Daikaijuzine

Where I’m from, West Virgina ways, everybody know Prissy’s a witch. I mean, she live in this little house outside of town, out on the mountain where it’s all dark and spooky, kinda like a shack but not fallin’ down, and she do things for people. Make them better, make them worse. Make them more, you know? Prissy’s not one of us, is what my momma always say when she tell me to stay away from Prissy. She got the bad as well as the good. That’s all true. People know, and they go see her anyway, quiet-like, ‘cause they know she can do what she say she can. They know she can.

She’ll do anything for money, say some people.

That ain’t so. I know that for certain sure.

#

So I’m seventeen and stupid. They’re mostly the same thing. There’s this boy, Jamie, and ain’t he the best thing you ever saw! Best guy around, I tell you, and if you see him, you know. Dark hair that I just wanna run my hands through, and big brown eyes you get lost in, and skin like chocolate. He’s real sweet. He nice to his momma and to little kids he know, and he’s real smart too. He read Shakespeare._ God, I have a big crush on him, and _he have a girlfriend. Lacey, is her name. I think she really love Jamie. He’s that kinda guy, you know? Lovable like that.

Anyway, I’m head over heels in love with him, well, have this crush, really. I follow him around, memorize his schedule, the works. It look real creepy, I guess, but I want this boy, and I want him bad. You know how it feel, when you can’t sleep ‘cause you dreaming, and you can’t eat ‘cause you hungry for somethin’ else? Well, I feel like that.

Then springtime, he and Lacey get all busy with college plans. I ain’t going to college. Didn’t go to high school. Don’t have the time. I’m gonna go and work for Daddy’s feed store, and maybe find me a man. Of course I want to marry Jamie, you know, my guy, but I’m pretty sure that ain’t gonna happen. He gonna marry Lacey and that’s the end of it.

#

Then I have a thought, and I think about Prissy. Remember I told you about Prissy. She’s smart as a whip, and really creepy sometimes the way she glare at you with those thick black eyebrows she got, and Momma always say stay away from Prissy; but I figure if I want Jamie, I need some help, and boy do I want Jamie. I think, I think Prissy, she could help me, so I go out by the long road, to her little house that’s kinda like a shack but ain’t, and I tell her about my troubles with Jamie, and I tell her, I want Lacey gone.

Prissy just look at me, all big and black and glarin’, and say, “Izzy, girl, you don’t know what you’re askin’ for.”

I say, “Course I do. I want her gone, Prissy. Not dead,” I add real quick. I don’t like Lacey, but I don’t hate her, and you never know what a witch gonna do, specially when it’s Prissy.

Prissy snort. “Least you know that much. Go home, girl. Go home and don’t bother me again.”

I go home, but I come back next day, and the next. Finally Prissy get so sick of me, she yell, “Fine, I’ll give you something, charm for love, clear the way. Maybe it works, maybe it don’t. But either way you don’t bother me again!”

I promise real good, and she give me a packet and tell me to stick it in my right sock. It smell something awful, but I trust Prissy. I think. Everybody else say she do what she say she will, anyway.

Next thing I know, Lacey start making noise about wanting “space.” She got a guy like Jamie, I think, and she want space? Girl’s crazy. Then I remember Prissy and Prissy’s charm, and I thank my lucky stars, ‘cause I got a golden opportunity. I swoop in, kiss his broken heart, make him feel all better and he look at me and fall in love, bam, happy ending.

Yeah, right.

Like I say, eighteen and stupid. I don’t know it don’t happen like that. He pretty much ignore me, and he tell me off when I really get on his nerves, following him around. I get stupid when that happen. Stupider. Tears and shit, you know? Like any boy’s worth that much trouble. Anyway, I go to my momma and ask her what’s wrong with me, that he don’t want me.

Momma give me her look, and say, “Izzy, ain’t nothing wrong with you. He’s a boy, he gonna want what he wants and you gonna want what you wants. If you happen to want each other, good, if not, life works out wrong. That’s the way it is.”

Not what I wanna hear.

So I go to Prissy again.

#

Prissy mad as hell at me for coming back. She say, “Girl, I do what you want and that ain’t enough, what the hell you think I gonna do this time?”

I tell her, “Jamie still don’t want me, Prissy. He gotta want me.”

Prissy look at me all sneering, and say, “Well, you shoulda asked for that the first time. I ain’t helping you again. Anyway, this kinda thing I can’t help with.”

