Chapter Four: Young

It was one of the worst days of my life. And maybe that was the turning point. Just, maybe.

Patty yawned widely, arms crossed as she hurried down the street. She had just gotten off her shift and stopped home for a couple minutes to change before taking off again. It was Saturday afternoon and her aunt Phoebe had been shut indoors with a bad cold for nearly a week. Patty had been meaning to go visit every day since she had found out, but her schedule never seemed to work out. Even yesterday, when she had had off, she and her mother had ended up with a demonic problem that had to be handled. But now, finally, she seemed to have found time.

Her uncle's house was only a few blocks from her own, and it took her mere minutes to walk there. She soon found herself on the front steps, ringing the bell, and waiting only a moment before her grandmother opened the door.

"Hi, Grandma," said Patty, stepping inside and shutting the door behind her. She opened her arms and stepped over to her grandmother to give her a hug. "How are you today?"

"Oh, I'm well, Patty." She smiled up at her granddaughter. "What brings you to our neck of the woods?"

"I just stopped by to see how Aunt Phoebe's doing," said Patty. "Mom said she has a pretty bad cold."

Patience nodded and took Patty's arm, leading her toward the living room. "She's been sick since last week, poor thing. And Gordon doesn't even want me to spend time with her until she's well." She shook her head. "It's a bunch of phooey if you ask me."

Patty nodded sympathetically, opening her mouth to respond when her uncle entered the room and beat her to it.

"It's not phooey, Mother," he said. "The last thing we need is for you to get sick too."

Patience rolled her eyes and Patty resisted the urge to roll hers too. Maybe her uncle had a valid point, but sometimes he was so pretentious Patty had to fight not to lash out at him. Instead she opted to be cordial.

"Hi, Uncle Gordon," she said.

He glanced over at her, finally acknowledging her presence. "Patricia." He looked around the room as though he had missed something. "Where's your mom?"

Patty smiled broadly. "She's at home putting a spell in the Book of Shadows. We vanquished a demon last night."

Patience patted Patty's leg comfortingly. Then she leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "You're a good girl, Patty."

Gordon sat down in a chair, opposite them. "Aren't you a little young to be demon hunting?" he asked.

"I'm nineteen, Uncle Gordon."

"Exactly my point. You're nineteen. You couldn't even vote in the election last year."

Patty rolled her eyes. "If the voting age was eighteen I could have."

"That's an entirely separate issue."

"Exactly," said Patty. "Just like voting has absolutely nothing to do with demon hunting."

"Okay you two, cut it out," said Patience. She stood up.

"Where are you going?" asked Gordon, crossing his arms. "Not upstairs."

"I'm going to make get some iced tea, Gordon. Cool down. Do you want some, Patty?"

"Yeah, Grandma. That'd be great."

"Gordon?"

Gordon shook his head and gave his mother a tight smile.

Patience left the room and Patty leaned back into the couch, arms crossed, head turned away from her uncle.

"I'm only looking out for you, you know," said Gordon. "Don't I have the right to worry about my only niece?"

Patty shrugged a shoulder, and turned back to face him. "I guess," she said. "But it's my choice, Uncle Gordon. I want to do this. I want to be a witch." Gordon opened his mouth to respond, but Patty cut him off. "And don't say I'm too young to know what I want," she said. "I'm not a little kid any more."

"You're not exactly an adult either, Patty," he said. "But I would think you, of all people, would understand the dangers of being a witch. What it does to the people you love."

"You've never lost someone you love because of demons or warlocks," snapped Patty. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure I do," said Gordon. "I've seen what it did to my mom."

Patty simply stared back, fire in her eyes. It was rare when she fought with anyone, let alone someone older than her, but somehow Gordon seemed to know just what buttons to push to rile her up.

Finally he sighed loudly, standing up and walking over closer to her, lowering his voice. "Just be careful, Patty. I don't want the same thing to happen to you."

