The Witch’s Assistant (Bitchcraft #1)

Chapter VIII Impractical Magic

Chapter VIII

Impractical Magic

C lark’s hair stood on end. The coven stood breathless.

“Ladies...we have one more rotten apple to tend to,” Charisma said, this time even calmer and more forbidding than before. “Ladies, please, open the circle for our little guest. ” She turned, her circle followed, and suddenly, to his complete and utter horror, all the hollow eyes in that glass tower were aimed at none other than him. He had been discovered.

“Come here, boy,” Charisma said.

Clark’s foot slipped as he ducked, and he fell back onto the stairs. His stomach might as well have fallen through his pants.

Oh my GAWD . . . ! he thought in a panic. I’m gonna be next . . . ! She’s gonna kill me like Melissa . . . !

“Now,” Charisma said with finality. Slowly, he raised himself up. Melissa’s eyes were still staring blankly at him. The Coven looked at him blankly too at first—except for Monica. Those cold gray eyes and arched eyebrows cut him a look of sharp menace, that eased into one of smirking dark delight. And then, he locked eyes with Charisma, whose acidic green eyes seemed to bore right into his soul, causing him to avert his gaze and look down. He dared not meet those menacing eyes again.

Clark joined their ranks atop the circle, right where Melissa had stood in between Emily and Alicia. Both were expressionless and neither dared risk a look at him, not once. He was unable to stop himself from shaking.

“And you,” Charisma said with a whip of her neck and a single look. “Wipe that smug, disgusting look off your sorry face.” Abruptly, Monica came crashing down to her knees on the cold hard floor, as if against her will.

“Yes, you, Monica, who outed Melissa. For that, you shall be rewarded. But not tonight. No, not now...Conspiring against a sister witch, and fornicating with a man under my own roof, no less...”

Monica gasped. Clark might have felt some smug sense of justice himself under more normal circumstances, had Monica not looked up at Charisma with pure terror. He did not wish it on his worst enemy.

“You thought I would not find out...but you thought wrong. Under my roof, I. See. All. In my house, in my Coven, nobody suffers a rat.” There was no magic wand, no finger pointed, simply a single, demeaning gaze from down her long, straight nose. Monica uttered a guttural, piercing, bloodcurdling scream that made Clark’s hair stand up on end, and didn’t let up. She floundered and writhed on the glass floor, wailing and seizing as if by electrocution. Could it be, was Clark seeing Charisma’s aura burst into bolts like black-hot electricity, coursing from her being, and striking down on her?

After many long moments, when it was finally over, Monica lay there crumpled on the floor and pulled her knees into her chest, unable to hold in her sobs, or her tears. Not one of the Coven came to her aid. All was still, save for the charged air and whimpers, and the smell of Melissa’s body on the floor not far, smoldering and smoking.

Charisma spoke again: “You only have one thing to fear in this wide, miserable world. And that thing is me . Let this be a reminder. Get up! ” she spat at Monica. “And clean up this mess.” She said to the rest, “The ritual is complete. You may break the circle.” With a turn on her heel, Charisma walked to the banister and down the stairs, one clack at a time. One by one the Coven queued behind her, and descended the stairs in a single-file line of black dresses and numb, listless faces. Clark remained frozen in place.

After what felt like a lifetime, Clark watched as Monica propped herself up by one arm, then by two, and with a stumble, stood and straightened herself. The mascara had run ugly and black down her cheeks, and she sniffled, wiping the tears away...until she noticed him lingering.

“What in the FUCK are you looking at?” she spat darkly at him. He flinched. Monica pulled out her phone from her pocket, scrolled through it, and brought it to her ear.

“Yeah, hi, it’s me,” she said with a sniff. “I need another fucking cleanup...Now, at the Tower...YES, I BLOODY WELL SAID NOW!” She hung up the phone abruptly, and slowly descended the stairs. The tower’s shutters drew to a close behind her.

On that commute in the early morning hours, there was no getaway yellow cab, no Joey to drive him home, just the quiet train ride on the Astoria-bound amongst the after-midnight passengers. Looking back, Clark could not remember the journey, let alone arriving at his door or even getting into bed. As he stared up at the ceiling, he could not forget Melissa’s screams, her burnt body, and those bloodshot eyes affixed to his...wondering if he was the reason that she had been murdered.

