The Witchdoctor’s Son

Chapter 1- Coercion

I had a way with men.

No really. I’m not kidding. If I wanted them, I could have them. It always worked. Always. It made it a very interesting 21 years of life. Being able to have any man I want.

Gay or straight.

Girls never seemed to get it. I’d had some girls call me straight up ugly. But men. They seemed to love me. Perhaps it was my androgynous look. I’d been asked several times in my life if I was a really pretty guy or a handsome girl. I hadn’t tried to be. I wasn’t one of those guys who walked around wearing make-up or anything like that. I look in the mirror. My face was just the kind of face that men preferred. Now I wasn’t going to say I could get all men to just risk it all throw away their lives and run away from me. But let’s just say on a good day I could get any man to have sex with me. And on a bad day, I could at least convince any man that I wanted to kiss me.

It was the way my skin glowed dark chocolate hues and my lips curved like waves. My hair was long silky, black, and wavy, causing most men I walk by to stop and look again. Even when they were with their boyfriends or husbands...or wives. It was a strange thing. Men barely resisted. Gay or straight. I didn’t believe in those things. A man only thought he was straight until he saw me. How many times had it happened? Hundreds of times probably? I think. What happens is a straight man sees me and he stops. And he turns.

I’d become something of a local trickster around town and when the villagers picked up on it they started calling me The Witch Doctor. And started talking about these five families that lived on the island long ago before they were able to drive them out.

One day I broke down to my mother, “Why am I like this?”

My mother was pretty. It was her part of her profession to be pretty. But she’d never gotten the kind of compliments that I got from men. Or the stares. Or the constant attention from men. No one on the island did.

She shrugged, “You just have a way with men...”

“They say I’m a witchdoctor…” I ask, “What is that?”

My mother pauses. Her face goes kind of stiff. Her mouth tightens and she’s looking like she’s having trouble letting go of the words in her mouth.

“So back in the day,” my mother told me, “Before you were born. There was a coven of witches made up of five families that lived on this island. The Atwoods, The Boss, The Wrights, The Ferris, and the Bah. These were powerful. And...deadly...”

“That’s what these people are mad at? Some urban myth…”

“No REALLY! But that was a long time ago. Not anymore. But they were powerful. Oh, man. Very powerful. And they wreaked havoc in the lives of man. One day they just up and disappeared. Rumor has it that we drove them away to the City of Monsters.”

These people believed in the Five Families. It was something I’d heard about from grade school to high school. The legends of the five families. It was probably the biggest urban legend in the area. Every Halloween they gather around in the village’s center and perform a ritual that symbolized the day they drove the witches out of the village. I used to be able to attend, back before I slept with a little too many men.

I mean what else was I supposed to do? Moreen Island was beyond boring. And let’s just say once it became clear that I was so dangerous with men, I’d been labeled as a threat to society. No, seriously. I had to go to court and it was a huge thing on the island.

I still remember the speech.

“It’s become clear that we have a witch living amongst us,” they state, “Perhaps a new family has formed. It is our sole responsibility to contain this threat so that the world may not know the buried past of Moreen Island and the devils that we once inhabited with.”

It sounds like a joke. It’s almost laughable. I think I did laugh, to the outrage of the village elders. They were acting like this was 1850 or something. In this day and age, I thought people had gotten past this whole witch thing. We had cellphones now. We had google. We knew it was a fantasy.

Right.

Wrong. All the island elders refused to let me leave Moreen Island and there were women posted at the airport and docks with strict order on not allowing me to leave the city. I’d tried to manipulate my way out of this place at 18 a few times but it never worked.

“They just can’t take you, baby,” my mother told me.

When they saw me. They’d stop. They’d stare. And then there were the ones who would risk it all.

It made it a very interesting 21 years of life. Until the murders began. Young guys around town started getting murdered and people started thinking that it was magic. They always went straight to magic. They said it was some sort of blood sacrifice. That was the kind of magic that the five families used. Blood magic. The darkest and most dangerous sort of magic.

And that’s when people started to stay away from me completely. No one talked to me. No one came around me. People left burnt trash and sent me threatening messages all the time another boy went missing.

I’d lived like this for a year now.

Until him. The first boy that I’ve interacted within a year…

~

My story begins on a Sunday night.

“What made you choose this movie?”

