How to Disappear Completely

by Melody Ann Ross

  Anthea loved these moments, and loved to keep kids entertained while their parents met with Cyrus. She found the encounters refreshing and invigorating.

  Mostly, however, their time was taken up by the varied adults who visited their stall. Cyrus the Seer acted as the medium, while Anthea was the smiling receptionist and cashier. Their tent was luxurious and comfortable, by farmers’ market standards, and people generally enjoyed their time there, regardless of their fortunes.

  Anthea didn’t listen in to the sessions even though she was bursting with curiosity, but she did notice that the nervously laughing people who entered the tent each left after their half hour with a contented look, a sleepy smile, the clean readiness after a good cry, or a quiet confidence. She also noticed that Cyrus would slip these people a business card with a web address, and that she would often see them again at future events.

  The inner sanctum was stereotypically draped with rich fabrics, occult symbols, and tasteful crystal displays, while the outer table was more sensibly arranged to showcase various items for purchase; bundles of sage interlaced with lavender or rosemary, essential oils to cure what ailed you, sacred salts (that also happened to taste delicious), stones, charms, candles, and other summoning and casting supplies. And Anthea herself, smiling sensibly to onlookers as though she understood their suspicion or derision, but you never could know, could you?

  And it worked, and people approached, and they chatted with Anthea, and sometimes they talked about their problems, and she listened to them, she really did listen, and they bought things, and they swore that they felt better, and those people weren’t really so silly after all, were they?

  Their act was perfect. Cyrus was the over-the-top oracle, ready to proclaim the doom and gloom of nations if it would soothe the customer’s mind. Anthea was the rational foil to his spiritual grandiosity, offering a receipt and bergamot orange oil sample with all purchases over $40. They worked well together, and they were both happy.

  One evening, as they were closing up shop for the day, Anthea asked Cyrus what exactly it was that he told all those people that made them so happy and trusting.

  He had laughed brightly at the way she framed her question.

  “Trusting, eh? Am I about to get another lecture about trickery?” he asked.

  “No, I really want to know,” she replied. “All these people come in looking like their souls are already being weighed, and they leave looking, well, lighter. And you never seem to get tired of it!”

  Cyrus didn’t look at her while he regarded her curious choice of words, busying himself momentarily with folding up the sarongs and fabrics that Anthea was tossing into a pile on the table.

  “Everything is known if everything is expected,” he said slowly. Anthea rolled her eyes behind him.

  “It’s not just something stupid that I say to entertain the kids,” he continued, “In fact, the explanation you give the kids is not so far off from what I tell their parents.”

  Anthea was somewhat surprised by this. She hadn’t known he was listening.

  “As you said, most of these people look nervous because they are carrying a heavy weight or dealing with a tremendous problem. Grief, guilt, depression, uncertainty, abuse, fear. Something is indeed eating at them, and they want to hear that it will be ok. The message varies based on what I read from their responses- some people want to hear about their past lives, some want to hear about angels, some want to hear about chakras, some need a private moment to call the police or a social worker, all kinds of stuff. The one thing they all have in common is that they want to know the answer to the same question; what’s the worst thing that could happen? Then they all want to know that they will survive it if it comes to that. I give them practical tips for dealing with change, with guilt, with challenges, and encourage them to seek solace in their networks. And sometimes I help them move them to safe places, especially the regulars.” Cyrus was sort of rambling, but Anthea didn’t mind. Most of this was brand new to her.

  She didn’t speak much generally, and appreciated that he could fill the conversational space between them all on his own.

  “But you’re lying to a lot of them,” she needled.

  “By my reckoning, I am simply preparing them to take on a number of challenges using a diversity of methods of communication,” he answered primly.

  “Hmm,” she responded, letting the matter drop. The truth is that Anthea was struggling with the idea of truth, not the idea of lying.

  For most of her life she’d been lied to, but she wasn’t sure it counted as lying if the people telling you the lies truly believed they were telling the truth. All of the few hundred people at the camp, the Helpmeets, the Wives, the other children; they believed the things that they said to their core. But someone, somewhere in the chain of control had to have been lying, right? The world was not as they said, the condition of humanity not as dire as she had been warned. She wondered, not for the first time, about the cleanliness of her own soul.

  Her thoughts strayed to her mother and it sent a chill down her spine. She stood up straight and looked around. The day had gotten dark quickly as thin, high clouds spread across the sky, dimming the light. The regular customers had gone back home to their lives and many of the producers had packed up and gone home as they sold out of their goods. Only a few people were left milling around, walking back and forth to vehicles with arms heavy laden.

  Anthea noticed that her pulse had risen somewhat as she took in her surroundings. She forced herself to close her eyes, take a deep breath, and release it slowly. Then she turned slowly and got back to work.

  Cyrus took all this in with his characteristic nonchalance, putting on the appearance of either not noticing, or not caring when Anthea occasionally slipped into her shell, her habits, her past.

  But he did notice, and he worried. They’d known each other for many months now, and she never let him in to whatever private demons plagued her. And he still didn’t ask. Introducing her to Curiosity had been intrusion enough, and he didn’t dare push her away.

