Authors: James Swain
Holly rose and went to the window to stare out at the park. The crows had crowded the tree limbs, and not moved since her aunt’s return home. How nice it was to have things so settled in your life, she thought. Perhaps that was one of the advantages of growing old.
“Peter’s changed,” she said quietly. “He’s not the same person anymore.”
“Tell me what’s different about him,” her aunt said.
“Peter never used to have a bad bone in his body. Now, he’s angry and bitter about everything, especially his girlfriend. He told me his life’s falling apart. She’s upset with him, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.”
“But that’s good. At least for you. Peter will be all yours now.”
Her aunt wasn’t seeing the big picture, and Holly turned from the window. “But I don’t want Peter like this. I want the wonderful boy I’ve always known, not some angry person who feels cheated by how his life’s turned out. It’s not fair.”
“Life is rarely fair, my dear.”
“That’s not what I mean. We’ve put Peter in an awful position. We put all sorts of pressure on him, and made him lead two different lives. Now it’s all come crashing down on his head, and you have the nerve to say that life’s not fair.”
“Are you blaming me?”
“Yes, Aunt Milly, I am. And Max as well. You’re both responsible for this situation.”
“What on earth did I do to Peter?”
“You raised him.”
“Oh, I see,” her aunt said quietly.
Max entered the bedroom holding an empty tray in one hand, and a dish towel in the other. He had his performer’s face on, and said, “Allow me to present my mother’s famous homemade chicken noodle soup. Guaranteed to cure whatever ails you.”
He showed the towel on both sides, and draped it over the tray. A form mysteriously appeared beneath its folds. Whisking the towel away, he proudly displayed a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup, which he placed upon Milly’s lap along with the tray.
“Bon appetit, dear friend,” he said.
“Well done,” Milly said. “Did you see how he did it, Holly?”
“I don’t have a clue,” Holly confessed.
“I learned it from the famous Chinese magician, Long Tack Sam,” Max said proudly. “Long Tack performed a complete somersault before making a bowl of liquid appear. I’m afraid that in my advancing years, such gymnastics are out of the question.”
“We were just talking about you,” Milly said, tasting her soup. “Holly believes you and I are responsible for Peter’s current problems with his girlfriend, among other things. She feels we didn’t raise him properly.”
“We did our best,” Max said stiffly.
“You did one thing wrong,” Holly said, unwilling to back down. “You pounded it into Peter that he should never talk about his powers. That was harmful. Everyone has to confide in
someone.
Didn’t both of you confide in someone when you were young?”
Max looked at the floor. “Well, there was a woman I told once. Actually, there were several women I’ve told. A moment of weakness, I suppose.”
Holly looked at her aunt. “And you?”
“I’ve told certain friends as well,” Milly admitted.
“And so have I,” Holly said. “You see, we’ve all confided in someone. Except poor Peter. Now look what it’s done to him. His girlfriend doesn’t trust him, and he’s become bitter about it. He’s not the same person he used to be.”
“Peter has been out of sorts lately,” Max admitted.
“I’ve noticed it as well,” Milly said.
“And what were you going to do about it?” Holly asked. “Besides watch him suffer?”
Her words had shamed them, and they both fell silent. Outside the apartment, a police car’s siren pierced the air. There was work to be done, and she excused herself from the room.
* * *
Holly went into her aunt’s study and shut the door. A seldom-used Mac sat on the desk. Powering it up, she got onto the Internet. She’d read somewhere that one day the entire world would be owned by Google. She didn’t doubt it; she did a search for Carr, and found a short profile posted on Wikipedia. Carr was a physicist of some renown, and had published several papers about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. A photo showed a man with soft blue eyes and a gentle mouth, and she wondered what had caused him to turn into a madman. Maybe when this was all over, Peter would explain what had happened to him.
She went to the closet and opened the safe. From it, she grabbed several of her aunt’s magical potions and herbs. She supposed she should have asked her aunt’s permission, but felt put out with her. Aunt Milly and Max had made a mistake, and needed to own up to it.
She returned to the desk. From her purse, she removed a bottle of water, and emptied it into a glass. Pouring equal measures of magical potions into the water, she stirred them gently with the tip of her finger. Always clockwise, never counter-clockwise, unless she wanted to upset the spirits, and lose her ability to talk with them.
“Dr. Carr, with eyes so bright, where are you on this ominous night?
Are you hiding in a car, or a bus, or a train?
Do you wish us harm during this terrible rain?
Show your face to me, Dr. Carr,
So that I may see the man you really are.”
It was not the best spell she’d ever recited, but it would do. The water inside the glass grew cloudy, then cleared. She found herself looking inside a railroad car filled with passengers. Dr. Carr was jammed into a seat in the front of the car. On the rack above his head was a bright blue child’s knapsack. His eyes darted nervously from side to side like a caged animal.
The poor man’s lost his mind,
she thought.
A man wearing a dark raincoat walked past Carr and kept going. Reaching the back of the car, the man pulled a walkie-talkie from his pocket, and began to whisper into it. Holly guessed the man was a policeman, and was watching Carr.
She had a thought. If the man watching Dr. Carr was a policeman, there would be other policemen. They always worked in teams. Again, she stirred the water with her fingertip.
“Like a bird from high above, let me see where this train is going.
Who is waiting on the other end?
Friend or foe?
Please show me, for I must know.”
