AFTER MIDNIGHT

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

AFTER MIDNIGHT

By R. Peterson

Joanie Otter brushed the tacks onto the floor and sat down amidst muffled laughter. She placed her books on the shelf under the desk and glared at Eddie and Tommy. Both boys made devil-horn signs with their fingers. “Where’s your broomstick?” Eddie Hicks taunted. “Better sweep-up them frog-spikes before someone gets hurt.”

“Is it true that Satin’s brides have only three toes?” Tommie Poole leered from the desk to her left. “Take off one of them tomb-boots and let’s have us a look.”

Joanie wasn’t the only Goth in Cloverdale High School but she was the only one in this class. Everything she wore was black. A leather skirt with spider-lace stockings and knee-high boots with silver buckles and zippers covered her long legs. Her face was white with black lipstick. Dark eye-shadow made her green eyes appear to sink into her skull. The fact that her mother was the mayor of Cloverdale and that Joanie was a sixteen year-old beauty made no difference. She was different and that dissimilarity attracted ridicule from … almost everyone.

“Leave her alone!’ Chloe O’Brian turned in her seat. “At least she don’t come clomping in here smelling like cow exhaust!” Chloe and Joanie were opposites. Chloe O’Brian was the head varsity cheerleader and the most popular girl in school … Joanie was a reject and a nobody.

Tommy Poole’s face reddened. He self-consciously hid his grungy shoes under his desk. He milked forty Holsteins each morning before school. “Watch out dark enchantress!” Hicks leaned forward and yanked Joanie’s hair just as the teacher came into the room. He whispered just loud enough for her ears. “The good book says we shall not suffer your kind to live!”

            Tommy Poole spent the first ten minutes of the class period tearing bits of paper from his notebook and rolling them into tiny wads. He flung them at Joanie whenever the teacher wasn’t looking. Joanie pulled the paper wads from her hair and carefully unrolled each one looking for something. She had nine tiny pieces of wrinkled paper smoothed-out on her desk when she finally found what she was looking for. Tommy had torn the  pieces from an old test page that he had signed and this last scrap had his signature on it.

            It took Joanie only seconds to tear the edges of the paper into a perfect square and then fold it into a magical star. Now she had him.

            When Tommy got up to use the pencil sharpener, Joanie tossed the magic star on the floor so that Tommy would have to step over it on the way back to his seat. She buried her head in her hands and meditated on the word kritums repeating it over and over until she heard the crash.

            Tommy lay sprawled on the floor with his now broken pencil looking bewildered as he had tripped on nothing. The paper star had vanished.

“Open your American History books to page two twenty-six,” Mrs. Dern ordered. “Today’s lesson is on the Salem witch-craft trials of sixteen ninety-two”

“I’ll get you for this,” Tommy whispered.

 Everyone in the class turned to stare at Joanie.                                                      

-------2-------

            Marsha (Baby-Bat) was waiting when Joanie stepped outside the school’s main building. “I had to punish Tommy Poole today,” Joanie told her. “We might have trouble!”

            Baby Bat snapped her fingers and three forks appeared from behind a giant elm tree on one corner of the school grounds. The forks: Brent Hawke, Tony Crea and Jason Lynx all followed exactly nine steps behind. Everyone was dressed in black. A group of students waiting to catch their bus thought they looked like a funeral procession.

As the coven marched past Eddie Hicks and Tommy Poole, Joanie felt something whiz past her head. She turned. Hicks had thrown a small piece of gravel at her. “Freaks!” he taunted just before him and Tommy took off running. They wouldn’t dare do more when the coven was guarded by forks.

Tony, Jason and Brent stopped before they parted at the corner of Townsend and Wallace. “Are we still on for tonight?” Jason asked. Baby Bat twisted his arm and kicked him.  “You’re a dog and I’m the moon!” she hissed. “And you don’t howl … until we ask!”

“Black Rose at ghost-hour,” Joanie replied when Jason was on his knees and tamed. “If we drink first blood, we will bow only to Abra Cadaver in first choosing.” The ceremony of Týr was the most important event for the Goth of the northwest United States and occurred twice a year during the spring and fall equinoxes. It was always held in a secluded cemetery at midnight … and if possible next to a fresh grave. Three Goth-kind would be sacrificed (given to the control of a rival coven until the next Týr.) This time Joanie and her coven, Cloverbone, were hosting the event.

“I might have trouble sneaking out …” A furious Baby Bat started toward Brent Hawke but Joanie brought her to heel.

“Your parents go league bowling on Tuesday nights in Butte don’t they?” Joanie hissed.

“My mom sprained her leg in a yoga class,” Brent said. ”I think they’re staying home.”

