by Jordan Reece
Outside the small window behind him, pedestrians ambled down the sidewalk while horses pulling carriages spooked at a lone rumble buggy in the street. Over at Clant’s, raucous laughter spilled out from the open door.
“Choose a bracelet and you can try its power. Here, I’ll get the mirror,” Nicoli said, his fingers twitching in his lap. In his mind, his hand was searching the dark shelf below the counter for the square mirror in its fold-stand. He set it up while Bruno picked over the dozens of bracelets for one that suited him. Sliding a blue one up his wrist, he bent to the mirror.
The nose receded from its overwhelming stature, and returned its excess flesh and bulge to Bruno’s cheeks. He did not transform into a handsome fellow, but the distance between ghastly and plain was a long road for this weak spell to travel. The shore of scalp filled with hair, and his eyes pulled apart from their vise-like embrace. So hard did the spell have to work to remedy his face that there was little left over for his body. Bordering on gauntness, Bruno hardly changed in that respect at all.
He was not a man who would have ever caught Nicoli’s eye, even improved. But now Nicoli only had ears, and this friendly, rollicking drawl was a balm to his soul.
“Ah, yes,” Bruno said from the other bed. “Well, I won’t dazzle a man even so, but I think this would be money well spent for a party I wish to attend next week. So I will take a lucky ring just to entertain myself on a walk sometime, and this bracelet. But surely this will not consume my entire dollar?”
“It will not. If it is love you are seeking at this party, you might wish to spend the rest on a ribbon. Over here upon the rings, do you see the colors? Simply tie one around your ankle or your arm, conceal it with your clothing, and let it do its work.”
“And any color will do?”
“No! Oh, no. These purple ones here are for calling a woman to you; these white ones are only for friendship. You want to choose one among the red should it be a man you wish to find.” As Nicoli spoke, his stomach hollowed out to a gourd. “If it’s only a dalliance you seek, select a lighter shade of red. Should it be more that you desire, pick among the darker. However, I might advise caution in the use of these dark ones. They will summon a lover, yet it will not necessarily be a lover . . . a lover who is good for you. Some people win by employing a spell of this power . . .”
“And some people lose,” Bruno finished quietly.
They had not spoken of how exactly Nicoli had come to be in the hospital with the sight splashed from his eyes. But in this innocent exchange to pass the time, Nicoli realized he might have revealed a part of it.
“I think that I will take your advice, and leave these ribbon spells where they hang from their rings,” Bruno said. “I wish for fortune in these matters, but love is enough of a gamble without a spell working its own pleasures against me.”
“You must have seen every hex ever made in the Skirmish,” Nicoli said, pushing the shop fantasy away with the pleasure gone from it.
“Not every one,” Bruno said, his voice full yet growing tired. Again sheets rustled in his bed. “There are as many types of hexes as there are people in this world. But they are all meant to hurt in one form or another. Demon rocks . . . cursed candles, mirrors, potions . . . skulls blackened and broken, or bronzed and staring with wax dripping from the eye sockets . . .”
“Why are you here?” Nicoli asked, wondering if he would get a real answer this time. “Would I see two broken legs from a horse? A burn upon your flesh from some mishap repairing a rumble buggy? Did you slash your wrists? Or would I see nothing, some cancer feasting on organs in the quiet deep within you?”
“You would see a hopeful man of science who wore a suit of helium balloons, convinced that enough of them would make him fly from the torch held by Lady Liberty.”
“And?” Nicoli asked. He had asked for anything in his request for company, even lies, and Bruno had no obligation to tell him the truth.
“It didn’t.”
Chapter Three
“Right side of the tray at the top,” Bruno said. “Two glasses, a tall one with smooth sides holding water, and a short, stout one with a rippled circumference holding juice.”
Nicoli traced the rim of the tray to the top right side, where he felt exactly that. The nurses had dropped off their meals in such a hurry that no one had explained to him what was on the tray and where.
