Chapter XI The Powers That Be
Chapter XI
The Powers That Be
C harisma, Lorena, and Clark in tow walked wordlessly down the stairs and towards the offices—Charisma in heels under her nightgown, no less, and Clark in the daze of shame from being caught, and a state of sheer, unmitigated dread. The portraits they walked past all seemed to say, dead man walking ...As he caught his reflection he hardly recognized in a passing mirror—drawn, hollow-eyed, and hopeless—he thought to himself, Maybe they’re right ...
It was funny: Charisma was about the same height as Clark, yet she felt bigger, giant, broader even, as if Clark was always craning his neck to look up at her. The charge of the very air around her seemed to snatch at him in her wake, and he succumbed to it like prey to a predator. In the orbit of her gravity, Clark felt powerless.
The three walked past Lorena’s office to a door Clark had not yet visited. Inside was nothing like Lorena’s moody, film noir office: Charisma’s had a regality, with fine silhouettes and classic lines, open windows, white-gold accents, and marble throughout, like the rest of her home. Behind the desk was a tall, gold chair on a platform of two or three steps. Her throne.
So this is where I’m going to die . . . Clark thought with dread. Not bad . . . ! Could be worse . . . !
“Sit,” Charisma instructed, indicating the chair in front of her desk. Clark did as he was told.
“I knew the boy was trouble from the first moment I met him. I should’ve believed Monica when she—”
“I can take it from here, Lorena.”
“Yes, but if only I could—”
“Lorena, go,” she commanded.
“But, Sissy —”
“ Lorraine. I said leave us. Now.”
Clark watched Lorena’s chest lift as if about to speak, and then, knowing there was no use in arguing, she turned on foot and left. The door drew shut as if on its own accord, clicking and closing them in, and then all was quiet. Just the two of them left. Clark turned in his chair to face her.
Here she was, the infamous woman still a mystery to him, whom he both delighted and disdained, sitting right in front of him, her eyes boring into his. Charisma was regal, beautiful, cool and calm, sitting there in her nightgown, her alabaster skin smooth and even in the warm lamplight and the city glow outside those office windows. Clark, on the other hand, was scared shitless. She smelled of her white-floral fragrance, and her green eyes were still her trademark smoky feline. Clark wondered if she slept in her makeup.
Charisma produced a fresh cigarette, put it to her lips, and inhaled as a small flame ignited the tip, seemingly out of thin air.
Clark knew he was caught, and about to pay heavily for it. Be brave... he kept telling himself.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced yet, darling,” she said.
“I’m Clark,” he said.
“Like Kent?” She took a drag and smiled, and the hair on Clark’s arms stood on end. “I know what your name is. Always a frog, never a prince, ay? Tell me, Clark darling: how old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” he said.
“Twenty-four, I see . . . And, when is your birthday?”
Clark hesitated. He was a student again in the principal’s office. “October twenty-fourth, a week before Halloween,” he answered. She wore the most peculiar of knowing smiles on her alabaster face. Clark wondered if she had already known that much too.
“Ah, Scorpio on the cusp of Libra,” she said. “Year?”
He answered.
“Taurus moon, Capricorn rising, and your Mars is in Scorpio: once you decide to do something, there is nothing that can hold you back— ohh, how passionate. Your Tenth House is in Scorpio, too...a truthseeker. Well, happy belated, darling.”
“Thank you,” Clark said. “You too.”
“Thank you. Now, color me confused, but what is it that you think you are doing here exactly, in my Closet, in my home, in the middle of the night?”
“I, um...” But Clark broke away. This time, he was not sure what he could say that would get him out of this. “I...left something. In the Closet.”
“And did you find what you were looking for?” she asked through narrowed eyes.
“Um . . . yes,” he said.
She tilted her head, and giving him a side-eye, with that smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, said, “ Ah ah ah, one mustn’t ever lie to me. No no, that would be a grave mistake. A very grave mistake to make indeed...”
