Spectral Evidence

by Gemma Files

  But then again, even if she no longer had it in her to respect that shiftless brother of hers, Miss Doll surely loved him still. or she wouldn’t even be here.

  The woods got darker, true night. A moon rose up, then guttered, and a mighty rushing sound was heard from all corners, as something flapped ‘cross it—a mess of somethings. Above, the stars went out, scratched at by a horde of besom-tails dropping downwards, out of the sky. And high overhead this foul and foggy rising wind I heard all manner of feminine voices screeching to each other, like owls after bats.

  “That you and yours, Orpah Cleves?” I called up, shading my eyes.

  “You know it is, Alleycat.”

  I almost thought I could see her hovering there, cocooned in ointment-reek and darkness, hair flapping like a flag. She’d always been the prettier of us, full-fleshed and long-legged with a high nose and flat cheekbones, those bold eyes set at a near-Indian slant. First gal I ever played ‘round with; I remembered us lying in the moss next to a trickle of cold spring-water, finding faces in the tree-bark, the wind-shook green leaves, each passing cloud. Remembered her following me down the mountain, too, begging me not to let her Momma drive me off—yelling how she’d been wrong-done as well by that not-Daddy of hers, and needed my help to flush the leavings out. ‘Cause I can’t have his baby, I just can’t, and who-all else can I cry to? God damn you, Allfair Chatwin, there’s nobody I know can do the things you do!

  To which I called back: ‘Cept my Momma, you catch her sober, or any ten other witches. Or you yourself, you want it so damn bad, so long’s you’re willin’ to pay for it...

  Which she always would’ve had to, one way or t’other. And looking at her now, I could only guess she did.

  “Hey, gal!” I said. “Been a Methuselan spell since last I heard your voice. Still and all, close like we been, you of anybody oughta know better than to put yourself in my path.”

  “I wouldn’t, save how you already put yourself in mine.”

  “Uh huh. Well, c’mon, then—let’s parley.”

  I beckoned her further down, and she came, dipping ‘til her boot-heels brushed the tree-tops. A wild light flickered crown-like through her unbound tresses, or maybe just lit up those white streaks running through it, milkstone seams on a black rock-bed. Time hadn’t treated her too badly—better’n myself, I’m sure, with my own hair in rat-tails, Tad’s army surplus coat swimming on me and my M-vale A Wing jumpsuit-top peeled down to make the rest of it look like a pair of muddy orange slacks.

  “Saw what you done with the swamp,” I told her. “That’s some fine work.”

  “Testament to the unknown strength of women in combination,” she replied. “And without a single scrap of devil-might, either.”

  “Noticed that, too. Quite the break in tradition.”

  “Well, you was the one first pointed out t’me how once witches get their Mark, they turn lazy—lie ‘round, act like junkies, let their familiars do all the work. And them that’s lazier still go on and devil-deal directly, then settle in on gettin’ petted if they do ‘nough ill to satisfy and beat on if they don’t, like the King o’ Flies is their pimp…”

  “Hold on, now. That’s my Momma you’re talkin’ ‘bout. And my Daddy, too.”

  “I’ve heard you say worse.”

  “And that’s my right, like it’s yours to reject all Hellish influences, if doin’ so makes you feel better ‘bout the damage you wreak. I ain’t about to tell nobody how to practice, let alone how to preach. But I want them bones you took.”

  “What, Tearsheet’s?” She cast Doll a contemptuous look. “That’s between me, him and whoever else aims to fulfill his threats ‘gainst my domain—this bitch, I guess, if she ain’t too fear-froze to do more’n gasp over it.”

  I shook my head. “Hell no, I don’t have one earthly care over what you do with those. It’s Gley Chatwin’s bones I’m speakin’ of, and those belong to me, if they do anybody.”

  “Hmmm.” A beat went by, her riding the forest’s hat and me not breaking gaze, hands curled in my pockets, ‘til: “Naw, can’t let you have them neither, Alleycat. Not when I know what you want ‘em for.”

  “You go cold turkey, so everyone else has to? That ain’t any sort of democracy I ever heard of.”

