The Magick of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root)

by April Aasheim

  “You’d think,” Eve said, her eyebrows arching. “But hiding things is not a man’s strong suit.”

  “The usual,” I said to the bartender, who I had come to know as Sam.

  He waved a two-fingered hello, and commenced pouring our drinks. I think he knew we were hustling, but he had a mild crush on Eve, and looked the other way.

  “You smell,” I said to Eve as we scoped out the place.

  It was empty except for a handful of people: two couples and a man wearing a yellow polo shirt and khaki slacks, who sat alone in the far corner, playing with his cell phone.

  I nudged Eve and she smoothed her dress into place, a tight, black, knit number that sat low in the cleavage and high on the thigh.

  “I do not smell,” Eve said, running her hands through her sleek pony tail. “I smell clean. You’re just too used to smelling like a barn animal.”

  I covered my sweater defensively. “Alpacas are not barn animals. They live outdoors.”

  She rolled her eyes and seated herself at the bar, crossing her legs so that an ample amount of skin was on display. I sat next to her, kerplunking myself unglamorously onto a stool.

  Tonight was her show. I would assist from the sidelines.

  “Think we can stop by Dip Stix after?” she asked innocently over her wine glass.

  “I doubt they’ll be open, but okay. Why?”

  “They’ll be open. Paul said they are pulling an all-nighter. Cleaning and whatnot for the holidays.”

  I spun my stool to face her. “Oh, I see. You want Paul to see you looking like…this.”

  Eve made a sour face. “I do not.”

  “Maybe make him a little jealous? Wondering where you’ve been all night?”

  “Shut up.”

  I laughed and returned to my root beer, wishing it was whiskey. “Sorry,” I said, giving her a comforting smile. “You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Her self-esteem had taken a hit lately. The least I could do was to tell her the truth.

  We waited thirty minutes, keeping one eye on the man in the corner and the other eye on the door. One of the couples left, but no one else came in.

  “I guess he’s our mark,” I said, using a term I’d heard on an old movie.

  Eve nodded, slammed down her second drink and sauntered over to the man in her three-inch heels.

  “Ever see him before?” I asked Sam as he wiped down the bar. I had been here so many times lately, I felt like I was a part of the inner circle.

  Sam leaned forward. “He comes in from time to time. Always alone. Always in the corner talking on the phone. Has the personality of a used car salesman. Tips horrible. I’d never trust him alone with my sister.”

  In spite of Sam’s ominous words, I was glad to hear it. I felt less guilty when I imagined the men we hustled were bad guys of sorts and that Eve and I were modern day Robin Hoods.

  Eve settled herself in the chair across from the man.

  I could tell he was shocked by his good fortune. She was young, while he bordered on middle age. She was fit, while his midsection spilt over the top of his pants. She had a full head of dark hair, while his was so blond and thin you could see his scalp. He looked at her the same way Ruth Anne looked at a cookie––like he’d devour her, the second they were alone.

  The man walked to the bar, gave me a disinterested look, and returned to Eve with two fresh drinks.

  She batted her eyes gratefully and pulled on her most demure smile. As the evening progressed, her innocence would turn to seduction, turning her charms and her magic up a notch. She’d ask him if he wanted to play a game, teasing him about knowing how to use his stick. The man would smile wickedly at the challenge. They’d bet five bucks and she’d lose the first game, put out her bottom lip, and pout. And pout.

  The man would tell her how pretty she was and offer to give her the money back.

  “No.” She’d shake her head. “I want to win it back, fair and square.”

  “Okay.”

  She’d win the next game. This sometimes required a little help from me.

  “I can’t believe this!” she’d say, almost breathless.

  The man would be a little flustered, a little embarrassed, scratching on the back of his neck, wondering what had happened. It was only five bucks, he knew, but it was more than that. He was looking to make time with my sister, and to do that, he had to impress her. He had to win.

