Act I: A Victim of Happenstance
Once upon on a
time on a creepy little hill there sat a creepy little house with a creepy
little tree that had an old, creaky swing hanging from it. Inside of that house
lived three individuals; Rachel, an intelligent blonde-haired woman in her
later twenties, was the first of them and the legal owner of the house. She had
a doctorate in folklore and a best-selling book on the supernatural and due to
her notoriety in her field often guest lectured at universities. Her younger
brother Adam, a silent young man, was the second resident. He kept his hair
closely cropped to his head, much preferred sports over the paranormal, and was
known to have a quick and bitter tongue, something he had developed after the death
of his and Rachel’s father five years prior when he was thirteen. Finally,
there was the third resident— Kristjan. Kristjan was a man in his late-twenties
who always wore black as if in mourning, and who was neither dead nor alive— he
was somewhere in-between. As Kristjan enjoyed saying whenever the subject was
brought up in conversation, he was merely a “victim of happenstance,” and left
it at that.
It
was a dark and dingy Tuesday that looked as though it should have been made out
of clay, and said day was greeted by the eerie opening of the creaky front
door. Apprehensively a rather tall man stepped through the entryway into the
lives of Kristjan, Rachel and Adam. The almost sickly thin man ran his hand
through his thinning black hair; in his faux sickness was the fading appearance
of youth and innocence. Kristjan sat at a wooden desk covered in books and
papers near the front door. Kristjan’s crisp cerulean eyes met the man’s dull gray
ones.
“How
can we help you?” Kristjan asked, his voice solemnly smooth and his speech
direct. Rachel wandered in from the other room carrying an old leather
grimoire. Kristjan kept his watchful gaze on the tall, sickly man.
“My
name is Wallace Moorcroft. I, uh, well, from what I’ve heard, this is the house, correct? You three are… I
mean to say, the house wasn’t here the other day so it must be.” Wallace
glanced nervously down at the ground. A pristine and well-practiced smile crossed
Kristjan’s face. He was in terribly amused. Rachel directed Wallace to a chair
so he could sit.
“You’ve
heard correctly. We deal with everything supernatural.” Kristjan set his hands
down on the desk in front of him, clearing away some of the clutter.
“Good,
good.” Wallace fidgeted, playing with his charcoal colored coat. He had a hard
time finding the right words to say.
“Don’t
fret. Take your time.” Rachel said with the slightest hint of a southern accent,
setting down the book she had been holding onto the desk. She turned her head,
her tawny mane of hair flowing untamed. She shouted out, “Adam! Adam, come in
here. We have a client!”
“So?”
Came the grouchy reply from another room.
Rachel
shut her eyes tight and nibbled on her upper lip, revealing her lack of
patience for her brother’s attitude. “Adam, if you don’t get out here I’ll
cancel all the sports channels!”
“You—why—
why would you do that?” Adam’s voice lacked the southern twang of Rachel’s, but
did have a little bit of resentment drizzled on top. “I don’t care if nobody
else watches them I earn those channels doing the housework!”
“Actually,
I watch curling sometimes.” Kristjan piped in. Wallace looked a lot more
uncomfortable than he had moments earlier.
“Not
a real sport, Kristjan!” Adam yelled out.
Rachel
brushed a hand through her hair, and had Wallace been looking up he probably
would have thought it looked like her hair was eating her hand it was so thick.
“Adam, remember when you were in the fifth grade and—”
“Stop
it, I’m coming!” Adam’s response this time came in a southern accent. This, of
course, left Rachel with a large smile on her face and Kristjan with a thinning
one. Kristjan brought out his wallet and withdrew a few bills, handing the
money to Rachel who snatched them from his hand and shoved them in her pocket.
It was a little
game of theirs, seeing who could get Adam riled up enough to slip into the
southern drawl he tried desperately to cover up with a neutral, dreary tone.
Adam, wearing a
plain white tee and some jeans but no shoes drudged himself into the living
room where the others sat, rubbing his hand over his head. “I hate you.”
Rachel
smiled sweetly. “Was that really so bad?” She turned to give Wallace a proper
once-over. “We’ll do our best with whatever it is you need from us. Now what’s
the problem?”
