Post by StoryGirl83 on Dec 25, 2013 13:55:37 GMT -5
Chapter Twenty-Six - Brothers and Other Emotions
10:37 AM (12:37 PM in Cortland)
Ladybug opened her eyes and moaned. Her entire body ached. She tried to stretch and found she couldn't move.
"You're awake," a lyrical voice pronounced before demanding, "All right, who are you and why are you here?"
Ladybug shook her head and scrapped her teeth across her bottom lip. "Untie me first."
"Uh uh," the voice returned. Ladybug had yet to see anyone. "My house, my rules. Now, who are you?"
"It's not my fault I'm in your house," Ladybug huffed. "I was going to knock. As I recall, I didn't get off the sidewalk. So how'd I get her . . . and why?"
She heard a deep breath followed by what sounded like the snort of an angry bull's nose.
Ladybug sighed. "My cousin found a blog you wrote about what's going on. I was chosen to see if you could help us."
"I can't," the voice returned quickly, too quickly. "I'm sorry about your father, mother, brother, sister, whomever, but I can't help you."
"Uncles," Ladybug replied, "two of them. But it's more then just them. Pretty soon the whole world's going to be effected by this. If it's not stopped, everyone will die."
"There's nothing I can do about that," the voice informed her.
"My aunt is determined to end this tonight," Ladybug told her, "even if it kills my uncles."
"Well, she can't end it," the voice said right in front of Ladybug's face. "No one can."
Still unable to see anyone, Ladybug's frown grew. "It's been stopped before. It can be, again."
"It's never been stopped," snarled the voice, still managing to sound like music. "It's only been pushed forward again and again. That's not stopping anything.
"If you know how to stop this, please, help me," Ladybug pleaded.
"The books are gone," the voice told her as a person appeared in front of her. "And I wouldn't tell you that spell even if I knew it."
"I don't mean to sound harsh, but whoever they are, they are going to die anyway, and maybe the spell you say you don't know holds the key to the spell to stop this."
The young woman started pacing in front of Ladybug. "This spell was cast by a minimum of thirteen evil witches."
"A minimum?"
"The wife of one of the witches was pregnant," the woman replied. "My ancestors said she later had twins, and if she was there, that makes fifteen. Thirteen's more likely, but it's something you'll need to know."
"Unborn babies can't say spells," Ladybug protested.
"Nonmagical mothers and those who cannot themselves be part of a specific spell can help cast those spells if the child within them is qualified to cast the spell," the young woman informed Ladybug with a musical snap.
Ladybug didn't answer. She glared up at the woman. "Would you untie me already. I'm not going to harm you."
The young woman glared at her and left the room.
Not sure if that was a good thing or not, Ladybug looked around the room. There was nothing that really caught her attention. It was a little dark other than a light by the piano on the other side of the room, but that didn’t mean much, so she started trying to escape her bonds.
“I’ll get that for you,” the young woman told her as she reentered the room. In her hands was a jagged edged knife. “Unfortunately, I’m a little too good at knots. I never can untie them. Kirk calls it my fatal flaw.”
“Kirk?”
“My brother,” she admitted as she got behind Ladybug and started sawing away at the knot. “Do you have any?”
“Brothers?” She shook her head. “Not really.”
“How do you ‘not really’ have any brothers?”
“Well, my mom miscarried during her first marriage and that was my brother.”
“You sound heartbroken,” the woman retorted.
Ladybug pulled her hands around in front of her and rubbed her wrists. “I wasn’t born. If he was alive, he’d be around my cousin, Wyatt’s, age. He’s six years older than me. Sure I would have liked a brother, but I don’t have one.”
“It still seems pretty cold.”
Letting her breath hiss between her teeth, she turned around to look at her former captor. “I don’t have a brother. I refuse to accept that I am the sister to the Source of All Evil, so excuse me if I’m not sad about the death of someone I never met.”
“The what?” the woman flickered her fingers and a light switched on. “You cannot be serious.”
“My mom made some mistakes,” Ladybug told her. “I’m not really sure how much is her fault and how much is someone else’s fault, but her first husband was the Source. He wasn’t born that way and I gather he didn’t stay that way, because at some point or another my big brother became the Source.”
“That seems impossible,” the woman told her, purple eyes glaring at Ladybug. “You said your brother wasn’t even born.”
“Didn’t stop any of it, now did it.” Ladybug sighed. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it. I’m a little touchy on the subject, because . . .”
“A little?”
“Okay, a lot,” she conceded. “My little sister has been talking about him a lot lately and I don’t know how to handle it. She’s talking about him as if he was perfectly normal and even if he wasn’t the Source, there’s no chance of that.”
“Still seems a bit extreme.”
“When was the last time your brother tried to kill your aunt?”
The other woman scrunched her nose in though. “Two years ago, I think.”
“Beg your pardon.”
“You haven’t met my aunt,” she informed Ladybug. “And keep in mind, no magic, none. He wasn’t serious or I don’t think he was, but I do know some people who would actually try to kill her given the chance.”
“Not the same.”
“No, I imagine it’s not, but he didn’t actually kill her did he?”
“No, she’s alive.”
“There you have it. Perhaps we should do as you suggested and move on.”
