A Rock and Family Vacation
[35]
“Krystal? Is that you? What’s going on?” Confusion pulsed around Clare’s heart and mind. She didn’t know why Blair attacked their grandfather with the broom pole she carried outside earlier and she definitely had no clue why Lacy was suddenly pulling the sticky thing off the rock, but she felt she had to help.
Now, there was a taller, much older adult version of the girl she knocked over in the clothing store. The woman flashed Clare a quick, faint smile. “It’s me…” Then, she focused on Vincent and repeated harshly, “It’s me.” Still clutching his fingers, she gripped and ripped off the ring. It rolled and came to rest beside the couch. Vincent coughed and held out his empty hand.
“Turn out your pockets,” the woman commanded.
“My glasses.” Vincent checked blearily at his feet. Blair could see that the glasses had tumbled and came to rest sideways against the entertainment system supporting the television. Her muscles trembled and spasmed with her heartbeat echoing through her hands as she set the pole aside.
“Pockets first,” she persisted.
Begrudgingly and with a faint growl, Vincent turned over his pockets, shook out his pants, and offered up his suit jacket for inspection. All he had on him was a cell phone, which the woman tossed aside on the ground. Vincent flinched as it landed roughly with the screen facing down.
“Are there others? Outside?”
“Of course, I brought a whole paramilitary squad, armed to the teeth. They’re just waiting until they haven’t heard from me long enough and then they’ll take care of matters.”
The radiant woman narrowed her eyes and subtly shook her head, but Brooke remembered that her father waved to someone. This whole situation felt like some impromptu improvised play she’d been pulled into without any lines.
“What is all this? Who are you?” Brooke felt exhausted despite her youthful body. Elie comforted her.
Still keeping her hands on Vincent, the strange woman explained, “I’m your sister. This is our mother. And she’s screwed with us a lot.” Vincent flared his teeth.
“…..WHAT?!?” Was all that Brooke could get out. She clapped her forehead and shook her head. Brooke didn’t remember having any siblings. The family had an aunt but that was just a vague recollection. Her sense was that it was either on Eliot’s side or was her aunt. And she was quite busty… which the strange woman actually fit the bill on. And she had many features similar to Brooke. But she knew well to question.
“Dad…or… I don’t know… What the hell is all this? What’s the truth?” The woman holding on to her father studied herself but didn’t waver at that implication of doubt.
Vincent flexed against the hold gripping him. “You’re not my only disappointment.“
Despite the brightness that suffused her being, the woman appeared as though a great darkness wanted to cross her eyes with her hands moving to Vincent’s throat. It held there like a thundercloud, for just a moment, before passing.
“I’m gonna give them the truth,” the woman announced. “With everything I have…”
“STOP!” Vincent tried to bat her away, but she held firm and raised her hand to the room. A light overwhelmed the afternoon sun through the windows but didn’t hurt to look at.
——
“KRYSTAL! BE SAFE!”
In a place like no human place, but yet infinitely familiar, they came and went, lived and died, dreamed and hoped.
Brooke saw it as a bucolic village. Children with sunny faces dashed along dirt roads with bundles on their backs and scarves hiding them as they hurried along. A child in simple silver clothes huddled close to a young woman. Their hair had a brilliant shine, like harvest wheat stalks. The young woman definitely had all of them beat in the figure department, despite the simple lines of her peasant robes.
The vision shifted to a modest room lit by dim candlelight.
“Your father will be home soon, sweetie. Remember to give him a kiss on the nose. Like this…boop!”
The young mother touched her little girl delicately on the nose with her finger. The girl giggled and beamed. Her father arrived in the deepest night, when he could be most hidden. The door opened up to a shadow that had depth. It unfurled and clenched and slipped and stood. ”Welcome home, daddy!”
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She could feel him like velvet, like the pelt of a cat, like water rushing past, both cooling and warming. Yet he was still like smoke. He was a shadow without a face, but she could feel his smile. She kissed him, just like mama told her, even though she had to stretch on her tippy toes to do it.
“DADDY!”
It was another time. One filled with terror and pain. Her father spread across everything, a wall of darkness to save the light. He was like fabric and iron. But he had fallen. They howled and messily consumed him.
The village was next. The young mother resisted giving them the satisfaction of screams. She burned through her fury until there was nothing but ashes. She burned through her heart till nothing was left to feel.
