Nano Day 29 - Titled: The Pan Aspect

[joegoda]

For Capi and the Readers. Huh. I might just make it!



I stood behind her and watched over her right shoulder as Angelina's world started to unfold. A door on the other side of the room directly in front of us opened up. I was reminded of those secret door in the White House that the President uses to escape those he doesn't want to find him.

A woman who looked remarkably like Angelina when she's in her Demeter Aspect came through it. She was a bit taller than Angelina, her hair shorter, and put up in one of those poofy sort of styles that carries the hair on top of the head. Her hair was brown, like Angelina's, and there there were shoots of gray running from both temples backward.

She was tall and slender, much like her daughter, and she was dressed, oddly enough, in a blue velvet jogging suit, the top zippered to the notch of the neck and the bottom looking like the pant part of pajamas. She wore bright white sneakers on her feet. Lowtops we used to call them. I hadn't seen them in years.

"Angelina!" she cried as she flew across the room. She scooped up her daughter in one of those family 'I haven't seen you in forever' bear hugs that corrects any spinal misalignment and just held on. Words were exchanged, whispered words. I could see her lips moving and I could see Angelina's head nodding. Twice, shiny hazel eyes flashed my direction, and I felt the x-ray scan of her looking at me. Not watching me. Looking at me. There's a big difference.

I waited there, wearing my I'm not here look, until the greeting was over. I did notice that father and brothers were not in attendance. After a few minutes, Angelina took her mother's hand and did the formal introduction.

"Mother," she said, "This is Chester. He's the man who drove me all this way."

Mary Thomas let go of her daughter and came over to me, her hand extended.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Thomas," I said, as I took her outstretched hand and shook it. It was a firm grip, not weak, not limp. It was the sort of grip that a tennis player has or someone that has played the piano for a very long time might have.

I looked into her eyes, and I could see what Angelina would be as she grew. I already had an idea from her Demeter Aspect, but this was the real deal, this was genetics in action.

Tall and slim, as I said, but with more definition to her cheekbones, and lips that spoke volumes with every twitch. Mrs. Thomas' hands were strong fingered, delicate and held the look of being able tie a knot in the stem of a cherry with two fingers. Her neck was long and delicate, the tendons having that tensioned look of someone that is used to holding her head up high, like Princess Grace or a Kennedy. A definite royal bearing to her, this woman. Her breast were either naturally perky and full, or she had the most incredible invisible underwire bra on that I'd ever heard of. Not that I would know about such things, of course. I estimated her age at being close to mine, minus a few years, maybe forty-four of forty-five.

"Come in, come in," Mrs. Thomas said. "I'm sure you have had quite an adventure. Our little Angelina can be quite a handful at times."

She led us into the main room, that big circular room at the end of the hall. I have no idea what that sort of room is called. It was just a big circular room, just as I described it, with piano on Persian carpet, staircases like wings, rising to a second level and really old pictures on the walls. The pictures were so old that the varnish was cracked, which to my thinking, just adds a dimension of beauty to them. There are people like that, as well.

What was hidden out of view was a long round sofa against the wall to my left. The sofa looked like it was designed to hold about fifteen people, all at once. It was cream colored, just like the love seat in the sitting room, with large pillows scattered along it's length. There was a long round mahogany table with a marble inlaid top in front of it, with a vased plant with broad leaves centered on the table top. The leaves of the plant were mostly green, but with red veins. It was arranged nicely with some shortened cattails, and looked rather... well, cheap. I would have expected some sort of gold statuette or something. The plant was all right, but hey... these people were rich!

At either end of the sofa were two broad backed and overstuffed chairs. The one on the left was covered in a silvery fabric, the sort that has silver threads embedded in the weaving of the fabric. The one on the right was a dark material. I couldn't tell if it was black, blue or dark red. Now, I know it might seem an easy thing to do, determining the color of a chair, but I tell you, this one was hard.

Oddly, there was a window across the room from the sofa, hidden behind tall, sweeping crimson curtains. Mrs. Thomas set us on the sofa with Angelina to my right. Mrs. Thomas took the silver chair, so she could easily look at both of us. I mentioned the window, saying that it didn't look as if there were any windows on this side outside.

"Oh," she explained, "there's a window there, all right. During the night, sometimes, we open it, to see the rising of the moon." She touched Angelina on the knee, and said, "The moon is important to us, isn't sweetheart?"

That was very strange, since that window, had it been on an outside wall, rather than facing a cliff wall, would have faced West. The moon doesn't rise in the West. It was just another huh moment.

Angelina blushed and turned her face away from me. "Mother!" I didn't quite see what the embarrassment was about.

"Well, it's true." Mrs. Thomas, leaning around Angelina, confided in me. "Ever since she was a very small girl, Angelina has gotten her strongest growth spurts during the full moon."

Was this woman trying to sell me on her daughter or what? I had no idea, but I wasn't buying. Outside, on the cliff, Angelina and I had come to an agreement. Nothing but friends. I like that. It's uncomplicated.

