by Jenn Bennett
“She’s fine.” Lon wrapped an arm around my waist and herded me forward to catch up with the now-moving line. “Nice to see you again, Mark. Take care.”
Mark’s jaw flexed. He wasn’t happy about being dismissed. He mumbled a good-bye, adjusted his jacket collar, and continued on his way.
Half an hour after our encounter with Mark, we finally made it through the queue. A park employee dressed in a black-and-white striped chain-gang-prisoner costume herded the three of us into a staging area. Groups of people ahead of us entered the four-person boats on one side of a small canal filled with blood-red dyed water.
“Huh. I could swear that this thing used to go faster,” Jupe said to the man as we watched a seashell boat emerge from the indoor ride and glide to a slow stop.
“It’s an older ride. We had some minor track problems at the higher speed, so we switched to a slower setting about a month ago,” the park employee explained in a professional voice, straightening his name tag. It read Henry above chipped gold stars and what seemed like an afterthought, 20 Years of Service. “You may not know this, but this attraction originally started out as the popular Beach Fun Party ride in the 1970s. Back then, they operated the ride at an even higher speed so that the two waterfall drops would splash the riders. It was changed to Mermaid Cove in 1980s, and then Spirit Cove ten years ago.”
“Yeah, I know all that,” Jupe said with breezy immodesty. “My dad rode it when he was a kid. He said it was better because the animatronic mermaids used to be girls in tiny bikinis.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively to underscore his words.
Both Lon and Henry looked simultaneously embarrassed about this factoid.
“Uh, yes, I suppose,” Henry said before composing himself to continue the history lesson. “It was fast enough to require belted lap restraints, which they later removed when they revamped to the Halloween theme and slowed the ride down. As for the ride’s speed this season, it does make the wait longer, and we apologize for that. But the tradeoff is that you can enjoy the Spirit Cove experience for a full nine minutes instead of the normal four and a half.” He smiled encouragingly at Jupe, then called for the next group of people.
“Damn,” Jupe muttered under his breath. “That’s almost twice as slow.”
“That’s exactly twice as slow,” Lon said.
“Whatever. It might as well be It’s a Small World. This blows.”
“Is it scary?” I asked. “I’m not a fan of people jumping out at me.”
“Nah, it’s kinda lame.” His eyes darted to the side.
“That’s not what you said three years ago,” Lon said.
“I was just a kid, and thanks for bringing that up, assbag.”
“Father Assbag,” Lon calmly corrected. “And you’re the one who was bragging earlier about vomiting. So go on, tell Cady all about how you weren’t scared that time.”
“If you think it’s so funny, you tell her.”
“Did he cry?” I asked, making a pouty face.
“Worse,” Lon said.
Jupe groaned, letting his head loll backward as he squeezed his eyes shut. “I pissed my pants, okay? Are you happy now?”
“What? Shut up! You didn’t!”
“It was the worst day of my life,” he admitted.
“Mine too. I nearly froze on our way to the car,” Lon said. “I had to give little Pee-Pants my jacket to cover up.”
I snickered and poked Jupe in the ribs. He giggled and tried to tickle me.
“Next,” Henry said loudly, interrupting our horseplay. “Hurry up. Others are waiting.”
Lon helped me into the teetering boat. We settled together on the long planked seat behind Jupe, who twisted around to peg us with a cocky grin. “Let’s make a bet. I’ll bet you five dollars out of my new savings account that I can use my knack on Henry to speed this ride up.”
Lon rolled his eyes. “Not this again.”
“Doubt all you want, haters. I’m going to be unstoppable when I master this thing. You just wait.”
“Oh, I’m waiting.”
“Does that mean you’re taking my bet?”
“I’ll bet you’re going to turn around in your seat before I change my mind and haul you off this thing.”
Jupe grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Henry pressed a large red button on the control panel behind him. With the blare of a buzzer, the ride jerked, then settled into a lazy trajectory, clinking along the metal underwater track. “Knack my ass,” Lon muttered, drawing me closer in the boat’s backseat. “You better hang on so you don’t fly off when we go down that second waterfall.”