What do I say . . . ? What can I say . . . ?
Charisma said, “You can start by saying the truth .”
Clark flushed red and his stomach flipped. The violation he felt was akin to being intruded on in his own privacy, as if being walked in on in the restroom.
Charisma spoke with sharp finality. “You are here tonight because . . . ?”
“I thought you would be...out,” he said. He was unable to stop himself. Despite his best wishes, he wanted to talk.
“Out where?”
“Out with . . . the Powers.”
“With the Powers?” Charisma laughed and the sound was like bells. Clark’s stomach twisted into knots. He hated that he liked her voice, liked the sound. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I know about the Powers,” he said. “I know about the Order. I know about the terrarium. I know all about you. I know you killed Melissa, I know you killed Miss Honey, and many, many more.”
She broke into a smile and chortled into her cigarette while Clark sat quiet. “That’s what I love about you working-class New Yorkers...so much gumption . It was you who intercepted my note, wasn’t it? I figured as much. Since you know so much, you do know what happened to the last person who intercepted my notes, don’t you? If not, I’m sure you can imagine...” She took a drag and the ember sparked. Slowly, she exhaled a puff of smoke.
Instantly, he knew he’d made a grave mistake. Clark shifted in his seat; he wanted to disappear right then and there.
“Now, look, it’s one in the morning. Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? Tell me, what is it that you want?”
“Answers,” Clark said almost automatically, the word seeming to escape his mouth before he could even stop it. Clark was sure that he was being witched.
“But,” Charisma said with a smile, “you just told me you know all about me. So which is it, darling? You know all about me, or you want answers?”
Clark realized, far too late, that he had no clue what he was doing. That this was it. He had gone too far. That he was as good as dead.
“I, uh . . .” Clark began. “Umm . . .”
“What’s the matter? Froggie caught in your throat?”
Clark’s blood ran cold again.
“Frogs...how very interesting of you. Frogs symbolize abundance— and fear. Didn’t you know? Riddle me this, then: you were here that night of your birthday when we took down the moon. Why?”
“I...heard about the eclipse ritual,” Clark said. “I had a little liquid luck and, um, I wanted to see what it was about. To see if you all are actually witches, who do actual magic.” The words escaped him almost against his will—it felt so good that he was relieved to say them, ashamed to like it even. “I’m sorry,” he added, blushing. He hated himself for it.
Charisma sat there giving him a studying look. She said, “Taking down the moon is one of a witch’s most sacred rituals, and on the night of an eclipse no less. When we accepted the moon into our aura, yours mingled with ours, big and bright. I’ll admit, I haven’t seen one like that in quite a while. While I can’t blame you for being curious , curiosity did kill the cat, you know...Speaking of, mine got you pretty good, huh, darling? The gargoyles.”
At this, the slash on his back twinged. Clark couldn’t believe this was happening. She spoke with a smile, but what she was saying was pitiless. He had a feeling of dread in the pit of his gut that was making him ache all over.
“How did you do that?” he asked. “The gargoyles in the dream? The cut...Was it a dream, or was it real?”
“As my good friend once said, of course it was a dream, darling, but why would that mean it wasn’t real?” She spoke with a coy smile. “As for the gargoyles, consider them a precaution, a security system of sorts. That was quite the feat, your little broomstick chase. It took some willpower to summon one of my brooms and accomplish that. Bravo .”
“And the Powers? The terrarium?”
“The terrarium is an ancient magic. One could even say it speaks for itself. As for the Powers That Be, well, some powers are outside of the realm of a witch’s control, be that as it may. Everybody answers to somebody, even me...
“Some magics are so powerful, in fact,” she continued, taking a drag and billowing out smoke, “one needn’t wave a magic wand or recite an incantation, especially when that magic is a glamour of the mind. When the mind refuses to See, the glamour cast is a cloak of invisibility one puts on by their own ignorant volition. And as you may be well aware, mon petit justice complex , the truth is as loud as the superhero underwear you surely don...and always reveals itself. One need only be willing to look and listen.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t understand.”