That night Clark dreamt of a hollow sky, so outside his other dreams, so outside of himself.

There were screams, hellish screams. In the darkness, a pair of yellow-green eyes stared at him. Charisma’s terrarium ascended from the shadows, its tree rustling in the wind and turning sky; the sun set and the moon rose in continuous succession through its leaves. The dirt amongst its roots squirmed with worms, wiggling up like fingers. Roaches and flies and crawling bugs broke the surface too. Then the tree burst into a magnificent fire and all at once disappeared into smoke.

The face of Emily burst out of the haze, maniacally laughing, hovering over him. She turned into Alicia, then into Monica, laughing more gravely still, and then to Melissa, who erupted into flame. Her blackened face was screaming into his, her deadened body straddling him, riding him—shaking him, scaring him in his own bed—but Clark could not scream, could not move, could not stop her, only watch in horror.

In Melissa’s red, menacing gaze, Clark saw the Great Eye that had always been just there, in his mind and in his present, awake again, blinking open. He had been Seen.

Then he awoke. The smell of smoke hung in the air of his apartment; so too did the feeling of being watched. His sweat-drenched forehead prickled. He reached to scratch it.

Clark turned to his bedside table: it was three o’clock in the morning. The witching hour, or so he remembered from his fairy tales.

He slept with one eye open the rest of the night until the sun came up and his alarm went off. It was time to go to work.

The funeral was held first thing that Monday morning.

Clark had seen the headlines; he didn’t have to do much digging. A woman was found dead early Saturday morning in Upper East Side fire, said the news . While the city slept, an entire townhouse and its contents had gone up in flame, a freak accident, the coverup at play.

It was all happening so fast, Clark had just been going through the motions, his body being carted wordlessly through the experience of it all. The Coven arrived with Clark in tow in their black town cars and SUVs, veiled and dressed in their funeral best and blackest. So too was Clark—he wore the black birthday button-down that Nancy, Paul, and Eva had given him. If he were being honest, he had not felt altogether conscious since his dinner the Friday night prior, unable to tell a soul about what he had borne witness to. Not to anyone at the coffee shop that weekend, nor to Joey, who was a text message away, nor to Patricia, whom he hadn’t seen in months. Clark was so numb that the inconsolable weeping of a swarthy, dark-haired woman had barely registered a blip to him. She must’ve been Melissa’s mother, he figured.

He was surprised to see Ms. Charisma Saintly roll up—naturally, in her own car and with a bodyguard. She approached the Coven at a leisurely stroll, cloaked in sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and a parasol. She stood watching the services under a gray city sky as a storm was rolling in. Charisma seemed to bring the storm with her.

As the hearse pulled in, and the pallbearers slowly walked the casket to rest over the grave, Clark understood without a doubt, then and there, that he had seen too much; there was no leaving now. As the rain began to trickle, Clark understood that if he so much as stepped a toe out of line, he would be next to be lowered into the ground. That he himself was in deep, deep shit.

He imagined himself stepping forward as a single drop of rain would mask a tear. He would make a prayer for the fallen. I’m sorry, he would say, tossing down the rose he held in his hand, and—

“How DARE you . . . !”

Clark’s eyes widened and he erupted in a cold sweat. Everyone turned to look at who had spoken, even the priest. It was Melissa’s mother—she looked his way and shouted words that would never leave him: “How DARE you show your face here?!”

But Mrs. Silvestri was not speaking to him. He turned and saw, to his surprise, that she was speaking to Charisma behind him. Everyone did: they stopped to watch as Charisma stood unflinchingly, unable to be read through her big, dark sunglasses. Mr. Silvestri and her sister held the woman back by the arms.

“What is she doing here?!” Melissa’s mother croaked. Spit and snot flew from her face, as she screamed, “YOU did this! You did this, and now she’s gone! My baby is gone...! How dare you show your face here, you...you BITCH! Get out! GET OUT! GET OUT! ”

The clouds darkened and shifted in the gray city sky. There was a tingling in the middle of Clark’s forehead, and the hairs on his arms suddenly stood on end. Within a split second, a bolt of lightning struck the coffin with a crack and a flash of fire and thunder. The mourners screamed and fled and chaos ensued, as Mrs. Silvestri and her family were knocked onto the ground. But that was not the worst that happened.

