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Harrison was supposed to wait at the school.
The relief Gwen felt hearing Eleanor Rigby vibrating through the apartment door was almost instantly eclipsed by intense irritation. They didn’t have time for this, not in general and especially not today. Hammering one-handed on the door, she began fishing through her bag for the keys. “Harrison! Open the door!”
There was no response apart from the Beatles getting fractionally louder. Gwen ground her teeth. “Harrison! I know you can hear me!”
“It’s not locked.” a muffled voice said dully from inside. Gwen froze three quarters of the way through her bag, then tried the door. It opened four inches inward then hit something and came to a halt. Craning her neck awkwardly to look through the gap, she saw faded china blue patterning and swore. “You moved the chair?! Are you fucking kidding me Harrison?!”
“Leave me alone to die.” Harrison said, lying on the floor a few feet away.
Growling violently, Gwen shoved her shoulder against the door with all the force she could muster. The Chair didn’t move.
The Chair had been a fixture in the apartment since before Gwen had moved in. The upstairs neighbor had told her once that it had been there when the building first opened. Every tenant Room 87 had ever had had tried and failed to remove it. The ancient monstrosity was impervious to fire, water, and any other means of destruction. It could not be budged by mortal hands.
A melodramatic pre-pubescent wizard, however…
“You are so finished when I get in there, Harrison,” Gwen snarled, ramming her shoulder against the door and glaring at him through the gap. “I hope you enjoyed years one through eleven, because I swear to God you are not gonna see twelve!”
Staring at the ceiling, Harrison idly twirled a finger. The volume control on the beaten up old cassette next to him spun in response, drowning Gwen out.
“The second I get in there, I’m stuffing you in the blender.” Gwen promised, pushing on the door for all she was worth. “I’m gonna shove you in the blender, push puree, and bake you into a pie to feed the social worker! And then she’s gonna be like ‘Mm! This is good! What’s your secret?’ and I’M gonna be like-”
“Ms… Santos? Gwendolyn Santos?”
Gwen felt her blood turn to ice.
“Love! And! Nurturing!” she carefully arranged her face into what she hoped was a convincing smile before turning away from the door, one hand extended. “Hi, I’m Gwen, and you must be…” she heard herself trail off as she got a good look at the woman in front of her.
The social worker was nearly a foot taller than Gwen and built. Broad shoulders and solid biceps were carefully swathed in a spotless white dress shirt and a dark blue suit jacket. She was wearing a matching pencil skirt, sensible shoes and a pair of gold earrings that set off her dark hair and skin nicely.
She was also very familiar.
“…Bonquisha?” said Gwen, bewildered.
“Gloomy girl?” asked Bonquisha, looking taken aback. She glanced down at a clipboard that Gwen swore hadn’t been there a second ago, brow furrowed. “I’m supposed to be evaluating a Gwendolyn and Harrison Santos…”
“Yeah! That’s- that’s us!” Gwen carefully reapplied her smile, then retracted her hand as it became clear that Bonquisha wasn’t going to take it. “If you could just give me a… had a little issue with the door there, but I swear it’s under control, ah ha! Maybe we can… just… talk out here, or…”
Bonquisha, whose expression had gone worryingly blank the longer Gwen talked, moved past her, grabbed the door handle, and easily pushed the door open. The Chair gave a furious rumble, then made way.
“Lemonade?” Gwen offered lamely, following her inside.
The apartment was uncharacteristically tidy, and Gwen silently thanked whatever deity that might be listening that she’d had the foresight to clean. Bonquisha didn’t seem to notice, though, focusing instead on Harrison’s backpack, which had been left at the foot of the couch.
“You leave him alone a lot?” she asked, still looking at Gwen with that blank, expressionless look.
“Never,” Gwen lied.
It wasn’t something she made a habit of. She could count the times she’d knowingly left Harrison at home by himself on one hand- and anyway, he was eleven years old! It wasn’t that out of the question. Her parents had left her home alone all the time at that age.
