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.”