I ask her why, and she say this: “I make him want you, he’s gonna want you, all right, but he’ll want you forever, you got that? He’s gonna want you all the time for always. That’s a wearing thing. Magic ain’t something to screw around with.”

I shake my head. “But that’s what I want. I want him to want me. Always.”

Prissy shake her head, hard. “Stupid girl,” she say. “You don’t understand. Just don’t go screwing around with shit you don’t understand. Maybe you get what you want someday, and maybe you don’t, but at least you live to get it.”

#

I go home, mad as hell and crying half the way, cause ain’t no way I’m getting Jamie now, and I gotta have him. You know? I gotta have him, I want him so bad. Then I think, I think Prissy ain’t made up this witch stuff. She gotta learn it somewhere, so maybe I learn it too.

Took me a long time to learn where Prissy get it. She don’t learn it from nobody, say some people, she learn it from books. I go to the library, I look around, they ain’t got much like what I want. But they got a love spell in there, and I think, hey! There’s a way. So I write it down.

Get some of my hair, pen and paper and stuff like it said, and graveyard dirt from my granny’s grave. I figure Granny was a good idea ‘cause she and Grandy had a good long life together. Died on the same day, even. I think it’s real romantic, so I grab some dirt from her grave.

Then’s the hard part, and that’s getting me some of Jamie’s hair. Like I said, he tell me off for following him around, so I figure I gotta be sneaky about it. ‘Course, being sneaky don’t come easy to me. I try just going up to him, you know, being upfront about it, but he start running away every time he saw me.

I try sneakin’ in to school and checkin’ his locker, even, but it don’t have what I need. Then I kinda get lucky. Only kinda, ‘cause I’m still following him around, just farther away, you know. I’m in Daddy’s store, hanging out ‘cause he always go that way, and I see him go into the barber. So I run aross the street and make sure I see which chair he’s in, then when he left I tell the barber I’ll sweep up for a buck. Barber makes fifteen dollars an hour, so he don’t care none if I do some of his work for him for a dollar. So that’s how I get my hair, and a buck for a candle besides.

I need a red candle, and the only ones we have at home are birthday candles. I don’t want to use none of them, ‘cause Momma know where they all are, and anyway it don’t seem right.

Anyway, so I get the stuff I need and get all set up. Spell has some kind of chant I’m supposed to do. Really it’s the graveyard dirt that scare me most. I hope Granny don’t mind.

I put it all together in the packet like it say, dirt and his hair and mine and everything, and write Jamie’s name on it and “Love Me Or Die” like it say. I don’t like the bit about dying, but the spell say he don’t die, he just fall in love with me like he supposed to. I save two hairs out and burn them in the candle, and they make a godawful stink, I tell you. Good thing Momma and Daddy workin’ that night, or I get caught for sure.

#

It work real good at first. Next time I see Jamie, he get this look on his face like someone just smack him a brick in the back of the head, and run right over and start fawning all over me. Feels real nice after years of ignoring and yelling. Soon we going steady. Lacey is pissed, that’s right sure, but she don’t know yet what’s really going on. Neither do I, really. All I know was I had what I’m supposed to have.

End of that year, right before he go off to college, Jamie ask me to marry him, and I say yes right quick. All I ever wanted is to get married to a nice man and live comfortable and happy, you know? Like most people don’t. Jamie is a nice guy, and I love him.

He come back from college at Thanksgiving and told me he ain’t gonna go back, ‘cause he miss me too much. I fell good then, too. Jamie is what I want and I got what I want.

We get married that Christmas. It’s all good at first, you know, ‘cept for that one thing right after we get married. I’m walking home from Daddy’s store, all happy, glowy, like a new bride supposed to be, when Prissy steps out right in front of me.

I stop. I don’t know why, but I feel like I done something wrong and she gonna whup me good.

But she don’t, she just look at me like she feel sorry for me, like I got six months to live or something. “Girl,” she say, “you got no idea how much trouble you’re in.”

I lift my chin. “I ain’t in trouble,” I say. “I’m married. I’m happy.”

“Not for long,” Prissy say.

I narrow my eyes. “That a curse, Prissy? You putting a curse on me?

She sigh, shake her head, like she’s talking to a boy dropped on his head. “No, Izzy. Wouldn’t bother. You gone and put the curse on yourself.” Then she turn and walk away, like a big crow.

I’m a little spooked there for a while, but after a bit I get over it. Prissy just jealous ‘cause I done what she can’t.

