Chapter 17 - The Man of Wind and Moss

Keith’s memorial service was at his house in Fort Myers and Marco pulled out the only suit he owned. It was from graduation and it was big on him now, and when he pulled into Keith’s fancy subdivision, the place was so crowded with cars he had to park far away and then walk in the Florida heat. When he finally reached Keith’s big driveway he was sweating. He moved through the hot, shiny cars, and eventually walked by the van they drove to Georgia all those years ago. He remembered it fondly and decided it’d be a nice story to tell Keith’s mom, but when he went inside he quickly learned that she would not be coming down.

Sasha and Pansy were already there, and Pansy made the rounds the best she could, but Sasha stayed put. She stood in the corner of Keith’s home and wore a black dress with long, silk sleeves that covered her bug bites and scars. She held a New Yorker tote with both hands, and she surveyed everything through her big, black glasses. She looked like she did when she was sitting before the fire. Like she was calculating something, putting two and two together. In many ways, Marco thought she looked like a visitor. More than the others at least. Like she was popping in, taking notes, only to return home to debrief somebody else.

The three survivors didn’t speak. Seeing each other was enough. There was an unspoken agreement that they weren’t to be cornered or questioned in groups. It was a decision that, while Marco found unfortunate, was hardly surprising. Everyone, through gossip or flat-out accusations, seemed to place the blame squarely at Marco’s feet. It was his cabin, his idea, he didn’t tell them it was a hike-in, nobody knew who Paula was, he never liked Dean, he wanted Pansy to himself, etc. Why didn’t you stay put? Why didn’t you climb back up to the trail? Why didn’t anybody have a map? Nothing was right. No answer was enough. Not to themselves or anybody. It was like they had returned from the woods marked with some sort of shadow. Some sort of curse. And as for Dean, well, he never returned at all. It had been three weeks since they came out of the woods, and Dean was gone.

* * *

Keith was the rich friend, and his house was enormous. It was a large, tacky mansion that sat where the Caloosahatchee opened to the gulf. His parents were as helicopter as it got and would come up to FSU to inspect his dorm for dime bags and empties. That was probably why he partied like he did. It also didn’t help that he chose movies and TV and “showbiz” as his calling. Keith’s father, Ryan, was a career politician and now, important Florida faces spoke and shuffled somberly, shaking hands and hugging. Prim, old money women climbed the stairs to the master bedroom and spoke one at time to Keith’s mom, her crying only heard when the large wooden door cracked open. There was a line of the women, and each one that went in later came out regarding the three survivors with a sort of venom.

Marco’s mouth was still in recovery. Before the oral surgeon, at Tampa General, a gruff British doctor had set his nose back. It was still vaguely crooked, but they suggested getting the jaw alignment first before considering any real plastic surgery. Now Marco barely recognized himself and when people talked, he only grimaced and pointed to his swollen mouth. He kept a little cocktail straw with him for drinks and if presented with hard food, he’d secretly dunk it into a glass of water before squeezing it through the gap of his mouth. The reason his suit was too big was because he was shedding weight, practically starving.

“I’m sorry,” Marco said when he shook Mr. Kennesaw’s hand. It was all he could say, actually. It came out stuck and stiff and the post-surgery bruising along his face was yellow and blue. Mr. Kennesaw didn’t give an inch, though. He squeezed Marco’s hand tightly and examined his injuries.

“You got off pretty easy,” Mr. Kennesaw said. “You and the Asian girl.”

Marco didn’t know how to respond. He looked around and saw Sasha in the corner, her eyes still shifting around.

“Everyone else lost so much,” he continued, squeezing Marco’s hand. “Now go on. Keep moving. And don’t talk to my wife.”

Marco, stunned, moved away, and lost himself in the crowd of mourners. The place had high ceilings and a giant, sliding glass door opened to a pool and a dock and the river. Even out there, people in black suits and dresses ate off little napkins. There was nowhere to escape.

“You fixed your face,” her voice said.

Marco turned and Sasha was there. She held a napkin with some half-eaten bruschetta. She hadn’t tended to her hair since they left the woods. Her black roots had grown longer. The blonde ends seemed like they were from a different time, remnants from a different Sasha entirely. He cringed through a painful smile, but his cheeks refused it. “Work in progress,” he mumbled. He could taste his braces and could feel the spit pooling around his tongue. He swallowed softly.

“Keith’s dad is a real shithead, huh?” Sasha asked.

Marco shrugged in response and Sasha took the hint to do the talking. “Did you talk to Pansy?”

Marco shook his head. A miserable embarrassment settled on his shoulders. He felt like an asshole.

“Come on, let’s find somewhere private where they’re not staring daggers at us.” Sasha put her napkin on a nearby table. She headed into the house and Marco followed.

The memorial service showed no signs of thinning. Mourners of all types worked around each other, animated. People cried, people talked business, and Mr. Kennesaw glided, tall and menacing, over the crowd. From across the room, he watched Marco follow Sasha, then someone pulled his attention away and Marco let out a breath of relief.

