Elixir of Fear

And then, finally, it was Halloween. Ordinarily, Harrison would have been getting his costume ready for tonight, or maybe making Rice Crispy treats to take over to a Halloween party someone from school was having. This year it just seemed like any other day.

But Harrison knew that it wasn't.

His parents were not happy about the Halloween party his grandparents were holding. But since he was over there all the time anyway, and it was Halloween, and there wasn't anything else for him to do, they didn't tell him he couldn't go.

"It just doesn't seem the right thing to do," his mom said from the couch.

"It's like they're thumbing their noses at the families of those who've died," his dad said. Harrison decided this was not a good time to tell them about the "dry tinder" effect.

He ran out the door and up the hill to his grandparents' house. There was nobody out on the street, which just felt completely wrong to him. This was Halloween! So what if there were no Halloween decorations up save for those at his grandparents' house? It was still Halloween night and every kid over the age of two knew it! They knew it in their bones!

And he knew Gramma Rose and Grampa Lewis would know it too. He ran all the way up to the top of the hill. He heard one man call out angrily as he ran by: "Where's your mask?" But he just kept running.

Harrison got to the front door, and he knocked. Gramma Rose came to the door and opened it.

"Oh Harrison!" She cried out, reaching to hug him. He froze in his tracks. She was wearing a mask.

"Uh... Gramma?" He said. "Wh-why do you have a mask on?"

"Is that our Harrison?" He heard Grampa Lewis call out from the kitchen.

"Yes, he's here!" She called out, reaching again for Harrison. "Come on inside, and we can all talk about it..."

Harrison felt a little uneasy. Something about Gramma Rose's manner seemed off. She was being very lighthearted, yet also seemed eager to get him to come inside. And why was she wearing that mask? Still, it was Gramma Rose. Surely there was some reason for her odd behavior. He stepped inside, and she led him by the arm into the kitchen.

Grampa Lewis was seated at the table. He also had a mask on.

"Hello Harrison!" He said cheerily. This was not the same man who he had seen chew out multiple shop employees for demanding that he put a mask on his face. Something was wrong.

"Grampa," said Harrison, "what's going on? Why are you guys wearing masks now?"

"Well my boy," said Grampa, "we've just been thinking about it, your Gramma and I, and we realized we're no spring chickens! This illness, it's killed a lot of people, and... well, you just can't be too careful!"

Harrison just stood there. This was definitely not the same man he had spoken to yesterday. Gramma Rose chimed in:

"And this doctor friend of yours," she said, "you know, we don't really know that much about him. It sounds like he could be trying to help you!"

"Gramma," Harrison blurted out, "is this a joke? Because it's not very funny!"

She looked at him quizzically. He looked over to his Grampa, who had much the same puzzled expression.

"Harrison," he said, "we just want what's best for you! Maybe you should go meet with this guy after all. You did say he's a doctor, right? Why not listen to him?"

Harrison could feel himself starting to sweat. This was no joke. Neither of his grandparents were capable of going on for this long without bursting into laughter. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

They had fallen under the spell.

"Yes," said Harrison angrily, "he is a doctor... with a horse and wagon from the nineteenth century!!!"

They were unmoved by his outburst.

"Still," said Gramma Rose, "who can we trust if we can't trust the experts?"

"I think you should try and calm down Harrison," said Grampa Lewis. "How about some nice hot cocoa?"

"Look," said Gramma Rose, moving over to the stove top where sheets of freshly iced cookies lay, "I made cookies! These ones are jack-o-lanterns, and these ones are ghosts, and..."

Harrison turned and ran for the door. He flung it open and tore outside and ran as fast as he could back to his own house.

"Harry, you're back!" His dad was surprised. "What happened?"

"Nothing Dad," he panted. "I just forgot something... for the party."

Harrison raced upstairs. He had hit upon an idea, but he would have to act on it quickly.

