The Wounded World
A Story of Mantra
By Aladdin
Originally written 2006
Revised Mar. 26, 2021
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ALL ABOUT EVE

Edited by Christopher Leeson

Chapter 9

 
"Thy fear has made me tremble,
Thy terrors have surrounded me.
All love is lost. Terror succeeds,
And [there is] hatred instead of love." 
 
William Blake
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"This talk isn't too frightening for you, it is, Precious?" I asked.

"No, Mommy. I'm jes' sorry that Gus hurt you. He was bad! You were nice to him, except when he did naughty things."

"So, what happened next?" I coaxed.

"Lauren knocked from outside. I wanted her to keep away, but she came in real fast, an' Gus wouldn’t let her leave after he came up floating in the air. He said he was glad to see her, an’ he always liked her. He also said he wanted to be her boyfriend, but Lauren said she didn’t want that. Gus got angry then an' made her float in the air.

"That’s when you started yelling at Gus from the cracker box, telling him not to hurt Lauren. You warned him that it would be too awful if he put her into Mantra's cloak.” She smiled. "I think you wanted him to put her in there, an’ you were jes' fooling."

According to both Evie and Lauren, Lauren would vanish into the cloak for only a few minutes, before Gus brought her back. The little girl was surprised to see her babysitter return dressed in armor and looking like some sort of ultra. Evie begged Gus not to harm Lauren, but he seemed to hate everyone -- except, for some reason, his little sister.

Gus and Lauren started fighting and Lauren’s magic hit him hard, more so than had Mantra’s. I could only suppose that the inexperienced Lauren had been instinctively fighting in the kill mode and Gus hadn't been prepared to receive such a strong attack from his babysitter. Or was it possible that Gus had been tired out from all the other super-sorcery that he’d been flinging around?

"Then,” said Evie, "you yelled for Gus to stop hurting people and be nice. But 'stead of saying he was sorry, he zapped you again, super-hard. You fell out of the box an' I thought you were dead. I started telling Gus that I hated him. When he was looking at me, Lauren tried to sneak up from behind, but Gus was quick an’ knocked her down into the monster pit."

"I told him to stop, but he said that everybody’d been mean to him an’ he was gonna get even. He promised not to hurt me, but I knew that was jes' talk.

"When he looked back at Lauren, he could see that she’d already beaten up on all his monsters. So Gus jumped into the pit to sock her himself. That's when I grabbed Mr. Paws an’ you an’ all three of us ran outside to hide!”

I took her into my arms and rested her cheek upon my shoulder. "Where did you go, darling?" I asked.

"We hid in the flower bushes next door, but I got worried that you'd be dead forever if I didn’t find some grownup to make you all better. I ran to Mrs. Walker's magic shop ‘cuz I thought she could do some really good magic to fix you."

I knew that shop. It was all herbs, trinkets, tourist items, and New Age books. There was no real magic in the place.

"I banged on Mrs. Walker's door," said Evie. "'Cuz she lived upstairs she heard me. I showed her how sick you were an' asked her to use magic to help. She called me a 'poor baby' an' told me that she didn't know any magic that big. Jes' then, Gus showed up, like a ghost on a TV show. He told me that if I didn't let you be dead he'd break his promise an’ hurt me, too. He said he was gonna smash your little body so you could never get better. Mrs. Walker was really, really afraid an' told me to do what he wanted, but I said I wasn’t going to.”

I didn’t want Evie to see my tears, but it was too late. She put her arms about my neck and said, "Don't cry, Mommy.”

I also felt Pinnacle's hand take mine right after. I didn't want people feeling sorry for me so I tried to buck up.

"Gus doesn't really hate you, Mommy,” urged Evie. "Mrs. Walker says no kid really hates his mom. Gus jes' went crazy, like lots of people do in the movies. He can stop from being crazy, can't he?"

I gazed into her blue, hopeful eyes. "Of course he can, Evie,” I told her, and then asked what happened next.

"Jes’ when Gus was gonna put the zap on me, you made some kinda ultra lightning come out of my eyes an' it knocked him out. That’s when Mrs. Walker pushed me ouside, saying that we had to run away before he woke up.”

This was more confirmation of something that I didn’t understand. Why had Mantra been able to use magic, both from the cracker box and from the spirit plane, but became unable to use it once she had gotten back into her own body? It had always been my understanding that the magic power she possessed had been passed down through Eden’s family line. I’d always thought that Eden’s physical body had been the focus for bringing in and utilizing magic. After all, hadn’t my own ultra powers come from Eden Blake’s physical body? The spirit part of her hadn’t been a factor; it had vanished into the Otherworld.

