A Wicked Beginning

by Calinda B

  Spar forgotten, Mano and Zuri stood on either side of me trying to figure out what was wrong.

  “What is it, Chér?”

  “Ka, what do you see?”

  “It’s Cam,” I wailed. “He’s in trouble, and I can’t do anything…” My chest started to heave with sobs. “I can’t do anything. Can’t save him. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Kayden…!” I implored. “Kayden, please…!”

  Kayden appeared behind me and wrapped his arms around me. This was so not like him. He was the guy who told me to hug my kittens for comfort last year. He was the guy who could not, would not console me, preferring that I find my source of comfort within myself. Knowing this, knowing that he was responding to me in an uncharacteristic way made me cry even harder.

  “Shh, ma chère, shh.”

  “I can’t shh, Kayden, he’s in trouble.”

  “I know, mon amour, I know.”

  “What can I do?” I sobbed. “What can I do? There must be something that I can do to help. What good is it having the ka’kriyayaga inside if I can’t use it to help Cam?”

  “I’m sorry, chère, that’s not our job. Each person’s journey is his or her own personal responsibility.”

  Snot and tears were streaking my face, making me one wet mess. “Well, I want a new job,” I wailed. “I want a fucking new job that requires keeping Cam safe.”

  Kayden’s arms pressed around me tighter. Ignoring the “rules” we abided by of not making our “skills” known in public, he whisked me into the night sky, back to the temple, leaving Zuri and Mano standing with their mouths open.

  “So, that was the ka’kriyayago?” Mano asked, recovering from the shock of having seen someone appear out of nowhere and disappear into thin air.

  “If that’s who Kayden is, then yes. Oh, Mano is there anything you can do to help? Anything at all?” Zuri’s eyes were brimming with tears.

  “Yup, I think there is. Care to help me out here, Zuri? I could use some assistance.” He turned and started striding towards the door.

  Zuri caught up with him and matched her stride to his. “Will I have to wear a nurse’s costume? I’ve got one,” she teased. Zuri always had a snappy comeback at the ready.

  Mano snorted. “I’ll take a rain check, girl. Can you run in those shoes?” He glanced down at her heels.

  “Nope, but I can run without them,” she said, yanking off her Jimmy Choos. “Let’s go, big guy,” she called, racing ahead of him. “We’ve got to help my best friend.”

  Chapter 39 – Cam

  The kids were leaving first thing tomorrow, Lightning Rod was packing up his things, and Cam was eager to get back home. He, Mark, Lightning Rod, and the rest of the staff had one last meeting tomorrow morning, and then it was hasta la vista, baby. They were outta here. Cam could hardly wait to see Chérie. With no cell service up here in the mountains, he hadn’t been able to call her…at all. It was probably for the best because he had to stay focused here. The Divert program had required too much attention. But, damn, he missed her like crazy.

  Whatever Mark had done to keep Angela out of sight had worked. Frankly, he did not know if she was even here or not. He sure the fuck didn’t care. He hoped he never saw her again.

  Heading up the trail towards his vehicle, he felt good about himself and his contribution to the program. The kids and staff had said their formal goodbyes in group today. It had been an emotional goodbye for all of them. They’d all teared up a bit. Cam hadn’t minded. He was, after all, learning how to be vulnerable and that it was okay to cry – every once in a while, at least. On rare occasions…

  Unlocking the car, he grabbed the pack of nicotine, pulled one out of the pack, lit up, and relaxed. Yup, he felt really good. He wasn’t even berating himself for having a smoke two days in a row. A sliver of moon was directly overhead. Since there weren’t any street lights out here, nothing to illuminate the parking lot, he was in the dark of the woods, enjoying the hell out of the moment. It was good to be alive.

  He thought about the old bat Natalie’s admonition to make life sacred. Well, sure as shit he was aware of it right now. Everything about this moment – even the burning tobacco – seemed like an act of God or Spirit or Wakan Tanka or whatever the hell you called it. He was so cleaned out by the week, so satisfied with life, his growth, his friendships, his place in the community…how could this not be a sacred moment in time? Lightning Rod came to mind, and he chuckled. The kid was a hoot, no doubt about it. Since the sweat lodge and this week’s experiences, Cam sort of imagined himself to be a big brother to Lightning Rod. He had a respect for the kid’s wisdom and humor. Lightning Rod had kept them in stitches much of the time. He really liked that kid.

