by Ira Bloom
As a result, the sisters had promised that they wouldn’t call themselves “witches” anymore in public, or work spells. They could call themselves “Wiccans,” which had a measure of social acceptance, though they did not like the designation. Their family had been witches for hundreds of years, passing down the matrilineal traditions and lore, and Wicca was a relatively recent mish-mosh of a religion. Esme did not cast spells, though she was comfortable with a little ambiguous cursing now and then: small utterances made in a whisper, little intentions sent out into the eldritch cosmos.
Esme directed a few choice Latin words under her breath at Lisa: “te tua fata determinat,” while twisting a clandestine thumb into a feig to nail the curse home.
Lisa was someone who remembered all the accusations from middle school. She glared at Esme, angry but with some caution, before turning back toward her desk. She stepped on a pencil, which rolled out from under her shoe, causing her to fall on her butt. Grasping for her desk, she brought it down on top of herself. A roar of laughter went up from the class. Esme opened her textbook and flipped through pages to find today’s lesson. Nonchalance was all part of the staging.
Before second period, AP biology, the taunts became nasty. Stephan Reese and Brandon North were discussing whether Norman was anatomically proportionate, and whether Esme, as his girlfriend, was up to certain tasks. Again, Lisa was in the thick of the hazing:
“Why else do you think she likes him?” she suggested.
Esme flushed scarlet, mortified. She was angry enough, at that moment, to do something that she’d promised her mother she wouldn’t.
But the indecency of the comments was enough to rouse Norman to action. His desk was a lab table in the back of the room with a very sturdy chair the school had provided. He rose from his seat slowly and lumbered deliberately toward the two boys. Stephan and Brandon sat at desks next to each other, about halfway to the back of the room, with an aisle between them. When Norman stood in that space, the immensity of him blocked out the fluorescent lights behind him, and he cast a shadow. On both their desks.
“Guys,” he said gently. Stephan paled beneath the giant. Norman’s hand was larger than his head. Brandon shook nervously. They were not large boys: more to the geek end of the spectrum. “Guys, have a little decency, would you?” was all he asked. But it was more than enough. When he passed Lisa’s desk, on the way back to his table, he looked at her and shook his head slowly back and forth in disapproval, with a sad expression. She hung her head and didn’t look up for the rest of the period.
The third incident of the day occurred in the hallway after third period, on the way to lunch. When Danny Long, a senior who until the day before had been the largest boy at Middleton High, passed Norman in the hallway, he knocked the books out of Norm’s hands.
“Sorry,” Danny joked. “I didn’t see you.”
All the students in the vicinity halted to watch. Danny was the toughest kid at Middleton High, and with him was Jackson Gartner, the meanest, and their leader, Logan Rehnquist, the most antagonistic. Danny was on the football team. Jackson was academically ineligible this year. Logan got his workouts off-campus, in a mixed-martial-arts dojo. All three were very large boys, but standing in a semicircle harassing Norman Stein, they didn’t seem so big.
“Accidents happen,” Norman replied amiably.
“How come your face is all messed up like that?” Jackson asked. People in the crowd snickered.
“It’s a long story,” Norman replied, relatively calm. “If you’d like to come sit with me at lunch, I’ll fill you in on the details.”
“Nah,” Jackson said. “Ain’t nobody gonna sit with you.”
“How’d you get so huge?” Logan accused. “That isn’t natural. You’re some kind of freak, aren’t you?”
“Actually, that one’s easier to explain. I have acromegaly. It’s a rare glandular disease that causes the anterior pituitary gland to overproduce growth hormone. All the best giants have it.”
“Do you know who you look like?” Danny asked, edging into Norman’s personal space.
“I get Zac Efron a lot,” Norman suggested.
“He looks like Frankenstein!” Danny announced, in a very loud voice, turning to the crowd for affirmation. “But uglier!”