Through some sterile hallways and beyond the kitchen and past Keith’s bedroom (locked tightly), Sasha opened a door to a type of vinyl room. Marco stepped in softly and Sasha clicked the door shut behind them. There were two large leather couches facing each other and all along the walls was Mr. Kennesaw’s record collection. Expensive rarities and common pieces alike stuffed the floor-to-ceiling cubbies. A record player sat between the tall shelving units, but the thing was dead and dusty like the rest of the room. Before Sasha could say anything, someone else startled them. It was Pansy, and she was tucking her phone back into her purse.

“Oh, Pans,” Sasha said. “I didn’t know you were in here.”

Pansy held their gaze from across the room. She wore a black cardigan and a black T-shirt and black jeans and black loafers. Like Sasha and Marco, she had little fine scars and scratches along her neck and arms and face. One in particular, that Marco hadn’t noticed at the time, went from her ear to her collar in a pink, shiny zigzag.

“That was Ranger Hartke,” Pansy said. “Still no signs of him.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sasha said.

“Me too,” Marco pushed out. He put his hands to his jaw and massaged it. Pansy put her hand to her stomach, just barely a bump if you really looked hard.

“Are you coming to Doll’s service next week?”

“Of course we are,” Sasha said, and Marco nodded.

“I think Dean’s mom will be there too,” Pansy said. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Marco kept his mouth shut. His teeth started to ache. He heard the door open behind him, and he moved out of the way. In came Mr. Kennesaw, massive in the doorway.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked.

There was a stretch of silence. It settled in firmly that, for some reason, under this roof, they were in trouble. The three of them. Marco the most, but the girls too.

Pansy started to explain, “I was taking a phone call—”

“We were just talking,” Sasha interrupted. “Grieving like everyone else here.”

“I doubt that very much,” Mr. Kennesaw scoffed.

“Why are you being such an asshole?” Sasha asked. In the acoustics of the room, the question was crisp and perfect, like a saber through the air. Or an arrow to the throat. Marco flinched. He blessed his broken mouth. He didn’t have to say anything to Mr. Kennesaw. He didn’t have to stand up to anyone.

“Watch your mouth, missy,” Mr. Kennesaw said.

“We’re just as upset as everyone else here,” Sasha said. “We went through hell out there. Look at his face. Look at what happened to Pansy. Why are you treating us like shit?”

Mr. Kennesaw took a deep breath. His face was Keith’s if it were more rigid and had a stronger chin. His face reddened. “I know my son was an alcoholic and a slob,” he said, “but what happened to him wasn’t right. He deserved better. He deserved a better group of friends. He deserved friends that were actually doing something with their lives. Going somewhere. I tried to be a good, strong influence on him, but all the hard work his mother and I did went down the toilet when he met you guys.”

The room was still. Something rotten dripped from the ceilings. Mr. Kennesaw took another breath and flexed his large hands. “I know you guys loved him in your own little ways, but he deserved more. He had a lot of potential, and he squandered it with you guys. Did you know he got into Cornell? Do you know how much work I had to do to make that happen? And he chose fuckin’ FSU. Unbelievable. You fed into his worse impulses. You didn’t push him. And now he’s dead.”

Someone in the den called for him and he looked back over his shoulder, gave a quick, professional nod, and then he turned back to the three. “You have half an hour,” he said. He turned and shut the door loudly.

“No wonder Keith hated him,” Sasha said.

“That’s probably my cue,” Pansy said. “I’ll see you guys next week, okay?”

Pansy moved through the vinyl room to the door. Before leaving, Marco extended a hand. It was a gesture to yield, and Pansy stopped to listen. The look on her face choked Marco even more than the metal in his mouth. The memory of the campfire flashed before him. He pushed through his hot-faced embarrassment.

“They’ll find him,” Marco said. “I’m sure of it.” He winced at the end, the tightness of his teeth now a headache.

“Thanks, Marco,” Pansy said. “Bye, Sasha.”

“Bye.”

Pansy left and shut the door, and Marco and Sasha stood alone in the room and after a second Sasha moved to the leather couch and sat down. Marco didn’t know what else to do so he moved after her and sat opposite. He loosened his tie and felt his big suit slacken around his shoulders. In between them there was an expensive rug from Europe and on that was an expensive coffee table with art books. Marco looked at the rug and the art books and then his eyes went to the record collection on the wall. He was avoiding Sasha’s gaze. He was certain that if he looked at her, she was going to say something he didn’t want to hear, but he also knew that if he didn’t look at her, she’d never leave him alone. The weeks being home had been miserable. Weird and haunting and sad and confusing. Nothing was urgent like in the woods, but nothing settled down either. Time simply moved forward at a glacial pace and all sensations were fuzzy with trauma and pain. The only nice part was not having to talk about it. Sure, there was telling authorities what literally happened on the surface. But he never had to engage with what happened in the context Sasha wanted. But he couldn’t hide from her anymore.

So, he looked at her.

“I have to tell you something,” she said.

Shit.

“It’s about the Man—”

“Don’t,” Marco said, cutting her off. He wanted to say more, but his mouth fought back. It felt like someone tapped his teeth with a metal pipe.

“If you don’t listen to me, then I can’t tell you what’s happening. And I can’t tell you what I did.”

Marco was about to speak, but the last part shut him up. She had something to confess. “Okay,” he said. “Go.”

