Ragana's Price

The snowball hits her hard enough to knock her forward an extra step, a cold shove between her shoulders and a crumbling shower down the backs of her legs. Roused from her concerns over the twenty-page paper that is her cosmology final, she whirls about with a sharp curse prepared, words of power to make her attacker regret his decision. Then she sees him, walking backwards across the quad, dusting snow from his gloves, and she cannot utter the incantation.

His eyes aren’t the boldest blue, but they are deep and deeply anxious. They are, in that moment, what she will always think of as his eyes. Wide and brash and daring the world to come at him, but secretly hoping it will take it easy all the same. She softens her scowl into a thin smile, and the relief on his face is instantaneous. He jogs through the snow to reach her.

Hunched against the cold at arm’s length, winter wind mingling the clouds of their breath, he asks her name. Impulsively, she tells him it’s Sarah, the name her mother said she’d wanted to give her when she was born.

“Sarah,” he repeats, eyes narrowed. He presses his lips together as if tasting it and finding chocolate inside. “I like that.”

***

They meet later that evening at the campus hangout, The Roost, which is decorated in all manner of feathered things including an inordinate number of blue jay mascots in positions from boxing to dive bombing to playing air guitar. They exchange nervous laughter, and he admits that he thought she was going to kill him when she spun around this morning. She doesn’t correct him.

He says he doesn’t know what came over him, and she calls him on his bullshit. He is the type of boy who hits girls with snowballs, just to see what type of girl he’s hit. And, she thinks, the type of girl who responds well is one who will surrender herself to the next indignity, and then the next, until he is choking her in the bedroom and calling it foreplay. He shrugs, not arguing the fact that maybe he has lobbed the occasional ball of snow. His smile aims for rakish, but he is off balance, unaccustomed to girls who see through him, not realizing how much deeper she sees.

Before appetizers are done, he has shared that he was the quarterback of his high school team, “but I decided to try something new when I got here.”

She doesn’t call him on that one. It would cut too deeply. That backwards strut she saw this morning was the walk of a boy who would always see himself as the quarterback. His eyes are not well read, but they are cunning. He’s used to playing the field, finding opportunities, exploiting them. She changes the subject to all the blue jays, and he rolls his eyes, asking who thought of that for a mascot.

“The Fighting Blue Jays?” he asks.

They laugh together, easier this time, and they settle into the main course. He waits for her to try hers first, creases of worry fading from his brow when she says, “It’s perfect,” and gestures for him to eat up.

Before long she’s talking about her mother, who’s still on her mind. “Sarah was the wife of Abraham, and God wanted her to be the mother of nations,” she says. “When mom found out I wasn’t a believer, she told me, ‘Sarah didn’t believe, either, and she was damned for it, too.’”

His eyes widen, appalled on her behalf. She doesn’t mention the way the owl came the night her mother spoke those words, as if conjured by their argument. The secret of her final argument with her mother, and the pact that led to the life insurance paying her tuition, is not one for his ears.

Though they’re both full, they stay for dessert. He studies her as she speaks, never talking over her, and he offers a toast to new friendship when their drinks are refilled. It’s cute. She wants to like him. But he is the boy who throws snowballs at girls he doesn’t know, hard enough to sting.

***

For their first real date he takes her off campus. He presents her with a long-stemmed rose at the door, biting his lip as he thrusts it forward. Thanking him, she takes it and makes a show of smelling it, but mainly it contains the odors of the gas station that stores them in a barrel by the register, notes of cigarette, tabloid, and scratch-off ticket.

He’s wearing a sweater over a collared shirt and his best jeans. He glances tastefully at her outfit and offers praise that falls short of fawning, just the right amount, and then he lets her take the lead down the steps. She imagines his eyes on her all the way to the car, where he slips in front to open her door. She flashes her teeth, glancing at the moon for endurance, and he takes it for a smile.

That night it’s sushi, and it’s good. It’s a small, family-owned place that’s six steps underground. The lighting comes from flickering chandeliers and oil lamps on the tables. He tells her that he found this place by accident, and she tells him that she’s at least the second girl he’s brought here. That brings an embarrassed laugh, and she presses harder, asking if it was three? Four? He rubs his face with his hands. He’s blushing, which must be genuine, but she’s distracted by how large his hands are. Large enough to easily palm the ball in his high-school glory days.

He notices her noticing, and his smile turns wolfish. He tries to make eye contact, promise in a look that the adage about big hands is true, but she plays coy and glances away. Now he’s burning to prove himself, to get things back on track, but he needs to understand that now isn’t the time. Now is the time for sushi and a few more drinks.

