Exhaustion & Excursions
Wednesday held her finger to her lips as she and Harry approached Xavier’s art shed. After spending the prior day exploring Harry’s magic, Wednesday was prepared to begin exploring the place beyond the gates that Goody had shown her.
It was time for answers.
Harry rolled his eyes, then immediately looked down at the ground, but obligingly remained silent so they could catch Xavier in the act.
What the act may be, Wednesday was unsure. All she knew was that Xavier had far too much information on the monster terrorizing town than an innocent third party should have. He may not be the monster, but he was involved, she was certain of it. All the more so after Goody warned her that not all of her friends were trustworthy.
Seeing Harry still by her side, Wednesday grasped the handle to Xavier’s art shed and abruptly threw it open, catching the boy inside by complete surprise.
“Wednesday, Jesus!” Xavier yelped. “Maybe knock next time?”
“Sorry,” Harry said as he slunk inside with Wednesday.
“Don’t apologize,” Wednesday told Harry before turning to Xavier. “Working on a new piece?”
Xavier had been sitting on a stool in front of a large canvas, one that Wednesday was certain hadn’t been there last time she had been inside the shed. When she moved to inspect it further, Xavier quickly grabbed a sheet and covered it.
“It’s- it’s not done, it’s really bad,” Xavier said, stammering slightly and avoiding eye contact, all signs of a guilty conscience.
“I’m sure it’s lovely,” Wednesday said drily. She reached over to snag the sheet, to reveal Xavier’s painting, and was vexed when Xavier clung tightly to it, refusing to allow her to see it.
“What do you guys want?” Xavier asked, yanking the sheet and holding it in place over the painting.
“Wednesday wanted to know if you’ve seen these gates before,” Harry said, abruptly reminding Wednesday of his presence. Harry held out Wednesday’s sketch of the gates that she completed the day before, he’d been examining it in their walk and he offered it up all too easily for Xavier to look at.
And as soon as Xavier glanced away, Wednesday yanked hard on the sheet and revealed the painting.
“Bloody hell,” Harry breathed, captured by the same moving image Wednesday was.
As the two of them lived and breathed in person, so did their counterparts on the canvas.
Wednesday sat with her cello, her head bent and a sense of peace radiating from her as she played Liszt’s ‘Totentanz’ in an audible accompaniment to Harry. With his fingers moving, his eyes blazing, and the air that lifted Harry’s hair as he played on the grand piano in the painting, he was the fire to Wednesday’s water.
It was as if Xavier had captured their very souls through the painting, Wednesday felt certain she could reach through the painting and become one with the girl that played the cello with such serene passion.
It was breathtaking.
It was invasive.
Wednesday loved it and she hated it.
“I couldn’t get it out of my head, I had to paint it,” Xavier said when neither of the subjects of the painting made any remark. “It’s just… I see you both playing and it’s like that’s when you’re the most real… No masks, no hiding, you’re just…” Xavier trailed off and caressed the side of the canvas with a reverent touch.
“Free,” Harry exclaimed in a breath. When Wednesday looked at him, she saw a flash of the fire she knew he hid in the backs of his eyes while he watched himself play piano.
“Exactly,” Xavier flashed Harry an easy smile. “You’re both free here.”
“Do you recognize those gates or not?” Wednesday demanded, ripping her eyes from the painting that still enthralled Harry.
Xavier picked up the sketchbook that Harry had tossed on a table and examined the gates.
“Yeah, yeah, I do,” Xavier said. He turned to gesture to another painting, much smaller, that was laying flat on his work table. “Gates Manor, I’ve been seeing it for days.”
Wednesday peered at the half-finished painting and saw shadows shifting inside the dark hallway Xavier had created.
“Is the monster in there?”
“I don’t know,” Xavier said. He picked it up and tilted the painting side to side while he examined it. “It feels like it though.”
Xavier’s paintings were unnerving; Wednesday could feel the chills emitting from the one of Gates Manor (the Gates family cropping up once again merited further research into their lives) and the shadows within the painting felt ominous and hostile.
“I need to see it.”
*****
Harry hadn’t been sleeping well, and he could feel it as he drug himself from class to class. In his sleep, questions plagued him and when he was awake, answers evaded him.
Apparently curiosity got more than the cane, it also got insomnia and exhaustion.
It was more than that though, and Harry knew it even if he didn’t want to admit it.
It was watching the spiders Wednesday captured prance around her room, following his silent orders.
It was watching the spiders curl up, silently screaming in agony.
It was the flash of green light that left behind dead spiders, guards, boys, parents.
“What is the issue here?” Wednesday demanded after a couple of days of Harry’s lethargy. She tore her fencing mask off and threw it to the ground before offering Harry a hand to help him up from where she’d knocked him flat.
