Bad Apple (The Warner Grimoire) (2 page)

Frank finally fussed with the lose strands of hair. “Don’t you let any of them get away, you hear me? Not after--”

“You stay warm out there today, okay?” Sam handed the clipboard over harder than was necessary. “Hey, you ever fix that busted old heater in your truck?” he asked, way too cheerfully.

Frank zipped his coat up. “Like many things, it’s on the list, my boy. Like many, many things.” He turned back towards the hallway.

Sam eyed Frank, almost suspiciously. “Don’t let it go too long.”

“I’m not completely helpless,” Frank added with a false smile. The moment had soured between them, but before Sam could say another word a boy with dark brown hair came stumbling down the stairs.

“Well!” Frank said, stepping aside. His voice lightened as if by helium. “Good morning, Simon! In a hurry already?”

Simon blinked slowly at the delivery driver without speaking. He cleared his throat and blinked again, finally managing a halfhearted, “Morning,” as he slipped past him into the kitchen.

Frank slapped a hand on Simon’s shoulder. “Not an early riser, I see. Some things never change. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it one day.” He shook Simon’s shoulder playfully, then started down the hall. At the back door he stopped and glanced back, this time at Sam. “I find that eventually we all get used to what we have to do,” he said, vanishing out the backdoor before Sam could answer.

Sam stepped into the hall. “Simon, hey. I glad you’re up. I’m about to get the griddle going. When you’re a little more awake can I get you to help Molly set the tables?”

Simon yawned again, still tasting sleep in his mouth. “Yeah,” he mumbled. He started towards the refrigerator. “There any--”

“Already on the counter.” Sam zipped up his jacket and headed towards the back door. “Jelly’s still in the fridge though. Remember to leave some for Zoey.” He moved for the door. “Be right back, Molly!” he shouted as he stepped out the back door. “I’m getting that surprise we talked about!” Simon turned around to look at Molly, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Instead she just smiled and returned to setting the tables.

A plate of fresh homemade waffles sat on the counter next to the pile of undressed silverware. He found the grape jelly in the fridge and gathered everything up in his arms and made his way to the dining room.

The dining room still had the same fading yellow wallpaper and wood paneling since they had opened. The ceiling fans with their large, bulbous globes lit the room with a gassy, topaz light. Heavy curtains hung over the large front windows, faded floral prints that did little to block out the light, yet the dining room always seemed dingy. This was all despite a booming business, and Sam had never made a single attempt to change anything since opening. A small wooden plaque was hung above the front door, with the message
Caveat Attemptor
carved into it, just below a gnarled rabbit’s foot. Simon often wondered exactly what the message meant, but whenever he asked, Sam had said it was only a decoration from a flea market, just another something to help sell the name of the place, and that is was not worth the time to worry about. Still, Simon caught Sam glancing at that plaque every now and then. Just after his scare at the lake, Sam had become more defensive about the plaque. It had fallen suddenly during the lunch rush the day after the lake, and Sam had almost spilled soup all over the fire chief while running to fix it. He had rushed it back up over the door, then stayed on top of the ladder a moment to catch his breath. He climbed back down to a crowd of confused faces, center among them Simon, yet he had simply shrugged them off and gone upstairs. He had never explained his panic.

Simon flipped a stool off the counter and ate in silence. The smell of biscuits floated in from the kitchen and he finally turned on the radio. Just the news came in this early but he didn’t mind. He wouldn’t be there long--he would have to finish quick and push the curtains open before leaving for the bus stop. Both Molly and Zoey absolutely hated the curtains. Molly had also said on more than one occasion that when she could, she was going to rip them all down and have a big bonfire out behind her farmhouse with hotdogs and hamburgers and everybody from Crowley would be invited. Despite her threats, the curtains always remained, and Simon opened them every morning.

Simon ate quickly. He left the plate on the counter and started flipping the rest of the stools off the counter, then he went ahead and pushed the curtains open. Morning filtered in slowly. The sun seemed slower than normal today, just barely over the nearly naked trees, and the entire town was cast in pale green light. The streetlights blazed with one final phosphorus burst of orange-yellow before finally clicking off, and across the street the various storefronts resembled caves--the town firehouse sat on the corner of the block, a few of its windows already lit from within, and tall, distorted shadows slipped back and forth silently against the light.

“Simon?” Molly was back in the kitchen. “Honey, can you go wake up Zoey?” She smiled at him through the order window, her eyes radiant like emeralds in the dimness of the room. “Pretty please, for me?”

Simon nodded and grabbed his dish off the lunch counter. He hated waking Zoey. She acted like such a little sister to him, fussing and throwing a fit whenever Simon went to wake her. But, he still always did whatever Molly asked. First, he did it because it was expected of him, but also, Molly was the closest thing he had to a mother, and Zoey was the closest thing he had to a sister. Though he would never dare admit it, Simon
liked
the idea of having both a mother and a sister. It had been just him and Sam for so long, and he didn’t even remember his own family, his
birth
family, at all. This lack of memories had always left a weird emptiness in Simon, a hole, and so he secretly longed for the day Sam would marry Molly, and then they all would be a family, a
real
family.

Simon clicked the radio off and left his dish in the passthrough window on his way to the back hallway, brushing past a large print of the thirteen colonies that Sam had insisted on hanging
just right there
a few years ago.