He logged on as fast as he could. Yes! There was CubeSquared. He started typing:

"Hey," he wrote, "remember when you asked me if there was anything you could do to help?"

A few minutes later, his gym bag over his shoulder, Harrison ran back downstairs and out the back door. He could hear his parents and sister behind him:

"Better hurry Harry, curfew starts in fifteen minutes!"

"Mommy! I want to go trick-or-treating!"

"Not this year honey, we explained this before."

"But I'm all better now!"

"Hey Sarah, have you seen my cell phone anywhere?"

"No, honey! Jennie, come here, let's watch the Great Pumpkin together..."

And Harrison was out the door.

He ran down the street. It was still dark and desolate. He looked up at his grandparents' house, and couldn't see any activity there. But he was not going there now. He had urgent business to attend to and he had to figure out a way to get there without getting stopped by the police.

He decided that if he did get stopped, he would just say that he was on his way home, and continue going in whatever direction he'd been going in. The curfew started at 9:00 and he'd be at his destination soon past then, so it was completely believable that he'd be running a few minutes late to get home. Getting back would be the harder part.

Harrison knew that he didn't want to get too close to Dr. Faustis' wagon. He felt that somehow, if he were close enough, the doctor would sense his presence. In fact, he didn't even know for sure that the doctor didn't have some way of observing him when he was far away–of finding him, as he had that night in the kitchen. He had to admit that it was possible the doctor knew all about his plans with Gramma and Grampa, and that he had no intention of showing up at the hotel tonight.

Still, this was the only thing he could think of to do now. His only two allies, his Gramma and Grampa, had been incapacitated by the spell and he had to do whatever he could to get them back!

He found a place to wait. He had made it all the way down to the old downtown area without anyone stopping him, and after first making a stop to drop something off, he was now on Spring Street. He stopped a block before the Lens Crafters and old movie theater block, and ducked inside the doorway of what looked like a bakery. It also looked like it had been closed for a long time.

Harrison stood there, his face pressed against the edge of the doorway, just poking out enough for him to see down to the next block. And he waited.

He waited that way for a long time. Sometimes his legs got uncomfortable, so he would sit for a while, and then he would stand again. Ordinarily, waiting in a place like this for so long would have bored him out of his mind. But tonight, he was too scared to be bored. He kept hearing noises that he thought might be the doctor sneaking up behind him, and one time he felt something touch his shoulder and he almost jumped out of his skin. But it was just part of a board that had been put up over the front windows, and was sticking out into the doorway.

Finally, when it must have been nearly ten thirty, he saw movement up ahead. He tried very hard to stay still.

There he was. Up ahead, just past the Lens Crafters building, a dark figure stepped out onto the sidewalk. The figure was wearing a cape, and a tall hat, and carried some sort of bag or suitcase. Harrison's heart raced.

He watched as the figure walked up the sidewalk, away from where Harrison stood watching, but in the direction he would need to go to get to the hotel. And then, before Harrison's eyes, the figure disappeared into thin air!

For a moment, Harrison just stood there dumbfounded. What had he just seen? It was dark, but there was enough light for him to see the figure, which could not have been anything other than Dr. Faustis. And he could still see things up ahead of where he had disappeared, so it could not be that he simply disappeared into the darkness. Harrison did not know what to think. But he did know what he must do. So, after waiting a few more minutes to be absolutely sure that the doctor was gone, he stepped out from his hiding spot and walked toward the empty lot next to the Lens Crafters building.

He stepped onto the lot. At the back of the lot, up against the chain-link fence, stood the doctor's horse and wagon, just as it had on his previous visits here. The horse nickered softly as he approached, but had a feedbag attached to its halter and soon went back to chewing.

Harrison walked slowly up to the back of the wagon. There was a little wooden set of stairs coming down from the back, leading up to the door. Harrison took a deep breath. He looked all around him. No sign of the doctor, or of anyone else. He stepped on to the bottom step.

