Page 53 of Dead Rockstar

“It's the cheap stuff,” he said, pouring me some and handing it over. “Hope you're okay with red.”

“That's all I drink.”

“Me, too.”

We sipped in silence for a few moments, both of us lost in thought. I wasn't scared, exactly, but I was nervous. Anxious. Lee was a weirdo, but some of what he said seemed to have a ring of truth to it. Seeking out this guy Guthrie did seem risky. Just because he'd given Phillip a spell years back when they were both high as a kite didn't mean he'd take kindly to seeing him in the flesh all these years later, nor would he necessarily be thrilled to see a random girl from the sticks who just happened to accidentally perform necromancy. He might be really offended, or worse, want to squelch my black magic – which meant squelching me. I was out of my depth here, with no idea about magic, how to counteract it, or whether or not I'd gotten myself or Philip into serious trouble. We wouldn't know until we saw Guthrie, and once we did, it'd be too late to run.

We were taking a risk, but it was a necessary one. I just hoped we’d come out of it unscathed.

I guzzled down the dregs of the cheap wine and poured a little more. I wanted to have a nice buzz to help me forget my nerves. Phillip seemed to be of the same mind, because he discarded his cheap coffee mug and took a long swig straight from the bottle. Then he handed it to me. We drank that way, just staring at each other, saying nothing, until the bottle was about half gone. Then he took me in his arms and leaned me back on the pillows. He placed a gentle, wet kiss on my lips.

“I feel pretty lucky,” he said, smiling at me. “To have you. I really don't deserve you, not after the life I've lived.”

“That life is over,” I said, wrapping my legs around him. “This is a whole different life.”

“Let me do the talking,” Phillip had said to me before we exited the truck to knock on the door of the little house. As if I had any plans to chat up this mystery person.

It hadn't taken us long to find the place; apparently Phillip still knew the location by heart, even after twenty-three years. It wasn't far from his old family home, where Jason now lived (I knew another conversation about that would have to be had soon), just a couple of blocks, though in those couple of blocks the neighborhood had changed dramatically. Gone were the nicely manicured lawns, clean painted shutters and flower box windows. The houses on this street were full of peeling paint, sparse, dry lawns, and beat up vehicles. The house we were about to enter, if anyone was home and agreeable, was a tiny place that looked to be only one bedroom, with ancient powder blue siding and a roof that was in ill repair. The front porch wasn't much more than a stoop, and it was covered in boxes of what appeared to be junk. A sullen-looking yellow cat sauntered out from one of the boxes, making me smile, and with a nonplussed swish of his eaten-looking tail, went around to the back of the house.

I was tempted to just wait in the truck, but felt I'd be safer by Phillip's side. Just the idea of Guthrie scared me. If Lee was to be believed, he would not be happy to find out who I was or what I had done: I did not like the idea of what he might say or do to me. I planned to tell him that if didn't want people doing spells, he ought not to give them out like candy to trick or treaters, but behind all my attitude, I was scared shitless.

Despite never having met him, something about Guthrie reminded me of a guy my parents had been friends with when I was a kid. He had lived in the same trailer park, in a singlewide off to the very end, secluded and nearest to the woods. His name had been something weird and old fashioned like Eldred or Elvin – my folks had insisted I call him “Uncle El” - and he had always frightened me. Now that I was grown, I knew he’d just been your usual run of the mill pot dealer, somebody who sold my drunk parents dime bags of weed and the occasional bump of coke; just a tragic, middle-aged guy who was probably harmless.

And yet he had creeped me out so much when I was little that I’d avoided going to his house with my parents whenever I could, begging to stay home in my bedroom with my books. When I was forced to go along, I’d cower in his living room, sitting on the very edge of his dark, scratchy couch, almost sliding off onto the floor, trying not to look up at the dreamcatchers he had suspended from the dingy, smoke-stained ceiling. He’d had dozens of them, all sizes and colors, some of them huge, with elaborate, colored feathers, others small and cheaply made, likely bought from the dollar store. They’d catch the light from his streaky, dusty windows and the breeze from his box fan, and I’d try not to watch them dance, because I was afraid that the spirits attached to those dreamcatchers would catch my eyes and not let them go, that they would follow me – follow me home, follow me to bed, haunt me in my dreams, and I’d wake up blind.

