Family Skulls

by Luc Reid

  “Is he all right?” said Tessa. Seth realized she must be worried about Jerry. Who knew what happened when one of the cairns was broken open? Yet he couldn’t find it in himself to worry about that right off. He needed to know about the curse.

  “No problems that I know of,” said Seth. “Would it be OK if I had some cereal or something to eat?”

  “Sure,” Tessa said, laying down the book and standing. “What do you like? Jerry eats cereal like a garbage disposal, so we must have six or eight kinds. Can I help you find it?”

  Seth grinned. “Thanks,” he said. “Thank you, I’d love some help.”

  From downstairs, Jerry bellowed “We got it! Hey, we got it! Seth, are you feeling an overwhelming urge to ask for directions or anything?”

  “I felt it all right!” Seth shouted.

  “I’m going out to do your uncle’s next! If you’re sure you’d prefer him unconfused?”

  “Hang on!” Seth called down. “I want to do it!” And he ran downstairs.

  *

  It was past eight and school had already started by the time Seth and Chloe left the Larshes’ house. They went away soon after wrecking Uncle Guy’s cairn, when the Larshes had grown quiet because there was nothing left to talk about. Jerry sat with Tessa over the journal, puzzling out what other cairns around the property might still be intact and whether he should hang onto the inappropriately-borrowed jackhammer to destroy them. Everyone was tired and suffering from lack of sleep.

  Seth’s stomach was still hurting a little from Grant’s kick, but he was relieved to find that the pain was going away. He had been worried for a while that Grant might have kicked something important.

  Seth and Chloe biked toward the main road.

  “Where do you think Grant went?” Seth said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe to his other grandparents. Maybe back to college. Do you think it’s over?”

  “I don’t know,” said Seth. “He’s probably depended on those skulls his whole life. Even if he can do something, it would be a while, and Jerry will probably find him by then.”

  When they reached the main road, Seth turned left, in the direction of Chloe’s house. Chloe stopped at the top of the dirt road and called out after him.

  “We’re not going to my house!”

  Seth stopped the bike and turned to her. “You have to go home sometime,” he said. “And I may not even have a home any more.”

  “Don’t you want to go see?” she said.

  “Would you?”

  Chloe seemed to think about it for a minute, then got on her bike and followed. “Just don’t come up to the house with me. My father will kill you.”

  Seth just laughed. The truth of the matter was that he felt difficult to kill just at that moment, free of the curse and free of his lifelong fear of the Larshes. What kind of strange feelings were his family experiencing—suddenly receiving help, Uncle Guy acting like a normal person—in the aftermath of the fire?

  And whether he felt invulnerable or not, Seth wanted to face Chloe’s father, who in a way kept Chloe’s curse. Chloe had gone with Seth to face his curse keeper. He’d go with her to face hers.

  *

  As they walked to the front door, Seth realized he must look worse than he had the first time he had come to the house: his clothes were slept in, he had been in a house fire and smelled of smoke, and he was dirty and sweaty from recently using a jackhammer. But then, Chloe didn’t look much better.

  “Are you sure about this?” Chloe said, reaching for the handle of the storm door.

  Seth didn’t get a chance to answer. The inside door swung open and he saw Mrs. Morgan there.

  “There you are!” she said to Chloe in a voice that was nearly a shriek. “Your father is going to …”

  She trailed off, seeing Seth. She was a curse keeper too, Seth reflected. “Good morning, Mrs. Morgan,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Just escorting your daughter home.”

  “My daughter—” Mrs. Morgan began, but she stopped short when she heard heavy footsteps behind her.

  “Wendy? Is Chloe home?” Mr. Morgan’s voice came booming from the back of the house, coming closer.

  “Let’s go out on the lawn,” Chloe said, stepping back so quickly she almost knocked Seth off the step. That would be a great scene to greet Mr. Morgan when he came to the door: Seth and Chloe lying tangled up on his front lawn.

  Seth let her by and followed her onto the lawn. Mrs. Morgan had gone pale and stepped back from the door.

  Mr. Morgan barged through it. “Where the hell have you been, Chloe?” he shouted. He sized up Seth. “You dare show your face around here, you lying son of a bitch?” he said.

  Apparently he remembered Seth from the lawn mowing incident—but had forgotten that Seth hadn’t said much of anything to him at the time, that Chloe had done the lying.

  Mr. Morgan made straight for Seth, who dug in his heels and got ready as best he could to fight back. Now that Seth was facing Mr. Morgan, Seth realized that he hadn’t really remembered how large Mr. Morgan was. Or imagined how angry he would be.

  “Daddy, leave him alone!” Chloe said, throwing herself at her father. Mr. Morgan pushed her away without even looking, strode up to Seth, and swung so quickly Seth didn’t have a chance to react. The punch landed solidly just below Seth’s eye, and Seth flopped back from it onto the lawn with no more control over how he fell than a badminton birdie had over where it was hit. He dropped to the ground dizzy and in pain, unable to even stand back up.

  Mr. Morgan reached down and jerked Seth up by the front of his shirt, ignoring Chloe, who had climbed on his back and was hitting him freely. He stopped short, though, when Mrs. Morgan’s voice cut through the morning.

  “Scott!” she shouted. “That’s enough!”

  Mr. Morgan rolled his eyes and swung again. His fist hit Seth’s nose solidly, and blood gushed down Seth’s face.

  “Put him down or I’m calling the police!” shouted Mrs. Morgan.

  Mr. Morgan dropped Seth onto the ground and turned toward his wife. “You will go inside and wait until I’m done,” he said. He shrugged his enraged daughter off, and she fell ignominiously to the ground.

