Incantations, p.13
Incantations, page 13
The spirits in the shadows began stirring. Angela heard them moaning in her mind.
The house groaned around her. The creak-creak-creak sound from the basement returned with its harsh melody. Walls shuddered. Doors slammed.
Angela saw dead people emerging from the shadows. Fear gripped her heart as the spaces of the old Queen Anne Victorian began to fill with haunts belonging to a house so full of misery and death. There were many in various stages of decomposition, and most were strangers to her.
She would never have known Billy Greenlee, with most of the back of his head missing. Nor would she have known his high school sweetheart, Deirdre Miller, with her bleeding wrists and waterlogged, sagging skin. But they were among those who were in attendance to this ball of the dead. Tony Atkins emerged fashionably late from the pantry, with his bulging eyes and sloppily wire-cut neck. His two dead children walked beside him, adorable if not for the crushed in skulls. They each held one of his hands.
Beyond those Angela couldn't place, there were others who showed themselves and sent her to the brink of madness.
Lillian. Dear, sweet Lillian, who stood between the kitchen and living room, tears streaming from her eyes as she looked at Angela.
She saw her mother, Isabela, at the top of the stairs looking down on her daughter with sadness. Her face bore much the same expression as Lil's, only her neck was slashed and torn from the blade which killed her.
It was a reunion Angela had wanted forever, yet had dreaded it in the deepest parts of her soul.
Angela turned to her sister. “Lillian. You were trying to tell me the entire time, and I didn't listen. You told me on your computer, and I thought it was nonsense. You kept playing that silly damn song, and I thought it was because it was your favorite.” She was crying. “I'm so sorry, Lillian. I'm sorry she used me to hurt you. You know I'd never—”
Lillian held out her arms, tears running down her pale face.
Angela wiped her eyes with her arm and walked over to the record player. She took The Jackson 5 record from the shelf and pulled the record out. She put it on the player and pressed the power button, moving the needle to the start of the song. “Never Can Say Goodbye” started up and it felt like a fitting song for the moment. Sad, with a layer of hope underneath. Beauty. Independence. Love.
She turned the case to the side, and the missing piece of key slid out. She took the other half and connected them, holding it up to the light.
She walked toward the basement, the restless spirits parting so she could pass. But the spirits watched. They waited.
Angela turned to look at those who were waiting. Those who were dead. She looked at her sister.
Even though the song was telling her she could never say goodbye, she knew she had to.
“Goodbye, Lillian.”
Lillian waved goodbye with tears in her eyes.
Angela felt a darkness inside of herself unfolding. Blossoming. It felt familiar, yet totally foreign. And she felt love over it all. Overwhelming love.
She took the key, stuck it in her mouth, and opened the door to her destiny.
2
She walked down the shadowy steps and wasn't sure what she'd find. Surely not this sad-looking old woman standing in the middle of the room. A foul creature with sallow skin and long, sharp nails which looked like claws. A woman who once possessed great beauty and dark hair and eyes, like those of her progeny and descendants. A woman who had eroded every bit of her beauty away with the hatred in her heart and the foul deeds she had committed.
“Esme,” Angela said, circling the woman.
Angela, the voice in Angela's head said. You see me as I once was.
“And how you always will be,” Angela said. She needed to be careful. She couldn't let the witch in.
We both know it won't happen.
“We both know it's over,” Angela said.
Esme's face twisted. She wasn't used to being so powerless. So subservient.
“Problem, great-great-grandmother?” Angela asked. She could already feel the old witch trying to get into her thoughts. Take control of her body. That would not be happening today. Not this time.
The voices of the dead filled Angela Tremblay's head like static from a glitchy television, blocking Esme's attempts to get in.
Clever girl, the witch said.
“I should be,” Angela said. “I have Delapaz blood in me.”
This pleased the bruja, and she smiled. Her mouth was full of rotten, black spaces. The teeth which were there looked like razor-sharp mountain ledges, yellowish and grey.
More than you know. I want the baby.
“You can't have her,” Angela said, putting her hand protectively on her stomach.
You should join me, the wilted thing before her said. We could have so much power together.
Images of Lillian flashed through her mind, pale and hanging like meat on a hook. Images of Bianca, bloody and beaten. Images of her own mother, having to be cut from a dead girl's body with no dignity at all.
Angela looked at her great-great-grandmother for a prolonged minute.
“Fuck you,” Angela said. She yanked the silver dagger from her waistband and plunged it into her swollen belly. Blood gushed out in a virulent stream.
The witch screamed, a strange garbled sound like a dry garbage disposal.
You can't! What have you done?!
Angela held her gushing wound and leaped across the distance between her and the tub, where, underneath, she knew the box was buried. She started biting her tongue as her feet left the ground.
Scrambling around boxes and various debris, she finally made it to the tub.
She dug into the oiled, earthen floor of the basement, looking for where the old psychic said it would be. The putrid, rotted flesh she must eat.
Salty blood flooded her mouth and ran down her chin from where she bit deep into her tongue. She tried to swallow and grimaced. Her trembling fingers pushed her dark-brown hair over her ear, streaking it red from her damaged hand. The hand used to call Esme into the flesh.