“I’m
being haunted by a phantom. I’d like you to, you know, get rid of him for me.” Wallace’s head did not move from its
uncomfortable downward slant but his eyes did shift to stare at Kristjan, who
gracefully tilted his head down.
“Phantoms
don’t haunt humans, they haunt places. What did you do to piss him off?” Rachel
inquired, intrigued. She placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder trying to get
him to loosen up, but Wallace was the one who was truly tense.
“It
already sounds like too much trouble. Just let the thing kill him.” A sulking
Adam was never good company, but a non-sulking Adam was hardly much better. Adam,
who was more of a ‘sensitive’ than Kristjan or Rachel, was picking up peculiar
signs from Wallace. Rachel’s grip became a steel claw, digging into Adam’s
shoulder. He held back a cough of shock.
“How
long has it been hanging around you?” Kristjan’s head perked up, and with a
swift motion he ran his fingers through his soft blonde hair.
“A few days,
maybe.” Wallace chewed on his lip and changed his answer. “Closer to a week.”
“A week? How’ve
you kept it away?” Adam looked a little skeptical; in his opinion, if Wallace
had lasted that long then he probably didn’t need their help.
“I’ve been using salt
at the entrance of my apartment to keep him out at night.” Wallace slunk back
in his chair, finally moving his neck back and stretching it. He continued on
with a sigh, opening up the collar of his neck to reveal Chinese characters drawn
on his skin with marker. “I wrote some sutras on my body that hides me from the
spirit, but it only fools him for so long. I’m not an expert, this isn’t
something I dedicate my life to. I’m in med school, I only dabble in these
things, the supernatural.”
“That’s the heart
sutra. There’s a story about a monk who painted the sutra all over his body to
hide himself from a spirit but forgot to cover his ears, so the spirit took
them. Ridiculous mistake on his part, honestly. It looks like you’ve got the
first few characters a little messed up.” Rachel let go of Adam’s shoulder to move
closer and get a better look at the characters.
“Do
you have his name?” Kristjan asked. His voice had gone dark, and soft.
“Whose name?”
“The phantom’s
name.” Every word escaping from Kristjan’s pale lips left an empty void in the
air. Wallace looked at Kristjan, sighing again, heavily this time. “It’s very
important that you tell us.”
“P.
Darwin Yeates. Why?”
“It’s
easier to exorcise ghosts if we have their name.” Adam had broken his silence,
looking more perturbed with Wallace every second.
“I’m
still not sure why…” Wallace was starting to break free of the dark charm of
Kristjan’s spoken words, annoyed that he had to reveal the phantom’s name. He
clutched the fabric of his pleated pants.
“I’m
getting to that. One must always be patient; otherwise you end up like my great
aunt Chestina.” Kristjan didn’t bother elaborating. “Names are the most
important words of all, more important than the words in your fancy sutras or
our fancy grimoires. They’re bound to us even in death. If we know a ghost’s
name, we can use it in a spell. Doing that binds the ghost completely allowing
us to perform a quick, painless exorcism without being interrupted.”
“I
see. Thanks for the explanation.” Wallace frowned. He looked like a very
confused old man.
“You
look like some students I’ve had. What didn’t you get?” Rachel touched her
elongated fingers to her hair, trying in vain to push it behind her ears. She
arched her delicate eyebrows.
“Doesn’t
matter, it won’t do him any good to know.” Adam took some pleasure in Wallace’s
confusion; this was all relatively simple to him, and for once he wasn’t the
person who knew the least about the supernatural in the room.
“Ignore
Adam.” Kristjan smiled, even laughed a little. “We’ll help you. Is there
anywhere specific you’d like us to meet so we can deal with the phantom?”
Wallace
finally looked a little happier. “I have an exam in the morning that I need to
focus on right now. Meet me tomorrow night in the alleyway behind The Flaming
Pickle, the bar in mid-town Strawberry Fields.” He got up and headed for the
door.
“We’ll
meet you there at sundown. Don’t die.” Adam said snippily. Wallace walked out
of the creepy little house.