Really the main reason she made an effort not to leave him by himself was because she knew how much he hated it. He was always careful not to say anything, but Gwen had a feeling it reminded them both a little too much of his parents.
She suddenly became aware of a strong smell of burning soup and scrambled into the kitchen with a bitten off curse.
“And you left the stove on.” Bonquisha said neutrally, following her in.
“Low heat!” Gwen assured her with the sort of false cheer typically seen in high schoolers working Christmas at a mall Santa’s grotto. “Just a simmer- looks like it’s coming along ni- OH, GOD!” She slammed the lid back on as the pot belched out a column of black smoke, yanked the whole thing off the fire and dumped it in the sink, jumping back as it gave an ominous hiss before settling.
Bonquisha’s silence was not reassuring.
“Do we still have to eat that?” Harrison appeared in the doorway, eyeing the pot with apprehension.
“Harrison!” Gwen pulled him into a one armed hug, hoping Bonquisha wouldn’t notice her obvious relief at the distraction. “There you are ki- er- honey! This is the social worker, Ms…” Gwen paused, suddenly realizing she didn’t know Bonquisha’s last name.
“Daumas,” Bonquisha supplied smoothly, taking over and shaking Harrison’s hand. “Bonquisha Daumas. It’s nice to meet you, Harrison.”
“I think we met last summer, actually,” Harrison said, watching her shake his hand in bemusement. “You seem familiar. Are you really a social worker?”
“I’m a special classification.”
“Aren’t you David’s ex?”
The room suddenly seemed to get colder.
“…we’re getting off topic.” Bonquisha said finally. “Let’s talk about you. Are you happy?”
“I’ve adjusted.” Harrison recited easily. He and Gwen had practiced this for hours last night. Clearly all the time he’d spent with Preston over the summer had taught him something, because he didn’t sound anywhere near as phony as Gwen knew she would in his shoes. “I eat four food groups, I do well in school, I get my homework done on time and I…” his brow wrinkled. “Get… disciplined?”
That had not been rehearsed.
“Disciplined?” Bonquisha repeated, changing her expression for the first time since arriving. It wasn’t a good change.
“Discipline is important in childrearing,” Harrison said knowledgeably, to Gwen’s horror. “You have to set boundaries and consequences to make sure the kid doesn’t grow up to become a horrible curse on society, forced to spend the rest of his life chained up in a windowless shed.”
“Really.” Gwen could feel Bonquisha’s eyes boring into her forehead as she tried to find a subtle way to shut Harrison up. Once started though, Harrison wouldn’t stop talking unless forced. “Gwen’s good about that though! I get disciplined tons, sometimes five times a day!”
“Harris-!”
“I know a lot of people are worried I’m going to grow up into some kind of monster, but I feel like Gwen’s got it covered. She can be really scary when-”
“Okay!” Gwen said brightly, herding him out of the room. “That is definitely enough sugar for you today. Why don’t you just go ahead and run along, kay kiddo?”
“What’d I-?”
“Now.” Gwen shut the kitchen door and turned back to a blank faced Bonquisha with a laugh that was supposed to be light but sounded a touch hysterical even to her. “Gotta love a big imagination! Ha, the other social workers thought he was just a scream. …lemonade?”
“Gloomy girl.”
There was something in the flat way Bonquisha said the name that made Gwen put down the lemonade.
“I like you. But I also like my job. I take what I do very seriously, and I’m only telling you this because even though you’re not that good at it, I feel like you care enough about Harrison to actually try and make his life better.”
Gwen felt herself shrink slightly.
“I am the person they call in when shit goes wrong. And after a twenty minute visit, I can tell you,” Bonquisha strode over to the door then turned briefly, staring Gwen down. “Shit has gone wrong.”
From the sink, the pot rattled of its own accord.
