A Rock and Family Vacation

[34]

In Eliot‘s place stood a familiar, yet strange, woman overwhelmed by Eliot‘s clothes. She staggered in shock and horror, reaching for something to support her.

So much of Eliot‘s features remained despite the woman’s narrow, soft face. It had the same tenacity. It was the face that begged her for help and then gratefully led her to her car. The only differences from then were wrinkles tracing her eyes and arms bearing the weight of so many years.

Elie. The woman, who existed only in Brooke’s fantasies, nervously crouched beside her. Looking out at her father, Brooke hardened her scowl and clutched Elie‘s hand.

With a rough sigh, Vincent Muller turned and gestured with a wave behind him. Looking back at Brooke, he said, “You’ve made another mess for me.”

Glancing around, Brooke couldn’t tell where her kids were. Elie squeezed her hand as they both took several steps back into the hallway.

“Not that it matters, but I might as well explain.” Vincent pushed his black glasses up and cleared his throat. “Well? Haven’t I taught you better? Invite me in. I may be paying for this place, but I’m not going to be rude.” He tightened his tie and leveled a look of disappointment at his daughter.

Everything was surreal. Brooke felt like her entire body was made of ice and it was sliding across the floor and down some pit from which she could never escape. At the same time, every attempt at moving broke off little pieces of her she would never get back. Somehow, despite this spinning stasis, she managed to beckon her father inside and lead him through the hallway.

Blair stood with her arms crossed in front of her, wearing a look of sculpted, intense anger that Brooke wished she could match. Clare clung to the edge of the couch while Lacy held her back from moving closer. Innocently, Clare spoke, “Grandpa? What’s going on? Who is that? Why is she wearing dad‘s clothes?” Despite her questions, her feet shifted nervously, as though a realization she refused to accept was dawning.

“Hello. Nothing to be concerned about, Clark. We just have a small situation I need to deal with. Thank you for helping your mother with her work. I hope she told you… buy whatever game of your choice, with my thanks.“

With watchful distance, Brooke led Elie over to the couch and fumbled for one of the blankets on the side to wrap around the one she loved. Despite the loose clothes and several layers, it was easy for her to see that forty-year-old Elie was still as prominent in her features as she had been back in college.

Scanning the kitchen, Vincent smacked a hand on the table. Everyone else froze as he spoke, “They were supposed to leave a bowl of fruit. I requested it specifically. Kiwi, oranges, apples, pears, and kumquats, if possible. I know you didn’t eat it all. They just forgot. Frustrating.” Flinging open the refrigerator door, he assessed, “Pizza. No surprise. This cheese will have to suffice.”

Poking around, grandpa retrieved a small charcuterie board shaped like a painter’s palette and sliced and arranged the cheese on it. They looked at one another with so many unspoken questions and abject confusion.

Clearing his throat a few times, grandpa set the board on a small glass tray table that was well positioned at the juncture between the sides of the couch. Dusting his hands off, he then pointed to Blair and requested, “Bring around that chair to the front over by the TV, dear boy.”

“… Grandpa? What’s going on? I don’t understand.” Clare tried to pull away from Lacy, but she still held her little sister back. Her voice filled with the edges of frantic tears.

Vincent planted his hands on the counter but not with anger. “Be patient. All in good time. Have a little cheese to settle your thoughts. Shame about the fruit. I hope brunch went well.” He wiped his hands gingerly with a paper towel and tossed it in the waste bin.

Grandpa looked around. “Well? Did you enjoy brunch? Any of you? It’s highly regarded. One of the best in the state.” They all remained silent, with their eyes dipping around to one another before returning to him. Blair cautiously took the chair over to where grandpa asked for it while still clutching her hands in front of her. She glanced over at the control for the glass and checked that it was engaged but quickly looked away.

Clearing his throat, Vincent inspected the fridge again and then poked around an area off to the side. Opening a small cabinet, he gave a light chuckle.

“Found it.” Moments later, he produced a wooden bowl stacked with a variety of fruit. “What would you do without me?” He laid the fruit bowl on the tray table beside the stacks of cheese after taking a single apple for himself.

Brooke felt like her jaw was about to snap in two from the tension. Everything felt insane. Her father was puttering around the kitchen with snacks as though everything was normal, and it wasn’t minutes ago he snapped his fingers and did whatever he did to her husband. And he was responsible for the rock. Ringing in her skull, Brooke had to conclude he was responsible for everything!

“You did all of this. How? Why?”

Vincent took two full bites of the apple and waited until he was finished chewing before answering, “I’ve done a lot of things. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“You…know what I mean.”

He took another bite. “I can see. And I see disappointment. I put all my effort into you, Brooke. And you still wound up… Like this. With a woman weak enough to want you and no prospects for children. So, I had to step in. But it wasn’t enough. You disappointed me three times more… so, I had to step in again. That’s the story of your life: You disappoint me, and I have to fix it. And I’ll make sure you never forget that.”

Her heart raced, and her body shook with something beyond simply rage. “How…what…how?” He finished the apple and chucked it in the trash.

“All in good time, as I said. Patience. Firstly, where is the rock?” He checked everyone in the room. Lacy‘s eyes were wide as she pressed her nails against her palms and scoured her flesh. Clare clung to her but also looked towards mom and the unknown woman with her. Blair shifted over towards the TV. She had tucked the pole of the broom underneath the nearby couch cushions. Anyone looking could tell they were raised slightly but couldn’t see anything else.

Brooke hissed. “Did you put it here?”

“No. An associate of mine did.“

“For what purpose?!”

