Chapter X Errant Boy
Chapter X
Errant Boy
C ome here, loser,” Monica said to Clark first thing Monday morning, December the first. “You’re coming on a house call.”
Clark was shocked. “I am?!”
“Yeah,” she said. “‘All hands on deck’ or whatever.” She rolled her eyes.
That day was chaos as the coven prepared. Clark loaded up a few deliveries into the Closet, and then redistributed those supplies into the coven’s many black designer luggage bags. After lunch, Clark helped load all the luggage into the SUVs, except, owing to Oksana the driver and Miranda the door-lady’s hands-off approach, “helped” became “did it all himself.”
Then the moment had come to ship off, and there she was, the subject of every conversation, looking calm and cool as ever: Charisma sauntered out of the elevator and out the lobby doors. A couple of passersby stopped to gawk at seeing her appear, pulling out their phones for photos. Charisma had a way of making everything look so easy, when behind the scenes Clark knew it was a facade, one that took an empire of little helpers to maintain.
Clark rode in the backseat of one of the blacked-out SUVs all the way down to Tribeca in rush hour traffic. It was after six as they rolled up to another lofty penthouse. She greeted this group of “darling” clients like they were girlfriends, with air kisses and hugs.
Inside, Monica ordered Clark to carry heavy bag after heavy bag up two flights of stairs, until a maid asked, to her bemusement, why he was doing such a thing when the elevator was but feet away. Monica disappeared behind a corner with a smirking grin and a flash of her cold gray eyes. Clark’s sore throat had become so irritated and himself so mad, he could scream.
The guests filed one by one into a parlor room of a few chairs and tables under candlelight and drawn curtains. When Charisma and the coven had entered, Monica stopped short at the door. Just before Clark could enter the threshold, she said, “Not you,” and closed the door firmly in his face.
A maid entered the space with a tray of food, and Clark could overhear Charisma telling a story: “So there we were, sitting on the beach in the Riviera at Cannes, and I was like, ‘Darling, really? You can have any man you want, are you sure this is the one? And she said, ‘With all of my heart.’”
The ladies aww ed.
“So we MAN-ifested it,” Charisma said, to resounding giggles. “The two are now happily married and the It Couple of Hollywood, she with her hit TV show and three beautiful children, and he his—” The door closed. Clark hurried to press his ear up to it. He could just make out the murmuring fervor of Charisma’s quick, passionate, emphatic voice, and the responding laughs and gasps of her audience, but was hardly able to make out the words at all. He sighed as he slid onto the floor, unnerved and dejected, twirling the strap of his backpack, trying his hardest to hear what was happening inside, to no avail. The indignation welled up inside of him.
Why does Monica hate me so much . . . ? he wondered.
When it opened next, Monica appeared. She snapped at him to get up. “Quick, make yourself useful and fetch the selenite wands,” she ordered. In seconds, Clark located their trunk and produced them for her. Monica snatched them right from his hands and disappeared back into the room.
Minutes passed and felt like hours when he heard gasps and screams. “How did you know?!” one woman shouted. A few seconds later there were a few raucous laughs. That’s when it happened.
“Where is it?” Clark could hear Charisma demand. The room fell silent. He could hear steps hurry to the door as Monica burst into the hall seconds later, this time in a panic.
“Oh my GAWD, where is it?!” she said in a manic frenzy, digging through kit after kit.
“Where is what?” Clark asked.
“I know I packed it,” she said. “Shit shit SHIT!” Monica was tossing bags upon bags out of the kits all willy-nilly.
“What are you looking for? Let me help you,” Clark said.
“AS IF you could help me,” she spat. “Where is her fragrance?”
“We didn’t pack it,” Clark said.
“WHAT?!”
“It wasn’t on the list.”
“Who CARES if it wasn’t on the list, it’s supposed to be here! What good are you if you can’t even do your job properly?! UGH!”
“But . . . you wrote the list! I’m just following orders!”
“Oh, piss off !” she spat. “Move!” Monica pushed him out of her way. His foot was caught on the strap of his backpack, and Clark fell to the floor, knocking something hard and glassy loose...And then he smiled: peeking out of his backpack was the tasseled atomizer of his one-ounce bottle of Charisma.
Monica looked at his face, which had broken into bemused splendor at what he had come to realize, and then at the bag at his feet. They looked at each other. She made a dive for it but Clark pulled it close with his shoe, too quick for her to grab.
Here’s to “never saving the day”... he thought. He dashed around her, crumpled on the floor, and ran that little bottle of perfume into the room. The ladies stopped what they were doing, and the coven watched in astonishment as, with her back to the door, her hand held out, Clark dropped the bottle into Charisma’s waiting hand.
