My Three Cousins

Chapter Twenty-One

As soon as Helen and I reached Joan and Ruth, Ruth began talking, "I don't exactly have a plan yet but here's what we know.  Water shorts him out, we want to avoid anything that conducts electricity so definitely no metal, and we need to keep him away from all other sources of electricity or his power is only going to get stronger."

"So don't let him in the house or we're screwed?"  Joan said sarcastically.

"Exactly."  Ruth said taking her seriously.

"Is that it?"  Helen asked, seeming disappointed that all of Ruth's research had led to so little information.

"The books didn't have a lot on how to deal with electrical people, Helen."  Ruth snapped.  In the dark I couldn't tell if Ruth's eyes were still swollen, and I wondered if that was why she wanted to meet out here instead of in the tunnel room.  I looked across the way to Mom's bedroom window and thought it was a pretty risky move.  I hoped if Mom woke up, she wouldn't see us in the dark.

"So ignoring the electricity issue," I started but Joan cut me off.

"That's kind of a big thing to ignore."

I glared at her, feeling less afraid of her than I had in the past.  "Ignoring the big electricity issue," I started again.  "What do we do when he isn't electric anymore?  Like how do we get rid of him?"  I hesitated to say the word kill.

"In the bar when you poured water on him, we were able to just attack him like a normal person," Helen pointed out.

"Put him out and we can just kill him like anyone else," Joan said, sounding hopeful.

"I know I'm late to this group but if you haven't noticed I'm just like a normal sixteen-year-old girl.  I don't have a history of murdering people so we may need to be more specific."

Helen laughed and Joan just curtly said, "we'll handle that part."

"From everything I've read, and what Helen and Addison told us, water will be the easiest way to short him out.  We'll need to lead him back here and somehow get him in the pond."  Ruth said, returning to planning.

"It shouldn't be hard to lead him here, if he's attacking, he'll follow us," Joan said.

"Ok so we run back to the pond with him following."  Ruth was pivoting and looking at the area as if she was seeing the plan play out in front of her.

"Not all of us," Joan interjected, "once we remove the protection on the house someone will have to stand guard, that person will have to be able to keep themselves safe long enough to both alert the others and lead him to the pond."

"That seems near impossible," Helen pointed out.

"Do you have a better idea?" 

There was a moment of pause while we all tried to think of one, but it was quickly clear we were stuck with Joan's plan.

"Fine," Ruth accepted, "when we get back here, he's going to try to avoid the water.  We'll need to get him in a daze."   She looked at Helen.

"How am I supposed to calm him down if I can't touch him?"  

"We're over thinking it." I spoke up, "Helen doesn't need to put him in a daze we literally just need to push him in the pond.  If he's focused on you three, I come behind him and push him in."

"Without getting fried?"  Joan asked skeptically.

"She can if she uses something that won't conduct an electric current," Ruth pointed out, "like wood or rubber." 

"There's a wooden bat on the back porch," Joan offered.

"Good, so he's in the pond, presumably without powers and then what?"  Ruth asked as if she hadn't been the one developing the rest of the plan.

"We hope he drowns?"  Helen said optimistically.

"I'm past hoping he dies at this point.  We need to kill him so there is no chance of him ever coming after any of us again." Joan said definitively. 

"Waters the universal solvent."  Ruth said as if we were in a chemistry lesson not planning a murder.

"Give us more than that, Ruthie," Joan insisted.

"If he's under the water I can enhance the solvent properties until it dissolves him," she said confidently.

"You can?" asked Helen.

"I like the sound of dissolving him," Joan responded.

"It won't be quick so it will only work if you knock him unconscious before he goes in the water."  Ruth answered, turning to look at me.

"I can't promise that," I pointed out.  I was nervous and not entirely comfortable with how important my role in all of this was becoming.

"If he's not unconscious and he manages to swim to the surface before you finish, he still shouldn't have him powers.  You keep working on the water and I will make sure he becomes unconscious and is put back in."  Joan assured us and I was grateful that it wasn't all hinging on my skill with a baseball bat.

"It's as a good a plan as any," Ruth said, sounding as uncertain as we all felt.  "We need to make sure whoever is on guard is wearing rubber soled shoes, I don't know if it will help much but it can't hurt."

"We'll have to take turns standing guard," Helen said.

"No," Joan sounded adamant.  "I have the best chance with him so I should be the one who is out here if he comes." 

"You can't take every shift," Ruth pointed out practically, "ignoring the fact that Aunt Liz would immediately notice something is up, you'd be exhausted, and it wouldn't help us if he hurt you before we even got him to the pond."

"Fine," Joan conceded, "but I'll take most of them." 

Her sisters didn't argue with that, and I think they secretly both would have preferred her to be the one who was standing guard when he came anyway.

"Addison can't stand guard, because if he knows she's here then he she can't surprise him and knock him in the water," Helen said looking at me and then she turned to Ruth, "and Ruth can't stand guard because we have no way to kill him if she gets hurt."

Joan looked grim, but nodded knowing Helen was right.  "It has to be me and Helen."

"No," Ruth seemed panicked.  We all knew the person who had to deal with him one on one was in the most danger and we also knew Helen wasn't exactly prepared for the challenge, but Helen was right; for the plan to work, it couldn't be Ruth or me.

I could see that Ruth still didn't want to accept it, but she couldn't think of a way to argue.  "There's one more problem," I said as it occurred to me, "my mom, Fitz, and Vivian.  What if he comes when they're out here?"

"Fitz is never out here so he shouldn't be too much trouble," Joan answered, "and we need to make sure that Aunt Liz and Vivian are gone as often as possible in the daytime.  At night they'll be asleep so we should be ok." 

"I'll suggest activities to Aunt Liz," Ruth said.

"I can convince Vivian to beg Auntie Liz to go to anything mentioned," Helen added.

I saw a lot of gaps in the plan but just like Ruth wasn't going to point out all the issues with Helen taking a turn standing guard, I couldn't bear to mention all of the danger we were putting my family in, because I couldn't come up with a way to avoid it.

We spent the next hour going over logistics like where they needed to get the electric man to stand and where I would hide.  We settled on making him stand at the back side of the pond, because if he turned to face them, I could hide behind a cluster of trees only a few yards away.  The next morning Joan planned to stash the baseball bat there so it would be waiting for me and carrying it wouldn't slow me down getting to the spot.  Whoever was on guard would have their phone open to a pre-typed "help" so when they saw him all they had to do was hit send.  The rest of us would keep our phones on us at all times.  Then Ruth and whatever sister wasn't on guard would run to the front to stall and then lead him to the pond, while I hid back behind the trees without being seen.  We could all see the holes in the plan but none of us knew how to fill them, so we all went to bed an hour before the sun came up more worried than ever.