“I’ve never seen it before,” I shrug, “Hopefully it doesn’t disappoint.”

“Clearly not. I mean—-not the movie. You! Jesus, you are so fucking sexy. Do you know that? It’s unreal…”

His eyes have been glaring at my facial features. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it.

I smile, “Oh thank you.”

We are in the movie theaters. It’s one of those late-night shows and it’s not a popular movie so no one’s really in here. We’ve been sitting in these seats for the past several minutes. My seat was a little bit more “Special” than his. He looks good. He has this rawness about him. The sort of fine you rarely found anywhere. He was masculine, very masculine. The kind of guy you never thought was going to be gay. I wasn’t going to let him know how nervous I was. I wasn’t going to let him know he made me sweat a little bit.

He can tell, “Why are you sitting so far away?”

“I don’t know. Just kinda want to get to know you first. Do you know? Watch the movie?” I shrug feeling a little weird as he glares at me from his seat, “I’m Gene Alexander.”

He barely mutters out a, “I know who you are. Everyone one the island knows who you are.”

I bite my lip, “The Witchdoctor.”

“I don’t believe in that shit. I’m Dre. I’ve seen you around at the fairs back in the day. I think your mother and my dad used to be friends. ”

I bite my lip. Knowing what my mother did, that could only mean one thing.

“Ok Dre, what do you do for a living?”

He seems a little nervous to answer.

“You first.”

“OK,” I state, “I’m a magician.”

He seems halfway interested for the first real-time. He lifts an eyebrow and says, "Really playing into the rumors huh?”

“I figure everyone says I’m a witch doctor. Might as well go with it. Maybe I can make some money.”

I shrug. They thought I was a freak already. Why not turn it into a show. Maybe people would be less afraid of me and I could somehow monetize the fact that I was able to turn men on.

Sometimes I don’t even mean to do it. Like now. I flash him a smile. I lean forward and touch underneath him, delicately. Every hair on his chin stands on end as I slowly slide my finger back. I turn his face completely towards me and I make eye contact. Then I squint slowly making sure that they are staring directly into my deep brown eyes. Slowly next comes the lick biting, drawing his attention there, sucking it slowly.

“Oh really?”

He leans in and he stares at my lips intentionally as though he’s either ready to kiss me or worship every single word I say until he musters up the courage. That’s how you know you really got a boy's attention. When they start looking at your lips. My mother taught me that when I was young. She learned it from her tricks. My mother was an escort. Not a trashy street corner one. Nah. There was a lot of old money on Moreen Island. There was a time a lot of people bought expensive vacation homes here. Those were more of her clients. Not that I was opposed to it. The truth is I didn’t have to. I had other ways of getting what I wanted.

And I always got what I wanted.

And right now I wanted Dre…

“I’m serious. I mean for money-- sure I sell a little weed, sell t-shirts, do hair, sew outfits, produce records for local artists and the hustle I love the most is magic.”

Money was kind of tight lately now that the entire island is staying away from me.

“You know I have to ask…”

I can already tell. Every time I say what I am boys always says the same thing. So I lean in towards him a little bit and I whisper over to him.

“You want to see a magic trick?”

“Sure, it’s a lot better than this stupid ass movie,” he responds.

He was right. The movie was wack. And now we had a conversation. Now we had something to vibe off of. What I find most attractive about guys is how attracted they are to me. There is nothing more romantic than a man who is smoldering over you. The kind of guy is all ripe with desire. He would do anything to show you he’s attracted to you even leaning in pretending like he’s interested in a magic trick.

Just like Dre was doing now.

I pull out a coin and flip it between two fingers. He smiles as though feeling amped up as I reach over to his face and balance the coin on the tip of his nose. Almost by magic, it stays completely balanced. I remove the hand and touch my nose.

And the coin disappears.

“Where’s it go?” he asks me, “It was touching my nose.”

“I don’t know,” I shrug, “You saw me remove my hand from your face. I was touching my own nose with the same hand. I couldn’t have removed the coin myself.”

“Is that it?”

I laugh, “You expecting more?”

“I mean,” He grunts and shrugs, “You made a stupid fuckin coin disappear. That was kind of dumb man. Show me something else.”

He’s a little rude. Aggressive. It made me want him even more. I like it when they are aggressive. I like it when they think they were in control.

