The Castle of Water and Woe

by Steffanie Holmes

  “So you’re hanging out with delinquents now?” The uncle sneered at Maeve. “Bringing a white trash criminal here to my house in an attempt to scare me? My, but you have fallen from your lofty goals of going to space? Has the wrath of the Lord finally fallen upon your head, girl? Do you finally see that all you are is a worthless little Jezebel with—”

  “It is you who is worthless,” Maeve hissed. Something crackled across her palm. Her uncle raised a hand to his temple.

  “What is this—” he screwed his eyes up.

  “Call me worthless one more time,” Maeve yelled. “Go on, Uncle Bob. Belittle or intimidate or degrade or terrify another woman because you are a rotten, evil, coward. I dare you.”

  He shoved the Bible in her face. “Begone from my sight, you vile creature, you evil witch—”

  I couldn’t help it. I set the Bible on fire.

  Bob yelled and dropped the burning book on the desk. The flames darted to his other papers, and soon the whole top of the desk was an inferno. His computer popped and fizzed. A smoke alarm beeped loudly from the hallway. Florence screeched and ran off, presumably to call the fire brigade.

  Now he looked genuinely scared. I was perfectly happy for him to believe Maeve made the fire if it meant her punishment was doled out. But Maeve wasn’t done. She advanced on him, her hand raised, palm pointed toward him. He grabbed her wrist and tried to force her arm back, but she used the technique I taught her to break his grasp, wrench her arm free, and press it to his face.

  His skin popped and crackled as she fed her magic directly into his temple. He screamed – a high-pitched, wailing cry that was so beyond pain it was barely conceivable. I had no idea what Maeve was doing to him but it looked like the worst imaginable thing.

  “This is who you are,” she whispered, splaying her fingers across his face. The fire engulfed the whole desk now, the dancing flames illuminating her terrible beauty.

  I coughed. My eyes stung. The smoke was filling the room, obscuring our exit. The fire leapt to the bookshelves behind my desk. We had to get out of here.

  “Maeve, we have to go.” I grabbed her arm. My fingers burned like they’d been dipped in acid. Something flashed in front of my eyes – memories or visions that didn’t belong to me. Black people in the government, gay people kissing on the steps of a church, a women President speaking on TV, crosses being torn down and trampled under angry mobs demanding change. Being made to clean and cook and forced into silence and submission.

  She’s feeding him his own nightmares, I realised. Dredging up his darkest fears and giving them to him in technicolour and 5.1 surround sound.

  “You’re a pig,” Maeve whispered, her voice rasping as her mouth filled with smoke. “And a coward and an abuser, and the only reason I’m not hauling you down to the police station right now is because Kelly’s dealt with enough this year and she doesn’t need the horror of trying to get your ass convicted. Instead, I’ve come to give you a little taste of what you did to her.”

  “I’ll get you!” he gasped, his hands grasping at midair. “I’ll have you burned for this, you witch …”

  “That’s right,” she said. “I am a witch, and I’m real, and I’ve got the power to bring you to your knees. I’ve got a whole army of demons at my beck and call, and I will roast you over an open fire and eat your flesh from your feet up if you ever touch Kelly or any other woman again.”

  “You … you … you ….”

  I saw the exact moment his spirit broke, the moment he realised his God would not save him, that he would die in a fire being tortured by his greatest fears. His whole body sagged, and his voice turned from angry to pleading. “What do you want? I’ll do anything. Just let me live.”

  “Oh you’re going to live. I want you to live. I want you to wake up every day and remember that a woman has power over you. Here’s what’s going to happen,” Maeve said, shifting her hand slightly so he screamed anew. “Kelly is being discharged from hospital tomorrow, but she will not be returning to this house. You will deposit $20,000 into her bank account tonight. And then you will never speak to or seek her out again, and nor will you fight her request for a new guardian. I’ll check and if the money isn’t there, I will come back, and I will not be happy. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, yes, I’ll do it! Just please don’t hurt me,” he sobbed.

