Part 4 (Jixanny Prompt Four: It's elementary!)
March 25
The transition from the cool, crisp early spring air to the atmosphere inside the barn was like stepping through a physical veil. The sunlight from the open door seemed to stop dead at the threshold, swallowed by a darkness that felt thick and heavy with the scent of rotted cedar and scorched earth.
Dan stood for a moment, his boots sinking into a layer of moldy hay. He stared up at the dangerously listing structure. The timber frame groaned under the weight of decades of neglect, leaning at such a severe angle that the building seemed more like a trap than a shelter. He tilted his head, listening hard. Above the rhythmic creak-creak of the shifting beams, he heard it - the sound of something large and heavy shifting its weight in the back corner. He tried to tell himself it was just Bobby’s overactive imagination bleeding into his own, but his gut and the cold sweat pricking at his hairline said otherwise.
The plan is solid, he reminded himself. Trixie was a hundred yards back, their getaway driver waiting in the idling van. Mart was just outside the door, clutching a silver protective charm and a heavy flashlight, ready to lunge in the moment Dan yelled. He tapped on his phone’s flashlight. The beam was a pathetic sliver of white against the oppressive gloom. With a deep breath of the strikingly cold air, he took several more steps forward.
The temperature plummeted again. Shivering slightly, he panned the light toward the back of the barn, the beam cutting through a haze of dancing dust motes.
He was aware of several things at once. He saw two enormous, ink-black hooves just at the edge of his light. He heard a low, deep snort. He smelled something that reminded him bizarrely of the P. E. locker room at school. Even as he tried to process all of this, he was hit with an inexplicable blast of searing heat coupled with an unexpected flare of light. “Oh. Well. Of course,” he said, surprised at the detached, clinical calm in his voice. “Flaming pumpkin. Yep. That checks out.”
The horse suddenly reared, its iron-clad hooves pawing at the air.
“Nope,” Dan said firmly. He had definitely seen enough. He didn't wait for the horse to come back down. He spun around, his boots skidding through the hay, and he launched himself toward the rectangle of daylight. “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted as he burst through the open doorway.
Mart didn't hesitate or stop to ask questions. He reached the van only seconds before his best friend and launched himself into the back seat, hoping they’d outrun whatever was chasing them.
________________________________________
A steady, rhythmic beat of rain drummed against the den window as Trixie paced back and forth, her sneakers squeaking on the wooden floor with each turn. Regan’s apartment was usually a place of quiet sanctuary, smelling of strong coffee and the old paperback westerns stacked on the end tables, but tonight, the air felt charged with an uneasy tension. “The Headless Horseman!” she exclaimed, her voice cracking. She pivoted sharply between the worn leather sofa and the dining table. “The Headless Freaking Horseman! I—I just can’t! I thought he was just some old story!”
“We, uh, might know something about this,” Mart mumbled, glancing at Dan as he spoke. He rubbed the back of his neck wearily.
Trixie stopped mid-step. She slowly turned, her blue eyes narrowing into slits as she regarded both boys suspiciously. “Huh? How? What do you know?”
Dan blew out a breath, leaning his hip against the laminate kitchen counter. “So, you remember the night we were in the drama storeroom? Helping Vernon with his 'wardrobe update' and trying out Mart’s new spell?”
“Uh-huh,” Trixie said, “And?”
“Well,” Dan continued, “there was this really old jacket. High collar, brass buttons, the works. It was a much higher quality than the other costumes. And there was this old war medal pinned to the lapel. A real one, Freckles. Metal. Heavy. We thought maybe it had belonged to someone’s granddad or something.”
“It could be a coincidence, of course,” Mart added slowly, “but you did say you started picking up those ‘relentless’ bad vibes that same evening, right?”
Trixie stared at them, her mouth slightly agape. “Hold up. You didn't say a single word to me about Vernon pretending to be the Headless Horseman. Not. One. Word.”
Mart blinked, his brow furrowed in thought. “Didn't we? Are you sure? I thought we told you about that.”
“No. No, you did not. You mentioned a toga. You mentioned a singing nun and a dancing butler. But you totally left out the Headless Freaking Horseman! There is no way I would have forgotten that.”
She whirled about again and crossed to the couch, flopping down with a groan. She stared at the ceiling for a long beat before pointing a finger at Mart. “It was the medal, wasn't it? You two didn't just dress up a ghost. You enchanted a genuine artifact. You activated some kind of, I don’t know… historical beacon? And now the real deal is here to claim his property. Or maybe his head. Wasn’t he supposed to be looking for his head? I seem to recall the point was he wanted his head. And that could be especially problematic for us, when you think about it.”