“I didn’t block in time,” Harry mumbled, embarrassed and ashamed.
“Obviously,” Wednesday drawled. “I’m asking why this is the third day in a row that I’ve bested you without any effort.”
Harry shrugged and scuffed his trainers on the practice mat. Wednesday apparently wasn’t going to accept silence as an answer.
“You look like a zombie,” she said in her typical blunt manner. “Unless you’d prefer I begin experimenting on you, you need to sleep.”
Harry glanced around to ensure that their classmates were still drawn in to their own mock-fights before stepping closer to Wednesday.
“It’s those spells,” Harry confided quietly, admitting to part of the stress eating away his insides. “They make everything… sharper.”
Like hot glass.
“Sharper,” Wednesday repeated flatly, a dubious look in the twist of her lips. “Explain.”
Harry huffed and edged to the side, straying closer to the water jug and wall and further from the mat that was arranged too closely to their other classmates.
“I can’t,” Harry said. He reached for a paper cup to fill with water and quickly retracted his hand when he saw his fingers trembling.
He’d had tremors before - after Piers, after Chase, after Abraham, after Hamilton, after Rowan - but never ones that lasted so long or were felt so acutely.
Wednesday’s keen eyes didn’t miss Harry’s tremor or the way he had reached for the cup and then changed his mind. She filled a paper cup with water for him and handed it to him, watching him while he sipped it.
“The other spells didn’t make you act like this,” she said thoughtfully. “I wonder what the difference is.”
“Those three are darker,” Harry said, not knowing what he was saying but knowing it was right. “They feel like the sparks are burning me instead of flowing.”
And they were easy.
Those three spells that should be so hard to use came so easy to Harry that the burning inside of him seemed to make him feel more alive than ever before.
It should make him sick using those spells, they should be harder than changing his hair color had been, but they didn’t and they weren’t.
Something inside of Harry sang when he used them and it only turned to screams when he was alone in his bed.
“So they’re fire, not water,” Wednesday nodded as if Harry’s idiotic rambling made any sense. “Interesting.”
Harry sighed as the bell rang, signaling the end of class.
“It’s not interesting,” he murmured unhappily. “It’s- it’s… I dunno, but it’s not interesting.”
“You’re wrong,” Wednesday said evenly. Of course Harry was, because Wednesday found everything interesting.
“Come, let’s take you to get coffee and see if that helps you sleep.”
Harry raised a skeptical eyebrow at her while they put up their foils. “Isn’t coffee supposed to make people stay awake?”
“And yet I think you sleep better after coffee,” Wednesday said drily. “I’ll even escort you to town.”
“Really?” Harry said, warmth flooding through his stomach and chasing away the chill that plagued him. “It’s not Friday.”
“I’m not going to stay and watch you giggle over a cup of coffee, I’m dropping you off and fulfilling a side quest I have.”
“Side quest?” Harry looked over at Wednesday’s perfectly solemn and calm face. “I don’t know what that means,” he admitted.
It was an easy out- if Harry said he didn’t know what it meant, then Wednesday would explain without Harry having to ask anything. A simple system they shared even if it made Harry sound dim most of the time.
“I want to go see where Gates Manor is, you want to get coffee, it’s an acceptable arrangement,” Wednesday explained. She pushed Harry lightly toward the boys dorms after they left the fencing classroom. “Go get your jacket.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Harry said with a grin. “Don’t forget your snood, it’s cold out.”
Wednesday scowled and Harry grinned all the way to his room with a newfound pep in his step.
*****
As soon as Wednesday deposited Harry at the Weathervane, she set out for Gates Manor. She had promised not to enter it alone, but Thing had been crossing his fingers and Harry should know better anyway.
It was beginning to get cold out; not so cold that Wednesday would wear the ‘snood’ Enid crocheted her, but cold enough that she kept her hands in her coat pockets. The walk to the manor wasn’t short either, clearly the Gates enjoyed living outside of the town that they claimed as their own.
When the grand house came into view, so did a nondescript silver sedan.
“Of course,” Wednesday muttered darkly to herself. It would be karma that Wednesday was unable to break her promise to Harry by the appearance of another person investigating the Gates family.
Wednesday crept just out of view behind the sedan and waited to see who would emerge from the house. It didn’t take long before the tall figure of Jericho’s mayor came in view, striding out of the house while he pulled a cell phone from his pocket.
“Donavan? Hey, it’s me,” Walker said as he moved closer to his car. “I found something interesting in the old Gates place, I think you should see it. I’ll meet you at the usual place to discuss it.”
