by J. T. Warren
“Is Sasha here?” he asked.
A low moan dropped from the woman like smoke rolling off a fire.
“Excuse me?”
The moan morphed to a growl that stretched out and out. She was preparing to cast another spell. He squinted at her sides but the darkness hid her hands, hid in fact most of her body, like she was merely floating in the doorway and her body was somewhere else. Downstairs, perhaps, stuck in a trance before some evil altar. She was in the middle of some kind of out-of-body experience. She could kill him and wake up to find his body on her front porch with no memory of what had happened. Some evil spirit was using her now, manipulating her to do its will.
“I need to go,” he said and started down the porch steps.
“You must accept your fate,” she said in a voice full of dirt.
He stopped at the bottom step, turned to her. Even more than before, she now appeared to float in the doorway. When she spoke, the red light reflected off her teeth to fill her mouth with blood.
“You did what you shouldn’t have and now you must accept it or your life will not be harmonious. You will forever be unbalanced until you embrace what you have done and how you must deal with it.”
Tomorrow in the sunlight or even minutes from now in Paul’s car speeding away from here, this would seem ridiculous. He would laugh about Sasha’s crazy mother who walked around in black robes and spoke like she was a villain in some fantasy movie. Witchcraft was a bunch of bullshit, anyway. He’d be able to tell himself that later, but right now his mind wouldn’t listen. The dark had thickened and pushed in, even dimming the porch light. He had made Paul drive over here because he was convinced that this woman was somehow responsible for what happened to Delaney and now he was completely convinced. This woman might be fucked in the head, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a genuine witch.
“Why did you kill my sister?”
A pause. “It has been cast. The universe will conspire for it to work.”
“What? You cursed me?”
She laughed in a low, grumbling way that made Tyler’s skin prickle.
“Why? Tell me why?”
The laugh grew louder.
“I didn’t do anything to Sasha. She”—you raped me—“wanted it. This is not my fault.”
“Fault doesn’t matter now,” she said. “It’s too late to change anything. It has been cast.”
“Uncast it, then! Take it back. Stop all this shit or you will be sorry.”
No response. He had sounded far more dangerous than he felt.
“There is only one way,” she said. “You must come inside.”
“So you can throw more blood in my face?”
“Perhaps.” Then she was gone and the doorway was empty.
He turned to Paul who had stepped out of his car and was leaning his arms on the top, head resting in his joined hands. He was having a great time watching, no doubt. Tyler gestured toward the open door. Paul shrugged and then held out one hand, palm open like a gentleman allowing a lady to cut into a line. Some help he was.
Someone had come out on the front porch of the neighbor’s house, which was partially obstructed with trees that hadn’t started blossoming yet. The person lit a cigarette and sat down. He had come out to watch the show and missed out. Tyler waited for a word or two from this person, a warning or something (don’t you dare go in there, boy, that lady’s crazy as a rabid bat), but the guy just smoked quietly. Typical night in Trailer Trash Town.
Paul waved at Tyler with his cell phone open in his hand. The small blue light from the screen was a smeared flame on the canvass of the night. Tyler touched the cell phone in his pocket, already on vibrate because of the wake, and nodded. That calmed him some. A phone was a rational thing, a logical product of a sane world. It might also be a lifeline if things turned ugly.
He went back up the steps, stopped outside the open doorway. He had been in this house in the middle of the day only a few days ago. The house was completely bland and average, at least upstairs, but now the darkness swirled and distorted the structure of the house the way fog can distort roads in the morning.
Witchcraft or bullshit, he had to go inside because he owed it to Delaney. If her death had been because of his action, then he had to right the wrong. Or punish the avenger.
He entered the house and turned toward the descending stairs where the flickering red light called to him in a secret language.
* * *
This could be a trick, of course. The woman might be duping him, trying to get him into her lair so she could cast another spell or throw more blood on him or maybe cut off his dick and stick it in a jar. He took out his cell phone and opened it before him to use as a flashlight. The blue light did nothing to fight against the red pulsing from somewhere downstairs, but it comforted him. He gripped the phone a bit too tightly and clung to that blue light like it was a magic force field that would protect him. When he reached the bottom of the steps, the blue light dimmed as it was programmed to do after several seconds of non-use.
The red lights were candles flickering in a smaller version of the candle holders Catholics prayed before in church, the votive candles in small glass holders before a cross on the wall. Instead of a cross on the wall, a large picture of a naked woman was set against the far wall above the candles. The woman appeared to be floating, or flying, as bolts of lightning shot upward toward her and across her body. Three long white candles were set beneath the picture at equal distances from each other and their light reflected off the pale body of the naked woman. White flowers that looked red in the light (bleeding flowers) were set at either end of the altar, which was probably a long card table with a black sheet over it. On the sheet, a star had been painted. Had she purchased that or created it herself? Maybe she made the star using White-Out. That was an even more disturbing image than buying them off some witchcraft website. A woman crazy enough to make all this shit on her own could be the perfect person to actually figure out how to cast spells.