Window facing the wrong way, Angelina having her spurts during the full moon. Heck, I didn't know what phase the moon was even in, but I was pretty sure I didn't want to be around to see her next spurt. I was ready for my life to get back to something resembling normalcy. Something that I should never, ever expect to happen.

I stood up, shoved my hands in my pockets and said, "It's very nice to meet you, like I said, Mrs. Thomas. I think it's time I was on my way. I would very much like to see the Vortex before I headed back home."

"Oh?" Her eyebrows went up. "The Vortex near Gold Hill is very... interesting." She stood up, Angelina stood up, everybody stood up. "It has some very... interesting visual and gravitational effects. James and I have been there many times, with the boys, while Angelina was at school."

So, the family traveled there without Angelina. She'd never been there? I found that, to steal a phrase, ... interesting. Still... none of my business. I thought.

I looked at Angelina, about to say my goodbye to her, but something in her eyes stopped me. In the space of an eye blink, I read the look of betrayal, of a friend leaving her, of a broken promise, of things unsaid and said that meant that now was not the time to leave her. I heard, in the back of my head, "I need you to be my hero."

I cleared my throat, gently, pulled my eyes away from the ones that were pleading with me to stay and said, "You know, Mrs. Thomas." I cleared my throat again. "It has been a very long drive. Could I trouble you for a glass of water? Or something?"

When her mother said "Of course! I'm so sorry. You must think me a terrible hostess." and turned away. I looked at Angelina and winked. Relief, like ice on a hot road, like tension broken, melted and flowed away from Angelina immediately. She smiled that smile I saw twenty miles back and nodded.

"Now," Mrs. Thomas said, "You must call me Mary." She clapped her hands. "I'm sure I will be hearing so much of you in the next few days from Angelina, that I will have no problem at all calling you Chester." She laughed lightly, musically, like the twittering of the flute in Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf'.

The hidden door in the back of the room opened and a very short, very dark-skinned man came in. He was wearing, and I swear it's true, a golden turban with a big blue sapphire in it. That was the first thing I saw. The second thing I saw was the red and gold livery that was below it. The third thing I saw were his eyes, and when they locked on me, they didn't like me, not one bit. Lastly were his hands. His hands were larger than they should have been on a four foot man, dark and hairy and his nails were long and yellow, like unkempt claws.

He stared at me, his eyes yellow and glaring balefully, and for half a second I wondered what the heck I had done to him. The half second after that was lost, because Mrs. Thomas - Mary, had leaned down and whispered something in his ear. When she moved away, his eyes had changed to something less angry, less menacing. Just the normal black eyes in a dark face blinking in a normal way and obviously not looking my direction in an evil 'I want to kill you slowly by first peeling your skin off' sort of way. He nodded, bowed to her, bowed to Angelina, but distinctively not to me, and went back the way he had come.

So, people that were rich enough to have a window that faces the wrong way and have an enslaved Chucky Doll as a butler? Cool. I could hardly wait to see what happened next.

I decided that, regardless of what the night brought, I was NOT leaving Angelina here. Raped by her brothers and father, her mother an unknown element, but apparently very mixed in to all of it, Angelina needed and deserved a chance to find some life of her own.

Of course, that wasn't my choice, really. No matter how much we might want to help a person, there's actually nothing we can do. I wasn't rich enough to hide her away, and with mom's seeking eye, I don't think Angelina could hide away anyway. I certainly wasn't going to take her back to Tulsa. Me, with a twenty some odd girl? Yeah, that would be a good thing. NOT.

Mary moved from the center of the room and sat back in her silver chair. Prompted by this, and the very friendly way she looked, I resumed my seat to the right of Angelina. There was a tiny part of my lizard brain that sighed when I did this, and I think I heard it say "here we go again."

"So, Mrs. Thomas..."

"Mary, please."

"So, um, Mary," Dammit, I hate when women look at you with x-ray eyes. "Angelina tells me that you are a very good pianist. My father was pretty good on the upright bass."

Mary's hand fluttered up to her throat and she laughed that flute twitter laugh. "Well, it was a very long time ago. I'm sure that most of what I knew I've forgotten."

Now, that's the phrase that someone uses when they want you to say "Oh, PLEEASE, do honor us wth your playing, please, please, please! Someone who knows darn well that they can play, doesn't want to show off too much, but wants you to practically beg them. So, being me, I played the game my way.

"I understand," I said. "there are so many other things to be concerned about."

It wasn't quite ice that dripped, with the "Indeed." that came from Mary's mouth, but the temperature did drop a degree or so. "That is so, Chester, that is so." She shifted her legs, turning left over right, opposite of the way they had been. The flirt was over, I guess. "Perhaps I will play something later on, if you are still with us."

