Rain beats like furious fists on the windows of Ms. Aris’s musty, chilled classroom. The howling wind reminds her of rowdy children. Ms. Aris is used to this cacophony, so much so that it takes two hours to realize it’s not her students making the noise, but the weather.
She’s so lost in her trace, in fact, that she forgets she’s alone.
Her coffee still contains a trace of warmth when she reaches for it. She tries to focus her
attention on the stack of assignments before her, but her eyes won’t properly adjust behind her thin-rimmed glasses. Has someone turned off the lights? She can’t tell. Papers flip against each other. Her dry pen scratches a few marks, labels an essay a grade she is unsure about, but is too tired to bother double checking. She’s given up on that a long time ago.
It’s still pouring outside. The letters on the paper begin to jump out at Ms. Aris. Her coffee is now frigid and undrinkable. A gust of wind cuts through the class, blowing her thin blonde hair in her face and scattering her tall pile of essays amongst the floor.
Ms. Aris clenches her fist and turns to the tall windows. They’re closed. What’s strange is that it isn’t actually raining- it’s a dry, late afternoon.
She blinks. On her desk remains the stack of her students’ assignments, completely untouched.
With a stuttering breath, Ms. Aris reaches into her purse to pull out a bottle. She can’t see the label, but hopes it’s the one marked ZyPREXA. The pills rattle as she pours three into her palm. She swallows them and takes a sip of her coffee. Ah, no, this isn’t coffee. Mr. Andrews from the Biology department had been kind enough to bring her some tea before he left.
Right.
Ms. Aris caps her pen and sets it down. Guiding her movements carefully, she rests her
face in her wrinkled hands. The table edge digs into her stomach. Deep breaths in. Out. In. Out. In. Out. The world continues to spin wildly around her desk. If she quiets her thoughts, she thinks she can feel the rain threatening to return.
After another cycle of breaths, the rain begins to shout. No longer raindrops, but bombs,
booming and making the building shudder. The floor rumbles, sending phantom vibrations up her shin bone. Lockers she knows are not there rattle open and shut. It takes a few moments for the woman to realize the sound is coming from the opposite direction now- the door.
Ms. Aris looks up and startles. In the doorway is a young boy staring at her. He shivers in his soaked uniform as rivlets of water drool down his dark hair, his arms, and pool into a puddle at his feet.
“You’re…you’re wet,” Ms. Aris says.
The boy says nothing for a second more, then his face lights up with the brightest smile
the teacher has ever seen on a student here.
“I’m sorry I’m late, miss!” He skips inside the classroom. The trail of rain water follows him, but his feet make no sound. “It won’t happen again.”
The room falls colder, but with a cursory glance, Ms. Aris sees that the window is still
closed, and it is still not raining.
“Why are you here?” she asks. If the clock on the wall is right, it’s five o’clock. “School
ended two hours ago.”
The boy ignores her, sliding into the desk nearest the windows. Her mind is foggy, but
she’s positive one of the Palmer girls usually sits there, not this child. He looks much too young to be in her class, anyways. He can’t be older than thirteen.
Warily, Ms. Aris pushes herself off her chair. Pins and needles spike her legs as she
approaches the boy, still clutching her pill bottle. He sits with perfect posture, hands folded atop
the desk, swinging his legs as he looks out the glass. The moon is starting to rise, a dull prick in
the faded sky. Their reflections are clearer than anything past the window.
Ms. Aris scours her mind for who the boy is. It’s difficult, like trying to recall a stranger
or a distant relative. Looking at his face doesn’t help. His features are ordinary: brown eyes,
cheeks still round with baby fat, a pallour she isn’t sure is genetic or due to the low light. Still,
she’s sure she’d be able to recognize one of her own students. She can do that. She can still
do that.
Before she can ask for his name, the boy speaks up.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“What is it?”
The boy’s eyes are locked on the windows, a wobbly smile etched onto his face. He says, “Would you help me kill someone, miss?”
She can’t help it. A laugh surprises its way out of her, abrasive and too loud
in the otherwise still room. The boy’s smile doesn’t falter, but he stops swinging his legs. Ms. Aris feels like she’s floating high above the child, like she might be somewhere near the ceiling, bumping between the darkened lights.
With the hand not holding her pills, she pinches her thigh to ground herself, but even the pain is lost in a fog of numbness. “That’s a terrible thing to ask somebody,” she says.
Finally, he turns to face her. The boy is washed in cold light. His smile is still pulled tight, digging into his cheeks, but his wide eyes are that of a porcelain doll’s- unseeing, glassy orbs that look out of place in his head. Ms. Aris finds it difficult to keep his gaze.
“Why? You’re a teacher. Aren’t you supposed to help me?” he says.
“I can’t help you kill someone. That’s a bad thing to do.”
