The Body Farm, page 3
Eloise looked at Stefan, who lifted his hand to his brow and mimed an explosion. There was no protocol for this. She could not possibly tag this many animals. She would not have known where to begin.
And so she twirled in the middle of her cage, trying to take it all in. Sometimes there was no possible response but celebration. She laughed as her mother had laughed at the top of the tallest tree in the world. She could not stop turning, sharks above her, sharks beneath her, laughing and laughing inside her mouthpiece.
Stefan lifted the camera, and later that day Noah got a text from his sister, no message, no words, just a link to a video on the Marine Environmental Laboratory website. And there, once he discovered his reading glasses pushed up to his hairline, Noah saw Eloise underwater, recognizable by her leggy contours even beneath the wetsuit and face mask—and behind her a galaxy of sharks, more sharks than Noah had known existed in all seven seas. The sunlight failed before their numbers. A sound rose from his chest, halfway between a chortle and a sob, as his sister spun in a circle, her arms flung wide, then turned to the camera and blew him a kiss.
A Spell for Disappearing
Do not attempt this magic lightly. You must be willing to risk everything to succeed, even your health, even your safety. Witches have died performing this rite.
You are stacking shelves when it happens. Rain patters against the windows as you wheel a cart loaded with books between the aisles. You head for the nonfiction section, your long skirt swirling around your ankles, your bracelets jangling faintly. You have worked at the library for more than a decade, and it is your favorite place, especially in the rain. There is a mystical quality to the silence today, a kind of otherworldly hush.
As you round the corner, something slams into you from behind. Your midriff collides with the cart, knocking the wind out of you. Books thud against the carpet.
“Herregud, jag är ledsen. Är du okej?” a deep voice asks. A large hand closes around your elbow, steadying you.
“I’m fine,” you say, correctly interpreting his question.
The man bends down and picks up the fallen books, handing each one to you with a brush of fingers. He is beautiful—there’s no other word for it—strong jaw, eyes like gemstones.
To your surprise, he’s staring at you the same way you’re staring at him, with dawning admiration. No one has ever looked at you this way before.
“My name is Ulf,” he says, his words tinged with a slight accent. “You must let me buy you a coffee as an apology. Yes? I will not take no for an answer.”
Gather your strength before attempting the Spell for Disappearing. This magic requires focus and stamina. The rite will unfold over a period of days, sometimes weeks, and you will not be able to rest until it is finished.
You wake to Ulf’s mouth on your nape. It is not yet dawn. His hands fumble hungrily down your waist, gripping your hips. You feel the sharp rim of his teeth and moan as he pulls you against his body. Your sleepiness makes one sensation of the warmth of his skin and the honeyed glow of the predawn air.
He pins you facedown to the bed, his palms crushing your wrists into the mattress. You spread your legs invitingly, obediently, though you are still sore and damp from last night’s lovemaking. Ulf does not hesitate. He is a talker during sex. During your whirlwind courtship, you have grown to enjoy it. His accent makes his words delicious. In a mix of English and Swedish, he whispers to you, telling you he craves you, telling you how amazing your fitta is, telling you he would die without you. “I need you, I need you,” he murmurs. “Du är så skön, just like that, so tight, gillar du det här?” He reaches his orgasm, biting your shoulder hard enough to bruise.
“And a good morning to you,” you mumble into the pillow. “Let’s sleep a little more, okay?”
But Ulf takes hold of your hips and turns you on your back. He strokes your breasts, teasing your nipples, then kisses determinedly down your stomach, toward your tangle of pubic hair.
“And now it’s your turn,” he says. “Mitt hjärta, min skatt, mitt liv.”
The sun is rising, throwing shards of light against the wall. You close your eyes, torn between fatigue and anticipation.
Ulf has been in your life for five weeks. You have not had a solid night’s sleep for five weeks. He grins wickedly up at you from beneath his mop of flaxen curls.
“I will be a student of your body,” he says.