The pallbearers were knocked back too, and dropped the casket in the shock of being struck. Two of the straps snapped, and the coffin slid into the open grave. The lid flew undone and off as it hit the bottom, and Melissa herself made an appearance at her own funeral, flung headfirst out of her coffin. She hung there, arms askew, and her body half out. There were shrill screams at the sight of her hairless, crisp corpse.

Mrs. Silvestri fainted.

That morning, when they entered the main kitchen of Charisma’s penthouse, Emily bounded up to Clark first thing, shaking him out of his stupor (he could hardly stop thinking).

She grabbed him by the arm, swiveled him around, and said, “Let’s get a coffee and get out of here.”

There was no protest from Clark, and none from the Coven, as she dragged him back to the elevator, through the lobby, and into the parked town car outside. She told the driver, “To the café, Oksana, thank you. Have you met Clark? He’s the new junior. He’s been with us since August.”

Clark replied, “Hi, it’s nice to meet you.” Oksana only looked at him in the rearview mirror and wordlessly nodded.

As they drove, Emily asked about Oksana’s family off Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Clark only watched and listened. Emily looked so beautiful with her long blonde hair that she let out of its ponytail, cascading like water over her funeral black. What did she want to talk to him about? Was he in trouble? Clark was a kind of nervous-excited to be playing hooky with someone like Emily—a flushed hyperaware he only knew around the Coven, unsure of what would happen next, of what they could do to him—but with Emily he felt different. Curious. Captivated even. Clark wondered if there was something more than met the eye to her.

Pay attention and don’t fuck this up, loser... he thought. Was that a blush of his cheeks he was feeling?

They drove a few blocks north to— should’ve guessed it... —the café where he had interviewed just a couple of months prior, attached to what he identified this time as C Hotel. This time there were other patrons inside, and, just like last time, that morose waiter was on the clock. Clark noticed he was a little happier to see Emily, or rather, less disgruntled by the way he attentively took her order. Clark thought this was a good sign. The waiter still did not acknowledge his presence, but Clark knew not to take that personally.

No sooner had he sat their coffees down (“iced with oat milk—make that two, please, thank you”) and left, the dial on the volume of the world around them turned all the way down to mute, until they could hear not a single sound outside their table except for one another, not even the sound of the soft rain that had started outside.

“How is that happening?” Clark asked. “Are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” Emily asked.

“That thing with...the volume?” Clark said, waving his hands around. “It’s so quiet, my ears are ringing.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, looking at him curiously.

“Oh, um,” he began. “I can’t hear a thing past the table and . . . Never mind . . .”

Emily took a sip before speaking. “Sometimes,” she said, “magic happens to all of us, in the most unlikely of ways, at the most unlikely of times. One just has to be willing to see it.”

Clark crinkled his nose. “I thought only witches can do magic.”

“I mean, in a way, yeah,” she said. “Lorena and I, we’ve talked about that. She and the Coven think a witch is born, not made, but I wonder if that’s Lorena being Lorena and not the full truth.”

“That’s so cool,” Clark said. “I wish I could do... that. ” His words felt hollow, all things considered, and he stopped himself.

Emily asked, “You ever practice, babe?” This time, Clark knew what she meant by “practice.” He thought about the rooftop the night of the interview and the eyelash wish he made, and how he had awoken to the text from Monica.

“Nah,” he replied. “But I am totally into witches. Always have been. I’m a Halloween baby.”

Emily smiled and put down her coffee. “When’s your birthday?”

“I just turned twenty-four on the twenty-fourth . . .”

Emily looked at him with knowing eyes and nodded as if to say she understood what had come to pass. “Twenty-four on the twenty-fourth. Happy belated birthday, Clark.”

“Thanks, Emily,” he said weakly.

Cheerfully this time, she asked, “What’s your birth time?”

“Um, one ten in the afternoon, I think.”

“Ah,” she said. “Your moon is in Taurus.”

“Yeah, it is,” Clark said. “How’d you know?”

“Oh, I just do. Like how you were born on a Thursday under a full moon. Witch things. Your Tenth House is in Scorpio at zero degrees, which means you’re either very rare and special, or you’re going to...”

“Or going to what?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Why did she stop herself...?

“Oh, nothing! Your birth chart is shaped like a diamond. Did you know? That means you’re a gem, Clark.” She smiled.

