by Amy Simone
Cassie stood there. “I can’t. No shoes.”
He looked down at her bare feet. She still had on her evening dress. “That’s simple.” He zapped her into jeans and tennis shoes.
“Thank you.” She jogged, swiveling her head back and forth.
They looked for two hours, then the Coach suggested after their second pass they try a different strategy.
“What’s your kids’ favorite games? Movies?” he asked Cassie.
She listed several. All of them had to do with virtual realities and computers.
He snapped his fingers. “Got an idea! Follow me.”
He led her to one of the newer park rides, the Aavatar. Holding up his arms, he draped his cloak to shield her. In this configuration they became invisible and sneaked into the theater room that made up the ride room. As he let down his robe and they turned to look over the room, Cassie saw her two boys sitting side by side in the specialized pods. Each wore virtual reality glasses and were hooting and hollering. Off to one side, not in a seat but watching the boys intently stood the witch—Romilda, who she’d seen first at the library.
“I will kill you!” Cassie cried and lunged at her.
The witch side stepped her. “Ha!” the creature barked out. “They‘re doomed if they stay with you. You’d sell them in a heartbeat, anyway. You’re a no fun kind of gal!”
Cassie grabbed part of her cloak. The string around the neck of the garment prevented the witch from getting any further. Cassie tackled her to the ground, punching her in the head.
“And a bad mother,” the witch added in between strikes.
“Cassie, stop, stop!” she heard the Coach yell at her. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”
“She took my kids!” Cassie yelled. She grabbed the top of the cloak and twisted it tighter around the Romilda’s neck. “You bitch!” She gripped the surrounding apparition thin, bony waist and hauled her into one pod.
Then Cassie strapped arranged her limbs. She folded perfectly into the seat, making sure that the air bellows fit securely between her legs. She knew witches hated riding anything larger than themselves, such as dragons, yet they outfitted this ride to make the participant believe that was exactly what was going on. The air pillows fitted beneath and between her legs would mimic that situation exactly.
“You will die,” Cassie warned her. Romilda’s head lolled around on her shoulders. Cassie whipped the virtual reality goggles onto the woozy woman’s face.
The Coach grabbed Cassie’s shoulder, but she shook him off. Meanwhile, Caleb and Josh still enjoyed their private viewing experience of imagining they were riding a dragon and swooping up and around at hundreds of miles per hour through jungle flora. They remained unaware of what was going on outside of them.
Since she had the witch secured, she grabbed the Coach’s hand and led him out of the room up a stairwell to the control booth. A nerdy-looking ride engineer wearing dark-rimmed glasses sat in there reading a magazine.
“Fix it!” she yelled to the youth. “Make it so number seven has a ride nobody would ever want to go on!”
“I can’t do that,” the young man said.
Cassie pulled him out of his chair. “Coach, make him do something to her!”
“I can’t,” the Coach told her. “I’m a Controller. We can’t take part in this act. No killing.”
Cassie cursed and fixated on the number seven control board.
“I will do this,” she yelled. “The witch dies.” She punched the controls. Through a slanted window that overlooked the ride room, Cassie could see all the participants. Most of the kids and other riders were too overloaded, absorbed in their sensory perceptions. She saw the artificial hoses that ejected cool mists and scents into their faces and on their arms. If only she could include a toxic gas just to spray on this witch alone, she thought…
20
Sad Goodbyes
Romilda regained consciousness. Her hooded head was moving about slowly. Cassie was just mastering the levers and control panel for chair seven.
The ride pilot tried to wrench Cassie out of his seat. She elbowed him back. She looked at the Coach who was rubbing his hands nervously.
“Don’t do it, Cassie.”
She ducked her face lower and toggled levers, circling them, pushing and pulling on them. As a direct consequence to one lever, she saw the witch flinch and hump up her shoulders, then pinch her upper chest together as if somebody skewered her through her sternum.
“Good, I’m getting to her,” Cassie muttered.
Up and down Cassie made the reality of number seven change and shift. One second Romilda thought she was soaring straight up away from the earth’s surface, and then Cassie hit the next lever super hard which forced her to believe she was pummeling straight down like a rock. Circles, spirals, stalls, zips, wavers. All was fair game. The faster, the better. For the grand finale, Cassie took Romilda to the highest point the system allowed, then changed her mind and pushed the apparatus down on a crash trajectory to zero. Suddenly the witch’s head snapped back, as if she believed she’d hit the ground. In abject wonder Cassie, the Coach and the ride engineer watched as the cloaked figure of the witch got flaccid until all that remained was a pile of wool fabric clustered in the ride seat with the goggles lying on top. Her body deteriorated into nothingness.
“Yeah,” Cassie blurted out. She left the pilot’s post. He reluctantly returned her high five.
The Coach was still shaking his head side to side. He looked worried.
“I can’t stay anymore, Cassie. Otherwise I’ll get in trouble with my superiors. You’re on your own.”
“Coach. No. Don’t go. What will I do without you?”
He was already vaporizing.
