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Once the stroke of midnight struck the eerily empty campus, when it became the first month of the new year, silver fireworks popped into the clouds, rapidly firing to a whistling hiatus... Then pew-pew-pew... weeping white stars sank and lit up the darkness... The Misters gazed on.
The short raven-haired Mr. January shone gold on the front porch, head to toe to our amazement. It was pretty biblical and glorious to witness. Kind of stupid. And anything but innocent.
My main concern was identifying the slippery-as-fish killer especially before he became powerful and sent houses falling on us. Right now, Mr. January was powerful. Was it all over before I wanted to begin? I studied that white strand of hair. Hoping he wasn't the diarrhea killer, I watched for his next move as wizard.
He thumbed through the gilded pages, mumbling at us, “As president of the Chi Chi Chi chapter, and as Mr. January, my first wish to grant is our protection. The best that I found is this.”
His finger stabbed the book and showed it to us. Our sober faces huddled in. We were looking at a title: THE SENDING.
There was an intricate knotted design, and no other words. We frowned. Mr. January explained after inheriting the grimoire from his father and his father’s father, he was taught all he needed to know in a day. Such a man's man. So masc.
“To execute a spell, trace the line with a finger to finish tracing where you began.”
Mr. January replaced the dead guy as president, and he must have been that too much power withheld was deadly. He needed all months but December stood in the way of being president. And so, tchh, got rid of him. Almost. I studied his black, wet, wavering eyes. Mister Murderer, was it you?
He traced the Sending pattern. A long croak escaped the ghost’s strangled mouth. Mist foamed apart to tiny bubbles and spores. Just like that, the victim and curse was removed and gone forever.
The Misters heaved out a collective sigh. No longer tormented. Mr. January beamed, giddy with his newfound control. "Today's my birthday," he finally said. They now thought the worst was over, awaiting happier days ahead. And I let them.
Throughout his month, Mr. January charmed us boys as perfect 4.0 GPA students on the Dean’s list and made sure our debts were paid in full. Sweet, but I wasn't so easily bribed.
The Misters and I walked taller on campus, with swagger and much lighter load on our broad shoulders. Our reputation was back to shiny sterling status that our Mustangs returned to being sex icons. I held my tongue about the diarrhea killer, but I couldn’t allow the case to grow cold. It had to stay steaming.
I decided the easiest person to investigate was the dangerous but busy one. Mr. January was in his bedroom when he buried his nose into his book, enthralled but dissatisfied. “Mm not that one... mm, no...”
He looked up at me standing at his door. Something occurred to him, and made him ask, “Mr. December, you werent’t that haunted or harmed like us. Why?”
I shrugged. “He and I never met.”
Mr. January mulled it over. “I guess.”
"Where were you?" I asked quickly. "When he died?"
He didn't think much of it. In fact, he tuned me out, lost in something more important.
With endless possibilities in his hands, he was sure indecisive about it. I watched him ponder without moving. I reconsidered. That was unlike someone desperate enough to murder. Once Mr. January got what he wanted, he hardly seemed to know what he wanted to do with it.
"Maybe someone else should be president," I heard slip out of his mouth. "This is too much."
It was almost painful to watch. The month had gone by in a blink, and Mr. January, who hadn’t performed enough miracles, had finally stopped shining.
He groaned with frustration but smiled at the end of his mental torment. “I’ll have all year to think about it at least and so will you, Mr. December.”
Mr. February, on the other hand, was much more hungry about it, his crimson hair burning brightly from the roots. “You’d think Mr. January had some resolutions in mind... but no matter. I have less time. I know exactly what I am going to do.”
Mr. February restored all the hair that had gone white. He cleansed all our pores nearly more permanent than any skin care products I tried and tossed. Our teeth were better shaped, cleaner, and an expensive white. All the guys and girls swooned around us, begging and pleading to be our valentine. Unexpected visitors came by, ding-donging from the door.
"No STDs," Mr. February chortled, as quiet as crinkling foil, his finger tracing and stroking the page madly. "Safe unsafe sex galore! The preface to the perfect year!"
All of us were sluts, to be honest. Taking advantage of this strange opportunity in a month, but none of us remembered who did who. It was an erotic blur that left a wide trail of broken-hearted students and a really confused Chi Chi Chi house. If Mr. February was the killer, this would have cheapened the death. I scratched my head, knowing I was getting nowhere with speculation. I needed drastic measures.