The step gave a creak, the wagon moved slightly, and Harrison's heart leapt. Then he stepped up onto the next step. Another creak, and more movement. Then the third step. He stood facing the door.

He took another deep breath. What if the doctor had put a spell on the door? What if it set off some kind of magical alarm that let him know if someone was trying to break in? What if he reappeared here just as quickly as he had disappeared?

Well I can't just stand here all night wondering about every possible thing that might go wrong, he told himself. And he reached down and took hold of the doorknob in front of him. He tried to turn it, but it was locked. He was prepared for this. He knelt down, set his gym bag down on the step and reached into it. He pulled out a flat-head screwdriver, and tried jamming it into the space between the door and the door frame. He could feel something metal–the bolt of the little lock. He pushed against it, dug into the wood around it, pushed and pulled, and after huffing and puffing for several minutes, something went "snap!"

Harrison jumped back. He tried the doorknob again and this time it turned. He pulled the door open. He was inside the doctor's wagon!

He reached back into his gym bag once more and replaced the screwdriver. He pulled out a flashlight–having learned his lesson from his trip to the hotel. He turned the flashlight on and shone it into the wagon.

It was an odd assortment of things that the doctor had inside here. The back part of the wagon seemed to be a kind of sitting room, with two old-fashioned chairs and a very small round table, and shelves built into the sides of the wagon. There were books on the shelves, and also objects: Bottles, and tools of some kind, and a stuffed fox!

Further into the wagon, Harrison could see a little cabinet, and beyond that what looked like a bed built into the front of the wagon, but with curtains in front of it. There were odd objects laying about throughout the space, and Harrison took his time shining his light on every inch of it, so as not to miss anything.

Outside, the horse gave a whinny. Harrison froze. Had the doctor returned? He looked for a place to hide. The cabinet! Quietly, he made his way over to the cabinet, and quietly he pulled open the door. He stopped and listened. He heard nothing from outside. The horse had gone back to chewing its food. Harrison stood there frozen for another moment, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

He started to close the cabinet door, when he looked down and saw... Gramma Rose's umbrella! It was there, tucked into the bottom of the cabinet, underneath where the doctor's suits and coats hung. He reached down and grabbed it. It was just as he had given it to the doctor, unharmed. He carefully put it into his gym bag and closed the cabinet door.

He shone the light around the wagon once again. What could he find here that belonged to the doctor that might be of value to him? Something that had a strong connection to him, and could be useful in casting the spell?

The light shone into the far corner of the sitting room. There was a picture hanging there, a photograph taken over a hundred years ago from the look of it, of a woman. He moved the light to the right of the picture. Bookshelves. And a little chest of drawers beneath them.

Harrison moved over to the chest of drawers. He heard a noise. Rustling. But not outside the wagon, inside. His heart started to pound. He stepped back and waved the flashlight across the room. Something glittered, and he waved the flashlight back to it. Eyes! He froze. There, on one of the chairs next to the little round table, sat a small black cat, and it was looking right at him.

He hadn't seen the cat before. In fact, as he had looked very carefully over every inch of this part of the wagon, he was pretty sure there hadn't been any cat. He eyed the cat warily, and it eyed him back. What now? Did he dare to go over to the chest of drawers and see what might be inside?

He thought of his grandparents. About what his Grampa had said to him that day at his kitchen table. "We will use everything in our power to defeat him..." He remembered the look on his face. And he remembered his Grampa tonight, wearing that mask, and trying to talk Harrison into going to see the doctor... as if every trace of the original Grampa had been erased. Harrison knew that he had to do everything in his own power to get it back.

“I'll go see the doctor alright!” He said to himself, as he moved over to the chest of drawers.

***

It was cold outside. Frosty. Harrison shivered as he raced back to his grandparents' house. It must already be 11:00, he thought. And while the little trick he had thought up would probably delay the doctor for a while, it was only a matter of time before he realized that Harrison wasn't actually there. And who knew what he would do then.

