by Mark Teppo
"Barry, I just think—"
"Gray Witches, Celia," he snapped. "I may not be a God damn Witch, but Mom didn’t raise an idiot. I’m not going to ask for our money back just before they cast my spell."
"Look, what if it happens to you?" I dug into my jeans pocket, fishing for a Kleenex. "Barry?" I blotted the water from my cheeks. "What if it doesn’t stick?"
"That’s not gonna happen," he muttered. Then, finally, he looked up from his screen. His face was like a rain cloud, almost full to bursting with feelings. Despite his best efforts, I knew it wouldn’t last. Barry never felt anything in the least bit heavy for more than a minute or two.
"Barry—"
"You probably did something to break it, anyway," he said. "Gray Witches don’t make mistakes." And then he stood up and headed for the hallway. After a moment, I heard the workshop door slam.
"But you don’t care what the Gray Witches think of you. That’s what you said," I screamed at the closed door. "Right, Barry? Right?" All I got was silence.
My own permanent Gray Witch Vacation cost $2,200 and the death of one mid-level executive. It lasted only three months.
The decision to purchase the spell was easily made. I had just finished sprinting up all three flights of stairs, newspaper in hand, only to stumble into the gloom of our apartment. Barry stood in our living room, holding his cup of coffee.
"Barry—" I started.
I held up the newspaper, pointing to a photograph of a man in midair, falling from the South End Bridge. "Third Jumper This Year" the headline read. Inside the picture was a small inset, a portrait of a smiling thirty-something-year-old man in a suit and tie. He had very even teeth.
"Barry, I know him," I said.
"So . . . ."
It was early evening. I’d been working the stall all day. By the looks of things, Barry had just got up. His fine, brown hair was mussed, his face still creased and bleary.
"He came by my stall yesterday," I said. I set the paper on our dining table and inspected the picture one more time. The image of the bridge was too grainy to make out the man’s expression. It must have been shot at a distance. "He bought two boxes. Bought two the week before as well."
"Did you tell him—" Barry started as he wandered closer.
I cut him off. "Of course, I told him the boxes wouldn’t keep. I always tell my customers."
"Well, it sure looks like you messed something up." He reached over and turned the newspaper in his direction. My hands shook. I placed my palms on the tabletop, as my stomach roiled and twisted. Barry’s expression, as he watched me, held the same slightly puzzled look I used to love so much. Right then, I couldn’t stand it.
After that, there wasn’t much Barry could do. Despite all his cajoling, I refused to return to my stall. In the end, despite my job and the money, he agreed to hand over our savings to the Gray Witch Union and purchase my permanent Gray Witch Vacation. He even came with me, though he wasn’t happy about any of it: the trip, the box, the loss of income this "whim" of mine was going to engender. Still, the two of us, the Witch’s son and the Sadness Carrier, walked across the Market and up the Union steps together for the second time.
I don’t think either of us expected any favors, and we didn’t get any.
We stood in line on those gray, granite steps. We politely waited our turn, and then, after I explained to the assigned Witch exactly how I wanted to feel, we received my very own petal-and-limb box. Barry, like always, watched while I opened the lid. That box was supposed to fix everything. And, for a few months, it did.
Every year on my birthday Barry gives me exactly the same gift, his own handcrafted, Gray Witch box. Even this year, just weeks after we’d spent all that money on my Gray Witch happiness, he presented me with my usual birthday present. The box was etched all over with carapaces. Spiders’ eyes watched me as I opened the lid. Spiders’ eyes and Barry.
I didn’t suspect a thing. Despite Barry’s grumbling, I trusted him. Trust is something, it seems, I give out for free. Like love. And tenderness. I could never be a Gray Witch.
Boxes all work the same way. First there is the initial spell. The carrier or Witch, whoever it is, has to fill the interior. Then it’s all on the new owner. They decide when to open the lid. For me, though, it’s the limb-and-petal paper that is the true magic.
