A Witch's Curse

by Nicole Lee

  A mist began forming in the background of where Mary was supposedly standing, and the lamentations of voices soft as whispers cascaded from some unknown area, its audibility shooting through the mirror.

  “We need your help,” Grady said. “This woman is a genuinely bad person, not a true good hearted witch like you-”

  “Tell your sinful devotee to leave, or I shall make him do it myself.”

  Rose leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Mary knows when we’re not telling the truth, remember?”

  Grady shrugged. He looked back at the reflection, before deciding to move out of sight, but not so far away that he could not see and hear what was going on.

  “Your mother was an indelibly gifted witch,” Worth said. “She was able to create a deadly pestilence with the mere flick of a hand. Men saw her as a blessing before she became their affliction. Many people of a higher calling gave her chances to redeem herself if she agreed to use her efficacy for good. Being the great witch that she was, she turned them down. Through use of her own divination, she is not of small stature.”

  “Right,” Rose said. “So how can I send her away from my town and make sure she doesn‘t come back?”

  A deep laugh, one that sounded as if it were irrigated, erupted from Mary. “You think she will ever be out of your life? Silly. The only way that would ever eventuate is if you eliminated her from top to bottom, which may be easy if she were flesh and blood, as assuredly she is not.”

  Rose paused. “There’s no way I can rid myself of her?”

  “You can, but not beyond recall. See, there is no saving you. Our physical forms all turn to dust, yet yours will be forced to at an earlier age.”

  Rose, for the first time in her life, contemplated her mortality in a saddening way. She looked up and saw Grady, who wore a tragic expression that probably outdid her own, and something told her that his miserable thoughts rivaled hers.

  “Can I at least save a few lives around me?” Rose asked, trying to keep her own fate out of her mind. “Is there any way the ones out there can be spared?”

  “You must show love in resistance to your mother. Love as a form of armament. The kind of love that she never gave you.”

  With that, as Rose pondered this advice, the strong and frosty gusts that had been ripping through them since they arrived here died out, leaving everything from the branches to the grass blades tranquil once again. The apricot and magenta colored stipules on the trees surrounding the graveyard no longer shook. The ossuary was now still, and the rebounding intonations drifting from the kids searching door to door for candy near the black street corners could, once again, be hearkened.

  The reflection of Mary disappeared, and with it the backdrop of vapors and odd noises. The glass shattered in Rose’s hands, imploding from within before its fragmental shards crumbled into a substance as fine as dust.

  “Breaking a mirror is also thought to be bad luck,” Grady said. He approached her at a slow pace, before seeing something that even Rose had not yet noticed, still shaken by the encounter.

  Her hands and wrists were bleeding.

  20

  Rose woke up the next morning after having only gotten a few hours of sleep.

  It took a number of seconds to see that she had sleep walked again. The wind brushed against her face in a much more aggressive way than it had at any other place she had been rudely stirred, and there was a fresh scent of water and grass. Leaning upright, she rubbed her eyes and took in the scenery around her.

  At first she was scared, because it only took a few seconds to see that she was thousands of feet above the lake.

  Rose was now on a cliff side, overlooking the massive body of water before her. At the end of the precipice, there was a tree whose sap had been drained, and standing next to the oversized plant was a familiar figure wearing brown suspenders and an old t-shirt.

  She stood up, happy to have worn shoes to bed, not to mention clothing in general. She approached the old man, who was staring directly at her with a smile. Rose wanted to judge him as creepy, yet his grin gave off more of a warmth than anything else.

  The crag hanging over the body of blue below formed more into an L shape with each step, the path becoming slimmer the further she traveled down it. Rose was careful to retain her balance, knowing that, even if the breeze were to become stronger than what it already was, she was likely to fall to her imminent doom below. Peering to her right, she saw that the wall was a series of jagged rock faces covered in mist.

  The sun was rising over the mountains, casting a vaporous haze of orange to fall over the great waters in the center of the town. There were droves of people hiking up paths in the detachment, each of them dressed individually in climbing gear. She thought about calling out to them, to see if any would actually hear her.

  She stared at the older gentleman a bit more closely, trying to take in his looks, since they gave her a severe case of déjà vu.

  “You’re familiar,” Rose said.

  “That’s because we’re family.”

  Much to her dismay, she had to hold back the tears which wanted to lunge from the depths of her eyes. “Grandpa?”

  “Yes,” he said, his smirk widening.

  “Okay,” she said, raising her hands and then folding her arms, shaking her head back and forth a number of times. “I’m still asleep. This is all a lie. I’ll wake up, you’ll be gone, and I’ll be in my bedroom.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” he said.

  “You’re…real?”

  “Not in a way you would know, but yes.”

  “You died of a blood clot years ago. This can’t be happening.”

  “Anyone else wouldn’t believe it,” he said in that soft, sophisticated and placid voice she could remember from her childhood. “Yet you, my dear, have had an unusual life. You’re not like the others. Sometimes that works against you, other times it’s a blessing and makes you feel like an individual, which you are; but the point is, I am here, and so are you. Fate brought us together this morning.”

