effigies and apologies
Jordan
They are burning. Look at them all go, so fast, their bodies embracing the flames. Their limbs curl over so quickly, bending
backward, retreating into themselves as they immolate, a fetal position in the fire, all of it punctuated by an intermittent
sizzle and pop.
They’re yearning to burn.
I flinch at the hiss, keeping my eyes closed a moment longer, until my breath settles.
“Wanna beer?”
When I open my eyes back up, I find Freel holding out a Pabst for me. A shiny offering. The can captures the firelight, a
shimmering bullet aiming straight for me.
“I’m good, thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Trying to cut back.” I’m surprised he can’t catch a whiff of the scotch soaked into me. I must smell like a distillery.
“End of an era.” Freel cracks the can for himself. “All good things must come to an end.”
Tonight’s the end of the world. Going out in a blaze of glory. The house party to end all house parties. From the vibes, everyone knows it, throwing down like nobody’s waking up tomorrow. Richmond will be nothing but ashes when the sun rises. At least Oregon Hill.
“To the Saddle Sores,” Freel toasts the fire. “To closing up shop for good.”
This is where the world ends. An inferno of a house party heralding the closure of our bike club. No more Saddle Sores. There
won’t be much of this place standing after tonight.
It’s a wake. A funeral service for our former selves.
The end.
The living room is clamoring with dancers. I can’t go in just yet. Too many people.
I’ll spot someone watching. A passing glance. Their eyes will linger a beat longer, staring at me, like they know who I am,
even if I’ve never seen them before. How did I get so popular all of a sudden? Is it something I did?
You can’t just call upon us and expect us not to answer, the demon at the bar said.
A god box who doesn’t know any better, she called me.
I’m outside by the bonfire in the backyard, watching the flames lick the sky. I’ll make my way inside eventually. Where’s Lilith? We could be sharing this. Watching the world burn together.
Imagine escaping the depths of hell. Imagine slipping into the skin of a human being for a night. To feel what humans feel.
And of all the people you spend that night with . . .
What did Lilith see in me? Is there really a darkness inside me? Can we kindle it, nurture it, until it becomes a fire? Anything
is possible. So why won’t she call me back?
Where did she go?
“Heads up!” Deak forces his way between us and tosses another body onto the pyre. The second its bundled head hits the blaze,
a shower of sparks burst into the air.
I flinch. We’re standing way too close to the fire. Me and Freel both dodge the explosion of embers. “Watch where you’re throwing
those,” Freel mutters. “Asshole.”
“Sorry,” Deak says, basking in his handiwork.
Wicker Men has been the Saddle Sores’ annual get-together. Folk horror for MFA students. Lys insists our club’s parties are
for fundraising. She picks a charity and charges at the door. Once you pay and enter through this threshold, you are stepping
into a world of booze and music. Her doors are open for everybody. Give me your poor, your tired, your possessed masses . . . We get a bonfire going out back, chopping up whatever spare furniture we find around town and tossing it in. Light it up.
Let our inner pyro-freak flag fly. Lys spends a week twining together human-sized effigies made of straw and wood. By the
time the big night rolls around, she’s got over a dozen different wicker men—and women—ready to go. Scarecrow totems are all
tossed into the fire, one after another, in hopes of heralding a happy harvest.
Wicker Men is simply our own Southern rendition of Guy Fawkes Night, only with more Pbr. Just another excuse to lose yourself.
Any inhibition gets thrown out the window. Dance into oblivion. The sound system inside the house is absolutely rattling the
glass of every window along the block. I can feel the bass oozing out from the party, exuding music.
Tonight will be the last. Going out in a blaze of glory.
“I’m getting a refill,” Freel says. “Anybody need another round?”
“All good,” Deak says, holding up his beer.
Freel slips back into the shadows, turning away from the fire. “Let me know if you change your mind,” he says over his shoulder,
already gone.
The night’s still young. A virgin sacrifice just waiting for the knife. The house will be busting at the beams before long,
everybody cramming in.
I’m focused on everyone’s face. Nobody looks familiar to me. Not anymore. I swear I’m seeing people differently now. I don’t
know who these people are. What’s inside them.
What’s looking back?
The only eyes I trust anymore are Lilith’s. That look of desire. No matter whose eyes she’s inhabiting, possessing, I swear I see her looking back at me. I know when it’s her.
I want to see her again. Those infernal eyes. That piercing stare.
