A Heck of a Hex

Chapter 8

The ferryman said nothing. Smelling of smoke his gray robe was covered in soot. He made his way across the lake of fire; they made it to the other side. Dalia got out of the boat with the assistance of the ferryman. When she climbed up the hill, Dalia’s mouth dropped open. She saw the sight of the underworld. Two giant creatures, humpbacked, forked tongues, and falcons paced back and forth.

 A man crawled on his belly. He tried to get away from the damned vultures circling overhead. The wails of panic and despair, along with cries of woe, filled the underworld. The man had no legs, only a mangled chest and b****y stumps where his legs had been. He left a trail of blood behind him as he dragged himself across the ground. A vulture clawed at his face.

“Go away!” the man screamed. The bird of prey continued his assault. Dalia continued along her journey. A giant ape-man tossed souls off of a cliff; they landed in the lake of fire. They all screamed on the way down, pleading to God, begging for mercy. She stared on in horror. She crossed the bridge with it swaying as she walked.

 Halfway across the bridge, Dalia saw a man she thought she knew. He was dressed in black; he looked badly burned. The man waved and called out to Dalia. She squinted to see who it was, although it was still too fuzzy to figure out who it was calling her. So she pressed onward. He shuffled toward her. When Dalia was able to make out who the man calling to her was, she gasped!

Chapter 9

The monitors beeped and beeped. Lucille sat in a chair next to a hospital bed. Bob stood next to his daughter Dalia, clutching her hand. He sang a song he had not sung to her since she was a small child. Bob leaned over his daughter and whispered.

“Wake up!” Then he looked up to the Heavens and whispered again.

“If you need somebody to call home, take me. Leave her here. We need her here.”

Bob stepped out of the room, and Flo entered the hospital room. Her eyes were pink and puffy. She looked slightly dazed. Flo squeezed Lucille’s hand.

“Baby, we’ll get through this,” she whispered to Lucille. Flo walked over to the bed. She bent over and kissed Dalia on the cheek. She knew it was coming, Flo did; the mom was about to break down.

Chapter 10

“Alex,” Dalia exclaimed. “Go away!”

“You have every right to be angry with me,” Alex said. “My son is not here. That means he is still on Earth and searching for a new vessel to be reborn into. I want to personally drag my son to this pit of suffering myself.” At that time Dalia found herself being sucked backward. She was pulled back into her own body. Dalia opened her eyes and shot up in bed. Lucille and Flo hugged Dalia; then Lucille hurried from the room to allow her dad to inside.

Chapter 11

One month later, Professor Moss was sentenced to twenty years for k********g Dalia. Eight months after that Dalia gave birth to a baby boy named Paul.

“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Dalia asked her sister.

“Yeah,” Lucille said. “He really is.”

Chapter 12

It was now three years later. The gymnasium was crammed with people. The announcement came: it was Dalia and then Lucille walking across the stage. They were carrying their diplomas in hand. Paul, who was now age three, sat in his grandmother’s lap. Bob sat next to Flo. The graduation ceremony ended. They all met at a restaurant called Stan’s. Paul ate corn on the cob, while the grown-ups discussed the future.

“I’ve been asked to fly to New York,” Lucille announced.

“That’s wonderful,” Flo said.

“Remarkable,” Bob chimed in.

“I’ve taken a job at the high school,” Dalia revealed. “Coaching the freshman girls basketball team at a local high school in Oregon. Aunt Joy has agreed to babysit.

“Sounds great,” Bob said while wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulder.

“Don’t we have great kids? You both are living the dream.”

“Yeah,” Dalia muttered while eyeing Paul. “Living the dream.”

It was later in the year and Aunt Joy was babysitting Paul; he was in his room playing with his blocks. She walked by his bedroom, stuck her head in, and observed the young boy. She entered the room and walked up behind Paul to get a closer look at what he was up to. The blocks spelled

“He’s back!” Aunt Joy looked at little Paul. The child looked up at his babysitter and said:

“Kenny.”

“Who’s Kenny?” Aunt Joy asked.

“He’s me,” Paul answered.

“What do you mean?” Aunt Joy c****d her head to the side slightly.

“I used to be my Daddy and hurt Mommy. Now I’m the baby,” Paul answered. Aunt Joy tried her best to ignore the ramblings of a three-year-old. When she returned home from work, Aunt Joy-filled Dalia in on what had transpired between her and Paul. Suddenly a chill ran up her spine. She remembers Polomo saying something about the rebirth of Kenny.