With the paper, there’s always that moment when the glue melts and the limbs, the haemolymph, and the dead leaves and petals coalesce, the mosaic inhaled by the recipient like a cloud creature settling into their lungs. Sometimes, after opening one of Barry’s boxes, my eyes would burn with iridescent mist for minutes afterward.
This year on my birthday, innocent me, I laughed as the black-and-yellow striped insect rose from the remains of Barry’s box. Its wings were bluish-violet and fringed like the petals of an Aster. I leaned in to get a closer look. I’d never seen an actual fully formed creature emerge before.
"A hover fly," Barry said. "Mixed with a few flowers. It just looks like it can jab you."
I must have given him an odd look, because he kept on talking, either that, or he was nervous.
"Hover flies don’t sting. They eat aphids and other plant suckers," he explained as though that made all the sense in the world. And somehow, in that moment, it did.
I laughed again and even opened the window, letting the striped insect with the flower wings find its way out of our apartment. The two of us, Barry and I, stood by the window and watched the almost-wasp disappear into the city.
"How?" I asked. I turned to Barry, amazed all over again by the magic.
"Happy birthday," was his only reply.
That man has more of a sense of humor than he lets on.
It took two lines on a receipt, a dollar amount and a date, for me recognize Barry’s betrayal.
After all the screaming and the slamming doors and the breakfast nobody ate, Barry took off for the Union. I headed straight to our bedroom. That’s where I found the receipt: on top of one of my cardboard boxes, the box that holds the only two Gray Witch receipts I’ve ever owned—Mother’s and mine. Gray Witch Ltd. was printed right on the top along with the price and a detailed description. It was the cost that caught my eye first: $2,200. It was printed next to the word Total. The same amount Barry was supposedly about to spend on his own Gray Witch Vacation. The same amount we had spent on my original spell.
Why had Barry taken out my receipt? That was my first thought. Then I looked more closely. The date on the receipt was all wrong. It was from last year, sure, but weeks after my own procedure. In fact, the date was exactly two days before my birthday: September 12th.
My Barry went down to the Gray Witch Union just two days before my birthday and spent $2,200. My Barry bought me a present I didn’t even know I had. That black-and-yellow striped insect with the petal wings? The item’s description made everything clear. That supposed hover fly was a wasp after all. Unbinding Spell, the receipt said. Break me apart spell. Take away my happiness spell. It seemed Barry had spent his own Gray Witch money months ago to undo everything the Gray Witches had just fixed. He’d turned my happiness into a wasp and watched as it flew away.
And, now, Barry had left the receipt out where I was sure to find it. He’d set me up. Tears weren’t even close to an adequate response
After three years, Barry had trained me well. I knew everything I needed was in his workshop. And Barry? Well, Barry was out. He’d run down to the Hall to buy his own Gray Witch Vacation. At least that’s what he said. Couldn’t imagine anything less likely. All that talk of purchasing a little "joy" was just a ruse. We both knew joy was never going to be enough. Barry was waiting until I built my own pretty little box, one made just for him.
I’m standing in the workshop entrance, clutching the receipt in my right hand. The room is a cacophony of hisses, whirs and scrambling legs. In the middle of the room stands a long bench, though the majority of the floor space is reserved for the papermaking: the presses and sieves. Ove
rhead, long stems full of drying leaves and petals hang from a wooden rack.
The long cedar boards sit in the far right corner. Expense wood. Barry must have been certain they’d be used.
I set the receipt on Barry’s bench and pull out the first board. Already, I can tell there is just enough cedar to frame the box I have in mind. I have one human-sized box to build. One body box to line with all of Barry’s limb-and-petal paper. Of course, the paper isn’t the only thing I need. Glue. I’ll have to make more glue.
I close my eyes for a moment, then open the cricket cage and drop a handful into one of Barry’s presses. After the crickets come the brown wood spiders. When I’m sure the press’s interior can hold no more, I push down on the handle, putting all my weight against the metal, then I add the clear, greenish contents of the collecting jar to the glue pot and start all over again. Not even Barry has ever lined a box this large.