Ms. Aris realizes where the light is coming from. The moon. It’s high in the pitch
black sky. When had that happened? She glances at the clock to see it reads seven at night. Sweat trickles down her spine. Ms. Aris turns her gaze towards the boy. He bares his teeth in a grin at her now, the whites of his eyes glowing.
“But miss,” he unfolds his hands, exposing his wrists to her, “what if someone is hurting me?”
The pills clatter as the bottle falls to the floor. Ms. Aris gapes at the lattice work of
crimson scars on the child’s skin. She realizes it isn’t rainwater drooling down his skin and pooling on her classroom floor, but blood.
She’s on her feet. Her back hits the desk. The boy stands too, forearms still displayed for her.
“The only way to save myself is to kill the person who’s doing this to me. It’s the only way,” the boy says in a small voice.
At once, the porcelain eyes crack, expression twisting into a horrific mask across his empty face. The light casts hard shadows along the crevices of his cheeks and nose. The clock starts to scream quarter past midnight. Ms. Aris sees the boy in front of her, but when he speaks, his voice is in her ear. His cool, foul breath is brushing her nape.
“Fine. If saving myself is so bad, then I won’t.”
Ms. Aris shrieks and swivels around, but her quivering hand hits nothing but air. She
spins back to the desk. The boy isn’t there. The blood is gone. Yet, wet pennies and the stench of
rot still permeates the air.
She falls to her knees and searches the floor blindly. Her fingers knock against something
cylindrical under her chair and she snatches it like a life preserver. Ms. Aris scrambles to unscrew the bottle, but it’s empty.
A breeze chills Ms. Aris’s skin.
“Ah! Miss!”
Her neck cracks twice as she cranes her head. The window is wide open, and sitting on
the ledge is the boy, eyes glistening, smile wet. He leans back far enough that the top half of his
torso hangs freely outside, while his legs dangle inside the class.
The clock chants three in the morning.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he says cheerfully. Bloody handprints stain the windowsill when he shifts his grip. “I don’t need your help. I figured it out!”
Her heart thuds painfully in her chest, then skips a beat. The palms of her hands grow hot. There is no longer a fog in her mind, she is not floating amongst the rafter.
The boy giggles. He leans back and lets go.
Ms. Aris stands just as his short legs flip up and out of sight.
She runs to the window and sticks her head out. Her hand slips when she holds the ledge
where still-warm blood is tracked on the wood. It’s too dark to see outside. She waits, but
nothing follows. No scream. No landing.
Behind her, the clock strikes five.
Ms. Aris strains her ears and thinks she hears rain, but when she tilts her face up to the
night sky, not a single drop falls.
It takes only a moment for her to realize the sound is coming from the opposite direction-
the door.
“I’m sorry I’m late, miss!”
She turns. In the doorway is a young boy staring at her. He shivers in his soaked uniform as rivlets of water drool down his dark hair, his arms, and pool into a puddle at his feet.
“It won’t happen again.”
With her back to the open window, Ms. Aris feels rather than hears the rain start up.
Tabitha Witherspoon is a seventeen year old art lover, who will be graduating with her high school diploma and Associates degree this June 2020. She’s always been enthralled by stories, and recently decided to start telling a few of her own. Tabitha dreams of publishing novels with her name on the cover and surviving her upcoming year at the University of Washington, where she’ll study English.
Tripped out… in case you just couldn’t get enough of Everything Everywhere All at Once and the return of the infinite bagel with EVERYTHING on it…
Tripped Out motivational poster
Artwork description: kaleidoscopic image of pink hairy horror (This is actually a fink fuzzy frond plant not unlike a Cockscomb but with longer thinner flowering feelers rather than the fuller protuberances you see on a full-bodied Cockscomb plant. I have no idea what it was, but it was very odd so I had to snap a photo.)
Image text reads:Mixing Magic Mushrooms & Peyote Just remember: once you open that Pandora’s box, you’re never going to get the pink hairy tarantulas back in it…
Tripped Out seeing eye god sunflower
Artwork description: kaleidoscopic sunflower backlit by the sun with text and rainbow eye overlay
Image text reads: Eye See You Eye See All (in circle text so you can start and end reading wherever). In an ideal context this would be printed in the bottom of your tea mug or on a record that can slowly spin.
An Elven portal in the woods, emerging from stone and forest floor.
I had heard tale that The Elves dwell in these woods. Many underestimate The Elves; they have a fondness of heart for Tolkienesque Middle Earth fantasy stories and tales where Elves are the most highly civilized, virtuous and intelligent. They forget that those are just myths, save for The Elves being cunning. Remember that the Pied Piper was an Elf, and the children he took were not destined for such a glorious fate.