“As I was saying, I knew the ingredients I wanted for my first fragrance. I wanted a sillage , a trail, something with presence and a magic coat tail. I wanted something commercial but unique. I had the best nose in the industry—a true alchemist, really, she’s a miracle worker—to help produce the juice. We patented this mix that bypasses the olfactory senses into the part of the brain that stimulates intuition and confidence, and acts like a love potion to––”
Monica had returned to her place in the lineup, and the hatred was radiating off of her. Clark could hear the ksk ksk of the fragrance’s tasseled atomizer and the “mmm” of the ladies before he closed the door behind him with pride. At the words “love potion” and the thought of Joey always kissing his neck, however, well, Clark decided to worry about that another time...
After nine in the evening, as the ladies filed out, they were clutching their chests, murmuring such thoughts as, “That was the best reading I’ve ever had,” and “I’ve never told a soul that happened! How did she know?”
The Coven appeared after, and then Charisma, holding in the palm of her hand the used and well-loved bottle from the bottom of Clark’s neoprene backpack. Charisma did not once raise her voice, only spoke dangerously low, slow, and quiet. “Which one of you bitches forgot to pack my fragrance?”
No one answered.
“Let me ask again: I know none of you packed this, this filthy, sad excuse of a bottle,” she said, shaking Clark’s tatty bottle about. “How in the bloody hell am I supposed to run an empire if my own team is unprepared? Huh?! We just launched this! ” She was wearing a black leather corset under a tight jacket, a skirt, and heels. Clark thought she looked like a ringleader.
There was, again, no answer.
“Right. Which one of you saved the day? I know it wasn’t Monica. Whom does this belong to?”
Monica hesitated before starting to speak, but then Clark did one more bad thing, the only thing he could do: he spoke up. “I did,” Clark said.
It was as if one of the trunks had suddenly spoken. Slowly, they all turned to look at Clark, a room full of witches staring right at him.
“Good job, Clark!” Emily said.
With a look of bemusement, Charisma turned back to the Coven, and said, “Well, I’m glad fucking one of you was doing their job.” She shot Monica the darkest of looks. The bottle was dropped into her hands, and Charisma walked away. Clack clack clack.
“Way to go, genius,” Alicia said to Monica, once Charisma was out of earshot.
“You didn’t think to pack them? An oversight, don’t you think?” Lorena turned to address the group, landing with finality on Clark. “Here, you are all replaceable. One must never forget your job, nor your place.” She followed Charisma out.
When the assistants were alone, Monica was absolutely fuming. The steam whistled higher and higher like a radiator in winter, until the very air around her grew malevolent and red, and she snapped.
“You don’t actually wear this, do you?” she asked, turning on Clark and advancing on him. “This, a women’s perfume ...?”
Clark didn’t answer.
“Here,” she said, hovering over him, “we are of the opinion”––she stepped into his face—“that men should look”—she punctuated—“and act”—with a jab of her finger in his chest—“like men!”
“Leave him alone, M—” Emily began, but Alicia put her finger to her mouth with a “shh,” and Emily’s lips snapped shut, tight and fast, as if out of her control, rendering her speechless.
Clark thought he was going to be sick. He let Monica talk to him like that, touch him even? What would become of him? He wanted to crawl into a ball and disappear...but another part of him had something else to say.
“You can’t talk to me like that,” Clark snapped back.
“What did you say to me?” Monica asked, low and deadly.
“You heard me,” he continued, enunciating every word and taking a step toward her: “You. Can’t. Talk. To. Me. Like. That! ”
Alicia let out a gasp and a laugh.
“Excuse me? You’re just the help! You’re just some poor cretin I picked up off a dollar store bargain rack in Queens!”
Emily and Alicia gasped.
“Do you forget who you are talking to? We are beauty and grace,” she continued, “and you will never be a woman, you will never be a witch, you will never be anything like us, no matter how much you might wish to be.” She looked to the others for support, but they did not budge. “You will never amount to anything .”
“And what will you amount to, Monica?” Clark asked, red with anger. “A mean girl? A bully? A cheater? What did I do to you, huh? Where do you get off, being so bitchy?!”
“A cheater? What did you do to m...” Then, Monica gasped.
Emily and Alicia looked at one another as Monica’s face fell from furrowed disdain into absolute astonishment and rage.
“It was you . . . ! YOU ratted me out!”
The girls gasped too.
“Prove it!” he said to her.
“I knew it,” Monica said, right up in his face. Her eyes were full of fire and menace. “I’ll make sure you regret that...”
“What is going on here?” Lorena asked, clacking back.
Monica stood back and pointed at Clark. She exclaimed, “He’s scaring me!” Suddenly, she was smaller looking, hurt even. Monica reverted, a little girl again.
