Darkness Blooms

by Christopher Bloodworth

  “She did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Put a note in her Papere’s journal.”

  “How do you know she even took it?”

  “It was the only thing she ever showed interest in, ‘sides that plant of hers.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “I wrote that her Papere grew one of his orchids, special-like, just for her, and I kept it alive over the past year.”

  Mamere could hear the rustle of Delphine nodding.

  “Okay,” Delphine said. “I just get worried is all. If the sacrifice isn’t made... well, ain’t a whole lot to say except kiss your ass goodbye. Croatoan.”

  “You tellin’ me,” Mamere said. “Ain’t gonna be no Croatoan this century though. Now can we get some sleep? I’m plum exhausted.”

  “Awright,” Delphine said. “In any case, glad you’re back home. ‘Night.”

  “G’night.”

  18

  Mamere woke to the sound of rustling sheets. The room was still dark so it had to be midnight or later.

  “Del,” Mamere said, sitting up and sliding her legs out from under the covers. “You okay?”

  The rustling from the other side of the room stopped as Mamere slid her feet into her slippers and leaned toward her bedside table for her glasses.

  “Ow!” Mamere shrieked.

  Two sharp pains lit up on her face. It felt like a wasp sting, but worse. With a wasp the sting didn’t get worse, it stayed the same. The two spots on her face throbbed with hot pain, one above her left eyebrow and the other under her right eye on her cheek.

  “Oh Jesus,” Mamere screamed when two more stings throbbed into being on her chin and her throat. “What’s in here? Get away!”

  Mamere brought her hands to her face, fingertips probing the stings. It felt like long hairs were growing out of the already swelling lumps. Mamere reached her hand out for the lamp on the bed stand.

  She got stung again on her right hand.

  “Help me, Jesus,” she said. “What’s happening?”

  When she felt something tug her face toward the bed stand from the swollen lumps on her face, her stomach turned over.

  “Syl,” Mamere whispered in the dark. “You in here?”

  Bright light flooded the room when the overhead light blinked on.

  Mamere’s face felt numb as she stared into the blazing red bloom of the dusky black flower that seemed to be rooted into her bedside table. Her glasses were just to the right of it.

  Mamere tore the threads apart and reached for her glasses. The flower snapped at her, but with its barbs embedded in her face, it couldn’t do a whole lot. The red center of the bloom brushed against Mamere’s arm, right above the wrist, and the skin there started bubbling.

  Don’t matter none, Mamere thought. It’s over anyways if she’s here. Over for everyone.

  Mamere put on her glasses and looked across the room to where her sister Delphine usually slept. Delphine lay on her back in bed, eyes open wide and a single teardrop of blood inching down the side of her face from the corner of Delphine’s eye. When it dripped to the white pillowcase it would soak in and spread, blooming like one of the dusky flowers.

  “She just washed those sheets today too,” Mamere said, shaking her head. “Damn.”

  “You’re worried about the sheets?” Sylvia’s indignant voice came from her right.

  Mamere turned her head to look at her. She had to squint to focus on Sylvia. There were three Sylvia’s standing before her and...

  “Well,” Mamere said, biting back a smile. “You supposed to be dead. Supposed to be anyways.”

  “Whoops.” Sylvia shrugged. “Guess that didn’t work out.”

  “No, I guess not.” Mamere shrugged.

  “Too bad about the sheets,” Sylvia said, upper lip curled.

  “I guess,” Mamere said. “Del could’ve spent her last day doin’ what she wanted instead of the laundry.”

  “So happy that you gave me that option,” Sylvia said.

  Mamere grunted, waiting. The three Sylvia’s crossed their arms across their chests, and it got closer.

  “Well, no remorse?” Sylvia asked.

  Mamere didn’t say anything.

  “No regret?” Sylvia tried again.

  “You regret doin’ that to Delphine?” Mamere nodded her head to Delphine’s body.

  “No guilt?” Sylvia threw her hands in the air, acting like the entitled brat that she’d always been deep down.

  Fuck you, cunt, Sylvia’s voice said in Mamere’s head again.

  “No,” Mamere said, coughing up a wad of phlegm and spitting it at Sylvia’s feet. “Ain’t sorry for nothin’.”

  Sylvia jumped back a few steps so it missed her feet.

  Just right.

  “Missed,” Sylvia said.

  “Did I?” Mamere asked, feeling her numb lips part in a smile. “I gotta joke for you before I pass out and these flowers root me.”

  The three Sylvia’s smirked at her. “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” Mamere slurred. “You ready?”

  The bitch girl actually had the nerve to look at her phone. “Make it fast. I have things to do.”

  “Okay,” Mamere said. “Here we go. What’s black and white and followed you here?”

  The smirk fell off Sylvia’s face and she turned to look at the thing on the wall now only inches from her thanks to Mamere’s spit.

  “Croatoan, cunt,” Mamere whispered, eyes rolling into the back of her head as she fell unconscious.

  Epilogue

  “Can I ring the doorbell this time?” Charmane asked her older sister, Isabel.

  The red wagon filled with Girl Scout cookies rattled along the sidewalk behind Charmane. Two more stops and they would be finished.

  “Well,” Isabel said. “I don’t see any harm in it. Just once push it once though, okay?”

  Charmane nodded, chest puffing out with pride.

  So she hadn’t sold the most Girl Scout cookies this year. Who cared? Stupid Alma had beat her by twenty boxes. If Charmane had her way, those boxes wouldn’t have counted because Alma had her mom sell those boxes at her work. That would’ve been cheating by Charmane’s rules.

