Double Fated (Book One)

by C.K. Mullinax

  Chapter Forty Seven

  G-mom cooked and listened as I calmly explained what happened from my perspective. Unexpected female cycles are not what anyone would consider polite table talk. So, I used the private minutes we had available to work through the tale in reverse chronological order.

  Doc was right. Audrey seems fine when she is talking. She offered me a few more details of her captivity and recalled the days leading up to it. But, when g-mom announced that breakfast was ready, Audrey looked at me like we were asking her to recite “War and Peace” by heart.

  I told her to go to the table and she complied. Then, g-mom explained to her again how we use utensils and must eat food.

  Audrey listened to her instructions. She could repeat them verbatim. She even admitted to being hungry and thirsty. But, she evidently didn’t understand how to apply the instructions she had been given because she didn’t begin eating until she was commanded to.

  Once breakfast was over, g-mom and I returned her to Angie in Mississippi. Tucker ran into her open arms. She rocked her little boy and smoothed his hair just like we told her to do.

  “I don’t know how I’ll go about thanking ya’ll for findin’ her…” Angie told us while we watched Audrey reunite with her son.

  “This scene is all the thanks we need…” I revealed, hugging g-mom and fighting back my emotions.

  “Angie, we’re still on the trail of the culprits behind this. We don’t know what they slipped to her, yet but we’ll find out. We told her exactly what to do and say to Tucker. She’ll keep doing that until someone tells her to stop…” g-mom was offering the whispered instructions when we heard music to our ears.

  “Comon’ Audrey Mommy, you’re gonna follow me to my room. I’ve got a bunch of toys to show ya’ that you can play with…” Tucker ordered and we smiled.

  Angie agreed to stay home and look after Audrey until we could find an answer. She looked nervous about doing it…worried that her job wouldn’t wait for her to return much longer. G-mom and I both knew what had her concerned, but asking her about it would get us nothing. She is a proud Southern lady and she was raised not to take handouts from anybody.

  “We’ll be back this way in a week or less with news – one way or the other. You’re sure you don’t need some nursing assistance with her? I’ve got a friend who owes me a favor and she’d be more than…” g-mom tried to offer, again but Angie interrupted.

  “Nah, as long as she stays in bed when I put her down for the night, I’ll be fine. Tuck’ll help me entertain her. I’ve still got some of that money in her purse for food. We’re all set. I’ll make sure she eats, drinks and goes to the bathroom real regular-like…” she replied.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can…” I told Angie as I hugged her goodbye.

  “You know right where we’ll be…” she stated with a wave and a smile.

  The taxi took us to the closest retail store. We slipped inside the family restroom and Ava’shay Command sent us back to North Carolina.

  I finished telling g-mom and Doc my story in vivid detail. Her facial features colored over dark and ominous when I revealed what Lyle and his buddies had intended to do to me. I have never seen her use that particular expression. Recounting my mixed martial arts brawl where I disabled seven football players made her laugh. But, even that laughter was humorless and her expression never lightened. The only time she seemed genuinely happy and satisfied was when I told her about Malfo murdering one of the football players to prove that he was using a real knife.

  I was attempting to keep my cool about me because I have never known my g-mom to wish someone dead. I would expect this reaction from my big brothers. I really thought my g-mom didn’t have a mean, violent bone in her body. And, I would have continued to believe that until the day I died, too. But now, I’ve seen her on the verge of eruption…calculating and predatory.

  I’m actually terrified for Lyle and his remaining lackeys. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do to protect them…nothing I can say to smooth things over…all actions have consequences. The players aren’t safe from my family and certainly not from my furious g-mommy.

  She questioned me in different ways, attempting to expose my underlying anger so I can confront it. Deep, negative emotions need to be aired and dealt with. Otherwise, they fester into a disease. There were no negative emotions for her to unearth. While I was recounting the details, I was Tenacity. And, that’s precisely how I would remain…detached and matter-of-fact.

  G-mom was curious about why I didn’t seem interested in retaliation. I didn’t have an adequate answer to give her. So she and I played the guessing game until Aunt Tabby joined us.

