by Ira Robinson
"But how? How am I supposed to fight against a demon? A spirit?" Sam kept her seat, but barely, as the agitation in her grew. She did not know if she fully believed in what the woman was saying to her, it was all so crazy.
"I can try to help with that." Odessa remained calm, even as she saw Sam fighting against what she had to say. "I've learned a few things in my years in this world, dear. I might be able to do something, if you're willing to let me."
A large part of Sam wanted to believe in what she was telling her. She desperately needed help with what had been haunting her, but at the same time, the rational side ached to tell this woman she was crazy and run to her car. It was all just too much.
A demon? What the hell would that want with her, even if they existed? But had she not seen proof for herself there was something going on? Her skin still raged with the bites and welts she sustained from the attack.
In all of her life, she had never before encountered spirits, or demons, or magic, or anything else that this woman seemed to be about, and, despite having encountered something over the past few days, a part of her wanted to dismiss it all away as explainable.
Yet, had it not been her who just hours before was trying to convince Bart there was something going on that he could not believe, too? Hadn't he treated her in the same way as she, herself, instinctively reacted to Odessa?
Sam bit back against the dozens of things that part of herself wanted to say, and, instead, leaned forward and said, "What can we do?"
Odessa had been watching her from the counter, taking stock of every movement the younger woman made. Sam saw the stiffness in her back relax as she returned to the table and sat once more.
"We have to unbind you from this spirit. It'll take me a little time to prepare, but there is a process you have to do, as well."
"Such as?" Her brows furrowed.
"You're going to need to get a few things for this to work, but most important, you have to believe it will help." Odessa stared at her, even as Sam put her gaze on the table. "Can you do that?"
"You mean a spell? Magic?"
"Something like that, yes." Odessa kept her voice low.
Could she really believe it? Could she let go of the part of herself that was pure cop, rational, and believe something that could not possibly exist?
She thought of the painting Bart had carted away, the one she woke to, created with her own hands and yet could not remember doing. Moving on its own, to stare at her with a laughing grin on its lip-less features was as strong now as it had been moments after happening.
With all she had been through, believing in magic could be the easiest part.
She nodded, but her throat choked up at any words, and she kept staring at the table.
Odessa let out a breath, the scent of coffee on it wafting over Sam. "You'll need an item precious to you. It has to mean more to you than anything else. That's what is going to represent yourself in the spell."
Sam slowly lifted her eyes and saw Odessa was serious about everything she was saying.
"Do you have something like that?"
Sam considered for a moment, wracking her brain to think of what she could use. Finally, it clicked.
"I think so, yeah," she answered, thinking of the necklace her mother gave to her just before she died. Nothing else would be more valuable to her than that.
"Okay, good." Odessa took a quick sip of her drink and put it back on the table. Percy stood and came to sniff it, then jumped down, wandering out of the kitchen. "The next will be harder. You're going to have to find something that represents the other being, the creature attached to you."
"What could that be?" Sam asked, her mind once more tumbling in upon itself as she tried to think.
"I don't know. You'll have to figure that out. I'll try, too, but, as you are the one affected by the thing, you're going to be better equipped to decide."
Sam let it go for the moment, putting it to the back of her mind, telling herself she would find it.
"What else?" she asked.
"A rope, representing the connection between the two of you. That'll probably be the easiest."
Sam nodded. She had some in her closet already that she could use.
"Is there anything more I will need?"
Odessa shook her head. "Just remember, you'll have to find something to represent the creature, associated with it in some way." She reached her hand across the table and patted Sam's own. "You're going to get through this, dear," she said, giving her a wan smile.
"All of this is not easy for me, you know?"
Odessa nodded, and said, "I understand. But the alternative is going to be worse."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked, pulling her fingers back.
Odessa's face grew serious once more. "If you don't stop it, it will kill you."
Chapter 13
The pendant glittered in the light from her end table, reflecting sparkles from the indentations on the surface.
It was small, barely as long as one of her fingernails, the silver it was made of delicate and frail. Any pressure, even to squeeze between the fingers she held it within, would bend the pretty thing out of shape.
Her mother wore it almost always, hanging from her neck on a silver chain that matched the pendant. That same chain still went through the loop on the top of the object, waiting for someone who would allow it to grace their own skin again.
Samantha had only worn it once, soon after her mother gave it to her. That time after her mother's death was terrifying for her younger self. The moment she put it on was one of deep sadness. She wanted to feel a modicum of intimacy to the woman she missed so much, but, even after putting it on and touching it, it did nothing to help her bring that sense of clarity and closeness she so often felt when her mom was around.
