Halloween—the one occasion where the spirits of the Los Angeles Victorian could venture off the premises and into town. They could be free to roam as they wished. Well, not just yet. It was still a few days away, but that didn't stop the living from making a startling discovery or two.
During the short weeks that lead up to the end of October, Clara had only felt sicker even though she had a few days in between where she felt fine. However, she had been eating just as much as Amy had when she was brought back from the dead. When Britta cooked for them her usual bland concoctions, Clara didn't seem to care that it was flavorless, but that it was filling. Even her younger sister started to eat like crazy again, but only to throw it up within a half hour of ingesting it.
Britta began to notice their strange behavior, and immediately suspected the worst knowing that it was a more different time than she had lived in herself. She even noticed a slight bit of weight gain on Clara in the hip area. However, it was the dark-haired older sister who decided to take it upon herself to buy pregnancy tests from the store when the Swede brought up the notion.
"I gave birth to five children," she had told Clara the morning of two days before Halloween. "Similar things happened to me."
There was pause—Clara said nothing, not even mentioning her rape by Michael.
"How did you become this way?" Britta had inquired jeeringly. "What makes a baby is so…dirty…and corrupting. It makes me wish there were another way. Men are motbjudande svin. Never trust them."
Without answering the century-old witch, she watched her walk into the parlor room slowly, speaking Swedish to herself and loud enough for Clara to hear.
"Män är som hundar," she said. "De vill kött bara för att tugga ben kvar."
That was when Clara left the house and took the next bus down to the drug store to pick up what she needed. They were inexpensive, but reputed to do the job well. She picked up five of them, enough for both she and Amy to test themselves and see if Britta's speculations were true.
That night, Amy walked up the stairs with the spikes of her strappy pumps hitting the surfaces of each step. She had still been wearing the outfit of that day, consisting of one of her form-fitting raven black lace dresses hugging her voluptuous curves, her inverted cross rosary hanging from her neck, thigh-high red stockings, and the black lace gloves that prevented her deadly hands from making direct contact with people in her environment. As she reached the top, she walked down the hall to hear faint crying coming from behind a closed door. Tracing the sound, she was led to the bathroom door, putting her ear to the door as it continued. Then she knocked.
"Who is it?" the voice, that of Clara, asked from within.
"Amy," her sister said. "Why are you crying?"
"Just…c-come in here," her older sister whined quietly.
So Amy opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind her as she saw Clara sitting on the top of the toilet seat cover, looking down at one of the pregnancy tests. Tears had made her eyes red and puffy, and their blue color seemed to radiate sadness and shame. Amy looked at the small, biologically-activated device in her sister's hand, hearing Clara speak.
"It's positive," she whined. "I've done two today so far including this." Then she broke down again, sobbing heavily. "Oh god, why?!"
"Okay, so you actually went below yourself and had sex?" Amy asked cynically. "For real?"
"DON'T MAKE A JOKE OF THIS!" the raven-haired witch exclaimed, nearly screaming as she sobbed. "It's NOT funny! I…I didn't want it!"
"What do you mean?" her younger sister asked suspiciously. "When the hell did this happen?"
"You were dead," Clara cried, shaking her head as her teary eyes looked down at the double dashes indicated in blue on the test. "You don't remember."
"Look, I'm not making any jokes. I was pregnant twice before…well, before I died last month," the blonde said.
"But you didn't even know who the fathers were!" Clara complained. "I know who got me pregnant!"
"Me, too," Amy said. "I don't need a test. I kinda know I'm pregnant. I know who the father is. It's Michael."
"Ugh!" the older sister scoffed with a grunt. "Don't say his name!"
"Why not?"
"Because he—"
There was an awkward silence between the sisters; Amy just stared at Clara as though she had two heads as she stopped mid-sentence. Was there something she had been hiding that whole time since she was brought back to life? The younger sister would only soon find out.
"He what?" she asked.
"He…r-raped me…" Clara sobbed, her voice cracking with guilt and shame, biting her lower lip before letting out a loud cry of resentment.