“You,” Lorena said, turning on Clark and aiming a finger. “What did I say to you about causing drama, ay? I thought I told you no funny business, boy. I should have fired you at the Blood Moon, but I won’t make that mistake again!”
The blood rushed into Clark’s face. Fired . . . ? For this . . . ?!
“Oh, please, Mother, he did nothing wrong,” Alicia said. “It was her. And besides, she deserved it. We’re down an assistant; how do you think Charisma will take it that we’re down another junior too? Besides, don’t fire him just for putting her in her place. It was bound to happen, the way she treats him.”
Lorena looked at her, and then at Clark, and then at her again. She grunted. “Fine.” Turning to Clark, she said, “Pack this all up and take it downstairs to Oksana. Now. And you,” she said, pointing at Monica, “come with me.”
Emily and Alicia filed away, following in Charisma’s steps, high heels clacking behind them. Monica shot him the darkest and most venomous of looks before disappearing after them.
As Clark was breaking down the setup inside, alone, packing Charisma’s designer trunks and luggage bags, he thought, S o Alicia sees it too . . . ? Do all of them . . . ? Why hasn’t anyone said anything . . . ? Maybe they just don’t care . . .
Or maybe they were just waiting for me to say something . . . for me to take up for myself . . .
Oksana and the driver helped him load the luggage into the cars (“Let’s get the fuck home,” she said in her thick Russian accent) and then back up to Charisma’s and the Closet.
By the time he left hers, it was close to midnight. He couldn’t wait to tell Joey about what happened.
Monica was nowhere to be seen the next day, seemingly avoidant of Clark. Even if he had scared her away, he knew she’d be back. Charisma was out for the day too, Lorena had informed him. Playing hooky. She handed him a stack of envelopes.
“Deliver one fragrance each to these addresses,” she said, with a stack of notes. “And this one,” she said, giving him a single envelope, “is Charisma’s. Guard it with your life.”
The look in her eyes seemed to spell the end of him.
Before he left, he was to clean out the coat closet in the foyer, and sure enough, that box Monica had thrown in along with him from months before was still there, long forgotten. He ripped it open: it was full of blank orange pill bottles, just as Joey had said. But Clark wasn’t surprised. Nothing surprised him anymore.
Clark made a plan of attack to accomplish his deliveries quickly on that brisk December day: first to the two addresses on the Upper East Side, then on a crosstown bus to the Upper West, then a giant building on Columbus Circle, then to Flatiron, West Broadway, and SoHo, and then back uptown towards Charisma’s. How he missed the grittier, realer parts of the city: St. Mark’s Place from his youth, the East Village, Canal Street, and the Lower East Side. He would end the tour with her final envelope, delivering it to an address not far from the penthouse.
The entire time, he looked down at that last envelope in his hand, flipping it over, practically crawling out of his skin to know the contents inside.
At the end of that afternoon, the setting sun had bounced off of low gray clouds and cast New York into a heavenly, yellow-gold light, before descending into an early evening.
Clark entered a ritzy building with gold doors on Fifth Avenue. Upstairs at this client’s, a woman told him, “Wait here,” before retreating down the hall from which she came. Clark didn’t have to wait long, maybe a minute or two, before she was back. She handed the envelope to him wordlessly, and Clark, meeting her eyes and knowing his manners, said, “Thank you, ma’am, have a nice day.”
As he maneuvered around the corner downstairs and outside, Clark paused to examine it. Clark’s imagination went a little mad imagining what could be inside, and he did the unimaginable: he slid it into his backpack.
At home that night, Clark carefully held the envelope aloft, examining every angle of it. The paper was textured and rich, with a red wax seal like they all were. The eye with twelve eyelashes stared back at him, stamped in its center. Slowly, steadily, he knifed the wax seal open—and accidentally jabbed into the webbing of his hand. A couple of droplets of blood fell on the envelope and a bead of sweat formed on his brow. Surely Charisma would see that it had been tampered with now. Clark kept on.
He opened the envelope and removed the notecard inside, to reveal: nothing.
The notecard was blank.
He wrapped his hand in toilet paper to stanch the blood and squeezed. Curiously, he watched the red soaking through the veining of the toilet paper.
Maybe it needs a sacrifice . . .
Clark lifted the paper and let a single droplet fall onto the card.
Nothing.
Clark slammed his fist on the table, the notecard now ripped and stained, the eye a taunting reminder of his doom. Fuck...! Breathe, Clark...Now what...? Clark racked his brain and paced his floor, biting his nails.
Think, Clark, think . . .
He remembered Miss Honey telling him about the notes on his first day months ago—but what was it that she said? He closed his eyes.
Feudal Europe... He remembered something about Feudal Europe...And candlelight, something about reading the letters by candlelight. “Sometimes they’re just invitations and little ‘thank yous,’” he remembered her saying, “but other times...”