  Gazing up at the starry sky, the slip of moon, smelling the night air, Cam did not even bother to bring the tobacco to his lips. Instead, he just let it burn between his fingers, imagining the smoke going up in the air along with his gratitude. Hell, just for kicks, he even mouthed a big thank you to the sky. It was then that he noticed a dim light in the distance. Curious, he gazed at it. It was blinking in a slow, steady fashion…sort of a blink, pulse, glow…blink, pulse, glow…blink, pulse, glow. It was kind of hypnotic. No, it was really hypnotic. That same pull in his belly that he’d experienced when he’d seen Angela the other day was pulsing in his navel. Shit. This was crazy wrong. Something peculiar was going on out in the woods, and he did not want to know what it was.

  A sense of apprehension and foreboding filled him. All sense of peace gone, he put the cig to his lips, and sucked the tobacco into his lungs. Keep it together, he chided himself. You’ve managed to meet every challenge so far. That tug in his gut persisted. Like being caught on a huge fishing line, he was being pulled towards the deep woods. Come on, resist. Don’t let this get you. Stay calm. You can figure this out. He found himself resisting, drawing against the unseen line, but the pull was strong, steady, and persistent. He grabbed a tree trunk and wrapped his arms around it. Come on, tree, and help me out here. Since when had he talked to trees? Grasping the tree with all his might, he struggled against the invisible restraint. With the cigarette clasped between his lips and teeth, he sucked on it, his lungs bellowing and heaving with exertion. Finally, he gave up and spit the smoky torch out of his mouth.

  The pull increased, and his arms were wrenched from the tree, the bark slicing through his shirt and skin in long, jagged slits. Some help you are, he said to the tree. He staggered and lunged through the woods, falling over branches and bushes. Still, his mind stayed sharp and clear as he lurched along.

  The light was getting closer and closer as the pull increased in intensity. Like a shooting star he burst through a stand of trees and foliage into a clearing, lit by a single torch. This weird fat lady with some garb straight out of an old Cleopatra movie was sitting on a tree stump, chanting. Squinting through the darkness, he noticed it was that bitch, Jill Primcott. And there, by her side, was dumpy, old, overall-clad Joe Dallas, the asshole who’d assisted Jill with her mischief against Chérie last year.

  Cam roared with rage. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He tried to lunge at Jill, but those invisible restraints were keeping him pinned in place. “Let me go! What the fuck is going on?”

  Jill’s eyes narrowed to slits. She looked like she was wearing slender sunglasses that stretched from ear to ear with her face strained rigidly from her severe hair-do and her eyes lined with kohl like the Egyptian queen herself. The plastic snake head in the front of her cheap Egyptian headdress hung limply to the side. And something odd was floating around her…Cam squinted to see the black bats he now knew as the ta-ak’tiyani surrounding her head like a gruesome halo. They bobbed up and down, chortling and cooing in strange little sounds. Shit. Not good. Not good at all.

  “We’re here for a little ceremony…a little wedding ceremony. I’ll be the…” She turned to Joe. “What is my role again?”

  Joe flipped open a tiny notebook. “Justice of the Peace, darling,” he intoned in a g
ravelly voice.

  “Yes, I’ll be the Justice of the Peace.”

  “Like hell you will!” Cam frantically tried to buck against the bindings. His body would not respond. “Let me go, you bitch!”

  “Oh, my,” Jill cried, her hands tapping her ears. “So loud…such language…Joe, will you do the honors, please?”

  Joe pulled a roll of silvery-gray duct tape out of the pocket of his soiled overalls. He walked over to Cam and tore off a strip.

  Cam tried to get his arms to move, his head, anything…but nothing worked except his jawbone. Furious, he thrust his jaw from side to side and then yelled in an effort to keep his mouth from being taped. Maybe if he yelled loud enough, someone from the camp would hear him.

  Joe, who was a couple inches shorter than Cam, flapped his arms to and fro to get the tape in position. Unable to accomplish his simple task, he turned a pleading face towards Jill. “Darling?”