Lift the veil, darling...Look again... Charisma said to him in his mind. On “look,” she tapped on the middle of her forehead as his began to prickle. She bored into his eyes with the most carelessly invasive gaze, and Clark sank back into his seat, locked in her stare. He had the feeling he was looking into someone’s eyes he shouldn’t be.
This time, it was like there was a double memory living in his recollection, unknown to him before, as if some kind of déjà vu, a memory of an experience that had always been there but not quite recalled. It was as if the radio in his mind had dialed to a frequency in between.
It was his interview with Monica, when not a word could be heard outside of his table. Clark was listening so intently, so nervous, wringing his hands under the table, that when the waiter appeared soundlessly from the kitchen, Clark choked on his water. Only, Monica didn’t take the sound bubble with her—Clark had been the one to mute the world around them.
“I did that?” he asked. Charisma did not reply.
Another memory came to him: It was his first day again, and Clark was standing in Hell’s Entrance, Miss Honey before him, delivering that warning. Except, he realized there was no one sitting at the table. He was talking to thin air.
Another memory: Melissa was confessing to leaving the Coven in that elevator, but this time, and to his horror, he was Charisma, listening in on them as she reviewed the security footage.
And another: drawing the circle and gabbing with Emily on his birthday in the Tower—but this was not from his memory or the security footage. This he was overhearing from the terrarium. And again, on that same night, Clark watched himself from above and out of body, conspicuously standing at the lip of that iron staircase, spying on the Coven: there one moment and gone the next, his aura enveloped him in a distorting cloak, rendered him almost imperceivable. Then, he watched his aura, indigo and periwinkle blue, grow under the eclipsed red moon and meld with the Coven’s, giving him away. His showed brighter than any of theirs, and Charisma took notice.
Next, Clark saw through their four pairs of eyes simultaneously, the gargoyles looking up at his blue-aura-ed silhouette in that dark New York, and in unison swan-diving through the air, bobbing up and down with the beat of their wings, and lunging after him as he shot into the darkened street below. This made his head hurt so bad, he thought he was going to vomit.
And then, Clark saw himself through the eyes of Charisma’s portrait, darting past the landing room earlier that very night as he snuck into the penthouse. He saw himself through the eyes of the terrarium, trying to lift its container and test its flammability. He watched through his own eyes as Miss Honey burst into flames all over again, as she had that night; and then again, he watched himself through Charisma’s eyes, being blown back as if by nothing, crying for a body that was not there. Recollecting those memories was as if the television of his mind’s eye had switched to a movie he had seen so many times he had come to know it by heart, only to realize that he had never watched it in English until that very moment.
Charisma broke her focus with a roll of her eyes. Clark blinked and came back too. She put out her finished cigarette and lit another. The room was spinning .
Clark said, “Miss Honey is . . .”
“ Dead,” Charisma finished. “Dead, dead, dead. And has been for quite some time. She used to work for me, some years ago.”
“But . . .” Clark began but stopped. Is she a ghost . . . ? A figment of my imagination . . . ? Am I going crazy . . . ?
Darling, haven’t you been paying attention...? she said, speaking to him mind to mind. We are all a little mad...You have to be to do what we do. Eventually, you will learn that crazy is a compliment...
“Why? Why did you kill her?”
“Why? Because, she knew too much, that’s why. I had caught her snooping around, just like you, and when she became a problem, I had that problem eliminated. How she infiltrated my defenses and appeared to you is another matter entirely...”
“I’ll expose you,” Clark blurted out. “I’ll tell the whole world about you and what you are.”
At this, Charisma laughed, and he regretted it instantly.
“And who would believe you? Who in this great wide world, in this city that is mine, would believe someone like you?”
Clark was at a loss for words.
