by Chase Connor
“What the hell is going on?” I gasped, finally pulling my hands away from the dashboard. “Lucas—”
“FUCK!”
Lucas ripped the driver’s side door open and leapt from the car. Before I could react, he was stomping towards the front of the car. Quickly, I turned in my seat so that I could open my door and leap out of the car to chase after him. The last thing I wanted was for Lucas to march off into the darkness in a rage—for whatever reason—and then have to spend even more time in Ohio. When I turned to get at my door, my eyes darted to look out of the windshield once again. Lucas was standing in front of the car, his fists balled up in rage as he stared off at the side of the road.
What the fuck had caught his eye?
That’s when I saw the sign.
“YOU’RE NOW LEAVING POINT WORTH, OHIO. THE SMALLEST TOWN WITH THE BIGGEST HEART. HOPE WE MEET AGAIN.”
What the actual fuck?
When I was a young boy, my mother loved playing music whenever she did any chores around the house. Of course, her favorite bands and artists were from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Sometimes she’d played some 90s rock and pop, but more often than not, bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Aretha Franklin, The Supremes, The Police, The Pretenders, The Mamas and the Papas, Bruce Springsteen, and John Cougar Mellencamp would be heard coming from whatever device she was listening to music on at the time. From a very young age, I couldn’t remember the house not being full of music, dancing, and laughing as my mom puttered around, doing everything she could to make it a happy and fun home for my dad and me.
Mom would wash dishes as Don’t Sleep in the Subway by Petula Clark played in the background. Her hips would shimmy, and her feet would never stop moving as her head rolled around, and her hands washed and dried dishes. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I grew up in the late 90s and early aughts, this wouldn’t have been that odd. The fact that my mother was born in the late 60s—thus, had not been born, or at least, had not been that old when a lot of her favorite songs had been recorded—was odd, too, I suppose. However, my mother loved the music she loved, and there was no point in questioning it. Of course, I was very young when my mother was still around, so I didn’t know at the time that her taste in music was unusual for her age. I just loved the happiness and dancing. I loved that, as a child, my mother encouraged me to dance and sing and prance around the house, carefree and happy.
My mother encouraged my father to react with happiness and joy instead of anger and frustration when he was having a bad day. Instead of raising voices or complaining, we would eat and listen to music. Then we would dance and clean up as a family, though I was too small to really be of much help. Then I would groan as my parents shared a kiss at the sink, happy to be alive, married to their favorite person, and to have a home we all adored. My life with my parents was brief, but it was joyful.
It was the childhood everybody should have growing up.
But then my mother mostly disappeared from my memory after something…strange…rattled and shook our house. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police had been playing when it happened. I don’t really remember the exact moment that was the last time I saw her, but I remember being in the kitchen with her when the house began shaking…then I was being put to bed by my father.
The following morning, he was gone, too.
And a strange woman was there in his stead.
Why had my parents left me?
Where did they go?
Why would someone do that to such a young child?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Lucas chanted angrily as he stared at the sign and I slid out of the car in disbelief.
Instinctively, I wanted to go to Lucas and comfort him, to calm him down and keep him from getting more upset than he already was presently. I wanted to tell him that maybe he had just somehow driven in a circuitous route and brought us back to Point Worth. No big deal. We could get back into my car—maybe I would drive this time—and we could head out for Cincinnati again. Looking over my shoulder as I stood alongside my car, I knew that doing any of those things would be pointless. I could see the lights of Point Worth behind us—as if we had just left.
“Babe,” I asked hurriedly. “Did you ever make any turns?”
Lucas was squatting down in front of the welcome side, his head in his hands as he rocked on the heels of his feet.
“No, no, no, no.”
“Shit,” I mumbled.
We had never left Highway 2, which ran straight through Point Worth. We would have been on a straight shot from Point Worth to Cincinnati with barely any twists or turns. The only way we could have ended up where we were is if Lucas had taken a turn, driven south, back west, then in a northern direction before turning east back towards Cincinnati. And he would have had to drive through Point Worth again in order for us to see the sign indicating the city limit of Point Worth. We hadn’t gone through Point Worth again. We weren’t finding ourselves by the sign due to some mistake on his part.
Magic.
Not the good kind.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” Lucas was kneeling now, his hands on his knees as he rocked and cursed. “Oh, fuck, Rob.”
“Hey.” I shook my head to clear my negative thoughts and overall sense of impending doom. My gut was sinking towards my ankles. “Babe.”
Hustling over to Lucas before he had a complete nervous breakdown, I squatted down in front of him. His head was in his hands again as the headlights of my car partially illuminated us. I reached out and pulled Lucas towards me, and he practically fell against me, as if he had no strength left in his body. Whether or not he was freaked out by the fact that he had driven for over an hour and we never even got out of Point Worth or the fact that how screwed we were was suddenly dawning on him, I knew that I couldn’t let him fall apart. I wasn’t sure why my brain wasn’t slowly turning to mush—I had every right to flip my lid—but I just wasn’t surprised.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had known that we would never get out of Point Worth.
