09 - Return Of The Witch Read online

  I regarded her strangely. “What do you mean?”

  She smiled. “You have friends, don’t you? Special friends. Mothers?” She winked.

  “Mothers?”

  She removed her hand from my forearm. “Where do you go for strength and resolution?”

  I shook my head, not wanting to believe that she might be suggesting what I thought she was suggesting. “I don’t know. The gym?”

  She laughed lightly. “Only when you’ve tried everything will you know that no matter what the outcome, it’s all okay.”

  With that, she turned for the door and saw herself out. As I stood there, holding the flag to my chest, my jaw slack, my eyes blinking in disbelief, I asked myself two questions. What the hell was she talking about, and when, pray tell, would this feeling of emptiness in my heart ever go away?

  I walked the flag down the hall to the bedroom closet and set it up on the shelf. As I backed away to shut the door, I noticed a small metal box tucked away up in the corner. I pulled it down and brought it to the bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, I opened it.

  Inside the box, was Tony’s gun, a .38 Colt Detective Special. I remembered Tony telling me he used to carry it as his backup piece before Carlos bought him a new one.

  ‘If that snubbie could talk’, he used to say, referring to the gun, not Carlos. Of course, I knew that old snub-nose wouldn’t say much if it could. To the best of my knowledge, Tony had never shot anyone with it before packing the thing away.

  I removed the revolver from the metal box and opened the cylinder, exposing the butt ends of six high-velocity .38 Special rounds. The brass had tarnished some, but I imagined they were still operational. I closed the cylinder and weighed the gun in my hand.

  Suddenly, it all seemed so simple. The end of all my suffering was right there in the palm of my hand. Such an easy way out, I thought, and why not? Hadn’t I already lived twice as long as most people?

  I pointed the gun at my face and squinted into the barrel, knowing that just three inches away, the darkened breech chamber held the answer I’d been looking for.

  So simple. So simple.

  But stupid. I lowered the gun and put it back in the box. As I was stowing it away up on the shelf, my phone rang. It was Ursula. I knew it even before looking.

  “Hello, Urs.”

  “Sister! Thanks be the stars! Thou art all right?”

  “Of course, I’m fine.”

  “As I hear thee I am sure, but what a fright I did have just the same.”

  “Oh?”

  “I had but a feeling is all that harm did find thee. Art thou sure thy health is none the worse this day’s morn?”

  What could I tell her? I didn’t want to make a big deal of the matter, but I knew what her problem was. Because of the witch’s light, she had intuitively sensed my distress as I contemplated my options with Tony’s gun. I decided to throw her a bone and make her think she had saved me from a near fatal miscalculation.

  “You know, Urs, I’m glad you called. See I was just about to toss the last ingredient into a witch’s brew I was making on the stove, when the phone rang.”

  “Aye?”

  “Yeah, but because of the phone ringing, I set the jar down on the counter and realized it was the wrong stuff.”

  “Do say?”

  “Had I added that last ingredient, I might have blown this house sky high.”

  “Mercy stars! `Tis a thing of good I called then, aye?”

  “Yes it was, so, thanks, but I have to go now. How `bout I call you later?”

  “Sister, wait! I have told thee not of my big surprise.”

  “What surprise?”

  “`Tis a trick so wonderful it doth make me twitter.”

  “Oh, a little trick is it? Listen, Urs, about that. I’m sure it’s cute and all. Carlos told me how excided you were when Dominic showed it to you, but I honestly don’t think I’m interested. I have bigger issues to deal with right now.”

  “Aye, Sister, but this trick—”

  “Ursula. I don’t care. It’s not something you learned in the Grimoire, is it?”

  “Nay.”

  “Does it involve a spell?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Does it involve any witchcraft whatsoever?”

  “None methinks, for aught I know.”

  “For little you know. You got that right. Urs, I don’t know how to put this, but it’s just a stupid little trick. Share it with someone who gives a shit.”

  I hung up; feeling lousy for talking to her that way, but I couldn’t help it. I was done with worrying about other people’s feelings. Done with caring what others thought. Done with everything. Done with the world.