  We began by trying to surmise why I’m not livid with Lyle. Our best assumption was that I had already taken out my aggression when I took all seven of them down. It was an implausible excuse and both of us realized it. G-mom knows me better than anyone. And, although I don’t hold a grudge for long, I do have that capacity. It’s a temporary weakness, but being set-up to be gang raped by a man who professed to love me should have me, at least slightly bent on payback.

  We switched from guessing about why I’m not reacting like I normally would to blaming the ‘Weaving’ for my relatively detached demeanor. Maybe the ‘Weaving’ reacts differently with different people. I wasn’t exposed to it as long as Audrey and the other girls. Perhaps I have some immunity to its effects due to the time I spent in the Hallows with Ember.

  Those guesses were the best we could come up with. But in the end, Aunt Tabby would prove them to all be inaccurate…

  “A ‘Weaving’ forms a permanent eradicating bond with the gray matter in the brain. This is the first anyone’s ever heard of a ‘Weaving’ being selective in which part of the mind it destroys. Typically, the Weave will thread through the gray matter and choke it out similar to the way a weed will destroy an entire garden…” Aunt Tabby stated.

  “Mind sharing where you found that nugget?” Doc questioned.

  “I had to search through more archives than you can imagine just to uncover that one, tiny bit of information. The book pages were so old and fragile that I had to use a delicate wind channel to turn them.

  “The Weaving’s page had been partially ripped out. And, it also had a watermark like something had been spilled on it ages ago. The title of the book was mostly worn away, but I think it’s called “Gray Fates”…” Aunt Tabby revealed.

  “Let me see if I can locate another copy. I’ll return, posthaste…” Doc said and vanished.

  “So, no mention of anything else that might be useful on the pages before or after…” g-mom inquired.

  “No Lizzy, that’s the long and short of everything I could read. There’s not going to be much else to find, I’m afraid. It appears that typical encounters with a Weaving leave the victim a helpless vegetable – not much for documentation in that state of mind.

  “Do you need me to stay and help you? I know Edie’s involved in that forty-eight-hour meeting…” she asked.

  “No Sweets, I think we’ve got it from here…” g-mom offered.

  “Thanks Aunt Tabby for finding that information. It’s better than what we had before which was nothing…” I told her.

  We had barely said “goodbye” to her when Doc returned with a massive leather-bound book.

  “What language is that??” I asked, curiously.

  “It’s called, Indestimaze but you can just call it gibberish like I do…” Doc quipped.

  “I hope you’re fluent in gibberish…” g-mom said.

  “I’m fluent in it, yes. But, what I really want is to be fluent in g-mom language…” he said as he winked at her.

  “You won’t be alive long enough to learn that fluency…but, we’ll have fun while I attempt to teach you the basics,” she responded.

  “Hey Naked Wiggly, wonder what it’d take for me to get “g-mom fluent”?” he questioned me while reading t
hrough the pages of gibberish.

  “Geez, don’t ask me. I’ve spent years listening to her talk and her language still sneaks up on me when I least expect it…”

  “Maybe I’d have better luck if I could convince her to get hitched up with me…” he stated.

  “You’ve been working that angle for years. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, you can’t handle me and take care of those other inked entries in your little black book. You’d have better luck taming a famished lion to mother a fat lamb…you’d end up with less scarring too…”

  “That book can get burned…I’ve told you that a million and one times, now.”

  “The live bodies that go with the names won’t go up in smoke like the pages. Therein lies your problem. You’ve got your hands tied caring for all of them…” g-mom offered with a snicker.

  Doc snapped his fingers, finally reading a useful passage.

  “Here, I’ve got something! But, don’t think our discussion’s over about marrying me because it isn’t…”

  “It hasn’t been over for the last few centuries, so I wouldn’t expect anything less. Tell us what you found…”

  “A Weaving…is an eradicating bond…perpetual…adherence to gray matter in brain…blah blah blah…that’s the stuff Tabby told us. Listen up, here’s what she couldn’t.

  “The bond, in its natural state, is non-selective. Meaning it weaves around all gray matter in the brain and adheres unless a disruptive agent is introduced. My apothecary blend helped some, that’s why Audrey can talk coherently. The medicine disrupted the bond that was affecting her ability to communicate. The Weaving remains in the gray matter even after the disruptive agent disconnects the actual bond.

  “Well, I’ll be a toy monkey’s brass drum…some wise cracker broke the code…” Doc stated to the page in the book.

