Chapter 22 - The Man of Wind and Moss

Part Five: One Good Witch (and a Few Months Later)

Marco returned to Brooklyn angry. Relieved, yes. Happy that people were alive, of course. Willing to love and grow and try again, maybe in time. But deep down, really deep down, he was angry. That said, in the context of the Incident, engaging with any emotion other than gratitude was strictly taboo. So, he stayed angry in secret. Just like the depression on the beach that started it all, there was no use in denying it. Only this time he didn’t have anybody to tell. He didn’t have any action to do. The depression and subsequent yearning for Pansy had a clear actionable goal. But this anger was too confusing. Too impotent by far.

He was grateful for certain things though. For example, he stopped seeing yellow eyes, he stopped purging mud and leaves, and the nightmares of secateurs disappeared as well. He stopped seeing black arms, muddy footprints, and he never saw another Grafting. And this time, Dean came back.

Marco refused to see Sasha in person, so paranoid that he was, but she texted him updates that confirmed the switcheroo had worked (each one footnoted with a horrific “so far”). Dean had showed up and rejoined Pansy and it even made the news. Marco read the article on his phone in the dark of his room. Apparently, he had no memory of what occurred but had shambled out of the woods completely unharmed. Cue the celebration. Moreover, Pansy’s baby was coming along healthily (so far) and she had about two months to go. Marco liked each message as they were assurances of something done correctly, but he still kept his distance. His pushing Sasha away was a mix though. It was part not trusting her but also part not wanting to hurt her. Besides, if there was ever a lesson to glean from all this, wouldn’t it be to want less?

In this way, Thanksgiving came and went, and he spent it at Paula’s house; Christmas came and went, and he spent it at Paula’s house; and New Year’s came and went, and he spent it at Paula’s house. His New Year’s resolution was a grim one, but it made sense to him. He didn’t want to want. The last time he wanted, everything went to hell. He was going to be happy with what he had and with what was in front of him. On New Year’s Eve, drunk on champagne, he went home, and he listened to Monchito’s voicemail again. The people on roof tops shouted and embraced and whistled and other people whistled back.

It was in January when the anger finally started to subside. It was then, of course, that Sasha lured him back. It was with a simple text too: I can show you Ray. And it unraveled everything.

* * *

When he arrived at her apartment and knocked on her door, he was pleasantly surprised to feel the opposite of when he was at Pansy’s. There was a degree of comfort he hadn’t anticipated. When she opened the door holding a mug of matcha, he also realized he hadn’t seen her since the goat sex. Since then, she had given up the blonde dye and chopped her black hair into a bob. She also lost the old frames and got a pair of sharp blue ones. He felt a sputter of anxiety and feared the forthcoming small talk, but she read his mind, it seemed, and bypassed it all.

“Do you want a cup?” she asked, referring to her mug, its green contents frothing like a potion.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Cool, come in, let’s get into it.”

He followed her into her place and his jaw dropped. As she mixed his drink, she explained that her parents, alarmed that she was moving back to the city, ponied up the money to get her a good spot: a slick one-bedroom in a building with a doorman. However, that wasn’t the reason for Marco’s surprise. Her whole apartment, perhaps luxurious at one point, had now become swallowed by books and crystals and talismans. A crappy printer sat on her kitchen table flanked by, apparently, any and everything she could print: poorly scanned grimoires, essays in languages she didn’t speak, diagrams and flowcharts, all piled high in crooked stacks. Names like Crowley, Chumbley, Blavatsky, LaVey, Paracelsus, and more, were stapled and binder-clipped into makeshift manuscripts. Marco’s anxiety flared, visibly too, and she tried to calm him down. In the same way someone would explain a loaded gun, she explained the difference between high magic and low magic. Low magic being earth magic, and high magic being ceremonial, tier-based magic, but it was a common misconception that low magic was any easier than high magic. Sasha had dabbled with it and almost got them killed. Now, naturally, she was trying to learn everything she could. “I guess I went to grad school after all,” she joked, and Marco ended up laughing a strange squeal of stress and paranoia and ha-ha-ha-oh-god-why-am-I-here?