Then he turned and stalked out of the room, brushing past Patience as she reentered the room. "Glad to see you two didn't rip each others' head off," she said to Patty, handing her one of the ice teas and sitting down again.

Patty sighed. "I'm sorry, Grandma. He just makes me so mad sometimes."

"Gordon does have that special ability," said Patience with a sad smile. "He's a lot like your grandfather, you know."

"Yeah, I know."

But Patty didn't feel like she really knew. It was simply a fact everyone told her. A fact she had heard so many times she felt she had no choice but to believe it was true. Her grandfather had died before she was even born, so she had never known him, but if he was as much like Uncle Gordon as everyone told her, she didn't think she would have been too fond of him.

"I remember the day Gordon asked me to bind his powers," said Patience, interrupting Patty's pondering. "I couldn't believe any child of mine wouldn't want magic in his life, but there he was. And next thing you know he wanted Gordie's bound too." She shook her head. "I still can't believe your mother did that."

Patty could only vaguely recall that family controversy. She knew her grandma and aunt Phoebe had both disapproved of binding Gordie's powers before he was even out of the womb, but her mother had been particularly sympathetic to her brother's plight. From what Patty could remember, her aunt Elizabeth had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown under the stress of having a telekinetic baby inside of her. She had known the family secret before she and Gordon were even married, but it was one thing to be aware of something, and another to experience via your unborn child. So Penny had bound Gordie's powers and for nearly two weeks Patience and Phoebe had refused to speak to their family.

"Undoubtedly Gordie will want it for whatever children he has too," Patience continued.

"Why'd Uncle Gordon want his powers bound in the first place?" asked Patty.

Patience sighed and took a sip of her drink. "He didn't feel he could handle it, I suppose," she said. "It's probably my fault, really."

"How is it your fault?"

"Oh, you know," said Patience with a small shrug. She paused for a moment, averting her eyes. "I wasn't the best mother."

"Grandma..."

"No, Patty, it's true. I...I didn't handle some things as well as I should have. Gordon probably thought the root of those problems were magic."

Patty wiped her finger around the side of the glass, making patterns in the condensation, itching to ask about the vanquish of Penelope. Her mother would kill her if she found out she asked, and knowing her mother she would somehow find out. But Patty was sick of being denied answers.

"Are you talking about your cousin?" asked Patty. "You know...um...vanquishing her?"

Patience's eyes faded a bit and she put a hand on Patty's knee, giving it a soft squeeze. "She was like a sister to me, you know. Penelope. She, Phoebe, and I were like sisters."

"I'm sorry, Grandma," said Patty.

Patience began to cry, softly. "We had to do it," she said. "We had to."

"I know. Grandma..."

"He corrupted her. That bastard corrupted her and we had no choice in the end."

"Grandma," said Patty, putting a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her. "I know. Mom told me everything. It wasn't your fault." Patty shut her eyes and prayed that her grandmother would come back to her. This was exactly why she shouldn't have opened her big mouth. How many times had her mom told her?

"God, Patty. We strangled her. We choked her to death."

Instinctively, Patty pulled back. It was startling. And she had never known. But it had to be a lie. Her mother had always told her Penelope was vanquished. Not murdered by her cousins' bare hands.

"No, Grandma. You vanquished Penelope, with a spell. Remember?"

Patience lifted her head, looking at Patty with wide, teary eyes. Then in an eerily calm voice, she said, "I strangled her with a curtain cord, and while she was fighting for her last breaths, Phoebe and I said a vanquishing spell."

Patty swallowed hard and resisted the urge to get up and leave the room. She had never heard that part of the story. No one had ever told her before. She swallowed hard, forcing herself to remain calm.

"But it's not your fault," she said quietly, not even registering that she was now crying. "Penelope was evil. You had no choice."

"We had no choice," Patience agreed.

"I'm really sorry, Grandma. I never knew."