Evie was still talking hurriedly. "Mrs. Walker an’ me ran into the street. There was this big green car parked out there next to a man in a red suite. Mrs. Walker asked if he was a policeman. He said he was there to help people, an’ so Mrs. Walker started telling him about Gus. Jes' then, Gus came out of the shop, looking really sore that he’d been hit. The policeman wasn't afraid of Gus an’ walked straight at him, like he was going to give him a good scolding.

"Gus told the policeman that he looked jes' like an action figure. The policeman didn't let Gus come up close, but zapped him with a flash of light. Then more policemen ran at Gus an’ they started squirting him with smelly gas. They also had a funny kind of gun that shot out wires an’ made a crackly noise. The wires got all over Gus, an' I could see that they were hurting him. That's when Lauren flew out of the sky. I saw a big, ugly ultra chasing her." Evie leaned closer and whispered, "It was really Heather and her friends, after some bad magic’d turned them into a monster."

Evie's description of Gus getting loose and fighting with Coven coincided with Lauren's. It of course ended with Gus getting captured and Heather and her friends returning to normal.

The little girl in my arms made a sad throat noise. "I was scared that Gus'd be in trouble 'cuz he’d let the police see him misbehaving. I asked the red policeman if he was gonna to punish my brother, but he said he wouldn't. He was jes' gonna Gus stop hurting other people. I figgered he meant he was gonna put Gus in jail.

"Oh, Mommy, Gus looked so beat-up! He was sleeping, but I said goodbye anyway an’ said I hoped he’d get better soon. Then I put Mr. Paws on top of the box that Gus in, so when he woke up he would have Mr. Paws keeping him company. That was all right, wasn't it, Mommy?"

"It is, if it was Mr. Paws who asked permission to go along with Gus."

"I think he did. But when I saw Lauren talking to the red policeman, I ran over an’ gave her your little body. I told Lauren that she had to find a way to make you alive again 'cuz she was an ultra. Then I started to cry. I couldn't understand why so many bad things were happening. Lauren hugged me an' said that I'd been good and brave."

I drew the tyke closer. "Honey, you did the right thing. When Lauren took me away, she pretty soon found some really big magic to make me better. How could you have been so smart to know just exactly what you had to do?"

She sniffed. "I don’t know."

I dabbed her tears away with my handkerchief. "What did Lauren do next?"

Evie took a deep breath. "She flew away. Then the red policeman asked me who Lauren was an' I fibbed and said that she was Mantra. At night I stayed with Mrs. Walker. I couldn't sleep much, so I prayed a lot. An’ my prayer really worked! In the morning, you and Lauren came back to the shop!"

I was guessing that Mrs. Walker must have gotten an eyeful at that reunion, seeing Evie's mother wearing a strange black costume. But the shopkeeper promised Mrs. Blake not to start spreading stories. After we left and went back to the Blake home, Evie described the house as looking a mess, especially Gus's room. Fortunately, the monster pit was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened then?" I pressed.

"A message boy knocked on the door,” said Evie. "You went to talk to him, but Lauren didn't want a stranger seeing her, so she flew off through the ceiling. You came back an’ said you had to go to Sanfrisco. I asked if you knew where Gus was an’ you said you didn't, but that maybe the people in Sanfrisco might know."

"Did I find anything out there?" I asked.

Evie's little mouth pursed. "You didn't come back till it was dark on Sunday. You said then that somebody called 'Laddin' had put Gus in jail. I started crying 'cuz Gus couldn't come home. That’s when you said we should go and live in Sanfrisco, so we could visit him lots and lots of times."

I held on to Evie while thinking about Gus's miserable condition. Fate had cruelly victimized the boy and, just as bad, Aladdin had used it as an excuse to snatch him into their clutches. Ruthless people were running Aladdin back on my world, and their local counterparts were probably no better. Somehow, I had to get Evie's brother freed, legally or illegally, but I didn’t know how to control him once I did. It seemed like I had to totally count on Pinnacle, who I knew had some promising-sounding ideas about fixing his disfigurement and removing his dangerous powers.

Just then, Penny put on a chagrined expression. My earnest and hopeful thoughts must have sounded cringy to her.

#

We had more questions to ask the little girl as we checked and rechecked the details of her story, up until the point when Evie's tone became sleepy.