She led him into her bedroom, where she had a mirror with a velvet wrap. She took a seat, cross-legged on the carpet, and set her mug on a book. On a coat rack behind a door hung about thirty amulets, all different styles, like she was in competition with the gerbil. Marco traced his fingers through them, and they jingled softly, surreally, each one feeling like an odd zap on his fingers.

“This is how I’ve been keeping tabs on them,” Sasha said, drawing his attention back to the mirror. “On Pansy and Dean, I mean.”

“What’s it called again?”

“Scrying. It’s like crystal ball reading,” she said. “Crystal balls are a little old-school though, and according to my readings, mirrors are now the preferred style.”

“You can see the future?”

“Not the future, but I’m getting better at windows,” she said. “It’s actually pretty easy, all things considered.”

There was a beat. She looked down and picked at her nails.

“I know we’re on weird footing right now,” she started, “but, look, the decoys worked. So far, at least. And I wanted to show you that I am a good witch. I’m a good witch that just fucked up and was in over her head. But look, look at me, I’ve been doing my homework. I’ve been . . .” she stammered. She looked up at Marco, pleading. “I just miss you. You’re my best friend. And we went through hell. And it’d really, really suck to not have you in my life after all this. It kills me that you think my feelings for you, or my confession in the cabin, or us hooking up was my witchy plan all along. And it also kills me that anything I do now will have that shadow over it. But maybe we can go back to being friends. Or we can pretend I didn’t totally embarrass myself in the cabin. Or, I don’t know. I just miss you. You’re all I have, Marco.” She tilted her head back to stop from crying.

It was the last part of her plea that got him. Here he was, trying very hard to have nobody, and here she was begging for the opposite. And of course he missed her too. Despite his angry resolutions, he was still lonely. But missing her, liking her was never the problem. They had been through hell.

“I miss you too,” he said. “It was not cool of me to run away like that. But I was scared.”

She smiled softly and dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. Her apartment was warm. Eerie, but warm, like a hidden library.

“So, I guess this is some sort of olive branch,” Marco said, gesturing to the mirror.

“It’s the least I can do. I was harsh about Monchito. I mean, he’s your brother and you miss him, and considering everything that happened, you should at least get to see him. And I can help.”

Marco hadn’t told her about the birthday voicemail, and now he looked at the mirror on the carpet and then at Sasha, smiling now, eyes tearful and tender. “I haven’t heard from him in months. Not since I left Tampa.”

“Then let me do this for you,” Sasha said. “Come on, sit down like me.”

He moved from her bedroom door and sat across from her with his legs crossed, and she placed the mirror on both of their laps. She took a razor blade out of a purple handkerchief and gestured for Marco’s hand. He placed his hand in hers and it felt charged and he grew nervous, suddenly remembering the scene in the woods, suddenly remembering all the different ways they’ve touched, even the time he shoved her down at Keith’s house. She looked at him and her lips parted, and she caressed his hands and then, in a quick motion, she cut his index finger, and she guided his finger along the perimeter of the mirror until a bloody rectangle hugged the edges.

“You can’t let your eyes leave the mirror,” she said returning his hand. “Try to have blinders for anything but the mirror.”

“Got it.”

“If you start to feel lightheaded, push through, that means it’s working.”

“Okay.”

She muttered something arcane, and in moments the mirror steamed up.

“I’m gonna wipe off the mirror and you’re gonna see him,” she said. “When the mirror steams up again, it’s done.”

Marco’s heart started to race. She’s a good witch, he kept thinking. She’s a good witch. “I’m ready,” he said.

When she wiped off the steam, the feeling was syncope. The blinders she mentioned were almost forced on him. It was tunnel vision, similar to looking through a camera at maximum zoom. It felt like motion sickness.

