Chapter Text
There were times, Mrs. Blankenship thought, that her job was a hard one to actually do. Terrence had been considering candidates, of course he was. She couldn’t say that she could ever make sense of what he was thinking of doing, but she would do whatever she could if it meant looking after another Myers descendant.
A dynasty. That was the best way that Minerva Blankenship, Minnie for short, could really describe any of it. Magnificent. Though they would always be dogged by Murphey Myers’ dark legacy. A notorious witch-hunter back in the day. A cruel man, thinking that he was protecting the community when he was doing anything but. Minerva would never say that anyone was anywhere near as bad as Murphey had been. At first, after Murphey’s death (may he burn in Hell), it had been a frightening thing. The Myers house. Before a grieving mother had burned down the empty house. The next Myers house had been built on the ashes of the old one from there. Belonged to a man who had used the Thurisaz symbol for good.
One rune. It was just a tattoo, dark, almost inked on your wrist, and it did not care where you came from. You could still do extraordinary things nonetheless. Blood didn’t matter. Character did.
***
Wynn was still contemplating the whole thing. Mrs. Blankenship knew that he was still in training. Twenty-one, a devoted follower of Thurisaz. But he was afraid. Afraid of not finding the right candidate.
Even as they sat in the living room of Mrs. Blankenship’s house, Wynn exhaled softly. “We have to act fast,” he said. "You don’t need to read the remnants of corpses in order to know what kind of trouble we’re in. It’s only a matter of time before things finally boil over between the United States and Russia. Or someone gets shot.”
”Do you actually think that we can change the world, Terrence?”
”I don’t know,” Wynn said. “I think that if Thurisaz could have been used to stop the rise of fascism in Germany, I would have taken the opportunity to use Thurisaz. After all, there has to be a reason for this. The Druids have these gifts. Astronomers. Mathematicians. Prophets and seers. It’s unfair to have these gifts and still be so terribly useless, isn’t it?”
"We’re not useless.” Minnie Blankenship wished she could say more. She did wonder the point of prophecy was if history seemed set in stone. If anyone with the symbol of Thurisaz could change the world. Could do anything.
Ever since Thurisaz was reclaimed, the symbol was about defense instead of murder, but nonetheless, Minnie did wonder if it was enough.
***
They looked out, through the telescope that Minnie used in order to watch the skies, and Minnie smiled despite herself. "The constellation’s here,” she said. “We’re not losing hope. Not here, Terrence. Not now."
It was there that the doorbell rang. Minnie sighed. Well, it seemed, she would have to make sure that the candy was ready for the trick or treaters. Conal had decided, as his idea of a “good joke”, to give one of the trick-or-treaters an article from the paper on the history of Halloween, or “Sow-Han”. “It isn’t hard to pronounce it right,” he complained over lunch with Minnie once. “Sow-Han. Not Sam-hain. There is no holiday that revolves around someone named Sam and if it was, it would be like having a holiday revolving around someone named John or Wes."
And that was what trick-or-treaters had to deal with at Halloween, naturally, in Santa Mira. The children at least seemed to somewhat appreciate some of his trivia about Halloween. And the Silver Shamrock jingle.
Terrence was usually working overtime at Smith’s Grove under the administrator, jokingly referring to that job like Clark Kent when he couldn’t be Superman. Maybe in a way, they were heroes, Mrs. Blankenship thought. They were superheroes. Conal, successful toy maker, was Batman. Millionaire by day, preserver of life by night…
And she was possibly going into blasphemous territory here.
***
Peter and Edith Myers had come to drop off Michael and Laurie, of course. Judith was off with her boyfriend, Daniel.
Mrs. Blankenship couldn’t say that she liked Peter. Neither did the other townspeople, for that matter. Rumors about his cruelty to his family, about the fact that Peter had issues that hadn’t been treated and how unfortunately, his family took the brunt of it. How Edith married such a man…well, she had to have seen something good in him. Somehow.
Edith did the talking. Laying out the usual. Mrs. Blankenship nodded. Edith and Peter just tolerated Wynn’s presence. Not hating him, but not liking him. Then again, Mrs. Blankenship noticed the tears in Edith’s eyes, the strained smile, and she wondered if Edith was faking any tolerance of anything.
She was beautiful. The pearls around her neck, even her short dark hair. Edith Myers was sophisticated in her beauty. Classy. Peter was sophisticated too in his good looks. But looks could do so much to cover up dysfunction. The cops had been called before, a domestic dispute that had been brushed off as a minor spat…that was October 30th. Halloween Eve.
