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…
Like I said before, I’m really getting into the spirit of the season this year. So reconsidering The Mourners yet again, and haunting the faith a bit, I decided to share a poem that I wrote thinking about All Hallows Eve as a preview of more things to come this month of October.
On Becoming Hallowed
Holy. Holy. Holy. Light the candle. Chant the hymn.
For now the veil between the living and the dead grows thin.
Fingers held to lips in silence; lies beneath their skin.
Family found, ancestral ghosts return to haunt their kin.
Skeletons in closets, grotesque yearnings trapped within.
A bleached and bony face flashes a slightly knowing grin.
It’s not the shadows but the darkness that we fear therein.
Bless this Church whose saintly bodies live and dwell herein.
Unto Death, they claim to sanctify our souls from sin.
Those familiar faces shame; this fight we cannot win.
Come what may, they betray. Pray/prey and heads will spin.
Forevermore and evermore to nevermore… Amen.
I thought this poem really captured All Hallows Eve, in some of the same sentiments as the movie High Spirits, which I loved almost as much as Beetlejuice back in the day.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or on her writing, fine art, and conceptual projects websites.
So I’ve decided to revisit some of my bereaved Gothic celebrity drawings and resurrect The Mourners, since we’re in the thick of spooky season… And I’m not talking pumpkin spice, though it is nice. Maybe it’s the weather, or maybe it’s the despairing existential angst, but lately I’ve been feeling a bit haunted so I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane with you by posting a bunch of art here. So without further ado…
I wanted to focus on more of the details of the sculptures this time. The craftsmanship of these works still astounds me. When royalty commissioned such works, the artists may have devoted much of their lives to realizing these pieces to fruition. They were very time involved processes.
Here are some more details of hands and clothing that I found interesting. Remember that these sculptures are less than 12 inches tall for the whole of the human form. So they are very intricate for their size.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or on her writing, fine art, and conceptual projects websites.
The gorse bush seemed taken aback. It bristled and exclaimed, “A bush!”
“I am so very sorry, my Lord, I can explain,” the goblin cleric bowed in reverence, eyes glued to the ground. Everything about his body language was submissive and nervous.
“Of all the useless… How is it that I got reincarnated as a bush?!” The shrubbery prickled, growing more and more agitated. “I should have come back as a great King, or an Angel, or a Demon, or a dragon, or something even grander… Hell, I’d have settled for returning as the undead Lich King Tyrant Boss-Man you all came to know and love and revere. But no, that wasn’t in the dice. And now here I am, A Bush!” The spiky leaves trembled and rustled as they spoke, both emphasizing and decrying their verdant stature.
“Well, we were in a rush to revive you, after that run in with the goody-two-shoes 20th level adventurers and the awkward retreat,” the goblin knelt before the bramble-vine. “All of our best clerics, necromancers, and acolytes were tapped for spells or had perished in the great battle. Those of us who got out of the caves were lucky to escape with our lives and make it to this little clearing on the mountainside. And we desperately needed your guidance. We still do…”
“That doesn’t explain why I’m a bush now,” the gorse stretched to its full height, about two-and-a-half feet of thorny rage. “And a Gorse Bush at that! Before too long I’ll have a stand of satyrs piping along with a centaur drum circle, all strumming up some fertility ritual at my feet… er, roots…”
“Well, I’m multi-disciplinary you know.” The goblin spell-caster muttered and meekly shifted to his other foot, bracing for the inevitable, “Sometimes I get the cleric and druid magics confused a little.”
“Confused a little?” the bush growled, “Confused A Little?!” The bush’s rage turned to magic as it burst into flames. “I’m A BUSH!!! That’s not just some modest little cleric-druid spell translation issue!”
The goblin shrunk from the blaze, “But my Lord, you are a mighty bush. The greatest bush, really terrific… The gorsiest, bushiest bush in all of shrub-dom… Other bushes? Losers! We all agree, your Lordship.” The trembling goblin horde in the scrubland shadows at the edge of the small clearing nodded emphatically in response, fearing their bushy leader’s wrath. And rightfully so…
A tongue of flame erupted like a lightning bolt from the gorse and zapped the goblin cleric-druid where he stood, leaving nothing but a smattering of ashes drifting towards the ground. The flame erupted through the goblin horde in a huge explosion that engulfed everything in its wake, leaving a circle of scorched earth covered in a fine layer of sooty ash, smelling a bit like cordite.
The bush sighed and took note of its surroundings, sulking. It waited for some would-be adventurer to wander up the mountainside to find it there, where they could revel in its awkward awesomeness. Seasons came and went, and time seemed to stand still for nigh eternity as the gorse bush seethed beneath its crown of thorny brambles. Perhaps it should have convinced the goblin cleric to transplant it to a more trafficked location first.
If you enjoyed that bit of snarky fantasy, check out Ppppffffttt my previous Poised Potion Poison Potential story.
And feel free to check out more of Jennifer Weigel’s work here on Haunted MTL or on her writing, fine art, and conceptual projects websites.