I noticed she didn't say, "If you are still here." I noticed that very strongly. Angelina was right. If there was danger in this house, and there was, my spidey sense should have been ringing church bells. As it was, I felt not a hint nor a twiddle. If anything, it felt as if someone had put a skullcap on me, and it was muffling and smothering anything trying to get in, or get out.

Tattoo came in, carrying my water on a silver tray that was ringed in what looked like gold. He crossed to where I was sitting, and with a little bow, offered me the glass.

"Thanks, chum." I said, taking the glass of crystal clear water. I could smell it already. Water, very good water, has a smell. Good, clean, fresh. Like fresh sheets on a clothesline outside sort of smell.

I must have insulted him with the word 'chum', because I think he actually growled at me. He showed his teeth in a less than friendly way, his canines long and very sharp. Maybe he was a happy puppy dressed to look like a Lawn Jockey. I don't know. But he sure seemed pissed at me for some reason.

Now, in my world, it's a casual word I use on people, mostly men, to show that I am a friendly sort. I've been told that I may be the last person on earth to use it like that. I've also been told I'm the last person to use a real pocket watch. There have been people that also used that 'last person' phrase to mean a few other things.

I could tell that I wasn't making any happy points here. Apparently I had ticked off Toto somehow, and I just met the midget, and Mary had turned from Betty Crocker to that iceberg that hit the Titanic. Yeah, I'm a charmer, I am.

"Thank you, Sabu." I swear, that's what she called him. I laughed, but inside, where it counted. "That will be all."

Sabu bowed deeply to his mistress and left the room through that hidden door.

"Oh, mama, play something, please," Angelina pleaded. she reached over and squeezed my hand, a movement that was not lost on mama, or on me. "Chester just has moments of being an old grump, but I know he secretly would love to hear something." She turned to me and said, smiling and intensely saying "Yes you do!" without saying a word at all.

I smiled, weakly, and gently pulled my hand away. "Absolutely, Mrs. Thom... Mary. Especially the classics. I would love to hear a Chopin or a Bach."

Mary Thomas stood up, smoothed her top, delicately, as if brushing crumbs of me away, and said, "I was thinking that, by classics, you meant something by Jerry Lee Lewis."

She smiled lovingly at me, looking to see if that dig wounded me. It didn't. You have to know me well enough to do my heart and soul any harm. That lady didn't know me from jack. And I was suspecting she wasn't a lady, regardless of the wounded bird wife of Angelina's description.

Mary walked over to the piano, and gently seated herself on the bench. I noticed another genetic thing. Slim or not, Mary had a big butt. That's okay. It happens to all of us, I think. I looked over at Angelina and smiled. "I hope this gets better with age," I whispered to her from the side of my mouth. "So far, I'm not doing so well."

I was noticing that my sense of humor, which always gets rather mean when I get stressed was becoming rather mean. I must have been stressed. It also meant that I was going to have to watch myself. That psychic skullcap on my head was starting to itch. I didn't put it there, but I was sure going to find a way to get it off.

"It's all right, Chester, just relax. Don't be such a grump." Angelina soothed. "As soon as midnight comes and goes, you can leave. That's the deadline, remember?" She said this to try to ease my stress, but I still couldn't help but notice she didn't like saying the words.

"Maybe," Ohhhh, I couldn't believe my mouth was about to say the words, "maybe we can both get out of here."

Angelina's eyebrows raised up in surprise and she was about to say something when mama interrupted.

"Now, are you going to chat all night, or may I proceed?" Yes, just exactly like a school teacher.

"It must be you," Angelina whispered to me, "she's never like this to me." Great. I felt tons better.

"I'm sorry, Mary," I apologized, smiling with what I hoped was my most charming smile. "Please, continue."

Mary nodded, a royal and regal subtle lifting of her head, and raised her hands to the keys. Slowly at first, but with more feeling as the seconds ticked by, she started to play. I recognized it. Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor. Not an easy piece to play, but she was doing wonderfully. I let the music soak through my bones. Yes, I'm a classical person. I'm also a ragtime, jazz, rock, Celtic, and country person. If it's good, it works for me.

Mary's playing was excellent. I could feel the rise and fall of the notes in my head as they echoed around the room. It was like being in a waterfall of music, of solid notes and half notes and quarter notes all falling into my ears and into my mind and twirling around. Yes, this was indeed the Fantasia Chromatic, and it was wonderful. I wished I had thought of it earlier.

Because, it is the notes, it is the rhythm and it is the vibration that move and shift the Universe. Bach, in his baroque world, lived by the vibrations of the music, of the notes and what they meant, not just to the hearing world, but to the music's relationship with the universe. He was a genius, having played almost from the moment he could pick up a violin. And he was exactly what I needed.

As Mary became more entrenched in the music, I felt that irritating little skullcap on my head loosen. I think it was because the music heated my brain up, or perhaps it just reminded me that I had protections against such a thing. The music took me to my childhood, listening to it, and reminded me of my very first findings about sigils.