  So, with uncharacteristic professionalism, he turned to her and introduced their dinner plans.

  “As part of your contractual obligations to me, I hereby enthusiastically insist that you join me this evening for a delicious dinner at a tapas bar.”

  “A what?” she hissed, and then groaned immediately. She’d heard a dozen versions of this joke in the romantic comedies she’d seen and couldn’t believe she’d fallen for it. Although, she still didn’t actually know what tapas was.

  Cyrus was chuckling as she glared at him, but without malice on either of their parts.

  “Of course, boss,” she responded, as they finished packing his car and drove away.

  Chapter 13

  Night Feed

  A wraith stood alone in the darkness beneath the Hollywood sign, overlooking large swathes of the Los Angeles sprawl. There were other vantage points, but she appreciated theatrics. And irony. Holly? In this dusty wasteland? Not likely.

  She smiled and breathed in the cool smells of the city after dark; the smoke, steam, and ozone from human industry, the dry heat trying to push in from the east, the cool moisture of the California current fighting to keep the desert at bay, the eucalyptus trees trying to breathe above it all. The long, thin fingers of her dark hair moved slowly in the gentle breeze as though they, too, were tasting the wind.

  The wraith breathed in other things from the darkness. Anxiety, lust, hope, anger. Their tastes poured through her like smoke, leaving an ashy feeling inside her. She tried again and found what she was looking for. A desperate, faceless fear reached her and invaded her senses. Her head snapped in the direction of the irresistible delicacy and she closed her eyes in anticipation. Her breathing became a monstrous beast, ever inhaling, more and more and more until finally, she stopped. Sighed. Opened her eyes. Smiled again.

  Somewhere below, a man awoke on a gasping breath. He looked around wildly for a moment before he leaned ove
r the edge of his bed and vomited. The thick cords of muscle spasmed through his back as he wretched again and again, the exertion covering his tattooed skin in a fine sheen of oily sweat.

  Delicious.

  Her head snapped again toward the smell of a new fear, closer. She began her nauseous ritual again, opening her mouth to a sickening width, feasting on the air with greedy pleasure.

  Across the city, a woman tossed and turned in sweaty sheets. Suddenly she opened her eyes wide, threw off her covers, and sprinted to the room where her children slept. Her frantic eyes fell on their peaceful, gently snoring bodies and she crashed to her knees, still gripping the doorknob. Silent sobs racked her body as her terror deflated to relief. She slept the rest of that night curled up right there in the doorway.

  The wraith continued her consumption throughout the night, sucking greedily at the fears of the world below. Occasionally a wail would raise up above the din of the never-sleeping. The sound pleased her, called to her consciousness from an ancient time.

  She did not notice the approach of the dawn, nor the brilliant progression in the air from rich, royal purple to golden yellow. She did not see the lights illuminate the suburban kitchens across the valley as the residents turned for comfort to their cups of tea, glasses of warm milk, shots of whiskey. She did not see the movement of bodies in the homes, checking the locked doors, the nightlights, the darkened bushes, the under-the-beds.

  When the first smooth rays of sunlight reached her at last, she hissed in frustration. She had not found what she was looking for.

  It was Sunday morning. Attendance at the city’s many and varied houses of worship spiked suddenly to their highest rates in years.

  The next night, the wraith again sought out a vantage point, this time above the Hollywood Bowl, just a few hills away from her original perch. From the cliffs overlooking the city, she could see the glittering stripes of the famous freeways and gridded streets that Los Angeles residents spouted off as a rite of passage and to prove their authenticity to one another. She had spent the day wandering these same streets and listening to their gatekeepers as they placed one another in their meaningless social order. It had irritated her. It had given her an idea.

  The constant flow of rubies and diamonds down the wide corridors reminded her of the pulse of blood in an artery, healthy and rich. They stretched out toward the horizon in every direction, glistening like a mirage through the thick air. She watched the traffic that night, thinking, and began a different ritual.

  Closing her eyes, she built something inside of herself. Or rather, she unbuilt something. Slowly, slowly, she twisted and turned the layers of her power, unravelling it into endless threads. She focused the ends of these threads in the direction of the highways, allowing her essence to be snagged by passing minds. Her dark purpose was pulled along into the winding drives that hid the wealthiest residents, through the austere grids that housed the precarious poor, invaded the carefully planned cul-de-sacs of the neither. They invited her in, one and all, into their manicured lives and through their locked doors, their iron-barred windows, their keypadded gates.

  As she stretched further and further, a low groan purred in the base of her throat and pulsed along the threads she wove through the city. Throughout the night, her groan slowly built into a moan, a scream, a roar, until she was shrieking into the unconscious mind of nearly every living being below.

  The collective shudders of the unsuspecting people below as their dreams turned dark sent waves of ecstasy crashing over her. She was electrified.

  Throughout the city, wails and cries cut through the bedrooms of the stricken. Fear was an equalizer. None could escape the icy grip on their minds as she twisted and wove their secret fears into the inescapable, living reality of the dream world.

  A small nagging in the back of her mind raised a quiet alarm.

  Too much!

  She opened her eyes. They were black and hard with rage.

  "Where are you?" she screamed into the night.

