Red

by Amy Stilgenbauer

  Clarissa’s grandmother raised an eyebrow. “Did she? She always was a very self-aware girl. What did you say back to her?”

  “I...I asked for more information...told her I’d look into it, but she never wrote back. I’m worried about her. Something’s happened...”

  “Nothing that wasn’t bound to happen.” She tied the sachet closed and held it out to Opaline, who took it without question. “I tried my best. I did want better for her. Unfortunately, some things cannot be helped.”

  The rue in her hand smelled bitter and harsh, but it didn’t compare to the sinking sensation Opaline felt. Something terrible had happened to Clarissa. “What couldn't be helped, Grandmere LaRoux?”

  “Why, the curse, little harvest witch.”

  Opaline squared her shoulders. Clarissa had never mentioned a curse, but Opaline knew the prophecy of the harvest being stolen like the back of her hand. Her own parents had drilled it into her from birth. “If you’re speaking of the Underland prophecy...”

  “I am not. I am speaking of a magic that is older and deeper and darker than you could possibly imagine.” Her voice grew ever fiercer with each word. A crack in the wall behind her seemed to grow as well. “I am speaking of lost hope, desolation, destruction...”

  A shelf fell from a nearby bookcase, but Opaline held her ground. If Clarissa had been taken, she would go and bring her back. That much was easy enough to decide. “That sounds exactly like the Underland. Have they taken Clarissa?”

  “Clarissa’s been taken by herself,” a calmer voice said. Opaline barely realized that the words had issued from the same person. The two women stared at each other for a long while. Just when Opaline was about to give up and excuse herself, Grandmere LaRoux relented. “Follow me. Bring the rue.”

  After an almost imperceptible scan of the area, she led Opaline through another wine colored curtain and down a set of stairs. Opaline held the sachet of rue close to her chest as if it could protect her from whatever lie ahead.

  Bundles of drying herbs and flowers hung low enough from the cellar’s ceiling to brush the top of Opaline’s head. Instinctively, she stooped, hoping none of them were infused with anything nefarious. They passed through yet another door into a sparse room: decorated only with cobwebs, a deteriorating wooden podium, and a single shelf of leather bound books.

  “What is this place?” She asked, her voice trembling more than she would have liked as she noticed the bars over the foundation window.

  “The safe room.”

  “S-safe room?”

  “It doesn’t always work.” She gestured to what had once been a second window, now covered with heavy nailed boards.

  “Do you...sacrifice people?” The room felt suddenly colder and Opaline backed up toward the door.

  Grandmere LaRoux laughed. “Not directly, no. Though it really is for the best if you steer clear of trying to find Clarissa for awhile.”

  Her words made no sense no matter how Opaline tried to parse them. She clutched the rue tighter. “I don’t...think I understand.”

  “Of course not.” With great care, Grandmere LaRoux took one of the leather volumes from the shelf over to the podium. She didn’t open it. She merely stared at the embossed French words on the cover. “Ambition is a tricky beast, Mrs Mooreland. Without it, many of us would accomplish very little. I know I wouldn’t have. Clarissa wouldn’t have gone to college. This store wouldn’t exist either. We all need to have something to strive for. Dreams...are important.”

  Opaline nodded. She wasn’t sure what to say. She had dreams too. They were different than Clarissa’s, but that never stopped them from being friends.

  “However, we need to be flexible and have balance. Sometimes circumstances change our minds. Sometimes...” She trailed off, shaking her head. “I’m talking nonsense.”

  “No, Madam LaRoux, please. I want to understand.”

  Grandmere LaRoux opened the book and then immediately closed it again. She then held it to her heart with a long deep sigh. “This is hard, Mrs Mooreland. I’m sorry.”

  “Take your time.”

  She opened the book again. The pages were filled with tight lines of cursive handwriting. The words were so tiny that even if they were in English, Opaline would be at a loss to read them.

  “Is that another grimoire?”