“Just below the glasses is a cloth napkin the color of cream, and it is folded over a knife, fork, and spoon.” Bruno waited for Nicoli to pull the napkin off the tray and free the utensils. “At the center is a plate. The lower two quadrants hold steamed vegetables and a miniature cup of fruit chunks. The upper two quadrants have spread across them a rather sad strip of meat lying in repose upon a pool of gravy. What meat is it, you ask? I cannot say. I believe hospitals grow their unfathomable meat in beakers. Now, above the plate is a tiny green vase with a flower inside to cheer you. It is pink. I have one, too. Dessert is on the far side of the plate, and I am afraid it is that dreadful pudding this hospital likes to serve so much.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“This is my sixth time, or seventh now perhaps, and every visit has been punctuated thrice with this concoction of glops they call pudding.”
Six times, or seven. That was the answer of a sick old man. “And how long are you here each time? A few days?”
“A month, give or take a little.”
He could not be so aged! Fumbling for the pudding, Nicoli lifted the cup and dipped his spoon into it. One taste was enough to put it back down. “Two days,” he said.
“You will see.”
“They won’t take me in if I cannot,” Nicoli blurted. “My family. I was raised in the faith of the Godly. It is why I have so little learning. Are you Godly? You do not seem so.”
“No. My parents were good old Charleston Redeemers. That is why I possess twice as much learning as I need and talk as much as I do. Love those who love; love those who hate twice as much. And argue with everyone about everything along the way! Do you know of the Redeemers?”
“No, and forgive me. Ignorance is a virtue amongst the Godly. What is in your Christ’s hand?”
“The weapon in the Redeemer Christ’s hand is an olive branch.”
The Godly Christ held a blade for a weapon, its tip stained in blood from slaying evil. Nicoli knew how the harsh community of his childhood would respond to him in this condition. “To the Godly, the goodness of the spirit is reflected in a healthy body. For me to be rendered blind will prove to them that I have allowed the seeds of evil to take root in my heart. They will not risk their bodies or their afterlife should I come to them in need. I could swathe myself in white ribbons, yet it would not be enough to overpower their faith.”
“You speak as one who has lost his faith.”
“In Christ I believe. In their Christ . . . their dour and violent, even obliterating Christ, who wishes his children to suffer and to make others suffer . . . I cannot reconcile.”
“What do your people do with their aged falling prey to the natural afflictions of time? What do they do when their children have scarlet fever or measles, or are born with an infirmity like a missing arm or heart troubles?”
“The old bear their pain and illnesses in silence. To speak of it is shaming and ungodly, and they live in fear of exile from heaven. The young receive prayers and are provided a chance to confess their sins, small as they are. They are even beaten in some homes in the belief it will cleanse them.”
“To beat an innocent child for catching the measles!” Bruno exclaimed. “I had not realized the Godly kept to such cruel ways.”
“Not in all homes, and not in mine, but it is not uncommon in the Godly community among the most orthodox. Beat him and send him out to the fields to continue his chores, lest evil spy him lay-about in bed and wreak further evil through him.”
“This could kill a poor boy!”
“It has.”
“I am shocked. To d
eny medicine and rest to the sick . . . This is a matter for science, not religion.”
“All is God and God is all. As for those born with a missing arm or split lip, the belief is that to do evil in one life to have it visited upon you in the next. An affliction like those proves a child has a soul troubled by dark. They bring shame to their family. Often those children disappear for their affront, and no one speaks of them again.”
“A punitive hand of Christ! But your family wasn’t so orthodox.”
“No. My parents were not as firm in their faith when I was very young, so I remember visits to a doctor, and treats that my little friends were forbidden like sweets and a present for Christmas. I was permitted to attend two years in the town school with the infidels when many Godly children are not allowed so much as a day. The world is evil, and to do any dealings with evil is to become it. Magic is evil, science is evil, writing is evil, colors are evil, laughter is evil, even love is evil if not reserved only for Christ . . . The list is endless. I did love school, however, and was sorry when I had to leave. But two years was the most my community would tolerate, and then the young had to be reeled back in.”