Harrison was sitting by the couch, deeply engrossed in a book and surrounded by novelty tarot cards. As Gwen watched, he marked his place, set the book down, and rolled a half full pickle jar out from underneath the couch. Examining it thoughtfully, he chewed his lip for a moment then unscrewed the top, dropped in several plastic spoons with frowny faces drawn on them in marker, slammed on the lid and began shaking it violently.
“Practical Voodoo.” Bonquisha read aloud, looking at the book. Harrison didn’t look up. “My friends need to be punished.”
Gwen gave a quiet groan.
“So you like magic, huh?” Bonquisha asked. Behind her, Gwen raised her eyebrows and blew out her cheeks because God if THAT wasn’t a loaded fucking question.
In a better mood, Harrison would have taken that as a cue to demonstrate and instantly begun showing off. Today, however, he barely spared a glance in his new audience’s direction. With a half assed hand movement, the Queen of Spades suddenly appeared between his middle and index fingers. “Is this your card?”
“No,” Bonquisha said, removing the queen and replacing it with a cream colored business card. “This is. Call me the next time you’re left here alone.”
“Yup.” Harrison agreed with no real interest, eyes still on his marinating spoons. Bonquisha made her way to the door. Gwen trailed after her, dodging The Chair on her way out.
“Look,” she said, shutting the door behind them as they went out into the hall. “I know this looks bad, but please, you have to understand, his parents-”
“I’ve met his parents.” Bonquisha said flatly, and the look in her eyes told Gwen the encounter had gone about as well as HER last conversation with them had.
“Look, I know you’re trying.” Bonquisha suddenly told her, abrupt but not unkind. “Don’t think I can’t see that. I spend every day dealing with people who just do not fucking care about their kids, and I know you ain’t one of them. I don’t want you to think that doesn’t count for something. But I need you to think about what’s best for Harrison in the long run- and whether or not that includes you.”
Gwen stared at her dumbly. There was a momentary flicker of sympathy in Bonquisha’s gold eyes, and then it was gone, replaced with businesslike efficiency. “I’m giving you an opportunity to prove me wrong about this because I feel like you can do better. You have three days to change my mind, gloomy girl. Step it up.”
Gwen nodded awkwardly. Bonquisha, seeming to accept that as as much of a goodbye as she was going to get, turned and left.
Gwen reached numbly for the door handle, let herself back into the apartment, and leaned back against the door. Running a hand through her hair, she stared at the ceiling and tried to process what exactly had just happened.
“You know,” Harrison said, looking up from the pickled spoons at last. “I feel like that could have gone better.”
The frustration she had felt with him from the moment she had reached the school to find he wasn’t there abruptly hit a boiling point. Gwen lunged with a wordless snarl.
Harrison screeched and scrambled out of the room, Gwen hot on his heels. He managed to get halfway through the kitchen before Gwen caught him, yanking him back toward her and pinning his arms to his sides.
There was a sharp bang followed by a puff of smoke and Harrison vanished, replaced by a small yellow and black gecko that hit the ground and scuttled out of the room before
Gwen could stop it. Coughing, she scowled at the doorway. She’d forgotten he could do that now.
Harrison could only hold a shape for just under a minute- they’d timed it back when he had first started experimenting. The changing had been to buy him some time, he would be looking for somewhere to hide before he turned back. The amount of available hiding spots in the apartment that would comfortably fit an eleven year old boy was significantly less than the ones that would house a gecko, but it still didn’t narrow the options down as much as Gwen would have liked. There was the space behind the couch, the cabinet under the sink…
A quiet creak came from the direction of her bedroom.
Gwen narrowed her eyes.
Gwen had always admired people who were actually able to use their rooms as an expression of their personality. She’d gotten hooked on DIY videos back in college, and could spend hours watching how to make a Harry Potter towel rack or a Doctor Who bed canopy. In an ideal world, her room would have looked like one of those fangirl/lifestyle guru rooms from youtube, but the one she had in this one probably said more about the personality she actually had than the one she told herself she did. It existed in a state of perpetual gloom, was never more than halfway clean, and everything in it was as cheap, sturdy, and replaceable as possible.
