Previously in the Vines Inquiry— Reading deeper into Blevin’s Inquiry research at the diner, Frank and Harlow were shocked to find Harlow’s parents (Lillian and Thomas Voorhees) photographed at an Inquiry meeting as teenagers. Meanwhile, Jean the waitress remarked on several strange deaths that had happened on Carlisle in years past… A lot of them during blizzards much like this one.
Jean shrugged and walked off, likely to refill her own Christmas coffee.
“I can’t believe my… My parents,” said Harlow. “My parents still go to church every Sunday.” Lillian and Thomas Voorhees smiled up at them from the picture.
“And probably to an Inquiry meeting right after,” said Blevin. Frank and Harlow glared at him. “I’ve never actually been, but most people are off on Sundays. It would be convenient. It’s just a theory! And why didn’t we get something called a Christmas coffee?!”
“Lower your voice,” said Frank. He hunched over with Harlow, doing a poor job of inconspicuously looking around the diner. “This is worse than I thought. It isn’t just my parents. My family. Can’t be. Even if people are new. Amateurs. Or at the least whatever the secret society rendition of a virgin is.”
“Initiate,” said Blevin and Harlow.
“With all this,” Frank took the book back and tapped the film reel. “They’ve been doing it for more than forty years. We’re up against pros. Not to say it’s hopeless.”
“Oh, of course not!” said Harlow. “After all, you’re a hotel manager! You can comp them to death. Or hey! I’m a former cheerleader with a sizeable Instagram following. Maybe I can ask them to do a collab up on the Hughes House path and one of them will fall off the cliffs! The possibilities are endless!”
The tension thickened around them like overworked pancake batter; or, colloquially, McCroy’s pancake batter. Blevin sighed and seesawed his fork between two fingers. Finally, he perked up again. An idea?
“Harlow, I didn’t know you were on Instagram. What’s your @?”
She picked up her (butter) knife, only stopping herself from stabbing the man across the table at the last second.
“And you’ve got knife skills? I’m sure those will come in handy when we’re fighting against the Gifts. Or is that wrong?” said Blevin. “I just assumed we’d be fighting them. Have I misread this whole meeting? Are we hoping to join up with the Inquiry before the New World comes, cause actually I’m way more prepared for that.”
“Fighting them, Blevin. We’re fighting them. Or we’re showing them the error of their ways… Kindly, gently. Kindly and gently but firmly gently,” said Frank.
“Frank,” said Harlow, stopping whatever that spiral was.
“They’ve just got a head start, that’s all. The storm started, and so did they.” Frank flipped over his paper menu, grabbed a half-used crayon from the next booth over and made a numbered column. “There are eight Gifts, right?”
Blevin smiled. “Well, some scholars have argued that there are eight but—”
“Are you some scholars, Blevin?” said Frank. It wasn’t an insult, but it was also barely a question. Blevin nodded. “Okay, so, from here, let’s stick with what we’re sure we know about demon worship.”
“I seriously cannot imagine trying to argue with someone like you,” said Harlow. Frank sighed. “What? That’s basically a compliment!”
“Seven,” said Blevin, quickly. “Seven pieces of Feenuín. Seven Gifts. Exactly what they are…heavily-guarded info. No one except Inquirers are even supposed to see the sacraments. The fact that your father recorded one is already a huge breach in procedure. I’m a little embarrassed…”
“Also didn’t think that was possible,” said Harlow.
“Thank you. But up until I saw that, I figured they were objects. Artifacts like the ones the Inquiry made out of alkaline jade. Now, it looks like they’re something a little more…gory? Gorier? Fleshy! That’s it. Speaking of, have you touched your father’s throat recently?”
“Wut?” said Frank. Blevin turned to him and put one massive paw around the side of Frank’s neck. His fingers pushed in, firm, against the base of Frank’s skull.
“Like this?”
Blevin stared into Frank’s eyes, searching gently. Frank imagined it must be like sifting through a junk drawer full of tetanus-covered knives. He let Blevin poke around for a second, wary of the man’s comfort with touch and that he’d thought of his inner self as a ‘junk drawer.’
After a deeply pregnant moment, Harlow coughed. “Should I go?” Her eyes bounced between the two boys.
“No,” said Frank, removing Blevin’s hand. “I haven’t.”
Blevin shrugged and turned back to Frank’s menu-as-document. “His neck might not even feel different. It could be gone by now. The Gifts aren’t permanent. A few of your ancestors found that out the hard way.”
“But what are they?” said Frank. “Even if you don’t have step-by-step instructions, you’ve got to know something.”
“There’s gotta be a creepy song at least,” said Harlow. “A ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ remix?”
Blevin nodded, snapping his finger into a gun pointed at Harlow. She looked at Frank, gesturing towards Blevin’s five-fingered revolver.
