Consensual Hex

by Amanda Harlowe

  April twenty-first, the day of the protest, arrives and we’re as ready as we can be. Charlotte won’t be attending; she’s been discharged from the hospital, but the accident triggered the expression of some unexpected paternal instinct from her father, who is staying with Charlotte in a hotel and insisting on taking her back to Paris early, having her go on medical leave and finish her finals over the summer after such immense trauma (if only he knew).

  Luna and I meet in her room, which looks the same as it did three months ago, only she’s got a new Mucha poster above her desk. We wait for Gabi in semisilence, talking about classes and final papers and what we’re planning to take next semester, like we’re just getting to know each other instead of trying to unknow each other. I expect Gabi either to not show up or to sabotage the mission in some way, forget Charlotte’s stockpiled potion ingredients or admit she’s erased all our sigils, but she arrives, hair fluffy and clean, remarkably well rested. She plants a kiss on Luna’s lips and raises a hand to me in a sort-of wave, without saying hello.

  As we file out the door, the ghost starts to cheer, shouts, “I always knew you were using me for my body, Leisl.” I want to throw something at him, spit at him, but I stay closed-lipped, placid; I can’t give it away, what I’m really going to do.

  We march down to the protest, gather among the throngs of Smithies wielding homemade signs (DON’T RAPE, NO MEANS NO, the mildly problematic CONSENT IS SEXY). The seniors have set up a makeshift podium, where a spoken-word poet, Latina, Kate Moennig haircut, recounts her assault (how she can never taste vodka again, even in cream sauce, slathered on penne, her used-to-be-favorite dish). Gabi, color sapped from her face, swallows another two Xanax. We’re keeping the various parts of his body back at Sienna’s office, swaddled in white garbage bags enchanted to trap the scent of decay (the only premarch magic we permit ourselves), a takeout corpse ready to go, but Gabi’s acting like she’s got his head zipped into her backpack, her eyes are so unfocused and shifting, guilty.

  The organizers distribute a candle to each person marching. The group collectively bow their heads and begin to move through campus, circling the paved walkway around Chapin’s green before passing Neilson Library, Seelye Hall, the administrative offices, then emerging into downtown Noho. A long line of traffic halts for us as we cross the street.

  We’re hardly out of view of campus when, like a stealth tsunami, the hundreds of candles rise into the air, floating, as if by magic.

  My own candle lifts into the air—with my own magic—and I tap Luna on the shoulder. “Are you two seriously going to blow our cover—”

  Luna swerves around, a finger to her lips.

  They emerge from storefronts, bars, coffeehouses, silent but visible, tendrils of burning sage clearing their paths: young witches, old witches, black witches, Latina witches, trans girl witches, witches with two kids and masses of curly hair, witches who own bookshops, professor-sorceresses, dining hall employees with side gigs as enchanters, witches gliding out of grand Victorians on broomsticks, diviners from the street, witches in short skirts, witches with lipstick, witches with nothing on their faces but power. All these witches we didn’t know were there, gathering under hundreds of tiny candle flames, under the crescent moon, witches with political lips and political legs and political hands, witches whose bodies are contested territory, whose bodies are ravaged battlefields, a whole army of witches come to face the handful of warlocks with lacrosse sticks crowded under the bridge at the end of town.

  The witches come with metal spatulas, cast-iron pans, eyeliner sharp enough to cut, stilettos made to puncture, old bras and lighters. Fifty-four to forty-six on campuses across the nation, the witches outnumber you, the witches made you and we can unmake you. The tree has been rotting slowly for centuries, disease trickling up from the root—and now the intrepid witches charge forward with the spontaneous fury of a hurricane, severing the trunk in one fell swoop. We are the original natural disaster, a storm that lost its courage after millennia of you imprisoning our bodies in PTSD oblivion. Yes, there’s the internalized corset, misogyny that comes from within, but there’s also straight-up ass-grabbing, pussy-grabbing, Rohypnol, and rape, for all unjust regimes are sustained by violence, by intimidating bodies, by inspiring terror, because how else could you rob a whole planet of witches of their power, their Goddess-given right to take a bunch of levitating yarn from the knitting supply store and tie your wrists, tie your ankles, give you what you deserve?