It was that day the loss of her really struck Sam, bringing her to her knees in prayer that God would, in his grace and mercy, allow her mother to come back to her.
She was thirteen when her mom lost her life, succumbing to a sickness that wasted her away into nothingness. It was such a senseless cost, especially for a woman who had done so much in her short moments on the earth.
Not only was she mother to Bart and Samantha, she was important for the town, as well, giving her time freely to anyone needing a hand. So many came to her funeral, they had to close most of the businesses down.
If someone needed food, Heather would be there, carrying freshly baked pies and a casserole or two, all of which she made herself. Sam spent hours working with her in the kitchen she may as well have worked at a restaurant instead of becoming a cop later in life.
Her mother not only did all of those things for everyone around her, she did them without the aid of her husband, who passed away when Sam was still in the womb, and she did it until the disease in her body forced her to do nothing but wait in her bed to die.
Sam did not know much about her father. Jackson was not in her life long enough for her to learn what kind of man he was, and she had to rely on what others told her about him. That was unfortunately rare. Her mother spoke of him some, but Sam could tell it was a difficult thing for her to talk about, so she did not press as hard as she felt the need to do.
Bart was silent about the subject, as well. After their mother died, and he turned into custodian of her, Sam would, in moments of their sitting together in silence, try to broach it with him. Closed lips was his only reply.
For the next day, he would become brooding and sullen, leading Sam to quickly realize it was not worth the effort to try.
After she became a cop and had time to look, she spent hours seeking out anything she could find on Jackson, but the file about his death was as generic as she had ever seen, and the final outcome of his demise was merely listed as "Death by Unknown Means." A reference to an autopsy file number that did not exist was the last.
It frustrated Sam, but there was little she could do about it. While there were so many thing she wanted to know about the man who was h
er father, there was not much for her to go on, and no one she could ask who would be willing to give her answers.
Maybe she would never find out more about him than his name and vague memories she held on to like a vice.
One night, he came to her bedroom while she was asleep and woke her with a kiss on her forehead. She blearily looked at him as he told her goodnight, and that he would see her again.
After she awakened, she realized it had all been a dream. Yet the scent of sandalwood cologne was in her nose, hanging heavy in the room.
It was not long after when Bart began to wear the hat she was told their father always wore, and when he eventually took on the role of police officer himself, he, perhaps, did it out of his own sense of the need for closure with Jackson.
Sam would probably never know for sure, since Bart kept everything relating to Jackson to himself, no matter how hard she pushed him to be otherwise.
She rolled the silver rose around in her hand, each gleam it sent away from itself captured briefly in her vision. In the image, the petals were open wide, as if waiting for the moment the sun would come and feed them with its glow. They extended from the stem at the bottom; tiny, delicate leaves branched off from it, each one catching the light in their own way.
Sam raised it to her lips and kissed it gently, inhaling as she did. The scent of her mom was gone from the pendant now, long worn down as it sat in the dresser drawer she kept it in. But the action alone was enough to spark the memory of the day her mother gave it to her.
The soft blanket the hospital had given to her had fallen away from her, and Sam, sitting in the chair nearby, noticed. She came to the side of the bed and lifted the blanket back atop her, covering the thin strands that had once been legs. The loss of her weight made her feel cold constantly; Sam wanted to make sure she endured it as little as possible.
Her mother was, by that point in time, lost within her own mind, locked away behind the shell her body had become. She did not speak much, and when she did, it was mostly incoherent. But Sam felt in her heart her mom had awareness of what was happening outside of herself, even if she could rarely express it as she wanted to. She had to stay there for those precious few moments of lucidity.
She was out of school so frequently that year, they threatened her with suspension, but the guidance counselor fought for her, understanding this was time the family needed to be together the most. He made sure Sam had the homework she missed by being at her mother's side as often as she was. Sam would dutifully complete everything she was given, hoping the grade would be enough to make up for her truancy.
Bart was there some, but it seemed to Sam he did not want to see their mother as she was, and used excuses to keep himself busy to avoid it all. Sam wanted him there, desperately needed his strength to help herself get through it all, but, as the days progressed and he consistently did not come, she had no choice but to be not only what she required herself to be, but her mother, too.
"Take it," her mom said in a moment of coherence. She held the pendant out before her, the chain dripping from her frail hand. "I want you to have it."
Sam wanted to refuse, to tell her mother she could not take it. She did not want to accept that by giving it to her, her mother was admitting defeat. Sam demanded her to fight, to rail against the disease ravaging her and find some way, some strength within herself to stay with her agonized daughter.
