by Rebecca Ore
“Do you remember the Pleistocene?” Maude asked. “Are you as old as the human race?”
“I never lived at the expense of worthy people.”
Maude tried to wipe Betty’s reflection off the mirrors.
The reflection appeared startled, but stayed. Its lips moved, saying, “Oh, Maude, do you love your grandmother for what she did to your mother?”
I’ve always hated these people. “My mother died in an accident. You can’t have my grandmother.” Maude drove the car through the Minotaur. The print blew away in huge tatters. The tires on the left side of the car hit dirt. Maude pulled the wheel sharply to the right. She tried to see the road, struggled to get magic to work for her.
“Now you don’t scruple to use it, but I’m stronger.”
“You’d just have stopped the car.” Maude realized that if they had stopped, then Esther could have caught up to them, and Doug. William Blake’s lines came to mind about Newton killing the garden. Maude felt the car crest the hilltop. Time to turn.
“You’re just opposed to me because you like being an underdog,” Betty’s radio voice told Maude. “Being an underdog means you never have to be responsible.”
“I am responsible. I’m taking my grandmother to the hospital.”
The road reappeared around her. Betty said, “Taking her to the hospital to die. Then to the cemetery to rot.”
Maude wondered if Partridge could be buried in the family cemetery after this. Betty’s image faded from the mirrors. Suddenly, Maude felt tired, grubby. Her pants were sweaty, perhaps she’d pissed them pulling the car back on the road.
More cars began appearing on the road now, an ordinary workday with a dying woman in the back seat. Maude was beginning to think she’d won when a pickup veered over into her lane. The front bumper was one huge plank, protruding inches from the sides. Maude saw the grain swirling through the wood.
No, I’m not going fast enough. She swerved away from truck, felt as much as heard the bumper grind against her door. Maude didn’t know whether Betty had tried to wreck her and failed or what. She looked behind to see that the Essex had dropped back.
A car pulled from nowhere and crushed her right headlight.
“You won’t be far from the hospital when you crash,” the radio voice said.
“What have I done that you’d do this to me?”
“You refused me. You want to be a loser.”
Maude wondered whether she was listening to Betty or the entity behind her. “What if I reconsider?” Lie to liars.
“It doesn’t really matter if we don’t get Partridge. Let her die and get pickled in formaldehyde, her guts trocared out of her belly, her face plumped out with wax, buried as a half-flesh, half-chemical mock of a real woman.”
“It’s just her body.”
“We’ll be generous. We will let you bury her in the family plot.”
The magic faded. But as Maude turned into the hospital entrance, she felt magic again. She hit the accelerator at the entrance to the emergency room and passed it. Hook waving, jacked-up Ford rocking, Jake sped out of the hospital parking lot, nearly hitting her. Maude looked behind her and saw that the Essex had stopped. She turned around and came back down to face the Essex in the other lane. She paused to look through the car windows at Aunt Betty. Betty sat weeping. She nodded at Maude. When Maude turned, the Essex turned to follow.
They’d entertained the entities. Maude almost pitied her aunt for not realizing witchery was only the spurs that entities put on her for her fights with other humans.
She remembered Jake’s face just seconds before, speeding by her. It was not enough that they took his hand; they would have killed him to get her. Maude realized she couldn’t afford to pity her aunt. She pulled the car up to the emergency entrance.
Attendants came out to the car. “Man, what happened?”
The car was crumpled, front headlight out, metal dragging against the right tire. The driver’s door was smashed shut. Betty’s Essex pulled past them and parked in a lot beyond the emergency entrance.
“My grandmother needed to come here,” Maude said. “She’s hurting.” She slid across the seat and opened the right-hand door, then got out and unlocked Partridge’s. The attendants brought out a gurney.
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?” a nurse who’d come out said.
“Thought this would be faster,” Maude answered. “She could still walk when we left the house.” She wondered where Doug and Esther were. She was sorry about Esther’s car.