In the dark and
dingy alley Adam waited with Kristjan, sitting with his back against the brick
wall of the pub called The Flaming Pickle. He didn’t understand why it was
named that, and he didn’t care. He found the people who visited the place to be
rather annoying with their boisterous banters that they shouted with their
drinks in hand. He had too much to baggage, old and new, to deal with to worry
about anyone else and their stories that he never once found interesting. Adam
looked over at Kristjan who was standing beside him in the chilly air with his black
sport coat buttoned all the way up. Rachel had run out of the house wearing her
pencil skirt and a red blouse presumably on her way to a late lecture at
Strawberry Fields University, hence her absence. As she left she assured the
two boys that they would be able to handle the job themselves, which was true,
but Adam did not appreciate it; Kristjan made him uncomfortable whenever they
were on a case. It was one part the grimy gray nature of his words when he
would talk business and one part Adam himself, and his natural born ability
outside of casting magic.
Any supernatural
entity that Adam touched with his bare hands would grow flowers. The flower
would slowly drain away the energy that kept the ghost in the living world, and
once the energy was fully drained the ghost was exorcised and sent to the Afterlife.
The flowers would often times multiply on their own, turning into a stunning rouge
bouquet of spider lilies, each flower or group of flowers connected by thin
vines and roots. There was, as far as Adam and Rachel knew, no way to remove
the flowers once they had grown. Adam wasn’t sure if touching Kristjan would
cause a flower to grow on him or not, and he was unwilling to find out for as
much as Kristjan could bother him, he was growing on Adam. He wanted Kristjan
to stay— Adam was tired of people coming and going from his life. Though he
planned on leaving this life behind soon to go to college, he wanted Kristjan
to be there to keep his sister company even if she was often busy researching
and teaching. He wanted more of a family to come home to on vacations. He
wanted someone to take the place of his father.
“Adam, if you keep
your head in the clouds you’ll miss everything that’s about to happen, and
you’ll regret it. Regrets turn us into what we fight.” Adam’s foggy eyes
cleared up from his train of thought and for a fleeting moment he thought about
how Kristjan’s words sounded thoughtful, genuine. It was like Adam’s father,
and Adam wished Kristjan sounded like that more often.
Adam began to
focus on the mission at hand. They were there to exorcise the phantom P. Darwin
Yeates from Wallace Moorcroft. Yeates. Darwin.
P!
Adam realized too
late that they lacked information they had neglected to get the day before; the
meaning of the P. in the phantom’s name. Adam opened his mouth to tell Kristjan,
but before so much as a sneaky little sound could creep out of his mouth,
Kristjan spoke up.
“Here comes the
client and bait, rolled into one.” Kristjan pushed himself from off the wall.
Wallace came into the alley in a half run, breathing hard, and sweat forming on
his brow. A haze followed the med school student, and from that haze the shape
of a platinum blond man in a white tux formed.
“It’s a fox face.”
Adam made note of the phantom’s squinty eyes and narrow face, but he didn’t
expect the phantom to hear the comment, let alone respond to it.
“My my, how rude!”
The white phantom Yeates appeared in a haze next to Adam, whispering coyly in
his ear. Adam’s eyes grew wide in shock and Yeates hit him with a blast of
pressure that sent him flying into a pile of garbage. “Words are very
important, mon cher, be careful you don’t use them to make hurtful remarks.”
“Adam, try to bind
him with a sutra!” Kristjan reached into his coat pockets and brought out three
paper charms, each one had the kanji for shikigami, paper guardian, written on
them. The charms floated in the air for a simple moment, releasing ripples in
the air and glowing a serene blue before morphing into three paper crows that
were like an unsettling, lifelike origami. What made it even more unsettling
were the three, very organic eyes each crow possessed. The three crows shot swiftly
like arrows through the air at Yeates who leapt up and above the flailing
Kristjan. Yeates stood in the sky, wagging a finger.