  I crossed the room and picked up a framed picture of Tony and me. Carlos had taken it on his cell phone the night Tony and I got married. He was so shitfaced. Carlos, I mean. But he had taken a great photo. In it, Tony was standing behind me, his arms laced around my waist, his chin resting upon my shoulder. We were both looking into the camera, smiling. I don’t know who was happier, him or me. I only knew I never wanted that moment to end.

  I ran my fingers lightly over the glass, brushing Tony’s cheek and imagining his stubble like little bristles tickling my fingertips. I would do that sometimes while he slept, the morning sun casting highlights on his chin as I brushed against the grain. He’d wake up at my touch, stretch and smile upon seeing me. Those moments, too, I never wanted to end.

  “Tony,” I said, raising the picture to my lips and kissing him softly. As I lowered it again, the sunlight caught the glass and reflected my image back at me. I saw a woman aged by tears and hardened by grief. It wasn’t me, I thought, but it was.

  That’s when Brittany’s words came back to me like echoes through a canyon. ‘Where do you go for strength and resolution?’ she asked, reminding me I had friends, ‘Special friends.’

  Immediately, the mothers of the coven came to mind. ‘Only when you’ve tried everything,’ Brittany told me, ‘will you know that no matter what the outcome, it’s all okay.’

  I set the picture down and ran to get the black mirror. What is everything, if not my all? I thought. Besides, what did I have to lose?

  Chapter 5

  I began by anchoring one end of a fifty-four inch piece of twine to the floor and pulling the other end taunt. Using chalk, I drew a perfect nine-foot circle and then covered the line with brick dust.

  I lit four colored candles representing the prime essentials, and placed them around the circle to designate compass points. A dozen smaller candles in glass jars served as my pyramid, symbolizing the hierarchy of the coven.

  All that remained was the consecration of the circle. For that, I needed only water and salt. I placed my athame across the top of the bowl containing the water.

  “Mothers of the Coven, cleanse thy waters, make it pure, allow my passage through thy door.”

  I did the same with the salt.

  “Mothers of the coven, take thy salt to make it pure, that I might know thy flames what soar.”

  I sprinkled the salt into the water and stirred it with the athame. Then, with the tip of the instrument, I began flicking water droplets all along the edge of the circle. Dipping and flicking. Dipping and flicking.

  As I reached the four candles demarcating the compass points, each exploded in turn, setting one-quarter of the perimeter ablaze at a time until an entire ring of fire encircled me.

  I placed the black mirror on the floor, leaning it against the stacked candles in the jars. I waved my athame over the mirror three times and whispered,

  “Hear ye spirits through this glass, bridge the void and let me pass.”

  I pressed the athame to the mirror. The blade passed through it with no resistance. I pushed further and my entire arm disappeared into the blackness beyond. With a final breath, I leaned forward and plunged my body into the mirror completely.

  The sense of falling through emptiness reminded me of passing through the portal
s of the Eighth Sphere. The only difference was that there, a milky cloud of viscous matter surrounded me like a fog while I fell. Traveling through the black mirror, on the other hand, was a cold, dark experience akin to skydiving blindfolded.

  I remember breathing short, quick breaths and swallowing often to squelch the urge to hurl. My nose felt cold; my ears pained to the whistle of wind like a teakettle boiling. All over, I felt the prickly tingle of dull pins probing my skin, raking up one side of my body and down the other. I knew the mothers were checking me out.

  The last time I traveled through the mirror, I was naked, as one should be, naked, cleansed and oiled through ritual convention. Travel then was less an ordeal. Clothing is an encumbrance of the living and of no concern for the dead.

  Once the mothers had cleared me, the sensation of falling ceased. I found myself suspended in an empty black sky, my feet dangling, my arms floating.

  From down below, a great column of spiraling white vapor ascended and consumed me. It swirled in cyclonic fashion as if one with the emptiness. Yet, within the wall of swift-moving currents, I saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of faces, all looking at me looking at them.

