Escort For The Witch

Chapter 3

Jack Elliot Cornell – that's me So, what do we have here?

My name is Jack Elliot Cornell. I’m twenty-four years old. I am a member of the ancient Order called “The Guardians,” to which my dear parents had assigned me long before I came into existence. Oh yes, I forgot, my parents are also part of this order, as are all my few relatives.

I have a crazy little family. A strange, far-beyond-the-norm job and even our own greenhouse, or is it a house after all? My secret refuge and my pride. It used to be something like a greenhouse, meticulously erected over an indefinite period of time by my unstoppable mother. She conducted her experiments there, growing strange hybrids from equally mysterious plants. This went on until I hit puberty and started rebelling. That was exactly ten years ago now. That’s when I declared my intention to leave home and live alone. Mom threw a terrible tantrum and said I could do whatever I wanted as long as I didn’t drive her to seizures with my comebacks and departures. That’s when I got my first earring. Then I ran away, more than once. But the terrible, omnipresent “Guardians” would always find me and bring me back to the family nest. In the end, when my father got tired of my endless antics and my mother's constant tantrums, he called me to his office…

“Jack Elliot Cornell! I hate to say this, but I have to. I’ve had enough of you!” he thundered. “Or to be more precise, of your stupid childish antics !”

My father was pacing the office as he talked, wearing a facial expression of impeding trouble typically reserved for dealing with the employees of the so-called

“construction company” he managed. It was clear he was making every conceivable and inconceivable effort not to give me the magical ‘boot’. I just stared at him from under lowered brows. My right eye was bruised because a couple of days ago, I had got into a fight with my best friend Eric over who could jump furthest off a rope swung into the Mississippi. At the time, it seemed an incredibly cool activity.

“So, my useless son. We’ve decided that it will do you good… to live separately.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I wondered if I would be able catch it if it accidentally jumped out of my chest. Finally! I've achieved my goal! Just a little more, and I’ll be free! I held my breath and stared at my fuming father.

“You’re already sixteen, old enough to be responsible for your actions,” he thundered, and judging by the sound of his voice, there was a storm brewing ahead.

“We’ve decided to send you to Jacksonville,” my father said briskly, staring at me expectantly. And me… I felt sick. I don’t have anything against Florida, and I could easily adapt there, knowing that someone from the order would always be nearby. But the fact that I would have to part with my friends and with Grandpa, who, strangely enough, had always supported me, was a nasty reality check.

“Anything but Florida,” I whispered, looking pleadingly at my father, who raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“If possible, I would like to stay in New Orleans, or at least in its suburbs,” my father still looked suspiciously at me.

“I want to live here,” Florida definitely wasn’t fitting into my plans, and I stood my ground.

“I’m not going to cater to your whims,” my father snapped.

“And Mom?” I exclaimed in anger.

“What? What’s this about? What are you talking about?” My father looked at me in bewilderment.

“You built her that greenhouse! Or whatever you built for her to ‘develop her gardening talent ’… as you put it,” I looked at my father, and my right eye, which was starting to swell, twitched painfully. I knew my father didn’t approve of Mom’s “gardening hobby”, as he called it. And I often had to witness them argue over this.

My father was one of the Order’s most valuable researchers of a phenomenon known as “poltergeist”, and he was highly respected for it. And he, in turn, wanted his wife to spend more time with him, trying to find the causes of the poltergeist from a biological or any other point of view. Instead of wasting time on incomprehensible plants, which she managed to successfully grow wherever she found a spot of land.

Father kept boring into me until a smile lit up his face, one that was promising nothing good.

“Excellent! It seems I’ve just found the solution to all our problems,” he said thoughtfully and, grabbing me by the collar, dragged me out of the stuffy office.

“No! I absolutely oppose this!” my mother screamed in horror, clutching her head when my father informed her that he was going to convert her greenhouse into my new home.

After two weeks of emotional torment, turmoil, and excruciating anguish, she agreed.

Out of respect for my mother’s feelings and her weeds, I asked my father to keep the greenhouse in its place and instead build a small extension out of the back wall.

So now, to get to my living room, you have to navigate through my personal mini jungle. And over time, I learned to understand biology myself and now grow my own “weeds”. As for my mother, she found solace in teaching chemistry and biology at the University of New Orleans, where she was invited to work immediately after my father’s “construction company” had signed a contract with the university to build and fully equip a new laboratory in building ‘A’, naturally at the company’s expense.