  “No,” but she offered no further explanation. Instead, she pressed her fingers to her lips and then lightly touched the page before her, which began to glow with a faint red light. “I don’t know how long ago it started, but my ancestors, many years ago, were tasked with protecting the fern flower. It only blooms once a year, on the summer solstice, and to those who happen across it, the flower can bring fortune, great riches, even the ability to talk to animals, some say. I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.”

  Flowers were something Opaline could relate to. She had been raised in the Harvest magic tradition; taught from day one that her purpose in life was to nurture and protect growing things. Still, she had never heard of a fern flower. As far as she knew, all ferns grew from spores on their leaves. “If you are supposed to guard it...”

  “It was destroyed,” Grandmere LaRoux answered before Opaline could finish her question. “Over three hundred years ago now. A young explorer came across the flower, and, of course, my own arrière-grandmère. He didn’t know what she was, but recognizing her abilities, he asked for his future. She told him of the flower, as is custom, but also warned him that undue ambition was not all what it seemed. Explorers do, however, tend to be ambitious men, and he plucked it from the ground straight away.”

  Grandmere LaRoux turned several more pages. The red light from the book grew stronger as it pulsed off the velum. “Years later, he and his wife came upon a lutin...you might call them gnomes or...brownies. But this one, this one was different. It had bright red eyes that resembled fire in every way, except instead of intense heat, the explorer felt intense cold. The couple was frozen in their tracks and it advanced, grinning with rotten, pointed fangs. The explorer tried to scare it away by shaking a stick, but the creature continued to advance. When it reached them it said so shrilly, ‘beware the Nain Rouge’ and was gone.”

  Opaline could only stare, waiting for Grandmere LaRoux to go on. The older woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She appeared to have finished her tale, but Opaline knew there had to be more. The pages of the book glowed brighter.

  “Things went downhill quite quickly for the young explorer after that. He died penniless upon his return to France.”

  “And the lutin?”

  “Remained to haunt the city the explorer founded in retribution for the treasure she had failed to protect.”

  “No,” Opaline said, aghast. “That’s not fair. The explorer picked the flower...”

  “No one ever said curses were fair, Mrs. Mooreland.”

  “But...Clarissa...”

  “Is now the creature. That’s how it works. We remain the creature for a time, and then, one day...I tried everything I could to protect her, Opaline. I truly did. But it was all for naught.”

  “When will she...?”

  “I do not know. The cycle...it’s one of the many that repeats itself over and over. Myself, once, I was in that form for over a hundred years.” She shook her head. “And I did such terrible things. You see, in that form, we become spirits of pessimism, harbingers of doom and destruction. We not only symbolize the loss of hope, we become the loss of hope. I can only pray that when she does revive, she doesn’t remember a moment.”

  Opaline shook her head. She wasn’t willing to accept this news. “Grandmere LaRoux, the taxi is waiting to take me back to the train. I have to go, but I swear to you, I will find a way to help Clarissa.”

  “I don’t doubt that you will try,” Grandmere LaRoux said skeptically, taking Opaline into a tight hug. “But, my little harvest witch, you must forget her. You are so much better off.”

  6.

  June 2013. Detroit Medical Center.


  The nurse pulled back the plastic mint green curtain that surrounded Clarissa’s bed. She looked far more poised and stoic than she had just a moment before. Her shoulders were thrown back and her face wore a defiant expression. If Clarissa didn’t know better, she would have sworn that this girl thought she was being led to her death. Raymond removed the guiding hand from her shoulder and ducked from the room.

  “No one is going to be happy about this,” she muttered, looking pointedly from Clarissa to Opaline.

  “You recognized the creature?” Clarissa asked, trying to hide her desperation. “What is it?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  Clarissa shook her head.

  “How can you not know?”

  “Moira,” Opaline interjected. The nurse’s eyes shot to her nametag, the look of terror back on her face. “How do -you- know? How about we start there?”

