I’d returned to the beginning of the end, and it was heavy. Climbing the stairs to our loft felt like returning to a past life.
As I pulled on the strength from my new inked in feather, I touched my necklace, thinking of my mom. It wasn’t until later that night in the hospital, after my near-death experience, that Derek had pointed to my little key and cocked a brow. At some point it had turned purple, and if I had to guess, the change had most likely happened when I’d heard my mother’s voice. I’ve taken this first punch for you . . .
It was entirely possible that it was my family’s stupid curse that had been coming for me that day in the closet, and that my mother had somehow stopped it from taking me; but who had been inside Joe, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think it was the same thing that was scratching on our closet door, leaving her to feel haunted. Whatever had been inside my wife wasn’t something that thrived on party tricks. Whatever, whoever, had possessed Joe that day had roots. It smelled of rot and sea water, and the way it looked at me—I knew this wasn’t the first time it had tortured my soul.
Ella. The way it had said that name. That thing knew me from a previous life, and that thing had killed me before. I was sure of it.
When I got to the front door of our loft I just stood there, a rancid sensation filling the pit in my stomach. I laid my hand over the brass doorknob; it was scratched and worn from age. Then, before I could change my mind, I unlocked the door and flung it open. Immediately, I was right back in the heart of that day.
Before I left the loft the day that Joe, or Joe’s body, attacked me—after Derek had already stepped out into the hallway—I’d turned around to face the mess that Joe had left for me. The only thing coursing through my veins was rage. Anger at what she’d done to our marriage, my trust, my ability to love, and my mother’s accident that never would’ve happened if she hadn’t been so reckless.
As I stood there, those feelings grabbed a hold of me between the place where dark and light live. I raised my wand and brought it down again, utilizing magic without having to utter a single word. I made damn sure that Joe wouldn’t be able to pick any of that shit back up. No matter how hard she tried.
But now, standing there and seeing everything all over again—I just wanted it gone. Lifting my wand, I waved it in the direction of my old practice nook and swept all the clutter into the corner. It was still a mess, but at least Joe could pick it up.
Having cleared a path, I picked up a random chunk of my old violin and made my way slowly through the loft. There were heaps of jeans and T-shirts piling up over our furniture, and Joe’s shoes were scattered all over the floor. She had moved all her clothing and other things downstairs. She wasn’t kidding when she’d said she hadn’t gone back into the closet, and with good reason if what I suspected was true.
It had to be a fairly newborn ass bag living in that closet, and those could be just as shitty as the ancient ones. Full of themselves and super cocky, but this also made it easier to get rid of them. They were so sure of themselves that they didn’t often keep their guards up.
I slid the purse from my shoulder and looked up the windy stairs that led to our bedroom, clearing my senses, and focusing on the disturbance. I felt every particle of energy vibrating within range. Though it wasn’t the foul beast in the closet that had taken over my wife that dreaded day, there definitely was something up there. I hadn’t wanted to freak Joe out, so I’d kept it to myself what I’d assumed was living in our loft.
I dropped my bag to the floor, taking each step carefully until I reached the landing. I had a small altar set up across from our bed, and inside I always kept hand rolled sage amongst other supplies. While I’d been living in the loft, I’d had to routinely sweep the living quarters to protect us from things of this nature because of Joe’s consistent drunken negativity. It sure hadn’t taken very long for one of them to form together after I left; it was probably just biding its time.
With my attention fixed to the closet door, I grabbed a thick sage stick, a bottle of cedar oil, and held out my wand—a flame was already at the end as though it was a giant matchstick. After I was properly armed, I stood before the door, deep breaths entering and exiting my nostrils as I concentrated on the light inside my heart.
I’d never been afraid of these things, but I knew this energy would try and get inside me. I could already visualize it, drooling inside that closet, craving the body my soul was residing in, and the goddess light attached to it. Malevolent energies wanted witches, they wanted us more than anything in the world. Sure, they could create their own sorcery, but what we were born with was far more powerful. In the wrong hands, witch magic could be the deadliest force in the world. Showing weakness at this point would be suicide. Behind that door was residue from mine and Joe’s soul; it was leftover junk from that god-awful day, and most likely the days that followed. A mass that had formed itself into a new entity.
I rolled back my shoulders, elongated my neck, then took a deep breath before I reached out and swung open the closet door. I showed the black cloud no emotion when it turned from its corner and hissed. It took the nasty energy only half a second to lunge for me.
“Out!” I screeched. “In the name of the Goddess Diana, I cast you away!”
Unable to get past the sage, it shoved at me, like a large bully cornering a small child in a desolate hallway. But I stood strong, statuesque, holding the smudge stick out like a sword and making large circles of billowing smoke.
“Unhappy energies are not welcome in this place! Anything, anyone who wishes those who live here harm must leave now!”
The black fog rammed into the smoking sage. Tendrils from the dark cloud attempted to wrap themselves around it, but my light was fierce and had been born of a goddess who was billions of years old. I was an unbreakable force.
“What’s wrong, princess?” It was using Joe’s voice, because these things, as they grew stronger, could show themselves however they wanted. They could reach into your mind and pull at details no one else would ever know. Joe’s words fell around my shoulders like hail spitting down from a black cloud. This evil piece of shit was trying to crack me like an egg. “Don’t I make you happy? No one is ever good enough for you!”
“Away!” I yelled, keeping my features still, careful not to show any emotion.
“Aw—wait. What is that I hear?” it hissed. “The wind . . . it whispers.”
“You fucking ass bag—”
“If it wasn’t for your spell your sister’s son would still be here. She would still be here.” The cloud backed away, shaking as it laughed. “Everything you touch dies!” I clenched the things in my hands tighter. “Your mother’s spell shouldn’t have saved you. Rowena should’ve been able to put you out of your misery!”
