Post by StoryGirl83 on Dec 25, 2013 2:47:40 GMT -5
Chapter Twenty-Four - Simon Says
and an Unnamed Officer
Flashback
and an Unnamed Officer
Flashback
10:29 AM
Hank pushed open the doors into the office where his dad and the other parole officers worked. The first thing he noticed was that despite the rest of the building being nearly empty, this room was nearly full. He'd known that. His dad had told him that very few people had gotten sick, but knowing and seeing were two different things.
Behind him, Alanna's eyes widened as she too took in the room.
"Did you need something?" a wary eyed officer asked them.
Hank gulped. It sounded like they had been busy despite the fact that a lot of people where in the hospitals or at least staying home.
"We're just looking for our dad," Alanna told them. "Henry Mitchell. Is he around?"
The officer's eyes brightened at that. "Yeah, Henry's in the boss' office, but I'm sure he can be with you in a bit. They've been in there for a while, so I'm sure they will be out soon."
"Dad'll want to see us," Alanna insisted. "Think we can go over there and knock on the glass, see if he can come out or if we can come in?"
The officer frowned. Finally, he shrugged. "Nothing's normal these days. I guess no one's going to really protest that one."
"Thanks!" she grinned at him and hurried toward the office.
Hank shrugged and offered the officer an apologetic look. "That's my big sister for you," he grinned. "Thanks." He followed his sister across the office to where the glass walled office of their dad's boss stood. Her stopped next to Alanna who had already caught the attention of the lone occupant of the room they didn't know. He recognized him only vaguely as his dad's new boss. The man had been with the department for all of three years, but considering the tenure of some of the other officers there, they was short enough to be considered new.
"Are these yours, Henry?" Henry's boss, Deputy Chief Simon Richmond, asked him as the two teens filed into the room.
"My older daughter, Alanna," Henry told him, "and my son, Hank." He indicated each in turn. “This is my boss, Deputy Chief Richmond.”
“Simon, please,” he told them as he stood to shake their hands. “I make your dad and the men under me call me by my title, but their families are off the hook for that.”
"Hello, Sir," the teens said in unison. Alanna smothered a giggle.
"Such polite children," Simon commented.
Henry gave them speculative looks. "I'm not sure when that happened. Although Alanna gives me hope that my kids are in their somewhere."
"If you're not careful, kids will grow up while you're not looking." There was a look of regret in his eyes as he said that.
"Yes," Henry agreed with little feeling, "but since yesterday? It hardly seems likely."
"True," his boss chuckled. "So what brings you children here? Everything okay at home?"
"Hardly," Alanna retorted, sparing a thought for her mother who was barely keeping everyone busy and probably trying not to think about what would happen if they failed. She thought about her cousins, who one way or another were all in danger of losing one or both parents. She thought of all the people she knew who were sick and everyone who had already died. No, nothing was okay.
"Nothing new though," Hank was quick to assure his dad as a a look of worry flooded Henry's face.
"Andy's still hanging on?" Henry asked. He'd only met Andy a few times over the last three months, but it had been nice to have some one else in law enforcement to talk to when visiting with Paige's new sister. And he knew how important this man was to all three of Paige's sisters.
"Last we heard," was all Hank could offer.
"Mom would let us know if Aunt Prue called," Alanna announced confidently.
"Who's Andy?" Simon asked him, more than curiosity glinting in his eyes. Something else shimmered there. Something rather like hope.
It was Alanna who answered and she didn't notice anything up. "Our uncle. He's stage five."
Simon gulped. "I'm sorry to hear that." He looked a little green.
"Everyone's sorry," Alanna retorted, feeling annoyed at the oft repeated words. Sorry helped no one. "Everyone's sorry, but no one does anything. No one knows how to fix it." Sarcasm dripped in her voice as she asked, "Do you?"
"I might," was the soft reply.
"Huh?" Hank stared at him dumbfounded.
"You might?" Alanna repeated dumbly before catching herself and asked, "Then, why haven't you told anyone?"
"I did," he informed her, his face relaxing visibly. Decades seemed to ease off his face with those two works, making Alanna wonder how old he was. "I did," he repeated, "but she couldn't fix it, only delay it."