  As Moira took Opaline in, her expression quickly turned to one of anger and disgust. “You,” she sputtered. “If you think your lot is going to get off any easier by looking after her, you’re in for some sore disappointment. The Nain Rouge does not take sides.”

  Opaline watched the nurse, her abnormally calm expression unchanging. Clarissa was impressed. A younger Opaline would not have been able to keep her face so unreadable. “Miss LaRoux is an old school friend of mine. I assure you, there is nothing self-serving in my being at her bedside. Now if you would kindly-”

  “You expect me to believe a harvest witch?”

  Opaline smiled wryly, taking in the small silver necklace the nurse wore: a blown out candle. “Ah, yes, Underland. I should have recognized that pendant.”

  “I don’t care who you are,” Clarissa interupted. “I just want to know what’s happening to me.”

  The nurse turned back to her with sad eyes. “How can you not know?” She asked again. It pained Clarissa to hear the pity in her words.

  “I wish I could answer that.”

  “This monster...haunts our city. It is called the Nain Rouge.”

  “What does it want with me?”

  She paused again, looking back at Opaline once more. “Miss LaRoux, it is you.”

  Clarissa felt as if she had been struck in the face. She didn’t understand. How could she -be- the creature. She had seen the creature at the window. It didn’t look anything like her.

  “No, It’s not.”

  Moira simply shook her head. “It probably would have been easier on you if you were prepared.”

  “No.” Clarissa scrambled from her bed. Her legs wobbled, but the rage that surged through her as she advanced on the nurse was enough to keep her standing. “My name is Clarissa LaRoux. I am a nurse from Detroit, Michigan.”

  To Moira’s credit, though she trembled, she stood her ground. “You...”

  But Clarissa did not let her speak. “My grandmere taught me ancestral magic, but only enough to keep me safe. I am not a Brownie, or a demon, or a spirit of any kind. I was born-”

  She stopped her advance when Moira lifted her pendant. An ice blue aura encircled it for a split second and Clarissa no longer felt able to move toward her. “D-do you want me to tell you about Nain Rouge or not?”

  “Let her speak, Clarissa,” Opaline said, her voice soft and motherly. Clarissa didn’t like the tone. She also didn’t like resigned look upon her friend’s face. For a moment, the old Opaline was breaking through and Clarissa could see every emotion written there.

  “YOU KNEW!” She shouted, turning now on Opaline. “You knew about this...and you didn’t tell me.”

  “Your Grandmere,” Opaline said, a recognizable sadness leaking through her calm tone. “She told me...I came looking for you...”

  “But...earlier...you said you didn’t know...”

  “Uh oh, harvest witch,” Moira said with a pronounced tsk tsk. “Looks like you’ve offended your pet.”

  “This doesn’t concern you!” Opaline spat back. She got to her feet and went immediately to Clarissa, taking her hands.

  But Moira wasn’t going to give up. “You’re the one that drug me in here. You wanted me to be the one to break the bad news, huh?”

  Clarissa pulled away from Opaline and turned back to the nurse. “Why did you say no one would be happy?”

  Moira held up her pendant and backed up a few steps to lock both Opaline and Clarissa in her gaze. “Because...I’ve been paying attention. I can only imagine why you’re human again and how long you will be. Shit, I mean...This war’s coming to it, isn’t it, harvest witch?”

  Before Opaline could answer, Moira whipped the red leather bound book out of what appeared to be nowhere and set it on Clarissa’s nightstand. “Perhaps this will jog your memory.”

  When Clarissa picked it up, there was a flash of red light.

  7.

  December 1, 1969. Paint Twp, Ohio.

  The television blared in the next room as Opaline sat writing her letters. “Abe, can you turn that down?” she called, not looking up.

  “They’re calling the-”

  “No.” She stood from the table, walked to the tv and switched it off. It crackled for a moment, static emphasizing her position, before going dark. “Raymond is a child and you’re too old. I don’t want to know. It’s macabre, Abe.”

  “I have brothers...:

  “Who are Amish. Will you go check on the children?”