As for me, after finishing high school, I enrolled in the Department of Psychology at the University of New Orleans. But due to my parents’ constant complaints that I at any cost, should remain near our witch, I was transferred to the Department of Language and Literature a year later. Nobody had consulted me on this, of course. When I, in a fit of rage, burst into my father’s downtown office to express my thoughts on this matter, he, flashing a self-satisfied smile, handed me car keys. My car keys! A latest model, brand-new black Chevrolet Camaro. A gift from the Order as a token of appreciation for my “sacrifice”. I, like anyone else in my shoes, took the keys and instantly became the most ardent fan of literature. It wasn’t difficult, I had always enjoyed reading.

I remember how proudly Grandpa looked at me when I first pulled up at his house in the new luxurious car, to give Eric and this little devil a ride to the university.

My friend whistled, only managing one simple yet succinct remark.

“Well, well, well!”

Grandpa chuckled and turned to Eric.

“Good work is always appreciated, isn’t it, Jack?” he said, more with his eyes, and gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Eric pursed his lips and sca

And then she came out of the house… She was wearing a short cherry red dress with straps and a plunging neckline that complemented her chest perfectly.The black high-heeled shoes made her already slender legs look even more beautiful.

Her long dark hair framed her pale face in soft waves, sharply outlining her cheekbones. Fire blazed in her blue eyes. She looked reproachfully first at me, then at her traitorous brother, who was trying hard to ignore her presence. She frowned and strode past us with an air of superior indifference.

“Need a lift?” I asked, making a titanic effort to make the question sound as polite and casual as possible.

“No, thanks. I’m riding with Claire,” Sabrina replied coldly and headed towards her friend’s old, wheezing Ford parked nearby. Eric chuckled strangely and stared out the window, as if not noticing that I was deeply hurt by such disrespect towards my new, freshly off the assembly line ‘girlfriend’.

And now a few words about Claire…

Claire – the most primitive creature that ever existed on planet Earth. At least, I haven’t met any else like her. Quite simple intellectually and unremarkable physically. She speaks first and thinks later, if she thinks at all… However, this doesn’t prevent her from being an amusing and cheerful person. It’s strange that she should have befriended someone as snobbish and arrogant as our witchy

“princess”…

Sabrina got into Claire’s car and they drove off, but not before Claire had blown her horn excitedly to say she found my new ride extremely cool. We drove to the university in silence; the mood had been expertly spoiled by a certain someone we all knew.

So, let’s sum it all up. At the age of twenty-four, I live in a quirky greenhouse house, own a splendid car, and a slightly crazy but brave cat… The cat! I nearly forgot to mention that I am an official and proud owner of a cat named Gigantor, whom I had found and rescued from a sewer on Toulouse Street. He had been rather bad and almost ready to depart this world, but still managed to pull through.

His eyes are like spi

The first time I had caught him in the act I got so scared and I rushed him to the nearest vet clinic. It’s not every day that you see your cat drop dead on the floor, literally foaming at the mouth. I was ready to swear on the Bible that my cat was

having an epileptic seizure until I smelled the sharp scent of mint. Every month now, consistently, I find a partially bitten, sometimes heavily chewed, tube of toothpaste. And Gigantor writhes in “terrifying agony of paste-plexis seizures.”

Having observed him for many years, I can confidently say that he gets a certain thrill from it. Occasionally, he has bouts of inexplicable heroism, and secretly watching how passionately and courageously my cat attacks the sprinklers installed in the greenhouse, I can assert with all responsibility that in his past life, Gigantor was none other than a brave and valiant warrior fiercely attacking a mortal enemy…

So, that’s how we live, me and my apathetic, toothpaste-eating cat warrior, alone in a greenhouse, surrounded by bushes. What else? Oh yes, the number of piercings in my ears has reached three. I got new tattoos. Also in stock: a best friend who’s a drunkard, his sister who’s a witch, but showing no hint of any gift whatsoever, an ancient Order, and…

The door to the lecture hall creaked softly and pulled me out of my self-analysis that would have made both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche feel jealous and lacking.

I raised my head, trying to make out the person who had so boldly interrupted my philosophical reflections. It was she, and she was late. Naturally. Lately, that’s all she’s been doing, being late. My curiosity satisfied, I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes.

“Sorry for being late,” Sabrina said in a quiet, low voice; it trembled, betraying a slight nervousness. “Well, well,” I thought, “someone is worried about missing out on learning” So, she does have a sense of duty after all, just probably buried so deep inside her that she herself doesn’t even know it exists.

“No worries, Miss Venters, please come in,” Mrs. Preston replied.

Satisfied again that nothing major was happening, I closed my eyes and tried to go back to my self-reflection mode when I felt a slight movement next to me.

“Hey, I’m actually sleeping here,” I grumbled.

“Oh, please, never mind me, as always” Sabrina replied.

I gave her a fleeting glance. Yes, beautiful as always. But something was amiss.

Where had all her animosity gone? Not even trying to kick me, as usual?