The water went through another transformation. When it cleared, she found herself looking at an enclosed railroad platform inside Penn Station. The platform was filled with people waiting for a train to arrive. She studied the crowd, and spotted more men talking into walkie-talkies, waiting for Dr. Carr’s train to pull in. Carr couldn’t escape from that many policemen. He was going to be apprehended, and have his knapsack taken away from him. Case closed.
Or was it? It wasn’t over until it was over. Someone famous had once said that. It wasn’t over until the madman was led away in handcuffs. She twirled the water again.
“Take me back inside the railroad car,
To see the doctor, whose name is Carr.”
She was going to have to work on her rhyming skills. The water inside the glass went clear, and Carr reappeared. Rising from his seat, the doctor pulled the backpack down from the rack, and clutched it against his chest. He was carrying on a conversation with himself, and being watched by the other passengers. He looked ready to explode.
“Because you are an evil man,
I now must raise my hand.
May your eyes grow blurred,
And your feet feel like lead.
May your stomach grow so nauseous,
That you wish you were dead.”
“Why, there you are,” her aunt said, standing in the doorway in her bathrobe.
Holly looked away from the glass long enough for the spell to be broken, and the water to turn clear. “Aunt Milly, what are you doing out of bed? You could fall, and hurt yourself.”
“All of those things are true,” her aunt said. “Yet none are as important as this.” From her pocket, she removed a gold locket in the shape of a heart, which she displayed to her niece.
“Do you recognize this? You coveted it as a child.”
Holly crossed the study to get a closer look. “It’s Mary Glover’s locket. You showed it to me once. I never forgot it.”
“The time has come for you to have it.”
“Oh, Aunt Milly, I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you remember what I told you about this locket?”
“I certainly do. You said it contained the most magical of potions, and had the power to change a person’s life forever.”
“That is correct. With it, you will be able to help our beloved Peter, and give him back the things which Max and I have so unfairly denied him.”
“The locket will help me do that? But how?”
“Easy, my dear child. I will explain.”
Before the words had left her mouth, Milly’s eyelids began to flutter, and her head sagged to one side. She sank noiselessly to the floor, her fingers clutching the locket.
“Max, come help me!” Holly called into the apartment.
52
As the train pulled into the platform at Penn Station, the interior lights flickered as the car bounced across the high-voltage electric tracks. Dr. Lucas Carr looked at the faces of the other passengers in the eerie strobe light.
“The time is here,” he announced loudly.
The train came to a screeching halt, and the lights returned. Carr felt the weight of his fellow passengers’ stares as they tried to determine if he was a threat. New York was filled with threats. Punks, street people, crazies. He wanted to tell them that he wasn’t any of the above, just mad as hell. They’d find out soon enough.
Rising from his seat, he removed his knapsack from the overhead rack, and shoved himself into the aisle now filled with people.
“I was like you once,” he said. “Just like you.”
The doors to the train parted, and everyone filed out. Carr felt himself being caught up in their movement as if being pulled out to sea by a powerful tide.
“Stop pushing me,” he said angrily.
His fellow commuters ignored him. It made his rage that much greater. He considered removing the bomblet from the knapsack, and throwing it against the nearest wall, causing the deadly Novichok to come spraying out in all directions, and take down every single one of them.
He didn’t do it. He would not deter from his plan. He was going to take a subway to Times Square, get a bite to eat, and wait for the theaters to let out. When the sidewalks were packed, he’d toss the bomblet in front of a moving vehicle, the impact causing the nerve agent to dispel through the air. He’d done the math, and knew that he’d created enough of the deadly nerve agent to kill tens of thousands of people, not just in Times Square, but all across the city. Even this dreadful rain was not capable of containing it.
He’d targeted the theater district for a reason. The night before the accident, he’d taken his wife and daughter to see a musical in Times Square. Thinking about it broke his heart, and it was only fitting that he stage his attack in a place that held so many painful memories.
He followed the crowd up the stairs to the main level. Penn Station was the busiest train station in the country; during rush hour, hundreds of thousands of people were moved through its terminals. It was a microcosm of the city it served, and always hectic.
“Dr. Carr,” said a man’s voice.
The voice had come from behind him. Carr did not turn around. It might have been an old friend, but something told him that it wasn’t. In his haste to get up the stairs, he shoved the burly construction worker in front of him, causing him to stumble.
“Watch it, buddy,” the construction worker warned.
“Excuse me, but I’m in a hurry,” Carr explained.
“Ain’t we all.”
“Dr. Carr,” the voice called again. “Please stop!”
Carr stole a glance over his shoulder. The man was a few steps behind him, and had a policeman’s badge clipped to the lapel of his overcoat. He was not alone. There were a dozen other men with badges clipped to their coats coming up the stairs, as well.
Carr sprinted around the construction worker. He would not to let himself be arrested. This was his last stand, and he was going to make the most of it.
Reaching the top, he looked for an exit. He was inside the Long Island Railroad terminal, a claustrophobic space filled with food concessions and newspaper stands. Rush hour had started, and long lines of commuters stood outside the gates. More men with badges emerged from the crowd, circling around him.
Carr was trapped.
The rest of the cops appeared from the stairwell. They fanned out, and created a tight circle around him. The cop who’d been calling his name stepped forward.
“My name is Detective Emener,” he said in a measured tone. “I need to talk with you, Dr. Carr. Please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”
Carr raised the knapsack above his head. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Don’t do that, Dr. Carr.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what to do!” Carr bellowed.
“Calm down, Dr. Carr. Do as I say, and no one will get hurt.”