Harrison moved as quickly as he could. But he also had to do his best to stay out of sight, in case anyone was out enforcing the curfew. So he tried to stay in the shadows, moving alongside buildings as much as he could. And when he got back to his own neighborhood, he slowed down, walked very quietly, and if he saw a car coming, hid behind a nearby tree or a car.

Finally, he was there. At the foot of the hill leading up to his grandparents' house. He started to climb. He could see that the little gate was closed. That was odd, as it had been open when he left, and it was normally left open. It must be the spell, he thought, getting his grandparents to fear even an unlikely visitor to the house.

The house was dark, except for the light that was still on in the kitchen, and there were no lights outside. The jack-o-lanterns and other decorations had been taken down, he noticed with disappointment. He told himself it was to be expected, given the power the doctor's spell had over his grandparents. He made his way over to the gate, so he could unlatch it.

And there he was.

Standing just to the side of the gate–had he been standing there, or had he just appeared out of thin air?–was Dr. Faustis. And he was holding Harrison's father's cell phone up in the air!

"That was a clever trick, my boy! Hiding this... device... in the hotel, having your friend speaking through it, pretending to be you!"

In fact, Harrison did think it had been a rather clever plan. But just now he was too terrified to remember that.

"Fool!" The doctor spat. "Did you think I would not find it? Did you take me for a fool?"

Just then, and before Harrison could respond to the doctor, from the other side of the fence, came his Grampa's voice.

"Listen to him, Harrison!" Grampa called out.

Harrison could see both Grampa Lewis and Gramma Rose come trotting out from the house, still wearing their masks, and imploring him to listen to the doctor.

"Don't worry," called out Gramma Rose. "Everything is going to be just fine! You just need to come inside with us and we can all sit down and have a talk with this nice doctor!"

Harrison could not believe what was happening.

"...only don't touch anything!" She added. "And be sure to wash your hands!"

"And you'll want to put this on too..." Dr. Faustis was holding something out to Harrison in his other hand. Harrison looked–it was the same horrible mask, the mask with the face of a child, that he had worn in the ceremony in the hotel!

From the other side of the fence, his grandparents continued to beg him to come inside with them.

"You can't run, boy!" The doctor sounded like he was laughing, as he stepped closer to Harrison. "Nowhere to run to! You should listen to your grandmother. She cares about you, wants what is best for you!"

Grampa Lewis chimed in: "Just do what he says, Harrison, and everything will be fine!"

The doctor stepped closer. Harrison took a step back, but he knew the doctor was right: There was no place for him to run to. No place where the doctor couldn't follow him.

His grandparents were approaching the gate now, telling him to put on the mask, to come and have a talk with the doctor. They were only a few feet away now. Harrison knew what he must do, and he had only an instant in which to do it.

Dr. Faustis stepped forward again. "What do you say?" He smiled broadly.

"I say BITE ME!!!” Harrison shouted as he quickly reached behind his back, grabbed the handle of the umbrella, and in one swift movement, swung it up into the air and over the fence.

"Catch, Gramma!" He yelled with all his might. And she did.

There was a flash of purple electricity as she caught it, and she stumbled backwards. She took a moment, as if re-focusing her eyes, and then she bellowed:

"Harrison! You get away from that man!" And then to Dr. Faustis: "Don't you dare come near him!" She ripped off her mask.

Grampa Lewis stared at her, baffled. "Rose Rita, why what's gotten into you..."

She tossed him the umbrella.

"Here!" she called out to him. Grampa Lewis caught the umbrella, and there was another flash of purple light. He gasped. "Oh my goodness! Harrison!" He threw his mask to the ground and turned his ire to Dr. Faustis.

"Alright, you've had your fun!" He yelled. "Now skeedadle! There's nothing more for you here! You can't make the boy afraid of you, and he's just beaten your spell against us into the dust!"

