“Are you sure the Kelpie can’t follow us?” I asked Rob.

Rob hovered between Gavin and me over the center console of my ‘Stang.

“While it can venture out of the water, it tends not to stray too far from its source of power.”

“So, as long as we stay away from any large bodies of water we’re fine,” said Gavin.

I thought about what the aquatic stallion did to the Gwyllgi. “It demolished the hellhound,” I said slowly. “Like it was nothing.”

We drove towards Mom’s house. Gavin didn’t need much more convincing other than the fact that we both agreed we weren’t going to wake her up. She could have a family reunion with Gavin another time. This was solely about getting me healed.

“Man,” said Gavin, “the whole monster situation is really bad down here.”

I peeled my jacket and my shirt off, ringing my T-shirt out as best as I could with stinging palms. With the window open, the cold night air blew all over me, threatening to give me pneumonia. “Second time tonight I’ve gotten forced under a natural body of water. Flippin’ monsters. I’m soaked to the bone.”

“I thought I had it bad,” said Gavin. “The issues you’ve been dealing with are just as bad.”

My shirt was still drenched but I tried to stretch it over my chest. “Turn on the heater please,” I said to Rob. Then to Gavin, “They don’t stop coming. They keep showing up to harm people.”

“Well the good thing about this situation is that once they find the bodies of the caretakers, the park will close down for a while and prevent others from getting hurt. Man… those guys. Dead. Just like that.”

Solemn, I nodded.

“Just like I told you,” said Gavin. “We bring the curse with us.”

I wanted to argue but then I remembered what I saw underwater just before the Kelpie arrived. And then another recollection of a discussion Nehemiah and I had came to mind. “Remember how I told you about the dolmen?”

Gavin nodded. “The one that the wizard shut down?”

“Yep. He also explained to me that they don’t always come through permanent passageways like the dolmen. Sometimes they pass through rifts.”

“Okay,” said Gavin, not following my logic.

“So, when I was underwater just before the Kelpie attacked me, I saw something in the depths of the lake, something so far down that I had to have been looking through a portal or a rift of some sort. Where else could the Kelpie have come from?”

“How do any of these magical monsters work? That’s what makes it magic right? Because we can’t understand it.”

“Exactly,” I said. “That thing came through a rift. In the depths behind it, I saw some sort of underwater castle.”

“Like Little Mermaid?” asked Gavin, mocking me.

“Don’t start. I’m serious.”

“That’s my job anyways.”

“What he said.” I threw my thumb up at Rob. “For reals, this was like a lost city, like a full-on silhouette of a legit aquatic castle.”

“Like Aquaman,” said Gavin. “Or Namor, if you’re a Marvel guy.”

Rob pointed at my brother. “I like him.”

“Shut up, both of you.”

Mom lived in Suisun. My apartment was in Vallejo, a suburb about thirty miles away from San Francisco and Oakland. Suisun was up further north on the way to Sacramento. My Mom lived at the very end of Suisun. We spent the rest of the drive listening to Machine Head, Unto the Locust. And despite the pain in my hands, being mostly wet for the second time tonight, and the craziness that had just gone down, I managed to head bang a little bit.

Gavin cocked and eyebrow at me.

“It’s good to let the riffs rock you and get rid of the stress. Plus it empowers me. If testosterone had a sound it would be heavy-metal.”

He chuckled at that and bobbed his head along with the chorus riff.

We pulled up to the house. It was a simple one story house, three beds, two baths. A two car driveway led straight to the garage with the front door on the right side of the house, a ways back. Short grass in the front yard meant my kid brother Aiden had finally mowed.

The Oak tree reached to the night sky, rooted as the centerpiece of the front yard.

Gavin cut the engine of my Mustang about halfway down the street and we coasted into the court right into the driveway so as not to wake up Mom and Aiden.

“Wow it looks… exactly the same,” said Gavin.

“Minus the damage the Banshee did. Hard to see at night though.”

I immediately got out of the car and walked over to the tree. I had never actually done this consciously with the tree. The first time I done it was on accident, as well as the second time. The third time I had drawn power from an Oak leaf plucked from this very tree, but never from the tree itself.