Jupe snorted. “At this speed? We won’t even get a drop of water on us.”
“I think you mean drop of blood,” I said, leaning over his shoulder to make spidery fingers in his billowing curls. He laughed and grabbed my hands as an atmospheric Halloween soundtrack crackled over hidden speakers.
Two doors opened, allowing the boat to float into the first section of the dark ride. A cloud of dancing red lights was rigged to mimic evil eyes winking on the edge of a bog. It smelled strongly of chlorine and the soundtrack was so loud it almost hurt your ears. The costumed people posing on the ride’s shores looked more bored than frightening. Even the fog was cheesy. The whole production was an insult to both haunted houses and amusement park rides. Walt Disney would’ve rolled over in his grave.
When the ride ended, I leaned over the handrail and whispered into Jupe’s hair, “Stupidest ride ever.”
“It’s better when it’s faster,” he complained. “You couldn’t even tell when we went down the second waterfall drop.”
“There was a second drop?” I teased.
“See! So lame. I’m going to make this thing go faster.”
“Uh-huh, get right on that,” Lon encouraged sarcastically.
As a family with a small child boarded the boat in front of us, Jupe closed his eyes and white-knuckled the handlebar. “There he goes,” I whispered to Lon. “How cute is that?”
Suddenly Jupe popped up from his seat and cupped his hands around his mouth to yell. “HENRY! Turn it up to the highest speed and let us through one more time!”
“Goddammit, Jupe!” Lon snapped, yanking on his son’s jeans, which were so loose that they nearly slid right off his hips. With his retro “Let’s Go Out to the Lobby” cartoon theater-concession-food boxer shorts on display, Jupe grabbed the waist of his jeans just in time and tugged them back up. “The ride’s better faster,” Jupe called out again to Henry as all three boats glided forward. “Like the good old days!”
With apple-red cheeks and a confused look on his face, Henry took out a key and unlocked a door on the control panel. He switched something inside before slamming his palm over the big red button. “Hang on to your seats!” he warned.
And he wasn’t kidding. Our boat squealed on the track, parting the red water as we vaulted forward. I clung to the handlebar as a surprisingly strong gale of musty air hit my face. Jupe’s puffy mass of corkscrew curls blew back. A chorus of shouts rang out around us inside the dark tunnel.
The soundtrack was deliriously off-kilter as we buzzed by the first batch of ghostly animatronic mermaids. Lon swore indecipherably at my side, something grim and colorful about murdering his son, who twisted in his seat to yell, “Do you believe me now?” I thought he said, “motherfuckers” after that, but it was lost under the disconcerting squeal of the boat as it roughly chugged along the underwater track.
The first waterfall came way too fast. I heard the cries of the family ahead of us and braced myself for the drop. Cold, red water splashed over the sides, soaking half my hair and the entire right leg of my jeans as I cried out.
The drop propelled us faster through the tunnel. Bone-shaking fast. My teeth clacked together and the little girl in the boat ahead was crying. As the glow-in-the-dark Halloween scenery blurred by, the whole thing spiraled into some warped Willy Wonka nightmare.
The second, steeper drop
was just around the corner. The boat ahead creaked and groaned as it tilted down into the darkness. Lon threw one arm around me and the other around Jupe. I clung to the handrail as the boat plunged over the falls. My stomach lurched. A surge of water flew over us in an arcing sheet that crashed behind our heads.
Soaked from crown to sole. Every goddamn one of us.
Worse, the boat made a horrible cracking noise when it realigned at the bottom of the waterfall, rocking as it screeched along the rails through the final straightaway.
The ride’s exit doors arced open, but not fast enough. The family ahead ducked down low in their seats, covering the head of their child as they passed through. Crack!—the front of the boat clipped the doors and splintered a couple of inches off the edges.
As we whizzed through behind them, light erupted from the loading area. Three park employees were clamoring around the control panel. A buzzer sounded. The family in front of us came to a grating stop. Screams ripped through the air.
