Marionette

Having no time to react you hit the tile floor hard, your left elbow then your head taking the worst of it. Ignoring the pain you struggle to your feet. The room is spinning like a centrifuge but you stay on your feet through sheer **** of will. Reaching up you search for the window into the other place but the rift is gone.

“Run, please. Get away. Get away!” You are blinded by the cellar lights coming on. Blinking and squinting you feel around, touching and grasping at the walls. “No, no, no, no, no! Turn out the lights! She needs to get away from there! She needs to find her way home!”

“Who needs to find her way home?” Your father’s low eerily controlled voice asks.

“Dad!” You turn and stagger toward him. “You don’t understand. She’s not…she’s…ohhh…” **** to stop you grab your head and try to stop the room from spinning.

Your father’s eyes scan left and right, they hover a moment on the vial of eye drops, then on the chair and the space above it, and then back to you. His stern look is replaced by a deep grave concern. “What have you done here Jacob? Tell me!” He is already casting a spell as he awaits your answer, magical forces gather around his muttered words and precise hand movements.

“It’s Vespera.”

“Vespera!?” He pauses his spell for just a moment to hit you with a withering gaze. “What have you done?”

“Dad. Listen to me. She’s not a thing. She can talk. She talks with me Dad. She can feel, she can love, she listens and understands, she’s scared, she’s in danger, she wants to be with me Dad! She wants to come home! She needs us! We need to go help her!” Trying to say everything at once you end up sounding like a raving lunatic. “Listen to me!”

“You foolish boy.” A burst of light brilliant as the sun fills the room for a few retina searing seconds. As the spell fades he is already casting another. Blue energy begins pouring into the now empty space where the rift had been.

“What are you doing!?”

“Protecting my son from his own stupidity. You have no idea what you are playing with here.” He growls as he shapes the energy and swirls it like paint through the air. “I told you to stay alert, to protect yourself. I told you to come find us if she showed herself.”

“You told me to keep an open mind!” You take a few deep breaths and start to explain again. “Dad, please…”

“Leave me be!” He releases the blue energy and it dissipates through the room like a bursting firework.

“Dad!”

As the second spell fades he fixes you with a furious stare. “JACOB! Go to you room and stay there!” Unspoken syllables of power punctuate his hard words.

Beyond your control your body snaps to attention and with no guidance from your mind you find yourself walking stiffly back toward the stairs to the kitchen Try as you might you cannot stop yourself or even slow down, you couldn’t even speak. You march up the stairs, through the kitchen, and toward your room a marionette to your father’s potent magic.

Frantically you struggle but you didn’t even know how. Your thoughts were clear but your body was not your own. The feeling is uncanny, unsettling, and deeply humbling as you realize he could do this and more to you anytime he wished and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it. Most men could eventually stand up to their father, not so with you. You were as powerless against him now as you were when you were a child. You wouldn’t even survive him. He would watch you grow old and pass on while he remained strong thanks to his Warlock blood. It was so…unnatural.

Along the way you pass your little sister.

“Hey Jake!” She says brightly. “I heard you beat those guys up. Looks like you took a lump there too.” She points up to where you’d just slammed your head into the tile floor. “What a hero. He he he! You’ve always been my hero Jake.”

You don’t say a word but continue on.

“Hey.” She titters with an extra naughty sparkle in her maraschino cherry eyes. Sucking on her bottom lip she twirls her hands together and a little blush darkens her cheeks. “About this morning, I wanted to say thank you for…”

You walk straight past her without a word.

“Jake. Hey. I know you’re upset. You haven’t been returning my…Jake, wait up.” She follows in behind you tugging lightly at your arm. “It’s okay. I’m not upset. I loved it! I’m happy! See how happy I am. Jake, stop, talk to me. Please.”

Though you flex your will for all you had you can’t produce a single sound or turn your head or interrupt your gait by even a step.

“Jake, don’t be like that.” You can hear the hurt growing in your sister’s voice. “I thought it was fun. I thought it was so hot. Jake please.”

You stride with purpose down the hall and into your room though to Trix it surely looked like you were in a huff. You walk to the center of your bedroom and you stop with your back to the door. Again you strain to speak or move but the magic held you tight.

“Jake.” She whines from your doorway. “Jake, I’m sorry. I thought…I thought you’d like my present. It seemed like you liked it. Jake, talk to me.” A long pained minute passes before you hear her sigh. “Jake…please…” Stony silence is your only reply. “Okay. I, uh, I’ll talk to you later? Okay?” Silence. “Jake, I’m sorry. Okay?” Silence. “Jake...say something.”

Poor Trix already blamed herself for what happened to Lucian and now she was feeling guilty for this, your heart went out to her but you cannot respond. There is a sad sniffle before she slinks off down the hall.