In Laymon's Terms

Through it all, there’d been no one to liberate Leonard from her mistreatments and molestations. Relatives on her side of the family were pretty much nonexistent, at least as far as Leonard knew. There had been Nana, of course—Mother’s mother, and a Wicked Grandma if ever there was one, at least until she’d gone to her grave when Leonard was sixteen. It was from Nana that his mother had acquired her cruelty. And her power...

As for his father, he had persevered for several years, but his eventual abrupt disappearance was testimonial to Mother’s overpowering aura. The poor man had clearly had all he could take. And Leonard’s sister, well, she had tried to cope with Mother in her own way, but in the end, her strong will—inherited from her maternal family tree, no doubt—had led her to rebel, and she had simply left one day, never to return.

Mother, meanwhile, went on with business as usual while her family fell by the wayside. She had always been a reclusive sort, but her hibernations had taken on agoraphobic proportions when Nana died. With her passing, Mother inherited the all-important secrets that the elder witch had hoarded until her dying day. Within a few weeks of the funeral, Mother had severed all ties with the outside world—although those ties had largely consisted of monthly consorts with twelve accomplices in locked-basement rituals. The strange sounds that emitted from that subterranean chamber were often sufficient to drive Leonard from the house—temporarily, of course. Once armed with Nana’s matriarchal wisdom, Mother had dismissed her former peers and carried on alone. The basement became her private sanctuary; no one else in the family had been allowed to venture down there in over a decade. Whatever toys, comics, and other possessions of Leonard’s that had been left or stored in the basement became forever lost to him once she barred the door at the top of the stairs.

Flying solo, Mother had become even more obsessed, performing her rituals with increasing frequency and fervor. The secrets that had finally been revealed to Mother began to ferment in her brain, proving to be a catalyst, transforming her from an insignificant practitioner to one of frightening potency—and driving her over the edge into stark lunacy.

What it all meant now, though, was that there were no close friends, no caring relatives to notice her absence. For that, Leonard was extremely thankful. But would he be able to maintain his composure, his guise of innocence and ignorance, in the face of suspicious questioners? He was afraid not. He particularly doubted if he possessed the strength to stand up to police interrogation, at least not the way he imagined such a session:

“Where’s your mother, son? What did you do with her?”

“I didn’t do anything with her. She...she just disappeared.”

“Disappeared, huh. Killed her and buried her in the yard, didn’t you?”

“No, no, of course not.”

“Don’t lie to me. It’s written all over your face. You ungrateful despicable little shit.”

“No. No. You don’t understand. She hurt me, she...”

It would be at least that bad. Or worse. Under the hot lights, his resolve would crumble like stale Saltines. It was too horrible to even contemplate.

And if he tried to tell them of the experiments that Mother had tried on him, the crimes she had perpetrated—they’d never believe such awful things of a frail old lady. And even if he could convince them of her evil, they’d most likely come to the conclusion that immorality and instability ran in the family. After all, witchcraft had been considered the province of the deranged for some centuries now.

Thinking of Mother’s treatment led Leonard to absentmindedly rub his wrists, massaging scars that had long since faded—physically, if not emotionally. His return to the here-and-now was accompanied by the realization that his bladder was uncomfortably full. Pushing himself away from the varied piles that constituted his desktop, Leonard rose to go to the washroom.