The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories)

by Jeff Jacobson

  “I knew there could be more,” Grace said, her volume rising. “A way to use the same principles and apply them to newly popped witches. Just imagine what a burst of juice that would be!

  “It took us years. We tried and failed, tried and failed, until eventually we did it. We found a way to harness all that incredible energy, instead of letting it go to waste.”

  “No, no, you can’t, you can’t just…” Charlie moaned.

  “Oh, but yes. Yes, we can!” she laughed, practically shouting now. Pride widened her features as she indicated the kids in the chairs with a wave of her hand.

  Charlie’s head spun. He tried to comprehend what Grace and Thomas were saying. Using unpopped witches the same way they got power from dead people?

  Kidnapping, killing, harnessing power. It was the stuff of fairy tales. Or nightmares.

  “Things really DO go bump in the night,” his mother told him when they’d fled from Clarkston in the Toyota. Had she known what was going on? Had she any idea what Grace was up to?

  Why where they telling him all of this? What was Malcolm’s part in it? And how was he going to escape?

  “What do you want with me? Why am I here?” Charlie asked.

  The man and the woman looked at each other. Grace nodded to Thomas.

  “Charlie, I bet Elizabeth failed to mention this to you. I don’t mean to get all Jerry Springer on you, but…I’m your dear old dad. I just wanted to welcome you to the family.”

  Chapter 78

  Charlie’s mouth dropped open as he stared at Thomas.

  “What? No, you’re not. My father was, was…” he began. Was what? The kind-hearted man who worked the fishing boats in Alaska year-round? Who didn’t look anything like Dog Man standing before him? How could he have let his imaginary dad become so real to him that he used it as the standard for measurement?

  “Oh my God, this is better than Jerry Springer! He didn’t know!” shouted Tony, clapping his hands and wiggling his hips. “Look at him, kid. Don’t you see the resemblance?”

  Thomas walked over to Charlie and bent down so his face was level with Charlie’s. “Same blond curls,” the man said, reaching out to ruffle Charlie’s hair, who jerked his head away. “Same chin, though you have your mother’s eyes. What do you think, Grace? Does he have my nose?”

  She came over and kneeled down beside Thomas. “Oh yes, he has your nose, Thomas. Most definitely.”

  With both adults so close to him, Charlie’s vision blurred. How could this be true? How could any of it be true? He knew they were lying, knew they must be saying this to torture him.

  But his mind flooded with the secrets that had been revealed to him since late August: the legacy of witchcraft, how his mother had pretended to be someone she wasn’t, his aunt and uncle in Seattle, even the secrets of his very own heart. He had grown used to this feeling of denial, followed by a slow, reluctant acceptance. He had accepted things because he had to, because he couldn’t deny the truth, no matter how hard he tried. Broomsticks, dogs that talked, secret societies.

  Maybe this was true. Maybe his mother had dated Thomas. Maybe she’d even married him. She’d hidden so much else from Charlie, why would she worry about keeping this fact from him? Maybe Thomas really was his father. So what? He had no feelings for him, this awful man who was in cahoots with Grace. Well, that wasn’t true. He had several: contempt, disgust, hatred, fear.

  “How sweet!” said Scissors Lady. “Father and son reunited. Isn’t that darling?” she giggled.

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t care. None of it,” Charlie sputtered, his words rasping up out of his dry, dry throat.

  “Wait a minute Charlie, which is it?” Grace said. “You don’t believe it, or you don’t care? It can’t be both.”

  Charlie couldn’t sit still any longer. He lurched into a standing position, nearly stumbling on his wobbly legs. This was all too big, too ridiculous, too…

  “Wait, Charlie,” said Grace. “You don’t seem to understand what this means. What it can mean for you.”

  She walked over to one of the kids in a chair. He looked to be about twelve years old. He had black hair. Most of it was matted to his head. He had Asian features and light brown skin. He stared straight ahead the way people sometimes stare at the TV: eyes lifeless, mouth hanging open. His chest rose and fell with rapid, shallow breaths.

  “Thomas and I figured out a way to use the power of these teens, Charlie. The way it boosts our own natural abilities is incredible. Watch.”