Dr. Faustis laughed. "Oh, is that how you see it?"

"Yes, that is how I see it! Now go!"

"You heard him!" Shouted Harrison, full of new-found courage now that his grandparents–the grandparents he knew–had been returned to him. "Skee-Daddle! You can't defeat us!"

"Oh I won't need to!"

The doctor–or rather, the wizard, for that is what he was–stepped forward, and with a grand flourish, like a magician performing an elaborate trick on stage, swept his cape out before him, revealing the hillside below them.

At the foot of the hill was a cluster of lights. Harrison looked closer. It was a large group of people. It was their neighbors and townspeople, dozens of them, some carrying lighted torches, a few with baseball bats or pitchforks, all wearing masks and plastic gloves, and a few in clumsily put together hazmat suits.

"...they will!" He proclaimed with a flourish, and Harrison stood helplessly and watched as the mob–for it was a mob–moved quickly towards them.

"Quick, Harrison!" Grampa Lewis called out. "Get into the house!" He rushed to unlock the gate and let Harrison through before the mob arrived.

But it was too late. Already, the mob was beside Dr. Faustis, and as Grampa Lewis started to pull the gate closed, two of them grabbed hold of it and pulled it open. More followed and helped them pull the gate open, while others marched through and up to Harrison and his grandparents–who he noticed for the first time look just a little frail.

The crowd reminded him of something. What was it? Then it hit him. That movie he saw when he was too young for it and he was scared of his own shadow for weeks afterwards. What was it called? It was in black and white, and it was about zombies who roamed the countryside in search of people to kill so they could eat their brains... that's what these people reminded him of now. A shiver ran down his spine.

Then he remembered.

"Quick, Gramma Rose!" He shouted as the mob lumbered around him and Grampa Lewis. "The bonfire!"

Gramma Rose gave a big thumbs-up and ran to where they had prepared the bonfire, right in the front yard. She pulled a box of matches from her apron pocket and picked up some of the crumpled newspaper they had stuck in between the kindling at the bottom, and lit it. Harrison thought he heard her utter some words as she did so.

All of a sudden, there was a burst of purple and yellow light, and the bonfire was roaring!

Harrison knew that the objects that needed to go into the bonfire were still in the kitchen–unless his spellbound grandparents had done away with those along with the Halloween decorations. The mob was momentarily distracted by the burst of fire, and Harrison took the opportunity to make a dash for the kitchen door.

Behind him, he could hear the people screaming at his grandparents: "You're putting everyone at risk!"

"How dare you!"

"...selfish!!!"

"Entitled..."

"You don't care about anyone but yourselves!"

Gramma took a look at the person who had just screamed this at her. A young, twenty-something man wearing a mask and plastic gloves and some kind of plastic thing around his head that made him look like an astronaut.

"You stay indoors if you're so afraid of it!" She shouted at him. "And for the love of God take that ridiculous contraption off your head. You'll frighten the children!"

The trunk was still in the kitchen, on the floor. Harrison grabbed it in both arms and ran out the door again. He had his own bottle of elixir in his gym bag, to add to the fire. And the object he had found in the doctor's wagon.

Gramma Rose turned from the bonfire to go into the house and get the objects to throw in it, and she saw Harrison racing towards her with the trunk.

"Good boy, Harrison!" She called out.

Grampa Lewis now appeared by her side, ready to begin the spell.

Harrison set the trunk down in front of his Gramma and Grampa. When he stood up, he saw him standing there in front of him:

Jason.

He stood there surrounded by a small gang of friends, all wearing masks and blue plastic gloves. One of the girls carried a lighted torch, and one of the boys had a baseball bat in his hands.

"Well!" Exclaimed Jason. "Look what we've got here!"

The gang of friends moved in closer to Harrison.