I thought the liquid would smell, but there is barely any scent at all. It is the press’s screen that nearly does me in. Carapaces and leg joints shudder as I flick the contents of the screen onto the floor. Barry’s tidy workshop is littered with dead insect debris.
I push on as the tears finally start. I’m not sure if it’s sadness or rage. My eyes stream either way. Meanwhile my mouth mutters nonsense words that I only half-hear. Words about cracked and broken and making him feel something.
I’ve collected enough haemolymph. I cut swaths of elder blossom and honeysuckle from the overhead racks, drop them into the metal brazier along with a match. When the fire has banked, I scoop up the still-hot ashes. My fingertips are red. I can feel them throbbing. It’s as though all my blood wants to push its way outward.
Not yet.
I tip the ashes into the pot of haemolymph and stir. The greenish liquid turns a putty-gray.
Finally, it’s time to construct the box. I know that, after the glue, the box itself will be no problem. Pretty interlocking joints may mark a good craftsman, but a staple gun can work just as well. The magic is in the contents. The contents and, if you are very lucky, if you have someone like Barry, someone, it turns out, like me to press the paper into place, someone to sketch her own ashen face and HAPPY BIRTHDAY across the top when she’s done with a burning-hot coal, then all the better.
First, though, I have to take care of the blood. It’s the last step—the glue requires it.
Barry has a special block plane for finish work. The glue jar rests nearby along with the receipt. I hold my left arm above the glass. My veins look so small, blue lines that quickly disappear below the surface. I raise the metal plane, jab down, test the angle. Even that small cut stings. I raise my right hand higher, and bring the blade down again, a straight line up my arm, starting at my wrist. I can’t help myself; I close my eyes long before the blade finishes its cutting.
I’m tired.
The slash along my arm has been dripping for almost an hour. The box is completely lined. All that’s left is to climb inside and press the receipt against the lid. My legs feel somehow disconnected from the rest of my body. I slump rather than step inside the narrow enclosure, banging my bleeding arm against the box as I sit down. Despite all the glue I’ve brushed onto the paper, I can see that a few of the corners are already curling up. I run my trembling left arm along the edges, smoothing the paper with my blood, making sure the seams stay in place, then I curl my body into the shape of a question mark. The tears have stopped; all that is left is a strange, buzzing nausea. I glance around the workshop. Finally, I reach up and pull the lid down, sealing that final square of paper just above my head.
It’s dim inside Barry’s box but not entirely black; light creeps in from the edges between the boards. Even with the light, it’s hard to separate my limbs from the paper they press against. It’s almost as though I am dissolving into the paper itself.
Doesn’t matter.
The buzzing feels louder now, the paper like half-tattered wings. All I have to do is wait. Wait for Barry to finally return, wait for that lid to finally rise and for my reborn self to crawl, all petal-softened chitin and twitching antennae, to the window ledge and fly. If I know nothing else, I know that, before the magic ends, Barry’s Gray Witch eyes will be the ones that finally cry.
Two Will Walk With You
— Grá Linnaea
Ayu ran, knowing running was pointless, a pale fantasy in her head of somehow reaching her family. She’d stolen rough hemp clothes from the kitchens and stashed her acolyte robes in an iron tetsunabe.
She was small for a girl of seventeen, but her thin frame had barely fit between the iron bars covering the kitchen window. There was little sound when she dropped into the shoutaku that acted as a moat surrounding Kirche Guregorī. The waste and rot in the marsh water burned her eyes. The reeking clothes hung heavy as she clawed her way up the outside edge of the marsh.
She dared a last look behind her. The water, black as oil, made her think of punishments to come. The looming stone walls blocked the stars.
It would take nine days on foot to reach her village in Tottori, a meaningless journey even if it were the next village over from Kyoto. She should have awaited punishment at the order, or killed herself.
She stumbled over the sharp jutting stones that peppered the grounds beside the marshy moat. The brand below her neck flared and blistered the skin around it. She’d almost forgotten; If she didn’t subdue the nearby protection spells, the brand would blaze white hot till she was a screaming pile of undying bones.