Through the evening she observes that he never comes close to her glass, just as he didn’t at the Roost. He might be a heartbreaker, but he’s not a rapist. Again, her heart wants to like him, but she knows that’s a trap at least two other girls have sprung. The important thing is that he’s fallen for her.

When they finish dinner, she asks what his plans are for break. He shrugs, a non-committal gesture that guarantees he’ll commit to anything she suggests. She asks him to stay on campus. They’ll have the place to themselves for days. They’ll be alone.

***

By the end of the week, her sisters know that she’s been seeing him. The warnings roll in. She learns the name of another girl who lost her fall semester to heartache after they slept together and he left her the next morning. She thinks she’s heard of this girl, Heather Nichols, who intends to transfer out of state before sophomore year.

She puts on a show of thanking her sisters for caring enough to let her know. She tells them that she doesn’t understand how she could have been so mistaken. After all, he seemed so sincere. It must have been the rose he brought to their first date. One girl, a southerner named Tammie, tells her, “All men are dogs, hon, but this one has fleas. And rabies.”

“I’ll break up with him as soon as I find the right words,” she promises Tammie and watches her leave.

Alone, she’s nearly hyperventilating. Her heart pounds so hard in her chest that her temples throb. She rubs them with thumb and forefinger and offers a short prayer of thanks to the goddess within the owl. When she feels calm, she calls him.

“Really looking forward to the weekend,” she says. “I’m going to have to cancel tomorrow night, though. I have to finish this cosmology paper, but I promise to make it up to you the moment we’re alone.”

His disappointment vanishes upon hearing that, and she hears the smile in his voice, the one showing all his teeth. Hanging up, she slides off her bed onto the area rug and reaches underneath for her suitcase. She withdraws the locked box she stores inside and confirms that the knife is where she left it. She permits herself a moment to study its one serrated edge and the non-descript hilt designed to ensure a good grip.

Her lips begin to curve upward, and tears flood her eyes. Her heart hammers in her chest as she rehearses her reaction when the campus police come to her door. “He did what? He showed me a knife once, but I never imagined he would use it. Oh, no…that’s what he did, isn’t it?”

Soon, she thinks. What began with her mother will end with a second sacrifice. And it will all be worth it.

***

Campus never clears out faster than it does before winter break. People want to get home for gifts more than they want to spend time on long good-byes and promises to keep in touch. By dinner on Friday, the lights are out, the doors locked. Officially, no one is permitted to remain on campus, but there are loopholes. Of course, he doesn’t know them. He’s already lied to his family about going to the beach with friends and is in hiding until everyone is gone.

She spends hours recalling the look in his eyes when they met, blue but clouded. Handsome but not striking. He had practiced all the moves, but underneath he would always be posturing. Still, the word that comes to mind is earnest, and she knows it shouldn’t feel like such a good fit.

She calls when the time is right to ask whether they can meet in his room. He agrees without hesitation. He’s never been to hers, and it’s important that he isn’t tonight.

When she arrives with her backpack, he seems surprised and a little disappointed.

“Still working on your paper?”

“That’s what Professor Collins thinks,” she says. “It’s one part of how I got to stick around over break. But it’s done. Twenty pages on how the birth of the universe belies the truth of God’s femininity, as proven through analysis of its rate of expansion and the pronouns in the original scriptures.”

“You’re so hot right now,” he says.

She smiles and lets him assume he’s earned it with his compliment. She unzips the bag, an obscene sound in the silence of the room, and produces a thick, leatherbound book. Hand-sewn, from an era when every book was a unique treasure, its leather cover is new by comparison and embossed with the image of a barn owl clutching a rose.

Ragana, she thinks as she reveals it.

His eyebrows arch. “You didn’t get that from the school bookstore.”

She considers telling him that the image is symbolic of the teachings of the 12th-century minister Odo of Cheriton, who first posited that owls had been banished to the night for stealing the rose, a symbol of the sun. Instead, she pauses long enough for him to notice the rose and connect it to his gift before their first “real date.” She sees him make the connection, a slight widening of blue eyes before his easy smile returns.

“Lie down,” she tells him.

He hesitates and for a moment she’s concerned that she’s overstepped. Could she have misread him? Tammie’s words replay in her mind, “All men are dogs, hon.”

Then he is on his back, and she kneels by his side on the edge of the bed. She places her bag by his feet, turned away from him.

He nods to the book. “Are you going to read that?”

“I’d like to if you don’t mind. It helps me calm down, and I’m nervous.” She considers that she should have offered a self-deprecating laugh in the middle of that last statement, but he doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to anything other than her face and the low cut of her shirt, gaze flicking up and down to devote equal time to each. This one has some fleas, after all.

