Andrea sighed and closed her bedroom door behind her, throwing her school bag
onto her bed and then joining it as she fell onto her back to stare up at the ceiling.
She had spent another day terrified that the human-furnace was going to show
up, no longer feeling safe in the crowd of students all around her, knowing now
how powerless they were in comparison to the Hooded Man. With no effort at all,
he could make her and himself invisible, and that meant that he could just walk
into her school and kill her right there and then, as he could've before Julian
showed up. She tried to close her eyes and maybe sleep a little, but sleep had
come hard as of late, never something that arrived unless Andrea was dog-tired.
The last few days, she had spent most afternoons in her room, working out or
dancing to music, trying to exhaust her body so that when night came, Andrea
would shutdown as soon as her head hit a pillow.
It had worked the first night, but never quite so well after, her mind would not be
fooled the same way twice. And so Andrea opened her eyes and got up from her
bed, walking towards the wardrobe in the corner adjacent to the window and the
desk beneath it, pulling open the door to dig beyond her socks and find the diary
she kept in the back. It had hurt her some to have to stick over some of the pages
with new notes, but it was the only way to ensure that if whatever she hid were
found, her mother would respect her privacy enough to not read it.
And besides, Andrea thought as she pulled out her sixth grade diary, if she didn't
respect my privacy, she would've definitely read this by now….
She opened to the middle of the book where the new notes began, and carried
them to the bed to sit down and review. Andrea had, after hours and hours spent
trying to find any other solution, come to the conclusion that she was going
insane, categorically.
But, because that left her with nothing to do but accept her fate and await the
inevitable straightjacket and trip to the loony bin, she decided to act as if she
wasn't going crazy. That meant that Option B was the next best thing, which was
that superpowers were real, and far more terrifying than Marvel movies had
ever depicted them to be. Andrea was certain that, in addition to being able to
spit fire in the non-lyrical sense, her adversary was also able to make people
around her not see things, or see what he wanted them to see, which in terms of
advantages, left her absolutely fucked.
But then why couldn't he just make me see what he wanted? She wondered, jotting
that question down before she, in her everlasting fatigue, would forget it, it
would make kidnapping me to feed to the Source all the easier….
He had mentioned that he was using 'the fog', and him saying 'the Source' made it seem like it was something that could be done by others, not just himself.
Can I make the fog do things too? She wondered, but that was silly. Andrea had
never in her life thought superpowers were real, so her now all of a sudden being
able to use it would be impossible even if she could.
She sat there on her bed writing and reviewing and updating her notes, her
schoolwork sprawled out in front of her, but it was all for show, just in case her mother walked in. Andrea linked this fog and his fire ability to 'The Source' that
he had mentioned, just using context and logic there to put it together, which
confirmed her initial idea that these abilities couldn't be from him and him alone,
otherwise why would he need her to feed it and not just it come from within
himself?
It was a reach, but it was the only one that made sense to her at the moment.
Andrea had snorted as she reviewed what she wrote and saw 'Superman?!'
written next to the Source. It was her best way of explaining it to what she knew,
remembering how in the cartoon, Superman's powers came from the sun,
meaning anyone like him could also have powers just like him. Except in Andrea's case, Kryptonians were Alabaman hicks with shitty dentists and yucked up fire instead of shooting laser beams out of their eyes. And their sun needed teenage girls to be sacrificed to, instead of just, you know, being a fucking sun....
So superpowers were real, and came from a source that needed the lives of
sixteen-year-old girls to feed, and that people who control the fog can make
themselves invisible, or mess with other people's memories? That was as simple
as her obviously fracturing mind could make it. Andrea also remembered him
speaking Latin before he did anything crazy and supernatural, a skill she had
picked up thanks in large part to the fact that she had been hearing her mother
say Latin words since she was just a little girl.
Andrea had been too panicked to grasp exactly what he had said, but jotted down
that fact otherwise. Then there was Julian…. Who was able to see her when
nobody else could…
Julian, who had twice now appeared, and with said appearance the Hooded Man disappeared for a few days thereafter…
Julian, who had also mentioned that the strange man wore a hood, even though Andrea
had never brought up the hooded feature once in their conversation prior….
She became enraged with herself for not calling him out there and then, but she
had been so relieved to be saved that Andrea had let him slide.
