XIII

October 31st, 2005 - 

“Endings, change, transformation, transition.” Hannah presented the card, an armored man with his face hidden, on a horse, surrounded by people begging. That was accurate, at least. People begged for change, that doesn’t mean that they got it. 

“This is such horseshit,” is what Amelia said, “Total fucking horseshit. It’s a piece of fucking cardboard! What grand revelations am I going to be taught because of a piece of fucking cardboard.” 

“Miiiaaa,” Hannah whined, “Can you just do it, for me. Please.” There was an emphasis on the please, it had trilled upwards, threatening a voice crack. 

Everything was silent for a moment, the room static filled with the sounds of the TV. Amelia glanced at it side-long for just a moment. It was some recording of a rerun of Jeopardy, and she watched as Harry wandered around the stage. 

“What is this bullshit?” Amelia mumbled mockingly under her breath. After a moment, she just saud curtly: “Fine.” Hannah let out a gleeful squeal, like she was a child opening a present on Christmas.  

Hannah got away with a lot because she’d been Amelia’s best friend since diapers. Their mothers were old college roommates, which made them practically sisters.

Hannah was… sunny. She always wore this lip gloss too that made her lips look all shiny, almost covered in glitter. Sometimes she would spray glitter onto herself too. She went to church on Sundays, but she didn’t really believe in God. No, she found a book written by Silver Ravenwolf at some old thrift store on the other side of town, and she decided one day that she was a witch. 

Amelia could absolutely respect ditching the church, but she couldn’t help but think that Hannah traded one cage for another. She flipped through Teen Witch and it seemed like there were so many rules. You can’t curse people, you have to say all these fancy poems and end everything with “so mote it be,” these colors represent this, you can’t use this, you can’t do that. Funnier yet, the author tried to claim that she made it rain at some point. Coincidence can surely seem like magic when you’re ten. But it shouldn’t work that way when you’re, like, what, forty? 

Hannah cleared her throat. “Come on, come on, we’re doing something,” she started shuffling the cards again. “Go on, pick another one.”

Amelia shrugged, and reached out with her right hand. Her nail polish was fucked up again, chipped in odd spaces. She pulled a card. 

“The Tower.” She gave Hannah a look, or at least, she thought she did, before she handed the card back over to her. 

Hannah motioned to her, a flutter of her fingers as if to say: ‘go on, one more!’

Amelia grabbed the last card. The Lovers. But it was upside down. Hanna rubbed her lips together, as though she were rubbing in chapstick before going in for a kiss. She glanced up at Amelia, before glancing back down at the card, a naked man and a naked woman standing in front of what seemed to be a redheaded angel. Amelia picked at the carpet they were sitting on with her fingers as Hannah frowned. The pink shag carpet was like grass, and it was so threadbare and thin that she could feel the hardwood floors underneath her. 

“Congratulations.” Amelia drawled, “We’re all going to die, our house is going to fall down, and we’re going to get married. Can’t wait to kiss at the altar.”  

Hannah had rolled her eyes. “The Lovers is upside down, that means that it means something completely different.”

“Whatever.” Amelia went back to picking at the rug. 

“What is it that you’re not telling me, Mia?” 

Amelia gave a shrug. “Does it really matter?” 

“Of course it matters! I want to be able to fix this!” 

Amelia gave an annoyed sigh and stared at Hannah’s eyes. There’s something magical about how they caught the light from the TV, the accented white makes them look like the top of a wizard’s staff. 

“There’s nothing I’m not telling you.” Amelia said. Some of the pink thread has come apart in her hand, and she’s now holding it between chipped nails. 

“You’re a liar.” 

Amelia laughed, but it came out stilted. Wrong. 

“There has to be a reason you picked these three cards.” 

“They’re pieces of cardboard, Hannah, they’re not going to tell me anything.”

“Are you scared you’re going to lose someone? Afraid something is going to change?” 

Amelia snorted.  

Hannah started shuffling the cards back into the deck, playing with them idly. Amelia watched the movement of her hands, the way perfectly pedicured nails flipped through the cards with the ease of a dealer at a casino. She drew another card, and something seemed to glitter in her eye, sun peeking through stained glass. 

“It’s okay for something to change,” Hannah said, “Like, that’s what the Death card means, after all..” 

Amelia shrugged again. “Still just a piece of cardboard.” She insisted, lamely. 

“What are you not telling me!?” Hannah asked again, practically throwing the cards down onto the carpet. Some of them scattered onto the wood floor, like air hockey pucks going wayward. She was like a toddler who didn’t get the toy that she wanted. 

Amelia continued picking at the shaggy carpet. She wanted to get a soda, wanted to feel the carbonation in her mouth and to maybe escape the dryness; she felt like she had suddenly become some goddamn mouth breather. Why was Hannah still pushing? 

Whatever it was that made Amelia’s chest hurt was done and over with when Hannah’s sunshine voice said: “I have an idea!” 

“That’s never a good thing with you.” 

“I mean, there is something I can do about this. To fix this.” 

“Fix this” Amelia’s voice went dead and flat. 

“Yeah!” 