  Charmane and Isabel stepped in front of the sidewalk of the next house.

  Charmane looked at her sales sheet.

  “Delphine Crane,” Charmane read aloud. “Two boxes of Thin Mints, one box of Caramel Delites, and a box of Shortbreads.”

  “Good,” Isabel said. “And remember, it’s either Ms. Crane or Ms. Delphine to you.”

  Charmane nodded. She didn’t see any reason to use the Ms., but it made Ms. Delphine happy and it was apparently the way things were done.

  Charmane stood on the front porch, staring at the windowsill of black flowers to the left. The flowers swayed and Charmane frowned. There was no breeze. Why were the flowers-

  “You going to ring the doorbell?” Isabel asked.

  “Oh!” Charmane punched her tiny finger out and pressed the doorbell. It dinged and started buzzing.

  Isabel laughed. “Quit pushing it, dork.”

  Charmane let go and the doorbell donged. No one came to the door though. The sisters stood on the front porch waiting for a whole minute.

  Isabel pushed the doorbell.

  “I thought you said once!” Charmane said, throwing her hands up.

  “No one came though,” Isabel said. “Let’s check the back.”

  Charmane shuffled her feet. “Are we allowed in the back?”

  “We’re delivering Ms. Delphine’s cookies. We’ll be fine.”

  Charmane frowned, looking from her sister to the door and back before finally shrugging. “If you say so.”

  “I do,” Isabel said. “Grab the boxes.”

  Charmane checked the sales sheet one last time before putting it in her pocket with a nod. She balanced the boxes on top of one another and looked up at her sister.

  Isabel laughed and said, “Let’s go, squirt.”<
br />
  Charmane followed Isabel across the front yard. She looked over her shoulder at the wagon of cookies parked next to the porch.

  “Do we have to leave the wagon?” Charmane asked, looking one last time before she made it around the corner.

  “No one’s gonna steal your cookies,” Isabel said.

  Charmane blew her hair out of her face. “You don’t know that.”

  “Whose car is this?” Isabel asked, running her finger along the trim of the blue Honda.

  Charmane frowned at the lines of holes along the crease where the trunk met the back bumper. There were yellowish powder smudges along the holes as well.

  “Hello?” Isabel called out, peeking in through the window on the side of the house. “It’s all black in there. Maybe she’s taking a nap?”

  “Let’s just come back, okay?” Charmane asked. “We’ll come back later.”

  Something about the house bothered Charmane. Something about the swaying flowers and the holes in the bumper and the yellow streaks of dust.

  “I don’t think so,” Isabel said. “I’m going out with Peter tonight.”

  “Let’s come back tomorrow then,” Charmane said. “Please?”

  “Fine,” Isabel sighed, turning away from the window and looking at the car again. She reached out her hand and tried the handle. The car’s door opened.

  “Isabel, no,” Charmane hissed.

  “I’m just looking,” Isabel hissed back. “I’m not going to steal anything.”

  Isabel sat in the driver’s seat, looking around the car.

  Charmane scanned the street, chewing her lip. When she looked back at her sister, Isabel held a dark green book in her hands.

  “That’s not yours,” Charmane moaned. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

  “In a sec,” Isabel said. “I wanna look at this. It feels expensive.”

  “It doesn’t matter how it feels, it’s not yours. I’m leaving.”

  Isabel opened the book to a random page. Charmane could see a page full of writing, but couldn’t make anything of the words. The handwriting was hard to read on its own, and upside-down it was impossible.

  Isabel flipped a few pages, stopping on one with a map Charmane recognized from school. It was a map of the world.

  There were lots of little dots and several triangles scattered across the map. There were even a few tiny little key symbols, and roughly in the middle of Texas was a drawing of a little crown that looked like it was made of curving horns.

  “What’s it say next to the triangles?” Charmane asked.

  “C-R-O,” Isabel spelled. “Cro. I wonder what that means.”

  “Where are the cros?”

  “There’s one in North Carolina,” Isabel pointed on the map. She slid her finger over to the next triangle. “There’s one in the ocean. Or maybe that’s an island off the coast of South America. And it looks like there’s one in Mexico. Oh, here’s one close to the bottom of the United Kingdom.”

  Charmane looked away from the map and out at the street, still worried about neighbors or police. As she looked over the house, she asked, “What does cro me-”

  Charmane stared at the window Isabel had peeked through earlier.

  “What is that?” Charmane asked her sister, nodding to the window.

  “A window?” Isabel asked.

  “No,” Charmane said. “In the window.”

  Isabel looked up and shrugged, “A dead plant.”

  Charmane had the merit badge for plants, and what sat in the pot looked nothing like anything that she had ever seen. Long black and white striped tubes draped over the edges of the pot.

  The length of the legs reminded her of the holes on the trunk of the car and the yellow powder.

  Suddenly, Charmane felt sick. She didn’t care about Girl Scout cookies anymore.

  Something bad happened here, and if they didn’t leave, another bad thing would happen.

  “We need to go,” Charmane said. She walked back to the front yard, praying thanks to God when she heard Isabel’s footsteps behind her.

  She put the cookies in the wagon and pulled it away from the house. Isabel didn’t say a word, she just followed Charmane, flipping pages in the dark green leather bound book.

  Charmane glanced back at the house once, and could’ve sworn that the black plants on the windowsill had bloomed a bright, vivid red.

  She didn’t think it was pretty though.

  It looked like death.

  Christopher Bloodworth

  March 5, 2014

  Spring, Texas

  The End

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