Consensual Hex

by Amanda Harlowe

  Pierce with the olive undertones ends up on the Huffington Post, upside down, reporters across the nation proclaiming him the AMHERST HANGED MAN after police discovered the Rider-Waite Hanged Man tarot card we left behind for the warlocks. “1 IN 5 was scrawled on Mr. Ellis’s forehead, a statistic believed to be a reference to the number of American women estimated to have been sexually assaulted in their lives.” The headline prompts Sienna to send us a curt group email, imploring us to visit her office, nine A.M., bright and early, for a “discussion” about the “daring turn in our coursework.”

  Sun floods through the skylight of Sienna’s office; we take our usual seats. Only Luna is brave enough to ask Sienna how her morning is.

  “Lee, you wanted chamomile, right?” Sienna flicks through a small tin of tea.

  “I prefer jasmine,” I say. “Gabi likes chamomile.”

  Sienna pours and distributes the tea before taking a seat behind her desk. She takes too long to fold her hands, clear her throat. I lose any thirst or appetite; my hands shaking too much to safely hold the cup and saucer, I slam the tea back down.

  Sienna opens a yellowing scrapbook left on the edge of her desk, pulling out an old Polaroid.

  “Lee,” she says, handing the picture to me, “show this to everyone.”

  I pass around the photo, which depicts a college-aged Sienna, her wardrobe largely unchanged, lingering in the middle of two girls in extraordinarily short collared minidresses, hair parted down the middle. One of them wears a pointed witch’s hat, the other holds a carved pumpkin.

  “Halloween, 1971,” says Sienna. “This was the night before a particularly visible Samhain celebration on the Quad that triggered a response from the administration resulting in the firing of our faculty adviser. Both of those girls left Smith the following semester, and I have been without a coven ever since.” She looks at me pointedly. “I cannot emphasize enough how deeply afraid the public is of anything to do with the craft. You would think women would be thrilled to find out about their magic—it’s not that simple. Magic scares women as much as men. Women are raised to deny their power. When it comes, most of them don’t want it.”

  “Leaving the card behind was my idea,” says Charlotte, fidgeting with her nails. “I just wanted to make sure the warlocks understood the reference, you know?”

  “Char—” I start, before Sienna stops me.

  “I know you were behind the ‘Amherst Hanged Man,’” says Sienna. “And, yes, I did give you explicit permission to engage with the warlocks, for the sole purpose of taking back the old grimoire, but crushed ankles? Broken thumbs? Hanging? Thank Goddess he didn’t actually die.”

  “I’m sure the three girls he raped would have preferred if we’d hung him by the neck,” I snap.

  Luna tugs on my sleeve. “Lee—”

  I grind my teeth. “We’ll be more discreet. But we’re not going to stop.”

  Sienna takes a long sip of tea. “Leisl, you surely understand that actions have consequences. I am not able to give you the same free rein, magically speaking, now that you’ve chosen to use your magic in irresponsible and potentially disastrous ways. And, if you again attract media attention, I will have to put a stop to your magic altogether.”

  “What if we’re more discreet?” I ask. “What if we leave absolutely no evidence?”

  “If your coven is going to continue to engage in reckless use of magic, I will have to take away the privilege of using magic. Either way,” she says, reaching into her desk drawer, “you are already limited.”

  Sienna places on her desk an elegant contraption that resembles an hourglass, but rather than the sand dripping from one curving compartment to the other, the fine grains sink through the funnel and vanish.

  “Every month, at the full moon, I will refill the hourglass. The rate at which the sand disappears is determined by the frequency and intensity of your spellcasting. Combat magic is especially costly. You are indeed legal adults, and young witches need some degree of leeway over their magical practice—I’m no babysitter—but you’ve certainly proven you cannot be trusted with unlimited power. Now you will have to be discerning in what magic you choose to use, and we will still have practice twice weekly, so you’ll have to save the majority of your power for those sessions.”

  Luna keeps her hand on my arm, squeezes me like an unruly child.

  Gabi takes her head out of her arms and starts sobbing openly.

  “I think we’d better get going,” I suggest, numb.

