Brambleman (10 page)

Missy
? Before Charlie could utter a
conciliatory word, a boil erupted on Angela’s right cheek.
Whoa
.

Hyacinth grew wide-eyed. “What are you
looking at?” Angela snapped.

“Your face,” Charlie said. So much for
diplomacy. But this was
weird
.

Angela reached up and touched her cheek. “A
blemish. So what?”

Yeah, you could call it that
. But he’d
never seen one erupt so … volcanically. It was
gooshy
.

“If you’re not out by tomorrow morning, I’ll
begin legal proceedings to have you removed. If that happens,
you’ll lose the right to edit the book.”

No cops
. Charlie fought panic and told
himself not to act like he was wanted for murder. He took a deep
breath and said, “I don’t think this is about me. You two just
don’t get along.”

“I brought a letter from my attorney. It lays
out the family position with great clarity.”

“I never told you how to live!” Kathleen
shouted. “I’ll be damned if I let you do that to me!”

“My God!” Hyacinth cried out, staring at
Angela’s forehead.

“So I’ve got a zit. Big deal.”

“It’s huge!” Hyacinth said. “And there’s
another one! You’re breaking out!”

Angela shook her head in exasperation. When
she touched her neck, her eyes widened in alarm. Then she felt her
forehead. “This is giving me a lot of stress. Please, Mr. Sherman,
don’t make this any worse than it has to be.” She rushed to the
bathroom. Charlie and Hyacinth exchanged bewildered looks. Kathleen
turned away and coughed. Or cackled.

A minute later, Angela shrieked. By the time
she rushed out of the bathroom, more boils had erupted. “Come on,”
she snapped to Hyacinth. “I need to see a dermatologist.”

“You know where I stand,” she told Charlie as
she stomped out. Hyacinth trailed behind.

“
Stand
? Looks like she’s running.”
Kathleen chuckled, peeking out the window. “Running sores. But she
brought this on herself. Honor thy father and mother. Ha! Instead,
she tries to kill my project. She has no idea what she’s dealing
with.
You
know what I mean.”

“No, actually. What
do
you mean?”
Charlie asked.

“I put a plague on her.”

“A plague?”

She nodded grimly. “Told you I’d do it. She
asked for it. Don’t look at me that way. She’s got to learn. She’ll
be OK when she realizes she can’t interfere.”

Charlie shook his head, unable to accept what
he’d just seen and heard. He picked up the envelope Angela had left
for him on the coffee table. Inside was a letter from an attorney
named Bethany Campbell demanding that he immediately vacate the
premises and declaring the agreement he’d signed with Kathleen null
and void. “Blah, blah, blah,” he said as he read.

Kathleen returned to the kitchen, and Charlie
went outside to see a crow about a contract, but the bird flew off
at his approach.

* * *

The next morning—New Year’s Eve—Charlie found
it difficult to concentrate on editing due to a draft, so he
weather-stripped the study’s window. While he was working, Hyacinth
showed up and spoke with Kathleen in the living room. Charlie came
out of the study just in time to see money change hands. The
redhead gave him a choppy wave, then skedaddled out the door and
bounced down the steps.

“What’s that about?” he asked Kathleen.

“She needed money to go to Florida,” she
said. “She wants to be with her family.”

Charlie took a step back and raised his
eyebrows. “You’re paying her to get away from your daughter, aren’t
you? What if Angela finds out?”

“Don’t you dare tell her,” she snapped. “And
I mean business, Buster.”

Charlie gave her a look he used on Ben when
the boy misbehaved. “You should check on her.”

“What does it matter to you? She doesn’t care
if you live or die.”

“She may need medical attention.”

“She needs to apologize and stop trying to
kill the book. It’s my job to make sure it’s published, so I’ll do
what I must do,” Kathleen declared, sounding righteous.

“I thought that was my job.”

“It’s my job to make sure you do your job,”
Kathleen said, poking him in the chest. He stared at her
expectantly, trying to make her feel awkward. She averted her gaze
for a moment, then turned back to him. “You’re right. I do need to
see her. Will you drive me over there?”

“Glad you changed your mind. Let’s go.”
Charlie moved toward the closet to grab his coat.

