Destruction: The December People, Book One

by Sharon Bayliss

  “Wizards also choose whether or not to tell their kids they are wizards. Wizards who don’t practice usually don’t tell their kids about witchcraft at all. They think that’s easiest. Telling kids they’re wizards but they aren’t allowed to do magic is like telling them there is a secret closet in the house full of toys they can’t play with. They’ll just want to do magic that much more. And they’ll do it without training, making it even more dangerous. That’s the choice we made.”

  “We?”

  Amanda went on without clarifying. “My parents told me and Carson we were wizards but also told us about the dangers of magic, hoping we would make the right choice on our own. I thought that was a risky choice, which is why we chose differently, but in retrospect, they did the right thing. Carson and I did make the choice not to practice. Now I see what can happen if you don’t tell your kids. Crystal’s parents never told her she was a witch, but some part of her knew. It nagged at her. I thought about telling her, but it wasn’t my place. Obviously, you must have felt the same.”

  “I guess she found out eventually. When she did, she probably jumped in with both feet because her parents never warned her, and neither did I. I regret that. To answer your question from before, we weren’t close, but witches have a way of finding each other. We always seemed to be at the same places at the same times, and so we talked, became friends, even though we didn’t have much in common. Well, there aren’t too many dark witches walking around, so I suppose we had a lot in common.”

  She laughed coldly. “Well, I suppose we had even more in common than that.” She gestured toward him. “But you know what I mean. I should have known you’d keep running into her too. Now that I look back, I should have been suspicious about the fact you didn’t seem to know her. Of course, you would know her eventually. Any wizards living that close to each other will meet. I should have known you were lying.”

  “You’re saying I’m a wizard, but I haven’t figured it out for over forty years because my parents never told me?”

  “No. Your parents were practicing wizards.”

  David laughed. That had to be the punch line. But Amanda’s lips didn’t even quiver. He had never seen her more serious.

  “Practicing wizards?” David asked. “I don’t think so.”

  “They were. You just forgot.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I would forget that.”

  “I haven’t cast many spells in my life, but I cast one on you. A long time ago. There were things from your childhood… memories… that were hurting you. You never talked about it, but I knew you were suffering. I hated seeing you in pain.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes. Something frozen inside of David melted, something he didn’t understand, but something he’d prefer to keep solid.

  “I shouldn’t have done it. You probably would have healed on your own. In time. But I decided to remove the memories from your head using magic. It was very complicated magic. I had to do it gradually, while you slept, over the course of six months. It was terrifying. I was so afraid to make a mistake, remove something you needed. It was your brain, after all. In the end, I did a pretty good job, I think. You didn’t talk much about your childhood, so I wasn’t even sure it worked until we saw your parents over the holidays. You acted completely different around them. You didn’t remember. In time, I realized I removed something else. Since we weren’t practicing, it took a while for me to notice you had also forgotten you were a wizard. I guess it was too tied into your childhood memories. It was just gone. And I felt no reason to enlighten you. Until now.”

  David’s lips had gone numb. He’d always had a sixth sense about whether or not someone tried to deceive him. Amanda believed every word she said, but he didn’t need to read her intentions to know she told the truth. It felt true… like a word that had been on the tip of his tongue for years and someone had finally said it aloud.

  “Breathe, David,” she said.

  He continued to stare at her.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “Let me see your eyes.”

  She grabbed his face and pulled it toward hers and studied him.

  “I don’t know if anything bad happens when you tell someone about memories you’ve removed. I thought it might be like waking a sleepwalker. Please say something. Tell me you’re okay.”

  He pushed her away. “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “You don’t really think that. I can see it in your eyes. You know it’s true.”

  He felt dizzy and sat on the bed.

  She sat next to him and squeezed both of his hands into a tight ball, as if molding clay. “I don’t know a lot of magic,” she said. “But I can show you some. If you want proof.”

  He would have welcomed her hands on his a few hours ago, but now they felt confining and threatening.

  He had never asked Evangeline or Xavier for proof. He didn’t want to embarrass them. But maybe part of him also feared they would say, Sure, I’ll be happy to provide a practical demonstration. Stand back and I’ll burst into flames for you.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I have a good one. It’s not scary.”

  What followed may not have been scary, but he had never experienced anything so odd and unsettling. He knew he hadn’t left the room or himself. He felt himself sitting on the bed, Amanda’s hands on his, and his neck hurting from stress and sleeping on an air mattress, but another experience superimposed itself around him, literally in two places at once.

  He experienced the feelings first. Happiness. Excitement. Immense hopefulness. His body felt warmer. And younger. The stiffness and achiness of age he didn’t even know he felt disappeared… such a wonderful feeling, his eyes got wet. The smells came next. He smelled Italian food, and chocolate, wine on his own breath, Amanda’s perfume… but not the Amanda sitting next to him. He needed only the smells to know where he had arrived. His wedding reception.

  The sounds came next. Music. The loud din of talking. Then everything, just as if he travelled back in time into his own younger body. He danced with Amanda, not their first dance but one later in the night, when they had danced off the nervousness and stress from the day and only the delirious happiness remained. He could count her twenty-five-year-old eyelashes. The diamond sparkled on her finger the way it could only when it was brand new. Right behind them, David’s mother wore a green dress. She danced with his father.