My childhood, as dysfunctional as it was, was full of music. My parents had decided that we should, we four boys, have some form of appreciation of music, of art, of literature. Had we been wealthy in more than love, we may very well have grown up to be snobs. I guess, in a way, we did. Intellectual snobs, at any rate. And darn proud of it.

My mother would buy, one a month at the local Kroger, a volume of music. This was back during the day of Green Stamps and when Tonka Trucks were dangerously sharp and the idea of "duck and cover" would save you from a nuclear explosion. Grocery stores offered everything from dinnerware to encyclopedias, just for shopping. Of course, they cost a bit of money, but they were darn well worth it.

We grew up with music. All forms of music, and I think, I do believe, that is why and how I came to form a lot of the hypothesis I have about vibration and music being the heart and soul of... well, everything. Dad would play his upright for hours in the tiny little study in my hometown of Crawfordsville, Indiana. I, to this day, can recall "Away in the Deep", or "Yes, we have no bananas." done on bass fiddle. I learned to love the smell of rosin, and I learned to appreciate where callouses come from.

Mom would play classical on the tiny record player that we had. This was before serious stereo. And these were records, dammit, not some tape, not some CD. This was honest to god, thick, black vinyl. I love records to this day. Regardless of the production values on CDs, I still think the best way, next to live, is to hear music on vinyl. And until I'm proved otherwise, so it will be.

I have music in my bones, in my veins, in my genes. I can't play an instrument, but I can sing a little. I can hum to beat the band. I can even whistle, though its not something even I like to hear. But the music is still there, regardless, in my head and in my heart. And I know how to use it.

The memories of my childhood days flooded back to me, and with it, the music of my childhood, and with that, my fugue state of having what I call a pachinko mind. The thoughts start at the top and just seem to cascade until they reach the bottom, all a-jumble. I can make sense of them, but don't ask me to explain it to you, because it's like hearing sound, smelling taste and seeing odors. Which, by the way, I do. It's called synesthesia and it isn't a constant thing, because I have a control of it. BUT, if I let that control go, I'll be hearing the chimes of the rainbow and smelling the latest conversation I just had. Fun stuff, but not recommended for the easily confused.

Anyway, I remembered, from having some of the notes knock against that invisible skullcap that Angelina's dad put on me, a story I read by a wonderful dead writer whose name was James H. Schmidt. It was called "The Witches of Karres". It told of a trio of young witches who went adventuring from a planet called Karres, and whose abilities were not from witchcraft, but from the genetic altering done to the people who lived on the planet by... oh, drinking the water, eating the food, the same thing that alters the genetics on our planet. The people of Karres had the ability to play with and modify some of the stuff of the Universe... stuff that the book called 'klatha'.

In reading this book as a child, I was fascinated by the concepts because they sounded a lot like some of the stuff that I had started to do. Or, at least felt I could do. Or should be able to do. Teleportation was a bit out of my league yet. I was working on it, though.

One of the things the book talked about was when one of the young witches, Maleen, I think, created a protection spell of sorts in her mind. The book described it to me, and I played with the idea myself. In the book, when the spell worked, it would have an inaudible click that the caster could hear in their head, to show it was in place.

It also worked just that way, outside the book, and inside my head. Though I don't use, in the normal course of a day, protections spells, and in fact, prefer to not use any thing resembling a spell if I can get away with it, there are times when I've tossed up this one little hold over from my childhood. It's come in handy when up against someone that wanted to know what I was thinking, and wasn't polite enough to ask me face to face. It shuts down any access to my internalizations, and is a pretty effective shield against some attacks. It has a range of about four feet, and as a plus to me, who lives in mortal fear of big teeth, it works on dogs too, if focused properly.

The Chromatic Fantasia, with its complex melody and curious stops, is one of the marvelous keys to power. I wonder if Angelina's family knew that? I wonder if Mary knew that? I wasn't wondering then, though, because I was using my little childhood protection spell, combined with the notes of the piano, to pry the damned skullcap off of my head.

It was stubborn, for sure and true. Like prying the lid off an olive jar, when it just doesn't want to come and all you have for a tool are your two hands. But it gave, here and there, gradually. I started at the back, and pried it up as hard as I could. Piano notes are excellent for this, because they can be hard, and they can be sharp and they can be flat. When you have something that is hard and flat and sharp, you have something. Give me a lever and a solid place to stand, and I'll move that skullcap off my head.

I felt the cap raise just a tiny bit, a fraction of a fraction of an inch. Once that was done, I pushed the protection spell up under the cap, just to hold it there, while I worked my way around the rest of it. The Chromatic lasted just about two minutes, so I didn't have much time. Fortunately, I didn't need much time. The top of my head is small, thankfully, and earned me the nickname of egghead as a child.

Mary was finishing up the piece mere seconds after I lifted the last edge of that skullcap off my head, hurriedly shoving my spell under it. Once I felt the non-audible pop of the cap releasing me, I pushed the spells little limit as hard as I could. If the cap had been physical, it would have probably bounced off the chandelier, hanging in the center of the room, twelve feet away. As it was, I could feel it trying to reassert itself on my head, but unable to get around my shield. It was like an octopus trying to get into a clamshell. Sorry, we're closed.

