by Pratt, Tim
“Well, we don't want you to keep you from meeting Miss hockey-sticks-and-sunshine,” Rocko said. “So we'll get this over with and then let you go.” He paused. “Punch him in the bladder a couple of times, first, let's see if we can make him wet himself."
Cory clenched his teeth. Curly hit him just above the pelvic bone, and it made a sharp bolt of pain jolt through him, but he kept control of his bladder.
“That's a little too close to his dick for me, man,” Angel said.
Curly scowled.
“Fair enough,” Rocko said. “I guess it doesn't much matter, anyway. Bring him over.” Rocko walked to the far stall, the one that was always out of order, that didn't flush properly. He pushed open the door, and a horrible stink wafted out. “We all took turns filling the pot,” Rocko said. “There's some shit, and some piss, and some more shit."
Cory started to struggle then, wrenching his arms as hard as he could. Curly and Angel grunted and held on tight, dragging Cory across the floor toward the stall. Knowing he couldn't break free, Cory opened his mouth to scream—and Rocko shoved a wad of balled-up toilet paper in his mouth, making him gag. “Shut up,” Rocko said quietly. “I can keep you from screaming—you see that, right? So no one's going to come help you. I'm going to take that toilet paper out of your mouth, and if you try to bite me, I'm going to do something a lot worse to you than I already have planned.” He grinned. “I want your mouth cleared out, so you can taste my shit and piss in there, but if I have to, I'll keep you gagged. I'll just swish the next wad of paper around in the toilet bowl first. Can you be quiet?"
Terrified, helpless, Cory nodded. Rocko reached to pull out the paper.
Blood, Cory thought. The thought came with nothing else, no context, no mental referents, but he acted on it all the same, biting Rocko's finger.
Rocko jerked his hand back with a hiss, and Cory saw the flecks of bright blood on his forefinger. “You shit!” he cried. “God damn you, I'm going to get you for that!"
Something welled up in Cory when he saw the blood—words to be said, certain movements to be made with his fingers, and a strange twisting in his mind. He didn't know where the impulses came from, but he followed them, because he somehow knew his salvation lay that way.
Everything blurred. His vision dimmed, and he felt as if he'd been dropped down an elevator shaft, a sensation of things whipping past at high speed. Turnaround, he thought. An interval of time went by—he couldn't be sure how long—but when he came back to his normal awareness, things had changed.
Rocko was kneeling before the filthy toilet, his head inside the bowl, and Cory had his foot pressed down on the back of Rocko's neck. He stumbled back, horrified—what had he done? He'd only wanted to get away!
Curly and Angel were leaning against the wall, bleeding from split lips, looking groggy. “Fuck,” Angel said, his voice slurred. “That's some kind of kung-fu shit."
Rocko lifted his head, and turned to look at Cory. The things smeared on his face made Cory gag, and it didn't help that they'd planned to shove his face into the toilet bowl; that didn't make it any less horrible.
“Get him!” Rocko snarled. “Get him and fucking kill him!"
“To hell with you!” Angel said. “Did you see what that motherfucker did? I'm not messing with him!"
Curly nodded his assent, and the two of them went stumbling out of the bathroom.
“How did you do that?” Rocko said softly, still kneeling on the floor. “You little bastard, that wasn't kung-fu, that was fucking impossible."
“Just leave me alone,” Cory said, his voice hoarse. He felt horribly on edge, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep from crying. He backed away. “Just stay away from me, I don't want anything to do with you, leave me alone!"
He ran from the bathroom, stumbling toward the office. He slowed down and took deep breaths. Rocko wouldn't be coming after him, not right away—he had to clean his face off first. What had happened back there? How had he done ... whatever he'd done?
Turnaround, he thought. The thought came in a woman's husky voice, but that didn't make any sense, either.
“Cory?” Heather said. “Are you okay?"
She came hurrying down the hallway, hockey stick in hand.
Cory shook his head. “I ... Rocko and his friends tried to mess with me again, in the bathroom."