“Oh, thanks! I should’ve known...” he said somewhat wryly, a little uncomfortable at being read. “How old are you? How was twenty-four?”

“I’m twenty-six on the twenty-first of February, so I’ve got a couple more years on you. Yeah, twenty-four was...Oh, I dunno. I guess I was just getting to know myself better. I mean, we’re always getting to know ourselves better, aren’t we? Are you from the city, Clark?”

Clark replied with facetiousness: “Just over the bridge in ye ol’ working-class Astoria.” Clark told Emily about moving out of his mother’s the day after he graduated freshman year of high school.

“I see,” she said, with that knowing twinkle in her eyes. “They’re not always easy, those parents!”

Clark appreciated her levity. “Haha, yeah, tell me about it,” Clark said. He began to bite his straw.

Emily said, “My fam, they’re Greek. We venture out to Astoria for dinner sometimes, but these are no Astoria Greeks. I never knew my real father, he left before I was born. My stepfather left a lot to be desired, and my mother passed away, um, just a bit over a year ago, when I was twenty-four...”

“Oh, gosh,” Clark said. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He reached out across the table and touched the top of her hand. Instantly, a thought flickered across his mind, gone as fast as it had come, something about a kind woman with a deep sadness, and the discovery of a body. Clark drew in his breath, and Emily drew back her hand. The way she looked at Clark, something registered on her face.

What was that . . . ? he wondered.

“Thank you,” she said, rubbing her hand. “It’s funny, all this power and sometimes you still can’t do a thing to help another person.”

Clark wasn’t sure what to say. “What do you mean?”

Emily looked at him for a moment. She took a sip before speaking. “My mother was very well-respected and loved in our community—maybe a little aloof sometimes as a mom, but I could trust that she loved me. She just kept the leash long, and left me to my own devices—”

“Mine too!” Clark said.

“Yeah. But when we were together, we were best friends. To be fair, the way my parents lived, all the traveling and the partying and the expensive things...that lifestyle can really get to your head. At least, that’s what I was told about my mother’s relationship to my stepfather. It was...complicated; tumultuous, even. I think she felt obligated a lot, and she couldn’t be everything all at once. When it came to my stepfather, he was a...not a nice man. A popular and astute man, a political man, but not a warm man, and not a warm father. Not to me, anyway. I was always the runt of the family, the youngest. The Blonde Sheep. I don’t have dark features like my family. My mother always said I took ‘the best’ of my father and her. My sisters were daddy’s girls—stepdaddy—but I was my mother’s through and through.”

Emily gave her coffee a stir with its metal straw and watched the ice revolve around the glass. “Well, that was growing up. Both my sisters married off early and I left home to travel after college. I just needed to get out.”

“Did you grow up here?” Clark asked.

“Yeah, here in Manhattan. Oh, you know, they shipped me off to boarding school and to Greece in the summer growing up, all the things rich parents do. I left home because it was something I chose for myself. That, and I put off assisting Charisma like my sisters had for as long as I could because I knew it would...consume my life. I just wanted to be free for a little. To get away. To breathe.”

Clark nodded. “I know that feeling.”

“Right. The thing is, I didn’t realize how my mother was feeling, how she needed us here. How she needed me . I think the way she was living, without us, it was a lot for her. That day I came back, I wanted to surprise her. I remember it was a sunny day, and the windows were open, there was a soft breeze in the house, and her favorite flowers were in the vases. Sunflowers. She used to whisper in my ear that they reminded her of me, and that they were her favorite, like I was. Everything seemed normal up to then...Well, no, not normal—something seemed off when I came home but I couldn’t place it. The doctors said she had taken all of her pills and passed in her sleep, maybe an hour or so before I arrived.”

Clark took a sip of coffee, in hopes it would suck back the tears that were coming up.

“There was no way I could have been any earlier,” Emily said.

Clark spoke slowly when he said, “There was nothing you could have done, Emily, I hope you know. It wasn’t your fault.”

Emily looked at him with her sad smile. “I know. You’re right. Well, I was the one to call 911, and tell the family, and I was the one to make the arrangements. The services were beautiful, of course, like her. I did everything that she would’ve liked. You wouldn’t believe how many sunflowers we purchased. She was wonderful. I miss her! Every day. I wish I had spent more time with her instead of running away...Eleni was her name. ‘Helen.’ I was named after her but it never felt like me, so I adopted an American name. Clients think Emily’s easier. Now I’d do anything to be reminded of her. She taught me that in life, helping others is the most important thing a witch can do with one’s Gift.”