On Mr. February's birthday, in a hallway, I asked more about who the dead guy was, what he was like, and did people like him? Mr. February was so flattered getting so much attention from a fraternity brother in such a narrow space he blurted everything. The old Mr. December was popular and well-liked, he was a leader and carried on the Chi Chi Chi legacy proudly like it was his own. He didn't have much open enemies other than his ex-girlfriend who was in a somewhat rival sorority herself.
"What about the Misters?" I asked.
"What about them?"
"Did they like him? Or were there any problems? Why did he want all twelve powers for himself?"
"Why are you asking so many questions?"
I couldn't answer. The redhead sighed, his freckled face finally empathizing, "Look, he's gone. He was forced to make peace with himself. Now it's up to us Misters to move on too. The circumstances surrounding his death, gruesome as it was, no longer matter. We clear?"
I nodded, totally unsatisfied with that, and wished him a happy birthday. I left him alone staring down the stairs to the cellar. It hit me later that I was told two stories: one where he died in the cellar, and one where he died in the foyer on the drawn pentagram circle. My first real lead... The cellar. Mr. February had his eyes on it though so I'd have to come back alone.
Mr. February stopped shining and Mr. March, the blond swimmer, began, then all that irresistible charm faded fast. The student body realized what had happened that month, growing more disgusted with our extremely risky debauchery. Like we were diseased and dirty.
Mr. March, by impulse, traced a spell that drove beer and liquor into everyone's hands, everyone but us. Even some teachers got sacked. Some were poisoned so badly they were taken to urgent care, but it was too late. They died. That was bad. But everyone focused on their tragedy, and it worked.
Mr. March was never the same after that. He slumped on the couch for hours at a time, his face buried under shaky hands and blond hair every other day. He never swam again. Didn't touch another drink. The guilt was too much, he feared he'd drown too. Mr. March performed no other miracles for the rest of the month. He skipped his birthday. Even though he was glowing and godly, he was lifeless. It was like he decided he was unfit to be a wizard and deserved punishment. Conscientious. Also unlike a diarrhea killer.
One breezy April day when the house was empty, I opened the cellar door expecting stairs that led down to murkiness.
I saw instead red stairs that led up to a bright alcove with a stained glass window of a rainforest. Mr. April the football jock with the wooly beard was there, admiring the solar colors and jungle flourish while his aura gleamed golden. I didn't mean to look so horrified but when he saw my face, he was alarmed enough to ask heyyyy... what was the matter... ?
The cellar! I wanted to shout. Where was the cellar? I snapped out of it. "New room?"
"Just a little something for me," Mr. April said gruffly. I studied the rainforest more. A sparkling jaguar was strangled with black roses and needly vines. Human skulls littered around blue dart frogs. "It's my birthday present."
"Oh happy birthday! I need to grab something from the cellar," I said as nonchalantly as possible.
He side-eyed me, "What cellar?"
Then the month of April really changed things. Mr. January was furious but joined Mr. March in giving Mr. April thunderous applause. The rest of the Misters applauded as well, because who had died in March came back alive in April.
The corpses strolled back on campus.
The tragedy became instead a confusing nightmare, and they blamed it on binge drinking and alcoholism. Everyone refocused on themselves, now that everything was numb and hazy. What was once reality was just a crazy afterthought. What tragedy?
This upset the old December's ex-girlfriend deeper than we expected. She was a brunette in a skirt banging on our door, demanding to know what happened to December.
"Open up! It's Anna!"
No one let her in.
Eventually she cried and gave up.
Mr. February and Mr. April seemed high on my suspect list already, but the more I thought about their wish-granting, helping improve lives instead of enslaving or ending them... they couldn't be killers either, could they? Or worse, was the killer actually a nice and likable guy? Shit, it could be anybody.
That didn't change the fact that the cellar was buried deep under a renovated room. The crime scene that the police didn't know about was sealed. They swept the foyer, not the cellar. What was down there could damn whoever blew old Mr. December up but now can't as it's covered up. My first real lead... and from the look of it, my last. Case is frostbitten cold.
Mr. April spent the rest of the month making himself an internationally famous wooly-haired model.
Exhausted with the Misters of spring, I looked to the Misters of summer.
Mr. May, Mr. June, Mr. July, and Mr. August talked excitably at the fireplace about what they would do when they were powerful. Mr. May who was silent all the time blinking his brown doe eyes too much, that Goliath warrior with hands that can snap your neck, confessed he was going to prank all of us. Heeheeheehee! His face distorted into a devilish troll's grin.
