Chapter 12

They entered Cora’s small home, which looked no different for having been empty for three days. Cora sighed “One of these days I’m going to give up on men and get a dog. At least that way someone will notice when I come home after seventy-two hours on the psych ward.”

Lynessa fake-pouted. “Aw, but you have Mina and Lucy to keep you company.”

They crossed to the fishbowl on the table where the goldfish swam in endless circles. Cora pinched some food and sprinkled it on top of the water, her friend making her feel better. She wouldn’t have believed it. “But they don’t get me, you know? They just stare at me blankly.” She dropped her voice and stared out the window. “Like my parents used to do.”

Lynessa put a hand on her arm. “Oh no. I wasn’t thinking. Should I have called your parents?”

Cora screwed up her face in disbelief. “I don’t talk to them any more than they do to each other. You did fine.”

Lynessa gazed at her for a long moment, then nodded and held up the box. “Artifact time, then.”

She set it on dining room table, pushing away books to make room, and dove in. “What was Thorn like? Hot?”

Cora sank into a chair, trying to remember the details that had been obscured by her crisis. “He took off before I got there. A waitress gave it to me.”

Lynessa slid the curved shape out and set it on the table. “Fucker, he’s weird as shit.”

Cora snorted. “And rude.”

Lynessa found the note and held it up. “Ooh, what does it say?”

Cora snatched the heavy linen stationery from her friend’s hand. “I didn’t read it.” She ripped it open and quickly read the words in Thorn’s familiar hand.

Lynessa read over her shoulder, then took the note and held it to her face. “Fuck him! He does this shit on purpose. He knows I love witch stuff, and he knows you’ll show me anything he sends you. I bet he made this shit up. Anything to imply anonymous women in historical art were witches who should’ve been strung up.”

Cora plucked the note back and re-read silently, agreeing. Thorne was easy to dislike, but easy to be curious about, too. Every time she thought she had a handle on him, her feelings changed.

Dear Coralie [and Lynessa, if I know you ladies at all],

My most sincere hope is that by now we have met, this piece has changed hands and its legend shared in person. However, should the fates conspire against us, or should you desire a copy for your records, I have included it here as well.

Please find herein the mammoth tusk carving we discussed and for which payment was received in full. Included are authentication papers so you may rest assured the ivory is legal and cruelty-free.

Also know I was sure to discover as much as I could about the legend conveyed by this particular piece. I was relayed the last pieces of the story after the piece had already been wrapped and boxed, a scant hour before I was to leave my office and begin my journey! It is my hope that once you see it you will be as satisfied with the piece as I imagined you’d be.

Your carving depicts the Legend of the Eastern’s Witch, as told to me over a very poor phone connection by a man living on the remote Izu Shoto islands. I shall do my best to convey it clearly.

The story begins on the thin end of the tusk, where we see the Pale Wanderer crawling up the foothills, nearly dead from starvation.

Cora stopped reading and eyed the carving with the care she hadn’t been able to take back when she’d never been arrested before. Argh. She pushed the thought away and refocused.

The sculpture was smooth on the convex underside and carved on the concave. On the thinner end, as Thorn described, a figure’s upper half appeared out of the ivory. Only about an inch long but with exacting detail, she saw skin-and-bones hands, scraggly hair and a long, pointed face. He certainly appeared to be malnourished.

His hands clung to miniaturized mountain peaks, a field of them between him and the cozy homes of a mountain village. Cora continued reading.

The traveler made his way to a village in the mountains, where from the next scene we can see he was well-fed by the residents, sleeping peacefully amongst the houses in the light of the moon.

But this village had been claimed by a jealous witch, and she was angered that the spoils she considered to be her rightful tribute had been spent on a lowly, starving beggar. She sought to punish the Pale Wanderer for his presumption. In the dark of night she had her companion, a black wolf, chase him out of the village so that he got lost in the rice fields that were cut into the mountainsides.

Cora looked again at the carved mammoth tusk, her eyes tracking the tale up its length, from the scene of the sated traveler to the pale figure now standing up to his knees in the midst of a field of grain. The sculpture was so intricate that she could see each thin blade of grass, the fat grains of rice set to burst from their tips. A look of abject fear covered the pale figure’s upturned face.

At one corner of the field a carving of a wolf prowled low, lacquered in black, with clever eyes of purple stone inset into the ivory. At the opposite corner a womanly figure lurked, shrouded in indigo robes.

Knowing he was cornered, the Pale Wanderer gathered as much rice as he could and made a sacrifice to the gods, begging that his life be spared so that he may speak of their glory. But as he was prostrate, the witch and her familiar struck him down; a great sin in the eyes of his gods.

They retaliated, burning the witch’s precious village and exiling her and her wolf familiar. They wandered the wilds for eternity, finding no home, with only each other for warmth.

Lynessa sighed dramatically as she pointed out the witch and her wolf. “They don’t seem all that upset about it to me.”

The black wolf and indigo woman were curled together at the thickest part of the tusk, their spines curving to form a perfect circle and their limbs tucked inside. Both had eyes of the same purple stone as the wolf had had before, and they were gazing into each other, nose to muzzle.

Lynessa was right. The peace that radiated from their touching faces was realistic enough to make Cora envious. She frowned at the thought. But that’s what good art did, right? Fucked with you?

Cora shook her head and tossed the letter from Thorn on the table. The piece was weird and seemed to amplify her disquiet from the last few days, her confusion and pain, in a new way.

She scanned the images on the tusk again, her eyes drawn to the word below the woman, carved into the tusk. It had called her attention in the diner, too. Swytch.

Lynessa ran her finger over it. “Swytch. I’ve never seen that before. A variation of witch?”

“Maybe,” Cora breathed as something fell into place for her. She shook her head. Insane. Had to be.

She pushed the mammoth tusk across the table to her friend. “This is yours. You’re supposed to have it.”

Lynessa didn’t argue, like Cora had thought she would. Instead she pulled the tusk close and stared at it, then whispered heavily, “I feel it, too. It’s mine.”

Cora stared at her friend for a long time, working up the courage to ask her a question. Trying to ignore the feeling of… something coming. “Lynessa, do you ever… have nightmares? About… vampires… or witches?”

Lynessa touched the mammoth tusk again, then the mood in the room popped like a bubble. She shoved the tusk into the box, the box into her purse and stood. “Yeah, I gotta get back to Duane. I’m glad you’re ok. Text me later.”

Okkk. When Nessa didn’t want to talk about something, she bolted. Cora knew this, and accepted it.

She walked out on the porch and watched her friend drive away with a casual wave. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, casting long shadows where the light still hung.

Cora turned to go back inside and was struck with the feeling of eyes on her, someone’s gaze brushing her scalp as surely as would their hand. She whipped around and peered into the waning light, shivering in the balmy evening.

Nothing. Imagination. Insanity, probably. She stepped inside, the sound of her closing and locking the front door echoing through Cora’s home, making it feel more devoid of life than usual. Her delicate footsteps bounced off the walls as she made her way upstairs, ready for a bath and a good night’s sleep in her own bed.

Too late, she realized she’d forgotten to ask her friend’s advice on Cora’s upcoming tenure hearing.

Who was she kidding? She probably had a message waiting on her dead cell phone that said she was fired. Nessa just hadn’t known.

***

Coralie slept hard that night, her dreams full of swords as pens, swirling in the air, scrawling glowing green words that faded before she could read them.