“Not this.”
“It’s not a song…yet,” said Blevin. He stole the crayon for a moment and jotted ‘make song’ on the menu. Then, under it: ‘get dry cleaning.’
“Give. Me. The crayon,” said Frank.
Blevin handed it back, somehow smiling, while a hypothesis that the not-in-the-Inquiry-but-really-into-the-Inquiry librarian might be insane gained some strength in Frank’s mind.
From his library pile, Blevin took a leather-bound book and set it open on the table, doing his best to avoid sticky spots.
“‘Ambitions of the Sacraments,’” Frank read aloud.
“Really? Out loud?” said Harlow.
Frank had to agree, so he pushed a few quarters into the mini jukebox’ slide before hitting a few random combinations to get background music going. Apparently, the tourists had deep pockets but very little change.
“Wait, wait!” said Blevin, too late as Frank entered his last, random song choice.
“Sorry,” said Frank. Harlow rolled her eyes. “Next time.”
“There will not be a next time if you two don’t get your heads on straight—that was not an innuendo, so don’t even try me, Frank—and learn how to defeat the Vineses.”
“Your family, too!” whined Frank.
“Oh, barely,” said Harlow. “Blevin, the floor is yours. Do not look at me like that, Fran. Who knows what kind of demon words are in there? We could be here all night just cause you never got picked for popcorn reading.”
“Mrs. Holt purposefully skipped me!”
It was Blevin’s turn to cough. “Sorry, it’s just, what if the food comes and we’re still, you know?”
He quietly read to the table once the jukebox music began to pipe in from the speakers around the restaurant.
“Give a ‘Why’ to the ‘Die’—Ambitions of the Sacraments,” quoted Blevin. “By Fafsy Vines, 1765.” He read:
“To ensure a Vines growth and proliferation in this world, to foster a connection to the Other, to breed the New. Inquirers must embolden themselves to earn a Gift. Each with its own intrinsic qualities and purpose in an effort to more fully serve Feenuín and bring Her forth from the Cold Heaven.”
Blevin paused for dramatic effect. A vacuum broken by Jean coming back with their meals.
“See!” he said.
“Keep going, culty,” said Harlow. “And pass the ketchup, please.”
Blevin put down his water-spotted silverware and continued:
One Gift that they may Breathe life into the New World
One that they may Taste the salt of worthy toil and Speak the truth of it
One that they may Feel what is and mold what must come
One that they may Cross each far corner
One that they may Protect those who would question
One that they may See the Old World, the New and discern the difference
One that they may Hear beyond Feenuín’s Call, that they may Hear the Answer
When Blevin stopped, the essay complete, Frank decided the day was hard enough and that, yes, he did deserve extra butter on his pancakes. “That’s annoyingly vague.”
“Especially for something so italicized,” said Harlow. The writing in the book ended there, but Blevin continued, reading an inked note from the margin.
“‘And one that may join them in Rhythm. -RV, ’79,’” said Blevin as he read the handwritten addition.
“Richard Vines.” Frank rubbed the three wrinkles on his forehead. “I recognize the chicken scratch, though I can actually read this. We’re being dumb. And we need to be smarter. Especially if my dad figured out this last one. The ‘join them in rhythm guy.’”
“I don’t care which world it is, Old or New, I’ve never known any man in your family to have rhythm,” said Harlow.
“L-O-L.” Frank took an angry bite of bacon, threatening to ruin the taste. Luckily, it was diner bacon, and nothing can ruin that. “If we’re going to beat them, we have to catch up. We know there’s seven of these…pieces. If I’m believing everything we’ve seen and heard so far, which feels like the only option that wouldn’t mean I take myself up to Hughes House and go forever night-night, we have three accounted for.”
Frank wrote the list of the Ambitions on the back of the menu.
This was crazy.
It was insane.
He could do it.
He was meant to do it, right? If Richard and Rosalind were Inquirers? Thirteen generations of work, at least some of it had to rub off on him. Right!?! Frank’s mind started to answer the question, pulling disparaging evidence from his parents’ past comments on his various (lack of) abilities. He did his best to hush it, focusing in on the work ahead of them.
The questions.
No such thing as a stupid one, Frank thought. And maybe for right now, please, there can be no such thing as a stupid son, either.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but ‘Feel’ should match up with hands.” Blevin and Harlow nodded. “Okay, so that’s my mom. The lungs hanging on my back patio I’m betting on the mad woman I saw walking naked through the snow. Stop, I saw her, Harlow! That’s gotta be ‘Breathe.’”
Frank’s crayon slipped hard across the paper as he shuddered from a bang!
The door to McCroy’s slammed open.
Thanks for reading! Comment to let me know who you think walked in the diner 😈