The back stairs led to his and Sam’s apartment over the diner. The upstairs apartment was a large, open room with similarly large, open windows facing the street. Exposed brick spoke to the building’s original life as a workshop, then as a hardware store, then finally an empty building for several years until Sam--with a toddler Simon in tow--had arrived and opened the Paw. Up in the attic there was still boxes of old, unsold tools, and under them even older boxes of workshop materials. Sam had rescued their burnt-orange couch from the curb before they had even signed the papers to the place, and none of the furniture matched, from the mismatched curtains to the mismatched chairs around the kitchen table to the large rugs that covered every inch of bare hardwood floor. It drove Molly completely chaotic crazy. but despite its many quirks, the apartment had a certain charm, like a junk drawer that had magically grown out into an entire home. It might not have looked like much to an outsider, but it was warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and most important of all, it was
home
.

Simon was adopted. Sam was the only family he had ever known--both of Simon’s parents were simply gone, from the first moment he could remember. He always questioned it, always questioned the hole their absence had made in him, but he never doubted that this was just the way things would always be. Even still, sometimes it gnawed at him, kept him up some nights, especially around the holidays, and always on his birthday. It was a strange pain, a dizzy ache in his heart he couldn’t really understand. Did he miss them or not? Even after the near-drowning at the lake his feelings were still as muddled as ever--no need had swollen up to know any more about his birth parents, despite what the school counselor had said. The numbness he felt towards his parents bothered him almost as much as nearly dying. What did it mean? Though he would never tell the school counselor, he often wondered, when it came to his parents, if something inside him was simply broken.

Even though Molly and her daughter Zoey didn’t live there, that never stopped Zoey from curling up on the couch and falling back asleep when they came over every morning. Molly was over to help them for breakfast, when they could expect the fire chief and his men over right after they opened, and while it was Simon’s job to open the curtains and flip the stools, it seemed Zoey’s job was to keep the big orange couch warm.

Simon clicked on the television. Zoey mumbled and fidgeted, but she kept her back to him. “Wake up,” he said, nudging her gently. “You need to get ready for school.” She didn’t respond, and he nudged her again, just the slightest bit harder. “C’mon,” he repeated. “Get up!”

Zoey finally rolled over, her young eyes already able to copy her mother’s rarely-seen glare. “No,” she said, and rolled back over. When she did, a tiny pair of ears from her stuffed cat poked out from under her arm. Simon smirked and grabbed them, pulling the felt animal out from under her arm, then she bolted up, her tiny face twisted with anger. “Give him back!”

“Get up.” Simon said, laughing and tossing the stuffed cat on the kitchen table. “You need to get ready for school.” He stomped through the kitchenette to get his backpack. They didn’t have a full kitchen upstairs, just an ancient brown fridge, a constantly dripping sink, and a two-burner stove nestled between the door to Simon’s bedroom and a prehistoric water heater.

Zoey flopped back onto the couch and buried her head in the cushions. “Get up!” Simon shouted when he saw her, and finally she thumped off the couch with a loud
huff
. She shuffled across the hardwood floor towards the bathroom. “Use your own toothbrush this time!” he shouted as she pushed the door closed.

Simon took the moment to seize the couch for himself, dropping his backpack on the floor and plopping down. He leaned back against the big, fuzzy pillow and stared blankly at the television. His eyes hurt from being awake so early, which made focusing on the television difficult. The cartoons were long over, and the station had already transitioned into the early morning news. Simon half-listened to the TV as he laid on the couch, closing his eyes to dull the ache.

“Authorities are asking parents to be on the look out for a large black dog that has been seen roaming along the highways and back roads just north of town,” the morning news anchor said. “One local man described the dog as having a black and brown coat, and was last seen roaming behind the high school early Monday morning near the edge of the woods. Animal Control officials have responded that they will be increasing evening patrols around the neighboring areas...”

Simon was barely listening to the news reporter when his consciousness suddenly dropped out from under him. His eyes felt extra heavy for just a moment, and then the push of sleep hit him full force. In that last moment, anxiety coiled around him. He knew what was coming--the same dream, the nightmare he had every night since the drowning. It would envelope him, drag him down into empty, restless sleep, full of twisted, writhing figures, dimness, and the cold.

Yet it still
felt
good, and that scared him. It always felt good, like warm honey, until the moment he slipped over. On the other side was terror, pain, and danger, but he could not hold back. Every time, his resistance lasted only a moment longer, then before he could catch himself, he was gone.

* * *

Cold water.

Drowning.

Dying.

He thrashes hard against the undertow to no avail. He flops uselessly against the pull of the water. He is pulled down, down, down.

He hits bottom. Milk-white spiderwebs dance over him.

Screaming.

Light floods through him.

He fights against the current. He struggles ashore. Cold air stings his lungs. His ears begin to work, and he hears whistling--four sad notes, over and over, each one heavy in its own way. The notes loop around each other, over and over, until they begin to feel like a noose around his neck.

“This is the World Next Door,” a voice says, in his head and floating outside him at the same time--it is his voice and not all at once. It is the voice he heard when he was drowning.

He sits along the shore rubbing his arms for warmth, and all around him the dreamy nothingness settles down. Unending minutes pass, he stands. He begins to search along the edge of the beach, finding nothing--just more beach, and grayness beyond. He walks along the shore, still feeling the burn of the water in his lungs. It tastes of copper and metal.

He dreams a sweatshirt to wear, and then he is wearing it.

His ears fill again with humming, an endless Hum, until his entire body vibrates to it. “
This is the song of your creation
,” the Other Voice in his head whispers.

Something is behind him.

He turns slowly to see a large dog with a black and brown coat. He backs away, terrified the dog will chase him, but the dog only stares at him. It is large and mangy, and it’s eyes shimmer with an unearthly green sheen--rage boils off the dog like steam. Behind the dog is a woman, tall and thin, with short brunette hair. She reaches out to Simon, and her hands come alive with a soft, ethereal glow. Her mouth moves but he cannot hear her, only the humming and the hammering of his heart.