  You’re afraid of the truth, that there is no nice ending to the patriarchy because endings can only arise out of beginnings, everything is a pattern and a journey and all those thousands of years of holding us down, it’s payback time and it’s not going to be fun. The patriarchy was a story of violence and it will end in violence, there are no bloodless revolutions that are truly revolutionary, you must eat the blades you used to cut us down, those in power will never give it up and so the oppressor must be cut out, the witches have to take a pair of scissors and snip snip snip like Sanson, like Fates. That’s the scariest idea of all, woman unleashed as the God she is, giver of birth but also giver of death, mother and murderer.

  All the witches under the candles, all us gay girls, all us angry girls, all us fed-up girls, watch us exist, watch us raise our hands and cast you from the throne. We’ll strip you, break your lax sticks in two, bind you with our own chains, Spanx and silicone implants and, you know, the feeling of being physically overpowered by people who have nothing but bad intentions toward you. But these tools themselves aren’t evil, they can aid us too, we can break your skin with stiletto heels and secure your arms with corsets, we can fling Naked palettes at your heads like arrows, mark you like William Tells struck in the middle of the forehead, bleeding shimmering taupe. We even stick apples in your mouths, pigs ready to be roasted.

  Matriarchy begins with sirens, screams of birth emanating from police cars, the forces of the Empire arriving in minutes to break up the restoration of the divine feminine. They’ll say it was a bloody protest, I’m sure; they’ll repeat their old lies, that revolution, violent upheaval, transformation at the root never worked and never will. You see, it’s all guillotines and gulags and toxic corrupt vanguards and the Founding Fathers were wise for compromising, for postponing abolition to the next century and leaving the work of the national razor to Pickett’s Charge and the dry ashy fields at Gettysburg, instead of severing the heads of the genteel planters and inviting Jefferson to water the tree of liberty with his own blood as soon as the doors slammed shut at Independence Hall.

  The solution to patriarchy, they’ll say, is the sort of choice feminism that elevates individual women to corner offices, their own miniature Mount Olympuses where they can gaze down on cities they rule and strike fear into subordinates just like men, where they will sink so deep into patriarchal power that they will forget they are witches, that they had power of their own all along.

  Back to the street: With so many covens, so many arrests, so many red lights and screams and barking German shepherds, the police rounding up witnesses—in such chaos there is opportunity, and Gabi, Luna, and I manage to slip down the side street with the multiple vegetarian restaurants and circle back up to Smith, candleless, Take Back the Night pins ripped off our jackets and tossed into the gutter. We bolt through the college gates, across Seelye’s lawn.

  “We need to get into Sienna’s office first,” Luna says with a pointed glance in my direction. “To grab the body.”

  We clamber into the library, into the special elevator leading to Sienna’s office. Luna unlocks Sienna’s door with magic, wiping a few tears with her sleeve as she twists the knob. “I really miss Sienna,” she mutters.

  We file in, turn the lights on, shut the curtains, lock the door. I think I see someone’s outline, laying a tall shadow on the hardwood, but it’s only Tripp’s ghost, perched on top of Sienna’s desk, snacking on a stale bag of Quadratini.

  Luna sets her tote down on Sienna’s desk. “O
kay, Lee, do you want the head?”

  His body is split between four white garbage bags. We load the sum of his parts into our backpacks and Charlotte’s jumbo straw basket.

  The whole time, the ghost looks straight at me, cackling, dead mouth full of partially chewed wafers.

  I pause, listen to the quiet, the slight creaking of the floorboards.

  “Luna.” I put a finger to my lips. “Grab the basket.”

  She cocks her head to the side. “What?”

  “Grab the basket. Come on.”

  She takes the handle.

  Gabi: “Lee, what are you—”

  “Shut up.” I raise my hand, open Sienna’s curtains with magic.

  Huddled against the windows, carrying lax staffs and enchanted beer, are three of the warlocks, splattered in paint, hair scuffed up, clothes tangled from the protest.

  They step forward, the hem of the brawny leader’s overlong track pants covering the platforms, and we bolt from the room—into the elevator, out onto the lawn—but the warlocks are just behind us, shoving out of Sienna’s window on broomsticks.

