The Sea Witch - Part 2

A serialized short story.

Welcome to Part 2 of “The Sea Witch.” If you’re looking for Part 1, you can find it here.

Brian had dropped off a half-carton of Marlboros last week, just like he did every Saturday. Unless it was a real banger of a week, requiring a bicycle ride to the village for a re-supply, five packs would last her until the following Saturday. Being sick, she'd smoked less this week, not more, which means—

It's fucking Saturday.

"God's bones," she says, wrenching the door open. The radio watches her from across the room. She looks at it balefully. "One word from you, and I will end you with a hammer." The door slams shut behind her as she steps outside…

---

A thin gauze of cloud hangs across the sky. Whitecaps march across the waves and crash on the rocks below. The ruined lighthouse at the edge of the cliff casts a long shadow in the morning sun. 

Its keeper had once lived in the little cottage. Long after modern navigation had made his beacon obsolete, he had struggled to find a new purpose for it, going into early retirement and refusing to move on. For a time, tourists came from the mainland to take in the view; the admission fee that he charged earned the keeper a meager living and allowed him to maintain his vigil. Then, one night, a devastating bolt of lightning struck the lighthouse, starting a fire that ripped through the cupola. When the wreckage was cleared away, only the stone tower remained: a charred Gothic parapet in place of the once-picturesque landmark. The lightkeeper had died not long after—of a broken heart, according to local lore, with his body found at the base of his beloved lookout.

Evangeline remembers him fondly. He'd been a chatty one when she first moved into the cottage, almost twenty years after his death: his ghost had kept her busy, leading her around to favorite spots, pointing out potential hazards, fretting about the poor state of the old ruin. With her help, he finally crossed over, leaving the world with assurances that she would look after the place.

Could use his help now, she thinks. 

She strikes a match and lights a cigarette. Her first deep drag immediately turns into a hacking cough that brings up a dense oyster of phlegm. She spits into the gravel beside the house, rinses her mouth with coffee, glowers at the cheery sunshine belying the gathering clouds.

Fucking Saturday.

Saturday means Brian stopping by on his bicycle, bringing her weekly supplies up from the village, grinning like a fool. Saturday means interrupting her preparations for the storm in order to satisfy her neighbors’ flights of fancy, trading miracles for cash. Trifling with the vast and ancient machinery of the cosmos—re-knitting reality as if it were an old sock—just to conjure better jobs and better lovers for a bunch of blinkered dullards who wouldn’t know real power if it dropped a house on them.

She takes another drag and blows the uncharitable thoughts away on a cloud of tobacco smoke. It's a living. In her line of work, serving the mundane needs of the common folk in order to pay the bills had been an occupational hazard since time immemorial. 

Still, she thinks, with a rueful sigh. People had more respect for the Art in the old days. Better to be feared than treated like a novelty act. Even if it did lead to the odd hanging.

Glancing at the little tool shed up near the road, with the chicken coop on its leeward side, she freezes mid-sip. A feather drifts through the hazy air. And another.

"Fuck fuck fuck," she says, setting her mug down with a rattle on the paving stones and half-running up the garden path.

Blood splatters the ground inside the coop; two terrified chickens peer out, where once there had been eight.

A fox's work.

"Fuck!"

She screams in frustration, spiking her half-smoked cigarette into the grass at her feet. Her eyes squeeze shut as she pinches the bridge of her nose.

I should have heard them. Or felt them. Could've done something if I wasn't so wiped out.

From the road, a clatter of gears and a frantic voice: "Evangeline? Jesus, are you hurt?"

She sighs and rubs her eyes. "Alright, Brian." She looks up at the teetering pile of adolescence standing next to his bike: brown corduroys, red-and-green rugby shirt, orange raincoat, a worried look on his broad face. "You ever seen a fox on fire?" she asks.

He frowns. "Sorry?"

She pulls her last remaining cigarette from the pack and puts it between her lips. "Stick around and you might."

He notices the floating feathers. "Ah, Jesus. I'm sorry. How many?"

"Six." She pulls a match from the box and strikes it.

It breaks.

Head thrown back, her whole body amplifies the throat-straining scream that she sends toward the darkening clouds: "FUCK!"