“That seems like a pretty reasonable assumption,” Mart conceded ruefully. “It was probably the medal.”
Trixie sat forward, her elbows on her knees and her head buried in her hands. “Yeah. I don’t think it would take Sherlock to work this one out,” she muttered. “Elementary, my dear Watson. We summoned a legend because you guys agreed to play dress-up with a mobster.”
“There could be another explanation,” Mart protested weakly, though he didn't look like he believed it.
Trixie rolled her eyes, her gaze snapping back to her brother. “Sure, Mart. Maybe he just turned up now ‘cause the poor guy was all, ‘I could totally go for a Wimpy’s burger tonight.’ Meanwhile, where’s the medal? Back in the drama department’s storeroom? Do you think we could un-enchant it somehow?”
“Possibly?” Mart said, his mind running through a few Latin conjugations. “But if he’s already fully manifested, I don’t know if it’ll do us any good. He’s already in the house, so to speak.”
“And it’s Spring Break,” Dan added, glancing toward the dark window, “the school is locked tight. I don’t think even Mart could convince Principal Stratton to let us in before class starts back up next week.”
Mart glanced at his watch. “Okay. The Crescent Moon is still open for another hour. Let’s go see the professor and get his take. He’s been studying the 'Spectral Fauna' and archetypes. Maybe he has a counter-spell that doesn't involve breaking and entering Sleepyside High. And I have a few ideas myself I could try.”
Trixie stood up, grabbing her jacket off the back of Regan’s favorite easy chair with a resigned sigh. “Sure. What else could go wrong at this point?”
“Yeesh,” Dan said, visibly wincing. “I’m glad you said that and not me.”
________________________________________
David Lee slid a slender, silver-embossed grimoire and a jagged shard of amethyst into a brown paper bag. He handed it to his last customer, a local woman who looked far more nervous about the purchase than he felt about selling it. He offered her a polite, practiced smile, followed her to the entrance, and flipped the plastic sign from “Open” to “Closed” as he firmly shut the door behind her.
The click of the deadbolt had barely echoed through the quiet shop before a low boom sounded, followed by Mart’s muffled, “Oh!”
“That… was probably not good,” Dan said warily.
Mart appeared a moment later, stumbling through the swinging door that led to the back storeroom. “Um. Okay. First, no one panic,” he said as he held up one hand. “Second, we might have a very specific, localized problem involving, uh, temporal displacement.”
Trixie didn’t wait for to see if there was a “third” coming. She shot her brother a measured look before pushing past him, Dan on her heels.
Silence fell over the front of the shop. Less than half a minute later, Trixie’s head popped back through the door. Her face was a mask of sheer, bewildered disbelief. “Martin. Andrew. Belden. I do not know how this is even possible. I don’t know which page of Sarah’s spellbook you mispronounced. But you need to send them back. Now.”
“How?” Mart asked, throwing his hands up in a gesture of pure helplessness. “And where, Trixie? Send them back where?”
“Them?” David echoed in confusion. “Them who?”
Trixie drew in a long, slow breath, closing her eyes for a heartbeat. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Charlie. Just come see for yourself.”
Mart cringed as he moved aside to allow David to go ahead of him. “Uh, sorry, Professor. I had a movie playing on my laptop while I was working on that translation. I think the audio... I think the spell caught the frequency of the dialogue. Or something? I really don’t understand the physics of this at all.”
They stepped into the workshop, and David came to a dead halt.
“Dude!” Dan exclaimed, looking at Mart with an incredulous expression. “Dude!”
Two figures stood amidst the crates of lavender and spell-candles, regarding the group with amiable, slightly baffled smiles. One was blond with a crop of wild curls and a rumpled gray sweatshirt. The other had dark, shaggy hair and a black vest worn over a long t-shirt.
“Whoa, dude,” the blond one said, his voice echoing with a strange, hollow reverb. He turned in a full circle, taking in the shelves of books and glass, herb-filled jars. “Like... when are we this time?”
“I don’t know, dude,” his companion replied with a casual shrug. His grin broadened as his gaze landed on Trixie, and he stepped forward with a clumsy, courtly bow, tapping his chest. “Greetings, strange dudes and lovely babe. Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan. And my friend—”
“Bill S. Prescott, Esquire,” the blond one added cheerfully. “We come in peace. Also, do you happen to know the historical significance of this most excellent establishment? Because our deadline is, like, totally looming.”
Trixie turned to her brother. “Mart. You summoned Bill and Ted. Bill. And. Ted. You literally broke reality this time! With a DVD!”
“In my defense,” Mart squeaked, “it was a Blu-ray!”
“Dude…” Dan said, slowly shaking his head. “Our lives are so weird!”