Directly across from the foot of her bed was a wardrobe. It was small, semi-disposable and Swedish in make, and it looked like nothing so much as a giant shoebox.
Gwen stomped exaggeratedly past it, waited for a moment, then hoisted herself on top as quietly as she could, coming from the side and using her new vantage point to push the door shut with a slam. Then she waited.
After a moment, the wardrobe swung open with another creak, and Harrison crept cautiously out. He glanced around the room and, seeing nothing, relaxed.
Gwen sprang.
He hadn’t been expecting an attack from above. He struggled to get away as she caught him, flicking through every disgusting and terrifying shape he could think of at lightning speed- eel, snake, wolf, spider, horrible monster from beyond- but Gwen hung on with grim determination.
At last he changed back into a very sulky human boy and stayed that way.
“Let me go.”
“I am not in the mood to chase you down again,” Gwen growled warningly. “If you run off-”
“I’m not gonna run off!”
Gwen let go of him. Harrison pointedly moved a few steps away from her before sitting down, scowling mutinously. Gwen was unmoved.
“Why the hell didn’t you wait at the school?! I told you to wait there!”
“Whatever.”
“Don’t whatever me! This is serious shit, Harrison! We are skating on thin fucking ice as it is and this bullshit did not help. What part of that do you not understand?!”
“Whatever!”
“She is so close to taking you away. Is that what you want?!”
“Whatever!” Harrison flopped forward, shoving his face into a rug Gwen’s sister had given her half a million years ago, muttering incomprehensibly. Gwen put her head in her hands, feeling a headache blooming behind her eyes. “You’re such a pain.”
“Yeah?” Harrison snapped, looking up from the carpet to glare at her. “So why don’t you sell me and raise one of the rabbits instead?”
“At least the rabbits behave better than you!” Gwen retorted.
“Go ahead!” Harrison got to his feet, glaring venomously. “Then you’ll be happy ‘cuz they’re smarter than me too!”
“And quieter!” Gwen barked at his retreating back as he stalked out of the room. It was hard to think of anything that wouldn’t be.
“You’ll like them ‘cuz they’re stupid like you!” The last sentence was punctuated by a slamming door. Gwen gaped at the place he’d been standing a moment before, then blew up.
“GO TO YOUR ROOM!”
“I’M ALREADY IN MY ROOM!” Harrison roared back from down the hall, then slammed the door again.
Snatching a pillow off the bed, Gwen buried her face in it and screamed.
The sudden rumble of thunder on an otherwise still day told her Harrison was feeling much the same way.
The thing in the pot was beyond mortal help (Though it occurred to Gwen that an exorcist might not have gone amiss) so she ordered Chinese food. The good stuff wasn’t cheap, but it was something she and Harrison both liked and she felt like they’d earned it. She knocked on his door.
“It’s not locked.” A voice called dully from inside. After a moment of hesitation, Gwen opened it.
Harrison was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. There was a small ring of magical accessories surrounding him, and he was idly fiddling with a deck of cards, shuffling and re-shuffling them without looking.
“I got Chinese food,” Gwen said, feeling a little awkward. “Lemon chicken, wonton soup…”
“We’re kind of fucked up, aren’t we?” Harrison asked without looking away from the ceiling.
“No!” Gwen assured him quickly. Harrison finally turned to look at her, expression blank. Gwen deflated.
“Maybe a little.” ‘Maybe a lot.’
“I kind of figured.”
Stepping over several dozen colored scarves and what she fervently hoped weren’t mouse bones, Gwen sat down on the edge of the bed. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry.”
“You’re a camp counselor.” Harrison gave a wry smile. “Three and a half months out of the year yelling at me is your job.”