A thousand questions ran through her head. When had this been delayed? She couldn't help but think of James Bowen's insistence that the last time this had happened had been in 1897 or Josias' assurance that this had happened first in 1637. Delayed when? Could he possibly mean 1897 or even farther back. It mattered little enough compared to another question. "So why not tell someone else?"
There was silence for several seconds before he finally answered. "My cousin made it rather difficult for me."
"You're afraid of your cousin?" she asked in disbelief. This was no time to be afraid.
"A little," he admitted, "but that's not why."
"Why don't you just explain?" she demanded, frustrated.
"Because you're not asking the right questions," he shot back, just as frustrated.
"If you know the answers, why does it matter?" she asked confused and more than a little annoyed.
His face distorted into something like disgust. "Because on this topic, I can only answer the questions you ask."
Realization flooded Hank and in a calm voice he cut into the conversation. "Your cousin's a witch?"
"Not in the least," came the reply, but there was relief in the voice. "She's a warlock."
Hank raised his eyebrows in surprise, thought he didn't know why it surprised him. It made sense. "She cast some sort of spell on you?" He suspected he even knew what kind of spell that was, too.
Henry's boss nodded. "And on my sister, yes."
"Your sister?" Alanna felt as if the conversation had just veered into some unknown direction.
He nodded. "My sister and I are twins. Our mother was expecting us when this all started. She found out about our father's involvement and she ran."
"Your father was involved?" Hank's eyes widened. He glanced over at his own father, mystified. He couldn't imagine being at odds with his dad to the degree he suspected this man was with his father.
"William Richmond was to my mother's estimation the best of Willamina Richmond's children," he told them. "He had his faults, but nothing that bothered my mother so much that is gave her pause about marrying him. Well, nothing beyond the fact that he was Elisa Richmond's older brother. That would give almost anyone pause."
Hank dug into his pocket and pulled out a small notepad and a pen. He then proceeded to ignored them all.
"Elisa?" Alanna looked at him confused. "Why is that?"
Simon gave her a rather sad look. "Aunt Elisa is the kind of person who would kick an injured puppy to amuse herself when the puppy squealed. She was never a particularly kind person even in pretend. Mother once told me that she believe Elisa set up a man to die because he rejected her advanced."
Alanna shuttered. "Why do you . . ?"
"Wait," Hank interrupted. He pushed the notepad in front of Simon. "Does this look familiar?"
Simon took the notepad and read what was written on it. "Familiar, but not quite right."
"How do I correct it?" Hank asked. Hours spent leaning spells he could no longer cast with his Aunt Phoebe had taught him that every word counted.
Simon frowned and thought back two hundred and sixty years to when the spell had first been cast on him.
"You call yourself a Richmond," Hannah Talmont spat out as she glared at Simon. "You are a disgrace to the family name."
"I think not," Simon told her. "Our grandfather is highly disappointed in the lot of you and it's his line where the name Richmond comes from."
Hannah rolled her eyes at him. "Fine. You're not a disgrace to the weak name of Richmond. You're a disgrace to the proud Black line of warlocks."
"No such think," Simon informed her. "There's nairy a Black that turned warlock until our grandmother and she's not a Black anymore."
"You are impossible," Hannah scowled at him.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Well, it's not," she snapped back. "I'm not letting you ruin this."
That's when she had cast the spell that had changed his life forever. Looking back at the spell Hank had written on the page, Simon grabbed the offered pen and started crossing some things off and adding other things. Less than a minute later he handed the spell back to Hank. "I don't know how this helps, but this is it."
Hank took back the notepad and pen and asked, "And what is the name of the person who cast this?"
"Hannah," he said at once. "It was Talmont at the time, but I think she's married, again. Thirteen witches cast a spell to turn fifteen witches into warlocks and kill off the nonmagical world. There are a great deal more of us now."
Hank gulped, but said nothing as he went back to his writing.
"How is it you can tell me that?" Alanna asked. "Without being directly asked, I mean?"
"I guess it doesn't help fix this to know who cast the original spell or why?" His look was grim as he added, "I wasn't there and neither was my mother, so I know little enough of what happened there. My mother was quite certain that Rebecca Warren was the one killed for the sacrifice because she was Patrick Warren's wife."
