Authors: Jessica Penot
“What really happened?” he asked me, as he stared at the glowing red vortex of Cassandra.
“When?”
“What happened at C.R.C?” he asked. “Is what Pria told me true? Did you and Cassie summon the devil?”
“I don’t believe in the devil, but there was something there.”
“You know, one of my best friends killed his wife last night. I’ve known him for eight years and he never hurt anything in his life. He was a fuckin’ boy scout. C.R.C. has been burnt again. Every night I dream and now this storm is coming and I can’t help but feel like it should have another name. Is this what you did?”
“I don’t know. But if I were you, I would find Brooke. I would apologize to her for everything she thinks you did. I would remember how you once loved her. And then I would take her and get as far away from here as you can.”
“She won’t have me back.”
“She will. She’ll see the storm coming and she will remember that you have always been faithful. You were always the good one. You were always the strong one.”
“Brooke doesn’t see me that way.”
“She does. She’s just forgotten. She’s lost in sorrow. Comfort her.”
“She blames me for all the miscarriages. I wanted those babies too, ya know? I was never like you. I was never ambitious. I just wanted a job and a family and a nice house. I couldn’t give that to her. How can she forgive me?”
“It isn’t over yet. You’re young. How can you have babies if you don’t make love?
Jeremy nodded. “Despite everything. I still love her.”
“Tell her that.”
“What about you?”
“I have a date.”
Jeremy packed up all of his belongings the next day and disappeared. He went to find Brooke and start over. He left all the old scars and pain behind to be devoured by Cassandra, and went to find his love. People could be seen up and down the beach boarding up their homes and driving north. A mandatory evacuation was initiated. I could smell Circe’s breath on the breeze. The water became foul. The night before landfall, all manner of dead fish and sharks were swept up onto the darkening beach with the restless tide. Birds fell from the sky. The still warm corpses of pets left behind lay peacefully in empty yards.
I didn’t take much to the beach with me. I didn’t wear a coat. I just took a six pack and Pria’s picture. I found an old lawn chair and parked my carcass by a rotting shark. I buried my feet in the sand and watched the wind tear the beach apart. It was beautiful. The storm had just begun to lick the beach with its fantastic fury. It came with the rising sun, and at first it looked like fire, and then smoke. The waves slammed into the sand like death’s fingers, and the water crept higher and higher as the sky darkened. There was no rain, only wind, and the ever rising water. The wind bent the trees into unnatural positions, and pieces of foliage and bark swam through the air like water.
I sat, huddled under my blanket, on high ground, so I could watch death come for me in all her grace and beauty. I wasn’t afraid. The wind only fascinated me. It sung as it passed through the crevices of buildings and the cracks of trees. I expected to see Circe there. I expected the demon to come, riding the storm, to claim her prize. But only Cassandra came.
She was as beautiful as ever. Her hair shone in the wind. Her face was oddly perfect, despite the wind and rain. She wore heels in the sand. She smiled at me and sat down beside me.
“It’s done,” she said.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Will you come home with us?”
“You?”
I looked up and saw Jane and Roy behind her. They all seemed oddly unmoved by the hurricane. I nodded and time stood still. The wind stopped and I blinked. In a moment, we were back at Circe. The hospital was wrapped in fog. The peacock stood before her in all her glory. Circe looked as it always had looked. There was no evidence of any fire. It was as if nothing had ever happened. Cassie smiled as she unlocked the door to the chronic ward. I stepped in and looked around. There was a strange normalcy to the moment, like this was any other day.
Outside I could hear the wind. I had a faint awareness of some cataclysmic storm taking back what was always hers. I was aware of rain and water, but inside the chronic ward everything was quiet. Most of the staff was gone. The patients shuffled about their day like walking ghosts.
Roy smiled. He looked good in a clean pressed suit. “I was wrong,” he said. “It’s beautiful here. You never grow old and you never die. You can have whatever you want.”
We walked in. Dr. Yoshi greeted Roy like a peer and then he gave Cassie a twisted smile. “Congratulations on your new position as Clinical Director,” he said to her in his terrible accent.
“Thank you,” she answered. “You remember Dr. Black? He’ll be taking my place, and Roy will take Kate’s position.”
“Good. Good. More wood for the fire. More wood for the fire,” Dr. Yoshi grumbled as he scuttled away.
“Is this real?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jane answered. “This place is ours. It’s always been ours. We’re her children.”
“And keepers,” Roy said.
“You’ve done what had to be done,” Cassie said, almost sympathetically. “We all did. Will you join us now? Will you stay with us?”
“I don’t understand. You killed my wife, my children. You took everything!”
“You gave them to us.” The voice from behind me sent chills down my spine. I closed my eyes again, and we were beneath Circe. We were in the room beneath her, but the darkness was gone. Everything was illuminated. The air wavered with a strange glow. “They were our gift,” the voice said.
The room was different. The writing on the floor glowed. The circle was no longer drawn with blood, but light. At the edge of the circle the world seemed to end, and something else began, something beyond imagination.
“I would never do that,” I whispered. I could feel the tears beneath my eyelids. Of course I did that.
“You lay in our circle and with all your heart you gave them to us.” I turned and saw Circe, no longer hideous. No longer dripping with maggots and covered with blood. She had been wiped clean. She wasn’t human, but the fear was gone. Caal sat at her feet.
“You killed all those people,” I said softly, as I began to cry.
“We all did,” they all said. Jane, Cassie, Roy, and others. People I had never noticed. People who worked the halls of the chronic ward, and always had.
“Why?”
“There is a price. There is a price to keep the gateway open.”
“But you killed those people!”
Only Jane spoke. Her voice was soft and sweet. “Death is only another gateway. We helped them cross over.”
“Then why do you want to live forever?”
“We aren’t like them. Death won’t be soft for us.” Jane was so pretty, so young. She was a pretty monster wrapped in the trappings of flesh. “You know that our kind has always served different gods. Gods of flesh and power.”
“What did you give to be here?” I asked her.
“My children. I gave her my children.”
I reached out for her. I reached out for her soft arms and cool lips, and she embraced me. She pulled me to her. “We are gods here,” she whispered in my ear.
I looked back over my shoulder. I thought I could almost see the beach where I had once sat. I didn’t want to go back. I looked at Cassie’s uncannily beautiful face, and then I looked at Jane. Roy smiled.
“Yes,” I said. “I think I’ll stay.”
I stepped over into the circle. I understood that every death was worth it.
I never turned back.
AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Jessica Penot is a therapist and writer who lives in Alabama with her husband, children, and corgis.
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