Sasha took a breath. She mouthed some words to herself like she was going through the presentation in her head. Finally, she reached into her bag and pulled out the book she bought. Zaäper. She flipped through and Marco saw scribbles and writings in the margins. She had been annotating it.

“So obviously it’s like a limerick but it’s not. Those don’t really predate the 1800s, and they’re like playful and raunchy or whatever. You know, the man from Nantucket. But back in the day, like way back, like 8th to 10th century, Norsemen had these things called Eddic poems. They were brief and they were anonymous, and they usually told of some god or hero or something. They were told orally only sometimes being written down. And sometimes they were legends of monsters. Like a warning. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Marco looked at the door. He secretly wished for Mr. Kennesaw to barrel in and save him. Looking at Sasha on the couch, watching her flip through the book made him sick.

“And depending on what you practice, it can link back to Norse mythology, right? The pentagram and the hammer. So, the poem kind of transformed over many years, changing and shifting and morphing to various crafts and occultisms. Zaäper is, you know, specifically North American. To be Zaäpetic or practice Zaäpetia is to follow this text. And, of course, it’s more palatable as a limerick, but it’s really something ancient. And dangerous. Anyway, I did something really bad. This Man of Wind and Moss, he has a whole slew of kennings and they’re not very promising.”

“Kennings?”

“Skyscraper? Dogcatcher? Whale-road? He’s the lost-finder. The dealmaker. The flesh-taker.”

Marco felt nauseous. Like he was going to throw up leaves and twigs again. He imagined them getting stuck behind his braces and choking him. The room was hot, and his suit was baggy. She was making him dizzy. He looked at her, pleading for her to stop, but she didn’t.

“I was scared that night. You were by the fire. Remember when I went to go read?”

“Yeah.”

“I followed the stream down and then turned into the woods and I just sat there all night and read and I did the mushrooms Keith brought.”

“Okay.”

“I’m gonna tell you some things that we’re both going to agree on, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Weird things that happened. Things that we both agree were fucked-up or unexplainable.”

“Why are you talking like a lawyer?” He said too many words again, and his jaw throbbed, and he winced.

“Indulge me, Marco. I’m serious.”

This time he nodded.

“The hunter that killed himself. He was sitting in the car while he did it.”

He nodded.

“Okay, so keep that in your mind. The next thing: the screams in the woods.”

“They were in trouble. Like us.”

“But you don’t really believe that. You went to check alone when everyone was asleep, and you heard laughter too. An old man’s laughter probably.”

He paused. But then he nodded, admitting it.

“How did we get so lost so quickly?”

Marco didn’t answer. He had his own ideas. Phrases like “getting turned around” and “disoriented” came to mind, but he knew they didn’t do the scenario justice. When they spilled out of that downhill tumble and landed in that clearing, they were nowhere. He grew itchy. Like the branches and twigs had returned, growing under his collar.

“When that hunter attacked us and we fell down that hill, we were like that,” she snapped her fingers, “somewhere else entirely. Somewhere new.”

He nodded.

“The map. Think about how the map said nothing. Not confusing directions, but nothing. Think about what the hunter said about being lost. About the little dirt man. Think about the stars at night. The random stream of water. Hold all of this in your head.”

Marco was getting anxious. He was tapping his foot. His back was getting itchier. Whatever she had in her mind, she needed to spit it out or he was going to scream and run to his car. “Just say it.”

“I fucked up so bad,” she said. She started to tremble. “After I got this book, I started reading it a lot. It’s about all sorts of things and the section about the Man of Wind and Moss was supposed to help me. That’s what the guy said. The guy who gave it to me said it helps with feeling lost. Okay? And yes, I had been reading it. Leading up to the trip it’s all I thought about. And I read it the night we hooked up. And I kept being like yes, yes, this is good stuff. And I left you by the fire and I ate some shrooms and I sat there and all I thought about was how fucked we were. I thought about all the weird things that happened. How it all happened so fast. Like someone was in a rush. Like someone was working overtime to get us to that point. About how something out there was fucking with us. Something made us that lost.”

She seemed febrile. She was a live wire, speaking in hushed, excited whispers. Marco dug his fingers into the leather of the couch. Outside, the sounds of people mingling seemed to vanish. He and Sasha were in a vacuum.

“Marco, something out there was toying with us. And it’s my fault because I kept turning on a big spotlight and getting his attention, but I didn’t know! I didn’t know! And I got so scared because I knew who it was. It was Him. And I started seeing things. And it wasn’t like usual. I’ve done mushrooms tons of times, and this was different. Something came down from the trees. And he was short and ugly and old. And he told me he was doing it. He said he was grateful for me. He said that I had woken him up and that those hunters were just an appetizer. He said now I had to feed him. It was the Man of Wind and Moss. I went looking for him, and I found him and, and, and—”

“Sasha.”

“Shut up! Listen to me! Keep everything in your head. Hold it all there together until I’m done. I knew two things. I wanted to get out. And I wanted you and Pansy to get out because I knew how much you loved her. I wanted you two to be together.”

“Just tell me what you did.”

She leaned forward from her spot on the couch and gripped his hands tightly.

“I gave him Doll.”

“. . . What?”

“But that wasn’t enough, so I gave him Dean too.”

He made a confused face.

