Silence reigned in the room for a good two minutes before Grandpa Sorenson broke it. "Seth… You should've told us this was happening," he said, his face showing only stern disapproval and his tone practically dripping with contempt. Seth's eyes narrowed, and his hands curled into fists.
"No, why should I? It's not like you'd help me! You just care about your stupid treaty and your stupid perfect family. And I don't fit in anywhere in it! I try so hard but none of you trust me anymore!" Seth snarled, gripping the arm of the couch tightly so he didn't impulsively hit someone. The screaming in his head was reaching a new high, and the grating voices of his family trying to defend themselves weren't helping.
"Seth… We do want to help you. We just… We can't do that when you refuse to admit anything's wrong!" Kendra defended, trying to come off gentle and reassuring. Seth turned to face her, gritting his teeth. Something in her speech clicked in his mind, and his eyes widened.
"You…" he hissed, grip tightening. She looked confused.
"Me? What about-" she started, only to cut herself off with a small squeak as he shot to his feet and slammed his fist into the wall.
"YOU! YOU TOLD THEM, HUH? YOU TOLD THEM SOMETHING WAS WRONG!" he yelled, leaving a bloody streak on the wall from where his fist had broken the plaster. "I told you I was fine! You know, that usually means 'Hey, idiot! Drop the fucking topic!' But noooo, you're the oh so perfect Kendra Sorenson, so of course you gotta tell someone the second something seems the slightest bit out of place! What lies did you make up, huh?" he snapped, starting to pace so he didn't punch her in the face like they were oh so desperately urging him to. They didn't sound as… hissy…. as normal, though, but he put a pin in that train of thought, because the other prospect was too terrifying to deal with right now.
"I didn't tell them any lies! All I said was that you were acting weird lately, that's it!" she snapped, rising to her feet as well. Seth refused to let her intimidate him, instead digging his nails deep into his palms. The pain grounded him a bit, helping him focus. Unfortunately, that just made his rage all that clearer.
"Oh, I'm acting weird?! Thanks for finally noticing, it's not like this has been going on for months! I just woke up one day and decided 'Boy it sure feels like a great day to disappoint my family!'" he cried, glaring at her, before scowling. "Oh wait, my mistake, that's every day!" he said, clapping his hands to his cheeks and pouting in mock-regret.
"Seth, that's enough," Stan ordered, standing. "You may be having a rough time, but that's no excuse-" he started, before Seth cut him off, whirling around to face the elder.
"Rough time? Excuse?! I never wanted to tell you this shit in the first place! If I had my way, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, and you'd all still be blissfully ignorant!" he snarled, feeling more and more like a cornered animal the longer this went on. Every lizard-brain instinct was screaming at him to fight back, to escape. When a strong hand gripped his shoulder from behind, he sprung into action without thinking and rammed his clenched fist into the person's face.
A satisfying popping sound and the tangy smell of blood let him know he broke their nose, a sharp cry of pain following immediately after. Through the haze clouding his vision, he saw Dale staggering back, clutching his face as blood stained his fingers. Seth growled and was about to make a break for it while everyone was distracted, before something heavy hit him, knocking him out cold.
Kendra dropped the wooden ornament, breathing hard as the adrenaline left her body. Seth had crumpled to the floor, hitting his face on the couch on the way down. He lay still, barely moving. "W-what do we do with him…? He's… I… I don't wanna say this but… He's dangerous. We can't keep him around us, not right now," she said shakily, hands trembling.
Ruth sighed, looking at Seth sadly. "We'll put him in the dungeon, let him cool off a little. It won't be permanent, just until he gets his temper under control," she decided, motioning to Stan for him to help her carry Seth. Dale had snapped his nose back into place, wiping away the blood and wincing.
"I'll go clean up while you two get him situated," he muttered, wandering off to the bathroom. Kendra tagged along with her grandparents, heading to a slightly cleaner corner of the dungeon and opening the door. They arranged Seth on the cot, Stan scowling at his bloodied form before stepping out and locking the door.
