boisdemoon

HARLOWE

The last time I remember feeling paralysing fear, I was twelve years old. My parents were out on errands, and my brother and I were home alone. We’d just gotten in a huge fight about who got to pick the channel on TV so Jaden went up to his room to sulk. Without having to check, I knew from the utter quiet that he had headphones on, some movie soundtrack blaring in his ears while he sketched his weird character ideas.

I stayed downstairs in the living room trying to bask in the joy of my victory, but I barely glanced at the movie I’d so ardently fought to watch.

And then someone knocked at the door.

We had a strict No Stranger in the House policy, which my parents had enforced with a Watcher spell—an old plushy stuffed with black sand, wrapped in blood-died canvas, and sewn with purple wool thread—that they’d set on the windowsill looking toward the entrance, ensuring that no stranger could come in without first being allowed so by a member of our family.

But when I leaned over our Watcher to catch a peek of the blond, blue-eyed man on the porch knocking a second time, a wicked plan started forming in my mind. I could allow the stranger in and steal something of his, which would force Jaden out of his room so he could fix everything like always, and then we wouldn’t be fighting about TV anymore. Maybe we’d be fighting about my klepto tendencies, but at least the house wouldn’t be so quiet.

I opened the front door wide.

“Hello,” the man said with a growing smile. “Are your parents here?”

I shook my head, then pointed at the suitcase in his hand. “What’s in there?”

“I sell perfumes,” he explained. “Would you like to take a look? Maybe try on a few? You don’t have to buy anything of course. I would just leave my card for your parents.”

I hesitated. “But what are you good at?” I asked.

“Pardon?”

“What’s something you’re really good at? Something cool.”

He blinked, then scratched the stubble on his jaw. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“I’m pretty good at throwing knives. Never miss a target.”

I smiled. That was something I wanted to learn. “You can come in.”

He mirrored my smile and stepped into the house. I led him to the kitchen so he could prove his skills to me. I opened the drawer next to the fridge and offered him the smallest, pointiest knife.

He looked at it warily, then up at me, as if to make sure I was serious.

I pointed through the open double doors that led to the living room, at the picture frame above the TV, on which Hocus Pocus was still playing on mute, Max the virgin lighting the black candle. The scene made me smile every time I watched that movie.

“Throw it right above the nail that holds that frame on the wall,” I said.

He frowned. “As you wish.”

He grabbed the knife, but for a long moment he held my gaze and didn’t move. And that’s when I started to feel like the silliest person ever. I’d been so focused on getting my brother out of his room, I’d barely registered what I was getting myself into. I was even dumber than Max.

This guy’s gaze was creepy as hell, and I’d just told him my parents were gone and given him a knife.

Without looking away from me, he threw the knife and I couldn’t help the little gasp that escaped from my mouth when I heard the clean thump that indicated the blade had hit the wall in the other room.

Hands sweaty, I turned my gaze to see the knife was exactly where I’d challenged him to land it, denting the dark green paint of the living room.

And just like that, the thrill of a new acquisition was stronger than any reason. “Do it again,” I said, reaching for two more knives, keeping the bigger one and giving him the smallest. “This time, precisely ten centimeters above that one.”

“Precisely?” he said, voice so chilly I would’ve felt the need to run if I hadn’t been convinced I could learn to throw knives just as well in the following seconds.

I nodded, breath too jagged to trust my voice. I couldn’t let him know anxiety was presently doing rollercoasters in my stomach.

“What if I don’t want to throw it there?” he asked. “What if I want to throw it somewhere else?”

I raised my chin. “And where would that be?”

He took one step forward.

Nothing but the kitchen island separated us now. I held the knife tighter in my sweaty grip.

He observed the weapon in his own hands casually, touching the pointy tip with the pad of his little finger. “What if I want to aim at a moving target instead?”

“What?”

He released a little laugh. “No.” He put the knife on the island carefully, and I allowed myself a sigh of relief. But then he said, “I’d need a proper knife for that.”

He produced a long knife out of his pocket, the hilt and blade embedded with pale crystals that reflected the dim lights in the room.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice high and nervous, but I was past caring. My heart was thumping too loud, and I wanted this whole thing to never have happened.

“An old client of your father’s. He lied to me,” he said. “A big, ugly lie that ruined my whole life.”

He started walking around the island and I mirrored him, making sure the same distance always separated us.

“So I’m here to ruin his life,” the man said.

It was the first time I knew what real vulnerability felt like. It was a fear so overwhelming I was ready to do anything to get rid of it. But the first thing I did was scream. “JADEN!”

My brother didn’t hear.

I screamed again but he never came. And the man who’d been lied to threw the knife at me. This time all I could do was watch, observe, learn.

Even as the knife hit my arm.

Even as I bled, and cried, and hurt.

I still had one knife. And a good arm. And this time I knew.

I’d stolen.

I threw the knife with all my strength, flicking my wrist the way he’d done, twisting my shoulder, raising my elbow. I will always remember the way it sank into his throat. I’ll always close my eyes at night and glimpse the memory of this man’s troubled eyes as he fell, as he pulled the knife out of his own neck and crawled out of the house, leaving a glistening trail of red behind him.

It all happened so fast. And the whole time, all I could think was that it was my fault. That I’d trapped myself in this situation, that I should’ve let our Watcher keep the stranger out, that I could’ve just waited for my brother to come out of his room on his own and apologize to him like any normal person would.