The laughter of the crowd didn’t shake Norman’s calm demeanor. “Actually, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor. He was perfectly normal-looking,” Norman said. “I think what you wanted to say was I look like Frankenstein’s monster. Listen, Danny, isn’t it? You’re in my computer lab. Do me a favor and pick up those books for me, would you? I’ve got this thing on my leg, it’s a little difficult to bend down.”
“Are you telling me what to do?” Danny returned, with that mock anger bullies get, when they’re trying to pick a fight. Norman was quite familiar with it. Whatever he said from that point on, Danny was going to take as a personal affront. Danny shoved Norman hard, with both hands. With his size, Danny was one of the most effective high school defensive linemen in the state. When Danny Long shoved somebody with both hands like that, they went flying across the hallway and into a wall. In Norman’s case, Danny would have had better luck with the wall.
“And so it begins,” Norman said.
And so it might have, if Coach Ashcroft, pushing his way through the crowd, hadn’t witnessed the attempted shove. Students scattered or drifted away, and Danny and Logan slunk off, Jackson bringing up the rear with a halfhearted “Hey, Coach,” as he headed toward the student parking lot. Esme knelt to help pick up Norm’s books.
The coach stopped in front of Norman, looking him up and down like a judge at the county fair eyeing a prize heifer. “Son,” he said. “Football is a game of inches.”
Norman was puzzled. “Uh … if you say so.”
“Inches, son. You’ve got more of them than I’ve ever seen,” the coach clarified. “You ever want to play for the Middleton Timberwolves, you come and see me, y’hear? Coach Ashcroft. You just made the team.”
“Uh … thanks, uh … Coach? But I’ve got this thing on my leg,” Norman explained, waving a mammoth hand at the appendage. “Maybe next year, if it’s still open?”
Coach Ashcroft looked Norman up and down one last time before turning in the direction of the teachers’ lounge. “Oh, it’ll still be open,” he promised. “Norman, isn’t it? Norman, just remember this: football. That’s your sport. Forget about basketball. I want you on my defensive line, rushing Jefferson High’s quarterback.”
“I was very impressed with you back there,” Esme told Norman at lunch.
Norman had brought a bag lunch, and the rations looked more appropriate for his size. Norman was a sandwich guy: He had six of them, of various cold cuts with the works. Also, a full bag of chips and a half-gallon carton of milk. In his hand, it seemed about right.
“I try not to let them frame the terms of the conflict,” he explained. “I’m a pacifist.”
“And you sure put Stephan and Brandon and Lisa in their place, in biology.”
“That was different,” Norm explained. “I’ll take action to protect innocent bystanders from collateral damage. Just because I’m a giant ugly freak and a beautiful girl is nice enough to sit with me at lunch, doesn’t mean they have to go after you.”
Esme wanted to say something reassuring, but there was nothing in her repertoire of trite aphorisms to counter “giant ugly freak,” so she just looked down at her food. Yogurt and fruit. Norman’s sandwiches sure looked good.
“Hey, slide over,” Katy said, dropping her sack lunch on the table. “Ronnie’s sitting with some pretty girls in short skirts, so I need to pretend I’m not the most pathetic, friendless person in the world.”
“She’s not,” Esme assured, sliding over. “Norm, this is my very weird but talented sister, Katy. Katy, this is my very intelligent and sweet friend, Norman.”
Katy offered a hand to shake. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Norm took the hand between his thumb
and forefinger, so as not to entirely engulf it in his palm, and shook gently. “The pleasure is all mine.”
“Well it should be,” Katy claimed. “You don’t meet someone as weird as me every day.”
“Norman was telling me he thought I was beautiful,” Esme mentioned. She didn’t know what else to do about such an awkward thing for Norm to have said, so she brushed it off as a joke.
“I stand corrected,” Katy announced with a raised eyebrow. “He’s obviously much weirder than me.” She removed some fruit from her bag, and a Tupperware container full of quinoa with tempeh and steamed broccoli.