“I am intrigued at such a childhood as this! So your education is rudimentary, yet in the Godly community, you would be considered well-learned for your mastery of simple reading and figuring.”
“Yes, but being well-learned is not prized amongst them. It means nothing at best, and makes me suspicious at worst. They endeavor to know nothing save the Godly Scripture, which is memorized instead of read. But my father mingled much in the wider community, as he had to on business, and often I went along with him and saw how differently others lived. Yet as I grew and my uncle took over that part of the business, both of my parents became more insular. They used to tolerate the varied weapons in Christ’s hand, since all was God and God was all, but no longer. Only the blade by the time I left, and it will sever me from them.”
“You do not know that until those bandages come off.”
“You hope.”
“That is my weapon. Yours is fear. But whether we hope or fear, it bears no influence on your eyes, so why not chance to hope?”
They ate quietly, although they were the only two quiet presences in the whole of the hospital. Then Nicoli said, “How did a Redeemer end up fighting in war?”
“How did a Godly end up in a trinket shop?”
“I was born in Sesaic upstate, where many Godly have lived for well over a hundred years. But when I was brought here as a boy, my father having business matters, I fell in love with its siren song. Such excitement there was in these streets; such entertainments of which I had never dreamed! I wished to stay forever. Yet away the wagon bore me back dreaming to Sesaic once business was done.
“A Godly boy turns eighteen and becomes a man, to be immediately assigned a woman in marriage whether this is pleasing to him or not. It did not please me. Nor did remaining in that tiny circle of the Godly where it is all so grim and gray and strict, and one is always at battle with others over who is the most pleasing to Christ. The only choice was to leave, so I did. I returned here to the place where my childhood dreams were fired, with little else but the clothes on my back and a few pennies in my pocket. I answered a Help Wanted sign before I understood what the store sold. And then I looked down at the ribbons, rings, tea eggs, paper birds . . .”
“What was it you saw in them?”
“All of this was taught to me as evil from birth, yet there was no evil in these things. Just little spells to ease suffering, to entertain or give hope. Christ said nothing about trinkets for good or ill. Should they be as horrible-”
“He would have had his scribes take note of it, and you had desperate need of work.”
“I took the job out of necessity and swiftly made my peace with the trinkets, which are now to me little more than toys. My parents would feel very differently if they knew. The Godly world is small, so small, and ever shrinking. I had only a little perspective of its size until I left, and now that I have seen how grand and ever-expanding the world truly is, I could never return to Sesaic even whole.”
“Yes, yes. I understand this.”
“And now for your story.”
“As to how a Redeemer came to war . . . it was much the same in the growing of a boy to a man. But it is not a short story, or not as I like to tell it, which fixes me in my place among the infinite sea of history.”
“You know I wish to hear.”
“Ah! An eager listener is a gift beyond compare to the indomitable chatterer. So here I begin. In the years leading up to the Skirmish, it seemed like hexes were spilling into the country from the guts of every ship. Hexes from Europe, Asia, Africa, even the Great Ice . . . But a month in this hospital has left me out of practice in storytelling. Where this tale begins is with hex makers in the Old World long ago, and for the purpose of elucidation, we shall start with one, and call her Mother Bette. There was no actual Mother Bette; yet they are all Mother Bette, these men and women who make hexes, should you follow me.”
“I believe so.”
“An English farmer’s wife, or an Irish shopkeeper’s wife, or an Italian tutor’s wife, and scampering past her feet are eight children all a credit to an exhausted family name. I would venture that the husband and children do not see their beloved Mother Bette as anything more than flying skirts in the kitchen and a soothing hand at night. But though her power sleeps, she is more. And she will awaken it, should the need arise. Give her a trouble, Nicoli.”
“Then let us have her be the English farmer’s wife, and several times have they endured night raids of their sheep. They are not a family of great means, and only the best stock is taken. The loss of income is setting them back so far that they might not recover, and something must be done.”