  “More like an enlightened monarchy, I ‘spose. Every coven needs its devil, if only ‘cause they’re used to the idea; I’m it, for now, ‘til they learn better. And when I die, my bones go back in the pot, community property, to be held in trust.”

  “Fine for you, very enlightened. But it ain’t a policy you get to start with somebody’s already damn well dead, not when there’s someone else has a prior claim. So bring out them bones—her brother’s, too, just ‘cause you got me offended. I ain’t about to say it twice.”

  “Look where you are, where you been. You got no power over me.”

  “What I am is Gley Chatwin’s only child, a sick ball a’ witchery cut up with Hellfire, and everything you know, you learned from me. Not to mention how where I been is ten years outta this shit-hole, with time enough to think and read on things you ain’t ever even heard of—time to practice ‘em, too. You really want to throw down?”

  “Goddamnit, Allfair...this ain’t none of your business! You run off, remember? Left all the mess for me. Well, I cleaned it up, and now I get to keep what I caught. So pack up little miss Won’t-Do-Her-Duty here, and get the hell out of my woods.”

  “Uh uh, woman. You get outta my sky.”

  Orpah widened her eyes at that, just long enough for me to jerk Tad’s Patton gun from my waistband, hork a wad of spit and blood down the barrel, and shoot. It hit her in the shoulder, sending her spinning; she gave out a cry, cast a handful of witch-balls down, narrowly missing me and Miss Doll both. “Run, gal! While you still can!” I yelled her way, but she stood there, seemingly spot-rooted with fear, ‘til I had no leisure time left to pay her any further notice.

  For that wind was back, all at once and all around, lowering in like a storm, clouds abruptly black with the shadows of other witch-es rising up to Orpah’s defence.

  I kept on horking and firing, enspelled bullets popping apart into stinging fetch-gnat swarms, but eventually, those ran out. A half-second after she heard my hammer click twice, Orpah came swooping down so she and me were almost within kissing range. “Might be jail ain’t left you quite as smart as you made out, if that’s all you got,” she told me.

  I laughed again. “Or might be this here’s where I all the time aimed to end up, so thanks for playin’.”

  Orpah snapped her teeth at me like a dog, then opened her mouth a bit further, like she was fixing to retch out a fresh curse-hex all over my mocking face. But before she could, young Doll slid some sort of stoppered-up hooch-bottle she’d been keeping up her sleeve out into her palm, and whipped far enough forward she could bust it quick-smart ‘cross Orpah’s high-set nose. Announcing, as she did: “That’s her, so go to it!”

  While Orpah yowled, something like a squished-down ferret jumped clear as the glass broke, unwinding itself mid-air into a flapping skin-cloak, wide and flat as a furry, airborne ray. It engulfed most’ve Orpah, and set in to squeeze. Her face, already bloody, straightaway begun turning purple; I could hear a couple bones crack, or maybe just grind. The broom veered off one way, her body another, plunging to the dirt-and-weed-entangled forest floor. Above, meanwhile, the coven of covens all shrieked out together at the feel of it and dipped off in varying directions, too stunned to keep up their bombardment.

  Best friend I ever had, I thought, and shrugged. Then grabbed Doll by that same sleeve and whisked her aside, into a pocket between two trees, a trail no one but me could see, or step on. “Hey!” she yelled, or started to, but shut up admirably fast, once my finger sealed her lips.

  “Hush,” I told her. “That was the whole of your plan right there, yeah? Pretty much?”

  A sullen teenaged nod.

  “Then hurry up and keep quiet, you ever want to see that w
ayward brother of yours again, ‘cause I got somethin’ else entirely in mind—somethin’ you’d never think of, not in a million years.”

  “You don’t know me so well, ma’am.”

  “Oh no?”

  —

  Certain principles run ‘cross all cultures, as Samaire Cornish could probably tell you. Hell, she probably did a dissertation on it. Our Lady of the Upside-Down is one of these, queen of the primal Ds: Death, Despair, Darkness, Decay. In old Sumer, they called her Ereshkigal, who hung Her trespassing sister Inanna’s naked body at Her gates like a rag on a stick; ‘round Mexico way she’s La Flaca, the Skinny one—Santa Muerte, Beautiful Death, patroness of assassins and thieves. And here on the mountain?