“Yeah, well,” Gwen sighed. “Summer’s over. I need to start acting more like a-”
“I like you better as a sister than a mom.” Harrison interrupted almost apologetically.
“A sister.” Gwen repeated, digesting that. She knew about being a sister. She’d assumed what Harrison needed was a mom, but when it finally came down to it, she had no idea how to be one.
But a sister…
“I can do that.”
“And you-” he said in a way that would have been convincingly joking if it weren’t for the hitch in his voice halfway through “You like me better as a brother than a rabbit, right?”
Gwen felt her heart clench. Moving to sit on the bed properly, she pulled him into a hug because Harrison had reached an age where boys stopped asking to be held no matter how badly they wanted to- but she had spent enough time around kids to know when one needed it. He didn’t resist.
“Yes,” she said into his hair. “Yes, I do.” Then, in an effort to get him to smile: “Besides, I’ve always hated those stupid things anyway.”
Harrison gave a watery laugh, sniffling slightly.
They sat together in silence for a while. Then Harrsion murmured quietly “I cursed Marty Edmonds today.”
“You cursed him?” Gwen tried and failed to keep the note of dismay out of her voice.
“I made all his hair fall out.”
“You made his- what? Harrison, why?”
“They treat me weird.” He mumbled, staring at the ground. “The other kids, I mean. The ones who don’t know me never believe what I can do, they call me a liar. The ones from my class last year, the ones who’ve seen what I can do, they’re afraid.”
“Kids are idiots. You know that.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, still not looking at her. “But I still want them to like me.”
‘I just want them to like me,’ a frizzy haired little girl whispered miserably from fifteen years ago. And then she was gone and middle school was over and there was nothing Gwen could do for Harrison any more than her sister could have done for her. Harrison had been dealt a shit hand in life and Gwen couldn’t think of anyone less qualified to fix that, but she was still going to try because she knew, deep down, that if she didn’t nobody else was going to care enough to bother.
But there was nothing she could do here.
“Listen,” she said finally, chin resting lightly on the top of his head. “Let’s make a deal.
“I know better than anyone just how much sixth graders suck. I get it. They are the worst people in the world, and knowing you have the ability to shut them up and make them sorry they ever learned your name must be really tempting. But-”
“I can’t.” Harrison flatly. Gwen winced a little.
“…No. No, you can’t.”
“…”
“Look, you were born with-”
“A curse.”
“An advantage. You can do things other people can’t, and that’s pretty damn special. You have a right to be proud of that. But I need you to understand that you can’t just go using that on everybody who makes you mad. That’s not okay.”
“…”
“I’m not saying you don’t have a reason to be mad. But you need to find another way to handle it. These kids can’t do what you can, and taking advantage of that is kind of fucked up. You aren’t on equal footing here. This is like them having sticks and you having a nuke.”
“So what, I’m just supposed to stand there and take it?! Just let them make fun of me and hit me and-”
“Kid, if anybody ever raises a hand to you, kill them and eat their corpse. The second somebody makes it physical you fight back with everything you’ve got. I’m asking you not to start shit, but that doesn’t mean you have to take it.”
“…”
“If somebody tries to hurt you, I want you to protect yourself. But unless that happens, this hair-falling-out, turning-people-into-frogs shit needs to stay off the table. Okay?”
Harrison ruminated on this. Gwen felt his back rise and fall in a sigh.
“…Fine.”
“Okay.” Gwen smiled slightly. “So you’re gonna try not to curse people anymore. And, just to make things fair, I’m gonna try not to yell anymore.”
“What, not at all?” Harrison asked skeptically.
“Well… maybe just on special occasions.”
“I can do Tuesdays and bank holidays.”
“We’ll make it work.”
There was a sudden rumbling from outside. Bemused, Gwen looked down at Harrison, who appeared just as confused as she was. The rumbling lowered to a hum, and the room slowly filled with green light.
“…Harrison?”
“I didn’t do it!”