“Besides,” she added, “you signed an NDA.”
Clark thought back with regret to his first day, when he had most certainly signed himself away. What would it take to break his word? To break a witch’s contract? Clark saw the answer in his mind’s eye, a thought alien to him, intruding on his own:
He went up in screaming flames, then and there in Charisma’s chair—fired in immolation, just like Melissa, and just like Miss Honey. In a blink, the scene flitted from his mind as quick as it had come, and Clark was left staring at the person who he knew had imprinted it.
Charisma spoke with a smiling coquettishness: “If all of what you say is true and I’m the Big Bad you say I am, why then did you stay?”
Clark looked back, perplexed. “I didn’t have a choice. I dropped out of college, I went down to weekends at the coffee shop to support myself. I...I—”
“You can lie to yourself all you like,” she said, “but one always has a choice. You chose not to return to school, and you chose to interview. You chose to drop in hours, knowing full well you could go back to your old, boring life whenever you wanted. But no: you chose to get ahead. You chose to crash my party, knowing there would be consequences. You chose to pit Monica and Melissa against each other, knowing they would tell on one another. You chose to sacrifice them, Melissa especially—offered her up on a platter, even, for your own personal gain. And then, you chose to stay. You have always had a choice, my darling.”
“What . . . ?” he said breathlessly. “I didn’t think that—I just wanted to take the heat off of me, to distract them. I . . . I didn’t choose to . . . to ‘sacrifice’ her . . . How could you even say that?”
Charisma took a drag. “Sweetie darling, I just finished the job. You did the hard work for me. You turned the tables, for no one else but yourself. And here I underestimated you, thinking Monica would be your demise like every other junior’s before you. Maybe she’s met her match. Maybe we needed a male witch after all.”
Clark’s eyes widened. “Wait, I’m not a...You think I’m a witch?”
“I told you never to lie to me, boy,” she said. “I know what you are. You can fool the others with your act, all unassuming and innocent and naive-like. But I know better. I’ve known it from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”
Clark was speechless. Him, a witch? All his life he had dreamt of being special, of being unique, but he never thought it possible. Not for someone like him. Not this way. He’d thought news like this would make him feel a sense of elation. All he could feel was horror.
He searched for the words and looked up at her. “Am I evil?”
“That depends on your definition,” Charisma said, waving his worry away. “Morals are relative, wouldn’t you say?”
Clark asked, “Are you evil? Do you work for the Devil?”
Charisma smiled. “My my, aren’t you an assiduous little witchling.” They looked at one another for a moment before she answered, “No more evil than anyone else. No more evil than you. As for her, well, she doesn’t need our help.”
Clark said sternly, “I’m not like you.”
“You’re right. You are not like me. You are nothing like me...”
As Charisma spoke, the walls began to lean in as the world fell silent and still, even the very air, to listen: “I am the Sovereign, the Witch Queen, reigning supreme in this world. In my time, they have called me many names: Hecate, Medea, Lilith, Circe, Morgan le Fay. I am the one all your beloved stories are written about. The first and the last of the Original Witches. I have always been here, and I always will be.
“You, on the other hand, have acted like a fool. Your aura is permeable. You live in fear of other people, and of yourself. You care too much about what other people think and feel. It makes you easy to read, easy to probe, poke, and toy with. It makes you weak.”
His night terrors of being ridden flashed before his mind’s eye. His cheeks flushed with indignation. “I’m not weak,” he said meekly.
Charisma raised up in her seat as Clark sank lower into his. “ Never forget that the price for your insolent choices is the loss of a finger, a hand, a limb; your loved one, your mind, your life. Never forget that tonight, I showed you mercy, and that could change at my whim and mine alone. In the old days, I’d cut out your tongue myself, simply for talking too much.”
I want this to be over ...he thought. For her to kill me right here and now, and be over with it...