The raw, untamed odor of blood filled the dark, shadowy basement. Much of it was from her badly bleeding stomach. There was no time to worry over that now. Sacrifices needed to be made. Angela had never been more aware of anything in her life.
As Angela went about her most important task, the house groaned on its foundation, threatening to fall and crash down upon her. The ghosts from above grew ever louder. Their echoes in her head made tears run from her eyes, but she pushed on.
Her fingers dug. Two of the nails split and still she dug. Her hands throbbed and bled, but she dug.
Only her and the bruja down here now.
The ancient thing spat and clawed at Angela's back, but its power was gone. Things were at an end. It couldn't focus. Couldn't gain control. The creature knew it and wailed its rage.
With her mind, Esme managed to push Angela a few feet away. Angela scrambled right back to her task, leaving a wide trail of red in her wake.
At long last, Angela's fingers hit something below the hard packed dirt. Something wooden. Her nails scraped along the edges of it, and she pulled the object free from its burial place.
An old, decrepit box sat in her hand. Rotted, but steel banded with a dirt-choked lock on it.
She banged it on the ground to loosen the dirt inside. The key she took from the inside of her mouth where it sat between her cheek and teeth as she bit her tongue. Slimy and blood-coated, the key slid into the lock with a sick click.
The witch backed away, eyes full of fear.
You don't dare.
Angela's eyes flashed.
She dared.
3
Angela yelled with triumph, tore the box open and grasped the putrefying black mass of human flesh from inside. She stood and turned to face the old woman.
Esme squeezed her fists closed so tight, blood ran from between her fingers. She redoubled her efforts to get inside of Angela but again managed to push her only about a foot backward.
Angela didn't slow down a bit.
“Got it!” She bit down hard on her tongue. Sawed with her teeth and severed the muscle from the root.
She spit the organ which helped her utter so many words of hate and love throughout her lifetime onto the earth floor. Her head howled with the pain of a thousand exploding suns. Blood flooded through teeth and lips as she pushed the rotted meat against the tide of crimson and choked it down.
For a moment, it felt as if it wouldn't swallow. It wanted to lodge itself in her throat and eject itself amid the flood of claret, which was spilling down her chin and neck. And then it was inside her, and it felt like a nuclear explosion inside her head. Like a hundred angry wasps fighting for dominance over the nest. She felt reborn.
The witch roared again. The noise faded into a muted palette of sounds as the ghosts above sighed with relief and victory in Angela's head. Memories flooded her brain. Her own, but also memories from those above.
She knew. She knew everything and the knowing filled her first with sadness, then anger.
Memories of every time the witch controlled someone and made them do terrible things. Memories of hate and depression and disgust and rape and death.
These were the things Esme Delapaz thrived upon. A sick nectar which poisoned as it sustained.
She understood the power the bruja once held as the strength overtook her body.
Angela looked at the creature who looked so pitiful and weak now, compared to the ever-powerful creature which had been inside her head growing up. She tried to feel sorry for her, but couldn't. It wasn't right what those boys did to her. But it didn't make it okay to hurt and abuse everyone else in life because you got a fucking raw deal.
Strength flooded her muscles and sinews. Her heart quickened in her chest. It didn't matter she was bleeding.
Gods, had anyone ever felt like this? This alive? This full of understanding?
She closed her eyes and let the power wash over her.
Angela began the incantations.
4
“Sithe Eani Nothestaree. Afethe Scorgethe Propheir.”
Her hands raised. Her bloody palms exploded in flames. A violent blaze raced up her arms as she stared into the eyes of the witch that had, in essence, become this house. Had become a nightmare.
The words came from nowhere and yet came from everywhere. Angela's mind and body were pure instinct. She wanted to reign it in, but she felt it taking her the way it once took Esme.
She opened her eyes and saw the Sun. A burning ball of gas and light which was pure energy. Her muscles thrummed with the same power of the Sun. She saw the Moon. Iridescent and beautiful in the sky. Able to control the tides and the shifting of creatures better left unsaid. She saw the stars. Scattered and glowing embers, which made up a world — no, a universe — of power and life. She saw all these things and felt herself grow.
The Earth beneath her grew ever smaller. The planets were tiny fragments of a life that was. A life left behind. She felt herself eclipse the Sun, the Moon, the stars. Had she believed, deep down, she wasn't a born witch? Esme couldn't control this power, and it had driven her mad. Angela knew she was different. She could control these things and more. She could become the universe.
Every cell in her body drank in the power. They feasted on the subatomic particles which are present in everything. They multiplied and became energy and matter and life. But even more than that, they became death. Yes, sweet death with its limitations and rules. She could transcend those rules, could control who lived or died.
Dare she say it?
She could become a goddess.
She would create and destroy on a whim. Would create the world in Her image and those who defied Her would be excised from the fabric of reality. They would be—
She stopped. It was happening to her. It was too much. She could see how someone like Esme had come to be.