  Seth raised his head a little and saw Mrs. Morgan was no longer at the door. A moment later she appeared again with a cordless phone. She dialed three numbers and lifted it to her ear.

  “Put that phone down!” roared Mr. Morgan.

  “My husband is on our front lawn beating some boy bloody,” she said loudly. “2208 Groton. Thank you.

  “They’re on their way,” she shouted.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she howled, coming outside. “What kind of a man—”

  Mr. Morgan made a sound like a roar and went to where Mrs. Morgan stood, grabbing the phone from her hand and flinging it down on the sidewalk, where it smashed. Mrs. Morgan winced.

  “I’m the man in this house, and I’ll say what is and isn’t right!” he said.

  “I don’t need a man in the house to tell me that beating up someone half your size is wrong,” she said.

  Mr. Morgan slapped her across the face, fairly hard. She reeled back, and when she stood straight Seth could see the red mark on her cheek.

  “Get out of here!” she screamed. “I don’t care where you go, but don’t come back! I told you not to ever do that again! Get out. Get out!”

  “This is my house!” he bellowed.

  “Not any more,” Mrs. Morgan said. She stalked inside and came out a moment later with a key ring and a wallet, both of which she threw at Mr. Morgan as hard as she could.

  “Go away!” she shrieked. “Go, and don’t come back!”

  Seth glanced around to see several neighbors out on their lawns. Two heavyset men in bathrobes were watching Mr. Morgan intently. He seemed to feel their gaze and looked up at them, then at the other ne
ighbors. In the distance a siren keened. Mr. Morgan looked back at Chloe’s mom and then at Chloe herself, who if anything had an even more murderous expression on her face than Mrs. Morgan. Then he went to his truck and started it, swearing constantly, backed it onto the road, and squealed away.

  Seth looked up to see Chloe still furious, but with tears streaming from her eyes. “Are you OK?” she said. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let you come.”

  Seth clamped his fingers over the sides of his nose, trying to stem the flow of blood. “I’m great,” he said, letting Chloe pull him to his feet by his free hand. He felt a little shaky standing up.

  “Come inside. We’ll get you cleaned up and figure out if you have to go to the hospital.”

  Mrs. Morgan had leaned down to pick up the pieces of the phone. “He’s not coming inside,” she said. “We have a rule about dating in this house.”

  “Mom!” Chloe roared.

  Mrs. Morgan straightened up, holding the broken pieces of phone, and looking from Chloe to Seth and back. “Tomorrow,” she said quietly. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll see.”

  “Mom!” Chloe repeated. Seth put his hand on her arm.

  “That’s OK. That’s a good start,” he said. “I’ll come by tomorrow after school and meet your Mom the right way. I don’t think I’ll make such a great impression looking like this anyway.”

  Chloe laughed shortly with a choking sound and reluctantly let go of Seth, who wavered but managed to stay standing. A moment later a police car pulled up. A policeman climbed out—not Jerry—and hurried over to Seth.

  “Are you all right? Cripes, look at you. Ma’am, do you have an old washcloth you could wet down for him? And an ice pack?”

  “Go ahead, Chloe,” Mrs. Morgan said.

  “Do you need a hospital?” the policeman said.

  “I just want to go home. Could you take me home?” he said.

  “Where do you live?”

  Seth told him.

  The policeman whistled. “You do know they had a fire out there last night, don’t you?”

  Seth nodded, then hesitated for a moment but finally asked, “Is there anything left?”

  Chloe came out and dabbed at his upper lip with the washcloth, trying to soak up some of the blood. Seth took the ice pack and put it on his eye, which was starting to swell up.

  “What, of the house? Sure. It’s a mess inside, I guess. You know, the water damage is sometimes worse than the fire itself, although you can’t not use water. But the house is fine. It’ll just need a lot of work.”

  Seth breathed a sigh of relief, and finally felt his exhaustion taking over. “It’ll just need a lot of work,” he echoed.

  “I’ll come over and help sometimes,” said Chloe.

  *

  The policeman let Seth ride back in silence, and Seth almost fell asleep on the way. But each time Seth’s thoughts began to wander he returned to the realization that he was no longer cursed. He could do what he wanted, go where he wanted—he could go to school to be an engineer, or go traveling. He wouldn’t have to be stuck in Caledonia for the rest of his life if he didn’t want to be. He could have friends, a life.

  He wasn’t excited about having to tell his family the whole story of what had happened in his exhausted state. Since the house was still standing, there might be some place he could lie down and get some sleep, and maybe there would even be some breakfast. After sleeping there would be plenty of time to tell everyone about it, although Grandma Neddie especially might be unwilling to wait that long.

  And he realized that he hadn’t really expected to be free of the curse. In a way, he had been preparing himself for a life lived mainly alone, without help, in a tiny circle of activity too small to present much danger or opportunity. Now he’d broken out of that circle, and to his surprise the feelings that came with that were not only of freedom, but also of fear. That discomfort he had felt when putting on the medal: that was the feeling of a kind of barrier being taken away between him and the world. His world had just gotten much larger. He’d never really had to worry about his grades before: now he would. He hadn’t had many choices in his life, and now he would a lot more, choices he might screw up. But it would be easier than it seemed, he reminded himself.

  Now he would have help.

  Thanks for reading this book. The author is always interested in comments: you can learn more about Luc, read hundreds of articles on writing and the psychology of habits, get the latest news about his fiction releases, and contact him at www.lucreid.com. You can also find him on Twitter @LucReid or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/LucReid/ .

  More books by Luc Reid are available on Amazon for the Kindle.

  His full-length flash fiction collection is called Bam! 172 Hellaciously Quick Stories.

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