The image was horrible. Nothing in it was specifically evil, not by the new parameters that Marco had experienced firsthand, but the image was still horrible. And the sound was loud, inexplicably so, playing from the mirror itself. Monchito was drunk, with a bottle of rum in his hands, and he was nodding off on a concrete bench somewhere by the water. The crashing of waves was heard. Cars passed by. He was wearing the uniform of a hotel resort, and the hotel was behind him. Some manager type came over and shook him awake and took the bottle of rum from his hands. The manager scolded him in Spanish, and Monchito got chewed out for drinking on the job, and the manager pointed off screen. Monchito then seemed to relent. He stood up, wobbly, and walked down to the beach and started collecting beach chairs and stacking them together. The loud sound and hyper-zoomed angle and the bouncing up and down of the frame made Marco frantic. Then the mirror steamed up.

“Holy shit,” Sasha said, ecstatic, “I’ve never gotten sound before. I think that was all you. That was amazing!”

At first, Marco didn’t know what to say. He didn’t care about the success of the scry. He actually wished it had never worked, because now it felt like a cruel prank. “Are you joking?”

“What?”

“He’s a fucking loser,” Marco said.

“No, come on. That’s not fair,” Sasha said. “It’s only a window; we don’t know the whole story.”

“He kicked me out of his life so, so, so what? So, he can drink all day and work at a fucking hotel?”

“Okay. This was a bad idea,” Sasha said. She threw the velvet back over the mirror and moved it to the side. “This was such a bad idea. Shit. I’m sorry. I thought it’d go different, I—”

“Goddammit!”

Sasha flinched. “Hey. Just breathe. The spell was amazing. It worked better than I’ve ever done it. We can check on him whenever we want. This is good. We caught him on a bad day, who cares?”

“Because he keeps acting like he has it figured out, but he doesn’t!”

“We shouldn’t have done this. And you’re somehow a natural at it too. Classic.”

“Goddammit!” he shouted again. He stood up now. The warmth of her apartment had become suffocating. “Aren’t you fucking mad?”

Sasha looked confused. “At who? Ray has always been unhappy. You know that. Forget the window, we don’t ever have to look again. I’m sorry, just sit. Marco, please.”

Marco wanted to shove her again. He wanted to trash her place and burn her apartment down. Instead, he did what he did before. He pointed at her. “Are you a good witch or not?”

“What?”

“Are you fucking with me? Are you trying to take everything from me, is this your plan? Cut off all my friends, cut off all my family?”

“Cut off your—what?! It’s not my fault your brother is a loser. It’s not anybody’s fault. I—ugh!” She got up and started pacing.

Marco moved to her wall. He wanted to punch it. He wanted to be the type of guy that punches walls—just for a moment, just for a release. The deep, secret anger that had just been dying down was now roaring back to life and in a way, he was happy for it. Anger was direction. Anger was movement. “I don’t understand why this keeps happening. My dad, my brother, Pansy, all of them would choose shit deals instead of being in my life. How can this be happening?”

“It’s not like that,” Sasha said.

“You don’t get it.”

“I do get it,” she said. She crossed the room, and he tried to wave her away, but she grabbed his wrists. “I’m the only one in your life that gets it. I have no family. I have no friends. All I have is you. And here I am, desperately trying to hold on to you.”

“Everything I’ve ever done in my life is to help other people. And the one time I try to get something for myself, a true hell breaks loose and people fucking die. And just to make things right sets me back at zero. Sasha, I feel fucking insane. And I cannot talk to you right now.”

