Three Witches

by Paula Jolin

  Gillian swung the candle around, and Miya saw Aliya’s face up close. Red around the eyes, swollen nose. She’d been crying. “Trevor loved this dog more than anything,” she said. “I told you I was going to bring him.”

  A dog on the roof? But Miya didn’t stop to argue. She was down the hall almost before she noticed, inside the bathroom. She’d swear no one had been here since her last visit—over there, under the window, there was even a dark clump of something that might have been dirt from her shoes. “Come on.”

  Miya opened the window, pulling herself up onto the fire escape. The lightest caresses patted her head, tiptoed across her face—or was that just the wind? She climbed up, balanced her knees on the metal grating, took the fire escape steps two at a time. Behind her, Gillian swore, “Stupid, stupid fingers.” And: “Jeezan ages, Aliya, can’t you keep that dog from chewing up my shoes while they’re still on my feet?”

  And then Miya was on the roof. The night was clear and cold, lit by a bright, angry moon. The side of the roof facing the road sloped up sharply, gray shingles layered one over the other. It hid the flat back half of the roof, the perfect place for a midnight séance. In one corner, a handful of bricks had been tossed into a small pile.

  A breathless Gillian, a shaky Aliya, and an overexcited Rambling joined her. “What about the neighbors?” asked Gillian. “Aren’t you worried they might hear something?”

  “Don’t worry about the neighbors,” said Miya. She laughed, her own ordinary laughter at first, and then a highpitched giggle that seemed to go on and on. Nerves, must be, unless one of the spirits was using her for its own purposes.

  Get control of yourself, Miya. She turned to Aliya. “How are we doing for time?” Aliya raised her wrist to check her watch, and the moon disappeared behind a cloud.

  They were surrounded by darkness.

  “I’ve got matches, hang on a second,” said Gillian. “Let me get the stupid candle out of my pocket.” The roof flamed to eerie life; the other girls’ faces were shadowed and gaunt, the flat area behind them faded into nothing.

  “It’s eleven forty-two,” said Aliya. She pushed at her already tied-back hair. “Eighteen minutes to midnight.”

  “It has to be midnight?” Miya asked. “Are you sure?” A sacred place, she’d read. A quiet night, no distractions. Nothing about midnight.

  Aliya rubbed her lips together. “Old Aunt said midnight,” she told them. “And the first time, the time that worked, it was midnight.” Rambling pressed up against her legs, whimpered. Aliya reached into his fur with her fingers and rubbed him hard.

  “The last time, the time that twisted, that was midnight too,” said Gillian.

  The dog barked. He stood between Miya and Aliya, his wet nose buried in Miya’s kimono now. “Can’t we use something else?” she asked. “Put the dog back and get something else, something from his room? I don’t know, his favorite sweatshirt or something.”

  “Rambling was more important to Trevor than some stupid sweatshirt,” said stubborn Aliya. “Trevor cared about him deeply; that has a special power, Old Aunt said.” She looked down at the dog, pulled him close. “Anyway, I have him on a leash.” She raised her hand to show them the leather cord wrapped tightly around her wrist. “He’ll be fine—I’d never let anything happen to Rambling.”

  Miya had ceded power to obeah in front of the church; now it was time to listen to the jinn.

  Gillian set down the candle, crouched down and opened her backpack. She took out half a dozen additional candles with one hand, passed them to Aliya. “Here are your candles.” Two small metal vases went the same way. “Your incense burners. You want everything here in the corner?”

  Aliya took the candles. “We need to set them out in the shape of a pentagram,” she said. “Here and here, like this. And then we each sit outside, looking in. And wait, let’s use these bricks—this one over here, like this, so the wind doesn’t blow them out.”

  Gillian passed a candle to Miya. Pss-pss, said the spirits. For the first time, Miya could make out the words: Your time has come. When she looked up, Gillian was holding a flat, steel pan in one hand and a leather drum, with a round top and a curved base, in the other. A tabla. “Aliya didn’t want steel,” she said. “So we drove across town to someone she knew, and got this Arab thing.”

  Aliya tilted her head back, said something into the wind.

  Gillian moved closer to Miya. “Are you sure about this?” she asked. “Sure, sure, sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She was. She’d never been surer of anything in her life, not that William the Conqueror stormed Hastings in 1066, not that e=mc2. Not that all it took to get Rod Crew to do her bidding was a kiss right there. This, this was what Miya Chonan was meant to do.