Above all things, I was mad that I had convinced myself that we could. That I had allowed myself to believe it.
“It’s okay, babe.” I held Lucas to me as my car idled, and Lucas shook, his arms violently grabbing ahold of me, as though he needed to be reminded what was real. “It’s okay.”
“How the fuck are we still in Point Worth, Rob?” He managed to choke out. “How the fuck is that possible?”
Lucas wasn’t crying or falling into complete hysterics. Still, it was obvious that he wasn’t holding himself together as well as he would have wanted under normal circumstances. The problem was—we hadn’t found ourselves cast into a normal situation since we’d had coffee at the Sunny Side-Up Café right after I got back to Point Worth. Everything that had happened since I returned to Point Worth—to Oma’s—had been a complete shit show. It was like riding a rollercoaster, my return to Point Worth. At first, things are fun and different, then the cars start to move, and you find yourself going uphill, slowly, slowly, slowly…you see the tip of the coaster that you will soon be cresting before the fall. And you start to dread the fall.
We had found ourselves at the top of the coaster. We were slowly inching our way into the fall. Soon…there’d be no stopping the downward journey.
“I don’t know.”
I knew.
Lucas knew.
“Why won’t this fucking place just let us leave?” Lucas growled suddenly, making me jump, though I didn’t let go of him. “I knew this place would never let me go, but fuck!”
Lucas pushed away from me gently and fell back against the asphalt, his knees rising so that he could wrap his arms around them. I fell to my knees in front of him, a great gust of breath escaping my throat as I shook my head. As I knelt there in front of Lucas, only the headlights of my car providing us with any light as the city limit sign loomed over us, what Lucas had said rang through my ears. Like a fly buzzing around my ear, his w
ords were distracting me from any other thoughts.
“What do you mean?”
“What?” Lucas barked, though his anger wasn’t directed at me.
“You said you knew this place would never let you go?” I frowned. “What did you mean, Lucas?”
Lucas looked up, his face no longer buried against his knees, and gave me a confused look, half of his face cast in shadow.
“You said,” My brow furrowed, “that you knew this place would never let you go. That’s what you said. What did you mean? It sounds like maybe you know something you’re not sharing, Lucas.”
He sighed. “No. Not really. Well, it’s just—”
“—something that you knew.”
Lucas stared into my eyes for a few breathless moments, then nodded.
“Why?”
“Because,” He sighed, “I just know things, Rob. We’ve talked about this, and—”
“But you said this place would never let you go. You knew that. You’ve never mentioned that before.”
Lucas was sighing again, and his legs shot out, leaving him sitting like a rag doll dropped right there in the middle of the highway.
“Because it’s batshit crazy, Rob.” He threw his hands up. “The fact that I know things is batshit crazy. That’s bad enough, okay? But then to say something like: ‘Ya’ know, every time I drive over to Toledo, there’s this inextricable force calling me back, as though I might be violently ill if I don’t return to Point Worth?’ That’s craziest of all, right? Look, I know you’re special and everything, magic and all that jazz, but even you would have trouble with that. Who the hell am I going to tell something like that to? Who will understand it if I say that Point Worth—a town—has claws and they’re buried in my fucking skin, Rob?”
“Calm down, babe.” I reached out to touch the toe of his shoe gently. “I just want answers. We’re sitting in front of this sign, and we passed a ‘welcome’ sign over an hour ago. I’m trying to understand. That’s all.”
“Baptizing the cat?” He grinned slightly, looking down at his lap.
“Hopefully not.” I chuckled, though my heart wasn’t in it.
“Rob.” Lucas sighed. “When you found me at the football stadium…I knew that Jason and his pack weren’t going to hurt me. I knew it. Not because I’m Mystic Meg or something, but because nothing was adding up. Why would they go to all that trouble? Especially since it was obvious that they wanted you to come get me. They wanted me with you, and they wanted to delay you leaving. They knew if they could waste time and also make sure you had me with you—you wouldn’t be able to leave either. If I’m with you, you’re stuck here—because this town won’t let me leave. And they were delaying everything because…”
“He’s coming.” I nodded. “He’s probably here.”
“Who is he?” Lucas seemed to be pleading with the universe to give him answers.
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I mean…I know, and I don’t. It’s almost as if—”
“We don’t really have our memories back?”
My eyes went to Lucas and were greeted with a raised, questioning brow.
“Yes.”
“I’ve felt that, too.” Lucas nodded. “You thought you went and got our memories, but I think that you only got what someone wanted you to get.”
“Who?” I squinted.
“Your grandmother.”
“She’s not my grandmother,” I replied, though it wasn’t an admonishment, merely a reminder.
“Esther Jean Wagner.” Lucas shrugged. “She’s pulling our strings, Rob. I’ve known that, too.”
I looked down at the asphalt, my hand still on the tip of Lucas’ shoe.
“Fuck.”
“Get in the car, Rob.” Lucas’ words drew my eyes upward to find him shaking his head solemnly. “I’ll walk back into town. If you leave now, it might not be too late. Get in the car and drive as fast as—”
“You think I’d fucking leave you here?”
