Invocation's Wake II

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

“I did it?” Trisha says, peeking through her clasped squint of bejeweled false lashes. For as much as she believed in the dark arts her carefully googled attire peddled, she never expected that her bragged-about attempt to conjure a spirit would indeed manifest. Yet there it was, staring at her through the bare trees of the local spook spot.

For years Trisha Parks had been the open target for teasing and contempt at her private catholic school. Not only were her parents divorced - which is declasse in the eyes of God’s holier-than-thou parishioners - but her step-mom was an active hippie. The only reason she was going to the private school was that her mom was a dyed-in-the-wool Sunday school teacher and her father agreed it was safer than the active shooter drill alternative.

They didn’t bother to ask her what she wanted to do. No, she just had to put up with the incessant comments about body hair and free love. Well, she showed them when she came back junior year a full-fledged witch. Sure they might still murmur and mock, but deep down, they were all scared of her and the fact that every day her very presence seemed to spit in the eye of the big guy upstairs to whom they were all pledged.

She loved the attention she was suddenly garnering. The whispers. The mystery. Boys paying attention now because she was dangerous. She was the forbidden fruit and they all wanted a taste. When she proudly proclaimed at lunch what her plans were for the full moon, they all turned so white. Ha! As if they could get any whiter! In this school’s eighty-year history she was only the second Latina woman to attend - her mother, the first.

Now, however, she was undoubtedly making history for something she chose! The only one brave enough to show up. When they all tried to appear so ambivalent towards the threat. They may look down on her with aloof condemnation, but deep down she knew they all revered her. She was capable where they were privileged. Her power couldn’t be bought, it had to be wielded.

Quickly, Trisha pulled out her phone and started recording. They weren’t going to believe it! A candle burning in Sister Slaughter’s window! That place hadn’t been occupied since the Great Depression when she corralled the poor to her halfway house. Mostly single mothers in the family way or else with children under the age of five - you know, when they are still considered cute and pliable. Anyway, it was never her intention to provide anything but a quick and quiet end. Poison most likely, but there were a few who caught on and so met with more gruesome endings. The whole point was to acquire the children and sell them on behalf of the church in order to grow the congregation, up donations, and create an irrefutable reputation in the eyes of the Vatican, and therefore the world. It’s rumored that the local government was even in on it since it only made the city safer with a more “desirable” population.

No one was ever caught, charged with a crime, or proven wrong. Sister Slaughter simply disappeared one day and the house was left to squander. Until tonight…

…

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

“And it seems to me that you lived your life, like a candle in the wind.”

She places the matches yet lingering flame to her pursed rosebud lips and subtly blows out its flame.

“And I would have liked to know you, but I was just a kid.”

The worn-through floorboards creak under her bare feet, so splintered with time and age that they mimic the transparency of an otherworldly portal. Yet she holds no fear as she swings the gossamer folds of her angelic dirndl on the second-story floor, flickering her body like the candle in the window’s bright spark.

“Your candle burned out long before your legend ever did.”

Gwendalyn Goodwink. A girl of unknown age, she has always just been. Too many toys in the attic, they say. The community looks after her, indulging in the idea of her independence, they let her flutter around town without too much interference. They give her far too much credit… and too little.

“Loneliness was tough, the toughest role you ever played.”

Though her voice and mannerisms are still very much like that of a child, she knows and sees all that goes on around her. She is their history.

“We created a superstar, and pain was the price you paid. Even when you died, the press still hounded you…”

A loud sound pierces the cabin’s walls. She is no longer alone, and for a brief second she acknowledges it with an impish smile then continues to twirl about.

“And I would have liked to know you, but I was just a kid, your candle burned out long before your legend ever did…”

…

Twigs snap underfoot as the soft earth yields to Trisha’s exaggerated approach to the dilapidated cabin.

“Here goes nothing…” She says into her screen as she places her palm against the splintered front door. There is a lump in her throat, but she refuses to let it show. This is a Livestream, after all, and she has everything to prove.

“Well… here I am, the haunted refuge of Sister Slaughter’s sinister escapades,” Trisha says into her phone. “What you were all too chicken to come and see for yourselves.”