  Carefully, carefully, she reeled the most essential parts of herself back in, but left the black threads of her malice in the minds of the trembling people below.

  Chapter 14

  Salt and Earth

  Anthea woke up on Monday morning feeling uneasy. She’d spent a full weekend with Cyrus acting as his assistant. On Friday night he’d performed another cell phone cleansing, then Saturday morning they’d gone early to some nameless office park in Simi Valley to perform a blessing on a piece of software that was almost ready to ship. The two programmers who had created the app were staking their entire lives on its success, and Anthea noted with interest that the 20-something man seemed calm and collected, but his middle-aged partner was twitching and jumping with nerves. After the blessing ritual, the middle-aged man calmed down considerably and Anthea was again reminded that not all deceptions are harmful. Saturday evening was a fully-booked seance, which she always enjoyed, and Sunday they’d run another stall at a local farmer’s market reading tarot cards. Sunday evening Cyrus had treated Anthea to a tapas dinner, which she didn’t really understand or enjoy, but left feeling happy that she had learned something new, even if she wasn’t entirely satisfied by her meal.

  But, during the night she’d slept fitfully and been plagued by dreams of slithering, amorphous dangers. She’d woken up a number of times and reached for the solid comfort of the steel rod under her pillow and drifted back into a light sleep until the sunrise insisted that she wake. Even groggy, Anthea was still alert. She executed her morning routine check of her home and moved gingerly into the kitchen when she was satisfied. Nothing was amiss, but somehow the incongruence of her mounting anxiety and everything being in its right place made her even more nervous. Impulsively, she reached for her phone, then stopped herself.

  Was I going to call Cyrus? she wondered. What good would that do? “Oh hey Cyrus, I feel weird, could you help me? No, nothing’s wrong, I just feel weird,” she teased herself internally. Irritated with herself, she continued her morning routine mechanically and prepared to leave for work.

  She arrived early, and was again the first person in the office. She smiled a good morning to the security guard in the lobby and looked at him longer and harder than usual, but he smiled and said good morning the same way he always did. She passed a cleaning lady and smiled a warm hello while taking careful note of the woman’s face and her name. Nothing was wrong. Nothing is wrong, she told herself as she flipped on the lights on her floor and headed to the kitchen to make the day’s first pot of coffee.

  Not far away, Cyrus had also spent a sleepless night, although this was not as unusual for him. Cyrus had found in the last decade or so that he didn’t need to sleep very long or very often. It was a very convenient addition to his long life and he often stayed up all night to prepare rituals and other nonsense for the next day, but most nights he simply read. This night, however, something was nagging at him. Just after midnight, he looked up from his book and sniffed a long breath. He could feel something moving in the ether, intruding into the confident thrum of the LA psyche. A thin, wispy thread of disquiet wound its way through the gridded streets, over the rocky hills, down the wide highways. Cyrus felt something familiar in this thread, and it knotted his stomach.

  He sprang up from his chair and into his garage, immediately digging through boxes for the things he’d need and pulled out a number of jars: dirt from the oldest undisturbed graveyard in the world; more dirt from the Red Center of Australia; and still more dirt from Africa’s Great Rift Valley. He brought all these items to the center of his garage and began pouring portions of dirt into a large mortar, working them with his pestle while he chanted a direct prayer.

  “I call on the spirits of my living ancestors to remember your child in his time of need. Come back to this place where you once stood and stand again. Guard against the dangers of the spirits that would harm your children. I entreat you in peace, and I bind you with salt. Fulfill this duty until the elemen
ts release you.” With his hands, he scooped out chunks of rough salt from the ancient Duzgadi salt mines of Azerbaijan’s Araxes Valley and worked it in with his dirt mixture. He ground his mixture and repeated his prayer for nearly an hour, eyes closed in concentration and muscles straining.

  When he finished, he tipped the fine, smooth powder into a large, inglorious plastic container. Walking outside, he took a handful of the powder and blew it carefully around the area of his home. He then fitted a lid tightly over the cover and went back inside. He wasn’t sure who or what he was protecting himself against, but he could feel the effectiveness of it in the quiet power that now thrummed around him. Sitting back down with his book, he tried to settle in again for the evening, but something was still bothering him.

  It was one of his favorite spells. He loved the idea of thousands of human ancestors’ spirits being imbued in the dust where physical bodies had passed. And he loved the idea that something as simple and natural as salt would keep them tethered in place as guardians, until it dissolved in the next rain. Earth to call them, salt to bind them, water to release them. It was balanced. It was tidy. Anthea would have enjoyed learning this one.

  Anthea! he realized, somewhat chagrinned. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but his intuition told him that she was also a part of it and needed this protection too. Quietly, he took his plastic tub of dirt and salt and drove out into the night to her house. He felt guilty even knowing where she lived, because she’d taken great care to never reveal that information to him and he noticed her caution. He wasn’t proud of it, but one night early in her assistantship, he’d followed her home. She had driven almost randomly until she’d arrived at a particular street, and from a distance he’d seen her tail lights slow and turn into a driveway. He knew why she was taking such an erratic path, and didn’t follow her ever again.