In the Company of Angels: Episode 2.2 – Rusty’s Big Adventure (cont.)

In the Company of Angels, Episode 2.2 – Rusty’s Big Adventure (cont.)

“What do you mean, ‘fell through the painting’?” asked Jill.

“Just what I said! Rusty found a piece of jewelry on the bookshelf and said he was going to keep it. I told him that was stealing, and he needed to put it back where he found it. Then I tried to take it from him so that it wouldn’t get lost, but he pushed me away. And that’s when it happened! He fell against the picture over there…” Kate pointed again at the picture, which was a large poster-sized fairy tale scene of a castle on an island surrounded by the sea. “And then he just…he just toppled backward, as if he was falling out of a window!!!”

The three stood silently, looking at the picture.

Sam bent toward Jill and whispered into her ear “Jill, you need to get Kate out of here for a minute or two. I’ll find Rusty.”

Jill looked hard at Sam. He nodded at her and pointed his thumb at the door.

“Kate, maybe something else happened…? Maybe Rusty is hiding or something. Let’s go see if he’s somewhere else in the house…you know, maybe he managed to slip out of sight somehow and is trying to play a trick on us. It would be just like him….”

“But, I know what I saw Jill! He couldn’t have left the room without my seeing him!”

“I believe you! But even so, we don’t want to get Aunt Cathy and Uncle Chris worried unless we’re sure, right?”

“I guess not,” conceded Kate.

The two girls left the room, and Jill gave Sam a questioning look as they left, but he just shook his head.

Jill and Kate looked in the closets for Rusty, and then in the living room and under the couch. Jill tried to take as much time as she could, hoping that Sam might know something about Rusty’s whereabouts that she did not. Finally, when the girls had exhausted all the possible hiding places downstairs (other than the dining room, since they didn’t want to alarm the adults just yet), Jill heard voices coming from the library, and the two returned there.

“Look, don’t you think maybe you just hit your head…?” they heard Sam saying as they walked in.

Rusty was shaking his head violently “Did not! Did not!”

“Well then, Rusty, why don’t you tell everyone what did happen?” Sam replied.

“But you were there! You came in and got me!” Rusty yelled. Sam said nothing.

“We were both right in there!!” Rusty yelled, pointing at the painting of the castle. “He just came in and pulled me back out again! We were on the beach! And there was water, and birds, and a castle, and everything!”

Sam shrugged. “OK, but if you really fell through the painting, maybe you can show us how it happened. Try it again.” He stepped out of Rusty’s way.

Rusty walked up to the painting, reached toward it, and then stopped, startled, when he felt the Plexiglass that protected it. “But…” he said, “but it wasn’t like that! I mean, just a minute ago!”

Jill had been watching Sam closely, and she saw him slip something into his pants pocket.

“Well, Rusty, whatever happened, you’re alright now,” Jill said.

“But Jill,” Kate said in a hushed voice, “I saw him fall through the painting, too!”

“Maybe you did,” said Sam, coming over to Kate, “but is it possible it was some kind of an illusion? I mean, there’s Plexiglas covering the painting, and maybe the light caught it just right and made you think you saw him fall through…?”

“Well, I don’t know…..” said Kate, looking up at Sam.

Sam lowered his voice. “Look, Kate, we need to try to calm Rusty down. He’s very worked up….”

They all three looked at Rusty, who was now punching at the painting with his fist.

Kate looked up dreamily into Sam’s eyes and smiled. “I see what you mean, Sam. I’ll see what I can do….”

“Rusty!” she said, “Stop punching that picture!! If you don’t calm down, I’m going to tell mom, and then you won’t get any cookies for dessert! And, we’ll have to go home early and then you’ll really be in big trouble!!!”

Rusty shot her a nasty glance, but it was clear that he was getting tired. He stopped pounding the painting and slunk away into the overstuffed chair. “…did so fall in! Nobody ever believes me….”

Jill and Kate looked at each other and giggled, and Sam relaxed a bit. Just then Jill’s mother called from the living room “Jill, honey, you want to come get cookies for everyone?”

