Satan's Sorority

by Graham Wynd

  “Did you see it?” Sandra murmured soon after, as she lay in the languorous tangle of limbs.

  “See what?”

  “The light, the light that exploded over us all.”

  “He was with us. He blessed us!” Lois cried.

  “Hail, Bringer of Light! Hail, Infernal Lord!”

  They were all energized by the ritual, talking excitedly as they shared more cheap wine and popcorn with the late show. While other sororities were dancing in white gloves, they were enjoying a fright flick with a rubber monster that wouldn’t frighten a child, though they all pretended to scream in terror each time it came on anyway.

  Trixie cuddled with Sandra on the couch, both still seeming to vibrate with a special joy. “I still can’t believe I’m here,” Sandra whispered in her ear.

  “I’m just so glad you are.” Trixie squeezed her hand and smiled.

  “Last summer I… kissed a girl. And I liked it. But our families went crazy. My dad locked me in the house until he could arrange for me to come here. He said it would straighten me out.”

  Trixie laughed. “I’m glad I saw you across that crowded lobby. There’s nothing wrong with you. They’re just trying to impose a temporary morality on you.”

  “Temporary morality?”

  Trixie nodded. “The great artist Leonorini talked a lot about it. In ancient times, people were free to love the soul of whomever they desired. Now people try to force you into loving the way they want you to.”

  “But we don’t have to do that.” Her voice almost made it sound like a question, but Sandra’s eyes were sparkling with light.

  “And we can make them pay for trying to control us.” Lois leaned over, a mischievous grin on her face. “We should make them pay.”

  The girls forgot the movie and joined in eagerly with plans for revenge and mayhem. Trixie couldn’t help laughing at some of the more outlandish ones, but it got her thinking. “We need to start small, build our power. I don’t want to get caught at something stupid. We may have the power on our side, but we have the weight of conventional society against us.”

  “So where do we begin to test our power, as it were,” Lois asked, her voice tight with tension. She had been getting more belligerent as Trixie spent the better part of her time with Sandra. A little green monster seemed to be pulling the strings. Whatever the cause, she was stepping up to take some power and that was always good to see.

  “Who annoys us most?”

  “The frats!” At least on that point there was agreement. The smug bastards that lined the other side of the street catcalled the sisters as they walked to their house, tried to chat them up whenever they were trapped in public places and if they refused their attentions, subjected them to slander, scorn and outright abuse.

  “And who’s the worst of the frats?” Trixie smiled at Sandra who returned her grin.

  “The Kappas!”

  “Let’s make those bastards squeal.”

  vii

  The plan was a simple one. October had just begun so the idea seemed to be plucked right out of the air. They would haunt the Kappas. The sisters spent all the time they weren’t in class researching summoning spells for spirits – demons, ghosts and other specters that might frighten the frat boys. The pale girl, Agnes, did research into the history of the Kappa house, looking through old newspapers for deaths and other tragedies they might make use of. Trixie loaded up a big gym bag with cherry bombs and smoke bombs and even a couple of stink bombs that she got from some high school kids.

  “We might as well employ all the annoyances we can!”

  Sandra felt like she was living in a wonderful dream and dreaded every morning that she would wake up to normal life again. So far so good. She had almost begun to relax into happiness when a surprise visitor brought her back to fear and terror.

  “Penny let me in,” her Aunt Margaret said, puffing away on her long cigarette holder. She smiled like a death’s head skull. Sandra blanched. “I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d check up on you.”

  “How thoughtful of you,” Sandra said helplessly, sinking to her chair.

  “How are your classes?”

  “Good.”

  “Are you getting enough exercise?”

  Sandra tried not to think of the sweaty writhing orgies that accompanied the rituals, but something of it must have shown on her face. “I think so.”

  Margaret’s eyes narrowed at her. She walked over from the window and plucked at Sandra’s pledge pin. “Sigma Tau Nu? I don’t remember them. I thought you were pledging Delt.”

  “I just found I was a better fit with the Nus. They’re a little quieter. I just found the social swirl of the Delts… difficult.”