“What is it, anyway?” Gwen squinted in the sudden gloom, trying to decide whether or not she should be worried. Her general rule of thumb was yes, but ever since Harrison had come to live with her she had been forced to reassess her traditional panic scale.
“I think…” Harrison climbed out of her arms and of the bed, eyes fixed on something beyond the window. “I think it’s a shooting star.”
Gwen joined him, following his eyes. There was something streaking across the sky, casting a green glow across the city below. Shooting star, however, wouldn’t have been her first thought. She could understand Harrison’s logic because she certainly couldn’t think of anything else that would behave like that- but ‘star’ somehow seemed wrong.
Everything about it seemed wrong.
Gwen gave an involuntary shiver, then told herself she was being ridiculous.
“People used to believe that shooting stars came from the gods.” Harrison said softly, still entranced by the object as it reached the ground some thousand miles away. “That they were these mystical, powerful objects sent down from the clouds to make things happen on earth. Strange, impossible things. When a shooting star came down, it meant the gods were either sending you a blessing or a curse.”
There was absolutely no reason for this information to make her feel so unnerved, but it did. Gwen pinched herself in an effort to get a grip, and then pretended it had helped. Harrison didn’t seem to notice.
“People used to talk to them, and tell them what they wanted or needed. If a shooting star could fly to you from the heavens to earth, it could do anything. It could help you. It could even grant wishes.” Harrison blinked and then seemed to come back to himself. “Dibs.”
“What?”
“Dibs! Dibs! I call dibs! I need to make a wish before it stops glowing, and you can’t be here!” He pushed her frantically at the door, ignoring her confusion. “MOVE!”
“Harrison, what the fuck?”
“If you’re here it’s not going to listen to me! Wishes don’t work unless the only people privy to it are the petitioner and the granting entity! This is basic shit, Gwen, haven’t you ever blown out birthday candles? LEAVE!”
“Are you serious-”
“GWEN! GET OUT!”
“Don’t shove me-”
“THEN LEAVE!”
“I’m leaving! Jesus!” Gwen stumbled out the door just as it slammed shut behind her. Scowling, she wondered where Harrison had learned all of that stuff about the shooting stars. The way he’d been talking about it sounded a little bit like the questionably accurate magic books covering every square inch of available space in the apartment.
Back when she’d first gotten custody, she had tried to hunt down anything she could about magic, real, actual magic as opposed to the high fantasy bullshit she’d been obsessed with as a kid, in an effort to figure out what to expect from Harrison’s powers as he grew. She had bought a shit ton of books from a lot of weird places, and had come to the conclusion after the next several months of reading that about 95% of them were bullshit. She knew Harrison read them from time to time, but nothing in there had sounded like his stuff. She’d just assumed he was reading them for fun rather than taking any of it seriously.
“Uh… hello. My name is Harrison.”
Gwen gave a guilty start. She’d been by the door for too long. Moving away as quietly as she could, she stopped as she heard the next part.
“I’m… I know you’re probably asked to grant a lot of requests, and there’s probably millions of other people asking you to do stuff right now, but this- it’s not a big favor. It’s really small. You could probably do it in a couple of seconds if- um. Just if you wanted to. But if you’re listening, and you have a couple seconds, I.. I need a friend.
“I know I can be kind of hard to be around, and sometimes I get mad easier than I should. And I overreact. But I’m trying to be better about that and I… I feel like I could be a good friend if I had a chance to try. So if you could let me- if you could maybe send me somebody- somebody who won’t be scared, or run away-
“Just. If you wouldn’t mind. Thank you.”
He fell silent. Closing her eyes, Gwen leaned back against the wall.
There was nothing she could do here. She could barely form her own friendships, there was no chance in hell she could ever help Harrison. People were weird, complicated creatures that made absolutely no sense and the only loyal friends you could ever actually make were dogs-
Gwen paused, opening her eyes.
…Well.
It couldn’t possibly be worse than the rabbits.