  They’d keep playing, upping the stakes. She’d win most games, but let him win once in a while to keep him in.

  “Tell you what,” she’d whisper, when he’d had several more beers. “Last game. Winner takes all.”

  “All?”

  “All.” She’d bite her bottom lip as she looked up at him with her doe eyes. He’d swallow, uncertainly, but end up agreeing to anything to secure the evening.

  “Another soda?” Sam asked, breaking me from the scene.

  “Sure,” I answered. “Got anything stronger?”

  “Diet coke?”

  “That works.”

  A group of college kids filed in, and Sam left to check their IDs.

  I returned my attention to Eve and the stranger. Eve was having a hard time making her shots because the man kept leaning in too close behind her whenever she leaned over the pool table.

  “Give me some room?” she asked, trying to keep the flirt in her voice.

  The man took a step back, his hands inches from her backside, poised like he wanted to grab her. I was so focused on watching him watch my sister, that I forgot to assist her and she missed her shot.

  She shot me a questioning look. I shrugged apologetically.

  The man licked his lips. His striped ball rolled smoothly across the green felt and landed in its hole. Eve’s eyes widened at me.

  “Sorry,” I mouthed.

  This time I hadn’t forgotten, but his will to sink the shot had been stronger than my desire to stop it. I focused harder on the next one, managing to halt it just before it fell into the corner pocket.

  Eve moved to the other side of the table.

  The man followed closely behind, his hands tracing the shape around her body, his hips thrusting near hers as she bent over. He was drunk. Drunk on alcohol, drunk on desire. The energy around him warped. It was perverted, unclean. It made me ill.

  He reached around her and grabbed her breast. Eve turned angrily, the sweetness gone from her face. He stepped back, then tried to repeat it.

  It was at that moment that I realized I was not a modern day Robin Hood. I was a pimp.

  The man moved to grab her again. I slammed my mug and twenty bucks on the bar and stormed towards them.

  “Time to go,” I said, yanking Eve by the arm and pulling her to the door.

  “Who are you?” he asked, following.

  “I'm taking her home,” I said, ushering her outside.

  “Maggie, what the hell is wrong with you?” Eve demanded, trying to pull away.

  “You gals lesbians?” he asked, clapping his hands together. “Because I’m okay with that.”

  “No.” I glared. “Sisters.”

  “Whoo-ey! Even better.”

  Up close, the man had a plastic face, doughy and jowly, with a sharp nose and thin lips. His only attractive feature was his large, hazel eyes––simple eyes that betrayed every thought he had, and none of them were good.

  “You can’t leave,” he said, grabbing Eve’s free arm as he followed us out. “We had a bet. And I was winning. You can’t welch on a bet.”

  “Take this,” I said, tossing him every dollar I had in my pocket as I scanned the dark parking lot for Paul’s black blazer. I found it parked near a silver Cadillac.

  “Hey!” Eve objected. “I could have beaten this clown.”

  “Clown? A few minutes ago I was your sexy teddy bear. Did you forget that already?”

  “Come on, Eve,” I said, pulling her along the wall. I wanted to stay in the light of the bar as long as possib
le. “Let him keep it.”

  “But Maggie…”

  “I don’t want the money,” the man said, his face reddening. “You know damned well what I want.”

  He grabbed Eve’s arm, yanking her away from me.

  “Leave me alone!” she screamed, trying to pull away, but his grip was too tight. “Leave me alone!” she repeated, trying to hit him with her purse, but he had her arms firmly secured.

  He spun her around, pinning her in front of him so that they both faced me. “Don’t think I didn’t recognize you,” he said to Eve as he kissed her neck. “I know who you are.” One hand traveled down the length of her torso, stopping near her hips. “And I know what you like.”

  “Leave her alone!”

  He smiled. “Make me.”

  Anger rose up inside me as I remembered a similar incident in a bar parking lot. Two men had thrown me into their car, then tried to assault me as I begged them to stop.

  Shane had come then, ripping them off me.