Amy's jaw nearly dropped as tears formed in her murky blue eyes, dripping slowly down her pale cheeks as she blinked with shock. Her lower lip trembled, and her nerves wracked to oblivion all over her body, feeding the fire that had started to set her blood to a boil. Within, she felt every terrible, painful emotion under the sun—fury, wrath, resentment, contempt, vengeful, rampant, stormy, violent—as it stabbed at the core of her being and made her scream out loudly in distress. Her fists were clenched, and her curdled scream was so loud it intimidated Clara to the point of even more tears.
"He did WHAT?!" Amy screeched at the top of her lungs.
"H-He r-raped me! I-It hurt! I d-didn't w-want to tell y-y-you…" the older sister stammered under her sobbing.
"WHY?! OH MY GOD! WHY, Clara?! You're SO STUPID!" the younger witch screamed. "WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!"
"I should NEVER have gone with him in his car!" Clara cried out. "It's all my fault!"
"Wait..." Amy's voice was eerily calm now, but still radiated pure intimidation, "his car?"
"W-When you d-died," the older sister explained, "h-he took you upstairs a-and laid you down…then…w-well me and Britta w-were v-v-very, very upset, of course…"
Amy continued to listen, but Clara's speech was nearly incomprehensible under her heavy sobs and gasps for air.
"I…d-didn't think I c-could revive you…b-because you snapped y-your neck," she continued. "Then…h-h-he suggested a ride out t-to town would do me good. A-at first, I refused, b-but then I was fooled w-when he said it'd be quick…w-we went through town, b-but…stopped b-by a wooded area…I…tried to leave his car…and m-make him take me home…b-but he said 'no'. When I…left the car…h-he ran after me…p-pinned me down…and…and…"
"That's when he did it?"
Clara nodded, crunching her face tightly to accommodate a heavy sob that escaped the heart in her throat. Her nods became more painful as she unwittingly revealed the truth and how she really felt.
"I liked it," she muttered in a whisper so tearful it made Amy want to have her repeat it.
"Clara…" Amy was now extremely disturbed for once in her life. "What? You what?!" Now, the revived blonde witch was relentlessly shaking her older sister's shoulders back and forth, hearing Clara cry out desperately as she sobbed with pain and emotional agony.
"I liked it!" she said louder. "I LIKED IT!"
Amy kept shaking her sister even as she cried in pain at her tight grip on her upper arms and the back and forth force moving her rapidly. She couldn't believe what she was saying—why had she enjoyed something so terribly painful, at least on her own account? On top of it all, why hadn't she told either she or Britta about it?
"Why didn't you tell us? You stupid bitch!" the blonde witch hissed cruelly.
"I was…t-too ashamed," the raven-haired sister replied sadly. "I…didn't want t-to ruin things between you and him. I know h-he really loves you. I…did not want to b-become in the middle of you…"
"Are you shitting me, Clara? Get a grip!" Amy snapped.
The older sister, tempted to say something to her sister to make her stop ridiculing her, was cut off by a hint of the girl she was before she died by the hands of Tate.
"I'm disgusted at you!" Amy shouted. "How could you like something so terrible? He raped you! He pinned you to the ground and literally pounded the shit out of you! How could you possibly enjoy that?!"
"I…don't know," Clara cried, intimidated by her younger sister. "I'm disgusted with myself…I…I didn't want it…but…I liked it. It hurt, but I liked it…I-I don't know why! I'm so ashamed! It's all my fault!"
"Clara, it's not your fault you got raped," Amy replied slightly calmer, moving her sister's messy raven hair away from her beet-red face. "I'm mad you didn't tell us, but I'm not mad at how you feel even though I'm really fucking confused." She paused. "Here I am, falling in love with him when I didn't even know what he did to you." She shook her head, biting her lower lip. "I thought he was the one for me because…we both were connected with death. He was the killer, I was the dead and revived. But…you will never have to worry about Michael again. I am taking care of him. Maybe this curse I have can be put to use."
"Amy—" Clara was cut off before she could continue her sentence.