It was a sunny day, though chill. Charlie
drove the Volvo to Angela’s house in Decatur, a liberal enclave
east of Atlanta and just a few miles from Bayard Terrace. He parked
in the driveway and waited. Kathleen knocked on the door and
disappeared into a house that looked remarkably like hers. She came
out five minutes later and got in the car. “Not a pretty sight,”
Kathleen said. “I don’t think she’s ready to get better yet. She
needs to—how should I say this—
come to Jesus
.”

“You said you were a Unitarian,” Charlie
pointed out.

“Well, that denomination has limits. I see
things differently now. The past few days have been … spiritually
enlightening.”

“What about Hyacinth?”

“Angela didn’t mention her and neither did
I.” Her tone was snippy.

“Don’t pray for anything bad to happen to me,
OK?”

“Don’t worry. We’re friends.” She patted his
hand. “On the same side.”

On the way home, they stopped at RightPrice
Drugs on Vesta Drive to refill Kathleen’s prescriptions. While
searching for shavers, Charlie heard Kathleen bickering with the
blue-jacketed pharmacist. “I was here before her, and she’s getting
service. You’re treating me unfairly, like always,” she fumed at
the man. She came to Charlie and repeated her complaint. “He’s
shifty-eyed. Cheats on prices, too.”

At her insistence, Charlie went to the back
of the store and watched the druggist in action. He did look a
little
sketchy, with slick black hair and narrow slits for
eyes. Charlie felt a bump and turned into Kathleen, who was peering
intently at the druggist from behind him. “Maybe dealing drugs has
affected his world view,” Charlie said. “You wanna pull your
prescriptions?”

“No. I want him to treat me right. He’s never
nice. Last week, I had to wait while he filled a prescription for a
pretty young thing. Angela noticed too, and made a comment.”

“About the young thing?”

“No!” she snapped.

“Well, go ahead and take care of your
prescriptions. Uh, are any of them for anger management?”

“Watch it. I’m not in the mood for your smart
remarks.”

“
Yes ma’am
.”

By the time she returned to the counter,
another customer was standing there. Charlie watched as Kathleen
tried to excuse herself to the front of the line, claiming she’d
been there first.

“I’m sorry,” the pharmacist told her. “You’ll
have to wait your turn.”

“It’s already been my turn. You’ll pay for
this!” Kathleen muttered.

Charlie paid for his grooming supplies, then
looked for Kathleen. He found her hiding behind a display of paper
towels, holding her old prescription bag, eyes closed, moving her
head back and forth like Stevie Wonder in a creative trance,
chanting an incantation.

“Pestilence, Pustulation, Corpulence, and
Stenches, a dose of these for favoring wenches!”

“Kathleen!” Charlie cried out. “What’s with
the bad rhyming? Are you a witch?”

“No. I just put some thought into it, that’s
all. And ‘witch’ doesn’t begin to describe my powers.”

A few feet away, the pharmacist stared in
horror into an overhead mirror as his face erupted with horrible
boils, swelling up instantly. It looked like his face was turning
into to a batch of popcorn. Very oily popcorn. Toily, troubling
popcorn. This was much worse than Angela’s affliction—as far as
Charlie had seen, that is. Within seconds, a huge swarm of buzzing
flies came from nowhere and surrounded the victim’s head. Then came
the sound of trombones and tubas from hell as the poor wretch cut a
series of the loudest, longest, soul-deflating farts Charlie had
ever heard. The druggist went down behind the counter, grasping at
it with white knuckles and groaning in agony as he tumbled out of
sight.

“That was truly nuclear,” Charlie said,
marveling at the multiple afflictions. If he hadn’t met Trouble, he
wouldn’t have believed such a curse was possible. Now, as a
disciple of weirdness, he could only conclude Kathleen was getting
good at it. He grabbed her elbow. “So quit it!”

“Whatever do you mean, dear?” She smiled at
him sweetly.

“Giving people the plague. Put him back the
way he was.”

“He charges too much.”

“This isn’t going to change things. Reverse
the curse, or whatever it is you do.”

“No.” She paused to admire her work. “He’ll
think twice before he mistreats customers again.”

“He doesn’t know what’s happening!”

“That lecher had it coming,” she snapped.
“He’ll be over it in a week. Or two. And you’re not my boss, so
watch your step.”

