Chapter Text
Kenneth Binx had just stumbled home after drowning his grief in a late night tryst with the blacksmith’s son when his life changed forever. He reached his family homestead, toeing off his shoes at the door so as not to wake anyone and peeked blearily in the door of Kevin and Karen’s room.
But Karen was gone.
Kenneth felt a cold chill spike his heart and spread over his whole body. He rushed forward and shook Kevin, but his elder brother wouldn’t waken. Kenneth hissed. Kevin must have been in his cups again. Kenneth whirled and sped back out of the house again, not even bothering to put his shoes back on again by the door.
Halfway across the back of the property, Kenny saw his neighbor Douglass, who was hugging himself against the wee hours’ chill and staring out at the woods from his family’s animal pens.
“DOUGIE! Hast thou seen my sister, Karen?!”
Dougie shook his head rapidly, nearly dislodging his glasses. “Nay. But look!” he said, holding one trembling hand aloft, pointed toward the tree-line. “They conjure” he murmured solemnly.
Kenneth, terrified and ill at heart, let his eyes follow the direction Dougie indicated and saw a plume of unnatural colored smoke rising from the dark heart of the woods. He let out a strained, horrified whisper. “They conjure? But he hath sworn-”
Dougie shrugged miserably, hugging himself tighter. “His oaths are not in his power to keep. Not anymore, Kenneth. You know perhaps best of all…”
Kenny nearly sobbed with terror and fury- but then a thought stole his breath. “KAREN. The woods!” He bounced from foot to foot- restless with panicked indecision. “Even now they wouldn’t-!?”
Dougie shook his head rapidly “You know tis possible. You KNOW-”
Kenny hissed. He leaned over the fence, grabbing the front of Dougie’s shirt. “Wake our parents. Summon the elders! I’m going after her!”
Dougie was still shaking his head, horror-struck “Tis no GOOD Kenneth! She’s done for!”
“GET THEM!” Kenny roared, shaking the front of Dougie’s shirt and then pushing him away. Not sparing another moment he sped off barefoot through the wood, barking his shins and stubbing his toes and falling down hills at terrifying speeds. He barely felt it. He picked himself up.
He ran on.
Kenneth’s mind was too wholly occupied to do more than run as fast as his legs could carry him. He didn’t even know what he’d do when he arrived to face such powerful adversaries. Only two thoughts could be kept in his mind: “KAREN! PLEASE, No!” and “KAREN!? How COULD thee, Leo? How COULD thee bear to, even now? Hast though fallen so far?”
But when Kenneth reached the old Sanderson property at the heart of the woods, sure enough, there they both were. His former friend Leopold, aged and twisted but still spritely in step, was leading Kenneth’s beloved sister across the threshold to hell- and to Leo’s hellspawn siblings.
Kenneth felt that same great sob rising in his chest and muffled it in favor of sneaking close to the cottage with as much grace and stealth possible. When he climbed into the Sanderson loft, what he saw downstairs stripped his already labored breath clean away.
His sister Karen, beatific and peaceful as a saint was sitting in a chair at the far end of the room, her hands folded benignly in her lap. She did not seem afraid, but neither did she seem to be aware of her surroundings.
Eric was cackling by the large cauldron bequeathed to the Sanderson sons when their controlling hag mother had passed from the world. Clyde was tromping around beside him, devotedly offering up potion ingredients. And there- there ignoring the whole situation and dancing with cheerful distraction in the corner- Leopold.
All three appeared ancient. Splintered wrecks of their former selves.
Kenneth’s eyes slid shut without his will. So, tis all true, what the townsfolk say. It hath come to pass just as the old bitch promised.
I am sorry, Kyle. I am sorry, Stanley. I should hath believed in full when thou disappeared.
But there was no time to dwell. Kenny’s eyes slid open, taking in the scene again. No time at all, not whilst they possess Karen.
Kenneth, breathless, slunk through the loft, trying to hear the Sanderson sons’ conversation. For what did thy need her? And then the thought rose again, more agonized Why? Why Karen?
Part of his answer came soon enough.
“And then, brothers, ohooo then~” Eric preened as he consulted their mother’s hellish tome. “Once we hath drained ev’ry drop of vitality from the little wench, we shall be young and handsome once more.”
Leo still ignored this, now enthusiastically examining a beetle crossing the floor, but Clyde fanned himself in excitement. “And then, Eric?”
“HAH. I had thought the course of our endeavor to be rather obvious- once we drain THIS child, we shall drain ALL the children in Salem! And then,” he went on, a feverish look in his eyes “then we shall live forever.”
Kenny’s heart raced. Dear God, how can Thou have allowed this? ANY OF THIS? His eyes swept the scene, and his limbs shook with horror. Look at them now! How am I to protect her? How are we to escape when there are three of them? A new, terrible thought introduced itself. I daren’t even guess if Karen can be waked from this enchantment to make escape on her own feet.
The whole situation felt terrifically bleak.
