Destruction: The December People, Book One

by Sharon Bayliss

  “When I knew your mother, she was a good witch,” David said.

  The phrase came out of his mouth fairly easily—the perfect description of her.

  Silence. David’s stomach turned. He had finally crossed a line.

  “Something bad happened to her while she was pregnant with me,” Evangeline said. “She was cursed.”

  David’s back tensed. Something bad did happen during her pregnancy. The man she loved left her.

  As they approached Houston, civilization broke out around them like a rash. The exits and stores became increasingly familiar.

  Then, his exit.

  He had officially reached the point where he could no longer stall and turned into the parking lot of a Pappadeaux restaurant. David parked by the dumpster and stared at the brick building.

  “What are we doing?” Evangeline asked.

  “I just need to do something before we get home. I’m sorry.”

  He pressed speed dial one. He couldn’t think about it. Just jump in, as if diving into a cold lake.

  “Hey, babe,” Amanda said. “You almost here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Finally.”

  “I know this might seem a little odd to you, but can you come meet me in the Pappadeaux parking lot?”

  “That does seem odd. Is something wrong with the car? Oh, I think I know what it is. Hang on, we’re driving right by.”

  She hung up. We? No. No. No. He redialed. Too late. The Expedition drove into the parking lot. They must have been on the way back from Jess and Carson’s family gathering. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “Would you please stay in the car?” he asked his newest kids. “Please.”

  He got out of the car, and so did Amanda. A cold front had moved in, and her hair whipped around. She hugged her bare arms.

  “Are there people in the car?” Amanda asked. “Who’s with you?”

  Patrick got out of the Expedition first, then Jude and Emmy.

  “Stay in the car,” David commanded.

  He could tell they sensed the darkness in his voice because they stopped in their tracks. But they still didn’t get back in.

  “Where is it?” Patrick asked.

  “What are you talking about?” David asked.

  “We thought you were going to surprise Patrick with his new car,” Amanda said.

  Evangeline and Xavier got out of the car, bringing the number of his children who ignored his command to stay in the car to a full one hundred percent.

  “Who’s the guy? He’s cute,” Emmy said.

  “Shut up, Emmy,” David said. “For once in your life, just shut up.”

  For all she talked, David had never told her to shut up like that. All the Vandergraffs glared at him, even Patrick, who told Emmy to shut up several times a day.

  “David, what’s the matter with you? I can’t believe I’m asking you this, but did you kidnap these children?” she said with a weak laugh.

  David saw something in her eyes now, a trace of panic bubbling up under the cool blue. She knew. She didn’t know what she knew, but she could feel the wrongness coming. She kept looking at Xavier. The eyebrows. Some part of her had already figured it out.

  “I really need everyone except Mom to get back in the car.” He tried to say it in his most deadly serious tone. He looked back at Evangeline and Xavier so they knew the command included them. They climbed back into the car.

  His other kids looked unwilling to budge, but Amanda said, “Go on,” and they obeyed her. Before Patrick got in behind his siblings, he gave David a look that could sour milk. He had always been the brightest one. He’d caught on to something, too.

  Amanda shivered and rubbed her arms. She seemed different in silence. Vulnerable. Talking was her super power and silence was her Kryptonite. She waited for him to explain.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” David said. “So, I’ll just say it. The people in the car are my children. Xavier and Evangeline. Their mother is dead. I am taking custody.”

  Amanda laughed, but her eyes made it clear she didn’t think it was a joke, perhaps she only hoped so. “What?”

  “I had an affair when we were first married. It ended twelve years ago. These are my kids.”

  “I don’t think so,” Amanda said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Your kids?” she asked absently.

  He had expected fury. This was worse. She looked frightened and confused, a child lost in a strange place.

  “Their mother is dead. She was murdered by her husband, their stepfather. I’m taking custody.”

  “Custody,” she repeated as if she learned a new word.

  “I’m sorry.” He hated the way it sounded. So far from good enough. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Two children. Years apart,” she said. “Years apart,” she repeated. “Who was she?”

  “Do you remember Crystal Carr?”

  Her whole body tensed, but her eyes came to life, as if flares lit them from behind. Amanda took a few quick steps forward and hit him in the face. Not a slap. A punch. His cheek vibrated with the sting. His eyes rattled in their sockets. Then she sat on the curb, put her face in her hands, and whispered, “Crystal.”

  David couldn’t take his eyes off her and didn’t notice when his Vandergraff kids came back out of the car. Emmy put her arm around her mother.

  “What did you do?” Patrick asked him.

  Jude didn’t look as if he needed to hear a reason before he planted a punch on David’s other cheek. But he didn’t get the chance. Amanda got up and herded them all back in the car like she had the stretchy arms of the woman from The Incredibles. And they drove away. Gone. Just like that.

  David got back in the car and turned to Xavier and Evangeline with a bright pink cheek.

  “I—―”

  “You didn’t tell them we were coming?” Xavier asked.