He nods, moistening his lips with a flick of his tongue. He tries to catch her eye, but she pretends to miss it as she opens the book and begins the Invocation to the Goddess of Witches. It’s not in English, which is good, because he wouldn’t like what it says about the offering. Halfway through imploring Ragana for the Gift of Foresight, he has his hand on her knee. By the benediction, he’s caressing her thigh.

Gently, she closes the holy text and places it atop her backpack. As she bends away, his hand slips under her shirt, fingertips gliding up between her shoulder blades. His breath catches when he finds no bra to unhook. She reaches inside the backpack, her fingers closing around the cool hilt concealed within. She makes sure she is smiling when she glances back and whispers, “Close your eyes.”

He obeys, wearing an expectant smile that she anticipated to be little more than a leer. Except it’s not. It’s wide and excited, boyishly exuberant. Grateful.

She studies him, and again her heart yearns to care for him. He is the perfect sacrifice, one who will be missed, but not too much. Yet, she wonders whether she might miss him.

“Sarah?” he asks.

The name cuts her, but the force of the blow comes from his trust. He hasn’t opened his eyes, and while he’s concerned, his smile has barely faded. She considers for the first time that sometimes boys throw snowballs playfully, and for no other reason than it’s fun.

“Shhh…”

He exhales, settling himself, and his smile returns to full color. For the first time she takes in the scent of his room and realizes that it’s floral. There’s a plug-in air freshener, and she can read the label from where she kneels, Rose Dawn.

Doubt wells within her. The unspoken words are upon her lips, “Tell me about Heather Nichols,” when she hears a tapping on glass. The barn owl stares at her through the widow. It is familiar, the same one that came the night of her final argument with her mother and returned to lead her to the book and her goddess under the moon. Promises of wisdom. Prophecy. Rebirth. A life best-lived.

“What is it?”

His eyes have opened, cloudy with selfless concern. Just like that morning on the quad, she cannot speak.

“We don’t have to,” he says, and his hand rises to meet hers. “Come here.”

The cynical part of her mind, which Ambrose Bierce defined as “realistic” in his Devil’s Dictionary, scoffs, but she closes her fingers around his, and her other hand releases the knife. She had thought him an open book, but now she plunges into eyes that are both bottomless and impossibly filled with patience and compassion. Her heart beats a new pattern, arhythmic. Her pulse pounds in her ears.

She settles onto her side next to him, and when his arms fold tightly around her, she notices that only his chest presses against her back. The rest of him keeps a respectful distance. She could see the window if she craned her neck, but she doesn’t need to. The barn owl watches them, and there will be a terrible cost if it doesn’t see what it expects. Ragana loathes surprises.

Her mind replays the way he bit his lip outside her door when he presented the rose. His rapt attention as they sat late into the night at the Roost, with her doing most of the talking after the first few minutes. His habit of getting the door. There had been no second indignity. He would never choke her.

She steels herself to do what she must. If she doesn’t, then everything else—including her mother’s sacrifice—has been for nothing. He’ll close his eyes again if she asks, and the sacrifice is complete except for the final deed. He lay patiently through the entire ritual while his body was attuned to the most ancient of magics.

It’s time, she tells herself, but her body refuses to move. The tension of her struggle causes him to tighten his arms around her.

“Is it possible that I’m in love with you?” he asks, his breath tickling her ear.

She bites her lip. “I think it is.”

When they kiss it is because she has rolled onto her back to meet him.

***

She wakes to a rustle of feathers and a faint hiss. In the dim light, the shadow on the wall is that of a woman, stooped and hook-nosed, but the only figure to cast it is the owl still perched on the ledge outside. The book is gone. Her backpack is empty. The knife lies nearby. Her request for the Gift of Foresight has been granted, and she feels no surprise in finding that the future holds nothing but darkness.

Tears slip down her cheeks, but they are not for herself. The pool of blood in which she lies is not wholly her own. She realizes that she has never spoken his name aloud, and now she cannot. Her plan has come to fruition, but instead of one boy stricken with grief, the authorities will discover a couple lying in a lovers’ embrace, having chosen to sleep together eternally for reasons that seem logical only to the young and the very old.

The pain is not so severe as she had expected. Perhaps that is a mercy from her goddess. Once, Ragana exchanged her gifts for offerings as simple as eggs, hair, or menstrual blood, but centuries of disbelief elevated the price. She rolls her eyes upward, expecting the barn owl to be gone, but it stands its ground outside the window, staring at her with silent reproach. It does not blink, holding her gaze until the end arrives, and then it ferries her true self to a place still darker.