Sacrifice (12 page)

Malachai?
she asked.

Pull yourself together, child. Or all that you fear most will come to pass.

She said nothing.

Tomorrow you will need all of your strength,
he said.
Rest now. As best you can.

The night passed slowly, but Alex tried to sleep. Pins and needles came and went in her arms, which shifted from numb to hot pain and back to numb without warning or provocation.

In the morning, as the sun warmed the far side of the room with lemony rays, Alex lost her temper again and began to scream. She’d been awake for at least an hour, moving from one foot to the other, trying to take some of the pressure off her arms, but no matter how she stood—or let herself hang from the chains—she was in awful discomfort. Finally, she just let her anger go in a long, ululating screech that echoed throughout the cellar. She knew they heard her upstairs.

“Let me out of here,” she yelled through the ceiling. “Let me down.”

She yelled the same thing, over and over and over again, to no avail. Her arms were on fire, and her cheeks felt crusty with tears. Her back burned with every twist and movement.

“God damn it, let me go, you fuckin’ bastard,” she screamed.

That did it. There was a thump upstairs and quick stomp of footsteps. The cellar door opened, and the faint light in the basement grew brighter as the wooden stairs creaked and her father appeared at the base of the stairs.

“Don’t you ever take the name of the Lord in vain in this house again,” he bellowed. “It’s bad enough that you use your mouth to speak other filth, but you will not swear by the Lord’s name.”

“Then let me go,” she said.

“You will stay there for as long as necessary,” he said. “You will stay there until you are cleansed. You will stay there until I can be proud to call you my daughter again.”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” she promised, “but let me down. I can’t feel my arms.”

“The kind of change I’m talking about cannot happen overnight,” he said. “You’re going to have to do your penance here for some time.”

“What about school?” she asked, panic rising in her chest. He actually intended to keep her chained up for days!

“Your mother will say you are sick. And she will not be lying. You are sick in the soul, Alexandra.”

“God damn you,” she spit. “You are the sick one.”

“I warned you,” he said and began to walk towards her.

“God damn you, goddamn you, goddamn you,” she said. “You’re the bastard who’s going to burn in hell.”

He ripped the potato sack from her body, opening the scabs that had set around its fibers the night before, and Alex shrieked, pulling away from him only to lose her balance and find herself hanging from her wrists for a moment. And then the whip cracked and snapped, and all of her old sores were new again.

“God Damn You!” she screamed, and the room was suddenly full of people. Ghostly, silvery people staring and pointing at her. They were faint at first, but grew more and more solid as Alex hurled curses at her father, who continued to whip her until her back became a bloody mess.

Gertrude broke through the crowd and stood before her, a finger over her lips.

Child, they are coming because of you. Think about what you are doing now. Think hard. Is this what you want?

“No!” Alex screamed, and then released her anger entirely. It flew from her like a bird, and all she was left with was pain and exhaustion. Her bladder cried out its discomfort and she released it again, this time not even caring that it wet her legs and feet. She hung her head and cried. Twice more the whip kissed her skin. At last, her father quit raising the leather strip aloft, and walked back to the stairs.

“This hurts me to do this,” he announced. “But you’ll thank me someday.”

The stairs creaked as his weight ascended, and Alex stared down at the pool of urine on the floor.

“I’ll kill you someday,” she whispered.

Hours later, it seemed, her mother came down to offer bread and water. She hesitated when she reached the bottom of the stairs, and saw Alex.

“What’s the matter, Mom?” Alex sneered, watching her mother’s slow progress across the cellar. “Not used to seeing your daughter naked and bloody and hanging from the ceiling? Dad loves me this way.”

“Stop it,” her mother said in a low voice. “Your father is doing what he has to do. He hates it as much as I do.”

“I don’t think so, Momma. The Lord never said anything in the Bible about stripping your daughter naked. And I don’t recall anything in there about whips and chains either.”

“Shut your mouth if you want anything to eat today,” her mother hissed.

