Eli’s heart swelled with tenderness. Peter was a flipped-out, eternal child who claimed to be friends with a fairy named Claire. He lived on the edge of a dream—and he was a genius. Now Eli knew why he had come back home. He needed this—this advice, but, more generally a dose of familiar insanity from his reliably crazy parents. What could be more comforting than listening to his pink-paisley-clad father talk metaphysics while smoke from the stickiest bud the Pacific Northwest had to offer scented the air? Eli felt like a kid again—but, this time, in a good way. He stretched out on the sofa and stuffed a pillow under his head.
“If I do find her, can I tell her who you are? Who I really am?”
“Devil may care, son. Let the FBI take me.”
“The FBI doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you, Dad,” Eli sighed. This conversation also had a soothingly well-worn quality. “You’re an American institution, or you belong in one. In any case, your legend has surpassed your paranoia.”
“Maybe. Ah, what does it matter anymore anyway? Devil may care.” Peter stretched his legs and then rearranged himself in his cocoon-like chair. “You know, I fought the devil once, in the late 70’s. I was on peyote. I pinned his scrawny ass to the ground and made him my bitch. You’d be surprised to know who the devil really is. Not who you think. Not who you think at all. It would knock your Technicolor socks off to know that little nugget of truth, but you’re not ready to face that epiphany. Not yet.”
Eli had heard this anecdote before, too. It was practically the little brother he had never had. His thoughts, though, had turned to more immediate matters. “Mother is never going to agree to any of this, though.”
“She’s a protective thing. She thinks you’re a gift from the gods, and she believes what Gretchel did was unnecessary.”
“She doesn’t have a fucking clue.”
“Maybe not, but do you? Do you know why Gretchel broke your heart?”
Eli was speechless. He had never known, and he still didn’t know.
Peter patted his son’s knee and brought him back from the throes of self-pity. “If Gretchel’s as smoking hot as you’ve always said she is, I may just come out of exile and shag her myself, you little pansy-ass mama’s boy.”
“That’s not even remotely funny,” Eli fumed.
His father cackled. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, son. Detach yourself from ego. Manifesting a desire shouldn’t be such hard work. Stop resisting.”
Eli pulled a folded printout from his back pocket. “This is an old photo of Gretchel with her kids. Ame’s almost seventeen now.”
Peter looked closely at Gretchel. This was his first glimpse of the woman who had captivated and then devastated his son. Hot damn, he thought. Then he studied the little girl, and he grinned.
He pulled a bag of mushrooms from the pocket of his pink paisley bathrobe. “Let’s take a trip together, son, for old time’s sake.”
Eros who is love, handsomest among all
the immortals
who breaks the limbs’ strength
who in all gods, in all human beings
overpowers the intelligence in the breast,
and all their shrewd planning….
Peter was lying on the floor, quoting Hesiod. Eli was still stretched out on the sofa.
He closed his eyes and tried to find a happy place before the psychedelic alkaloids kicked in….
Carbondale, 1990s
Eli thought back to Carbondale, of course. He drifted right into the backyard of the house on Pringle Street. The garden was all lit up. A feast of food and three kegs sat next to the greenhouse. Revelers where scattered about the backyard, celebrating the end of the summer.
This particular party was in Gretchel’s honor. She was only a sophomore and school rules said that she had to move back to the dorms. Eli had already enrolled for the fall semester at SIU without his mother’s permission. He tried not to think about Diana’s impending fury as he watched Will hold a cute blonde upside down for a keg stand.
“So help me Jesus, Will. You’re going to drown her,” Patty yelled. She helped Will get the girl upright again, at which point the cute blonde spewed beer everywhere. Eli pulled a clean handkerchief from his back pocket and helped her dry herself off a bit. Excessively, drunkenly grateful, she leapt into Eli’s arms, wrapped her legs around him, and tried to give him a kiss. When Eli resisted, she giggled and patted his curls instead. “Your hair’s all bouncy,” she laughed.