Partridge sat up and looked at the emergency room attendants. Maude was startled. The nurse looked at Maude as if perhaps this was some kind of hoax. Then Partridge said, “It hurts.” She scrabbled at the car door as if trying to pull herself up to stand. The attendants took her by the shoulders and hips and laid her on the gurney.
One pulled his hand away from her dress and said, “She’s bleeding. Do you know if it’s rectal or vaginal?”
“I don’t know,” Maude said.
“Who’s her doctor?” an aide asked.
“Her doctor’s not a surgeon. We need a surgeon,” the nurse said. “We’ll call Dr. Armitage.”
As they wheeled the gurney away into the hospital, Betty came walking up to Maude. She touched the wrecked side of the car, then went around to see the headlight. As Betty rubbed one kid-encased finger around a shard of headlight glass, Maude thought, she still has her gloves on, Betty pinched the glass between her thumb and forefinger and wiggled it free from the remains of the headlight mount. She asked Maude, “Are you happy? Or do you feel like a fool?”
“I’m doing what she wants.”
“You’re weak. You could be stronger.”
“I got her here.”
“As though letting her die to spite me was a victory.”
“As you said, I feel virtuous being a loser.” As soon as her tongue dropped and lips closed, Maude felt she’d been stupidly brave to say that. She realized everything this woman told her could have been lies.
“Well,” Betty said, “let’s go in to see Partridge.”
But the medics had Partridge now. The nurse said, “We’ll let you know what happens. The surgeon is on his way.”
Doug and Esther came in then. Maude said, “I’m sorry about your car.”
Esther looked flustered. “How is your grannie?”
“I don’t know.”
Doug looked from Maude to Betty and back. “Shouldn’t you call in a report on hit-and-run? Esther’s insurance company might need it.”
“I’ll pay for the damage,” Betty said.
“As you’re responsible,” Maude said.
“Now, Maude, don’t go delusional on us,” Betty said. “Esther, we appreciate your loan of the car.” She pulled out her purse and began to count out money with her gloved fingers. “It’s $200. That should cover the damages.” Her arm extended toward Esther, the bills drooping off the fingertips.
Esther took the money, turning each bill over before she put the money in her purse.
“Don’t loan Maude your car again,” Betty said. “She’s a terrible driver when she hallucinates.”
A nurse overheard Betty and said, “Is she on drugs?”
Maude said, “No.”
Betty spiraled her finger near her ear—no, just touched. “We can all wait at my house. It’s closer. The number is 666-6660.”
The nurse wrote the number down and smiled. “She’s in good hands. We’ll call you.”
“I’d like to see her,” Betty said.
“No, not now,” the nurse told her. “We’re trying to treat her as aggressively as possible.”
Betty looked elderly, then, and slightly confused. The fluorescent lights do it, Maude thought, and the computer screens, Esther said, “I’ll call you, Maude.”
“I am sorry about the car.”
“Was supposed to be worse. God watched.”
“Who’s the next of kin?” the nurse said. “We need you to sign permission fo
r surgery.”
Maude said, “I’m her granddaughter. I came home to take care of her.”
Betty put her gloved hands to her face and mumbled, “I don’t want her to suffer. Just sedate her and let me in.”
The nurse brought a clipboard to Maude. Maude wondered if surgery wasn’t cruel. Sedate Partridge, let her die without the surgery. Her grandmother now had found the courage to die. Keep Betty and the other witches out, watch over Partridge—the simple rites of womenfolk. Wash the body, wrap it in a shroud, hand it to the men to put in the coffin. Wail behind the men with the coffin on their shoulders.
“You could have let her die at home, but you brought her here,” the nurse said. “You must know this is best. Dr. Armitage hates to see old people let to die because they’re a burden to their families.”
Dr. Armitage came out in his greens and said, “This the family?”
“Yes,” Maude said.
“You should have brought her in sooner.”
Betty said, “She’s ready to die. We thought you could deal with the pain and then…”
“I’m a surgeon. We don’t work that way.”
