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Maxi looked up as if starting from a nightmare.
Something slick had touched her naked ankle and tore her away from the terrible
complication of the building across the street. It was well into twilight, and
she could not immediately make out much of the furtive movement at her feet. A
pair of yellow eyes bore into hers. "I understand," they seemed to
say, and Maxi was impulsively moved to pick up the biggest, shiniest black cat
she had ever seen.
Maxi bowed her head to speak to the cat, and a strand
of hair fell forward over her shoulder. It blended with the cat's blackness in
the dark.
"Look," she told the purring feline. "I
have to go in there and kill someone today." The cat gave a tiny mew.
"Oh, not actually kill," continued the girl.
"I have to arrange. Yes, arrange someone's death. I've been sitting here
all day. I've been here every day since last week."
The cat gave another mew incongruously mismatched with
its heavy size. Maxi fumbled in her bag and produced a crumpled piece of paper.
"Occult Assassins," said the script. "Discreet service
guaranteed." And a phone number. The cat tried to eat the ad. Maxi laughed
and returned it safely to its place. Oh Steve, she thought. Why did it have to
come to this? With a heavy sigh she put down the cat and stood up. Today then.
Like a thousand times before, she walked slowly and
hesitantly across the street, carefully looking left and right for any oncoming
traffic. But there was nothing. Like a thousand other times, it was a perfectly
still, perfectly clear autumn twilight. The streetlights had come on just
moments before.
In front of the building Maxi stopped. The entrance
was very dark, but at the same time inviting. So many problems could be solved.
Such an extreme step. She drew pale, slim fingers through her black hair. There
was no other way. Unlike all the other times, Maxi took the first step inside
and knew there was no return. A giant ball had begun to roll. Incense and
candlelight should have given the illusion of soft romance but somehow didn't.
There were unpleasant angles, and an ominous dread pervaded everything,
including Maxi's heart. To her left, the walls were lined with a black, cloth
like substance. Almost like velvet. Maxi wanted to touch it and reached out to
do so.
"Oh, I do hope you would not touch that,"
said a voice as dark and soft as the wall she was about to lay her fingers on.
Maxi turned. Her heart had responded to the voice, and all sense of gloom and
panic had gone. She was making the right decision. The owner of the voice
emerged from some darkness behind the darkness.
"I am sorry," he continued. "We have a
very strict policy, you see. Nobody is to touch... anything. Could be dangerous
to the energies."
"Forgive me," said Maxi, and walked towards
the stranger as if hypnotized. "I came to..."
"Of course," said the voice. "Please,
step into my office."
The office, or at least what Maxi could see of it, was
large. Candlelight revealed a sticky substance covering the walls. The man
behind the great mahogany (or that's what she thought it was) desk was very
white. Most of his face was covered by a large, white beard, which contrasted
only slightly with the skin. His hair also was long and white. The effect was
something like a large ball of snow with two emeralds stuck in for crude eyes.
He looked friendly; like the ghost of Santa Claus.
"Well then, Miss..."
"Clement," said Maxi. "Call me
Maxi."
"Maxi then. I am Deville Prince." He spread
his parchment hands on the shiny surface of the desk. The atmosphere of the
windowless room oppressed her, and she wanted to flee before he could ask the
question. But of course it was too late. It had been too late for a long time.
"Are you sure that you want to do this?"
Prince asked her.
"Yes," said Maxi, trembling. A tear came
from nowhere, and Prince stretched his had across the vast desk. She was right.
His hands were dry, like parchment. And more. They were so dry that they soaked
into them the very sweat from her own anxious palms.
"Are you absolutely sure, without a doubt?"
"Yes," she said again. Calmer now.
It was as if the room darkened for a second or two,
like a phantom cloud passing before a non-existent sun. Maxi felt herself
expanding and contracting at the same time to levels of infinity. She thought
she heard a bell somewhere. Or a drum. And then Deville Prince released her
hand. And it was done.