He ended up leaving her place with a parting gift. She pulled a vegvísir from the collection of amulets on the coat rack, and when he was pulling on his jacket, she put it around his neck. She didn’t tell him how it was supposed to work, but she let her hands linger on his shoulders. He could tell she was disappointed with how the night went, but he was too pissed to comfort her. She was tearful again but putting on a strong face. She made a fist and tapped it against his chest. “I’m a good witch. And I’m your friend. And your brother doesn’t want any help. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but please be smart. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

* * *

When Marco left Sasha’s place, he wasn’t certain what his plan was. All he knew was his anger. Earlier, he had thought the only thing he was good at was loving someone. Then he thought he could be good at being alone. But now he realized the only thing he was good at was being angry. And it was that classic type of anger too, the anger at everybody and nobody, the impotent anger igniting under forced gratitude; the anger of “both things can be true” and “look at it from a new perspective.” It was the anger of being smart enough to know you shouldn’t be upset; the anger of therapy-speak and blunt force trauma. It’s the anger that you’re somehow rewarded for stifling, talking through, or releasing. But how could you release it if it’s the only real thing? You’re in this shit world (Evil World; Evil Planet; Planet Pariah), and you’re surrounded by strangers and freaks, all of whom want to take advantage of you. Joy is fleeting, good things are fake, and you finally get upset but you’re not even allowed to get upset. Some dickhead says, “Well your anger is because reality didn’t match your expectations,” and it’s like yeah motherfucker my expectations were to be happy, and reality has not exactly hit the mark. And you’re extra angry because you love Sasha, of course you do, but as of late every interaction has been death by a million cuts, and you’re angry because you love your brother too but at this point your relationship is similar to toilet paper, and you know you can’t meaningfully direct your anger at either of them because you need them (how you “need” them will never be clear, by the way, it’s like how you “need” the earth to be round) and you don’t want to hurt them, but your anger has to go somewhere, right? Right? Someone needs to be hurt so you can feel like yeah I’ve made it out of the woods after all you piece of shit. Talk about “making it out the woods,” Dean came out fucking FINE didn’t he, he’s back with his GIRL having a fucking BABY, they made headlines and everything!! And you get FUCKING NADA. NOTHING. Lo siento, my lil’ hombre, you get a kick in the pants. And on top of it all, on top of everything, you pass by a storefront and you’re still a white-skinned spic! Incredible!! Not respected by your white friends or your brown family because NOBODY FUCKING LIKES YOU, and your brother goes to his roots and is such a loser he’d be better off EATING A BULLET! Your life rocks, woohoo!! YEAH, BABY!! YES YES YES THIS ROCKS SO HARD!!! And you know what else rocks? Beating someone’s ass. That’s all. You want to HURT someone, and you should. You should channel your inner Dean and PUNCH someone in the fucking FACE. And if it can’t be Sasha and it can’t be your brother then it’s gotta be someone who suckered you all.

* * *

Someone like a groupie at a metal show.

* * *

Well anyway.

* * *

It was mid-January and Brooklyn was covered in snow, and after a few days of spiraling, Marco ended up at metal bar called 5 Point Saloon where Black Arms was playing.

It wasn’t the warehouse venue that Marco was first overwhelmed in. 5 Point was smaller and more intimate, but just as filthy. All of the grime and stink of the first venue was now compact and dense. Stickers and graffiti covered every inch of the place. The bathroom door was a vinyl curtain. Patrons sat on stools drinking beers between the legs of suicide girls dancing in black boots and Chuck Taylors. In the back of the bar was a skinny hallway that led to the stage. It consisted of a plywood platform in a low-ceiling room. It felt like a microwave in there, and when the wall of sound came out of the towers and bounced off all the stickered concrete, the energy seemed to push you backwards, crush your lungs and your ears, and try to eject you out of the scene entirely. Upon entering the bar, Marco touched the amulet on his chest. He wasn’t sure why; he just wanted to make sure it was there.

The bar was crowded and rank and everyone was sweaty under their big winter jackets. The snow had picked up outside. The place was in south Brooklyn next to auto shops and empty lofts, and the streets were wide and growing white and the nearest subway station was about a ten-minute walk north. Inside, Marco kept his coat on. He drank a few beers and did a shot of tequila and lime and regretted it when the meat got stuck in his braces. Off to a good start, he thought.

