I am over four-hundred years old, a Danish descendent who was burned at the stake (well, attempted) by Christian IV, a potato-headed man with a stupid beard that looked like pubes, who introduced an ordinance against witches and their accomplices during peak hysteria when the Protestant Reformation was in full force. In my heart, I wanted to heal the ill: the boils and blisters, the lepers and infirmed. The legislation prohibited all forms of magic, benevolent as well as malevolent, but it really was a violent misogynistic attack. Did I see any men being tried? No, I did not. Every five days one of my contemporaries was lit aflame along with any related objects like brooms and amulets, dolls and powders. I was described by a cross-eyed goody-goody named Cecile as levitating one night under a full moon. And so, what if I was? I longed to see the moon more clearly, since I believed it enhanced my powers. I could have brought her along for a ride with the stars had she not squealed. When I emerged from the flames intact, that bitch was the first poor soul I leaped upon, sealing her fate with a torched tongue-kiss.
Throughout the centuries, I migrated around Europe. A spot in Spain, a float in France, an idle in Italy, before flocking to the States after the Second World War. Europe was in tatters, and America called me—“Agnes,” it said, “come to our shores.” So, I wound up in Los Angeles, in Ocean Park by the beach. In the 1970s, I had a small following of other brethren, those discarded by society who were ready to make a change. What that change was, I did not know—only that it needed to happen! I no longer cared about curing the sick, for that got me nowhere. I’d take my revenge on all the Christian IV’s of the world, with their potato heads and chin pubes. I’d be that phoenix that rose four hundred years ago for a purpose.
Then came Instagram 😉
The ladies I flocked with in the seventies, all succumbed to old age and winters. They longed to cast spells but were mortal to the core. Leaving me alone, like usual. I’d yet to meet another who could outlast the Grim Reaper like I could. Who wanted a string of marionettes to do their bidding. I’d spent four hundred years practicing how to enrapture. Once I opened up my account @WWWWitch—one W for each of my centuries—they came in hordes.
It helped I was beautiful, no need for filters. I have long hair like a horse’s mane all the way down to my derriere. My eyes are blue like the sky, blue enough to drink, to sate. My cheekbones could slice you in two. I am tall and thin like any L.A. zombie, and men flocked to my page with DMs galore.
Hey baby, I’d break you in two.
You’re like a broom I’d like to ride.
Put me under your spell, witchy woman, and I’ll do whatever you want.
All these humans would be better off dead, unable to spread their vermin.
I’d sit on my tiny patio that overlooked a lick of the ocean, drinking Mai Tai’s, painting my nails, and soaking up the sun until I was crisp like a chip. These men would come over, ranging from the old with comb-overs and sad bellies, to the youthful with bouncing pecs and stars in their twinkle eyes.
“Come to the beach during the Blood Moon,” I said. “And drink this. See heaven.”
It was a concoction I created that mixed colloidal silver with rat poison. I wanted an army of tin men spread along the beach foaming at the mouth while I danced around their sandy graves. I’d let them have me until then with their sweaty lusts, their debatable pleasures. I promised them my love only at the Blood Moon and then I’d be with them forever. They left wanting more, begging for my essence, stray cats prowling for scraps. They told me I was the best lover they ever had. That no one else ever came close to the wonder I bestowed.
“Come to the beach during the Blood Moon,” I repeated. “Bring this drink. Then you will be mine. And drink silver like water until then. So you can shine.”
Meanwhile, my followers accelerated. Sometimes, there’d be a line outside of my casita like I was some hard-to-get-into-club. Everyone wanted access. Companies reached out for me to hawk their inane products. I took photo sessions in the golden light with their eye creams, their facial scrubs, their fuck-me boots. I posted Instagram Lives where I just stared into the phone, let them fall into my blue, blue eyes and become lost. I never slept, just made my concoctions and wooed these fallen souls who promised me marriage, and babies, and security—who’d be dead in a few lunar cycles.
I had one elderly friend still alive. Her name was Mary and she was a skateboarder in Dogtown in the early seventies. She was pushing eighty now and lived with her cat Rutabaga in Venice by the boardwalk. She liked reefer and had a laugh that sounded like a witch’s cackle. I loved her to pieces. Sometimes, I would take a break from my doomed men and wander over barefoot in my hippie skirt, wearing my many rings and crystals around my neck, my hair waving behind me like a wedding train. Mary was the only one who knew my secret, my essence.
Rutabaga jumped in my arms when I arrived, a black cat with yellow eyes, and a purr that warmed my heart. Mary was drinking iced tea on her terrace. She was blind with rheumy eyes, and sometimes forgot who she was, where she was, but never forgot me.