Holy shit! The thought was crazy enough to make her almost cuss out loud, is
Julian secretly stopping the Hooded Man?!
Andrea got up from her bed, annoyed…. and excited (?)…. but mostly annoyed at
everything happening around her. She was excited, for Julian was real, the fog
had not removed him from her mother or Kaala's memories, and if he was real,
then everything else was as well. That meant that she was not in fact losing her
mind, yaaay, and that superpowers were real, and fuelled by teenage girls!
But of course, it was still a reach. Just because Julian was real did not mean that
everything else wasn't a figment of her imagination also. He could've just been so
hot that her mind had to focus on him and all his hunky glory.
"Fuck this!" She finally said, tired of the bullshit that had somehow surrounded
her as of late. Andrea opened her door and marched towards her mother's office
to get the answers she sorely needed, but stopped at the door.
Julian was a super powered freak, probably just as strong if not stronger than the
Hooded Man, considering the fact that the fog did not affect him and the Hooded
Man ran off twice whenever Julian entered the situation. It would also explain
him not instantly dismissing her as crazy as well. So that much, so long as she was no longer considering herself clinically insane, was clear. Yeah, swamp-water clear...
But it did not mean that her mother could be involved either, just because she was lying about her relationship with Mr Nerva. Andrea had assumed that their connection, Julian's and Momma's, was due to some long and distant past, but no. Julian shot his shot and had it batted down, simple as that. That was a good enough explanation, her
mother was a beautiful woman and Andrea had seen her swerve men a hundred
times before, even Andre, who she actually seemed to like…. But Andrea was not
all the way convinced now.
"I'm going to have to be clever about this…" she muttered to herself, taking a
deep breath before knocking on the door, "Hey Momma, mind if I pick your brain
a bit?"
Her mother looked up at her, her glasses on and her expression seemingly
relieved to have an excuse to take an unplanned break, "Sure thing, Baby. Come
on here and take a seat."
Andrea closed the door, which made no sense really considering that no one else
lived with them, before taking a seat across from her mother.
"So, I've been thinking about…. Sources."
Her mother raised an eyebrow at her, "Oookay, and what about them?"
"Like," Andrea thought out her words once over before just going for it, "I'm
having a little issue with this history essay. So I was wondering how one can
naturally, but also academically…. feed the source into the essay…."
She watched for her mother's reaction, which was blank for a moment before she
took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, "Andrea, baby, I don't think I quite
understand what you mean."
Andrea nodded her head and decided to press on, "Yeah, I know. It's just that, I'm
writing an essay on the effects the fog of war can have on soldiers, and I was
wondering how to use the source to explain the fog."
Andrea watched her mother closely as she sat there, her expression something
altogether unreadable, "Hmmm…. Well, depends on the type of source, Andrea. If
it's a quote then the best way would be to take the portion of it most relevant to
your topic, for instance, and best relate it to the point you're trying to make. But
again, you're being unnecessarily vague."
Andrea decided to push on and snapped her fingers, "Thank you! That was what I'd thought, but when I asked Mr Nerva about this earlier when I saw him, he started talking…. Weird."
And there it was, a moment, a split second of give away that solidified what
Andrea had always known deep down. Her mother knew Julian, and it was not
just from work.
"Weird…. How?"
Andrea got up from her seat, her shoulders rising and falling, "I don't know, I
could barely understand him. Said something about 'needing Latin to use the
Source' or some other trash he was going on about. I think he was coming from a
legal perspective, you know, he is a court clerk after all. I doubt he'd lie about something like that. Anyways, thanks for the advice, Momma, I'll leave you to it."
Her mother strained a smile into appearing, "Sure thing, Andy Baby."
Andrea closed the door behind her and risked listening in by pressing her ear
against the door, unable to hear the specifics, only that her mother was on the
phone with somebody, and sounded especially furious.
Julian…
She ascended the stairs to her room slowly, her head spinning as everything in
her life that she had thought that she knew was absolutely falling apart.
Superpowers and fogs and hooded men being dragons on the down low…. It was
all beginning to get too much. Worse yet, her mother was somehow apart of all
this craziness. Andrea was still unsure of how, but she knew that it involved
Julian Nerva, whose entrance into their lives had coincidentally, but not really
coincidentally, coincided with the emergence of all this bullshit and wacky
craziness that Andrea was now caught up in.