  She placed her hand on top of the boy’s head. Immediately his neck stiffened and his breathing froze. His face tightened and shriveled into something that looked like torment.

  Grace’s head shot back, exposing the creamy softness of her neck. She held that position until a sigh slid from her lips, a sigh sounding very much like pleasure. She dropped her chin and looked at Charlie. Her eyes sparked is if they were filled with lightning.

  “The sheer force of it all, you can’t understand, Charlie. What it allows me to do. You have no idea.”

  She vanished, appearing on the other side of the room. He watched as her body grew larger, then smaller, Alice-in-Wonderland style.

  “I can do things that were previously impossible,” Grace said. Her body burst into flame, and she rose into the air, spinning with heat and embers. Just as quickly, she stood still, back on the ground, flames extinguished. She disappeared again, then reappeared next to Malcolm, who jumped nearly a foot, then stepped several feet away from Grace before resuming his flat, lifeless expression.

  Charlie stared, dumbfounded, at Grace’s display of power.

  “Your grandfather understood that it was time for witches to come out of hiding. That we had lived for far too long under cover, running from angry townspeople, suffering persecution, all because we didn’t have the sheer power to control the human population, to take our rightful place as their sovereign leaders.

  “This,” she said, pointing to the kids in the chairs, “This is the way to do it. To strengthen ourselves.”

  A vague element from Charlie’s dream swam into his mind, where the orderly from the hospital bit random children until they popped like water balloons. He shuddered as he remembered how she kissed Diego, then sank her teeth into his shoulder until he exploded in a burst of water, his skin a wasted elastic shell falling to the schoolroom floor.

  Had it been one of those dreams that Beverly had described? What had she called it? A dream of…premonition? Had his dream been trying to tell him that this was what the witches were doing to the kidnapped teenagers?

  But what good were his dreams if they didn’t help him prevent bad things from happening? Just like the dream he’d had with the German shepherds, when he hadn’t known what to do with the information, or how to prevent Principal Wang from having a heart attack, the dream with the orderly was useless. Too little, too late. He shook his head in frustration.

  Forget the dreams, Charlie, he chided himself. He looked up at Grace, narrowing his eyes at her.

  “You would use kids as, as batteries, just to lord it over non-witches? And you’d call that good?” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “It’s not exactly helping those witches be free, is it?” He asked, pointing to the kids in their chairs.

  “Charlie,” Grace said, speaking to him the way a teacher does to a dull-witted student, “you’re missing the point. It’s about freedom! Freedom from hiding. You, of anyone, should understand that. Freedom from the stupid, tedious little games people like your aunt Beverly have to play, every single day of their lives. Freedom to dominate the air, the streams and rivers, the oceans. Freedom to arrest the destruction that human beings cause on this planet, to return nature to her true balance, to use her gifts as is our birthright!”

  Charlie doubted that Grace was an environmentalist at heart. But he could tell that she believed what she said. Wasn’t that what made people crazy? And dangerous? When they had some insane idea that they really believed in?

/>   “You go along with all this, Malcolm?” Charlie asked, staring at the man.

  Malcolm opened his mouth, then shut it abruptly. He looked at Grace as if waiting for her to instruct him, a look of confusion on his face. Charlie couldn’t understand what was going on with him. First, he betrayed Beverly, making it so Charlie would get kidnapped, even hurting Amos. And now he showed none of the fire or strength that Charlie had come to associate with his mentor. He just stood there, waiting for Grace to tell him what to do.

  Thomas spoke. “Malcolm has recently been helping us find the perfect candidates, Charlie. He has more exposure to witching covens and their unpopped youth than anyone we know. With a little persuasion, he agreed to help us out.”

  Grace smiled and walked over to Malcolm, who winced as if he were about to be struck. She reached up and placed both of her hands on his head. His body began to shudder. When she stepped away from him, he stopped moving. His mouth dropped open, arms slack at his sides. He looked catatonic.

  “What did you do to him?”

  But Grace ignored his question.

  “Here’s where you come in,” she continued, walking over to where he stood.

