A Flicker to a Flame (Mosley Coven)

Three

THREE

XAVIER

To find your way home

“L emme get another.”

I push my empty glass toward the bartender and lift my eyes, but not to his face. I look somewhere over his shoulder, at the half-empty dusty bottles filled with cloudy liquor that tastes about as good as it looks. Maybe worse. The bartender lifts his eyebrows and frowns down at me. It doesn’t matter. I reach into my pocket and slap another ten-dollar bill onto the bar, sliding it away from my chest. “Make it a double this time.”

He rolls his eyes but snatches the bill from the pocked wood surface. I watch from the corner of my eye as he grabs the same bottle of probably vodka I’ve been sipping from all night, lifts it high above my glass. I turn my head to watch the long, clear arc of liquor refilling my cup. It’s still splashing against the glass when I grasp it, lifting it to my mouth like a starving man. It tastes like rotgut and burns a path down my throat before the fire spreads across my chest. I’m not a vodka connoisseur and I usually have better standards than this, but today has been hands down one of the worst days of my life and all I want is oblivion.

I don’t want to think. I don’t want to feel. I sip that swill and hope it’ll transport me somewhere beyond numb. I’m halfway there. Every ounce of rotgut I choke down feeds the smoldering despair steadily building in my chest — a feeling I have no outlet for. I’ve been sitting on this barstool for what feels like days drinking, trying not to burst into tears.

What good would that do?

“You alright?” the bartender asks in a calm voice. I can tell he doesn’t want to talk to me and I don’t blame him. I’m guessing it’s just a tactic to get the sad barflies chatting so they stay a bit longer and order one more drink. And then another. And then another. And I don’t blame him for that either. I’ll say and do anything to keep my bills paid and a roof over my head. I know better than most the kind of decisions I’d make not to end up on the streets again. And even though it’s shameful, I know the sad relief you can feel when watching someone fall because there but for the grace of God go I.

But now, it is me. I wash sour bile down with cheap liquor.

“I’m fine,” I tell him, absolving him of all responsibility for me and the tumult of my emotions. With my eyes still closed, I note his relieved sigh and the clinking of glass as he sets the bottle back in the liquor rack and walks away. I’m not his problem now that my glass is full.

If you’d told me five months or five years ago that I’d be sitting in god-knows-where, chasing sorrow with cheap liquor as my world fell apart, I wouldn’t have believed you. All I’ve ever wanted in life was not to be like my father.

But here I am.

* * *

CATO

“W e need to be back before sunrise,” Fredi warns us, bumping into me with every other step.

“How many times you gon’ say that?” I ask, gently pushing her away with one arm. Again.

She squints in annoyance. “As many times as it takes for it to stick in the cotton wool you call a brain.”

I lift an eyebrow at the thick cloud of jet-black hair framing her face. The humidity has turned it soft. The walk here was all it took for the curls to gently unravel as every strand stretched toward the Moon. “Now, Fredi…”

She opens her mouth, but Billie steps between us. “Y’all wanna spend our first night out fightin’ or do you want to have some fun?”

A foolish question. My sister and I put aside our fight — for the time being, at least — and turn toward the building in front of us, staring at it in wonder.

Once we stepped into the outside world, we found ourselves on a path in a near-identical woods to the ones we left. Without any idea of where we were or where we were going, we followed that packed dirt path until it met a paved road. Left and right looked the same to us, but Fredi heard faint music drifting on the night’s air and we followed that sound southeast. We walked for what felt like just a few steps but was surely miles more. The paved road was bracketed by tall, dense trees on either side, thick and impenetrable until a gnarled arch appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I wanted to keep walking, but Fredi’s ear led us onto another dirt path. We’d only just walked under that arch before the trees closed behind us. Not an uncommon occurrence in Mossville, but we weren’t in Mossville anymore.

We walked for more miles until a large, lopsided wooden building appeared, set deep into the woods in a clearing that seemed ancient but also new. The building, however, had seen better days. This wasn’t what I’d imagined we’d find in all the weeks of planning for this night. Light shines through some of the wooden slats, and even in the darkness, the pitched roof looks like one strong storm away from caving in. This place looks like it’s been here for a hundred years but also like it’ll be here for a hundred more.

“Should we go in?” Fredi asks in a small, shaky voice.

“You’re full of questions tonight,” I say.

“I’m full of questions all the time,” she whispers.

I turn toward my baby sister and peer at her shadowed face for a few seconds before Billie, once again, pulls my attention away.

“We should go in, but be careful.”

Fredi and I both laugh. “Since when are you the voice of reason?”

“Since mama would kill me if anything happened to either one of you,” Billie laughs before her voice turns serious. “Now listen.”

Secrets shared under a Full Moon

Mine to hold.

Give us a night we won’t forget

Until we’re brittle bone.

“Crude,” I mumble under my breath. It’s not the spell I would have come up with, but what Billie lacks in lyrical elegance, she makes up in sheer power. When I turn back to the building, I see it anew. It’s still big and rickety, but brighter somehow, as if my sister’s power has reoriented the Moon to shine directly on us. The woods are bright enough now for me to see the old sign hanging over the front door.

“The Witch’s Snatch,” I read from the painted wood sign. It’s crooked, but since the building is also crooked, from the right angle it seems straight, I think.

“A bit crass,” Fredi says.

“A bit?” Billie chuckles.

“Maybe crass is the goal,” I offer.

Fredi snorts out a laugh. “Aunt Ernestine’s gotta be rolling in her grave just knowin’ we’re here.” Her words give this moment a bit more gravity. We stare up at the vulgar sign in reverent silence.

“Then we gotta live it up so Aunt Ernestine has something to really roll over about,” I say, taking the first step forward. “We gotta make this a night to remember.”

“Yes, sir,” Billie laughs.

“‘Cause it’s our only one,” Fredi agrees. Her words open a pit in my stomach.