  The image faded back the way it came. The sounds left first, then the tactile sensations. He couldn’t feel the smooth satin of her wedding dress on his palm. Then the images, then the smells… then at last, the feeling. Then they returned fully to the present moment. The disappointment felt painful, like waking up from a good dream but far worse.

  “I probably shouldn’t let you see me looking like that,” Amanda said. “I must look really old to you now.”

  “You don’t look old,” he said, almost as reflex. “How did you do that?”

  “The only magic I really know has to do with memories. I learned as much as I could so I could manipulate yours. The side effect was that I also learned how to manipulate mine. When I’m feeling happy, I make the memory… sticky. It’s almost like turning on an internal video camera. Then I can pull it up whenever I want to. I have lots more if you ever want to see them. You can see our kids when they were still cute.” She chuckled to herself. “Smell their little baby heads, feel their smooth baby skin. I also saved the time we had sex under that big red umbrella in Cabo.”

  Her cheeks reddened, and she dropped his hands. She looked as if she had forgotten they were separated for a moment.

  “Do you still have the ones you took from me?”

  Fear replaced the wistfulness in her eyes. “Well, I didn’t make them sticky if that’s what you mean. I wouldn’t…” She shook her head. “They’re gone, David. Permanently. Magic is destruction, at least our magic is. Once you destroy something, you can’t bring it back. It’s gone.”

  “What did you take out of my head?”

  “J
ust bad memories.”

  “I have the right to know.”

  “I took them out for a reason.”

  “Dammit, Amanda. You had no right. If you can’t put them back, at least tell me what you took.”

  “Abuse.”

  “What do you mean, abuse?”

  “I’m not going to describe it to you. I didn’t enjoy seeing the memories when I took them out. I didn’t hang on to it.”

  “You mean… by my parents.”

  “Your father, yes.”

  “What did he do to me?”

  “All sorts of things. He was messed up. He was a practicing wizard, and the magic addled his brain, destroyed his soul. It’s not an excuse or anything, but that’s what happens.”

  David shook his head. What she said sounded… right… but he couldn’t attach the feelings to any real memories. Distant fear and shame seemed to hang in the air, with nothing tangible to cling to, like a faceless cloud of black.

  “But I remember my childhood, Amanda.” A terrifying idea popped into his head. “Are my memories real? Did you give me new ones?”

  “No. As far as I know, I can’t do that. I can only take away, or enhance, real memories. I can’t just add things. I would have no idea how. Your memories are real… just edited.”

  He thought about the About Me storyboard he’d seen online. Was that who I am? A man filled with blank lines? Could I fill out a storyboard for myself if I tried?

  “So, you have seen all of my most painful memories, and I don’t even know what they are? I can’t keep them private from you even if I want to. That’s such a… violation.”

  “I was trying to protect you,” she said.

  David met his saturation point. His brain had doubled in weight. He left. He didn’t know if she said anything as he went. Or even if any of his kids said anything to him on his way to the car. He got in the Mercedes and started driving.

  He made it halfway to Austin before he stopped to think about his plan. What was my plan? Drive home? Someone else owned his childhood house. His father had died five years ago from a sudden brain aneurism, and a year after that, his mother had killed herself. It sounded suspicious now. Did his father’s brain explode because he destroyed himself with magic? Did someone kill him with magic? His mother? His brother?

  He knew what he had to do but didn’t want to. He knew he couldn’t have this phone conversation while driving. He felt lightheaded before he even dialed. So he exited and parked at a gas station.

  The sound of the phone ringing rattled around in his brain.

  “David? Motherfucker. I’ve been calling you all week. Why aren’t you returning my calls?”

  “Hi, James. I’m sorry. It’s been a rough week.”

  “Yeah… I know. That’s why I was calling you. I heard about my secret niece and nephew. Holy shit, David. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t even tell Amanda… so…”

  “Well, I’m not going to tell you you’re an asshole. I’m sure you’re being punished enough. If you need someplace to stay, you can always come here.”

  “Thanks. I may need to. I don’t know yet. She’s letting me stay in the house for now, but she wants a divorce.”

  David heard James’s partner Justin in the background ask, “Is that him?”

  “Yes,” James said.

  Justin said something else David didn’t catch.

  “Leave me alone; I’m talking to my disgraced big brother,” James said. “Anyway,” he said back to David. “Justin isn’t as forgiving as I am. Probably doesn’t like the idea of Vandergraff men cheating.”

  “I need to ask you something,” David said.

  “Sure.”

  “It’s going to sound weird. Can you answer without making fun of me? I’m going through a tough time.”

  “No promises, but I’ll try.”

  “Are we wizards?”

  Silence.

  “Are you okay, David?” The timbre of James’s voice changed so much it sounded as if a different man spoke now.

  “Not really. Just answer the question.”

  “Yes. Of course we are. You know we are.”

  It took a while for the words to settle in his brain. The words kept slipping through him without sticking as if the blank lines in his brain had guards knocking words away. Maybe that had been part of the spell. Even when the truth stood right in front of him, his brain rejected it.