Crouching and squinting, she spied a bit of the stone marker. Carved in the stone, the top edge of Archangel Simiel’s glyph poked through the low kusa plants.
It took many breaths to still her mind enough to invoke Archangel Oriphiel, "Auxilium maneat ira incantatores."
Oriphiel’s control spell would hopefully give her a few seconds safety from the embedded Simiel destruction spell. An ember of fear lit in the back of her mind. She’d never tried an Oriphiel incantation.
She ran.
Clouds obscured the moon, but the magical glow of the illuminated crucifixes adorning Kirche Guregorī’s high towers lit the ground around her. Ayu imagined the keep’s windows behind her, like eyes squinting in amusement at her hopeless flight.
Up ahead was a copse of katsura trees. Beyond that lay Guregorī’s rice fields. She could follow the trees along the edge of the fields to the road into Kyoto, but instinct screamed that she run in a straight line, get as far from Guregorī as possible.
A cold gust made the trees ripple, and long-forgotten memories bubbled painfully inside her. As a child, she’d collected the red-green leaves like little coins, woven the stems into a circle. Even though it wasn’t a proper offering, Mother had let her leave the rings on the kamidana. Ayu couldn’t remember a single Shinto prayer from her childhood.
She pushed the painful memories deep down inside. She’d been in the order so long, surrounded by Latin and Christian saints, it was hard to remember that outside the grounds was all of Japan.
She stole another glance behind her. Kirche Guregorī still blocked the sky, but to the side of the keep she could see just a bit of Biwa Lake glinting in the rare slices of moonlight stealing through the clouds.
Guregorī was named for her . . . for the Christian’s pope. It was hard to believe it had been 1576, only thirteen years ago, when the Christian priests arrived in Kyoto. Oda Nobunaga, captivated by their magic and power, used shogunate funds to build them the keep. Two years later, Ayu was taken along with other promising Japanese children to train in the ways of Christian spells.
Some said Nobunaga hoped to wield Christian power to rule all the daimyo as shogun. What grim irony that now in 1589 Christian magicians ruled the entire Kyoto prefecture.
As Ayu entered the woods, the smell of katsura leaves brought another flood of memories. Were Mother and Father still in Tottori? She’d have to travel south along Biwa Lake to reach the eastern road.
A bitter smile twisted her mouth. Her eig
hteenth birthday was a few days away. It had been nearly seven years since the order took her from her parents.
Eleven-year-old Ayu had quickly learned the Order’s primary law. She was theirs. Once inducted, she was never to leave.
She’d been there a day when the Christian priest who became her master wove the spell that branded Ayu just below her neck. Without thinking, she touched the spot. She knew the spell now. Archangel Oriphiel’s control glyph felt warm under the cold hemp.
To be an acolyte was to live in loneliness. They were to be silent unless addressed by a master. They each slept in a room the size of a soaking tub and were kept away from each other to reduce the danger of friendships or romance.
Ayu had felt little danger of romance in the past seven years. The boys were vile and spotty. The girls brought confusing emotions for her, overwhelming and frightening.
Sappho. Lesbia. She might not have had words for her feelings if not for the priest’s dire warnings.
Order punishments flooded her head. Touching another student cost thirty strokes with a cane. Stealing cost three days wearing a shame-belt. Ayu still carried scars circling her waist from its metal hooks. An acolyte caught in a lie was locked in a hole with a wraith.
She wrapped one hand in the other. Running away cost a finger.
Acolytes stopped being property when they graduated into full order members, blessed by God. They’d receive their new Latin name. They received land and slaves, places in the growing Christian power structure. They still could never see their old family again; they could never marry or have children.
Ayu had dutifully abandoned Shinto. She’d come to truly believe in the Great Hierarchy long before she’d learned to cast her first spell. She still remembered the thrill of Archangel Gabriel’s communication spell translating ancient Latin to kanji. Her commitment to the order became her entire world. She knew her place.
And yet, instead of waiting with her master’s cooling body, she picked through the dense copse of black trees, too panicked to notice the thorns that poked through the stolen shirt and scratched her skin.