  She wanted to say, duh, running into the poltergeist of my dead grandfather is hardly something I could call a coincidence, even as a witch, but stopped herself from being boorish.

  Gazing at him with much more focus now, she almost wanted to break down. Rather than looking the way he did when he was eighty nine, he looked closer to a healthy forty. His teeth were still perfectly white. His hair was cut short. He looked like he had just given himself a clean shave minutes before she woke up.

  “It’s great to see you again,” Rose said, wishing she could come up with words that had a deeper meaning, something that expressed her real joy. “But, did you bring me here? Is this Heaven?”

  He laughed, a deep chuckle emerging from his stomach. “No, Rose. This is still Lake Pines. It was well known you would wake up here today.”

  “I couldn’t have sleep walked here. I’m not a hiker, to say the least.”

  “You rode the ferry. The boy working the office thought you were drunk. He had no idea you weren’t even conscious.”

  “Ah. I actually walked up to him and asked to use the ferry? I could have fallen off or something. I could be dead right now.”

  “You’re too important for that,” her Grandfather said, a mischievous look in his eyes suddenly becoming perceptible. “We have bigger plans for you.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “It’s not meant for you to know at this point in your life. Trust me on this. Our encounter here was planned.”

  She clutched her head. “What am I needed for?”

  “Come here again,” he said. “I have matters to attend to.”

  With that, he turned around, and when Rose saw what he was about to do, she wanted to scream out at him to stop, to yell anything, but she choked up and could not utter a word.

  He had jumped over the peak‘s edge.

  She rode the ferry down from the crest. Taking in the panorama of the large number of rolling green hills, mis
shaped rock faces, and sweeping views of water, she could not help but reflect on the words of her Grandfather.

  When it reached the bottom, she undid the belt connected to the safety bar, and felt relieved to have both of her feet on ground again. Heights had always filled her with fear, and the fact that her problem with sleep walking was so severe it could lead to something like sending a person with a phobia of flying up a mountain, without even knowing it no less, terrified her even further.

  Walking by the ticket booth, passing the guy who had evidently allowed a near cataleptic girl easily a year younger than him ride a lethal appliance, she walked to the nearest bus stop. This time, she had no money in her pockets. Gazing to her left, she saw a group of girls dressed much more warmly than her.

  Rose loathed to ask anyone for money, especially seeing as how she was still in her night gown. People were gazing in her direction as if she were someone from a distant, uncivilized country. Deciding that now was no time to be timid, she approached a group of girls wearing white fur coats and colorful beanies.

  “Can I have four dollars?” Rose asked.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll give you my cell-phone and home number,” she said. “You can call me and I’ll pay you back.”

  “Here‘s a trip back to your cardboard house,” one of the girls with an almost ruby head of scarlet hair said, handing her a five dollar bill. “Just leave us alone.”

  Of course, she felt a considerable anger against this random stranger that she had politely asked a favor from. She swore that she would dress for bed as an airline passenger does a flight from now on.

  Fifteen minutes of time passed, and she was soon on the means of public transportation, traveling down the main highway. The main plaza near the hotels were filled with tourists from every corner of the earth.

  Rose pulled the wire hanging above her head when she saw it was on the same street as the Realm of the Out of Print book store. She strolled off the steps of the bus and frantically walked into the cluttered, dusty shop.

  Alexis was selling a book about Napoleon Bonaparte to a man in a tweedy English coat.

  “I need to talk,” Rose said over the person‘s shoulder to Ms. Harvey. “Right now. In private. Preferably for a long time, because I’ve had the kind of day that’s really unusual.” She paused and then added: “Even for the two of us.”

  Harvey nodded to a customer, as they completed the transaction and he left, staring at her oddly on his way out.

  “You look really tense. Someone dressing in their PJ’s in the middle of the day should at least be comfortable.”

  “My Grandfather, who is no longer with us? Yeah, I saw him this morning. On the cliffs to the east of here - Auster‘s point, I think is what it’s called.”

  “I’ve always suspected that area as having something suspicious about it.”

  “Yet he made something very clear,” Rose continued. “He said I should meet him again in the same spot.”

  “It’s very serious to be a beneficiary of communication with a spirit.”

  “Yeah. That’s the feeling I got.”

  Alexis sighed. “I think you should go back to the Auster cliffs, and…”

  “What?” Rose said. “Try and summon him? We both know sojourning with the dead is bad news. It’s not something a good witch does, you told me that yourself a while back.”

  “Sometimes, for the safety of others, one must break the rules.”

  “You can’t go and play that game with me.”

  “Rose, I never said we should call him from the dead. Did you ever stop to think that maybe ghosts have preferred areas of the towns they lived in most of their lives? Maybe the Auster area has sentimental value to him. Perhaps it was there he chose to spend much of his youth, or had an epiphany which made his life easier. Don’t you ever find it odd the areas that the spirits of the departed generally choose to hang out?”

  “Yes,” Rose said, after much deliberation.