  Soon, the monadic force erupted and dispersed, settling in a fog-like layer all around me. As the fog lifted, the bodies and faces appeared. I stood among them, one in a sea of witches, men and women of all ages. They were all my ancestors, kin through blood and bound through magick.

  I felt so out of place, what with the entire coven standing naked before me, and I all clothed up. Yet, I also felt a sense of welcome, as if I could name every stranger there and her relations. These were my sisters and brothers. I knew that, and this was my home.

  Through the thick of the crowd, came forth one old woman, familiar yet not. She floated toward me, parting the spread of bodies through proximity approach. She smiled at me. I smiled back.

  “Lilith of New Castle.” Her voice was pleasant and soothing to the ear. “Merry meet and welcome ties.”

  “And to you, Milady,” I said. “Merry meet ye wise and winsome, merry meet ye all.”

  She bowed graciously. “Thou hast come alone?”

  “Aye, `tis a favor I ask, Milady.” I craned my neck to steal a glimpse beyond the first few rows of faces.”

  “A favor of the coven?”

  “Yes…I mean aye. You see, I lost someone dear to me recently. He’s a witch, like me. Like you all. I thought…I thought he might be here.” I stood on tiptoes, pushing against empty air. “Tony? Tony Marcella?”

  The old witch folded her hands below her breasts with interlocking fingers. “Lilith of New Castle. You cannot see him.”

  “Why not?”

  She shook her head solemnly. “The one you call Tony is not among us.”

  “Sure he is. He has to be. He died over a week ago. Surely he—”

  “No!” She spread her arms as if to encompass the entire realm of emptiness. “We are all witches, once of blood and bone. Our lineage knows only the natural born. `Tis true, there be it once a witch named Tony of New Castle. Yet he be not a kin through blood, this witch, but of grant through rite of passage. Ours is a lineage unbroken. His spirit soul shall dwell among his kind not ours, I am sorry to say.”

  “Wha…what are you telling me? When I die, I won’t be with him for all eternity?”

  She nodded. “Rest thy body where thee wilt, Lilith of New Castle, for thy soul belongs with us.”

  “No. No!” I shook my head. “I won’t come here. Not if he’s not here. I won’t. I just won’t! With all due respect, you all can all just kiss my witchy ass.”

  The old woman scowled at me. “`Tis the way of the witch. Thou art a sister among sisters. Thy fate is chosen.”

  “Yeah? We’ll see about that. We’ll just see.”

  I crossed my arms to my chest and flung them open as wide as I could. In an instant, I was off again, hurling through a black vortex as violent as any a witch’s ladder could muster.

  My body tumbled head-over-heels, spinning, rocking and rolling. My head ached. My chest grew tight, as if the air in my lungs was expanding and I was shrinking. My bones felt like kindling. My skin burned. I kept wondering when it would stop, but it didn’t. It just went on and on.

  The mothers were punishing me. I knew it. Instead of calling me back to their folds so that I may know their displeasure, they instead exacted discipline to teach me a lesson.

  I screamed a line of bloody obscenities, or at least I tried, but the rush of wind, deafening to my ears, drowned out any sound that I could make.

  And so I tumbled, blindly, wickedly, passing in and out of consciousness and believing I might never know anything else.

  Then, as abruptly as it began, it stopped. I remember spilling out of the black mirror and onto my living room floor. I rolled to a stop against an ottoman by Tony’s old chair.

  I shook my head and looked around. The lights were off. The house was dark. The candles I used for consecrating the circle had long since burned down and out. I pinched the wick on one. It was cold to the touch.

  I stood and staggered to the window, dizzy and weak. Night had fallen. The moon was high. The mothers had kept me tumbling in that infernal vortex all freakin` day.

  “How dare they!” I screamed, and kicked the pyramid of spent candles across the room. Shattered pieces of glass peppered holes in the wall like shotgun shrapnel.

  “Those arrogant bitches!”

  I waved my hand to turn on the living room light. Sparks leapt from my fingertips in a static blue arc and scorched the bookcase nearby.