Hank looked at his sister surprise. "Patrick Warren. Remember he was in the entry in the Book I read."
Simon's eyes widened in surprise. "Your Book of Shadows has something about this in it?"
Hank shook his head. "Just something about Patrick Warren."
"What on earth for?" Simon asked confused. "Patrick Warren has little enough significance even in this . . ."
"Except perhaps to his granddaughter," Hank suggested.
"Granddaughter?" Simon laughed a little. "I hardly think you are Patrick's granddaughter."
"No," Hank agreed, "but Melinda Warren was and she's the one who started our Book of Shadows." He handed the notepad to Alanna. "Cast this, would you?"
Alanna looked down at it. "Are you sure?"
He nodded. "It should work."
Alanna looked at Simon. "Is that okay with you?"
Simon shrugged. "It can't make things worse, but why doesn't he cast it, himself?"
"I can't," Hank admitted with a little difficulty. "I lost the ability to cast spells almost three months ago."
Simon winced. "Do you know how?"
"I have my suspicions," Hank admitted, "but I'd prefer not to discuss them."
"Fair enough," Simon agreed. "Cast away, Miss Mitchell."
Alanna inhaled and slowly read the spell on the paper in her hands. "Words stolen by Hannah's spell, allow them flow easy and well. Gifted the chance to confess what thou will without querying pass."
"Anything?" Hank looked at him questioningly.
"Two years before Hannah cast the spell on me, which was in 1767 if you are interested, I learned from a witch living in Duxbury who was on her deathbed that her ancestor had cast a spell one-hundred-and-twenty-eight years prior to stop the spread of the curse."
"One-hundred-and-twenty-eight years prior," Hank repeated. "That would be when this started, right?"
Simon nodded. "About six months prior to my birth and that of my sister."
"So that makes you three-hundred-and-eighty-nine-years-old," Alanna looked at him in awe.
"And six months," Simon agreed. "Suzannah Williams told me the spell her ancestor had written to stop the curse and of the terrible consequences of using it."
Alanna looked at him apprehensively. "What happened?"
"Any one affected by it whether they showed symptoms or not, died instantly," Simon told them with a shiver. "There was one family where all three children survived. And do you know why those three children survived when their parents did not and when most families either all survived or all perished?"
The two Mitchell kids shook their heads.
"Their parents had been watching David Warren, so when Samuel appeared alone in the middle of town and then Elizabeth found Rebecca and Caroline's bodies, their parents sent the children away from town to someplace they believed safe. I know not where. Where ever it was they returned a week later with the two Warren boys alive, but orphaned. As best they could tell those who survived had not needed to draw water or in one case an illness in the family had kept everyone in the house."
“We know that it comes from the water,” Hank told him. “Or at least we had a pretty good idea of it. What was done to the water?”
Simon sighed. “I’m not sure. As I said, I wasn’t there.”
“And no one that was will talk to us,” Alanna scowled.
“Not entirely true,” Hank commented. “I just got to meet Rebecca Warren and her three children. She’s talking to our mom right now.”
“Where is your mom?” Henry asked, concerned.
“In Duxbury. The young woman who was behind the twitter account warning people off of the water had apparently asked her to come so they could talk.” He grimaced. “It didn’t go so well. They got into a fight with a woman. I believe Rebecca mentioned the name Elisa. You mentioned her, too, didn’t you?”
Simon nodded, looking at him concerned. “Elisa attacked them? Then, they are lucky to be alive. My aunt is not held back by any scruples.”
“Well, she has no head now, but she did a lot of damage,” Hank told him. “How close were you?”
Simon shook his head. “Oh, I didn’t know her. We never even met. I just have heard about her. My cousin, Charles, contacted me a few decades ago and she came up in conversation and my sister, Rachel, has attempted to form some sort of relationship a time or two. She hates Elisa, something about Elisa killing Rachel’s soul mate . . . twice.”
“They don’t get along then?”
