“Do you trust your dad?” Asked Callista.
Morgan found the question strange, asking, “What do you mean by trust? I try for understanding with him more than trust.”
“I used to trust my dad but he’s been lying to me,” She said.
Callista brought out a leather pouch, where she kept her rolling tobacco and anxiety pills. She pinched some tobacco and started to drizzle some of the powdered pills on top. Then she rolled the whole thing up.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Morgan told her. “Smoking’s gross and those anxiety pills are dangerous.”
“I used to feel bad for keeping it a secret from my dad,” She said, lighting the end and taking a puff of the cigarette. “He would flip out if he knew. So much for honesty,” she said before taking another puff.
Morgan pulled himself across the grass until he was sitting closer to her. “You know, you’d be a lot prettier if you didn’t do that,” he said.
“I’m pretty enough. I don’t need to push it.”
Morgan stared at the blue and green in each of her eyes. He smiled, telling her, “I bet the guys don’t leave you alone at that private school.”
Callista rolled her eyes, saying, “They all gave up their lame flirting years ago.”
“Oh I wasn’t flirting,” he said. “I’m just talking. Trying to make some conversation.”
“Oh,” she said, lifting her eyebrow. “Well then I stand corrected.”
“Well then, you do.”
She changed the subject, saying, “Lucas’s mom sure is strange. She scared me. Do you think he’s OK?”
“Listen,” Morgan told her, “Lucas may look like he’s falling apart but I’m starting to think that kid is made of solid rock.”
…
A few nights later, Lucas was at the edge of sleep when Strix’s eyes suddenly erupted in crimson light. The two beams shone on his bed from across the room like police searchlights.
Before he could say anything to Strix, he saw his mother standing in the frame of his bedroom door. Her face looked dark and troubled, like she had seen some horrible apparition prior to walking in. The look on her face made him nervous.
“Are you OK, mom?” He asked her.
“Fine,” she said with a flat, faint smile. “I couldn’t sleep and I realized it’s been a while since I looked at your back.”
“Not tonight, mom,” he said. “I’m too tired for that and it hurts. I think it makes it worse.”
He realized her expression had hardened. She was looking at him like he had betrayed her to the highest degree.
So he told her, “Yeah. Maybe I do need it.”
Her face perked up and she walked over to the bed. Lucas slowly lifted his shirt.
“Let me see,” she said. “Get on your stomach.”
When he got on his stomach, she looked at his back boils like a smorgasbord, her eyes wide and delighted. She touched one of the inflamed lesions on his shoulder and Lucas shuddered. The pain seemed to excite her, to encourage her to push harder on the boil.
“Mom, that hurts,” he told her. “Not that hard.”
“This doesn’t look good,” She said. “I think you’re getting worse.”
“I thought I was getting better.”
“Rubbish,” Aura answered as she squeezed one of his boils until he squirmed.
Although they were shrinking in number, the boils and carbuncles were so inflamed that they resembled white-hot silver dollars surrounded by halos of red. Lucas’s mother took out her mortar and pestle, grinding some fresh leaves that smelled like old socks. She mixed in some oils and rubbed the concoction on Lucas’s back.
The moment the cream made contact, electricity ran through his body, with an uncomfortable stimulation of biting cold down his back.
Then the pain came. The scalding took over every nerve and feeling in his body until he screamed. A scream mixed with a whimper pushed its way out of Lucas’s mouth while he tried to fight it back.
“Start being a man,” his mother told him. “This barely hurts. Do you want these disgusting boils when you’re a grown man?”
Perspiration ran down his head, the salt sending the painful sores into an uproar. He trembled with the pain, telling his mom, “I don’t want to drain them tonight. It hurts too bad.”
The left side of his mother’s mouth slid into a grin. “Come on,” she said, “that’s the most important part. They’ll never heal unless we drain them.”
She had a special syringe for the job that she kept in a leather sheath. After setting a candle flame to the stainless steel needle to sterilize it, she slid the sharp end into the largest, angriest boil on her son’s back. She pulled back on the plunger, pulling in a glut of creamy puss.
She saved the putrid liquid in an amber vial she kept with the syringe.
“Why do you keep that, mom?” Asked Lucas. “It’s pretty disgusting.”
“I want to study the infection,” she said. “The doctors may have given up but your mother won’t.”
“Can we take a break from doing this? I don’t think it helps.”
Lucas’s mother put down the syringe, looking him squarely in the face. “Then what the hell am I wasting my time for?” She asked. “Don’t you think I’d have something more enjoyable to do than drain sores?”
“I guess.”
“You guess? Well I don’t understand why you think I spend all my time taking care of you. Is it for my health? Is it for my happiness?”
“I’m sorry,” said Lucas.
“I bet you’re sorry,” she said, putting away the syringe and vial of puss. “We’re done,” she told him.
After she left, his back felt like it was being broiled. He couldn’t lay flat, so his propped himself up on the side, letting some of the cold night air at his wounds. The pain sent beads of sweat down his body, burning his skin and making him wince.