“Bouncy. What a great description,” Gretchel said, taking her place beside Eli. He set the little sprite down as gently as he could, and she ran off to join her friends at a picnic table.
Gretchel shook her head at Eli playfully. “I can’t leave you alone for two seconds. You’re a chick magnet.”
He grabbed her, buried his face in her neck, and shrouded himself in her beautiful red hair. She smelled, like always, of fresh strawberries. “Where have you been?”
“I had to lay down for a bit. I started feeling really sick, like I was gonna barf. Think I’m nervous about leaving.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to be able to sleep without you by my side every night,” Eli said, but he was more worried about how she would sleep in a dorm room without him there to quiet the screams.
“I promise I’ll be here every weekend, and some weeknights, depending on my work schedule.”
“You don’t have to work, Gretchel.”
“Really?” she asked sarcastically. “You’re really going to support me and pay for my education? Can you start paying back my student loans while you’re at it? And I’ve love a new car….”
It was killing him to not be able to help her. He had the money, he had the time, he had everything. “I have some money saved. Whatever you need, I can give you. You don’t have to work.”
“You’re silly.” The anger in her voice was gone. “I’m a bottomless pit, Eli. Once I got started borrowing money from you, I wouldn’t stop. I’d be spoiled, and you’d be broke in a month.”
Not likely, he thought as he led her away from the keg. She was eyeing it way too much for his liking. After three months together, he had still never seen her drink, and he didn’t want their last night in the house on Pringle to be the first.
“Who’s that girl hanging around Will?” Gretchel asked. Eli noticed that Gretchel had become very protective all of the sudden. The girl was pretty, and looked like she had arrived via Grateful Dead caravan. As if she could tell that they were talking about her, she turned and made eye contact with Gretchel. Eli watched Gretchel jerk back.
“That’s Ginnifer. She’s moving into your room tomorrow,” Eli said, still watching Gretchel’s reaction to the girl’s gaze.
Ginnifer returned Gretchel’s puzzled stare with a calm smile. Silently, the two women seemed to come to some sort of understanding. Ginnifer waved and turned away.
“What was that all about?”
Gretchel turned back to Eli. “She’s moving in my room?” Evidently, she wasn’t interested in telling Eli what that was all about. “The owner doesn’t waste any time does he?”
“How do you know it’s a he?”
“I spoke to him on the phone when I called about the place in May. Wish I could meet him to say thank you. Staying here has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Eli kissed her long and hard. He didn’t want to let her go. There had to be some way to bend the housing rules. Maybe he could convince the powers that be that her nightmares were a mental handicap, and that she needed to stay off campus. It was a thought.
Gretchel and Eli came up for air just in time to see a local band start their second act. The crowd began to cheer.
Gretchel jumped up and began dancing, her bohemian dress twirling around and around. Eli was enchanted. He watched intently, unable to move his eyes away from the divine sight of Gretchel dancing freely against the light of the bonfire. She motioned for her loving cup on the ground. He pi
cked it up, and held it out to her. Déjà vu struck him in the chest as she moved forward, took the cup, and sipped at the fresh water. He shook off the eerie feeling and joined her. They danced and danced and danced.
“I love you infinitely,” Eli whispered into her ear. “Please don’t ever forget that Gretchel.”
She whispered to him, “I love you, too. Please don’t ever forget that… that... that.... Eli... Eli... Eli...”
The memory was beginning to skip. He couldn’t see her anymore, but he could feel her presence and her hand in his. The ‘shrooms had kicked in—way in.
With her attitude in check and an aluminum bottle of water instead of coffee, Diana opened the doors of her office suite to find Peter naked, wrapped up in the drapes quoting Rimbaud:
…one evening I sat Beauty on my knees
And I found her bitter
And I reviled her.
Eli was spread out on the floor. “Not again,” she mumbled to herself. “Eli. Eli. Eli,” she called, and poked him in the side with the point of her Jimmy Choo.
