Chapter 26 - The Man of Wind and Moss

The doorman of Sasha’s building almost called the police just from looking at him.

“Tell her it’s Marco, it’s important,” he said, trembling.

“You’re bleeding, sir.”

“Just get her!”

The doorman paused and considered it. Marco wanted to make a mad dash for the elevators, but he was too tired from his full-tilt sprint from Paula’s. He just stood there and swayed, and his blood dripped onto the lobby floor. The doorman lifted the phone. “Miss Heckler. You have a visitor.”

“Tell her it’s Marco.”

“It’s Marco. And he’s in bad shape.”

The doorman listened and nodded, and he was about to say something, but then he hung up and said, “You’re good to go. Do you need help?”

“No, I’m fine. Just—” Marco looked back at the double doors where he came from. He considered warning the doorman. By the way, a deranged eyeless man is after me so look alive. “Thanks,” he said instead.

He slumped against the wall of the elevator and tried not to get blood everywhere. When the doors opened, he hurried quickly down the carpeted hallway to Sasha’s unit. The walls were sterile and white and at the end of the hall a large window looked over Fort Greene Park. The trees stood so tall and attentive. Listening. Plotting.

“Sasha! Open up!” he called. He fell against her door. “Please.”

When the door swung open, and he saw Sasha, alive and well, he collapsed into her arms. She caught him and scanned the hallway to see if anybody had followed and then she pulled him inside and locked the door behind her.

Once inside, Sasha lowered him to the ground. His grip slipped from his wrist, and the soaked rag came undone, and she saw the cut. The blood was slowing down, a miracle, but it was still ugly.

“I gotta rewrap this,” she said.

“Don’t leave me,” Marco said. He wasn’t sure where the plea came from, but it felt right. “Don’t go.”

“I’m going right to the bathroom. You’ll see me. Hang on.” She let him go and Marco curled up on the hardwood floor. His breathing was calming down, but he couldn’t shake the sharp headache from looking into Dean’s eyes. When Sasha returned and touched him, he yelped. Her thin hands lifted his cut arm, and she began wrapping gauze around his wrist. “I got you. You’re gonna be okay.”

“He killed them,” Marco sputtered. “Paula and Christopher. He killed them.” Saying it aloud made him cry loudly, but Sasha’s face only changed a degree.

“I’m so sorry. You’re okay. I’m here.” She rocked him some more and he cried into her skinny chest.

“She was my last friend,” Marco sputtered. “She was it and I yelled at her.”

“No, no,” she said. “I’m your friend, Marco, I have you here. You’re not alone. I promise. We’ll get through this.”

Marco pulled back from her embrace. He took off his glasses and blinked away the tears. Sasha was frowning. Marco’s blood was on her hands and on her T-shirt. The two sat on the floor and she held him by his shoulders. “Just breathe.”

Marco did so.

“Let me get you some water and you can tell me what happened.”

* * *

Even when he stopped crying and had cleaned himself up, the adrenaline didn’t quite leave his system. He paced around Sasha’s apartment, jittery.

Her place had gotten worse since he last stopped by on the night of the scrying. It had fully become the lair of an obsessive. Books stood in large columns along the floor, some reaching up to the light switches. Papers lined the walls and dust built up in the corners. She still had her Muji wardrobe, hung now on an isolated rod in her bedroom, an oasis from the books, pages, printouts, and garbage of everything else. High magic ceremonials crowded the counter space. Low magic bric-a-brac populated the living room. Eerie printouts showed the Man of Wind and Moss made of negative space, portrayed in the light dappling through the trees, leering over frolicking children. Some showed him in the lines of wind, illustrating a giant mouth baring its teeth behind a tinkerer and his cart. Marco remembered seeing him in the mirror of the bathroom when he was being violated. How old and saggy his skin was. His mouth wide open. Penny-slit eyes, ringed with crumbling dirt, dear God.

“We need to get out of the city,” Marco said. He dug into his crusty jeans and tossed Sasha the keys to Paula’s cabin. She caught them in both hands and studied them. The same memories that had affronted him when grabbing them off of Paula’s counter had undoubtedly come upon Sasha well. He could see her tense up.

“I need to end this,” Marco said. “It’s everything we thought. When Calvina helped us, Erether backed off, and Dean got to be with Pansy. But when Erether found out we tricked him, it got worse. For both of us. It’s like Dean’s being grafted in real time. And it’s happening to me too.”

“Okay.” Sasha nodded. “Yes, we can do this.”