“But that wasn’t enough either. Giving up Doll saved me. Giving up Dean saved you. But I had to save Pansy too, right? I mean, I had to. Right?”

He nodded one more time.

“And so, I gave up her kid.”

She put her hands to her mouth like she said a bad word. Marco sat there, confused and horrified and wanting to scream, but beyond screaming, he wanted to do something worse. He wanted to lunge forward and throttle her. He wanted to wrap his hands around her skinny, bug-bitten neck and choke her out right there in the soundproof room. But then another thought occurred, another realization. The only reason he was upset and horrified was because he believed her. How could he not? Everything added up. Everything except one thing: Pansy’s child was still alive . . . Right?

Sasha read his mind. “You can’t tell her.”

“I have to go now.”

“Marco. You can’t tell her. We have to just wait and see what happens.”

Marco stood too fast and got dizzy and the room spun. Sasha stood up to support him, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her away. She fell onto the couch with a yelp, and he stumbled backwards into the shelves of records. He was horrified that he put his hands on her, but fuck it, he was horrified at what she did! And no, fuck it again, he was horrified at them, as a unit, somehow combined. She made him complicit. She made him an accomplice. How could she do this?

He pointed an accusatory finger at her. And then at the book, bright black and yellow, thickened by dogears and tabs and scribbled notes. Even if he could verbalize his accusation, his mouth wouldn’t let him. So, he just pointed. That’s it. He pointed at her.

She laid back on the couch, nervous and scared. She fixed her glasses. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You think I set us up. But I didn’t. You have to believe me. I didn’t.”

He lowered his hand slowly. He had to get out of there. He went for the door and, behind him, he heard her plead again. “Don’t tell her anything. Please.”

* * *

On the drive back to Tampa, Marco couldn’t stop shaking. It was a hot night and pulling out of Keith’s subdivision, the road pushed him along the Gulf. It was slick black, and nobody was outside and there weren’t any lights out there either. He turned the car down a state road and fumed. He didn’t want to be pissed off at Sasha. Yes, it was all her fault, and he had every right to be, but if he was pissed off at her then that meant he believed her and that meant Sasha conjured up some forest god and gave all their friends to him. Fucking hell. It would’ve been so much easier if he thought she was insane. He could just send her to the Florida Mental Home and go about his day not feeling this. This paranoia, anger, anxiety, sickening queasy feel. He got mad. He got mad and the words spilled out through his wired teeth: “Witchy fucking chi— . . . bitch! You fucking bitch!”

He banged a fist on the steering wheel. He grimaced and powered through the throbbing of his jaws. The past few weeks have been miserable. Miserable and menacing. If he wasn’t in bed tossing and turning, then he was up scarfing Pepto-Bismol and painkillers. The cabin was such a complete disaster that everybody was heartbroken, dead, and pissed. And they were pissed at him! Like he did this! But it was her! He punched the wheel again. And at home he had nobody either. His dad was in a stupor day in and day out, and if his mom heard about this, God forbid, she would fall to her knees with a rosary and make him clap at the corners. And then there was Monchito. Fucking no-good, wetback-wannabe dickhead. Completely oblivious to Marco almost dying, to Marco’s friends dying, to Marco’s heartbreak, to Marco’s anything. What was his great advice? White girl pussy! Never once! Is that why he said ten cuidado the day before? Was that really the big warning? Marco saw red. This was all bogus! And Paula! He should find her in Brooklyn and throw her old ass down the stairs! Curb stomp the bitch, Miss Big Bucks No Whammies, yeah I got your whammies right here, old timer! Then he should walk into his wine shop with a handgun and blow everyone away motherfuck this witchy bullshit!

Enraged, he took out his phone and called Monchito. He knew the son of a bitch wasn’t going to answer, but he let the phone ring until the voicemail chirped. Marco had heard it before. Tons of times. It was a single word, and it pushed Marco’s anger even further: “Háblame.”

“Fuck you, man,” Marco said into the phone. “I need you down here and you’re not here. Where the hell are you? Huh? I almost died, man. And don’t be a bitch about brotherly advice, just fucking come back. And stop sending me pictures of your fucking chicken coop. ¡Llámame!” He extended his jaw too much and the pain shot to his nose and he felt it in his sinuses. He hung up and threw the phone in the passenger seat.

At first, he thought they were headlights. Some douchebag with high beams.

He glanced in the side mirror, ready to flip the bird, but there was nothing there. There was nobody on the road but him. He drove for a few more minutes and tried to calm down and when they appeared again, they were yellow and round like coins. He glanced at the rearview to see if they were gaining on him, but they weren’t headlights at all. They were a pair of eyes.

Marco spun around.

Pale moonlight fell on the back seat. The trunk beyond it was a shadow. His breath quickened.

When he turned back to the road, something big and blue flew in front of him.

“Goddammit!” he yelled, slamming the brakes.

The car screeched to a halt and his phone flew onto the ground. He braced himself, instinctively, waiting to get rear-ended. But when he remembered that there weren’t headlights behind him, but, rather, eyes, yes, bright yellow eyes close over his shoulder, he quickly unbuckled and scrambled for the door and tumbled out onto the street.

He gulped air through his wired mouth.

