Iron Flower
Supernatural
Josie Sands, Abbadon.
Rated: PG-13.
1.3k words.
The life of Josie Sands.
❀ ❀ ❀
“You have no son so you might as well treat her as your son,” her mother said.
“But it’s dangerous for a girl!”
“But she’s still going to settle down and marry a nice boy. So what’s the harm?”
“But what if boys won’t like her for knowing things?”
“So? Boys already don’t like girls for not knowing things.”
“But . . .”
“But what?”
. . . Okay.
From inside her father’s library, Jose heard her father’s steps making their way down the hall and between her parents’ conversation and her father’s footsteps, she was annoyed that she’d have to re-read two pages.
Once inside the library, the first thing her father did was get down on one knee to meet her eye-to-eye and say -
I’m not mad. I’m not mad you read my books.
Josie looked up from the book on her lap and just shrugged.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“If you were, you would’ve punished me by now.”
And with that, Josie went back into the book.
❀
The hoop dances were lost to her even as American Indians performed them before her eyes. Their names, histories, and stories were all mysteries already fleeting from her memories - and were vanished by the time she made her own hoop of a shiny pink paint blanketing an iron ring hollowed out for pellets of rock salt.
❀
The boy next door had a name - Henry Winchester.
“You two get along. He’s a fine young man, don’t you think?” asked her father.
“He’s . . . um . . .”
“He’s going to be a men of letters just like his hold man. I’m sure he’ll be every bit the rising star.” “I don’t think he’s good with spells.” “Ah. Well. Sorry you had to witness such an embarrassing moment for him.” “Yeah . . . That was . . .”
“But you know. Once you go in, you’ll be the healer. And that’ll take a lot of pressure off him and the other Men of Letters.”
“Sure . . .”
“And with you two together, he could accomplish great things.”
“That’s . . . great? . . . I suppose?”
And once her father left the room, she began making a list of questions:
- How much would you tell your spouse?
- How would you be able to tell if they did or didn’t want to know?
- How would you help your spouse with the burden of keeping the secret?
But maybe that last one should’ve been one for her mother. But maybe it would’ve been different for a man instead of a woman.
❀
She always had her camera. “It’s just a black box that captures light,” the portrait studio’s cameraman told her. “So remember, it’s all about where the light is.”
And from then on, every moment was an etude of light - where to place the light around her and, where within the light to place herself.
But pictures - even moving pictures - are only facsimiles of light. Silver, usually a reflector of light, facts to become simulacra of light and shadows. Yet each moment in the darkroom was a meditation on the beautiful spells that science could aid.
So maybe it should have disturbed her how easy it was to capture demons on film. But what is darkness except a strong contrast to light?
❀
The day before Henry’s 21st birthday, Josie held his hand as he winced with every touch of the needle.
The needle didn’t look so bad, Jose thought. Her mother’s stories about childbirth seemed much more scary.
But if anything looked unsightly, it was the black on which, on Henry’s pale skin, grabbed the eye like a bullseye. Probably, having a tattoo seared off would’ve hurt so much more than having it merely drawn in.
“Do light tattoo inks exist?”
she asked the tattoo artist. “Really light. Something that doesn’t grab so much attention.”
“No one’ll do an invisible tattoo if that’s what you’re asking, Miss.”
Henry laughed. “And who would want an invisible tattoo?”
I, thought Josie. “But it would be nice if tattoos could be more subtle.”
“Lady thinks like a lady,”
the tattoo artist said without even looking up. “I have seen - only once in my entire life - a white tattoo. Your skin color tinges the tattoo, but you got skin like she did and it should look real pretty.”
But later that evening, her father said, “No.”
She tried to protest, but -
“I don’t care how pretty it’s going to be. It’s an anti-possession symbol; it doesn’t have to look pretty - it just has to work.”
And that was that. Josie would not get a tattoo because -
“It’s just not lady-like at all to have a tattoo. Besides, why would a demon possess you? You’re just a lady?”
And just as well, she never found a tattoo artist who would draw the symbol in white on her.
❀
The last time she saw a demon, it was her mother. Even as her mother stood dying from a knife wound, it still tried to claim her.
“Josie - love - I love you.”
“You are not my mother.”
“That’s why I tried to leave you. But damn it. I just couldn’t die fast enough,” it cooed.
“You leave my mother.”
“You let me out of this trap.” Its eyes blackened. “You do so? You live and she goes to sleep and she never knows herself felling the blood of innocents on her hands. My cavalry lets me out? You die and I keep her awake for eternity.”
“Exorcizamus te - ”
It laughed - only laughed. “Tell you what? I let your mother go, just let me in.”
“I don’t trust you.”
But despite that, Josie steps into the trap to plunge a small knife into her mother between rib bones.
“Silly girl,” it says. “That won’t kill me.”
“But it was worth it anyways?”
“What are you trying to do? Carve your mother like a turkey?”
“I have no good answer for that.”
Then it looked downward and saw the carvings - enochian symbols cut past skin to bone. And before it can even move -
Slap! Josie slaps her bloodied hand onto the carvings. Her mother grasps for air before her mother’s body slumps. But just as it beings to straighten up -
Josie lights a match and sets her mother’s body on fire.
From the fire, a black smoke rose as a handful of black-eyed meatsuits arrived and one of them ax’d open the trap and the other two held Josie in place.
“Go ahead,” Josie said at the black smoke hovering around her. “You wanted a deal. I gave you a deal. Fair’s fair.”
And then the black smoke shoved its way in.
❀
From there, it made its way upstairs to a young woman’s bedroom and looked into the mirror.
“That was quite the stunt you pulled downstairs. What a waste of a soul; what a waste of a fantastic toy.
“But I got you now. And I’m going to make you pay. And you will pay so long and so hard before I make the Men of Letters Pay.”
And then she saw them -
A sketch of Josie’s upper body with an anti-possession symbol.
A wooden stencil with the symbol cut out.
A razor.
It tilted its head at the items on the drawer then straightened up to laugh out loud.
“I’ll make them pay through you. Believe me you: You will hate that and you will love that.”
❀
Abbadon looks down her body - her naked body with the skin over her ribs unscarred. No scar cutting across enochian scars through which a rib was pulled out.
I have important things to do, Abbadon knows, But I will find your soul again.
I promise you - woman to woman.