“It will be hard to eat with my mouth shut,” Alex laughed. Her brain was reeling now, reveling in the edge. Her body keened with pain but somehow she felt freed.

Her mother set the bread and water down on the floor a few feet away from Alex and then stood up.

“If you continue to speak like that about your father, I will not feed you.”

With that, Alex’s mother turned and walked back up the stairs, as fast as she could go. As the door closed upstairs, and the light from the kitchen faded, so did Alex’s bravado. Her stomach rumbled, and the pins and needles in her arms came back. She let out one loud cry, and then hung her head, the tears falling like rain to dot the top of her breasts. The salty water pooled at the ends of her nipples ‘til she dripped like a statuary fountain from tit to floor.

The hours passed and her hunger grew. She tried to take her mind off of it by connecting the black pits in the concrete wall before her in an intricate game of connect the dots. She crafted detailed mental pictures of her father being flogged and her mother fucked by a horde of giant demons—
irony,
she thought—but tired of the game quickly, as her stomach began a continuous loud churning.

Malachai,
she called finally.

He answered almost instantly.

Yes, child.

I need help.

You need only ask,
he said.

I’m starving,
she said.
I’ll die here if they keep this up.

Eventually, yes,
he agreed.
But you are in no danger now.

She stared at the bread on the floor, tantalizingly close, but out of reach.
Can you lift the bread for me?

Call for your friends,
Malachai advised.
Working together, they might manage it.

She thought a moment. Since the exorcism, she had not spoken with many of the dead on a regular basis. It was as if they knew being near her could cause them harm. Banishment. But there were a few. She pictured them in her mind. Matthew, the Puerto Rican punk teen from Brooklyn; Candace, the mousy housewife from Denver; Rick, the tall, thin accountant from Milwaukee; and of course Gertrude. She called them all by name, and begged for their help.

One by one, they popped into being beside her, each of them (except Gertrude), opening their mouths in horror when they saw her state.

Please, can you help me?
she asked.
Just lift the bread over there for me. If you all work together…?

Gertrude smiled at her thinly, but said nothing.

Matthew raised an eyebrow though, and complained.
You think we don’t got our own problems, we gotta come serve you breakfast?

“Please,” she whispered.

Rick cuffed the ghostly punk and the four ghosts all reached down to the hunk of bread. Where their hands all met and merged beneath it, the air glowed white-blue; the communal hand looked almost solid and opaque as they pushed the bread up into the air, and brought it to Alex’s lips. She bit into it and chewed greedily, her taste buds singing in ecstasy at the simple yeasty flavor. Her cheeks tingled as she chewed, and the ghosts held the piece for her until it was gone.

Then Gertrude led them back and they brought her the glass of water, tilting it so that she could drink. She downed the contents in four gulps.

“Thank you so much,” she whispered.

Gertrude put a finger in front of her lips and pointed to her head.

Thank you,
Alex said again, through her mind only.

Don’t get used to it,
Matthew warned, following the chains up from her wrists to the ceiling beams with his ethereal eyes.
You better get yourself out of this soon.
With that observance, he winked out of sight.

Candace leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek and disappeared as well. And then Rick put his hands on her face, and kissed her forehead.
Be strong,
he said, and faded.

Only Gertrude remained.

You did what you had to do,
the old woman said.
But be careful. Once you begin calling on the dead, it is only a matter of time.

What’s only a matter of time?
Alex asked.

The old woman was already fading, but her voice trailed behind her.
With power comes responsibility,
she said.

Her mother screamed when she saw the empty glass, and missing bread. She backed away from Alex, tripping and falling backwards over an old paint can in her retreat. She caught the railing to the stairs with her right arm and pulled herself back up, raising a finger at Alex, who only stared silently at her mother’s flight.

“You
are
a witch,” her mother proclaimed. “Your father has been right all this time. I hoped, I prayed you would grow out of all this but…Oh Lord have mercy,” her mother cried and ran up the stairs, slamming the kitchen door behind her.

Alex laughed. How the hell had she been born to this insane couple of losers? She used to respect her parents, as a child, but the older she’d gotten, and the more she’d seen how other parents were with their kids—the few friends Alex had managed to meet and hang out with on occasion—the more she’d realized how freaky her own parents were. Other parents didn’t force their kids to kneel with them in front of a back bedroom shrine every night to recite a litany of prayers. Other parents actually allowed their kids to date when they were 16 or 17. And other parents, she was quite sure, didn’t chain their children up in the basement and whip them like it was the Middle Ages.

Her father came in from the fields, and even before he changed and washed up, he came downstairs.

“Your mother tells me you’ve shown your true colors,” he said. “I was hoping that this would go easier, that you’d repent and realize the error of your ways. I was hoping you could deny the witchery in your blood. But apparently evil is steeped in you. I had hoped to spare you the fire, but you have had your chance. The Lord demands that we be stern and follow the law. And the law says that we shall not tolerate witches among us. I hope that you enjoyed that crust of bread. It will be your last.”

With that, he turned away, but Alex called him.

“Dad, this is ridiculous. Let me down from here. This is not the 1500s, people don’t act like this anymore. I can see ghosts, that’s all. I’m not a witch. There’s no such thing.”

“This is not the 1500s,” he agreed, “but God and the devil are eternal. And a witch by any other name is still a whore of the devil. You must burn, my child. And maybe the fire will cleanse your soul so that you may still know heaven. I will give you the night to make your amends.”

His feet were heavy on the stairs. When she heard the door upstairs close, Alex started to laugh. She couldn’t control herself. The situation was absolutely ludicrous. She hadn’t been in school for the past two days because her father had chained her up in the basement and whipped her until the blood dripped on the floor tiles. And now, he was apparently going to burn her in their backyard at the stake.

Alex’s laughter turned to tears, until her chest was heaving in desperate need of air.

Malachai,
she said.
Malachai, he’s going to kill me.

The spirit’s voice spoke in her mind almost instantly.

He’ll only do what you let him do, child.

What can I do about it?
she asked.
I’m chained to the ceiling.

Did you let your mother starve you?
Malachai responded.

That was different,
she insisted.

Was it? Listen to me, child. Your father was right about one thing. You are a witch.

“I’m not,” Alex said out loud.

What do you think a witch is?
the spirit asked.
A witch is just a woman who can speak to the dead, and sometimes, convince them to help her in a task. When you called upon the spirits of the dead to help you today, to bring you food, you acted a witch. Don’t fall into the same trap as your father. Witches are not inherently evil. They are just different than the average plow pusher or shopkeep. They have a power, vision. How they use it is the question. But the power isn’t evil, any more than holding a gun is evil. The gun can be used to kill innocents or murderers. How will you use your power, Alex?

I don’t have any power.

That’s where you’re wrong. And you’ve only got a few hours to realize it.

In the morning, Alex listened as the floorboards creaked overhead. Her throat was dry with thirst, and her stomach burning with emptiness. Her entire body was burning for one reason or another. Her back itched and cracked with painful scabs, her arms were deathly pale from lack of blood, and her legs ached from standing for three straight days. Upstairs, her parents moved about from room to room, and she heard the outside door open and close several times.

Finally, the kitchen door opened, and the stairs creaked under her father’s step, slow and deliberate. Behind him, the quieter creaks of her mother followed.

“It’s time,” he announced, when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

Alex said nothing, only stared hard with bloodshot eyes at the two of them, her father in his stained overalls and wild gray hair, and her mother, wearing a flowery house dress that would have been old-fashioned 30 years ago.

Her father walked to her, and reached up to unlock her left cuff with a small silver key. “Hold her arm,” he told his wife, and Alex’s mother grabbed her forearm with a pinching grip. When he set the first arm loose, it drooped against her mother’s body, and when he released her other wrist, he let the arm fall to her side. Released from the support of the chains, Alex felt her legs begin to wobble, but just as she began to sag and fall against her mother, he put a solid arm around her back and held her upright, pressing the scabs of her back painfully against his chest.