Cassie had no choice but to leave the control room and hurry down to her sons. She tapped them on their shoulders so as not to surprise them.
“C’mon, let’s go,” she said as she leaned down to help them out of their seats.
“Mom, I’m having fun,” Caleb protested.
“We can come back another time,” she retorted. She quickly gave a look over of the room, searching for the Coach one last time. Everybody else was too self-absorbed. With a deft hand, she plucked the grey clothes up and tossed them in a garbage can.
“She was scary,” Caleb admitted. “I want to be an avatar!”
Josh kicked the garbage can as he walked by. “Bye bye, meanie!”
They exited out into the sun. The kids blinked their eyes as they readjusted.
Cassie realized she needed to get home. The Coach had left her. Disney Land was not where she wanted to be. She was still had to meet Caleb as he got off his school bus. Or would she stay suspended in this time and place forever more?
An elfish character approached the trio. “Need help?”
Thinking he was one of the paid staff for the park, Cassie shook her head negatively.
However, Josh tugged repeatedly on her hand. “He’s one,” Josh whispered to his mom.
Instantly Cassie understood. “Actually,” she said, leaning down to match closer to the small person’s stature, “we need a lot of help. We have to get home.”
The elf stroked his chin. “Home? Now that’s an interesting proposition. What do you mean by home?”
“Where we live, stupid!” Caleb burst out.
“Caleb! Don’t. This gentleman is trying to help us!”
Cassie looked up. It was if time had frozen still. The entire park-going crowd had stopped mid-stride.
Caleb noticed this too. “Mom is he a witch too?” he asked plaintively.
“Sir! I am Windwalker. A force for good. A light-hearted soul. Full of fun and lightness. Who are you?”
“Caleb.”
“We’re the Owens,” Cassie explained. “They brought here us under dubious circumstances.” The elf’s eyes seemed much older than his body for although he was lithe in his movements, his eyes looked like he’d seen centuries of life. His elongated ears po
inted up and backwards almost like thin wings. Whenever she spoke to him, he’d quickly prick his ears forward like a horse. “To answer your question, home for us is back in Lafayette,” she told him.
“Ah, you come from swampland.” He shuddered. “Be careful of the nutria. They carry the bad souls of eons.”
“Trust me, we don’t seek out nutria.”
He smiled. “Come, I will show you how to return.” Then, it was if someone turned a switch and the park populace was in motion again.
Cassie clutched her kids’ hands with a resolve to never let them go. As they followed the elf, she saw him greet certain other characters yet ignored others. Obviously a secret network existed.
“What is going on here?” she asked as he ushered them into a deserted cavernous building. “How many of you are there here?”
The elf opened his lips and silently mouthed “A lot” and then put an index finger up and told all to be quiet.
Cassie entered the dim expanse first, still clutching her kids along with her. What they saw awed them. It was like a secret panoramic forest scene, complete with an independent light source from somewhere distant.
Small fireflies dotted about the idyllic scene. Gerbil-like animals scurried about.
“It’s pretty,” the elf whispered, “but don’t be fooled. Stay on the path and don’t touch those animals.”
He led them to the center of the building. They now stood directly under a single beam of sunlight that descended through a hole in the roof from the outside.
“Goodbye, Owens family.”
Caleb and Josh waved to him. Cassie stepped out of the beam for a moment. “Before we go, where can I find others like you?”
“We are all about. Everywhere,” he told her. Then he pointed and motioned for her to rejoin her sons. and blew them a kiss.
“Stay well,” he said as he blew them a kiss. He raised an arm, a large thick wave of pure, sheer light larger than anything she’d seen from the Coach whipped out of his hand like a writhing snake. By the time its tip touched them, Cassie was prepared and held her kids’ hands even harder. She knew the feeling by now but her sons did not. The last thing she remembered is her sons screaming partly in fear and surprise.
21
Truck Tall Tales
When Ralph came to pick up his sons for their Wednesday night visit, he mentioned he’d had lunch with an old professor who had suggested a great riding instructor for Caleb.
“I really think we need to get Caleb doing something like that,” Ralph told Cassie.
Cassie chewed an end of her hair. She stood near the driver’s side door, talking with him in a low voice while they waited for the boys to clamor in.
“What about Josh?” she asked.
“He’s kind of young, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. Anyway, who’s the instructor?”
“He suggested this guy named Bob Breaux.”
“I met him once,” she admitted. “He came by the garage sale.”
“See what it involves,” Ralph said. “I think it’d be good for Caleb.”
The boys were now in the truck. Cassie heard Caleb tell his dad that “Mommy killed a witch at Disney Land.”
Ralph laughed. “Sure she did.” He looked at Cassie who just shrugged and turned to walk back to the house.
She waved goodbye. Ralph’s decision to sell the place was fine by her. The upkeep without a partner had gotten to be too much for her. She wanted to move to a place that didn’t require so much mowing.
