My head understands his reasons, and I even find it hard to disagree with them, but my heart still cries No!
“It will happen Maisie, make no mistake. It is only a matter of time. But... there is one last thing we can try.”
I look up so fast I make his teeth clack with my head. “Sorry!” I say, with a hand to his cheek. “But why didn’t you say so!” I swipe the tears off my cheeks. “What is it?”
He messages his jaw a moment, eyeing me. “Ms. Josephine said it’s only a temporary solution. A very temporary solution.”
I’m desperate for any solution, any extra time. “What? What is it?”
He removes his ring and holds it in the palm of his hand. “Ms. Josephine said that when she brought me back she tied my soul to this ring, then she gave it back to me so I would have my own free will. Whoever has the ring can control me. She used it to keep herself safe when I went to her house.”
He holds the ring of gold up between his fingers. “Maybe if you keep it, we can make sure you will always be safe. You can tell me what to do, what not to do. You should be able to control me if I get too hungry. Hopefully.”
He grabs my hand, pulls my fingers out flat, and positions the ring at the tip of my thumb, the only finger his large ring will fit on.
He slides it on and weaves his fingers into mine, keeping contact with the ring.
I look up at him, and he stares back.
“I’m willing to try,” he says, and lets go of my hand.
***
Maisie
I look down at my husband’s ring on my thumb, where I wore it not so long ago in remembrance of him, to feel closer to him. It’s a comforting weight, and I give Grady a weak smile.
He’s waiting patiently for me to say something. Probably for me to order him to do the dishes, take out the trash, or rub my feet. And while those aren’t bad ideas, I’m not taking this lightly. I know it’s not a joke.
“Are you hungry right now?” That was the problem right? He could get too hungry and lose control and hurt me. That’s what had happened with Biff. He’d been too hungry, that was all.
“Yes,” he replies. “I’m always hungry.”
That gives me pause. Always hungry? Or was it just an expression?
“Okay, well, sit down. I’ll feed you.”
He sits.
His eyes follow me around the kitchen as I get the ground beef out of the refrigerator and put it on a plate for him. I even give him a fork.
He stares at it, then at me. Uneasy, I motion to his plate. “Well, eat up if you’re hungry.”
He does, one bite at a time. I guess I’m glad he doesn’t have to worry about salmonella.
“How’s that?”
“It’s okay”, he shrugs.
“Feel better?” I ask as he scrapes the last bite into his mouth.
He nods. “Yes.”
“Still hungry?”
“Yes,” he says. “I’m always hungry.”
“Okay, well...” Damn. I thought I’d just be able to feed him and give him his ring back, but if he’s always hungry...?
Maybe this will still work. “I guess put your plate in the dishwasher and we’ll see how this goes.”
“Okay.” He gets up, places his dishes in the dishwasher, closes it, then turns and stares at me.
There’s something wrong here. His eyes are empty. Not empty in the same way as when he’d been full zombie, but close enough.
I stand and walk up to him, looking for any sign that there are thoughts and feelings in that head of his. He stares back silently while I search for inspiration.
“Can you sing me my favorite song?”
He cocks his head. “Which one?”
I smile, a glimmer of hope igniting. “The one that made me realize I loved you.”
The glimmer dies as he starts singing. Perfectly in tune, on pitch, perfect timing. Better than he’s sang it ever before, actually. But emotionless.
“Stop,” I say, slicing the air with my hand.
He cuts off mid-note, and stands there waiting. Desperation is making my chest tight. This has to work.
“Say the alphabet backwards.” He does, which is a feat, because I think I would have trouble with that, needing to think before every letter. But it’s like his brain is disengaged. He doesn’t have to think about it, he just does it. Simply because I told him to.
“Do five jumping jacks.” He does.
“Stand on one foot.” He does. “Now hop.” He does.
And while his face looks tense around the eyes, like he’s unhappy, he still does it with the unflinching, unquestioning demeanor that means he will keep doing it until I tell him not to or he falls over.
“Stop, please,” I say, voice tearing.
This would be the true test. I have to know for sure that it won’t work before I give up on this chance. It’s either this, or death. I can’t give up on this too soon.
But if he’s just going to be a robot...he’s not really still my husband.
“There’s some kale in the crisper drawer of the fridge.” I’d bought some in an attempt to eat healthier, to get more nutrients for our baby. Though what I’m doing is borderline cruel, I have to give this every chance. “Go get it and eat it if you’re still hungry.”
But Grady hates kale, with a passion. Yet he goes right to the refrigerator, finds it, and takes a big bite straight from the plastic bag with the door still open.
He turns a little green, his nose wrinkling at the taste, but he keeps chewing.
Dear God.
“Stop,” I say, putting my hand over his when he raises it for another bite. I can tell he’s hating this as much or more than I am. I take the kale from him and shut the door to the fridge, guilt flogging me, and then stand there with my hands gripping my head. What now?
He just stands there, waiting.
I turn around and brace my hands on the counter. This isn’t the solution I was hoping for.
All jokes aside, this isn’t what a marriage is supposed to be. I love him for the person he is, and when I have his ring, he’s not himself, he’s a shell. And somehow that’s worse than being a zombie.
