* * *
“Hey, kid,” a voice whispered. Charlie jerked awake, wincing at the crick in his neck from where he had fallen asleep against his headboard. Light from the hallway shone in his eyes, making it difficult at first to make out the shadowy figure standing halfway in his bedroom.
“Malcolm! Hi. You scared me,” Charlie said, wiping at the stream of saliva hanging from his chin.
“Sorry, kid. I was trying to be quiet. I didn’t want to wake Randall.”
“That’s okay. It’s, uh, it’s good to see you.”
“You too. Sorry I’ve been gone so much.”
Charlie shrugged his shoulders, still not used to adults apologizing to him.
“There was another break-in? At the Mossmans?”
“We think so,” said the man, walking over and sitting down on the side of Charlie’s bed. Light from the streetlamp near the sidewalk outside illuminated half of Malcolm’s face. Raindrops dripping down the windowpane cast squiggly lines of shadow running over his left shoulder and across his collared shirt. Charlie’s vision was still too blurry from sleep to find evidence of the fatigue Beverly had mentioned.
“You aren’t sure?”
“Well, Daniel said that, even though someone got through the wards at the house, no one was attacked. He wasn’t sure if it was a bungled kidnapping attempt or if they were looking for something.”
His voice trailed off, and he sighed, looking down at the floor. “But we all do what we can, right?”
“Right,” Charlie said, not sure what Malcolm meant.
“I mean, we all do the best we can with what we’ve been given,” Malcolm continued, leaning in closer to Charlie. He had the sudden impression that the man was going to tell him a secret. Instead, he turned his head and said, “Come here, Amos.”
Charlie heard the dog’s paws pad across the carpet. The mattress sank as Amos put his forelegs up on the bed.
“Atta boy,” Malcolm said, rubbing the dog’s back. “Atta boy.” Amos’s tail wagged as he rested his large head on the man’s leg.
Charlie watched as something seemed to pass over Malcolm’s face, the way the shadow of a cloud passes over the land below. Charlie’s nerves prickled on sudden alert, and a cascade of tingles showered down the back of his neck.
Malcolm blew out his breath, gritted his teeth, and made a jerking motion with his arms. Amos yelped once, then fell silent. The front half of the dog’s body slumped onto the floor and began to twitch and shake as if inflicted with St. Vitus’s Dance.
“What are you …?”
Malcolm’s hands clamped down on Charlie’s mouth before he could say anything more, and he felt something sticky cover his lips. Then the man pressed his knee against Charlie’s chest, pinning him down on the mattress. Charlie reached up to try to push Malcolm’s knee away. He heard a tearing sound. Before he could do anything else, Malcolm grabbed Charlie’s hands and bound them in the same tape he must have used on his mouth.
Malcolm stared down at Charlie as if from a great distance, as if Charlie were nothing more than a piece of lint down on the carpet near his feet.
Charlie’s mind spun with panicky questions. What was happening? What was Malcolm doing? What had he done to Amos?
He wriggled on the bed, trying to kick himself free. But Malcolm leaned over him, pinning Charlie to the bed. He then turned to the window and mumbled several Words. A loud pop sounded in the air, accompanied by a flare of white as brief and sudden as a camera flash. The windowpane opened by itself. A sleek black shape slunk into his bedroom, followed by another.
Charlie recognized the woman with the tightly wound black curls as the one who had broken in several weeks ago. Her jade green eyes glowed in the half-light. She smiled at him.
“No!” he tried to yell, but the tape at his mouth muffled the noise, diffusing it to a low grunt.
The other shape, much lower to the ground, came closer to his bed. Charlie could make out pointed ears, then the unmistakable muzzle of a large German shepherd. And not just any shepherd. Charlie would have recognized the steely glare of the eyes anywhere. It was the same dog who broke into their house in Clarkston. It stared at him, as if daring him to speak through the tape.
Charlie attempted a scream, then strained underneath Malcolm’s weight, trying to scramble to the far side of the bed.
