The New York Mystery Crew: Jackson's Past (book 2)

Chapter 6: The Mind Control Spell

IMPORTANT WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTIONS OF SELF HARM AND CHILD ABUSE! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Mason's Perspective:

Only a few days had passed when Mason noticed something strange about Jack. He seemed to more distant than usual, which was saying something. But the new cuts in his arms and wrists were more concerning. Concerning enough for him to bring it up to Caleb.

"Caleb, do you think there's something going with Jack at home?" Mason asked while they were heading for Science Class. "Why?" Caleb questioned. "I noticed some new cuts on his arms and wrists, but the reason I brought it up is because of what happened at Family Day last week." Mason explained.

Caleb thought for a moment. "I'd need more proof, but there could be some borderline abusive parenting in their house, but again, I don't know for sure." Caleb responded, carefully thinking of his words. He knew that some of his friends had gone through something similar, so he didn't want to offend any of them, as this was a path to tread cautiously on if you decided to.

It wasn't until lunch when Mason noticed something really off.

Jack had his head on his hand and his lunchbox in front of him, but wasn't opening it or eating what was inside it. "You know you can't just starve yourself to death, right?" Caleb asked, breaking Mason from his thoughts about his birthmark on his left wrist, which was an icy-blue stone fused into his skin. "Because we'll just have Rachel hypnotize you to eat your lunch if you try." "Go ahead." Jack replied. "I'm not stopping you."

Something was wrong with Jack. That much he knew. But Mason couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. He thought it had something to do with his mom, but wasn't sure. He wasn't going to get involved with what it was until he knew for sure what was wrong.

So all he could do right now was observe. Something he wasn't very good at thanks to his reduced interest in surrounding people. He always lost interest before he found something that was worth looking at or looking into on his phone. But he decided he would try his best to keep an eye on Jack's behavior.

"Just eat your lunch." Mason told him before continuing to eat his own lunch. He noticed Jack hesitantly obey him and became a little worried.

This told him he needed to keep an eye on him until he found something that he could report to his mom. But he could only hope Jack let him find something to report, because something told him that finding something to report to his mom wouldn't be very easy.

So, again, he could only hope.

***

A few days passed, and Mason tried to make the fact that, he was trying to watch as much of Jack's behavior as he could, not obvious. He knew that Caleb and Phil could see it, but he didn't care about them seeing it. He didn't want Jack seeing him because he might feel that he couldn't tell him anything and he wanted Jack to feel safe around him.

Soon, Mason found more off behaviorisms from Jack. They were hanging out with their friends, with Mason scrolling through one of his social media apps, when he looked up and saw Jack clutching one of his arms. Mason scrunched his eyebrows together, deciding to keep watching to see what the boy did.

Indeed, he did do something interesting. When Mason was starting to get bored after a few minutes of not seeing anything worth noting, Phil said something about medieval parenting punishments potentially including yelling and whips. Mason watched in curiosity as Jack bit his lip and his grip around his arm seemed to tighten. Mason scrunched his eyebrows together again before deciding to note this into his mental list of things he made that consisted of behaviors that Jack used that he wouldn't usually.