Where is she? Is she here?
“Did Lys tell you tonight’s funds are going toward our wedding?” Deak asks. “She’s got this itch to visit Greece for our honeymoon . . .
You believe that? Never been.”
“You’ve never been anywhere,” I say. “You never left Richmond.”
“True.” I figure he’s going to leave it at that, the silence settling in for a spell, before he says, “I don’t know if I can
go through with it anymore.”
I turn to Deak. “Getting cold feet?”
“Cold everything.”
“How come?”
“Lys has all these plans. She wants to do things. Make something of herself. Be somebody, you know?” Deak shakes his head,
just slightly. “What if I’m holding her back?”
“Why don’t you let her decide that?”
“I love her,” he says. “I fucking love her so much . . . but what if I’m not good enough?”
“Nobody is.” I focus on the fire. Feel the heat of my cheeks. I’m standing way too close, the heat pressing against me, and
I’m lost, lost in the very heart of it.
“I’m going to hell,” I say, since we’re confessing our sins.
“Come again?”
“I’m damned, Deak. I’m going to hell, I know it . . . because I’m already dead.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“I’ve seen it.” What do I remember from when I died? Anything at all? Darkness. A roiling sea. And within those ashen waters,
a voice, calling—What adorable morsel is this?
“I hope they serve beer wherever I’m going,” Deak offers.
“Where do you think that’ll be?”
“Heaven, definitely.”
“Sure about that?”
“I’m a choirboy,” Deak says, toasting me with his invisible Pbr. “Saint Deak.”
Another wicker man goes into the bonfire. His body embraces the flames, sparks showering everywhere, cindered fireflies taking
to the air.
I step back, wincing.
The music seeps out from the house, rattling the windows as if it’s a distant wind coming in from the west, a tornado dragging
its own discordant tune. I don’t know if I can pin the band. They’re a mystery to me, whoever they are. The music isn’t sinking
in. I can hear it, almost. Decipher it. The notes just jangle about my head, rattling around my skull.
“I’m seeing them wherever I go,” I say. “All the time now.”
“Seeing who?”
“Demons.”
“Demons,” Deak repeats, his tone flat. Indecipherable. I can’t tell if he believes me or not, if he’s just withholding any
judgment this early in the conversation.
Seeing demons. I almost laugh. Have to. Yeah . . . I’m seeing demons, alright. Just one. We’re thinking of being exclusive. I’m a one-demon
kinda guy. Time to settle down.
Time to burn.
More people gather round the fire. Their bodies press together, as if drawn in by the flames. Some even dance, circling about
the blaze in their own warped maypole shimmy.
“How are you so sure you’re going to hell?”
“Because I’ve been there already.” There’s silence between us.
How could anyone respond to that? So I keep going.
“They’re coming for me and there’s nothing anyone can do to save me.
There is no saving me. No absolution, no salvation at all.
” All this time, I’ve been striving to crawl back toward who I was, but I’ll never be that person again.
I need to figure out who I am now before it’s too late.
I’m only half a man. Soulless. A shell. I lost so much of myself, the only way I know how to get it back is to call upon Lilith. I only feel whole with her.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“For what?”
“I’ve been—Jesus, I just haven’t been here. For you or anyone else.” We’re different people now. Our paths have split. Time
for a clean cut. Sever ties. Say goodbye.
Deak crushes his can, tossing it into the fire. The wet metal hisses for a moment before charring over into a blackened cinder.
“Ride or die, man.”
“Ride or die.” What about both? Ride and die?
I focus on the fire. The circle of people dancing around the blaze. Look at them go, spinning, spinning, hand in hand, circling
the flames and never stopping, a burning merry-go-round, all these bodies, animals—beasts—rotating around me. I can’t get
off this ride, lost in this endless gyration, the eternal swirl, getting dizzy, creatures blurring about me.
Except for him.
One face grabs my attention from across the flames. Through the tangle of bodies, I spot a man standing opposite me. He doesn’t
move, doesn’t dance along with the rest.
He’s staring straight at me. Do I know him? Whoever he is, he won’t look away, his face cast in fire. He doesn’t flinch when
another wicker man bursts open, nothing but embers now, an explosion of sparks rushing up, orange waves, the flames lapping
at the sky, licking the stars.
Which one of us is going to flinch first?
