Rose has lived in a tiny bedroom in the Witch’s apartment for nine years. She was hired originally to be a nurse, but the boundaries quickly blurred, until now she is on duty twenty-four hours a day, cleaning, cooking, fixing drinks. Her green card status is pending, and whenever she asks for time off, the Witch will pick up the phone and threaten to call ICE, so Rose has stopped asking. She tells Girlie in whispered late-night phone calls that the Witch keeps roots and herbs in a secret trunk. That there are chicken feet in the freezer that Rose can’t remember buying. She says sometimes the Witch will give her an eye so evil, it’s all Rose can do not to cross herself and weep. Late at night sometimes, she wakes to find the Witch standing by her bed like a shadow, a living ghost. What is she muttering beneath her breath? Are those growls?
Girlie has told Rose to run. Come to Florida. We have room. But Rose is afraid. She’s afraid of the ICE men in their flak jackets and lace-up boots, afraid of the evil eye. She worries the Witch has stolen her soul and keeps it in the trunk with all her spells and potions. She and Girlie were raised in a traditional Filipino village. They know three, five, and nine are unlucky numbers, know that if you break an egg and see two yolks you will become wealthy. They know that when three people pose for a photograph, it is the one in the middle who will die first.
Avon tells Girlie he’ll drive to Los Angeles and wack the old bat if she wants him to.
“I ain’t afraid of no ancient bitch.”
But last Christmas, when Rose sent Girlie a photo of herself, Avon wouldn’t let her put it up. They fought about it, long and hard, but of course Avon won. The man always wins. This is the order of the universe. Men talk, women listen. So Girlie kept the photo in her bedside drawer. But as time went by, she realized that she never took it out, never looked at it. When it came in the mail, she was delighted. Here was her older sister, smiling on a sofa, sunlight pouring in through the windows behind her. The photo was a selfie, taken at arm’s length. And yet there was something unsettling about the picture that Girlie couldn’t articulate. Avon took one look at the thing and said no fucking way was that picture going up in his house. Girlie pressed him. What was the problem? It was her sister. Shouldn’t she get to put up a picture of her sister? But Avon was adamant. Something about that damn photo gave him the heebie-jeebies.
It wasn’t until Avon was in jail again that Girlie saw what it was. She had pulled the picture out after dinner, having half a mind to stick it to the fridge. Avon was gone for months, she thought. Why shouldn’t she surround herself with her family? She sat at the kitchen table, smoking a Newport. The sun had just gone down, and the sky was ruby red outside the windows. Down the hall the front door was open, letting in the sounds of kids playing in the cul-de-sac.
Girlie studied her sister’s face. Rose had always been the happy one. The optimist. And she was smiling in the photo, but there was strain behind her eyes. Light poured in from the apartment window behind her. The decorations were expensive but old, the drawn curtains a dull green, muting the shadows. Rose looked at her sister and felt a chill. She pulled her cardigan around her, her eyes moving from her sister’s face. And then she saw it in the top left corner of the frame—the photo vignetted in darkness by overexposure from the window. The camera had caught a slice of the stone mantelpiece and above it a sliver of mirror. And in that mirror was a face—old, shadowed, staring—barely visible. Once she saw it, Girlie couldn’t unsee it. A face, no bigger than a dot, a shaded oval surrounded by darkness. It was the Witch.
She was looking straight into the camera, straight at Girlie.
Girlie dropped the picture, crossed herself. Around her the sunlight had faded, and now the kitchen was dark. Girlie stood, intending to slap on the light switch, but her eyes went to the dark hall and, at the end, the open doorway. Outside the front door, the fading daylight had settled into a low blue glow.
The street was empty, silent.
Where did the children go? Why is it so quiet?
Girlie took a step toward the kitchen doorway, her hand reaching for the light, but her eyes stayed on the open door. A feeling of danger passed through her. She felt exposed, like a rabbit in its hovel when the wolves come.
Then someone passed in front of the house. A human shape, shadowy and quick, passing close to the door.
Girlie let out a shriek. She knew she should turn on the lights, but she was frozen in place. Her eyes were fixed on the open door. Close it, she thought. Don’t let her in.
She willed herself to move, slowly at first, then picking up speed. In her heart was a feeling of doom. The door seemed to recede ahead of her, even as her right arm came up. She would push it closed, slam it, and throw the bolt. But why couldn’t she reach the door? A low sound of anguish came from her throat. Why was her house so dark? She could swear she had turned on the side table lamp in the living room this afternoon.
From the front door came a rumble—ominous, subterranean—and a flash, illuminating everything, the oak tree at the curb throwing a lunging shadow across the walk. Was that the Witch? Hiding behind the tree, only her face visible and one pale hand?
Girlie lunged and slammed the door. She threw the bolt and ran to the downstairs bathroom, windowless, safe, and locked that door as well, slapping on the overhead light. And as the Florida skies opened up and poured down rain, she slid to the floor and wept.
*