  But I didn’t need Shane now. I didn’t need anyone.

  I charged at the man, full force. I felt an electricity course through me, an energy gathered from the air and the ground around me: the magick of Dark Root. A blue spark shot from my hands as I slammed into his beefy arm. He fell backwards, his eyes half-closed as he hit the brick wall. He slid down the wall, blood trickling from his mouth. When he landed on the ground, his entire body fell over.

  “Maggie!” Eve gasped, running to him and holding up his limp wrist. “What have you done?”

  I opened my hands, stretching out my fingers. Blue currents buzzed around my fingertips.

  “I think he’s dead,” she said, looking helplessly up at me.

  “No,” I said, joining her on the ground. We listened for his heartbeat, his breathing, his pulse, any indication that he was still alive. None came.

  Yer father had the deathtouch.

  Eve’s face was drained of color. “Maggie! I think we killed him!”

  Sixteen

  BABY DID A BAD, BAD THING

  Halfway between Dark Root and Linsburg

  May, 1994

  Maggie and her sisters gathered in the old church that sat exactly halfway between Dark Root and Linsburg. Built in the early nineteen hundreds, it did its best to mend the fences of these rival towns, towns separated by economical as well as ideological differences: mining, God, ecology, and witchcraft.

  That rivalry existed to this day, though it was friendlier now, good-natured exchanges between old friends through jokes and jabs at the local bars.

  But some folks, mostly country people, held on to the deep-seated feud that had lasted almost a century, a feud kept alive by well-meaning parents and grandparents––hushed talk about the days before “the witches came,” and “this whole Goddamned part of the world turned into a Goddamned tourist trap.”

  The old church was typical of its generation. Chipped white paint with blue trim and stained glass windows. It even had its original steeple. Newer and fresher churches had sprung up in the last fifty years, mostly in Linsburg, but this church still held service every Sunday to a handful of people. Carrying on. Carrying on.

  “I don’t want to go in,” Maggie said, clutching the doorway with both hands as her sisters marched in dutifully beneath her arms. Her mother gave her a firm push on the back, dislodging her.

  “If I have to go in, so do you,” she said.

  It wasn’t the presence of God that frightened Maggie, the omnipotent being who knew her every deed and thought, more powerful than her mother or even Santa Claus.

  It was something stronger and even more persistent. Death.

  One of Miss Sasha’s friends had passed three days before, a Linsburg woman who’d come to Mother searching for answers on love and health.

  “If you dab this oil on the inside of your wrist, Bob will turn his head back towards you,” Mother directed the woman. “If you put this in your tea every morning, you will keep your heart strong.”

  But Miss Sasha’s magick was not enough to turn Bob’s head away from his lover––a beautiful woman half his age––or to keep the woman’s heart beating.

  On the third day after Mother’s visit, she had collapsed into her still-warm tea.

  And now they all convened, waiting for the service to begin so that they could say their goodbyes.

  Miss Sasha and the girls were ushered into seats at the front of the church, where a long, black coffin sprawled out before them. Maggie drew her feet under the pew, trying to put as much distance between hers and the coffin as possible.

  “Don’t be silly.” Mother scolded her. “Death’s not catchy.”

  But Maggie wasn’t so sure.

  The women in Mother’s circle had been falling like dominoes lately, one right after the other. Bad heart. Diabetes. Lung cancer. They came, asking Mother for help, pleading. “We know you have the ability. Share it with us, please!”

  Maggie’d never forget the urgency in their eyes, or the brief sadness in her mother’s, when all she could offer them was salve for their chests and teas for their hearts.

  Eventually, they were all overtaken.

  The service went on, as a man in a long, black robe talked about eternal salvation and going to a better place, a place where there were flowers in the winter and no one got sick. Maggie thought it sounded nice. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to die to get there.

  At last, the robed man called up several people to speak about the deceased.