“Oh Agnes,” she said, waving me over. She looked radiant in the sunlight. White hair like soap, wrinkles like roads, a face that told people she had a long life well led.
I walked onto the terrace with Rutabaga in my arms. “How’d you know it was me?”
She sniffed. “Your scent of course. That perfume you wear.”
She thought it perfume, but really it was simply my body odor, intoxicating, the smell of four hundred years of stewing.
She smiled. “What are you up to today?”
“Taking a break from my revolving door of paramours,” I said, sitting beside her and holding her hand.
She laughed her deadly cackle. “Oh, you and your men. Reminds me of my youth. When I was the only girl who could perform a nightmare aerial flip and the boys would go gaga.”
“They were jealous.”
She winked, a milky tear trickling down her cheek. “Don’t you know it. But Agnes, don’t you ever want a true love? Someone to grow old with?”
“Mary, I’ll never grow old. You know I’m a witch.”
She nibbled at her lip. “I remember you as you were fifty years ago. Before the accident. Before I lost my sight.”
On mushrooms, Mary skated through a plate-glass window. They were able to reconstruct her face, but her vision never returned. I held her hand in the hospital, just as I did now.
“You did fine without a true love,” I said. “No disrespect to Rutabaga.”
“Oh, who’d want a blind old bat like me. But you still have youth running through your veins, Agnes. You don’t have to be alone.”
I patted her hand, her bones so light like cotton. Like they could snap in two.
“I have plans bigger than myself, Mary. Four hundred years in the making.”
“The way you talk—”
“I speak the truth. And I will be renowned. I don’t need a stupid old man to give me life. I’m more interested in a trail of death.”
Her smile turned to a chilling frown, her teeth chattering.
“Agnes…” she warned.
Recently, I’d whispered my tales of ultimate destruction to her, since she was a safe space who’d forget by the time I left. How I needed revenge on those who wronged me many years ago. How I couldn’t kill Christian IV, but I’d obliterate every man who reminded me of his deceit.
This time, she put her hand on mine to soothe. “I know you’ve been abused.”
I shut my eyes, steam spewing from my ears. I didn’t want to hear this. “Mary—”
“You’ve spoken of that Christian, and what he did to you. How he tried to burn…”
“He was a wretched fool who deserved to spit blood.”
“And the woman Cecile, who provoked him. But, Agnes, that was so long ago. It doesn’t do you any good to hold onto that hate.”
I slid my hand away. “If I don’t have that hate, I have nothing.”
Rutabaga hissed.
“I just want to see you happy,” she said, as I got up to leave. “Agnes? Agnes?”
But I refused to respond. I’d already left the terrace, shutting the glass door, so she’d have to relive her trauma when she’d collide into it on her way out. Even sweet Mary could no longer be trusted, like any other mortal, now that my plan was set in motion.
When I got home, I scrolled all my DMs. I had ignored women, setting my sights on the foulest creatures of the other sex, but women were horrible in their own right. Look at awful Cecile who told on me to Christian IV, angling to be in his good graces. At the time, I’d only created powders to heal those in town of their ills. I was a good witch. But she got scared because everyone was scared then due to Christian IV’s control. Cecile was nervous she’d be called a witch, so in her twisted mind, she put the blame on me so she’d go unscathed.
So, I began responding to women, including them in my torture. I took a pause from the XY chromosome, as a line of girls posted outside of my door. Vastly different in appearance but all I saw were many Ceciles. They’d ask about my skincare routines which led them to my account, and when I told them my age, they laughed as if it were a joke. “Oh, you look wonderful, not a day over three hundred and ninety-nine,” they’d say, and I’d shove my silver and rat poison drink into their hands.
One in particular caught my eye, with the handle @CCSpellbound.
All she wrote was, Plz reach out. We are 1 in the same.
@CCSpellbound didn’t have any pictures, nor many followers. Often the women who DM’d me were other influencers, airbrushed beauties, stick-thin in bikinis on the beach or on a yacht.
Hi, I responded.
I live on the corner of Ocean and Strand, in a tiny little purple house with a Psychic sign. That is my cover. But I am not just a psychic. I am YOU.
My bones got cold when I read this. At first, I thought to ignore, but out of boredom, I found myself putting on my sandals and walking over.
What did she mean by “I am YOU”? Was she another witch, able to ferret out a likeminded talent? All this time, I’d yet to find another of my ilk. Believe me, I searched. There’s rainbow aura around me—every witch has it, I’m certain. Humans can have light patterns surrounding them, depending on their own connections to the universe, but not like mine. I ripple. I beam.