“We go to the cabin and stay put. Dean will show up and when he does, we’ll get rid of him in the woods. We’ll do it for Him to see. To see that we’re done with all of this and that we held up your part of the bargain legitimately this time.”

“You mean kill him, right?” Sasha asked.

That was exactly what Marco meant but when asked so bluntly he suddenly wasn’t sure.

“Is there any other way?” he asked.

“No,” Sasha said. “I don’t think so.”

“Then we’ll leave in the morning,” he said. He exhaled. He backed away and sat down on a ratty chair surrounded by books. The plan was said aloud and while they didn’t shake on it or make a blood pact or consecrate it, he knew that neither of them could afford to back out now. They didn’t have much of a choice in that regard.

* * *

Marco slept over, or, rather, Sasha slept in her bed and Marco stayed awake, sitting in a chair and staring at the front door, only to nod off and jolt awake at every sound. He imagined Dean stalking the halls of the apartment complex and sniffing them out with the point of his blade. He imagined falling asleep and not hearing when Dean crept in, never waking up again as his neck opened up and spilled all over himself.

He heard Sasha toss and turn in the bedroom. Out the window, the sky was just beginning to lighten. Dean wasn’t coming. Marco sat down again in his sentinel chair and looked at the door and then the crack beneath it, the hallway light of the complex sneaking under. He listened to people rising, starting their early commutes. He examined the makeshift bandage that Sasha had wrapped around his arm. The gauze was tightly pulled and tucked back into itself. Already, parts of it were beginning to brown, turning the same color as the writing on Paula’s door. He tugged lightly at the bandage and felt the pull of crust and the sting of reopening. He imagined that plants were growing in the wound, just behind the bandage. He imagined little green vines climbing out not quite to heal him or make him whole but to use him like a pot. He cursed quietly.

He got up and double-checked the locks. He looked through the peephole and saw empty hallway in either direction. He backed away and headed to Sasha’s bedroom where she lay in bed pretending to sleep.

On the floor was the mirror they had used to scry. On the coatrack were the amulets and talismans. Next to Sasha’s bed was a stack of different grimoires. It occurred to him that they needed to go back to Gaiety and get the Zaäper book from Calvina. They had to prove to Erether that they weren’t fooling around this time. That Dean’s corpse would be real and fresh. Then, after the ritual, he would burn the book. He felt his dead vegvísir. It was no match for Erether. Not anymore. Still, he didn’t take it off.

On autopilot, like there was never another choice, not really, Marco moved to her bedside and took off his shoes. He sat on the bed and felt exhaustion pull at him.

“Is your arm still bleeding?” she asked. She barely turned from her pillow.

“I think it’s okay for now,” Marco whispered.

“Then you’re allowed in,” she said. She shimmied over and Marco fell onto his side next to her. It was nice to hold her. She curved into him, and he breathed in the back of her hair. There was no more time to be suspicious. After his attack on the bookseller, after ruining the switcheroo, after scolding Paula and then losing her, he needed to trust someone. Needed to hold someone close. He was glad it was Sasha.

“I need you,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” she replied. “I need you too.”

From his vantage, Marco could see the window growing lighter. Down the block a car started playing loud music and someone else shouted about getting some coffee. If he fell asleep right then, he was going to get about two hours. It was better than nothing. He closed his eyes and drifted off and his head played images of leaves falling from the ceiling.

In the morning, Marco expected to wake up covered in dirt and foliage but when he opened his eyes, he was still in bed, still in his jeans and brown bandages, and Sasha was coming out of the bathroom. She was in a denim jumpsuit, and she dried off her hair with a hand towel. She moved around the room and threw things in a suitcase. When she finally registered that he was awake, she said, “Let’s get moving.”

* * *

Marco pulled the passenger door shut.

“Let’s go to my place first,” he said. He rubbed his eyes and flexed his left hand, stiff under the new dressing from the morning. (In a ceaseless horror, when they unwrapped the old bandages, there were sprouts in the opening just as he feared. Frantic, over her bathroom sink, he pulled them out in painful mutilation and scrubbed angrily at the raw, bleeding gash. Once he felt “clean,” Sasha wiped it down with more alcohol and then re-wrapped him. Good morning to you too!)

“Why? What do you need?” Sasha asked.

“I need my bag and some clothes, look at me.”

She stared at him. “We’re like crunched for time.”

“I just need to get something from there. I’ll be quick.”

Sasha sighed, nodded, and started the car.

