With shaky hands, Aggie took the necklace from the rabbit’s furry paw and hung it over her neck. Close to her chest, the stone flushed as if a sponge had been dipped in blood until it glowed ruby red.
“Will that do?” the rabbit asked and flashed a quizzical smile revealing his protruding white teeth.
Aggie nodded backing away, mindful of those teeth as she remembered her bitten thumb. As she hurried down the alley back to Granny’s house, the heat from the ruby necklace warmed her through her thin jacket. It was time to put Jane in her place. When Aggie opened the kitchen door, the dry heat from Granny’s old-fashioned, wood-burning stove blasted her.
“Where’ve you been?” Jane towered over her, handing her a bucket and a rag mop. “Granny says we have to clean the cellar. I’ve been dodging her for an hour. You’d better get busy.”
Instead of taking the mop, Aggie lifted the necklace, ready to lord it over her cousin. “You’d better be nicer to me and fast, you big jerk.”
Jane stared at the necklace with a slightly puzzled expression, and then she reached over and snapped the chain off Aggie’s neck. Alarm squeezed Aggie’s heart – she’d never considered Jane would steal the ruby from her.
“No,” cried Aggie.
“Have you gone crazy?” Jane slapped her face hard. And as she held out the necklace, Aggie saw that it had turned back into a miserable chunk of coal and a shrivelled piece of straw.
Aggie rubbed her burning cheek. She picked up the mop and bucket. That nasty rabbit was going to pay.
The next evening while Jane was hogging the bathroom, and Granny had poured an extra long dreg of Jameson’s into her coffee and was snoozing on the couch, Aggie left the house, taking with her a lamp. Widdershins, she walked out the backyard and down the alley. Again as she walked backward, the sky above lost its familiar look as the moon turned a sickly yellow like the mouldering cheddar at the back of Granny’s fridge, and the stars burst out of the sky flickering red and blue. She didn’t look over her shoulder once, and only the muffled crunch of the frozen grass alerted her she was back in the vacant lot’s field.
Aggie tossed five huge pieces of coal, the largest in Granny’s cellar, into the hole of her underground fort. This time she didn’t close up the hatch. Instead, she set her Aladdin’s lamp reading light beside the coal, using its precious batteries to light up the dark, even though she still had fifty pages of her book to read under her bedcovers when Jane’s loud snores signalled she’d finally get a little peace.
Instead of hiding behind the chestnut tree, Aggie climbed up the gnarled trunk and boosted herself up onto the branch that hung over the fort. She pulled down her black toque until it almost covered her eyes, and tugged up Granny’s enormous black sweater until she was only a smudge of shadow in the tangle of black twigs. She unwound the netting she’d wrapped many times around her waist. She’d found it in the cellar as she’d mopped, along with her departed grandfather’s fishing waders, buoys and poles. Aggie waited.
When the rabbit scrabbled below her, Aggie drew herself in, and didn’t take a breath. When her lungs were about to burst, the creature finally perched over the open hole of the fort, bent over and reached for the chunks of coal.
“Sucker,” shouted Aggie. She dropped the fishnet on him, and then scrambled down the tree trunk.
The rabbit dropped and rolled and only managed to knit himself into a cocoon like a fly in a spider’s web.
“Must we do this again?” he asked tersely. “I’m going to be late. I can’t be late.”
Paying no mind, Aggie stood over him. “You cheated me with that lousy piece of coal.”
“Just so you know, coal is valuable where I come from,” said the rabbit.
Aggie shrugged. “I’ve got all night. All day too. Did you say you were late?”
“Fine. I will give you one, but only one more wish.” Then the rabbit said, “Call it a test.”
Aggie was usually pretty good at tests. She helped untangle his head, arms and shoulders, but kept the net wrapped around his extremely long white feet, staying away from those big teeth.
“So there isn’t any misunderstanding,” said the rabbit adjusting his waistcoat, “wishing that all wishes come true won’t stick. It’s another rule.”
That was fine. Aggie had only wanted one wish anyway, had thought about it all night and chosen just the right one. “It’s a deal,” she said.