Norman picked up the nearest sandwich and took a good bite, about half. “Uh … ” he said, a little self-conscious, after swallowing, “does anyone want a sandwich? I’ve brought too many.”
Katy wrinkled her nose. “Is that meat?” she asked.
“I’d like a half of one of those turkey sandwiches, if you really have enough,” Esme said.
“You don’t eat meat?” Norman asked Katy.
“She calls herself a ‘compassionate vegetarian,’ ” Esme explained.
Norman opened his bag of chips and offered them around. Esme took one; Katy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t get the whole vegetarian thing,” he said. “I mean, where do you draw the line?”
Katy pealed a banana and took a bite. “I don’t eat anything that’s capable of affection.”
“No,” Norman argued. “Take that banana, for instance. Did you know that the banana shares fifty percent of its DNA with humans? And who’s to say that bananas don’t experience pain?”
Katy set her banana down and looked at it with disgust. “Thanks a lot. Now I feel guilty.”
“Don’t,” Norman reassured her. “If the situation were reversed, the banana wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Man-eating bananas,” Esme said, approving Norm’s quick wit. “That’s a disturbing image.”
“Now I’ve got it stuck in my mind,” Katy declared. “It’s congealed, like jellied eels.”
“Talk about a disturbing image … ” Norman said. “Listen, two words of advice—”
“I hope they aren’t ‘get therapy,’ because I hear that a lot.”
“That’s the voices in your head again,” Esme said. “Try stabbing them with an ice pick.”
“I was going to say ‘complex proteins,’ ” Norm said, “but I think I agree with your voices.”
Katy brightened. “Hey!” she told Esme. “I like this guy. He totally gets me.”
A very attractive girl approached the table, opposite Norman. She was a curvy strawberry blond with a genuine smile and dimples. “Hey, Esme. Hi, Katy.” She extended a hand across the table to Norman. “Hi, my name is Sandy Hardesty. I’m in your English class?”
Norman took the hand gently. “Nice to meet you, I’m Norman Stein.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. She never stopped smiling the whole time, and her eyes never left Norman’s face. “Norman, I just … I’d like to welcome you to Middleton High. I hope you didn’t get a bad impression of us already, mostly the people here are really nice once you get to know them. Once they get used to you.”
“That’s very nice of you to say, Sandy,” Norman returned. “I’m sure I’d get along fine, if everyone were as nice as you.”
“That’s a pretty high standard,” Esme said. “Sandy here is about as nice as they come.”
“Pathological, practically,” Katy added.
Sandy let out a little laugh. She put her hand on Katy’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “You’re the expert,” she said. “I’ve gotta go, Norman, I just wanted to say, uh … you know. Hang in there?” She left with a charming little wave.
“She seemed nice,” Norman said.
“She really is,” Esme agreed. “She can see the good in everyone.”
“Yeah, even Logan Rehnquist,” added Katy.
“We must flee immediately,” said the Ancient. “As we’ve practiced. Leave no trace.”
“The police?” asked the younger.
“Interpol,” came the reply.
The Ancient did not appear ancient. In human terms, he could pass for middle-aged. He was of medium height and medium build, Mediterranean in complexion, and he wore expensive Italian suits and custom-made shoes, to accommodate his extremely high arches. He looked pleasant enough, to the casual observer. His looks were a deception.
The younger one appeared to be a teenager of sixteen or seventeen, and strikingly handsome. He’d been chosen primarily for his looks because he served a specific function, and the Ancient had infinite time and patience to make his selections.
“Are your things packed?” asked the elder.
“I can be ready in ten minutes, Master,” the younger promised.
“Do not call me that,” the Ancient reprimanded. “Call me ‘Father.’ Practice it. A mistake may be fatal, while we are traveling. And you are ‘Zack.’ Never forget.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Move in haste,” the Ancient commanded. “We must finish our affairs.”