As they bumped their way through Brooklyn, sitting next to Sasha in her Nissan led to yet another wave of grim nostalgia. Keith and Doll were no longer in the back seat bickering. They were no longer playfully gossiping about their friends. When Sasha stole glances at Marco it wasn’t out of romance anymore or, if it was, it was too tainted with grief and shame to mean anything. And after they cuddled last night, all bets were off. To him, he needed to feel safe, but he understood that in cherry-picking her attention, he was going to piss her off. It was the unspoken topic sitting between them in the car. Sasha was giving, giving, giving, while Marco was taking and second-guessing and doubting and shrugging. But not anymore. Besides, he didn’t regret what he said last night, whispered into the back of her neck. He did need her. And he was sorry.

When she pulled up to his building, she nodded and said, “In and out.”

She kept the car running and he ran inside and when he entered his room, the smell of moss was only worse. A fine green layer had begun to grow along the windowsill. A damp, condensation ran down the walls, and his carpet began to sprout spindly, twisty little mushrooms. There were leaves and mud everywhere.

His knees were wobbly when he went to the closet. He was working hard to not overthink what was occurring in his room, to not think about it at all, really. Just mold, he thought to himself, just mold because it’s warm and unventilated. He pulled shirts off their hangers and grabbed jeans from the ground and jammed them into his blue Adidas bag. In the back of the closet was the hiking bag from the trip. The same one he brought from Tampa. Shrouded in shadow it resembled a torso sawn clean of its extremities. Inside of it was the real reason he wanted to stop at his place: la greca. It was humiliating, yes, but he wanted to bring it with him. He felt like he had to. He reached for the bag, and it toppled over, and soil and bugs spilled out. Forest roaches skittered over his sneakers and through the maze of his fallen clothes. Just mold, just mold, just mold. He grabbed the moka pot—

“Yo.”

Marco leapt out of his skin. He spun around, tweaking his back, landing on his butt (still sore, not getting a break). Leaning into his room was the kid from earlier. He had a Hellraiser T-shirt. The bottom text said, simply: JESUS WEPT.

“Damn, dude, what’s up with this place? It’s like a forest in here.”

“It’s just mold,” Marco said, standing up. “I’ve already called someone about it.” He had his Adidas bag in one hand and the moka pot in the other and with his foot he pushed his hiking bag back into its corner. Marco pulled his focus back to the kid. “He’s coming today to spray,” he lied. “So, I gotta get out of here.”

Marco grabbed his phone charger, tangled it up, and tucked it into his front pocket. He threw la greca into the Adidas and zipped it up fast. He moved towards the hallway, and the young kid let him pass.

“Do we all gotta evacuate or something?” he called after Marco.

“No,” Marco said without looking back.

“Someone was looking for you.”

Marco stopped. He turned. He was going to ask the kid “Who?” as if he didn’t already know. He imagined Sasha waiting outside in the Nissan. Dean with his cleaver breaking the window and dragging her out of the car, hacking her to bits right there in front of everyone. He shook his head.

“Who?”

“Fuck should I know?”

“What did he look like?”

The kid paused and thought it over. “I don’t know the nice word for it. He was like an amputee kinda guy. An invalid. He came by late last night and was banging around looking for you. Screaming out for you. Unless there’s another Marco around here.”

“I don’t think there is.”

“Right. Me neither. Who was he? He seemed pissed.”

Marco thought it over just as the kid had. He also didn’t know the nice word for who Dean was, so he went with the truth.

“He’s an old friend.”

* * *

Marco climbed into the car all shaky and he shut the door and looked out the window and over his shoulder like someone might be in the back seat.

“What happened?” Sasha asked.

“Nothing, I’m just anxious,” he said.

“Let’s get out of here then,” she replied. She shifted into drive and they left the curb and Marco’s apartment. It was an hour before they finally broke out of the city.

“You can try to nap if you want,” Sasha said. She didn’t look from the road.

“I’d feel bad if I left you alone,” Marco replied. “Driving alone I mean.”

“You’re not leaving me alone,” Sasha said. “And anyway, you’re tired because you were up all night standing guard. I didn’t fall asleep until you came to bed with me.”

“‘Standing guard’ is generous. You kept me from jumping off a ledge.”

Sasha laughed. “Just take a nap. You can drive later.”

“Deal.”

Marco was asleep before he knew it, although it wasn’t so much sleep as his body giving up for a few hours. His brain turned off and he closed his eyes, and he was so so grateful to not have dreamed of anything at all.

* * *

He opened his eyes a few hours later when they were in the meat of I-87 and while he didn’t recognize much of what they were driving past—cars, exits, the outskirts of smaller, gentler cities—he did get a sick feeling that where they were headed hadn’t changed at all.