Sasha’s mother had walked to the far corner of the room, which was empty save for the altar. Black curtains hung from the walls and even from the front window, though those were parted as if she knew he would be coming and she wanted him to watch.
He approached the altar and lowered his cell phone, but kept it open in his hand. Two metal bowls were also on top of the altar, one empty the other holding liquid that might be blood. He couldn’t be sure in this light. Next to the possibly blood-filled bowl lay a white-handled knife with a long blade that had been shined to a terrific gloss.
The front door swung shut.
“Is Sasha here?”
The woman groaned as she had before, stretching it out into an impossibly long syllable. The phone in his hand vibrated. A text from Paul: U OK? Tyler wasn’t sure. No one was coming down the stairs. Maybe the wind had blown the door shut. Yeah, right, wind on a windless night blowing from inside a house out.
“Are we alone?”
But the woman was lost in her perpetual groan that sounded hollow like someone screaming underwater. She moved to the altar in smooth steps that made her appear to float. She stopped before the altar and sank to both knees.
More vibration and another message: ???
He responded: wait.
“I want you to remove whatever curse you put on me.”
The groan peeked and faded away like a howling wind that moved on to other places. “You do not believe,” she said.
“You cursed me.”
“You can not see what is really going on. You are lost in your fears.”
“You said there was only one way to end this.”
She nodded, faced him. The red candlelight bathed over her and deepened the smattering of dark blemishes painting her face. It could be ceremonial make up or maybe she beat herself as a sign of submission before her gods. “There is only one way, but you are not ready.”
“What is it?”
“Marisa,” she called, “come.”
; Someone was behind him so quickly that Tyler almost screamed. He backed away, hit the wall. Someone with a black blanket covering him or her like a little kid using a sheet to play ghost had appeared out of nowhere. Had this person been down here the whole time? No, of course not. That was crazy. Whoever this was had been upstairs, hiding. He or she shut the door and waited for the cue.
The black blanket was a knitted thing with thousands of small holes, which made it easy for the person to see to walk around. The feet were bare, white blots on a black lake. As the person neared the altar, the spaces in the blanket filled with stark whiteness. Before he could realize what he was seeing, the person knelt behind Sasha’s mother, who stood and turned to face her, and then lay down. The black blanket pulled up high on the feminine legs, stopping just above the knees.
Sasha’s mother held one of the bowls before her, dipped one hand in it, and then sprinkled the liquid over the person on the floor. While she did this, she recited something that sounded more like guttural noises, yips and grunts, than actual words.
The person on the floor spread her legs and arms to resemble an asterisk. The blanket pulled up even higher. The legs were completely bare. Was she even wearing underwear? In spite of the gooseflesh speckling his body, Tyler grew aroused.
Sasha’s mother turned to him, bowl in hand. “This is the only way. You must erect a proper altar. Only then can the spell be changed.”
The phone was vibrating again.
Sasha’s mother bent down and pulled the blanket back, revealing her naked daughter. Sasha’s body was impossibly white, now splashed with red gashes from the candles. Her large breasts hung to either side of her chest. Her hair lay splayed out from her head and her face was completely expressionless. Is that how she had looked last Friday? You raped me.
“You must be with her again,” her mother said. “It is the only way.”
Sasha’s naked body had intensified his lustful reaction but her empty face and her mother’s mottled face cooled the blood in his veins.
“I will purify you and then you will purify each other.” She held out the bowl.
He couldn’t step away from the wall.
“This is what you want, yes? You want it to end?”
“What did you do?”
She held the bowl over Sasha. “I did what any mother would. I protected my daughter.” She overturned the bowl and the liquid splashed over Sasha’s midsection, trailing down into her crotch. She made no response, as if in a trance. “This is the most powerful of all spells. You cannot fight it. The only way is to embrace it.”
“What do you want from me?”
“To make my daughter happy.”
“No,” he said almost too quietly to hear.
She turned back to the altar. “That is too bad.” She turned back around with the knife in her hand. “There is no turning back now. The altar has been consecrated and must be purified. There are only two ways. If you refuse, I must use this.” She raised the knife, blade gleaming in the light as if already covered in blood.
“You’re fucking crazy.”
She wasn’t really going to kill her daughter, was she? That made no sense, not if she wanted to protect her. But he couldn’t have sex with Sasha, her mother standing over them with a fucking knife. He had been aroused before but now his dick had retreated almost inside of him. The vibrations in his pocket made him more anxious. Sasha’s mother dropped to her knees next to her daughter. She held the knife in both hands now and raised it over her naked daughter.
“Only you can stop this.”
He ran up the stairs so quickly he tripped on the top step and spilled into the foyer. Then he was up and prying at the door, which wouldn’t open. Locked. Sasha had locked it in her trance state. She had no idea what her mother was doing. From downstairs, the low groan came again only louder this time. It echoed in the house like an earthquake. Tyler found the deadbolt, flipped it back, and was scrambling down the porch steps and the front lawn so quickly he didn’t see Paul coming up the lawn and crashed right into him. They tumbled down the sloping lawn and stopped near the car.