"I'll come check on him in an hour. Until then, we should try and figure out what the hell he's going on about, because wraiths don't talk," he said gruffly, turning and leaving the dungeon. Kendra cast one last sorrowful look back at Seth before following them out. She couldn't shake the feeling that this would come back to bite them.
When Seth woke up, it was to total darkness. He groaned as a shooting pain rushed through his head when he tried to sit up, raising a hand to feel the back of his head. A large knot, still sticky with drying blood, was forming.
He winced, looking around and trying to figure out where he was. The bed under him was thin, feeling more of canvas than an actual mattress. As his eyes started to adjust to the dark, he could make out bars on the wall by his feet. Shuffling over to investigate, he scowled when his hands met cold metal. "The basement?! They seriously locked me in the fucking dungeon?!" he whispered, disbelief hitting him like a truck. Did they really trust him so little…? A thought occurred to him as another pain shot through his skull. They must have knocked him out. Hurt, he sunk to his knees on the cold stone of the cell, tears pricking at his eyes.
A familiar hiss curled around his mind, causing him to stiffen. If he was in the basement… Then how close were the wraiths? "My Lord…. You came for us… Just as we asked…" they whispered, sounding pleased, and a bit smug. Seth started to hyperventilate, scrambling back and pressing his back to the corner.
"N-no… I didn't… I won't…" he gasped, pressing his hands to his ears even though he knew it was useless. His breath came in stuttery gasps, tears leaking down his face. Sibilant laughter surrounded him from all sides, mocking his weakness. "G-Go away!" he whimpered, curling up tighter and trying to block them out.
"We'll never leave you, my lord. Not like your family would…" they hissed, soothing and condescending all at once. His arms crept over his head, forearms blocking his ears as his elbows squeezed his knees.
"I don't want you to stay! Go away! What'd I ever do to deserve this?!" he sobbed, squeezing his eyes shut as more tears ran down his face.
The sound of a heavy door creaking open cut through his muttering, footsteps reaching his ears. He peeked through cracked eyelids, a smile creeping across his face when he saw Stan. "Grandpa Sorensen! Oh thank god you're here! You gotta get me out of here!" he cried gratefully, scrambling over to the bars. He scowled down at Seth, causing his grateful smile to slip off his face as confusion took over. "G-Grandpa Sorensen?" he whispered, grip on the bars loosening.
"You're awake," he said coldly, crossing his arms. His brown eyes hardened into a steely glare, staring down the teenager in front of him. Seth swallowed nervously, trying his hardest to ignore the increasing volume of the laughter.
"A-am I not supposed to be?" he asked, pulling himself up to look Stan in the eyes. Something feels… off. He only vaguely remembered yelling at Kendra, and nothing after that. Stan scowled, looking like he wanted nothing more than to deck Seth right there.
"You were hit pretty hard. I was hoping you'd be out for longer," he replied shortly, glaring into Seth's eyes. He didn't know what was going on, had he done or said something?
"W-why? Who hit me? What happened? And why am I in the basement?!" he asked, wincing as the stress caused his head to start pounding again. "Please, Grandpa Sorenson! You gotta tell me!" he pleaded, yelping when the man suddenly stepped closer to the bars and growled in his face.
"I don't have to tell you shit, you little BRAT! You wanna know what happened so bad? Fine! Here's what happened. You were hiding things from us, lying about hearing voices. When we called you out on it, you freaked out! I had asked how you hurt your arm and you cracked. You started screaming at your sister, and you attacked Dale when he tried to calm you down. His nose is broken now, because of your little tantrum! Kendra had to knock you out before you hurt someone else. And you know why all this happened?! Because YOU wanted attention and started making shit up about wraiths and voices!" he snarled, seeming to loom larger than life.
Seth scrambled back, tripping over a loose shoelace and hitting the ground hard. What had gotten into him?! Grandpa Sorenson was never this angry, not even during the first summer, when Seth opened the house to the dark part of the preserve. "I-I'm not making this up! Do you really think I'd do something like that?!" he snapped, fear giving way to annoyance.
"I don't know, Seth, you tell me! Everybody knows that the undead don't speak. You've been lying to us for months about what you've been feeling, doing, everything! Your parents are talking about putting you in therapy, for god's sake!" Stan snarled, pacing the short hallway outside Seth's cell. Therapy…? For what?! I'm… I'm not crazy!