She scowled. “Are you okay?"
“Yeah. I got away.” He didn't want to go into details, not least of all because he couldn't remember the details. “I'm okay."
She put her hand on his shoulder, and Cory realized he was shaking. “Take it easy. It'll be okay. Let's catch the bus."
“Yeah. Okay. It just..."
“It's adrenaline,” she said. “You're still all jazzed-up from it. You'll feel better soon. Come on."
“You sure fucked that up, didn't you?"
Rocko jerked his head up from the sink, where he'd been washing his face for the tenth time. He looked in the mirror, but didn't see anyone behind him. He turned around, and there was the woman, the witch from yesterday. Standing—with her bicycle—by one of the toilet stalls.
Rocko wondered for a moment if he was going insane. Witches and their malevolent bicycles didn't usually hang out in high school bathrooms. What would his psychiatrist say if Rocko told him about this?
“That piece of shit had some kind of trick,” Rocko said through clenched teeth.
“Looks like you're the piece of shit, now."
He took a step toward her threateningly, then stopped, remembering the pithed feeling from yesterday.
“It's not too late, though,” she said. “You tried humiliation, and it failed ... turned around on you, in fact—you were humiliated instead."
“So what do you suggest?” he asked, trying to stay cool. “Your last advice didn't help me much."
“As I said, the will to kill is a wonderful thing. You shouldn't do it here at school, though ... we wouldn't want you to get expelled."
“So where?"
She shrugged. “An opportunity will present itself, Rocko. Opportunities always do."
“And what should I kill him with?"
“This,” she said, and took the bag from the basket on her bike. She opened it so he could look inside.
“That's a pretty weird suggestion,” he said after a moment.
“Not the sort of weapon a ninth grader would be expected to use, though, my little Rival. And you don't own one, and it's not something you can pick up in the hardware store, so it's unlikely to be traced back to you. As long as you keep it clean of fingerprints and ditch it after you're done."
“What do you care? What's in this for you?"
“I'm the good witch, and I'm a big believer in the power of true love. I think you and that Girl could be beautiful together, if we get the Boy out of the way."
Rocko didn't believe her for a moment, but it didn't matter. He hadn't wanted to kill Cory before, not really, but now, after what he'd done to him in the bathroom today ... “Can you make me like I was yesterday? So that when I ... when I do it ... I don't feel anything?"
“Oh, my little Rival,” she said. “I think that's something you can learn to do on your own. Maybe you can even learn to enjoy the killing."
He thought that over. She was right. And whether he enjoyed it, or felt nothing, or whatever, he could still do it. “I can't carry that out of here,” he said, nodding toward the bag. “It's not exactly inconspicuous."
“Would you believe me if I told you it will be near to hand when you need it?"
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. From you, I believe it."
Cory and Heather sat together again on the way home. “Do you have Mr. Troublestone?” she asked.
“Yeah, seventh period, for Earth Science."
“Me too, but I've got him fifth. Do you have to do that micro-ecology thing?"
“Yeah. Seems like a pretty simple report."
“Simple, but boring. I was thinking it would be fu
n to write the report about something in the real world."
“Like what?"
“Like that stream in the woods behind my house. There's flies and frogs and reeds and even little fish...” She shrugged. “I thought we could study that. You know how Mr. Troublestone's always talking about old-time naturalists, drawing pictures of animals and flowers and stuff. I bet if we did something like that for the stream, learned about its ecology, we'd get a good grade. And it's more fun than just reading about the stuff."
“That sounds good. You should do that."
“We should do it. I bet he'd let us work together, since we'd be doing more than just a report—we'd have drawings and an observation journal and stuff.” She shrugged, and didn't look at him. “You know, if you want to.” She kept her voice neutral.
She's afraid I'll laugh! Cory realized. Afraid I'll make fun of her, or think she's a geek! It was a revelation, to realize that she could fear something like that from him, and it made him like her even more. “It sounds great,” he said. “I'd love to do that with you."