Clark crinkled his nose. “‘Gift’?”

She answered after some thought, moving her long blonde hair out of her face. “Every witch has a specialty, a Gift that aligns with her calling. As a witch, you are supposed to use your Gift ‘in the service of others, for the highest good of all,’ blah blah blah , whatever that means! That’s our ‘purpose,’ just like anyone else’s in life, I suppose. Like, if you’re good at writing, then you might go into journalism. See what I’m saying?”

“I think so,” Clark said. “What’s yours? Your ‘Gift,’ I mean.”

“Well, my ‘Gift’ is the Gift of Prophecy, like my two sisters. We are the descendants of the oracles from Ancient Greece, maybe earlier even, civilizations that predate Ancient Greece—or so I’ve gathered,” she said. Her face fell a little, and she continued: “For my sister Delphi, it’s the Prophecy of Fortune. She can foretell how someone will make their money, and how their business will be navigated. My other sister, Alexandria: she has the Prophecy of My Big Fat Greek Love. You can guess what that means. She can see who someone will shack up with, how many babies they’ll have, yada yada. Both have assisted under Charisma, like so many great witches before who’ve gone on to do big, big things.”

“What’s yours?” Clark asked, too curious not to.

“Me, well,” she said, “I have the Prophecy of Death.”

Clark looked around the café. The other patrons were none the wiser. “The Prophecy of Death?”

“It means that I can see how a person is going to die.”

Clark couldn’t help but press on. “What’s that like?”

“Well, unlike my sisters, my Gift came early—too early—before I could really understand it let alone what death is, maybe before anyone else could understand what was happening with me. Except for my yiayiá— my grandma. Yia-yia , I would call her. She understood right away. When I was little I predicted her husband passing. I said something was wrong about “his bones,” and it turned out to be bone cancer. I was only four years old. They say growing up in witch households does that to a person, that there’s something about proximity that makes the witch in us reveal ourselves. At least, proximity is sorta how it happens for me...My predictions come in visions, or in understanding, or sometimes in dreams even, but the how notwithstanding, it usually starts with physical touch.”

Clark thought there was something beautiful and macabre about Emily and her sad smile, as she spoke to him so matter-of-fact.

“While my sisters predict futures for fortunes, I garner a different kind of clientele. The biggest of us, actually. Almost everyone is interested in knowing how they’re going to die because everybody wants to live forever—unless they’re smart. See, when you know how you’re going to die, you become obsessed with it. Pretty soon, you’re avoiding other people, people you once trusted. You’re avoiding leaving home. You’re avoiding being home. You avoid life altogether. When you see death in everything and everywhere, at some point, you’re gonna stop living. But death, she comes for us all, no matter how we try to avoid her. If it’s your time then it’s your time. And it’s just...hard to see something you can’t stop, no matter how much you might love someone...With Yia-yia, I knew when and where, and how it would happen, and she never let me tell her. She was wise. But with my mother, I could never see it. Maybe I didn’t want to. A block. Kinda ironic, huh...”

Clark didn’t know what to say. The implication of knowing the way someone would come to pass, even the ones closest to you. What could he say? “But that’s so cool,” Clark finally remarked. “I mean, you’re so special . I’ve always wished I could be half as special, with a Gift...like yours.” He regretted saying that almost immediately. “I’m sorry,” he added. “That feels selfish to say. But then I could really help people and make a difference.”

“No, you wouldn’t want a superpower like this one, trust me...” Emily said gravely. He could tell—she spoke in a sweet, low-affect mezzo-soprano, but her blue-green eyes betrayed her. “Besides,” Emily continued, her face softening, “you’re already special. I can tell you’re a really nice guy. That’s your superpower.”

“I’m not that nice,” Clark admitted with a small sigh. After a moment, he said, “I feel bad for Melissa.”

“Please, don’t waste your breath pitying her, Clark. It’s wonderful you’re so empathetic, but sometimes in life we dig our own graves.” She sipped the last of her coffee and set the glass down on the table. Clark found something about her words to be unsettling, even dissatisfactory.

“Did you know?” Clark asked. “About Melissa, how it was going to happen for her?” He couldn’t help himself.