After a few minutes, he felt Strix’s eyes on him again.
“We’re sorry you’re in pain,” said the owl. “We promise it won’t be like this forever.”
“Oh yeah? What’s going to change? I don’t see anything changing.”
“Just because you can’t see the change doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
“Whatever.”
Then Strix asked something that surprised him. “What do you think,” asked the owl, “your mother does with the material she removes from your wounds?”
“What?” answered Lucas, sounding surprised. “She studies my disease. It’s to help me. Like she said.”
“It puzzles us,” said Strix. “Perhaps you should refuse the next time she asks.”
“What do you mean?”
“We mean that you simply say no to her, Lucas.”
The idea seemed painful and alien to him. It registered on his face in the form of anger.
“She’s trying to help me!” Lucas told Strix. “She’s my mom. I won’t tell her no.”
“We understand your confusion, Lucas, but please consider what we’re saying. For your own good.”
“Why would you say this to me?” He asked. “What am I supposed to do? She’s my mom,” he said, realizing he was starting to cry.
“There is something we could tell you that will bring you some comfort.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Understand, Lucas, although things are far from perfect now, we assure you it won’t always be this way. In fact, we can promise you they won’t. Your life is going to change more profoundly than you can imagine. After a while, you won’t even remember the pain of the person you used to be.”
“What if I don’t want that?” He asked, wiping away tears.
“Don’t try to deceive us, Lucas. We know what you want.”
…
The following day, as he left for school, Lucas saw Morgan waiting in front of the house. Leaning on the row of mailboxes, Morgan looked like he had been up all night. However, his tired eyes still betrayed the exhilaration of a fantastic night.
Luc
as noticed the grin on his face and asked him about it.
“What’s got you so happy today?”
“Ahh, nothing,” answered Morgan. “I was up late last night visiting Callista. Strix told me to go.”
“Good for you,” said Lucas, who appeared quite beaten that morning. “She seems really nice. Did Strix tell you why he sent you all the way over there?”
“Does Strix ever make things clear?”
“How’d it go?”
“She’s nice for a rich girl,” Morgan said. “Pretty as hell I have to admit.”
“What happened?”
“We just talked. But I think,” he started to say, “she may be feeling Morgan Battle.”
“Well that wouldn’t be a huge surprise,” said Lucas. “I thought all the girls were feeling Morgan Battle.”
Morgan noticed the look on Lucas’s face, a mix of sadness and resignation to his place in the social order. The moment became awkward as he struggled to think of a response. He hadn’t given much thought to his regal popularity and the fact that he received attention from virtually every female in school. Most of the day and night, Morgan just worried about his brother and hated his father.
Eventually, he told Lucas, “I’m hardly the prom king. School is stupid anyway. It won’t matter in a few more years.”
“Being popular is nothing to feel bad about,” said Lucas. “You’re just someone that people want to be like. Morgan Battle, the track star, Morgan Battle, the dude nobody messes with.”
“Is that who Morgan Battle is? I thought he was the kid whose father wants to beat him to a pancake. I thought he was the kid whose mother died, the kid with the sick little brother. Look, man, nobody’s got it easy in this world.”
“Why were you waiting for me today?”
Morgan looked serious for a moment. “Nox,” he said, “and the rest of those guys at school. They really have your number. After the jellyfish, they’re not gonna take any chances making sure you’re…”
“I don’t need anyone to protect me.”
“Sure you don’t. I was just hoping they would give me an excuse to remove a few of their teeth. I’ve got some frustration and I’d like to put it in a worthwhile place.”
When they arrived at school, Nox Jaborosa was indeed there, leaning against a wall by the front entrance. He and the rest of the breakfast club of delinquents couldn’t take their eyes off Lucas.
Nox shouted, “Hey Lucas Mucus, looks like you’re too fat for the jellyfish stings! Don’t worry. Pretty soon we’re gonna see what your insides look like!”
…
That night, just before Lucas’s mother was ready to tuck him into bed, she handed him his nightly dose of her homemade medicine. The handmade pills had been pressed from ground herbs with her antique pill press. Six of them, each nearly too big to choke down, nearly exceeded the capacity of Lucas’s palm.
“What are these again, Mom?” Lucas asked her.
“You’ve taken them for years,” she said. “Why are you asking now?”
“I don’t know. Was just wondering.”
“They’re to help your immune system,” she told him. “You were so much sicker before you started taking them.”
“Really?”
“You could barely get out of bed and it killed me to see you that way. The doctors were clueless, so I had to step in. You probably don’t remember much of that time.”
“I don’t remember much of anything going back. I mean, I remember facts and stuff from school, but I barely remember growing up.”
“So you’re a grown-up now?”
Lucas smiled and fiddled with the pills in his palm. “What kind of herbs are they made from?”
His mother became frustrated. “They’re very special herbs. Only serious specialists even know about them. Now go ahead and swallow so you can get to bed.”
