smiled and kissed his lips softly. “I know what I’m ready for.”
They went inside.
Peter poured two glasses of Cabernet, and they sat and talked for a while; not about anything, but about everything. Allyson spoke of her love for her work, of her happiness having met Peter.
He sat beside her, listening to the timbre of her voice, feeling like the luckiest man in the world. He talked about the kids he taught, how he loved some of them and tolerated others, but knew they were not the people they would be in twenty years. He knew they all had a chance at good lives, so he treated them all with respect.
Putting his wine aside, he leaned forward and kissed Allyson again. She again put her arms around his neck, and leaned into the kiss. He put his face in her neck and breathed her in, then pulled back to look into her eyes.
Allyson, returning the gaze, pulled his tee shirt over his head, and tossed it aside. She ran her hands down both of his arms and breathed a heavy sigh.