Sex Magick

by Tom Raimbault

  At least Daren could get rid of the strange cable man who saw it fit to order the customer around. Satisfied that all was well, Daren stepped out and remained near the house. “Okay, everything is fine now! Thanks!”

  “You're good-to-go, now?”

  “Yup!”

  Ivan Trovskov extended a friendly wave and farewell. “Alright! Now you'll be all set for tomorrow's game! Have a great weekend!”

  And that was the moment when two unrelated paths had crossed. It was the moment when imaginary hands of a clock might have reached 12:00am. The seconds began ticking away, counting down another mysterious disappearance in the town of Mapleview.

  Chapter 3

  Jim's work day unofficially ended shortly after twelve o'clock, noon, He hoped that the remainder of the weekend would be uneventful. On salary and given the responsibility of overseeing the vast cable infrastructure of Mapleview and Sillmac; in reality, Jim worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But with an ability to remotely access the network by computer, Jim could relax and work at home during weekends and off-hours, monitoring cable traffic and predicting possible problems before they arise.

  And this is what Jim did shortly after greeting his wife upon returning home. “Hey, what's for dinner tonight?” he asked.

  “I don't know. Do you want to go out for dinner?”

  “Sure, what do you have in mind?”

  “How about Big Boy's Beef and Ribs?”

  It sounded like a great idea to Jim.

  So careless and cruel-hearted, Jim neglected to text or call his needy mistress as promised. Instead, he simply strolled into the den where a portion had been converted into an office. He sat at the desk and logged into the cable network which soon provided an elaborate block diagram of every amplifier, transceiver, filter, fiber optic cable, utility boxes that fed customers houses—everything throughout Mapleview and Sillmac. No red flags or red warnings displayed on the dialog screen, but there was a mild “yellow caution” provided. At one of the apartment complexes in Mapleview, there was a signal leakage at a utility box.

  Jim sighed, “Oh, come-on! Can't those installers make the fittings tight enough? It's probably Joe…” But Jim wasn't going to raise an issue if a leakage was caused by an installer. Jim had the reputation of company screw-up many years ago, and wasn't going to reciprocate that to someone new. Instead, he would visit the utility box on Monday and fix it himself.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Jim sat on the sofa with his wife, painfully watching episodes of Bridezillas and Say Yes to the Dress. Both he and Kimberly agreed that Saturday she would hold the remote so that Jim could enjoy the game on Sunday.

  Jim and Kimberly's 9-year-old son, Collin, played at his friend's house across the street. Their fourteen-year-old daughter, April, practiced her viola in her bedroom. A viola, in case you don't know, is a bowed, stringed musical instrument between the violin and cello that produces mid-tones. Now a freshman in high school, April was in orchestra and preparing for a concert next Thursday.

  * * *

  But things weren't so boring an uneventful back at the historic Trivelli house. With the cable problem resolved and dinner stewing in the slow cooker, Mary and Daren finished their lunch on that Saturday in October. While scraping the crumbs from her plate into the garbage, Mary announced, “Well, I suppose we should start on the cellar.”

  Again, this wasn't exactly an activity that Daren looked forward to. Playfully he responded, “Okay, do we have to?”

  But it wasn't playful or a joke in Mary's eyes. “Yes, Daren! Come-on, it won't take long. I mostly want to throw out all those old canned goods and sort through some boxes in the tool room.”

  Shortly after purchasing the Trivelli house over a year ago, Mary vowed to throw away all the junk that had been stored in that cellar for many decades. But one weekend after another passed, and Mary never got around to it. The cellar weighed increasingly heavy on Mary's conscience, causing guilt and all those unsettled feelings brought on by procrastination. It was imperative that she kept her promise to herself and finally clear out all that junk.

  If you've ever been in a basement of an old home, it's unlike the ones we see in modern dwellings. And really the basement of Mary's historic dream-home was not a basement at all. It was a cellar that provided just enough headroom to walk around in and seemed to be made for storage only. The floor was a collection of large, flat rocks joined together with cement. Although a crudely-finished area, the cellar did have two rooms that were past the cistern. One of those rooms held all the tools—many of them antique—that had been collected since the house was first built. The other room contained numerous shelves of canned goods that were probably many decades old.