  Gabi, in a rare moment of appropriate crisis response, lifts her hand, phone in her right fist, and shrouds us in darkness. The shadow grows to encompass the pavement, the library steps, the lawn.

  “Good thinking,” I shout to Gabi.

  As if cursed by my praise, Gabi lifts her arm slightly too high. The shadow shrinks back, omits her, reveals her to the light, and the platforms-wearing warlock swoops down to seize her like a hawk spotting a rodent.

  Luna reaches into the straw basket, takes out a thick, dowdy historical novel and her NARS pencil, and flings both in Frisbee orbits at his bullish blond head.

  He topples from the broom, onto the lawn. The pencil rebounds back into Luna’s outstretched hand.

  We race down Chapin’s driveway to the forest path. I can still hear the two remaining warlocks, circling above us, cackling, a sound I confuse with the ghost, up in the sky with his brothers.

  “You want to get Rocky first,” the ghost shouts. “The bigger one.”

  We follow Luna across the pine needles, squint at the low yellow moon hovering under the branches. Rocky cracks open a can of magic beer and splashes it across a pile of leaves, unleashing a whole host of flames that begin to crackle across the forest.

  Luna stays back, puts out the fire, shouting, “You really need to fuck Mother Earth too?”

  Rocky hits a branch, narrowly avoids toppling from his broom.

  We’re at the crux of the lake. The warlocks emerge out of the trees, into the direct rays of the sunset; their shadows break the smooth, dusk-lit surface of the water.

  Luna takes my hand. “Ready?”

  I look to Gabi. We reach for each other, slowly, until Luna mutters under her breath and we join hands, clasp each other tight.

  We take them down like this: Raise the water up to the height of the trees (Tripp’s ghost, at the top of the cresting wave, refusing to drown). The warlocks fly up, up, away, until Luna summons a surge of wind and wrangles them into the enveloping towel of water.

  I squeeze Luna’s hand, and Gabi’s, and watch the lake scoop the two warlocks onto the opposite shore and trap them in ice.

  When they scream, Luna snaps her fingers to muffle them, shutting their mouths.

  We take a collective deep breath.

  “GODDESS OF LIGHT, RULER OF TIDES, MOON, SOIL, ENSURE THAT IF ROCKY AND—”

  “Brendan,” the ghost contributes.

  “Brendan,” I repeat.

  “BRENDAN TRY TO RECALL THEIR FOIL, THEY WILL FOREVER TOIL.”

  “Well, that wasn’t as hard as it could have been,” says Luna with a sigh. “When the ice melts, they’ll wake up, thinking they rolled up by the lake drunk after a Quad party.”

  “Everyone’s at the protest,” Gabi says, for herself, gazing over the lake. “No one will see them, right?”

  Luna ignores her, points to the center of the lake.

  The grimoire is bobbing up from the water, waves lapping over the black leather; nearby, Tripp’s ghost floats on his back, head folded into his hands.

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “The pages won’t be ruined?” Gabi asks.

  “It’s a fucking magic book,” I remind her. “I’ll go get it. I was a competitive swimmer. Also, we need to get the platforms off Brendan.”

  Gabi and Luna ignore me.

  “The platforms?” I repeat.

  “We’ll handle those after we get rid of the body,” says Luna. “Which we should have done months ago. Damn, we should have burned him.”

  I take off my shoes, give Luna my phone, wallet, and ID, and wade into the water.

  It doesn’t take me long to reach the grimoire. I tread water, seize the leather binding, open the book. The pages, no matter how much water laps over them, stay dry.

  The ghost floats over to me. “Page two-fifty.”

  I glance over the spell.

  “Lee!” Luna shouts, disentangling herself from Gabi. “Is the grimoire okay?”

  I glance to the shore, don’t hesitate.

  “You ready?” I say to the ghost.

  I take the grimoire to the shore. I lay the book, open to the right page, on the silt, and start to seize the various parts of Tripp’s body from our bags.

  “Lee,” Luna says, watching me, wary. “Lee, what are you doing?”