  Abe nodded, stretched his legs dramatically, then went out to the yard. “Cerise! Ray!” Opaline peered out just long enough to see the two of them sitting on the wooden sheep pasture fence watching the snow pile up and then turned back to her letters.

  Half finished for the past few months and still on the top of the pile, laid a letter to Grandmere LaRoux. Opaline had been researching the fern flower and the mysterious lutin said to haunt Detroit. Sightings of it had picked up in recent years and she was beginning to wonder if the Underland prophecy was, indeed, somehow connected. The winter before had been unbelievably harsh. This one was feeling bad as well, and it was only December. Also, 70% of the farm’s crops had been destroyed in a derecho that July. She certainly felt her hold on weather was beginning to fade. Perhaps it had been doing so since Clarissa was taken.

  More importantly, she just wanted Clarissa to be okay. She knew that right now, if the accounts she had been reading were true, she was most certainly not.

  Opaline had started the letter a hundred times or more, but she couldn’t finish it. She couldn’t get past the feeling that if anyone was keeping an eye on lutin sightings it was Grandmere LaRoux. She also tried to write to Clarissa every once and awhile, but those letters always returned unopened.

  The door blew open and two young children raced inside followed by a gust of snow. “Shut the door behind you!” Opaline called out as they chased each other around the table.

  “Raymond said he’ll sick the pigs on me!” Cerise wailed. Her cheeks were a little too red, approaching pre-frostbite conditions. It must have been colder outside than Opaline realized.

  She sighed. “Go sit by the fire. I’m make the two of you some cocoa.” Once again, the letter was abandoned as she went to the stove. Part of her knew that it would never be finished.

  “He shouldn’t get cocoa,” Cerise pouted, but she did as her mother asked. Raymond grinned wickedly as he followed her.

  Abe ruffled his son’s hair and picked up the paper on Opaline’s desk. “Opal? You’re writing to LaRoux again?”

  Opaline shrugged. “Her grandmother. I told you...about the lutin thing?”

  A strange look passed over his face as he read through what she had written. He walked over to the stove and wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist. She leaned back into him, enjoying the sense of security and strength those arms provided.

  “Opal...do you really think...you’re losing...” His voice was stilted and fearful. She didn’t know if it was an immediate fear for the family’s farm and source of income or a deeper fear, one that ran through all who practiced harvest
magic. “That’s something I never thought I’d live to see.”

  “Everything’s felt off lately, Abe. You feel it too. I know you do.”

  He shook his head. “There has to be a balance.”

  That was his motto. Opaline knew it well. Still, her anxiety was not so easily soothed. “I wonder...if I could grow a fern flower...”

  “A magical flower that grants the power to speak to animals, Opaline?” He sounded skeptical and this was the man who believed he could actually learn to control time. “I think that’s beyond even you.”

  “I think if anyone can pull it off, I can.”

  Abe sighed. “I don’t doubt that.”

  Opaline had to laugh to herself as she pulled away to pour the cocoa into mugs. At least her husband knew when to let her go with her whims. There were many reasons she loved him, but that was a nice bonus. “I promise I won’t make a mess trying,” she teased. Then she called to the children. “Cocoa’s ready! Who wants peppermint?”

  She felt a soft touch on her arm and looked back at Abe whose eyes were full of concern. “I’m not worried about a mess. It’s just...I’ve seen what this kind of obsession can do.”

  She handed the mugs off to the excited youngsters and after advising them not to run because the cocoa was very hot, she turned back and wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck. She kissed him briefly and then looked deep into his eyes, locking them into an intense, sincere gaze. “Do not fret about me. I’m a practical girl. I know when to stop.”

  She kissed him again in case he didn’t believe her, and once more because she wanted to.

  *

  June 23, 1972

  Despite her words that winter night, Opaline wasn’t entirely certain she did know when to stop. Some nights she didn’t sleep. She locked herself in the root cellar and experimented: on rue, on rhododendrons, on actual ferns. None yielded results.