The magician smiled, pensively. “I warned her, didn’t I?” he said, looking as though he’d like nothing more than to sit back in his chair and doze off for another few decades. “It couldn’t be avoided.”
“You did the right thing,” Chloe said. She waved her hand toward the now-departing acolytes. “You saved all those people.”
“What exactly just happened?” Seth asked.
Crandall laughed. “That’s not important now. We should probably make sure everyone gets back home safely.” He looked at Father, who was still standing like a sculpture, staring down at the burn mark on the rug, his mouth hanging slightly open. “Especially this one here. I think he might have the hardest time.”
Martin searched the crowd for the two girls, the dwarf and the angel, but he saw neither. He felt sorry for them, even though they had caused no end of trouble. Where would they go now?
Ivan had stepped forward, and now stood hunched in front of them as though awaiting their judgment. “I have no idea what’s going on,” he mumbled, and Olivia, laughing through reluctant tears, ran up and tackled him, throwing her arms around his waist and digging her face into his t-shirt.
“You are such an asshole,” she said, and the perplexed expression on Ivan’s face made Martin crack up, too. Soon all of them were laughing, even Crandall, even Ivan, who still looked bewildered but undeniably himself.
“Well,” Chloe said, clasping Martin’s hand in hers, “let’s try to make sure nothing like that happens again.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was nearly one in the morning, but Martin found he wasn’t tired at all. He felt like he could stay awake for the rest of his life.
The acolytes had drifted away, slowly at first, and then in quickening waves. All had seemed as confused as Ivan, but as they left, realizing on some level they were freed from some terrible spell, Martin heard laughter, gaiety, and the sound of personalities reestablishing themselves.
Father was the last to leave, perhaps because he had invested so much of his identity in Mother, in the church, and now felt he had nowhere else to go. Martin felt sorry for him, too, but after a few words of encouragement from Crandall, the burly man had gone on his way, perhaps on to better things.
The sky outside the kitchen window was black now, but the light inside more than made up for it; Crandall sat at the head of the small table, cheerful despite his obvious exhaustion, and the others, including Seth and the newly liberated Franklin, gathered around him, their faces lit with wonder. Martin could never remember feeling as happy as he did at this moment, here with his friends and with the woman he loved more than anything else in the world. They had come through the worst together, and for the most part, unscathed. He squeezed Chloe’s hand, and smiled at her. She smiled back, her eyes dancing.
“Some of the books she was reading, some of the rumors she must have heard about the work I did—they evidently weren’t very clear. There never was an object,” Crandall said, his long dexterous fingers curled around a thick brown coffee mug. “I suppose she thought she could just come here and take something from me, something that would give her power. There was never a thing to take. It was always right in here.” He tapped his forehead.
“What I don’t get is why she would want anything from you,” said Olivia. She hardly let go of Ivan since his release. For his part Ivan didn’t seem to mind. “I mean, she is pretty powerful herself.”
“True,” Crandall said thoughtfully. “What I have, what I discovered…” He drifted off, shaking his head. “It isn’t right that anyone should have it. What she had was terrible, yes—being able to control the minds of others is a power no human should possess.” He paused, and Martin could almost hear the unspoken codicil: If you could call her human. As though he had read Martin’s mind, Crandall continued, “Especially someone who wanted control and power for its own sake. The life forces of her followers made her formidable, but also made her more and more monstrous as time went on, until she finally became what you saw earlier. That was the power of all those lives, stealing her humanity.”
“It didn’t steal yours, though,” said Chloe.
Crandall smiled. “Perhaps it was because my intentions were good, or because I never made use if it once I realized the importance of what I found. The knowledge in my head encompasses more even than what she possessed. Immortality, an absolute god-like power… I’m sorry I ever pursued it. I’m sorry the secrets I learned somehow escaped into the world to be found by those whose intentions were perhaps less noble than my own. There’s no taking it back now.” He fingered the crystal bell that sat on the table before him beside the dusty book and the lumpy candle. Considering what those objects had done, they looked almost painfully ordinary in the indifferent light from the kitchen fixture. When Crandall looked up at them again, his eyes were shining. “Poor Morley,” he said. “If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be alive.”
“There wasn’t anything you could have done,” Chloe said quietly.
“I suppose I expected him to be the one who would be here if anything like this ever happened,” he said. “The spells I put on the house were mainly for his benefit, to protect him as well as myself. James would have known how to awaken me. I wrote it in the coded letter I sent him along with the transfer of the deed. I wanted him to come live in the house, but perhaps he was happier where he was. I’m not sure if the house went on the market before his murder or afterward.” He paused, seeming to struggle with his emotions, then he smiled. “Well, at least you’re all here now. You look like you’ve been taking care of the old place.”
“We’re trying to. We want to,” Martin said.
“So what are you going to do now?” Seth asked.
Crandall sighed, taking a sip from his mug. “Well, I hadn’t given the matter much thought. When I put myself into the state you found me in, I wasn’t really thinking about what would happen if I was ever woken out of it.” He smirked, and a twinkle returned to his eye. “Not that I’m blaming you, my dears.”
“As well you shouldn’t,” Olivia joked, shaking her head. “You and those dreams you sent. You did send them, didn’t you? We haven’t had a good night’s sleep in months.”
“Inadvertently, I imagine I did send them. I had to warn you somehow, didn’t I?” Crandall said, his smile widening.
Ivan laughed. “Hell of a way to do it, pal.”
There was a long, comfortable silence after everyone’s laughter had died away. The night outside was deepening, and Martin was finally beginning to feel like he could sleep; a good, deep sleep, hopefully with no dreams. He looked down at Crandall, the old man who had unlocked the secrets of forever, who would be around long after all of them were gone. He wondered if the magician would ever share the secret with anyone else, or if he would continue to fight against anyone trying to claim it. For a moment, Martin considered what it must be like, knowing that you would never die. The temptation of it was unmistakable. Martin felt a pull, a desire for the forbidden knowledge aching in his gut. Just as quickly as it came over him, it was gone. A knowledge that people would kill for, he understood, was not worth it.
He opened his mouth to say as much to Crandall, but what came out was, “You’re going to stay with us, right?”
The magician looked up at him, startled. “Why on earth would you want a clueless old man like me around?”
Chloe slapped him companionably on the arm. “Heaven’s sakes, it’s more your house than ours,” she said. “You could even slap another protection spell on it, one that won’t get breached by a scary reptilian witch this time.” She arched her brow and Crandall laughed. “Besides, you can help out around the place. After I show you how everything works, that is. You’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
“I suppose I do, at that,” Crandall said, obviously pleased.
“Yeah,” said Olivia. “Maybe sometime
you can tell us how you pulled off all your best tricks.”
The corners of Crandall’s mouth turned wickedly upward. “Some secrets I’ll never reveal,” he said.
About the Author:
Jenny Ashford is a horror writer and graphic artist from the central Florida area. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, and she published a collection of stories in late 2009. She also writes articles on science, history, and the arts for the online magazine Suite 101.
Visit her online at
www.jennyashford.com
or
http://jennyashford.wordpress.com/
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