As a child, I had no awareness of why it scared me, but now, standing with Phillip outside the truck, I had an inkling. “Uncle El” had co-opted something that didn’t belong to him, that wasn’t his…the magic that he’d contained within his little singlewide was too large and too real to be contained within that small, dirty space, commandeered by someone who had no tie to it, and no real idea of its significance. It was magic for magic’s sake; false magic. Playing with things that weren’t yours to play with. It had just felt wrong.

And that’s how it felt now, too. It felt wrong. It wasn’t Phillip that felt wrong, or even the spell I’d done; no, something about that felt right to me, as though I had been meant to do what I did in that drunken moment. It was all the rest – the specter of Guthrie, the shifty beings following me, so many variables – that felt out of place, wrong and dangerous.

I waited, pulling my black hoodie around me tightly, like a cocoon, determined to shake my dreadful thoughts. I was certain that Phillip had been fumbling around in my head – I wasn’t sure he could even help it most of the time – but thankfully, he said nothing, only placed an arm gently around my shoulders and gave me an optimistic smile.

Phillip wasn't nervous or full of dread, just eager. Now that one piece of business had been concluded, he was anxious to get the second out of the way. I envied him his lack of fear, his logical attitude toward it all. What he planned to do next I supposed relied upon whatever Guthrie had to tell him, if he told him anything at all.

I imagined his questions were the same as mine, though we hadn’t discussed it. Instead, they hung unasked in the air between us. What exactly was Phillip? A zombie? A Frankenstein monster? A reanimated corpse? How had the spell worked? Was I a witch or was it just a fluke, a spell that would have worked for anyone? Was it indeed black magic? Could Phillip be hurt or killed? What happened if I released him? Was his incredible strength, almost-psychic “vibes” and the fact that electronics didn't work around him all part of his super-human abilities? How long did he have before he died again? Would he go on to live a normal human lifespan? Or was he immortal?

Those were just a few of the questions I wanted to ask. A few I hoped Phillip would get the answers to. Many I was content to never know, if I could help it. The thought of something happening to Phillip now filled me with terror. I was falling in love with him. I had no excuse. I hadn't even tried to stop it. How could I not have? I'd lusted after him since I was a teen, and he was bound to me – there were forces stronger than me at work. What would Guthrie say about that?

Phillip rang the door bell, and after about thirty seconds when there was no answer, he knocked. I wrapped my arms around myself tighter. It was very cold in Boston, and windy, too. I wished I had thought to bring an actual coat and not just a jacket. I was too accustomed to southern winters, where it would be forty degrees one day and seventy the next, where the only snow we ever got was like a dusting of powdered sugar on a cake. Phillip was only wearing his black t-shirt. He had to be cold. I resisted the urge to lean into him, to try and warm him up. He sighed and knocked again, louder this time. There were no sounds of movement from within.

“He must not be home,” I said, but just as the words left my lips, we both heard footsteps from inside the house. My teeth began to chatter, and not just from the cold. “Phillip, it's not too late – we could just hop in the truck and leave-”

He shook his head at me, and we heard the lock rattling on the door. It opened gingerly, and a pair of blue eyes set in wrinkled skin peered out at us. Whoever it was had a mop of frizzy gray hair.

“What do you want?”

“We're here to see Guthrie,” Phillip said. “Please.”

“Guthrie?” the voice said, its owner still peering at us through the crack in the door. It repeated, “Guthrie?”

“Do you know him?” Phillip asked. “I'm an old friend of his but haven't seen him in a very long time. Does he live here, or have we come in error?” He was talking very properly, trying to keep the patience in his voice. Maybe he was a little nervous.

“Guthrie,” the voice said again, and then the door swung open. It was a little old woman in a housecoat with birds of paradise all over it, and blue house shoes, the same shade of blue as the house. Her hair was in tufts all over her head; it looked like it had been years since she'd seen a hairbrush. “Yah, I know Guthrie.” She chuckled. Her voice had a heavy accent. “Not a lot of folks asking after him these days. He hasn’t lived here in ten years.”

“And you are...”

“Lydia.” She offered no other explanation.

“Nice to meet you, Lydia.” He offered his hand, but she just looked at it. “I'm Phi-”

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