“Well, yeah,” she said. “I knew it would be by fire and while she was young, but I couldn’t tell what the context would be. See, with prophecy, it isn’t always specific, and the future changes all the time. Sometimes, it’s so clear it screams, but other times it’s all subjective, relative to choice even. But mostly, things like that are already written, already affixed. I remember the first time we met and I ‘read’ her. I saw her engulfed in flames, but not really sure of what I had just seen.” She chortled at this. “It definitely scared the shit out of me to take transportation with her, like cars or airplanes.”

Clark asked, “Can you see how you’re going to die?”

“Hmm,” she said. “No one’s ever asked me that...Some things are outside of my jurisdiction, but I’ve had a hunch, and usually, my hunches are correct. The thing is,” she continued, “it’s funny, but—I’m not afraid to die. No point in worrying, in being afraid of what happens to all of us in the end. If I die, I die.”

“I get that,” Clark said. Though did he really? “Are you ever able to save people?” This he regretted immediately too. Clark, what is wrong with you...? “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

“It’s okay,” Emily began slowly. “I mean, that’s the goal, isn’t it? Yeah, I’ve helped a few souls. Kept a couple of backstabbers away, foiled a few plots, kept a murder from happening. That job bought me my loft in Tribeca and I’m still seeing the spoils. For the most part, though, no. Those clients were only prolonging things, putting off the inevitable. Like I said, death is always on her own time.”

Then, Emily went even graver still. “There’s only one client on record who’s been able to successfully stave off death, and rewrite her destiny...”

“Who? Who is it?” He was almost afraid that he knew the answer.

“You know whom I’m talking about...She can be very convincing, that Ms. Saintly.”

Clark couldn’t think of any other person he was both so tired of talking about and at the same time completely enthralled with the idea of talking about. “But, how? How can she...escape death?”

“Oh, lots of ways. But I mean, she can’t escape death completely. Not exactly. We’re all mortal, even her. There’s just more to her than meets the eye,” Emily said.

Clark had a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach and that telltale tingling in the middle of his forehead. He thought of that great big eye from his nightmare, that had somehow both opened above him and in him, staring straight at him, and that had scared him sleepless.

“There are some things too complicated to explain. At least right now.”

Clark furrowed his brow. “Okay...How about this: What happens when you see a particularly gruesome ending? Like, so gruesome, so grizzly, there’s not a chance in hell at stopping it. What do you tell your client?”

Something flashed across Emily’s eyes. “Sometimes, I just have to tell them, ‘A long time from now, when you’ve grown old and gray, you’re going to pass from this life painlessly to the next, in your sleep, with a successful life behind you, surrounded by safety, comfort, grandchildren, and the people you love.’”

They both giggled, Emily stifling hers behind a manicured hand.

“That’s awful!” Clark said.

“Yeah, but it works! Better they come upon it unawares, lest the blame fall on me. You should see my contract. It’s easier for all involved, trust me.”

“I can only imagine,” Clark said. What a contract for a witch like Emily could contain, he wasn’t sure, but he hoped to know one day. She had a glint in her eyes as she smiled at him that put him at ease. There was something special about Emily, something different from the others that he had not quite noticed before but that he could feel all the same. Maybe it was her sad blue-green eyes under a fringe of impossibly long lashes, eyes that looked back at him without pretense or judgment. It was as if Emily had been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders seemingly all her life, and that the truth of that weight had been resigned to the deepest depths of her inner oceans. Maybe that glint was a determination to hope in spite of all of it, Clark surmised.

But Clark couldn’t resist going one step further: “Can you see how I’m going to die?”

Can she judge . . . ? It’s only natural I ask . . . At least, he hoped it was.

“You?” Emily looked into his eyes and took his hand in hers. “Clark: a long time from now, when you’ve grown old and gray”—a smile broke across her face and they giggled again—“you’re going to part painlessly in your sleep, with a successful life behind you, surrounded by safety, comfort, grandchildren, and the people you love.”

Clark feigned a gasp. “Daaang, that bad, huh? Why you gotta do me like that now!”

“You’ll be all right,” she said. “Don’t you worry, babes. Everything’s gonna work out just fine for you.” Clark wanted to believe her, but something about her words gave him pause...He tried his luck and pressed her just one more time, looking up at the cameras before speaking.

