He entered the house and turned toward the descending stairs where the flickering red light called to him in a secret language.
* * *
This could be a trick, of course. The woman might be duping him, trying to get him into her lair so she could cast another spell or throw more blood on him or maybe cut off his dick and stick it in a jar. He took out his cell phone and opened it before him to use as a flashlight. The blue light did nothing to fight against the red pulsing from somewhere downstairs, but it comforted him. He gripped the phone a bit too tightly and clung to that blue light like it was a magic force field that would protect him. When he reached the bottom of the steps, the blue light dimmed as it was programmed to do after several seconds of non-use.
The red lights were candles flickering in a smaller version of the candle holders Catholics prayed before in church, the votive candles in small glass holders before a cross on the wall. Instead of a cross on the wall, a large picture of a naked woman was set against the far wall above the candles. The woman appeared to be floating, or flying, as bolts of lightning shot upward toward her and across her body. Three long white candles were set beneath the picture at equal distances from each other and their light reflected off the pale body of the naked woman. White flowers that looked red in the light (bleeding flowers) were set at either end of the altar, which was probably a long card table with a black sheet over it. On the sheet, a star had been painted. Had she purchased that or created it herself? Maybe she made the star using White-Out. That was an even more disturbing image than buying them off some witchcraft website. A woman crazy enough to make all this shit on her own could be the perfect person to actually figure out how to cast spells.
Sasha’s mother had walked to the far corner of the room, which was empty save for the altar. Black curtains hung from the walls and even from the front window, though those were parted as if she knew he would be coming and she wanted him to watch.
He approached the altar and lowered his cell phone, but kept it open in his hand. Two metal bowls were also on top of the altar, one empty the other holding liquid that might be blood. He couldn’t be sure in this light. Next to the possibly blood-filled bowl lay a white-handled knife with a long blade that had been shined to a terrific gloss.
The front door swung shut.
“Is Sasha here?”
The woman groaned as she had before, stretching it out into an impossibly long syllable. The phone in his hand vibrated. A text from Pauclass="underline" U OK? Tyler wasn’t sure. No one was coming down the stairs. Maybe the wind had blown the door shut. Yeah, right, wind on a windless night blowing from inside a house out.
“Are we alone?”
But the woman was lost in her perpetual groan that sounded hollow like someone screaming underwater. She moved to the altar in smooth steps that made her appear to float. She stopped before the altar and sank to both knees.
More vibration and another message: ???
He responded: wait.
“I want you to remove whatever curse you put on me.”
The groan peeked and faded away like a howling wind that moved on to other places. “You do not believe,” she said.
“You cursed me.”
“You can not see what is really going on. You are lost in your fears.”
“You said there was only one way to end this.”
She nodded, faced him. The red candlelight bathed over her and deepened the smattering of dark blemishes painting her face. It could be ceremonial make up or maybe she beat herself as a sign of submission before her gods. “There is only one way, but you are not ready.”
“What is it?”
“Marisa,” she called, “come.”
Someone was behind him so quickly that Tyler almost screamed. He backed away, hit the wall. Someone with a black blanket covering him or her like a little kid using a sheet to play ghost had appeared out of nowhere. Had this person been down here the whole time? No, of course not. That was crazy. Whoever this was had been upstairs, hiding. He or she shut the door and waited for the cue.
The black blanket was a knitted thing with thousands of small holes, which made it easy for the person to see to walk around. The feet were bare, white blots on a black lake. As the person neared the altar, the spaces in the blanket filled with stark whiteness. Before he could realize what he was seeing, the person knelt behind Sasha’s mother, who stood and turned to face her, and then lay down. The black blanket pulled up high on the feminine legs, stopping just above the knees.
Sasha’s mother held one of the bowls before her, dipped one hand in it, and then sprinkled the liquid over the person on the floor. While she did this, she recited something that sounded more like guttural noises, yips and grunts, than actual words.
The person on the floor spread her legs and arms to resemble an asterisk. The blanket pulled up even higher. The legs were completely bare. Was she even wearing underwear? In spite of the gooseflesh speckling his body, Tyler grew aroused.
Sasha’s mother turned to him, bowl in hand. “This is the only way. You must erect a proper altar. Only then can the spell be changed.”
The phone was vibrating again.
Sasha’s mother bent down and pulled the blanket back, revealing her naked daughter. Sasha’s body was impossibly white, now splashed with red gashes from the candles. Her large breasts hung to either side of her chest. Her hair lay splayed out from her head and her face was completely expressionless. Is that how she had looked last Friday? You raped me.
“You must be with her again,” her mother said. “It is the only way.”
Sasha’s naked body had intensified his lustful reaction but her empty face and her mother’s mottled face cooled the blood in his veins.
“I will purify you and then you will purify each other.” She held out the bowl.
He couldn’t step away from the wall.
“This is what you want, yes? You want it to end?”
“What did you do?”
She held the bowl over Sasha. “I did what any mother would. I protected my daughter.” She overturned the bowl and the liquid splashed over Sasha’s midsection, trailing down into her crotch. She made no response, as if in a trance. “This is the most powerful of all spells. You cannot fight it. The only way is to embrace it.”
“What do you want from me?”
“To make my daughter happy.”
“No,” he said almost too quietly to hear.
She turned back to the altar. “That is too bad.” She turned back around with the knife in her hand. “There is no turning back now. The altar has been consecrated and must be purified. There are only two ways. If you refuse, I must use this.” She raised the knife, blade gleaming in the light as if already covered in blood.
“You’re fucking crazy.”
She wasn’t really going to kill her daughter, was she? That made no sense, not if she wanted to protect her. But he couldn’t have sex with Sasha, her mother standing over them with a fucking knife. He had been aroused before but now his dick had retreated almost inside of him. The vibrations in his pocket made him more anxious. Sasha’s mother dropped to her knees next to her daughter. She held the knife in both hands now and raised it over her naked daughter.
“Only you can stop this.”
He ran up the stairs so quickly he tripped on the top step and spilled into the foyer. Then he was up and prying at the door, which wouldn’t open. Locked. Sasha had locked it in her trance state. She had no idea what her mother was doing. From downstairs, the low groan came again only louder this time. It echoed in the house like an earthquake. Tyler found the deadbolt, flipped it back, and was scrambling down the porch steps and the front lawn so quickly he didn’t see Paul coming up the lawn and crashed right into him. They tumbled down the sloping lawn and stopped near the car.