  “Why did you ask me that?” James asked.

  “One more question.” He didn’t know how to do this one. “Was our childhood… bad?”

  More silence.

  “You’re scaring the shit out of me right now. You were there. Why are you asking me? Do you have amnesia or something?” A heavy pause. “Did you do magic? Did it do something to your brain? Come here right now. Or I’ll come get you. Where are you?”

  With every question, his happy-go-lucky brother disappeared more and more. He sounded like someone else, someone David didn’t remember.

  “No, I’m fine. It’s not like that. I didn’t do magic. Amanda did. She manipulated my memories.”

  “What? She knows better than that. When did she do this?”

  “She didn’t say exactly, a long time ago.”

  “Like years?”

  “I think so.”

  “You’ve been walking around without memories for years?”

  “I guess.”

  “That’s not fucking fair.”

  To me or to you? he wanted to ask.

  “Don’t worry about me,” David said. “Please don’t. I’ll get it all worked out.”

  “Just answer my calls, okay?”

  “I will.”

  atrick froze mid-stride on his way into the family room. Samantha sat in his spot. Of all the places in the house she could have sat to read her book, she chose the exact spot he sat in to play video games. She would get it all warm and smelling of her. Her blonde hair spilled across the cushions like white neon light. The closer he got to her, the sweatier he got, and he probably smelled fully funky when he sat down next to her.

  “You’re still here,” he said.

  “Disappointed?” She tucked a bookmark into her book and placed it aside.

  “No.”

  “My parents were in a skiing accident.”

  “Oh my God,” he said. “Are they okay?”

  “They’re okay. Just some broken bones. They’re in a hospital in Switzerland. So I’m staying here a little longer.”

  “Okay…”

  Just some broken bones. Just in a hospital. No reason not to sit here calmly reading a book. She said it so quickly and calmly that he thought she might be lying, but he couldn’t imagine why she would.

  “It sucks you have to be stuck with my family. I’m sorry they’re so messed up.”

  “They’re not so bad,” she said. “I like it here.”

  He laughed. “Sure,” he said, his tone dripping with skepticism.

  She laughed too.

  “Saaamaanthaaa,” Emmy wailed from downstairs. “Come on.”

  Samantha dutifully answered the call. Patrick didn’t realize he had followed Samantha, as if she had him on a leash, until he had walked halfway down the stairs behind her.

  Emmy held out her hand at the bottom of the stairs and grabbed Samantha’s as soon as she could reach. She pulled her toward the downstairs family room.

  “I picked out the movie,” Emmy said.

  Patrick followed them into the family room where Emmy had some Japanese horror movie pulled up on Netflix.

  “I didn’t invite you, Patrick,” Emmy said.

  “You can’t watch this,” Patrick said. “It’s too scary for you.”

  “Yeah right. Besides, it’s Halloween.”

  “It has subtitles.”

  “Uh… we can read, Patrick,” Emmy said. “Unlike the Colters.”

  “We can read,” Xavier said.

  Patrick jumped. Perfectly placed to argue this point, the Colter sibli
ngs sat on the floor in a blind spot behind the couch, pulling books off the bookshelf and placing them in piles. Flushed patches appeared on Emmy’s neck. She had intended her mean comment to be of the behind-their-backs variety.

  “I didn’t know you were there,” she said.

  “What are you guys doing?” Mom came into the room as if she had smelled the confrontation brewing. She saw the movie on the screen. “No. It’s too late. You all need to start getting ready for bed.”

  “Jude’s not home yet,” Emmy said.

  “Let me worry about that,” Mom said.

  “It’s only 11:15.” Patrick’s own words surprised him. Since when did he stand up for his brother?

  “I’m sure he’ll be home any minute,” Mom said.

  “Where’s David?” Evangeline asked.

  Patrick hadn’t even noticed Dad’s absence.

  Mom hesitated. “Away.”

  Evangeline stood. “You can’t send him away.” Her voice had a higher pitch than usual. “You can’t be apart.”

  Patrick’s eyebrows knitted together. Who was she to say anything? What did she care? By the indignation on Emmy’s face, she thought something similar.

  “If you really cared about their marriage, you should have thrown yourself off a cliff,” Emmy said.

  Okay, he didn’t think that.

  “Emmy!” Mom shouted.

  Everything in the china cabinet along the wall shattered.

  “Xavier!” Mom shouted. “No magic.”

  What?

  “Magic isn’t a choice,” Xavier said. “The only choice is whether or not you control it or let it control you.”

  The light bulbs in three of the lamps shattered. What the fuck?

  “Stop it,” Mom cried.

  Xavier’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he breathed. His gray eyes darted back and forth. Looking for something else to break?

  Then something even more disturbing happened: Samantha ran at Xavier and thrust her body against his. He stumbled back at the influx of her weight. She wrapped her arms around him, plastering his own arms to his sides and pressed herself… close. Patrick’s throat got dry. It looked so… intimate. Xavier sort of grunted, in surprise, but it also sounded kind of private, like the sounds people make during sex.