  Margaret exhaled a plume of smoke. “I bet. What’s the Nu specialty?”

  “Specialty?”

  “You know, charity. We helped the deaf kids, I remember. Took ’em places, raised funds.”

  Sandra thought of the squirrel whose corpse they had mangled for their most recent ritual. “Animals. We raise money to save animals.”

  “From what?”

  “Deforestation.” Sandra remembered reading something about that in her textbook for sociology.

  Margaret stared at her. “Sounds nuts to me. Who needs forests? You could pave this country from end to end and I wouldn’t cry.”

  Sandra stifled the words she wanted to say in response. Don’t argue. Just get rid of her.

  “You’re not experiencing any other… difficulties?” Margaret looked away as if the distaste of the subject were even too much for her coarse soul to bear. “That roommate, Penny, seems like a girl with a good head on her shoulders.”

  “Yes,” Sandra said, feeling mechanical. “Very level headed. She pledged Delt so I kind of get the experience vicariously.”

  Margaret put a fresh cigarette in her holder. “Vicariously, eh? Fancy college learning. Guess that tuition is not going to waste.” She inhaled deeply, looking around the dorm room, presumably for signs of incipient depravity. “You know you’re a lucky girl.”

  “Yes, I am,” Sandra said, thinking of Trixie’s fresh ripe body and throaty laugh. That was probably not what her aunt had in mind.

  Margaret’s cheeks sucked in as she drew in another lungful of smoke. She blew it out slowly as her thoughts. “I’d have packed you off to a convent so fast your head would have spun. That’s what you deserved.”

  “I’m a lucky girl,” Sandra repeated. I hope you die.

  “Of course,” Margaret said, idly flipping through the notebook on her desk, “that might have been just what you were wishing for.”

  “No, Auntie.”

  “What’s this about then?”

  “What?” Sandra got up to look where her aunt was pointing in her notebook. “That’s my English homework.”

  “It says ‘seduction’ here. Why?”

  Sandra quashed her feelings of annoyance. “It’s a poem by John Donne called ‘The Flea’ – you must have studied it too? Maybe you just don’t remember. It’s about a man seducing a young woman.” She didn’t add that he failed. It probably wouldn’t help matters any.

  “Well, I suppose that’s all right. Why aren’t they having you read about simple things, like nature and all that?”

  Clearly irony was lost on her aunt. “There’s some of that too. I think we’re getting to the Romantics later in the semester.”

  “What’s all this about Satan?”

  Sandra flushed. She’d forgotten about that. “Now surely you remember the Puritan poet John Milton. Paradise Lost? The story of the fall of man through the sins of Adam and Eve?”

  “Well, that seems entirely appropriate.” Margaret sighed. “I’d feel better if you pledged with the Deltas. Some of my best friends are Delts. You pledge for life you know. It’s not some silly thing, sororities. They’re deadly serious.”

  “Yes, I understand,” Sandra said, thinking of her blood oath of loyalty to Sigma Tau Nu. On pain of death should I ever
betray my Sister, this I swear. “I take it very seriously indeed, Auntie.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear.” Margaret was looking bored, which sparked hope in Sandra that she might finally leave. She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and snapped open her purse to put the holder inside. “All right.”

  “It was so nice of you to stop by, Auntie.” Sandra did her best to sound enthusiastic. “You’re welcome any time.” You interfering old biddy.

  “You write your father every week?”

  “Yes, Auntie.” Dull letters. Each week she wrote I’m fine, everything’s fine, nothing is wrong.

  “I’m not satisfied,” Margaret frowned. “I think I need to drop by that sorority house. I don’t remember a Sigma Tau Nu. I want to be sure they’re on the up and up.”

  “They are! They’re a great bunch of gals and they’ve been so helpful-”

  “I can make my mind up for myself.” Margaret smiled, as if she had caught Sandra in a lie. “I assume they’re on Greek Row?”

  “Last house on the left.” Sandra’s spirits sank.