She laid down on her bed and stared up into the ceiling, wondering if she had
been anywhere else but at Remi's on that Saturday night, maybe her life wouldn't
be as fucked up as it was now. Andrea turned and curled into a ball and felt
herself begin to sob, realising that she would now have to live a life never
knowing if some other person with superpowers would show up and make
everyone who ever knew her forget about her, and take her away to be fed.
Andrea resolved to tell her mother tomorrow when she got back from school
certain that if she did not, the heaviness of it all would crush her. Her sobs began
to quiet down as she drifted off into a heavy sleep. At least in her dreams, she
was a normal girl again, with an attorney mother and a small but close group of
friends that Andrea had always loved, but now cherished all the more, now
knowing that they could be taken away from her in an instant.
She came downstairs to find her mother sipping her coffee with a bowl of cereal
next to her, staring out the window by the sink with her back towards Andrea.
"Morning Momma." She said, daring to come closer despite her nerves to give her
a quick peck on the cheek, "Hope you slept alright."
"Not a wink." Her mother said as she dumped out the rest of her coffee into the
sink and rinsed it away down the drain, "Andrea…. Now that you've slept on it,
maybe you can tell me more on what Julian had told you."
Andrea was on the tips of her toes, leaning to fetch a box of Captain Crunch at the
top of the cabinet before pouring some of it into her cereal, "Like I said, Momma,
he was going on about some Latin garbage. Whatever sense it made to him was
lost on me. If I do remember anything that does make sense, I promise to tell
you."
Her mother turned, and Andrea could now see the full extent of her damage. Her
eyes were sunken by fatigue, and the skin around them was darkened. Her hair,
usually well kept even at its most curly and freed, was now stray and
dishevelled, as if she had been struck by lightning or something. Her mother had
always looked amazing for her age, to the point that some people would go so far
as to assume that she was her older sister. But now, Antonina Bordeaux looked
every bit of her thirty-seven years old, and the sight of it made Andrea sick with
guilt.
"You promise?" her mother whispered, and Andrea nodded her head, "I
promise."
Her mother opened up and stretched out her long arms, beckoning Andrea to
receive a hug that she did not quite deserve, wrapping her up and kissing her on
the forehead, "I have never known you for a liar, Andrea Bordeaux, and so I don't have a reason to doubt you. But words, especially promises, are powerful…. Never forget that."
Andrea nodded her head, "Yes ma'am."
She finished her cereal as quickly as possible, keeping up appearance rather than
actually being hungry, before departing for school lest the guilt consumed her
and she broke down crying again. Andrea waved at Jenna and her little boy,
Devon, before turning to the corner to find her uber waiting, opening the door
and entering it to greet the driver. She felt her phone buzz and pulled it out to
see a message from Kaala, 'U been down the whole week, so Briar n Amari have
arranged a day out into the Quarter, if u're down….'
Andrea was tempted to say yes and at least have something in her life to look
forward to, but that was not possible…. Words are powerful….
She had promised her mother that she would tell her more, and she had resolved
herself to telling her mother the truth of it, all of it, and that could not wait or be
put off any longer, no matter how much Andrea wished to just be young and
carefree again.
'Can't.' she almost sent the message, but looked over her recent chat history and
saw that she had been spamming one word replies as of late, and realising it
made her already sickening guilt worse, 'Have something to do at Bordeaux. But
tomorrow, I'm all ur's baby!' Andrea even went so far as to put a heart emoji
before sending the text. She was relieved to see the heart emoji returned to her,
and decided to put her phone away.
The day went by as most had that last week, Andrea sat at a desk of one of her
many classes, gazing out the window to make sure that her enemy, the Hooded
Man, did not choose today of all days to finally stop messing around and end it.
It was times like these that she had wished that she had somehow taken down
Julian's number, to contact him should the worse come to pass. Andrea would
spend most of the forty-five minute long lesson in her head, with either a
teacher's question or the school bell pulling her out of it.
"You running out on us?" She heard Austin's deep voice call out to her, turning
around to see his pretty and angular face looking down at her, that cheeky smile
of his blinding her like a ray of the sunlight through an opened curtain.
"Yep," she said, returning the smile, "Can't be going out with the captain of the
baseball team after they blew it in the ninth inning the other day."
Austin feigned hurt, "Damn Andy! You woke up and decided to choose violence,
huh?"