The corners of Patience's mouth turned up in an attempted smile, but she failed miserably. "There's a lot you don't know, Patty. A lot you'll probably never know."

"What? Grandma? What else...?"

"I think I'm going to go upstairs and take a nap," said Patience. She stood and Patty followed suit, setting her ice tea on the coffee table as she went. Patience walked her to the door and gave her a tight hug. "Tell Penny hello for me," she said.

"Yeah. I will Grandma."

Seconds later Patty was outside, the door shut in her face. She sighed loudly and turned on her heel, heading back toward her home, her head reeling with the news she had just discovered. How old had she been when she first heard about Patience and Phoebe vanquishing Penelope? Thirteen? Fourteen? And here it was, six years later and she was only now learning the truth. And apparently it wasn't even the whole truth. She felt hollow and sick inside. More than anything in the world, she wanted to go hide in a cave somewhere for awhile, but instead she kept walking until she reached her back door.

"Well?" said her mother, as soon as she entered the kitchen. "How's Phoebe?"

"She's okay, I guess," said Patty. "I didn't actually see her. Uncle Gordon's got her holed away in her room so Grandma doesn't get sick too." For a second she considered making a beeline for the door, but her mom managed to open her mouth first.

"Not surprising," said Penny. "How is Grandma?"

Patty groaned and sat down at the table next to Penny, committing herself to the inevitable. If she didn't tell, undoubtedly someone else in the family would. "She was fine until I came along."

"Oh no. Patty, what did you do?"

"I just said something I shouldn't have," said Patty with a sigh. She paused for a minute, staring at the Book, which was spread on the table in front of her mom. "Does it say anything in there about Penelope Russell?" she asked.

"You mentioned Penelope to Grandma?" Penny demanded. "Patty! What in the world were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry, Mom. I wasn't...I didn't think."

Penny's eyebrows raised and she pursed her lips. "God, Patty. I can't believe you said something. What did Grandma say?"

"She told me the truth, Mom. What really happened."

"Patty-"

"Why didn't you tell me, Mom? If I had known, I would have never said anything."

Penny shook her head. "You were too young to know, Patty."

"I wish everyone would stop telling me I'm too young," said Patty angrily. "I'm not a kid anymore."

"You are young," said Penny. "I found out when I was pregnant with you and I was still too young to know. It's very dark, and very disturbing and it's something you don't even want to begin to imagine. But you will now. It's inevitable." Penny stood up and shoved her chair in toward the table, furious. "You know, it's not as if it's bad enough, just thinking about what it must have been like to vanquish someone that close to you, but to realize you would have to go to the lengths of physically strangling that person to death?" She shook her head, disgusted. "I didn't tell you because I knew what it was like to imagine that. And to be pregnant at the time, it was horrible. Those three were like sisters and what happened nearly destroyed my mother. All I could think was about what would happen if one of my children became evil. That they would have to do the same thing my mom did."

"Good thing I'm an only child then."

Penny stood, mouth open, visibly shaking, and suddenly Patty felt like she was five again, experiencing her mother's wrath. It was the worst thing she could have said, and not only because of what her mother had just said. She knew how much her mother had wanted more children, and to bring it up now...

"Get out of my sight, right now, Patricia," said Penny in voice barely above a whisper. "Now."

Patty did as she was told. As quickly as she could she got up from the table and rushed up the stairs to her room, picking up the phone on her bedside table. She had to get out. She had to go away. She was halfway through dialing Susan's number when she remembered she had left for college.

Patty hugged the phone to her chest, breathing deeply. Then she placed the phone in its cradle and got up, pacing the room. After a few minutes she stopped, and walked calmly to her night stand, opening the little drawer and pulling out a scrap of paper with a phone number scribbled on it. She dialed the number and held the phone to her ear, trying to slow her breathing.

"Hello?" said someone on the other end.

Patty swallowed the lump in her throat. "Hi, may I speak to Victor, please?"