by Eliza Grace
“Tilda…” Jen’s shoulders droop and she takes a long, shuddering breath. “Sometimes, I don’t think things through. I’m sorry.” Her voice is sincere, but I imagine that her eyes are judging me, judging my weaknesses and scoffing at the things that haunt me. She’s not. Not really, but I don’t want to look at her. Or the candles.
“Just take the candles somewhere else, please.” I close my eyes again; shut them tightly against the emotions that are slicing me open, cut by cut. It’s just a candle. Just a stupid candle. But to me it is more. To me, it is the embodiment of everything that I hate about myself and my past.
When Jen’s footfalls fade into the distance and I know she is no longer in the kitchen, I open my eyes. Only one lit candle is still sitting on the kitchen counter. I focus on it; will all of my hatred for the scented wax and wick to kill the flame. It responds. Flickering more violently, it responds. I think that it will blow out; I think that I have magic like my mother and Elisabeth and I do not need written spells and I do not need M.H.
Go out, flame. Go out. I don’t want to look at you anymore. I don’t want to see you. I want you gone. I. Want. You. Gone.
And the fluctuating flare dies and fades away into a thin stream of smoke. Satisfaction floods through me.
But then, just as Jen is walking back into the room, the wick relights. The reborn flame skyrockets upwards, towards the ceiling and the hanging pots. The heat is intense. I can feel it against my skin and I know that if I wheel any closer, it will burn my body. The glass shatters with a resounding ‘pop’ that startles Jen and makes her jump backwards through the doorway. Shards fly in all directions. One, like a GPS-guided missile, heads towards me, its point long and sharp.
I watch it coming, as if the world has been forced into slow motion.
When it hits me, embedding above my right breast but missing the fabric of my scoop-neck tank top by a hair, I gasp.
“What the hell? How did that even—” My aunt stops talking abruptly when she sees the long piece of glass sticking out of my body, blood beginning to ooze and stain my top. I’m not hopeful the crimson will ever come out of the cream material. “Shit!” Running towards me, grabbing the orange and white dish towel along the way, Jen assesses the glass. “Okay, I mean, it’s not that bad. I think we can take it out, just use a really big bandage.” Her fingers play at the corners of the wound, making fluttery unsure motions. “Um… maybe two or three big bandages.”
I look at my aunt and her face does not look like the cut is ‘not that bad’. “Jen, can we never light candles again?”
Worry painting her face, Jen nods fervently. “Even if a damn family of raccoons crawls into the attic, dies, and makes the place smell like a disposal center for roadkill, I will not light a candle.”
“That’s all I’m asking here.” I try to grin, but it ends up being more of a cringe. “Ouch!”
“Sorry.” Jen moves her hand further from the piece of glass; she had been trying to wipe away the blood when her finger accidently brushed it. “Can I take it out? I’ll make it quick.”
“Count of three?” I close my eyes, waiting for her to start counting.
“One… Two…” My aunt pulls the sliver out in a swift motion and presses the towel against the seeping, jagged cut. I gasp and pant in pain.
“That… was not… on three.”
“Yeah, but surprise always makes this easier. Can you hold it while I grab the first aid kit? I hate to say it, but we might have to take you in for stitches.”
I reach up with my left hand and slip my fingers beneath Jen’s so that I can hold the dish cloth. “Stitches, great.” I sigh, and then half-grin. “But, on the bright side, at least this time you’re cleaning up an accident that wasn’t my fault. No ice cream or dropped glasses here. Just a little blood.” Holding the towel against the wound, I feel an unseen force floating about me and the area of skin beneath the cloth begins to tingle and warm. It is a strange sensation, one that I do not fear.
“It is a nice change. Let’s do this more often. Ice cream can get so sticky and giving you a bath is a pain in the ass.”
“Worse than helping me put in the catheter?”
“Way worse.” Jen laughs and I laugh and the laughter is a product of our relief.