#

So Jamie go and got a job at the steel mill, and I work at Daddy’s store ‘til I get too big to work. See, I get pregnant right away. I mean, what do you expect, when I do a spell to make him love me and want me all the time? I forgot about that bit. Not that I mind a whole lot. You know. I’m eighteen.

Anyway, that one’s a girl, and we name her Lea. Or really, I name her Lea. Jamie don’t care about her from the start. He only care about me. I start to get worried.

I start taking’ pills after I have Lea, and she don’t get her little sister Paula until she’s four. But then something screw up and I have Sam right after Paula, and the doctor say I shouldn’t…you know…for at least three months, to get better, cause Sam do something bad to me when I have him.

Jamie start getting weird, then. He always a little antsy when I’m too big to you know. But now I can’t do it so I can get better, he get huffy. Lea tell me a little bit into it that she scared of Daddy, and that scare me, so I yell at Jamie about it. He very sorry, you know, and even get down on one knee and apologize to Lea. First time he pay any attention to any of the kids, and I feel like maybe he’ll stop being weird and it’ll all be better, but then he look up at me and he have this fire in his eyes, and suddenly I’m scared again.

And then I meet Aaron.

#

I meet him at work. Lea’s sick, has a fever, and I bring her to work with me and bed her down in the corner of the store on the feed mats so I can keep an eye on her. Daddy let me do it because she’s his grandbaby. Paula and Sam, who’re about two and one right then, are playing in the back office. Anyway, I’m on the register and I hear Lea crying, but I can’t get off the register right away, and about five minutes later she stops crying. I freak out, of course, and get quick off register soon’s I can. I’m scared she gone and died or something.

Nope. I get back there, there’s this guy sitting next to her and telling her a story, holding her hand. He don’t look scary or nothin’, just nice, so I don’t say nothin’Lea’s looking up at him with her big baby eyes, fascinated. I come up, and she don’t even notice me, she’s that into the story. Anyway, he finish telling her the story, and she go to sleep right away, like magic. He look up at me, and he smile, and he say, “This one yours?”

I nod. Don’t seem like I need to do anything else. After all, I don’t know who he is or what he’s doing with my baby.

“She’s a sweetheart. You got any others?”

I nod again, and say, “Two. Paula and Sam. Thank you, mister. Lea been real sick, and her daddy hasn’t got time at home…”

“Oh, you’re married?” I could take offense at that. I almost do, ‘cept I know too many girls my age with three kids who ain’t.

“Yeah.” I hold my hand out. “Isadora Burrows.” Burrows is Jamie’s last name. I want to keep my old name ‘cause it sound good with Izzy, but he don’t let me. He say a wife got to be her man’s.

“Aaron Finley.” He take my hand, but don’t shake it like I thought he was gonna. Instead he kiss it, and I get weird little chills all up and down my spine. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Oh, gosh, don’t call me ma’am. I’m only twenty-four.” And I am. I have Lea when I’m eighteen.

Aaron smile. He’s charming, that’s for damn sure. “It’s just a term of respect, ma’am.”

I can’t think of anything else to say to him, so I just start asking stupid questions. “You’re good with her,” I said. “You got kids?”

He stroke a hand over Lea’s forehead. “No, but I have a niece who lives with me. Her family…her family has some problems, so Ginny came and moved in with me.” He smile up at me again, like he can’t quit. “I keep her safe, like. This looks like a nice town. Small and friendly, you know. You happen to know of any places in this area for us to live?”

#

Of course Lea talk about him pretty much forever when we get home, and of course Jamie hear her. This time he wait ‘til I get the kids to bed before he ‘talk’ to me about it.

“Who’s this Aaron?” he demand.

I try to explain. I say he somebody Lea met at the store, which happen to be true. He get mad at me, tell me no little girl go on like that about some guy she just met. I almost snap at him, how would he know? He never around Lea anyway. But I don’t. I still love Jamie, even if I ain’t sure I done right by him. And anyway, I make a promise when we get married. I promise him to stay with him, and I’m gonna do that.

Probably don’t matter anyway. Jamie tell me he don’t want me working at the store any more.

I gape at him. “What you talking about? We need the money!”

“No, we don’t,” he say. “We get along just fine without it. You stay at home now.”

I figure maybe he’s right. No use making him mad, anyway.

Not that it makes a lick of difference. I keep running into Aaron at the grocery, when I take the kids to the movies, anywhere I go in town I see him. Sometimes I see his little niece, too. She about Lea’s age, and just the cutest little thing you ever saw. She and Lea get to be pretty good friends, so I see Aaron even more often when they play. And I see, he a pretty nice man. He always smile when he see me, and he talk to me like I ain’t stupid, like I’m more than a pair of breasts and legs and what goes in between. Like I’m good at more than you-know. And before I know it, I’m in love with him. Really love, not like what I had for Jamie. Something real.