March 25
The transition from the cool, crisp early spring air to the atmosphere inside the barn was like stepping through a physical veil. The sunlight from the open door seemed to stop dead at the threshold, swallowed by a darkness that felt thick and heavy with the scent of rotted cedar and scorched earth.
Dan stood for a moment, his boots sinking into a layer of moldy hay. He stared up at the dangerously listing structure. The timber frame groaned under the weight of decades of neglect, leaning at such a severe angle that the building seemed more like a trap than a shelter. He tilted his head, listening hard. Above the rhythmic creak-creak of the shifting beams, he heard it - the sound of something large and heavy shifting its weight in the back corner. He tried to tell himself it was just Bobby’s overactive imagination bleeding into his own, but his gut and the cold sweat pricking at his hairline said otherwise.
The plan is solid, he reminded himself. Trixie was a hundred yards back, their getaway driver waiting in the idling van. Mart was just outside the door, clutching a silver protective charm and a heavy flashlight, ready to lunge in the moment Dan yelled. He tapped on his phone’s flashlight. The beam was a pathetic sliver of white against the oppressive gloom. With a deep breath of the strikingly cold air, he took several more steps forward.
The temperature plummeted again. Shivering slightly, he panned the light toward the back of the barn, the beam cutting through a haze of dancing dust motes.
He was aware of several things at once. He saw two enormous, ink-black hooves just at the edge of his light. He heard a low, deep snort. He smelled something that reminded him bizarrely of the P. E. locker room at school. Even as he tried to process all of this, he was hit with an inexplicable blast of searing heat coupled with an unexpected flare of light. “Oh. Well. Of course,” he said, surprised at the detached, clinical calm in his voice. “Flaming pumpkin. Yep. That checks out.”
The horse suddenly reared, its iron-clad hooves pawing at the air.
“Nope,” Dan said firmly. He had definitely seen enough. He didn't wait for the horse to come back down. He spun around, his boots skidding through the hay, and he launched himself toward the rectangle of daylight. “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted as he burst through the open doorway.
Mart didn't hesitate or stop to ask questions. He reached the van only seconds before his best friend and launched himself into the back seat, hoping they’d outrun whatever was chasing them.
________________________________________
A steady, rhythmic beat of rain drummed against the den window as Trixie paced back and forth, her sneakers squeaking on the wooden floor with each turn. Regan’s apartment was usually a place of quiet sanctuary, smelling of strong coffee and the old paperback westerns stacked on the end tables, but tonight, the air felt charged with an uneasy tension. “The Headless Horseman!” she exclaimed, her voice cracking. She pivoted sharply between the worn leather sofa and the dining table. “The Headless Freaking Horseman! I—I just can’t! I thought he was just some old story!”
“We, uh, might know something about this,” Mart mumbled, glancing at Dan as he spoke. He rubbed the back of his neck wearily.
Trixie stopped mid-step. She slowly turned, her blue eyes narrowing into slits as she regarded both boys suspiciously. “Huh? How? What do you know?”
Dan blew out a breath, leaning his hip against the laminate kitchen counter. “So, you remember the night we were in the drama storeroom? Helping Vernon with his 'wardrobe update' and trying out Mart’s new spell?”
“Uh-huh,” Trixie said, “And?”
“Well,” Dan continued, “there was this really old jacket. High collar, brass buttons, the works. It was a much higher quality than the other costumes. And there was this old war medal pinned to the lapel. A real one, Freckles. Metal. Heavy. We thought maybe it had belonged to someone’s granddad or something.”
“It could be a coincidence, of course,” Mart added slowly, “but you did say you started picking up those ‘relentless’ bad vibes that same evening, right?”
Trixie stared at them, her mouth slightly agape. “Hold up. You didn't say a single word to me about Vernon pretending to be the Headless Horseman. Not. One. Word.”
Mart blinked, his brow furrowed in thought. “Didn't we? Are you sure? I thought we told you about that.”
“No. No, you did not. You mentioned a toga. You mentioned a singing nun and a dancing butler. But you totally left out the Headless Freaking Horseman! There is no way I would have forgotten that.”
She whirled about again and crossed to the couch, flopping down with a groan. She stared at the ceiling for a long beat before pointing a finger at Mart. “It was the medal, wasn't it? You two didn't just dress up a ghost. You enchanted a genuine artifact. You activated some kind of, I don’t know… historical beacon? And now the real deal is here to claim his property. Or maybe his head. Wasn’t he supposed to be looking for his head? I seem to recall the point was he wanted his head. And that could be especially problematic for us, when you think about it.”