She shrugged, "It be like that, nothing personal kiddo. Just got an image to
maintain."
"Well, we have a game this weekend. Say, if I hit a homerun, you come out with
us after the game. Derek's parents are out of town, and I'd really like it if you
came to the party."
Andrea internally did a dance, but tried to play it cool on the outside, "Hmmm….
What you batting this season?"
His smile grew, "A buck above four-hundred. A down season, I know."
"Alright then, you have yourself a deal."
He shook her hand before kissing the back of it, igniting Andrea's cheeks as he
walked away, having had the audacity to be so dreamy. Kaala spooked her with her laugh, "Is this what you've been hiding from us?" she wiggled her caterpillars, "Mr Baseball-Player?"
Andrea gasped, "That's Captain Mr Baseball-Player to you, Ms Unathletic."
Kaala laughed again and hugged her fiercely as if it were the first time they had
seen each other that day, despite having greeted each other and sat next to one
another at lunch, "I'm glad you're feeling more yourself, Andy." She said, her
smile a genuine show of warmth, "Life isn't quite the same without you and your
terrible, and I mean terrible, jokes. I'm actually sad without them."
"Hi Actually Sad Without Them, I'm Andrea."
Kaala laughed until she snorted, "Like I said, terrible. Walk me to Bio?"
Andrea looped her arm through Kaala's and the two started walking down the
hallway, "I'd walk you anywhere."
"Even down the aisle?"
"And replace me as the love of your life? I'd sooner walk you into traffic."
The day picked up from there, and the normality of it all had done her heart a
world of good. By the time she had said goodbye to her friends and got into the
uber to head to her mother's practice, Andrea felt ready and rejuvenated.
Tell Momma, get her to get Julian to come and kill the Hooded Man, marry Julian's
younger and better looking brother, Simple! She thought. The plan, was
simply put, airtight.
Phone still in hand, she started to type, 'On the way Ma, will—'
"Hello there, Lil Spitfire."
The voice was one that felt like a hand had her spine in a vicelike grip.
Andrea tried to open the doors, but they were locked, and so she decided to bang
her fists against the window to call for help. He laughed at her attempts, "Come
now, ya know I ain't gon' let anyone just come in here 'n interfere in our lil
rematch."
Andrea ignored him as she tried to kick the window out with both her feet, over
and over again.
He sighed and turned, wearing shades and a Rangers hat, "Aight then lil lady, you
got two choices before ya. Either stop behavin' all borin' n frantic like, or I bind
ya up real nice 'n good like I did the last time, 'n get this over 'n done with in an
exhale, ya privy?"
Andrea kick one last time in defiance before sitting back up straight, "One
request."
He grinned at her, looking like a perverted crack fiend at a strip club, "For a
pretty gal like ya self? Anythin'."
"Kill yourself!"
"Welp, almost anythin'."
Andrea gritted her teeth, trying not to give into the fear she could feel lurking
beneath the surface of her rage, "Drive, I don't want to do this outside of my
school."
He grinned one last time before turning back around, "See? Now ya bein'
reasonable. Ain't see why you 'n I can't be friends."
She said nothing as the car began to move, turning onto the road and heading
into town as if it were any other ordinary uber.
"Why me?" Andrea heard herself ask, furious at the warm trail of tears she felt
finally spill out and trickle down her cheek.
"Awww, none of that now, darlin'. Listen, no hard feelings, promise. It's business,
a man's gotta eat, not all of us are so clever as to get into some fancy school."
"If its money that you want, why cant you just use the fog to get it from some rich
people?" She asked, ashamed in the fact that she was a few minutes away from
begging for her life.
He laughed, "Can't, rules against all that."
That made her angry to hear, that this sicko was willing to follow rules but yet
was in the midst of kidnapping her to murder her, "But what about kidnapping
teenage girls to feed to your… whatever the fuck its called."
"Can, no rules against all that." He laughed, looking at her through the rear-view
mirror, "Not particularly encouraged 'round our circles, I won't lie. But it's a
necessary evil, ya see. People who're touched by the source, out in the wild…
they can be a lil dangerous to leave out there."
I'm…. touched?
She realised that her phone was still in hand, her message to her mother still
unsent. Andrea repeatedly hit the delete button and typed in 'help, source-feeder
took me.' behind her back, pressing send and hoping against hope that she'd be
able to find her.