My senses were completely on fire! Every single defense I had was telling me that I had walked into a trap of my worst imaginings. My ears opened up, my vision cleared and I was without any sense of humor at all. This wasn't a house. This was encapsulated death. On wheels. Without brakes.

Angelina," I said, as Mary struck the last few notes, "we really do not want to be here. Not even a little bit."

"So," Mary said, turning to look at me. "What did you think of my little piece?"

Smiling through the roar of warnings that threatened to drown me with panic, I said, "It was wonderful, Mrs. Thomas. Better than I have ever heard. It has been years since I last heard the Chromatic, and that was on a record." I didn't know if she could see me trembling. I didn't know if she noticed that I was sweating profusely. I didn't know if she noticed that the water in the glass I was holding was sloshing around. I didn't think about it. I was terrified.

I looked at Mary as if she had great big honking fangs and rams horns sprouting out of her head. I took gentle and deep breaths and tried, very hard to find that happy place, that happy place.

"Chester?" Angelina asked me, very concerned. "Are you all right?" She looked at her mother and said, "Mother, he's had a couple of these spells on the way here. If he could lay down for a bit?..."

Mary stood up and crossed over to me. She lay the back of her hand against my forehead. "Goodness! You are as cold as ice, and sweating to beat the band." She shooed Angelina away from the sofa, arranged some pillows under my head and said, "Here. You lay there until you feel better." She looked at Angelina and said, "Go into the kitchen and bring a damp towel, cold not hot." Angelina left the room though the same door that Sabu used.

Mary bent down, felt my forehead again, and placing her face close, whispered to me, with deadly seriousness, "You must get Angelina out of here. Both of you are in terrible danger."

Through chattering teeth, I whispered back, "And I thought you didn't like me."

She pulled back, a strange smile, Angelina's smile, on her face. "I don't know you well enough to like you or not. You might be like most men and be a real bastard." She nodded toward the kitchen door and continued. "It doesn't matter if I like you. Angelina likes you, and if you weren't a good hearted person, you wouldn't be here. I take it nothing, and I mean, nothing happened on the road?" Again, she bent down, putting her face close to mine. "And you know what I mean."

My mind shoved forward. "Yes, I know what you mean," I hissed, the words chattering out. "Good God, lady, she's your daughter, and she's half my age. Get real."

"Chester," she said, "I am very, very real." She straightened back up, just a bit, but she was still very close. "My daughter is taken with you. I can see why. You are the sort of man I would have loved."

She glanced back at the hallway were Angelina and I had entered, looking for something. Assured that it wasn't there, whatever it was, she went on. "I want you to take Angelina with you, now. If she stays then my husband will..." She was interrupted by a voice from the hallway.

It was deep and resonant. I had heard it before, not terribly long ago, while I was standing on a doorway in a dream.

"My, my." James Thomas was standing at the entry to the hallway.

His hands were folded across his immaculate gray pin-stripped chest, and he was smiling. Not the sort of smile that says "Hello! Nice to see you!", but the sort of smile that says "Here mousy, mousy, mousy."

I had thought it was maybe something in the water that Sabu had brought me that had made me sick. Some sort of poison that Mary had asked him to concoct. No, it wasn't in the water. It was in the head of her husband, James Thomas. The man wasn't just evil. He was sick evil. The sort of sick that leaks out and discolors everything it touches.

I have a very sensitive crazy finder. It's that part of the mind that can look at a person and yell at you to stay away, that person's crazy! I call it having snakes in their head. When I'm around your average crazy person, you know... the normal sort... I get a bit anxious, a bit cold, and I tend to move away from their vicinity as quickly as I can. It's like being claustrophobic without having a tight room around you. If I'm around a normal crazy person for very long, I tend to become irrational, and may say or do things that will cause me to be removed from their presence, and removed quickly. By force if necessary. Anything to get away. I would say that being around the truly violently insane is my biggest phobia in a list of very small and ordinary phobias. Like the fear of large barking dogs. Ordinary crazy people give me the willies. Violent insane people scare me witless.

I'm quite sure that, laying and sweating and freezing to death on that sofa, I moaned like Scrooge seeing his own gravestone.

"My, my," James Thomas repeated, looking at his watch. "I thought we had decided to wait until eleven to entertain." He came closer and I strove to hold onto what calm I could.

James Thomas was not the incredible giant that I had believed. In fact, he was probably about my size, maybe a bit taller. Five feet six or seven, maybe eight, but no bigger. He wasn't heavily muscled, and in fact, looked to be the picture of an aging computer geek. Just like me. He had a balding head, a bit of a beard and mustache, neatly trimmed, of course. His hands and fingers were finely muscled, as if he did a lot of arts and crafts, but somehow I think he was more crafty than artsy. He wasn't slim, nor was he fat. He was, as the clothing sizes say, husky. He looked like me, but in about ten years. And that, ladies and gentlemen, scared more crap out of me, I think, than him being batshit insane.