But in that hour of clarity, that minute when Sam locked her eyes to those of her mother, she realized it was already far past the time for her to somehow emerge victorious on the other side of the illness. There was so little of her left, so little energy in the small frail frame that she could use to keep herself going.
Sam did finally take the necklace from her, and cried into the shoulder of the woman who gave her life. She shed bitter tears for nearly an hour before Heather slipped into sleep, giving her relief from the pain she was constantly in.
When she succumbed to it all, letting go of her agony with a singular, gigantic breath, Sam's hands were wrapped around her own. She closed her eyes and the breaths no longer struggled in, and Sam sat back in her chair and wept for her loss.
Yet, even as the misery in her heart grew, she was, at the same time, somehow grateful for the final moment. Her mother was free of the pain, and whether that meant she went to a better place or to oblivion, she was not going to have to face that ache any longer.
Some of the tears were from guilt over the a twinge of relief that it was all finally ended. It was selfish to feel, and she would never admit it aloud to anyone, but it was still there, nonetheless.
So many families at the funeral, coming to "pay their respects" to a person who had done more than her fair share for the community. Each soul there had been personally impacted by Heather in some way.
Samantha shook hands and accepted hugs, and they all had sympathetic eyes for her. She could hear whispers around her. "Oh the poor thing." "Imagine being a young woman without her mother." "Who's going to take care of the house?"
Sam knew they meant well; people like that always did. None of it helped her through her grief.
Even Bart was barely there for her. He handled arranging the funeral and the pretty flowers, and made sure the preacher gave a good speech, but she rarely saw him in those days otherwise. They lived together, but were separate strangers, working through their suffering in their own ways.
She resented him for a little while, angry with him for not being there for her when she so fiercely needed someone, relief from the vacuum that had been created inside of herself. She later realized it was unfair to him. He was a guy who was trying to do the right thing for a sister he had become saddled with, the loss of his mother, the absence of his father, and all at a time when he was putting his own life together.
She saw she could not really blame him for the way he had been; it was who he was, and to expect anything else out of him because of her own views on what a brother should be were not things she could put on him. How could he live up to a perception?
That realization did not come swiftly, however, and in those earliest moments of her loneliness and sadness, it was almost more comforting to Sam to blame him than to deal with the loss of the one she held so dear. Not fair, perhaps, but also critical to her at that stage of her life and for the state of her own mind.
Even after the passage of years, to the moment when she stood at the dresser with the necklace in her hand, she could not remember Bart opening up to her about what he had been going through during that time of their lives. He never talked about their father and rarely broached the subject of their mom. On her birthday they would each go to the grave where she rested and gave their love over to her, but never together. They would cross paths once in a while on that day, but both would keep their own thoughts to themselves.
When Sam would go, she would stare at the name "Jackson Miller" etched into the stone next to Heather, and wonder about the man she never really knew, but she could not say a word to him. She would tell her mother about how things were going in her life, catching her up on the latest news as if she were alive and well, but her father was an enigma to her. He was a part of her she had no real connection to, and though she was curious, she would not feel comfortable opening up to someone she did not know or understand. Even the subtle anger she once held for him and his leaving her had faded away with time. He had been there, and he was gone, and that was all.
Anything she felt for him beyond that was relegated to her dreams.
She brought the necklace to her bed and sat down, the waves of memories washing through her. The light glinting into her eyes blurred as tears began to push their way into her vision, and she let them.
"I need you here so bad, mom," she muttered quietly, the words barely choking out through her renewed grief. "I could really use your help right now."
Every time she held the necklace like this, she cried. Holding it cut the wounds open again as if no moments had passed since the day her moth
er died, letting the rawness of it hit her anew.
She let the familiarity of it caress her, as one droplet of her sadness after another dripped to the floor at her feet. They disappeared into the carpet, greedily taken by the dryness.
She pressed her palm closed and put her other hand atop it, wiping away the streams from her cheeks with the fists it created. Part of the chain rubbed gently against her skin as she did, pushing her aside from the focus her sadness had; she sniffled and shut her eyes as she said, "I love you mom."
If Odessa needed something to represent Sam, the necklace was probably the one thing in the world which would do the best. When her mother gave it to her, Sam's life altered in more ways than even she understood.
It was the moment she grew up and knew she would end up alone.
A heaving sigh forced its way through her lips as she crossed the room to the dresser once more. She kissed the necklace and put it on top of the wood and made herself turn away from it. Grieving for her once more was not going to help. Not now.