“You have to. I can’t leave.”
“Then I can’t.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rob,” Lucas grumbled. “Get in the fucking car and—”
“Hey,” I gripped his foot tightly, “I’m not going anywhere without you. If you can’t leave, I won’t.”
“You know that’s the craziest thing you could decide, right? If you stay here, then…well, I don’t know. That’s one thing I don’t know. My head feels cloudy. I can’t see that far.”
“Maybe a decision hasn’t been made?” I suggested.
“Maybe. I wish…”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“Be careful with wishes, babe.”
Lucas smiled back. “I just wish we had the ending to the story in our hands. Then maybe…I don’t know…maybe we could change it. If we knew what was coming, I mean.”
“What?”
“If you know what’s supposed to happen, sometimes you can change it.”
“No, I mean, you said you wish you had the story in your hands?” I started to rise to my feet.
Lucas quickly followed, pushing himself up off of the ground to stand before me. Concern but also curiosity etched valleys in his face as he considered me.
“The book,” I said, simply.
“Sure.” He shrugged. “The book. What does that mean?”
“Books hold stories.” I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts as I marched towards the car, Lucas at my heels. “I mean, sometimes. Just, your thought about wanting to know the ending to the story. And books hold stories. I have a book.”
“I have a ton of books at home.” Lucas chuckled nervously from behind me as we approached the backdoor of the car. “But they’re not going to do much to save us, Rob.”
“This book will.” I smiled to myself as I tore the car door open. “It’s a spellbook.”
“A spellbook?” Lucas snorted playfully. “Like a book that witches—"
I turned to him, a half-frown decorating my face. Lucas shifted on his feet.
“Sorry.” He offered. “Obviously, you would have a spellbook.”
“Right.” I nodded as I bent down and reached into the backseat of the car to retrieve the book I had taken from Oma’s—my family’s—home. “Well, it’s my family’s book. I mean, I think. It’s just been around as long as I can remember, and it might be able to help us. It won’t give us the ending of the story, but maybe it can get us out of this fucking town. No matter who’s trying to keep us here.”
I lifted the heavy leather tome from the backseat and pulled it out of the car. Turning to Lucas, I smile widely as I handed it to him. Tentatively, as though he was afraid that it might bite him, Lucas took the book from me, cradling it gently in his own hands.
“Go on.” I urged him. “You’re the college graduate. Find us a spell that will get us out of here.”
Lucas swallowed hard, steeling his resolve, before giving me a firm nod, then he fanned the book open. I watched eagerly as Lucas looked into the book, as though it would reveal the universe’s secrets to him. Hell, maybe it would. I hadn’t used the book in so many years, I had no idea what the book could do for us. I couldn’t even remember what all was in it. All I could remember was a beautiful hand-drawn sketch of a skeletal tree in early Spring, a single flowering bud on one of the branches, near the end. It was the best hope we had for getting out of Point Worth, though. Anything that could help us cross the city lines and stay on the other side had to be a great thing. I watched as Lucas’ curious expression turned to confusion as he stared down at the pages in the book. He flipped a page. Then another. Then another.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is there something that can help us?”
Lucas’s brow furrowed even deeper, then he finally looked up at me.
“Rob.” He shook his head. “This is, I don’t know, a children’s storybook? This doesn’t have any, uh, spells, or anything. I mean, it literally starts with ‘Once upon a time.’ And there are children’s drawings. Slig
htly morbid ones, but still.”
He turned the book so I could look down at it.
“What?” I grumbled as my eyes met the pages.
As sure as Lucas had said it, the pages were filled with what looked like any ordinary children’s story. Flipping pages as Lucas held the book, more writing—in a fancy script, but stories nonetheless—and pictures of ghosts and goblins leapt out to greet my eyes. The book was worthless.
The man and woman lay on the ground, unconscious and bleeding as the boy cowered in the corner, his hands held up defensively as the hooded figure bore down on him. For hours after leaving his room, the young boy had been at the mercy of the man in the black hooded cloak. Screamed at, threatened, forced to watch his parents squirm and plead as the menacing figure tortured them until they lay on the floor, nearly lifeless and unable to do anything to protect their son. The man in the black hooded cloak never stopped grinning as he subjected the young boy to the sights and sounds of his parents being punished for his stubbornness. Of course, the boy wasn’t stubborn, he had been prepared. For his entire life, as short as it had been up until that moment, he had been warned that the man in the black hooded cloak would arrive one day.
And he was never to willingly accept anything the man gave him.
No matter how greatly he was tempted.
No matter what the man said.
No matter what the man did.
No power was great enough to pay the price that would be asked of him.
So, when the man arrived, in the boy’s sixth year of life, the boy said:
“No.”
For hours, the man in the black hooded cloak did all that he could, after rising from his throne of gleaming white bones, to convince the boy otherwise. Even as his parents screamed in agony and writhed on the floor, the boy kept saying:
“No.”
To some, it may have seemed callous that a boy of such an age would allow his parents to endure such misery. But it had been his parents who made him promise to always say:
“No.”
For they knew what it meant to say:
