Chapter 27 - The Man of Wind and Moss
By Alex Gonzalez
Nearing Sharpwood, Sasha got on the topic of being Chinese. The topic came around rather naturally, if not a little morbidly. They were headed to get Zaäper. Backwards thinking went from Zaäper to bookseller to witchy chink.
“It’s honestly whatever,” she smirked. “I mean it’s racist as fuck, but you know what’s really funny? That jerk was like the most receptive of what I wanted. Every other person I talked witch stuff with, they take one look at me and push Wuism and fortune sticks and the fucking I Ching. It’s like college all over again. I don’t want that shit. What is that going to do for me? I don’t walk the streets of Chongqing; I don’t interact with the nature of Guizhou. What do I give a shit? I live here. My parents are white people. The majority of my friends are white people. Just give me white people, American witchcraft. That’s why I sought out Zaäper in the first place, you know? It was nature, Earthly-driven, and it was from a very specific perspective I actually understood, right? Being a stranger in North America. That was the point.”
“Is that really how he pitched it?”
Sasha laughed. She drank more Red Bull.
“Kind of. Yeah,” she said. “He was like we got you. You can read this all you want, and you’ll eat it up. And I was like yes please. I could be me. This stupid 1994 skinhead grimoire was for me. And I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I actually felt seen. Racism notwithstanding, of course. And you know, like, I wouldn’t let them buy me a drink or drive me home or anything. But for the most part, yeah. That’s how easy it really was. For a group of people to let me approach on my terms and not prescribe something else that they thought I’d have a deeper appreciation for. I was like hell yeah. But, you know, rest in piss, obviously.”
Marco laughed. “This all could’ve been avoided if you just sucked it up and learned Chinese.”
Sasha laughed aloud. “You’re one to talk, ese.”
“¡Órale!”
“¡Órale!”
“¡Órale! Fill the hole!”
“Is that a Stand and Deliver reference?”
“My dad made me watch it every year. Like what on earth are these East LA Cholos gonna teach me?”
“Calculus for one.”
“¡Órale!”
“Fill the hole, Fingerman.”
“Órale, Kemo Sabe.”
“Yeah, see, now you’re all over the place.”
* * *
The town of Sharpwood was empty the first time around, but now, on the return, it seemed downright evacuated, and when Sasha parked outside of Gaiety, the energy quickly dissolved. The sun was setting, and the sky was a darkening pink. Marco couldn’t get a good vantage from the passenger seat, but something seemed wrong about the greenhouse annex. It seemed like it had . . . expanded?
“I should go in and say hi,” Sasha said unbuckling her seat belt. But Marco put a hand on her lap, stopping her.
“No,” he said. “Stay here.”
“Why?”
“You’re safer in the car.”
“Safer?”
“Dean might be in there. Erether might be in there. It’s a fucking greenhouse.”
“Do you think Calvina is in trouble?”
“Well, we definitely are and she’s the one that helped us.”
“Shit. Now I really have to go in.”
“Sasha, no.”
That was all he had to say. His hand was firm on her lap, and suddenly serious, she nodded and let go of her seat belt and held his hand.
“I’m going to hop in, find the book, and run back out. I’ll be two seconds.”
Marco climbed out of the car.
“Marco,” she said. “Make sure she’s okay.”
“I was kinda expecting a ‘be careful.’”
“That too.”
“Right.”
The front porch was the same as before, but the rusty sign that said GAIETY was missing. Ominous. He knocked on the front door and when he didn’t hear anything in return, he turned the knob and let himself in.
The place was a war zone. What used to be a cozy flower shop was now a burglarized home reclaimed by nature. The couch sprouted mushrooms. The kitchenette was covered in thick moss. Low-hanging vines hung from broken light fixtures. A ceiling fan dangled from its socket, tangled in a knot of rooting flowers, its exposed wires sparking in desperate combat.
The bungalow was small: a blessing and a curse. A furtive patrol revealed the interior was empty. Just plants. Plants and broken cabinets. Plants and fallen refrigerators. Plants and shattered dishware. Plants and blood. A splatter of it along the carpet. Going to the greenhouse.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Marco muttered. He looked back over his shoulder. Through the blinds of the front window, he could see Sasha in the car. The headlights were still on. Safety was right there. But he needed that book.
Meow.
Marco looked up. Then to the ground. Then behind him. Calvina’s cat was around.