"It is done," he said. "Let us discuss
terms, conditions and timelines."
It was very dark outside. The smell of rain and
thunder stung Maxi's nose and energized her weak limbs. Steve would wonder where
she was. She would have to conjure some excuse, but that would be later. There
were five days.
As Maxi looked back at the building from which she had
emerged, a loud clap of thunder made her feel like Lot's wife. She almost
expected to turn into salt for daring to look back. Lightning reminded Maxi of
the Tower on her tarot cards. The disaster card. Turning back towards home, Maxi
suddenly felt her legs give way, and she sat down flat on the sidewalk and wept
for what she had done. Rain began to fall on her and mingled with the tears.
A few yards from home the rain abruptly stopped. With
drenched clothes and hair plastered to her skin, Maxi felt the picture of
misery. She shivered with the moisture that penetrated her very bones. In an
absurdly short time, stars and moonlight flooded the world, and Maxi felt out of
place. Nervously she approached the house. The contrast of the darkness in the
house with the outside moon reminded her of the white man in his dark business
suit. It was strange - no movement in the house. By this time, fastidious Steve
would have switched on the porch light.
Something slick brushed Maxi's ankle, and she jumped a
little, giving a small skreech. She looked down and smiled for the first time in
what felt like eons.
"Well, hello again," she said into the
black, pointed ear of her new companion. The feline ear twitched charmingly with
the gentle wind of her breath. The cat's fur dried some of the moisture from
Maxi's face and she felt a little less alone.
Smoke tickled Maxi's nose, and the cat sprang from her
arms to run for the kitchen. The acrid smell grew stronger and more unpleasant
as the girl followed the cat, switching on lights as she went. Light did not
chase the gloom. In the kitchen Maxi picked up a rectangle from the red tile
floor. The Tower. The full implications of the fallen tarot card did not dawn on
her until after she opened the back door and saw Steve standing on the back
lawn.
He was still clothed in his Tasteful Office Suit for
the Large Man. His bulk was hiding a fire. Smoke billowed towards the stars and
the moon. Unconsciously, Maxi's grip tightened on the card in her hand. The
Tower. The cat ran to Steve.
"Wait..." called Maxi. The call attracted
her husband's attention. The expression on his face chilled her drenched flesh
another few degrees.
"Steve?"
"Maxi, I have something for you." He smiled.
The smile was bad.
Seventy-seven rectangles were blackening and curling
on a miserable little heap. The cat turned her yellow eyes on Maxi. She felt
absurdly on trial.
"Steve, what are you doing?" Maxi came
closer without wanting to.
"I have a message for you, Maxi," said
Steve, his normally pale blue eyes reflecting. "This is wrong. Divination,
knowledge of the future. Condemned to fire. My gift to darkness from the
moonlight you." He turned back to his handiwork and smiled with a sigh of
satisfaction.
"Steve, what are you talking about?"
He turned back to his wife as if she had spoken to him
for the first time. With a sudden, maniacal vigor, he grabbed the Tower card
from her and tossed it into the fire with the rest of her treasures. "Thank
you, Maxi," he said, and continued to stare, hypnotized, as the last card
was consumed.
Maxi felt hysteria threaten to strangle her. She spoke
softly at first. Straining to get her voice past an obstruction in her throat.
"Steve, how could you?" And suddenly the
desire to shout overcame all restriction. "Damn you, bastard! My aunt gave
me those cards. You knew it."
Steve ignored her and watched the cards burn. Maxi
felt her legs buckle. She sat down heavily on the freshly cut lawn.
"Oh you bastard," she repeated weakly.
With Maxi observing tiredly, Steve fetched water to
quench the last of the flames. He approached her. She wanted to flinch, but
found herself too tired. She wanted to stop him when he picked up the cat, but
everything felt so heavy. She could hardly keep sitting. Five days. Just five
more days of this, and then the end of five years, which had started happily
enough.