The red plastic container that holds the medical supplies is beneath the kitchen sink. When Jen steps away from me and bends down to open the cabinet, I see a flash of movement out of my peripheral vision. I adjust the position of the wheelchair so that I can look out the window to the left of the door. It is a thin narrow one, much smaller than the large one next to the round table.
There is an image in the bubbled, transparent surface.
Matthew, the boy. He is wide-eyed and watching me, a mischievous grin dances across his mouth. As I stare, the stone—that is still sitting on my lap—twitches and tingles. And… I can feel the sensation through my pants. I can feel it. Matthew’s face disappears and outside, behind the glass and not in it, shadows begin to merge and mold until they are the shape of a man. M.H. And he does not look mischievous at all. He looks determined. The feeling of some force around me strengthens for a moment, shifts about me so that it is as close as it can be. The tingling at the wound intensifies. But then M.H.’s face grows stern, he waves a hand, and the tingling is gone, the warmth is gone, the presence is gone. He is gone.
Jen is next to me now, digging through the medical supplies. I say nothing to her; I don’t tell her that I have felt something in my legs and that there was a boy in the glass and a man outside it. Both are unbelievable.
Come to the woods. Come to the woods and feel. Be whole again. This world isn’t for you. Don’t you understand that yet? I am your destiny. His voice is deep and resonates. It fills me, scares me, and intrigues me.
“Alright, let’s at least clean it and get a bandage on there before heading to Urgent Care. I really don’t think we should take a chance. I’m no doctor and it’s a pretty deep cut.”
I nod and take my hand off the dish towel so Jen can lift it away. “Oh…” My aunt’s voice sounds confused.
“What? Is it even worse?” I look down to examine the wound.
“No. It’s… well, it’s actually a lot smaller than I thought. I guess no trip into town after all.”
“Talk about lucky.” There’s relief in my voice, but also… something’s not right. I know, and Jen knows, that the cut had been much worse just a few moments ago.
I catch a weak scent of smoke as Jen applies a wide bandage to the cut. I stare at it, until I can no longer see it because the bandage is fully applied.
“Alright, crisis averted. Let’s get this mess sorted and then I am going to find that God-awful smell.”
Speaking of smells—the smoky scent seems to have gotten stronger. It assaults my senses. “Jen, is something burning?”
She stands up, nostrils flaring. And then she is racing out of the room and I am focusing on the world outside again, debating whether or not I can reach the broom and dustpan to try and clean up the broken glass and splattered wax before Jen returns, but the cleaning supplies are in the narrow, long pantry. My wheelchair won’t fit. I am debating using the magazine on the kitchen table to bend over and swipe at the debris on the floor, when he appears again, solid now—flesh and bone and man, not shadow and ghost whispers in my mind.
M.H. walks closer to the window. He reaches out, places his palm against the glass and presses. His hand glows, hotter and hotter looking. Then, his fingers are sinking into the house and he is moving like water through a sieve. I watch in wonder as his body reassembles. He is a mere two feet from where I sit.
The age gap between us, obvious by the gray hairs along his temple, makes the gap between me and Hoyt look small. M.H. has features that could be handsome, if he trimmed his beard and pulled his long hair back loosely; even in the cloak and hat that is so reminiscent of Jen’s most recent painting and slightly ridiculous-looking as far as modern clothing goes, but he is pale, the
bruises beneath his gaze dark and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth pronounced. Yet, despite these signs of illness and age, he is hard to look away from and a small part of me comes to life with desire. He’s so compelling.
God, I am stupid. I’m so stupid to even think about this man in that way for a moment.
“You’re the witchfinder.” I breathe out, my voice barely raised above a whispering wind.
He nods, taking a single step closer, but then, like there is a force field between us, he is pushed backwards. Raising his hands, M.H. attempts to push through whatever barrier is keeping him away from me. His fingers spark, red lightning power. But, unlike the window which is real and solid, this unseen wall he cannot penetrate.
“And the boy? Is he you?”
He nods again, confirming my suspicions.