Unable to do anything, his mind ran with more thoughts. Why would Malcolm let that woman into his bedroom? Doesn’t she work for Grace? And why the dog? Why would he …?
“Hello, boy,” a voice said near his ear. Instead of the German shepherd, Charlie saw the tall man with the blond hair bending over the bed, the same man who had pummeled his mother in the heat of their kitchen. “You sure are a feisty one, aren’t you?”
The man smiled and ran a hot dry finger along Charlie’s cheek. Charlie jerked his head away from the man’s touch.
Malcolm rose and stood next to the man and the woman. All three adults looked down at him. Charlie felt their cold, neutral stares. He wanted to run, to kick them, to find the Words to send bolts of light and bedroom furniture at them. He ran through the exercises Rita and Daniel had taught him for fighting off attackers. But none of his lessons included what to do when you were completely subdued. All he could do was kick and wiggle.
“Handle those feet,” the Dog Man said. Charlie heard more tape being ripped. He watched as Malcolm yanked the covers off the bed.
The woman leaned down over his legs. She turned her head and looked at him, holding up a large pair of scissors.
“Go ahead, gay boy. Kick me and give me a reason to cut you.”
Charlie froze. She ran loops of tape around his feet.
“Let’s ride,” the Dog Man said. Fingers dug into his skin as Malcolm slipped his hands beneath Charlie’s arms and the woman picked up his feet. Together they carried him over to the window.
Where were they taking him? What about …
Charlie suddenly remembered Randall. Where was he? Had Malcolm done anything to him? If he had so much as touched his uncle, Charlie would make the man pay.
He swiveled his hips, managing to bunch up the lower half of his body and kick his feet hard against the woman’s shoulder. She fell back with a groan, letting Charlie’s legs slip to the floor. He pushed off the ground, driving Malcolm back against the wall, relishing the sound of the air being forced from the man’s lungs.
Something hard struck Charlie in the head. Light, as intense as a doctor’s scope, shot behind his eyes. A crunching pain made his vision blur and his body slacken. The last thing he remembered was the Dog Man peering closely at him with a strange smile on his face, then the vague sensation of being passed through the windowpane and slung over someone’s shoulder. Then, nothing.
CHAPTER 25
The Basement
CHARLIE CAME TO, LYING on his side, surrounded by a thick moldy smell. He moved his head, then wished he hadn’t. Pain bit at his forehead like teeth, and for a moment he thought he would vomit. Then he panicked when he realized that his mouth was still bound with the tape. Vomiting would make breathing impossible and would most likely choke him to death.
He sucked air through his nose and tried to hold his head steady. His heart slammed in his chest like a gorilla against the bars of its cage. Before he could even form a plan, instinct kicked in, and he found himself emptying his mind the way Beverly had shown him. Almost imperceptibly at first, he could feel his heart beat slow to a steady thump, thump, thump.
He opened his eyes and for a moment thought that his eyelids had also been taped shut. He was lying somewhere completely dark. No light creeping under a doorway, no window high up letting in sunshine. He stopped to consider what time of day or night it actually was. And he wondered just how long he had been in this place.
He wasn’t sure how big it was, but it seemed to him that there were walls nearby.
Doing his best not to move his head, Charlie took inventory of the rest of his body. Tape on mouth: check. Hand
s bound behind back with tape: check. Deep pain in shoulders from hands behind back: check. Feet bound by tape: check.
Well, it could be something else besides tape, Charlie thought. I mean, can I even see anything? Maybe it’s rope.
A useless thought. Who cares if it’s rope or tape? The important thing was that he couldn’t move his hands; couldn’t find the Words that might let him unleash his craft and save himself.
Is that what it was down to? Saving himself? Saving his own life?
He remembered Malcolm’s quick arm movements and the way that Amos had fallen to the floor. Had he killed the dog? Or only knocked him out of commission? His gut clenched, imagining Amos dead.
Then he thought of Randall, lying in his bed, sleepy from his pain medication. Had Malcolm done something to his uncle? Had he hurt him? Had he killed him?
His thoughts exploded into a starburst of anguish.
