I’ve been unable to write as much as I’d like because of the horrors imposed by the final year of an undergraduate degree. However, I’ve been turning an idea about road trips and witches over and over in my head for about six months. I finally did something with it.
I hope you enjoy this, as I don’t often feel the urge to write fiction. Maybe I’ll write more, maybe not. All things are uncertain.
If I don’t post before Halloween this year, then this is vaguely thematic and can serve as a holiday post.
Happy Halloween, don’t die in a field in Michigan.
Salem, Michigan
There have always been witches in Salem.
This one had seen three hundred years and millions of miles of road. From deserts to forests to mountains and back again a thousand times over. Witness to the fall of empires and the creation of new, quieter ones.
All to die in a field in Michigan.
Every road in the state was covered in ruts capable of tripping even the most skillful driver, though this one, perhaps in reference to its namesake — the Tower — was uniquely difficult to navigate. Clods of dirt struck the bottom of the chassis. Blood stained black leather.
The car jumped as the brake pedal hit metal. Cursing low wheel bases and shoddy English engineering, the driver jammed the transmission into park. Intuition said she was over the border.
Intuition was wrong.
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She had been bleeding since outside Howell. It began in some backwater bar infused with the stench of Klan rallies past. She entered, as was her preference, with the expected number of holes in her person (ten, not counting the eyes). Leaving the bar with eleven, she had no choice but to hit the interstate.
About the time the driver began to guide her car around a sizable lake, she regretted chancing the drive. Even if she were to make it, there was nowhere to recover but the backseat of the Jag. And what after that? The man whose knife had broken off in her thorax was unlikely to follow, but she detested being easy prey.
The moon was distressingly orange, reflected like this onto the water.
Empty as these roads were, the driver felt herself struggling to focus. Other drivers were by and large unintelligent and dangerous, but they provided welcome distractions from her own thoughts. As it stood, she couldn’t help but consider the coming end. What had she truly accomplished? Several centuries of transitive life interspersed with occasional plays at domesticity.
Would those who loved her stop to mourn her death?
Staring at the leaping silver feline on the hood of her car, she could almost hear the words of an occasional friend. The driver repeated them in the hopes that either the universe at large or her lethargic brain would listen.
“You’re not enough of a quitter to die. Stay alive and figure out the rest later.”
The words sounded tinny and far off, though they originated from her own skull. Perhaps a bad sign. The silence they left was only filled with the rushing of the wind and the white noise of a broken radio. She had meant to fix it ages ago. She may never get the chance.
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There have always been witches in Salem.
The exact coordinates do not matter. Magic isn’t picky in that way.
Some believe the magic somehow followed the name, that some sort of energy is drawn to these places because of what settlers chose to call them. Others believe that the magic influenced the name. There is almost no evidence for either belief. After all, magic isn’t real.
But of course, the driver is a witch, and witches have magic. A conundrum, for sure. Perhaps that is why she feels so untethered to this world. Perhaps that is why she’ll leave it soon.
Soon is relative.
Unfortunately, borders are not so relative. They are static, and the driver has not yet crossed this moment’s most crucial one. She is too busy bleeding out on untrimmed grass.
This Salem would welcome her with a rush of power if only she could cross the threshold. A trivial task, yet currently insurmountable. The inconsistent nature of human ability is often applied ironically.
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The driver’s trunk is full of soil. The land in Salem has the ability to manifest and augment the magic of certain individuals like the driver and her occasionally-profound friend.
He isn’t in this Salem, though. He’s settled in Iowa in a way that the driver never could. Magic flows through him like the blood currently flowing out of his nomadic friend; strongly and without end.
A crude turn of phrase, but effective at shifting focus back to the matter at hand: the driver and her trunk full of dirt.
Over the years, the driver has taken time every several months to gather several ounces of dirt from each place named Salem in North America. Because she cannot stay in her homeland’s warm embrace, she must carry it with her in order to practice her craft.
In the past, it had felt necessary to sever the suffocating connection between motherland and daughter-witch. The hypnotic freedom of the open road called to her in a way impossible to ignore, though like any abusive relationship, it came with its own rules. A person without a home to return to must quickly learn how to live without.
The driver has many rules of her own. The only ones relevant to her current dilemma are number 57 (“Never, under any circumstances, should you let a man kill you”) and number 18 (“If you’re within a hundred miles of Salem, don’t use your dirt reserves”). It seems like a contradiction to be so particular about rules that are clearly so short-sighted.
The driver is full of contradictions. And holes. Perhaps this hole will force an addendum to her usually rigid rules. The last one didn’t, but people can change.
Thirty miles seemed reasonable when the wound was new. Now, the driver regrets not making use of her contingencies. The regret will fade without a lasting impact if she can survive this.
Adherence to this set of rules is the only reason she’s still alive. It may also be the reason she dies. Every way of living has a price.
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A disintegrating wooden fence is illuminated on one side by the orange moon and on the other by a flickering bulb. Another bit of maintenance deferred, perhaps forever.
There is a slender cat on the fence. Its narrowed eyes search the woman on the ground, finding her state lacking in something. Grace, definitely, but something else, too.
The border with Salem, the driver’s impossible hurdle, has been easily bounded by her companion. To be fair to the witch, she guided him there. The chrome bumper of the slowly disintegrating coupe slid across the intangible and all-important line as its driver was stumbling out its open door and to the earth.
She was not so lucky.
Face to the horizon, the cat yawns. Unimpressed, yes, but also tired. He had been on the road with the driver for many sleepless nights before this current, unplanned detour. A long nose twitches as the scent of a rodent wafts on the wind. Unlike the friendly upturn of the snouts of his domestic cousins, it is all wildcat.
Paws hit the dirt with an outsized thud. Leaning down, he places his wet nose to the driver’s middle finger, which had, finally, crossed into Salem. Under the watchful gaze of the moon and her sole earthly companion, she had dragged a part of herself back home.
That one part is both just enough and not enough.
Large jaws grip the cuff of her wool coat. She finally begins to move at a speed greater than glacial. The dirt drags at her battered body and prompts low, pained moaning.
The lost daughter once again returns to her mother’s embrace. Turning to face the moon, she breathes deeply for the first time in hours and places her left hand to the lazily oozing wound in her side. Her companion swishes a powerful tail.
As the wound closes, she coughs, working her tongue around a sharp piece of metal suddenly in her mouth. It does not make her bleed, this time. Turning her head and spitting, the point of a hunting knife glints in the light.
The driver heaves a sigh and stands up. Being home often makes her restless, though she has never settled in this particular Salem. She could leave immediately, but she risks tearing the stitches she just applied. That is a mistake she has only made three times.
Leaning on the fence, she strokes the once again slender cat as he jumps to meet her. She would not return him so quickly to his metal prison, either. There is no incentive to be cruel to the only man she has ever loved, such as he is.
“Not our most graceful homecoming, but beggars can’t be choosers.” Finally, the driver’s words feel as though they have come from her alone. The cat narrows his inscrutable eyes in response. The driver laughs, though there is no humor in it.
“It’s never not my fault, Lyon. We’ve been together long enough for me to remember that much.” Her own dark eyes narrow at a sudden flapping of wings.
Her home has never failed to welcome her when she chooses to return, but her siblings often range from wary to outright hostile. She cannot remember which of them make their homes here. It seems she will soon be reminded.
Soon is relative. The driver will die soon, meaning later. Her siblings will find her soon, meaning now.
The only thing she can hope is that those coming now do not choose to hasten later. After all, dying in a field in Michigan is perhaps the worst way to cap off a life such as hers.
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