...Eli...Eli...Eli...
“Way to go, Peter. Your son’s a goner.” She glanced behind her, and saw that her husband was now lying spread-eagle on the floor.
Before they took the mushrooms, Peter had put Phish on the turntable, and as the sound of the garage band in Carbondale drifted away, it was replaced with “Bouncing Around the Room.” Eli could hear the music, but he felt like he was underwater. It was a pleasant feeling. Then it was as if two memories were merging into one. He was deep-sea diving—or was it deep-see diving? What body of water am I in? he wondered. He knew that Gretchel was drifting away, but, at this moment, he could sense her near him.
Then his head began to echo. His whole being was the echo.
Eli heard someone speaking. It was a woman. Was it Gretchel? Was she still there with him? He lifted his head, but couldn’t open his eyes. He lay back down, releasing a little, bubbly chuckle. He gazed up through the depths and saw a group of redheads waving at him. He felt odd, but cheerful for the first time in a long time, and perhaps a bit like his hair—bouncy.
Peter saw Eli in his own hallucination, and thought: Why in the hell is he laughing at all those skeletons? And why are they screaming to be set free?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Irvine, 2010s
It was Saturday night. Ame was working. Zach was with Ben at a hockey game in St. Louis. Gretchel and her kids had been packing, organizing, cleaning, and moving house for two weeks—all with the help of Ella, Marcus, and Cindy. Gretchel could hardly remember the last time she had been alone.
And now she was—inside and out.
She lay down on her bed, fresh from the shower, and let out a long overdue sigh. The voices had been just a murmur for the past six days. Now that Gretchel was fully awake and capable of feeling emotion, she was capable of feeling lonely. At least the noisy Scottish broads kept her company.
Old thoughts began rolling around in her head. The shower had been hot. She was sweating even though the temperature outside was subzero. She took off her robe and lay back down. The thoughts in her head started taking shape, and she began having feelings she hadn’t felt in a long time. Lusty feelings.
Closing her eyes, she thought of Eli. It was painful. He was the only man that she would ever truly love. He was the only man that could bring out the life in her, revive the spirit that had been broken when she was teenager. He was the only man who had ever been her equal in so many ways. The only man she wanted to give herself to, for he had given her everything she had always wanted and needed.
But he was gone, and he was never coming back. That was the harsh reality. She had burnt that bridge a long time ago.
She thought of other men, other connections severed. She had patched things up with Devon, eventually, but that was over, too. There was someone else, though…. Not Eli—no one would ever be like Eli, ever—but she knew that this man from her past had never quite gotten over her. She could tell by the way he still looked at her.
He had sent her a dozen texts in the last two weeks, and she had ignored every one of them. Once upon a time, he had been one of the hired hands at Snyder Farms. He started working there when she was barely a teenager. He had turned into a handsome man, and—if memory served—he was a decent lay. Better than Troy, certainly, though Eli still had them both beat by a wide margin.
Quit thinking about Eli! she yelled at herself.
Her feelings were beginning to get the best of her.
Cast a spell, and he’ll come a runnin’, the Woman in Wool whispered sweetly.
“And suddenly you want to help me? I don’t trust you. Go away,” Gretchel said aloud.
Gretchel hadn’t had sex in three years. Her body had healed from Troy’s torture, but he had wanted nothing to do with her after that, and she would have beaten him off her if he had.
Cast a spell. The scared li’l rodent’ll come, the Woman in Wool insisted.
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll come, even if he is scared. As long as he’s scared stiff, he’ll do,” Gretchel said aloud. As she laughed at her own dirty wit, she discovered that she was inclined to take the advice that had been offered her. What could it matter, really, if she called this man to her? She wasn’t using him. She was just giving him what he wanted.