"Julian will find me…." She played her penultimate trump card, the one that did
not make her look like a pathetic child operating way over her head. That did
make him hesitate a moment before he finally just shrugged at her, "I'mma
heavyweight, say so wit absolute confidence. But that fella! Damn me if he ain't
just all together a different class. Still, even he ain't so heavy as to get all the way
out here in time, gots me a man from Tennessee whose stallin' him. That man right there the sort of defence that can win championships, I tell ya what!"
He drove for a handful more minutes before he began to slow down, "This is a
good enough place, I think."
He pulled the car over in some other neighbourhood that Andrea knew to be
Fairbanks, an upper-class residence that she drove by often, either with an uber
or Kaala's dad dropping them off.
"Out." He said, giving her the time to type in Fairbanks before closing her phone
and putting it in her pocket, getting out the car and closing the door behind her.
For a second, she was tempted to take her chances and run, but thought better of
it. He'd just freeze her in place again and kill her quicker; she needed to buy
some time if a rescue was on its way.
"If money is what you want, then I can probably get you that cash." She offered,
watching him take a seat on the sidewalk. He pulled out a cigarette and put the
opposite of the bud end in his mouth before pulling it out, the end smoking. He
took a drag and held it out to offer it to Andrea, who shook her head.
"Good call. I plan to get this done by the time I'm done wit this here cig, all you'd be
doin' is quickenin' ya death."
"Could say the same for you and smoking." Andrea muttered, surprisingly
calm about her impending doom. That made him laugh, but not the kind of evil or
maniacal laughter she was used to from him, it was a lot more real and genuine,
more emphasis on the 'man' rather than the 'hooded' part.
He stood and wiped his hand on his camo-print pants before stretching out his head, "I
know it ain't conventional doin' things in this order but…. I'm Jeremiah Rigs."
She sighed and shook the hand, it was shockingly cold, "Andrea Bordeaux, but
you already knew that."
He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged, "Yeah well… part of the job. Ya got
any questions 'fore we do this thing?"
She had a million, but resolved herself to just this one, "Can you just use some
superpower of yours to keep me sleeping when you take me to this Source thing
to be fed? I don't want to die…. Afraid, I guess."
He sighed and nodded his head, "Fair, fair. Ya know, this was a lot easier when
you were just some preppy kid from a fancy school. That'away I coulda blame it
on the Gods 'n some bad luck…."
She sat on the sidewalk and took the cigarette from his mouth, a part of her
wanting to get this over and done with sooner. Andrea took her first pull of a
cigarette and instantly regretted it, coughing up the smoke that had burned her,
her mouth now tasting like she'd had an ashtray for dinner and was burping the
taste back up. He clapped her back lightly to help her before she could finally
take a deep inhale, "Hey, want to know something dumb?"
He took back the cigarette and smiled, "Sure."
"I was going to attack you, but like…. with Latin, or some shit like that."
He chuckled without malice, "Still can, if ya wanna give it a go?"
Andrea outstretched her palm towards him, "In infernis ardefet!"
That made him laugh all the more, "You're a hoot, Andrea Bordeaux. But no, that
wasn't gonna work on me none, sorry."
She sighed and shrugged, "I know, I know. A hail mary. I don't even know if I got
superpowers like that."
"Magic."
"Huh?"
He took off his shades, and the green eyes that looked like a raging fire that
threatened to burn everything around them the last time she saw them, looked
like a cool pool of water now.
"It ain't superpowers, like in 'em superhero movies. It's magic, energy we take
from the source 'n use out here in the real world. Ain't no lab experiment gone wrong or any of that there nonsense."
"Huh…." Was all she could say, still a little proud of herself for having figured some of it
out, "And how come I can't do magic? Since I'm touched, or whatever."
"No manifestation symbol." He said, taking his last pull before throwing the bud
down and stepping on it, the smoke exhaled into the air, several feet high,
"Partin' gift, so I'll show ya. Revelate…"
Andrea watched in awe as he snapped his fingers and a book appeared in that
very same hand, a book of black that had a weird rune on its cover, the rune
moved and flowed as if a stream of lava formed the shape, "I'mma show ya the
big one. It's called Ingressum in anima, entry into the soul or whatever. Ain't nothin' in the arsenal that hit like this one, darlin', I tell ya what."