“What about Charisma?”

“What about her . . . ?”

“How will it happen? Or how will she ‘stave it off’?”

Emily took a deep breath: “That one I’ve been asked before. Many, many times before. What I can say is this: eventually, the fall of Charisma is going to come at the hands of someone very close to her, someone in her inner circle, a betrayer whom she doesn’t know is right under her nose the entire time. How, though, I can’t see—but she’s paranoid as fuck about it. She doesn’t trust a soul, not even her own mother. To her, everyone’s a suspect, and rightfully so. Everyone’s after her and her throne. That’s why she keeps her circle tight, and her coven small. Under no circumstances are you to tell anyone I told you any of this, okay? Promise?”

“I promise,” Clark said. “I swear. But what she did to Melissa...Emily, she has to be stopped.”

“She can’t be stopped,” Emily said. “She’s done it before and she will do it again. Charisma isn’t what she seems, Clark. She’s more powerful than you know.”

“Then, she has to be exposed! Other people have to be warned about her!”

Emily shook her head. “And who would believe you? What you saw, what happened to Melissa, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Now, you’ve seen too much and you can’t just quit. How do you think she’d react knowing she’s down an assistant and a junior? Can’t you see? Nobody just ‘quits’ Charisma. Nobody just walks away, nobody is just let go. She’s a monster behind closed doors, sure, and she also has a queendom of flying monkeys, and lots and lots of money at her disposal, with lots and lots of power and influence at her command. You’ll only get yourself killed in the end, and I don’t need a premonition to know that.”

Clark’s throat had gone dry. A sip of the last of his coffee didn’t help. “But...” Clark started to say. “Ugh! I just wish there was something I could do. Anything.”

“There’s nothing you or I or anyone can do. The sooner you learn that, the better your chances are of staying alive. Otherwise, in the end, you’ll end up just like Melissa...or worse. What Charisma would do to you, she’d make you wish you went as easily as Melissa, and she’d make it look like an accident too. At least right now, you’re on her side of the fence. Stay on her good side. Stay alive, Clark. Do that for me.”

Clark put on a dissatisfied half smile but nevertheless nodded. Emily reached out for his hand across the cold table, and he reached out with his to hold. From that moment on, for the first time at Charisma’s, Clark found a friend in Emily. He figured there was just something about watching your coworker die that could bring two unlikely strangers together.

Outside their table’s sound bubble, the soft rain had subsided. Emily paid, and they made their way back to the penthouse.

On their return that gray, rainy Monday morning, the interviews started right away and lasted until the evening; not in the café across the street like Clark had been relegated to, but in the penthouse.

Beautiful, affluent women arrived to meet with Lorena, in their designer best, all in black. As Clark stole a look at their purses, their dresses, their shoes, he realized he was beginning to feel a little envious of the women around him. How was he helping others afford their wealth when he himself could not afford such luxuries, not a chance in hell?

As he chauffeured the ladies one by one to Lorena’s office, Clark wondered what made these candidates so special, so deserving. He wondered if one of them would be the one to undo Charisma. If he were being honest, Clark wished on every black leather stiletto that strolled in that day that he could be a witch too, so he could be the one to do it. Maybe he understood why no one had accomplished it yet: no chance to dethrone the queen if you’re kept so busy working under her thumb that you can’t.

Some of the women looked around the penthouse like it was Narnia. Clark knew they weren’t the ones who would make it. The candidates hardly looked at Clark, let alone spoke to him. He had come to expect it. He was less than dogs’ droppings under a witch’s nose, he parroted to himself in an English accent. Most took one look at his black thrift-store shirt and worn-out oxfords and no more. It was as if he didn’t exist. But as one woman seemed to lead him toward the first-floor offices, as if she knew where they were going, he was caught in a state of surprise.

“Hey, kid,” she said in a hushed voice. “My agent wouldn’t say but word on the street is that Melissa got herself fired, and that she ended up dead. Do you know what happened to her?”

Clark looked at the woman: she was ice blonde, impossibly tall and rail thin, and unnervingly beautiful. Her face was pallid and stone-cold. Should I warn her...? Tell her the truth...? Spare her the same fate...? Looking into those pale blue eyes reminded him of looking into Monica’s cold steel-grays. It would only be a matter of time before she came for me too...

