Wrapped in Black: Thirteen Tales of Witches and the Occult

by Jennifer L. Greene

  “The devil is in the details,” Deacon confided without looking up. He used an IV bag labeled “Patricia Lansing – Type O-negative” to spell out a greeting in blood red icing.

  “Where’s my mom?” Elliot asked, his voice cracking.

  “She’s outside getting ready,” Deacon replied. He furrowed his brow as he concentrated on getting the lettering just right. “Do make yourself useful and finish wrapping your gift,” he said, gesturing to a video game sitting next to a roll of royal blue wrapping paper.

  Elliot ignored him and moved to the far side of the kitchen where the dull thuds he heard earlier floated through an open window. The sounds were louder and wetter, the giggles joined by muffled cries. He looked on in horror as Rain, Janice, and Sylvia passed a thick wooden staff between them and took turns striking a black body bag suspended from a branch of the great tree. Pinned to the zipper lock was his mother’s nametag from the Delphos Feed and Supply store, where she worked part time.

  Deacon stood behind Elliot, gripping his shoulders as he leaned in close. “We’re your family now,” Deacon hissed, the warm stink of rot coming off him.

  Elliot tried to flee, but Deacon held him in place. He was powerless to do anything but watch himself emerge from behind the great tree, dagger in hand, cloaked in the flowing robes of the ceremony. The women parted for him as he entered the pit over which the bundle swung limply. With each step, his bare feet ignited the dead ash and charred coals underneath. The fire spread quickly, encircling the pit as Elliot stood in the center and ran his hand from one end of the bag to the other. He called out softly to his mother, who responded with a weak moan. Cooing and shushing, he cradled her head through the vinyl. Her wet sobs eventually died and she stopped struggling. He placed his hand where the sack rose and fell and patted reassuringly.

  His movements were swift but brutal. The dagger tore a line from her navel to her throat. The pit roared to life, devouring Elliot’s sacrifice and him with it.

  We’re your family now.

  Elliot woke in a cold sweat, his sheets drenched. After a long shower and dry clothes, he ventured into the kitchen where his mother was sipping coffee in the breakfast nook. His blood went cold when he saw the generic white cake from grocery store, clumsily adorned with a dozen green army figures. A large banner across the top of the cake bore the message “HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST BOY A MOTHER COULD ASK FOR” in Patricia Lansing’s boxy cursive. Propped against the sugar caddy was a slim package wrapped in royal blue paper, the used copy of Call of Duty she had purchased as his gift. Elliot picked it up and stared at it for a moment.

  “I love it, Mom. Thank you,” he said, his eyes burning.

  She frowned. “You haven’t even opened it yet.” He walked around the table and hugged her so she wouldn’t see the tears welling up.

  “I don’t need to,” he said.

  Confused but grateful at the unexpected kindness she hugged him back. It would be the last time she ever touched him.

  Night had come by the time he reached the farm. The pale white gaze of a waxing gibbous moon faltered behind a bank of clouds. He was still miles away from the site, but he needed to rest a second before continuing. He removed his pack and took stock. The two milk jugs filled with gasoline sat in the bottom of the pack; the matches and flares remained dry and undisturbed in their Ziploc bag; and the Pringles can containing the homemade pipe bomb lay on its side at the bottom.

  Moving a pair of binoculars, Elliot fished out a large bottle of water and took several long swallows. He headed west toward the tree line a half-mile distant. The ground was damp and soft and the grass sometimes reached his knees, but the path underneath was worn, so he had no trouble navigating.

  He didn’t have any illusions about what the others were capable of or what would happen to him if they caught him. If they weren’t already aware of what he was up to, they would be soon. But it had to be done.

  Less than fifty feet in, the temperature dropped significantly. Elliot shivered in his sweat-soaked shirt as he followed the Maglite’s perfect circle over the path. The sweat on his neck felt like ice and there was a strange quality to the darkness. It seemed closer now, almost alive. This place did not simply block out the light, it swallowed it whole.

