Calamity

“What happened to your hand?”

It wasn’t writing on Tyler’s hand; it was a symbol.

Tyler glanced at his hand and pulled it off the chair. He buried it in the pocket of his jeans with a grimace. “Nothing. Never mind.” He stood. “Stop trying to help me. You got that?”

“Yes.”

Tyler went back down the hall. Brendan wouldn’t try to convince his brother again. It was too late for that. Tyler was too caught up in something bad to realize he needed help.

When the phone rang, Brendan jumped out of his chair and almost tripped.

“Are you alone?” Dwayne asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ll be around this evening to pick you up. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because God wants me to be.”

“Good boy. Did you tell anyone?”

“No.”

“Just after sunset, okay?”

“Yes.”

“God speed, my special boy.”

The conversation had happened so quickly that Brendan was barely aware it had happened at all. He had answered Dwayne’s questions so quickly, so easily, so naturally; it was almost frightening. This was what God wanted.

He went to his room. His mother was crying again. No doctor could help her. Only God. But that would come in time. One mess at a time, after all.

First, Brendan had to deal with Sasha Karras and the arrowhead symbol branded into Tyler’s hand.

4

It was the morally right thing to help Sasha to the bathroom and try to help her remove the blotch of spray paint from her face, but with Sasha’s mother glowering over them, long, scraggly hair dangling past her face like the tentacles of a squid, Tyler rethought his responsibility.

“Mom, no,” Sasha said. She was sitting on the toilet, wet towel pressed to her face.

“Things will only get worse. The ritual sacrifice of the love child must be made.”

… sac rice luff chide …

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How can you say that?” The harsh light in the bathroom revealed deep creases in the woman’s face as if her skin was a wrinkled paper napkin. “I am your mother. You owe me all you have. And all I have is because of the great Earth Goddess.”

Violent sobs wracked Sasha’s body. She screamed from behind the towel. “Stop this! Stop this shit! It’s all bullshit and you know it!”

Instead of screaming back, Sasha’s mother straightened up; her nose stuck out from the vail of hair like a slug. Her voice adopted a deep, heavy tone that sent chills through Tyler’s body: “It is time that you sacrifice your blood for the love child you have created. If you do not, you will continue to endure the harshest of experiences. I know you are in pain, my sweetheart, but this must be done, and both of you must agree.”

Tyler could run straight at the woman and push her to the side and then be out the front door in a few seconds. If she proved stronger than he expected, there could be problems. But indecision was no improvement.

Sasha’s sobs calmed; her anger faded. “Alright, Mom, fine. But Tyler doesn’t need to stay, this isn’t his problem.”

“The Earth Goddess demands both parents be present for the ritual. Only one and the ceremony may not work. Both life forces are necessary.”

Sasha peeked at Tyler from behind her towel. “I’m sorry.”

“Do not apologize,” her mother said. “I was the spell caster. I created the love that stirred between the two of you last week and only I can make sure the love child you have created will be protected.”

“You did curse me.” The words were out of Tyler’s mouth before he could stop them.

The woman laughed a single, hearty note that echoed around the bathroom. “There are no curses, only spells.”

“You think you’re a real witch?”

Sasha grabbed his arm. “Please.”

Sasha’s mother ignored the comments. “And no spell can really work unless the foundation for the spell already exists. My daughter loved you and so I cast a love spell to help her woo you, but that spell would never have worked if you had no love in your heart for her.”

Not love, lust. He didn’t want her heart—he wanted her big breasts, her firm legs, her warm middle. Christ, was she actually pregnant? He needed to get rid of Sasha’s crazy mother so he could address the real issue.

Drag her out with you and kick her down the stairs.

“I have to go,” he said and hoped such simplicity would work.

Sasha gripped his arm more tightly. “Please,” she said again.

The black spray paint had faded to resemble a massive bruise in the middle of her face. “Sorry,” he said and shook off her arm.

“It is time.” Sasha’s mother removed a large carving knife that had been hidden somewhere in her dark layers.

* * *

She told them to strip naked. Sasha took off her shirt and unfastened her bra, breasts dropping loose, and started to undo her pants without objection. She had suffered this humiliation before. If the kids at school knew, Sasha would be the eternal joke from now through fifty years of reunions.

When her breasts came free, Tyler felt a moment of desire but it vanished almost immediately. There was nothing sexy about the way she undressed. It was too mechanical, like an abused child dropping pants to take the nightly punishment. If the school knew, Sasha would be put in a foster home and her mother in a jail, or an asylum. Maybe that wasn’t so bad.

“I’m not doing anything,” Tyler said.

Sasha looked at him with broken eyes that begged for his cooperation. Don’t leave me alone, please.

Her mother pointed the blade of the knife at him. He didn’t let his mind reason his way out of this. He started to undress. This was, at least partially, all his fault. He had done something he shouldn’t have and now this was his punishment. He hesitated when he got down to his boxers but Sasha wasn’t gazing expectantly, so he pulled them off too. An inner cold sprouted bumps across his exposed flesh. His balls had knotted themselves as close to his body as possible and his penis stuck out like a plump finger.

“Place all the clothes in the tub and turn on the hot water. We must let them soak.”

Sasha did what her mother said and Tyler watched in panic as water drenched his clothes and his jeans began to float as the tub filled with steaming water.

“I’m so sorry,” Sasha whispered to him as she turned from the tub.

“Face each other.”

They did. He tried to keep his eyes on hers but they drifted to her breasts before he realized it and when he snapped his focus back up to her face her expression was so weak and pathetic that he wanted to hit himself for being so inappropriate at this moment.

Inappropriate? his mind squealed. What’s inappropriate is her mother forcing you to stand naked in the bathroom while she holds you hostage with a giant knife.

“Raise your hands palms out to each other and join hands but do not clasp to each other. There must be a connection but it must not be one of force or born out of fear, desperation, or panic.”

Her hot and sweaty palms felt good against his hands which felt like they had been dipped in an ice