Imps crashing through your door is never a pleasing turn of events, but if it’s going to happen, you’re most definitely going to want Cecily by your side. I have to admit I was next to useless. Even Cheeks made more of an attempt at fighting than me.
So the picture I’ll paint for you is as follows:
Cecily and I were seated on the couch and Cheeks was all but asleep in her lap. Her back was to the door and I am faced it. There was a loud BANG seconds before the door flew open and six imps came pouring in.
My first natural reaction was to scream and leap up from the couch. This set Cheeks off who dug his nails into Cecily’s thigh as she, startled by my sudden and terrified scream, jumped herself.
The imps howled, and it’s a perfectly abysmal sound. I can’t find anything to describe it save to say it was a sound I would be perfectly happy to never hear again. They see Cecily and they see me, and they also see Cheeks. Guess who they go for?
I half expected Roj to come strolling in, but the door remained vacant as the imps tore after Cheeks.
Cheeks dove under the entertainment stand so that all I could see of him was his green eyes. The imps tried to get under it but were too fat. I’m still screaming, trying to make heads and tails out of the situation but Cecily regained her bearings and calmly rolled up her sleeves.
Friends, let me tell you she was not kidding when she said I was mistaken for not fearing her above Roj. Had I known what I know now, I’d have sent Roj packing and sided wholly with Cecily.
The familiar sensation of electrified air surrounded me as Cecily turned to face me and the imps. Tiny bolts of vivid blue crackled around her iris, reminding me of those big silver spheres on posts they showed us in grade school, the ones where electricity danced between the two poles as it climbed toward the top. I stood, more terrified than transfixed, as Cecily’s voice boomed out.
“Leave us at once!”
The imps squealed, sounding like pigs. I heard another squeal, this the familiar noise of a cat whose tail is being pulled. Because Cheeks tail was being pulled. One of the imps had caught him and was trying to forcibly remove him from his hiding spot.
They paid her no mind. To their detriment, I might add.
Cecily lifted an arm, pointed a single, manicured finger at them and in an instant, the imp that had Cheeks by the tail popped.
It’s a funny sound, that. You’d think it’d be all wet and squishy and such considering it’s a living thing that popped but no. It was more like a hollow sound, like what you hear when you open a can of refrigerated biscuits (I’m sorry if those are forever ruined for you now).
Needless to say, THAT got the attention of the other imps, who snarled. They forgot all about Cheeks who dashed for the hallway stairs and turned on Cecily and I, at last remembering why they had been dispatched here.
Their eyes danced between me and her, and I think they weren’t too happy to see her. I think, as well, they hadn’t anticipated she would be here. But she’d given them a warning and they’d ignored it. One by one, she dispatched the imps before they could so much as take two steps forward.
I turned to stare at Cecily, my eyes wide. Her hair was halo’ing around her head, charged by the electricity she channeled. Her eyes were no longer alive with it, but rather vacant pools of black. It began seeping into her expression, and I found a whole new level of terror as I regarded my friend but saw nothing of her in the eyes that locked onto mine.
“Cecily, it’s me. It’s Michelle.”
Her chest heaved heavily and I felt a static charge build around me. The darkness continued to consume her features while I pleaded with her to hear me, to return to me.
Even my cards were silent, offering no reassurance or promise of salvation. I wondered if I’d live long enough to find out why, when Cecily let loose a blood curdling scream. I can’t say why I expected to see anything come out of her mouth because nothing did, but the darkness that had clouded her features gradually began to disappear. When she at last stopped screaming, her complexion and eyes were back to normal. She was my friend once more.
It took me three drinks and a hot bath before I felt safe again.
Cecily said she would send someone over to fix my door, but that she had “business” to take care of. I assumed that meant Roj and I wasn’t about to stop her. I gave her a hug and rather lamely thanked her for saving me and Cheeks. Then she left and I very much enjoyed the drinks and bath I just told you about.
It’s been about three days. My door is fixed and I haven’t had any more uninvited guests come crashing in. I’ve tried calling Cecily but she doesn’t answer. I also haven’t seen Roj, but to be fair, I haven’t really gone anywhere but to the local market.
With no other resource to turn to, I asked my cards.
I asked them if Cecily was alive and they told me she was.
I asked them if she needed help and they assured me she most certainly did.
I asked if there was anything I could do and they told me I needed to find someone called “Jack”.
I wasn’t given any additional information. I wasn’t even at square one, at this point, I was several squares behind square one. But, I was determined to find Jack and see if he was willing to help me find Cecily.
My determination saw me venturing into my new town feeling as nervous as the new kid on the first day of school. I truly didn’t know where to begin, but the one safest place seemed to be the little market where I bought my groceries.
A lady there named Dianne always seemed to be working the registers, and was on the afternoon I went in. I initially intended to walk right up to her and ask her, but my nerve fled at sight of the Hag. I ducked down the nearest aisle and hid behind an end cap, praying she hadn’t seen me.
Stuck there, I perused the shelf in an effort at seeming like I’d done this intentionally and not out of sheer fright. Whether it was a matter of coincidence or sheer happenstance, the shelf I’d hidden behind contained “locally sourced” goods. My heart gave a weird flutter-flop when a beaming face greeted me from the label on one of the jars of organic jams. Jumpin’ Jack’s Jubilee Jam.
Well, hell.
I grabbed the jar and head cautiously toward the front of the store. It’s a small store. There’s just the one register and it was now empty save for Diane. I sighed with relief as I headed for it and set the jar down in front of her.
“Hey, Chel. How are you?”
“I’m good, Diane, thanks. Listen… I was wondering if you knew where these came from.”
“Oh sure, hun. Just back there at the end of the first aisle.”
Patiently, I said, “I know, I meant the man who makes them. Jack?”
“Jack?” Diane queried with a furrow of her brows.
I suddenly pictured a horn there, set between two, bushy and overgrown eyebrows. Dianne’s plug shaped nose turned bulbous as numerous warts popped up across a face that suddenly turned green. Her jaw clicked and popped as it dislocated to accommodate a considerable overbite.
I shook my head and quickly rubbed my eyes, and when I cleared them, Dianne was back to herself, if slightly suspicious.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” She asked.
I was beginning to wonder that myself. I tried to smile, but I saw a man standing over her shoulder. My vision wavered and wings suddenly replaced his arms while the rest of his body became that of a snakes.
My throat went dry and I forced myself to look back at Dianne. Only the horn appeared this time.
“The-the-the jam,” I stammered, reaching for it. I meant to pick it up but the next thing I knew, I’d knocked it clear off the counter. It shattered the instant it landed, making a pure, crystalline ting.
Dianne jumped back as if I’d doused her with boiling water and screeched. The man I’d spied behind her dropped his groceries and bolted out of the store. Dumbfounded, I tried to offer an apology but Dianne continued screaming until I rushed out of the store too.
I wish I could say another moment of fortune struck me as I did, that I somehow ran smack dab into Jack. But I didn’t. I didn’t know where else to turn and feared running into the Hag - or worse - and so I returned home. It was a battle to drive my car there and not clear out of Oceanview, and the only thing that kept me from following that urge was knowing Cecily still needed my help and that Cheeks was at home.
Somehow, I had to find Jack.