“Fine. Before the end of the night, I promise to show you more…”

“Oh what you gonna do make the coin reappear?” he asks, “Where is it? Oh damn is it back in your pocket? Let’s check.”

He goes into my chair and starts searching around at that moment in this weird aggressive way that completely catches me off guard. He is grabbing everywhere. He’s rubbing on my dick. He’s rubbing on my balls. At first, I think it’s just a little odd but then he starts getting a little comfortable by the fact that I haven’t stopped him yet.

I mean he was cute but this was going too far. And that’s what he wanted. He was a strong fucking man and he wanted to prove he could get away with more.

“Hold on, man,” I state, “Can you stop? I don’t have the coin.”

“You liked that. Didn’t you? You got the coin on you somewhere. You just want to give me a reason to touch you.”

He starts grabbing me. He squeezes my dick so hard I yelp in pain. I try to push myself forward but he presses his hard hand against my throat. I’ve always been slim. I weighed about 140 at 5’9”.

I manage to bark out a, “Stop!”

I strike him across his face. I hit him hard enough for him to pull his head back and blink a few times. I think for a moment that this will be enough for him to get his senses about him but then I look in his eyes and see this deep rage that wasn’t there a second ago. All that desire had turned into nothing but anger.

“You gonna hit me, you little bitch, really? When I’m trying to show you, love?”

He just has this nastiness about him at that moment. He isn’t even attractive anymore. He’s just fury. There is this big vein that connects right above his eyes. When he’s talking, he’s spitting. It’s really filthy. He comes at me hard. He tries to aggressively restrain me and I resist as much as I can falling to the ground between the movie aisles.

He stands over me, “Damn your wheelchair is over there?”

I couldn’t walk. I hadn’t been able to walk since I was 4. In-person, I never had trouble really pulling someone’s attention, wheelchair, or not. I was attractive to anyone’s standards. High cheekbones, dark skin, masculine jawline, and a killer smile. And let’s just say I also had a certain ‘allure’ about me. Over the internet---it was another story. People saw the wheelchair and just clicked on the next photo. So for a long time, I deleted apps. I’d never hid the wheelchair. Dre had known about the wheelchair when he responded to my message.

He’d seemed a little aggressive when we’d first met online but this was a new Dre. This was someone completely different.

“Get off me!”

He’s on top of me. His heavy man body grinding me into the floor. His heavy body is over me. He’s so nervous that he’s sweating now. He’s sweating all over me. He takes advantage of the fact that I’m paralyzed. I can’t just get up and run. This is happening. I think. This is happening. He’s trying to tear at my pants I think. I think I know where he’s going.

He presses so hard into my wrists that they start to redden. On the other hand, he’s struggling at my waist. He’s bigger than me. He’s stronger. He’s in control and he wanted to make sure I knew it.

“Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck---it won’t hurt. It won’t hurt…”

I laugh.

I think it catches him as a surprise. It comes out of nowhere. He’d been trying to smother me with his hand. When I start laughing though, he stops focusing on my pants and looks up to meet eye contact with me. I’m still laughing and this seems to drive him crazy a little bit. He’s perplexed at my behavior.

Who laughs when they are being held down and brutalized?

Who in the world, but me?

“I’m sorry. It’s just you remind me of someone…”

“You slow or something?” he asks me, as though I had some sort of for real mental disorder, and all of a sudden his hard dick which was pressed up against me just a few seconds ago is somewhat limp up against my leg.

“No, you remind me of someone. What was his name? Andre Matthews.”

“How do you know that name?”

“Andre Matthews is a man who was caught going on gay dating sites, meeting gay boys, raping them and killing them. He was going to be arrested but fled the US right before his arrest. Some people say that he’s definitely abroad. Maybe on an island somewhere. Maybe an island like this one. And you know what’s so funny? Dre? You look just like him. Right there in the nose. Almost identical.”

Dre glares at me. His eyes are guilty and panicking as he realizes that someone had recognized him. He’s shocked that someone knows exactly who he is. And in that shock comes desperation.

He reaches for my neck! He locks it around my throat and he begins to choke as hard as he can.

As he squeezes my neck he tells me, as though they are going to be the last words I hear, “You should have kept our mouth shut, cripple.”

He’s choking me and I feel faint as he gets harder and hard. I mutter out the words, “Stop….!”