  At least he had finally said something.

  avid took the kids to Golden Corral for dinner. The concept of a buffet baffled his newest children. I can eat whatever I want? I just go up there and take it? Are you sure? They made odd meal choices. Evangeline got a big pile of fruit, a hard-boiled egg, pizza, and a pile of shredded cheese from the salad bar, and then ice cream with sprinkles at David’s suggestion. Xavier got cottage cheese, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, and an egg roll, and then ice cream as well.

  “We’re going to stay in a hotel tonight,” David explained while they took tiny bites of their soft serve. They looked overstuffed. No one eats ice cream that slowly. Feeding them too much too fast and risking vomiting seemed like the least of his mistakes. “You’ll like the hotel. It has an indoor pool.”

  “I don’t know how to swim,” Evangeline said.

  “Oh. Okay, well, you’ll still like it, I think.”

  “Shawna said we were going to stay at your house,” Evangeline said.

  “I’m afraid I’m not sure if we will or not. My wife is upset with me.”

  “Because you had sex with our mom and had us,” Evangeline said. “And didn’t tell her about it until just now when you were about to bring us home?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was stupid,” Evangeline said.

  “Yes it was.”

  She wrinkled her nose. Disgust. Or judgment. Either way, he had disappointed her. Her father turned out to be a non-magical adulterer with no house.

  “It was a mistake… Not having you, that wasn’t a mistake. Not telling my wife until now was a mistake. But I was afraid to tell her.”

  “Because she’ll want a divorce,” Evangeline said.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t think having us was a mistake?” Evangeline asked.

  “No. Of course, not.”

  “Why not?” Evangeline asked.

  “Because then you wouldn’t exist,” he said.

  She looked thoughtful, considering the concept as she would a new food.

  “And because I loved your mom,” he conti
nued. “If I had to do it over again, I would.”

  “That’s stupid,” Evangeline said.

  David smiled. He couldn’t help himself. She had called him stupid twice. A man she barely knew. A father. She didn’t act like a scared, abused girl. She acted spirited and fiery, like her mother.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  They didn’t ask the questions he knew they must have. So… if you loved her, why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you marry her? Raise us? Why didn’t you save us? They must have wondered.

  Xavier had the same look he had during the wizard conversation. Hardly readable… but listening. He watched Evangeline while she talked, and then turned to David when he talked. It wouldn’t seem like much to someone else, but David knew better. Unlike most conversations that went on around him, Xavier cared enough to listen.

  “It probably is stupid. But I’d do it again because I still haven’t come up with any other alternative. I love your mom, and I love my wife too.”

  Present tense. He didn’t even mean to say it, but he hoped they caught that.

  They looked at him as if they would have been less shocked if he transfigured the plates into mice.

  The phone rang. Amanda. Fear shot from the pit of his stomach to his heart. He stopped breathing.

  He answered the phone and said, “Amanda.”

  “Bring them here.”

  “What?”

  “What are you going to do, take them to a hotel? Bring them here. Now.”

  She hung up, and he remembered to breathe again.

  In the dark, David couldn’t see his kids’ reaction to their new neighborhood. When he imagined seeing the houses through someone else’s eyes, they seemed pompous. Too big. His college-age self would have thought so, anyway. But the houses would have impressed the kid David. The kid David had wanted to be rich more than anything but had parents who considered poverty a badge of honor.

  He parked the car and unloaded the trunk and the kids, while Amanda watched from the doorway, her dark silhouette looming ominously. David’s attraction to fiery women had a dangerous side effect: if he pissed one off, anything could happen. He couldn’t rule out the possibility Amanda had taken a gun out of the lock box and tucked it under her sweater.

  When they reached the front door, she spoke to the kids as if she couldn’t see David.

  “Come in,” she said. “Have you eaten?”

  “They have,” David said.

  Amanda put her hand on Evangeline’s shoulder as she led her through the doorway. No touching. But neither of them burst into flames upon contact. After Xavier and Evangeline had passed, Amanda blocked the doorway.

  “Just them. Not you,” she said.

  “What?”

  “They need a place to stay and haven’t done anything wrong. But we’re done. You’re out of the house. You can come by and get your stuff while I’m at work.”

  “I can’t leave them here with you. I’m their legal guardian. You’re no one… I mean, you’re no one legally… to them.”

  “If you think I’ll let you in, then you don’t know me.”

  “Can we discuss it privately?” Evangeline and Xavier stood right behind Amanda.

  She shut the door in his face. He had no inclination to turn and leave. Everything that mattered to him slept in that house. And he legally owned that house. So, he would live here unless the police dragged him away.

  avid awoke to the sound of breaking glass. Cube-like shards littered the floor of the Expedition. The back window, the one closest to where he had slept, had shattered. He sat up fast but didn’t see anyone outside. He shook pieces of glass off his jacket and inspected himself for cuts.

  He climbed out of the car and saw Emmy and Amanda run through the doorway into the garage.

  “What the hell?” Amanda demanded.

  “I—―”

  “Did you break the window?” Amanda asked.

  “Of course not. I was sleeping. I don’t know how it broke.”