  “You see, Thomas and I have learned a lot. We’ve figured out how to use that little burst of life force when someone dies. And we finally understand how to tap the potential of young witches. Combined, the power is incredible. Immense. But we haven’t been able to expand it. We’ve had to stay relatively near these kids to use their gifts. If we don’t, whenever we travel farther away from them, the power fades. We needed your help to learn how to…”

  “How to go mobile, Charlie,” said the man Thomas who might be his own father. “Right now it’s like a landline. We want it to be more like a cell phone.” He smiled as he finished, as if this explanation were the most obvious thing on the planet.

  “That’s right. With no roaming fees,” Tony added with a giggle from where he stood in the background. Scissors Lady Claudia gave him a warning look, but Grace just ignored him.

  Charlie crossed his arms over his chest. “Why do you think I can help you? Why do you think I would? I won’t, you know,” he said, keeping his eyes locked on Grace.

  “Oh, you’ll help us alright,” the witch said as she walked over to him. “We just aren’t sure yet how it’s all going to work.”

  She put her hands on either side of Charlie’s shoulders and peered into his eyes. Charlie’s skin crawled at her touch. He tried to wriggle away from her, but found his feet stuck to the floor.

  “You see,” said Thomas, walking over and standing next to Grace, “one night a few months ago, I felt you. Just like that. I woke up and I felt you stirring in my gut.” The man placed his hand over his stomach.

  “I didn’t even know you existed. But I could feel you far away, and I knew that somehow you could help. You’re my offspring. My blood is in you. My legacy is also in you. I knew you had to be part of what Grace and I have been building.

  “It took a while to track you down. I’m just happy to have you here, son, ready to help us with our plans.”

  “I told you, I won’t help you. I’m not your son. I…”

  Thomas spread his arms out to either side of him and turned his hands palms up. Then he raised his arms above his head. Charlie felt himself lift up off the ground. For a brief moment he floated in midair, horizontal, facing the floor, a foot or two above everyone else. Then he was thrown hard against the ceiling.

  The wind whooshed out of him as his head exploded in pain. He was struck blind for several moment as white heat seared his eyeballs. He cried out in spite of himself.

  “Remember that? I sure do. I thought I’d let you know what it felt like, and to remind you that you will definitely be helping us. Just so you know this isn’t a negotiation.”

  As his vision returned, Charlie looked down at the room from where he he lay pressed flat with his back against the ceiling, at the kids sitting like zombie schoolchildren in their chairs, at Claudia and Tony who were smiling up at him, at Grace and Thomas directly below him, eyeing him the way people look at monkeys behind bars at the zoo, at Malcolm who stood stock still, staring off into space.

  Charlie wanted to summon Words, wishing he could wreak havoc on the witches below. But he didn’t know how to wreak havoc. He wasn’t powerful enough. Plus, if he could, he might inadvertently hurt one of the captured kids. And he had no illusions that he would be any match for even one of the witches standing beneath him, let alone all five.

  It was time that he faced reality: he was stuck, helpless, glued to the ceiling, held captive by the scariest witch on the planet, with no idea whatsoever how to get away, save his life, or keep from becoming a human battery pack himself.

  Chapter 79

  “Shall we get started, then?” Grace said, grinning like the hostess of a summer tea party.

  No more than five minutes had passed since Thomas had thrown Charlie up against the ceiling. Now, he sat on a chair facing one of the catatonic kids, a boy older than himself, with big shoulders and an unshaven face. He stared at a spot just beyond Charlie’s right ear, his chest moving with that terrible, rapid breathing.

  Tony and Claudia stood behind Charlie’s chair, their hands pressed down on his shoulders. They had been instructed to subdue him if he even so much as tried to summon a single Word.

  Grace and Thomas sat in front of him, on either side of the big-shouldered boy.

  Charlie looked over to Malcolm, hoping against hope that his teacher had snapped out of his stupor. But the man remained in a daze, eyes half closed and glassy, standing a few feet away.

  “We’ve been waiting a long time for you to be here with us,” Grace said.

  Charlie shivered.