Sasha stayed at the speed limit and, for the most part, they didn’t talk. He watched her thin, skinny hands move over the wheel, her soft looks into the mirrors, her left hand occasionally rising to her teeth so she could bite her nails. “Walk me through the plan again,” she finally said.

Marco sat up right. It was early afternoon, and the sky was cloudless. Behind them, somewhere, Marco imagined Dean driving his Clearblue pickup, sunglasses covering the pits in his face, the interior of his car caked with mud and filth and excrement; the meat cleaver jostling in the passenger seat, shaking each way like a divining rod.

“First, we get Zaäper from Calvina. We’re going to need it for the ritual. We can’t take any chances of Erether being suspicious. And then when Dean arrives . . .” Marco faltered. “. . . We’ll get him.”

“And we are sure this will work?” Sasha asked.

“You’re asking me? Obviously not, no, I’m not sure of anything, but it seems to make sense. Ever since Doll got grafted you’ve been off the hook. I know for a fact that Pansy was seeing things and having visions before, well, her baby passed. And now it’s just me and Dean and we’re both actively deteriorating until one or both of us succumb. And I’m not going out like this.”

“And if Dean wins? I mean, if Dean beats us?”

Marco tapped his knuckles on the window. He watched mile markers come and go. “If Dean kills me, he’ll get to return to Pansy and he’ll probably make a miraculous recovery. Then I’ll be fertilizer. I don’t think he has to kill you, but, uh, I bet he’d sure like to. Respectfully.”

There was a pause. What Dean wanted out of all of this seemed just as wholesome and hopeful as anybody else. He just wanted to return to Pansy. To be a father.

“Listen,” Sasha started, “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve run all the nuances in my head. You’re thinking that we’re the bad guys and that we fucked up and that I chose selfishly.”

“No, actually,” Marco said. “I think this is on me. I’m the one that fucked up this time. I shouldn’t have gone after the bookseller. And I just feel bad. From Dean’s perspective, he just wants to return home to Pansy and start a family.”

“And what do we get?” Sasha asked. “We just get murdered like nothing? Our lives are forfeited because I’m not pregnant, because we’re not in love? Because what? When did you start taking his side?”

“I’m not taking his side. I’ve just never lured someone to a cabin to murder them before, Jesus Christ.” He was getting hot. He hated saying the M word. He felt watched. When a pick-up truck blew by his window, he nearly pissed himself, but the truck was glossy and red and it peeled off down an exit, going somewhere else. “We just better make it count.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean look how we’re living,” he said. He felt Sasha’s energy dampen. “What are we really fighting for here? I have to get my life together. We both do. On paper, Dean wants to be a father and a husband and if we kill him and don’t do shit, then we’re definitely the bad guys.”

“That’s not how you gauge the value of life.”

“Well, that’s how I’m doing it.”

“Fine,” Sasha said. “After we do this, I’ll go cure cancer or something.”

* * *

Sasha did stretches in the parking lot of a small grocery store. In her denim jumpsuit and scuffed sneakers she looked like a mechanic getting ready for work. She had sent Marco inside to get road trip snacks and real cabin groceries and when he came back with a cooler full of non-perishables and energy drinks he slowed down and watched her. The sun was nearing the horizon already. It was after six. There was going to be traffic on the interstate, so they decided to cut off to the state road earlier than last time. Sharpwood was next.

In the light of golden hour, she bent over and stretched her calves. There were only a few other cars sprinkled around the lot. Marco placed the cooler on the asphalt and opened a Red Bull. She raised her leg and set it on the open driver seat. She leaned forward, stretching her thigh. “Did you bring a bag?” she asked.

“I left it in my closet”

“We can load up mine.”

She stood up straight and leaned against her car. Marco offered the Red Bull, and she reached forward and took it from him. “Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s gonna pay for what he did to her.”

There was a beat.

“I am grateful by the way.”

She lowered the can from her lips. She really was beautiful. Always had been. Her new glasses stripped the kindness from her eyes and her shadow stretched along the parking lot.

“You saved my life,” he said. “And I never said thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. Of course I saved you, Marco. It was never a question for me. And, anyway,” she said. “I’ve also gotten you attacked and terrorized by an eyeless maniac and an ancient forest god.”

“And then I clobbered a guy and blew our cover.”

“See? It all comes out in the wash.”

“Comes Out in the Wash,” Marco said. “That’s not a bad one.”

“A memoir on how we clean the stains of our past. A modern reflection on how the universe balances itself, for better or worse.”

“Do you still write?”

“I’m a little over the essays,” she said. “I’ve been pretty distracted.”