He choked harder.

“Stop…!” I scream again before staring at him right in the eyes muttering, in a soft calmer voice, “No seriously...you are under my control….you are under my control...you are under my control. Stop.”

He stops moving. He’s still on top of me but his whole body had gotten completely still as though stuck in time. That’s when he looks around. His head is moving now. That’s about it. He keeps looking at his hands. He looks at me. He looks at his fingers. He turns his head and looks down at his legs.

“I...I can’t move…” he states.

“It never gets old,” I state, “I don’t get to do this much. My mother used to say that if I did I’d be in trouble. Papa Midnight would come to get me. Back then you believed in fairytales. You believed in magic. Do you believe in magic, Dre?”

“You’re not doing this to me. There’s no fuckin’ way you are doing this to me.”

He laughs as though he’s going mad. He probably thinks there is some reasonable explanation about it. He’s digging through his brain wondering what class he missed that explained something like this. Hypnosis. No. Not quite.

“Help me up,” I instruct him, “Take me to my chair.”

“What---the---what the FUCK!”

He’s shocked because he’s doing exactly what I say. The entire time he walks over to me, picks me up, and puts me in my chair he is talking to himself. If he thought he was losing his mind when he was about to rape me, he had something else coming to him. This was sending his mind into a whole different place.

When I get to my chair, I look at him and smile.

“Take two steps forward. Two steps backward.”

He does what I say.

He mutters out weakly at that moment, “This isn’t possible. This isn't…”

I called them Blabberings. They happened when people resisted giving me what they want. They were always the same. They always went through that state of denial, then possibly a state of confusion, followed by a state of anger. And then finally acceptance.

I needed a way to skip a few steps.

“Pull your dick out.”

He whips it out. It was a very plain looking dick. It was extra veiny and had a humongous head but there really wasn’t much length or girth to it.

I shake my head, disappointed, “All this trouble because you wanted to get that thing off? Such a shame. Well if you haven’t noticed...Andre, you are completely under my control. That’s the way this works. Don’t ask questions because I don’t know. All I know is that when I was born I was able to make people do exactly what I want…”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” He promises, “I liked you. I swear. Please. Please don’t hurt me...or make me hurt myself or…”

He accepted it quickly. The first sign of acceptance is this sort of begging.

“See I can do magic. Just like the five families. I have limits to this ability,” I explain to him, “Such as it only works on men. Another issue with this ability is of course I can’t control what you say. Seems like magic these days is prone to free speech.”

“HELP!”

“Hit yourself every time you scream for help again,” I state.

He stops, his eyes getting wide as he realizes how serious of a predicament he’d found himself in today, “You...you can do that?”

I nod, “I can. You probably assumed I was some helpless boy in a wheelchair. And today I would make one of your easiest marks. That didn’t work out for you. I read about the things you’ve done. I’ve been looking for you quite some time. Risked having Papa Midnight come and grab me up to use my magic one more time. Just for you.”

The first time was an accident. So was the second time. The third time I knew what I could do and used it to get 150k out of a bank. The money ran out in a year so I tried to do it to a 4th guy but it went horribly when the cops showed up and he told them I was an accomplice and got arrested. The charges didn’t stick and almost going to jail changed everything.

All of a sudden I realized I just felt like a Disney prince with one more wish for his genie. And the story popped up about Andre Matthews. And for the first time in my miserable life, I decide maybe, just maybe I can do something that wasn’t completely fucking selfish for once.

He’s tearing up. That’s one thing I could never control either. The few times I had used this ability, they always seemed to tear up.

“You in a deal with the devil?” he asks.

“No. I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t know. Papa Midnight isn’t that. I don’t think. If I use my power five times...Papa Midnight comes to me. That’s the only thing my mother knew about my magic. It’s the only thing she learned from my dead dad. She said he was like me. But I never knew him. You should feel special, Dre. You are number 5.”

“ What you gonna do with me?”

“I’m not a monster. I’m really not. But I can’t just let you go around hurting people. So I’m going to give you two choices,” I tell him, holding back from a grin forming in my mouth, “The first option I will instruct you to walk to the nearest police station and confess to all the crimes you didn’t get caught for.”

“What---what’s the other option?” he asks.

He’s nervous.

“Cross a road with your eyes closed.”