"She needs to rest,” I told Penny.

"Evie," Pinnacle said, "when I clap my hands you'll fall asleep. When you next wake up, you won't feel sad and you won't be afraid. You'll remember how nice it feels to talk things over with your mommy when you're afraid or unhappy. Wouldn’t you like to keep on doing that whenever you need to?"

"Yeah, I will," the little girl affirmed with a weary nod.

Clap!

Evie dozed off and I got up to arrange her comfortably on the love seat. Then I stretched my muscles and looked at the clock. It was lunchtime already.

Penny and I snacked and talked about the interview while Evie slept. A little later, when my daughter opened her eyes and yawned, we drove her back to the Budget Motel. Mrs. Freeman was out, unfortunately, so I gave her a call and she said that she could get back in a half hour. The three of us passed the waiting time at the nearby Jack-in-the-Box, letting the tyke fill up on burgers and fries.

Soon, I spotted my car turning into the motel driveway. Once Evie was once more under her grandma's care, Penny and I went back to her apartment. Pinnacle returned to the subject of conducting a deep probe into my subconscious mind. She claimed to want some confirmation that I really was from a different plane of reality. While I could understand her need to avoid taking important information for granted, it struck me as irksome that she still had doubts that I knew what I was talking about.

Also, I couldn’t help but be uneasy about entering into a deep trance. I didn’t like being so completely in another person’s power.

Suddenly I was taken aback by a slap in the face!

"Hey, what's that for?" I demanded, touching my stung cheek. The smack had been light and playful, though, and my hostess didn't look angry.

"That was for imagining that I would use my mind-probe to make you fall passionately in love with me," she explained.

I frowned. "So what if the idea crossed my mind? I don't need a romance. What I need is a friend."

"Even with my mind-reading ability, I still can't figure you out, Lulu! You don't seem to be hot for the girls -- at least not were I’m concerned -- but you don't seem to have the hots for the boys, either.”

"Why do I need to be hot for anyone?”

"Can you blame me for being curious about how you see yourself after two years of womanhood? Sexually I mean."

I replied testily. "Sex has nothing to do with our problems. And why are you so committed to asking grotesquely personal questions?"

"I like being a psychiatrist especially because it lets me ask rude and prying questions. Anyway, your sexual anxieties aren’t hard to discover; they sit at the very top of your mind. But to give you credit, I honestly can’t understand why you haven't gotten even crazier than you are."

"Maybe you’re only hearing what you want to hear. What I remember thinking about was finding a way to keep from breaking a little girl's heart, in the event that I’m not able to bring her brother home."

"I picked up on that train of thought, too. Explain to me how a hard-headed commando and barroom brawler like Lukasz Theodoricson can simultaneously be carrying around so much compassion and tenderness?”

"Can’t we just drop this sexual curiosity and get on with that testing of yours?”

She nudged me toward a soft chair. "All right, we'll come back to the fun emotional stuff later. For now, I'm going to put you under, just like I did Evie. I’ll have to go much deeper with you than I did with her, though. It can get rough, but you're a tough guy. What you really have to worry about is how effectively I can seduce you."

"Are you still harping on that?” I asked.

"Hush. We’re going to start. Concentrate on my thumb...”

I glanced at the thumb and, the next thing I knew, she was on the other side of the room.

"What happened?" I asked sleepily. "Aren’t you going to start?”

"Can’t you remember anything? I found out something important."

"What was that?"

"I found out that even though you're as gentle as a lamb around kids, you can be a real tiger in bed!”

"Quit clowning, Pin. Did you really finish? What did you find out?"

"You almost made me believe that you actually do come from another world.”

"What did I say?"

"A lot. We talked for more than an hour."

"You say 'almost believe.' Are you saying you don't totally believe it?"

Dr. Lammars shook her head. "No, I'm not saying that. I'm convinced that everything you're telling me is something that you believe to be true. At certain points, though, it did seem like you were remembering certain other details that don’t fit in.”

"What kind of other details?”

"Details that only the Mantra of this world should have known.”

"What things?”

"Like things about the Night of Terror, as you call it. Those memories are very deep ones. It’s like they’re come out of your personal experiences, and are not something that you've merely heard about."

"Do you suppose that I might be picking stored memories from the local Mantra's physical brain?"

"Possibly. Or maybe it's something else."

Oh, great! Now I had 'something else' to worry about!
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TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 10