  Elliot could not shake the feeling of someone watching him. In an attempt to loosen the fear clamped around his heart, he imagined a family of raccoons sitting around a tree stump playing Yahtzee, their little paws clumsily tossing acorns onto a pile as they placed their bets. “Get out of our house, you deafening smelly beast!” he intoned in his best rendition of an irritated anthropomorphic raccoon. “And extinguish that blazing fire-stick before you blind us all!”

  Elliot laughed briefly then held his breath as the forest came to life. Branches shook and leaves quivered. He was sure he was surrounded by creatures, restless and hungry.

  Elliot fought back panic as he picked up his pace. Several times he nearly tripped over exposed roots crisscrossing the path. Swinging the pack around, he rummaged around inside for the Ziploc bag, finally closing a sweaty palm around one of the flares.

  He paused on the trail just long enough to ignite the torch and felt a welcome rush of relief in the brilliant red glow. Not only could he see more clearly, but the forest seemed to recoil at the light. He held the flare out in front of him as if daring the darkness to approach, and though it was surely a trick of the light, the roots appeared to retreat.

  Before long, he saw the gentle slope of the valley floor beyond the trees and raced ahead. A thunderous creaking reverberated just beyond the tree line. When Elliot hurled the flare into the darkness, the howling that issued forth was neither human nor imagined.

  “Fuck you,” he spat.

  He shouldered the pack and walked briskly toward the stream cutting through the middle of the valley. At a bend in the river a mile ahead stood a lone majestic cottonwood looking completely out of place in the otherwise empty landscape. The massive tree was forty feet around with three pillars towering more than eight stories. Cascading from the crown was a lush canopy of leaves. Gnarled and weathered bark sheathed its entire frame like a suit of armor. Even from a distance, the tree commanded the skyline.

  But to think of it as an object would be a mistake. It was living thing, sentient even, filled with a dark intelligence and an insatiable appetite. He knew She was watching him, and he was suddenly overcome with a feeling of shame. His pack hit the ground just before his knees, he leaned forward with his face buried in his hands and started to cry.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” he sobbed. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just so scared and I want it all to stop.” He clasped his hands in front of him, pleading. “Help me, please!”

  He rocked back and forth, the tears burning down his cheeks. His cries died after a time and he lay back on the grass, staring at the stars. “Please help me, Mother.”

  The branches of the great cottonwood swung slow and steady in all directions as if trying to break free. The giant leaves rose and fell on the tide created by the undulating boughs..

  As a single unit, the branches flapped simultaneously upward with a sharp crack that pierced the night, sending a shower of leaves drifting in all directions away from the trunk. In the starlight and half-moon the tree looked naked, a tempest-tossed umbrella facing the storm with little more protection than a few shreds of fabric clinging to its skeleton.

  Elliot stared through the binocular lenses transfixed. The leaves had not touched the ground. They remained suspended in air, bobbing lightly up and down around the tree while slowly migrating outward.

  As he scanned the sea of suspended foliage, they began undulating in a strange, somehow intimate dance. The blades on either side of the stems rose like two hands in prayer. Just before they touched, they thrust downward causing the spine to rise above them. With each repetition of this movement, the leaves rose slightly and moved farther away from the tree. They produced a wet slapping sound and Elliot saw the gras
s move below them as their pace quickened. All trace of green was gone from them now and he realized too late what was happening.

  “Fuck me,” he uttered as the leaves finished their transformation and shot upward en masse. The air filled with the papery roar of flapping wings and the sky turned black as wave upon wave of crows blocked out the moon and stars. The shadow they cast over the valley quickly consumed the earth between Elliot and the tree.

  Elliot jumped to his feet and ran. Immediately, the birds drew together into a cloud. He raced through the darkness directly beneath, his heart nearly exploding as much from fear as exertion.

  He experienced a brief, surreal moment when he thought the birds might simply be a defensive reaction, that the tree was putting up a false front the way a cat might raise its hackles to appear much larger when threatened. The thought gave him a welcome taste of hope. Besides, the moon was not full, which meant Mother’s power was weakened.