“I’d take that…”

“Ok fine. Andre, you are under my control. Get in your car. Drive to the interstate. Pullover on the side of the road when you pull up to the interstate. Cross the interstate with your eyes closed.”

“Wait...I take it back. WAIT!”

“Too late,” I state, “You’ve already convinced me.”

“Wait please…”

He gets up at that moment and starts walking out. Halfway across the room, I stop him.

“Wait before you leave check your breast pocket?”

He reaches in his breast pocket.

“The coin?”

I smile as I wave goodbye to him, “I told you I would show you another magic trick.”

~

It’s cold that night. I wheel down the handicap ramp onto the street leaving the movie theaters. The chilly bite is so nippy that I breathe out and see it. I had no idea where I was going to go. Miami? Dallas? I don’t care how I was going to get there. I’d make it work. I was tired of Moreen Island. People were so small-minded here. I needed to get out. I’d always made it work.

I start to wheel down the street. I’d have to find my room, get the few things I owned and get to the airport. It was a hustle from there. But it was always a hustle.

“Gene…”

There was a man standing there. He’s dressed in all black. He has face paint on around his eyes. His eyes were dark as well. He’s tall and thin. I notice black dreadlocks swinging from side to side.

“How do you know that name?”

“Your father sent me.”

He had a deep Louisiana accent. It’s so thick that I can barely understand what he’s saying. He sounds like he came straight out of the bayou. When I don’t respond he repeats himself two or three more times. It makes me think he’s used to people not understanding what he’s saying.

“Fuck off. My father’s dead…”

“It’s lucky then that I communicate with the dead…”

I give him a look. A hard look and the first thing that comes to mind is the first thing that comes out of my mouth, “Fuck off.”

I say it blunt and I mean it blunt. I turn my wheel away from him and start to roll away when I feel him grab my chair and stop me.

“What’s your name?” I ask him.

“Leon Staten.”

“Leon Staten, you are under my control. Let go of my chair.”

For a moment he releases but then as though pushing against it he grabs onto my chair again. I stare at him in disbelief as it happens unsure of if I’m seeing everything right. This has never happened before. No one has ever denied me. Not unless they’d come with a vagina. All of a sudden I’m trying to remember my mother’s warning. Was it that Papa Midnight was going to come and get me? Or was it something else.

I’m confused.

“You are under my control. You are under my control. You are under my control…”

Nothing. He continues to move. He makes a joke about it, finding it amusing as he moved from side to side to show that nothing is working on him.

As though he predicts what I’m worried about, Leon Staten says, “Nothing is wrong with your power. It just is a lot harder to make it work on people like me.”

He says it confidently. As though he knew what I could do. No one knew what I could do except the people who I’d used it on before and my mother. And let’s just say none of those people were in positions to be talking to anyone after I was done with them.

“People like you?” he asks.

“Yeah. People like me. Who are people like you? Witchdoctors,” he tells me.

All of a sudden it occurs to me that this person has a reason to be here in this moment. He had a reason and I didn’t think I was going to like it. See, I didn’t trust people. I didn’t let people in. As far as I was concerned if someone shakes your hand you’d better check the other one because they probably had a knife in it. You didn’t trust anyone. My mother had taught me that the hard way I had to watch hundreds of men running through her like she was nothing. She’d make hide in the closet a lot of the times when her tricks came over. She wasn’t always like that. Once she was beautiful, young, and smart. And then she let people in. And it tore her apart.

My mother her tricks. And I had mine. Mine were magic tricks. But for some reason, I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew there were others. The five families of Moreen Island. I’d heard the stories. And somehow I knew I was one of them.

Somehow I knew I belonged with them.

“You can control men?” I ask.

I should getaway. I should just leave. I can push him away from my chair. I can just bounce. I want to in a way but then I remember this man was able to block my

“No, your gift is special. I won’t deny that. There’s no witch doctor in this world who can do what you do. But there is one who is dead. Your father. He had the gift of coercion. He could control anyone. Man or woman.”

I’m shocked, “Seriously?”

“It is a rare trait brought out from unspeakable sacrifice. But see the thing is...people like me...can make people like you much stronger.”

I’m intrigued. I have to admit. There was something about this man. Something strange. What if he was telling me the truth. I had never met someone else who had gifts. Not really. I mean you heard whispers here and there of strange people who were able to do strange things but none of them turned out to be real.