My sister lost her firstborn to The Elves. She hadn’t noticed the Changeling until it was too late. Her baby had already long since been stolen away. She was so distraught she refused to eat or speak. She locked herself in her room. Or my family locked her into it as she succumbed to the madness. Such are the ways of the family, for all of our protection. We never question but follow as expected, as a means of self-preservation. It has kept us all alive.
But I couldn’t get the sinking feeling out of my stomach; the grief became too overwhelming. That is why I came here. I know I will not be able to rescue the child, nor my sister. But I seek to avenge their meaningless deaths. To ensure that it doesn’t happen again. My family will never act. I am tired of the Village Elders just shrugging these things off in hushed whispers and badly shrouded secrets. It happens time and again. We are all expendable. They never do anything.
So here I am, in the Elven wood. Alone. As soon as my family figures out that I’m here, they will disown me. They probably already have. Again, it is for our own protection. I’ll be just another casualty of The Elves. Everything is so structured, so regimented. Anyone who dares act in opposition to the rules vanishes. We are all so afraid.
I lay in wait. It’s just a matter of time before the portal appears. The Elves use the portals to travel across time and space. They appear where and when they wish. But this time, I will go through first. I know not what is on the other side, just that the portals allow only one to traverse in each direction. We will trade places, if only for a moment until another portal forms. Hopefully that will be enough time.
The trees shift and morph. Falling leaves drift slower and slower towards the ground. There is a stillness that I cannot fully express. My breath hangs heavy in the silent air. There is no sound, no smell, no taste. It is time. The hairs on the back of my neck and arms rise. I can sense the opening forming. There is an uncanny familiarity in this moment, as if I have been here before.
As soon as the portal opens, I dash through. But something isn’t right. No one came through from the other side. Or did they? I cannot tell. I am alone, in limbo between states of existence. The world spins around me. I can feel the drift. Is this what death feels like? Cold unbroken silence? I feel distant eyes upon me everywhere, all around me, in the trees, the clouds, pinpoints of light that shimmer through.
I can feel The Elves eyes upon me everywhere. In the leaves, in the trees themselves.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. Maybe this is all according to plan. But who was orchestrating the exchange? My idea was only half formed in those passing pensive moments I am able to think for myself, few and far between. My family, the Village Elders… no one allows time for freeform thought. I hadn’t considered what would happen after the portal exchange. I never really got past step one.
A voice greets me from the trees. It is hauntingly familiar but seems only a distant memory.
“I’ve been expecting you.”
The world slowly comes into focus. Clarity restored, the leaves circle me in an embrace. My sister emerges, her dark eyes smiling. She cradles the baby in her arms.
“You made it. You escaped,” she sings.
“I didn’t see anyone,” I retort, skeptical. I hadn’t recalled having seen any Elves, dark nightmarish fiends that they are, wild, unkempt, uncouth. Savage beasts like Pan or Krampus. Is this an illusion? My sister seems so lifelike, so much herself. She is the joyful young mother I had known her to be. Filled with love and laughter. Light dances about her, and she shimmers.
“Not in passing,” my sister clarifies. “You have been living among them your whole life. I had done so as well until the baby was stolen. My heart broke; I had to follow after. That was when I learned the Truth.”
“Why do you think we are so sheltered? Why are we forbidden to do anything? They do so to protect us from the Truth about who and what we are,” she continued. “We’ve spent our lives evading that which we truly know ourselves to be. We were the stolen ones, not the other way around…”
I notice that the portal I came through is still open, reinforcing my idea that no one had passed through the other way. It is as if the portal was opened specifically to call me through. My sister extends her hand, beckoning me to join her. There is a gleam in her eye I cannot pinpoint. She seems happy, but something still isn’t quite right. I’m still uncertain why I am here, in this time and place, as if destined to be present in this moment, in this decision.
The Village has fallen away to the woods. There are no breadcrumb trails to follow home. The idea of home itself seems distant like yet another illusion. Nothing makes sense anymore. I am unsure whether I am coming or going. Two paths lay open before me. Which shall I take?
I have been getting ready for a jewelry show in February and thought I’d share some of the fun eye candy necklaces I’ve been working on. Do they thwart or attract the Evil Eye? I think that depends largely on the wearer’s intentions… Each is hand-beaded and features a spooky printed eyeball pendant as its focus.
And the piece de resistance… A RAINBOW Evil Eye necklace with magnesite stone skulls! I love these happy little deadheads – they are just too spoopy… I have seen these beads ranging in size from very small to huge and I love all of them.
Eye Candy Necklace by Jennifer Weigel with rainbow Evil Eye and magnesite stone skulls
I love using eyes in art in weird and unusual contexts in my art. They have so much presence and symbolism. They also bring a sort of surreal atmosphere to any artwork, which bears just a hint of spookiness regardless of context.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.