“Not a clue,” Clark lied. They reached Lorena’s office. He knocked three times.

“Come in,” said Lorena from inside. “Both of you.” The woman turned to look at him.

“Stella, darling! Lovely to see you, dear,” Lorena said, reaching her with an air-kiss on Stella’s left cheek, then her right. “You,” she said turning to Clark. “Leave Monica to greet our guests and go clean upstairs.” She eyed him with the read-between-the-lines face she wore, and left no room for misunderstanding: Lorena meant the Tower.

This must be my punishment . . . At least I’m not getting “fired” . . .

Without emotion, Clark said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“ Don’t call me that!” she snarled back. Stella flinched. Lorena turned to her and broke into an exasperated, sheepish smile. “Please, have a seat, darling.” Clark held the door open for Carolina the cook, who’d appeared with a tea tray, and then shut the office doors behind him.

In the Closet, Clark took a deep breath and stepped into the mirror opposite. Mirror, mirror on the wall, he thought, will I amount to anything after all...? He did the hand gesture: the secret door clicked open, and up that iron and glass staircase he went.

The space looked almost exactly as they had left it on Friday night, with burnt-out candles and wax on the Tower’s perimeter. The chalk circle remained smudged and broken, and only ashen remains were left where Melissa’s body had lain on that glass floor. Clark looked up at the ceiling licked by her flames. There was not a mark in sight.

Fireproof . . . he thought to himself.

A draft shot through the room and down his spine. He could almost imagine how she had been zipped up and taken away, could almost follow the smudged footsteps that led back down the way he had come. Melissa’s pleading, and her screams, echoed in his mind’s ear like it was happening all over again. He even swore there was still a hint of singed flesh in the air. He was feeling dizzy. Desperate for fresh air and circulation.

On the northern side of the room, he fumbled with the lock on one of the wall-length windows. Without warning, the window whipped open with a burst of howling wind. It almost sucked Clark into the open air and to a thousand-foot drop. The window rotated on its hinge and slammed against its neighboring window with a loud, low thud , once, then twice, and again and again.

A familiar voice came from behind him. “Grab one of those hooks, baby, they’re for the windows.” Clark turned to discover it was Miss Honey. “Careful now!”

Sure enough, there was a long hook in the grating, which Clark grasped. He hung on for his life as he hooked the handle, and pulled the window in towards him, fighting the October breeze. He was so precariously perched on that ledge that he could see a couple of the gray stone gargoyles flanking the floor below, and the long, long way down...

“Geez,” he said, “what’s a window like that for?”

“You know what it’s for . . .”

Clark paused. The broomsticks on the landing below...It couldn’t be... “For flying?!” he exclaimed. He was afraid to think of what other purpose it might serve.

“Why are you still here, baby?” That warm smile of hers had vanished, replaced by a look of sad concern.

“I . . . don’t have any other choice right now.”

“Sure you do, baby. You always have a choice. Choose you . Choose better. Leave and never look back. Put this all behind you before they put you six feet under like they did that girl. What’s it going to take to convince you?”

“I can’t,” Clark said. He almost felt ashamed. “I’m scared. And I feel like...there’s something more I need to do here.”

Miss Honey gave a slow shake of her head. “No, sweetie. You play their game, and you’ll see how wrong you’ll be. You think you’re ahead of the game, then the rules change,” she said, words laced with melancholy. “The rules always change because it’s her game, her rules. Playing with her is a losing game, one you will always lose. You’re in deep, baby. You’re in deep...”

Clark trusted there were no cameras there but he spoke in a low voice regardless. “You’re right,” he said. “I should’ve listened. What do I do?”

“There’s nothing you can do if you won’t leave, baby,” she said. “Except for one thing.” At this, she turned to the middle of the room, to the window in the floor to the Closet below...

“What? What is it? She can’t keep doing—”

“Hello...?” One of the maids was coming up the stairs carrying a bucket and a mop.

“Hi, Marcia,” Clark said. “Me and Miss Honey were just—”

But Miss Honey was nowhere to be found. He looked around in shock.

“I’m sorry, cari?o , who?” she asked, confused.

“The maid, Miss Honey: thin, small woman, short hair. Sounds like Eartha Kitt? I swear she was just here a second ago but...”

“Oh no, mi amor ,” she said, setting the bucket down. “There’s no one working here by that name.”