Luckily Lucille had saved that knife and given it to Dalia. In fact, that blade of Divinity sat on the nightstand by her bed. She remembered plunging the blade into her own chest. Was what Dalia had once feared actually happened? Had Kenny really been reborn as her son?!

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Dalia tried playing down the situation.

“We all know that kids say some wild things.

“Your supper’s warming on the stove started Aunt Joy.

“Thanks so much,” Dalia said. “Care to join me for dinner?”

“That would be nice,” answered Aunt Joy. All three people: Dalia, Aunt Joy, and Paul sat at the kitchen table. Aunt Joy would periodically study the child. She really was not sure what to think of this child. On television, once Aunt joy had watched a documentary on past life regressions.

“How was work?” Aunt Joy asked.

“It was alright,” Dalia said with a shrug.

Paul started humming a tune. He sort of looked all around and finally looked up. Paul settled on a spot on the ceiling; he was seemingly transfixed on some invisible force. He nodded his head twice, then shook it once.

“What are you looking at?” Dalia asked eyeing her son.

“Nothing,” Paul shrugged. “Just the man on the ceiling.”

“There’s no man on the ceiling,” protested Dalia.

“You can’t see him because he hides from you,” Paul answered.

“Why would he dislike me?” Dalia asked.

Paul looked at his mother. “He says you know why,” Paul told her.

Aunt Joy looked at Paul and then Dalia. Aunt Joy felt a knot form in her stomach. She pushed away from her dinner plate. “Why is he so convinced of what he is saying?” Aunt Joy helped Dalia with the dishes after dinner.

“I want to say I appreciate your helping me out, watching Paul, cooking, and cleaning,”

 Dalia admitted.

“No problem,” Aunt Joy said. “Happy to do it. Paul sure has an active imagination, doesn’t he?”

“Most three-year-olds do,” Dalia said back, growing slightly agitated.

“Do you still do the YouTube thing?” Aunt Joy asked.

“Not really,” Dalia confessed. “I still get a check from YouTube every month though. I’m saving the money for Paul’s college fund.

“I wish I had your sense of responsibility at your age,” Aunt Joy said.

“What were you like at my age?” Dalia asked.

“I was convinced I was going to be a guitarist. Only one problem” stated Aunt Joy.

“Which was?” Dalia asked.

“I sucked,” Aunt Joy shrugged. “From age eighteen to twenty-four, I spent a lot of time in a purple haze. I was hitchhiking across the country, sleeping in vans, getting into bar fights, and sleeping with strange men in return for their kindness.”

“What made you change your ways?” Dalia wondered.

“Being beaten, stripped n***d, and abandoned roadside on a stretch of road about twenty-five miles from the nearest town,” Aunt Joy said.

“That is an incredible story,” Dalia admitted. “How’d you get home?”

“More hitchhiking,” said Aunt Joy.

Up in his bedroom, Paul was coloring in his coloring book. A doll dressed in a green suit, sat in a rocking chair grinning at Paul. The rocking chair started swaying back and forth. Paul kept coloring. It started swaying back and forth a little faster. Paul took notice. Now the boy watched the doll intensely. The doll got up and began dancing around the room. Paul thought it was amusing. He put down his crayon and started clapping and dancing. The doll crashed to the floor.

Still, the doll remained motionless. Paul placed the doll back in his chair. Then he rocked the chair back and forth by hand. The doll had entertained him; he wanted to see the doll dance. Paul had wondered if he had made the doll move or not, or if there was another force acting upon the doll. Paul suspected something else was at work here.

The boy had good control over his magic. Paul tried to use his abilities to make the doll dance again, but something was blocking him. There had to be something wrong with the doll. He grabbed the doll holding onto the lapels. His little nostrils flared.

 Paul while staring his toy in the eye demanded:

”You dance!” The doll stared back. There was something familiar about this doll’s eyes. Paul felt like he had known it, or known the person inside the doll, meaning from his old life. It reminded him of the man from the ceiling.

“Dad?” he thought. Then he threw the doll on the ground and started stomping on it. He knew his father had been a bad man. Paul knew he had been his own father, meaning the spirit inside him was Kenny. He also knew Kenny’s father was Alex. Paul had heard stories about both of these bad men from his mother.

Next, Paul felt the Kenny spirit detach from his own spirit. He was unsure he even had his own soul apart from Kenny’s. Paul vomited Kenny’s soul into the doll’s mouth. Suddenly the doll came to life and started punching itself. Next, Paul grabs an at-ball bat and smashes the doll’s face. A bit of the doll’s eye stared up at Paul.

Alex and Kenny were gone and for the first time since he was on the Earth, Paul was himself. He had no magic power. He was just a normal and happy three-year-old!