  The candles glowed on the rooftop, giving their corner a ghostly feel. Behind them, the roof stretched into darkness. With a suddenness that surprised her, Miya felt Trevor, pressing as close to her back as he ever had.

  “This is it,” she said. He wasn’t trying to escape, not this time—she felt something on her waist, almost like fingers, clutching her. “This is our chance to finally reach Trevor. To apologize for the way we treated him. To make amends.”

  “This is our chance,” said Gillian, “to untwist the obeah. To protect ourselves against the unexpected. To let Trevor go his own way.” She tossed the tabla to Aliya, who caught it with one hand.

  Aliya’s quiet voice echoed in the night. “Our chance,” she said, “to say good-bye.”

  Miya felt on the roof beside her, found her drawstring bag. “The offerings.” She handed the sage to Aliya, the cedar bark to Gillian; she kept the belladonna for herself. She fed it to the candle in front of her: each leaf lit up, glowed with purpose, crumpled into ashes. The sharp, pungent flavor of burning bark, burning leaf, enveloped her.

  From behind: thump, thump, ching—the steel pan. Aliya said, “He’s here, I can smell him,” and then the tabla started up with quick, hard beats, eager, intense. Miya’s leg kicked out; she began to spin.

  She’d practiced spinning in her room, in the backyard, down by the waterfall. But nothing had prepared her for this atmosphere: for the dark, the wind, the whimpering dog; the presence of the other girls, the presence of the spirits. Her pulse raced its way out of her bloodstream, her heart pounded hard enough to break her chest. She was reaching for the arms of the spirits, for the chance to set Trevor free.

  She heard the beat of the drums, the swoosh of the air, the click-click of the dog at the side of the roof. Far below them, something cracked. She smelled the candles, the incense, the sage, the cedar, the belladonna. She felt her body twist to the rhythm of the drums and the wind, rise up off the roof. Then it no longer mattered. She heard, smelled, felt nothing. She was approaching the moment of peace. She felt the tug of Trevor as she spun harder, faster; he clutched at her shoulders, her back. Set me free, Trevor. Set yourself free.

  Spin, spin, twist.

  “Miya!” The spirits were calling her name.

  The drumming stopped abruptly, and Trevor was gone. Miya jerked back into her body with such suddenness she almost toppled. She felt again: the wind whipping around her head, sweaty hair on the back of her neck, sore, tired legs. She heard: Rambling howling, a crack from the other side of the house. She opened her eyes and saw: candles flickering, incense steaming, a wet and winded dog pacing. The moon had come back out, and it lit up the two girls, wild-eyed, stumbling toward her.

  “Miya! What the hell are you doing?” She looked down. She stood at the very edge of the roof, balanced on one foot, one spin away from launching herself into air and sky. She could hardly make out the ground below, but there were no dark shapes, no long shadows. Her best guess: no bushes to break a fall, nothing but hard ground.

  “Aroooooooooo,” howled Rambling. He bent his head back, howled into the wind, pain and longing—and something else—in his call.

  They’d stopped her just in time, saved her from a broken le
g, a broken neck, a broken self. Or they’d prevented her from saving them all.

  “Miya, get away from there, would you?” Then, to the dog: “What’s wrong, boy, are you afraid?”

  “Arooooooooo,” howled Rambling, again. He pulled on the leash. More noises filtered up from below, loud enough to outspeak the wind: Crack. Sizzle. Clunk.

  “What the hell—?” said Gillian. They’d all three turned now to look at the far side of the roof, the side with the fire escape. Scrabble, scrabble.

  With one final burst of spirit, Rambling pulled his head free of his collar and bounded across the rooftop. “Rambling, no!” shouted Aliya, but sure enough, his scrambling feet kicked the bricks in that corner and knocked over the candles. He paid no heed, and neither did Miya. She couldn’t. Like Rambling, her eyes were fixed on the large, dark form pulling itself up onto the roof.

  THIRTY-ONE

  THE JUMBIE’S HANDS appeared first, thin and white, then his face, his shoulders, his chest, as he crawled over the edge. He glowed with the light of the moon. After one stopped moment, Gillian’s heart crashed back to life, her blood rushed through veins and arteries. A jumbie. It had worked: the spinning, the chanting, the drumming. The shaving. Obeah come back again.