  Here, we call her the Rot-Pearl Queen, the Chigger’s Bride, who does away with every secret thing left to lie untended in the deepest of the hillside thickets. She who carries the will-o’-the-wisp and leads poor travelers astray, her stiff hair full of tiny clattering bones and dead leaves. She whose footsteps leave little black holes of mould, whose hand is white as peeled birch-bark, whose lightest touch means madness.

  Most run to avoid her, and never speak her name aloud; most barely dare to think it, lest she catch its echo, and attend.

  But like we’ve discussed already, on several different occasions—I ain’t most.

  —

  “That thing you threw,” I tossed back at Doll, as she pulled herself headlong through a brake of dead blackberry thorns, barely pausing to hiss where they tore what little skin her jacket left unwrapped. “Old Harlan’s demon familiar, right?”

  She nodded. “Found it buzzin’ ‘round his place like a two-pound mosquito, all pissed; must’ve been feedin’ it bits of himself, I reckon, since he didn’t have nothin’ else on offer. So I drew blood into that bottle, waited ‘til it climbed inside, and...like you saw.”

  “Hard for a man to get hold of one of those without bearing a true Mark, willingness to bleed or no. Though it can be done, so long’s you’re willing to bed down in strange places—as old Bishop Gorlois found out when he raised up that many-mouthed starfish of a thing and bound it to the Olek Psaltery, charging it to make sure his grimoire’d survive the Burning Times, even if he didn’t. For once they’ve had a taste of human meat given, not taken, they never do like it when somebody else cuts off their supply.”

  She nodded, mouth twisting, a weird shred of pride overtaking her close-kept game face. “So might be he was cunning, after all.”

  Might be. For all this was proof how Harlan Tearsheet’d likely done at least enough research to point him towards something half-forgot, hungry after worship the way a junkie hungers after his or her jolt of choice. The Queen, in other words.

  Those who did Her service got service in return: They weren’t any harder to kill, but harder by far to keep dead. A useful quality in general, but particularly so right now, given both our specific goals.

  “Where are we?” Doll asked, glancing ‘round, distrustingly. Smart as she’d proven to be, I was sure she’d probably already cottoned on to the fact that the trees were growing widdershins and wrong-way-’round, that the very ground beneath our feet had an unfamiliar lack of give to it, that the stars above were knit in patterns unseen for millennia: We were elsewhere, having shimmied ourselves straight through the mirror-surface gate of the Queen’s domain without her initial notice, albeit with my full connivance.

  “Oh, never you mind,” I replied, smiling. “Real question should be—who is it lives here, exactly? And what are we gonna offer Her for safe passage, when She realizes we’re already at her door?”

  Such pretty eyes Miss Doll had, ‘specially when they flew all the way open like that. And when I caught them starting to narrow again as she glimpsed something over my shoulder, coming through the trees—while I heard for myself the creak and sigh and moan of its passage, those same trees contorting away to let it through, like they feared to let its skirts brush their roots. I knew we really were in the right place, after all.

  “Your Majesty,” I said, turning, my head hung down respectfully. “I come to give You sad news of one dear to Your heart, and beg a boon meant to help repair his circumstances, likewise.”

  Her voice was soft, like a corpse well time-seasoned for dismemberment ‘fore digging commenced; it spiraled up from inside like a tapeworm you hadn’t known you harboured, unspooling segment by segment, fit to make you retch. But I stayed right where I was, and let it wash over me, wash through me, a maggoty wave of awful. I knew I could take it.

  Witch-woman, devil-child, you enter my realm uninvited, without parole. You bring your apprentice here under false pretenses, and walk without respect, disturbing everything. You constitute a living insult. Why should I forgive you?

  “Because, my Queen...I do it for love.”

  From my first kiss on, I’ve been able to fool with just about anyone, I put my mind to it—always could. Some people might call that a curse (the white coats have a specialized name for it: Polymorphous perversity), but I choose to take it as a gift; the gift of turning trash into treasure, no matter the circumstances. In other words, I can find a thrill on any given dungheap, even with the heap itself, and while I’m in the thick of it, it will be real. or seem so.

  Six of one, I say.

  Do not think to play with my affections, Allfair Chatwin. Perverse as you are, you hold no true desire for me.