A warm wind blew down the road. Beneath him, the asphalt was still hot from the day. Crickets chirped. The engine clicked. He waited for something to climb out of the back seat and unfold itself. He imagined it coming undone, legs overhead, like a trapeze artist. But nothing came.

He had been driving his mom’s Volvo, and it sat like a black wraith on the dark state road. The headlights of the car illuminated the object that cut him off. It was blue, dark blue, like the cap of a Clearblue pregnancy test.

When Marco realized what it was, realized why it was familiar, his stomach sank. It was Dean’s truck. It was perpendicular to the road, and Marco’s headlights shined on the passenger door. He didn’t recognize it at first because it was sort of camouflaged, covered in vines and branches and leaves.

Marco climbed to his feet. His phone was still in the car, on the floor of the passenger seat, but he didn’t want to go for it yet. He still wasn’t convinced his car was empty. Instead, he stepped forward, slowly, to Dean’s truck.

He understood that the truck shouldn’t look so old and forgotten. Marco had seen it himself just a few weeks ago when they stumbled out of the tree line. But now, in front of him, it looked like it was driven through nothing but forest, simultaneously reclaimed by nature and pulling away from it. Vines hung from the wheel well like a beard. Branches were wedged under the hood, poking out like surplus wipers. The windshield was cracked, and the back windows were covered with moss and a pasty smear of green. And it smelled. It smelled like his vomit.

“Dean?” he asked. He massaged his jaw and felt that he was drooling. He spat onto the ground, and it splat on the road between his funeral shoes. He looked back up at the truck like it had crash-landed from another planet. “. . . Dean . . . ?”

Marco looked both ways down the road. There was nobody coming. Nobody could help if something happened. Changing course, he turned and went to his Volvo and pulled open the back door. The dome light flicked on again and, yes, the car was empty. Slowly, quietly, he climbed in and examined the trunk. Nobody.

Then, from his vantage, he saw it. Someone was coming out of Dean’s truck. The driver had climbed into the passenger seat and now the passenger side was beginning to open. It felt like someone put a turnkey into Marco’s back and started winding him up. Go go go go.

But shouldn’t I see if it’s Dean?

No, you fucking shouldn’t!

Marco couldn’t handle it anymore. He scrambled forward, over the center console, and into the driver’s seat. He threw the car into drive and yanked the steering wheel to the side. The headlights panned away from Dean’s truck just as a leg emerged and stepped down. Go go go go fucking FLOOR IT. And Marco did. His mom’s Volvo roared to life, and he zipped around Dean’s truck and looked back only once at the figure that watched him run away.

* * *

At home, he couldn’t stand to be in his room. It was too suffocating. Too scary. Instead, he brought his laptop to the kitchen and turned on the lights. He took three Advils and chased them with a half cup of Pepto and Bacardi. His jaw pounded and his stomach sizzled, but he had work to do. Research. At first, his mother shuffled in to see what he was up to, but when she saw him locked in, with his headphones on, she relented. “Goodnight, mijo. Don’t stay up late, you’re still getting better.”

“I’ll be quiet,” he mumbled, using his mouth softly, working hard not to wince in front of her.

She reached over and traced a finger along his swollen cheeks, and he bared his teeth to show the progress. She cringed at the sight. “I’m getting better,” he mumbled again. She nodded sleepily and shuffled across the den to her bedroom. Marco waited for the door to shut before he got back to work. Shortly after, his father showed up too, but he didn’t approach. He just watched from the darkness.

He’d always sit where he could see us, but we couldn’t see him.

I kept turning on a big spotlight and getting his attention.

Marco looked up and caught his dad’s eyes, but he merely grumbled and sat down on the couch and turned on the TV.

Googling Zaäper brought him to the publishing page of Voivodum. Scrolling through Voivodum showed images of books, grimoires, and lectures on ethnobotany. The book was apparently written by a man named Dr. Yosef Crumb. According to the website copy, Zaäper was relatively “new” and “just getting its foothold in the North American zeitgeist.” Dr. Crumb was respected, revered, and after publishing Zaäper, he killed himself in the Adirondacks and had his followers cut him into pieces and plant him along the forest floor.

“What the fuck?” Marco whispered.

“Language,” his dad growled.

Marco rolled his eyes. He massaged his mouth. He looked up and could barely make out his dad’s face. He was sitting on the couch in such a way that only a sliver of his profile was visible. The glow of the TV seemed to distort him. It made him look angry. Marco looked back at his laptop. He refined his search: “Zaäper man of wind and moss”. He pressed enter.

Witness the dawn of your own light,

Unto Kays and Zaiden, bring forth

The Hand and the Eye and the Timber

Of the Fallen Land, Hark! He steps forward.

A pixelated black sun rose high over a crop of sunflowers. At the base, covered in soil, was a grinning skeleton, its mouth way too big, its skull way too pointy.

Just as our own spawn proceeds through days,

the path of our ancestors does not stop.

They march on as well,

casting seeds into present, future and past,

casting into the black abyss that coats our evil Tethet.

To be lost is inevitable.

To be found is to be Grafted.

His father left the room, and the TV shut off, and the den went dark. Marco sat alone in the kitchen. At his elbow was the sliding glass door that led to their backyard and the crappy retention pond his dad liked to drink at. He saw his swollen reflection in the black glass, and he became paranoid of someone outside looking in. He was certain that in a moment, something horrible would press its face against the glass. He looked back at his laptop. He tried to focus.