What is your wish,” the rabbit asked.
“I want to be the boss,” said Aggie.
“The rabbit gazed thoughtfully at Aggie. “What about your family? Children who are the boss can’t stay with their family.”
“Now my family is Granny and Jane, and they can lose their heads for all I care,” said Aggie.
His watchful grimace broke into a grin. “You’ve definitely got the makings. You’re tougher than the warrior goddess, Badb.” He picked up a piece of coal that he’d dropped when the net fell, and snapped another stalk of frozen grass.
Aggie simmered with anger. “I’m not stupid,” she snapped.
“No, of course not, that’s another point,” he said and hung the ruby over Aggie’s head. “We’ve been without a queen for ages. The last one, Maeb, got herself killed by a piece of cheese. I suspect you’ll do better.”
The trees closed in. The sky shifted, losing its inky blackness as peculiar orange clouds streaked the sky. The rabbit bowed low in front of Aggie.
“Behold, Your Majesty, our crimson ruler, queen of our hearts.” Then he cackled. “Oh, the Jabberwock will be sorry now.”
Aggie drew herself up and, as if she stood next to a giant Halloween sparkler, the snap and bite of a thousand sparks flowed into her.
No. Jane and all blonde-haired girls would be sorry now.
HER ROYAL COUNSEL
Andrew Robertson
The sand moves thoughtfully slow and serpentine, drifting along the Mexican desert as I watch the parked, red pickup truck full of bound, writhing bodies roasting in the midday sun. It’s like they are trying to squirm out of their sunburnt skin and fly away. I guess I might feel the same if I were them. But I would never be caught in such a predicament. Not after the last time.
I will never be ruled. I watch from the ether, invisible unless I choose to be seen by their sad eyes, and untouchable unless I become material enough for their dirty fingers.
Excitement spirals in my belly as their anxiety colours the atmosphere with panic and vain hope. A fear-born humidity surrounds the captives, their flesh sticking to the truck’s searing metal. Thuds and thumps float as their skulls knock the truck bed, skin bruising over human porcelain. I sense confusion; what in their life went wrong to deal them such a rotten hand? They know what they did. They know the cards they played. Each is ready to blame their mother and bake her into a tart to escape this pickle. Pleasure tickles me with what will be wrought before the sun drops from sight. Some acts benefit from the cruelty of full daylight.
Some of the captives inch along like awkward caterpillars, belt buckles catching on aluminum ridges, their owners moaning and stretching in an effort to find their way up and over the truck’s side, their hands desperately fluttering behind them, seeking a knot to loosen or a sharp edge to cut the ties, but to what end? Not one will become a butterfly and flutter away. Already their mouths dry and their lips have begun to crack and bleed.
Their keeper, a young drug runner named Tony, hits them with a long stick ending in a small hook as he waits for his masters’ instructions. He desperately craves his victims’ silence so he doesn’t need to think of them as human. His hands tremble, ever uncertain of how far he must go to satisfy his masters. I have been grooming him as he fitfully sleeps, as he prays, even as he fucks, to become harder and crueler. He can beat a man until his face is pulp, but he hasn’t been able to kill. His resistance has been a delicious and bitter menace to me. Tony wasn’t born a killer. I run where he only walks. There was one accident, the young blonde girl who was found in a crumpled
heap by a turnpike after he administered an overdose. If she hadn’t been blonde, white, pregnant and American, no one would have bothered looking into what happened to her, and Tony wouldn’t have found out she was fourteen. He has convinced himself no one knows his role in her demise, or ever will. This is my insurance that will seal this deal. Once he spills all this blood, my power will surge. This foreplay would leave many rubbed raw but I will overcome his morals and this thing called conscience that humans value.
He beats his flock into silence. His hooked stick allows easy removal and control of select hogs he drags from his cargos, usually pulling them onto the ground where someone else delivers the killing blow.