And in the place between places that followed, they still had to hide, to run, glimmers of embers consumed by the endlessly hunting hungry darkness. And they fed too. On stray emotions, on the lingering warmth of the places beyond. Until there was true light again.
The young mother squeezed her chest and Vincent breathed. She was a man. Better, stronger. Hardened. Unlike the others, she and her daughter remembered.
Humans. They were among humans. They were humans. Searching, she found studies of her kind with a company called Quantum Helix. They imagined the infinite possibilities of other realms, other places. She shared her discoveries with her daughter and envisioned greater things.
They called their kind Radiant Spirits and the kind like her husband, Dark Entities. Their company modestly imagined trading between worlds. Founding her own company with the influence and image of a man, Vincent had grander ambitions. The combination of light and dark. Like matter and antimatter, represented creation and destruction. It was the key to absolute power, and control against the chaos. Her daughter.
“You’re hurting me!”
“It’ll be all right. And soon, we’ll have everything. We’ll have everything we ever lost and could ever want!”
“But I just want you!”
“Weak. Pathetic. Liar! You have to be stronger…”
He peeled a piece off his daughter, made of light and dark. The little girl screamed. It curled and curled until it formed a ring. Holding it close, Vincent snapped his fingers.
He had two daughters. One born of the last world, and one born of this one. Krystal and Brooke. This one would be better, this one would be stronger. But she… Disappointed too.
The frailty of women, the flaws she had cast off.
“We’re in love! Elie and I are meant for one another.”
“You know nothing of love…"
He set his insolent daughter right. Children. He needed children. So many failures. The ring could do so much and yet so little. it was weak and getting weaker. Power, there had to be a greater power, if he just dug deeper.
His first grandchild, Blair Posie. A silly little girl who liked cuteness and adventures. Useless. A mind full of wasted potential. He made her better and made sure his daughter remembered her failure in name and truth. His second, Lacy Anastasia, was another silly head. Her hair had some trace of the needed blend, of the balance of light and dark, but it wasn’t enough. She idolized her Aunt Krystal, no matter how many times Vincent tried to expunge the memory and rewrite reality. The third, Clare Rose, finally what he needed.
He paid men to seize her in the night. So what if she had a few pointless nightmares from it? She wouldn’t really remember much. But it was painstaking work, even with the perfect subject. He’d done worse. Even though he was human, he still needed to feed on emotions sometimes. Brooke amongst the wolves of the local country club provided a very special and long-lasting sustenance. Changing and twisting others filled in the rest.
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His daughter hated him, but that was fine. No matter how far she moved away, he just had to curl his finger and she came back. 500 miles, 800 miles, or more. It didn’t matter when the world was within a snap of her finger.
Krystal, however, continued to be a thorn in his side. Finding out too much, weakening his plans, and trying to undo his work. But he had a solution. The leftovers of Quantum Helix that he bought up experimented with trapping what used to be his kind inside simple objects, like toilet seats. Repulsive, but not a bad idea.
Krystal still trusted him on some level, after all this time, still saw him as the naïve mother who thought the world could be kind. She had no idea what was happening as the stone closed around her and trapped her until she could be of use to her again.
But what Vincent didn’t know was that his daughter still heard everything, even as a rock, even sealed by what his company created. She pieced together what she could. The presence of the rock should’ve acted like a catalyst and converted her youngest niece/nephew into something more powerful than a simple ring, a tool for absolute power. But Krystal had different plans… A spark for freedom.
Wham!
Returning from whatever that was felt like waking from a very long but also instantaneous dream state with a hypnic jerk, Brooke looked around in surprise. Her brain was absolutely filled to the brim with imagery and memories.
She had a sister! And her dad was an even bigger asshole than she thought! Clinging to the couch, Lacy glared at her grandfather and hissed, “You… stole my life! I was…I was actually a girl the whole time?!? THE WHOLE TIME?! You… apologize to my little sister for putting her through HELL!” If she had something actually threatening within reach, Brooke knew Lacy would’ve thrown it at her grandfather.
Glaring with focus despite still lacking his glasses, Vincent responded, “I made you better. I made all of you better. And you were still so disappointing. You’re mine. I made you. I OWN YOU!!! And it’s too late. They’re coming.” An alarm went off on Vincent‘s phone, which was muffled by being turned upside down.
Moments later, three men broke through the front door. At the back was Raymond Cadell and at the lead were the two men in green uniforms who worked for the Muller Corporation. Raymond had a handgun at his side while the other two were armed but had holstered their weapons.