“They just need a little light.” The memory of her words echoed in his mind. A little light? But what did she mean? Clark held the card up to his lamp, but could make out no etchings of a pen, no signs of use.
Miss Honey wasn’t implying that...No, it couldn’t be... Clark had watched one too many movies. If he was wrong, it would destroy the letter completely.
His back dripping in a nervous sweat, Clark produced one of Joey’s lighters from his kitchenette and held it under the letter. Over the flame, nothing happened...until he moved it lower to the middle. Jaunty scribblings appeared, which Clark surmised could not possibly have belonged to Charisma on account of having seen her flowery handwriting, which decorated the visuals of her branding from her websites for her fashion line.
Yes, the Powers have much in store. I look forward to discussing with you and the Order tomorrow night.
The handwriting faded as the letter cooled. Clark held the flame under the card once more, only to discover that the writing would not return.
Clark had a headache, his head spinning with disappearing ink and “the Powers.” Who were “the Powers”? And “the Order”? Who would be collecting, and why?
“Witch secrets,” Miss Honey had said.
That night, Clark dreamt again:
He was standing in an In-Between, a limbo that had always been there just under the veneer of the everyday, the daydream place he’d often slip into and out of. A single spotlight appeared, just like in the dream in September, in that shadowed hall of onlookers.
Who stepped into view this time was none other than the ever-elusive Miss Honey. “Look, baby,” she said. She tapped on her forehead three times.
“I’m trying, but what did you mean?” he asked.
Her chest heaved up, and with a giant sigh and high-pitched ringing in his ears, Miss Honey went up in smoke. Standing in her haze was someone who smiled warmly at Clark.
“Grandma Wanda?” She smelled of gardenia and soap, a fragrance he could fondly recollect, and at the same time, was sad to have almost forgotten.
“Look,” his grandmother said encouragingly, tapping on her forehead.
“I’m trying to, but I’m confused,” he said.
Her smile of deep affection made his eyes cloudy and his lids heavy. “You have all the answers within you, pumpkin,” she said. “I love you always.” She blew him a kiss. In a flash of bright, white light, she morphed into his Ideal Self, looking down at him with a furrowed brow.
“Look,” he said to Clark, this time more gravely than the women before. No sooner had Ideal Clark pressed his finger to the middle of his forehead than Present Clark was bombarded with images of lightning and thunder over mountains and rivers in a hot primordial planet, of mists descending on a valley—or was it an island? He couldn’t be sure. He had visions of worms wriggling up out of the earth, of snakes, beetles and roaches surfacing up from mossy rocks and dirt and skyways, and suddenly, Clark was looking at a giant, wide, ancient tree atop a steep hill, its leaves and his hair rustling in the wind, dropping the fruit that it bore at his feet: shiny, red apples.
The howling wind of many whispered voices and ringing in his ears deafened his senses, and his perception shifted as the middle of his forehead prickled. It was all too familiar: Clark realized he was on the inside of Charisma’s terrarium.
The rustling leaves on the wind whispered a single word to Clark as he watched the tree go up in flames, a great, giant bonfire that turned the world around them red and yellow. In a flash, it stopped just as suddenly as it had started: a vision. It was the word “Fire.”
The whispers stopped. He looked up at the primeval sky. Then he turned around: a cloud from the misty perimeter was slowly ascending up that hill, and coming upon him. He had the distinct feeling that he was being watched, and he had an idea by who...
The whispers turned into screams as the mist came lapping at his feet. Kicking and stomping, Clark shouted, “No! No! ” He fell backwards and, in an instant, he was right side up again, standing in none other than the quiet stillness of his sleepy Astoria apartment.
It was nighttime and the lights were off, as he stood by the rightmost window looking out at that uninterrupted northern sky. There were no crickets chirping. Something was off. The atmosphere was different. Hollow.
“Where are you going?” Joey asked from just behind him. He was sitting up in bed. Clark looked to Froggie on his shelf, the picture of his grandma on his bedside table, and an empty blue-and-white coffee cup next to it that read, We are happy to serve you.
“I’m not sure...” Clark said. He turned to the window, searching for something he didn’t understand, something he couldn’t see.
Joey asked, “You know you don’t have to, right?” He folded down the covers next to him, and smoothed it with his bare skin on sheets. “You can forget all about them. You can choose to stay right here with me.” To Clark, he looked so beautiful, naked in bed, illuminated by the glow of the ominous black-blue sky outside.
Clark checked his watch: it was three a.m., the witching hour again.
He looked down, and the next thing he knew, he was wearing his coat and his hat. In his right hand was a broomstick from the Closet. Was it writing he was seeing, runes that appeared etched into the broomstick and glowed like invisible ink in the dark?