At the cliff's edge, atop the old lighthouse, a trio of startled gulls suddenly takes flight, sending bits of masonry skittering down.

"Hear me well!" She yells at the empty air, snatching the unlit cigarette from her mouth and using it to point emphatically at nothing. "Keep fucking with me, and when I catch you, I will bind you to an iron anchor and sink you into the focking depths!"

Brian stares. Despite standing head and shoulders above her, he looks unsure whether to help her or save himself. Cautiously, he pulls a lighter from his pocket and extends it toward her, sparking a flame at arm's length.

She slowly turns back and leans toward the offered light, puffing as the cigarette burns.

He looks at her warily. "Could you not just shoot it?"

She squints at him through a cloud of smoke. "Eh?"

"The fox."

She lets out a short laugh, flicking ash off the cigarette's embering tip. "Never mind. Where are my manners. How's your mum?"

"She's grand, thanks. Sends her best. Heard you were feeling a bit under the weather."

"Cheers." She nods toward the box strapped to his ten-speed's makeshift cargo rack "Anything not in stock?"

"Nah, got it all." He releases the crate and picks it up, inventorying its contents. "Biscuits, bread, butter, candles, chocolate, cigarettes, coffee, jam, wine… the, ah… erm— other—"

"Tampons?"

His face glows like a malfunctioning stop light. "Yes. Those."

"Bit of life advice, Brian. Women respect a man who can say the word 'tampons' unaided."

He ducks his head. "Sure." A thoughtful pause. "What else do women respect? In a man."

She rolls her eyes heavenward. "Grab that gear and bring it to the house. I've a bloody crime scene to clean up and the storm of the century bearing down on us. Consultations cost double today."

He grabs the grocery crate and lumbers after her down the garden path. "You've heard about the storm then? They're saying on TV that it's part of a hurricane. People are boarding up windows all over the village. We haven't had a storm like this since my mum can remember, she says."

"Feels like a bad one, yeah."

"You aren't worried?"

"I've been through storms before." But I've never tried to talk one down, she thinks. Reaching the front of the cottage, she sits on the wind-scoured bench beneath its eaves and takes a drag from her cigarette. "But go on then, who's the lucky lady?"

He shuffles awkwardly. "Just a girl. From school."

She nods, blowing smoke. "Pretty, I take it?"

A blissful smile. "Beautiful."

Bless your heart, you'll make someone a dutiful husband someday. If you don't wander into traffic first. "And what can I do?"

"Well." He studies the shingles above her head. "D'you do… ah… love spells?"

She stifles a laugh and leans over to pick up her abandoned coffee mug. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well. She's great, but—"

"—doesn't know you exist?"

He blushes. "She does. I think. Just… not like that. Yet."

She shakes her head. "If I were to take the job, it would cost you more than an old radio."

He straightens up. "I've got fifty pounds."

"Jesus, Brian. What does she have? Three tits?" She grins as his face turns several shades of maroon. "Settle down. But listen. You could get her something proper sparkly for a third of that."

He frowns. "That's not it. I don't want to buy her. I want her to—"

"Love you uncontrollably through the power of my dark arts? Doesn't sound much better. Listen." She grinds out the smoldering filter in the gravel, knocks back the rest of her now-cold coffee with a shudder, and opens a fresh pack of cigarettes from the crate. "Everyone thinks they want a love spell, but only the creeps really do. Do you truly want this girl to love you against her will? No. Not you. And even if you did get her into bed"—she holds up a hand as he sputters—"or marry her, or whatever it is you have planned for the lady of your sonnets, you'd always know deep down that she didn't really love you. That it was only the spell. Yeah?" 

He hastily pulls out his lighter as she puts the cigarette to her lips. Another broken match might send the old lighthouse over the cliff. 

She nods her thanks and takes a drag. "What you actually want is for me to enchant you."

He nods enthusiastically. "Sure, yeah. Brilliant. What can you do?"

"For fifty quid? In this economy?" She squints up at him. "Can't make you shorter. That'd cost twice as much. What is it you think you'll need to get this girl?"

"Well." He shuffles. "Whenever I try to talk to her, I… the words don't come out."