While Mayor Walker left his message for the sheriff, Wednesday sent Thing to the opposite side of the property to create a suitable distraction. If there would be a meeting taking place discussing anything of interest, Wednesday wanted to hear it.
The second that a tree branch broke and the mayor’s attention was diverted, Wednesday climbed in the backseat of his sedan and crawled to the trunk.
Wherever this meeting would happen, whatever was being discussed, Wednesday would be there to hear it.
And Thing would catch up eventually.
*****
“You look tired.”
“I am.”
“Too busy with your secret powers to sleep?” Tyler grinned.
Harry stalled with a sip of his warm drink. Tyler wasn’t working when Wednesday dropped Harry off at the Weathervane, but Harry suspected that Wendy sent him a message because he showed up not long after Harry sat down with a latte.
The two of them had escaped the after school rush at the coffee shop with to go drinks and the idea to walk around town a bit. They hadn’t made it far, they just found a bench in the square that the shops were all centered around and sat down.
Neither of them had talked much, but it had been a comfortable silence up until Tyler brought up magic.
Harry knew he had to be curious, ever since the Rave’N, but Harry appreciated him not being pushy about it.
Something inside of Harry wanted to confess, he wanted to be as free from the weight of all his secrets as he had looked in Xavier’s painting. That Harry had been confident, powerful, free.
Harry wanted that to be the real him.
And as it had been freeing to admit part of his past to Xavier, Harry just hoped Tyler would react as positively to a different secret as Xavier had to Harry’s confession.
“Can you keep a secret?” Harry asked Tyler through his fringe.
Tyler huffed a dry laugh out. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Harry bit his lip and nodded. He bent over to sit his styrofoam cup on the ground and looked around quickly to make sure they were alone.
“Wingardium Leviosa,” Harry whispered.
Tyler’s jaw dropped when Harry’s cup floated upward and Harry reached out to wrap his fingers around it once more.
“Holy shit,” Tyler breathed, a swear that would have made Harry laugh if his stomach wasn’t twisted full of knots.
“Are you… like… a witch?” Tyler asked while Harry studied the lid of his cup very intently.
“Wizard,” Harry corrected him quietly. He cleared his throat and tried again, “I’m a wizard.”
The sparks inside of Harry that had been burning him calmed to a pleasant tingle of warmth. It was reassuring, you are not alone, it seemed to say.
Or Harry was just delirious from a lack of sleep, he couldn’t be sure.
When the silence between them ticked on to an unbearable length, Harry looked over at Tyler to see that his mouth was stretched wide and there was some triumphant expression in his eyes that Harry couldn’t begin to decipher.
He didn’t look mad though, or disgusted, so Harry supposed it was a good start.
“Magic,” Tyler finally said, his eyes blazing with intensity as they stared into Harry’s bewildered ones. “You’re sure?”
“I…” Harry frowned. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
Inexplicably, Tyler leapt to his feet, spilling his cup carelessly on the square grounds, and bent over, kissing Harry hard and fast.
“Can you sneak out and meet me tonight?” Tyler asked Harry, his face barely an inch away from Harry’s. “I can pick you up? Please? It’s important.”
Harry was still reeling from the searing kiss and the way Tyler’s eyes were a deep blue and he stammered out an agreement. He didn’t want to sneak out past curfew, but it was clearly important to Tyler.
“Awesome, I’ll get you at ten,” Tyler said. “Meet me at the gates.”
Harry couldn’t even blink before Tyler kissed him again and then ran off toward his car. Harry lifted a hand in farewell, but Tyler drove away so quickly that Harry wondered if he’d even seen him.
Harry wasn’t much for swearing, it got you the cane at St Brutus’ and time in isolation at the detention center, but if ever there was an appropriate time to curse…
“What the hell just happened?” he asked himself aloud.
*****
If Wednesday was hoping the mayor would drive them to a secret location, she would have been disappointed.
Mayor Walker pulled up on the square, parking his car across from the Weathervane. Wednesday lifted her head enough to see the man take a step to cross the street and—
In a flash—
A single scream—
A car swerved from the road and struck the mayor full on, sending both him and his drivers side mirror flying in the air behind the car and splattering in the street.
Wednesday gasped, not that she would ever admit to it, and scrambled to escape from the trunk of the sedan while the turquoise car missing its plates drove away without ever slowing down.
There were bystanders screaming and Wednesday rushed to the mayor to try and obtain his information in case he succumbed to his injuries, but she was beaten to his side by the very man he was meant to meet.
“Dispatch this is Sheriff Galpin, I need an ambulance downtown, outside the Weathervane,” he said to the radio clipped to his shoulder. “Code three, I’ve got a man down from a 10-50.”