Mrs. Blankenship wanted to give Michael Thurisaz just for that. It didn’t have to be much, she thought. Not at all. She could just give him the opportunity to defend himself if Peter got worse. That was all.
It wasn’t manipulation or cruelty to want to help a child, right? He didn’t have to be the Chosen One. He could just be someone that Mrs. Blankenship helped. They didn’t have to change history. They could just help one boy. That was something. That had to be something, right?
***
Even as the two of them decided to leave, Mrs. Blankenship didn’t miss how it seemed like Peter was too forceful in pulling his wife away. Too possessive. The grip on her arm. All of that. It stood out too much, Mrs. Blankenship thought. Too vividly.
Too much of a detail.
She was more than relieved to actually see them leave. To take Michael and Laurie in to be babysat, and to try and bribe them a bit. “Come on now, Michael, Laurie. Why don’t we watch some movies together?”
It seemed like a good place to start as any, Mrs. Blankenship thought, it really was.
***
Michael wasn’t really the talkative sort. If anything, Mrs. Blankenship thought, he seemed like such a solemn, serious boy. So very serious, so very quiet, though given what that house could be like, no wonder. The Myers house wasn’t supposed to be an evil place. Maybe Peter Myers was just a disruption after years of peace, somebody who was just some kind of blight in the Myers line. But not his children. Never his children. Laurie herself was only two, and quiet as well, though given how young she was, one wouldn’t expect her to give a speech any time soon.
But Michael’s eyes seemed to light up as Mrs. Blankenship flipped through channels. Alfred Hitchcock was on. Best to introduce the boy to the greats. More specifically, Vertigo. Thankfully Psycho was not on, as though it was bloodless, Janet Leigh being stabbed while showering would provide a version of the birds and the bees talk that Minnie was not in the mood for.
***
It was afterwards that Mrs. Blankenship tried to explain Halloween to Michael. Tried to. She couldn’t say she did too badly. Not at all. Conal would have done it better, but she managed to at least give an overview. They had different approaches, her and Conal, she thought. Conal was the devoted follower, she the cool babysitter, though Minerva Blankenship was no less devoted. But she did like how Michael leaned in, clearly fascinated.
Michael did speak up. The rare times he spoke were startling, Mrs. Blankenship thought. “Could costumes hide me from my dad?”
”If you want them to,” Minnie said. “They are whatever you want them to be. Of course, there’s more than one way to protect yourself…”
It was a subtle allusion, but still. It worked. There was always that fear of being discovered. It didn’t have to be associated with the witch burnings. Any kind of punishment was bad enough, Minerva was sure.
***
Michael already dreaded going home. He really did. There was a part of him that already wanted to stay longer with Mrs. Blankenship. She got it. But of course, he couldn’t stay. He knew that she would see him across the road, but he wished he could live in her house, a house with fun Halloweens instead of disagreements between Mom and Dad that escalated into Mom being slapped for her problems.
And Terrence Wynn…why couldn’t Terrence be Michael’s father here? He had no idea. He wished he did. Home was not home; home was across the street, as far as Michael was concerned. And in select people. Home was Laurie, his baby sister, home was Edith, his mother. Home was even Judith, as oblivious as she could be.
***
Sleep should have come easy. Should have.
Until Michael woke up, the silhouette of a Man in Black saying in a deep, almost Christopher Lee-like voice, “It’s time to wake up, Michael…”
Something was wrong. Something told him to check Judith’s room…
Judith wasn’t there. Michael padded down the stairs just then, towards the backyard; it was illogical, but it felt like something was leading him there…
Judith’s back was turned to him, even as she cleaned something in her hand, singing to herself as dissonantly as she would comb her hair. “One, two, three…"
It was noticing Michael that Judith spun around, quickly hiding the knife. “Michael!” she exclaimed, and the way she did it, she sounded more annoyed than anything else. Put out. “What are you doing here? You need to go back to bed…”
”I just didn’t want you to hurt yourself."
”I’m fine, sweetheart,” Judith said. Still that smile that didn’t meet her eyes. Still there. “I was just cleaning stuff up from carving a scary pumpkin with Danny.”
”Can I see?”
”Only if you promise to get some sleep, sweetie.”
Michael supposed sleep would be worth it then.