It was like looking in the magic mirror and saying "Mirror, mirror on the wall, show me me, but crazier than all!" This was the me that I might have been had I given in to the desire for power. This was the me I had always dreaded.

Mary stood up, as casually as she could, and said, "James, this is the man that brought Angelina home. He's having a bit of an episode."

Angelina came in from the hidden door, from the kitchen, carrying a towel. She stopped the second she saw her father, her look of concern replaced by one of shame, embarrasment and maybe a bit of fear.

"Hello, Father," she said.

Ignoring her, James came over to me and sat down on the sofa, near me. "Then you are the man whose hand I should shake," he said.

He didn't offer me his hand. He just sat there, looking at me. "My, my. You are not well, are you? Look at how you are perspiring." He glanced over to where Angelina stood, holding the towel. "Well? Are you going to stand there like a stupid cow or are you going to do something?" he demanded.

I realized, right then, right there, as I watched this man, this... person sitting near me, that he wasn't me in any shape or fashion. It was just... a joke of genetics. We merely looked a like, sort of. But not entirely. The shape of his nose was not quite mine. The squint of his eyes was just a bit different. He didn't wear glasses. His teeth were perfect, mine were not. This was not me. I held onto that thought like a life raft.

Angelina, breaking free from her fear, came over to me and placed the towel on my forehead. The coolness of the towel added to my shivers, but only briefly. She touched my face and looked into my eyes. What passed between us warmed my heart and I could feel myself pulling back from the edge of panic. I was still terrified, but at least I wasn't going to panic. To panic is to lose. And I don't lose. I just don't win all the time.

I was still trembling, and I was still sweating, but I managed to croak out, "I'm feeling better, I think." and sat up. The world spun and my vision blurred a bit, but I was upright. Sort of. I could feel the stench of the black fingers of James Thomas reach for me, and I could feel my little shield hold those fingers back. James Thomas could too, because his eyes narrowed just a bit as he watched me.

I reached for Angelina's hand, and it was cold. I could see from the tightness of her face, the tightness of her eyes why she ran away, why she hid on the Internet, and why she felt that New York might be far enough away. I wished I could have been there to tell her that it wasn't. I wished... well, I wish a lot of things, but if wishes could be fishes, we'd all eat a bunch.

I wrapped her fingers in mine, and I told her, between the shakes, that it would be all right. Not that I would be all right. That was a given. I mean, I am, after all, me. But that it, the situation would be all right. How? I had no idea. That really didn't matter.

James Thomas briefly looked down at his watch. The bastard even had a pocket watch like mine. Oh, cruel joke, Oh Universe. Ha Ha Ha. Well, the jokes on you, because I am nothing like this man.

"Mary, go help Sabu in the kitchen. Our guests will be arriving shortly." Mary started to say something, but a look from Thomas stopped her. He turned back to us, Angelina and me.

"Yes. You. You are the man whose hand I should shake." He stood, crossed over to a cream colored wine rack, well hidden against the wall and pulled out a bottle of wine. I don't know what type of wine. I don't think it matters. It was a dark, blood red, and it certainly matched the murderous feel of the place. James Thomas poured a snifter of it and walked over to where we sat. He stood there, looking at me.

"Who are you?" he asked. Just as he had before.

"I'm..." The chattering had stopped, but the sweating had not. I sweat a lot. "I'm Chester, sir."

"Yes, yes, yes." He looked skyward, as if looking for patience. "I know that. But WHO ARE YOU!" He roared this out, and it had the appropriate effect on both Angelina and me. Just like in OZ when the three adventurers met the Great and Terrible OZ, we shook. I wish Toto had been there.

"I'm..." I croaked, "I'm nobody of consequence, really. I'm just the guy that drove your daughter home. That's all."

"Oh, that's all." He regained his composure, pulled a cigar out of a pocket and lit it with his thumb. "That's all." He pulled a chair from somewhere it had been hidden and sat on it, calmly. "Let me tell you, Mister Chester, who I think you are."

He puffed deeply a couple of times, and blew a very solid smoke ring that drifted across the room and settled over my head. Like the skullcap, it just hovered there, held up by my little shield. He watched that smoke ring for a few moments, then shook his head as if what he was thinking didn't matter.

"I think," he began, "someone sent you to spoil my little party." He puffed again. "I think someone who thinks they're stronger than me sent you to prove to me just how tough they are." A couple more puffs. "Now, we have met, you and I, on a battle ground of my choosing. You escaped." He paused, examined the end of his cigar, and then looked at me again.

I was starting to feel better all the time. Angelina let me keep hold of my hand, and I could feel her pushing strength to me, willing me stronger. It was working. I was still about as strong as over boiled linguine, though.