I circle the bonfire, entering the fray of dancing bodies, pulled along by the flow, then I stop before my new pal. He doesn’t
say anything. Simply stares back. I can see his jaw clenching. His teeth are going to be powder before long, the way he’s
grinding them.
“Stop following me,” I say. “I’m not on the market, sorry.”
“Seem pretty empty to me . . .”
“I’m taken.”
This gets a laugh out of him. “Who?”
“Lilith.”
“Not anymore.” One of his cheeks starts to sag, a lazy dip of drooping skin. His lips have a hard time holding themselves
up, that grin struggling against the tide of his melting face, his flesh looking like wax as it dribbles down the corners
of his smile.
Nobody notices. Nobody else can see what’s happening. Not Deak, not anyone else standing around the bonfire. Just lucky fucking
me. I’m the only one. I see them swimming inside the shallows of people’s skin. Their faces can’t hide what’s lingering inside,
not from me. I know who’s possessed . . . and who isn’t. Talk about a talent. I wonder if I could put it to good use.
And what might that be?
“Hey,” another voice pipes up behind me. A woman’s. I recognize that voice.
It’s her. It’s got to be. I spin around in hopes of finding—
“Jenn?”
Christ. It takes a moment to slow my heartbeat. The spike in my anxiety bottoms out faster than I can grab a breath of air. She reads
my expression. “Good to see you, too . . .”
“Sorry,” I offer. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.” She has no memory of what happened. No recollection of Lilith. Like it never happened.
The impunity of it all. No strings attached.
Doesn’t she remember anything? Anything at all?
“I’m sorry,” I say, almost sobbing, unable to control myself. “I’m so sorry.”
“Are . . . are you alright? What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Jenn’s having a hard time meeting my eyes. The fire finds her. Warms her cheeks. “It’s okay,” she eventually says. “It happened
so long ago . . . I’ve moved on.”
“You don’t understand . . .” She has no idea what I’m talking about. Even now, I want to atone. She doesn’t have a clue how
close I came to hurting her. Her, Jenn, of all people.
We always hurt the ones closest to us, don’t we? I sure do. We hurt the ones we love. So who am I going to hurt next? Who’s left? How many people can I hurt before I burn?
I realize Jenn’s holding two beers. Who’s the second one for? Him. It’s for him. He takes the beer from her, cracks it open, this hiss of aluminum stinging my ear.
Jenn takes her side just next to him. They’re together. “This is Cam.”
Cam. What a name.
“Pleasure.” He offers his hand. Where did the demon go? It was just there. Now Cam’s acting like, what? I’m competition? That
ship sailed. I sank it. Titanicked that shit.
I take his hand. Shake. “Likewise.”
This guy’s got a firm grip. He doesn’t let go. For a second, I think he’s going to pull my arm out from its socket. There’s
a curve in the corner of his lips. Just a hint of a grin.
There it is. Found you, motherfucker. In his eyes. A flash, there and gone.
“We’ve met before,” he says, dripping in smarm. “We go way back.”
Yeah, sure, all the way to hell.
They’re going to keep following me wherever I go. They want to drag me back. Drag me down. No matter what I do, they’re always
going to be hounding me. Wanting in.
They can’t have me.
Only Lilith.
Here comes another effigy. This time I see it coming, this wicker woman, straw blond locks sticking out from the sides of
her head. Freel does a running toss, hurtling her into the air. She’s up high, then gravity grabs hold and drags her back
down into the pyre.
The flames grab her. Embrace her. Lick every inch of her body. I’m watching, losing myself. I take a step closer. Too close.
Why can’t I burn along with her?
“Easy.” Jenn takes my arm, pulling me back from the blaze. “Don’t get too close.”
I’m ready to follow her into the fire. Leap straight into the flames and burn the fuck out, raze what’s left of me, until there’s nothing but ash and charred bones. Burnt offerings.
All these people. Bodies dancing around the fire. Their faces are melting, skin dripping off their skulls. They won’t stop
spinning, spinning, spiraling about the blaze, an ouroboros of bodies blurring into an endless ring of glowing skin.
“I’m going in,” I say, nodding back to the house. The windowpanes rattle with reverb. The pounding bass pulses through the
very foundations.
“It’s good to see you,” Jenn says. I catch a wistful note in her voice. “Be well.”
Be well. Sounds an awful lot like goodbye.
I know what I need to do now. It’s time to call Lilith back.
Summon her.