He kept scrolling and the symbols grew stranger and more esoteric. He was seeing new things, things beyond the simple pentacle he’d been exposed to in the witch aisle on Etsy. Here, lines bisected suns. Moons dissolved into triangles. A serpent shot between a pair of eyes. The landscape moved into realms he had no knowledge of. Symbols that were so alien they didn’t connote “Satan” or “Hell” but a strange, third reality. Some horrible secret place that only Zaäper knew. Zaäper and Sasha.

More scrolling. More clicking. Gone was the instinct to brush it off as woo-woo bullshit. He had seen too much to put his head in the sand. And then he found it:

To summon Erether is to Profane,

The end of sun, hark! The end of moon, hark!

The Grafting will come, sure as the tide, the compass spins

The lamb will walk and shed their coats, the Grafting will come

This one had an illustration too. A naked man on all fours screamed in euphoria as tree branches and flowers erupted from his back. The caption said simply: THE GRAFTING WILL COME.

A mosquito buzzed in Marco’s ear, and he waved it away. He looked back to the sliding glass. The door was open. He was so focused he hadn’t noticed, but something either moved through the kitchen and left or opened the door and entered.

“Dad?” he called. He heard his parents shuffling at the other end of the house. He stood from his place at the table and looked down. Muddy tracks came from outside and led into the house.

Something had walked right past him.

He shut his laptop, moved from the table, and followed the prints. His heart stopped when the den lights flipped on and revealed his dad, leaning on the wall, taking off his boots.

“Where were you?” Marco asked.

“I was outside having a drink,” he slurred.

“No, you weren’t. You were right here watching TV.”

His dad looked at him puzzled, too drunk to have this conversation, but sober enough to see his son’s fear. “No, I was outside. I haven’t sat down today. Mira, the couch is filthy. Why is there mud everywhere?”

Marco bolted forward. The couch was covered in leaves. Whatever it was, it had been inside the entire time. It had watched Marco work. It even spoke to him. And then it went to . . .

“Mom!” Marco yelled. He ran across the den to his parents’ room. “Mom!” He smashed open the door and flipped on the overhead lights and his mom screamed in terror. She had been asleep, but now she was awake, pale-faced and horrified by Marco bursting in.

“¿Qué pasa?” she asked, her hand over her racing heart.

“¡Coño!” his dad shouted. “Why’d you scare her?”

Marco’s heart pounded out of his ribs. The place was empty. There was nobody in the room. But in front of his mom’s bed, two muddy footprints sat there, still wet on the carpet.

* * *

That night he stayed up as late as he could. He tiptoed through the house and locked the doors over and over again. He snuck out and patrolled the perimeter, armed with a metal baseball bat that Monchito used in high school. He interrogated any leaf, flower, or blade of grass that looked even remotely out of place. When the sky started to pink, he gave up and went inside. When he passed out, he dreamed of flowers, leaves, and of two black hands holding bloody secateurs.

* * *

A few days later, in Sarasota, Marco watched the Doerr folks cry over their daughter in the casket. She was tucked into a navy gown and was wearing eyeliner that Marco thought she’d never wear in real life, as though somehow dead was no longer real life. The dress went down to her ankles and from the way it rested you could still see how crooked her knee was. It was like they just gave up and draped a cloth over it. Moreover, there was something about the body that looked worse than he imagined. Emptier than he thought it’d look. Like if he could press his hands into her skin, then it’d all crackle away.

The service was in a heavily air-conditioned church, and Marco was relieved that the actual burial was to be for the family only. The way Pansy’s parents stared at him made his throat tight. The way Sasha hovered in the back of the church made him nervous. He was torn. He didn’t want her near him, he didn’t want to talk to her, he didn’t want to acknowledge her at all, but he wanted her in sight. What he wanted less than anything else was her wandering off.

He sat in a pew by himself, far to the side. The church was styled like a barn and was surrounded by flat grass and then semi-circled by a dense forest. From the west a salty breeze came over the land, but by the time it got to them it was weighed down with mosquitoes and cement. It was hotter than it was at Keith’s funeral, and under everyone’s threatening gaze, Marco felt even more musty in his ridiculous suit. When the service ended, he walked outside and watched Sasha move out to the grassy field. She walked with her eyes down like she was looking for something and Marco watched her for a few minutes. They hadn’t talked since Keith’s. Again, he was torn. He knew they should stick together and figure this out. But he also knew that having her involved at all could mean trouble. That said, if she knew about the Grafting, if she knew about Erether, he had a feeling that he was going to have to shake it out of her.

“You’re being paranoid,” he mumbled aloud. The doctor told him not to be afraid to talk. He told him that he had to move his mouth a little every day. “The compass spins and . . . you’re being paranoid,” he mumbled to himself, a tiny bit louder.