On Thursday afternoon they would leave to ride up with Hayworth and Frank to see Frank’s Colorado cabin. It’d be a short trip. Hayworth was also planning a small wedding ceremony just before they left Lafayette for good. Charles, Ralph’s dad, had opted to travel down from Wyoming to have dinner with them that weekend. It was rare his grandkids would be so close.
Earlier in the week she’d called Annie to explain that she needed to find a real job and would quit working for her. After the casino fiasco, she was afraid to go anywhere near Greg or Annie. Annie tried to convince her to still drop by and visit and to bring her computer. Cassie declined.
She’d looked at the world with fresh eyes, trying to spot other world beings at red lights, in the grocery store, at the mall. So far she’d been afraid to touch her laptop, especially knowing that the Coach would not help her out if she got into trouble.
Still, she packed her computer at the bottom of her suitcase while getting ready for the trip. One never knew when it might come in handy.
Catherine’s husband needed to stay behind to work at the hospital so it was just all the kids that filled the car with their moms—Cassie and Catherine.
“I’ll drive as fast as I can,” Frank told them. “Made this trip many a time.”
“We have one request, mom,” Catherine announced, “please no smoking in the car for the sake of the kids.”
Hayworth grimaced but nodded and agreed.
Caleb as usual had his nose in a book, even using a flashlight so he could keep reading. They’d almost made it to Alexandria before he complained about his stomach hurting.
“Pull over, Frank, would you?” Cassie asked.
Normally placid Frank grumbled but did so. Caleb tried to vomit on the road shoulder.
“Maybe you should quit reading,” Cassie suggested to her son.
“I’m bored,” Caleb explained.
After three failed pull overs, and much discussion about Caleb’s stomach, Cassie feared he would really upchuck in the car. They made a pit stop at a fast food place. She finagled some plastic bags from one of the counter help and several paper towels. Sure enough, her son got sick.
“Oh, gross,” said Catherine’s oldest daughter. “Make him sit in the back,” she urged her mom.
The two mothers quickly cleaned up Caleb as best they could and convinced Frank to stop at a gas station so they could wash him off better. Frank wasn’t too happy about all the delays as he planned to drive through the night but admitted he was glad nothing got spilled inside his car. Cassie couldn’t help but notice that her mother lit up each time they halted.
“Mom, when are you going to quit smoking?” she finally asked Hayworth once they took a coffee break at two in the morning.
“I’ll try, dear. It’s just so hard.”
There in the bright, harsh light of the commercial bathroom, Cassie looked over at her mother who was washing her hands and reapplying her lipstick; then Cassie looked into the mirrors over the counter. Hayworth’s reflection was dimming, becoming less vibrant and almost disappearing before her eyes. Cassie caught her breath. Maybe that one mirror was dirty or scummed over. She blinked her eyes and all of her mother’s image was intact again.
Hayworth remained ever cautious about her appearance. Cassie had to admit that her mother looked good for someone in their seventies. Maybe the smoking had preserved her? She thought.
Her mother caught Cassie inspecting her.
“What is it, Cassie?”
“I will miss you, Mom—once you move.”
“No, you aren’t. You have so much to do with those boys. Plus, we wanted to bring you all with us—so you’d feel comfortable visiting us. Frank has such a roomy place. I think he lived there with his ex, though. I must expunge the place. Maybe sage it.”
Cassie smiled.
Catherine who was exiting a stall, joined them. “Sage it? Aren’t you being a little too New Age, Mother?”
Hayworth gave a wicked grin. “They also allow smoking grass in Colorado.”
Both daughters gasped.
“Mom!” they said in unison.
“I’m getting married, you two. I want to feel young again,” Hayworth exclaimed. She turned to go, still smiling. “You’ll never know what I’m up to if I’m twelve hundred miles away.”
Cassie and Catherine stared at each other.
“Wow!” Catherine said with an expulsion of air. “Just wow.”
“Who knew?” her sister agreed.
Once they arrived at the cabin itself, the kids ran about exploring the place while the adults decided who got which bedrooms. The first night there, Friday, Frank had some of his grown kids and their families meet them at a Mexican Restaurant. Ralph’s dad arrived in Ft. Collins mid-day on Saturday and called to let them know he’d made it. Cassie dreaded seeing Charles but knew she needed to remain upbeat and polite. In the past they had known him to be abrasive towards her and Ralph, his own son. He was ex-military and still bore traces of all that with his short crew cut and stiff bearing. It probably relieved Ralph he didn’t have to making this trip with her, regardless of the circumstances.
22
In Laws, Outlaws
Charles met them at Jax Fish House. He greeted everybody and was sure to sit near Caleb and Josh so he could hear what they had to say.
“This is a fine thing with you moving up here,” he told Hayworth and Frank. “Means I’ll get to see these boys more.”
“Sure hope so,” Hayworth told him. “That is if their parents will let them fly sometimes as they get older.”
“Cassie? How are you getting on?” he asked.
“Good,” she responded.
“After we get through here, I hope I could have a word with you.”
“Sure,” she said. Her heart plummeted, though. She was hoping to get out with no confrontations.