  “Maybe not, but Harlan Tearsheet did, sure enough; does still, wherever he might be. And this gal loves him, in turn—enough to come here. Don’t that count for anything?”

  Should it?

  “I think so. Oh, fear is easier to call up than love, by far—but the best sort of worship comes from both, don’t you find?”

  Apparently, she did.

  —

  This next part is somewhat hard to talk about, and harder to think on. Yet it had to be done.

  Never thought of myself as much of a teacher. That’s too like mothering, by far. But right here is where I gave Doll Tearsheet a lesson in true magie noire, with its pleasures and pains admixed—showed her how there’s always a price, just like I told you, and you can’t hire nobody else to pay it for you. And it can’t be too small, what you give up; can’t be too easy, or they don’t like that. You gotta feel like you’re actually payin’.

  I asked and was given, which meant I owed, so I paid. I gave myself over, stuck my hand in the tiger’s mouth—my left, both dominant and sinister—and trusted I’d get at least enough of it back to go on with. Felt the Rot-Pearl Queen’s tongue lick away flesh and skin and sinew together from my ring-finger, debriding it ‘til there wasn’t nothing left but naked bone gone cold and stiff as marble, a corpsefinder-candle alit with dim blue flame; bit my lip ‘til it bled, but I never gave out even a squeak, ‘cause I knew that’d pile insult on insult. And this was justabout the last place on earth I wanted to try and leave while yet unforgiven.

  You have grit, witch-woman. Backbone. The Queen’s words traced each of my vertebrae in turn, told them in turn, an ossuary rosary. Let us say you find my acolyte and release him—for this, I will consider our business concluded. But as to your apprentice...

  “Don’t think she considers herself such, Majesty,” I managed, through a torn, sour-salt mouthful.

  This distinction means nothing to me. She will have to make her own peace, in her own way.

  “Might be you tell her that yourself, then.”

  I felt Her dreadful gaze shift off me, to where Doll stood once more statue-rigid, studying the turf under our feet. And: Oh, I know she hears me, she said, with just a hint of amusement, a spreading black-on-black stain. Do you not, little girl? Perhaps you will take on your brother’s burden, like any sin-eater, once he has done his purpose—if you wish to bury him again after, that is, and leave him to his rest. If you wish him to lie still, when you do.

  Doll shivered a bit herself at that, like she was shaking off the ague. And then we were alone again once more, together—back in t
he world, with only my single-digit Hand of Glory to light our way through a forest so dark, so deep, it was like we were walking the ocean’s floor at its very lowest point, where nothing lives that’s ever seen a hint of sun at all.

  We walked a long way, mainly in silence, but we did find that swamp, eventually. I knew it for what it was the moment my foot touched water, not least ‘cause my finger went out—knelt down in the cold and sucking mud right there to plunge both hands in like Pontius Pilate, mouthing my heartfelt thanks, and let something all-too-familiar ‘neath the surface wrench the damn thing free like a frozen-off wart, juncture already itchy-healed.

  No wedding ring for me, I thought, without a shred of regret. Then got back up, all a-creak with effort, and brushed my knees off, best I could. “Now,” I told Doll, “given what-all I’ve expended thus far, there’s a couple of somethin’s I need from you in return, missy.”

  Dubious: “Like what?”

  “First off, a bit of witch-work, which I know you’re familiar with, for all you say you ain’t interested: Shed a drop or two of blood and let it tug on you, then study, ‘til you find where that boy of yours lies sunk. And conjuration skill aside, I’ll just bet you know how to cook a meal using whatever you find, too, don’t you? Most mountain-folk do.”

  “...Uh huh.”

  “All right, then. Get cracking.”

  —

  What Doll put together was a mess of handy, hardy fare, such as my Momma and I’d sometimes subsisted on, whenever she blew her Welfare check on cheap liquor and bad men: sorrel tubers sliced sidelong and stick-roasted, with watercress and chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms for seasoning, and a dark, flat bread baked from cattail flower and acorn-meat in our fire’s ashes to serve it on, like them edible platters in Ethiopian restaurants. I helped here and there in the preparation, but felt the spell’d work better if the meal was made mainly by a loved one’s hands.