Calamity

explain. Or so it seemed. She might have only wanted him to stay longer so her mother could administer more spells. “She must.”

“But if she is pregnant why would she want her child’s future aunt to die?”

Tyler hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I can see why you’re in advanced math. This must be like some ‘If Then’ statement to you.”

“Logically, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“She’s fucked in the head. You said so. Her mother’s a witch, there’s no telling how she’ll respond to anything.”

Paul drove onto the road leading into the hilly lands of Hidden Hills Community. “Good old Trailer Trash Town,” Paul said. “Always the sign of a good girlfriend.”

“Fuck you.”

“Just as long as you don’t rape me.”

Tyler wasn’t in the mood to laugh. He had to figure out what he was going to say to her. He couldn’t be abrasive or she’d back off and he couldn’t try to trick her (pretend he loved her) because he’d probably get himself in more trouble, end up with more blood on him.

“Want to show me where your love child was conceived?”

Tyler started to tell him to shut up again and stopped. Love child. Had Sasha’s mother been referring to the baby now inside of Sasha? How could she have known so quickly? Or had she cast a spell for a baby to appear? That sounded crazy and really unlikely, but still … It didn’t matter, though, the sacrifice part made sense. Delaney had been sacrificed as punishment. His dead sister was proof that something really fucked up was going on.

“You think witchcraft is even possible? Like casting spells?” Tyler asked.

“You got me driving out here and it better not be to show off your pregnant girlfriend.”

“But you don’t, right? Believe?”

“In witches on broomsticks and magic potions? As you said, I’m in advanced classes, not one of those morons in the tech program. Ask one of those kids and they’ll probably whip out a voodoo doll or something.”

“You think Delaney’s just a coincidence? I was at the bowling alley for God’s sake. Someone was there and took a ball and killed my sister.”

“How would they even know when she was going to cross under that bridge?”

“She’s been going to SAT Prep for weeks. Someone could have been clocking her.”

“Your brother’s on Ritalin or some shit, yeah?”

“So?”

“Take some. You’re getting all paranoid. If someone had been following her, writing down at what time she did what then how could that even relate to some evil curse a psycho bitch conjured? It doesn’t make sense. You need to take this slow. We shouldn’t have come here. You’re bound to do something stupid.”

“Careful around this curve. It’s coming up. There it is.”

He stopped the car at the foot of their grass yard, almost exactly where Tyler had been when Sasha’s mother watched from the downstairs window.

“Not exactly the boogeyman’s house.”

No lights were on upstairs and a red light was flickering again in the same downstairs window, which did create a certain spookiness, but the bright white porch light was on and it nearly washed out the red flashes. Just another house among hundreds, maybe thousands. How many other people in this neighborhood believed in witchcraft and even practiced it? Did Sasha’s mother participate in a coven?

“Her light’s not on.”

“She’s probably slaughtering the family cat in the basement.”

“Not funny.”

“Are you going to wait all night?”

“You said this was stupid and I’d do something rash.”

“No, I said you are acting rash and bound to do something stupid.”

“But you want me to go anyway?”

“No point in doing something stupid if no one is around to watch.”

“Thanks.” Tyler got out of the car.

He stood in the dark with the red light beckoning to him from the downstairs window in Morse Code fashion. What was the translation? Welcome back. Are you scared? Do you want to run away? Don’t you dare. You think your sister’s death was bad, just wait to see how bad this can get. Turn away now and you’ll see just how ugly this can be. You’ve been chosen and now you’ve got to embrace it.

The bright light above the porch had no secret voice attached. Tyler walked toward it and tried not to glance at that red window, which he did every other step. He had to get his thoughts straight. He couldn’t start fumbling with his words the way he had feared he would with Sasha’s bra. He had to be cool and focused with just the right amount of conviction. He had to make her fear him but not so much so that she was genuinely frightened. She’d probably ask Mommy to conjure another spell.

He waited at the front door for several seconds before knocking. The last time he had been here he hadn’t known what to expect and ended up with blood on his face. This time, he still didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to be taken by surprise.

After the next knock, the door swung wide so suddenly that Tyler stepped back to the edge of the top step and had to waggle his arms like a cartoon character to prevent falling backwards. Sasha’s mother stood in the doorway, bathed in black. The red light from the downstairs flickered over the side of her face. Her long hair was as it had been on Saturday: dangling in clumps around her face. Darkness masked her eyes, though her nose jutted from the shadows like a thick worm protruding from the soil. The porch light was angled toward Tyler like a spotlight, distorting Sasha’s mother even more.

Tyler cleared his throat in dramatic fashion, hoping that would break the tension and give him more confidence, but instead it only made him realize just how unwise this decision had been. He should have listened to Paul. What could he say? I need to talk to your psycho daughter. And oh, by the way, what was with that blood you threw in my face? Better yet: I know you cursed me, so take it off before I have to get nasty with you, ma’am.

“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.”