  She opened her mouth to name him Jumbie—it’s important to name the dead—but Aliya got in the way, tearing across the roof like Rambling. “Trevor, Trevor, Trevor!” She grabbed onto him, tossed her arms around his neck, buried her face in his chest. Gillian let herself look at him full-on. Death had left him skinnier than she remembered. Dark shadows circled his eyes, stubble dotted his chin. Substantial, not transparent; feet planted firmly on the roof’s edge, not hovering in the air.

  His hands shook as he pulled Aliya close, closer—then she almost disappeared into his arms. They were kissing, Aliya bent backward, like that girl in the painting. Rambling, not one to be left out, thrust his nose into the jumbie’s fingers, belly, crotch, sniffing for boy. Only Miya kept calm. Her dark, tangled hair gleamed in the moonlight. “Ozuna triumphant,” she said. Whatever the hell that meant.

  The jumbie looked around the roof. It was a long moment before he seemed to take in their faces, longer still before he said her name. “Gillian?” His brow wrinkled. “And Miya? What the hell is going on here? Is this some kind of . . .” His voice sounded low, frazzled, like he hadn’t used it for a long time. “It’s almost a reception, with all those candles. Or a wake.” He dropped Aliya, pushed past Rambling. “Have you guys been in my room? I took a chance earlier, took a shower—the place is a huge mess, looks like someone died in there.”

  “Trevor,” said Miya. Shrimps, man, her voice sounded so loud, bouncing across the roof like that. “I’m sorry, I know this is hard to hear, but someone did die. You.”

  He pinched himself on the back of the neck. Pinched Rambling through his fur. Pinched Aliya’s cheek softly with his other hand. “No,” he said. “Not me. Not dead.”

  Famous for playing tricks, jumbies. “Pinching is for pickneys, to wake them up from nightmares.” Gillian’s voice still worked, please God. “Nothing to do with living or dead.”

  “You want me to prove it? You want to see me bleed?”

  Aliya cut in. “No need for that.” She linked her hand through one ghostly arm, reclaiming her lover. “But you went over a cliff, Trevor. The car, Mitsu, there was almost nothing left of her. Almost nothing.” The moon ducked for cover again. Gillian’s gaze moved from Aliya to the pale and flickering face beside her, fading in and out of the light of the nearby candles. A chill crept up her spine.

  The jumbie turned those odd eyes on her. Eyes the same shape as Trevor’s, the same color, taking up the same space in his face, but not the same. Empty. “Poor Mitsu,” he said. “All these years, she was good to me.” He shook his head, and the silver dagger pinned in his ear flashed. “She deserved a better end than that.

  Lined with silver . . .

  “I don’t blame you if you hate me,” he said. The obeah man was gone, but Gillian couldn’t forget him. What’s this malevolent force that brought you to see me? A sudden, panicked conviction erupted in her bones, reverberated outward till she knew it in every pore of skin. She’d been right about Trevor, wrong about Nick. She’d shaved the wrong head. They’d meddled with obeah, raised a jumbie—a malevolent jumbie, look at the flashing white teeth, those hooded eyes. The malevolent force involved with the fire in the forest, with those unanswered phone calls. What would be easier than for him to destroy them all? Aliya, nestled in his arms. Miya, lost in thought. Sheself, shivering in the cold.

  Sheself, the only one with all the clues, the only one who could stop him now.

  Jumbie let Aliya go, dropped to his knees, embraced the exuberant Rambling, buried his face in the animal’s fur. “You don’t hate me old boy, do you? God, I’ve missed you. Who did I have to fetch me the remote in that smelly old hotel room? Nobody, that’s who.” Aliya’s eyes were half closed, Miya’s riveted on Trevor. No one noticed as Gillian reached for her backpack and unzipped its side pocket. She pulled out the battery powered razor and turned it on. Hold his head, slash at the roots of his hair. She lunged. If that didn’t work, surely something in the steel—

  “Gillian!”

  “Agh! What the hell—”

  She sliced through the air, met skin, felt something wet— drops of blood. Somebody screamed. A sharp blow to her arm, and the razor clattered to the roof. She tumbled over on top of the jumbie, heard his ragged, unused voice: “For God’s sake, Gillian, what are you trying to do, kill me?”

  An odd thing for a dead boy to say.

