Remembering the rest of Malcolm’s instructions, Charlie pulled the cell phone from his back pocket and dialed Beverly’s number, as the entire group tottered along the lakeshore toward the safety of the trees.
“Malcolm?” he heard his aunt’s voice on the other end. “Where are you? Where’s Charlie? What’s all that noise?”
“Aunt Bev, it’s me. Charlie. And a bunch of kids. Will you come get us?”
Chapter 82
“…the police are still searching the house for evidence. Once again, if you have just tuned in, nineteen teenagers, all of whom have been missing from different parts of the Greater Seattle area over the past year, were found together today at Luther Burbank Park. Police officials say they escaped from a nearby Lake Washington home, though the details are still being gathered. The body of an unidentified adult male was found in the basement of the home.
“The teens have been taken to nearby hospitals to be treated for severe malnutrition, head injuries, amnesia, and exposure to the elements.
“A religious cult is expected to be behind this bizarre event.
“Once again, if you are just tuning in…”
The TV screen went blank as Rita pressed the off button on the remote.
Charlie sat between Beverly and Randall on a couch in their living room, having given up trying to remove his aunt’s protective arm from around his shoulders. Amos lay at their feet, every so often sighing deep sighs as he slept with his head resting on his forepaws. Jeremy paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, chewing on his thumbnail. Rita perched on the edge of a love seat, while Jacob sat with his arms crossed over his chest in one of the room’s reclining chairs. All of the adults, save for Jacob, had red, puffy eyes. Rita clutched several tissues in her hand, occasionally dabbing at her face.
A fire burned in the fireplace, its cheerful light at odds with the grief and shock, heavy as morning fog, hanging in the air.
“SPD will have a lot to sort out, calling family members and bringing in different county services,” Jacob said, his voice even more somber than usual. “None of the kids remembers much of anything until they were away from Grace’s house and walking with Charlie. I got to the house before the crime unit did. I cleaned up all of the leftover traces of witchcraft, though there wasn’t enough time to remove Malcolm’s body. When I left, the CU had dispatched officers over to the park. The official story will probably be something like a mass kidnapping.”
“What about the cult theory?” Randall asked, gesturing toward the TV with his left arm, the one with the blue cast.
Jacob shrugged. “It depends. We’ll use it if it keeps the SPD and any other group off our trail. But if it invites a lot more snooping around, we’ll quell it.”
Jacob’s comment made Charlie wonder about all the times he’d heard people on the news debating theories and discussing controversies. How often were witches behind these debates, using them to distract the world from their existence? The possibilities were chilling. He set the thought aside. Now wasn’t the time to think about witch-based conspiracy theories.
Randall turned to look at his wife and nephew. “But won’t the kids be able to identify you guys?”
“Charlie and I used glamours to conceal our features. They won’t remember us,” Beverly explained. “They think they escaped on their own, and some nice people found them and brought them to the park to wait for the police. Once I knew they were going to be okay, I got Charlie and myself out of there before the officers could spot us and start asking questions.
For a while the only sound was the fire crackling away in the hearth.
“Honey, you could sit down if you wanted,” Rita said, after blowing her nose.
“What? Oh, no, I’m fine. It’s just…it’s all so…” Jeremy stopped mid-sentence, looking around, as if the words he wanted to use could be found among the living room’s furnishings.
“Let me get this straight,” he continued, one hand on his hip, the other stroking his beard. “Grace and her crew had been kidnapping unpopped witches and bringing them to her basement? Keeping them in a perpetual state of semi-consciousness to siphon off their power? And Malcolm supplied some of the kids, although they acquired the others on their own?”
He stopped, then shook his head in disbelief.
“But how could they have controlled Malcolm? Witches can’t get inside people’s heads!” Rita declared, her cheeks flushing with anger.
“And deathcraft? I thought that crap was just myth.”
“We all thought it was myth, Jeremy,” said Jacob from his easy chair, the firelight flickering in his eyes. “We all thought it was.”
Charlie untangled himself from his aunt’s embrace and stood up.
“I, uh, I think…” he said, looking down at the floor, then around the room. All the décor - the warm beige furniture, the soft throws draped over the couches, the photographs of Beverly and Randall’s wedding - was familiar to him, and yet looked vaguely different, as if everything had been painted over with a slightly duller shade, or as if each object had been moved a few degrees from its original location. It was still the same old living room, but changed, somehow.
“I’m gonna, um, just go outside, and…” He stopped, unsure how to explain why he wanted to leave.
“Charlie, we don’t have to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to. We’re just confused, is all,” Randall said, patting the couch cushion next to him.
“Nah, it’s all right. You guys should. We need, er, you guys need to…”
His voice broke, and he felt his eyes burn and moisten.
He turned and walked through the living room, toward the kitchen.
“Buddy. Buddy! Come on, you don’t have to do this alone. You don’t have to…” continued Randall, his voice starting to plead.
“Let him go, Rand. He needs time to himself,” Charlie heard his aunt say.
Charlie stepped outside and felt the cold wind blow on his face. He slid the door closed behind him, walked the short distance to the edge of the deck, and leaned out over the cedar railing.