“But why send him? Why not come yourself? And why did he disappear like that the other day? Why did he burn?”
M.H. opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. He looks frustrated for a moment, but then the frustration fades and words spring to life within my mind again.
Before, not even my spirit could leave the forest. He is…an illusion; the only thing I could conjure to move outside the woods and against the command of the enchantment.
“Why did he burn? That was cruel. It scared me, made me fear you. And if you’re so weak, how can you control the weather? That’s magic, isn’t it? How could you do that if you couldn’t even pass the stone line before?” I need to know why Matthew had to disappear like that, why he had to burn like my family burned. If he was that unkind, that unfeeling, then nothing could convince me to help him.
Matthew—my illusion—burning… that was not my doing. My body is still trapped in the forest. The stones were disturbed, the spell weakened, but it is still in place. I only have a fraction more power to push my spirit beyond the barrier of trees now. My magic is still limited and must be keenly focused on a single task. The weather is easy, an ever-changing thing that takes a mere nudge of though.
I am not free. I will never be free unless you come to me.
“Not your doing?” I’m confused, bewildered. I’ve heard everything else that he’s said, but only the one response—the confession that Matthew burning was not his doing—has stuck with me, lodged in my throat like a too-large bit of food that will not swallow properly. If he didn’t do it, then what force is sending me visons on top of visions? And why is the force torturing me. Haven’t I been punished enough for killing my family?
I would not do that to you. Not to you. Not to my destiny. I would not torture you, my heart, my savior, my future.
“But you killed Elisabeth Clarke. Why would you do that? And why would her descendent be your destiny?”
Tried. I tried to kill Elisabeth. For witchcraft. For making a contract with the devil himself. It was the law, the truth, my purpose in life—to ferret out the darkness in man.
“She didn’t die? No, no… everything I read… You burned her at the stake.”
She was not married at the time of conviction, she had no children. How could you be her ancestor if I killed her?
Pausing, thinking. Maybe he hadn’t killed Elisabeth. “I don’t understand. How are you here? Why are you alive?” When I ask these questions, I fall silent, because a waterfall of words is attacking my brain. He is speaking in earnest, his tone pleading. He wants me to believe him so badly.
I have killed 299 women who were not witches and I failed to kill the one that was. Elisabeth was always lying in wait, biding her time until she could punish me for my perceived sins. In the year of our lord 1646, she came for me. And, over the course of what would be the final year of my earthly life, she tortured me with the spirits of the dead until I was a sickly, plagued, martyr of a man. When she was satisfied, she allowed me relief. 1647. But it was not death or peace she offered. It was eternal life, trapped here in this forest where I hunted so many of the false witches. Trapped here forever, until a new witch of her bloodline was born to free me.
“You wanted my mother…” I hesitate to say anything, wanting to fully digest what he has ‘spoken’ to me and settle on the truth or untruth of it.
She was the first descendent gifted with the power. Over so many centuries trapped within the forest, I have learned how to harness natural magic—pulled from the earth and flowers and sprites trapped within the trees—so I am the sinner in truth now. But it gave me something to offer her…to offer Heather, your mother. And I’ve changed as the world outside the woods has changed. These clothes—M.H. waves a hand and in a blink he is dressed in dark jeans and a white tee that is tight enough to show the outline of a muscular and sculpted chest—the way I speak, my words and antiquated mannerisms. I could have been anything she wanted me to be to make her love me… as I loved her.
“You don’t make someone love you and you didn’t love her, not really. You needed her; you just needed her to be free. And she left her home, her family, everything to get away from you. You gave her spells, flights of stupid, meaningless fancy, but in the end, she had nothing. Nothing until…until me and my father and Toby.” And then I slaughtered the life she’d made for herself. I am as bad as he is. Just as bad. I roll backwards, further away from M.H. and his voice inside my head, the echo of which is ever present even when he is not ‘speaking.’
She fought me. It could have been so easy for her, like breathing. I gave her everything she asked for—knowledge, a taste of the power…
“And you wanted everything in return. She didn’t know that.”
