Invocation's Wake III

*Trigger Warning: Some of the themes used in this story could prove upsetting to some individuals. If you do read it and still have questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to the author.*

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.

“Every year, on this day, I come here.”

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

“Not for the reasons you think, but to keep her alive…”

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. It could almost be a christening gown, and this a renewal of her faith.

“My sister, no, not Sister Slaughter, but the bright young thing who was thrown too high too soon. Forced to aim for the moon, but in the end, proved far too mortal to even land among the stars.”

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

“Gwendalyn Goodwink. A girl of unknown age, who has always just been. Too many toys in the attic, they say. The community looks after her, allowing her to flutter around town without too much interference. It is because they have no other choice in the matter. Her family owns the town - despite the fact that she is all that remains of their bloodline - and power speaks long after the grave consumes. They give me far too much credit… and too little.”

She mocks this description because she knows the truth. Gwendalyn Goodwink isn’t an imbecile, she is a clever ruse. She is the penitent for a crime committed decades past. They were but children, girls really… but that’s the nice thing about legends, they last.

“People don’t really care about the truth, it fades in time and in memory. Nostalgia reigns supreme. “The good old days.” They never really existed. They are as fantastical as Sister Slaughter but just as enduring.”

She should know. She is Sister Slaughter: the source of a thousand collected and projected atrocities. Humankind’s own bad “Habits”.

The cabin was on the lake house’s property. Her family owned the land. There wasn’t much that they didn’t. They were, are, untouchable. That is why nobody cared. Why nobody asked questions when her body was found in the innkeepers' cabin. Why everyone choose to forget the crime but remember the fantasy.

“She was beautiful, my sister, far prettier than I am, but then again no one really looks at crazy twice. I don’t want to be looked at or seen the way she was. In this country, it can mean certain death. Either by your hand or by theirs.”

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

“I know she loved me once, but was I not, am I not, as guilty as the rest when it comes to using her? I thought he loved me too, but I was just an excuse, an obstacle that needed to be charmed into complacency. Little did they know I was only ever charmed out of sight and mind. I saw the whole thing. Every last brutal detail.”

Her voice and mannerisms may be still very much like a child, but she knows and sees all that goes on around her. She has to, she is their history.

“When you are born high enough and attractive enough, you become another piece of property. A grand commodity to be bought, traded, and gambled for more. Sold to the highest bidder, but kept loyal to the cause. You’re doing it for the family, after all. It is your duty. The ugly ones get all the breaks, that is unless they are stupid enough to be jealous and in need of approvals competition.”

“We created a superstar, and pain was the price you paid.”

“I believe I could have been very happy with a simple life, keeping to myself and flying under the radar.”

“Even when you died, the press still hounded you…”

“But fate had other plans…”

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,”

“And my existence is now resigned to the echo of another's… someone better…”

“Your candle burned out long before…”

“And worse.”

“Your legend ever did…”

…

Arthur Goodwink had high aspirations from a young age. He was privileged and used it to his advantage. He never really worked for what he had, in the traditional sense, but when it comes to power, do they ever? Life is but a game to be maneuvered and won. Sentimentality doesn’t really occur to them. They might have people in their lives that they care for. To whom they might position as more important than others and make sure to see that they are adequately compensated for, but when it comes down to it, they will always be their first and last thought.

More is their be-all-end-all. We burned women for less, condemned souls to hellfire and fury, and sacrificed human and animal life alike to appease what we prayed to, but at the end of the day, if you want to witness evil and harness the power of the devil, then look no further than man’s true harbinger of all things wicked and despairing. The icon of the corrupt and depraved alike: Money.

Capitalism was once a virtuous term. It meant that anyone, high born or low, could make it rich if he worked hard enough. Now it is just another dirty word, designated for a percentage that will watch the world be burned to the ground and see all life destroyed so they do not have to compromise for a moment their comfortable highness.

You cannot talk, nor reason with the polluted decay of a human spirit. You can only hope that your rallying cry is louder than their fear-mongered twist on survivalist compassion and singular faith.

Donald More worked in politics. He had the connections where Arthur Goodwink had the money and the access. Together they could consolidate power and take the world by storm. However, sometimes, in order for things to get moving, wheels have to be greased.

Donald More was old-fashioned, righteous, and disgusting, but he was a gatekeeper, and Author Goodwink wanted in. Wanted a seat at the table of major players.

How far would he go?

How far did he go?

At the tender age of fourteen, Gwendalyn’s sister, Ava, was fair-haired and perfect. She was ideal beauty incarnate, full of life and virtue. Who doesn’t want to suckle from the fountain of youth? Besides, it’s not illegal if you have parental consent, and what teenager doesn’t marvel at the idea of being seen as an actual adult.

If only.

Child brides are not wives. They are a means of acceptable abuse. Kept secret and hidden objects of deplorable desire until the time comes that they are the broken adult breeders of men people do not ask personal questions about. By that time they’ve done so much “good” and have a self-implied reputation of morality.

Gwendalyn was eight at the time, and so enamored of her big sister she followed her everywhere, Ava treating her like her personal pet and real-life doll - she still played with dolls - until they took her away.

