Cackle(82)

She gives a small nonchalant shrug. “Does that answer your question?”

“You’ve kept things from me. You haven’t been totally honest.”

“Forgive me for not being forthcoming with my trauma,” she says, her voice reaching a morbid pitch. “Forgive me for thinking that I might spare you from hearing all the gruesome details.”

She takes a breath, another slow sip of tea.

“Sophie,” I say, “enough of this! Enough!”

Both teacups shoot off of the table and smash against the wall.

There’s a beat. Then Sophie starts to clap. Slow applause.

“Don’t you enjoy it, darling?” she asks. “Isn’t it fun?”

“I don’t want this,” I say. My voice shakes. I can’t tell if I’m crying because I’m angry or crying because I’m scared or if this is my default reaction to everything. Tears. “I don’t want any of this. I didn’t ask for this. I’m in a creepy mansion in the middle of the fucking forest! There are ghosts in the basement! There’s a giant spider right there!”

I point to Ralph, who remains in front of the door, eating what appears to be a raw bird.

“Well, you upset him,” she says.

“This isn’t natural!” I yell. “This isn’t cool!”

“Annie.”

“And you poisoned me, didn’t you? You poisoned me with that mushroom tea!”

“That wasn’t poison,” she says. “It was intended to awaken your mind. Perhaps it was a little strong. I should have warned you. Honest mistake.”

“No. An honest mistake is accidentally picking up someone else’s drink at Starbucks. Drugging someone isn’t an honest mistake. It’s crazy!”

“Please, pet.”

“I’m not your pet!”

This particular outburst surprises both of us. I was completely unaware this term of endearment bothered me until this moment. Suddenly, I realize how patronizing it is. How it implies ownership and reinforces an unfair power dynamic. This resentment must have been simmering in my subconscious for months.

Sophie’s face registers shock and, unless I’m mistaken, glee.

“I’m an adult. I’m my own person. I can make my own decisions. Even if they’re bad decisions, Sophie. They’re mine to make. Not yours.”

She raises an eyebrow. She reaches back and snaps her fingers at Ralph, who begins to shrink down to his former, more reasonable size. He doesn’t look too pleased about the whole ordeal.

“You’re absolutely right,” she says, smiling at me with what I think might be pride. “I won’t call you that anymore.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“You have to understand, Annie, I do adore you. I only want what’s best for you. Truly.”

Does she? I don’t know what to believe anymore.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she says. “You’re my dear friend. I don’t want to lose you. I’ve already lost so many friends. Friends like me. Like us. We should stay together. Protect each other. Enjoy each other’s company.”

“I can’t stay,” I say, my fear wearied. “I need to see what will happen with Sam. I need to know, or I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering. I deserve certainty.”

She looks away from me. She gets up, takes another cup from the cabinet, sets it down and pours herself more tea.

“Very well,” she says. “You said yourself you can make your own decisions. If you want to leave, leave.”

It’s a relief like I’ve never felt before. Blissful.

“But,” she says, “if you leave, you cannot come back.”

“What?” I say.

“I’m not punishing you. I support your right to choose whichever path you most desire,” she says, seating herself across from me at the table. “But I will lose all respect for you if you leave. And I don’t believe I will ever get it back.”

It might be the most hurtful thing anyone has ever said to me. The very definition of brutal honesty. Absolutely savage.

It stirs in me the urge for petty defensiveness. I stave it off. Just leave, I tell myself. Just go.

Why is it so hard? Ralph is small again and no longer blocking the door; he’s busy gnawing on a bone. There’s nothing in my way. It should be easy. I have the chance to extricate myself from all of this. This twisted fairy-tale horror-show bullshit.

I look at Sophie, who is sitting there casually sipping her tea. And up comes the resentment; up comes the pettiness, up with torches and pitchforks.

“You want to know why people are afraid of you, Sophie? I can solve that mystery for you. Save you the trouble,” I say. “It’s because you’re a fucking witch!”

The word hovers between us like dust in the ether.

My resentment chips away, and underneath it are guilt and sadness and fear. I want to apologize, to take it back, snatch the word out of the air, chew it up, swallow it down. But of all the impossible, unimaginable things transpiring in my reality lately, I know this won’t be one. Magic has its limits.

I know she’s hurt. It’s obvious to me in her erratic movements, in the oscillation of her eyes, the trembling of her hands. She seems aware of this. Maybe even embarrassed by it. Her cheeks glow exceptionally red.