She backs into the mostly rotten innards of the abandoned cabin, just to the base of the broken-down staircase.

“But spare me the extra Hail Marys, kiddos, because it’s just an empty cabin -”

Trisha’s superior tone is cut short when the slow raw sound of rusty hinges grinding against a door frame too swollen with rot to make for easy passage comes trembling in from behind the stairwell.

“Did you hear that?” Her voice is as small and altered as her countenance. She is shaking, but quick to remember who this performance is for. “Maybe,” She says, recomposed, raising a cocky brow. “We’ll get to meet Sister Slaughter, after all.”

Carefully, Trisha makes her way to the second floor. Of course, she knows the noise was coming from the room behind the staircase, but no one watching will be able to prove it. So by venturing on, however evading it may be, she is still braver than them. Still the badass witch.

No matter how many times she tells herself this, it doesn’t help to quiet the rumbling of her uneasy guts, the shake in her hand, or the tremble of her lip. A part of her is cursing this quest. This desperate need to prove something to the people she utterly despises. Her stepmother says to just “be yourself”. HA! Easy for her to say, the natural blond-haired, waify, six-foot-tall, supermodel hippy, who doesn’t have to wear a bra because she didn’t hit puberty and was suddenly a D cup! She might mean well, but she can never understand what it is like to be a short and curvy sixteen-year-old minority in a school whose alumni come with their own Instagram filter! It doesn’t matter what she does, how hard she tries, what diets, what pills, she will never be that. So she has to be creative. Has to prove that she is something more, something still…

“Worthwhile?”

Trisha practically falls backward down the stairs. At least she would have had the woman not pulled her forward instead. Together they collapse on the floorboards. Trisha swears she can feel them bow under their suddenly enforced weight. Not great for her self-esteem, but her mind is more preoccupied with the ghost that just saved her life.

“Who… who…” She says as she desperately scurries to her hands and knees, feeling around for a phone she fears is now lost. Her only lifeline!

For her part, Gwendalyn just sits there where she fell blinking up at Trisha with a pleasantly vacant expression. “This.” She finally answers, motioning to the world around them. “Worthwhile, isn’t it? Some people don’t like it, or her.”

Her heart rate now slowed and her mind caught up to events, Trisha pauses her frantic search to look at the woman. What a spectacle she is too, and hardly a specter. Was she disappointed? If she were being honest with herself, she would see that she was actually relieved. Despite her stereotypical bearing, Trisha had never really tried to understand what it means to be a modern-day witch. In her heart of hearts, she had no real respect for the art. She just liked the power of its intimidation.

“You mean Sister Slaughter?” Trisha asks.

“I mean her.” Gwendalyn says, her eyes detaching from Trisha to something… or someone else, behind her.

Trisha’s chest heaves in and out in a quick succession of shallow breaths she prays won't see her suffering an asthma attack. Not here, not now. How would it look? To be taken to the hospital because she was too scared. They would have a field day and she would never hear the end of it!

Regardless of the chill condensing itself in her veins, Trisha turns to confront whatever it is that has Gwendalyn transfixed in such reverent regard. She practically breaks out in hysterics when she sees it is just a candle. The one she thought meant she had conjured Sister Slaughter in the flesh. Nope, turns out it’s just the local wacko they say is too dumb to have a brain, but too rich to be institutionalized. Gwendalyn Goodwink is a local legend all her own. The only daughter of the line of wealthy oil tycoons who founded this town.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Gwendalyn says enraptured, clasping hands together against her cheek as she moons over the flicking flame.

Trisha rolls her eyes, getting to her feet. “Yeah, real hot.”

“Usually she doesn’t get this many visitors, only me.”

“This makes two.” Trisha helps Gwen get to her feet, but she shakes her head, pulling free.

“No, all of us! Don’t you see them?” Gwendalyn begins to spin again, and as she does, Trisha can feel a shift, can sense, and even catch the flicker of what seems like hundreds of eyes open and upon them in this very room.

“What is this? Who are you? This isn’t funny!” Trisha says as she spins in a circle trying to gauge just how many people are in this room with her, while simultaneously attempting to find a wall she can put her back against.

