Bargaining: An Original Story by Jennifer Weigel
This is a companion story to my Lighter Than Dark advertisement from Feb. 3, Best Friends Forever. https://hauntedmtl.com/originals/lighter-than-dark/ltd-best-friends-forever/
Misty glanced at her phone. It wasn’t like him to be late. She checked her messages: no contact, no email, no sign of any change in plans. She checked her calendar. This was the right time and place. What could be taking him so long?
“Sorry I’m late,” a throaty calm and collected male voice echoed in her head. It was the kind of deep hollow voice that sinks into your heart and reverberates through your soul, the sort that should be narrating those late night mystery shows that leave you awake in bed, pondering the unfathomable. There were many who would give themselves freely over to that voice and follow it to the ends of the earth, but Misty knew better.
Nothing had changed. To the casual observer, the middle-aged woman sat alone at the café table, sipping a cup of hot tea with lemon and honey and nibbling intermittently on a beignet. Her bobbed black hair perfectly framed her gaunt face as she stared blankly ahead, a slight smile creeping to her ruby lips while she lost herself in her thoughts. There was an almost otherworldly quality about her, but nothing anyone could place without more of an understanding of the inner workings of the Dark Arts. Her visitor arrived unbeknownst to anyone else as a pinpoint glimmer of green light deep in the recesses of her eyes, which she discreetly hid behind dark sunglasses.
Misty blinked slowly. “Did you take care of it?” she thought.
The voice answered in her mindscape. “The deed has been done, exactly as you specified.”
“Good.” Misty’s smile widened and she took another sip of her tea. “And the onlookers?”
“No one suspected a thing. He just fell over when the Pact was discharged; he had broken his vows and thusly paid the price. It was assumed to be a heart attack. He was pronounced dead on arrival.”
To engage in this kind of dark magick was risky, especially out in the open, and on parade day no less. Those that could navigate the alliances were in high demand and were often tied up in a multitude of things beyond their own puppet-mastery. But parade day was actually perfect timing, as most spectators wouldn’t know the difference between a spell or a hex or a soul-binding incantation, and the throngs of tourists provided a great diversion.
The deed needed to be done, and Misty couldn’t do it herself because that would break her own end of the bargain. She’d had to find an arbitrator, an angel walking the earth as its conscience of sorts. But these “angels” always had their own agendas… She fingered the gold ring on her left hand and grimaced, hearkening back to the day she’d found her husband in bed with his buxom young secretary who had been wearing Misty’s very own bathrobe. She’d wished she could have ended it then and there but she knew better, so she bit her tongue and bided her time.
“Do you remember our arrangement?” the male voice interjected rather forcefully, jarring her from her reverie. “Now it’s up to you to uphold your part in this…”
Misty’s smile faded and her demeanor became more somber. That was the problem with soul-binding, you had to wheel and deal your way out of it through the darkest of magicks, and for every Pact that you wanted to break free of, it seemed you formed another two lesser alliances. It was tiresome, but this was the end of the line and it was worth everything.
Misty stroked a small wooden box in her purse, which she had been holding in her lap. “Yes,” she answered, her lips parting slightly to mouth the word as she thought it. “Payback’s a bitch, especially when you deal with devils,” she thought to herself, contemplating her late husband’s fate as much as her agreement with the arbitrator.
“Good,” the voice in her head hissed, “You know what to do with it…”
Misty nodded slowly to herself and took a long last sip of her tea, which had grown cold. She hated playing a pawn in all of this but it was too late to turn back now. She meticulously opened the box and pulled out a diminutive antique single-shot pistol. She wrapped the gun in her folded cloth napkin and placed it in her lap as she lowered her purse to the ground, poised and ready to strike. The single silver bullet marked her fulfillment of her end of the bargain.
A small brass bell sounded as the door beside the café leading to the upstairs curiosity shoppe and small apartment opened. Madame Alcatrez, spiritual advisor, was seeing a client off after a Tarot reading. As they parted ways, Madame Alcatrez lingered in the doorway a moment too long, just enough time for Misty to strike.
Misty stood and brandished the pistol, releasing the napkin to drift to the ground. Her eyes ablaze with green fire hidden in the dark recesses of her sunglasses, she aimed and fired the single silver round at Madame Alcatrez, hitting her squarely in the heart. Madame Alcatrez’s dying words filled the void between them, “I’ve been expecting you.” Misty fell slowly to the ground as her final obligation and the magicks that surrounded it left her body. Madame Alcatrez crumpled, and the street flew into a frenzy of activity.
Misty came to in jail. The trial was short and the sentencing was abrupt – two life sentences. Still, it was better than the alternative, and Misty had finally extracted herself from the Pact that she bore. She smiled as she was escorted to prison, now all she had to do was await Eternity…
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
I have recently begun exploring Fibonacci poetry and penned this as a consideration for the Lovecraftian terrors while considering that Kansas was once an inland sea. It is also based on the beloved and enigmatic painting of Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth.
She
stares
ahead;
the landscape
yawns ever further
spanning the distance between us
and that deep unthinkable unknowable abyss.
This plain was once an inland sea,
a vast ocean filled
with terrors
beyond
our
ken.
Time
stands
still for
none of us.
It marches towards
our inevitable decay.