Ava did not come to visit often, but when she did she preferred to spend time at the cabin instead of the house. Knowing what Gwendalyn does, she can appreciate why. Those people were not her parents, they were her manufacturers. One thing that immediately struck one about her sister, after she came back the first time, was how much of her had gone. Where once she was a vivacious spring in bloom, she was now faded. A well, being tapped and drained of all its substance never to be returned or replenished of its natural and life-preserving resources.

“I have to go away, Whinny.” She was the only one who ever called her that. Whinny. Though it took Gwendalyn years to understand why. Poor Ava could only ever be free when she was with her still innocent sister in these hundred-acre woods. In Gwendalyn’s eyes, Ava remained her pure, untainted self. When together she could pretend to forget what had transpired against her flesh and disappear into the fantastical daydream of a little girl on the verge of her potential, yet untouched by man.

“But then you’ll come back.” Oh, what a simpleton she was.

“Not this time, Whinny, not ever again.”

“You and uncle Donald going somewhere?”

“He is not our uncle.” Her voice betrayed such a worldly venom for one of sixteen. One who had already become accustomed to too much evil. Still, she tried to keep it at bay in this sacred spot. “But… I don’t want you to fret about me, okay? I want you to be happy, okay?”

Gwendalyn nodded like her head was full of marbles and the sound amused her, which caused Ava to break into the devastation of her love for this pure creature, clinging her to her breast with a desperate longing to bottle it up and keep it safe.

“I will come back for you one day. I will.”

“Why can’t I come with you now?”

Ava’s heart was breaking from all she dare not speak to this child. So much of her wanted to take her with her, but it would be too dangerous. The idea of who she was leaving her with, ate at her soul, but she could not be confident in her ability to provide for them both. She was taking a major risk. More had eyes everywhere, informants. People who would rather harm a child than incur his displeasure. She shuddered at the thought. At what she had already experienced firsthand of his capabilities towards children. She wanted better for Gwendalyn, but was she playing with fire abandoning her like this?

“Because, baby girl, it just isn’t the right time.”

“Please don’t go.”

How these words would come back to haunt her so.

…

It wasn’t unusual for Sister Slaughter to get visitors on this night, but it actually surprised her at how few. Gwendalyn had really managed to strike fear into the hearts of this town that no one wanted to tempt what they might see or come across. The ones who dared, it was usually one desperate last attempt to prove or outrun something far scarier than any ghost. Much like her sister, it was the inflicted self we can neither release nor accept. The “us” denied and enabled into existence. We are ever the planners and architects building up only to tear down and rebuild to better suit the times and fashions around us.

We save nothing if we cannot save ourselves.

…

She should have just left. Ava never should have entrusted her plans to an eight-year-old who just wanted her sister back.

“What did you think you were going to do?” His voice is harsh, she is not used to it being like that. Usually, he was more jovially passive. He didn’t care. She would talk, he would nod and smile then pat her head and move on. To have this range of passion in him, was quite surprising. When, not ten minutes prior, he had engaged her with such repose.

“Nana said you were crying today when you came back from visiting with Ava.” He confronted the child so innocuously. “That’s not like you.”

There had never been anything conniving in Gwendalyn’s nature before, why should there have been now?

“I don’t want Ava to go.” She answered. After all, this man had always been such an impartial interviewer, the niceties of impersonal acknowledgment, that’s all.

“She’ll be back.”

Gwendalyn shook her head.

“You’re being silly.”

“No, I’m not.” She said with a swollen stubborn pout. “She told me so.”

“What else did she tell you?”

His interest was now too pointed and Gwendalyn got suspicious.

“I need a nap.”

“Ah, but you’re a young woman now, only babies take naps.”

She was getting uncomfortable, he knew to cut his losses.

“Here,” He shifted in his pocket for a piece of candy. “I think you’d prefer this.”

He was right. She lit up at the sight of the butterscotch square he would always save for her. She ran up to her room with it to recover the other piece she had saved. Maybe Ava was still at the cabin, they could share!

…

She had heard the harsh sound of the back door being forced open and didn’t pay it much mind, but now someone was on the stairs.

Gwendalyn grinned to herself. “Time to put on the works to make it all…” she goes dancing out to meet them finishing her thought as she comes before the steps and their visitor, “Worthwhile.”

She could have let her fall backward out of fear, but then who would keep this going? She had to make it good enough to repeat on the outside and so pulled the girl forward. Colliding with her twirling movement, together they went crashing to the floor.

She was a young girl, about… sixteen. Done up like a trampy witch, with purple shellacked hair done up with gel to look more piecey and tame than it naturally was. She was wearing far too much makeup but seemed to Gwendalyn sufficiently freaked out.

“Who… who…” The child said as she desperately scurried to her hands and knees, feeling around for something she had lost in their fall.

For her part, Gwendalyn just sits there, blinking up at her with a pleasantly vacant expression. Oh, what they must think and say about her behind her back! She wonders what this girl will make of her, of tonight.

“This.” She finally answers, motioning to the world around them. “Worthwhile, isn’t it? Some people don’t like it, or her.”