Your alarm clock sounds. You fling out a hand and whack it blindly off the table. This is how all your mornings begin nowadays.
The Spell for Disappearing has been handed down through generations of witches. Through trial and error, it has been refined to its purest and most potent form.
Your mother was a junkie, your father a blank space on your birth certificate. And so you were raised by your grandmother, who taught you to pick mushrooms and bind the wings of injured birds. Together you nursed an abandoned litter of raccoons until they were old enough to be released into the alley, their natural habitat. Together you made poultices and teas from garden plants: feverfew for headaches, chamomile for wounds, goldenseal for stomach ailments, and valerian for sleep.
Together you weathered your mother’s occasional appearances. It was always the same—she would show up in the middle of the night, sweaty and disheveled, banging on the door and screaming that her only daughter was being kept from her. Your grandmother would usher you back to bed, where you would lie awake, listening to your mother’s unfamiliar voice rising and falling, dipping into sobs, and eventually petering out into whimpers. She was usually gone by morning, along with a substantial portion of the cash your grandmother kept in the cookie jar beside the kitchen sink.
You did not have many friends as a child, since the neighborhood kids believed your grandmother was a witch. They weren’t wrong. Raised in Reading, Massachusetts, a few miles from Salem, your grandmother came from a long line of herbalists and healers. She gave you your love of books. She taught you that your ancestors were persecuted as witches only because people did not value or understand botany and biology. She taught you what she knew about plants, about the body, about life on this planet, great and small. She taught you that men were afraid of women with knowledge and that women should seek knowledge in all its forms.
“It’s all butterflies,” your grandmother used to say, meaning that even the most remarkable things had logical explanations. You spent your summers collecting caterpillars, watching as they consumed the carrot leaves you picked for them until, driven by some internal wellspring of instinct, they climbed and held still, melting into jelly, thickening into a papery chrysalis, paralyzed for a somnolent week, and finally emerging as an entirely new creature, an explosion of color and wings.
Not a miracle, but evolution. Not witches, but wise women.
“It’s all butterflies,” your grandmother said, meaning that only fools believed in magic.
This spell requires a cursed object, ideally metal or stone. For best results, use a ring that has been marked by deceit or murder.
June brings rain to your small midwestern town. You and Ulf are strolling arm in arm, soaked in a gleaming drizzle, stopping every few feet to kiss. You could devour this man; you could live only on this wild love, forgoing food, water, and shelter. Your Viking, over six feet tall, with a craggy brow and golden curls. He has dual citizenship, he told you: his mother American, his father Nordic. He grew up in Uppsala, Sweden, and his English is accented but clear. The occasional malapropism serves only to endear him to you further. “It’s a piece of pie,” he will sometimes announce cheerfully, combining easy as pie and piece of cake. You never correct him.
You are thirty-eight years old, and you have never been in love before. You understand that now. Ulf is a revelation. Previous boyfriends might as well have been holograms, lacking flesh, breath, and pheromones. Even Zach, your partner for nearly five years, could not make you shimmy inside the way Ulf does with a single glance. You and Zach were polite lovers, doing crossword puzzles together and jogging side by side on the weekends. Your friends sometimes asked when you and Zach would marry, or even move in together, but neither of you had the inclination. The relationship stagnated, and eventually you parted, mostly due to boredom.
Before Ulf, you had come to believe that you would remain a solitary creature. You always wanted children, but it didn’t seem to be in the cards, so you boxed that desire up and hid it away. You expected to settle into middle age like your grandmother, resigned to her widowhood, surrounded by wildflowers and stray cats.
Now, beneath a lamppost, Ulf kneels, looking up at you, his skin milky in the light, his eyes white-blue, the irises frosted with ice crystals.
“I cannot wait even one more second,” he says, pulling a small velvet box from his pocket. “Join your life to mine. We must be together always.”