  “Did your wife ever say that to you when you beat her with your fists?” Maeve spat in his face. “You are disgusting. If you are a representative of your deity on earth, then I am glad to be rid of Him from my life for good.”

  She shoved her uncle hard into the desk. Bob yelped as the fire leapt up his shirtsleeve. He dived on the floor and started rolling around, trying to put the fire out. He got his sleeve out but the fire leapt on his back, so he rocked around the floor like an overturned turtle, bellowing at the top of his lungs for his God to save him.

  It would have been hilarious if the room wasn’t rapidly filling with smoke. My eyes wept with tears, and I doubled over in a coughing fit.

  “M— Ma—” I tried to choke out her name, but all that came out was more coughing. My throat closed up. Shit, shit. We have to get out, now.

  I could no longer keep my eyes open. I swept my arms around in a circle and connected with Maeve’s waist. I wrapped my arm around her, and reeled her closer to me. She leaned against me, coughing violently.

  I tried to prise my weeping eyes open, but they weren’t having a bar of it. The shrill bleat of the smoke alarm behind my head throbbed against my skull. Panic rose in my chest. We’re going to asphyxiate in here if we can’t find the way out, but how the hell—

  Arthur, you bellend… the smoke alarm!

  The bleating alarm oriented me in the space. I dragged Maeve towards it, bending as low as I could to try and get beneath the smoke, where the air was more breathable. There wasn’t as much smoke in the hall. I pressed my hand against the wall, knocking photographs off as I dragged Maeve away.

  We crashed through the front door and collapsed on the porch, gasping in the fresh air. My throat burned. After a few moments, I could open my eyes again. Sirens blared down the road.

  “We’ve got to go.” Maeve scrambled to his feet, looping her arm under my elbow. I winced as she gripped over the fresh cut. We raced down the path and clambered into the car.

  “Drive!” Maeve yelled, gripping the Corvette’s dashboard.

  “What about the fire?” I asked, wishing Flynn and his water magic were here.

  “Not our problem,” Maeve shot back, watching in the side mirror as the fire truck screamed into the drive, and the back porch collapsed. “His God will put it out for him.”

  FORTY-SIX: MAEVE

  My whole body trembled as I watched the flames consume Uncle Bob’s historic farmhouse. I wanted to feel triumphant. He’d been a horrible person who beat his wife into submission and hurt my sister when she was at her most vulnerable, and he did it all in the name of the same God my dead parents dedicated their lives to glorifying.

  I wanted to smile. I wanted to whoop for joy and yell that justice had been done.

  Instead, my fingers itched to grab the wheel and turn the car around. I longed to crawl back into that house and make sure my Uncle and Aunt were okay. I wanted to write them a “sorry I burned your house down and showed you the horrors of your own nightmares” sympathy card. It was just like the other day when I’d sent that guy through the window at the pub.

  My head buzzed with flashes of Uncle Bob’s nightmares. They were disturbing and satisfying in their poetic justice. His worst fears realised were feminists taking over the government, being forced to sit on community committees with black people, and discovering that God was really Allah and he’d missed out on the seventy-five virgins. Bigotry, hatred, horror at being challenged and found wanting. He was so terrified of losing his power that he lived inside a cage of his own making.

  And I’d seen it all through his eyes. I hadn’t even known I could do that – call up so
meone’s nightmares and play them back like a showreel. I’d had no plan when I made Arthur drive me to the farmhouse. I just knew that Kelly couldn’t stand up to this guy, but I could. Bob towered over me, trying to intimidate me, but all I could see was the dream I had where he grabbed Kelly and told her she was to obey him, and I got angrier and angrier, and the pillar of power rose up from inside me and I grabbed his face and pushed.

