"This is..." Wyatt said, grasping for what he knew was right there. "This is..."
"This, my dear Wyatt," said an oily voice from the darkness, "is where you killed your darling mother and father."
Wyatt fell toward the lamppost, catching himself on the concrete pillar. At the edge of the light, the Bad Man pressed its hands and inky face against the invisible barrier. Or it was miming.
"Shut up," Wyatt said, pointing at the shade.
The Bad Man cocked its upper body to the side until its torso was horizontal. "And how are you, dear, sweet, innocent Lucy? I have missed you terribly. Care to play for a bit?"
"You leave her alone!" Ms. Abagail shouted as she jumped to her feet and stood in front of Lucy.
"Oh, come now, Abby Mae, you'll get a turn, too. A most enjoyable turn," the Bad Man said without shifting position.
Wyatt wanted to challenge the creature. He wanted to shout and spit and curse. He wanted to send the shifty thing away just as he and Ms. Abagail had done before. But he couldn't. Something just beyond his perception forbade him, rooted him in place, and tore at his soul.
"How many times do we have to send you packing?" Ms. Abagail said, lowering into a combative stance. "You can't do shit, so leave us. We know what you are."
"Please," the Bad Man said, sounding bored. "Be patient. We will get to you eventually."
"We?" Ms. Abagail scoffed. "We know you're in league with the Regency. And they'll get what's coming to them just like you will. You think you can scare us? Play with our—"
"No," Wyatt said, his voice squeaking past dried lips. He could just about see them now.
Ms. Abagail glanced over her shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow.
"Not the Regency," Wyatt said.
"What?" Ms. Abagail said. "We know—"
Wyatt waved a hand and moved for the lamppost, wavering, but holding his balance. "That's not what it means by we."
The Bad Man straightened up and its head split into a grin, but it remained silent.
"Wyatt..." Ms. Abagail said uneasily.
Wyatt looked past his caretaker and protector and took a short step forward, eyes picking them out of the gloom now. As Wyatt stepped, so did they, out from the night to stand on either side of the Bad Man.
"Mom," Wyatt said to one. "Dad," he said to the other.
Ms. Abagail stepped back until she was even with Wyatt. Lucy began whimpering behind them.
"Holy shit," Ms. Abagail said under her breath, just loud enough for Wyatt to hear.
The Bad Man laughed coarsely and flung his arms around the shades at his side. The trio looked identical in their amorphous nature, but Wyatt could see them for what they were. No, his mind said. I can see what I thought they were.
As Wyatt stared into the shifting shadows, his mother's face blossomed from the head of the shade on Wyatt's left. "Why did you do it?" she asked forcefully.
"I didn't," Wyatt said through his teeth. "You're just like the Bad Man. Lies."
Ms. Abagail cursed and made to say something more, but Wyatt stopped her with a stiff elbow to her arm. "This is my fight," he said, knowing how silly it sounded.
Wyatt heard her retreat and attempt to comfort Lucy, who still sobbed from the base of the lamppost, but his eyes never left the torturous trio in front of him. Wyatt stepped closer, within arm's reach, but he knew they wouldn't cross the barrier of light. Or couldn't. The reason didn't matter.
"You're the same...thing," Wyatt said, spitting contempt in an effort to keep from breaking down. If he could keep his anger stoked, he could remain strong.
A face twisted and contorted within the inky mist of his father's shade. Wyatt's eyes jumped to it, never having seen it take any identifiable form before. But as he looked to it, flames erupted from its shoulders, transforming the head into a ball of fire.
Wyatt's emotions faltered, and he took an involuntary step backward. Hot tears lined his eyelids, but he bit back the rising emotion and forced his gaze away. He bore his eyes into the absent face of the Bad Man, fighting to ignore the flames on one side of his periphery and his mother's reproachful expression on the other.
"Why?" Wyatt asked.
"Because I can," the Bad Man said. "But most importantly, because you deserve it."
Wyatt shook his head. "No. Why did you help me?" His eyes flicked to his mother. Her scowl was deepening, shaping her visage into one of pure hate and vitriol.