Betty said, “I don’t think my cousin wants to live. I want to say good-bye to her.”
“Who’s next of kin?” Dr. Armitage asked.
“I am,” Maude said. She signed the consent form and handed him the clipboard.
Dr. Armitage looked at it and said, “I’m going to scrub. Send in the anesthesia nurse.”
“I didn’t want her to throw her life away,” Betty stated. Doug said, “Let’s go home, Maude.”
“Aren’t you coming to my house?” Betty asked. “It’s closer.”
“Perhaps I should,” Maude said. She grinned at Betty. She wanted to know where her soi-disant aunt was during the surgery.
As they walked out to the cars, Betty said, “Doug, leave your car here. Maude, you beat me.”
Maude felt her face flush as though her body was embarrassed to hear this. She couldn’t make up her mind as to whether Betty lied to her or not.
“Really, you won. Your grandmother will die there.”
“But you will let us bury her in the family plot?” Maude asked.
“Yes, I drop the fight. If Partridge wants to rot in a grave near her kin, then I’m in full agreement. Get in the car, Douglas, in the back.” He did. Betty turned to Maude. Under the sodium vapor lights, her face looked like a rotten corpse face, teeth bright flashes of light. “So, you get your way. You’re the death of decent lives. Your body knew to be ashamed to hear my confession.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Maude said. “But, we ought to be decent about this. After all, we’re kinswomen.” She sounded forced to herself. Betty stood by the driver’s door until Maude remembered her manners and opened it. She got in the passenger-side door and looked at Doug in the back seat. He seemed dazed.
“What happened on the way here?” she asked him as Betty started the Essex.
“I don’t remember anything peculiar,” he said. “I’m so tired. By the way, I forgot to tell you. My Berkeley house sold. I’ve got no further attachments there.”
No real attachments anywhere, Maude thought. Esther’s church circle would quilt Partridge’s death quilt. The dying would be over soon. “I’m tired, too,” Maude said.
“Old women like Partridge and me don’t sleep as much as you young ones,” Betty said. She smiled.
The Essex picked up power as it moved away from the hospital. Soon, they were at Betty’s house in Taylorsville. As Maude opened the car door for Betty, she hoped there would be a truce between them now. They could be two normal women grieving the aging and death of someone they both loved. She was emotionally drained now.
Betty did seem in tears as she unlocked her house door. Doug followed them and said, “Sorry, I hadn’t realized we’d arrived.”
Maude realized by Betty’s standards he’d failed to show proper manners. The man was to open the car doors. He didn’t even help Betty with the house door.
Luke was sitting in the dark parlor to the left of the front door. Betty turned on a light and shook her head. Maude felt her heart spasm. Doug said, “I hope we got her to the hospital in time.”
Luke snapped on a light and said, “Betty, that fool is painting at us. I feel every brush stroke.”
Betty went to the back of the house and parted the drapes. Maude followed her and looked down. The lights were on at the Reverend Springer’s shack down in the hollow behind the highway.
Betty let the drapes fall closed. She looked at Maude and said, “A certain uncontrolled talent.”
“Is he a witch, too?”
“Yes, of a different sort,” Betty said. “Do you want some tea?” She began to strip off her gloves and walk toward the kitchen. Maude kept following her. Betty laid her gloves on a phone table and filled a kettle from the sink.
Maude took the kettle from Betty and put it on the stove. She wondered what came next.
“What comes next is Partridge comes out of anesthesia into pain,” Betty said.
“I did what I felt was right.”
“Go to sleep,” Betty said. She picked up her tea canister and measured tea into a teapot. Maude watched her carefully. Betty said, “If you think I’m going to drug you, you’re being paranoid.”
“Does Luke know what the Reverend Springer is painting?”
“Sue killed herself because of what you and that black man did.”
“What’s he painting?”
“I don’t know.”
“So, you don’t know everything.”
Betty poured the tea into cups. “Or I’m lying. You do believe I’m a liar.”
“Yes.”