"And as for you and me," the younger sister continued, "we can go back to San Fran for a weekend and go to that abortionist that treated me. Believe me, they knock you out and before you know it, it's over. Britta doesn't have to know. She may be worried as fuck, but—"
"N-No," Clara protested.
"Ugh, why not?! You got raped!" Amy exclaimed, contradicting her. "I personally don't even want a kid. They're little brats."
"Amy!" Clara shouted. "Why would you kill an innocent child like that?! I hated that idea when you did it the first two times! This is a life growing inside me! Can't you see?!"
"You really have problems, don't you?" Amy asked expressionlessly. "Well, have it your way then."
That's when she stood up straight and walked toward the doorway, but Clara looked up and took a deep breath to soothe herself before saying something.
"But A-Amy!" she called. "What will you do to Michael?"
"I'm avenging you, Clara," the revived blonde said. "It's almost Halloween, you know. The perfect day for a walk through the cemetery."
Amy stopped by Michael's house on the afternoon of Halloween, just when the sun was growing weaker, wearing something very fitting for the occasion. While Michael stuck with a casual shirt and pants, Amy wore an ankle-length, strapless, see-through black maxi dress made of material akin to a veil. Beneath this was a plain bodycon dress with a low enough neckline to accentuate her heaving, full bosom, and she wore her inverted cross rosary with a pair of flat, ankle-length black boots. On top of her uneven blonde, curly bob was her wide brimmed black hat, which seemed to startle him upon arrival.
Michael had thought it was a great idea to be festive and go to a cemetery with the girl he loved.
Once they reached there, Amy looked around the vicinity to see a few dead oak trees whose leaves had fallen gradually over the years. Rows upon rows of headstones of different designs adorned with endearing epitaphs were preset before her very eyes. The asphalt path down the aisle of graves made her feel calm and tranquil, while Michael, looking at the graves, wondered if any of his victims had been buried there. The witch looked at the names of random grave markers, walking toward them while setting her murky blue eyes on each.
"Hm…Stephanie Boggs," she read curiously, bending down for a better look. "Died in 1994."
Michael was silent, watching the witch glance over and move toward a neighboring grave, reading the name and date of death.
"Chloe Stapleton. Died the same year," she said. "Hm…"
"So what?" Michael finally asked, putting his hands in his front pockets.
"So…I think they're two people Tate killed," Amy said.
"Where?"
"He mentioned something about shooting up his school. He died that night. Shot by a SWAT team, apparently," the witch explained.
It took thirty minutes to get halfway through the large, spacious cemetery among the rows of headstones that commemorated the dead. When they finally stopped, Amy looked to see two men in dirty overalls standing over what looked to be an open coffin. Curiously, she led Michael to the sight, licking her lower lip and nodding so slowly that it looked like a neutral head movement. Michael saw that the open coffin was empty, somewhat dirty on the inside as they walked slowly.
"Hm, I wonder which poor, unfortunate soul was picky with their coffin," the witch hypothesized sneeringly.
"C'mon," Michael said, shaking his head. "I don't believe in that shit."
"I was joking," Amy said snobbily, taking a breath. This is the perfect timing, she thought, looking over at the men and concentrating on them so that they didn't notice them there by the open casket. "Hm, the interior must be nice."
"Yeah," he said, leaning down slowly. "Silk?"
"Maybe velvet?" Amy thought, standing a foot behind him as she removed one of her black lace gloves slowly. "Why don't you feel and find out?"
Shrugging with a slight chuckle, Michael leaned forward and put one hand on the outer wall of the casket, reaching in to feel the material was actually silk—slightly dirty, but still shiny and crimson with the outside made of fine ebony. Meanwhile, Amy had removed her glove and spared not another minute—she swiftly reached underneath the back of his shirt, her deadly hand making contact with his skin as she felt his skin rapidly turn cold as ice, noticing his skin becoming sallow and pale as he dropped lifeless into the open coffin before them.
As Amy took her hand away from the fresh corpse of Michael, she looked down and saw him in a very strange position, perhaps uncomfortable if he were alive. His shaggy, flaxen hair was suddenly a yellowing mess, his shirt was slightly disheveled from her own action, and his eyes were closed with his lips parted as though he were in a slumber. As soon as the witch saw a carrion fly drift toward the fresh dead body, she accumulated saliva in her dry mouth and spat on him like the scum of the earth.