  His hope was short-lived. As if aware of his thoughts, the birds responded by spiraling downward in a tornado of winged projectiles. Several dozen birds leading the storm were no more than a hundred feet behind him, and within seconds they sped past him. Their numbers increased in front of him and on all sides and soon he lost his bearings.

  Elliot fell to his knees and leaned back, looking at the patch of night sky peering down through the top of the living vortex around him. The movement of the flock had become more ferocious, erratic, swirling in an inky halo of talons, claws, wings, and beaks, tearing at his flesh. One slashed his temple, another dug its beak into his exposed knee, and still another tore off a flap of his earlobe. He batted his arms all around, but for every bird he fended off, another one broke from the formation to assault him. His stinging, bleeding hands reminded him of the day this all began.

  Elliot lay on his back, defenseless. He could sense nothing but the ear-piercing squawk-cackle-shriek of the ravenous winged mob.

  One bird stood watching the rest of the flock feasting. After a moment, it hopped up on Elliot’s leg. The other birds gave it a wide berth as it studied the punctured and bloody landscape underfoot. The bird was twice as large as any of the others, and its eyes were not the dull black marbles of the rest of the flock. They were hazel. Elliot laughed mirthlessly.

  “Hello, Sylvia” he said. Instantly the deafening chorus of screeching cackles stopped. The birds that had covered his body retreated several dozen feet.

  Elliot managed to prop himself up on his elbows. The bird on his chest hopped onto his stomach, but made no effort to fly away. During the attack, some of the contents of his pack spilled out and Elliot closed his left hand around one that lay under the small of his back. He saw the other item he needed just out of reach by his ankle. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t get to it yet. If his next move didn’t work, he was dead anyway.

  His palms were slick with blood, but he felt confident that all he needed was a chance. Just one chance.

  “You know,” he said looking into Sylvia’s eyes, “you were always the weakest of all of us.” He winced as the talons dug into his navel but he managed a smile all the same.

  Using the last of his strength, he yanked the flare out from underneath him with one hand while grabbing Sylvia around the neck with the other. She struggled, pecked, and flailed but he held fast. Her loyal legion was momentarily confused. He slammed Sylvia’s beak against the striking surface and the rod erupted in a brilliant molten spray that ignited the left side of her face and upper body, bursting her eye from its socket and catching one of her wings on fire. She bucked and fought, twisting so savagely in his grip that for a moment he thought she might break her own neck. She managed to break free, though she did not try to attack him again and instead flopped toward the stream to douse the fire spreading over the left side of her body.

  Elliot was granted a further respite from assault as the rest of the flock responded as if they had been burned themselves, several diving into the stream, others disoriented in flight or flopping on the ground as if they, and not a thirteen-year-old girl, had instinctively recalled their training in middle school to stop, drop, and roll.

  Elliot awkwardly limp-trotted the rest of the way to the tree and collapsed at the boundary of the pit. Blood dripped from a hundred cuts and tears, and his mouth tasted like copper syrup from the holes in his cheeks.

  A wheeze came out with each labored breath, and he suspected that at least one of his lungs had been punctured. He leaned against the rocks at the edge of the pit, oblivious to their sharp edges digging into his back. The flare was beginning to sputter but he tightened his grip on it and dragged the pack onto his lap.

  “What have you got there?” asked a voice from the darkness. It was deep and gravelly, without a trace of humanity and seemed to originate from inside Elliot’s head. A figure wearing a black cloak with a cavernous hood emerged and walked forward tapping the earth with a heavy wooden staff. Elliot managed a brief glance and thought he saw a snout receding into the shadow of the hood.

  “Deacon,” he muttered as his head dropped back to his chest. Despair joined his pain and exhaustion and he let out a wet sigh, dripping blood from his nose and mouth.

  “Mmmm,” Deacon responded. Behind him, Elliot saw the other members of the coven. Janice and Rain both wore cloaks identical to Deacon’s, though their heads were uncovered. Janice held a machete in her left hand, the blade of it stopping just above the ground. Rain stood behind her, fists balled and jaw clenched, her body trembling with barely contained fury. Sylvia was farther back from the rest of the group, partially concealed by the shadow of the tree. Elliot could see her tenderly holding her arm, and caught a glimpse of a face that was blackened by fire and cracked with shiny pink rivulets of exposed skin and muscle. He could not see her eyes, but he felt certain one of them was now only a socket.