Before long, the show started. The music was triggering. The dark doom metal drone shook the building and Marco sat at the bar and watched the dancers. He was too afraid to go into the stage area. He had grown nervous, trying to form some strategy before it was too late. He studied every person that came up to the bar. Did they have a book with them? Did they look like Zaäper acolytes? The next song started, and Marco began to feel hot. He unzipped his jacket. He ordered another beer. It was his fourth.

The dancer, a goth girl with lots of tattoos, lowered herself near Marco’s beer and he tucked a fiver into her boot. She smiled thanks and moved down the counter. Goddamn, something was burning. He touched at the vegvísir and felt the warmth through his sweater. After leaving Sasha’s place, he had gone home and Googled what it was he should expect from this “apotropaic amulet.” Doing so felt like Googling Zaäper that first time, and the feeling was bad—shaky and perceived. Moreover, what he learned wasn’t all that encouraging. The vegvísir was from Iceland but it wasn’t that old, at least relatively speaking. It was from the 1800s and had nothing to do with Norse or Viking mythology and, actually, more to do with a bizarro Christian offshoot. In fact, it was one of many “galdrastafir” of the time, the collective result of clashing cultures and religions. What’s extra funny is that, in all likelihood, the specific amulet that Marco currently wore was probably made in China. In short, the hopeless confusion intrinsic to the vegvísir’s very identity didn’t really bode well for what’s often dubbed “a compass.”

But despite all that, the amulet was burning.

Just then, the dancer on the counter received a tip from another guy at the bar. He tucked a few bills into her fishnet, and Marco saw his hand. It showed a gnarled compass.

Marco’s blood froze, but the amulet grew hotter.

It was him. It was the bookseller.

That must’ve been why his amulet was spazzing out. It could sense this freak. The apotropaic effect was working.

He had to play it cool. The bookseller hadn’t recognized Marco yet. The bartender came over and offered another beer and Marco nodded. Got another shot of tequila too. He was getting drunk. He was shaking on his stool, and the metal music was rattling his brain. He couldn’t think straight. But he could feel clearly. He felt enraged. The amulet burned. It wanted Marco to get the fuck out of 5 Point, but Marco refused. Instead, he took the amulet off and jammed it into his coat pocket.

The bookseller drank some whiskey, tipped the dancer a few more bucks, rolled a spliff on the counter, and then went to the stage area. He was a big, hairy guy with long, greasy hair. He wore bracelets and rings that were too tight on his bloated knuckles. His baggy jeans sagged at his ass, and he wore scuffed Doc Martens with blood-red laces. He had a black work hoodie and black jeans. And although Marco could only see the scarred tattoo on his left hand, he was certain the rest of his body was just as scarred and crudely inked. The amulet grew hotter even in his pocket.

When the bookseller entered the stage area, the door swung open, and the noise spilled out. Marco braced himself, ready to see yellow eyes and talking plants, but nothing came. They were just metalheads. He could take metalheads.

The dancer came back over.

“Is there another exit through there?” Marco asked, nodding his head to the stage.

“Just the stage doors,” the dancer said.

Marco nodded and slid her more cash. He ordered another High Life. The bookseller was not coming back this way. He was probably fucking around in the greenroom or smoking outside in the alley. And if Marco waited too long then the show would end, and he’d lose the cover of sound. Marco zipped his jacket back up and got up to go. He put his hands in his pocket, and the amulet was too hot to touch. He grabbed the High Life off the counter and walked outside with it.

Marco put the amulet back around his neck and tucked it under his sweater. It was burning, but it felt nice in the cold, snowy night. He left 5 Point and swung left and snuck into the skinny alley on the side of the building. A security light was stationed above the stage doors and the bookseller stood there smoking his spliff and looking at his phone. The security light was dim, and the snow fell hard around it, winding and blowing left and right, collecting on the dumpster and metal gutters of the adjacent building. The drone of music was loud, even outside in the brick alley. Marco shuffled closer, staying unseen.