"This is what you get for fucking with witches, you asshole," she said through gritted teeth. "You raped my sister, you lied to me, and you had this coming all along. It's been a slice, fucker."
Just after closing the coffin's lid, she put on the black lace glove she had removed and she glanced up at the two men in overalls, catching their attention with a tip of her wide-brimmed hat.
"Boys," she commanded. "Bury him. You're being paid anyway. Let him rot inside a corpse's shell."
"Y-Yes, miss," one of them said obediently.
Smiling, she took a few steps back before walking away toward the former part of the cemetery. She stopped at the two graves she had seen earlier, both dead in 1994 as they said, and suddenly took out Clara's shawl, the one that once belonged to their late mother. Looking down at it and nodding, she put it around her before outspreading it like wings, spinning without a care as the fringes danced in the haunted breeze. Looking up to the sky, she felt the freedom her power had brought her—no more Michael, no more violence, no more turmoil.
So she thought…
Britta had been preparing dinner in the kitchen while Amy was away—Clara had been upstairs to her own devices as she put the ingredients to a stew in a large boiling pot, ignited pyrokinetically before using the power of her mind to make the wooden spoon stir and mix automatically. As she hummed a wordless Swedish tune to herself, she heard a voice present in the room that nearly made her jump.
"Why don't I look like these girls?"
The century-old Swede looked behind her to see a young girl, perhaps in her early teens, sitting down at one of the stools at the counter island as she looked down at an issue of CosmoGirl magazine. Britta took an extensive, long look at the girl and noticed her distinctive features—she had a massive double chin, unusually slanted eyes, and a thick-bridged nose with a disproportionate bodily figure. Her hair was dark in color, a shade of brown styled with a fringe and a light-colored headband. Her outfit consisted of a floral dress beneath a fuchsia cardigan, her elbow resting on the surface of the counter in a relaxed, nonchalant manner.
"Hej," she greeted, clasping her hands down in front of her. "What is your name?"
"My name is Addie," she said with her distinctive lisp.
"Oh," Britta responded, nodding slowly as she realized that the young girl had Down syndrome. "Do you live here with the others?"
"Yes," the girl's ghost answered. "It's Halloween."
"Hm, I know," the Swede said. "In my country, we never celebrated this, but…I know my children did when I raised them."
"Children?" Addie questioned somberly. "You have them? Where are they?"
There was a silence that struck the room—nothing but the sound of bubbling from the pot cooking the stew.
"Hm…I…am not sure," she said, recalling how on the Other Side, she had paid more attention to her daughter Elina as she lived out her own destructive life on earth than any of her other children.
"Oh," the Down syndrome girl said. "I…had two brothers."
"Who were they?"
"Tate and Beau," Addie said. "My mom was mean."
"Mean?" Now Britta looked at her steadily, mentally willing for her to tell her more about how her mother had been mean to her, as she claimed.
"I wanted to be a pretty girl," Addie said. "She said I'm not. I'm not and I knew I was not. That's what she said to me."
The short and simple explanation from the specter of the young girl was enough to touch Britta's heart, reminding her of her own experiences as a mother in the mid-20th century. Elina had been the prized child in the Darling household growing up, whereas the eldest, Annika and Adam (she remembered her eldest child, who had undergone sex reassignment, as two separate people who were one in the same), was not only considered unattractive, but was treated with scorn by Britta; being a devoted Christian during the latter half of her natural life, she resented the idea of homosexuality. Even the thought of a woman wearing pants shocked her, especially since the Lutheran church in their South Carolina country town discouraged such "vile" behaviors, as they were referred to so often by the pastor. Sighing sadly, she knew that this girl's mother had the same problem she had for one of her own—acceptance and tolerance for something the child could not help.
"How sad…" the Swede frowned.
"She got me a pretty girl costume, but…I died," Addie said.
"How?"
"A car," the girl's ghost replied. "I got run over."