“Come on,” she said to Kate, “let’s get dessert.”

The two girls left, and Sam went over to where Rusty was sitting alone. Rusty glared at him.

“You know what happened! You jumped in after me!”

Sam bent down so that his voice wouldn’t carry. “Of course I did, Rusty. But, sometimes that’s how magic works; one minute you fall through a painting, and the next minute you can’t. But we shouldn’t talk too much about this with the girls; they wouldn’t understand. You see what I mean?”

Rusty brightened up. “You mean it’s true then? I didn’t hit my head?”

“Well, magic is true, Rusty, but sometimes we have to keep quiet about it. Otherwise…” Sam looked around them confidentially. “…otherwise, people might start to think we’re both just weird in the head.” He pointed his finger at his temple and twirled it. “You know what I mean?”

Rusty nodded. “Yeah!”

“So, falling through the painting; that’ll be our little secret, OK? And maybe someday, when you’re a little bit older, you and I can try it again together. What do you think?”

“But why can’t we try it again now?!”

“Well, you did try it, didn’t you? And it didn’t work?”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Well, that’s the way magic is sometimes. I know it might be hard, but if you’re patient, I’m sure there will come other times when we can try it again and it will work, OK?”

Rusty looked at him suspiciously. “You’re not just making this up, are you? Just to shut me up? It really did happen, and I’m not crazy, right?”

“You’re not crazy, Rusty. But, I expect if you told too many other folks, they might think you were. So, mum’s the word, OK?”

“OK!” said Rusty, beaming.

The girls returned, and Jill was astonished at the change in Rusty, who suddenly, from her perspective, was no longer sulking. Rather, he came over to the table in the center of the room and enthusiastically helped himself to three cookies at once.

“You feeling better now, Rusty?” she asked.

“Sure….,” he said, stuffing another cookie in his mouth and winking at Sam.

Sam leaned toward Jill. “I’ll explain later,” he said, “Or, better yet, I’ll have Mr. Luke explain. You should come visit him at his studio as soon as you can.”

Before Jill could answer, however, all four of them were startled by an abrupt –- and very frightening — howling sound coming from just outside the library window!

Jill jumped up. “What on earth is that?!”

Sam stood up as well. “Something I thought might happen. But, don’t worry; I can make it go away.”

The sound got louder. It was a strange and eerie sound, like dozens of wolves howling from within some deep, metallic barrel. The voices of so many creatures coming, seemingly, from just outside the house chilled everyone to the marrow.

Sam looked around the library as if searching for something. “Quick, Jill, do you have a large mirror somewhere nearby? In a bathroom, or maybe in the living room somewhere?”

“Yes, in the bathroom in the hallway. There’s a full-length mirror just behind the door. Why?”

“Take me there. Just let me step inside for a bit; I won’t lock the door. But afterwards I’ll be gone.”

“Gone?!”

“Yes, gone. I’ll explain tomorrow. But, the howling will stop once I’ve left. No time to explain now….”

Jill grabbed Sam by the hand and they hurried down the hall together. Rusty and Kate remained frozen in fear in the library. Jill heard her mom, aunt and uncle stirring in the dining room; they, too, could not but help hearing the unearthly din, and they were coming out to investigate.

“Tomorrow!” Sam said. He entered the bathroom and shut the door. Almost instantly the howling ceased.

“Jill? Are you all OK?” It was Evie. She had just stepped into the hallway. “Where are the rest of you?”

“Rusty and Kate are in the library.”

“And where is Sam?”

Jill gently opened the door to the hall bathroom and peered inside. No one was there; Sam had disappeared!

At this point Jill didn’t know exactly what to do or what to say. Should she tell her mother about Sam disappearing? Should she tell her about Rusty, and his belief that he had fallen through the picture in the library? And what about her own experience putting her hand into the painting of the Piper? She knew she couldn’t lie to her mother, but what else could she do?

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           [To read Episode 3.1, click here….]

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