The ring is too small for your finger, and you do not like diamonds, certainly not boxy ones like this. You would have preferred something simple, but that does not matter now; nothing matters except this tidal wave of joy. You slide the ring onto your pinkie, and Ulf promises to have it resized “but immediately.”
“My darling,” he murmurs, kissing your eyelids, your throat, your palms. “My only love.”
Names have power. In all things, give out your own name judiciously and infrequently, even among other witches.
You are striding out through the front doors of the library, late to meet Ulf, when a woman emerges from behind a tree, startling you. It is a hazy summer evening, the breeze slow and laden with humidity. You attempt to sidestep the stranger and keep walking, but the woman forestalls you, holding up a hand.
“I have to talk to you,” she says.
“I’m off duty,” you say kindly. “If you go in through the double doors, the librarian at the front desk can point you in the right direction.”
“I’m Ruth Morgan.” The woman offers her name like a question, as though hoping to see an answering flash of recognition. She appears to be in her thirties, dressed in a denim vest and a skirt that swirls in the wind. Her skin is an earthy red-brown, her hair cut short and touched at the temples with gray.
“Do I know you?” you say. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. I’m usually pretty good with faces.”
“No,” Ruth says. “We’ve never met.”
“Oh. Okay.” You are beginning to feel unsettled. There is something in the woman’s manner that you don’t understand. “Listen, I’m late to meet my fiancé,” you say.
You start walking again, wondering what Ulf has decided to cook tonight. He promised you a marvelous feast of Nordic recipes. It still feels odd to call him your fiancé. The resized ring is heavy on your finger, and it seems to have its own will, sometimes snagging on the stray strands of your scarf, sometimes glinting as though attempting to catch your attention.
A hand grabs your arm. You grunt in shock as the strange woman pulls you backward, her fingers cold, her grip painfully tight.
“Let go of me,” you cry out. “What the hell do you want?”
“Your fiancé,” Ruth says. “I need to talk to you.”
“Who are you?”
She gives you an appraising look that scrolls from your toes to your ponytail. You bristle at the intimacy and arrogance of her gaze.
“Believe it or not, I’m here to help you,” she says.
“Oh, really? How’s that?”
“He isn’t who he says he is.”
There is a moment of silence. The breeze dances down the hill, tugging Ruth’s skirt into billowing folds. You have one just like it at home, in a slightly darker shade. Her bracelets, too, remind you of your own, a row of silver bangles. There on the sidewalk, you experience the uncanny sensation of doubling. Like you, this woman has discreet tattoos peeking out beneath the edges of her clothing. She might be your distorted reflection in a funhouse mirror.
“You know Ulf?” you ask.
“Not by that name, but I know him.” Her voice is weary. “God, I know him.”
You have the sudden urge to put your fingers in your ears. You don’t want this to be happening.
“I can tell you love him,” she says. “I recognize the look.”
For the first time, there is compassion in her face, or maybe pity. You find this more alarming than anything else she has done so far.
“Everything he says is a lie. You’re in serious danger,” Ruth says.
“No,” you say. “Why are you doing this?”
“I know you don’t believe me. You’re not the first woman I’ve tracked down. They never believe me at first.”
“What are you talking about?”
She reaches in her pocket and pulls out a card. “Take this. It has all my information. He’s a pathological liar. He’s violent. You’ll start to see the signs now, if you just open your eyes. Call me when you’re ready to talk, okay?”
You don’t take the card, keeping your arms folded tight across your chest.
She snorts impatiently and rummages in her bag. After a moment, she extracts a photograph, shoving it under your nose.
“Look,” she says. “I’m not making this up. I’ve known him since we were kids.”
The picture is soft and creased around the edges, old and well-worn. A pair of teenagers lean against each other, a candid shot, neither of them smiling. There, unmistakable, is a younger Ruth, a smattering of pimples on her chin, hair in pigtails, midriff bared beneath a crop top. Beside her is a young man who vaguely resembles Ulf, but an American version, greasy-haired, dressed in a basketball jersey, his arms looped around Ruth’s waist, pulling her close to him. His pupils are crimson pinpoints in the flash.