He checks his phone repeatedly, worrying that there may not be any service, but that’s what the satellite phone is for. This isn’t his first rodeo, but it’s the first time he has been unable to hand off the slaughter to another. Either way, he always panics right before the call comes. That is when his lips form secret prayers to the Mexican folk deity Santa Muerte, Our Lady of Holy Death. As luck would have it, she seems to have started answering his prayers and taken quite a personal interest.
Almost destitute after a week of cocaine-fueled gambling, Tony dreamed of Santa Muerte, awaking to find a bag of money had appeared on her altar. He has been answering her call ever since. Last night, in what was akin to a nightmare, she told him that each and every captive must die or she may abandon him for someone more willing to exact justice in her name. Waking up confused and fevered, he dressed in dark clothes and reluctantly headed out the door.
He has been one of my favourite playthings to date, given his virginal struggle against my desires, and constant attempts to delay the inevitable. Tony’s not bad looking – handsome with youthful arrogance, and will look even better with blood painting a crimson mask on his face in tribute to his goddess. I know he is hoping that Jose will meet him here. Jose will not. I’ve seen to that.
For years I have been dancing on Santa Muerte’s altars, in Tony’s room and those of many others, taking every sacrifice offered in her name, and answering the prayers or those who do right by me. Some days, I bathe in the plasma of my flock’s acrimonious existence, orgasmic from the hurt spilled in alleys, basements and even bedrooms. Some consider it death worship, some think Santa Muerte a demon. I don’t give a fig. My only request is blind faith to do as they are told in dreams and by the voice that whispers a quick verse in their ear. I’ve even fashioned a gown for those who I reveal myself to, prostrate before the altar. With tear-stained faces in the dirt, they glimpse a red gown covered in sacred hearts trailing past, yet familiar from dreams; an illusion to placate them. When in Rome, I say. Their blood, tears and subjugation sustain me.
Since my escape, I have silently entered the chambers, beds and minds of monarchs, dictators and moneyed men to bring my unifying vengeance to this plane. Many know me only as a thought, an urge, or a persuasion. In their hazy half-slumber I am the errant finger tickling their fancy with buried shames. Exposure is all that is needed to force a conscience into the unspeakable, whether the threat is real or not.
Tony fiddles with the phone again, like a millennial waiting for a lover’s text! I have already determined how this game will end, and how the next begins. I whisper a few phrases into the heat and he finds himself reaching under the passenger seat, wrapping his hand around the grip of a long, sharp machete designed for hacking through more than a few creosote bushes. I imagine the ringing of metal against bone and a shiver runs down my spine, weakening my legs. No man could ever give me this pleasure, but a few women have come close. It’s always surprising to see how much pain a woman can inflict, and how much more pain than a man she can endure.
Throughout the ages, very little effort has been required with men who believed themselves free. I have whispered wretched and glorious plans to increase their desire for control, revenge, and need to conquer land and people. They are so megalomaniacal, sure every murderous thought, every rapacious act, every final blow has been wrought of their own free will – the grandest illusion of them all.
I have no illusions. I know the purity of the desires that fuel my mind, and the crisp, clean edges of the sentences I hand out. Time does not wait for those who would rule to ask for permission. If you become a sheep, you are eaten by wolves. I prefer to be the She-Wolf, with blood staining my lips and torn flesh hanging from my teeth. No one hunts the better hunter.
The slightest scent of fear or weakness makes these ambitious autocrats hard. I was there in the desert to preside over the decapitation of journalists in the Middle East. I gave a final kiss to Marie Antoinette as she knelt in front of the mass of orgiastic French vermin, and I gyrated with their rage and need for death. Henry the VIII heard my voice ring true over his conscience. I watched from shadows as the axe was so cruelly and deliciously introduced to Lady Margaret de la Pole, over and over. Throughout millennia, humanity’s desperate race for power and immortality has grown unfettered, some people becoming legends while others are ground down like worn out, wooden teeth. Either outcome feeds my appetite.
