51
Holly folded her cell phone, and stared into space. She wanted to cry, but fought back the tears. Peter had sounded so
“What’s wrong, my dear?” Milly murmured.
Holly glanced at her aunt lying in bed. “I thought you were asleep.”
“One can’t sleep one’s life away forever.” Milly pulled herself into a sitting position, and leaned against the headboard. “You look upset. It’s about Peter, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?”
“Call it intuition. What’s wrong now?”
Rain pelted the windows and sounded like tiny drumbeats. One of the wonderful aspects of living in the Dakota was that every room had windows, and made the apartment feel bigger than it really was. It was an illusion, just like everything else in her life.
“The doctor said you should stay quiet, and get plenty of rest,” she replied.
“Is that a nice way of telling me to shut up, and mind my own business?”
“I’m sorry if it sounded that way. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Try me. You may be surprised.”
“Very well. A mad scientist is about to attack the city. Peter wants us to stay inside, away from the air vents. He asked me to cast a spell on him to see if I can slow him down.”
“Is this the same attack Peter saw during the seance Friday night?”
“Yes, it is.”
“That’s old news, my dear. Now tell me what’s really wrong.”
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
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.
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.
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