Andrea felt tears stinging her eyes again. The world of magic had been there the
entire time, a whole new world that could have been one she knew and explored
herself, but was teased and shown to her, kept at bay just enough to bring her in
to fuel it. This could've been me, she thought, staring at a now standing Jeremiah, brimming and glowing with a red and orange aura that had once been frightening and
terrible to her, but was now the most beautiful thing that Andrea had ever seen.
"Would you allow me into yours?" she whispered, and he nodded his head, "A fair
final request. If I'mma show ya somethin', might as well be fantastic wit it. Fumus
salutat eos qui caput ilico ubi draco dormit, ma animus!"
There was a sizzling sound, like if someone dropped some bacon into a hot pan,
before the world darkened and was reborn within the blink of an eye.
Andrea stood up, the heat from beneath her had her sweating, and the sidewalk
that she had been sitting on was now a row of brimstone. Steam was
everywhere, and the beautiful houses that had been behind them were replaced
by hordes of gold and silver stacked into piles several times her height. She
looked back at him and gasped, seeing a dragon stood behind him as tall as a
house, it's golden slit-eyes staring down at her. His own eyes looked much the same,
and his forked tongue, now as long as her forearm, flicked out of his mouth to
taste the air.
"Welcome to my sssoul, Andrea Bordeaux." He hissed, the red dragon behind him
speaking in time with him, as if they were one, "It'sss time to go to ssssleep now, darlin'."
She closed her eyes, the tears flowing again, but this time they were accompanied
by a smile on her face, the heat was not overwhelming, but rather soothing and
warming to her spirit. Like a warm bath after a long and cold day. If she had to go,
Andrea could not imagine a better way than this.
"Judicium! Squamae nihil sciunt nisi fas et nefas, notre animus!"
Andrea opened her eyes, hearing a gavel come down three times, and the world
turned and changed once more. She now stood in front of a crowd of people with
no faces, silhouettes that moved and acted like people, dressed in clothes straight
out of some movie set in the Antebellum south. In the background were sloping
hills covered in fields of golden wheat and barley, some had the brown rows of
soil specked green with cabbages and carrot tops and lettuce.
In the far off distance were the silhouettes of small buildings made of wood. She turned her eyes to face where the crowd was pointed at, and Andrea gasped, watching
Jeremiah strain to fight against the noose that a group of large shadows was
manoeuvring around his neck, "What in the hell?!" he shouted, his words
struggling to come out of his mouth as the noose tightened round his own neck,
his face quickly turning red as his veins popped out against his skin.
The crowd began to cheer as a boy and his father took up the other end of the
rope and threw it over a tree branch, waiting for Jeremiah to be forced onto a milk
crate as they went about tying the other end of the rope around the base of the
tree until Jeremeiah was forced up onto his toes to stop the choking, the cheering
becoming ever louder as Andrea felt a hand wrap around her shoulders. She
looked up to see her grandmother, dressed in a beautiful dress of black, the same
type of attire that the shadows in the crowd wore, "Granny…."
Her grandmother looked down at her, the complete opposite of what she had
looked like the last time Andrea had seen her before her passing, three whole
years ago. She was younger, more refreshed and…. Powerful. Andrea could feel it
standing next to her, her knees began to shake and she felt a queasiness come
over her that almost made her hunch over.
"Be strong." Her grandmother told her, and Andrea nodded her head, straining to
stand up straight. Were it not for her grandmother's words, Andrea would have
passed out from seeing her mother stood up top of a dais, dressed in a strange
hybrid of 18th century wear and Africanised clothing. Her crowning black hair
was furrowed so that it spread out around her head like a peacock's tail, and around her head sat a bronze circlet that shone brightly and coupled well with her complexion and eyes. None of the fatigue Andrea had noted earlier on was present, and she was in fact
the opposite, strong and powerful, that face now had a crescent moon made from
white and black dots that formed a semi-circle in the middle of her forehead.