“Indeed, or they will lose the farm. Mother Bette will not watch her husband lose land that has been in his family for six generations, nor will she have her children begging while she prostitutes herself in the mean streets of London. Christ God forbid! And in her braided head is the power to stop her family from meeting this fate! She knows a hex passed down to her from centuries of whispers, mother to son, father to daughter, grandparent to grandchild. Gathering stones, she strings them together and speaks the incantation. Then she unties the string to wear, and throws the stones to the pasture, and sleeps in peace that the livestock will disappear no more. Late one night she and her husband awaken to a most terrible screaming. The sun rises on blood dragged through the grass to the bodies of two thieves, crumpled up like paper dolls and cast aside as if they had been toys in the hand of a giant child.
“Makers of hexes like Mother Bette hold their power in a tight fist. It could see them run out of town at best, and slaughtered at worst. Their power is not used rashly lest it draw unwelcome eyes. Perhaps Mother Bette looks at her children and sees that none has the power to work the spell, but as they fledge, she makes them each a single hex to take along into their adult lives. Some will use it to protect their farms and stores. Some might sell it. Some will store it, knowing its worth though they have no need of it at present, and it will pass to their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“This is how it was when the Roman Empire tumbled into ruins, and Christ God squalled in his manger. This is how it was when the ships set out for Troy and the pyramids rose to lift the honored dead to heaven’s gate. A hex was a rarity. A hex was a secret. And then things changed.”
“Old World hexes came to America,” Nicoli said.
“The change did not come just then. Hexes arrived here with the birth of the first British colonies, a family’s secret wrapped in tissue and buried in luggage. Many of them had been kept for generations, and their owners expected to keep them for generations more as a weapon of the last resort. A man with a hundred dollars spends one lightly. A man with one dollar holds it fast. The suffering of those infant colonies in this New World had little to do with hexes. Nor did they play much of a pa
rt in the Revolution, though there were sporadic instances of guerilla warfare in which they were employed. But after that, a keen historian can find more and more instances of hexed crimes.”
Bruno paused, and Nicoli discerned that he was wetting his throat with one of his glasses. Then there was a clink, and Bruno said, “Are you quite sure that I do not speak too much? Vincenzo often said the wind came from five directions, and the fifth was fiercest and heralded from me.”
Vincenzo. Spoken with affection, the name had slipped from Bruno so easily that it had to be a thread of truth. Vincenzo was a brother or a dear friend, perhaps a man who once shared Bruno’s life. Nicoli said, “Please.”
“On then I blow. A market was slowly being discovered around the turn of the century! Yes, in the land of opportunity, dealers saw money to be made in hexes. Imagine if a businessman had knocked on the door of our talented Mother Bette, one scant whisper of those broken thieves having filtered to his keen ears. Imagine him opening a briefcase packed to bursting with money upon her weathered table, more money than she has ever seen in a life of hard labor. Her secret skill will become their secret, he tells her. For every briefcase you fill with hexes, Mother Bette, it will return to you with money. No, you must not worry that these will ever be traced back to you. They are going over the sea to America so that other wives can protect other flocks. Such a good, noble thing that you could do for them, and at such benefit to yourself!
“And what does she think upon receiving this offer? They are not a family of means, as we have established. That money will build a grand house, and beautiful clothes for her children. It will send her smartest child to Oxford, a son to learn medicine or a daughter to law. It will make a cook appear in the kitchen so that Mother Bette can rest her weary feet, and hired help in the fields so that her husband can straighten his aching back. What does she choose, Nicoli?”
“She chooses the money, of course.”
“Of course! What would anyone in her place choose? So she takes the money from the briefcase and fills it with hexes, and this is what dealers did. They sought out every secret talent in every forgotten hamlet in this world, pressed money into palms and ferried hexes to this country to be sold. And if you knew where to go, if you had enough money, you could buy them. Anyone could.”