I scan the horizon to be sure we won’t be interrupted. Tony feels the blade’s weight and smells his prisoners’ rising stench. Some may already be dead. Each of us must lay claim to our destiny. Mine is to rule and to influence. I judge and sentence as is my right. At one point, in another place and another time, my efforts were thwarted by lesser creatures that deemed me a foul monarch and wouldn’t play by my rules, but not now. Now I am something else entirely. I am something better. Leaving that place has given me new strength and abilities. Tony’s destiny is to ensure my greatness.
Grey, wind-worn mountains rise in the distance. Before them, like a tatty rug, are miles of coarse shrubs and grasses that hiss as they rub together. It sounds like the shuffling of a deck and I am near ready to draw my hand.
A hacking cough interrupts my reverie. One of the captives has chewed through his cloth gag and gasps out a prayer while infuriatingly begging for mercy.
“Who are you?” the prisoner rasps. That question often asked by another, in a faraway place, brings me a sense of unease that I don’t care for one mote. Of course, he is speaking to Tony – no one knows I am here. Not even Tony. He thinks Santa Muerte exists only in dreams and perched on her altar. He thinks that all the violent deeds he does are his idea. At night I breathe in the elegance and despair of his regret from where I wait for the final offering.
A spasm cramps Tony’s torso. His doubt clouds my vision. It is time to steel his resolve.
Show him the blade, I whisper into the space between us.
Tony strides forward, the sand becoming a tiny cloud around his stinking boots. After this job, he can afford new boots, truck or an apartment even…maybe something big enough to house an altar to his Lady who has brought him such filthy lucre. Even as he walks with purpose and masculine endeavour, I feel his heart shrinking at the task ahead and smile. There is always a bit more left to give, despite a litany of profane acts.
I reach deep into the mind of this creature crying in near silence in the truck bed.
Ask Tony about the girl.
“Who is the blonde girl?” He pitifully whispers. “Why did you do it?” He hisses more words out, confused and choking in the heat.
Tony stands frozen and fully erect, feeling the blood drain from his extremities, his face blooming hot with guilt. Then the rage rises. He never meant to hurt her. He didn’t know she was just a girl. No – she was a slut!
The captive’s eyes plead as Tony’s forces open his mouth, holding his dry tongue between index and thumb. Pleasure surges through me, unlike any I’ve felt before, as the final hand is revealed with the help of my little blonde queen, my earthly dead Alice.
He slowly works the machete tip into the poor bastard’s mouth and then there is a sound like a mug breaking. A section of tongue hits the sand and flops back and forth like a dying trout. A clattering of teeth follow, pinging off the truck’s metal before sk
ittering away, lost in the wasteland. Gasps and moans ripple the air. Tony looks at the ground and his work. The sand thoroughly covers the tongue, leaving it speechless.
You aren’t done yet, I exhale, feeling a chill of orgasmic anticipation between my legs.
Take your prize. Take your trophy. It is yours.
He grabs the man by his hair. Muscles spasm as the man chokes on blood rushing from where his tongue once slept, and a stream of hot shit is released into cheap denim. I hate bad manners.
Tony lifts the machete high, shining against the late afternoon sun.
I close my eyes, savouring this agony cooking in the heat, before opening them wide and delivering my verdict.
Off with his head!
DRESSED IN WHITE PAPER
Kate Heartfield
Theophilus Tench wrinkles his nose. With the toe of his polished shoe, he nudges the Goat’s chamberpot under the T-shaped pile of luggage that Tench has arranged into a makeshift screen between them.
The Goat’s battered steamer trunk on its edge forms a trunk of a tree, and the leaves, so to speak, are made by the Goat’s carpetbag drooping on top. Or rather, it would be a carpetbag, if it were made of carpet. This is a custard-skin bag. Utterly impractical. It does the job of shielding the chamber pot from view of the six passengers in the compartment, although it does nothing to improve the smell.
The call of Tench’s nature long ago reached a state of uncomfortable complacency, a numb memory of urgency radiating from his thighs on the upholstered bench.
Alas, this is an old-fashioned train compartment, its two facing benches in knee-banging proximity. Some would consider the window an outlet for nature’s business, but Tench is not among them.
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