“There’s something I have to do,” Clark said again determinedly, turning back to the window. It slid open seemingly on its own, beckoning his flight. Clark mounted the broomstick and a gust of wind seemed to sweep in and all around him. With a hook of his navel and the feeling of butterflies, he launched into the air and out the window, flying into the night. The broomstick seemed to guide him, knowing where to go.
Astoria, usually so full of life, was silent. There was not a soul alive to be found underneath him, not on the empty streets below lined in dead-branched trees, not in the drawn-dark windowed homes, not a pedestrian or a moving car in sight. The eyes of RFK Bridge, too, were dark: the only light came from a sun eclipsed by a full moon and the glowing, low, gray clouds above. In the distance and shooting up into those clouds was a red beam of light. It called out to him, murmured his name in the dry rustling leaves on the onyx roads below, in the sharp December breeze whipping his face and whistling through those buildings and in his ear. He looked down at his reflection in the East River he crossed. Was it real? Was this really happening? It certainly felt like it. With one hand, Clark wiped a wind-streaked tear from his cheek. The broom was positioned like a missile straight for Charisma’s building as he sailed into the dark city, an Other New York.
He came upon the Tower and encircled the building. There was that telltale tingling in his forehead again: that light he had followed beamed like a beacon up into the clouds, and the whispering was coming from the terrarium as if it knew he was near, calling him closer.
Instantly, Clark’s mind’s eye was flooded with imagery: the giant apple tree was set ablaze in a powerful, mighty fire, blue and bright. And then, he saw the eyes of Charisma’s portrait boring into him, saw its frame engulfed in flame—but not caught in it, repelling it all around, impervious to fire. Clark understood then, as if he had always known, that the terrarium was the very same, great, imposing Eye that had opened on him months ago, ever-present and ever-watching—and it was staring back at him too. It knew he was there.
Suddenly, the clouds shifted and the air turned, as the middle of Clark’s forehead prickled fiercer than ever. In unison, the stone gargoyles on the building’s four corners sprang to life, their bodies animated, the size of lions, looking up at him with menacing red eyes of hellfire. It was a trap, and Clark had been lured right into its hands.
He watched in horror as they spread their wings. With a synchronized dismount, they swan-dived into the air. At first, they encircled the Tower, beating their wide, mighty wings in synchronization—and then, in single file, they flew upwards, straight for him.
Clark soared up and dropped into a nosedive, missing the snapping jaws of the first gargoyle by inches. They dove behind him. There was whistling in his ears and his eyes streamed against the wind as he plummeted headfirst into the darkness of the deserted street below, urging the broomstick faster. He could hear the howling of the gargoyles giving chase, closing in on him. As they caught up to him, clawing at the broomstick’s bristles and then his body, he swerved, and the shadowed ground that he could barely see approached, nearer and nearer—one hundred feet, then fifty, then twenty—as he careened towards it, a gargoyle snapping and growling just behind.
At the last possible millisecond, Clark pulled up hard and fast. The bottom of his shoes skidded dangerously on the pavement, and he kicked up off the empty street, wobbling unsteadily. Bang! Clark turned to look: the first gargoyle had crashed and shattered into the pavement, shattering into a million pieces of glittering rock and cracking Sixth Avenue beneath it. The dust and debris, however, billowed and blew into the air, revealing the other three gargoyles searching, following close behind. Their red eyes locked on him, and they uttered a murderous roar. Clark felt frightened in ways he hadn’t imagined in his wildest nightmares.
Clark zoomed over and under traffic lights as fast as he could muster, hoping, praying for a diversion, to lose them—but they were faster. A sharp right almost hurled him into a lamppost, another into the swinging claws of the nearest gargoyle, and then he heard a shatter: the second had smashed through a building’s windows, spraying glass-like shrapnel all around, cutting into his jacket. Clark yelped and shielded his head.
He recognized, by the glint of the river, the empty street ending, and the mass looming up at him, that he was flying east on 59th Street: he was approaching the Queensboro Bridge, dark and eerily traffic-less. As fast as his broomstick could carry him, Clark flew east. He turned over his shoulder: the gargoyles had disappeared, nowhere to be seen. He dared not stop.
Clark swooped into the dark tunnel, the wind whistling past his ears. Without warning, a gargoyle burst in between the rungs, hurling at him from the side like a bullet, and snapping and clawing. Clark ducked and rolled over, flipping upside down. He missed the demon as it breezed past his head and knocked off his hat, his back skidding against the pavement beneath him, and almost causing him to topple and crash off his broom. Clark almost wanted it to happen, to end the nightmare. The gargoyle’s wing crashed into the median barricade instead, breaking off, and the gargoyle smacked and bounced with a sickening wail, and toppled into the East River. The splash echoed throughout those quiet streets.