“How can you, a woman who is either insane or a welfare cheat, know what’s honest or what’s real?”
Maude looked at the teacup Betty was holding toward her. “I don’t want your tea. I may be wrong but I don’t sacrifice other people to my own needs.”
“Bullshit.” Her aunt’s profanity shocked Maude.
“Who have I sacrificed?”
“Both Partridge and Sue, to your self-righteousness.”
Maude didn’t believe this was quite accurate, but she felt confused. Then she felt something wet and cold go down the center of her mind, as though traveling between the lobes of her physical brain.
Betty must have seen Maude’s surprise because she said, “Even your allies aren’t pure. He’s a witch, too, just very undisciplined.”
“You can’t keep eating people forever.”
Betty drank her tea and didn’t answer. When they went back to the parlor, Luke had turned off the lights again and Doug was in bed. Luke, a shadow against the streetlight beyond the house, said, “Go to bed with Doug.”
“I don’t feel like sleeping.”
“Don’t you want to let him comfort you?”
“You will get sleepy,” Betty said.
“I ought to have gone home.”
“It’s snowing now. You couldn’t walk back to the hospital.”
“What was it I saw, driving to the hospital?” Maude asked.
Betty said, “Ice gets us all in the end.”
“The allochthon isn’t forever, either.”
Luke said, “Heat death is forever.”
“We’ll bury Partridge’s corpse in the family plot. Go to sleep now,” Betty told her.
“I’m not…,” Maude began to say, but she felt her body dropping and hands catching her.
18
* * *
HEX VARIATIONS
Maude woke up. She was lying, still dressed, under covers in a bed somewhere near the roof. Light came in slanting at about nine o’clock. They to She sat up in the bed, listening. The house seemed empty. Not, perhaps, completely empty.
I tried, Grandmother. Maude found her shoes and her coat and went to the front door. She opened it and saw six inches of snowcover, with tire tracks from the house to the road. The Essex had chains on.
Maude closed the door and called, “Doug? Aunt Betty? Uncle Luke?”
Sue’s ghost materialized before her, head half-blown off, holding the image of a frying pan. Maude wondered if Sue blamed her for her suicide. The ghost spoke, words slow and cold as snow in Maude’s ears, “I was murdered.”
“Do you expect me to help you?”
The ghost didn’t answer, wavered toward invisibility, then another ghost, the murderess from 1910, took the first ghost’s arm. “Dissolve us.”
“Isn’t it better to be a ghost than to not exist?”
“No,” Sue’s ghost said. Both ghosts jumped up, then sank through the floor, disappearing.
Maude wondered if the ghosts came to distract her. But Sue said she was murdered. After Maude put on her shoes, she looked out to see if other cars were moving. Although earlier cars had marked the streets, nothing passed while Maude watched. No cabs would be running. She wondered if she could walk, then decided to call the hospital to see if Luke and Betty were with Partridge, or had been at the death.
The hospital switchboard put her through to Intensive Care. “Your grandmother’s still alive,” a woman’s voice said. “Your aunt and uncle were here earlier, but they didn’t feel comfortable going in to see her hooked to the machines.”
‘”Watched by machines of loving grace.” Maude didn’t know where she’d read that, or heard it, but she felt she comforted Sue’s ghost to say that.
The woman continued, “Your grannie’s nurse came by earlier yet.”
Esther; thank you. Quilt that top fast. Maude hung up the phone and went to the rear window overlooking Reverend Springer’s shack. He came out barefooted in the snow and saluted toward her with a big paintbrush. Maude wondered if he could see her, if he was the exception to the rule, a good witch, or just plain crazy. But he could sleep now, having worked his art all night. He’d left the day to Maude and went back inside the house. The chimney smoked harder. Maude realized he’d fired up a wood stove. Then the lights went out.
Crazy, dignified, in a place where when voices cursed you inside your head nobody thought your brain was flawed. Maude wondered what would happen to him if the magic faded. But Reverend Springer was defending her, even if the next reality made him crazy again. She owed him.