  Mary had no intention of throwing out any of the tools. Again, many of them were antique. The elaborate collection of newer ones was certainly a convenience to have during a home project. But there were dusty, old, stacked boxes lying on the floor along with what appeared to be old pictures at the side of the work bench. And being that the tool room was the first one past the cistern, Mary decided to tackle it first.

  Immediately, Mary walked over to the side of the bench where some half dozen pictures in frames rested. Daren was more interested in going through the large tool chest and admiring his collection that was inherited through marriage.

  Suddenly, Mary exclaimed, “Oh my gosh!”

  Something obviously startled Mary, so Daren quickly looked over. “What? What is it?”

  All Mary could do was repeat herself. “Oh my gosh!”

  Now Daren was curious. From what he could see, Mary held a framed picture while exhibiting a baffled expression. When finally near, all Daren could see was a portrait of the upstairs piano with vase on top. Seated at the piano was a man dressed in a suit. He commented on the picture, “Probably just an old picture that hung upstairs at one time or another. I mean this house is old. People used to do that back then…”

  Mary quickly interrupted, “Daren, that's you! That's you sitting on the piano bench!”

  Daren further studied the picture. “Well what do you know about that? It does slightly resemble me. It's sort of a vague representation, but what a coincidence.” He pulled the portrait from Mary's hands and held it up against the wall. “I like it. Why don't we hang this upstairs near the piano?”

  Mary yanked the picture back from her husband. “Daren, no! Do you see that vase on the piano? That's the vase!” She wanted no part of the portrait, not after the horror of what was discovered at the bottom of the vase.

  Although disappointed that the portrait would be disposed of, Daren was empathetic to Mary's aversion. Soon he began sorting through the remaining portraits. There was a portrait of the historic Trivelli house as it would have appeared in original construction prior to the nearly 180 years of additions and renovations. It was only a small cottage, then.

  But the remaining portraits were eerie and disturbing. One of them was nothing more than a dark hole filled with what appeared to be tormented spirits. There were two matching portraits. One illustrated an unclothed woman standing upright in a restrained position with a cloth sack over her head. Nearly all the flesh of her lower torso, thighs and legs had been removed so all that could be seen was muscle. A large lake of blood ran throughout the floor. The matching portrait told a further story as it detailed the face of a terribly-distraught woman under the cloth sack.

  The final portrait threw Mary over the edge. It was the very tool room that she and Daren now stood in, distorted in color so that it radiated dark overtones. On some of the tools were splashes of blood. And then there were cloudy swirls that floated and stretched throughout the room which further gave it a paranormal effect. Mary could see everything in the portrait with such fine detail. The portrait even included a vague representation of her and Daren, sorting through the collection of portraits!

  Poor Mary nearly passed out from overwhelming confusion and shock. She had no choice but to run out of the tool room and
back upstairs. Startled at his wife's behavior, Daren trailed behind with the portrait still in his hands. “Mary? Mary? What's wrong?”

  By the time he reached the main level, Mary stood near the kitchen counter in tears. She backed away in terror as Daren approached with the portrait.

  “What's wrong with you?”

  “Daren, please don't bring the painting over!”

  “What? Why, what's wrong with it?” He glanced at the photo and could see nothing out of the ordinary, just an eerie representation of the tool room.

  Nearly hysterical and in tears, Mary shouted, “It's us, Daren! Why are we in there?”

  Again, Daren looked at the painting. “Us? I don't see anyone in this picture. It's just a bad painting of the tool room.”

  Did Mary's mind play tricks on her? Still frightened, she carefully approached the painting just to further examine the portrait and point out the two people who looked like her and Daren. But much to her confusion, there was no one in tool room.

  Mary wiped her eyes and brushed her hair back. She sighed and appeared to calm down. “I saw us in the picture before.”