“What the fuck man?” Paul said. “What happened? I was about to bust in there.”
“This is fucked beyond fucked. We need to leave, now.”
“What is it?”
“Now!” Paul got in the car.
The neighbor was still on the porch, the red light of the burning cigarette floating in the dark. Racing over the hills and maneuvering through the parked cars, Paul asked what had happened. Tyler couldn’t tell him yet; it was too confusing. Had it all really happened? Had Sasha been naked before some witch altar? Had her mother really expected him to fuck her right there? Was she really going to hurt Sasha? He should call the police, at the very least.
“Go to the funeral home,” Tyler said.
“I thought you were in trouble. Jesus.”
“Still am.”
When they got back to the funeral home, everyone had left and Dad was still upset. But not about Delaney.
Brendan had been kidnapped.
5
Stephanie had taken Chloe home after the incident. Anthony wanted to apologize to his sons, especially Brendan, who had seen the whole thing, but he couldn’t find them. Neither of the funeral directors knew where he was, either. He figured Brendan was hiding somewhere, scared after his dad’s violence. When he realized Tyler was gone, too, he relaxed. Tyler had taken his little brother home; that’s all. At least someone was acting rationally around here. He didn’t start to worry until Tyler showed up alone.
He was kneeling before Delaney’s coffin, hands clasped in prayer but no prayer actually filling his head when Tyler ran into the room. Anthony had been thinking what a complete fuck-up he was, how he had managed to destroy everything in his life that was perfect. But that was bullshit. He hadn’t destroyed anything. He and Chloe had loved each other more than anything when they agreed to make their arrangement legal and they swarmed their kids with love; they were the best parents they knew how to be. It was bad luck. Nothing but bad fucking luck. It was like a giant, evil troll had stepped into their lives and taken their infant son. But instead of moving on, the troll was still hungry and took Delaney, too. There was nothing either he or Chloe could have done. It was the Bad Luck Troll. When he comes for a visit, sometimes he stays for a long, long time.
“Dad?”
When Anthony turned with blurred vision to see Tyler in the doorway where so many people had tromped through during the day, he thought, Is the troll still hungry, even now?
“Where’s Brendan?”
“What do you mean?”
That’s when worry morphed into panic, and Anthony was up, moving towards his son as rapidly as a running back hits the defensive line. He grabbed Tyler’s shoulders. “You took him home. You left here with him because of what I did. Right? He’s in his bedroom right now playing with his action figures or writing in his damn composition book.”
“I left with Paul. I just got back.”
“Paul? What the fuck for?”
Tyler was shrinking away from his dad, genuine fear in his eyes. “I had to get away.”
“You left your brother here?”
“He’s almost thirteen. What happened?”
“He’s gone!” Anthony shouted. “Someone took him.” He pushed his son away, and Tyler nearly toppled to the floor. Anthony fell instead, collapsing again to his knees, hanging his head.
“Kidnapped?” Tyler said it so softly that the word was almost lost itself.
“I thought he was with you. Ah, shit. Get the funeral director. Call the police. Ah, fuck.”
The police arrived within ten minutes but it seemed like an hour or longer. Anthony stayed on his knees in the doorway of the viewing room. Tyler kept his distance and the funeral directors never appeared. Maybe they had grabbed Brendan and were stowing him away upstairs in one of the tiny rooms that filled this Victorian house. Or worse yet, they had taken Brendan downstairs where the
bodies were embalmed. They had put him on one of those shiny metal tables, tied him down, tilted the table, and sliced his throat so his blood would drain into a funnel where they could collect it in gallon jugs and look at it later.
Two cops, one with reflective sunglasses and black hair, the other with a chubby face and his hand stuck to his gun, asked questions as if this was the millionth time today a child had vanished.
“When was the last time you saw your son?” the chubby one asked.
The last time. He didn’t mean it to sound so final, but that’s what it was and could be: the last time. Last time alive, anyway. Anthony was shaking his head. “A few hours ago.”
“And you only just called us now?” the cop with the sunglasses on said. His name tag read: Joseph Toller.
“I thought he was with my other son.”
“I left with my friend,” Tyler said from the other room. “I had been talking to him and then I left.”
“Talking about what?”
“Nothing. Just stuff. Our sister, you know.”
Toller nodded. The chubby cop was staring at Delaney, fingers adjusting their grip on his gun in case the corpse suddenly stood up. Anthony hadn’t caught his name tag. Were they even real names? Anthony had read somewhere that cops never carried their real badges for fear of losing them, so maybe they wore fake names, too.
“Back in the old days, this wouldn’t be much cause for alarm,” Toller said, “we’d tell you to contact friends, relatives, whoever, and wait through the night. Kid probably got spooked by his dead sis and ran somewhere to hide. He’ll come back. But nowadays, we do things differently.”
“What do you mean?”
“Amber Alert, you heard of it?”
“You think he was kidnapped?” Anthony’s reflection was distorted in the man’s shades. Why was he wearing sunglasses inside? Hell, why was he wearing them outside in the dark?