None of the shades answered him, so Wyatt pressed on. "In the Pines, you helped me. You showed me the way. You told me the Bad Man was something different. That it wasn't like you and Dad—" His voice caught, and he fought down a tremor.
"Because you deserve it!" the Bad Man shouted. Its voice shook the night. The light flickered erratically, threatening to go out completely.
"I. Do. Not," Wyatt said. His eyes went to his mother again and saw nothing of the loving apparition that had guided him from the Pines.
"We've followed you a long, long time, Wyatt," the Bad Man said.
Wyatt looked to the trio's leader. "Then let's end this," he said.
The Bad Man laughed, but Wyatt was already turning around and kneeling in front of Lucy and Ms. Abagail. Ms. Abagail looked at him, face painted with flickering shades of concern. Wyatt forced a smile, but couldn't ease the scowl that was carved into his brow. He needed to hold firm. He couldn't be weak.
"Lucy," he said as forcefully as he dared.
Thankfully, Lucy looked up. "This is supposed to be a safe place. It's where we went to escape the dark things."
Wyatt didn't have time to puzzle out her strange phrasing. "We're done," he said, grabbing her hands. "It's time to end this. For all of us."
"Wyatt, what are you doing?" Ms. Abagail asked.
He ignored her, staring deep into Lucy's eyes. "You're scared, aren't you?"
Lucy sniffed and nodded her head.
"Good. Me too. But we need to stop hiding." Lucy nodded. Wyatt squeezed her hands tightly. "I know you can control your power better than you let on. You can take us places in ways that defy...well, everything."
Lucy nodded.
"You need to take us back. For real."
Lucy's stare wavered, but Wyatt pulled on her hands and brought her back to center.
"Wyatt, you're scaring her," Ms. Abagail said. "You remember what happened last time you tried to make her use her powers like this."
"I want to hide, but the safe places are gone," Lucy said.
"That's why we need to remember," Wyatt said.
"You've been saying that the whole time we've been here," Ms. Abagail challenged. "And we have remembered. For God's sake, I saw my mom again."
Wyatt shook his head. "Just pieces. We've only lived pieces. And who knows what the Bad Man has altered?"
"I'm sorry," Lucy said. "I was scared."
"And just where do you think we need to go now, then?" Ms. Abagail asked.
Wyatt brought his face closer to Lucy's so neither of them could see anything beyond each other. "The Realms exist because we can't or don't want to remember crappy things from our pasts," Wyatt said. "Not me, not you, but we."
A crack of thunder rumbled in the distance. The Bad Man howled like the inhuman thing it was. Wyatt didn't bother giving it the benefit of his attention. His eyes remained firmly on Lucy. Her eyes were closed, and Wyatt could see her entire body twitch with tension.
"You're wrong, Wyatt," Ms. Abagail shouted over the quickly growing storm. Wind tore around their small sanctuary. Rain pelted them, soaking Wyatt to the bone. "I remember," Ms. Abagail continued. "Maybe I didn't want to accept what my mother did to me, but I haven't forgotten my past."
Wyatt tore his eyes away from Lucy to glare at Ms. Abagail. Her hair was plastered to her face. "I lived one of your memories," he said. She frowned. "I saw your father."
Ms. Abagail's face twitched, and she clutched at the concrete pillar as the storm battered the already beleaguered trio with magical might. But she didn't respond except t
o shake her head. Wyatt's hands were still on Lucy's arms, and he felt her begin shaking. Her eyelids were open now, but her eyes were gone. In their place were two burning embers of green light matched by a third blossom emanating from the Druids' stone hanging from her neck. Wyatt grabbed at his own chest, having forgotten the mystical amulet he had once owned as well.
A blinding bolt of lightning struck the top of the lamppost, raining down sparks and then covering them in darkness, the only illumination coming from the three spots of emerald magic.
"Oh shit," Ms. Abagail said. Wyatt felt her hands latch onto his arm.
"Something happened that day to all of us," Wyatt shouted. "To you, me, Lucy, and Athena. We need to remember." His hands crawled up his sister's arms and seized her face between them. "Lucy, we need to go back to the toy store."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WYATT BOLTED UPRIGHT with a start. A worn comic book fell from his lap to the floor of the family minivan. He yawned, rubbed at his eyes, and retrieved his dog-eared comic. The Mystical Adventures of Grenleck the Wizard.