I placed my hand on the back side of the tree. Closing my eyes, I tried to access the power within my chest, knowing it was hollow and then pushing the hollowness into the tree trying to siphon out the available magic.

Part of me didn’t expect it to work, I mean, I just tried this exact thing on three other trees to no avail. Maybe Nehemiah was right and that one Oak leaf I’d used a few weeks ago was a fluke.

So when the power inside broke like a levy and rushed into me, I almost drowned in the power flooding through me. It ran up my injured hand healing it almost instantly traveling through my arms up to my hair and down to my toes. Not only were my injuries healed but my energy was renewed and my weariness wiped away.

But the power kept pouring out and I didn’t know how to stop it. I tried to pull away but it felt like trying to pull apart two massive magnets with just your bare fingers when what you really needed was a crowbar. I opened my eyes to find my skin crawling with glowing emerald Celtic knots. The twisting lines leapt off of my skin and flew around me. The seams of my body felt like bursting, like I was going to crack open and more emerald light would pour out of me, and thousands of Celtic knots would explode through the cracks and fill the night sky.

The energy amassed in front of my hands gathered like visible Chi, or Goku’s Kamehameha blast. I tried to draw it back in, but I quickly realized that I was losing control of the power.

“Hit the deck!” I hissed at Rob and Gavin, trying to be as quiet as possible. I faced the house, so I pointed away from it as I lost complete control of the energy.

A green beam of Luck exploded from my hands and shot straight into my 69 fastback Mustang. I release so much energy, I flew backwards off my feet into the bushes that separated Mom’s yard from her neighbors. When I looked up, I expected my car to be in a crumpled mass of metal and shattered glass, but instead I saw the Celtic knots snaking their way across my car. Once my entire car was covered with interwoven knots, it glowed brightly for a few moments and then slowly faded as if nothing had happened.

“Good shot,” said Rob. “Really smart.”

“Please, lose the sarcasm,” I said.

“No, I’m serious,” he said. “I don’t know why you didn’t cast a Good Luck charm on your car before now. Makes total sense since you’re always getting in car chases.”

“I had no idea I could charm stuff.”

“Duh,” said Rob.

See. I knew that Nehemiah was wrong. The Oak tree was a source of power for me. But the question still remained. Could I use an Oak leaf to draw power, or was that some sort of magical mishap? Either way, caution was needed next time I attempted this

“Close call,” I muttered.

Gavin glared at me with an I-told-you-so look. He looked like he wanted to grill me again about using my magic but I cut him off.

“Stuff it,” I said.

“What?”

“I’ve heard enough of your anti-magic rants.”

“I wasn’t going to—”

But then Tain started barking and the front porch light came on.

“Looks like you boys will get that family reunion after all,” said Rob, as he shifted into a tabby cat.

Mom opened the door slightly, and then all the way. I heard her gasp.

“Gavin? Sean?”

---

We stayed up for another hour, Mom Gavin, Tain, and I. Mom was so thrilled to see Gavin she didn’t even notice the tabby cat we brought into the house with us. Probably because Tain wasn’t making a fuss over the hobgoblin shifter. They were friends already. And Tain seemed to know instinctively that Gavin was family even though they’d never actually met. Probably because Gavin smelled like us.

Mom asked us why were there. We played it off like we had planned to have a family reunion past 11 PM. Because that made total sense. Aiden managed to stay asleep during the entire thing. Puberty will do that to you though. Kid slept like a rock.

Mom did pretty well for not having seen Gavin in nearly two years. She only teared up a few times. Just after an hour of conversation though Mom yielded. “I’m so happy to see you boys, especially you Gavin. But I’m very exhausted and I’m sure you are too. It’s really late. Why don’t you boys sleep on the couches tonight?”

Within short order Mom brought pillows and blankets out for us and were ready for bed. “Goodnight Mom,” said Gavin and I in unison.

After she left the room, Rob whispered, “Aww, just like old times.”

“You’ve never slept over with us,” I said. “We’ve literally never done this before.”

“I know, just—” he tried to explain.

“Shut up Rob,” said Gavin.

Tain barked in agreement.

We all laughed.

Despite the insanity of the whole night, I fell asleep still smiling.