  Her hands came up to the sides of his face, pinned it in place. Perhaps she could tear the hair out by the roots? Her fingers met soft, flaky skin, roughened with tiny bristles of hair. She smelled the onion, pepper, anchovy on his breath. More real, all of it, than she’d expected from a jumbie.

  Then someone was dragging her off—Miya, with surprising strength. “Don’t hurt him!” she shouted, and their arms locked in a wrestling match, the same one she’d fought in the kitchen with Mums. They moved two inches this way, three inches that; over Miya’s head, she caught sight of Aliya awash in moonlight by the edge of the roof, cradling her arm. Patches of red showed through her fingers.

  Gillian stopped, dropped her arms; Miya let them go. Girl stepped back a couple of paces, breathing hard. “Lord Almighty,” said Gillian. “Aliya, I’m sorry, so sorry. I just wanted to shave his head. I didn’t mean to—”

  Aliya shook her head. “I’m okay, I’m fine.” Trevor had tossed aside his jacket, stripped off his long-sleeved shirt and was using it to mop up the blood on her arm. He wrapped it tightly in place. “Ow.” Aliya winced. “No, really, Gillian, it’s nothing—it doesn’t even hurt. You got carried away, I get it.” She let Trevor tie the T-shirt in a knot, then sank back into his arms. “It’s just a surface cut, really. And I know how much that money meant to you.”

  “What the fuck, Gillian,” said Trevor. “What’d I ever do to you that you wanted to attack me with a razor?”

  “It wasn’t about the money, not really,” she tried to tell them, but Aliya, at least, wasn’t listening. She asked Trevor: “The money you were keeping for Gillian—where is it?” Jumbie said nothing. Aliya’s hair had come unbound; she pushed it off her face. “Don’t we get an explanation? What makes you think it’s okay to pretend you’re dead?”

  “I’m not pretending I’m dead.” Trevor took her hand and pressed it to his heart. “It was just a stupid misunderstanding that spiraled out of control.”

  Out of control. Gillian flinched—he might have been talking about her. One malevolent from the obeah man, one flash of silver, and she was jumping the boy. What hard evidence did she have that he was out to get them? His eyes, his teeth? The fire that could have been an accident, Mums who might have lost her cell phone?

  When would she learn to keep her tail quiet and wait things out?

  “Trevor?” said Aliya. Behind the t
wo of them, Miya settled herself up against the sloped side of the roof, face shining with sweat.

  “Uh, okay. I was flying up the road—”

  “Start with the party,” Aliya said. She didn’t move her hand, but it looked dead there—funny, since it was a living thing against a dead boy’s chest.

  “The party? What party? Mal’s? Nothing happened there. Well, except for that stupid fight with Miya.” His eyes slid off Aliya; he half-turned toward Miya. “You remember that?”

  Miya bowed her head, like she was looking for some kind of truth in the shingles on the roof. “Of course I remember.”

  “I felt terrible after that,” said Trevor. “Man, I felt like a piece of shit.”

  “I’m the one who should be saying sorry.” Miya’s lips hardly moved, but her words were clear. “And I am. Sorry, I mean.”

  “Wasn’t you,” he told her. He ran his fingers over the bandage on Aliya’s arm. “Wasn’t just you, anyway. Aliya wouldn’t even admit I was her boyfriend, my dad hadn’t called in months, no way was I passing Calc. I started thinking, and I couldn’t stop.” His voice was stronger now; more confident, almost human.

  Gillian put her hand to her heart—no longer banging away, but settled back in place. Her breath, too, came smooth, regular. She lowered herself with care to the rooftop, settled down. Listened.

  “I couldn’t stop drinking, either. A couple of Sam Adams, and then some shots—vodka, maybe a couple tequila. I didn’t take off till my head had cleared, though, I swear it.”

  Miya leaned across the roof, scooped up Aliya’s tabla. “Hard to have a clear head when you’ve been polluting it with alcohol.”

  “Not like you didn’t have your share of shots, too,” Trevor fired back. “And I told you, I was fine by the time I left. I wasn’t polluted.”

  “You must have been tired,” Aliya said quietly. “Why didn’t you go home? Or call me? I could have slipped out the window.”

  “I felt like being by myself.” There was a long silence. Trevor wasn’t the alone type, not even when he was depressed. He was the one-more-for-the-road type. He was the—