On the way home, Cricket plays "Ode to My Family" by the Cranberries. She concentrates on the odometer while Johnny takes a quick nap in his passenger seat. Sitting behind them are Mateo and Kenzie, avoiding eye contact. Mateo listens to Cypress Hill on his Walkman until he sleeps near the window, while Kenzie remains on edge.

She inches towards the door to escape when Cricket snaps her fingers twice, compelling the doors to lock on their own.

"What the hell?" Kenzie cries. "Let me out of here!"

"Sure," Cricket responds coldly. "Unless you feel comfortable waking up in a hospital."

Johnny's little sister rolls her eyes to the ceiling and slumps in her seat.

"This isn't fair," she growls. "Johnny gets to do whatever he wants, and no one cares, but when I do it, it's wrong."

"Of course, it's wrong," Cricket snaps. "Johnny didn't sneak out of the house to go to some party without his grandmother's permission."

"Who the fuck are you, Johnny's girlfriend?" snapped Kenzie.

Cricket sets her jaw. "I'm the person who's going to throw you out of this car if you keep acting like an entitled bitch."

"Hey!" Johnny growled, opening his eyes. "Don't even go there, Chris!"

Cricket lifts her right hand in self-defense. "Fine, but if she keeps giving me a migraine, I'm throwing her out of this fucking car — with or without magic."

Kenzie's eyes widen as Cricket adjusts her rearview mirror and stares directly at the road. She swishes her blunt around in her mouth, then lights the end with her finger, stunning the fifteen-year-old girl.

Cricket hands the blunt to Johnny, but he shakes his head in response.

"I am not in the mood for a blunt," he says. "But I could take over the car for a bit and help you get your sleep."

Cricket sighs but pulls over and swaps seats with her best friend.

Johnny straps in his belt. He adjusts the rearview mirror while Cricket sits in the passenger seat. Her head rests above the door handle. Dark hair covers a fraction of her face as Cricket tosses her blunt out of the open window, closes her eyes, and doses off.

When Johnny starts the car, Kenzie asks, "So, what can you guys do?"

"Well, you already know I can see the future," Johnny sighs. "Cricket's a witch, and Matt can turn into people and animals. Anyway, let's talk about why you left Wren alone."

"For the love of God, he can take care of himself!"

"Wren's thirteen, Mac! What if the neighbors decide to pop in and-"

"Oh, now you care about us?"

"Of course I do! I'm your fucking brother."

"Then why don't you come to our birthday parties or see us during the holidays?"

Johnny sighs and massages his eyelids with his fingers.

"It's complicated, alright?" he grunts.

The siblings are silent until Kenzie looks at his red backpack, revealing books, supplies, and a machete sprinkled with black blood and soot.

"Jesus, are you still monster hunting again?" Kenzie cries with exhaustion.

When Johnny doesn't respond, she scowls, "You said you were going to quit. That you are getting a job at B. Dalton's."

"I am," Johnny argues. "I am still waiting for my check to come around."

Kenzie shakes her head. "That's a load of shit."

"So's getting high with some fucking assclown."

"Fuck you."

After he sees the traffic lights turn green, Johnny starts the car and drives straight down. The Cranberries continues playing on the radio, but he turns it off, much to Kenzie's appreciation.

Neon lights burn Johnny's eyes as he searches for his grandmother's house. His heart still races from the hellhound incident, but Johnny remains calm and focused. The last thing he wants is to get into a car accident.

Covering his mouth with his hand, Johnny looks at his snoring companion, Mateo, and then back at Kenzie, gliding her fingers through her brown hair.

All of a sudden, Johnny feels uncomfortable with the silence. He looks at his sister again and wonders how tall she has gotten.

What kind of music is she into? How are her grades? It did occur to him that Kenzie never told him about herself in her letters or calls.

Clearing his throat, Johnny adjusts the rearview mirror again and asks, "How was school today? How are Wren and Grandma?"

"If you worry about her and Wren so much, visit them," Kenzie insists, cutting him off.

"I know—" said Johnny.

"Grandma misses you." Kenzie goes on. "Wren looks up to you. He even tells his friends that you are the best monster hunter in Queens."

Johnny's heart sank even more as he relayed the details of Crestwood Academy to his family. The skepticism in their eyes cut deep, but Johnny knew what he had seen and experienced was all too real. The bruises on his body were proof enough of the dangerous training he was undergoing to become a demon hunter.