Now, Lea learn her lesson the first time she talk about Aaron at home. She know Daddy get real mad when she do that, so she don’t talk about him anymore. But Paula and Sam don’t know any better. They too young when I first meet him. So when Paula start talking, one of the first things she say is “When’s Aaron coming over?”

Jamie locks the kids in their room and yanks me out into the kitchen.

“What the hell did I tell you?” he yells at me. “I told you not to go to work any more!”

“I ain’t been working!” I yell right back. “I gotta go shopping and all! ‘Sides, Lea is friends with his little girl. Ain’t like I can avoid him.”

Jamie starts coming forward, getting closer and closer to me and clenching and unclenching his fists. “Well, you better start,” he snaps. “I don’t want you around him, Izzy.”

“But Lea…” I back up.

“I’ll quit my job, Izzy,” he growls. “I’ll quit and I’ll stay home and watch you all the time, you want that? You want us to have no money?”

Sweet Jesus, I think. “N-no…”

“Then stay the fuck away from him!” Jamie slams a chair into the ground. Next thing I know he’s right next to me, putting his arms around me.

“Don’t you understand, Izzy?” His voice drops, much softer, much sweeter. “I love you, sweetheart. I want you so much. I don’t want anything more than you, and I don’t want anything to wreck this. Can’t you understand that?”

Can’t I.

You know, I still think that maybe if I’d had enough smarts to leave it alone, we would’ve been okay. Aaron would’ve left town eventually, and we’d have been okay. I wouldn’t have been as happy as I was at first, but we would’ve been okay.

But I don’t have the smarts. If I had the smarts I wouldn’t have cast the spell in the first place, ‘cause that’s what magic does. That’s what witches do. They change things.

#

I go back to Prissy’s that night. I run to her, through the dark, up the road, up the mountain and into the woods, and I bang on her door for hours, but nobody answer. There ain’t no cat or anything sitting on the door looking at me, but I feel like there should be. I bang my fists bloody, and nobody answer.

I remember the first time I talk to Prissy; I remember she answer if I come back enough. So every day when Lea go to school, I take Paula and Sam to Momma and I go see Prissy. And every day she don’t answer, until finally one day she do.

She standing on the porch when I come up, staring at the mountain with her face sad like a big black thundercloud, like she know something awful about to happen. I shout her name, and she turn around, and start to go back into the house when she see me.

I run up and stick my foot in the door. She ain’t getting away now.

“Listen to me!” I yell through the door. “I need your help! You gotta help me!”

Prissy just shake her head. “I can’t help you, girl. You gone and got yourself in this, you gotta go and get yourself out.”

“What about my babies?” I demand. “You gotta help me for my babies!”

“I’m sorry for them, but I can’t help them none either. Girl, you mess with magic, this what happens. Can’t change that. That’s it.”

“Prissy!” I shout, but I hear footsteps moving away from the door. ”Prissy!” I yank the door open, but she ain’t nowhere to be found. And no matter how many times I go back, she ain’t there.

#

I run into Aaron again at school after I walk Lea there. I can’t talk to him, of course, so I pretend I don’t see him, or hear him. I sneak a look at him, of course, and he look so sad and hurt, and I’m hurting too, but I have to, you know? For my babies, if not for me.

‘Course, he more persistent than I think he‘d be, ‘cause five minutes after I get home, he knocks on the front door.

We have a long talk, and I ain’t gonna tell you about what, ’cause it ain’t none of your business. Maybe we do some stuff we shouldn’t have. It don’t matter. It’s still one of the best afternoons I’ve ever had, and I’m happy.

He leave before Jamie gets home. I don’t tell him about the spell. I make out like Jamie just jealous.

#

Jamie come in the door, and he moving all stiff and careful-like, like he does when he really mad or really drunk. It could be either this time, so I hustle the kids out into their room and tell them to keep quiet and if things start gettin’ noisy, to lock the door and push something heavy up against it. I put Lea in charge of it. She’s smart, Lea, even if she only a baby.

When I get back out, Jamie’s still standing at the table, leaning on his fists. “What I tell you about that guy?” he ask, his voice all soft. Like a snake.

“You told me to stay away from him,” I say. “I did.”

“Then why was he here today?”