  “Alright, you know what? You were just freaking yourself out down there. You know what where going to do? I'll show you what we're going to do.” Daren stormed out the sliding, glass door that led to the deck and threw the painting down to the middle of the yard. Then he stormed back into the house. “I'll show you what we're going to do with all that crap.” He descended the stairs into the cellar and retrieved all the remaining disturbing portraits of the Trivelli house. Once upstairs he walked through the side door near the kitchen so that he was in the backyard instead of on the deck. Daren carried the stack of portraits over to the fire pit and threw them in. And of course he was sure to grab the portrait that had been thrown over the deck.

  In the meantime, Mary stood silently on the deck, overlooking her husband's activities down below. She watched as he entered the garage and returned with a container of lighter fluid and matches. The portraits were saturated before Daren struck a match to ignite them. At the match's impact, the portraits burst into flames as the wooden frames crackled and the oil paint sizzled.

  Daren quickly ascended the stairs to the deck and lightly rubbed his wife's back. “There, see? That's what we're going to do with that crap!”

  Both husband and wife watched for about a minute as the flames roared and embers floated through the air before dying out. Then Mary made mention of something she recalled from her first weekend of living in the house. “You know something Daren; on the weekend that I moved back to Mapleview, I went out to lunch with Shelly (Mary's best friend). She said that Aunt Loraine had some artist renting the house from her. I bet those were her paintings.”

  “Well she was a real whack-job if you ask me—people being tortured and bleeding, a hole with ghosts in it.” Daren made it all better for his wife. Nothing was going to disturb his precious Mary. But unbeknown to her and Daren, there was more waiting in the cellar!

  After returning to the tool room, Mary and Daren opened each dusty, old box on the floor to examine the contents. There wasn't anything worth keeping; just a bunch of rusty nails and screws; grimy, old engine parts or an occasional bundle of magazines from the 1970s. Charged and wishing to make the remainder of the day pleasant for his wife, Daren eagerly carried the boxes up and out to the trash, sometimes carrying two or even three at a time.

  Many decades of dust and filth were swept off the floor. Daren cleaned and organized his workbench that had been inherited through marriage. Now he had his own little workshop in the cellar.

  Finished with the tool room, Mary and Daren turned their attention to the canned goods room. Immediately, Daren reached for an old can of spinach that could have easily been from the 1930s. He playfully asked Mary, “Need a vegetable for tonight?”

  “Sure, let me know how it is.”

  Daren picked up a few more antique cans of vegetables. “I bet this stuff is worth money now. I mean these cans must be collectors' items.”

  Mary wanted nothing to do with saving antique canned vegetables in hopes of them being valuable. “Just throw them out!”

  Then Daren suggested, “Maybe we can donate them to the church pantry.”

  “Sure; make some poor, old lady who doesn't know any better sick? Throw them out!”

  Then Mary directed her attention to the oversized Mason jar of dark, oily liquid. It had sat there on the shelf ever since Mary could remember, and continued to look as nauseating as ever. Mary's face contorted to disgust, “Start with that jar, first. Get rid of it!”

  Of course Daren was curious of the jar. “What's in there?”

  “I don't know. Nobody knows. When we were kids; my brother, sister and I would come down here and dare one another to open it and drink whatever is in there.”

  “No one was ever bold enough to try?”

  Mary shook her head, no.

  “Well I want to see what's in there.”

  “No, Daren! Just throw it out!”

  “Oh, come-on! It'll be fun! This is your lifelong mystery. Wouldn't you like to finally solve the riddle of what's in this jar?” Daren picked up the oversized jar from the shelf and realized how large and heavy the thing was. It must have been capable of holding 3 gallons of fluid with a top that could easily accommodate a volleyball to pass through!

  “Daren, where are you going with that?” Mary nervously trailed behind.

  “I just want to check it out.”

  In horror, Mary watched as Daren ascended the stairs with the oversized Mason jar. “No, Daren! Don't you dare open that thing in the kitchen!”

  “I'm not going to open it. I just need some light so we can see what's inside.” Once upstairs, he brought the jar over to the piano and gently set it down.