She grinned. “Hope you don't mind getting a little mud on your face."
“I can think of worse things."
They went down to the stream that afternoon and sat looking into the water. It would have been easier to do this project in the spring, when there'd be tadpoles and things, but they could still find interesting stuff to write about. After a while they just sat, tossing stones into the water, already easy and peaceful together.
“I had a weird dream last night,” Heather said, leaning back on her elbows, looking at the leaves overhead. “About that woman we saw ride by on the bicycle yesterday. She had a measuring tape, and she kept walking around me, asking me to hold out my arms and stuff, and she took my measurements. She said she thought I'd be a good fit, and when I asked her if she was going to make a dress for me, she just laughed. She said I'd make one for her.” She frowned. “No ... she said ‘You'll make a good dress for me. You'll fit like a glove.'” She shook her head. “Weird. It freaked me out a little, I don't know why. Scared me bad enough to wake me up."
Cory didn't say anything, because now he began to remember his own dream—or had it been a dream at all? “I dreamed about her, too."
Heather looked at him. “No. Really?"
“I think so,” he said, nodding. “I dreamed she was riding her bicycle around and around the tree in my backyard. Only it wasn't her at first, the—the woman.” He'd almost said “the witch.” Had she called herself a witch, a good witch? He couldn't quite recall.
“It wasn't her? Who was it?"
“It ... I thought it was you, first, and then it turned into her.” Saying those words chilled him, as if he'd dropped his heart into the autumn stream running at their feet. To begin as Heather, and turn into that witch, what a horrible idea!
But Heather was grinning at him. “You're having dreams about me, huh?"
He blushed, then laughed, forgetting his fear. “Yeah, well, it was a bad dream, so don't be too flattered."
“I knew you were a charmer from the first moment I met you,” she said. “I should get going—it's almost dinnertime. Want to come back here tomorrow, and start on this project for real?"
The next day was Saturday. “Sure. What time should I come over?"
“Oh, whenever. My parents usually make a big breakfast on Saturdays, but I don't know if mom will, since dad's still out of town. Come over around ten, I guess, just to be safe."
They made their brief farewells, and Cory walked farther into the woods, taking the scenic route in the general direction of his house.
Something moved in the bushes. He paused, listening. Probably it was just somebody's dog, but there were deer, sometimes, and he always enjoyed getting a glimpse of those. He looked toward the source of the sound, in a thick tangle of underbrush.
Something pushed out of the tangled vines and branches—something red, and black, and chrome.
It was the bicycle, the witch's bicycle, pushing its way through the woods. Its headlamp seemed to consider him, multi-faceted as a fly's eye.
The witch was nowhere to be seen.
Cory, frightened beyond all reason, turned and fled the woods, racing for home.
That night, as the Boy and the Girl and the Rival all slept unquietly, the witch rode her bicycle through their neighborhood. Bad dreams drifted from her like vapors, and she sang “Love is a Many Splendoured Thing,” her bicycle tires humming along. The day before the transference always woke romantic thoughts in her—for without love, without the ancient dance of Boy Meets Girl, how would she keep her youth forever?
She rode her bike through the Girl's yard, her bicycle not bumping at all as it went over the grass, not slowing as it went into the trees, its headlamp dark. She had no need of the light—both she and the bicycle could see perfectly well in the dark.
She'd left off her black beret tonight, and had instead braided her hair with a bit of blue ribbon. Otherwise she looked the same as always, not yet ready to completely give up her resemblance to the bicycle in order to fully assume her resemblance to the Girl. That could wait until tomorrow, when her mind would be fully loosened.
She looked around the stream for a likely spot. The location was a good one, really—in her girlhood, when this little play had been acted out the first time, it had taken place in a dark wood, by a little stream not unlike this one. Her young lover (whose name she'd forgotten long ago—she just thought of him as the First Boy) had faced off against his Rival for her affection while she stood by, watching, horrified ... and fascinated. They had both stolen their father's dueling swords, planning to fight for her like grown men. The Rival's blade had snapped against the Boy's, breaking in half. The Boy had stabbed the suddenly disarmed Rival in the heart ... and when she saw the blood, the Girl who would become the witch understood. This murder over a Girl was not an isolated event, it was an ancient thing, enacted time and again in various guises throughout the ages. There had to be power in that, she knew, in that timeless repetition, a power that could be awakened and directed and sealed by the spilling of blood.