  Sienna frowns. “Yes, have a lovely day. The weather’s so nice and crisp.”

  It’s a Saturday morning, so virtually no one is outside. We settle on the lawn between the library and Seelye Hall, Luna laying her head on a bed of rusty leaves, Charlotte lighting a cigarette.

  “I’m shocked, honestly,” I say. “I thought she would have been more supportive. She was arrested in the seventies.”

  Gabi, still sniffling, glares at me. “She has a point, Lee. She has a really good point.”

  “Seriously? You’re going to be that person?” I say.

  Luna bolts up. “Lee—”

  “What, you care more about Sienna’s approval than the good we’re doing?” I say to Gabi. “You care more about your own comfort than making the world safe for women?”

  Luna: “Gabi’s just afraid that we could get really hurt—”

  “Gabi, if you’re not committed to justice, you can leave the coven now. You may not give a fuck; I have a personal stake in this, your girlfriend has a personal stake in this, we can’t just sit back and forget about—”

  Gabi: “Justice? I thought we were at Amherst to get the grimoire back—”

  Luna steps between us, reaching out to swaddle Gabi in her arms.

  “I don’t think we can trust Sienna,” I say. “Think about it. Once we get the grimoire back, what use will she have for us? She could take away our magic permanently. Erase our memories, Goddess forbid we get on the news again.”

  “I trust Sienna,” Gabi says.

  “I’m taking Gabi back to Cutter Ziskind,” says Luna. “We’ll see you later.”

  “Oh, so you don’t give a shit that we basically can’t use magic now? You’re not going to do anything? Just going to give up, go hide under the covers for the rest of your life?”

  “Since when do you exclusively call the shots?” Gabi shouts at me over her shoulder.

  “Since I fucking know the most about magic?”

  I watch them leave; Charlotte asks if I want to go out for ramen. I remind her that you can’t get ramen this early, so we settle on macarons at the French bakery.

  “Mercury’s in retrograde, you know,” Charlotte explains as she extinguishes her cigarette under her heel and scavenges for her sunglasses in her straw basket.

  “I only read the good parts of horoscopes,” I say.

  We take the steep road winding around the front gates of campus, SMITH COLLEGE, 1871, the gates you’re not supposed to walk through unless you don’t want to graduate.

  Charlotte says, “Do you ever think, either Gabi and Luna are going to get married and we’ll all be in the wedding, or they’re going to break up?”

  I shudder. “Do you think they’ll break up?”

  Charlotte is silent. I don’t choose an answer, preferring to listen to our boots slam the leaves, the soft whistle of breeze, the honk of oncoming traffic. Anything but the future, the choices we’ll have to make, the friends we’ll have to abandon, the relationships we’ll bury and leave for the worms.

  The bakery is almost empty. I make a comment to Charlotte about how I should become a morning person and have my espresso here while I get work done. Charlotte isn’t very talkative. She makes some excuse about a hangover, but I know it’s about Sienna.

  Once we finish our macarons and coffee, I ask the barista for the bathroom key. My chest feels stomped on, sunken, when I see Charlotte inching toward the door, even though I told her to wait for me. I stay in the bathroom stall for a
while, crying, trying to wipe my tears with plain old toilet paper. At one point, I hear the door creak open, see a pair of bland, unidentifiable sneakers enter, but I’m past the point of caring if strangers can hear me crying in bathrooms. I’m a college student, after all. Though I do wonder how the sneakers-wearer got into the bathroom without the key.

  I stop waiting for Charlotte to text me back and opt to rinse my face in the sink. I end up getting water everywhere, and, because I’m not actually a bad person, gather up a bunch of paper towels and wipe the sink, the floor, the mirror.

  I wipe my eyes, too, and, in the mirror, staring back at me, is Tripp.