"Nice cat, Max. Where did you get her?" When
Maxi didn't answer, he set down the cat and picked her up as if she was feather
light.
"Let's get you inside," he said with a
slight grunt. The grunt was answered with faraway thunder before Maxi felt
herself drifting away from the horror that reality had become.
"Are you sure you don't want to come with
me?"
"Yes," she said dully.
Maxi watched Steve dress from her place on their bed.
Her hands were folded on her stomach. Her long black hair fanned over the
pillow. Maxi could not help relishing anticipation. Four days. The cat appeared
from nowhere, sprang onto the bed beside the woman, and purred. Maxi smiled at
the animal and stroked her, eliciting louder purrs. Then she mewed, and Maxi
rose to feed her.
In the kitchen Steve came close to her. Maxi felt her
body respond, despite her disgust. She wanted to kiss him, but spoke instead
with a fervor born of desperation. Could things still be salvaged? Five years of
perfectly happy marriage surely counted for something.
"Do you have to do this?" she implored.
"You've never cared much for church or prayer or any of that before."
"Are you worried?"
She took a deep breath.
"Yes."
He smiled. "Don't worry darling. God will make
our life so good. All we have to do is abide by his rules. That is why I burned
your cards. For your own good. For our good."
She sent Steve away without kissing him goodbye. The
cat rubbed her massive body between Maxi's ankles. The girl picked her up and
kissed her on a spot behind the ear. She cried a little into her friend's fur.
Oh Steve.
"Maxi, you look like a witch."
Maxi fixed her gaze on the black liquid dripping from
the coffee filter. She tried to mentally smooth the by now familiar tight spot
in her stomach. What a way to start the morning. The morning of the third day.
"What do you mean I look like a witch?"
The sun kissed the kitchen floor into blazing color,
and Maxi was still in her black morning robe.
"Well, you wear black all the time. And your
hair."
"You used to like it," she said softly,
unable to keep the hurt from her voice.
"Why don't you cut it?"
"What?" she flew around to face this new
outrage.
"Your hair. I don't want a witch for a wife. And
get something ... pink to wear, or something."
"Bastard," she replied and turned back to
the coffee maker. She did not kiss him when he left for work. He did not notice.
Maxi cried into the cat's fur for the second time since the animal's arrival.
Maxi drifted up from unconsciousness. She groaned.
Steve would want coffee, and she still had not conjured up any excuses for being
away at the appointed time. And this was the fourth day.
She was surprised to find only the bulk of the cat on
their bed. Steve had gone. The clock on the bedside table told her that it was
nine in the morning. Two hours, and she had not woken with Steve, as she was
used to doing for the last five years. Of course, Steve's bible page turning had
kept her from sleep until three or four in the morning.
She groaned and sat up. Some coffee would help. At
first she thought she was touching the cat, but the feline was on the floor.
Maxi gave a small screech when her hands brought bundles of butchered human hair
to her face. Her severed waist-length hair had been spread over the bed. As if
the bedclothes had grown fur. She had short hair for the first time in her
conscious life. In shock, and unable to stop touching her neck, Maxi nearly fell
over the cat as she stumbled to the bathroom to throw up.
"You could have warned me," she greeted
Steve when he came into the back door.
"Have you made lunch?" He ignored the issue.
Anger and fear fed upon each other.
"No I have not made lunch. I have no hair. You
can go without food."
She turned around to bang coffee things around.
"I'll have coffee then."
"You won't. I'm just making some for myself. You
can brew your own cup."
"Maxi."
"Steve, you have to stop this. I've had long hair
all my life. You knew how I felt about it."
Steve ignored her tirade and went past her to the
bedroom where the carnage still lay.