From her ears dangled earrings with small tusks carved out of bone tied to the
end, and around her neck was another bronze band that did not quite close and
meet. From the neck down was a black dress that looked like the same 1700's
style as her grandmother's, except that it was patterned like the webs of a spider,
meeting in the middle of her chest where a brochure of the fleur-de-lis was
outlined. But for as strange as it was to see her mother like that, the man sat
upon the wooden throne was far and away the creepiest thing that Andrea had
ever seen. He was dressed with nothing but a piece of cloth held down around
his waist by some hemp rope. His long abdomen had ribs poking through skin
that was flaky and dry and dirty, and his long arms, all four of them, seemed able
to reach out anywhere and grab anything he so desired. He had as many legs as
he did arms, and his neck was just as queerly long, resulting in a round head that
had a hideous face upon it, his beard was scruffy and his greasy hair was a mess of
knots and curls that had feathers and leaves sticking out of it. But none of it, not
the eight limbs or hideous face or Cheshire cat smile that was filled with rotting
teeth, was as upsetting as the many eyes that dotted his face. They were black empty orbs that had a gleam in them, and even though there were no irises in sight, Andrea
could not shake the feeling that he was looking right at her.
To the deformed man's left stood another, a tall and big man who had a torn shirt and pants scuffed by dirt, his one shoe in a terrible state, and the other not being there at
all. His face was beaten and bloody, his lips swollen and his nose bent in three
different ways, and one of his eyes was beaten shut and was swollen as a baseball.
In the one eye that was visible to her, Andrea saw hatred of the purest kind, for
the man seated, for her mother, for anything that lived and breathed. Her mother
stepped forward and began to behave as if she was in court, this time speaking in
a French so complex that Andrea could only ever make out the third or fourth
word of each sentence. Andrea was too terrified to focus on the dais, and so instead looked around as all the silhouettes were beginning to morph into people. Some were white, a handful were Native American, and there was even a Latin man present. But it was the person next to her grandmother who made Andrea's heart skip a beat, "Uncle Armand?"
Her uncle, his hair trimmed short on the top and even shorter on the sides, did
not react, his focus still entirely on the woman orating in a language she thought
that she had known but did not understand now. But eventually, he turned to
look at her, his expression one of pain, "You shouldn't be here, Andrea."
"Hush now, Armand." Her grandmother said back, "This is her birthright. Now ya
get to be a Bordeaux in earnest, baby. Ya momma and her selfishness be
damned!"
Andrea focused forward as her mother seemed to be nearing the end of her prosecution, unsure of why some in the crowd were shedding tears, and even more confused as to why she was too.
"Le jugement…." Her mother turned towards the man seated upon the throne and
he grinned, his long legs pulling him up to stand as he prepared to give his
verdict, "Guilty!"
All eyes turned and looked up at Jeremiah, who was screaming now, fire erupting
from his eyes, but it might as well have been sparks from an outlet plug for all
the good that it had done.
The man to the dirty creature's left, for the first time since Andrea had been
there, showed anything other than anger as he smiled, "Que dieu ait pitie de votre
ame…."
The little shadow, now a little black boy with neat curly hair, wide nose and pair
of brown eyes, ran forward to joyfully kick the milk crate from out under Jeremiah, his already red face began to turn purple as his legs kicked about violently, his hands bound behind his back by invisible rope as tears rushed from out his green eyes. Spittle and foam began to pour out from his mouth as his eyes got wider and wider until one popped outside of his head and hung out in front of his face like an Angelfish's light. All around him the crowd was chanting and cheering, and one member even threw something that sounded like glass breaking and ignited the tree, and the crowds cheer grew loud enough to the point that everything around them was beginning to shake, and the cheers were soon being drowned out by laughter from something that she could only imagine as being the purest form of evil. And just as Andrea felt like the world was falling apart, she found herself stood next to her mother, dressed in her navy blue denim jeans and green work blouse, her hair just as frazzled as this morning, and the bags around her eyes even worse. A stream of blood rushed from down her mother's one nostril as she slammed shut the book in her hand. It was royal blue in colour, with the fleur-de-lis on a black eight-legged spider upon it in its centre, black as
night but outlined in gold. Andrea looked a few feet towards where Jeremiah
should have been standing, but all that remained was his spellbook, burning
quickly before its remnants were blown far away by some mysterious wind, all that remained of him now was the cigarette bud and the car. Her mother smiled at her, her eyes glossy and her lips pale, "Andy Baby…. Are you okay?"
"Momma!" Andrea screamed as she moved to catch her, the weight bringing her
to her knees, but she had done enough to cushion her mother's head in her lap
during the fall. She pulled out her phone and called 9-1-1.