Kenny tried vainly to get Karen’s attention without attracting the Sandersons’, but eventually gave it up. He had to find a way out. He couldn’t fail. Not again. Not for Karen. Not like-
But Eric was raising the huge wooden ladle to Karen’s mouth. “Open your mouth, Binx-brat,” he murmured, his voice mockingly sweet.
Kenny had lost the advantage of time. He leapt from the loft, his white shirt billowing behind him like a cloak, and landed on the cottage floor. Let’s hope that entrance was suitably impressive, and they don’t notice I’m robbed of breath.
The Sandersons swiveled away from Karen.
“A BOY!” crowed Leopold, delighted.
Eric’s face purpled with rage, but the hand holding his brew to Karen’s face did not waver. “Showing thy filthy urchin face here, Binx?” He sneered. “Truly I thought thee possessed of better sense.”
“STEP THEE AWAY FROM KAREN, THOU HAG’S SONS!” Kenny’s panic was blinding him to battle strategy. They had all played at wars together as children (did they remember none of that?) but this- this was no game.
Clyde was sidling up closer to Kenny slyly, while Eric smiled imperiously, his eyes gleaming with vicious pleasure.
And Leo… to Kenny’s misery (but no longer surprise) he was moving forward too, devoid of malice- but also of recognition. His gaze was keen on Kenny’s figure, and he bit at his own lip hungrily.
Kenny avoided the two of them swiftly, half of his attention caught up in watching Eric and that damned ladle.
“GET HIM, FOOLS!” Eric barked. “And YOU!” he snarled, addressing Kenny “Stay AWAY from my POTION!”
Kenny bared his teeth defiantly, now dancing closer to the swaying cauldron, now back away to avoid Clyde and Leopold.
Eric was nearly incandescent with rage “DO YOU HEAR ME? Respect thee my AUTHORITY, BOY!”
But Kenny spilled the potion.
And Kenny tried to knock aside the ladle.
And Kenny- in a last ditch desperate effort- struck at Eric and tried to waken his sister. His poor dear sister, with her eyes that were so placid and blank. But that was as far as Kenneth Binx got that evening.
Because that’s when furious Eric beat him down with a new power from his dead witch mother- strikes of lightning arcing with hissing crackles from his fingertips, called forth through a combination of curses and cursing.
And that’s when Kenny was rendered so broken by the attack that he could not leave the floor.
And that was when Kenny failed. He lay there useless, useless and incapacitated on the floor while they murdered Karen.
He wanted to shut his eyes. He wanted to scream. But his body was still too shocked by the wild power of the lightning to let him open his mouth. And he forced himself to watch- because then he knew it was real- and because damn him along with the rest, Karen deserved that much at least. She deserved every sob of remorse he’d have time to utter before they got to him next. Their only hope was the townsfolk, but he knew…Kenny knew-
It was over very quickly.
The Sandersons swept back away from Karen’s wizened little corpse and cackled, preening and delighting in their regained relative youth. They danced.
And then they came to him.
To Kenny’s disgust he had regained some control of his limbs. Too late, too late, murmured his thoughts, feverish with pain and guilt and grief. No good now!
“Thou lesser-than dogs!” he hissed. “Thou weak, foolish, spiteful, EVIL creatures!” But it wasn’t enough. “Thou HIDEOUS HAG-SONS!”
Eric had him suddenly, holding him aloft by the front of the shirt, shaking him like a child’s doll. “Dost this feel WEAK to thee, idiot child?? HM?” He threw him to the floor and stepped back. His eyes were flaming with spiteful fury, and his gaze never left Kenneth as he addressed the two men standing behind him.
“So! Whatever shall we DO with him~?”
Clyde spoke first. “Chop him to bits and slather him with spices!” Kenny struggled to pull up his beaten body with the loft’s ladder.
“Pin him to the ceiling a-an’, lemme play with him~” cooed Leo, reaching out with grabby hands- hands that Kenny had admired in what felt like a lifetime ago. He supposed for Leopold it had been, in some ways.
“NO!” said Eric abruptly, beckoning his book over with a crooked finger. “His punishment must be more fitting. More lingering.” Eric flipped through the pages of his cursed inheritance while the others looked on in devoted, mute awe. “HERE!” He pointed at the page.
He smirked at Kenny (who was still weakly panting, his mind reeling Karen KAREN) and he went on. “His punishment for his insulting interference shall not be to die- but to LIVE. Forever.” His cruel grin widened. “With his guilt.”
Kenneth, horrified and desperate tried to lurch back away to effect an escape. How does he know? How does he always know how to make it hurt the worst? But it was to no avail. His limbs were not under his command.
The Sandersons chanted and changed him, quivering and aching and twisting, into a black housecat. An immortal black housecat.
And then, finally, as the deed was done, just in time to be of no help at all-
The townspeople of South Salem arrived.
Binx don’t know why he’d ever let himself hope in the first place.