“How?”

Leon walks behind me. He puts his hand on my shoulders, not touching my chair. He leans down so that his head is pressed right above my shoulders.

“See that boy there?”

There is a boy who walks up to me. He’s handsome, tall and burly. His chest spans two of minds. He’s walking past and turns to me just slightly making contact. Usually, people didn’t stare too long. I think it had to do with my handicap. But this guy kind of stares for a bit.

“You can coerce him into doing anything you want him to do, can’t you. It makes you more potentially dangerous. And as soon as that person is done with the orders you give them the control ends. What if it didn’t?”

The burly man walks past me. He smiles. I smile back.

“How’d that work?”

“What if you can control him forever. And not just actions. What if you could control his heart?”

I look up at him. He clearly knew about my gift. But he was mistaken. I couldn’t make someone fall in love with me. I’d tried to control someone’s feelings once. It didn’t work. I could only control their actions. I could make a man sit in the house with me all day. I could make him smile. I could make him have sex with me for hours. But he wouldn’t be mine. His heart and his mouth would reject me.

Or so I thought.

This man had clearly sought me out. What a weird time to be having this conversation. How’d he find me? How’d he know who I was? What if he was telling the truth?

“You have the power to do that?”

“I can amputate your magic using my own gifts. If you help me I’ll help you.”

I should have known it. Witchdoctor or not this man was nothing more than a man. They always wanted something back from you.

“What do you want?”

“There’s a competition. A competition you qualify for because of your bloodline. I need you to win it. But it won’t be easy. There will be people like you.”

He made this request sound easy. For some reason, though looking at him I didn’t feel as though he was the kind of man who became entangled in easy things. I didn’t trust him. Not even of the bat. Something about the way he looked at me. Something about the way he appeared. But then again I didn’t trust anyone. People were there to be used. You get what you can from them. You wring every last drop that you can and you move onto the next sucker. That’s the way the world works.

And I’m wondering if I just found my new sucker.

But not that easily.

“You’re going to have to prove it,” I tell him.

“What?”

“Prove you have the power that you say you do.”

The strange man stands over me. And I think I’m a fool for even letting him do this. But I remain patient allowing him to do what I can only describe as some ancient African dance around me. It comes with its own soundtrack of chanting and a bag of rocks unhooks from his pajama suit being tossed from one hand to another. I remain patient through this as well. All the while I’m looking at this man as though he has no idea what he’s doing.

Afterward, he hands me a mirror. It’s a handheld mirror. Old and fancy. It’s quite beautiful actually.

“My gift to you,” he states, “I have blessed it. And now it ties us together.”

I look down at the mirror. My mind is perplexed with the gift that he’s given me and I’m amused by how ancient this thing looks.

“What do I do with it?”

“Walk....”

I turn to her and am almost offended she would say something so stupid, “Don’t you see I can’t walk…”

“You can make any man in the world do anything you want him to do. You know that. Aren’t you a man?”

“Exactly. I’m just a man. There’s somethings I can’t fucking do…”

“You aren’t just a man. You have no idea who you are.”

There’s something so certain about him. The way he’s looking at me makes me feel nervous. I can’t describe it. It’s the way someone looks at something that they expect to do something expected. The only way I could possibly describe how Leon Staten looked at me is that it is the way you stare at a firework when a fuse is lit.

“I’m Gene Alexander…”

“Your father was a powerful witchdoctor. The most powerful witchdoctor in history. And you are his son...get up and follow me. I can make you an even greater withdoctor than him.”

He wanted me to leave with him. Right after I used my fifth power this was happening. This couldn’t be a coincidence. I didn’t believe in that. You couldn’t trust anything in this world. Not even chance.

I glare at him, “And you are Papa Midnight…”

He doesn’t seem surprised by the name. He even laughs when I say it. He shakes his head though, “No. That’s just a story. I’m just a man who needs your help. Because I know who you are. I know who your father is.”

“Who?”

“Your father is Genesis Bah.”

There’s something about the name. It drives something inside of me. I don’t know what it is. But I know that it stirs something true out of me.

I get up. I take a step. And with that step, I become Gene Bah. The next generation of the Five Families.

First I was going to walk. Then I was going to run. Then I was going to fly....

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