  “It’s my bridge night, you know,” Margaret said, frowning again with disappointment. “I hope I’m not late for the first rubber. You’re putting me to a lot of bother.”

  May a fiery death keep you from your bridge game. “I really appreciate your kindness to me, Auntie.”

  “I’ll give a full report to your father when I phone him this weekend.”

  Sandra waved, out of words. She counted to thirty then walked to the window to peek out on the street. Her aunt had double parked of course, right outside the dorm. When the red Caddy pulled away and headed down the road, Sandra grabbed her coin purse and ran to the phone in the hallway.

  Lois answered on the third ring. “Sigma Tau Nu! How are you?”

  “Lois, it’s Sandra.”

  “Hey Sandra, can you pick up some more candles at Woolworths tonight? We’re low on blue ones.”

  She tried to keep her panic under control. “Lois, my aunt is coming over to the house to check up on the sorority.”

  “Doesn’t approve, eh?”

  “She was a Delt. I just- I just want her to leave me alone.” If the girls passed inspection, maybe her aunt and her father both would slack off on the watchfulness and she could breathe again.

  “Gotcha,” Lois said, her voice lazy.

  “You know what I mean. Treat her the way she should be treated.” They could all be perfect little ladies when they wanted to be. At the first game of the season where all the sororities got cheers in turn from the fans, they had all smiled and waved like they were any other house. It could work. They could fool her aunt.

  “Oh, we’ll treat her right,” Lois promised.

  “Thanks ever so,” Sandra said and hung up. She sighed and fell back against the wall. That was a real load off her mind.

  viii

  “That was Sandra,” Lois said, returning to the parlour where several girls were gathered around the spirit board. They had been communing with a spirit that called itself Draygo, but it was hard to interpret the answers. That was the thing with spirits, they had learned. Often they lied and sometimes they were just crazy.

  Trixie caught the strange tone in Lois’ voice. She looked up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Her aunt’s on the way over here to check us out. Sandra said she just wants the aunt to leave her alone. Said we should ‘treat her right.’”

  The girls got very quiet. But it was timid little Agnes who said, “So we should kill her, huh?”

  “Yes,” Lois agreed. All the other girls nodded, too.

  Trixie sighed. “Put the board away. We have work to do. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right.”

  By the time Margaret parked her car in the Sigma Tau Nu circle drive, the shadows were lengthening in the autumn afternoon. “We’re going to have to get her car out of here fairly quickly,” Trixie murmured, twitching the curtain back. “Maybe drive it back into the center of town and leave it in a city lot. Wear her hat.”

  The doorbell rang and Trixie glided along the floor with exaggerated grace. “Hello, welcome to Sigma Tau Nu house. May I take your coat? Oh, I see you don’t have one.”

  “It’s been a warm day,” Margaret said absently, looking suspiciously about the foyer.

  “I’m Trixie Faust, president of the sorority. Anything I can help you with, ma’am?”

  “My name is Margaret Crowley. I’m Sandra DeLites’ aunt and I wanted to drop by to see the sorority she joined. I was a Delt myself.” Her chins rose a little higher with pride. “You’re new, aren’t you? I don’t remember there being a Nu house in my day.”

  “We have been around almost a decade now. Nationwide the Nus have fallen on hard times, but we have arisen again.” Trixie smiled with pride that she didn’t need to hide. “It’s a whole new era for us.”

  “Quite. And you do charitable work for animals?” Margaret peered at the barrister’s case of obscure volumes, her nose wrinkling as if she smelled something bad.

  Trixie and Lois exchanged a glance and shrugged. “We have such sympathy for all the little creatures of the world,” Trixie said, trying not to picture the squirrel she had eviscerated.

  “We did deaf kids,” Margaret said, wandering around the parlour as all the sisters sat neatly with hands folded. Trixie wondered if she might get out a pair of white gloves and start running a finger along the shelves checking for dust.

  “Tea?” Agnes came out of the kitchen with a tray piled high with cups and saucers and the lovely Wedgewood pot. “There are lovely chocolate biscuits.”

