Traffic in the Attic

Brothers, Books, & Boldness

"I can't work with this thing!" griped Dylan, flipping frantically through the Book of Shadows, "They've gotta be at least ten Seers behind. The last one they have in here looks like the poster girl for demonic anorexia, and the one before that looks like Tracy Chapman doing Bride of Frankenstein."

"Easy, Dylan." said Wyatt. "Stop worrying about it so much."

"Great idea, Wyatt!" snapped Dylan. "I'll get right on that!"

Dylan knew Wyatt was an optimist. He also knew that, at times, his optimism lead him to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. At the moment, he was too flustered to take any of this into consideration. "Besides, I wouldn't be 'stressing it' at all, if my delivery boy had used both of his brain cells!"

"Meaning what?" Shane asked defensively.

"You're the Yale graduate; you figure it out!"

Shane wrestled to harness his frustration. He sat stiff as a board. He glared at the far wall with the burning focus of a magnifying glass. He started to pat his leg rapidly as he battled against his ferocious urge to answer back.

The remaining brothers, with the exception of Dylan, looked questioningly at one another, silently deciding whom among them should be the one to speak. Tristan shook his head subtly, thinking that any sort of verbal 'help' would only make Shane more likely to bite Dylan's baited hook.

Making an unusually poor judgment call, Wyatt cautiously said, "Breathe, Shane, breathe... Just let it..."

Shane kept his jaw snapped shut. "H'rrr...v'rrrd"

"...go."

"Harvard! Not Princeton, not Yale, not Stanford, not Brown..."

"We get it, Shane." said Dylan. "You went to an Ivy League School. We know; you can stop bragging now."

Shane looked like the fabled wounded lion with a thorn stuck in his paw.

Chris said sympathetically, "Maybe now's a good time to 'test drive' that 'come-back' you were talking about earlier."

"I've got it!" Steve resounded. "You just need a mental image to work with. Next time, you could imagine Dylan's little venomous zingers..."

"Excuse me?"

"... are just rolling right off of you, like water off of a duck's back!"

"Steve..." said Shane, "and this is comin' from the heart... I am not a duck... You are the only quack in this family."

Steve shrugged carelessly and let the comment roll right off of him, like water off of a duck's back.

Wyatt asked simply, "Why didn't you just bring our Book of Shadows?"

Shane tensely made a megaphone out of his hands. "Attention K-Mart shoppers!" he shouted. "For the last time, I TRIED; it WOULDN'T COME!"

"Hold it, Tiger," said Dylan."Exactly what do you mean by 'it wouldn't come'?"

"Oh, no, ya see, you've gotta go get it," said Steve. "It won't come to you. I already tried."

Shane hawkeyed his tall, lanky, rubbery-faced younger brother. "Steve... if you weren't so damn lovable, I would punch you SO HARD right now." he threatened. "Our B.O.S. would not come off the podium. Trust me, I tried everything! I tried picking up the whole podium; I tried orbing it to me, I tried every damn spell I knew."

"but did you..."

"Yes, Steve, I asked the book to let me pick it up, because I knew you'd ask me later."

"Okay, but..."

"Yes...I said 'please'."

Steve shrugged casually. "Well then, that's me out."

"Hell, I even tried reversing the gravity."

Dylan kept at it. "And you're sure you reversed it?"

"Either that or the sofa learned to fly!"

Steve wondered aloud. "Maybe the book thought you were a Darklighter."

"Okay, the next person that says that to me, I'm gonna..."

"Oh come on, Shane," Dylan interrupted. "Even other Darklighters have mistaken you for one of them before."

Surprisingly, it was Tristan who came to Shane's defense. "But I don't think that should count. Talan's only half-Darklighter."

Shane shook his head comically and teasingly nudged his young defender, "Well well well!" he said. "Look who's fightin' on my team again."

Tristan squinted back playfully. "Don't get too used to it."

Still stuck on the topic of Darklighters, Steve asked his brothers, "What does that make Talan anyway? The diet Darklighter? Half the evil in every orb?"

Dylan stroked his chin pensively "I wonder how you'd go about shooting half a crossbow?"

"Duh!" Steve replied. "With half an arrow."

Having pondered for a moment, Tristan suggested, "Maybe we could call him a 'Graylighter'?"