Warm afternoon light heated his face as he looked around the interior of the vehicle. Where is everyone? He must have fallen asleep at some point on their long drive home from his grandmother's house. His stomach growled at the memory of the freshly baked cookies she had sent them off with.
"Where are you, cookies?" he asked himself as he leaned forward to paw through the family's luggage.
He found the decorative tin he sought near the top of the mess and sat back with it on his lap. He opened it, smiled as the scent of chocolate chips hit his nose, and snagged two. He ate the first in two bites, the second in three. He moaned with pleasure, grabbed one last cookie, and replaced the tin.
Cookie and comic in hand, Wyatt threw open the sliding door and hopped out into the shopping plaza parking lot. He stretched, downed his last cookie, and set off for the nearest store—M and G Toys.
It wasn't difficult to know that was where his parents and sister had gone. Lucy had been talking nonstop the whole weekend about buying a new stuffed bear with her incentive money. Bearsy, she was going to name the thing. Wyatt scoffed openly to himself as he weaved through the crowded parking lot. He had tolerated her incessant talk of the childish thing—mostly, anyway—largely on account of his parents' concession to stop at the comic book store nearer home afterward. You couldn't have a comic book collection with just one comic book. And as much as he loved The Mystical Adventures of Grenleck the Wizard, he was thrilled at the aspect of spending time in an entire store dedicated to the illustrated stories.
He looked at the sky as he skipped across the driving lane and hopped onto the sidewalk. The sun was still high in the sky, but the sooner they left the shopping plaza, the sooner Wyatt could be wandering the magnificence of a comic book store. And he intended on maximizing his time there.
The front window of M and G Toys was crowded with a display of identical stuffed bears. Wyatt groaned, seeing Lucy pawing through the stack. If he knew his sister, she was nowhere near a decision as to which bear to choose.
Wyatt walked up to the window and pressed his face to the glass, making a crude face at Lucy. But she was turning away from the bears and running further into the store. Good, he thought. She must have found a stupid bear. Now we can find Grenleck a friend. Wyatt looked at his lone comic book and thumbed through the pages, careful not to drop the loose ones at the center.
Still skimming through the long-ago-memorized pages, Wyatt moved for the toy store's door. He stepped up to it and shoved it open, laughing at Grenleck's antics on the pages. You can't fight an ice golem with a blizzard spell, Wyatt thought.
The door opened partway and came to an abrupt stop. Shouting brought up Wyatt's gaze, and he saw he had slammed the door into a girl. She might have been pretty if her face wasn't twisted up, and if she wasn't screaming bloody murder.
Wyatt didn't have time to voice an apology before a large man grabbed the girl by her arm, wrenched her upright, and fully opened the door with his other hand. The man surged forward, dragging the screaming girl and throwing a stiff forearm to Wyatt's chest. The air vanished from his lungs and he was forced aside as the pair left the store.
Wyatt took a moment to catch his breath. He glanced fleetingly at the giant man and girl. Something about the pair seemed off to Wyatt, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Lucy threw tantrums like the girl often enough, but Lucy was four. The strange girl looked somewhere closer to Wyatt's age—ten.
Wyatt adjusted his glasses and entered the store, quickly forgetting the encounter. How could he think on anything else when he was so close to obtaining a new comic book?
"Can we go yet?" he asked, walking toward his family, which stood near the checkout counter.
Wyatt's father darted toward a young woman who was seated on the floor and helped pull her to her feet.
Wyatt's mother had her cellphone to her ear, but put her other hand on Wyatt's shoulder. He shirked the touch and crossed his arms. "Did dumb Lucy find a dumb bear yet?"
"Did you see which way they went, Harold?" his mother asked, her voice panicked like she'd seen a ghost. Wyatt laughed to himself. Ghosts weren't real.
When his mother didn't respond to his plea, Wyatt snorted and opened Grenleck. He tried to fall into the well-known story, but his parents were talking far too loudly.
