Fate Twister

1 WAYNE GAMM-2

Rhiannon had very intense powers of concentration and she looked after her own as everyone would like to be able to.

It had scared her husband into an early grave, because he was frightened to tell his wife anything, lest something happened and he would feel responsible.

He had been a good man and his conscience had not been able to bear that, no matter what anyone had done to him.

Samuel was the typical, proud, doting father with his new-born son, for the first few months. He and Gwynedd took Wayne into the hills with the sheep, if the weather was fine and they took him to the market in the village on Saturdays when Sam would parade his baby around in his pushchair. However, gradually a feeling of rejection and even jealousy caused by the transformation of Gwynedd from a young lover into a mother caring for her first baby began to replace the pride of being a new father and Sam started to drink more, and with that he become more and more irritable.

Naturally, Sam didn’t blame his son for this state of affairs, but he did start telling Gwynedd not to ‘mollycoddle the boy’ and several times he forced his attentions on her when she protested that she was too tired.

Gwyn was not happy with the way Sam was changing, but then she also knew that he was not happy with her either. Rhiannon tried to stay neutral and rarely said anything on the subject, but in reality she sided with her daughter and thought that Sam was being unreasonable.

Minor arguments soon became blazing rows with Wayne crying in his cot in the corner of the small living-room and his grandmother trying to pacify him. Sometimes, they would all be crying when they thought of what had become of their happy little family.

One evening, when Wayne was about six months old, Sam started an argument because his dinner was not to his liking, but he knew that that was only an excuse. He was shouting at Gwyn and standing over Wayne when he screamed:

“You care more about him than you ever did about me. You only want me around so’s I can provide an income for our two witches and your precious baby. Neither of you give a damn about me anymore, as long as I’m fit enough to go to work… Well, do you?” He was jabbing his finger a everyone including Wayne, who was becoming used to the tantrums and rarely cried anymore.

“I can’t eat that swill, I’m off to the pub!”

Neither of them remonstrated with him, because they knew that there was no point. He snatched the car keys off the mantelpiece and made for the door to the hall, but tripped over the tiny threshold, fell and hit his head hard on the wall in the hall opposite. Blood trickled from a lump forming rapidly on his forehead. With a loud curse, he picked himself up, opened the front door and slammed it behind him.

They listened in silence as the car started up and drove off at high speed. Then they smiled at each other.

“Serves him right!” said Gwyn and they both laughed. Wayne reacted to the change in atmosphere and began to chortle as well. They both looked at Wayne and said something appropriate for a baby.

“Sam will have a nasty bump tomorrow, he took quite a fall there and his headache will be more than just a hangover. He shouldn’t have been so aggressive to little Wayne… You don’t think that he had anything to do with Sam’s fall, do you?”

“Sam is only jealous. He’s just adapting to not being the only man in your life and not having your undivided attention. I’m sure he doesn’t really blame anyone, it’s quite normal. Isn’t it?

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking about Sam’s accident just now?”

“I think I am. We were both shown more than six months ago that it would be dangerous to upset Wayne, which was why I couldn’t have him delivered in the hospital. If a strange doctor had slapped his bottom to start his breathing, who knows what might have happened? Still, it looks like we were being overcautious. Perhaps, his powers are only just starting to wake up”.

“Have you ever warned Sam about Wayne?”

“No, it wasn’t necessary at first and then, when the rows started, nothing happened, and I just sort of forgot”.

“He will need to be told, Gwyn”.

“Yes, I know, Mam, I’ll do it as soon as we’re talking again, but that fall could just have been an accident… Perhaps, he wouldn’t hurt his own father”.

“We don’t know, do we, Gwyn? We just don’t know that yet, my dear”.

It was two days later that she had the chance to talk to her husband. Gwyn had arranged for her mother to give them thirty minutes of privacy, but to then come in so that she could ask her to confirm what she had said, as if unrehearsed.

“…and that’s the long and the short of it, Sammy. You know that Mam and I have the second sight, you believe that already. Well, we were both shown that Wayne would be able to cause things to happen… perhaps things from someone’s own future, to compress their Fate, or give it a twist, so to speak. We’ve been waiting for evidence that it is true.

“Your fall the other evening after losing your temper in front of Wayne and pointing at him like that, may have been the first instance of him performing or it could have been a pure accident, we don’t know.

“I’m only saying this for your own safety, so you can’t say that I didn’t warn you. I think that you ought to take care, cariad. I love you and don’t want anything to happen to you”.