Mr. June threatened severe whiplash; a payback so bad he'd be sorry he rolled down a growing snowball. Then he repeated the words "severe whiplash; Mr. May" until Mr. May stopped giggling and realized he meant it literally.
"Other than that, I'd make the wish no wizard thought of to grant before." Mr. June stopped talking ominously, slowly put headphones in his ears, browsed his songlist, and retreated into the comfortable shadowy shelter his hoodie provided.
He ignored everyone until June. Mr. May left him alone, respectfully. But during May, the rest of us wasn't so lucky.
The rest of us woke up haunted by old Mr. December and blue flames once again that we all shrieked the highest pitched effeminate screams possibly conjured by our hairy Adam's apples. Mr. June wasn't around to hear it, but Mr. May recorded us on his phone. It was evil. It was great. We all guffawed in fits to tears. Mr. May's prank was perfect. And because of it, we hated no one more than him. I wanted him to be the killer, so so so badly. 688Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ43zhZ5OGSm
School was over for the summer. The thought of Anna nagged me still.
I pulled him aside and asked him to do me a little favor. "Sure thing, man," Mr. May said groovily. "I'm the wizard of the month!"
Yes you are, golden gorilla. I smiled, "Make me a cellar door in my bedroom closet. Don't tell a soul. Thanks."
Mr. May didn't understand it but at least he granted my simple humbling request.
Down in the cellar, I saw another drawn pentagram circle splattered with bodly fluids and burnt black. It smelled horribly acidic, like it was in Mr. January's room the first time he was haunted. Old Mr. December died down here, of that I was certain. Naturally the Misters would rather sweep this mess under the rug than wash their hands clean.
They didn't want me to see this. But why would Mr. May let me? Unless not all of the Misters were there to see it, I started to understand. Mr. February and Mr. April were there, I just know it though I can't explain it. It's still speculation. Still not enough.
I need damning proof. And here I was, at the crime scene. My phone shed light along the way. Then I saw it. A crushed birthday cake devoted to the December wizard.
My heart pounded so hard I'd thought there'd be another dead December wizard found in the cellar too. I felt sick and maybe even constipated. This suffocating basement reeking of death and sulfur... What an awful way to die.
Footsteps came down the stairs. Every Mister came down in the cellar, looking at me. Looking at everything as if for the first time. Mr. January stepped forward.
"Mr. December, what is this place?"
"What?"
"Mr. May told us you asked for a door to a cellar none of us knew we had."
Hearing that upset my stomach.
"Mr. April...?" I scoffed. "That was your birthday present, not just hiding the cellar, wiping the memory of it too? Why didn't you wipe mine?"
"Heyyy..." Mr. April raised a finger. "Innocent until proven guiltyy... We found you down here." The Misters murmured at the tainted pentagram circle. Things were looking stupid bad, and I had no way of backing out.
I calmed down. "Mr. May, do me a big favor? Make everyone remember what was erased. But none of you are going to like it."
The Misters consented. Once they remembered everything again, they yelled at Mr. April for messing with their heads. Mr. January and the Misters decided it was time to scrub the cellar clean.
"Not you," said Mr. July, the fattest guy in the room. His finger pressed me back onto the stairsteps. "You did enough."
"I'm just getting started," I retorted, stepping forward again. "In fact, let's get it out in the open while we're all here. Your old president was murdered. His sad sorry ghost whispered that in my ear before January. He didn't haunt me until my hair was white or hurt me until my body was blue. So that means one of you killed him here."
Mr. July knocked me out with a fat punch.
I barely woke up, most of my left side had swollen so much my battered eye squinted slightly open. Mr. July was glowing. He was the wizard now. He stood whispering with the other Misters. Mr. August, the bony guy, crossed his legs on the couch, strongly displeased with him. "You need to fix this! Not keep him in a coma!"
"He's the December wizard! Who knows what he's going to do to us!" Mr. July looked right at me, wondering if I was faking it. He didn't know for sure. "Screw it. As long as I'm wizard, he's not waking up "
I barely woke up again in August, bone-thin and starved. Still alive. I was as bony as glowing golden Mr. August who ironically spoonfed me soup and prolonged my death as long as he could. Mr. July disappeared. They said he dropped out and left town. Just mortified with himself and fled.
I almost felt sorry for him, but I hated Mr. July more than I hated Mr. May's prank. And here was Mr. August, waking me up. I still remembered everything at least. What about Mr. June?