“You’re such a baby,” he said aloud, angry that he didn’t have the guts to stay with the adults and answer more of their questions. But he’d been so hot in there with Beverly’s arm around him, and he didn’t want to cry in front of everybody anymore. They were all being nice to him, worrying over him, trying to give him things to eat. They’d spread an ointment onto his cheek where Claudia had cut him, reassuring him that it would heal without a scar. Rita even asked him if she could rub a poultice into his temples.
“It’ll help you forget, Charlie. Not permanently, of course. But it’ll put things aside for a bit. So you can have a break.”
He declined her offer.
He didn’t deserve a break.
He deserved to remember what happened. Everything that happened. Even though he couldn’t bear to talk about it with them anymore.
Some vestiges of the terrible power he’d ingested in Grace’s basement still lingered, keeping his senses sharper than usual. He could hear the adults talking in the living room, through the thick glass of the deck door. It reminded him of what it was like right after getting popped, though it was nowhere near as strong, nor as haphazard.
“…just let him be for a while. He’s not one for talking things out, if you hadn’t noticed,” he could hear Beverly say in a scolding tone.
“I know that, Bev. Jesus. I just think he needs some help. With all that happened,” Randall said.
Charlie hoped they didn’t get into an argument over him. They probably would. One more thing to add to his list of things that were his fault.
“He’s not going to get over this any time soon, you guys,” said Jeremy. “I mean, being held captive in that closet, Grace threatening him, that kid being killed right in front of him…”
An image of Todd’s slit throat flashed into his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, while his hands slammed down on the wooden railing.
He
shook his head, making the voices behind him fade away until he couldn’t hear them any longer. He looked out over the Puget Sound, searching for something to focus on, anything to get his mind away from Grace’s basement.
He spotted a ferry boat bound for Vashon Island far below him, watched as it coasted along the choppy waters. By extending his vision forward and down, he felt transported away from the house with its heavy emotions.
Charlie squinted his eyes, until he could see the name Klahowya, painted in thick green lettering, on the starboard wall near the captain’s station on the upper deck. He looked below at the car deck, and saw two young girls sitting in the back of a large pick-up truck, playing a game of patty-cake. Their hands clapped, opened, slapped, and closed in dizzying repetition.
Concentrating, he listened closely, attempting to catch what they were saying.
At first, all sound was drowned out by the drone of the ferry’s engine, and the frothy churn of the boat’s wake.
But then the girls’ words drifted into his ears as if they were in the yard below him, not nearly a mile out to sea.
“See-see oh playmate,” they sang, their voices high-pitched.
Come out and play with me,
And bring your dollies three,
Climb up my apple tree,
Slide down my rain barrel,
Into my cellar door, and
We’ll be jolly friends,
Forever more more,
MORE MORE!
Their hands slapped together two times in quick succession, then the girls collapsed onto each other in giggles.
An old man walked past the pickup truck, eating a granola bar. Charlie heard the foil packaging crinkle, heard the chewing sound coming from the man’s mouth.
“Quit hiding, you baby!” Charlie chided himself.
He blinked his eyes and shook his head again. His vision and hearing returned to normal, bringing him back to the deck where he stood.
Well, almost normal.
“…glad that Amos is okay. Malcolm must have used one of those sleeping spells on him,” he could hear Randall saying from the living room.
“But you mean that asshole is really his father?” Jeremy asked.
“He raped Lizzy, and that’s how Charlie…” Rita stopped, unable to finish the sentence. “God, it’s so awful.”
“He told me,” said Beverly, “that even though he’s not the conduit they hoped he was, he jumped into the circuit, learned everything about Thomas and Grace, grabbed at all that boosted craft, subdued them, and freed up the kids.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” declared Jeremy. “What a brave kid!”
Charlie shook his head again. He couldn’t bear to hear it, to hear them complimenting him. Because he hadn’t been brave. He’d been stupid and chickenshit. Why didn’t he do more? Why didn’t he go back and get Malcolm out of there?
Without thinking, he leaped over the deck railing, the waning power still coursing through his veins more than strong enough to give him a soft landing on the grass below.
‘That boost isn’t going to last forever, Charlie,’ he thought to himself.
Ignoring the thought, he walked out to the edge of the backyard.
Not that long ago, when Malcolm wanted privacy, he had surrounded them both with silence. Charlie reached up and plugged his nose, imitating the man’s gestures. He felt pressure against his cheeks and forehead as he closed his mouth and tried to blow air out through his nostrils. His ears popped.
And then, nothing.
Silence.
All sound gone: all noise, conversation, compliments, questions, worried sentiment, everything outside of his small, cone-shaped spell of protection, gone.
The only thing left was the noise in his own head. Words and images bumped against each other, yelling for his attention.
Todd. Todd is dead. And Malcolm too. Dead. You sat there while they butchered that boy, and you thought about wanting more of that power. You did. You did.
I didn’t know! I couldn’t help it, I just…
Malcolm’s dead because of you. You should have gone back downstairs and helped him.
I know.
How could you leave him down there? With her? With the others? Of course they killed him! You knew you shouldn’t leave him, but you did anyway.
They slit his throat, they slit his throat, they slit his throat.