"Oh, herregud," the Swede muttered. "How terrible for you…"
Addie paid attention to the presence of the witch as she approached the counter, looking at her exquisitely youthful features closely—what a pretty girl, she thought as she kept her eyes fixed on her golden blonde hair fastened in a braid that hung in front of her shoulder. Her peridot eyes glistened like jewels, and her lips were naturally a soft pink color as a small amount of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose. Her lithe, petite frame was dressed in a white button-up blouse and a black pleated skirt that reached to just above her knees with a white pleather belt cinching the waist. On her thin, shapely legs was black hose with black kitten-heeled mules on her small, dainty feet. Addie admired not only her appearance, but how she walked—she took small, ladylike steps that made her look as graceful as a swimming swan.
"You're a pretty girl," the girl said. "Make me like you."
"But…" Britta began, "you are a pretty girl."
"I don't look like any of these girls," Addie stated sadly. "I want to be pretty."
"Let me see what you have there," the Swede requested, holding out one of her small, dainty hands toward the girl.
As Addie complied, Britta took the magazine and opened it, looking down with shock hidden in her face, lightly shaking her head at the bright colors, short hemlines, midriff, flamboyant jewelry, and the scandalous makeup choices used by the models. Taking a long look at Addie, she took a seat next to her and smiled sadly.
"Min älskling," she whispered, "you are mistaken. The girls in here are not pretty."
"But why are they there?" Addie asked.
"We are all created the way we are supposed to be," Britta explained, cupping the girl's massive, but smooth double-chin in her hand. "These…books…lie to girls. This is not beauty. This is…deception."
Addie looked at her curiously, a sparkle in her eyes returning as they conversed; she listened to every word said in her soft, Nordic accent.
"The…picture of perfection is only in your mind," she continued. "Perfection is an…illusion so that people believe they are not beautiful. D-Do you understand me?"
"Uh…" Addie nodded slowly, smiling slightly as the bags beneath her eyes seemed to inflate. "Yes…it makes sense."
"You are…very beautiful," the Swede said, smiling down at her with sparkling eyes. "Vacker."
"You think so?" Addie smiled. "Oh…oh boy! I feel happy!"
"Aw," the Swede chuckled, cooing as though she were her own child. "Min älskling, you do not want to look like these…freaks with…their orange skin and…their dark makeup…and…" She took another look at the open magazine, "do not get me started on these clothing."
"Orange doesn't look good on me," Addie joked—Britta just smirked.
"I never liked red," the witch said, looking over at Addie. "I was in a freak show."
"What's that?"
"It is…a terrible place," Britta said frankly. "People who looked different or strange would perform and people would laugh."
"But you don't look strange," Addie said. "You're a pretty girl."
"You are right. I did not have anything strange to my looks," Britta replied in her soft accent. "Yet…the owner made me into one. The makeup was…ugly. Too bright. That was the only thing that made me a freak."
Addie just giggled, holding her palm to her mouth.
"But why were you there?" she asked.
"Oh…" the Swede began, looking over at something to focus on, "because of this."
Addie gasped to see the magazine flip its pages closed by itself before being lifted up in midair before her eyes. Britta had not used any manual triggers to exercise her telekinesis, which amazed the girl with Down syndrome as she watched it rest back on the counter again.
"And this…"
Britta concentrated again, raising a flat hand in the air to trigger her photokinesis, the power of light. As she waved her hand in the air, Addie looked up to see an auric light simulation of what looked like the aurora borealis. Blue, green, and purple shimmied through the air and faded off as soon as she stopped focusing.
"And…this!"
Addie watched as Britta extended her finger toward the half part remaining of a white pillar candle, touching the wick to pyrokinetically light it, taking her hand away as soon as a flame caught on. Gasping, she smiled at the Swede as her peridot eyes sparkled back at her.
"The power of fire…I never used it," she said.
"Wow," Addie said with fascination. "Are…you a witch?"
Britta nodded—"I never believed myself to be, but I have accepted myself for what I was born as. You also can accept yourself, too, min vackra älskling."