I can give you everything now. Just name it. He holds out his arms to either side of him in a gesture of openness. But it does not look that way to me; to me it looks like he is widening his grip, ready to trap me if I wander too close to his body.
Unexpectedly, I feel the unseen presence again as a blanket of warmth wraps around my body like a cocoon—as if I am being sheltered even further from M.H., like the unseen barrier is contracting tightly against my body so there are no gaps of vulnerability.
Anger moves through my mind, unintelligible mutterings.
She. Is. Still. Fighting. Me. Her… her power… so weak… but…
“Still fighting you…” My mind races, trying to block out the confusion and reverberations his voice leaves behind. And then I gasp, I think back to my mother’s journal, to the feeling that someone was in my room, to being called her Little Witch. “It’s her, isn’t it? It’s my mother.”
His form begins to vibrate and separate like he is walking through the sieve again. Like I have spoken the right words to banish him, to say that he has no power over me.
I can heal you. I can heal your body and you will walk again. Just come to me. Come to me in the woods… Come to me where I can use the magic and teach you everything…
His speech continues, but it fades and fades along with his physical body. Until he is nothing. And when he is fully gone, the shelter around me loosens and leaves me. When the last of him fades away, I hear another voice in my head. Stay out of the forest, my world, My Little Witch, my heart. The price will be too high. The price will be too high.
“Jesus, that was close!” Jen walks in, her tone disbelieving. “Sorry, that took forever. The damn candle in the den lit the curtains up. The stupid thing wasn’t even close to the drapes!” She drops into the nearest chair and looks exhausted. The bottom of her pants is soaked. I can’t help but think that it serves her right—for lighting the stupid candles in the first place. I love her, but she can be so unthinking and insensitive at times, which is in such stark contrast to when she is mooning over me with exaggerated motherly care. A chemical imbalance seems more and more likely…
I try to act normal now that Jen is back. I feel my pulse racing, the little line in my wrist pumping quickly and rhythmically. Control it, act normal. Sometimes, it is a good thing that Jen can be so oblivious, because I do not think that I can quiet my heart or banish the fire I feel flushing my face.
“S
o…” I trail off, trying to think of what to say. Then my gaze lands on the counter and all the remaining candles. “No more candles?”
“No more freaking candles.” Jen mutters, flinging herself forward dramatically and resting her forehead against her folded hands that are atop the table’s wood surface. Then, with just as much bravado, she lifts back up quickly and grins. “But, hey, smells gone.” She tilts her head back and sniffs appreciatively.
“Yeah... I guess it is.” The house smells agreeable again, but so much is irreparably changed.
Jen hops up from the table, fully energized again. “Well, drama handled. Ready to go shopping?”
“Sure.” I try to sound enthusiastic, but a new dress seems so unimportant in the grand scheme of things now. “Let me just change into something a little less… bloody and ewww.”
I leave the kitchen and roll towards my bedroom. I feel so conflicted—even though I am full of elation that my mother is watching over me, I also cannot help the hints of intrigue and desire I feel for M.H. And that scares me. The witchfinder is a shimmer in my mind now, a promise. He can make me whole again. Perhaps it is not my soul at all that I must sacrifice. Perhaps it is my heart and my love.
Just a Thing of Silk and Crystal
The dress boutique literally has ‘glitter’ in the name.
Its front entrance resembles most stores—two massive display windows framing an impressively-fortified wood door. The logo is a G facing a backwards, upside down G. The color of the building is dark, like charcoal meets hunter green. I’m not exactly sure what to call it, but it works. It makes the building look classic and inviting… not that I want to go in now.
“It says prom right there on the sign, Jen.” This is what I’d wanted to avoid. The word prom and everything to do with high school and all the things I’d be missing out on this year. My senior year. Prom wasn’t until next semester, but girls would be shopping for homecoming dresses about now. I’d have to watch them—standing on two working legs, dancing around in gowns, and laughing in the carefree way of most teenagers.