“It’s called The Who.” Elder Langmore sat in the pergola in High Valley Recreational Facility which was adjacent to High Valley High School’s Baseball Fields. They were dual purpose with the high school using the fields and having priority, but also used for little league during the off season. The pergola was in a small park-like area south from the ballfield, nestled in a small wooded area that featured a pond and walking path.

Coach had excused me from class to speak with Elder Langmore. He was tall, taller than me, thin to the point of emaciation, with a bald head, and enormous hands. I bet those hands could handle a basketball when he was younger.

“Like the rock band?” I said.

He remained stoic to my wit. “It’s official name is much longer and involves syllables the human tongue cannot produce. Plus, to invoke it could mean metaphysical disaster beyond imagination.”

“Of course,” I said, sitting back on the wooden bench. My curly dark locks kept getting caught on the splinters, and I was forced to shake my head to get them free.

“The Who is the nemesis of all creation.” Elder Langmore held up his hands. “It consumes everything in it’s path, and re-orients it to its dark desires.”

“Great,” I said. “So I’m tied to a being that can turn me into a Hellhound?”

He shrugged.

“Who or what else could it be?"

He shrugged thin shoulders. “Oh, there’s a number of people in this town who could accomplish it. Dark entities of all factions have magical components who could twist that bond into something else.”

“So how do we break it?”

Elder Langmore closed his eyes. Well, they weren’t actually closed, they rolled up into his head, and he moaned softly.
I got a bad vibe from him. He smelled like cigarettes and whisky. He’d put his enormous hand on my shoulder, and it felt oily, evil for want of a better word. I wanted to open my own third eye and look at him, but didn’t want to tip him off in any way.

“A Witch’s knot. Deftly done.”

I nodded. The pain had started increasing, like the jock strap was gripping me tighter and tighter with each passing moment. I sweat in the cool spring breeze, but clenched my jaw forcing the pain down.

He was quiet for a time, his hand rising and falling in the air, and onto my knee. He rubbed my knee a little then started to slide his hand higher—

“Hey, Bro,” I said, slapping it. “None of that!”

He came out of his trance, and shook himself. “Sorry, boy. I was tracing the pattern of the tentacle that is wrapped around your essence. It is nested inside your masculinity.”

“Wait, tentacle?”

He nodded. “What did you think those branches were, boy?”

“I was calling them tendrils.”

“To each his own, I suppose.” He stood. “The witch’s knot will hold for a time, but eventually the tension will become too great.”

That's what I was afraid of. Even now, I practically writhed at how uncomfortable I was. I kept darting a hand down, trying to relieve the pressure but it was like a slow boil.

“Can you break the connection between us?”

“Your young witch is correct. To attempt to sever the connection would alert whoever is attached to the black tentacle. If it is The Who, that could be very bad indeed.”

“Can it be disconnected without alerting Whoever it is?”

He sighed. “Possibly.”

“But—“

He nodded. “But, I’d need you both within my physical reach and I suspect the offspring of Desdemonia would forbid it.”

“Damn, I was hoping you’d be able to help.”

“There is one method that might work." He shrugged. "However--”

“Oh?”

He held up a finger. “If you were to have conjugal relations with the young witch in question, and during said relations at the climax of your release, within greyspace, a nexus could be created that the tentacles could be unwound. It would require a very heightened state that extended for as long as possible.”

My jaw would have hit the floor if it wasn’t attached. “You mean, I’d need to have sex with April?”

He nodded. “And it will require you both to enter greyspace and unwind the tentacles at the moment of climax.”

“I don’t even know how to do that,” I said.

“I could show you,” he responded, again placing his hand on my shoulder. Immediately, I felt the oily, slick, wrongness of his touch and writhed out from under it.

“Which means you’d have to be there?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“I don’t think April’s mother would like that.

He grinned. His teeth were yellow and many of them were rotten and had fallen out. “Desdemonia, my old nemesis,” he said.

“Yes, that’s April’s mo—“

“Hello Ernie,” a sultry voice said behind me.

I turned and saw April standing next to a somewhat overweight woman in her fifties with midnight hair streaked with gray that was pulled up into an ornate bun on the top of her head. She wore a black dress that clung to her body and displayed her impressive cleavage.

“It’s been too long,” Brother Langmore said. “I was just discussing with this fledgling—“

“I know exactly what you were discussing, Ernie,” Desdemonia said walking closer to us. “Your help is no longer needed.”

The flowers and blooming plants were making my sinuses act up. I felt like I needed to sneeze, but pinched the bridge of my nose and was able to avoid it.

What the actual fuck, Seth. I leave you alone for a half an hour and you go to the Brotherhood? April fidgeted beside her mother. She kept reaching behind her and trying to loosen her corset or something.

I had to tell Coach Marcus why I wasn’t going to be at practice.

Do you know what you’ve done?

I thought about it. No.

Langmore is an ancient elder who is as black as they come!

From what everyone tells me, so is your mom!

April huffed. Yes, but Mother loves me! She would HELP us, stupid.

How am I supposed to know that?

“You know about the Witch’s knot?” Elder Langmore said.

Desdemonia nodded imperceptibly, closing eyes artfully shadowed with navy black and with long extended lashes.

“The Who is at the Gate,” Langmore said. Distantly, I saw Coach Marcus leaving the ball field and begin jogging toward us. He was on his cellphone. “It’s tentacles entwine with their Essence.”

Desdemonia flinched. “We don’t know that. It could be another—“

“You think it’s a coincidence we’re less than two weeks from the Dark Night of the Soul and, The Who is at the gate, and the Key must be used?”

Desdemonia raised her perfectly arched drawn-on brows. “I do know.”

“Then you also know that the only way to extricate these two—“

“Is to have them consummate their relationship, yes. I was going to guide them in this, until you intruded where you didn’t belong."

Coach Marcus arrived. “What’s going on here, folks?”

Brother Langmore regarded Coach Marcus with a long look. Then coach Marcus nodded, and turned to Desdemonia. They must have had words in greyspace or whatever.

“We feel it’s in the boy’s best interest to have someone of the Brotherhood in attendance,” Coach said.

“I feel like a flank of steak at the butchers that you’re bargaining over,” I said. “What are we all talking about?”

Brother Langmore regarded me with rhuemy eyes. “In order for the Gate to be opened, the Who needs a Key.”

“Okay…”

Desdemonia chimed in. “The Key isn’t an object.”

“It’s a person,” April said.

Desdemonia nodded, touching April’s hair softly.

“And you’re that person?” I looked at April.

She shook her head, looking sad.

“No, boy,” Elder Langmore responded.

I looked around the circle at all the faces regarding me. In the distance I could see Mrs. Merrick, HeadMaster James, and some of the other teachers making their way down the path.

“You are.” Desdemonia finished.

I sighed, wondering what could possibly happen next.