Well
. She certainly was being huffy.
“I didn’t watch my step. That’s why I’m here. You need to be a nice
lady, not the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“Or what?” she snarled.

“Or else I won’t work with you.” He took her
elbow and nudged her toward the door.

“That’s not your choice anymore. All I’ve got
to do is pray—”

“I know there’s something strange going on.
But you’re like a kid with a BB gun, running around shooting up the
neighborhood. I don’t know what Trouble gave you, but it was a
mistake. You should use it to make the world better, not settle
petty grudges.”

“It’s not him. It’s me. He came when I
called, remember? I’ve got superpowers. So what if I punish
evildoers? That’s one way to make the world better.”

“You afflict your daughter and a guy who
works in a store. How’s that improve anything?” He shook his head.
“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“You don’t understand. Before you get high
and mighty, remember we’re doing God’s work. Anyone who gets in our
way will pay the price.” She nodded grimly and stared into
Charlie’s eyes.

He returned the look. “I’m not working with
you if you go around starting plagues. Anyway, you know what starts
plagues? Rats. Ha! Got you there. And I’m not working for a
rat!”

“You do
not
have me there,” she
insisted.

“Well, you need to get your prescriptions—if
he’s in any shape to fill them.” Charlie peeked around the corner.
The popcorn-headed pharmacist was wavering on his legs, shooing
away flies. And spitting out a few. Charlie clamped his nostrils
shut with thumb and index finger. “Oh, God. I can’t stand the
smell. That’s at least fifty years’ worth of evil, right
there.”

“Come on,” Kathleen said. “I’m transferring
my prescriptions. If they can’t treat me right, to hell with them.
Don’t look at me that way. I’m only talking figuratively. I haven’t
figured out how to do that yet. But when I do, watch out!”

“You’re turning into the world’s worst
Baptist,” Charlie groused. “Let’s get out of here.”

The pharmacist cried out in agony and let
loose a series of gut-wrenching farts that chased them from the
store.

After a stop at a supermarket with a polite
(and lucky) pharmacist, they returned to Bayard Terrace just after
noon. Charlie brought in two bags of groceries and set them on the
kitchen table. “I need to go to the Y,” he said. “It closes early
on New Year’s Eve.”

“No,” Kathleen declared. “You need to get
back to work.”

“I don’t think so. And don’t talk to me that
way.”

“You work for me. I say when you can take
time off from the book.”

“Get this straight. I’m not working under
these conditions.”

“You’d better read the contract.”

“I don’t care about the contract. I’ll pay
you back the money and walk out, if I have to.”

“I’m afraid you can’t do that.” Her tone was
chilling.

Again with the creepiness. This was
not
the sweet, slightly demented lady he’d made a deal with.
No, she’d definitely gone evil on him. He sighed.

“Have you tried it?” she asked, sizing him up
for some sort of a wizard’s battle. “Don’t have the power, do you?
Ha! You don’t!” She gave him a cruel smile. “That’s because you’re
just a hired hand.”

He retreated to the study and pulled his copy
of the contract from its manila folder in the wire rack on the
bookcase. As he read, his eyes widened.
The terms had
changed
. Furthermore, his signature was now dark reddish brown,
with two circular splatters underneath. He remembered signing it
with his fountain pen in blue ink, but it now looked like dried
blood. And what was
this
phrase? “The party of the second
part will succeed, or die in the attempt.” He hadn’t agreed to a
suicide pact!

Charlie’s fledgling belief in God didn’t mean
he had to accept this kind of double-dealing. If the Almighty was
going to smite people on a crazy old woman’s whim, he’d reject the
deal. He would not be trapped in her prayer and become a mime in
her phone booth.
Wait. If the contract’s in blood
—

He charged into the kitchen, where Kathleen
was putting away groceries. “Deal’s off.”

“You can’t leave,” she said.

“Watch me.” He went downstairs and packed
quickly, although he had no idea where he’d go. He just wanted out.
As he stuffed his duffel bag, he heard a rumble and looked out one
of the basement’s small, high windows. Clouds were rushing in from
the south. To the north, it was clear blue. The rumbling grew
louder as the sky darkened. He tossed his new laptop into a
half-full duffel and reached for the knob on the patio door.