The other gargoyle lunged up from the left, but Clark was not fast enough. It caught up to him in his slipstream, and with its ferocious claws, an open paw the size of a trash can lid, dealt a savage swipe, slashing at Clark’s back. He uttered a guttural cry in pain. His vision went black. Clark was careening, losing focus and control.
He threw his body into the broomstick to a sharp right, smacking his back into the stone girder, which knocked the air out of him, and slipping out of the bridge and up to the top deck. Reeling, spiraling, he ascended along the highest cable of the highest tower, his back stinging in the cold night air. Only, Clark was slowing down: he realized he was fighting gravity, as the two gargoyles revealed themselves from below, beating their thunderous wings up, higher, and higher, gaining on him with ease. Together, they uttered that booming roar that filled the entire dark city: a kill roar. They encircled him fast.
At the top of the spire, the gargoyles lunged with their arms and their claws outstretched. Clark held the broom with his bad shoulder, and with the other, just as the gargoyles closed in on him, he grabbed the rung and spun, slingshotting out of harm’s way. The two gargoyles swiped and snapped with one another, colliding and crumpling in a heap of tangled limbs and wings. With a deadening, booming, echoing cry, they fell to the bridge with a crash of glittering rock and smashed into the river below with a deadening splash. Clark dared not stop on his silent flight along the river, back to Astoria, and to home.
As he approached the unlit RFK Bridge, he veered east until he saw the tracks of the subway. He was close. That’s when he heard another one of those battle cries that sent a pang through his chest and made his stomach flip.
He grunted from the cut on his back but turned just the same: to his dismay, a single gargoyle was flying straight towards him, its wet, beating wings glistening in that false light pollution of the dark New York sky, somewhere over Roosevelt Island.
Clark dipped low, hoping to lose it amongst the hodgepodge of squat Astoria rooftops, darting around the alleyways and in between buildings he knew so well. In one tight, dark alley, Clark peered up, and heard the beating of the gargoyle’s wings flash above him. He listened to it howl as it dove into a street a few blocks away.
Somewhere south of home, at what must have been Astoria’s Broadway, Clark ended up swerving into the underbelly of the subway tracks. He flew fast and homebound. All was quiet. Clark could only hear the whistling of the wind in his ears. He took a breath. That’s when the gargoyle nosedived through the track’s slats, spraying wood like shrapnel all around. Clark dodged. The gargoyle lunged straight for him, arm raised and claws out, and Clark dipped just in time for it to slash the back of the broomstick’s bristles. Clark spiraled out of control. The back of his broom hit the steel train beam and ricocheted; the gargoyle clawed into the pavement and shot up at him; Clark screamed and kicked up on its head, sending it flying into the pavement and him up and over the railway up above, onto Newtown Avenue. Clark flew in a sharp left, then a right into an alley, and then north on his tree-lined street. He encircled his building, came upon its northern side with his fire escape just in view, when, to his horror, so did the gargoyle, coming straight for him.
Up his fire escape he sailed, in through the apartment window that opened for him, granting him admittance.
In bed, there was no Joey, no sheets turned down, only a still Clark, lying fast asleep as the broom launched him into bed and skirted into place—just as the last gargoyle came crashing in through his window with a kill roar that shook the air. The last thing Clark knew was the flying of glass, metal, and brick, blasting into him and his bed, and the gargoyle lunging at him from the frame, but by then it was too late:
Clark was startled awake and into reality, kicking and thrashing at nothing there.
When he awoke, Clark’s watch had died, frozen at three a.m. He lifted himself off his bed and winced. His shoulder twinged and stung just as it had in his dream, and his bedsheet was spotted in blood.
He walked himself to the bathroom mirror and, sure enough, his cheeks were wind burnt, and there were three long, shallow lacerations on his right shoulder blade. Clark had never had an accident like this before, and he wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t go to Astoria Hospital just blocks away—and explain what, that he had narrowly escaped the bloodhound gargoyles of his boss? He dabbed the stinging cuts with toilet paper and returned to bed, covered in an old towel and lying on his side.
A single, penetrating, anxious thought kept him awake and his heart racing out of his chest: the terrarium had known it was him, that he knew too much. And if it knew, Charisma knew. And if she knew, he had to stop her before she stopped him...
Eventually, exhaustion overcame him, and finally, Clark passed out asleep.
At Charisma’s that morning, Clark was a little late for the first time he could ever remember.
Clark went through the motions of errands and organizing. Not daring to wear color, Clark wore black, and for good reason: in a mirror, he could make out the glint of blood spotting on his back through his button-down shirt. He noted all the cameras and the corners in which they lurked, especially the ones in the Closet. Monica kept her distance, giving him the silent treatment he so did not mind.