Grasping at the suggestion, Ladybug held out her hand with a smile. "I'm Ladybug."
The woman stared at her. "You cannot be serious," she repeated her earlier words.
Ladybug frowned and dropped her hand. "I thought I was."
"Not that," the woman assured her, glancing at Ladybug's hand. "Ladybug? Seriously? That's a baby name."
"At school they call me Prudence or Rudy," Ladybug told her with a shrug. "My family and friends though, they call me Ladybug."
"Well, I am neither," the woman said with a musical humph, "and I seriously doubt I can manage to hold a conversation with you without laughing if I must call you Ladybug, so Prudence or Rudy? Which do you prefer?"
Ladybug was silent. She'd never really liked the name Rudy, mostly due to whose idea it was to call her that. And Prudence was special. That was what Grandpa called her. Sure practically everyone at school did, too, but something told her she didn't want this girl to call her that.
"Fine then," the woman scowled at her. "I am Winifred. Franki for short . . . don't ask."
"Call me Ladybug," Ladybug insisted, seizing her chance, "and I'll call you Franki. Odd as people think it . . . I prefer it."
Franki's scowl deepened. "Fine."
"So . . . the spell."
"I truly don't know it," Franki insisted. "I was supposed to learn it, but I never saw the point. It was written right there after all."
"We need the spell, Franki. We've tried everything we could think of."
Franki slumped down in a chair and sighed. "Maybe one of my ancestors. They cast the spell, surely they know it."
"It's worth a shot," Ladybug tried to encourage her. "We summoned one of my ancestors, but he could only confirm that it had happened before."
"Right," Franki snorted. "That's not useful."
"It was news to us."
"Fine."
"So who is it?"
Franki gave her a strange look. "Who?"
"The person you don't want to lose to this?"
Franki signed.
"We need something to talk about while we prepare for a séance."
"Not really."
"Well, I think you need to talk."
"You think wrong," Franki assured her.
"A parent maybe," Ladybug pushed. "Only one needs magic to produce a magical child."
Franki said nothing.
"Not a sibling, I think," Ladybug continued. "Those are usually magical, too."
"Hmph."
"Maybe a close friend," Ladybug suggested. "I have a friend who's ill, only stage one, but that doesn't matter is the spell kills everyone I guess."
Still there was no response from Franki.
"Not that either then," Ladybug deduced. "It has to be someone. Not a child, surely. They'd be magical, too."
Franki squirmed.
"A husband," Ladybug looked at her, wondering if she was getting close. "No? A boyfriend then?"
"Look," Franki glared at her annoyed. "None of this is your business, but my parents have been dead for years. I'm an only child, single, no children . . . did I mentioned single? I'm a loner . . . no friends, no close friends anyway. And I wish you'd just quit being nosy and work."
Ladybug shrugged. "You don't socialize much do you?" She frowned. Hadn’t Franki said she had a brother and an aunt? Looking at Franki, she decided not to push it. Franki was making it pretty clear she didn’t want to talk.
"No," Franki agreed. "No point."
"Yes, there is," Ladybug mumbled under her breath. "Then you don't have conversations like this."
"I can hear you, you know."
Ladybug had the grace to grimace in embarrassment.
They walked in silence for several minutes, but by the time they reached Franki's inner sanctum, Ladybug could hold her tongue no longer. "So tell me about your ex."
"My ex is dead."
"From this?" Ladybug looked at her concerned.
"No."
"Not your ex, huh?" Ladybug shook her head. "Then, who on earth is it."
"You are way too nosy."
"You can ask questioned about me," Ladybug offered. "I'll answer."
Franki was silent as she considered this. Finally, "What about your ex?"
"One in Cambridge," Ladybug told her. "The other's in the ground."
"You seem unemotional about that, too," Franki frowned.
"We 'dated' when we where six," Ladybug informed her. "I hadn't seen him since his family moved when we were eight. He died at twelve, car accident."
"You still seem rather unemotional," Franki observed.
"I'm not," Ladybug assured her. "I just can't think about my feelings right now or I'll break.” Not to mention she’d already had enough emotional bursts spent on a brother she would probably prefer didn’t exist in the first place. “My parents have been missing for months. My sisters need me to be strong. My uncles are dying. My cousins and aunts need me to be strong. Thousands are dead, more by the minute. I'm not the only one that can save them, but I have to do what I can. I have to do my part. And to do that, I need your help."
"I said I'd help," Franki reminded her as she began putting crystals in a circle. There was silence for several seconds and then she asked, "What happened to you parents?"
"Don't know yet," Ladybug admitted. "They went on a second honeymoon and they didn't come back."
"When was that?"
"February."
"At least you can measure it in months not years," Franki told her. "Before I was born, my parents lost a child, a son, never met him, no clue if he's alive or dead. It bites."
And the brother she’d mentioned earlier? Even though she’d already mentioned it, she said, "My mom lost a son before I was born, too. Only she knows he died."
"Bites," Franki repeated.
"Yeah."
"You ready to do this séance?"
"Let's get it over with," Ladybug agreed. "Time is far too short."
Franki put down the last crystal and began lighting the candles.
"I sure hope this works."