“What of the brides, Father?” asked Zack. “Some of them are too weak to travel.”
The Master took the boy by the shoulders, and held his gaze. “We must finish our affairs.”
The youth did not have the force of personality to defy the compelling power of his master’s will, but somewhere within his youthful eyes there still lurked a thread of humanity, which he could not mask.
“Not Madeleine,” Zack ventured. It was not an objection. He knew better than to even hint at defiance. It was more a request for clarification, tinged by the suggestion of hope.
“Kill them all.”
Zack lowered his eyes. “She’s near turned already; she’ll make us a good companion, I promise. She only wants to serve you.”
The Master snarled, showing fangs. “I do not negotiate. She cannot travel with us, and she cannot live. She must be destroyed, like the others. I command it.”
The boy was bound in his master’s thrall. He did not cry. Once, he might have, but that was when he was a different kind of creature altogether. “As you command.”
The mansion was all that remained of an estate once owned by the descendants of a long-dead lord. It was many kilometers from anything resembling civilization, the location ideally suited to the Ancient’s needs. There was only one road in, across a small bridge over a quick stream. To the rear, there were woods on jagged landscape, impossible to traverse in any kind of vehicle. There was running water and electricity, but few luxuries. The furnishings were high-quality Victorian antiques in shoddy condition. The infrastructure was grandiose. There were sweeping staircases with hand-carved rococo banisters, and marble floors, and a very fine crystal chandelier in the dining room, covered in cobwebs.
In the library, the living room, and the great hall were immense, ornate fireplaces. The library was well stocked with books in various languages, especially English. There was no television or Internet, so Zack read voraciously, whatever he could get his hands on, which was mostly great literature from the library shelves and best sellers that he bought in the used bookstore in the nearest village, on the rare occasions he was permitted to leave the mansion.
In the cellar, there were nine brides.
The mansion suited the Ancient’s purposes. He had little use for warmth and light and cozy beds. He needed only brides, privacy, and an escape route. Nothing could catch them in those woods. Nothing could move as fast as they could, in the dark.
“I’ll take care of the five in the seraglio,” declared the Ancient at the foot of the stairs to the cellar. “You will finish the other four. Drink deep of them all. It may be some time before we can refresh ourselves again.”
The Master went left, down the hallway. Zack removed a ring of keys from his jeans pocket and sorted them in the very dim light. Zack had excellent night vision. He found the key to the padlock on the door and unlatched it. The room was slightly musty, but the furnishings were clean and fres
h. Three brides resided. They were all very happy to see Zack. Though none would ever give voice to such a sentiment, they all much preferred the boy to the Master.
Zack went first to Helena. She rose up on one elbow to greet him. Helena had left her homeland and family to seek a career as an international fashion model. Her contract had been sold to a nefarious human trafficking organization in Berlin that the Master had an interest in. She was nineteen, and had always been thin. Zack sat by her side and kissed her eyes.
“Helena, Helena me love,” he whispered in her ear. He had a nascent gift for enthrallment, an attribute of his ilk. With the brides, he reverted to his easy Manchester slang. The Master considered colloquial speech coarse, and demanded proper English in his presence.
She smiled up at him weakly. She’d been ill with the fever from the very first, one whose immune system would fight the infection to the death. Her death. Many could never go through the change.
“Helena, I spot a bit o’ color, in your cheek. You’re looking much healthier today,” he cooed.
This made Helena smile in earnest. Nothing would please the boy more than for her to regain her health, and pleasing him was all she desired. “I had broth, my love,” she said in a breathy whisper, all she could manage.
When she smiled, it reminded Zack of how beautiful she’d been, before he’d had his part in destroying her. “Give us a snog then,” he said, and she shivered in anticipation. It had been so long since the beautiful boy had kissed her. She turned her neck to him. When his teeth nipped at her, just below the left ear, she moaned in pleasure. Zack’s kisses were her opium.