  “For Goddess’ Sake you are such a blithering idiot,” Jill shrieked. “Get over here…I can’t reach my chant book.”

  Joe shuffled over and dutifully handed her the small book.

  “Get my reading glasses. They’re over there.” He shambled over, retrieved the orange polka dot plastic glasses, and handed them to Jill.

  Cam continued to yell, freaked at what was happening. He tried to close his ears to whatever Jill was saying, tried to shake his head to keep out the sound, but it was no use. His mouth snapped shut, and his muscles went limp, leaving him hanging in place like a rag doll. Joe waddled over and applied the tape to his mouth.

  Jill called to the forest, “Angela? Come and marry this guy, will you?”

  Oh, fuck, from his lifeless body, Cam could only witness this bizarre horror show. He could not move. He was as helpless as a newborn pup. The only thing he had going for him was his ability to be aware. It was worse than death, to be able to see and hear what was happening, but not be able to do a thing about it. He saw Angela pop out of the woods, dressed in a long white gown. She had a veil over her face and was carrying a bouquet of roses. Might as well be those fucking lilies they bring to funerals, Cam thought. He was angry, he was freaked, but most of all, he knew he was going to lose Chérie if he couldn’t find a way out of this fucking mess. Chérie, he thought, his eyes moist with unshed tears. Chérie, Chérie, Chérie…it was not supposed to happen like this. We were supposed to do our own ceremony and be committed to one another until I die. He closed his eyes. At least his eyelids worked. One lone tear escaped, trailing a long line of heartbreak down his cheek. Chérie…I don’t know how to fight magic. All I know is how to be in the physical world. His heart felt like it was being crushed as he let the realization of losing Chérie sink in.

  His eyes were forced open by Angela’s fingers. “Hey, cowboy, open up. We’re going to be joined in wedded bliss.”

  Cam could not shake his head in protest; his only sign of resistance was the one stupid, goddamned tear. Get it together, he snarled in his mind.

  “Oh, are those tears of joy?” Angela asked him. “I feel the same way, darling.” She turned her eager face to Jill. “Shall we?”

  Joe pulled Jill’s girth up from the tree trunk. She wobbled over to Cam and Angela and began to speak the words of the ceremony.

  “Angela, I’m going to keep this brief. This forest is moist and dank.” She flicked her round little eyes up towards the trees and made a face like a frightened child. “Do you accept Cam as your docile pet from now into perpetuity under the watchful gaze of the Goddess Bast?”

  “I do,” Angela gushed.

  Jill squinted at Cam. “Cam? You too?”

  Cam could not respond; the only thing he was capable of was the freak and fury radiating from his eyes.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Jill said. She clapped her hands together. “Done!” she said with finality. “Joe, bind Mr. Athlete here with rope and hand the rope to Angela. Then get me out of here. I hate the woods.”

  Joes bound Cam’s legs and wrists. He handed the end of the rope to Angela.

  “Now get going, you two lovebirds,” Jill cooed. “Joe? Ready?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  The two of them clomped out of the woods, the plastic snake head bobbing up and down, and the ta-ak’tiyani buzzing like insects in a swirl around Jill’s head.

  Angela looked over at Cam with eagerness. She jerked on the rope, and Cam fell to the ground like a baby. “It’s done, beloved! You are mine, all mine.”

  Not in a thousand years, Cam thought. I’d rather be dead. His mind raced as he lay there. Think, man, think. The magic can’t last forever. The wheels in his head kept churning out ideas as his lay there, paralyzed. He sent his thoughts to Chérie. Babe, if there’s any way out of this mess, I’ll find it. If not, I’ll die trying. I’ll fucking die. The thought of being alive and not with you is unbearable. I know you’ll understand. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I’ll find you again. I’ll find you, Chérie. I’ll find you, ka. Those were the last words he thought before Angela started dragging him through the woods, bound and taped just like in that fucking, goddamned dream.

