Page 22 of Welcome to Gothic
“Poor dears,” Ariel whispered to Wendy. “They look so confused.”
“Is it time, Wendy?” Roy was the seven-year-old, the new pupil, the one whose mother she’d seen only once, at his registration. “Is it time?”
Wendy glanced at the clock. “Almost.”
The kids stared at her pleadingly.
“We’ll quit a little early, but just this once.” The kids started to cheer, and Wendy held up one finger. “What do we do when we finish a class?”
The kids settled down, lined up, white belt to brown belt, bowed with their fist in their palm and said, “Thank you, Master Wendy,” in unison.
She bowed to them. “Thank you, students.”
They quivered, waiting for her dismissal.
“Okay!” She flung her arms in the air. “The party’s at the Vintage Gothic Encore Clothing Shop. Change out of your gi into your street clothes, and hustle down there with your parent. Don’t lose them on the way! When we’re all there, I’ll explain the party game.”
“Told you so,” Ariel said to Deputy Dave.
He lifted his hands in surrender.
Wendy waited until the children had galloped out in their street clothes and flung their gis into their respective parent’s arms. “Roy, are you with me?” she asked.
Roy came to her side and stuck. Although he was unusually gifted in self-defense, especially for a first timer, the boy was shy and uncertain, a good kid... but there was something twisted in his background. She knew. She recognized that he had faced uncertainty and fear at too young an age... as she had done.
Wendy led the families through the deep, damp, gray fog, down Gothic’s main, sloping, winding road to Minnie and Mabel’s shop. She stopped on the step, her hand on the door handle, waiting until the stragglers caught up with her. She was notat alluneasy about entering the venue of the old theater again. The fog was merely fog, the swirl of gray within the mist was nothing but a breeze off the ocean, and nothing in Gothic brought the dead back to life.
Sure, but the other parents glanced around uneasily and crowded together, gaining comfort from the closeness of friends and family. “The sign saysClosed,” Ariel pointed out.
“Not for us,” Wendy said, and when she opened the door, everyone surged forward, enticed by the smells of popcorn, caramel and coffee.
Roy, too. Whatever fear stained his everyday life was vanished by light and the prospect of fun.
Wendy followed her class to find the lights bright and summoning them into the not-yet-bookshop half of the old theater auditorium, and when they passed through the framed-in arch and entered the game area, she breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Minnie and Mabel had done exactly as they’d promised—put the bags of props on a line at the far end of the shop and set up obstacle courses with shelves and boxes.
She directed a smile at the two sisters, seated on stools in the shadows.
This was good. This was great. Wendy was fine, not haunted by a memory that had never occurred. “Come on, kids!” She directed each student to stand with the sacrificial parent. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Ariel pushed her shoulder bag behind her shoulder and folded her arms over her chest. “Look at her smirk.”
“Be careful,” Wendy warned. “It could be you out here instead of Deputy Dave.” With Ariel properly subdued, Wendy ran through the rules. The anonymous brown bags each contained an article of clothing or a theater prop. Each child had to run the obstacle, grab a bag, bring it back and dress their parent appropriately.
The kids laughed and clapped.
The parents gave good-natured groans and said stuff like, “I didn’t sign up for this.”
“The good news is, because Roy’s parents couldn’t make it, I get to be his parent.” Wendy hugged the boy’s shoulders. “He will dress me.”
The kids cheered and high-fived Roy.
“That perks me up some,” Deputy Dave said.
She grinned at him; they were bothBlazing Saddlesfans.
Once Roy realized he got to make a fool out of his karate teacher, that perked him up, too, and Wendy felt an upswelling of appreciation for these kids, these parents, her job and her life in Gothic. Maybe she didn’t have Hugh, but she had created a satisfactory existence and if in the dark hours of the night she was lonely and cold, well, her classes and her friends made up for the lack.
Yet when she glanced toward the windows, the fog was out there, swirling with currents, and she tingled with anticipation. Not a good tingle; this was formed of heartbreak and blood loss and holding a man as he died in her arms. The fog had come for Hugh. Nothing could bring him back.