  “That’s it. We’re not going to church.” Amanda threw her hands in the air.

  “How did it break?” Emmy whispered. Someone had turned her volume down.

  “I don’t know, honey,” David said. “Stay back. You don’t have on shoes.”

  “Give me your keys,” Amanda said.

  “I’ll take the car and get it fixed today. I don’t want you to have to worry about that on top of everything else.”

  “How considerate,” she said acidly. “Give me the keys.”

  He removed the house key from the ring and handed only that one over. “Let me keep the car keys. I can sleep there.”

  “Go to a hotel, David.”

  “No.”

  “You can stop sleeping outside; there’s no point. You can’t pull off the romantic guy thing anymore. Romantics don’t cheat on their wives.”

  He disagreed. Too much romance caused his downfall, not too little.

  “Emmy, can you go inside, please?” David asked.

  “It’s not like she doesn’t know what’s going on,” Amanda said. “She’s smart. She’s an Honors student.” But she nodded Emmy back inside.

  “How dare you?” Amanda said as soon as the garage door closed behind Emmy. “How could you not at least tell me about this before showing up at our door?”

  “I meant to, but I chickened out. I wanted my last day with you to be good. I couldn’t give any of it up.”

  “Just get out. I think I’ve done a damn good job managing a surprise adoption, and I’ll continue to do it well. Everything you touch turns to crap.”

  “I’ve touched you, and you’re not crap.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Can I talk to Evangeline and Xavier? I want to make sure they’re okay… I mean… I know they’re okay with you. I just think I should check in. And may I come in and brush my teeth and take a shower?”

  “No. Shower at a hotel. Or, even better, go ahead and rent your own place. You can come in and get some stuff and talk to the kids. You have half an hour. Oh, and don’t forget you have five children you’ve screwed up, not just two.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Xavier and Evangeline entered the kitchen around the same time David did. Evangeline wore a LHS volleyball T-shirt and Victoria Secret PINK pajama pants, both a size too big which made her look even thinner. Emmy’s clothes. They didn’t look right on Evangeline. Patrick’s clothes fit Xavier well, but they didn’t look right on him either, unless he had in fact attended soccer camp in Fort Collins last summer. The pair looked like they’d woken up in someone else’s lives. Which, of course, they had.

  David wanted to make them chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream and a cherry. But he knew Amanda wouldn’t give him the time. He made them frozen waffles and helped himself to the coffee pot. Amanda had made enough coffee for two, out of habit.

  “Did you sleep okay?” he asked them.

  “When you bought the house, did you know Xavier and I would live here some day?” Evangeline asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you have two empty bedrooms in your house?”

  “They’re guest rooms,” David said.

  “Do you have guests a lot?”

  “No. Sometimes my wife’s parents.”

  She paused and considered him, as if checking for holes in a weak story.

  “I brought in your bags,” David said. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring them in last night.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t need stuff. I’m okay as long as I have this.” Evangeline opened her palm to display a black rock. He didn’t know how it appeared there. He had seen both her hands a moment ago, and he didn’t see any pockets.

  “It’s my magical object.” She handed the rock to David.

  She watched him carefully while he held the rock in his palm. Would it glow or dance around if I was magic? It lay in his hand as a rock always does.

  “What is a magical object?
” he asked.

  “It’s something a wizard keeps with them when they do magic, sometimes called a talisman. They leave a little bit of their magic in it every time. In time, the object collects power. Keeping it with you when you do magic makes you more powerful because all the other magic you’ve ever done is with you too. And talismans can be anything. Objects. Animals. People.”

  “People?”

  “Sure. They’re the best ones. Except for their unpredictability.”

  She glanced at Xavier. Was he one of her talismans? Certainly, he must be.

  Xavier didn’t listen as closely to this conversation. He looked at Evangeline periodically but mostly enjoyed conversation with his waffles and syrup. David wanted to engage him but had no idea how.

  Evangeline seemed to read David’s mind and helped him out.

  “Show him yours,” Evangeline said to Xavier.

  In a look, Xavier’s eyebrows said twice as much as he’d ever said out loud. One eyebrow rose, saying are you kidding? and the other slanted, saying how dare you? David hadn’t considered asking Xavier about a talisman. Evangeline had the magical narrative, not Xavier. Did Xavier play along for her?

  “No,” Xavier said.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not a big deal. He’s not going to try and take it or anything. He doesn’t even believe.”

  “If it’s not a big deal, why do you want me to so badly?” he asked her. He squinted at her as if reading the fine print on the tip of her nose.

  “Just do it.”

  While glaring at his sister, he tugged a chain out from under his shirt and pulled it over his head. A heavy silver object clattered onto the counter. A Christian cross.

  David didn’t know if this meant Xavier was secretly a wizard or secretly a Christian, or which one of those things seemed more unbelievable.

  “Are you a Christian?” David asked him.

  “No,” Xavier said neutrally. He grabbed the cross again, put it back around his neck, then tucked it into his shirt.

  “Thank you for showing me,” David said to Xavier, who ignored him.