  I’d got what I wanted. Uncle Bob would leave Kelly alone. He’d freed her. She had enough money that she could start college or pay for an apartment or do whatever she wanted. I’d never again have to look down at my sister’s face in a hospital bed after hearing how she’d tried to hurt herself. So why did my stomach feel all tight and horrible, and why wouldn’t my hands stop shaking?

  “Why don’t I feel good?” I asked Arthur as we drove to our next destination, our second-to-last before we could go back to Phoenix and see Kelly.

  “Because you’re a much better person than I am,” he replied.

  “Explain.”

  “You feel like shit because you used your power to hurt and intimidate someone else.”

  Shit. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  I did. I did to Bob exactly what he did to Kelly. I was the bully. I forced him to do what I wanted.

  “It’s not a bad thing, Maeve. You were raised in a Christian household. I’m guessing you were taught to turn the other cheek if someone tried to hurt you. That’s why you never bit back at any of the horrible kids at your school. That’s why you tried to get us to help Dora, instead of letting Blake tinker with her head. That’s why you wanted Blake to stay even when the rest of us didn’t trust him. You try to see the good in people. You try to understand them before you judge them. Maybe all the fire and brimstone and Young arth stuff didn’t fly with you, but it looks like some of the best parts of religion did. That’s the kind of person you are, Maeve. You don’t want to hurt people. You don’t even want to hurt the fae. And you hurt someone tonight. But you shouldn’t feel bad. That guy was a wanker. A total gobshite, Flynn would say. I’m not going to waste a moment of my life feeling sorry for him, and neither should you.”

  I reached across and wrapped my hand over his. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “Remember that I set the fire,” he added. “You’re not responsible for that.”

  “Yeah, but… maybe we should get some water or something.”

  “The fire brigade are on it. Do not feel bad, Maeve. You did a good thing tonight.”

  I rubbed my temples, trying to shake off the horrors of Uncle Bob’s nightmares, the sickening satisfaction I’d felt in my gut when he screamed, when his shirt caught fire. I’m not so sure.

  We drove on in near silence, heading back through the village and out the other side into the desert. “Here,” I jabbed my finger out the window. Arthur stopped the car and reached across to squeeze me hand.

  The moon shone low over the desert, highlighting the silhouettes of the rows of graves lining a wide, dusty path. The car’s stupid round headlights illuminated rustic wooden crosses and piles of white stones that outlined the plots. Bright floral wreaths and Mexican statues dotted many of the graves. The place had a humble vibe about it – the sky didn’t press down oppressively, squeezing my grief on all sides. Instead, the open desert air made my head feel light, my thoughts floating away on the cool breeze.

  There was a fancier, more modern cemetery in the next town over, but my parents had wanted to be buried here, where they had lived and worked and loved and fought to glorify their God’s name.

  My fingers dug into the leather seat. Arthur stepped out of the car, stroking his beard as his mouth hung open. “This place looks like something out of an old Western film.”

  I tried to say something, but words wouldn’t form. At least my Uncle’s nightmares had disappeared from my head. They’d been replaced with my own.

  Arthur opened my door and held out his hand. I took it, allowing him to pull me out of the car. The heat of his palm scalded my skin, but I didn’t flinch away. Arthur’s fire was part of him, and I liked … no, I think I loved every part of him. He’d done what he did tonight for me.

  We walked down the rows, not saying anything, seeing but not seeing the graves with their bright decorations. My heart pounded in my ears. So many dead people who were so loved.

  “Here,” I stopped in front of two graves near the end of the row. They shared a single tombstone, as they shared everything else in life.

  MATTHEW AND LOUISE CRAWFORD

  WEEP NOT, WE ARE ANGELS NOW

  I sucked in my breath, my chest constricting. I sank to my knees in front of the stones, feeling the warmth of the desert through the thin fabric of my skirt.

  “Do you want me to leave?” Arthur whispered.