Pansy emerged from the crowd and grabbed his attention. On either side of her were her parents: Lisa and Bentley. Lisa looked like Doll, thicker around the belt and with sharp, precise movements. Pansy looked just like her father. He had soft, green eyes and tiny glasses on his slender nose. Wisps of white hair came off his balding head, and he pointed and directed people to cars and waved at others who weren’t attending the burial. Behind them, closer to the church, Pansy talked to Miss McMurphy, Dean’s mom. She was plump and doughy, and she held both of Pansy’s hands. Pansy was done crying, but Miss McMurphy was still going at it. After a moment, Pansy nodded and they hugged, and Miss McMurphy broke away too. In Marco’s mind, as Miss McMurphy walked away, she shot an accusing glance at him but—“. . . You’re being paranoid,” he mumbled to himself a final time.

After Miss McMurphy walked away, Pansy stood alone. The crowds moved to her parents and towards each other and, organically, she became separated from everyone. She and Marco locked eyes, and she smiled weakly and approached and Marco tried to keep himself from fidgeting.

“You and Sasha come together?” she asked. She was in a black velvet-looking dress and her hairline was sweating. In her hand was a plastic water bottle.

“No, actually,” Marco said. “She came alone.” He looked back at the grass where Sasha had walked off. She was even further away now, near the trees at the end of the field.

“What is she doing over there?” Pansy asked.

“Dunno,” Marco said. “She’s been weird.” The back of his jaw throbbed, and he pressed it with his hand.

“Still pretty rough, huh?” she asked.

“I, uh, I got it pretty easy all things considered.” Mr. Kennesaw’s voice echoed in his head. The guy was so intense, so scary. But he wasn’t wrong. You and the Asian girl.

“You should know that I’m not coming back to the city.”

Marco had assumed so, but it still hurt to hear. He briefly recalled the six of them making their plan to move to Brooklyn because of Pansy. Maybe she was the smart one to pull out.

“I figured as much,” Marco said. “I think that’s a good move.”

“Right?”

A big part of Marco didn’t want to leave Florida without confronting Pansy about everything that was said, but the fact was that that part of him was dying. It was crippled and bleeding and scared for its life. A smaller part of Marco wanted to act like his confession of love never happened. It was weak, he knew, and passive. But sometimes when you look at how much hurt someone has experienced, and you closely examine what it is you can offer them, the best course of action is to stay small. Sometimes being big only hurts. And, of course, both of those parts were dwarfed by a bigger, horrifying part: telling her what Sasha did. But what did that even mean?

“I’m going to miss you,” was what finally came out.

Pansy smiled a soft, despairing smile, and she came forward and hugged him, but he couldn’t tell if it was more for him or her, and it broke his heart. He wrapped his arms around her and kept his hands high around her shoulders. Dean’s words shot into his head: Know your place. And he pulled his hands off her. Then he put them back. Then he pulled them. Then he gave up and put them at his side.

“I’m really sorry,” he said.

* * *

When Marco got back into his car, he didn’t start the engine right away. Instead, he maneuvered the rearview mirror to see behind him, to the treeline where Sasha had disappeared. In the second he did it, he was horrified he’d see those yellow eyes again but, mercifully, they didn’t show up. All he saw were trees.

“Just leave her,” he said aloud. But he couldn’t. He kept his hands on the wheel and studied the field and the grass and ominous shadows. “Just leave her, man,” he said again.

The parking lot started to empty. People climbed into cars and pulled out. Some headed to the burial, some just went home, but Marco stayed put. He feigned buckling his seat belt and getting situated so as not to draw attention, but he kept his eyes glued to the mirror. Eventually, Pansy and her family walked to their own car and Pansy gave him a quizzical look, undoubtedly wondering why he was lingering. He waved and pretended to dig through his glovebox and work at the radio. In moments, there were only two cars left: his and Sasha’s.

Sun baked the parking lot. The car was an oven. He grabbed the rearview mirror and worked it into different angles, panning along the field and trees and grass behind him, looking for her. “She’s gonna come out any second,” he said. “Any second now . . .”

Looking at Sasha’s car only reminded him of Dean’s. Thinking of Sasha at all made his head spin. He pointed at her so aggressively at Keith’s memorial. But did he mean it? “Please come out,” he sighed. “Don’t make me come and get you.” He moved the rearview again. He began to sweat. The church sat alone in the big field and the boundaries of the woods enclosed it like a sort of gate.

“You have until the count of three,” he said. I still care about this girl, he thought. I need to take care of her. I need to protect her. (He’s here to protect). No, no, not like that. Jesus.

“One . . .”

Fine, of course I have feelings for her, she’s my friend but the feelings aren’t natural. Nothing about this is natural, you putz. I know, but do I like her because she fucked me, or do I like her because she saved me, or do I like her because (she hexed you).

“Two . . .”

No. She didn’t hex me. She didn’t curse me. How do you know? Because she cares about me. And I care about her. Then what the hell is she doing in the woods? She’s luring you; you sap! No, she’s not, she’s my friend and we have a romance going on and (The Grafting will come)!

“. . . Three! Goddammit, I’m coming, I’m coming. You win.” He got out of the car, slammed the door, and marched to the woods.

It was sweltering and the forest behind the church blocked the breeze. The heat was a miasma, humid and full of flies, and anything that was lush and green was tangled over another one like spilled entrails. Marco stepped gingerly over a fallen tree. There was no discernible path and, unsurprisingly, his anxiety blossomed.