Amelia started laughing again, but it sounded like it was choking itself out of her throat. “Are you going to try and give me a rock to get me to tell the truth?” 

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Hannah got up off the floor, abandoning the tarot deck there, and stepped around Amelia.

______________________________________

The two girls wandered down to the basement. The walls were painted a sickly yellow color, a weird mix between green and yellow and brown. There was black concrete behind the paint, revealed in blank strips where the paint had peeled and chipped off the wall; it looked like torn up notebook paper. There was a washer and dryer pressed up against the wall, the metal sides of it dented and wrecked. The smell of fake lavender grabbed Amelia by the neck and threatened to drown her in the basin of the washing machine. Hannah’s clothes were in a laundry basket, a bouquet of pink in the otherwise dull room. The only lighting in the room was a single lightbulb that flickered; it reminded Amelia of a metal music video from the 90s, where the artist would just stand in an empty white room and scream. 

In a flash, Amelia was reminded of the time that Hannah dragged her down here, and they sat on the lid of the washing machine, they talked about everything and nothing. Amelia remembered very little, other than she knew that Hannah was in her bathing suit and she was wearing this lipstick that always smelled like butter. 

Hannah rubs her lips together: “It’s okay, you can tell me whatever it is.” 

“No, Hannah, I really don’t want to talk about it. I said there was nothing to talk about. I don’t appreciate you pushing about this, it’s making me uncomfortable.”

“But we’re best friends!” She whined, “You’re supposed to be able to tell me anything!” 

Amelia couldn’t tell her this one thing. She worried that once she started speaking that the words would start spilling out of her mouth like a waterfall, that the friendship was going to become a before-and-after; a rollercoaster drop, a death in the family, the ending of a concert where you’re feeling like a dizzy amnesiac. She loved her.

“Why the hell are we down here?” Amelia asked, handwaving away this part of the conflict like they always did. It was a subtle ‘we’ll put a pin in this’ but the pin was always covered up by mall pictures and receipts to document who owes whom. 

“I want to summon a demon.” 

Amelia bursted out laughing, but Hannah was looking at her so earnestly, and her eyes went wide. She had looked precious, a stuffed animal with plastic eyes and an embroidered frown. She just looked up at Amelia. 

Oh, she was being serious.  

“You really want to summon a demon?” Amelia asked incredulously. “Are demons even real? You left the church and you still believe in that dumb shit?” 

It was like a switch flipped off, and Hannah was done giving puppy-dog eyes:“There’s rules to it, it’ll be completely safe.” 

“Oh, yeah, rules to your fringe theories.” Amelia tried to steel her voice again. 

“I… I just think it could be cool.” 

“And what the hell is a demon going to know about my inner psyche, anyway? You could try asking me!” 

“I tried asking you and you wouldn’t give me an answer.” 

“So you immediately jumped to ‘lets summon a demon?’ That’s not reasonable in the slightest!”  

Hannah had looked exasperated, like Amelia was being positively ridiculous. Her eyes were half lidded, and she tilted her head to the side ever so slightly. It reminded Amelia of her dad whenever he got into fights with her mom. “But there is something.” She prompts. “Because you keep saying that there isn’t anything, but then that you don’t want to talk about it, and you’ve been awfully quiet recently. If something is wrong, you need to let me fix it.”  

“You need to drop it when I tell you to drop it, I don’t want to talk about it. You are brushing over your suggestion to summon a demon way too quickly!” 

“Is your father trying to take custody of you again? Move you to Colora-” 

“This has nothing to do with that!” Amelia’s voice rang throughout the basement, and there they were, two queens on either side of the chess board. Hannah gave an exasperated whiny huff. Amelia took another step down, the steps creaking from underneath her feet. Another memory flashes of them hiding under the stairs pretending to be monsters. 

If nothing happens, maybe Hannah will finally shut up about magic.

If nothing happens, maybe Hannah won’t keep demanding answers. 

She knew she’d regret it. 

“Fine,” It felt like maggots squirming around in her mouth, and between gritted teeth she said: “There’s no going back now.” 

__________________________________________

Hannah was elated.  

She was running up and down the stairs, bringing down sagging cardboard boxes filled with rocks and placing an overflowing jar of table salt on the edge of the washing machine. She was talking a mile a minute, going faster than her internal teleprompter, so she kept tripping over her words. She rubbed her lips together as she thought, smearing some of her lipgloss to just above her upper lip. It made it look greasy. Despite being angry with her, Amelia had the strange urge to whip it away. Hannah usually looked relaxed, but something about her had looked coiled up and tense, especially as she twirled a strand of blonde around her finger and tugged. 

In half an hour, Hannah had made a circle of salt on the floor. Apparently, they weren’t allowed to move it, or touch it, because the demon would be able to “get out” otherwise. Hannah had a notebook with some half-assed, probably incorrect, Latin, written in her sprawling cursive handwriting, complete with hearts for the I’s and stars drawn next to it. 

Hannah did a little dance, ripping out a piece of pink, scented paper, from her notebook and thrusted it into Amelia’s hands, as though she were giving her a church pamphlet. Ironic. 