The glow in her husband's pale eyes was becoming
familiar by now. Maxi's ex-hair was bundled into his large hands. Without a word
he went outside to the burn spot on the lawn. He was going to burn her hair. The
look of manic satisfaction when the deed was done no longer in any way appealed
to Maxi. She thought, not for the first time in the last few days, that he
looked very much like a pig. She touched the back of her naked neck
compulsively. No hair. Maxi felt naked. She felt exposed and ashamed. Most of
all, she felt afraid and angry for the shame.
"You know," he said. "Hair burns really
well." He eyed her from head to feet, measuring her slim frame.
"Condemned witches," he continued.
"Often had their hair cut off or bound behind them, so it would not catch
fire too soon and spoil the effect. So the audience could savor prolonged
pain." He seemed to almost taste it. Maxi touched her neck again. A furtive
gesture.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing. How's the food coming?"
Without waiting for a reply he left to watch TV. One
more day.
"Steve," said Maxi. "I have to go away
for a while. Tomorrow." A breeze carried distant thunder into the bedroom.
Steve barely glanced away from his bible.
"What?" he said absently, turning a thin
page.
"I have to go away." Steve turned to Maxi
next to him and his eyes made her afraid. She looked down and stroked the fat,
black cat lodged between them. "I need to visit Stella."
"What for?"
"I have to help her buy a house."
"A house? Doesn't she have a husband to help her
with it?"
"Evan works, Steve."
"But you can't go, Maxi."
Fear began to smother Maxi and it became hard to
speak.
"Why?"
"Well, it's Saturday tomorrow, isn't it? I'll be
wanting you here. For the washing and such."
Maxi picked up the protesting cat and held it against
her bare neck.
"Steve, you cut my hair. The least you can do is
let me have a day with my friend."
But Steve had turned back to his reading. Maxi lay
down and held the cat. Eventually she fell asleep.
Voices spoke to her.
"Maxi."
Go away, I'm sleeping.
"Maxi, I want to ask you."
It was Steve. The voice was Steve. What do you want
Steve? Go away. I'm sleeping.
"Maxi."
"What?" she asked groggily, trying to rub at
the cat's hairs in her eyes. For some reason her hand would not reach her face.
Sunlight was streaming through the curtains that Steve had opened. Maxi was
suddenly wide awake when she remembered the day. The most significant of all
meaningful days. The fifth day.
She tried to sit up. Looking down she saw the reason
why she couldn't. She was lying down on their double bed; hands and feet bound
to the bedposts so that her body sprawled like a star. The cat was licking at
her face. For the first time she smelled the foulness of its breath.
"Steve?"
"This is your trial Maxi. Are you a witch? Answer
now."
"What are you talking about?" Maxi's rising
hysteria rose with the question.
"I asked a question," said Steve, coming
close to the bed where the sun blazed like fire on the white sheets. His large
bulk towered over her and Maxi was again reminded of her tower card, of the
fifth day and of the occult assassins. Steve pressed something cold against her
neck. A butcher knife that she had used to prepare countless thinly sliced
steaks for countless romantic dinners with her husband. And now this.
"I asked a question, Maxi. And you will answer
now. Confess, witch, that I may show mercy." Steve pressed the knife a
little harder and Maxi could feel her skin beginning to split under its weight.
Maxi began to cry.
"Oh, no, no, no, dear wife. I merely want to help
you. Eternal peace. Please let me help you." Steve puckered his fat lips
and placed a moist kiss on Maxi's forehead.
"I'm not a witch, Steve," she cried. "I
never have been."
"Oh but look at this." Steve rose from the
bed and picked up the bible in his free hand. Thin pages turned with an unhappy
rustling, stinging to Maxi's core. Again there was thunder, but no relief from
the eternal sunshine. Or the voice of a husband she had once adored. She could
feel a trickle of blood slowly run from the wound in her neck. She screamed.
Steve's voice penetrated the scream.
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." He
snapped the bible shut and looked at Maxi. His eyes managed darkness and
paleness at the same time. Again he smiled a tiny smile and turned around to
pick something up.