But isn’t either one better than dead? I wish I could say yes, but it isn’t me being puppeted around.
How could this even work? Could we still have a relationship like this?
I turn around and stare at him. I can keep the ring, wear it always, and keep him from ever thinking about death or dying ever again. I could keep him from going to Ms. Josephine’s house tomorrow, or ever again. And I have to admit, it’s tempting.
I’ll never make him eat kale again. I’ll be a good wife, keep him happy. I won’t abuse my control.
But I would have to control when he ate. Would I also then have to control when he went to the bathroom? When he cleaned himself? What if I had to order him to do those things every time?
That won’t work. He’ll be more like a pet than a husband.
It might still be worth it if some of his personality showed through.
One last bit of hope in my heart, I step close to him, arms open. “Please hug me.”
He steps forward and encloses me in his arms. Though his chest is warm and he smells like woods and fresh air, and his chin is on the top of my head... I feel nothing coming from him. “Tighter,” I say, tears welling. His embrace tightens, and I should feel loved, comforted. Instead, it’s like an overly-tight hug from a stranger. I feel like he’s invading my personal space, even though I asked him to hold me.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m not giving this a real chance. I tip my head back, looking up at him. He’s looking back at me, and I’m trying to see something, anything, any spark in his expression, in his eyes. But I see nothing, feel nothing from him.
“Kiss me?” I ask.
He obligingly leans down and presses a kiss to my lips. I squeeze my eyes shut, tears welling, heart cracking. “More. Longer.”
His warm lips return to mine and linger. He even alte
rs the angle, the pressure, all of the right physical things.
But his kiss has all the emotional warmth of a robot’s.
“Stop,” I beg, tasting my despairing tears on his lips. Pressing my face into his shoulder and clinging to his shirt, I mumble, “Just hold me.”
And he does. He holds me as the tears start, holds me up as sobs shake me and despair weakens my spine and my knees. Wordless and emotionless, he holds me through the ugly cry until the tears slow to sniffles and I can stand on my own feet again. I pull back and whisper, “Wait here.”
Then I go clean myself up, blow my nose, wash my face with cool water. I meter my breaths and fight back the endless tears until my eyes aren’t bloodshot anymore.
Then I go back to the kitchen and order him to hold his hand out. I didn’t miss the significance of the way he put his ring on me before. It was a promise the way our wedding vows had been, a promise he would try. And he did, we did. We tried.
My silent promise to him as I slip his ring back on his own finger is that I will love him— for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in both sickness and in health, until death do us part—and beyond.
And that I won’t try to keep him here on this earth as my slave, no matter how badly I want him to stay with me.
If he uses his free will to decide he must die again, then I will support him and his choice, and love him anyway. Forever and ever and ever.
And his death is apparently the only option left to us now.
Despite my best efforts my eyes are wet again as his soul shows back up in his. He knows. The second he comes back, he knows what it means. The knowledge that this won’t work is right there in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I won’t try to keep you here that way.”
He folds me up in his arms, tightly, sweetly, face pressed to my neck, as his breaths waver with emotion.
This embrace is everything the other wasn’t, and even though we’re both crying in despair, I can feel the endless love coming from him down to the very cells of my bones.
How will I ever live without it? Without him?
Why, why, do I have to try to survive without him again? It’s so unfair.
It’s a cruel joke that the universe gave him back to me just long enough for our love to be revived, even deeper than before, only to take him away again.
“I’m sorry I made you eat kale,” I say between sobs. “I just love you so much. I don’t want you to go.”
“It’s okay, I know. But please... please know that you two mean too much to me for me to stay.”
You two. Already he adds our baby. I nod, rubbing his head and nape. “I know.” And I do know, but it kills me.
It kills me that he still thinks he has to die. It kills me that I can’t see or offer any other solution. And it kills me that I’ve finally lost hope for a different outcome.
No matter what I do or he does or Ms. Josephine does... at some point my husband will disappear and only the monster will remain. That monster didn’t know me, didn’t love me, and could hurt me. Could hurt others. The only sure way to prevent that is for him to die.
I crumble, harsh sobs stealing my strength, and he follows me down to the floor, his arms around me.
I’m not sure I want to stay in a world without him in it. For a fraction of a second, I want to go with him. To die, too, so we’ll at least be together. But immediately I pull back from that thought. There’s another life inside me now. I can’t give up my life, my soul, without giving up his or hers too, and I’m just not willing to do that. Even for Grady.
Which tears me into pieces, because I want to have them both. I want us to be a family. I want it so badly, that I would do almost anything to get it.
But not that.
And finally, finally...my heart shifts closer to understanding, to forgiveness. We’re both choosing our child over ourselves.
I grab his shirt with both hands and press my face into his neck. I want to feel him closer, deeper, stronger. I need it to last me the rest of my life.
His body shakes against me as he cries too. Then and only then do I realize what this is doing to him. “I’m sorry.” But I’m not even sure he’s heard me. I turn in his arms and pull his wet face to my chest.
“It’s okay. I understand now. I love you. It’s okay.”
