A Twist in the Mist, Chapter Fourteen

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TP sat in his rocker in the living room, slowly rocking back and forth, staring down at the grey, black and red rug beneath his feet. The brass clock over the mantle read nine-twenty p.m. Madeline had made him a cup of tea which sat cooling on the end table. 

The colors in the rug matched his mood: black for desolation, grey for despair, with small flashes of red anger. Oddly, he wasn't angry at Gladys, nor at Madeline, who had accidently dropped the lab key in the hallway where Gladys had picked it up. He blamed only himself. Gladys was only being Gladys. He'd known from the start she was a nosy, prying busy-body. He should have told her in no uncertain terms that the lab was off limits. He should have hidden his house key in a new spot after she'd told him she knew where it was. But he'd said and done nothing. In Gladys' mind, saying nothing was a blatant invitation. And he'd known that. He'd always had trouble saying no to others. He always avoided confrontations by running the other way. And now he was paying the price. Possibly with his life.

He'd spent most of the day in his rocker, drifting in and out of a foggy no-man's-land, trying not to sink beneath the darkness pressing down on him. This morning, after Gladys left in tears, apologizing over and over in a wobbling voice, Madeline had cleaned up the mess in the lab, and then kept Harold entertained by showing him her portfolio of artwork. He showed her his drawings as well, and they'd set up an art studio on the kitchen table, painting with the new oil pastels.

TP had joined them for lunch. They ate on the back patio since the table was in use, throwing crumbs to the cardinals who were nesting in the wax myrtles. In the afternoon he'd stirred himself to walk with Harold and Archie along the nature trail while Madeline visited with Marge and Mel.

And earlier this evening he'd had a long talk with Harold after the boy was in bed.

"Uncle TP, are you very angry with Gladys for spilling your experiment?"

"I was very disappointed, Harold, but Gladys didn't do it on purpose."

"But she shouldn't have gone into your lab."

"That's right."

"Will you still be friends with her?"

"I imagine, after things cool down a bit."

"Good, because she makes good things to eat. Uncle TP, I wish we could go canoeing more times to look for mummichogs and periwinkle snails. Do you think you might take me again one day?"

"I certainly hope so," said TP. "There are lots of places we could explore."

"The marsh is my favorite place."

"Mine too, Harold."

Harold gathered Schubert the teddy bear, the octopus and the snake around him.

"Should I leave King Richard and the Duke with you to help fight off the dark thing?"

"No, I think you should take them with you."

"But how will you fight off the dark thing? Will it ever go away?"

"I'm working very hard to make it leave."

"You will. You're too big and strong for it. Almost as strong as King Richard." Harold took the poetry book from the nightstand and handed it over.

"Can you read the Quangle Wangle Quee?" 

Funny how the confidence of a child could bolster your own. TP felt a ray of light penetrate his dark mood.

But now, as he sat in his rocker, he couldn't help but dread the night ahead, and tomorrow, and the day after that.

Madeline appeared in a pair of drawstring pants and a tank top, smelling of lemon shampoo. She sat down on the couch, grabbing the embroidered pillow she'd made for him last Christmas and squeezing it ferociously.

"Don't blame yourself, Madeline."

"But it's all my fault." Her eyes burned with guilt and anger. "I had the key in my purse and then dropped it on the hall rug when I took out my driver's license. How could I have been so careless?"

"No, don't ever feel guilty, Madeline, because here's the thing." TP steepled his hands beneath his chin. "I'm thinking now it was meant to happen, all of it. Starting way back when I was a young man and had that experience in the marsh."

"When you saw the Lord of the Dance. TP, this is giving me chills."

"If there was a reason I had that flash of understanding, then surely I have a responsibility to use it. The vegetable stone seemed like an embodiment of all the wisdom and purity and power and truth of what I felt that day. I thought it was my mission to produce the stone, and in the process heal myself and maybe others too. Maybe it was my mission, and I've failed."

Madeline got up and went to the window, looking out into the darkness. A screech owl called eerily from the cypress tree.

"Will you try to make another stone?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't think I have enough time now." Dark thoughts of failure pressed in on him, but they must be put aside. Changing the subject, he asked, "What did you find out from Marge today?"

Madeline sat back down. "She's convinced she saw you the other night near the laundromat. I think she suspects you were on drugs because you looked glassy-eyed and didn't recognize her. She kept asking how your health was, and what sort of things you did in your lab.

"Great," TP muttered.

"But I questioned her about the Gogetamine, and she said she thinks the drug trial is going to be cancelled because patients are having a lot of side effects, so maybe the doctors will figure those people who saw Dr. Demento were just blitzing out on the Gogetamine."

"Not likely, Madeline. How could all of them have the same hallucination? And one of the victims didn't have the drug in her system."

"Yeah, there's that. But we're making sure Dr. Demento stays put, and after awhile people will forget about it."

"If I'm not arrested. Suppose one of the victims recognizes me on the street?"

"We could get you a pair of glasses and a fake nose."

"Ha ha," TP said forlornly. "I feel so guilty. Because it was me, after all, who terrorized those poor people."

"No, it wasn't you, TP. Only your body, which you weren't in control of." Madeline got up again and paced the floor restlessly, then sat back down and began kneading the pillow.

"What's on you mind, Madeline?"

The kneading stopped abruptly. "TP, you've got to go back to Minglemist."

He raised his brows. "And how am I supposed to get there, call a taxi?"

She gave him a long look, and a tingle shot up his spine.

When she spoke, her voice was hushed and low. "The last couple of times I walked past the spot in the hedge where the door used to be, I heard flute music." She paused, letting TP digest this, then said, "The first time I thought it must be Gladys' radio, but the second time... You can't mistake those flutes for anything else."

TP knew which flutes she meant. The wild, reedy ones played in Minglemist by a band of raggle-taggle musicians on summer evenings, their haunting melodies floating through the grassy field behind the old roadhouse in Boggy Meadow.

"But you didn't try to go through the hedge?"

She shook her head. "Harold was with me. And I couldn't bring myself to go back later, not till I'd talked to you."

Well, this was a lot to digest. Part of him dreaded the thought of returning to the place where his suffering had begun. But if the door opened again, wouldn't that be a sign? One he couldn't ignore? 

If he could just get through tonight, he thought, he'd find a path forward, wherever it might lead.