  “Assembling the spell,” I say, unzipping his legs from my backpack.

  “What spell? You know a spell to get rid of the body?” Luna says.

  Once the body is out, I kneel before the grimoire.

  Behind me, the ghost: “Tell her. Tell her what you’re going to do. Don’t you want her to believe in me?”

  I take a deep breath, turn to Luna. “I don’t think we’re going to do the spell you want to do,” I say. “If that’s okay.”

  Luna raises an eyebrow. “There’s a more effective one?”

  I laugh, keep reading the spell. It requires a large body of water, go figure.

  I look over the spell again, stand, face Luna. “No. I’m bringing Tripp back to life. So I can kill him. Myself. I deserve that, don’t you think?”

  Luna rushes forward. “Lee, you can’t be serious?” She gets that I’m serious. “Lee, what the fuck? You’re going to put us in danger, you’re going to put other people—”

  “Other people never fucking cared about me!” I say, smacking her away. I glance to the ghost, the grimoire. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get on with—”

  Luna grabs my arms. “Lee, you’re not thinking straight—”

  “I’m never thinking straight. I’m not straight. I’m not the person I should be. I’m not fucking good. I attacked your girlfriend. But why do I get punished for it? Why am I the bad guy? Gabi started it. Gabi is a bad person too. Gabi—”

  I break away. Luna seizes me again. “Lee, this is not about you—”

  “It’s time I fucking prioritized myself and my needs and stopped letting other people walk all over me. It’s time I stood up for myself. It’s time I stopped letting you limit my power. Do you know where I’d be, without you, without your fucking deadweight?”

  “You were without us for the entire semester—”

  “I’ve been haunted. He’s been with me the whole time. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t use my power. And it’s your fault. It’s your fault because you killed him. I never had closure—”

  “I didn’t—”

  “It’s your fault, it’s your fault, and he’s been haunting me and following me and looking at me twenty-four hours a day and I’m sick of it! I’m fucking sick of it—”

  Gabi races up to me. “Lee—”

  “I have to kill him. I need closure. I deserve closure. This is how I’m loving myself. This is how I’m sticking up for me. This is how—”

  Gabi and Luna join hands. A fierce gust of wind, with the dexterity of fingers, removes the grimoire from my grip. “Y
ou can’t—” I say. “You can’t take it—I need it—I need this—”

  The grimoire is under Gabi’s arm. I raise my scissors, summon a fire, maneuver the flames like a puppet snake, circling Gabi in heat. Sweat collects on her face.

  Gabi takes her phone out of her pocket and extinguishes the flames.

  I grip my scissors, spark another flame, and direct the smoke toward Gabi. The smoke twists into two giant hands, the fingers craning forward to grab her throat, closing off her windpipe as soon as I make a fist.

  Luna leaps between us. “Lee, let go!”

  I shake my head, nails digging into my palm. “No.”

  “Lee, you need to stop now,” says Luna.

  I tighten my grip. Gabi makes little choking noises, her eyes rolling up, limbs shaking.

  “I don’t think so,” I say.

  I keep Gabi restrained by the throat, watching the grimoire, which she’s almost ready to drop.

  “Lee,” says Luna, voice cracking. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “Do what?” I unleash another furl of smoke, another pair of hands, reaching for Luna’s neck, phantom thumb closing right over the spot where I gave her a hickey back in January, fingers settling into her collarbones.

  Luna throws off the smoke, reaches into her back pocket, withdraws her Rider-Waite, and tosses the deck at me. The cards start to spin at a fierce velocity, whacking into me one by one, slicing up my face and arms, dozens of tiny paper cuts. Still, I hold my scissors. Nothing can stop me, nothing can distract me.

  “Lee!” Luna screams, watching Gabi. “Lee, you’re going to kill her—”

  “So you’re going to keep hurting me?” I shout, raising my arm to protect my eyes from the onslaught of cards. “You’re going to keep doing this to me, who loved you, who stood up for you, who would fucking kill her for you—”

  The Four of Pentacles smacks me right in the cheek, slices my skin open and knocks me to the ground.

  Luna seizes the grimoire from Gabi, opens it to a page about halfway through the book.