For a moment, Harrison and Jason just stood there, face to face, neither saying a word. Then, Jason began to taunt Harrison, as he had done nearly every day in school:

"Hey Harrison, whatcha doin? Hangin' out with your grandma and grandpa? Think they're gonna protect you or somethin'?"

The gang around him snickered and moved in closer.

"Hey Harrison," Jason called out again, "remember the time I put bugs in your lunchbox and you ran screaming out of the room?"

The gang snickered again.

Something was different. Harrison was accustomed to Jason's taunts, and to the mindless laughter of the kids who followed him around school. Ordinarily, it made him want to sink into the floor, or run and hide somewhere. Anything, just to get away from it.

But not this time.

This time the words did not have the same impact. And as he looked at the group of kids standing behind Jason, hiding in their group, covered in masks and all manner of Personal Protective Equipment, he saw–perhaps for the first time–just how ridiculous they were.

Jason seemed confused that Harrison was not responding. He kept on going:

"Skeerdy cat, skeerdy cat, skeerdy skeerdy skeerdy cat!"

Harrison just looked at him.

"You sure about that, Jason?" He asked, with a puzzled expression. "I mean, you're the one wearing the mask and plastic gloves."

For a moment there is only silence, and the crackling of the bonfire. Jason seemed to grow a little bit smaller. And Harrison felt himself grow stronger.

All of a sudden, the bonfire shot up into the sky. Gramma and Grampa both jumped back from it.

"That's it!" Cried Harrison. "He feeds off of everyone's fear! It makes him stronger! It doesn't even matter what we're afraid of. But when we're not afraid, it weakens him! And it strengthens us!"

"You're right!" Called out Grampa Lewis.

"That's great honey," said Gramma Rose, as she used her magical umbrella to fend off the chanting neighbors who had now descended upon the bonfire. "But we've got this great angry mob in front of us and they're full of nothing but fear!"

In the distance, Harrison could see Dr. Faustis still standing by the gates. He was watching the events unfold before him, and he had a big smile on his face.

Grampa had already started tossing some of the objects into the flames, and he was reading out loud from a big leather-bound book as he did so. Harrison could not understand what he was saying, it was in some language he had never heard before.

None of this seemed to affect the doctors' powers though. He still stood at the gate, smiling broadly, as the gang of neighbors and townspeople continued their assault. The yard was completely overrun with them now. They did seem to fear the bonfire though, and would not get too close to it–although Grampa and Gramma still had to poke at some of them with the umbrella to keep them at bay.

However some of them had now turned their attention to the house. A group of them were taking whacks at the posts on the front porch, and a chilling cry had erupted:

"Burn it down! Burn it down! Burn it down!"

Now Harrison felt afraid. He looked, and saw the doctor's smile grow even broader. The bonfire started to dim just a little.

"Harrison!" His Gramma called out. "Don't you worry about a thing! You just help us cast this spell now!"

Grampa Lewis handed the great leather-bound book to Gramma Rose, and she began chanting, and every so often reaching into the trunk for another object to throw into the fire. The trunk was almost empty now. But the doctor's power over this raging mob did not seem in the least impacted.

And no matter how hard he tried not to be, Harrison was genuinely afraid for his Gramma and Grampa. And for their house! What if this unruly mob succeeded in burning it down? And Dr. Faustis didn't seem at all concerned about the counter spell he could see they were in the process of casting.

The bonfire dipped even lower.

Grampa Lewis looked over at Harrison. He could see how afraid he was.

"Harrison," he said gently. "Listen to me. I know that Dr. Whatsis seems awfully powerful right now. But I want you to remember something. There is one fundamental difference between him and us. Do you know what that is?"

"Um..." Harrison was trembling, in spite of himself. "Is it that... he's a wizard, from another era? That he doesn't belong here?"

"Not quite, Harrison, although that is true too."

His Gramma continued chanting, but the trunk was now empty.

"What I'm thinking of," his Grampa continued, "is something that he doesn't have. Something that's missing. From what we know of this Faustis character, he is motivated by a quest for power and nothing else."