“Sasha!” he called out. Then winced. The forest was crowded and dense and he had to struggle through bushes and over roots but, thankfully, it was flat. Through some trees, he saw a clearing and the thin frame of Sasha, her back turned to him. It looked like she was standing in front of party streamers. “Sasha, what are you doing out here?” Marco called.

He broke into the clearing, and a bush tangled his ankle, and he paused to shake it loose. He was sweating in his baggy suit, and his dress shoes were caked in moss and dirt. He took a knee and retied his laces. Sasha approached and her shadow loomed over him. “That was Doll back there in the casket, right?”

“What kind of question is that?” Marco asked. He stood up and examined Sasha. She looked concerned and confused. “Of course it was.”

“Then what’s all this?” She moved out of his eyeline, and he saw what she was referring to. He cleaned his glasses on his shirt and put them back on for a better look.

They weren’t party streamers at all.

It was Doll, torn to pieces, dangling from the branches. She was scattered in such a way that Marco had to turn his head to see all of her. An arm hung down from a branch, twisting by its red tendons, the shock of bone bright white and glimmering. Her other arm was yards away, extending from the rise of a tree. Her torso was flayed down the middle, blooming, and her large intestine hung down and collected fire ants while the rest of her gray entrails danced upwards like jellyfish legs, looping down from the canopy of boughs. Her legs were on the ground, overgrown with grass and mushrooms. Her pelvis was sideways, tucked near a log, her opening wide and pulled apart. And her face, just her face, shorn entirely from her skull, was suspended in air, held by a series of vines, waving in the wind like the cutesy flag of a cottage garden. Compounding all of it was a fleshy squirming. Her pieces were moving. They were twitching. She was alive.

“Can you get Pansy please?” the face asked, whining.

Marco couldn’t fathom the sound. That migraine, the one from looking at the map, came back like a drill to his skull. “This can’t be happening,” he said.

“Can you get my sister for me please I really want my sister here please,” the face said. It was manic. The expression went from dismayed to angry to excited to upset. When the face opened its mouth, Marco saw through it to the trees on the other side. She still had eyes though. She? What was she?

It was all too much. He bent his knees and tried to regain his composure. He placed a hand on a nearby tree for support and then yanked his hand back in horror. It felt like Doll. But was it? He couldn’t tell where she ended and the forest began. He looked at Sasha, who was still studying the display. The image cleared up in a matter of moments. Doll wasn’t strewn along the forest; she was part of it. It had exploded out of her. “The Grafting,” Marco said. “It’s the Grafting.”

Sasha spun to him like she was impressed. Like she was proud he’d done his homework. “You read Zaäper?”

“The other night, after Keith’s. And I saw something too. I—I’m gonna be sick,” he doubled over and started to gag. Then he remembered the vomit from the surgeon. He pulled himself back and swallowed. He couldn’t let it come out because if it came out and it was leaves and dirt again, he’d probably slash his own throat right there. Am I next? But how?

“Tally up the cost, this is what it means,” Sasha said. “I did this to her. I got her Grafted.” She sank down and pulled her hair. It seemed that the guilt of what she’d done had suddenly deluged upon her. She started to breathe rapidly, her voice shaking. “I did this! I did this! Holy fuck I did this I’m so fucking sorry Doll, I’m so sorry.”

The Doll face turned lazily, and Sasha cried on her knees, beneath the streamers.

Marco had enough. He hurried over and pulled Sasha to her feet. She didn’t stop crying, but, instead, buried her face into his chest. His crummy funeral shirt was getting wet under her sobs, but in a strange way, it helped. It grounded him. It gave him a real cause and effect that he could explain. She cried into his shirt, now his shirt was wet. Simple. Not whatever the rest of this was.

“I can smell Erether in you, Marky Mark,” the Doll-mask said. “I can smell his seed in your gutties.”

She was talking about the vomit. He knew it. He pulled Sasha by the hand. “We gotta get out of here. Come on.”

But Sasha yanked her hand out of his grip. “I can’t just leave her like this! I did this to her, Marco! I can’t just leave her like this!”

“What are we gonna do? Look at her!” he yelled. A stitch in his gums ripped. He winced and blood pooled into his mouth, and he spat on the dirt. “We have to go.”

“And gimme my niece too.”

Marco and Sasha froze. Doll’s face waved slowly. It was grinning, baring its teeth, only there wasn’t teeth. Just clumps of dirt and negative space. The arm, the one dangling from the branches, snapped its fingers and beckoned with its hand—gimme, gimme, gimme, snap, snap, snap, gimme, gimme. “That little morsel behind her cunt belongs to me,” Doll said. Only it wasn’t Doll talking anymore. It was someone else’s voice. “The stupid bitch doesn’t know she’s full of leaves. Like a little scarecrow. My scarecrow bitch I’m gonna rip open.”

“Come on!” Marco yelled, and he pulled Sasha through the woods as fast as he could go. Every branch he moved out of the way smelled like Doll, and every root he stepped on had a fleshy give. And as the trees blurred by, Marco understood that something went very wrong with the bargain Sasha made. He also understood that nearby, Pansy buried a husk she thought was her sister. But worst of all, he understood that inside Pansy, leaves and moss piled up, bigger and messier, readying to emerge from between her legs and be collected by the gardener that planted it.