I sat there on the cold tiles and stared at the blood, keeping my trembling hands on my knees. I don’t know how much time passed before my parents got back. I felt arms picking me up and taking me to my room. I smelled herbs and a potion and heard a few incantations. I felt nothing but paralyzing fear for two weeks straight.

And then I promised myself I would never feel that way ever again.

So now, as I enter the fortune teller’s tent, I rub the scar on my arm and try to keep that promise, even though I can smell something terribly wrong in the air. The scent of foreign magic.

The inside of the tent is stuffy. Cushions are spread all over the floor, there’s a big blue couch behind a vintage coffee table and too many candles everywhere. It’s overwhelming.

“Sit down,” the medium says, hair swaying like a curtain of gold on their chest as they gesture to the couch. They sit cross-legged on a cushion on the other side of the table, facing me.

The couch is so plush I seem to melt into the velvety fabric of it.

“So, how long have you been a fortune teller?” I ask, feeling the need to take control over the conversation before they do. “Is it really visions coming to you, or do you learn this with, like psychological studies and body language and stuff? How does it work exactly?”

A composed smile is my only answer. Their lips are vivid red and kind of deadly matched with those pointy teeth of theirs.

“What?” I ask innocently.

“You think I’m going to share all of my secrets? Just like that?”

I shrug. “No harm in asking.”

They grab the deck of tarot cards from the table and the crystal ball, then throw them in a corner of the tent where they land with a muted thump on a cushion. They pull a small wooden doll from a pocket of their robes and set it on the table. It’s a round, beautifully decorated Russian doll.

“What’s that for?” I ask.

“I saw you coming,” they say, opening the doll to reveal another, and then opening that one to take out a third, and finally a fourth. “I know what you are. What you want.”

I swallow, staring at their nimble hands as they perfectly align the dolls one next to the other.

I manage a shrug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They look up at me, smirking. “I might believe that … if you weren’t the daughter of one of the most talented liars on this miserable planet.”

The words echo the ones of my brother earlier with such perfection that a weight of discomfort settles in my gut. At the same time, a jolt of excitement makes me sit up straight. I could steal real powers tonight, not just more useless knowledge or party tricks.

“Then what am I?” I ask. “What do I want?”

“You’re a Blood witch. You want my Sight.” They lean over the table, blond hair brushing the dolls. “You’re not getting it, love.”

“Listen, I just came here because my brother made me.” I place the candle that’s almost burning the sleeve of my leather jacket a little further on the table. “Are you going to do the job he paid for or what?”

A quiet stare, then a nod. “Give me your hand.”

I stretch my arm slowly above the table. They grab my hand in a cold grip, staring at the lines of my palm for a moment. They trace every crease of it with a gentle finger.

“So?” I ask, biting my lip when I hear the genuine curiosity in my voice I was hoping to conceal. “What do you see?”

“Not what I expected.” Their nails dig into my palm.

I shriek from the sudden pain, tugging my hand back but they hold it firmly, squeezing it until a thick drop of blood slides down and into the belly of the smallest Russian dolls. They release my hand and I gasp.

“What was that about?” I ask, clutching my hand to my chest.

“I want something, too.” They close the little doll and put it inside a bigger one, eyes fogging grey like clouds preparing for a storm.

The tent seems to shrink, dark curtains closing around me. In the other doll, they pour a drop of molten wax before putting it inside the second biggest doll.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I blurt out as they spit into the doll and rapidly put it into the last doll. I jump off the couch, backing up toward the exit.

Their hands are so fast. They bite their index’s nail off and flick it inside the last doll before sealing it shut, making me nauseous. Then they finally look up at me.

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

“You want too much, Harlowe Wickens,” they say. “Someone needs to protect the Marshes from your greed.” They grab a little golden trunk under the table and gently put the set of dolls inside of it. “Before it’s too late.”

I look at the dolls snug against the velvety inside of the trunk. I want to ask more questions, but fear is disabling me. I feel like I’m twelve years old again. Jaden is mad at me, headphones on, set on pretending I don’t exist, too far to hear anyway. My parents are out having fun and unaware that I’m alone with someone who wants to harm me. And once again, it’s all my fault.

I need to get the hell out of here. Balling my fists, I leap toward the exit. But just as I touch the curtain we came through and try to push it aside, a ruthless force pushes me off the ground and I land on my back on the couch.

The fortune teller smiles calmly, pointing at a bloody-red plushy on a pile of boxes, staring at us with beady black eyes of stone. “I have a Watcher too,” they say. “But I keep mine looking in, to make sure nobody gets out of here without my say so.”

“What did you do?” I ask, staggering to sit up and brushing my black curls off my face.

They shut the little trunk with the dolls inside and something inside of me shatters. Visceral pain radiates through my body.

“JADEN!” I yell, panicked. “JADEN, GET ME OUT!”

“Sorry, Harlowe,” they say. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

“NORM! NORMA!”

I want to keep screaming but the pain becomes so vicious I double over, unable to breathe or make any sound.

The last thing I see is the fortune teller sealing the trunk with a chained lock. And as the last click resonates in my ears, darkness consumes me, washing away in one callous wave the echo of my voice screaming for Norma.

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