Yes, thought Harrison, and he seems to be succeeding pretty well in that quest!

"He seeks control over everyone else, and his main weapon is fear," said Grampa. "But human beings aren't held together by control, or by fear. Oh sure, fear can bind people together for a short time, while they face a common enemy. But it's not the glue that holds us together for very long. Do you know what is Harrison?"

The gang at the far end of his grandparents' house were disappointed to find that the house itself was made of stone. But they had managed to set fire to some of the furniture on the patio, and were starting to hurl burning chunks of wood toward the windows. Harrison's heart was pounding now. Was this really the time for a philosophical meditation on the deeper motives of the man behind all this?

But his Grampa continued.

"It's love, Harrison. It's the stuff that makes moms take care of their babies, and it's the reason your Gramma is over there shouting gibberish at a bonfire instead of trying to save her own house. Human beings aren't held together by power or by control Harrison, or even by fear. They're held together by love."

"I could use that elixir now Harrison!" Gramma Rose was yelling from the other side of the bonfire. Of course! Harrison had forgotten that he still had his objects with him! He pulled his gym bag off his shoulder and dug into it and pulled out his two bottles of elixir. He tossed them both to Gramma Rose, who caught them expertly and tossed them into the flames as she said more words from the spell book over them.

The bonfire took a small leap.

"Oh, and this," said Harrison, remembering the object he had found in the chest of drawers in the doctor's wagon. He pulled that out too and tossed it over to Gramma Rose.

It was awkward, and flipped over and over several times as it flew over the bonfire and into Gramma Rose's outstretched hands, sending out flashes of light each time it turned. The object was a small hand-held mirror, and as it flew into the air something about the doctor's demeanor changed. He stumbled back. And his smile disappeared.

Gramma Rose flung the mirror into the flames, and Harrison watched, astonished, as the doctor crumpled forward as if he had been stabbed.

"We got him Gramma! We got him!" Harrison cried out.

"Not yet we haven't!" Grampa Lewis pointed to the gang that had been trying to set fire to their house, and which had now turned its attention to the three people by the bonfire. As if they could sense that those three had just harmed their master.

"'Night of the Living Dead'!" Harrison cried out suddenly. "That was it!"

Gramma and Grampa turned to Harrison, frowning.

He turned a little red.

"The... the movie..." he stammered. "...that those people reminded me of. I was trying to think of the name..."

"Watch out!" Grampa Lewis reached across Harrison's face just in time to knock a flaming rocking-chair rocker off it's trajectory and save his grandson's face.

"We may have put a dent in his powers," said Grampa, "but he's not gone yet! Come on Rose Rita, let's keep going with that spell!"

It was Grampa's turn to read from the book now, so Gramma Rose handed it to him and he began to chant. But as he did so, the mob descended upon them. The only thing holding them back was the bonfire itself, which they still seemed to fear.

Grampa Lewis finished reading his passage and he looked up.

"Give it here!" Said Gramma Rose, holding out her hand impatiently. "That's it," said Grampa. "That's the end of the spell. We've done it all."

The three just stood there staring at each other for a moment. The crowd now had them completely surrounded, and Dr. Faustis was standing again. He was no longer smiling, but nor was he defeated.

"Wh-when does it work?" Asked Harrison feebly.

Gramma and Grampa both shook their heads. "We don't know, Harrison," said Gramma quietly. "We just have to wait and see."

All around them, the crowd was rumbling, and chanting: "...entitled!" and "Selfish!" Some would throw objects: Rocks, sticks, pieces of half-burnt furniture. And they made it clear that they weren't going anywhere.

And then Harrison saw them.

In the middle of the mass of people that surrounded them, just in front of him and a little to the right: His parents. They both had masks on, and his dad was carrying the heavy rake from the back yard. They were yelling something. His mom still looked pretty sick. Did they even know what they were doing? He wondered. Did they even recognize him or his grandparents?