  “That’s English you’re talking, but gibberish you’re speaking…” g-mom told him, in a slightly irritated tone.

  “Sorry my dear…the Weaving has a code like DNA. Some smart joker broke down the sequence and isolated the regulation system. In English, a scientist found a space in the chain that guides the bond. He or she manipulated it or enhanced it or did something to make it stick only to the parts they want it to stick to! That’s astounding!”

  “So, you can take control and guide the Weaving out of their brains?” g-mom asked with excitement.

  “Sorry again, but that’s out of this wise cracker’s league. In fact, the only reason I know it happened is because this copy of “Gray Fates” has a short addendum. The doctor and author of that section came across a person who had a Weaving circulating through their gray matter but was coherent and stable. There are a couple of tests for a Weaving infestation…

  “Don’t press that panic button, Lizzy. That’s just what this old physician called it for lack of a better term. It’s not a parasite or a bug…it’s…well, let’s just say it’s a primordial infectious-type of condition. I can tweak my apothecary blend and, as long as it’s injected, it will unstick the primordial infection from their brains…” Doc stated while he was reading. Then suddenly, his facial expression turned serious. “Recall, press the panic button. We’ve got a problem! Take me to Audrey, fast...” he told us.

  Ava’shay Command returned us to Mississippi and we landed in Angie’s backyard. He rushed into the house to check on them.

  Tucker and Angie were in bad shape. They were lying on the floor, burning up with a fever and talking nonsense, just like Audrey was doing on the night I found her at the Gray Hook.

  Audrey was still in her son’s bedroom, happily playing with his toys like he told her to do. Apparently, my friend is oblivious to her family’s condition and what’s going on around her.

  “Move away, Audrey!” Doc exclaimed as he ran to pick up Tucker from the floor. “Wiggly, help Liz drag her in here with the boy. Do you know how old Angie is?” he asked me with urgency in his voice.

  “Audrey’s twenty-one…her mom grew up with Angie. She’s the middle kid. I would guess Angie’s in her mid-to-early forties…” I replied.

  Doc drew a syringe and injected her with something. Then, he drew a smaller one for Tucker and gave it to him.

  “Work!! Work!!” Doc shouted.

  Tucker curled into the fetal position and was turning blue. Angie was crying tears of blood. The drops sizzled when they reached the floor.

  “NO!!!!!” he yelled and plunged another syringe full of medicine into Audrey’s aunt.

  She sputtered and blood spewed from her mouth.

  Tucker was panting. I couldn’t tell if he was going to be okay or not.

  G-mom was digging through the antique bag Doc carries with him.

  “Try this!” g-mom tossed him a blue vial.

  He uncorked it, poured out something that resembled ice chips and then, blew them into Angie’s face. She continued crying but eventually the tears turned back to normal.

  Doc did the same thing to Tucker and he perked up almost instantly.

  “Mommy! Mommy…” he screamed in terror, thinking she was hurt or dying.

  “Ssshhhh…she’s gonna be fine. See, she’s just taking a nap like you used to do. Let’s give her minute to rest…” g-mom said, soothingly.

  “You sure she’s just kitty nippin’, Lady?” Tucker asked, apprehensively.

  “I am. Audrey, take Tucker into the kitchen and pour him a glass of water with ice. And, then have him show you what snack he wants to eat. You get one for him and one for you. Show him how you eat and drink. Mommy needs to kitty nip for a bit…”

  Audrey demonstrated no concern for her aunt. She simply took Tucker and did what she was told to do.

  G-mom and I cleaned up the bloody mess. Doc carried Angie and placed her in bed. When he returned, he looked positively frazzled.

  “Almost got here too late…” he stated.

  “Almost only counts when playing with live hand grenades…” I impulsively offered.

  “Leave it to Naked Wiggly to make a joke at a time like this…” Doc stated.

  “No better time. Angie’s gonna be okay…” g-mom inquired without actually asking the question.

  “Yes…because of you…” he told her.

  “You’re givin’ me too much credit. If you weren’t distracted, you would’ve thought of it long before the double injections. It’s not always good being blindly in love, Doc. Bad things can happen when we don’t pay enough attention…bad, bad things…” she declared.

  And this time Doc didn’t have a witty comeback. He simply embraced g-mom and nodded in agreement.