  “Whatever this is, I’m not going to help you!” Charlie said, hoping his voice sounded braver than he felt.

  “Now’s not the time to talk, okay son?” Thomas said to him. Then, “Now, only take a little, Grace,” he continued, jutting his chin at the boy opposite Charlie. “We just need to make contact and get the flow started.”

  Grace nodded. She placed her hand on the boy’s head. He squinted. It didn’t look like he was in pain as much as he was concentrating on something. Grace’s head didn’t fly back like it did the previous time, but her eyes widened and her breathing increased.

  “Good, good,” said Thomas. Then he placed his hand on the boy’s head. Thomas closed his eyes as a shudder ran through him.

  He opened them, and looked at Grace. “Now,” he said.

  At the same time, the two witches reached out toward Charlie with their free hands.

  “No!” Charlie tried to squirm away.

  Tony and Claudia gripped his neck and the back of his head, holding him firmly in place.

  Charlie closed his eyes, wishing he could be anywhere other than here, wishing there was something he could do.

  He felt pressure on his scalp as the witches’ hands pressed down on the top of his hair.

  And then, everything changed.

  There was a momentary dropping sensation in his gut, like he’d fallen from a short height.

  His skin flushed with a pleasant heat, as if someone wrapped a warm towel around him after he’d stepped out of a cold swimming pool.

  And just like that, Charlie felt himself thrust inside the boy’s head who sat across from him. He knew all sorts of things. He could see and feel what the boy saw and felt. The boy’s name was Todd Laramie. He hoped to go to college on a basketball scholarship. Charlie watched as a pretty young girl walked up to him. He grew aroused as he kissed the young girl on a bed somewhere. He felt himself sweating on a basketball court, dribbling the ball, jumping up and making a three-pointer. He heard a crowd cheering, felt teammates clapping his back.

  He saw cats. He felt himself running on all fours, and now he leaped, not like an athlete but an animal. No effort. Pure joy. He was fully feline, chasing rodents at night, stretching in a pool of sunshine during the day.

&nb
sp; He could feel the confusion and terror in Todd’s mind. The boy didn’t understand what was happening to him, even as he enjoyed the thrill and speed of being a cat.

  But above all else, above the sensations and the confusion, the memories and the cat dreams, the intrusion into Todd’s world, Charlie felt a stockpile of power, of amazing raw strength stretching far out in front of him like a vast reservoir of water.

  This seemingly endless supply of raw power made everything that he’d learned before about witchcraft look like child’s play.

  He knew things: about air and trees, about the hair follicles of humans, about whistling up the winds and racing moonbeams across the sands of the great deserts of the world. He knew himself as both human and as something greater, something better.

  And…he wanted it. He wanted this thing that promised to carry his heart and his mind into a single point of utter clarity and confidence, confidence that had previously been unimaginable. He wanted this force that would give him dominance over everything. Over everyone.

  Before Charlie could fully grasp what was happening, the flow of power cut off as suddenly as it had washed over him, and he felt himself wrenched from Todd Laramie’s head and dumped back into his brain.

  He opened his eyes as his entire body shook.

  Grace and Thomas were staring at him expectantly, their hands now at their sides.

  “Oh yeah, that’s it. You felt it, didn’t you, my boy?” said Thomas.

  Charlie’s teeth chattered, and his skin itched, as if a thousand sand fleas scampered and burrowed across its surface. For a moment he feared he would shoot up off his chair and through the ceiling, the aftermath of the invasion into Todd’s head was so strong.

  “Now, how can you say that’s a bad thing, huh Charlie? How can you say that?” Grace asked, true sincerity in her words.

  The raw rush of power was diminishing, its fiery edges softening, turning dark, the way the edges of land do as the sun sets behind the horizon.

  Yet he could still feel Todd’s life force, still knew all the details, as well as sense the boy’s latent spark of witchcraft marking him as an echo, his connection to cats, even the inner secrets of his mind and heart. It was all still there, but as if it were in a room, and the door of the room was slowly closing, and Charlie was being pulled away from it, down a hallway, maybe to never go inside the room again.