His family had always been his rock, his support system. But now, as he shared tales of his trips around the world to track down and eliminate demons, Johnny felt a growing distance between himself and his loved ones. They couldn't understand the gravity of his mission, the weight of the responsibility that had been placed on his shoulders.

Sometimes, Johnny wished he had never applied to Crestwood Academy, never gotten involved in a world of darkness and danger. But as he looks at the determined glint in his eyes in the mirror, Johnny knows that if he doesn't stop working, his family will be overwhelmed with debt.

"Come on, ever since that school shut down," Kenzie murmurs. "You became a different person. You never spend time with us; you barely look Grandma in the eye, and you stop going to college."

Unbeknownst to the siblings, Cricket slightly opens her eyes and turns to the window. Her arms remain folded, but her ears listen to every conversation detail.

Nudging Mateo close to his window, Kenzie stares at Johnny's reflection in the rear-view mirror and tries to pressure her brother into telling him what happened on the day Crestwood School got shut down.

Johnny takes a deep breath before turning back to the road.

"Sorry, I can't tell you," Johnny sighs. "I know we're supposed to talk about these things, but I can't right now."

"Why not?" asked Kenzie.

Hanging his head, Johnny says nothing. He merely focuses on the road until he reaches the pastel blue house on Merrick Boulevard. Next, Johnny unlocks Kenzie's car door and advises his sister to crawl through the back window if their grandmother is downstairs watching her "stories." Finally, after giving her a sad smile, Johnny promises Kenzie that he will change for the better.

Kenzie crosses her arms. "You're starting to sound like Dad."

"I know," Johnny admits. "But unlike him, I'm going to be here with you, Wren, and Grandma every step of the way."

His younger sister sighs at this but unbuckles her seatbelt, kisses her brother on the cheek, and takes off into the night without a word. Johnny waits until Kenzie enters the house before starting the car and driving him and his friends back home.

*****
Thanks to Cricket's healing ointment, all the bruises and cuts on Johnny and Mateo's bodies seem to subside. The trio celebrate by cleaning the living room and washing all the popcorn bowls on the coffee table. After the teens are finished cleaning, Cricket, Johnny, and Mateo exchange weary hugs and then shuffle into their rooms.

In his bed, Johnny dreams he is wandering on a wooden pier. His hair parades on his exposed shoulders as the boy studies the dense fog hovering over the blistering water.

"Where am I?" he thinks.

Johnny catches sight of something bubbling in the brown water. Rough splinters prick his bare feet as he moves toward the pier's edge. His skin is as frigid as ice; he tries to find warm shelter when something catches his eye. The water didn't show his reflection, but a mermaid's. Dark blond hair sits on her pale white shoulders; curious blue eyes observe Johnny as he peers at the glass-like surface. At first, she seems innocent, but when Johnny inspects the water, a giant monster sinks its teeth into Johnny's neck and pulls him into the cold sea.

Johnny jumps up from the covers and takes a couple of deep breaths, his eyes searching around to find himself in bed, comforted by the AC.

"What the fuck?" he huffs, pushing his hair away from his eyes. "What the actual fuck?"

He closes his eyes briefly and then tries to sleep some more, but the dream feels real. How can he pretend nothing happened when the image of that sea monster is in his head?

Massaging his eyelids, Johnny gets out of bed and decides to get a water bottle from the fridge, but before he does that, the teenage psychic decides to check on Mateo and Cricket to see if they are okay.

In Cricket's bedroom, the moonlight creeps through the grimy windowpane. It slithers across The Gits, Bikini Kill, Bad Brains, Ani Difranco, Fiona Apple, Death, X-Ray Spex, and Tori Amos posters.

Across from her bed is a small bookshelf of paperbacks by Judy Blume, Toni Morrison, Beverly Cleary, and Walter Mosley. Crumpled cigarettes, old spell books, books from different languages, a camera, pencils, jars of herbs, and notebook paper cover her desk.

Worn cassette tapes — from Minor Threat to Alanis Morrisette — sit on her dresser drawer. At the same time, her vanity mirror is covered with illustrations of black witches, late-70s punk posters, and a collection of zines Cricket gathered from her assignment in Orange County.