“That could be anybody,” you say.
Ruth shudders, an odd convulsion. “It’s always the same,” she murmurs, as though to herself. She tucks the photograph back into her bag and closes her eyes. Then she begins to unbutton her vest. You watch in alarm as her fingers dance determinedly downward, revealing the freckled brown skin of her sternum.
“Don’t worry, I’m not about to flash you,” she says. Tugging her collar to the side, she shows you a mark above her heart, a wide scar, filmy and pink.
“He did this to me,” she says, without looking at you. “He did this when I left him. I had my suitcase packed. He grabbed me on my way out the door.”
The shape is unmistakable: an iron pressed against her flesh. For a moment you can hear the sizzle of scalding metal. The wide bottom seared the middle of her breastbone, while the point nestled in the hollow beneath her clavicle. The burn appears to be several years old, healed but still shiny, forever swollen at the edges.
Ruth buttons up her vest. You open your mouth and close it. There is no script for this.
“Ulf,” she says. “He went by another name when I knew him. Ulf means wolf, you know, in those Scandinavian languages. Mr. Subtlety at his finest.”
Without warning, her fingers dart forward, striking like a snake. She pinches your palm.
“What the hell?” you shout.
Ruth yanks off your engagement ring, holding it up to the light.
“God, he’s nothing if not consistent,” she says. “You’d think he’d buy a new ring, but he seems attached to this one. The thing must be cursed by now. He had it resized again, right? I’m guessing it was too small for you. The last woman had little squirrel paws.”
You snatch the ring back with shaking hands. “You’re crazy. You must be crazy.”
“I cannot wait even one more second,” Ruth says softly. “Join your life to mine. We must be together always.”
Then she leans forward and tucks her card into your purse.
Before performing the rite, you will need these elements: eggshell for awakening, seeds for rebirth, earth for permanence, bone for strength, water for change, and blood for life.
Your mother died when you were eight. An overdose, as expected. You attended the funeral at the side of your stone-faced grandmother, feeling as though you ought to cry, since she seemed unable to.
A week later, you rode your bike to the little occult shop on Main Street—the one your grandmother so often sneered at—and purchased a crystal ball with your own pocket money. You propped it up on the desk in your bedroom, which had belonged to your mother in her youth and was still decorated to her taste rather than yours. You stared into the depths of the orb for hours, hoping for a glimpse of the future or an image of the past, but there was only murky gray. You turned the glass ball this way and that, moving it from sunlight to shadow, discovering lighter and darker gradations of gray, now ash, now charcoal, until your eyes burned with tears.
In retrospect, you are not sure what was driving you. Perhaps it was an unwillingness to face the truth of what you had suffered. Perhaps it was a rebellion against your grandmother’s levelheaded practicality. Perhaps it was a desire to connect with the long line of witches who came before you. Perhaps it was a childish way of honoring your mother.
Even now, you know very little about her, beyond the addiction she could not overcome. But what is heroin if not synthetic magic, an escape from reality, a manufactured dream-state? You have seen pictures of your mother before she began using: long dark curls, a shy smile. You inherited her hair, her eyes, and something else, something stranger, something that kept you up late at night reading books about witchcraft that you checked out from the library without your grandmother’s knowledge.
The crystal ball was only the beginning. You sketched sigils and incantations in your journal, which you privately thought of as your own book of shadows. You read about circle-casting, smudging, and pentagrams, which were not satanic symbols as you had been taught but five-pointed stars representing the four elements and the human spirit. You learned that real witches did not use the terms black and white magic, which had racist overtones, speaking instead of “baneful” magic, intended to cause harm. You spent so many days alone, reading in your mother’s old bedroom with its frilly pink lampshades and flower-printed wallpaper. You would listen to your grandmother humming downstairs and the children at the neighborhood park screaming with laughter. You would turn the page, learning about sacred altars and the astral plane.