I cocked my head to the side. “Rowena?”
Its laughter was deep and throaty . . . evil.
“Don’t worry, princess, she isn’t through with you. She’ll have all of you soon enough. She’s hungry, and your mother’s soul—I bet it’s tasty.”
Don’t let it get to you, Ellie, I coached myself. This is what these things did, they got to the root of whoever they wanted to feed from. I had no choice but to be strong. Disregarding the strange things it was saying, I concentrated harder, focusing on growing more fire at the end of the smudge stick—creating more smoke. Utilizing all my strength, I built a force field between the ass bag and me, and when I spoke, I did so fiercely.
These were the words that had been instilled into my sister and me from a very young age. “As dust you will fall and die away, my light is more powerful than you on any given day!”
The smoky formation paused, as if it were considering my threat. Then, agonizingly slowly, it shifted its form, and as it did, I had to force myself not to cringe.
“Ellie . . .” it whispered. Thin red lips, moving inside the outline of a small head with short, pixie-like hair. The frame of the woman I loved. As it floated before me, the likeness split in half—forming not only into the likeness of Joe, but of Derek as well.
“You harbor feelings for both . . . which one will it be?” The two imposters hissed. “She loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, she loves me not.”
I gritted my teeth, my stomach twisting. “I cast you out!” I shouted, dropping my hands down by my sides and releasing the force field.
The entity formed back into a black fog and immediately charged at me, but I was prepared for it, hitting it with a cloud of concentrated smoke. It fumbled and fought as though it’d just been caught by a web of rope; as it struggled, I pulled out the cedar oil and sprinkled it in the air, watching as it floated in the space before me as though there was no such thing as gravity.
The beast was growing weaker, but it continued to fight. As it watched me turn the oil into a fine mist, it failed to contain its fear—its energy pulsating as it worked anxiously to smuggle itself free.
“Let me in, Ellie! Between my darkness and your magic, we could rule!”
“I said you are not welcome! Be gone!” I backed away as soon as I yelled the last words, and as I did the fine mist of cedar I’d created shot into the entity like thousands of tiny bullets.
After another minute, all that was left of the nasty energy were the last of its screams as it died away. I grabbed a broom and swept up the fine layer of black dust covering the floor.
“Good riddance,” I said, as I flushed the remains down the toilet. I had not been expecting it to be that big.
My mom had always called these unfortunate creations Freddies. I had to assume the name came from somebody in her past who she didn’t care for all that much. Perhaps an ex. All I knew or cared about was that they were energies, bad ones. Most everyone had them lurking around in their homes or workspaces, but as witches, we could see and hear them. It was our job to sweep them away when they got out of control.
They were leftovers from emotional pain or extreme anger—fear. If they weren’t dealt with, they could become very dangerous. A lot of people who thought their houses were haunted simply had a buildup of negative energy and it was feeding from them. Freddies were like mold spores; once they were unleashed, they quickly grew out of control. They even had the ability to possess people. All they needed was an invitation, or someone too weak or too blinded to fight them off. Freddies were bad, really bad.
I decided to smudge the rest of the loft when all was said and done. After something like that it was never a bad idea to do a little extra ‘cleaning.’ When I was finished, I ran back upstairs and rummaged through my drawers, grabbing a few things I’d been missing. Just as I was about to close the dresser, however, I noticed something I had completely forgotten about. Slowly, I leaned down and retrieved a stack of cards wrapped inside a blue, tasseled scarf. V’s tarot cards. I’d completely forgotten I had them.
We’d boxed up her stuff when it looked like she really wasn’t coming back, but there were just some things that were too precious to throw away. Her cards had been one of those things. Before she tossed her gift to the ocean, my sister had been a master of divination; besides her crystal ball, the tarot had been her eyes.
I dropped down to my knees and held the deck against my chest. I wanted to unravel the scarf and shuffle the cards, feel my sister’s energy in them before she changed, but that sort of thing wasn’t done. Without permission, it wasn’t okay to touch another witch’s deck, even if that witch had lost herself somewhere along the way.
My drifting thoughts were suddenly cut off by the sound of our land line ringing down below. Dropping the tarot cards into my bag I walked downstairs and gathered the rest of my things, preparing to leave before the answering machine picked up. I was afraid it was Joe, and I didn’t have anything else to say to her. No one else had the number for that line—we only had that phone because it was super rad. This orange rotary number that hung on the wall just like my mom had used to have in the kitchen.
I was halfway out the door when I heard the beep.
“Hey Joe, it’s me, Jody.”
I immediately turned around and hissed, sounding eerily similar to the thing I’d just murdered in the upstairs closet.
“Listen, I was thinking about last night and I really wanted to give you a shout. I just can’t let you go, not like that. Call me crazy, but it had to be the stars aligning that brought us together.” She chuckled, and my jaw tightened. “Anyway, call me, okay. Bye.”
Mother fucker.
“Bitch,” I said out loud.
I stood there for I don’t know how long, just staring at the machine.
My face grew hotter by the second. My dry mouth and heavy head were suddenly washed away as if I’d never had a hangover in the first place, and before I knew what I was doing I’d dropped my things to the floor and was running back upstairs to my bed stand, to where I kept my small bowl of salt.
As soon as I had what I needed, I marched back downstairs as though I’d been reprogrammed for an entirely new mission. I made my way through the house and grabbed my things, throwing them out the front door, and then I turned back around to face the loft. Without even a second’s hesitation, I threw the salt up in the air as I recited the only words going through my mind. Then I walked out, slamming the door behind me.