She closed her eyes again, the fire still roiling from her hands. Even though she had thought a million things, it had only been a millisecond in real life.
Find comfort, she thought. Find what's safe.
Lillian.
It wasn't even a choice. Her sister had unfailingly been her safe haven. Just as she'd always been Lil's. Until Esme put her hateful hand in it.
She focused her mind on Lillian. She focused on her memories.
The beach. She and Lil, together. Splashing in the water, only Lil was too afraid to go out because she'd seen some stupid documentary about sharks. And Angela had told her a mermaid could beat up a shark. Lillian had laughed at that, but only in an “are you kidding?” sort of way. She believed her big sister. And from that moment on, she'd loved her precious mermaids to death.
A slumber party in her room. They'd made tents out of blankets by tucking them under things like dresser drawers or the heavy lamps on the table. Then they'd drape them over chairs to make tunnels. Bianca had made them popcorn and watched scary movies with them until they fell asleep. Bianca who loved them like a sister, and vice-versa.
Lillian getting hammered for the first time on her twenty-first birthday. She couldn't handle her margarita and ended up puking all over the guy she'd had a crush on for a year. She was so mad at herself the next day, but she and Angela watched chick-flicks and ate ice cream until three in the morning.
Sitting up in the living room there at the Queen Anne Victorian as adults, talking the night away, watching Twin Peaks and making dreams. Making plans. Lillian would talk about her writing, and Angela would talk about the coming baby and finding a man. They'd both get giggly stupid as the night wore on and laugh at the strangest things.
Yes. Lillian.
Always Lillian.
She was doing this for Lillian.
Angela opened her eyes. She pointed her hands, which were rolling balls of pure hellfire, at the cowering woman before her.
“Murdere.”
The scream which came from the mouth of the witch, Esme Delapaz, could be heard all across Summerhaven as she burst into flames.
Children who were sleeping woke up crying. Men who were making love to their wives lost their erection as a cold chill spread throughout their lower gut. Animals whined and pissed themselves where they stood.
Angela knew what she had to do. It wasn't enough to destroy the witch. She had to destroy it all. No one would ever have to live in a place so full of misery and death. No one should have the kind of power that Esme — and now she — had.
Flames erupted over her entire body, and she looked to the stairs where the spirits of Lillian and Bianca stood. They were holding hands.
“I love you both,” Angela said, her entire body covered in fire. “I'll see you soon.”
Angela thought about the baby girl she'd never see. I love you too, my sweet munchkin. I'm sorry.
She would have cried if she'd had the tears.
Looking at Lillian and Bianca one last time, she gave into the power and spoke the final incantation.
“Deadore.”
Fire raced through the basement, coming up through the floors. It raced up the stairs and engulfed every ceiling, every wall, every bit of anything which had once had a purpose and a memory.
Angela looked at the dissipating forms of her sisters with burning eyes and welcomed the fiery embrace.
Esme was gone.
The spirits were free.
And Angela Tremblay, the last living witch of the Delapaz bloodline, was no more.
At the end of this haunting and tragic story, it seems only fitting to submit the diary entries written by Miss Esme Delapaz herself.
This blogger will not reveal the sources used to gain access to such an item. In fact, it might be questioned that such an item actually exists since the house at 129 Walsh mysteriously burned to the ground in a massive fire that even the local fire department can't piece together the cause of.
Suffice it to say, this diary is real and the writings contained within are extremely crude and graphic. Miss Delapaz's use of the English vernacular was predisposed to the profane and the lurid. Much as she lived, she was drawn to the darker side of things. It's an interesting look inside the mind of a woman who was branded as — and was supposedly — a witch.
This blog post being the last is quite appropriate, at least in this blogger's mind. The last of the Delapaz bloodline died in the tragic fire that took the life of Angela Tremblay.
We can only assume the spirits of the deceased, those which Miss Delapaz murdered — either single-handedly, or those she murdered through the use of someone else as her weapon — are now at peace. There have been no reported sightings or hauntings on the premises of 129 Walsh, and we can assume that every trace of supernatural phenomena is gone.
These then are the last written words of Miss Esme Delapaz.
— Please note that dates weren't included in the original document —
They think I forgot, but I haven't. Those boys that fucked with Esme. They go about their lives, thinking they're safe. They don't know what safe is. When their children start missing and there's only a bloodstain left where little Junior used to sleep, what's for them then? Not a lot once Esme gets started in on them and cuts their tender wee throats and bathes in their sticky blood. Not a lot, I tell you.
There's revenge, and there's revenge. They took my virginity. They took my pride. They gave me my Mariabella, but they may as well have been the ones to take her away too. You got the best of Esme once. Never again.
When I see their children dying in my dreams, it makes my heart happy. I see the blood washing over me and I feel younger already. It's not just the blood of their wee ones that brings me life. It's the tears of the ones who thought they could get away with it. You will never get away with it.
I see Socorro in my dreams as well. Is it an omen? Am I doing the wrong things? NO! Socorro wasn't there. Socorro died and left me all alone. She says in my dreams that I should be worried. I'm not.