Reowwww. And it sounded hurt.
“I’m not ready for this,” Marco said. He stepped over a crumbled poinsettia and moved to the storage room. He had to get through to the greenhouse. The book was back there; he was certain of it.
Reowww.
Marco looked down.
The poinsettia had a tail.
The poinsettia was the cat.
The calico’s back half was smashed into a red paste, and its insides seemed to bloom with green leaves and red flowers. It crawled forward on two twitchy paws, dragging its flowery entrails behind it. Thick blood oozed from its furry ears and mangled eyes. The Grafting was happening live and in person.
Marco threw himself backwards, bumping into mops and shovels and knocking over buckets.
“P-please don’t hurt her,” a voice cried.
Marco panicked. He grabbed a shovel from the ground. He looked for the voice, only this time he made sure to study the plants, the goddamn plants.
But it was Calvina.
The light of the storage room flickered a dull yellow and Calvina was slumped in the corner. She sat among rolls of cellophane and boxes of green, plastic pots. Her amulets were covered in blood and dirt, and she had drawn protective sigils on her face, but none of it looked like it worked. An object stuck out of her chest.
“Put her on my lap,” Calvina said.
Marco looked down at his feet. The cat, for all intents and purposes, was spaghetti. “I don’t know if I can,” he said.
“Please, let us return together,” Calvina said.
Something fell in the greenhouse and shattered.
“I need to find the book,” Marco said.
Calvina’s eyes were fading. They couldn’t focus. The moles on her face were irritated by the markings. She took a labored breath and wheezed and the thing in her chest wobbled.
“It’s on the w-workbench,” Calvina wheezed. “When I saw he had found out, I t-t-tried my best to help. But I failed. Please . . . I need Chichi.”
. . . Reowwww . . .
“Yeah, no problem,” Marco mumbled. He squatted down and tried to pile together the cat. He grabbed the furry top half and with his other hand sort of shoveled along the rest. The guts were wet and warm, and the flowers stung him. As gently as he could, he lowered Chichi onto Calvina’s lap and as he got lower he was able to better see what was sticking out of her. The object in her chest was a knife. It was the folding knife from before. The one he had stabbed into Erether’s arm. Oh, He’s mad.
“When you leave, burn us down,” Calvina said. “We wish to be cleansed.”
“I think I can do that.”
Calvina reached into her dress and brought out a bloody matchbook. “The juniper. Burn it all.”
Another item fell in the greenhouse and shattered.
Something was knocking things over.
Marco put the matchbook in his back pocket, and he raised the shovel. He backed away from Calvina and Chichi. He left the knife in her chest. He didn’t feel comfortable yanking it out, not after she just settled with her cat. He felt guilty. This was because he blew their cover. This was all his fault. Calvina and Chichi had gone out of their way to help him and Sasha, and he ruined it. The only way to repay her would be to burn it all down.
Armed with the shovel, Marco entered the greenhouse.
The sun had set and the glass walls shined a black reflection and Marco inched along. The place was only lit by two work lights, one at the rear by the workbench and one by the storage room where Marco came from. The middle of the greenhouse was dark. But Zaäper was on the other side. He knew it. But he also knew that something was in the greenhouse with him.
He tightened his grip on the shovel. He walked forward. Something moved and a pot fell off a table. He froze. He listened. Something was squirming. Something was shuffling. He was flanked by plants on either side, and the claustrophobia was mounting. There was no place to stand, no place to get his head above water. He moved faster towards the middle darkness.
“Lilies in the greenhouse.”
Marco’s heart stopped, but his feet kept moving. He knew that voice.
“. . . Doll?”
He looked all over. The greenhouse was too dark. But the workbench was getting closer.
“Lilies in the greenhouse, lilies in the greenhouse,” the voice sang.
It was Doll. It had to be. The image of her scattered in the forest came rushing back. She was inside the greenhouse—among the greenhouse—watching him, toying with him. Surprising himself, he was ready to see her. He was ready to catch her lope through the plants like some hideous vine-person, and he’d fucking swing the shovel at her head. She just had to show herself.
“Lilies in the greenhouse, lilies in the greenhouse.”
“That’s enough, Doll,” Marco growled. “The schtick’s getting old.”