“I’ve got no
problem with you two. I’m after the doctor.” Yeates smiled, letting out a soft tsk tsk. As Adam pulled himself from out
of the trash, shivers shot down his spine. The crows followed Yeates and dive
bombed him, but the phantom kicked his leg, the gust of energy emitting from it
knocking the birds away in a plumage of paper feathers. Yeates spotted Wallace helping
Adam out of the trash and shot towards him. A split second before the phantom got
face-to-face with Wallace a silver hammer with the name MAXWELL engraved on it
formed from a brilliant light in Wallace’s hand. Wallace swung with surprising
force and his silver hammer met with the phantom’s face, knocking Yeates backwards
into the sky. Yeates used his hand to claw at the air like a solid object and
slowed himself down, stopping above the group of men.
“Wallace, Wallace,
Wallace! You’re even stronger than I remember. You should have used that
strength the first time you hit me with your hammer. I get it, though; it was
your first time so you were nervous.”
Wallace clutched
the hammer tightly in his hand, breathing harshly through his mouth. He gave a
primitive war cry, preparing himself to attack the floating phantom. Yeates
brought his arm forward, sending out a blast of pressure that forced Wallace
back into the brick wall of The Flaming Pickle. While Yeates had been
distracted, both Adam and Kristjan had begun chanting a spell in Latin, reading
from little black notebooks. Wiry threads sprung from the notebooks, wrapping
around the phantom’s form, bringing him back down to ground level. The serious
looks on Kristjan and Adam’s faces were the perfect counter to Yeates’ perky
outward appearance.
“Mon petit
fantome, it’s been a pleasure but you’ve outstayed your welcome. I’m sure you
understand, being the dashingly dressed gentleman you are.” Kristjan motioned
with his head for the crows to attack. They shot at Yeates, tearing a chunk out
of his right arm. “P. Darwin Yeates, you’re…”
Kristjan trailed
off. He realized what Adam had realized earlier- they didn’t know what the P
stood for.
“Sorry, Kristjan Rupert
Callier, Adam James Moomaw and Wallace Policky Moorcroft. I’ll never tell what
the P stands for!” Yeates began stringing together French words in a spell. The
wires surrounding Yeates, and the birds too left the plane of existence,
shattering into paper bits and a fantastic pastel glow that looked like
stardust. In what took half a blink, the phantom’s face was in front of
Kristjan’s, taunting him, pushing closer.
“How did you get
our names?” Kristjan spat at the phantom dressed in blinding white, the contra
to his black clothing.
“I was an
up-and-coming psychic before death. Lucky me, my powers carried over! Isn’t
that just convenient? I can read your minds! Mon cher, your thoughts were so
very useful. There was so much I didn’t know about this world.”
Kristjan pushed
the phantom’s face away. Yeates stood smugly, mocking the man in black with his
fox face. His arm was raised, ready for attack once more when a large crimson
flower popped up on his damaged shoulder. Confused, Yeates looked behind
himself and came eye to eye with the stony faced Adam. Yeates, shocked,
couldn’t prevent Adam from planting two more flowers on his arm before he
finally realized what was happening, flying back through the air.
“Oh my, I should
take my leave.” Yeates smiled broadly and saluted the group with his
flower-covered arm. “Ta ta!”
The phantom
vanished in a haze. Wallace sank to the ground, exhausted. Adam looked at
Kristjan, frustrated, and Kristjan clenched his fists, angered. They were up
against a psychic. That would have been some nice information to have known
beforehand.
“There’s no point
even trying to use any spells on him now. Way to screw it up, Wallace,” Adam
grumbled through gritted teeth, kicking the side of The Flaming Pickle. A jolt
of pain shot through his foot. “Now what?”
A back door opened
up and out came a muscular man in a shirt slightly too small for him,
swaggering just a hair. He looked Kristjan and Adam over and whistled. “Well
howdy,” he said with slurred speech that was difficult to understand. “Would
you fellas like to come in? The alley isn’t the best place to hang around.”
“The hell?” Adam
looked to Kristjan for an answer, but he just shrugged. They looked back at
Wallace, who was trying to hide his face from the drunken man.
“Wally? That you?”
The drunken man tried, not very hard, to look past Adam and Kristjan. He gave
up and started receding back through the door with a groggy shrug. “Whatever,
man. I’ll catch you later.”
Things suddenly
made a little more sense to Adam and Kristjan.