Joanie opened her purse and searched until she found a small pink packet tied with a black ribbon. “Slip a gram of this into each one of their Bailey’s Scotch and Seven Up’s and stir just before you add the three ice-cubes. Give it to them during the first commercial break as they watch Lawrence Welk on TV,” she said. “By the ten o’clock news … both your parents will be dancing in accordion dreamland for the rest of the night.”

“How do you know so much about my family?” Brent was stunned.

“I am the eyes and ears of the night,” Joanie told him as she stared and then dropped the packet into his trembling hand. “I know everyone’s secrets.”

After the three boys begged to be released and then crossed the street, Marsha nudged Joanie. “So what was in the packet?”

            “Just a sugar substitute from one of the tables at Spare-A-Dime,” Joanie told her. “I painted the paper with mom’s nail polish. The spell is for Brent … not his parents.”

            “And you are the eyes and ears of the night because we spent all those hours window-peeping at the Hawke residence last summer!” Marsha laughed.

            “I’ll make a witch of you yet,” Joanie told her.

-------3-------

            There was a police car parked in front of the Comanche County Library with its lights flashing as Joanie and Marsha walked down the street. Joanie started to run and Marsha followed. Joanie’s mother and her friends held their weekly LSD (Ladies for Student Development) meetings in one of the library rooms.

            “Mom!” Joanie gushed when they burst into the building. “What’s wrong?”

Sheriff John Walker and one of his deputies were searching through a shattered display case. Glass shards covered the floor.  “It looks like someone broke into the library after the cleaning people left and stole one of the historical artifacts,” Margaret Otter said. “Doris says she was sure the old key was in there yesterday.”

            “Key?”

            “Yes, that’s the odd part,” Margaret said. “The only thing that appears to have been taken is the antique skeleton-key that opens the cast-iron gates to Black Rose Cemetery.”

            “But the cemetery gates are left wide open day and night.” Joanie gasped. “I’ve never seen them closed. Why would anyone want the key to something that isn’t locked?”

            “Beats me,” Margaret said. “The key is huge, made of some kind of engraved metal and very old, but it can’t be worth more than a few dollars to a collector.”

            “Rose Brown started the cemetery and built the mansion where State Hospital North now stands,” Doris Hicks was reading from a card that had been propped in the case as she talked. “The cast-iron cemetery fence and gates were imported from some place called Castello Di Poppi in Italy. Dang! That must have cost her a fortune! That’s just one reason folks say Black Rose was as crazy as a hog stuck in a corn crib! The graveyard was closed every night and opened every morning for over forty years,” Doris went on. “After the old darky gal died … nobody bothered locking the gates … and it was kept open all the time.”

Sheriff Walker and his deputy finished examining the broken display and walked over. “I’m going to write this up as a sad case of juvenile vandalism, Madam Mayor,” he said. He turned and gave Joanie a wink. “Too bad all the teenagers in this town aren’t as well behaved as your daughter and her friends!”

            “Thank you sheriff,” Margaret beamed at the compliment. “But I know my Joanie sometimes flies a little lower than our other angels.”

            “Mother!” Joanie rolled her eyes and turned away.

            “It’s okay dear.” Margaret put a loving hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Remember that time you cut school to go ice skating when you were eight? I’m just saying no-one’s perfect.”

-------4-------

            “Do you think Sheriff Walker suspects us of having the key?” Marsha asked when they were outside walking toward Spare-A-Dime.

            “If he did, he would have asked us,” Joanie said. “John Walker has a way of looking at people and figuring them all out with one glance.”

            “We all wish the night could be a darker color … but what’s bothering you?”

            “The Ceremony of Týr is tonight in Black Rose Cemetery and now someone has stolen the key to the front gate.”

            “What’s the problem?” Marsha asked. “The gates are always open … so who needs a key?’

            “I was just thinking,” Joanie said. “Some of the magic in this world is actually real. And maybe it’s not the fence and the gates that are there for a reason … but the lock.” They were almost to the café on the corner. Joanie stopped. “Why is there always a fence around every graveyard?”

            “Well it’s not to keep cows and sheep from wandering in like everyone thinks,” Marsha said. “All my crayons are black, and because they are, I know the fence is to keep twitchy spirits from escaping.”

            “And what if all these years the old gates have been wide-open … and yet still locked?”

            “And someone or something plans to open the lock … tonight!” Marsha gasped.

            “You’re becoming more witchy every day,” Joanie told her.

Every table in Spare-A-Dime was full when they walked inside. Joanie pointed to the one she wanted and three burly truck drivers stood-up and left without finishing their coffee.

TO BE CONTINUED ….