“Well, Vincent, this looks to be quite the predicament. I know you told me you would take care of matters at the station, but you better let me take it from here. Why, things could get all sorts of confused and, in resisting arrest, something bad might happen to these nice folks here… and no one wants that.”
Vincent smiled ominously. “I cede to your professional expertise, Cadell.”
Everyone had their hands up as Raymond aimed his gun around. Krystal stood close to Vincent as she inquired, “Did you tell him that his ring doesn’t work for him?” She tipped her head towards the officer, who had the same ring on his finger as he was showing off earlier. He overheard.
“You might want to keep your big mouth shut, missy. Mr. Muller and I have an understanding.”
Krystal still kept her hands up and non-threatening while she glanced at Clare and to the left. Clare looked to her side along the couch and inched over. Blair held her breath and tried not to look at anything in particular as she backed away. Brooke had the vague feeling that something was playing out beyond what she understood, even while processing the discombobulated mountain of information within her head. She clung to Elie for comfort.
“Have you tried the ring…?” She calmly questioned.
Raymond snorted. “I’m waiting till the next big jackpot lottery. Then I can leave this festering pit of a town.”
“My my… gave you a dud then. But you’ll find that out…someday…”
“You best keep that mouth shut. Or I’ll close it, forever…” Despite his bluster, Brooke could see that the sheriff was squeezing his hand together. With a quick whisper, he snapped his fingers and requested, “I want that pear. Come on now. What… why you scum…“ Nothing. Even after furiously rubbing his fingers together, the pear wouldn’t budge from the bowl. Popping the ring off his finger, the sheriff eyeballed it and glowered at Vincent, who wore a look of horror.
“Put it back on, you fool!”
”I’m nobody’s fool…shhit…” Slick with perspiration, the ring slipped from his grasp and clinked on the floor.
Desperately, Krystal called out, “Clare!” She looked right at the fallen ring yanked from Vincent‘s finger. Clare was almost there and reached down to pick up the ring.
Instantly, the precise mixture of energies within her body reacted to the ring and erupted in blinding light like an arc welder. She squeezed it in her hand and a brilliant charge washed over her entire body. Clare stared with pain and anger at Vincent. He looked back in terror.
“…You… you are not a good person! You are the same as the DARK MAN. You want to hurt us! GO AWAY AND NEVER HURT ANYONE EVER AGAIN!” Despite her small body and meager voice, her command felt like a divine cry from the heavens.
In a moment, nothing of Vincent remained. He was gone, without a trace.
Panting, Clare released her hand and let the ring fall on the floor to roll towards the window. She barely caught herself on the cushion. Silence followed in the room until Raymond‘s voice broke it, asking, “What on earth is happening in here? Where am I?”
Pointing and thinking fast, Brooke gestured at the two men in green uniforms who seemed equally befuddled. ”Those are home invasion robbers, please help us!”
Raymond’s police instincts kicked in and he ordered both men to put their hands up as he detained them for questioning outside. Krystal slumped against the nearest available wall and admitted, “I had no idea that was going to work, any of that was going to work. Nice assist, sis. So many assists. Clare… I’m sorry you had to do that. I didn’t want to tell you to do it. And I had no idea if he would do it right. If you command it, then it’s better than just letting it happen. I saw what you did with that officer through Lacy. Sorry Lacy, especially for the mind-warping, and sorry Blair, and sorry all around. This has been a difficult time and I’m so glad I can actually talk to you like normal again…. I’m just glad to have my family back.”
A tense moment of quiet passed through the room. She confirmed that no one had any weird or incongruous memories from what Clare did. Krystal bowed her head. “Vincent removed me from your memories. I don’t know how to get that back. But I promise to be here every step of the way to recover and put right everything he destroyed.”
She swallowed and dipped her head towards the floor, her hands still out, welcoming but uncertain. “I know it’ll be a long process…”
Dashing across the floor, Lacy rushed over and put her arms around her aunt. Krystal braced herself and didn’t know what to think. “You don’t remember, or do you remember…?”
Lacy immediately shook her head. “Nope. No memories. But this feels right.”
Soon, Clare joined her with her own exuberant hug, followed by Blair with a lingering, exhausted one, and Brooke approaching with uncertainty. Elie lingered back but smiled at their children.
Sliding into a hug, like discovering old but familiar shoes lost in the closet for ages, Brooke cried softly as she embraced Krystal. So much changed, so much that felt like it was annihilated forever. But Krystal reassured her it would be all right.