  He waves. I scream, twist my head over my shoulder and he’s not there, there’s nothing, I must be going crazy, but it turns out I’m not crazy, I’m exactly right, because as soon as I grip the door handle, there are hands on my neck, hands tugging at my hair, there are hands everywhere and I’ve been here before, this is exactly how it happened. I’m screaming and no one is coming to get me, no one is here to save me and I can’t save myself, there are too many hands, dragging me to the floor, there are the tiles and this is just like it happened, his fist at the nape of my neck, pulling out my hair, cheek and nose slammed against the tiles, I’m surprised my nose doesn’t break, but I’m bleeding, just like I bled then, just like that one time, this is exactly the same, there’s no music but he’s providing the soundtrack, There’s a freedom in your arms…

  It turns out he’s got henchmen cowering in the corners, invisibility falling off their skin like an explosion of powdered sugar over golden dough—when he puts me on my back, when he seizes my arms, when his buddy with the LAX pants starts fumbling with my vintage 501 buttons with a dutiful, needle-and-thread attention to detail (and his scrawny, greasy friend, decked out in Amherst gear, lifts my shirt like a plaid tablecloth splayed over a piece of furniture), it’s true that sharks go still, sharks become immobile, sharks can’t bite.

  It’s true, this time I have magic, this time I have the power, this time I have fire and lightning and broken glass on my side and soon the potion is wearing off, he’s squirming on the floor, knife in hand, little cuts all over his body, this time I love myself enough to destroy anyone who treats my body like an unchained bicycle with parts you can sell at the repair shop, I know I’m a person, I’m powerful, I am the image of God, except I’m the honestly-way-cooler Old Testament God who turns rivers to blood when you fuck with me or my people, I don’t do forgiveness.

  “Let’s go one more time,” says Tripp, grinning, wiping a string of terrible vermillion from under his nose. “All the way. You don’t want to die a virgin, do you?”

  One of the buddies—the brawnier lax one—loosens his grip slightly. “Tripp, we can’t kill her here.”

  Tripp frowns. “You want to take it up the ass too, Rocky?”

  He takes his hand from his belt, covering his mouth as he sneezes; from between his fingers, dripping, comes blood, thick red second-day-of-a-heavy-period blood rushing down his wrists, his arms, flowing like a stream, like a fucking waterfall.

  I blink, and Charlotte has his throat between her hands.

  She’s taller than him, able to shove his face with her elbows, position him against the stall and punch him twice. He crunches forward, nosebleed like a faucet all over his khakis.

  Tripp’s two henchmen cower by the sinks; my wits coming back to me, I take my scissors from my pocket and drive the blades into the wall.

  At once, the brothers start to vomit.

  “We have to kill him,” I shout, hazy glance at Charlotte through tears. “Fucking kill all of them.”

  One of Tripp’s hands escapes Charlotte’s grasp, slipping into his pocket.

  “Lee, we have to go,” Charlotte says, releasing Tripp.

  I pull my scissors from the wall. “I’m not finished—”

  Charlotte grabs me by the waist, tugging me from my birthright, my revenge; the door swings shut behind us, and I’m crying, screaming, I don’t care what the espresso-drinking bakery-goers have to say, I wasn’t finished and I’m worried I’m never going to be.

  We tell Luna everything (she thanks us for not including Gabi, who has a huge paper and already had two panic attacks today).

  “Why would they want to kill you?” Luna asks at the end of my story.

  “I’m a threat. We’re all a threat. And now that our magic is limited—”

  We enchant Chapin and Hubbard, make it impossible for any man to enter without a crusty, pus-filled rash swaddling his entire body (Charlotte: “What about trans guys? Shit, magic is so cisheteronormative”). Around ten, after two rewatches of Mulan, Charlotte leaves. I decide to keep my scissors tucked into the waistband of my sweats; it’s better to have a weapon on me, even if I roll over the wrong way and stab myself while sleeping.

  I have the dream again, with the broomsticks, the chase, but this time there’s music playing, from some invisible stereo in the sky (you know what song), and I wake with a knotted, about-to-vomit stomach and run straight to the bathroom, and it turns out I fell asleep so early, it’s only one A.M., the girls next door are playing LeAnn Rimes and singing along, and laughing, like he did, he was laughing for most of it (I told you he’s a monster, indecipherable, a creature of nightmares come to haunt the day).