  “Well, perhaps I have a minute to sit. It’s my bridge night, you know. I shouldn’t stay long.”

  Trixie grinned and led her to a seat. “Perhaps they won’t mind you being a little late. I bet they never start right on time.”

  Margaret laughed. “Oh, you know how it is. I just have to get there before they drink up all the good gin.” Margaret sipped her tea. “That’s an odd flavor.”

  All the Nus froze for a second, but Agnes coolly explained, “It’s the royal herbal mixture. My mother brings it back from London every spring. She buys all her linens in Selfridges.”

  “Ooh lah dee dah, that’s fancy.” Margaret took another biscuit, yawning. “I barely make it down to Macy’s these days. Travel is such a bother, don’t you think?”

  Trixie made noncommittal sounds as she watched Margaret’s head begin to droop. “I really love this tea. So refreshing!” Trixie mimed drinking hers as the other girls remembered to do the same.

  “Mmmm, yessss,” Margaret’s words slurred together and finally she fell face down on the coffee table.

  “If she’s chipped my Wedgewood-” Agnes threatened.

  “Shhh,” Trixie cautioned. With help she pulled Margaret back into her chair. Her head lolled as if her neck were made of rubber. As if on cue, she began to snore loudly. “Nah, she’s out. Righteo. Light as a feather, er-”

  “Lumpy as a rhino,” Lois improvised. The girls all laughed.

  “Okay, we have a ritual to perform. Let’s get our offering upstairs.”

  It took some doing. Not only was there the awkward weight of their victim, but the slippery polished wood of the steps made the work even more awkward.

  To say nothing of getting her up the ladder to the attic.

  When at last Aunt Margaret was in place, Sandra ran through the door with Lena. The latter had left Margaret’s car in the center, then caught a cab at city hall, picking up a very anxious Sandra on the way.

  “Is she-?” Sandra asked breathlessly before she saw her aunt tied down in the five points of a pentangle. Another snore escaped from the unconscious woman who lay unconcerned by her naked sprawl or the circle of women surrounding her. “I thought you were going to be nice to her.”

  “We’re more concerned with being nice to you, Sandra.” Trixie smiled, but it faded quickly. “If you want us to let her go, well, it would be awkward, but we could d
o it.”

  Sandra stared at her aunt. All at once her beautiful face looked very hard. “No, this is better. Much better.” All the Nus sighed with relief.

  “Did you lock the door?” Trixie asked Lena, who nodded. “Good, it wouldn’t do to have some other interfering nosy neighbor drop by in the middle of things.”

  The candles were lit, the wine poured and swiftly the last two girls threw off their clothes to join their naked sisters. They formed a circle and began their favorite chant, one Trixie had discovered recently in an old necromancer’s book from the fifteenth century.

  Who said sororities weren’t good for academics?

  The Latin rolled off their tongues with all the ease of the lyrics to pop songs. They shared the libations and then Trixie stood ready at the head of the procession, athame in hand.

  “O Invisible Lord, O Inestimable Satan, O Ineffable Lucifer, O Incommutable One, O infinitely corruptible devil, O most sweet demon, O High and Glorious Vanquisher! I, although an unworthy would-be sinner, full of iniquity, deceit, and malice, most humbly come to Your mercy, praying and beseeching You not to have respect to all and innumerable mine iniquities, but even as You are wont to give favor upon sinners, and to hear the prayers of the proud and ambitious, even so I beseech You to vouchsafe to hear me, Your servant, calling unto You for the blessing and consecrating of this blood, Your creature, that it may be made apt and worthy for the ink of Your most precious and Holy Seal, and that it may have the aptness and meteness which it ought by Your most unholy Name, which is written with three letters, Sigma, Tau and Nu, which being heard all celestial, terrestrial, and infernal creatures do tremble, fear, and worship it. And by these Your most holy names, may this creature’s blood be blessed, prepared, and made apt for the ink of Your Holy Seal, and of Your most holy name, which is blessed most infernally, world without end. Hail Satan!”