“If you even touched him!” Charlie tried to scream through his taped mouth. He strained at his bindings and shook his head as panic and helplessness overwhelmed him. Several long stretches of time followed where physical torment and emotional agony took him as if he were being dragged along under the surface of a raging river. No air to breathe, slamming into unseen boulders, jerked about in competing currents.
Empty your mind, Charlie. Beverly’s voice called from somewhere on the river’s bank.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t … if he … if he hurt Randall … I … Amos … I can’t … Randall … no … no … no …”
More moments passed with Beverly’s words bubbly and gargled as they bounced along the surface of the angry water above his head. He tried to reach for them, but they slipped away. More agony. More time passing.
Yes, you can. You can, Charlie. Empty your mind. The words were clearer this time, but he still couldn’t grasp them.
He was sure he was going to die. There was no air to breathe at the bottom of the river. Just sediment and water, rushing over him, drowning him. Then something that sounded like his own voice, but colder, more detached, reached him.
What’s done is done, Charlie. If Amos and Randall are dead, then there’s nothing you can do about it. You have to calm down so you can think things through.
The voice’s chill passed from his scalp down his back to the bottom of his feet, sobering him.
What it said was true. Even if the truth was terrible. Even if it was beyond imagining. There really wasn’t anything he could do about … he wouldn’t let himself think about it anymore. He had more pressing needs to attend to.
He waited, letting his mind empty some more, letting himself relax.
He waited until he stopped shaking, until he could breathe almost normally again.
Better. Not great, but better.
Okay, Charlie, he said to himself. Think things through. Try to figure out what’s going on.
And with that thought, an image of Malcolm arose in his mind.
Good. Now what do you think is going on with him? he asked himself.
Malcolm. Charlie pictured the man in his mind’s eye sitting on the bedside with the reflections of raindrops running across his face.
Malcolm. The man who was the community’s main trainer. Who traveled the world, popping young witches. Whom Beverly leaned on for leadership and emotional support. He had encouraged Charlie to be true to himself if he wanted to become a full-fledged witch. The irony of it all made him want to scream.
No. Now’s not the time for screaming. That can be later. Just keep going.
A traitor. Charlie could barely get his mind around the idea that Malcolm had double-crossed Beverly and everyone else. How could he do such a thing? Didn’t he know how bad Grace was?
Charlie couldn’t make sense of any of it. Had Malcolm been on Grace’s side all along? Had everything been a lie? Why would he have encouraged Charlie to be brave enough to admit that he might be gay? Why would he have brought all the kids up to his cabin to train them to use witchcraft if he was a sellout? Why would he have popped the kids in the first place?
Had there really been a break-in at the Mossmans, or did Malcolm just make that up to get Beverly out of the house? So he and the other witches could kidnap Charlie?
“I mean, we all do the best we can with what we’ve been given,” Malcolm had said. What did that mean? That this was the best he could do? Letting Dog Man and Scissors Lady into the bedroom so they could steal Charlie away in the middle of the night?
His hard-won calm vanished as frustration and anger built inside of him at the thought of Malcolm turning against the community.
Red with rage, he kicked at the floor and then regretted it as waves of pain and nausea crashed over him. His nostrils sucked at the air in desperation, panic trying to take over again.
Charlie, knock it off. Get a hold of yourself.
An image of Rita Lostich swam before his eyes. He thought about how she encouraged him, how she would wink at him when he had mastered something new. He thought of how Beverly reminded him to breathe when he was about to try some new form of witchcraft. How Randall’s eyes danced when he joked with him.
Diego. He thought of how Diego smiled after they kissed. Charlie felt warmth fill his chest.
These were good thoughts. They didn’t necessarily tell him what to do, but he could see each person, almost as if they all stood in front of him, supporting him, loving him, wanting things to go well for him.
I want to see them again. I don’t want to die here.
The strength of this realization ran through his veins, emboldening him.
I am not going to die. I will see these people again. Neither Malcolm nor Grace will take these people away from me.
