The Psychomancer

Little Ashley Cormier ran down the forest road with a scar on her right cheek, burning lungs, and flapping arms. As she was sucking down air, she made small whimpering noises like she was about to burst into tears at any moment. She could hear the voice of a screaming teenaged boy behind her, but she couldn’t discern if that voice was in her head or a frightening reality. No matter how much adrenaline flooded through her system, her body could only do so much before she dropped to her knees and breathed her hardest. She held her aching ribcage and spit out stale snot. Tears dribbled down her cheeks and into the mud puddle she was kneeling over.

“The forest is no place for a delicate young girl like you,” said a powerful male voice, which caused Ashley to spring to her feet out of anxiety. The man was dressed in a black robe with various Wiccan symbols strewn in red across the trims. His long brown hair and rugged beard made him look like a walking advertisement for Head & Shoulders conditioner. His fingers always seemed to be spread out like he was ready to cast a spell. This had to be the legendary Tony Castle.

“Are you the Psychotic Mister?” asked Ashley while flapping her arms nervously.

Tony chuckled and said, “The term you’re looking for is Psychomancer. And yes, I am him. You can call me Tony if you’d like. You seem to be in a lot of anguish, my dear, judging from your dirty hair and torn hoodie. Have you been in a fight recently?”

“Yes, Tony. I, uh…I…” The teenaged girl twiddled her thumbs and fingers while clapping repeatedly. When she couldn’t come up with adequate words, she bawled some more.

The psychomancer approached the fragile girl and hugged her around the shoulders. His robes were softer than a kitty’s fur and the strength of his hug reminded Ashley of the father figure she never had. She hugged him back, but not without patting him on the spinal column a few times.

When the embrace broke, Ashley wiped her eyes with her dirty index finger and asked, “Is it true that you can cure people like me? I have this…problem. I don’t want it inside of me anymore.”

“If you’re seeking the services of a psychomancer, then I can hazard a guess as to what you might be referring to,” said Tony. “You’re autistic. The arm-flapping and constant nervousness are both telltale signs. You came here because you want me to rid you of what you perceive to be a serious disease. I can cure many ailments, but this is one that is beyond my league. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

“You don’t understand, Tony!” Ashley sobbed as she twiddled her fingers some more. “If you don’t cure me, those boys will keep picking on me and calling me a retard! I can’t live like this anymore! If you won’t help me, then I’ll just…I’ll just…”

“You’ll what? Deprive the world of a beautiful human being like yourself?” asked Tony. “Many people have come to me with thoughts of suicide. While you may experience permanent relief from your mental ailments, you will hurt many people around you with your actions. You may not realize it yet, but there are people in this world who love you. If they don’t know you yet, then they’ll be lucky to have you as a friend.”

Ashley weakly shoved Tony away and shouted, “You don’t know me! How can you say those things about me when you don’t even know my goddamn name! I don’t have any friends! They all hate me! Everybody just wants to beat me up all the time!” She dropped to her knees and released another puddle of tears into the dirt.

Tony knelt down and placed a loving hand on his charge’s shoulder. “Have you explored the world beyond your dwelling? Are you sure that every single person in this world will hate you for being autistic? And even if they did, will they like you even more if I suddenly used my magic to cure you? Love is what will save you in the end. If not in one place, then you’ll find it in another.”

“What am I supposed to do, run to my mommy for help?!” Ashley yelled. “She’s the whole reason I feel this way! She let those doctors stick needles into me when I was little! You know what they say about those kinds of needles!”

“I do know what they say about those kinds of needles, my friend,” said Tony. “And none of it is true. Quicksilver alone didn’t make you who you are. Genetics can only do so much, but it’s what you feel inside that will make you who you really are. You don’t need to hate yourself and you don’t need to hate what’s inside of you. Because of your autism, you have a heightened sensitivity to the world around you. When you’re this sensitive, your mind has a lot to take in. And when it takes in that much, you can not only process psychological trauma, but you can also create beautiful things during your time on this earth.” Tony smiled through his leonine beard and asked, “What’s your favorite form of art?”

“Well…I like to…write…” sniveled Ashley. “But I’m not that good!”

“That’s because you don’t believe yourself to be good,” said Tony in a soft tone. “If you don’t believe in yourself, how will your audience believe in you? Artistic endeavors are just like any other skill: without practice and hard work, they don’t develop. It may be a long journey to where you need to be as a writer, but if you start to love who you are every once and a while, it will seem like you’re already there.”

The two of them stood up and embraced once more. Ashley’s snot and tears soaked Tony’s robe, but the middle-aged wizard didn’t seem to mind. He could only hope that his message of positivity got through to her. Even powerful sorcerers had their limits. Powerful hearts, on the other hand, were much stronger than any magic spell in the world.

“Well, ain’t this a cute sight!” said a grating male voice in the background. Ashley and Tony broke their embrace and stared down a pudgy teenager with a bald head, an American flag T-shirt, and black jeans with combat boots. The boy folded his tree trunk arms and smiled disgustingly.

“You have no business here, young man!” Tony warned the boy. “Turn around and leave this place before I…”

“Before you what? Challenge me to a game of shuffleboard! You’re one generation away from being locked up in the old fart’s home, pops! Now let go of the bitch and bring her here! She’s got some lunch money she owes me!” said the bully.

Ashley felt a cold weight in her stomach as she stammered and flapped her arms while the big boy mockingly held his sausage hand over his ear for better hearing. The autistic girl eventually found the small courage to say, “Screw you!”

“Screw me?!” the bully laughed. “Is that was this is about? You want to screw me? Well, why didn’t you say so! Here, why don’t I lay that smoking hot body of yours across the mud and we’ll do it right now! I’m game!”

The nameless jerk marched over to Ashley with his ham-hawk mitts raised in a grabbing position. With a wave of Tony’s hand, the bully froze in place and trembled with anxiety. His eyes were huge, his chubby cheeks flapped lightly, and he made the same small whimpering noises that his victim made earlier.

“Do you feel that, young man? Do you feel it?!” said Tony. “That’s what your victim feels right now. That is pure, unadulterated fear and post-traumatic stress. It’s the feeling a victim gets when his nervous system is so stressed out that it’s about to snap. Your brain will go numb. Your heart will beat like a war drum. Your blood will go colder than a meat locker. Any A’s you had in school will turn to D’s, C’s, and F’s. But don’t take my word for it. My new friend will tell you what it’s like.”Ashley looked up at Tony confused and terrified, but Tony patted her shoulders and said, “It’s okay, little girl. You can do this. You have to do this.”

Ashley’s cold river of anxious adrenaline turned into a molten lava pit of boiling anger. Her eyebrows turned downward, her arms stopped flapping, and her legs were sturdy enough to keep her standing through what she was about to do. She approached her bully with her finger pointed at him like a totalitarian authority figure. “You listen to me and you listen good!” she raged. “If you ever pick on me again or call me a retard or beat me up, I’m going to kick you in the balls so hard that you’ll have a lobotomy! Then we’ll see who the real retard is! Do you understand me?! I said do you understand me, you son of a bitch! You’d better tell your friends that they’ll get the same thing if they fuck with me!”

The bully nodded at Ashley and slowly turned around to limp away. She even kicked him in the butt and yelled, “Move it!” to get him to leave faster. The bully stumbled and tripped along the way due to his firsthand experience of anxiety, but he was eventually far enough out of sight for Ashley and Tony’s benefit.

The only thing that could calm the autistic girl down was the psychomancer’s gentle hand on her shoulder and the words, “You were cured alright.”