It’s not okay that his death is the only way to keep us safe but it is okay, that he made that decision. I accept it. And with no other way to protect our baby, I have to agree.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I murmur over and over, stroking his hair as we cry together. Him silently, me with harsh sobs and stuttering breaths.
My soulmate is going to die tomorrow. For the final time. And I just don’t know how I will live through losing him again.
Chapter Nineteen
Grady
The next day, Maisie and I somberly take care of a few last-minute things, then when evening comes, we head over to Ms. Josephine’s.
I finally get to see the room Ms. Josephine hinted to before, and honestly, it’s still not what I expected.
Maisie still hates this, and so do I, but we couldn’t come up with any other solid options during our fleeting last night together. So here we are.
There are murals on the wall, between framed pictures of saints. There are shelves of beautiful bottles, herbs, candles of every color, and things I can’t even guess at.
Statues stand everywhere, of every size. On tables, shelves, and sitting directly on the floor, draped with dried flowers and beads.
There are flags and banners, dried herbs and bottles hanging from the ceiling. The room looks more like some kitschy secondhand store than a Vodou temple, but this is where it would happen.
This is where I would die.
Sunlight beaming brightly in from the windows, we follow Ms. Josephine’s brisk directions to get things ready while she draws an intricate design on the floor with what looks like cornmeal.
Maisie sets out a ring of candles while I change into a loose white linen shirt and pants. Ms. Josephine is dressed all in white too.
Maisie, on the other hand, is dressed all in black, like she’s already mourning me.
I suppose she is.
However, Ms. Josephine takes her aside and has her change into white too. Does that mean something? I suppose it must.
When everything is done, the room actually looks...pretty. It’s not a bad place to die.
“It sure beats a dark hole in the ground,” I joke, and I can say that from experience. No one laughs, but Ms. Josephine gives me a small sympathetic smile.
“You lie here,” she says, motioning to the space inside the ring of candles. “Maisie, you can sit beside him. We will pray, and then I will begin.”
I lie down on the hard floor, rolling waves of nerves in my stomach. Maisie kneels beside me and takes my hands in her warm ones. She looks like a mourning angel, with the evening light from the sunny window highlighting her hair and the reason we’re here darkening her eyes and wetting her cheeks.
Ms. Josephine bends down to light the candles, a long BBQ lighter in her hands.
She lights it, but it blows out as soon as she stands. Again, she lights it. But it blows out immediately a second time.
She’s lighting it a third time when she suddenly stops and stands, staring at the door expectantly.
I turn my head just in time to see it open, three men standing in the hallway.
The giant men enter the room first, with the thinner, well-dressed man following.
“Bonswa, se’.” He tips his hat to Ms. Josephine.
Ms. Josephine pulls herself up to her full height and answers him in English. “I am not your sister, and you are not welcome here.”
“Ou rejte frè ayisyen ou?”
“A common birth land does not make us family any more than a common ocean makes a shark and a tuna family.”
“And you are the tuna, no?” he asks, his smile all teeth and no warmth.
“I am the shark when it suits me,” She steps toward him and holds up a finger. “Pa fe’ dezo’d!”
“I will cause no trouble as long as you give me what I want. You have my word.” He gives her a shallow bow.
“And what is it you want, Mr. Lucien?”
The man’s dark eyes shift to me. “An associate of mine recently notified me that Mwen mande pou zonbi a.”
Zonbi, the only word I recognize, but I think I understand. He wants me. Why? I stand, because I’m not going to lie there on my back if things are going to go sideways. I study his face while Ms. Josephine continues to speak to him.
She’d called him Mr. Lucien. I’ve heard that name before somewhere. It takes me a minute to recognize him without the skull face paint. It’s the man who ordered my death, and beside him, the two mountains of meat that caused it.
Biff, the bastard, had to have told these people about me. And now, I realize what kind of danger we’re all in.
I shove my wife behind me and keep my hand on her when she tries to see around me. They would have to get through me first, before they laid a finger on my wife or Ms. Josephine.
“You know him?” I ask Ms. Josephine.
“I only know him by his handiwork,” she says, looking meaningfully at me. She realizes who he is, too. My murderer. Well, one of them.
“He is bokor,” she says, distaste in her voice. “A priest who has turned to selfishness and the dark arts. One who serves and is full of malevolent spirits.” She turns her head and spits on the floor.
“Oh come now,” he says in an accent like Ms. Jospehine’s, “Do we not both practice Vodou?”
“Yes, but you know I do not practice with the left hand of magic.”
I remember when she’d mentioned the right and left hand before. She was a good person, who used her powers for good. This guy? The shadows writhed at his feet, wishing they could get away. But they couldn’t, and neither could we.
Unless I went with him.
I remember what Miss Josephine said about being trapped in someone else’s control, the horror in her eyes at being forced to do bad things. And I’m certain I would be forced to do bad things. After all, these two big brick walls on either side of Mr. Lucien had once beaten me to death at his order. I remember how bad it was just to be forced to eat kale against my will, for God’s sake. I can’t go with him.
A Cursed All Hallows' Eve Page 30