Lucas searched her face and saw how serious she was. One by one, he choked down the horse pills until all six were gone. “Why do they have to be so big?”
“Stop complaining,” his mother told him. “It’s not becoming for a young man.” She put her hand to his cheek and kissed him goodnight.
A few minutes after she left, Lucas noticed that Strix’s eyes were exuding a faint red glow. The owl had been watching.
“Are you going to say something?” Lucas asked it.
“Lucas, we have a rather odd request for you but it is of grave importance.”
“OK,” Lucas answered, taking a seat on the end of the bed.
“We need you to get the wastebasket from across the room and sit it next to you.”
“That’s weird. Why?”
“Please don’t interfere with the process. We need to move quickly. Please save your questions until the process is over.”
“Ugh, fine.” He said, bringing over the wastebasket, which was filled with used Kleenex and various medicine bottles. He sat it by his feet and waited for Strix’s instructions.
Strix told him, “We’re going to need you to concentrate on our eyes. Concentrate, Lucas.”
Lucas complied even though he found the request very strange.
“I’m looking,” he said.
Strix’s eyes went from a faint red to a fiery orange, flickering like a candle flame. The color shifted back and forth across the spectrum, from red to blue to violet. Then the eyes began to flash like paparazzi camera flashes, flashing faster and faster until the sight became dizzying.
Lucas was transfixed by the lightshow in Strix’s eyes. At the same time, it seemed to be giving him a headache, even making him sick to his stomach.
Strix told him, “Keep concentrating. This is critical.”
“I am,” said Lucas, just as a heave started in his gut. Hot nausea started in his chest and ran across his body. He started sweating and heaving.
“Keep looking,” Strix told him.
Lucas felt something like a hot gunshot in his abdomen. The first big heave felt like it could have split his body in two. He grabbed the wastebasket and caught the entire contents of his digestive tract on their way out. The purge sent the pills his mother had given him shooting back and clacking inside the wastebasket.
“What happened?” He asked Strix. “What did you do to me?”
“We triggered your regurgitation reflex. It was necessary.”
“Why?”
“Do you trust us, Lucas?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Then do not take any more of those pills. You should also dispose of the evidence.”
Just like Strix told him, Lucas emptied the waste basket and snuck the vomit into a garbage can across the street. He wondered if his heart or breathing would grind to a halt without his medication. His mother had told him many times that missing a dose could be very dangerous.
Still, he didn’t ask the owl why and did exactly as he was instructed.
…
Chapter 14
Skyscrapers
The following morning before school, Callista heard her father speaking to someone in his study. Even from all the way down the capacious hallway, she quickly discerned anxiety and nerves in his voice. It was difficult for her to make out the details of the conversation.
She distinctly heard him say, “Please. Tell Mr. LaCrone this isn’t necessary. He should listen to reason.” Callista was unable to make out what the other party was saying but she heard her father respond, “This is crazy. Just please let me speak to him today. Please, I am begging you.”
Callista’s stomach sank when she heard those words. She approached the study door and tried to listen inside. However, the conversation quickly ended and it became quiet.
Eventually, she knocked, her father opened the door and she noticed the man inside. The gentleman was dressed in an elegant black suit, with a perfectly groomed head of silver hair. He looked like a politician or a bank president.
Both men turned on their smiles.
“Callista, I thought you had already left for school,” her fa
ther said.
“I was just on my way out.”
Her father’s guest just looked at her the way a politician looks at a voter. “Such a beautiful little girl,” the man said. He shook Callista’s father’s hand and told them he would see his own way out.
After he left, Callista asked, “Who was that man? I heard you down the hall. You sounded upset.”
“Oh, no,” he told her. “Not at all. We were just chatting.”
“What about?”
“Just business stuff,” he said. “I don’t want to bore you.” He started to file some papers from his desk into his briefcase. His hands were shaking.
“Are you going somewhere today?”
“No,” he said, catching her eyes. “Just going to work from my home office today. It’s getting late. Do you want a ride to school?”
She shook her head no, telling him, “That’s OK. I’ll just take the cable car.”
Callista walked out the front door and waited behind the bushes by the driveway. She was out of sight but could clearly see the front of the house. After a few minutes, she saw her father get into his car and pull away.
Instead of taking the cable car to school, she went back inside and found Strix on her nightstand. The lights behind his eyes were on and he appeared to be waiting for her.
“How can we be of service, Callista?” the owl asked.
“Can you help me find Morgan? I need his help with something.”
…
Morgan showed up to Callista’s house a half hour later on the back of an old motorcycle. The motor coughed and the exhaust spit out clouds of black smoke. When he pulled up to the house, she was waiting for him.
“Strix told me you needed me. What’s up?”
“We should go to the city today.”
Morgan’s face lit up at the suggestion. “Sure,” he said. “Hop on.”
When Callista asked him about the motorcycle, he told her that he had borrowed it from his father, who was fast asleep on the couch when he left. “I had to push the thing three blocks before I started it up,” he said. “I didn’t want to wake my old man up. He would kill me if he found out.”
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