  Deacon looked over Elliot’s broken body and poked his ribs with the staff. Elliot yelped and rolled on his side, dragging the pack underneath him. Deacon bent down and closed a powerful weathered hand over Elliot’s wrist and wrenched the arm upward. Elliot howled as the bone snapped, but he refused to let go of the flare.

  “What did you think you were going to do?” Deacon growled as the final sparks leapt from the end of the flare and sizzled harmlessly to the ground. “Did you really believe you could destroy her with fire? She was born of fire, you fool!”

  Elliot could not respond with his face half buried in the dirt and ash surrounding the pit. He struggled to reposition his head to release some of the pressure on his distended arm, but Deacon’s grip was too strong. In his upside-down vision, he saw Rain stride toward them, snatching the machete from Janice as she passed. Her eyes were filled with malice but she was being driven by something even more primitive. Deacon turned as she approached.

  “No, child!” he barked, but Rain ignored him. She raised the blade above her head and brought it down hard, severing Elliot’s arm just below the elbow in a single brutal stroke.

  Elliot shrieked in fresh agony and pitched forward, slamming headlong into the low rock wall circling the pit. He rolled over on his back and looked in disbelief at the ragged stump that had until seconds earlier been his throwing arm. A single shard of bone protruded from the meaty ring glaring back at him. Tongues of severed veins and arteries panted blood over his chest, in time with his beating heart.

  He felt his consciousness slipping away with every passing moment, only dimly aware of his surroundings as he scrambled away from the others. Deacon took Rain by the hair and pulled her face into the darkness of his hood. Her hand loosened its grip on the machete and when he pulled her away from him, the look of rage had been replaced by a mix of shame, pleading, and resolution.

  Through his fading vision, Elliot watched Janice help Sylvia with her robe as, like him, the young girl now had only one good arm. Deacon tended to the altar, placing the dagger at the head of the slab and a crude bowl at the foot.

  Though his senses had almost shut down entirely, Ellio
t still detected warmth on his face emanating from the unlit pit. A trail of blood from the stump of his arm trickled over the rocks lining the perimeter and down into the pit, stoking the flames to life. Mother was hungry.

  Elliot slowly pulled himself to his feet. He did not have the strength to get very far, but he wouldn’t have to go more than a few steps. He reached down and grabbed his severed arm from the ground and tossed it in. For a moment, nothing happened. It just lay there in the middle of the pit, the fire merely blackening and bubbling the dead skin. But then something shifted and his disembodied arm dropped several inches as if it were being tugged at from below.

  Suddenly, flames erupted over the lip of the pit, startling the others from their tasks. They watched as a dozen molten tentacles shot up through the embers, snaked over the limb, and enveloped it in a fiery embrace.

  “No! It’s not time! This is not our gift!” Deacon bellowed. The pit ignored his commands and yawned open to swallow its offering.

  “You!” he fumed, marching toward Elliot, “you have no idea what you’re -”

  “Fuck you,” Elliot spat, holding the pack over the pit with his good arm. “I know exactly what I’m doing. I should’ve done it a long time ago.” He kept his back to the fire as the women advanced on him. Deacon shot his hand up.

  “Stop,” he commanded, his eyes darting back and forth between Elliot and the pack. The women stayed where they were only a few dozen feet away, all of them ready to attack but none more eager than Sylvia, whose eyes blazed with pure hatred.

  “What is it you think you’re going to do, you ungrateful child?” Deacon hissed.

  The great cottonwood roared to life, her boughs trembling as if caught in the grips of a hurricane, though not a whisper of wind breathed through the air. The earth emitted a throaty dirt-filled croak and Elliot nearly lost his footing as the muscular roots at the base broke up the ground all around him. Mother bellowed to the coven as she struggled to free herself from several centuries’ worth of poisoned soil. Her trunk twisted with an echoing crack as her branches whipped around wildly to the leathery chorus of slapping leaves.