"Eloquence, then. Classic. And confidence? Maybe a sense of humor once in a while?"

He smiles. "Yeah, that'd be fine."

She leans forward. "Now. Keep in mind. I might be able to get her on the hook for you, but you have to reel her in and land her. Enchanting some good first impressions will only get you so far. Sometimes it's better to just leave off the spells and gut it out on your own. Less of a letdown if it doesn't work out. They say 'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved, but they probably never got the girl of their dreams with magic, only to find that they were still just Brian when the spells reached their limit. You understand?"

He nods reluctantly. "Okay."

She smiles. "Good lad. You've got the coin?"

He pulls a nylon wallet from his pocket and unfastens the velcro flap with a prolonged scr-i-i-itch. 

She squeezes her eyes shut. "I'll give you a ten percent discount if you throw that thing into the ocean," she says.

"This?" He holds up the electric-orange billfold. "What's wrong with it?"

"Everything." She holds out her upturned palm to him. "Right. All in for twenty ducats. Save the rest for a nice necklace. Or something bloody normal, like a ferry ride and movie tickets in town." 

He hesitates. "How will I know when it's worked?"

Ravens.

"Ravens," she says.

He frowns. "What about ravens? Ravens doing what?"

She shrugs. "Donno. Just ravens. That's what popped into my head, so that's what the omen will be." 

"But how will I know they're not just regular ravens?"

"You'll know."

"But—"

She closes her outstretched hand, resting it back in her lap. "Brian. I'm a witch, not a bloody ornithologist."

He gives her a blank look.

"Bird scientist? Blood of Christ, do they teach you young ones nothing in school anymore? I was reading Latin by the time I was your age." Studying his frowning face, she leans back on her bench and blows out a mouthful of smoke. "If you want this to work, it will work. If you're looking for ironclad, verifiable proof that it has worked, you've come to the wrong shop. It's not like the movies. If you're expecting lightning bolts and levitation and glowing eyes, you're better off keeping your money. The real stuff is subtle. It works beneath the surface of the world that we can see."

He looks at the banknotes in his hand. "So if it's just about whether I want it to work or not, what's the money for?"

She grins. "The benefit of my sparkling wit. Plus the energy it'll take me to get ahold of some local spirits and have them sort you out. They need things from me." She takes another drag. "Besides, if it's just about you deciding it'll work, why haven't you already done the deciding yourself?"

His frown deepens.

 "There's a reason you're not off playing football or stealing cars or whatever you kids do at the weekend. You're out here in the weather on a Saturday, talking to a mad old toad like me, because you've tried to make yourself believe that you can do it. But it won't stick, because you're trying to think your way into it, when what you need is to feel different. I'm offering my personal assurance that the powers I work with can give you what you need. I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that they are real, and that I can get them to help you. Now, maybe that makes me a lunatic. And maybe that makes you a lunatic for believing me. Maybe all you get out of it is a good story. But sometimes a good story is all you need. And if that story is worth twenty pounds more than the one you've been telling yourself, I'm at your service."

He contemplates the notes in his hand; with a shrug and a smile, he hands them over to her. “She's worth it."

"Thank you kindly," she says, taking the money from him. "I'll whip up a spell and make some offerings as soon as I'm able. They'll take care of it for you."

"How, though? How can you do that? Talk to ghosts, get them to do things for you?"

She grinds out her smoldering filter on the bench beside her. "Not ghosts. Spirits. And it works the same as when regular people come out here and work with me. I do things for them. I take them seriously. I've built up a relationship of trust with them. Not to mention I'm bloody charming." She smiles. "They're people too, they're just… what's the word? Incorporeal. Consciousness without a body. And that lets them pull the levers that you and I can't see."

She glances up toward the road. Framed against the deepening clouds above the garden, a dusty red hatchback pulls slowly onto the shoulder, crunching gravel beneath its tires, and stops beside Brian's bike.

Fucking Saturday.

Sighing, she reaches out and flips over the hand-painted wooden sign hanging on the door—from the side reading "Please Knock" to the one that reads "Do Not Disturb." 

"We'll have to leave it there, Brian. This looks like my next patient. Say hi to your mum from me, and keep an eye out for those ravens. Off you pop."