Seizure (Part VIII)

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He frowned.

“Well, I’ve already told you what kind of story to expect. You are frequently going to want to react adversely to what I’m telling you, but I would ask that you bottle it up until I’m all finished. I’ve been to a lot of places since your mother died—the deserts of Australia, dozens of islands in Indonesia, and up and down the Malay Peninsula. I’ve seen some strange things. Because I had to find, God help me, the sorcerer who extended your mother’s life and try to undo our deal. And on your face is exactly the expression I expected to see at this moment. I, too, scoffed at his claims and discounted them as the ravings of a lunatic and in doing so, maintained my faith in the rational and empirical. I assure you, Tess, were I not so harrowed at the thought of losing her, or if medical science could have saved her, I never would have went down such a crazy, dark road. The truth is that I didn’t think I had anything to lose, and I wasn’t ready to let your mom go. It all started in the Kerguelen Archipelago in the south Indian Ocean: this is where I met Kastorsis the Wicked. I’m there looking for a very special fungus, a smut that I projected had the power to repair spinal cord damage and reverse the necrosis that was killing Theresa. Now this place basically is a rock pile out in the middle of the ocean, understand, and there is nothing tremendously green about it. Aside from me and my men, there are about a hundred French seismologists, geologists, rocket scientists, and some poor government schmucks who must have pissed someone off really bad to get exiled to this slag heap. So you can understand the shock I experienced when I stumble across a half-acre on that barren island that was completely lush, Tess, like a doggone botanical garden! This is about two clicks away from a glacier with penguins on it. That ecosystem hadn’t been able to support flora like that for about 50 million years and it should have been the subject of intensive scientific study. In this transplanted tropical paradise, an old man hobbles out to meet us and he’s the kind of graybeard who seems to clutch at your thoughts as you’re thinking them. So, was I surprised when he refused to speak to anyone but me? Not at all, strange to say. The rest of my team leaves, without saying a word, as if it’s a logical necessity. Bear with me—this is the part of the story that gets really weird. After everyone leaves, I follow this man to his hut and I go inside; this man’s hut is smallish on the outside, but on the inside it’s like a colonial manse. I tried to harness my tongue and jaw to speak, but I found those parts of me paralyzed, and besides, despite the fact that we had not spoken a word aloud, we were communicating like it was the Algonquin Round Table. Kastorsis made an offer to me. He pulled what I most desired right out of my brain. The deal was, he granted Theresa seven years of perfect health—she would die immediately thereafter. Kastorsis kept his part of the deal: miraculously your mom got better, and was in perfect health for exactly seven years. And then she died on her next heartbeat. The price I paid for extra time with my wife was you. I granted him license to transform you and to take possession. In fact, you may already be experiencing the change. He said it would begin on your seventeenth birthday. I understand this makes me a monster. I was so besotted by grief at the time, I would have promised anything and sacrificed anyone to keep my wife alive. After your mother died, I returned to Kerguelen to try to get out of the pact, but it was as if he had never been there. I have spent the last six months trying to find Kastorsis, or some shaman or wizard who can save you, but I am ashamed to say I have uncovered nothing.”

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