“Okay. So now,” she started, as though she’s explaining some school drama, “we’re going to chant what’s written on this piece of paper, and we’re going to summon a demon.” 

“This is fucking stupid.” Amelia said. 

Hannah started chanting it, her words stumbling and clipped. Hannah looked at Amelia as though they were at a concert, as though Amelia was supposed to be dancing, and gave her a look that said ‘start chanting.’ 

Amelia felt bored, and dead. 

After five minutes. Nothing happened. All Amelia could hear was the buzzing of the light above them and the ringing of the air conditioning. 

“Well, this is bullshit. Magic isn’t real, and we can all go home. Utter bullshit. Now I don’t have to reveal anything to you because there’s nothing to talk about.” Amelia pushed herself off the washing machine. She stared at the thick circle of salt for a moment, snorted an unladylike snort, and she kicked the circle of salt, like she was kicking waves at the beach. It was like sand, scattering across the concrete floors like stars scattered across the sky. 

“Why would you do-!?” Hannah exclaimed, and then she gasped, dropping her notebook. It lets out a loud thwap of a noise as it hits the concrete and the sound ricochets off the walls.

Amelia stared at Hannah as Hannah started to take these deep, heaving breaths, her entire chest inflating like a balloon. “Why would you-?” she said again, but she can barely get the words out. 

This is ridiculous. Amelia thought, and she started to head upstairs. Magic isn’t real.  

Amelia had felt herself… flicker. There had been darkness for a moment, and her head felt like cotton and lead all at once, her entire stomach dropping down to her feet. She grappled toward the concrete wall, trying to hold herself up. She felt like she was about to faint; bile crawled up her throat and left the taste of acid and sweetness along the lines of her mouth. 

“I think… we should get pretzels…” Amelia started to say. She heard somewhere once that salt helps if you faint. 

Hannah screamed. With images layering on top of each other, Amelia moved her head. 

The notebook was a double image and it was on fire, an undeveloped polaroid. 

Then there was no more salt. 

Eigengrau was trying to eat her. 

It looked like something was crawling out of the floor, long, dirty claws, like nails that hadn’t been trimmed and that had gotten dirt and blood stuck in the cuticles. There was an almost-human thing in the middle of the basement. It was pale, with purple cheeks and an inflated head that looked like a grape that was about to pop under pressure. It was thin, malnourished, ribs protruding out of thin, white skin, covered in thin blue veins that covered its nude body like lightning bolts. 

The demon was looking right at her, not moving from where the circle once was. 

“There is something hollow in your stomach,” Its voice sounded like a record player needle being pushed down onto a vinyl, making it sound scratched and distorted. It continued. 

“Blood seeps out of your heart as though it is weeping, 

There is a house in the middle of the woods, 

But no one can see inside the windows, 

The snake surrounds it, eating its own tale. 

The girl in the house looks in, 

To the lacquer shine sun, 

And she wants to rip out her ribs and suck them clean, 

Don’t you, Amelia Marie?” 

Amelia was left blinking at it. She squeezed her eyes tight, white shapes starting to form underneath her eyelids. She felt the sharp taste of copper on her tongue, the stabbing sting of teeth biting down on the corner of her mouth. She tried to step sideways up the stairs but she had felt herself trip, and she landed on her hip, a shock of pain echoing up her sides. 

“Hell is a place where cowards go to be forgotten, 

You blame her, you want the nine hells to nip at her toes. 

There is a feeling of not-feeling and the feeling of feeling too much. 

‘What do you want to be’ The Cheshire Cat asks, 

‘Is this what death feels like?’ Alice responds, 

But I ask, what are you going to do?” 

Hannah looped around to where Amelia was and she threw a handful of salt at the demon. There’s a slight singe on its face, and it laughed. Amelia remembered that it sounded like creaking wood. She poured more salt into her hand, a steady mountain, and she chucked it at the monster again. 

“The Holy Roller…” The demon sang. 

“Eve in the Garden waiting for her Adam, 

To bite the apple that feeds her. 

Eve in the garden waiting for something to cannibalize. 

But there is no Adam, Eve.

And Adam is a liar who let his finger get nipped by a snake.” 

“What the hell does that mean,” the salt spilt out of Hannah’s hand. 

“You already know.”

Hannah looked to Amelia. 

Amelia couldn’t move. The demon’s words had crawled underneath her skin. Is this what being hungover felt like? Nauseous and with your legs shaking.

“Would you want me to tell her, Amelia Marie? 

About the love affairs in your palace?” 

“Love affairs!?” Hannah blurted out, still staring at her. “Mia!?” 

The light above them flickered, and for a moment all Amelia saw was the salt, scattered across the black basement floor, each a tiny star. None of them hand picked, meticulously placed into its sky. Thrown there like a God had rolled some dice. 

The demon stepped closer, staring intently at Mia, and put a gross hand on her shoulder. It traced along her, and down her breast, and then poked between her ribs. She shuddered, letting out a terrified, involuntary shout.

All there was going to be was before-and-after.

Amelia said nothing at all.