"Oh he blew up. After Mr. July convinced him to keep you in a coma, Mr. June tried surviving all the powers, and it worked for a week, at most. Then at the bonfire, in front of everyone, pbbbft. Pop. Diarrhea rain. Now everyone hates the Chi Chi Chi again."
That was what Mr. June tried to do? Now there was no way to bring him back after such a grisly public stunt.
"Please," I said to Mr. August's surprise. "Tell me what happened to the old December."
"We don't know," he answered plain and simple. "We thought we knew. We were all there. We found him like that together, all of us. We panicked. We moved the body."
"Whose idea was it to move the body?"
"Mine," said Mr. September. Shirtless under his white jacket covered in snake and dragon tattoos, he stepped out of the shadows into the sunlight. "I was the last to arrive. I touched the body without thinking. If all of our fingerprints were on it, it wouldn't have singled any of us out and if we all said the same story, that it was some bodily failure we all were trying to save him from, then we all were in the clear."
I nodded slowly. Stupid reason ... but it worked. And it helped the killer get away.
"Who killed him, Mr. August?" I asked. "Work your magic."
"Believe me, I checked the book," said Mr. August. He shivered. "Some pages were torn out. Someone has some pages and we don't know what's on them. Whether it's a killer who wants to stay hidden or whether it's a future wizard intending to use them without any of us knowing."
If it was Mr. April or Mr. July or just someone else not coming to mind... Things were already getting out of hand. I sat up, groaning at how painful it was to move again. They told me to take it easy and let Mr. August heal me first.
Mr. August spent all month doing errands for Mr. January even on his birthday. The cellar was sealed again. The Misters decided that was best kept their secret. It didn't matter to me anymore, as I was starting to accept that maybe the killer should get away. I didn't know why I was fighting so hard to figure out who it was. Maybe that was just that, an ending and a different beginning, and none of us were in any danger. As long as we didn't get greedy.
That was just wishful thinking. When it was September, we found Mr. September golden and dead in his bed. His throat was slashed.
That was the day the Misters buried the body and told no one. We stopped trusting each other. Even they didn't trust me. I was here long enough to look like a suspect. Dumb theory. I can't believe I helped bury the body when there's a killer among us. But a second body at the Chi Chi Chi house? While I was a member? Now I understood why they moved the body and covered it up.
September passed without magic. The ghost of Mr. September didn't show up like we thought. The bald and nose-pierced Mr. October became wizard and brought Mr. September back first thing. The undead recalled nothing from how he died. He said nothing either, clawing and itching at his throat. Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.
Mr. October laughed, and laughed. He took one good enigmatic look at us before we all went to bed. In the morning, we saw his bags and everything he owned had gone with him.
"Wish I thought of that," the Misters mumbled with envy. October passed without magic at the Chi Chi Chi house as well. We stayed in for Halloween, plenty spooked. Mr. October didn't come back, and neither did Mr. July.
Mr. January kept his grimoire tight to his chest. It was Mr. November next. And after him... I would be the December wizard. If I survived long enough. What would I even do, once I got my power?
We waited in the foyer. Mr. November checked his luxe wristwatch and flipped through the pages. He kept looking at me, which worsened my paranoia. I noticed strangeness from Mr. January and the other Misters too. All of us were isolating and uneasy.
"Here," Mr. November tapped a page.
It read: THE CALLING.
"This will call the killer to us," Mr. November said tracing the pattern to completion. Mr. September gripped his throat. As he finished, the power to the house was cut. All went dark save Mr. November who continued to be our sole source of light.
No one came for a moment until...
Anna fired a gun at Mr. November's stomach, and his guts unraveled to the floor. She opened fire at other Misters. She pointed the gun at me, a fistful of pages in her other hand falling to the floor.
"Why?" I had to ask.
"My ex told me about the wizard of the month thing," Anna shrugged and kissed Mr. January on the lips. "I was supposed to sign that book. I wanted to be Mrs. December. Until you showed up and the Misters chose you."
"Oh," I started understanding everything.
Mr. January took the golden grimoire back into his hands. Mr. November lied there, bleeding out. Still shining. He snatched the pages and traced them. And when that was done, a deep gurgle escaped from Anna and Mr. January both. They clutched their stomaches.
Bang. I was covered in diarrhea rain. And it saved my life, in such an ugly way.
Needless to say, I took the grimoire for myself and ran. The Chi Chi Chi house was closed down for good. But that part of my life was over. Now it's December, and I'm feeling so great. I have everything I need at my fingertips. I just need to find the next eleven people who I can trust who was deserving of such power.
Who deserved to be the wiz of the month?
THE END
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