Now us, now us. . . . I blinked. We weren’t stopping.
Our boat zoomed, splashing red water onto the people at the front of the ride queue. My mind went blank as I prepared to crash. I closed my eyes and steeled myself.
The buzzer sounded.
Our boat skidded to a jolting halt, metal shrieking in protest, water splashing. The teens’ boat slammed into ours. My body whipped forward, then back. We all sat in the boat, dazed, for several beats before coming to our senses.
Lon and I pulled Jupe out of the boat at the same time the teens behind us jumped onto the platform. Half a dozen park employees flocked to the platform to check on all of us. It was the little girl in the boat ahead that I was concerned about, but she appeared to be okay. Just scared out of her mind.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry . . . so, so sorry!” Jupe said to the parents as the little girl sobbed in her father’s arms. The mother patted Jupe on the shoulder. She then turned to the park staff and launched into a tirade against poor Henry, using words like irresponsible, phrases like could have killed us all, and ended with a rousing “demand that he be fired or we’ll sue your asses to the moon.”
To our surprise, the formerly dour and rule-abiding Henry argued back vehemently, yelling that the ride was better faster.
Somber and weary, we drove out of the Village to the outskirts of town and made the steep climb on the private back road to Lon’s clifftop home. No one said much. Lon asked Jupe a few restrained questions, like exactly how long he’d known about his knack, and who he’d used it on, and whether he could also hear people’s emotions (which he couldn’t). I was prepared for Lon to lay into the boy—and prepared to stop him—but he was surprisingly calm. Defeated, I supposed.
After a shower, Jupe curled up in my lap on the couch, with Foxglove tucked into the empty space behind his knees. His hair smelled pleasantly of chamomile and coconut oil. I gently detangled his stubborn curls in sections with a wide-toothed comb while the TV chattered in the background. Apart from a few mumbled words, he was quiet—the quietest I’d ever seen him. I tried to cheer him up, but he just clung to my leg and sighed. It hadn’t been so long ago that I’d been uncomfortable with Jupe’s huggy-touchy lack of boundaries. Now, with his head heavy in my lap, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. To him, too, I suppose. He fell asleep on me long before his usual midnight bedtime. Lon had to wake him up to get him upstairs into bed.
“What the hell am I going to do with a kid who can manipulate people to get whatever he wants?” Lon asked me a few minutes later as he padded into the kitchen.
I opened the dishwasher and flipped my glass upside down on the top rack. “You can manipulate people.”
“Only if I’m transmutated. Only if I’m touching them. And changing someone’s emotions isn’t half as dangerous as being able to walk around in broad daylight, making people do your bidding.”
“I’m not sure it’s quite that dramatic,” I said.
“And my emotional influence only lasts for a minute. I can’t permanently alter people’s feelings. Did you see the look on that ride operator’s face when we left? He still believed the stuff that Jupe had pushed inside his head.”
“Yeah, that the ride was better faster. But you don’t know how long Jupe’s influence lasts. Maybe it wore off Henry an hour later?”
“Maybe.”
“I thought Earthbound kids always inherited one of their parents’ powers.”
“Me too.”
“This isn’t from Yvonne, then?”
His shook his head slowly and sat down on one of the barstools at the kitchen island. I dried my hands on a towel and leaned against the countertop a few steps away. Waiting. When Lon and I first became involved, he told me he didn’t want to talk about Yvonne’s knack. He said he would, in time, but I’d definitely waited long enough. I watched his face as he wrestled it out of his mouth.
“Allure.”
“Allure,” I repeated. “Like a glamour kind of thing, or . . . ?”
After a few moments, he spilled the rest of it. “Yvonne always claimed that she didn’t have a knack. I met her on a photo shoot in Antigua. I guess she was a year or two older than you at the time. She was at the height of her modeling career, and I’d heard stories about her from other photographers. It was no secret that she was wild. Liked to party. So I knew better than to get involved with her, but when I met her . . .”