Lorena passed him by and said, “You don’t look so good. You’re not going to get us sick, are you?”
“I’m fine,” he replied, making sure to turn his back away from her. She seemed to avoid him the rest of the day anyway. It was Friday night and Joey had taken a night shift at work, so he wouldn’t have to worry about explaining the injury he had somehow sustained in his dream...at least not yet.
Later that evening, as the night turned to eleven, Clark made his way back on the train and headed to Charisma’s.
Clark had sent a text to Joey:
(11:03 p.m. Clark Crane): Hey, Mr. Big, I just want to tell you that I love you. 3
(11:31 p.m. Joey DiMuccio): I love you too =]! Is everything okay?
(11:31 p.m. Clark Crane): Everything’s great :]
At his last words and with a pang of guilt, Clark felt tears in his throat that wouldn’t come up.
Before he left, Clark had made his arrangements at home. In his diary, he had left a note:
Witches are real.
This is not a fairy tale.
This is not a joke.
I didn’t realize it until I was in deep. And now, if you’re reading this, it’s probably too late for me.
If you’re like me, then you’ve read about witches or seen them on TV. These witches are worse because this is real life.
Witches don’t wave magic wands.
They don’t have green skin or warts.
They don’t live in candy houses and eat children ... as far as I know.
Witches hide in plain sight. Bad things happen to the people around them. I would know.
They do make deals. I’ve seen their clients.
Witches have money. Town cars. Assistants. And covens.
And they do like to wear black. A lot of it.
You won’t know they’re the villains because they wear couture.
They are very rich and very powerful. They are amongst us. You can always tell a witch by their eyes. In some way, they always reveal themselves. They’re not trying to hide. At least, not the ones I know.
Charisma Saintly is their queen, although a saint she is not. It’s all a ruse.
Only, before I realized, I had no idea that big business around witchcraft could even exist, let alone a queen of all witches. She’s the most powerful of them all. And if she or hers find this, I’m as good as dead. If you’re reading this, I probably am already.
I did something not nice, and it fired back. Someone got hurt. I saw Charisma kill one of her assistants and cover the whole thing up like an accident. Charisma is the match and the fire, and she will make it look like an accident when she disappears me too.
If anyone finds this, if I don’t survive, please tell Joey that I love him, I really do. Tell Patricia I’m sorry. Tell my family too, even if I haven’t talked to them in ages.
I’m going to stop her, if it’s the last thing I do.
The feeling of that opened, unblinking Eye in his mind had not gone away; on the contrary, it had only gotten stronger. The same could be said for the ringing in his ears, which hadn’t subsided for weeks, peaking to a shrill, deadening whine.
This time, knowing Charisma’s nighttime security by name made getting upstairs easy, even if Charisma would be out on some kind of meeting. Clark opened the door, arriving again in a quiet, vacant home. He darted past the portrait in the front landing room to the stairs, up and up to the Closet.
With his back to that camera, Clark approached the terrarium, and tried to move or lift the glass enclosure—but it would not budge. He peered under the table to its pedestal leg: bolted. Clark questioned, If they don’t open it, how does it stay alive...?
Clark combed through the drawers in search of a tool—Ouija boards, hundreds of crystals, the hundreds of votive candles—until he found it: their restock of candle lighters he’d made sure to request.
With his back to the camera again, he clicked one alight, and to his bewilderment, the flame evaded the terrariums’ frame within an inch as if repelled, just like the picture frame of Charisma’s portrait in his dream. The worry dawned on him. What if she doesn’t have a weakness...? What if she can’t be stopped...
He peered into the terrarium. The room was spinning, and Clark held his stomach, thinking he was going to be sick.
A gentle voice from behind him said, “I told you to get out while you could, baby.” The pet name and words were like a hug; this time he didn’t startle. Clark knew who it was.
“Hi, Miss Honey,” he said, turning around.
“Hi, baby,” she said.
“What do you know about...all of this?” Clark asked, reeling. “What haven’t you told me? What haven’t I been let in on?” His mouth was dry, and the small of his back was wet with sweat—or maybe blood.
“Well, baby,” she said slowly, “what you see is what you get, and what you see is what I see. Witches gonna witch, you know what I mean?”
They stood in silence for a moment. His thoughts swarmed his head, and his heart began to race. “No. I don’t know what you mean. I need some answers. Now. Please. Charisma is...Ugh, I don’t even know where to begin,” he said. “Is this terrarium...enchanted? Bewitched?”
She nodded.
“Is it . . . connected to her?”
She nodded again.
“What do you know about it? Is it . . . sentient?”
She said, “Why don’t you ask it yourself, baby?”