“Oh, but not to worry, sweetie darling, I’m not going to kill you. At least, not yet.” She leaned back into her office chair and put her heels up on the desk, while taking a deep draw of her cigarette. “I find fear to be a powerful motivator, don’t you?” She flashed her perfect white smile. “And besides: Melissa had to go, just like that wretched maid. It had to be done, and for that, I’ll spare you. Just this once. And if you hadn’t done it, I would have found a way. I had known for quite some time. Let’s just chalk up your little indiscretion to ‘exuberance of youth,’ shall we?”
“You . . . knew she was going to leave?”
“Oh yes. And that witch-bitch Monica was getting a little too big for her britches, too. You know what I think? I say job well done .” At this, Charisma giggled. Her eyes turned to Melissa’s, burnt and dead, staring at him in the Tower.
“I didn’t do to her what you did. I could never do that. What you did to Melissa I would never do...”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she said, putting her cigarette out into the ashtray in front of her. “ You already did. You can play dumb to yourself all you like, darling, but not to me. Never to me. You think you are my moral superior? Think again! Did you get buddy-buddy with my staff to make friends? No. You asked Lorena how we operate here, how witches are hired into my coven. You did it to infiltrate. You asked to become more involved, and then, Emily had you draw the circle— your circle. You were jealous of the witches, of the interviewees, and all the nice things that working for me can afford them, weren’t you? You did away with Melissa. You shifted the tables when you upended Monica’s tirade and finally stood up for yourself. It was either them or you, and you picked your petty little self. You knew what you were doing the entire time. In my house, I see all. And some things are so loud, they scream . You have been acting out your unconscious needs and desires in everything that you do. You, who have lived so disconnected, a voyeur to your own power—in this existence? How? Good Goddess , for the City That Never Sleeps there sure are a lot of sleepwalkers! Time to wake up, darling!”
Clark was speechless. He realized his mouth had been agape, and running dry, and he quickly shut it.
“And now, on this night, here you are sitting in my chair, in my home, taking up my time, and waiting for what, some kind of Dumbledorian wisdom to be bestowed upon you? What is it that you are looking for? Pardoning? Permission? You have been an entitled little brat the entire time you’ve been here. So what exactly is it that you want here, if you are so above us? Money? Power?”
“I’m . . . not sure,” he said.
“Get up, boy. Answer me.”
Clark’s legs carried him as if with a mind of their own. In front of the almost wall-length, gold mirror, framed in hieroglyphs, they stopped. There seemed to be a whisper coming from inside the mirror. There he saw himself: average and awkward. A boy and not a man. Charisma stood behind him, looking at him too. Atop the frame was an Egyptian ankh and Eye of Horus peering down at them.
“I don’t know,” Clark said finally.
“You know,” Charisma spoke into his ear, leaning in, more calm and yet more grave than ever. She wore that sly smile. “Do not make me ask again, witch: what is it that you want?”
Then and there, the words that had been boiling just under the surface for months made themselves known, breaking in a bubbling instant as if he had known what to say all along, as if he had already spoken them. The words came to him effortlessly.
“I want to be like you.” His cheeks flushed pink as he let it all out. He turned to look at her. “Make me a witch like you. Make me the new assistant.”
The release was so sweet he almost shed a tear.
There was a long pause as Charisma folded one arm under her elbow, and with her free hand took a drag from the cigarette that was hanging from her lips. Her venomous green eyes narrowed in on his own twinkly brown.
Clark worried, What is she thinking . . . ? The expression on her face was not surprise, he decided, but more so, Is it . . . satisfaction . . . ?
Charisma uttered a short hmm before deeply inhaling her cigarette down to its lipstick-covered filter. She turned him slowly back to the mirror.
There... she replied in his mind, looking at his throat. Now doesn’t that feel better...? Clark realized that the sore throat that had plagued him for months was gone. Cured. “Yes...” he said, reaching up to touch it. “Thank you.”
“Good,” she said, as her office door slid open as if on its own. “Have a good night.”