What are you gonna say?

I’m not going to say anything.

Are you going to kill him?

No, but I’m going to hurt him.

How?

The bookseller looked up from his phone and Marco faced the brick wall and pretended to pee. He poured some of the beer out to make a convincing sound. He shimmied even closer.

The bookseller stood on the edge of a steep concrete staircase that led to the bar’s basement. One quick shove would the send him head over heels down the stairs. The show was going to be over soon. Marco was running out of time.

We’re not out of the woods yet, Sasha had said.

Hah. Hah. Hah.

Fuck it.

Marco ran at him. With every step closer the amulet burned brighter on his chest. By the time he was within shoving distance, the searing was too painful, and a strangled scream of pain escaped his mouth. The scream alerted the bookseller, and he turned to face Marco. “What the fuck?”

Marco shoved him and the bookseller fell, but Marco slipped on the snow as well. They went down in opposite directions. The bookseller went headfirst down the concrete steps and landed with a wet smack, and Marco’s feet spun out from beneath him and he fell onto his hip, banging his head against the stage door.

Marco was dazed, but he scrambled to his feet. The amulet was burning his skin, and he clutched at it through his jacket. He held the brick wall for support and stood up and looked down the concrete steps to where the bookseller lay. The security light was right above Marco, but the stretch of light didn’t reach down to where the bookseller was. The angle was wrong, and the light cut off in a diagonal. Marco could only see his legs. They weren’t moving.

He was on his stomach, face down. Snow collected on his back. Marco’s heart stopped. But then slowly the man moved. He turned onto his back, and a deep, agonized groan came from the blackness of the stairwell. Marco couldn’t see his face. He took a few steps forward and positioned himself so that the security light was behind him.

Marco pointed at him.

“Zaäper has no place here, you fat fuck,” Marco said.

The bookseller groaned from the base of the stairs. Marco looked back over his shoulder. Nobody was in the alley. The coast was still clear. “Did you hear what I said?”

“. . . Ngggggn . . . You cracked my head opennnnn . . .”

Marco couldn’t see his face, but the man’s voice was wet and garbled like his jaw was broken.

“. . . My brains’re comin’ out . . .”

“Did you hear what I said!” Marco shouted down. The place had gone quiet. That meant the show was over. People were going to exit the stage doors at any minute.

“. . . Mmmm . . . I can taste his flowers . . .”

“Shut the fuck up. There is no more Erether, there is no more Zaäper, and you and your shitty rock band can get out of Brooklyn,” Marco said. He pulled the amulet from his neck. It glowed brighter than he anticipated and suddenly he saw the bookseller clearly. It was like a spotlight directly on him.

Indeed, his head was wide open.

“You should’ve killed me,” he said, grinning from the bottom of the stairs. The crack in his skull crudely separated his left eye from his right. Red fibrous tissue stretched thin like taffy, trying to keep his skull together. His brain squirmed when he talked, inches from slipping out. “I’m gonna tell him what you did. I’m gonna tattletale. I’m his favorite little boy and you made my brains fall out.”

Someone approached the stage door. Their voices grew closer. They were coming. Marco had to go. “Just cut your witchy bullshit or I’m coming back!” He quickly tucked the amulet back in his sweater and turned to run.

He only got a few feet down the alley when the stage doors opened.

“Help!!” the bookseller yelled.

“Holy fuck!” someone shouted.

Then more voices, more chaos.

“It’s Gabe!”

“Someone get help!”

“It’s Gabe! Get him up.”

“Oh shit, his head.”

Marco ran through the snow as fast as he could. He jumped on a subway, and then another, and then he came aboveground and ran through the snow some more. He had started the night angry that he had gotten nothing from this ordeal, somehow even less when he and Sasha made things right, but now payback was had and he felt good, maniacally good, hysterically good, wide-eyed and feverish, ecstatic!, sprinting through the snow as the retard compass burned red above his heart. Everything was finally good. Fuck you.