Clara had been upstairs the whole time—Britta was unaware that she had been scrying through the length of a mirror, seeking visions in the luminous reflection of the dim room. She had passing visions of a cemetery, an ebony coffin lined with red, dirtied silk, and…her mother's old shawl? Yes—she had a vision of a beautiful, young woman dancing in a centripetal motion, spinning without a care as she faced the heavens above her. Gasping, she also saw a vision of a skull; interpreting it as a symbol of death, she nodded before getting nervous at the sight of a clear face—the ghost of Tate.
"What's in there?" she heard a voice ask.
Still holding the candle, she looked behind her to see Tate standing there in all of his malevolent glory—his eyes were almost black in the candlelight, and he wore his usual casual clothing as he approached her with his hands outside of his pockets. Clara grew nervous, biting her lower lip as she set the candle down on her desk to let it burn down on its own.
"W-What do you want?" she asked.
"It's Halloween," Tate said. "I can't say hi?"
"Well, I never said you couldn't," the dark-haired witch replied.
"Yeah, and you also never said you couldn't resurrect me, either," the ghost answered.
"Amy is out…" Clara fibbed, her nervous tone giving her away. "She's getting your body with some help."
"You're a terrible liar," he said analytically. "I was just in the cemetery, Clara."
"Probably not the one she is in," the witch contradicted.
"No," Tate said, moving closer. "Anyone who isn't a complete idiot would know that one body of one soul is buried in one place. I saw Amy there. She was dancing around like a lunatic."
"And there were men there—"
"They were burying someone," Tate cut in, their eyes meeting—Clara definitely looked nervous. "And that wasn't my grave. So…are you going to explain why you won't resurrect me?"
Now she had dug herself a hole too deep to get out of—she looked down at her white, modest halter dress, sighing before looking up into Tate's dark brown eyes pensively.
"Resurgence doesn't work on skeletons, Tate," she explained. "I…I would need a body that is, at most, a month dead to resurrect it. The further away down the road the time of resurrection is, the worst shape the revived will be. But…" Now she could not hold a lid on her emotions; she was stammering like a babbling idiot. "A-Amy was an exception. S-She had died before…and t-that's why when she died again, she was different. M-Mentally."
"I won't accept that," Tate said harshly.
"Why?" Clara asked. "I sure can. You are better off dead. You've hurt people, and I see you for who you really are. You don't deserve to live."
Tate hesitated no more—he lunged forward at the black-haired witch and gripped her neck so tightly that she couldn't even gasp for air. Her hands struggled to relieve the pressure on her neck from his intense chokehold, feeling her windpipe being crushed as he began to straddle her violently on the floor, shaking the life out of her.
"And you can't resurrect yourself?" he grunted. "You don't deserve to live!"
As Clara struggled beneath him, she felt herself becoming dizzy, feeling his thumbs digging into the parallel sides of her throat to constrict the blood flow to her head. Her hands began to loosen around his forearms, but she managed to wheeze out her last words—chilling, but final in their purpose and intent.
"Maledictus….es…"
The life was squeezed from her windpipe, and Tate released her to see livid blue pressure marks marring her pale, smooth neck. Her eyelids draped over her clear blue eyes gracefully, and her mouth was mostly closed at the corners. He stood up, looking down emotionlessly at what he did as her corpse was illuminated by candlelight.
He walked over, looking down at the flame before blowing out the steady flame.
A/N:
Intense chapter, isn't it! Didn't mean to screw with your heads too much. What will the events lead to?
On a side note, there is a Swedish phrase used by Britta throughout the story, and just so that the meaning is clear, "min älskling" means "my dear". At the end, Clara's dying words are "maledictus es" from the Latin, and it means "you are cursed."
Britta's phrases at the beginning of the chapter basically convey her distaste for men and sex. "Motbjudande svin" translates to "filthy pigs", whereas her last quote in that section means "Men are like dogs. They want meat only to chew the bones left over."
Also, if you recall from the end of Uplift, you will remember that Britta summoned the aurora borealis during the sideshow's final show. Also, remember the fire that burned her farm and killed her parents in Gotland, and how she was so young? Uh…yeah, something to think about.
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