Truly haunting is her allegoric manner of affected speech, but sometimes she wants to ask herself of whom is she really speaking?

The girl, now calmer, pauses her frantic search to examine who it is that sits before her looking like a ghost. Their reactions never disappoint, but can vary in their exact nature. Was it disappointment or relief that crossed this child’s face as she took her in?

“You mean Sister Slaughter?” she asks.

“I mean…” That is the question, isn’t it? What does Gwendalyn mean with all of these played-up theatrics? It has been so long since she has stopped to look at herself in the mirror, but when she does all she sees is the time lost to... “Her.”

Ava. It was always for her.

Gwendalyn’s eyes detach from the girl. Whoever said that the best revenge is a life well-lived should be drawn and quartered for their ignorance. They knew nothing of the world. Nothing of love and violation.

How could one even think about just going on with their life when its gift, very existence, betrayed so cruelly any attempt at progression?

Are we born to live or just access a new form of suffering?

…

Ava was still at the cabin, battling with her soul over the choice she had to make. The one that was inevitably, brutally made for her long before she had the cognizance to choose.

Freedom of choice? Ha! There is no freedom in choice when the options are controlled by a select few who see nothing but their own terms as justifiable. There was only ever one ending to this story. But because their focus is so tunneled, they give no credence to the witness’ they leave behind.

He didn’t even give her a chance to speak, to defend, or explain. She represented a loose end, a hotwire, not a daughter. They had gotten what they wanted from her, and now her being held no more importance to their father.

How surreal it all seemed. Performed so quickly and quietly despite the fight she put up. There are times when Gwendalyn second-guesses what she saw. It was like a scene out of Shakespeare, a melancholy dance. Rhythmic, but devastating, and in the end welcomed. As if she saw death coming and opened her arms to greet him, as Persephone must when it is time to follow the seasons into darkness and reunite with the lover who gave her the perception of selection without alternative. Pleasing two at the imprisoned expense of one.

Gwendalyn likes to think that there had to be some form of love there, however manipulated, however threatened. As was the case between her and her sister. Hell, though it may be, they found a semblance of comfort in one another that ultimately was worth sacrificing for.

After he left, Gwendalyn crept in and curled up beside her sister - like how she used to when there was a thunderstorm.

“I’m glad you didn’t leave me, Ava.” She said.

Did she understand? Perhaps more than anyone ever could. For in her end, Ava had finally found peace. Something she would never have been able to find while the world still turns for them. Their quiet place was now sacred, for it held the proof and the hope that, even on their terms, they could still manage to defy and be loved.

…

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Gwendalyn says, transfixed in her reverent regard as she stared into the flame, which danced in the gust of the night. A fire they could not extinguish no matter how timeworn.

“Yeah, real hot.” The girl says, getting to her feet, but Gwendalyn is somewhere else.

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

Is it the truth that they fear, or is it a matter of avoidance? We know something is there, but can forget it as we go about our lives, little aware of how much power we give it through our ignorance. It grows and grows, and we let it. We give it power over us. We form its existence as something more than ourselves, something far greater than we can hope to ever be.

“This makes two.” The girl helps Gwendalyn stand up.

They beat us down and back through the idea of strength, not its reality. We allow for it. Are we so intimidated by discomfort we will commit ourselves to its undercurrent instead of facing its immediate?

That night, when she lost Ava, Gwendalyn could never look away again. The layers of humanity were peeled back and she can now see us all for who and what we are.

“No, all of us! Don’t you see them?” Gwendalyn begins to spin again.

Still, she dances. The rhythm of our heartbeat. A reminder of what was, is, could, and will be. In her venture, there is something about the cabin that aids her, as it always had before. Through its threshold, nothing can exist but the truth, however harsh or scary it may be.

The girl backs up, now spinning with Gwendalyn, but in the twisted up web of her own perception’s guilt.

This was her choice in the limitations of their inflicted reality. Gwendalyn is a living mirror. The constant reminder of a childhood they slaughtered into extinction. There will be no others. She is the last, the stranglehold on her bloodline. What lives on through her is what can never be because of them. Their choices lead them to their fate, as well as anyone else who comes to this place.

Look at it, at all it reveals, or else suffer the consequences of your self-designated torture.

Ava looked and now is an angel.

Gwendalyn looked and now she is damned because she refused to “live life well” while the perpetuation of their horrors eats away at the good that could be if not for the manipulation of their perceived sins as virtue.

She too died that night.

Now for Ava, she lives as a ghost. For them, she haunts. For others she plays into a reality we all have the ability to shape and mold in the likeness of what we choose, but only if we look at what has been formed. Tear down to reveal. Destroy to rebuild in your image unencumbered by theirs.

Whatever it is that confronts them in these shadows, Gwendalyn knows not, but she always sees them safely returned to their new world, for better or for worst.

…

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

I am neither figment nor 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 their 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.

But in life, as in death, Everyone gets out safe.

Awakened to the enlightenment of a close call to our fate

Or else remaining prisoner in the hell that we ourselves create.

And in the end that alone is all that’s left to linger in Invocation’s wake.”