Violent images arose in his mind’s eye once again: the gaping maw in Todd’s neck, the blood spattered everywhere, Claudia’s cruel smile as she stood there, holding the knife.
The look of sad acceptance on Todd’s face when it had been only the two boys, facing each other. Charlie drinking all that power in huge, hungry gulps, Todd knowing that it was too late for him, that he was about to die.
No! he shouted inside his head. No! I didn’t want that! I didn’t ask for it. They made me drink. She made me take it all. No!
Grace’s face floated into his brain, with her tricky, soft smile, her bright red hair, her creamy skin, all so oddly gentle, inviting, belying none of the savage cruelty just inches beneath the surface.
I stopped her! I broke that circuit, and I stopped her. I…
I saw into Grace’s deepest thoughts, at the filth and brutality floating around in there. He saw it all again, picturing eel-like shapes swimming beneath black oil.
Malcolm is dead. Malcolm is dead. Malcolm is dead.
You freed up those kids, Charlie (Malcolm’s voice talking to him now, disembodied, his firm, gentle words meant to comfort him, meant to give him strength). You did the right thing. You harnessed all that power and you freed up the kids.
No! I don’t deserve comfort.
Come on, little man, you gotta ease up on yourself, okay? For Pete’s sake! The wrinkles above Malcolm’s cheeks crinkled as he winked at Charlie.
Grace and Thomas, Claudia and Tony. They all escaped. But how? Malcolm said he had it under control. And why did they leave Malcolm’s body, but take Todd’s? Maybe it was some sort of message?
I know what’ll happen next. Grace’ll go into hiding. She’ll rebuild her strength. Then she’ll do it all over again. I know she will. She’ll kidnap more kids, kill more teenagers and adults, it won’t stop it won’t stop it won’t stop itwontstopitwontstopITWONTSTOP!
Chaaaaaarliee.
His body jerked hard and he looked around the yard, expecting to see…
Because it wasn’t a voice in his head this time, it was…
No. Impossible. Impossible! How could…
Right inside of you, little man.
It was Grace’s voice, coming from somewhere inside his chest. Vibrating just above his sternum.
No! D-d-don’t call me that. You never get to call me that again. Those were his words, don’t…
I can call you whatever I want, little man. Because I’ve burrowed up like a little mousey right inside of you.
No!
And I’m going to burn a hole right through you until you turn to ash.
His hands flew up to his chest as he felt a white-hot, searing pain stabbing at the area around his heart.
He stumbled, barely catching himself before falling backwards on the ground.
No! he shouted, though he wasn’t sure if it was out loud or in his head. How could she be inside of him?
The pain burned brighter, increasing until his eyes watered. This time he did cry out loud. His legs gave way beneath him as he crumpled to the ground.
Looking up at the gray sky, he gritted his teeth, then pushed down hard on the bones in his chest.
The pain froze. It didn’t lessen, but somehow by pushing on it, he stopped it from getting worse.
No, you can’t stop me, boy, I’ll…
Now he could see it inside of himself, see a small flame flickering in the middle of his chest, surrounded by blackness. As he continued to press, the flame began to shrink.
No, you can’t. you can’t do that…he heard her scream.
Oh yeah? He said throug
h gritted teeth. Watch me!
He pressed harder, and the flame dwindled to a tiny spark. He knew, without quite understanding how, that he’d subdued her, that for the moment she could no longer speak to him. A steely satisfaction replaced the burning sensation.
He pushed and pushed, but no matter how hard he tried, the spark would not extinguish. At least the pain in his chest disappeared. Somehow he had stopped her, even though he couldn’t get rid of her.
He sucked in gulps of cold air, then rolled over and pushed himself upright until he was on his hands and knees, the grass cold and wet beneath his fingers.
How did she get inside of me?
Did it happen accidentally, when I jumped into the circuit? If so, why wasn’t Thomas inside of me, too?
Maybe she made it happen. Maybe she slipped inside of me, even while I was controlling her.
Don’t worry about it now, Charlie. She’s subdued for the time being. You’ve got bigger fish to fry.
He shuddered. Bigger fish to fry. The exact words that someone had told Thomas after Charlie’s mother escaped out the basement door.
He stood up and brushed wet grass off the seat of his pants.
Like…like what? What bigger fish?
And for a moment, everything was quiet. There was calm inside his head. Not because he had found the peace and emptiness himself, but because his thoughts had run themselves out.
But only for a moment.
You’re a faggot, Charlie. What a joke you are.
For some reason, this thought brought him up short.
Really? Really?! After all you’ve been through, that’s what you’re gonna focus on?
An image of Diego emerged, looking at him, at their spot in the woods, with the span of the bridge arching above them.
His look of shock, then wonder, and then delight, after Charlie shouted out loud that he was gay.
Calm settled in his mind again, as the loud voices and the bright images softened, faded away, like the spark of Grace in his heart: not disappearing entirely but becoming so small that he could rest a bit, could get a break from the all the clamor.
Well, so be it. You’re a faggot witch, you were born because some bad guy raped your mother, you’ve seen murder, you almost killed your father. So what? Get over it, you’ve got work to do.
The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories) Page 49