  Through tears, they talked about the woman’s devotion as a mother and her services to the community. When they finished, the pastor prompted the entire audience to come and view the coffin.

  “I don't want to,” Maggie said to her mother. “Please don’t make me.”

  “She looks the same as always. Pretend she’s sleeping.”

  But she did look different. Her olive-toned skin had grown pallid, her limbs seemed bonier, and her hair looked like strands of frazzled yarn. The woman had never been lovely, but now she looked spectral.

  Maggie noted another difference as she stared into the coffin, an indefinable element that separated the living from the dead. She stared at the body, trying to figure it out.

  Then it dawned on her. There was no life force, no energy. Just emptiness.

  The thought saddened her, to an extent that she felt it all the way down into her stomach.

  It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. Why should someone be given a life, then have it taken away? What was the point? She looked at the line of people behind her, listening to them whisper about what they should eat for lunch or where they should spend their next weekend.

  Why should they continue on, Maggie wondered, while this woman lay here cold?

  “It isn’t fair,” Maggie declared out loud, turning her glare onto the crowd.

  “It is the natural order of things,” her mother said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  “But why? Why do we live only to die? Who decided that was a good idea?”

  Mother gave Maggie a sad, weary smile and Maggie noticed how old she looked. She would die too, Maggie realized, leaving her and her sisters alone.

  In that moment Maggie vowed never to have a child. It would die, or she would.

  Either way, someone would be left behind.

  Maggie took one final glance at the woman, etching her image into her brain. Life might go on for the others, but Maggie would honor the woman’s memory by spending the day alone in her bedroom, with every light off.

  She reached inside her skirt pocket for the wildflower she had picked while playing in the woods that morning. It was crumbled now, and a few of its purple leaves had fallen away, but it was still lovely and the only offering she had. As she placed the flower on the woman’s chest, the woman’s eyes popped open.

  They stared at her, with wide, bulbous, empty lenses.

  Maggie screamed and pushed her way through the crowd and out the door.

  When her mother caught up,
she scolded her fiercely for making a spectacle of the family.

  “She woke up!” Maggie insisted. “I swear it!”

  “For Heaven’s sake, Maggie,” Miss Sasha said. “Get ahold of yourself. If you are going to take my place someday, you can’t be afraid of something as trivial as death.”

  Dark Root, Oregon

  November, 2013

  “This can’t be happening,” Eve buried her face in her hands, her shoulders rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath.

  There was no doubt about it. The man was dead and we had killed him.

  Correction. I had killed him.

  “Eve, snap out of it,” I said, pulling her hands from her face. “We need to figure out what to do.”

  “What to do? What to do?” Eve bordered on hysteria, the cool demeanor she normally wore replaced by one of sheer terror. “What can we do? He’s dead!”

  I kicked at him, trying to nudge him onto his side. He wouldn’t move. His mouth popped open and blood ran down the sides of his cheeks. His hazel eyes stared up at us accusingly.

  “How can you be so calm?” Eve asked, as I studied the corpse. “You, of all people, should be freaking the fuck out.”

  I should be. I was practically phobic when it came to death.

  Yet here, when confronted with the corpse of a man I had just killed, a macabre sort of calm washed over me. It was almost dreamlike in its irrationality. People couldn’t be alive one moment and then gone the next. That wasn’t the way the universe worked. We had warning. We had time to drink our tea before we fell in, face first.

  “Maggie,” Eve said, covering me with something. “Are you okay?”

  “No. I’m not okay. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”

  A car pulled into the parking lot and a handful of college students tumbled out. They walked past us, one of them almost stepping on the man. “Old people can’t handle their booze.”

  “We need to call the police,” I said.

  Eve grabbed me by the shoulders. “We can’t. We...I might go to jail.”

  “It was self-defense, Evie. That man assaulted you. I pushed him off.” I enunciated the word, so that we got our stories straight. Move along, no deathtouch to see here. Just a good, firm pushing. “He hit his head because he was drunk.”