"That was a pretty nifty escape too," he continued, watching Angelina and me, puffing on his cigar which never seemed to get any shorter. "I want to know who sent you. I want to know who taught you to do these things."

Puff, puff. "But I'm patient." He stood, smoothed the crease in his trousers, and walked over to the hall entry again. "I am, truly I am. I have..." he looked at his watch, "a whole hour before I expect to have you torn limb from limb."

He paused again, seeming to reconsider. "No... no..." another pause, another puff. "That would be too selfish, I think." He looked down the hallway. "Boys? Would you come here?"

Angelina's brothers were exactly as I remembered them from the dream, except they were dressed as their father, gray pinstriped suits, each and every one of them. The only one that was missing was The wild card, Damien.

Michael was tall and muscular, about six feet seven. He looked like he could bench press Volkswagens, then run for about twenty miles and not break a sweat.

Raphael, a bit shorter than Michael, his reddish hair combed neatly and laying properly against his fathead, leaned on his brother and smiled at me. Same smile as dad, the egg sucker. I have no idea where Raphael got his red hair. Maybe dad played around. I don't even think it was a maybe.

Daniel leaned against the wall, away from the other two. He was smiling too, and shaking his head sadly.

Daniel said, "You should have listened to me, Chester. You really should have."

I sat up straighter, but didn't let loose of Angelina's hand. I could feel her cold fingers tighten in mine. I looked at her and gave her my best fake brave wink.

I turned back to look at her brothers. "Hi guys. How's it hanging?" I tried to call back the same bravado I had in the dream. It didn't work to well. The three just laughed.

"Boys," James Thomas said, still puffing that nasty cigar, "Take Chester and your sister upstairs. Lock them in the Widows Room. Once midnight strikes, you can kill 'em." He turned to the hidden door and started to leave. He reached for the knob, stopped and turned back. "Then we'll take care of your mother." He looked at Angelina, who was wearing an shocked look on her face, and unable to speak. "You didn't think I'd let her live, do you? I know she's the one that was helping you." He laughed, an evil, oily laugh, as the door closed behind him.

I heard Angelina scream out "NO!" and I saw her brothers come towards us. I would love to say I struggled and over came them, grabbed Angelina's hand and made it out of there. I would love to say that I kicked their asses from there to hell and back. I'd love to.

It would be a lie, though. I'm not Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm not Bruce Willis. I wish I was. I wouldn't have been there, getting my ass kicked from there to hell and back. I wouldn't have been carried by a muscle bound moron in a Brooks Brothers suit up a flight of stairs like an empty sack of potatoes with two or three broken ribs. I wouldn't have had to watch as Angelina was slapped unconscious and dragged by her hair up the stairs. I might have been able to stop them from stripping us naked and tossing us into a tiny room whose only other occupant was a corpse on a bed and then locking the door behind them as they left, laughing all the way.

But that's what happened. Bruised, beaten, broken... pick a few other B words out of the hat, I was them. I lay there on the floor, trying to pull myself together, trying to be the hero that Angelina needed, trying to keep from being unconscious. I failed all three, miserably.

I don't know how long I was out, but I remember waking up. My head was laying on something soft, and something else was tickling my face. My eyes didn't want to open, and, for some reason, I hurt everywhere more than anywhere else. Then I remembered. Then I opened my eyes, very quickly, and went OUCH very loudly.

Angelina was sitting with my head in her lap. In her naked lap. She was leaning over me an her hair was brushing against my face, which, in the right circumstances, might be a fun thing. This was not the right circumstance. Nor was she the right person. She was looking away from me when I opened my eyes, but turned her face to me with concern when I went ouch.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

I had to laugh, and let me tell you something buddy, when you have broken ribs, it hurts to laugh. It hurts a lot. I almost passed out, but held on, my head swimming. I laughed because one of the oldest jokes in the world is to walk into a hospital room, look at the person laying in the bed, bandaged, IV drips going all over, shunts in their brain or whatever and ask them how they feel.

The answer should always be "I feel like crap! I'm in the hospital you moron!" I never ask a person how they feel when they obviously don't feel good. I really and truly don't understand why anyone would ask such a ridiculous question. People. They drive me crazy.

"I'm okay, considering," I told her. Yeah, I lied. Just like the folks in the hospital. I sat up, slowly, sucking in great gulps of air with ever inch of movement. "I think I have a couple of broken ribs and I feel like Michael used my head as a kettle drum and Holy Crap! Is that a dead person?"

Forget the fact that we were naked, I had completely forgotten our roommate was dead.

Angelina nodded, which was a sight that caused me to decide that my eyes were going to stay at eye level from then until I could find her a shirt. It wasn't a bad sight, it was just... distracting, and I didn't need distraction. I was knocked out a bit after eleven, dad had planned our execution for midnight and that left how long before I was dead before I wanted to be?

I looked at the dead person and asked Angelina how long I had been out.

"Only a few minutes. Why?" She sighed. "It's not like we can do anything about it. They're going to kill us anyway."