"Maxi," he said as he turned back with a
canister in his hands. "I am truly sorry that I could not make you see the
light. We have discussed this at bible study, and the conclusion was that this
is the only way."
"Steve no!"
Maxi pulled at the ropes that held her wrists and
ankles, but they were thick and tight, hurting her. And all she got for her
trouble was a mouth full of gasoline. She spat and gagged violently, screaming
immediately when she found the remnants of her voice. The cat sprang from the
bed, the gasoline and the scream.
"Steve please. I'm not a witch!"
"Liar. That is what you would say."
"Steve please! Help me! Somebody! Anybody!"
But nobody heard anything or did anything. Maxi could
hear the sound of a lawnmower going about its Saturday activities universes
away. When everything was soaked, Steve took another canister and started over.
This time, the foul-smelling liquid splashed into Maxi's eyes and she screamed
again. The burning in her eyes and on her chafed wrists and ankles clamored
competitively for equal amounts of attention.
"Please Steve!" she cried. "Please
don't." She felt tears pouring from her burning eyes. Pain and terror
fought for control in her mind and her heart. Maxi let one long scream before
falling silent. It would not help. And this was the fifth day.
"Steve," she said calmly. "I did a
terrible thing."
Steve was preparing to light a match.
"I know. That's why this, while so unfortunate,
is necessary."
Maxi shook her head, trying to maintain control over
the panic and the fear.
"Steve we have to leave here. I hired an occult
contract."
"An occult contract? Now you see why you deserve
this?"
Ignoring him, she continued. "There isn't much
time. We have to leave. They will be coming here soon. Today."
Something in Steve's eyes shifted. Maxi felt something
like wild hope, but the match burned Steve's fingers and he let it drop.
Maxi's world was pure pain, vulgar as the beat of a
naked heart. She writhed in the flames, attempting an escape. All escape was
towards more pain but she continued writhing nonetheless. She realized that she
was screaming and screamed louder still as she felt her eyeballs swell and
burst, spilling scalding fluid over her peeling cheeks. She screamed until she
had nothing left to scream with and writhed until her muscles had collapsed and
burned away.
Unable to believe that she could still be alive after
so much pain and burning, Maxi realized that she was hearing something beyond
her own agony. Steve. Steve in agony. Good. Pieces of his ripped flesh struck
her and broke her charred body, which by now was little more than bone. A stormy
wind broke the window and put out her fire. And Steve left behind his heart on
her heart, beating wetly two or three times before realizing it had no more
blood to pump. Maxi's last thought was that she never gave the cat a name. The
feline jumped onto the smoking remnants of the bed and began to eat the heart
and pick the bones. Then the husband and the wife, married for five years, were
gone as if they never were.
The man who called himself Deville Prince plucked at
his white beard. Underneath it, he smiled.
"This house is perfect for you," he told the
young couple. "It has been ownerless for years. Go ahead and have a look
inside."
Slowly Prince opened the front door and held it open
for them. They stepped inside, not quite knowing why they were doing it so
carefully.
"Well, you like it Stella?" asked Evan of
his new wife after they made an inspection of the inside.
"Sure, but it's a bit gloomy, isn't it?"
The man with the white beard interjected quickly,
"Of course, most of the windows are on the west site, but the sunsets turn
this house into magic. You'll see."
Stella smiled at him uncertainly and looked at her
husband for confirmation. He smiled a little crazily. She could see that he
wanted the house. And they have been looking for a long time.
"Could we..." she began, but got no further.
"Oh, look at you." Evan followed his wife's gaze. A fat, black cat had
appeared seemingly from thin air. Stella picked up the animal without thinking
twice, and kissed her on a spot behind the left ear.
"We'll call you Hex," said Stella, looking
into the yellow eyes of the purring feline. "Because you're so black. And
you came to us by magic."
Steve and Prince smiled at each other. The deal was as
good as done.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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