  “As living beings, we think that if our souls can travel, why not visit the world? See all of the universe, for that matter? Why does it always seem to be abandoned moors and highway tunnels that they live in? Here’s the answer. It’s because the place is valuable to them in ways that we can’t understand until we put ourselves in their shoes.”

  “So, you want me to go back because you think he could be there again?”

  “It’s worth trying,” Alexis said. “Frankly, I envy you. If I could have a conversation with my grandfather, it would make the happiest I’ve ever been.”

  “It’s a privilege until he freaks you out by cutting it short and jumping off a cliff that’s thousands of feet in the air. How come I‘ve had multiple encounters with the dead, and yet no one seems to be on the local news channel reporting ghosts?”

  “Only those of us connected to the paranormal can see the dead when a curse like your mother’s has been brought. We witches don’t have ordinary ways of seeing things.”

  Rose jumped out of her seat and went to the front door. “I wish we did. I want my life stops feeling like an episode of the Twilight Zone for once! ”

  She moved outside. Walking across the street, flashes of anger persisted in coursing through her.

  21

  Rose walked up to the host at the ferry, who was standing outside of the ticket booth smoking a palm mall cigarette. After seeing her walk closer to him, he flicked it and stomped it out, staring at her with a dopey, amorous smile.

  “So, you want to go up there again?”

  “Yes,” Rose said, walking to one of the lifts. She had time to go back home and dress normally thirty minutes before, although she was still shaken up about everything, therefore not being able to feel as standard as the levi‘s and tank top she was wearing.

  She rode the ferry to the peak again, and then stepped off the compartment and made her way along the path, admiring the nature before her, while still in terror of it. All it would take to plunge to one’s death below would be stepping on one loose rock. A part of her really felt as if this was too dangerous for tourists, even professional skiers.

  Her grandfather was there, waiting for her. His hands were dug deeply into his pockets. He gave her that same charismatic and warm smile.

  “I wanted to meet you here,” she said.

  “You look like your grandmother. Don’t know if I’ve you’ve been told that. How’s Damian?”

  “Working too much. He really loves you. He always told me about how well he was treated while a kid.”

  Her grandfather laughed. “Yes. Sounds like me.”

  “Tell me, exactly why do you choose to remain here? I mean, you’re a soul, right? You could go anywhere. Why not hang out in the Eiffel tower and scare unsuspecting travelers or explore the cosmos? Enter parallel vortexes and worm holes and oceans and junk. You can spend your free time probably talking with anyone, right? You could have a conversation with Thomas Edison. Why are you here?”

  He laughed. “First off, do you think I really spend all of my time here? No. As for the options you just gave, well, let me cap it off by saying been there, done that. It’s fun, but there’s no place like home. The reason I like this place is because it was here I kissed your grandmother for the first time.”

  “I should have guessed that,” Rose responded. “My father used to tell me about how you met her.” She paused, taking in the majestic sights before her.

  In the corner of her eye, she saw something black moving in an abrupt and jerking way. It was not until craning her head all the way to the right that she it was a crow. In the distance, there was an entire flock of the black birds.

  “Rose, I can only talk to you for some time before I break a rules of the afterlife itself. And believe me, if I did that, all hell would break loose. Literally. I have to go.”

  “Thanks,” Rose said, and then: “It’s been real.”

  Rose was driven away from the cliff side after her Grandpa stepped off a second time. Despite him not being of the
flesh, and enlightened of how he could not possibly be hurt, she was still shocked enough to walk away at a brisker pace, attempting to get away quickly.

  The crows followed her until she reached the commuting lift.

  On her stroll through the town and back to her house, desiccated plant life blew past her shoes, bumping against the stone buildings surrounding her.

  It was now evening, and a thin veil of shade was beginning to cloak the city in its sheet of blackness. Before long it would be completely dim.

  Moving by a haircutting place, she would have sworn that a fleshless skull sitting in the barber’s chair looked at her. It was not until she stopped to get a better look that it became apparent how no one was there to begin with.

  Continuing on her stroll, it was not long before she was crossing the spacious parking lot behind one of the major hotel resorts. It was littered with old beer bottles and a multitude of other types of garbage. No one was around for miles. Although she knew this was just her being paranoid, she decided to grip her can of mace hanging inconspicuously from the side of her backpack.

  That afternoon, she found herself at home, feeling safe for the first time in hours.

  Rose knew this sense of security would not last.

  Early the next morning, Rose covered herself in every article of warm clothing that her closet possessed before heading downstairs into the kitchen. A part of her knew, based on the temperature at even six a clock, that it was going to be a warm enough day. Still, she could not afford the wounds from last night’s broken glass to be even a little noticeable.

  Sitting at the table, she ate small microwavable pancakes. Ordinarily she brushed her teeth before and after eating a meal, but today was different. Rose wanted to avoid looking into a mirror at all, if she could help it, afraid that Bloody Mary would peer back with her homicidal gaze, croaking out her shrieking laughter and making threats.

  The sound of a noise escaping the main bedroom could be heard. Gazing upwards, she was surprised to see her father stumbling out of the main room. He smiled at her.