Chapter Three

A few days later Cassie guided my hand as I carved runes into a long birch spoon with a boline knife. The ritual, she claimed, required my hand to perform the rites. Sometimes I chopped what felt like dried herbs, other times I slid the knife through things slimy and rubbery. I lit candles, burned incense, and unscrewed glass jars filled to the brim with foul-smelling things. All of it went into a cast iron cauldron that we shoved into a fireplace filled with crackling birch logs.

As I stirred the bubbling potion with the birch spoon I wondered what I had gotten myself into, whether this was a harmless hobby or if Cassie had some strange beliefs about how the world worked, but I played along.

“How long does it have to brew?” I asked.

“Several days.”

“Days? Will your parents care?”

“They won’t mind. My mom used to do stuff like this all the time.”

I stirred the potion in silence. It gurgled and murmured and the birch logs popped and hissed.

“I should get home soon,” I said at last. “I can’t stir it for days.”

Cassie clicked her tongue and drummed her fingers against the coffee table.

“I think your hand has done enough. There’s more that needs to be done, but it might be better if I do it alone.”

She took my hand and led me away.

***

A few days later Cassie declared the potion ready. She scooped out the vile concoction with a wooden bowl and placed the bowl in front of me on the coffee table. The murmuring brew, the house, Cassie and her long hair, all of it reeked of charred rotten fish with a hint of something fruity like strawberries. I felt sick breathing in that air.

“I know how it smells, and it’ll taste worse, but I promise it’s not toxic. Worst case scenario, you wake up tomorrow still blind.”

I started to bring the bowl to my mouth, then stopped. 

“I don’t know,” I said.

Cassie sat on my lap, straddling me. Her body felt soft and warm against mine. The tips of her nails stroked my back under my shirt and she breathed into my ear. She pushed the bowl closer to me and with one hand I brought it up to my mouth and gulped the potion down. It was the worst thing I’d ever tasted. My tongue stung as it went down. It was more earthy than I expected, like muddy compost, and when it reached my stomach it felt like I had been kicked in the balls. At the slightest movement I thought I might vomit.

Cassie saw how I was feeling.

“Let’s get you home,” she whispered. “You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

I didn’t think I would ever feel better. On the drive home I started to sweat. Flashes of hot and cold raked my body, and I ached all over. More than once I demanded Cassie tell me what the fuck she had done but she just kept saying to be patient. When her car stopped in front of my house I didn’t wait for her to help me to the door. I bolted out and staggered to the door, threw it open, and stumbled to my bedroom. I thought I felt too horrible to sleep, but once my head hit the pillow I was out, and I stayed out for the next twelve hours.

***

When I sat down at the breakfast table the next morning Mom said she opened my door last night to see if I wanted dinner but all I did was mumble nonsense with my eyes closed so she decided to let me sleep. What a morning that was. The most magnificent morning I’d ever experienced. Even what came afterwards could not fully erode the elation of seeing shafts of yellow sunlight spill through the blinds, the floor that was covered in dirty clothing, the crinkled blankets that kept my body warm, my own hands opening and closing. A pretty mundane view, I admit, but it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

I called Cassie from my room barely able to suppress myself from shouting into the phone. I whispered that I couldn’t wait to see her for the first time, that I would spend the rest of my life indebted to her, that nothing I ever did could compare to what she had done for me. She had given back everything that had been taken from me, my entire life, but something was wrong. Cassie sounded like she’d gone without sleep for a week, her voice a distant croak, and her usual exuberance had vanished. She suggested we wait a few days before seeing each other. I told her that was the stupidest thing she had ever said, that I wanted to see her as soon as possible. It was Saturday so instead of the library we decided on the park around the corner from my house, where it all began, where we could watch the sunset.

I hung up and prepared to astound my parents at the breakfast table. 

***

A part of me felt lousy that I couldn’t share the full story with my parents. It made me wonder if I had done something wrong, but seeing the smiles on their faces, faces I hadn’t seen for over a year, was a great moment in my life. That day they took me for a long drive along a rural road that hugged the coastline, twisting and turning along rocky cliffs, then winded through green hills so high they could have been mountains. 

It was a great day, but night came fast.

The sun was already fading behind the horizon when I arrived at the park, which was empty except for someone on the swings. She faced away from me, hood over her head, but I knew it was Cassie. I sat on the swing next to her.

“Beautiful sight,” I said, thinking myself smooth. Then I looked left and gasped. A chill caressed the back of my neck. My insides twisted.

“Cassie?” I asked.

“In the flesh,” she said.

The woman on the swing had long graying hair, fingertips yellowed from cigarettes, crow’s feet and glabellar lines. She must have been in her late forties. Her smile revealed yellow, crooked teeth.

“Are you… is this… did the ritual… is this what you meant by… consequences?”

She burst into laughter.

“How flattering,” she said. “No, sweetie, this is how I’ve always looked.”

“I thought you were in high school,” I said.

“Honey, I never even went to high school. Does my age bother you?”

I didn’t reply. I looked away from her at the sand beneath my shoes. She placed a hand on my thigh. 

“You didn’t seem to mind yesterday.”

I jolted to my feet and stepped out of reach. Her giggle was as girly as the day I met her but this time it made my skin crawl. Cassie started to swing back and forth. The chains groaned and creaked.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“Is that really what you want to know?”

She rubbed her eyes. The last of the sunlight faded, leaving us alone in the meager light cast by the distant street lamps.

“Don’t you want to know how?” she asked.

Cassie swung higher and higher, and at her peak an awful change overcame her face. Her skin appeared stretched tight over a thin avian skull with a lopsided mouth, a wide black maw from which emanated her sickening girly giggle, like a horrid creature trying to burst through a membrane of flesh. But when she swung down low she was just an older woman again. A trick of the shadows, I thought.

“Was… anyone… hurt?” I asked.

This time she responded not with a giggle but a deep cackle so loud crows flew from the trees along the perimeter of the park, but something caught in her throat and the laugh decayed into a hacking cough.

“Sorry, sorry” she said, clearing her throat. “I’ll tell you what.” She spread her thighs. “Come over here and I’ll make you forget all about it. If you thought it was good before you wouldn’t believe the things–”

That’s when I started to run. A deep primitive fear compelled my legs to move, move, move. I heard an abrupt squeak as Cassie hopped off the swing, the thud of feet hitting the sand, but I didn’t look back. I ran out of the park, down a long quiet street, and turned the corner. I hadn’t run that fast for over a year. I thought my lungs might burst and my thighs might snap, but when I thought of that monstrous face floating high in the shadows tittering like a young child I was propelled onwards. When I reached my front door I looked behind me. The night was dark and silent and empty.