He wasn’t sure if it was true, but the courage these thoughts brought him was much better than the panic that sat almost like a bird perched on his shoulder, ready to peck at his eyes and his head.
He needed a plan. If he could somehow free his hands, he could remove the tape binding his mouth shut.
He pulled at the tape around his wrists, doing his best to keep his head still. Nothing happened. No wiggle room whatsoever. Then he tried his feet. The same results for the tape around his ankles. Maybe it was bewitched tape. All he knew was that he couldn’t get it to budge.
He tried to move his mouth, to find a way to get the tape away from his lips. But it only made it bind more tightly. And it made him breathe harder, which caused him to break out in a cold sweat, inviting the bird on his shoulder to start pecking, pecking …
Come on! Charlie told himself. You’ve got to do something.
He ran through the things he had learned in combat training with Rita and Daniel. They had taught him how to use weapons, how to call up spells that would protect or attack. Even ways to cloak himself, which could come in handy if he had to sneak around somewhere.
But they hadn’t taught him what to do if he found himself tied up in a dark room, nor had they said anything about his mouth being bound. Knowing that the Words were crucial for most forms of witchcraft, wasn’t this a gross oversight? Maybe they figured that if you found yourself unable to move your mouth you were, as he had heard Randall once put it, “Up shit creek without a paddle.” (“But don’t tell your aunt I told you that,” he could hear his uncle saying.)
What could he do to get out of here?
Any way he looked at it, he couldn’t come up with a single idea that might work.
“Ung!” He tried to scream in frustration, but the tape muffled it, turning it into a feeble grunt.
Just then, he heard a clicking sound.
A doorway opened nearby. Thin gray light spilled into the room where he lay on the floor, which now looked to be about the size of a small bedroom. A figure stood in the doorway. It remained motionless for several long moments.
As Charlie’s eyes adjusted to the pale light, he began to see more clearly. A pair of hands emerged from the center of the person’s body, lit by a small orange glow that was cupped between the
m. As the light became brighter, he saw the arms, upper body, and chin of a man, then hips, legs, shoes, and finally, a face.
It was Dog Man staring down at him. The same blond hair, the same conceited smirk.
“You awake?” the man asked.
Charlie didn’t move. For one thing, he couldn’t talk at all. And for another thing, Dog Man could go to hell.
“What’s wrong, kid? Cat got your tongue?” he laughed.
What was it with these people, Charlie wondered. Did they always say such corny stuff?
Dog Man walked over to him and set the warm orange glow on the floor about two feet from Charlie’s face. Then he kicked it, and the ball exploded into tiny fragments of light that surrounded Charlie, covering him in a gentle orange luster. It felt like warm air blowing over his skin.
Charlie’s arms relaxed, his shoulders stopped hurting, and the pain in his head simply seeped away like water down a drain.
“That should feel better,” Dog Man said.
He bent down and began to pry the tape away from around Charlie’s ankles. Charlie watched as the light near his feet changed from orange to pale blue. He found that even though his feet were free from the tape, they wouldn’t budge.
Next, Dog Man removed the tape at Charlie’s hands, and the light changed from orange to blue again. His hands were freed, but they stayed put, unable to receive the signals from his brain to move.
The orange light must have some sort of pain-relieving property, while the blue light acted as a binding spell. That would mean that if Dog Man were going to remove the tape from Charlie’s mouth, there might be a small window of opportunity before the glow surrounding his head changed color and bound him.
Charlie summoned the Words, letting the power build near his face, behind his head, so that when Dog Man yanked the tape off of his lips, Charlie’s mouth moved fast.
Two things happened at the same time.
The first was that the force of his Words flung Dog Man through the doorway. Charlie watched with satisfaction as his mouth formed a perfectly shocked “O” shape as he flew backwards. Just before he fell to the ground, however, he extended his arms and righted himself, landing squarely on his feet and shaking his head, making a tsk-tsk sound.
The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly Home: A Gay Teen Coming of Age Paranormal Adventure about Witches, Murder, and Gay Teen Love (The Broom Closet Stories Book 2) Page 18