Harrison looked over at Gramma Rose's face. She looked as pale as a ghost. She had seen them too.

Dr. Faustis started to walk slowly towards them. His smile had returned a little, along with his confidence.

"That's right!" He called out. "You cannot defeat me, nor the army I have created! Even your own family is with me now! What then is left for you boy, but to join forces with me and end your despair, your angst. Think of it–my elixir will protect you from any illness, any harm at all... and all you need in order to have it is to put on this mask..."

Again, he held out the foul-looking child-faced mask.

Harrison looked up helplessly at Gramma Rose and Grampa Lewis. The bonfire sank lower than it had been all night.

Suddenly Gramma Rose shouted out:

"Fear!"

Harrison and his Grampa looked at each other.

"That's his weapon, right?” Gramma continued. “So if we give in to it, we're making him stronger. But we can fight him back with its opposite!"

"But how..." Harrison began.

"Exactly!" Shouted Grampa. "Don't fear him back! That's how he wins! Number one: Don't give in–don't fear him, or this army of sorry vandals he's created. Number two: What's the opposite of fear?"

"Love?" Said Harrison tentatively. He had no intention of wrapping his arms around any one of the enraged people standing in front of him, no matter what his Grampa had to say on the matter.

"That's right!" Grampa cried out, triumphant. "Don't fear them! Welcome them in! Comfort them! Ease their fears. Do whatever you can to reassure them... remind them of who they are..."

Harrison nodded uncertainly.

"Look..." He said to the people closest to him, breathing heavily behind their masks, "we're not sick. None of us are. So how can we make you sick? And if you're really afraid, well go on home and stay there. Nobody's coming after you. I promise."

"Here," said Gramma Rose, "have some cookies! I've made cookies for everyone!" And then Grampa Lewis stepped up to one of the men in the mob.

"Joe," he said, "remember me? We helped you find your dog the time he went missing. And your wife brought us a tuna casserole the time Rose Rita fell and sprained her ankle..."

The bonfire was starting to grow again. And Harrison swore that he smelled a strong spicy smell... a pipe... just before it shot up once more.

But Dr. Faustis was still standing. Weaker than before, but still there, still smiling at what lay before him.

"You will never defeat me," he grinned. "You will never..."

And then, out of nowhere, a girl about Harrison's age came running up the hill. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt and had a backpack on her back. Her face was red and she was out of breath and she looked like she had been running for a very long time.

The girl burst through the gate and ran toward the bonfire. Angry cries of "where's your mask?" went up from the crowd, and she pushed her way through. The people yelled at her, but quickly jumped out of her way as if she were carrying the Bubonic Plague. She went straight up to Harrison.

"Are you Harrison?" The girl asked, between gasps for air. Harrison nodded, dumbfounded.

"CubeSquared," she said, thrusting her hand at him. "Pleased to make your acquaintance!"

He took her hand, and in that moment, the bonfire leapt up once more, the pipe smell became overwhelming, and a purple haze filled the entire front yard. The bonfire grew even bigger, and cast its light over everything before it. It might as well have been daylight now–a very purple- tinted daylight.

Then Harrison watched as the mirror he had brought from the doctor's wagon, the mirror that Gramma Rose had thrown into the fire and that Harrison had watched burn up... now floated up out of the fire. The mirror rose high up, above them all, and then turned itself so that it was pointed directly at Dr. Faustis.

Down on the ground, the doctor was frozen in place. He was looking up at the mirror, transfixed, and he was no longer smiling. He looked frightened.

And then, a light shone out of the mirror. Harrison thought that it looked like someone had pointed the mirror up at the moon and it was now reflecting the light down onto Dr. Faustis. The light was too bright for Harrison to look at, so he turned his eyes away. But not before he saw it hit the doctor. And in an instant, where the doctor had just been standing, there was nothing but a patch of blackened, charred earth.