Double Double Toil and Trouble

Double Double Toil and Trouble

He had grown up hearing ‘double double toil and trouble’ in his third grade class. His classmates had made a hand clapping and jump rope song for it.

He remembered the song well, how the children had chanted and gazed with glistening eyes as they sang out the words. He could feel the magic even then and all at once he vowed never to say the words again. The moment he uttered them his hands began to tingle and his heart beat faster.

He had stuttered then, letting the rope fall from his slick hands and causing the girl jumping to stumble. They’d yelled angrily at him for breaking the song up and making Julia trip. He’d ignored them and left silently, a wonder filling his body as the uncertainty of his tingling limbs and lightheadedness took over.

He sat in the corner for the rest of his recess, flexing his fingers and trying to make the warm tingle go away. Finally it had left and he forgot the feeling, but he knew that he should never speak those words again. He had felt something happen inside him the moment he spoke the written words of Shakespeare.

It was when they moved to Scotland, to a small village surrounded by dark woods, when he remembered. He heard a few small children chanting as they skipped through the puddles from the previous rain. They sang happily and when they came to ‘in the cauldron boil and bake’ they bent down and bore their hands like claws.

He watched in a dreamlike state for a few minutes before heading out into the woods, hoping to get away from them. There was a familiar pull inside of him that was tempting him, and he knew that he had to get away.

Being only ten, he’d forgotten quickly that he didn’t know the wood. He didn’t know it at all, and he realized he was lost hours later. The fear rose in his chest like a bubble rising from a steaming pot. His head swam and ached and his eyes started to sore. He frantically climbed through the forrest, the dark trees looming with intensity as the sun went down a little to fast. Soon he was covered in darkness. The scamper of small animals clinging his ears, the whistle of the wind and the rustle of the trees limbs would make him turn and whine.

Eventually he sat down and tucked his legs up to his chest, closing his eyes and mumbling to himself.

“Double double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble. Double double, toil and trouble.” He repeated it over and over again, the tingling first began as a tickle, but then escalated to little spider legs running over his skin.

Soon the night faded from his eyes and all he could see was children with flowers in their hair, spinning in a circle in the warm sunlight, singing and singing. Skipping, the girls dresses brushing their ankles, their giggles when one fell or tripped. But they never stopped, the sun never left, the autumn leaves spun around them like magic.

Snap.

The snap of a stick had pulled him from his dream and he glanced up quickly. The glowing eyes of an animal stared at him from the brush. He stared at it, confused. It looked like cat eyes but they were much to large.

“Hello?” he whispered, his voice quivering with fear. The animal moved them, much to fast to be natural. The eyes blurred and then disappeared, an animal larger than he anticipated circled him quietly.

The old fear rose again and he tried to keep an eye on the animal, but every time he would catch a glimpse of the gray fur in the moonlight it would cast a silver flash in the moonlight and disappear.

“Go away!” he called, closing his eyes and clenching fisted hands around his jeans. He growled in the effort to forget the animal and the intimidating circling.

The animal answered him. The growl was loud and low pitched, but it was predatory and very close to his ear. He shoved himself away from the tree, trembling as a thorn slid into the palm of his hand, causing him to cry out.

Instantly the animal dove through the brush, the gapping teeth snapping at him. He moved, the animal skid as it landed and he finally had a proper look in the full moon. The fur was stringy and it was thin but large. The muscles rippled as it stood, easily seen on it’s lean figure. The mouth snapped at him, thick saliva dripped from the elongated fangs and the yellow eyes gleamed at him in hunger. Instantly he screamed. He screamed loudly and fearfully, the animal twitched it’s ears before it bared his teeth at him angrily.

It lunged at him and caught him by the hand that he brought up to protect his face. The animal dragged him in a forceful circle, flinging him away and into a nearby tree.

Fire had seemed to spring from his shoulder, his arm bent at an odd angle. It wasn’t broken, he knew. He’d broken his arm before but his shoulder shouldn’t look like that. Or feel as if there as fire coursing through his veins.

His screams became louder and more unrestrained. The large gash in his arms stung angrily before becoming numb and the animal nipped at his hair before it left in a hurry. A large fleet footed animal ambled through the clearing, circling away from him.

Slowly he let his eyes close, the numbing pain tiring him. He felt something foreign in him, taking over and burning him.

His parents found him the next day with only a dislocated shoulder, there was no evidence of a bite mark on his arm the next day. Except for two parallel stark white scars that lined his inner arm.

It was a year later that a letter came for the boy who became even more quiet and thinner. His hair becoming thin and bags under his eyes developed.

He went to Hogwarts and learned why he felt a distinct feeling at the words ‘double double toil and trouble’ and about his condition.

His name is Remus Lupin, he’s fourty-six and he lives alone without friends or family. He becomes a monster once a month with a constant hunger that will never be fulfilled.

By Shakespeare:
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Something wicked this way comes.

Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,

Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Something wicked this way comes.

In the cauldron boil and bake;
Fillet of a fenny snake,
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch's mummy, maw and gulf

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Something wicked this way comes