“Oh really, we’re laughing.” Comes a snide and superior voice from the beyond.

The heart that had risen to her throat now falls to her stomach. Trisha recognizes the voice and dreads its interaction. In lofty confirmation, three leggy pubescent blondes emerge from the shadow, still in their plaid button-down uniforms. Megan Adams, Credence Williams, and Lilly Berburt. The most popular clique at St. Benedict High.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Trisha says, spitting her words with the disdain she feels towards herself for reacting.

They giggle amongst themselves, then in mock seriousness, Megan pouts lip in response, “Why, only what you invited us to, Witchy-poo.”

“A little late, don’t you think?”

“Well, we were watching your Live,” Lilly says. “but it would appear filter sreally do lie.”

“It’s called setting a scene, you dumb bitch.” Trisha can feel herself burning from the inside out.

“Didn’t know this was going to be a directorial debut too!” Megan says.

“Witchy Tarantino?” Credence says.

“Tell me, are all witches this rude?” Lilly says. “Paging Glenda.”

They giggle and mock like they share a brain and move like the heads of a hydra. Trisha knows it would be her luck that if she were to cut one down two more would take its place, tempting though it may be. They are so in tune, and a part of her - a bigger part than she would like to admit to - wonders what it might be like. She can’t remember any time in her life when she felt like someone knew her. She means really knew her. Without all the trappings of defense, or the impersonal personality she puts on and acts for her like a long arm to keep people from getting too close to hurt her.

Does she even know? Can she even remember a time when she wasn’t either trying too hard to please or else to shock?

All she wants to do right now is scream and cry and tear this place and these people up beyond any reasonable recognition.

Why should they get to have each other and her no one? Why is she the common stomping ground for other people to connect over? Her father met someone within a year of leaving her mother. Her mother is always busy participating in local activities. She has friends and familiars, a real social butterfly! Why does it elude Trisha? Is it her hair - the thick dark mass of varying textures that don’t get on with the weather, ever? Is it her body - it is a lot bigger than what is popular right now, but not curvy enough to be considered empowering. She’s not thin enough or fat enough. She is nothing. Her skin is a tortured mess of acne and psoriasis. Too oily but too dry at the same time.

She is a freak.

She is alone.

“I’m going home.” Trisha says, pushing through the snide trio with force, but the gaggle latches on.

“Uh, uh, uh,”

“Where do you think you’re going, Witchy-poo.”

“We were promised a reckoning.”

“Perhaps what we need is a sacrifice?”

Trisha’s eyes grow large as she looks between them for meaning. They all grin with merciless intention and Trisha knows deep down:

“It will always be me or them.”

…

“And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind…”

Vision comes in blurry waves of pain and sequence as she blinks towards complete consciousness.

“Never knowing who to cling to when the rain set in.”

Face first on the ground, arms stretched high overhead. She remembers falling before her world went black.

“And I would have liked to know you,”

Remembers running so fast, her only intention was to get away, she didn’t pay attention to the condition of the stairway and collapsed a step, which caused her to trip and bellyflop straight to the bottom.

“But I was just a kid.”

Her head is ringing, but she is alive.

“Your candle burned out long before,”

Trisha raises her head and is met with her blood-soaked reflection.

“Your legend ever did.”

“Why am I covered in blood?” She asks herself, jerking up only to fall to her knees upon the sight of her hands. They too are covered in blood… and hair. Blonde hair.

“What is happening?”

Gwendalyn, meanwhile, spins about the room. Unperturbed by Trisha’s distress, she continues to hum her melody, quite pleased with herself.

“What did they do to me?” Trisha trembles looking around for any form of an answer, any sign of comfort.

“What do you mean, dear one?” Gwendalyn chimes, finally acknowledging her - though not enough to stop her dancing.

“Just look at me!” Trisha says. She cannot look away from her reflection. The shards of her clothing, the level of gore. There is not one ounce of her that isn’t splattered with one form of carnage or other.

“Ah yes,” Gwendalyn says with a click of her tongue. “That’s inevitably what happens when push comes to shove and hate meets a hug.”