"I don't need therapy! I've been telling the truth about the wraiths this entire time, Grandpa Sorenson! I'm not making it up, they really are talking to me! Please, you have to believe me!" he pleaded, flinching when another bout of mocking laughter started up. Stan just scowled, slamming his palms into the stone next to the metal door.
"WRAITHS. DON'T. TALK! Never have, never will! There's been something weird about you ever since you came back from the forest last summer, but I never suspected you'd go so far as to trying to blame your problems on something that couldn't possibly be responsible," Stan snapped. Seth stood up, scowling. Of course Stan didn't believe him…
"Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe, by some sliver of a miracle, I'm actually telling the truth? That maybe there's some things that can happen that don't fit into what you know about the world?" he said cooly, advancing on the bars and looking up into Stan's eyes. Part of him was telling him to shut up, that making him even angrier wasn't a good idea, but it was drowned out by the cold rage coursing through his veins. "Look, I know you don't trust me, why else would I be talking to you from the wrong side of a jail cell? But please, Grandpa Sorenson, do you really think I'd lie about something as important as this? I'm not that kind of person!" he said, looking up at his grandfather imploringly.
They stared each other down for a long while, long enough for Seth's palms to break out in a cold sweat and a ball of thick dread to settle in his stomach, but finally Stan spoke again. "Fine. I'm not going to let you out, not yet. I still don't trust you to not go berserk like you did earlier, but I will listen to your side of the story. Tell me how the wraiths began talking to you," he acquiesced, shoulders drooping with exhaustion. Seth smiled, before turning to drag the cot over. He settled down, crossing his legs on the thick canvas.
"It all started when I took one of Tanu's courage potions and went to the Haunted Grove last summer…"
"...and then I heard this voice calling me. So I followed it, and it turns out it went to this guy Graulus—you remember Graulus, right?—anyway, I went to his cave. He started saying this thing in a different language then suddenly I understood it? He said I was a shadow charmer, thanks to whatever I did to the revenant. When you took me and Kendra down to the forbidden hall with all the wraiths in it, I was able to hear them. Nobody else could, tho-are you okay?" Seth said, cutting himself off when Stan went pale.
"Did you just say Graulus made you a shadow charmer?" he asked hoarsely. Seth nodded, confused.
"Yeah, why? It's not anything bad, what's the big de-ACK!" he said, yelping and jumping back when Stan shot to his feet suddenly. "Grandpa Sorenson? W-What's wrong? Hey, quit ignoring me!" Stan stumbled out of the basement, turning a deaf ear to Seth's cries. Seth ran to the bars, shouting for Stan to come back. He yelled until his voice gave out, and then he resorted to banging on the bars until his hands bled. Anything to drown out the whispering that was starting to return.
Stan stumbled upstairs, pouring himself a large glass of whiskey and downing half of it in one gulp before collapsing in a chair with the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other. "Shadow charmer… Why'd he have to be a shadow charmer?!" he whispered harshly, still shaken.
"What's a shadow charmer?" Kendra asked, having just come into the kitchen. Stan jumped, nearly spilling his drink. "Sorry for scaring you. Anyway, what's a shadow charmer, and what's it have to do with Seth?" she said, pulling up a chair across from Stan.
Stan swallowed roughly, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat. He took another swig of whiskey before answering. "You know how you're fairykind?" he asked. She nodded, confused. "A shadow charmer is basically the opposite. They're cloaked in darkness, consorting with all kinds of dark creatures. They're immune to emotion manipulation, too, like magical guilt and fear. Seth met with one of the most dangerous demons on this preserve, Graulus. Graulus made him into a shadow charmer," he explained, his voice hollow and mechanical. Kendra gasped, one hand flying up to cover her mouth.
"S-Seth made a deal with a demon?" she whispered, sounding absolutely horrified. Stan nodded, looking like he'd aged thirty years in the last ten seconds.
"I'm afraid he did. I think we need a change of plans. I don't feel comfortable letting him out right now." He drained the rest of the glass, pouring another. "Not until I know what he's capable of."