“My family?” He let out a small laugh. “No, they hate each other. There is no room for love where evil abounds. Rumor has it that my grandmother murdered her husband in cold blood and Charles told me that his mother killed his father. It’s the reason he doesn’t have any contact with her, hasn’t since he was a young man. Hannah and Deb work well together, but don’t confuse that for affection let alone love. And their father’s insane, almost as much as Elisa. He’s very dangerous. Aunt Marie is obsessed with her son, Oliver, but I think she forgets she has two daughters as well. Of course Miriam and Jessica are no less obsessed with him. Jessica hero worships him and Miriam sees it as her job protect him no matter what. I’ve never met most of them and I’m not interested in changing that.”
“And your father?”
He shrugged. “I really wouldn’t know. I’ve never met him.”
That had both teens looking at him with wide eyes.
“You’ve never met your dad?”
“My father never saw the point in coming to see me,” Simon informed him. “Even Rachel came to see me a few times over the last four centuries, but never him. Sarah and I are better off without him anyway.”
“Sarah?”
“My twin sister.” He smiled with genuine affection at that. “Ma raised the two of us on her own. We didn’t even know anything about our father for decades. Well, almost nothing. She did tells us that his name was William Richmond and that he wasn’t a good person, but we didn’t know about magic or why Ma thought he was a bad person. Although, I’m not really sure Ma knew much about magic in the first place, so that may have been why she didn’t tell us.” He touched his finger to his desk it started trembling, not much. “Finding that was a bit of a shock. It works a whole lot better if I touch the ground directly.”
“You can cause earthquakes?” Alanna gaped at him. “That’s pretty impressive.”
“Not really,” he corrected her. “It’s not my power. I guess when that cast that spell and killed your ancestor, it was supposed to part her with her powers as well, but something funny happened. She kept them and the redistribution of her powers and those of her daughter that was supposed to go to one of my less than likable relatives went to Sarah and myself. Sarah controls the wind, something we have learned Caroline Warren could do.”
“She could control the wind?”
Simon was still for a moment. “Sometimes. Since these aren’t our powers and they were gotten by rather strange means and they are literally still held by the real owners, it’s an iffy thing. If they ever moved on, I think we’d have full control of them, but it’s just as likely that we would simply lose them all together.”
“What do you mean, if they moved on?”
“Well, they haven’t,” Hank informed his older sister. “I met both of them when I was helping mom.”
“But how does this help us?” Alanna asked, ignoring her brother. “How can we end this, actually end it, not postpone it?”
“All I know for sure is that certain numbers have more power in them and thirteen’s pretty hard to beat.” He held up a finger and shook his head. “No, actually, I might have something else.” He slowly began to wave his hand in a clockwise circle over his desk. “Protect these words. Keep them true. Protect these lives. Keep them safe.”
Hank looked over at his sister, clearly confused.
Simon smiled. “Trust me, it’s a real spell.” He opened the top drawer of his desk and started looking through the papers. After a minute, he came up with what he wanted and pulled it out. Upon confirming that it actually still had the words he expected to see on it, he held it out to Alanna. “Take this. I believe it will be of more use to then I am.”
Alanna took the paper from him and looked at it. As she read it, her eyes began to widen. “But this . . . I thought there was nothing written left.”
Simon grinned. “I may not know them very personally, but I know my family very well. After nearly four hundred years, I’d better. I started casting spells on everything I wrote after the first time I met Uncle George. He doesn’t believe in reading.”
“Doesn’t believe in it?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean that in the sense that he believes it should be banned and not in the sense that he doesn’t believe it is possible or that he doesn’t on a rare occasion read. I’m afraid I never had very much written about this, but I wrote that after my conversation with Suzannah and it is possible that something there may be of use. She told me a lot. I don’t know if she knew how to stop this, but she believed she did. She couldn’t do it, but you’re Rebecca Warren’s descendants. Her blood flows through you. I think you and your family are the best chance at fixing this. It began when my family killed yours. It will end between our families as well. I don’t know the details, but Rachel once told me that the day before this started our father had a premonition of just how this will end. He knows. I doubt he’ll share it with you, but he does know how this will end. Maybe between what Suzannah told me and that you can find out, too.”
He could see the wheels working in the siblings eyes and he smiled. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel panic gripping him at the thought of what his father and the rest of his family did all those years ago. This time he felt hope.