Lacy heard the faintest trace of a sound from around where Blair was standing on the other side of the couch. If anyone else heard it, then they showed no sign of it. She heard it again but still couldn’t quite resolve if it was a whisper, an animal, or something in the house settling. However, it sounded important.

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Vincent casually and comfortably traversed the open space around to where the chair was placed. He let out of breath as he sat. The chair was in king-like opposition to the lower couch. Clearing his throat, he encouraged them each to take a seat.

Blair eased down stiffly with her arms positioned as though she were cradling a stomachache. She curled her legs around the edge of the couch, so the hidden pole was less obvious. Vincent flashed her a vague look that could’ve been interpreted as sympathetic but said nothing. Brooke sheltered Elie and they each kept turning their attention to Lacy and Clare, pained by the distance separating them. Lacy did her best to keep Clare from squirming and forming more questions.

“Purpose? To see what you all would do with it. A magic rock. A mystery rock. A puzzle fashioned by R&D. Despite the best efforts of marketing, men will never be as much into expensive grooming products as women. But imagine inconspicuous stones left at strategic locations around the world. Newly-minted ladies, eager to catch up with their… sistren. Or something to that effect. Given a tool like that, I also expected my tenacious child to wield it bitterly. Vindictively. Dash all the cruel, bitter men and give them what they deserve. I was watching and once again…you disappointed me.”

Brooke reeled. She could easily comprehend that her father would overturn the world just for a little bit of money. it also made sense that he would test her in such an obtuse way. But all the rest felt incongruent. If this was so, then who was the girl? Why had she gotten younger like this? She didn’t buy it.

“That’s not the truth,” Blair calmly declared, following the same thought. “Your own words contradict it. Maybe… you wanted mom to use the rock as a weapon. That’s why you provided those perverts with those rings… For protection? But that’s not it. That’s not the full story.”

Vincent clapped his hands together once. “Even as the most pitiful girl, you preserve the searing intuition of a man, my dear boy. So, what can you deduce?”

Blair remained stiffly and awkwardly sitting. Lacy continued to hear the faintest sound, as though some tiny creature or whispering only she could hear.

“It was an experiment. You wanted to see what mom would do. But there’s more to that rock. That’s why I’ve hidden it. For safekeeping…” Blair glanced over to the other side of the room, towards the special little bay window where she and Lacy had their heart-to-heart. Then she immediately flicked her eyes back to her grandfather.

Finally, the sound Lacy was hearing resolved into words she could understand. She carefully released Clare from her grip but pressed her back with an arm. Tensing her legs against the edge of the couch as though they were starting blocks in a race, Lacy bent forward on the couch but didn’t move.

Vincent calmly stood from his chair and looked expectantly to his left, towards the bay window on the side. Blair braced herself and reached an arm beneath the couch cushion before noting, “There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”

Their grandfather heaved an annoyed breath as he responded, “And what is that?”

Blair started to relax her arms. Lacy heard something, but Blair heard it as well.

“How do flowers BLOOM… at MIDNIGHT and DAWN?”

Instantly, the full intensity of the sun blasted into the room through the suddenly untinted windows as the first command removed their effect and Blair threw herself to her feet.

The flash on Vincent‘s glasses completely blinded him to his granddaughter’s assault. Before she left the cushion, Blair used both hands to snag the broom pole underneath. Without her arms to hold it up, cloaked in the shadow and swath of her breasts, the black rock tumbled out of her top and onto the floor towards Lacy.

The words that Lacy had just barely heard now filled her head like a scream.

“PULL IT OFF! FREE ME!”

An instant later, the room went practically black with undulating light spots as the full darkness of the tint asserted itself with Blair’s ‘midnight’ command. When ‘dawn’ brought blazing light in a second wave, Blair swung the pole around and smashed her grandfather in the face and on the hand.

He screeched in pain as his glasses rebounded and ricocheted without shattering but scraped across his face. Meanwhile, Lacy fell over the obsidian rock and dug her fingers into the attachment with its paint half flaked off. She panted and snarled like a wild beast, digging her claws as deep as humanly possible.

Everything happened so quickly that Elie could barely process what was happening. Clare plaintively wailed in confusion as Brooke desperately searched for something she could throw at her father with more weight than Blair‘s improvised polearm. Nothing.

She saw Lacy desperately digging at the attachment on the stone. She had no idea why she was trying to take it off but now didn’t feel like a time for those sorts of questions. She let go of Elie and did her best to help.

The attachment was hanging by the barest trace of adhesive, but Lacy’s nails practically bled as her fingers trembled and fought to get purchase. From behind her, her little sister dropped down and wrapped her arms around her like a brace, pressing her smaller fingers into the gap between the stone and the attachment.

Clare may not have understood what was going on, but she knew in her heart when her sister needed help. In the same instant, Elie joined Brooke and lent what strength she had to give it one final jerk and twist the attachment free.

“NOOOO!!!”

Grandpa caught only a glimpse of the rock before raising his hand in the air. They may have caught him off-guard, but this was nothing. He was in control, he was always in control!

Not even pausing to take a breath, Brooke and Eli together turned and heaved the rock at Vincent. The first traces of incandescent sparks issued from Vincent‘s ring. Brooke shut her eyes, she didn’t want to see what evil her father had planned for her and her children.

Then, a far brighter explosion filled the air, like a newborn star. When her eyes recovered, Brooke saw that a woman much like her in beaming, radiant robes with brilliant blonde hair like the sun freed from the clouds held back Vincent‘s fingers.

The woman glared at him and said simply, “Hello again…mom.”