  I return to bed, slam my head under my pillow, breathe in fistfuls of sheet before I realize that, you know, you shouldn’t suffocate yourself, and there’s an alternative to being my own worst enemy. There’s still something I can do. That I have to do, if he’s going to keep coming after me, if he’s going to do it again, if I’m going to lose my magic, suddenly, like your phone going dead while you’re stuck in the metal limbs of a primary school desk, school shooter prowling the hall outside.

  It isn’t murder if it’s self-defense. It’s just like hunting for rabbits the weekend after the apocalypse—it’s survival.

  I call Luna, tell her what we have to do. She hangs up, shuffles down the hall—we meet in the giant closet Rachel and I share.

  Luna asks me to repeat what I said.

  She gulps audibly.

  “Remember the first time we hung out,” says Luna, “when I told you I wished I had some kind of magic potion that could erase my memories of him, so I could just be done with all of this? So I could move on, live my life?”

  She catches my glare, applies a coat of lip balm from the hemp store, and shakes her head. “I’ll help you fortify Chapin against him. But go after him, after what he did to you just now? Fuck no, Lee.”

  I lock the door behind her, try and fail to go back to sleep, but all I see is the vision of his belt, his grin, seemingly stamped on the inner skin of my eyes—and I know one thing: Death won’t be the end of this.

  Chapter Nine

  Singin’ in the Rain

  CHARLOTTE’S SWISS ARMY KNIFE THAT somehow got through airport security (which Charlotte assures me isn’t that hard): the how.

  John Digby Whitaker III of Cos Cob, Connecticut, five foot nine, handicap of two: the who.

  Vipers you mistook for garter snakes, deadly hair, and the laws of feminism: the why.

  The Hotel Northampton: the where.

  Revenge (a dish best served room temperature, Thai spicy, topped with dollar-store wontons): the obvious.

  How to cut off a dick, a guide for lesbians and virgins who don’t yet know they are lesbians:

  The penis is composed of two parts, sort of like if you arranged your box of crystals so your obsidian point is attached to two rose quartz spheres (a wand of negative energy, that’s a good way to think about a dick), the long part being the shaft (a term I learned from L/Light Livejournal lemons circa 2008) which is fused to the balls, which, if you’ll believe it, are the root of the innate masculine drive to explain how the world works to ill-informed chicks who lack a proper understanding of classic rock (classic rock being a genre limited to Led Zeppelin, Metallica, and maybe the Stones or the Beatles).

  Now, most of my knowle
dge of castration comes from Zara’s live-tweeting of this novel about harems, which was really critically acclaimed but she said was absolutely terrible. It was mostly about the main character having sex with this really feminine eunuch. At least that’s the part she read to me at a sleepover February sophomore year, when the fisher cats were midnight prowling and we were really into Saint-Saëns and Michael Chabon and Zara denied ever having cried in front of me at four A.M., and our relationship started to ruin itself from there.

  So I know how to make a eunuch, you just slice off the balls. (If you do it young enough, you’ll preserve that pristine spoon-clanging-porcelain little-boy singing voice, which is what the church used to do for the Vatican choirs until, I don’t know, probably not enough centuries ago.)

  But when you’re blinded by rage, revenge, Rohypnol dreams, you’re not so precise, you’re not so thoughtful, you seize the thing and you take the knife and you cut, you slice, you take the weapon apart like a nasty splinter you’re prying from under your skin, pulling, pulling, pulling until it’s separate and you feel something close to satisfaction.

  Kill and murder are absent from the choice words I use the night I confront Charlotte about the problem of Tripp. I reserve one of those study rooms in the Campus Center, the day we get back to campus, Pioneer Valley local news still reporting the pre-Thanksgiving story of the AMHERST HANGED MAN, the man of honor himself even doing an interview and identifying the perpetrators as “a bunch of ugly-ass bitches,” a description that fails to incite the Hampshire County police to round up all the people who bleed and bake them under the fry-hot fluorescence of interrogation lamps only to discover that, indeed, most of the bitches in the world would really like to fuck the patriarchy, doggy style, with a crystal dildo and a smoking bundle of sage.