“He followed me home, okay, Jamie?” I’m gettin’ kinda pissed now. “I can’t tell him what to do, no more can you.”

“And why he follow you home?” His voice is still snake-soft. I gulp.

“How should I know? You don’t trust me none.”

Jamie don’t once look at me during this whole talk, but now he moving, a little bit. Takes me a minute to figure out he’s rocking back and forth on his fists. “Don’t know, Izzy. Don’t think I can trust you.”

Now I’m startin’ to get really scared. “Jamie? What…”

“I work hard,” he say. “I work hard, to feed you, to clothe you, to do everything for you that I can, I love you, Izzy!” He whirl around and grab my shoulders, shaking me. “I love you more than anyone else on this earth! Why don’t you love me?”

Startin’, hell. I’m near fallin’ over by then. “Jamie, of course I love you…”

“No,” he say, and slap me. “No, you don’t.”

I stare at him, just stare. He never hit me before, see. Never. “Jamie…”

“SHUT UP!” he scream, and hit me again, then back me up and slams me against the wall. “Why don’t you love me, you stupid bitch? Why don’t you love me?”

He kiss me, hard and brutal. I try to bite him and he hits me again. By then I’m gettin’ dizzy, so much that I kinda forget most of what came next. And what I remember, you don’t want to know.

It end up with him dumping me in our bathroom and locking the door behind him. I don’t know where he went. He gone long enough that the kids feel okay coming out, because the next thing that happens is Lea scratching on the door, whispering, “Mommy? Mommy?”

“Baby?” I crawl over to the door. Jamie hit me around some more after, and I’m havin’ trouble standin’ up. Trouble even seein’ sometimes, ‘cause I got some kinda cut above my eye and it’s bleedin’ like a sonuvabitch. I remember thinkin’ it’s a good thing Lea can’t see me, ‘cause she woulda freaked. She only six, after all. “It’s me.”

“Mommy!” Lea sound like she about to cry. “Mommy, I’m scared.”

“It’s okay, baby, he ain’t gonna hurt you.” I wipe some more blood out of my eyes and think. “Hey, baby, you know where Ginny live, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Listen, you get too scared, you take Paula and Sam and you go over there, okay? Tell Aaron Mommy said and he’ll make sure you’re okay, baby.” I know he would. I don’t know how, but I know he would.

“Uh-huh.” Lea’s voice gets very small. “Mommy… you okay?”

“I’m okay, baby,” I lie. “Mommy’s gonna be okay. Go on, now.” Lea leave.

Next person who come in is Jamie, and he let me out long enough to get something to eat. I guess Lea got scared, cause my babies aren’t anywhere around. I hope she okay, then worry about getting myself out of this.

Jamie leans over me. “See?” he say, and his voice scare me bad. Sweet and deep, but that snake-soft tone just underneath it. Poisoned honey. “All better, just you and me again, Izzy. Just you and me.”

“Yeah,” I say, trying to keep the scared out. As long as he think I agree, I got a better chance of not gettin’ hit. “Much better.”

“Stupid kids,” he say, sweet and simple. “Better that they gone, now.”

And then I realize.

My babies ain’t gone to Aaron’s.

I can’t speak, can’t move; it feel like everything in me gone and froze up. Jamie stroke my hair, and murmured, “Much better.” Then he grab me and take me back in the bedroom, and that is that.

The next couple days, all I can do is lay there. Jamie never leave, and when he do, he leave me locked in the bathroom. I hear people knockin’ sometimes, but all he say is, “The kids’re sick,” or “Izzy’s out right now.” Nobody ever come lookin’. So much for friendly small town. ‘Course, not like they could come lookin’. Jamie keep the shades down over the windows all the time, and there ain’t any in the bathroom anyway.

I never do find out what he done to my babies. Nobody ever go looking for them, neither. Nobody care enough to notice. My babies died, and ain’t nobody to mourn them but me, and it’s all my fault.

#

I wait now. Jamie gone out. Not sure why. He leave me out, I guess cause I never try to run. It don’t seem to matter, now. My babies are dead, and I killed them.

He leave me out a couple times, now. This is just the first time I do something.

I burn the little packet the spell told me to make, in the sink. The one that start this whole mess. I burn it all. Everything he ever give me, I burn it down. Maybe now the spell’s gone. I don’t know. It don’t matter. Prissy warn me, and now my babies are dead.

The fire start to climb up out of the sink now, up the wall. Either Jamie get back before it burns down or he don’t. I watch the fire, and I wait.

I ain’t movin’. Not anymore.