"They prefer 'Silverlighter'," said Steve. "Apparently 'Graylighter' is considered politically incorrect."

"Hey!" exclaimed Wyatt. "Launch it everybody."

Not a moment too soon, Jared strolled into the attic. "Wuzzup bruthahs?" he greeted, and was greeted in like fashion.

Jared sauntered over to his usual spot: the right cushion of the sleigh-styled loveseat. (By the way, the loveseat was the middle piece of furniture, between the sofa and the fouton, that helped form a lecture hall-like half circle around the Book of Shadows.) The fact that the loveseat, by definition, only sat two people made Rory's absence all the more noticeable.

"So..." said Jared, breaking the overlong silence. "Did I miss anything special?"

Tristan answered, "We're trying to figure out why our Book of Shadows wouldn't leave its spot on the podium.

Jared's gaze traveled instantly towards Dylan. "Oh man, this must be killing you." he said empathetically.

"Thank you." said Dylan, in a frustrated, but sincere manner.

Jared spoke primarily to Dylan, knowing how much he relied on their very own book, and how defenceless he must've felt without it. "So," he said, "Any theories?"

Dylan merely shook his head, trying to avoid hearing himself actually say the word 'no'.

Wyatt said disappointedly, "Maybe this is another one of the Elders crash course learning experiences they've been throwing us lately."

Chris said angrily, "Well if it is, they've got one hell of a (censored)ed up lesson plan."

It was then that everyone noticed that Chris had been silent for an unusually long amount of time.

"I'm with Chris," said Dylan. "After all, defending their geriatric asses is part of the reason we're here in the first place. I'm not lifting finger number one for those loons if they're behind this."

"Dylan, quiet down." Tristan said nervously. "They'll hear you!"

"So what if they do? Have you seen what all they're expecting us to do? I mean it's one thing when Mom asks us to swing by the grocery store on the way home, but when an entire colony of oxygen-deficient idiots says to us, 'Hey guys, since you're traveling back to 2006 anyway, here's a list of things we need you to do to save our own asses."

"Don't hold back, Dyl!" said Steve. "Let it out, man. It's good for ya."

Dylan looked overconfidently towards the ceiling. "Ya hear that, Odin?" he yelled. "I'm talking a bout you, ya bug-eyed freak!"

"Dylan!" Tristan cautioned. "Cut it out!"

"It's okay Tris," Jared said reassuringly. "Odin has Dylan on permanent mute."

"Really? We can do that?... Can I do that? Please?"

Jared smiled and shook his head. "Sorry Tris," he said. "You're just not quite feisty enough."

"Damned if that's so." said Shane. "Boy, do I have a story for you!"

"Say," said Steve, "do you guys ever wonder how Odin got to be an Elder in the first place?"

Dylan griped, "I'll bet his Daddy was on the hiring committee."

"Alright Dylan," said Wyatt. "That's enough Odin-bashing for one night."

"Like Hell it is!" snapped Dylan. "You could fit all of San Francisco in that holier-than-thou ego of his."

"Still though," Jared began, "I can't help thinking that that is one heck of a to-do list they gave us."

Shane sharply added, "And not a damn thing on it helps us get that (cecsored)ing curse outta Rory... I say we screw the rest of it until we take care of Rory."

Chris sighed wearily, letting his sad gaze sink to the ground.

Shane then realized what he had said. "Shane, you idiot," he said to his own self. "Chris, I didn't mean it like that. I'd take a bullet for those two any day. You have to kn-"

"It's okay, Shane." Chris said sincerely. "I completely agree with you about Rory... It's just sometimes I wonder..."

"No." Wyatt said firmly.

And still, Chris continued on. "If I thought for the second the boys would be safe..."

"Doesn't matter." said Wyatt. "As long as Rory's alive to stop you, you can forget it."

Jared added, "Part of the reason he's doing it is so you can be a better father to those two."

Chris sighed, knowing Jared's words were all too true."I know," he said somberly. "It doesn't make it any easier watch him go through it."

"Well, for what it's worth," said Wyatt, "I'd advise against trying take it from him."

Chris allowed himself a subtle smile.

"Trust me," Wyatt smiled back "I've tried."