"Somewhere over there, I think," his father replied. "Stay here, I'll see if I can get a look at his license plate or at least see where they're headed."
"Police are on their way," Wyatt's mother said.
Police? Wyatt looked up from his comic book long enough to scrutinize the rest of his family. Lucy was clinging to their mother's leg, whimpering. As usual. His parents seemed to be riled up, as well. Wyatt's father started running toward the parking lot.
"Be careful!" Wyatt's mother shouted.
She stepped outside the store as Wyatt's father vanished into the sea of vehicles and people. Lucy and Wyatt followed.
"Are we leaving now?" Wyatt asked, eager to be moving in the right direction.
"Not now, Wy," his mother said without looking his way. She gestured blindly at him. "Stay with me and your sister."
Wyatt frowned. "She didn't get her stupid bear yet?"
"Wyatt!" his mother snapped, far colder than he had ever heard her speak before. "This is not the time—"
A sharp pop from somewhere in the parking lot silenced her and caused Wyatt to drop his comic book. Lucy began crying hysterically.
"Harold!" Wyatt's mother shouted. She took a short step forward, but no more.
"What was that?" Wyatt asked, scooping up his comic book and moving to his mother's side. He frowned at Lucy, still sobbing like a baby.
His mother pulled him in close and shouted his father's name again.
"Mom, what's going on?" Wyatt asked. Something in the air felt...funny. The image of the strange girl's tear-stained face invaded his mind, and he couldn't shake it. He felt like she was in trouble.
Wyatt's father burst from behind a panel van and came sprinting toward them. His face was red and he was panting. "Someone's been shot," he blurted. "Get inside. Everyone, get back inside."
Neither Wyatt nor his mother or sister had time to take the direction before Wyatt's father pushed them back toward M and G Toys. Stumbling, Wyatt entered the store, more bewildered than he had been before. Had his father said someone had been shot? Shot? Like with a gun?
Another pop sounded from the parking lot as Wyatt's father shoved his family into the store, pushed the door shut, and fumbled with the lock.
"Get to the back of the store!" he shouted, eyes wild amid a head of disheveled hair and a face covered in thick hair.
Wyatt complied, but only because there seemed to be no other option. He had never seen his parents so agitated and loud. They rarely shouted, and it made Wyatt nervous though he didn't quite understand why. He didn't believe that someone could be out there, shooting a gun. That didn't happen in
real life. But a nervous feeling continued to fester in his gut as he followed his sister and mother to the back corner of the store and ducked behind a sales counter.
"Are you all right?" his mother asked the young woman crouching nearby.
The woman—who looked like Snow White, Wyatt decided, though with a mane of bright purple hair—was clutching at the countertop and looking toward the front of the store. "I'm okay," she said.
Wyatt's father vaulted over the counter and landed beside the rest of his family. He sat, positioned between them and the front of the store. "Everything is going to be just fine," he said.
Wyatt squirmed against the sick feeling in his stomach. "What happened to that girl? Is she in trouble?" he asked.
"I don't know," his father said, shaking his head.
"Maybe," Wyatt's mother added.
Wyatt frowned and looked at the floor. He hadn't done anything wrong. Had he? Maybe he shouldn't have taken the cookies from the fancy tin his grandmother had left them. Wyatt and Lucy were only ever allowed two cookies, and only after eating dinner. His stomach continued to roll about.
The sound of sirens pierced the storefront, and soon Wyatt could see flashing lights reflecting off the wall above his head. Wyatt couldn't find anything more to say and found it hard to piece together a coherent thought. The girl he had struck with the door wouldn't leave his mind, but neither would his desire to buy a new comic book, or the guilt of having eaten illicit cookies. It confused him and made his head feel dizzy just as it made his stomach sour.
So Wyatt sat in silence, hardly moving, for a long time.
The sirens had stopped, though the parking lot was still filled with flashing emergency lights. Wyatt tried to count them all, but kept losing count somewhere around twenty-four. They had sat in the corner of the toy store for so long that the sun was now kissing the treetops beyond the shopping plaza. Wyatt watched its pass and found himself growing more and more irritable the further it sank.
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