  Chapter 40 – Cam

  When Cam came to, he was lying in a dark, one room, wooden cabin, with small windows on either side. His bruised, scraped body screamed from having been dragged through the woods, his bladder was bursting, and he was way pissed off. Where the fuck was he? He wondered how Angela had managed to pull him through the woods last night. Was she that strong? Or was it the magic? As he assessed himself, he remembered hitting his head on a boulder or a log and losing consciousness. The duct tape was partially ripped from his lips, probably from having his face dragged over a rock. His arms and legs were still bound, but he noticed he could feel his body again. The magic must have worn off. Thank God for that.

  Angela sat in a rickety wooden chair, gazing at him fondly. “You’re awake!” she cried with delight. She still wore the satin wedding dress, only now it was stained and torn from tromping through the woods.

  Cam’s gut was filled with repulsion as he looked at her. She looked like some kind of macabre cartoon-like nightmare figure. Her eyes were glazed, and she looked like pure psycho madness. Her long hair was matted and tangled, framing her soil-smeared face with strands of leaf and debris entwined strands of hair. The fabric of her wedding gown was torn in places, revealing dirt-streaked white skin beneath. She smelled of stale perspiration and some strange, dank, musky odor like old incense. As Cam beheld her, he despised her with bile producing hatred. “I’ve got to take a piss,” he mumbled through the partial opening in his mouth.

  “What did you say?” Angela asked, confused.

  Cam directed his gaze down towards his crotch. “Piss…” he repeated.

  “Oh, you have to go to the bathroom,” Angela gushed as comprehension dawned. “Alright, dear, we can manage that.” She got up, lifted his legs, and swung them to the side of the bed.

  Cam recoiled from her touch. He jerked and flexed to get his body up to sitting, then lurched up to standing. With his legs bound tightly together, he could not walk. He twisted his lips into what he hoped passed as a smile, peeking through the edges of the tape. His eyes looked over to Angela and darted down to his legs.

  “Oh, you can’t exactly hop over to the bathroom, can you?” She crouched down and loosed the ropes so that he could now at least shuffle his feet.

  Like a dead man walking, he thought. Think, man, think. You’ve got some room to move here. Make a plan.

  Angela led him by a rope around his throat.

  Good move on her part, Cam acceded darkly. One false attempt and the bitch chokes me.

  He shuffled over to the dirty white porcelain toilet in the closet-sized bathroom. A brown rat skittered into a hole when he entered. He appraised the situation here. He couldn’t exactly unzip his own pants, now could he? His bladder was so full he could barely stand it. He gave a pleading look at Angela and directed his gaze down to his zipper.

  “Oh,
husband, let me take care of that for you.” With reverence she carefully unzipped his zipper, reached in, and freed his cock from his pants. “Here, I’ll aim it for you.”

  Shame, repulsion, and fury filled Cam at her eagerness to touch him. She looked like a child holding a toy with fascination and wonder. In spite of his desire to relieve himself, nothing happened. He could not, would not, release piss with her holding him like that. He jerked away from her hand and cocked his head, indicating that she should wait outside.

  Angela pouted, but obliged him, backing through the bathroom door. Through the medicine cabinet mirror Cam watched her standing in the doorway with a stupid grin on her face. Goddamn fucking bitch, he thought. With his back to her, he leaned his head against the wall behind the commode, and managed to relive himself in a long stream of fluid. Relief washed through his system. As he drained himself, his mind whirled. He’d never hurt a woman in his life – not intentionally at least and never physically. But extreme times called for extreme measures. And this was fucking extreme. He glanced around the small room, looking for options. The medicine cabinet on the side wall had sharp corners. He decided to try for that.

  “Ang…” he managed to say through the loosened duct tape.

  “Yes, beloved?” she replied, squeezing next to him.

  Cam glanced down at his crotch, hoping she’d zip him up.

  Angela started to fondle his cock, trying to arouse him. Cam closed his eyes, angered at himself at the sudden arousal, betrayed by his own body. Surely, this must be part of her witchcraft. He did not find her attractive in the least. Not anymore. He shook his head and plastered on a smile, and cocked his head towards the bed.

  Angela took that as an affirmation. “No need to zip you up, then, eh, cowboy?” She ran her cheek along his rough whiskers. “We’ll just take this into the next room and consummate our union.” She grasped his hard shaft and stroked it. “Mmmm, Cam, darling, I can’t wait to have you inside of me again.”