“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”—
“Fault doesn’t matter now,” she said. “It’s too late to change anything. It has been cast.”
“
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 (
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?