Gretchel wandered around the house, gathering what she could find for an attraction spell. It had been so long…. It occurred to her, as she rooted through drawers and looked in cupboards, that a text message would work just as well, but she didn’t want to text. She wanted to do some magic. She wanted that at least as much as she wanted to get laid.
Once she was settled into the cottage, she would build a new stock of herbs and implements, but for now…. She found a pink birthday candle, a pack of matches, and a red Sharpie in the kitchen junk drawer, and a galvanized bucket in the basement. She knew she had a notebook on her bedside table, so she headed back upstairs.
Gretchel carried everything to her walk-in closet, the one place in this house that felt like her space. She surveyed her supplies with a critical eye: not exactly ideal for the type of magic she had in mind. She would just have to do her best with a powerful intent—and maybe some good lingerie.
She sorted through the clothes that hadn’t been boxed up and carted off to the cottage, and settled on a pair of diaphanous black panties and matching bra. She decided to give her hair a blow-out, brushing it until it was a shining wave of flame-red flowing down her back. She found a lipstick she hadn’t worn in ages—a brilliant matte red. Now we’re getting somewhere, she thought. She still felt lust, but now that feeling was united with something else: a sense of power.
A fire began burning within her, but this was more than lust. It was control, and it felt odd and slightly unsettling. Paradoxical, even. She was preparing to exert her will over another human being, but, at the same time, as she moved into the spell work, she felt driven by a force beyond herself.
Gretchel grabbed a soap dish from the bathroom and took it to her closet. She lit a match, melted the bottom of the pink candle, and stuck it to the dish. Then she used the red marker to write two names on a piece of paper. She wrote the names three times, going over her writing again and again until they were a nearly-indecipherable blur of red. Then she lit the candle and held the paper over it while she chanted.
Light the flame,
Bright the fire,
Red is the color of my desire.
She held the burning paper until it almost singed her fingers, then she dropped it in the metal bucket. She focused all her intent on the tiny point of light. As it sputtered out, Gretchel felt her longing surge through her whole body and then fly out into the world, toward the man she wanted—or, at least, the man she wanted right now.
Gretchel took a deep breath, savoring the feeling of a spell well cast. Then she looked for something to wear while she waited.
The living room was dark and a little chilly. Gretchel thought about throwing a flee
ce jacket over the gray cashmere sweater she had put on, but that wasn’t exactly the look she was going for. All the furniture was gone—given away or sold—so she simply stood by the window, looking out on the silent January night. She didn’t expect to be waiting long.
Fifteen minutes passed.
Gretchel began to feel extremely cold and slightly impatient.
Be still, ye randy tart! He’s comin’.
“Shut up,” Gretchel muttered.
Then she heard a knock at the back door. She took her time answering it.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” His voice frosted the air. “Can we talk?” He couldn’t help looking around to see if anyone had seen him.
Gretchel was well past caring what her neighbors might think about anything. “Sure.” She moved aside to welcome him in, but not so far aside that he didn’t have to brush against her as he entered.
He followed her from the kitchen to the living room. Gretchel could feel the invisible cord that had pulled him to her. It was a connection made of momentary need—nothing like the soul-deep union she had had with Eli—but it was real enough for now. She knew that, at this moment, he would follow her anywhere.
She turned to regard him. She saw him all the time, but she hadn’t really seen him in years. She touched her neck, as she looked him over.
Tasty, one of the voices cackled appraisingly.
So tasty, Gretchel agreed internally.
He was looking her over, too, but he felt compelled to play the role of old family friend. “How are you? How are you doing? I’ve been worried about you.”
“I’m sick of talking about how I’m doing,” Gretchel said.
“Do you need anything?”
Gretchel looked around at the empty room and laughed a mirthless laugh. “I need everything.”
He blew out a sad sigh, and Gretchel almost felt bad for laughing.
Enough. The spell had done its job, now she had to work her own magic. She tossed her flaming hair and stepped forward until her bare toes touched the tips of his boots. “Your wife...”
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