Week 5! How are you holding up?
This week, I was tasked with writing a short story for my speculative fiction writing group in East St. Paul. The prompt: You’ve received an unusual gift from someone. Ready, set, write!
Here’s what my brain cooked up. If you want to play along and write off the same prompt, I’d be interested to read whatever you concoct.
It seems more like an omen than a gift. I twist the bead around in my fingers, spinning it back so it looks away from me, then forward. The iris blazes pale blue—blue like arctic ice, or the lips of snow fairies. It hangs in the center of the bead with a dark navy pupil, and is surrounded by a ring of white on a backdrop of cobalt blue. The rings of blue glitter in the candlelight. I shudder and set the bead on my wooden table.
It stares. But what else would an evil eye talisman do?
When my uncle handed me the petite package this past afternoon, I had hoped it was a necklace or maybe a jade ring from his travels to South America. Something warm and easy on the eye. Something to carry me away from the bitter cold of this place.
“You’ll need this,” was all he said when he thrust the package into my hands. Before I could respond, he turned on his heels and tromped away, snow crunching under the treads of seal skin boots. I remember watching him and pulling my cloak closer as a chill slithered across my skin.
I shake the icy thought and am reminded of the fire dying in its grate. My cottage is so cold that I can see every puff of breath as I arise from my stool and cross the room to tend the meager flame. I blow on it, add another log from the pile, and watch the orange fingers stroke the new wood and begin to nibble at it. A cast iron pot hangs over the fire and I tip the lid up to stir the stew.
Stew for one.
I’ve lived alone since I was eighteen, over ten years now. No sensible man marries the village witch. Such a move is not great for one’s reputation.
But I prefer it this way—on my own, receiving occasional visitors that seek a healing spell or a good luck charm to aid in the next polar bear hunt. I mostly have a harmonious relationship with the villagers in my little town, but I’ve noticed an increase in tension lately. More and more people seem to cross to the other side of the street when they see me walking to market. And I’ve noticed anti-witch amulets popping up above people’s doors.
All this paranoia is likely the result of a recent string of witch attacks in Copenhagen, but that’s a thousand miles away and I’ve never associated with the witches of the black cross. Bad apples, all of them.
A rustling at the door snaps me out of my thoughts. I’m usually not bothered by the bumps and whispers of the night, but the evil eye on my dinner table has me on edge. I glance at it. It seems larger than before, and brighter. I decide it’s a trick of the light and turn back toward my stew pot.
It’s bubbling and spitting ginger-flavored steam. I raise the lid again, decide that it’s ready, and fill my bowl to the brim with rabbit-vegetable stew. The evil eye is waiting when I return to the table.
There’s no denying it now: the eye has grown to the size of a partridge egg and is beaming glassy blue across the table. I watch it as I eat.
A scrape at the door; a knock. I nearly spill the hot stew as I lurch to my feet.
“Who is it?” I call and start toward the door. Before I can reach the peephole to take a look outside, the door is kicked from its hinges and flies toward me. I duck to the side as the wooden missile hurls past me; in barges three of the largest humans I’ve ever seen. Two men and a woman, all clad in inky black uniforms with a blazing red flame stamped on their shoulder guards.
Venros. Witch hunters.
I scream and run toward the fire. Maybe I can conjure a quick spell. But they are swift. One of the men catches me by the arm and pulls me toward him. He pins my hands behind my back and pirouettes me around toward the other Venros.
“We’ve had it with your witchcraft, creature. It’s time for you to answer for your crimes.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” I shout. “I’ve not harmed a soul! Leave me be. Get out of here!”
The trio laughs. “We’ll leave all right,” the female Venro curls a lip at me. “As soon as we burn the warty witch flesh from your bones.”
She takes a step forward. Over her shoulder, I notice the evil eye beaming like a tiny star on my tabletop. Its light grows and begins to concentrate in three distinct points. It crackles and burgeons with blue luminescence.
The Venros don’t notice. Their cruel eyes are fixed on me; they lick their lips as they imagine me burning.
A concussive blast. The three points of light from the evil eye burst into the room, slicing clean holes through the Venros’ torsos. Their eyes switch from cruelty to shock in a millisecond. Mouths hang open as they feel the warmth of their organs slip out of their bodies and onto the cottage floor.
Simultaneously, the Venros collapse and their bodies melt before my eyes. Only a pile of black cloaks remain.
I straighten and catch my breath. My ears still ring from the explosion. I stoop, pick up the piles of clothing, and dump them into the fire. The fire moans and grows fat; the faint smell of oil wafts into the room. I watch the flames for a minute, then turn toward my dinner table. The evil eye has shrunk down to the same size it was this afternoon. Just a glossy bead, looking at me with an unblinking stare. I pick it up and press my lips to it. I must remember to thank my uncle.
Kate Bitters is a freelance writer, marketer, and author of Elmer Left and Ten Thousand Lines. She is writing a story a week in 2015-2016 on the Bitter Blog. Subscribe to follow her journey.
Author: KateBitters
Kate Bitters is a Minneapolis-based author and freelance writer. She is the author of Elmer Left, Ten Thousand Lines, and He Found Me. One of her proudest/nerdiest moments was when Neil Gaiman read one of her short stories on stage at the Fitzgerald Theater.