“That seems like a pretty reasonable assumption,” Mart conceded ruefully. “It was probably the medal.”
Trixie sat forward, her elbows on her knees and her head buried in her hands. “Yeah. I don’t think it would take Sherlock to work this one out,” she muttered. “Elementary, my dear Watson. We summoned a legend because you guys agreed to play dress-up with a mobster.”
“There could be another explanation,” Mart protested weakly, though he didn't look like he believed it.
Trixie rolled her eyes, her gaze snapping back to her brother. “Sure, Mart. Maybe he just turned up now ‘cause the poor guy was all, ‘I could totally go for a Wimpy’s burger tonight.’ Meanwhile, where’s the medal? Back in the drama department’s storeroom? Do you think we could un-enchant it somehow?”
“Possibly?” Mart said, his mind running through a few Latin conjugations. “But if he’s already fully manifested, I don’t know if it’ll do us any good. He’s already in the house, so to speak.”
“And it’s Spring Break,” Dan added, glancing toward the dark window, “the school is locked tight. I don’t think even Mart could convince Principal Stratton to let us in before class starts back up next week.”
Mart glanced at his watch. “Okay. The Crescent Moon is still open for another hour. Let’s go see the professor and get his take. He’s been studying the 'Spectral Fauna' and archetypes. Maybe he has a counter-spell that doesn't involve breaking and entering Sleepyside High. And I have a few ideas myself I could try.”
Trixie stood up, grabbing her jacket off the back of Regan’s favorite easy chair with a resigned sigh. “Sure. What else could go wrong at this point?”
“Yeesh,” Dan said, visibly wincing. “I’m glad you said that and not me.”
________________________________________
David Lee slid a slender, silver-embossed grimoire and a jagged shard of amethyst into a brown paper bag. He handed it to his last customer, a local woman who looked far more nervous about the purchase than he felt about selling it. He offered her a polite, practiced smile, followed her to the entrance, and flipped the plastic sign from “Open” to “Closed” as he firmly shut the door behind her.
The click of the deadbolt had barely echoed through the quiet shop before a low boom sounded, followed by Mart’s muffled, “Oh!”
“That… was probably not good,” Dan said warily.
Mart appeared a moment later, stumbling through the swinging door that led to the back storeroom. “Um. Okay. First, no one panic,” he said as he held up one hand. “Second, we might have a very specific, localized problem involving, uh, temporal displacement.”
Trixie didn’t wait for to see if there was a “third” coming. She shot her brother a measured look before pushing past him, Dan on her heels.
Silence fell over the front of the shop. Less than half a minute later, Trixie’s head popped back through the door. Her face was a mask of sheer, bewildered disbelief. “Martin. Andrew. Belden. I do not know how this is even possible. I don’t know which page of Sarah’s spellbook you mispronounced. But you need to send them back. Now.”
“How?” Mart asked, throwing his hands up in a gesture of pure helplessness. “And where, Trixie? Send them back where?”
“Them?” David echoed in confusion. “Them who?”
Trixie drew in a long, slow breath, closing her eyes for a heartbeat. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Charlie. Just come see for yourself.”
Mart cringed as he moved aside to allow David to go ahead of him. “Uh, sorry, Professor. I had a movie playing on my laptop while I was working on that translation. I think the audio... I think the spell caught the frequency of the dialogue. Or something? I really don’t understand the physics of this at all.”
They stepped into the workshop, and David came to a dead halt.
“Dude!” Dan exclaimed, looking at Mart with an incredulous expression. “Dude!”
Two figures stood amidst the crates of lavender and spell-candles, regarding the group with amiable, slightly baffled smiles. One was blond with a crop of wild curls and a rumpled gray sweatshirt. The other had dark, shaggy hair and a black vest worn over a long t-shirt.
“Whoa, dude,” the blond one said, his voice echoing with a strange, hollow reverb. He turned in a full circle, taking in the shelves of books and glass, herb-filled jars. “Like... when are we this time?”
“I don’t know, dude,” his companion replied with a casual shrug. His grin broadened as his gaze landed on Trixie, and he stepped forward with a clumsy, courtly bow, tapping his chest. “Greetings, strange dudes and lovely babe. Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan. And my friend—”
“Bill S. Prescott, Esquire,” the blond one added cheerfully. “We come in peace. Also, do you happen to know the historical significance of this most excellent establishment? Because our deadline is, like, totally looming.”
Trixie turned to her brother. “Mart. You summoned Bill and Ted. Bill. And. Ted. You literally broke reality this time! With a DVD!”
“In my defense,” Mart squeaked, “it was a Blu-ray!”
“Dude…” Dan said, slowly shaking his head. “Our lives are so weird!”