  “Oh, real nice, Daren! Just scratch the antique piano with some old jar.”

  “It's not going to scratch anything! Would you rather this be on your kitchen counter? Here, let's put a blanket underneath.” Daren walked over to the sofa and returned with an Afghan blanket. It was soon positioned under the oversized Mason jar.

  Really, calling it a Mason jar is a mistake for it didn't have the word Mason embossed across. Nor did it say Ball, Kerr or Atlas. It was simply an unmarked, glass jar. But had Daren and Mary known more of antique jars, they would have noticed the wax sealer lid. And there was something else that Daren took notice of now that the jar was upstairs in the light. “This jar is colored blue, Mary.” Again, had Daren known more of antique jars, he would have noticed that the jar was actually a rare cobalt blue. Colored jars were popular in olden times as they restricted light from entering and possibly spoiling the food.

  Daren looked closer at the inner contents. “There's something in here, some kind of organic material.”

  “It's probably some old, decomposed vegetables or something. Let's just throw it out, Daren.”

  But Daren insisted on further investigation. “No, no! Let me bring the light over here and get a closer look.” There was an antique, reading floor lamp next to the piano with reflector shade that could bend to a desired angle. Daren pulled the lamp closer to the jar and then positioned the shade behind it before turning the lamp on. And once additional light had been provided, Daren grew all-the-more intrigued.

  “Hey Mary… It looks like there's a face in the jar… Actually a head!”

  Mary didn't appreciate humor at that moment. At least she believed Daren was only trying to be funny. “Daren, knock it off!” She brought her face close to the jar and took sight of the recognizable features of closed eyes… a nose… cheeks…lips… a chin… all surrounded by a cloud of thick hair that floated. It was most certainly the head of a woman in that jar, and it bore a terrible resemblance to Mary!

  What else could Mary have done at that moment outside of raising her hand to her agape, trembling mouth? Terror filled her again; resulting in even worse trauma than the experienced hallucination on the painting. But screaming wasn't
possible, thanks to overwhelming shock. Mary darted across the family room and to the outside deck where the twilight, chilled air restored a sense of physical awareness. Poor Mary was close to passing out in her moment of terror.

  Daren quickly joined Mary outside and embraced his wife. “Are you okay? Don't worry; I'll dispose of that.”

  “No, Daren! We have to call the police! You just don't throw out a dismembered head!” At that, Mary walked back into the house, trembling, yet fully prepared to deal with the situation.

  As his wife reached for the phone, Daren called out from across the room. “Mary! Don't call 911! That's your Grandma Trivelli in there, murdered almost 200 years ago. The police already solved the case. Just call the non-emergency number. Have them pick up the jar and store it away as evidence or something.”

  Mary paused for a moment, considering the truth of Daren's suggestion. But exactly what was the non-emergency number for the Mapleview Police?

  Fortunately, Daren had his Android-style smart phone in his pocket. It took no more than 10 seconds to search for the Mapleview police contact information so that he could click the hyperlinked number and hand the phone to his wife.

  It was Officer Ralph, clerk of the Mapleview Police, who answered the call on that late, Saturday afternoon in October. Despite his lifelong ambition to fight crime, Officer Ralph worked the beat of traffic patrol early in his career until it was decided that the pudgy and good natured member of the police force was better suited for office duties. He immediately recalled Mary and the Trivelli house from the previous times Mapleview Police had visited the residence. Hearing of the new discovery had Officer Ralph very excited.

  Just as many Saturday afternoons, Detective Tom Morehausen and his partner, Larry Copperwright, both sat in their offices doing nothing more than wait for suspicious activity that needed investigating. This particular weekend had been slow. One might think that both detectives would have stayed at home to enjoy their weekends. But for some reason, they found it necessary to hang out at the office. And it was best that Detective Tom had a slow Saturday. Already past the age of retirement, the veteran detective had gotten ill on Friday from the stomach flu or some food poisoning. Still feeling queasy, he wasn't capable of stomaching much at that moment.