Wednesday didn’t know what his ‘cop talk’ was meant to mean, but when Galpin looked up and made direct eye contact with Wednesday, she knew that her evening was only getting started.
“What happened?” Harry asked, running from the square to Wednesday’s side when the ambulance arrived. His face was flushed and his eyes wide where they bulged out at the ambulance.
“Either a cold blooded homicide or an excellent attempt,” Wednesday told him solemnly, never looking away from the puddle of blood that stained the road. “Harry, collect me a sample of that blood, will you? I have to go speak with Galpin.”
Whether Harry agreed or not, Wednesday wasn’t sure. She needed the blood to test against the blood from the cave to rule the mayor out as a possibility as the monster, but she needed to speak with the sheriff first.
The odds of the spineless mayor of Jericho being the monster killing his own citizens were slim, but Goody had made Wednesday paranoid.
Nobody could be trusted.
“You!” Galpin caught sight of Wednesday walking toward him and he pointed at the door for the coffee shop he stood outside. “Get in here.”
“Luckily I was already going in there,” Wednesday said coolly. “I don’t take orders, officer.”
“You damn well do when I saw you climbing out of Noble’s car!” Galpin thundered. He opened the door for Wednesday, chivalrous even while furious, and guided her to the closest booth. “What were you doing in his car?”
“Eavesdropping,” Wednesday said shamelessly. She ignored the recorder that the sheriff placed on the table. “Now I have a question for you, what’s going on with the Gates Manor and how do you intend to stop the monster killing your citizens?”
Sheriff Galpin scowled and switched off the recorder. He leaned across the table and narrowed his eyes at Wednesday.
“What do you know about Gates Manor?” he asked.
“I know the mayor went there, found something he wanted to tell you about, then was struck by a car without plates.” Wednesday raised a brow at the sheriff, “Surely even you can see the lack of coincidence?”
“The only lack of coincidence happening that I see is every time something happens in this town, there you are,” Galpin said harshly. “Care to explain that?”
“Three murders happened before I arrived in Jericho, care to explain that?” Wednesday countered with.
Galpin’s self-righteous attitude deflated in face of Wednesday’s irrefutable question.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing and I don’t know why you keep nosing around and getting involved in things that don’t involve you, but it’s done,” Galpin stressed. “Understand me?”
Wednesday gave the sheriff a bland and unimpressed look.
“Understood.”
*****
“We have to break into Gates Manor tonight,” Wednesday told Harry.
Harry flopped on his bed, since Wednesday had followed him from Principal Weems’ office to his dorm, and gave her an incredulous look.
“Your outings to town have been revoked,” Harry said slowly. Principal Weems had literally just taken Wednesday’s privileges not five minutes ago. Apparently Harry got to keep his since he hadn’t been climbing around in other people’s cars and arguing with Tyler’s dad.
“I wasn’t planning on signing out for this excursion,” Wednesday said. She paced the floor of Harry’s room, occasionally shooting glances at the framed photo on Harry’s nightstand.
“I need to know what the mayor found and what was so important it was worth killing him,” Wednesday mused.
“The car accident could have been an accident?” Harry said in a pointless effort to dissuade her. He didn’t bother reminding her that the mayor was still alive, clearly Wednesday considered all patients in the ICU to be lost causes.
Wednesday scoffed, brushing off Harry’s objection easily. “It wasn’t. It was an attempt to silence the man on his discovery, I’m certain of it.”
Harry entertained himself with making Ajax’s photos and various items on his side of the dorm float around in circles before carefully placing them back where they were. While Wednesday muttered to herself (“Gates Manor… Crackstone… a prophecy… a monster…”), Harry made little balls of light appear with his thoughts on the light spell from Sarah Potter’s spell book.
The lights floated around aimlessly, just wavering around Harry’s head, then blinked out of existence when Harry willed them to.
“Harry?”
Harry had distracted himself with watching lights blink in and out of existence and had to shake his head and extinguish all the balls of light when he saw Wednesday had stopped pacing and was staring at him with crossed arms.
“Sorry,” Harry blushed lightly, he should have been listening to Wednesday, that’s what a good friend would do. “What?”
“I said I’m sneaking out tonight, are you in?” Wednesday demanded.
Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair, messing his hair up worse than usual.
“Er… Tyler actually wanted to meet me tonight,” Harry said, staring at the ground to avoid letting Wednesday see the heat that flooded his face. “So… I can’t.”
“You’re sneaking out?” Wednesday asked, scoffing in disbelief when Harry nodded. “How?”
“He’s… he’s picking me up at ten,” Harry said.
Wednesday hummed and Harry glanced up to see her smirking slightly.
“Excellent, he can give us a ride to Gates Manor.”