She took the bag from the basket and opened it. She drew out the Boy's sword and jammed it point-first into the dirt by a tree. It was a dueling epee, old but newly sharpened. It had taken her ages to find a set that looked even close to being right. Then she removed the Rival's sword, identical to the Boy's. She took a rasp file from her bag and sat in the dirt with the Rival's sword across her knees. She filed away at the blade halfway down its length, humming as she did so. Her bike stood nearby, seeming almost wary, standing upright even though the kickstand hadn't been put down.
She'd discovered the secret of eternal youth—one of the secrets, anyway; she supposed there must be many ways, for those willing to walk beyond the lighted paths. She'd survived so long, rejuvenating herself, by staging reenactments of that first fight, when she'd been a young thing in the first bloom of womanhood. She never let her hair turn gray, and in recent decades she rode her bicycle, to make herself seem young. She'd worked with this bicycle for so long that blood and magic had washed over it, making it into something more than a disguise and a conveyance—making it into something alive, something almost like a familiar. She resembled the bicycle, too, dressing to match it, and that further confused the question of her identity. Tomorrow she would drink a potion to loosen her mind, to loosen the threads mooring her spirit to this body. She would put a blue ribbon in her hair, and dress herself to match the new Girl.
But that was only preliminary business, nothing more than clearing the way. The meat of her magic required other people, young people—and blood. Every few decades she found a new Boy and Girl and Rival, and put this little passion-play into motion. Making sure the Boy and Girl got together, seeing the Rival humiliated, driving him to murder. The Boy would face the Rival, and kill him, while the Girl looked on. When the blood spilled, a sacrifice to ignite the spell, the witch would become the new Girl, sliding easily into the young b
ody, crowding out the resident mind—taking her place in this new variation on the old drama of love and murder. That was the power of imperative resemblance, the magic of recurring situations—she would become young, as she'd been at that first duel. Her old body would be left behind in the woods, and would cause a stir when discovered, but nothing would come of it.
The witch turned the sword over and rasped at the other side of the blade. She'd have to smear it with dirt so the marks wouldn't be noticeable. She would have a little trouble in the Girl's body, of course. She wouldn't have the girl's memories, or access to her mind—her mind would go wherever such things went when they were crowded-out, probably nowhere, into oblivion. The witch would have trouble dealing with the Girl's parents. In the past, she'd had to kill parents, but things were easier in this day and age. Now, she only had to tell someone in authority that her parents touched her inappropriately, that they invited their friends to touch her inappropriately. The witch could press lit cigarettes into her new young thighs, and show the burns to the teachers or the police—that should take care of any disbelief.
The witch hummed happily as she rasped, moving the file in time to her song. Finally she put the file back in her bag, satisfied. She put the filed sword into the dirt on the other side of the stream, half-hidden by a bush. She thought a duel across the water would be very picturesque. She wondered if the Girl would faint at the first sight of blood. That's what the last girl had done, and it had made the transition to her mind much easier. No resistance at all, just a simple expulsion.
The witch climbed onto her bicycle and rode out of the woods, into the dark. Tomorrow she would be young again. It had been too long—it had always been too long.
Rocko woke up Saturday morning after a round of awful dreams, in which he'd tried to stab a boy by a stream while a dark-haired girl looked on, wide-eyed and helpless. He'd felt strong in the dream, like a conqueror ... but the next thing he knew he was dying, his blood running into the water.
He woke, shivering.
His parents weren't awake yet. Good. He slipped into the kitchen and ate a cold biscuit out of the fridge. Then he dressed, thinking about Cory, about finding the right time to strike.