  “No,” I said. “Unless you have to leave, because of …” your mother. Because you’ve also stood in front of the grave of someone you love, and known that a stone was all you had left. “Of everyone, I feel like you understand.”

  “I’m right here.” Arthur rested his hand on my shoulder.

  I know logically that this is pointless, that I’m talking to two embalmed corpses slowly decomposing underground until they eventually return to stardust. I know that there’s no such thing as Heaven and Hell and my parents aren’t really angels looking down on me.

  I knew all of it, and yet, I opened my mouth.

  “Hey, Mum, Dad.”

  Arthur squeezed my shoulder.

  “I didn’t expect to find myself back here so soon, staring at …” I gestured at the stones. “Well, you know. But things have got all messed up and turned around. I’ve discovered some things about myself since you were gone. You didn’t know that I was a witch when you adopted me. Maybe if you had known, you wouldn’t have fought so hard to keep me, but I doubt that.

  “I just wanted to say… you were the best people I’ve ever known. You loved me and accepted me and I… I don’t think I ever told you how proud I am to be your daughter. We may not have always agreed, and we definitely didn’t believe in the same things, but you always believed in me, and I always believed in you.”

  Tears streamed down my cheeks. I didn’t wipe them away, didn’t fight them. I let them roll off the tip of my chin and splash into the dust, feeding the desert with my sadness. “I’ve met these five amazing people. They made me realise that my eyes were closed before. But now they’re wide open, and for the first time I see just how lucky I was to have you in my life, and how much I wish you could have stuck around to see the person I become. These guys are looking after me, and I’m looking after Kelly, so you don’t have to worry. I know you wouldn’t approve of what we’ve been doing, but I’d like to think that… that despite it all, you’d have treated them like your own sons.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you’re looking down on me from anywhere, just close your eyes at the dirrty bits, okay? I’m dealing with losing you as best I can, and these guys are helping me. And …” I gulped back the lump in my throat. “I miss you. I miss you so much that it hurts. It feels like my heart has been crushed to pieces and it will never be whole again. I wish I could talk to you about what’s happening. I feel so lost. But I’m doing my best to find my way using everything you taught me. I love you, and I’m so amazed that I got to be your daughter.”

  I stood up, brushing the dirt off my knees. Tears streamed down my face, soaking my collar and stuffing up my nose. Girls in movies always looked so tragic and beautiful when they cried. I turned into a snotty, soggy mess.

  Arthur didn’t say anything, but he opened his arms. I fell into his embrace, and a great wave of relief washed over my body – a shudder of warmth that told me I’d just passed through another stage of my grief. The sadness reverberated through my whole body, but Arthur’s steady presence reminded me that I would be okay. I wasn’t going to fall to pieces. I had kind people around me who would hold me together.

  I looked up at him, my eyes meeting his. There was
no trace of the rage that had marred his features over the last few days. Instead, Arthur’s soft eyes drew me in, showing me a tiny piece of his bare soul, that part that missed his mouth, that grieved for her still. His lips parted slightly as he debated his next move. My chest fluttered, and my whole body ached to fall into him, to join our bodies and hearts together.

  “One more stop.” I smiled through my tears.

  “Maeve, are you okay?”

  Godammit. His voice cracked and my whole world shuddered on its axis. I need to get out of here or I’m going to lose it. I dropped from his arms, my body crying out in protest. I ran toward the car.

  “Come on,” I yelled over my shoulder. “This next stop is much happier, I promise.”

  Bless Arthur. He slid into the car without a word, rolled the roof down, and followed my instructions. We headed further out into the desert, toward the rugged mountains that jutted from the earth like the teeth of a predator. After ten miles, I pointed to a dirt track leading to a dark weather station. The small white dome of an observatory telescope glowed under the bright moon. Across the sky the Milky Way spread out like a blanket shot with silver thread. Glittering stars mapped the heavens, drawing me in to that same giddy sensation of awe, of smallness, that I’d always felt as a kid staring at the sky.