The answer was obvious enough: because she’s either totally crazy (crazy in love) or completely evil.
Yet, he had hoped he was wrong. That was the real reason he had made Paul drive him to Trailer Trash Town. He had believed that it was all some crazy string of coincidences. Sasha’s mother wasn’t a witch (that was preposterous), and while Sasha might be upset (maybe even a bit delusional herself about what happened), no one had cursed his family. He had gone there not to end a curse or reason with a witch; he had gone there to reassure himself that the world was still a rational place.
Instead, he dropped into a black ocean of madness and had now slipped beneath the surface where he could no longer tell which way was up. Sasha’s mother was a real witch, an honest-to-God, broomstick-riding, spell-casting, malevolent witch. She had wanted Tyler to fuck Sasha in front of her while she cast yet another spell. Perhaps she meant to convert him to witchcraft. She had cursed him and that curse had made somebody drop a bowling ball off a bridge and into Delaney’s face.
Brendan’s composition book lay on the bed next to him. Tyler picked it up, flipped to the page that had been folded over, conveniently enough. It read in a scribble across the top: Tyler’s Problem. Beneath that it read:
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Discovery. The Darkman is around here somewhere, thought Bo Blast. He had tracked the mad killer to an abandoned warehouse where tennis shoes used to be made.
And on and on it went about some detective named Bo Blast and a killer named The Darkman who apparently killed people only in the dark. The chapter was nine pages front and back and Tyler read over them twice and even skimmed the next chapter (Chapter Seven concluded with the Darkman pointing a gun directly at Bo Blast’s chest and though he wouldn’t admit it openly, Tyler wanted to find out what happened next) before assuring himself that Brendan hadn’t overhead anything about Tyler’s situation. But then why did he write Tyler’s Problem across the top of the page? A few suspicions lurked at the corners of his mind, but he wanted to talk to Brendan before making any accusations.
How the conversation with his brother went would determine what happened next and how much deeper into the black water Tyler sank.
* * *
Tyler knocked once on Brendan’s door and opened it without waiting for a reply. Brendan was kneeling next to his bed, elbows on the bed, hands folded in prayer, forehead resting against his hands. Their family was not inclined to say blessings before meals (not even on holidays) or offer prayers to God, so Tyler stopped mid-step and gaped at his brother as though he had discovered him naked humping one of his stuffed animals.
Should he say something? Had Brendan found God when no one was looking? No, that was unlikely. Brendan was a young kid and sometimes when the world went to shit, young kids turned to the man in the clouds. Hell, old people turned to that same floating overseer as well. Maybe they were on to something.
Was it rude to interrupt? How did you know if someone was deep in prayer or merely browsing through their thoughts like scrolling through a webpage of products?
“Brendan?” The name came out in a croaked whisper. When Brendan turned to him, Tyler realized he was holding the composition book and he held it up like a prize. “Guess what I found?”
Brendan appreciated him for a moment, stood. “Do you believe in God?”
“That’s quite a question, isn’t it?”
“You’ve never thought about it?”
“Yeah, I have. Don’t have any answers though.”
“Do you think He has a plan?”
“You mean like, everything happening for a reason?”
Brendan nodded.
“I guess we can hope. Delaney took a bowling ball to the head; how can that be part of some god’s plan?”
Brendan looked away. Tyler was being too harsh on the kid. He was only twelve. The soul-searching, religion-questioning phase of his life was just starting. Tyler had to be supportive, even if he thought it was all a bunch of bullshit.
“Where’d you run off to today?” Tyler asked.
“Nowhere,” Brendan said, “just wanted to get away.”
“I understand.” He held out the composition book. “I read some of it. Really cool.”
Brendan’s eyes brightened. “Really?”
“Yeah, that Darkman guy is really something.”
“I don’t know. It’s just a story.”
An awkward pause grated on Tyler’s nerves until he finally told himself fuck it, and dove for the truth. “I noticed you wrote Tyler’s Problem before Chapter Seven.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Sorry.”
“What do you mean? Chapter Seven was about hunting a killer in a warehouse. It has nothing to do with me, right?”
Brendan glanced at his hands, which were still locked in prayer. “I know something bad happened and you’re involved. I know because I heard your conversation with Paul Friday night. I thought if I wrote that in the book you’d get curious and eventually tell me what was going on.”
The answer was so perfectly composed, so logically-reasoned that it had to be a lie, yet it rang with such honesty that Tyler couldn’t refuse its authenticity. “You’re pretty cool, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“You looking out for me and stuff? You’re my little brother, you know.”
“After the baby died, everything changed, you know. Things turned dark, like the sky before a storm. I figure we’re still in the storm and I’m trying to make the skies clear again. I hope what is going on with you isn’t another thundercloud moving in.”
For a moment, Tyler couldn’t respond. Brendan was twelve and yet spoke with maturity far beyond his age. Hell, beyond Tyler’s age. He was like one of those prodigies. Or an idiot savant, one with acute emotional insight. “Don’t get weirded out or anything,” Tyler said, “but I love you. You’re my brother and now, well, we’re all that’s left. For the briefest of moments, we had two siblings. But they’re gone now—it’s just us. That’s fucked up, but we have to stick together if we want to survive, right?”
Brendan nodded, glanced around. “So, what happened? What kind of trouble are you in?”
Tyler wouldn’t have expected the truth to pour out so easily, but it did, like water from a garden hose. He told his little brother about Sasha, about their date that ended with her accusation—you raped me—and carried the story right through to the Delaney spread-eagle conclusion. He hesitated before relaying the sex stuff but decided that the story wouldn’t hold as much, if any, meaning if he omitted it. Brendan was mature for his age and even if he really didn’t understand what sex was, he wasn’t too young to learn that it was something that could strangle you into a tangled web of madness. Talk about coming of age.
When Tyler finished, Brendan’s face contorted as if he had eaten something sour. He sucked on his teeth for a moment and scratched his head. He reminded Tyler of Mr. Agles, an aging math teacher who was always stumped by particularly complex equations. My brother is a forty-year-old in a twelve-year-old’s body, he thought with no sense of humor or irony. It was just a fact. Brendan the freak.
“You think they’re real witches?”
That depended, but Tyler erred on the side of well, this is one fucked up situation and it’s probably more fucked up than I can even reason. “Her mother, definitely. Sasha, I don’t know.”
Brendan caressed his chin as if he had a beard. “I’m glad you told me.”
“You sound like a guidance counselor.”
“It’s not your fault.”