He paused, remembering. The look on his face unnerved me. It was as if he was recalling some life-changing experience that could never be repeated. A sublime meal, or the perfect sunset on a romantic vacation. I’d never seen him look that way when talking about Yvonne. All I’d heard were horror stories. How she’d neglected Jupe. Flirted with drug addictions. Cheated on Lon. Sliced him open with a knife before his divorce trial. Of course, I knew there had to be good times, too. But the way his eyes glossed over as he relived one of these memories made my throat tighten and my stomach queasy.
“She was . . . exquisite,” he reminisced. “Not just her looks. The whole package. Her knack didn’t only affect how people saw her on the outside, it made you believe that she was kind and funny and caring. Charming. And I wanted her.” He blinked, and the memory faded. “I knew that she was lying about something. I knew it was big. But I didn’t know she was hiding a knack until after I’d knocked her up.” He paused. “Jupe was an accident. We’d been seeing each other on and off for several months. She didn’t want to keep the baby. It complicated her career and she wasn’t ready to settle down. I was pretty sure the baby was mine, based on her emotional reaction when she first told me, but I didn’t know for sure. I followed her to an abortion clinic. I had to transmutate in order to talk her into keeping him. She was the first non-Hellfire person to see me do that.”
I stared at the floor, a little shocked by the story. A little sad, too. “I guess she was pretty surprised by the transmutation.”
“Not as surprised as I was when I later overheard a phone conversation with her mother, a few months into her pregnancy. That’s when I knew I’d been duped.” He looked up and gave me a tight smile. The overhead lights in the kitchen were off. A single bulb over the sink created shadows under his eyes. Low voices and music droned from the television in the living room.
“But my finding out didn’t change anything. She was still using her knack, and I was still crazy about her, even though I knew better. Told myself that I could see her for what she really was because I could hear her emotions. I asked her to marry me a couple months before Jupe was born. She refused. Twice. She only caved a couple of weeks before her delivery when her pregnancy got difficult. After she had Jupe, she still kept her ability turned ‘on’ all the time. Persuaded me to take her to the Hellfire Club and get her inducted when one of the thirteen in the Body died. A mistake, of course. When she’s transmutated, she could make the Pope himself renounce God, fall to his knees, and worship her.”
“Damn.”
His finger traced out a pattern on
the counter. “That’s when things began disintegrating between us. We moved to Miami for a few years. She quit using her knack on me. Just didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t believe how different she was without it. I knew in my head that I was being manipulated the whole time she was using it, but when she stopped . . . I was suddenly living with a stranger.” He shrugged. “And you already know the rest of it. The drugs, the parties, the cheating. Her mom and I became closer the second time Yvonne got out of rehab. She was the one who convinced me to leave.”
“Hold on. Yvonne’s own mother persuaded you to leave her daughter?”
“She flew down from Portland one summer and told me stories about Yvonne’s childhood. Up until that point, I was convinced that I could save her, if I was patient enough. Tried hard enough. But I couldn’t. I took Jupe and moved back home. My parents died, I built this house. And now we see her at Christmas. Usually.”
Jupe never mentioned her, except in the broadest sense. All his retold childhood memories included Yvonne’s family—her sister, Adella, and his grandmother, who were both still actively involved in his and Lon’s lives—but never Yvonne.
A long moment ticked by. “Do you think the fact that you’d undergone the transmutation spell before you got Yvonne pregnant—”
“—has something to do with what’s manifesting in Jupe?”
“Well, yes.”
“Possibly. He hasn’t inherited someone else’s knack. Despite my doubts before he was born, he’s clearly not the milkman’s kid.”
“He’s definitely yours,” I agreed with a smile.
He pressed the heel of his palm over a brow, deep in thought. This wasn’t so bad, Yvonne’s knack. Definitely not as bad as the nightmare knacks I’d dreamed up for her. I could see that it upset him to admit the whole messy story, but it didn’t make me think any less of him. He must’ve thought it would, otherwise he wouldn’t have keep it quiet until now.
But something was still bothering me. Anxiety twisted inside my stomach—the source of it just out of reach. My thoughts tumbled and churned.