Huh. I pointed to the corpse. "Who is that? Really?" I looked a bit closer. The person had been dead a very long time and had mummified. I'd seen mummies in museums so I knew what one looked like. "I mean, really. Who keeps a dead person in their house?"

Crazy people, that's who. I didn't have to ask. When I lived in Indiana, there was a rumor about an woman whose husband had died, and she missed him so much, she had him stuffed and put in his favorite easy chair, tv on and beer in hand. Crazy people, they're all over.

"That's grandmother," Angelina explained. "Father's mother. He says that she's not completely dead, so he keeps her up here."

I looked at the dead woman as closely as I felt comfortable. I'll be the first to admit, I get pretty squeamish when it comes to dead things. I don't even like to carry out mousetraps.

"I don't know that much about a lot of things, Angel," I told her, "but grandma looks pretty darn dead to me." I turned away from the corpse and wandered around the tiny room. Every movement an ouchie. Every breath a sharper ouchie with teeth.

The odd thing about pain is that you can get used to it. It's the truth. You might not believe it, but it is. My mother, wonderful woman that she is, used to take pins and would have us boys sit for a while by her side, and she would stick those pins in to us. She told us it was to raise our pain tolerance. Now, as crazy as that sounds, it is not as crazy as stuffing your dead husband. And it also worked. Over the years, my brothers and I developed such a resistance to pain that I think it would take something like a near amputation to cause us to scream.

I've been beaten, stabbed, shot once, kicked in the head, thrown out of a car, and to this day the only things I think that ever caused me to pass out from pain were when those three boys broke my ribs and the time a week old sinus infection snuck up and kicked my brain out from under me. Oh, there was also the time a torn thigh ligament went untreated for about a month. I got up to shave one morning, and woke up to see Sam looking down at me. He asked me if I wanted him to make a doctors appointment for me. I said sure.

Four walls, peaked ceiling, a door. That was about it. No closet, no dresser, nothing like a box of old clothes that you can always find in a room at the top of the stairs. There was just nothing here.

If it had been my room in 1972, I would have loved it. Enclosed space, places to paint or hang posters of Hendrix or some goofy black light peace sign poster. Secluded from the rest of the crazy family. It was a nest. It was perfect. If it had been 1972. If it had been my room. If I wasn't fifty years old, naked, and stuck in the same room with a dead grandma and a naked, attractive young woman. You know, sometimes it is to laugh.

I put my ear to the door, and I listened. The sound from somewhere else was just able to find its way to the wood of the door. I could hear what sounded like a bunch of voices chanting. Great. Circle Casters. It's sort of like a prayer meeting. You don't have to know what they're saying to know who they're saying it to or what all the talk is about.

This is probably along the lines of "OH Great (fill in the blank of some nasty deity or other), please, we beseech you to give us the strength, the power, to smite our enemies the (fill in the blank with whomever the enemy d'jour is). Humbly, we your servants, the worshipers of (fill in with deity's name) ask that you grant us this desire," blah, blah, blah.

I hate magic. Especially magic done by moronic evil circle casters that beat the living crap out of me and toss me into a room with a naked girl and a really dead woman. I had to get out of there. I had to get Angelina out of there. I had to get Angelina and me dressed and out of there. The dead woman could fend for herself, she was doing all right before we got there.

I felt the tiny stirrings of something of an idea, and I was hoping it would work. It was something I had never tried before, something I will probably, I hope to God, never try again.

Comments

[shackrlu.livejournal.com]

Oh MY!

[capi.livejournal.com]

It wasn't quite ice that dripped, with the "Indeed." that came from Mary's mouth...

ROTFL --- *wild applause* WELL DONE, my friend!!! *L*

...and then "Mary Thomas stood up, smoothed her top, delicately, as if brushing crumbs of me away, and said, "I was thinking that, by classics, you meant something by Jerry Lee Lewis."

Oooooo, OUCH! What a NICE lady! NOT!! *LOL*

You do this so VERY well, lil' brudder!
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"My mother, wonderful woman that she is, used to take pins and would have us boys sit for a while by her side, and she would stick those pins in to us. She told us it was to raise our pain tolerance."

*REFUSES to comment on this (for now), biting tongue HARD*
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and....... *gaspitty gasp gasp* HOW am i going to live until the next installment?????? Tomorrow is DECEMBER 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[joegoda.livejournal.com]

Because, darling sister, I was determined to MEET my personal goal of 120 thousand words before the end of Nano today. I have done that. Now I need to shower, and think of something to eat. I may finish this tonight, I may wait until tomorrow. All that's left is the big battle with Angelina's father. And of course, hints that there may be more to the story than just this one. There always is.

[joegoda.livejournal.com]

I do believe, my dear Capi Sis, that the more I write, the better I get. Yes, I'm quite proud of this little story. I think, in many ways, it's the best I've ever done. and I actually finished the thing BEFORE Dec 1st. Just for you!