  Yes, I thought. That felt good. I spun up a zip ball and finished the job, splintering the bookcase into a thousand pieces.

  “Take that, assholes!”

  I kicked the TV over and busted the screen. Next went the china cabinet, dishes and all. I proceeded in a wild fit, angry as a hornet, flipping furniture and trashing anything I could break, burn, or blow up.

  It was a classic case of anger displacement. I knew that, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter that I was pissed off at the mothers for telling me the truth. Pissed off at Tony for dying on me. Pissed at Ursula because she still had Dominic. Pissed at Dominic because he wasn’t dead. Pissed at the world because the world couldn’t share in my misery.

  None of that mattered, because the truth was that I was pissed off at myself. I let Tony run back into that building, knowing he had a bad ankle. Carlos held me back, but I could have done something. I could have stopped Tony. I didn’t.

  I fell to my knees, buried my face in my hands and surrendered to the pain.

  Later, I collected the splintered wood from the shattered furniture, took it out back and built myself a bonfire. In it, went everything I could haul out the door, the bookcase, the china hutch, the ottoman—everything. What the hell, I needed new furniture anyway.

  I went and emptied Tony’s closet next, throwing all his clothes onto the fire. They smoldered at first, blackened around the edges and then finally succumbed to the righteous flames.

  With the yard alight, I stood back, splayed my arms to the sky and recited these words.

  “Take these things that Tony wore, he leaves behind and needs no more. What hand did touch so too his finger, I know a part of him doth linger.”

  The fire hiccupped and belched out an orange ball that mushroomed into a cloud and lifted into the heavens. Its tail remained tethered, however, swelling and thickening into a pasty swarm, dense enough to obscure the trees beyond.

  I waited.

  Nothing.

  I circled the fire, stepping slowly, inspecting the column of smoke and scrutinizing every detail. It still wanted something. But what?

  “Of course!” I thumped my forehead with the palm of my hand “How stupid!”

  I ran into the house and returned with Tony’s picture, the one Carlos had taken of us on our wedding night. I removed it from its frame, kissed it softly and offered these words.

  “See him now his image fair, I call to
thee, that he appear. Let him see beyond the flames, and know the one that calls his name.”

  I pitched the photo into the fire, setting off a spontaneous reaction that spewed towering flames high up into the tree. The brilliant flash blinded me, and the accompanying shockwave knocked me on my butt. Intense, though brief, the heat singed the hairs on my arms, yet left my skin cool to the touch of the temperate breeze.

  I stood, dusted myself off and marveled at the sight before me. Gone was the thick plume of smoke. It had thinned to a fine mist that swirled in abstract form before disappearing altogether. In its wake, stood my Tony, or his apparition to be sure.

  He looked beautiful. Strong and handsome.

  He hovered above the fire, his image kept aloft by the thermal currents rising from the flames.

  “Tony!” I cried.

  He appeared confused at first, unsure of his surroundings. Yet through the glare of firelight, he saw me and smiled. I tried reaching for him. The heat drove me back. He did the same, unable to push through the confines of his spectral boundaries.

  “Tony?” I pressed my hand to my heart. “I’m sorry.” His image flickered briefly and then reappeared. “Did you hear me?”

  He put his hand to his ear and attempted to lean in closer.

  “I’m sorry! I’m….” The weight of my emotions drove me to my knees. “I love you.”

  He smiled and blew me a kiss.

  I pressed my fingers to my lips and returned the kiss. “Tony.” I heard my voice cracking. “You were the love certain of my life. I know you know. But it’s… it’s okay to go now. It’s okay to say goodbye.”

  I saw him take a staggered breath and hold his finger to the air, but the fire died quickly. The thermal waves surrendered his image to the wind. Tony’s apparition faded in a stir of hot ashes and rode a spiral wand of glowing embers up into the sky.

  There was so much more I wanted to tell him, so much I never said and should have while he was alive. I tilted my head back, blinking through tears, watching the tiny sparks disappear in a flutter.