Our fragile flesh succumbs to the horror of the void,
cradling our fallen progeny
and yearning for home.
Christina,
hurry
back.
Now.
It
could
happen
anywhere…
The farmhouse beckons
from its horizon vantage point,
thousands of blades of grass groping like tiny tendrils.
The ancestors grasping at straws,
hoping to evade
inevitable
collapse,
their
loss.
Stars
fall.
Panic
sounds beyond
our comprehension.
Their silent screams fall on deaf ears.
We cannot interpret their guttural languages
or understand their diminutive cries
this far from the tide.
Slumbering
depths still
snore
here.
The
ebb
and flow
roil and churn
with water’s rhythms,
caress the expanse of grasses
covering this now fragile and forsaken ocean.
The landscape gapes and stretches wide,
reaching to grab hold
of her dress,
earthbound.
Lost
her.
I hope you enjoyed this jaunt through Christina’s World into pure terror. Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website. Or go on a trip to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
So what better follow up to Invisibles Among Us in Nightmarish Nature than Monstrous Mimicry? Further exploring the leaps that critters will go to in order to eat and not be eaten. This time we’re focusing on those creatures that want to intentionally be mistaken for one another.
Insects Pretending to Be Insects
This is a pretty common subgroup in the mimicry set. Featuring such celebrities as the Viceroy Butterfly, which looks an awful lot like the Monarch. Why? Because everyone knows Monarch Butterflies taste nasty and cause indigestion. Duh? Though it appears the Viceroy took further cues from this and is not all that tasty in its own right either. Dual reinforcement is totally the way to go – it tells predators not to eat the yucky butterflies regardless. But some bugs go a bit further in this, imitating one another to seek out food or protection. Various wasps, spiders, beetles, and even some caterpillars impersonate ants for access to their nest or because ants aren’t as appetizing as their buggy counterparts to much of anything outside of the myrmecophagous crowd (as shared before, here’s a fun diversion with True Facts if you have no idea), though some also have nefarious plans in mind. And similarly, the female photoris fireflies imitate other firefly signals luring smaller males to try to mate with them where they are instead eaten.
Kind of Weird Mimicry: Insects Pretending to Be Animals
Moths are pretty tasty, as far as many birds and small mammals are concerned, so several of them find ways to appear less appetizing. Using mimicry in their larval form, they may try to look specifically like bird scat or even like snakes to drive away predators, with elaborate displays designed to reinforce their fakir statuses. And once they emerge as moths, they continue these trends, with different species flashing eye spots to look like owls, snakes, cats, and a myriad of other animals most of their predators don’t want to tangle with. But other insects pretend to be larger animals too, with some beetles and others producing noises often associated with predator, typically towards the same end – to deter those who might otherwise eat them.
Animals Pretending to Be Animals
Similarly some animals will mimic others. Snakes may resemble one other, as seen in the Milk versus King versus Coral Snakes and the popular rhyme, Red with Black is safe for Jack or venom lack, but Red with Yellow kills a fellow for all that it isn’t 100% accurate on the Red-Yellow end (better to err on the side of caution than not – so assume they are deadly). Fish and octopuses will imitate other fish for protection status or to conceal opportunistic predatory behaviors. And lots of animals will mimic the sounds others make, though Lyrebirds tend to take the cake in this, incorporating the vocalizations into mating rituals and more.
Really Weird Mimicry: Animals Pretending to Be Insects
Some of the weirdest mimicry comes out in animals pretending to be insects or small fish, where a predator will flick its strangely formed tongue that looks like a fish or water nymph to draw in more tiny critters that feel safe with their own, only to find themselves snapped up as dinner. Snapping turtles are notorious for this, disguising themselves in the muck to make their big asses less obvious and reinforce the ruse. Even some snakes do this.
Weirder Still
Then there are things that pretend to be plants. Like orchid mantises. Or sea slugs that look like anemones (some of which eat anemones and have stingers to match). I mentioned a few of these in the Invisibles Among Us segment last time, because some are highly specialized to look like very specific things and others just aren’t. Essentially, nature loves to play dress up and be confusing and adaptive. It’s like Halloween year round. And who can really argue with that?
Here’s a fun video from Animalogic exploring some of these themes. And feel free to check out more Nightmarish Nature here.
This prose poem considers sinking into self, how ongoing struggles with mental health and well-being have led me to take actions that reinforce the patterns therein, especially regarding depression and existential angst, succumbing to cycles that are familiar in their distress and unease. For these struggles are their own form of horror, and it can be difficult to break free of their constraints. I know I am not alone in this, and I have reflected upon some of these themes here before. My hope in sharing these experiences is that others may feel less isolated in their own similar struggles.
She withdrew further into herself, the deep, dark crevices of her psyche giving way to a dense thicket. She felt secure. In this protective barrier of thorns and stoicism, she hoped to heal from the heartache that gnawed at her being, to finally defeat the all-consuming sadness that controlled her will to live and consumed her joy. She didn’t realize that hope cannot reside in such a dark realm, that she built her walls so impenetrable that no glimmers of light could work their way into her heart to blossom and grow there. That by thusly retreating, she actually caged herself within and without, diving straight into the beast’s lair. And it was hungry for more.
Feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or here on her website.