“Well, thanks for the warning, but I don’t believe that that is possible, my dear. I have respect for your powers and your mother’s, but you must both have got it wrong this time. You make our little Wayne sound like one of the X Men, but he’s not. He’s just a lovely little boy, who has turned our lives upside down and I hate myself for feeling bitter about it sometimes, but that’s how it is. I do feel like that sometimes, and I know that it’s wrong, but… I suppose I’m only a man, not an X Man, and I miss not getting all my beautiful wife’s attention and the only one I can blame is little Wayne. I know it’s not his fault, and I hate myself for thinking it.

“We made Wayne, you and me, and I know that you have to take care of him, I know all that, but knowing it doesn’t make the loneliness any easier to bear”.

“I know, my dear, but I’m sure that what I have told you is correct. Mam feels the same as well”.

Rhiannon entered right on cue.

“Mam, I was just talking to Sam about Wayne being special. Could you tell him what you think? Perhaps, that will persuade him”.

Rhiannon told the same story but in her own words, and Sam came a little closer to believing them.

“But he’s not going to hurt his own family, is he? It just doesn’t make sense that he should bite the hands that feed him”.

“Fate shows no favouritism, Sam. Whoever does wrong gets repaid in like kind, as do those who do good, whoever they are, family of not. Universal laws operate the same for everyone, and anyway, not all parents are good to their children. Some kids suffer all sorts of abuse from their family.

“If Wayne can somehow have an influence over how quickly that Fate catches up with them, well, it’s not as if people are not getting something that they don’t deserve, it’s just that they are getting it a bit earlier. The way I see it, he cannot change Fate, no-one can, but maybe he can twist it so that the order in which events take place changes”.

“We’re not sure of all the details yet, darling, it is still early days, but it is our best guess so far”.

“Do you think that he knows that he can do it?”

“I shouldn’t think so, he’s only a six-month old baby, but he is growing up fast and his powers may develop quickly too. We just don’t know, this is a new situation for all of us”.

“Yes, it sure is! Especially if what you say is right. I’ll have to have a think about what you’ve said and in the meantime be very careful how I behave around Wayne”.

“Good, just keep your eyes open, because we believe that Wayne’s powers are starting to become active. It might be a good idea to keep him out of stressful situations, until we better understand what’s going on”.

The following Saturday, while walking in town, an incident occurred which went a long way towards convincing Sam that his wife and mother-in-law were right. Sam was pushing the pram across the road on a Zebra Crossing. He had reached the policia beacons in the middle of the road, checked the traffic and was half way across the second lane when a speeding car appeared out of nowhere.

He froze for a second or two not knowing whether to go on or to go back and all the while the solitary car was bearing down on them at speed. At the very moment that he decided to go back to the safety of the beacons and give the car enough room to pass by, it veered sharply to the left and crashed into a concrete lamp post full on. The car stopped dead and the lamp post cut a deep V-shape in the bonnet and engine, but the driver was only badly shaken, not physically hurt.

He later admitted in an interview with the local newspaper that he had been speeding and driving while intoxicated, but he claimed to have lost control of his vehicle seconds before it crashed into the lamp post. He also remarked that if he had not been wearing his seat belt, he would have been killed. He even gave a public apology to the Gamm family and said that he had never been so scared in his whole life as when he found himself bearing down on the father and baby and lost control of the steering.

Sam had noticed that his son had looked rather ‘worried’ as the car had approached them with its horn blaring, but he assumed that he had been picking that up from him, since Sam admitted to being very frightened for them both. When Sam had finished relating his story, Gwyn and Rhiannon looked at each other knowingly and Sam knew that they thought that Wayne had caused the car to crash.

He had to admit that it could look that way, especially in the light of what they already believed. He looked at his son, who was sitting up in his cot playing with some plastic animals that were hanging from a cord strung across it. There was nothing in his demeanour to suggest anything other than that he was trying to amuse himself playing with his toys on his own.

There would follow many minor instances, which proved nothing taken as solitary occurrences, but which together gave a strong indication that Rhiannon and Gwynedd were right about Wayne and his nascent powers.

The biggest problem they had though, apart from the arguing, which had decreased, was how to integrate Wayne into society. He was still only six months old and would not have to go to school for about five years, but the way things were going, he wouldn’t know any other children or how to behave correctly when he did meet any.

One thing they did know though was that they couldn’t just throw him into a classroom of strangers and expect everything to go all right. He had to learn the concepts of give and take and sharing, and how to control his temper, if he had a bad one.