Clark turned and put his hand on that glass enclosure. How are you connected to Charisma...?
Sure enough, a branch faintly clinked against the glass, an “answer”: like a download of knowledge, Clark knew the tree was an oculus, it was older than he could understand, its life force held in that glass container and...somewhere else.
A wave of shock shot through his body.
Clark turned to look at Miss Honey. “Does it sustain her somehow?”
She only met his gaze with those honey-almond eyes, and said, “I’m not sure, baby. It’s tied to her...But how or to what end, I’m not sure.”
“Can she be stopped?” Clark asked.
“I think if her talismans are destroyed,” she said, motioning to the terrarium, “if her magic is subdued, then she could be. But I don’t know.”
“The deliveries . . . The notes . . . ? Is she some kind of drug lord mafia queen?”
Miss Honey chuckled gravely. “Sounds like it to me.”
“And the Powers? The Order? Who are they all?”
She furrowed her brow. “That much I don’t know. I came close though, before...”
Clark had a knot in his stomach.
“Before what? What else don’t I know?” he asked. “Miss Honey...why are you here this late?”
After many moments, Miss Honey looked away and said, “I told you, baby, to get to steppin’ if you know what’s good for you. But you didn’t listen...and now it’s too late, you’re in deep...you’re in deep...and now she’s coming.”
Clark erupted into sweat. “Coming? Who’s coming? What do you mean?”
But Miss Honey looked to the floor, and with searching eyes and labored breaths, began to wring her hands and rock from side to side. “You get too close and play with fire, you gonna get burned . . . You gonna get burned, baby . . . I tried to warn you but you wouldn’t listen . . . Burned, I said . . . You . . . I . . .”
“Miss Honey . . . ?”
“She...she’s coming...No...Don’t get too close, don’t...No, don’t! DON’T! DON’T YOU COME ANY CLOSER,” she shouted, her eyes wild, wet, and darting around. Tears began to streak down her face, and sweat dripped onto her forehead. “I SAID STAY AWAY. NO! NO! I SWEAR I MIND MY OWN, I DO MY JOB. I WON’T TELL NOBODY. NOBODY! STAY BACK! STAY BACK! ” Miss Honey’s body quivered harder and harder, and Clark was sure she would wake the whole penthouse.
“Miss Honey, it’s okay,” he pleaded in reassuring softness. “Please, it’s just me. Breathe. Please, stop or they’ll catch us—” But Miss Honey was not hearing him. She was looking at him but not seeing him, and Clark could tell, the look in her wide, sweet eyes...he had seen before: it was that of pure terror.
Clark inched closer to her and she took some steps back, shaking her head and waving her hands, the crying and the rambling worsening. She shouted through heaving sobs, “DON’T YOU COME ANY CLOSER!”
Clark stopped where he stood, just a few feet away.
“I DIDN’T DO NOTHIN’, I SWEAR! PLEASE, LEAVE ME ALONE! LEAVE ME ALONE! NO! NO! BUT MY BABY! PLEASE, MY BABY! ”
Clark watched in disbelief as Miss Honey put her arms up, shaking and sobbing. She screamed, “NOOO!” and in an angry flash, Miss Honey burst into a screaming fire from head to toe. The flame was so intense and close that it forced Clark back like an explosion, knocking him to the floor. Miss Honey fell to her knees, and when her screaming stopped, fell face down. Throat dry, ears ringing, clothes damp with sweat, and hair standing on end, Clark lay on his arms in a state of shock. The fire had licked the ceiling black and the smoke filled the room. A tear escaped onto his cheek. Another one, gone and dead to Charisma’s madness. It must have been because of him, he figured. He had said too much, and Miss Honey had paid the cost.
After some time, Clark wiped his face and gathered himself off the floor. He approached with examining eyes, not daring to touch or get too close. Miss Honey’s body lay on the marble floor, smoldering, silent, and still. An airplane flew by overhead, jarring Clark back to reality. He realized his shoulders were sore from being wound up to his ears, and the lacerations on his back had a horrible twinge. He held his breath—hanging in the air was the smoke and scent of singed hair and scorched flesh, and he knew he would never be able to forget it as long as he lived.
A dreaded voice came from behind him that made his stomach drop: “What is going on here?” It was Lorena in her nightgown, and standing next to her was Charisma.
“It’s...Miss Honey, she...” Clark began, but what he saw next sent the room on a tilt: Miss Honey was nowhere to be found. Not her blackened body, not the ash of her clothes, nor the smoke in the air, nor the charred remains of her rubber tennis shoes—just the lingering smell, and the spinning room crashing all around him. Reeling and confused, Clark was dizzy and lightheaded.
“Come, darling,” Charisma said. “Let’s have a chat.”