He got to the workbench and Zaäper was on the table in a freshly drawn star with more points than he’d ever seen. Candles flickered. The book was covered in blood. Calvina must’ve been struck right here, and Marco didn’t want to be next. He grabbed the book—
When a wet claw slapped down on the cover.
He looked up.
Doll’s face was being worn by something else. That was the best way for Marco to understand it. Like the Ship of Theseus, it didn’t make sense to describe what or who Doll had become. It was a boiling pile of mud and bugs and waving roots, and it wore Doll’s face like a veil, only the veil was alive and blinking, and her claw pulled at the book.
“Let go!” Marco shouted. He yanked the book away and Doll’s arm came apart. It landed and burst into loose soil and clumps of grass. Marco stumbled back and grabbed a table for support. Doll looked at him, humiliated.
“But don’t you want to say hello?”
“I’ve already met Him, and he fucking sucks.”
“Not Him, silly. Lily is here. Lily is in the greenhouse. Don’t you want to meet my niece?”
Oh no.
Oh no no.
Pansy’s baby died.
Pansy’s baby was grafted.
Pansy’s baby was in the greenhouse.
The mewling sound was worse than the cat. The baby cooing, the high-pitched not-quite-a-giggle-not-quite-anything was so much worse than the cat. And it was so close to his ear. He spun around and dropped the shovel and there it was. There she was. The evil of it was too much. He felt his bladder release. He started to shake. He screamed. No, no, this was way over the top. There was something ancient about it. Something forever. Something never to die. Something that was waiting. Something that will always be. Something that we return to. Something that hates us. Something with black gums and no soul. Something stretched, yes, stretched, the baby was stretched, impossibly so, it was just like Calvina said, just like Dr. Crumb theorized, nature was evil. The planet was evil. The things that grew were evil. The running water, the cold breeze, the burn of fire, the moss, the moss, the green, stretched child of moss, no no no no no no no no.
“Lily’s in the greenhouse,” Doll said again.
And yes, yes, Lily was. And Lily stretched forward blindly like a Chinese dragon. Lily was now inches from Marco’s face and Marco stepped back further until he felt the wet embrace of Doll, wrapping her dirty arm around his neck.
“Please,” he choked. “Stop.”
Doll’s voice changed again. “You thought you could hide.”
The moss child. The evil thing. The leafy, stretched-out, veiny, evil thing elongated closer to Marco. It was a baby. It was a baby. It was a baby not an hour old. Oh God. Oh Jesus.
On his right side, Doll’s loose face brushed his ear. Directly in front of him, Lily floated. But directly to his left was something that felt important. Something flammable.
The juniper.
He was choking for real. Tunnel vision was coming. The last thing he was going to see was Lily’s tiny, rotten face. The last thing heard, its cooing. He reached into his back pocket and struggled for the matchbook. He raised his hands to the left, just over his shoulder, and swiped a skinny, paper match. Nothing. It was ending.
He tried again.
Nothing.
He was sinking.
He tried one more time and the match ignited. He knew he couldn’t risk dropping it, so he held the burning match into the plant as long as he could. Like when Pansy held the hot BIC for Doll’s leg. He held the match and felt the heat work down to his fingers. He felt the plants reach for the cut in his arm. Everything was connecting. Everything was wicked. He refused it all. And he refused to let go until the plant caught fire. Come on, come on, come on—holy shit it burns—come on!!
The bush went up in a blaze. The baby retreated and Doll hissed, and Marco fell from her grip. In moments, his vision returned and the fire spread to its neighbors. Smoke billowed high and pooled at the glass ceiling.
“You don’t think I’ve burned before?” Doll asked. Only it was Erether’s voice.
Marco didn’t answer. Instead, he scrambled forward and held Zaäper to his chest and he ran past squealing plants and breaking glass until he got back into the storage room.
“Marco!”
It was Sasha. She must’ve come to help.
“Go, go, go, get to the car!”
“She needs help!” Sasha said. She was trying to make sense of the Calvina-Chichi mess, but Marco didn’t let her. He grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her.
“We gotta get out of here, c’mon!”
They ran back through the trashed bungalow. The fire from the greenhouse spread and reached the storage room. He heard Calvina scream.
Outside, they ran down the steps to the car. The place was ablaze. The glass walls of the greenhouse started to crack and burst, and more oxygen swooped in and the fire raged harder. Green tendrils retreated and hissed. Smoke made a black slick up the night sky. Somewhere in there, a baby cried.