“You’re crazy!” Trisha says getting to her feet, but sliding on the blood.

“She likes you, you know.”

“I’m getting the hell out of here.” she regains her footing to make for the back door but finds she cannot move!

“Oh, but you can’t.”

The blood acts like an adhesive.

“That is the price you pay,” Gwendalyn says, coming before Trisha, brushing her purple-gelled hair out of her face. “For love and for fame.”

Trisha’s lip trembles and she shakes her head no, yet finds no conviction in it. She knows all too plummeting well what it is Gwendalyn refers to.

“Am I dead?” Trisha asks, hoping, but Gwendalyn primly shakes her head. “Then… this isn’t my blood?” Gwendalyn confirms with a tintinnabulary shake of the head. “I’m not dead…”

“You’re cursed.” Gwendalyn’s face lights up with the twinkling radiance of one gone truly mad.

Trisha looks into the mirror once more, but it is no longer her reflection she sees. It is the black and gnarled Habit worn with time, stained in the blood and decay of those she tarnished in her wake. The epitome of slaughter… Sister Slaughter.

“You made the perfect vessel, child,” Gwendalyn pets her shoulder, deftly running the tips of her feather-light fingers up and down their slant. “So full and concerned with the world… so filled with hate in need of expression.”

“What happened to them?”

“You, my dear, you. The victims are always what happens to life. They can excuse any action and always feel in the right. That is why any call to arms, however unjust, is based in the illusion of suffering. Those who actually need are the last to want, to beg, or complain. They dare not ask for help, for it would shame their pride. An admittance of failure to thrive. In the animal kingdom that gets you killed, not saved. Compassion in the hands of man is corruption, a false front for so much excusable evil… and fame”

“I want to go home.”

“You hate home… although…”

…

Again Trisha’s head aches as her ears ring with the inevitable result of an impact. Was it all just some horrible dream? She wants to move but finds herself incapable of the motion. So she moves her head and finds another mirror has been erected, this time to her right, and still the one that stands before. They are beginning to box her in, but that is the least of her concerns… she is covered in more blood!

Suddenly, something jerks her by the wrists up onto her knees. Her palm opens and out falls a crucifix and a peace symbol… her mothers… each of them… the necklaces they always wore.

“What have you done?”

“Not me, child…” The voice echoes but there is no one Trisha can see to put it to. At least not until she jerks her head to try and comes face to face with yet another mirror, this time behind.

“You.” She mouths to herself.

“This can’t be true. This can’t be true…” She says to herself. “This is…”

“Like magic?”

She jerks her head to the left. Another mirror! Another her she has to face, but can’t! Yet she has no other choice, all she can move is her head! Her body is helpless to move for itself. Her arms hang by the wrists, dangling upward like some kind of…

“Puppet?” Her reflection asks of her just as blood drips from the sides of her mouth to create the lines of a marionette.

“Now nothing can hold us down.” She sees the reflection behind her say.

“We are everything and nothing,” The reflection on the left.

“To everyone and no one.” The reflection on the right.

“But especially…” The looming darkness of this night now creeps in to shroud her lightbox, and consume her reflections… “To ourselves.” And her.

“Your candle burned out long before your legend ever did.”

…

“I am not a killer. Not flesh and blood.

I am neither figment or physical.

I am as real as you people pretend to be. I am your fear. Your lies. Your insecurities.

I am your maker and destroyer.

The slow penetrating death inflicted upon oneself with dull knives.

I am the Sister Slaughter you’ll soon come to recognize.

The accumulated hate of a world viewed through your eyes,

What you want to be true because you cannot face the fact that they are not the only ones to blame or demoralize, but rather to thank.

For their opposition has been your only means of surviving what you will not face.

The secret in the void, if you’d you only look.

They are your rules, I am but the book.

The trappings, the stranger, the faceless dark you cannot contain.

I am the evil you have given a name.

The accumulation of all that remains, when we lie to ourselves about what it takes, to live and let live, waiting for the right time,

But it will never come,

Elusive, it taunts.

We are the damned… the real ghosts that haunt us.”