French vanilla stings Johnny's nose as wax candles stand on the drawers. Punk bands and old action movie posters litter the blue walls. Her discarded flannels soil the light brown carpet.

Johnny looks around to see Cricket sleeping under the covers. She wears a faded green Frank Zappa t-shirt with bold words yelling, "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama," and orange shorts with panda bears on them. Her long, dark hair covers the witch's birthmark until she scratches her armpit and turns her back to Johnny.

Smiling to himself, Johnny closes her door and then checks on Mateo, who snores loudly on his bed.

Sporting a mustard yellow Wu-Tang Clan jumper and plaid red pajamas, Mateo scratches the cigarette burns on his wrists, lets the drool roll down his chin, and brushes his finger against his black hardcover sketchbook resting on the chaotic, brown carpet.

Curious, Johnny steps around the small tower of Hellboy, Spawn, The Crow, and Spider-Man comics resting near Casper's bed. He turns on the table lamp, picks up the book, and flips through it, admiring the diverse illustrations within its crisp pages.

Casper drew vibrant depictions of homeless people and comic book heroes. He detailed animals, bustling cityscapes, soft watercolor paintings, graffiti designs, and smudged charcoal sketches of people he'd see whenever he rode the subway. Casper's talent shines through every pencil or brush stroke.

However, as Johnny turns to the final page, his eyes fall upon an unfinished sketch of Nadia Swan. Casper couldn't capture Nadia's messy dreadlocks, but you can tell she has a kind personality just by looking at her dark eyes and gentle smile. Even her brown skin is shaded to perfection.

"Dude," Johnny hears Mateo grumble. "What the actual fuck are you doing?"

The psychic looks down to see Mateo glaring up at him.

Johnny blushes. He closes Mateo's sketchbook and hands it to him. "Sorry, man."

"What's up?" Mateo grunts, taking the sketchbook from Johnny's hand. "You can't sleep or something?"

"No."

"Why, is it another bad vision?"

Johnny closes his eyes and reopens them. "I had one about me walking across a pier and seeing a mermaid in the water."

Stuffing the sketchbook under his pillow, Mateo's lips stretch from ear to ear. "Ooh, that's sexy. Did you guys, like, make out or—"

"She turned into a monster and drowned me." Johnny finishes, sitting on the edge of Mateo's bed.

"Oh, shit." Mateo murmurs.

"Yeah," Johnny answers, looking around the room for Ichabod. "Where the hell is Crane, anyway?"

"He's sleeping on the living room couch, but that's not the point," Mateo grunts. "Why did a mermaid turn into a monster in your dream? Fuck, do we even have mermaids in New York?"

"Well, I think Salty Joe's Emporium had a couple of mermaids," Johnny recalls.

Mateo scrunched his face and wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth.

"Salty Joe's?" he repeats. "The sea version of Jurassic Park that got shut down a decade too late?"

"Yeah," Johnny replies. "Weird, right?"

"No, singing cats taking over Broadway is weird," Mateo grunts. "You going to a shitty sea-themed park is certified crazy. I mean, nowadays, old people go there to kill themselves."

Johnny squints his eyes at his best friend. "And you know this, how?"

"A friend from juvie," Mateo answered, throwing his blanket under the covers. "Now, look, I hate to sound like an asshole, but can you go back to bed? Since no one's in the mood to watch horror movies, I got to return those videos to Blockbuster, or else they'll fuck up my membership."

Johnny bows his head and gives Mateo a firm pat on his shoulder.

"Night, Mat," he says quietly.

"Later days, man," Mateo grumbled in his sleep.

Johnny walks past Mateo's desk covered in old sketchbooks, journals, Rubik's Cubes, art supplies, a Polaroid camera, and the VHS cassette tapes Johnny rented from the video store.

Mateo's worn-out skateboard, in its faded orange and red glory, rests underneath the desk, alongside a trash can overflowing with crumpled sketches, rejected art college applications, and empty cigarette boxes.

Approaching the door, Johnny turns his head once more, cigarette burns on Mateo's wrists. Johnny thinks about asking Matt how he got them, but he figures Mateo would like to continue this conversation some other time.

Shutting the entrance behind him, Johnny heads back to his bedroom, crawls under the covers, and passes out until the sun burns the back of his neck.
© kstorm68q