Great and Terrible Things
Chapter Two: The Mystic
“Angela, this place is a pigsty. There’s meat and cotton candy all over the ground. Animal droppings...oh look, actual pigs...”
“Calm down, Lawrence. It’s a circus! It’s part of the atmosphere.”
“I never liked circuses...” Lawrence grumbled to himself. His wife, Angela, had brought him here today so he could relax from his nights of overtime at work. But the mess, the freaks, and the smell made Lawrence’s stomach churn.
“Oh look babe!” Angela squealed. “The baby elephant over there! He’s adorable!”
“Elephants can squish your head like a melon.”
“Oh, lighten up! This baby wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Angela said as she rubbed between the elephant’s eyes.
“Don’t let the mother see you or she’ll spear you with her tusks.”
Angela rolled her eyes at her husband as she baby talked the elephant, playing with his floppy ears. The little pachyderm lifted its trunk and rested it on Angela’s shoulder and she giggled with glee, petting the baby’s snout. “D’you think elephants actually eat peanuts Lawrence?”
...
“Lawrence?”
She turned away from the calf and found her husband to be gone. She sighed to herself. He had a knack of vanishing and she had gotten used to it. She figured he was bored and stumbled off to find a belly dancer or something. But, in truth, Lawrence had gone to find the nearest trash can and lose his breakfast. Elephant dung had a very distinct and very pungent odor to him. He lifted his head from the can and someone was kind enough to ram into his shoulder. A post-vomit state did not offer the best balance to Lawrence.
This unnamed person ultimately ruined his life.
Lawrence tried his best to regain his balance, but instead he stumbled ankle over ankle into a nearby tent. From the moment crossed the threshold, a powerful scent of incense and an overall lightness of his body came over him. If Lawrence hadn’t worked in special effects in the past, he would have been completely in awe of the floating sparkles around him that made him feel like he was floating through the void of the universe. But he knew smoke and mirrors when he saw them. And yet...a worm of doubt wriggled in the back of his mind.
What can only be described as a witch’s laugh resonated through the tent, which struck Lawrence as strange, seeing as how the tent was mere fabric. Upon this observation, Lawrence truly felt as if he was in an entirely new world. He slowly walked forward to a low table, resembling an altar with a purple cloth draped over it. Lawrence sat down on the low stool at one side without much reason. He just...did. It was drawing him in.
He sat for a few moments, than glanced behind him to admire the stars. He returned his gaze forward, then his entire body jumped. An old crone was seated across from him. She was gray haired, nearly toothless, dressed in flowing robes of varying shades from blood reds to night blacks to cosmic blues. Sparkles, runes, and cords covered the cloths and an ornate headpiece of feathers and bones rested atop her old head. Her face drooped and her arms were thin and sickly, but she held them out and above her, like a praying mantis, steadily. Lawrence regained his breath and was about to speak when she preempted him.
“YOU. YOU have come here...nay. YOU have been BROUGHT here. Brought here by THEM. THEM I say! YOU, Lawrence Shawn Casey.”
“How do you...”
“SILENCE!” she yelled and a fire erupted in the center of the altar. It lowered to a flickering flame, but Lawrence’s worm of doubt now grew into a nagging fear. “I know all about YOU. YOU were given to me by THEM. THEY are responsible for the actions YOU will commit. Remember this, Lawrence Shawn Casey. YOU are not responsible and YOU cannot change the outcome! YOU are in THEIR hands now! Aeeheeheeheehee!”
“Are you mad?”
“Quite so!” she said with a giant, gummy grin. “I can fix you though...” she said in a much softer voice.
“I don’t even know what you mean!”
“COME!” she yelled and the fire sparked high again before dying out completely. The sparkles in the room intensified and lit up the tent brighter than before. With a flowing sweep of her robes, she turned and led Lawrence back further into the tent. Boxes, chests, crates, and baskets full of god knows what lined the walls of the tent. The crone, facing away from Lawrence, gingerly lifted a small chest, stroked the lock, and opened it. She cackled again, pulling the content of the chest from its home. Placing the chest down, she turned again swiftly and Lawrence saw himself staring down the barrel of a revolver.
“Woah woah woah!” Lawrence shouted, pulling his arms close and turning away by instinct.”I uh wha duh do ahh don’t kill me! God don’t kill me I haven’t done anything! Oh god what the hell...” He glanced up and saw she was gone again. He relaxed his stance, returning his arms to his side. As they fell, his left hand bumped against the crone’s hand resting without feeling on his hip. He jumped with terror and she approached him.
“Take it take it! THEY told me YOU must have it!”
And Lawrence took the gun.
“THEY talk to me...the beginning of each season. Today, the first of the first month of this darkest autumn, THEY tell me YOU must have this. THEY tell me that by the end of the season, the six lives in this machine will be theirs. Though done by YOUR hand, it will be of THEIR doing.”
“Are you saying...I’m going to kill people? SIX people? That’s crazy!”
“DO NOT TEST THEM LAWRENCE SHAWN CASEY!”
And Lawrence’s body erupted in goosebumps. The crone was inches from his face. One of her long nails stroked the side of his neck. “But I can help you...” she whispered. “I can make you forget so you can return to your wife and no knowledge of this will ever cross your mind again...aeeheeheeheehee!”
She was gone again, but only for an instant. Lawrence blinked and she was gone. Blinked twice and she was back, a demonic looking flask in her hand. “Drink but a sip and all of this will be gone,” she said with that terrifying gummy grin.
Lawrence took the flask. He had literally lost his mind. His sanity was on the edge of destruction. He raised the flask to his lips and began to gently tilt it to drink only a sip, as the crone had said. His mind was so far gone, anything this mystical and unknown woman told him, he believed to be the truth. Just as the first bit of liquid touched his lips, the crone cackled and grabbed the flask and the back of his head and he choked down multiple gulps of this fiery liquid. When she released him, he stumbled and found himself leaning against the tent wall, which was solid and not giving way like canvas should. He wanted to vomit, but couldn’t. All he could really feel was darkness, which made no sense to him, but little of anything did right now. His vision faded in and out and made him feel like he was seizing. While Lawrence could do nothing to stop it, he felt the crone’s hands groping his body. He hit the dirt. A faint hum followed fiercely by a firm thud.
Lawrence awoke on the side of the road, sweating.
Oh, and there's this.