The purple house on the corner had a sign that said PSYCHIC C.C., in rainbow neon paint. I knocked on a screen door that opened with a sway. Inside was dark and smelled of dust, of a coffin.
“Is that you?” I heard a voice say, one with a musical quality. A shadowed hand beckoned me toward a dim bedroom, the curtains shut. A girl who looked to be my age—well, my perceived age—sat in a rocking chair, a dark veil covering her face. She wore a robe, shrouded in black, but an aura like mine tickled around her body, faint yet real, like nothing I’d ever seen.
“CCSpellbound?” I asked, a tickle in my throat.
Through her veil, I could make out a creeping smile. “Call me C.C. Come, sit.”
She gestured to another rocking chair and we rocked together.
“You are…?” I began.
“Yes, like you…”
“But how did you…?”
“Know? I could sense through your page. The reality of your powers. I’ve never seen it since…” She chewed on her lip.
“Since when?”
“It’s been a long time.”
“Your face?” I asked, pointing. “Can I see it?”
She shook her head. “I’m scarred, ugly, ashamed.”
“But I don’t care.”
She rubbed her hands together. “Enough about me. What are you aiming to do?”
“Well…” I debated how much to reveal to her. If I could trust. If witches like us stuck together. “Destruction.”
“Ah,” she said. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
So, I told her of my plan. The men I wanted silvered and dead along the beach. The rotten women who would follow.
“Then what will you do?” she asked.
I tapped my chin. I didn’t know. I had only made it to the end of this plan. What might happen after, I didn’t care.
“A mass grave like that,” she said. “The police won’t let it go. They will find you.”
“I can take care of them.”
“Can you? Forever? Because life as you know it will never be the same. Always looking over your shoulder. You won’t be able to remain in Ocean Park.”
I thought of Mary, my one true friend, and her milky tears when she’d find out what I’ve done. How she’d question if we were ever truly friends. How she could’ve let herself spend so much time with a psychopath. I shook her away. Her brain already mush. There wasn’t much left to mourn.
“I’ll find somewhere else to go. I’ve always roamed.”
“Yes,” she said, standing up and headed over to her dresser with her back to me. Her rainbow aura turned black as an oil slick. I could hear her open a drawer. “You have always roamed. Ever since Denmark.”
A chill crawled up my spine. “How did you know that?”
She was fumbling around in the drawer. She closed it with a snap and swiveled around. A weirdly curved knife in her hand.
“Agnes,” she sang. “Don’t you realize who it is?”
She uncovered her veil and stuck out a scorched tongue turned black, with burn marks extending from her lips. She held the knife to the ceiling and charged my way with a scream. It was Cecile, just as I remembered, manic eyes and hair like flames. I blocked the knife as she flitted it this way and that, fell on my back while she jumped on top of me.
“Revenge,” she screeched, displaying her black tongue, the one I charred that never healed, even after all these years.
She’d been a witch all along, throwing me into the fire to save her hide. A wicked coward.
She babbled on about her long life with her charred tongue. How she couldn’t taste anything since, not food, not a lover. How it made her recede into the shadows, tired of other’s stares. A face that made children cry. She searched lonely years to find me, across continents, settling in Ocean Park after her life’s pursuit came up empty. If she was truly a great witch, she’d be able to find me and cut out my heart, eat it for supper to make sure I’d be dead. But she was not an exceptional witch, she cried. She could tell mortal’s fortunes, scrape together some coins from that—nothing more. Until she clicked on my Insta page.
“Like a revelation,” she said, her eyes spinning. “I brought you here, to my chambers, so I can take that heart.”
We fought like mad for the curved knife directed at my heart. I could hear its beats, wondering if it might be my last. We are unable to be killed as witches, this I learned when I stood in front of a Mack Truck only to be flung to the shoulder on the road, the driver leaping out in tears, as I crawled away, him begging to Jesus that I could walk again. I was a miracle on Earth.
But a witch can harm another of its ilk, like I charred Cecile, like the tip of her blade nicked my skin forcing droplets of blood.
If she could harm me, then I her. She was weak, this was a fact from when she ran to Christian IV and squealed about my powers. For she had none like mine. She was jealous she could not levitate.
So, I levitated the both of us in her dumpy little bungalow, flying up as she collided with the ceiling. She let out a howl and crashed to the floor while I hovered. Twisting and turning in pain on the floor, the curved knife knocked out of her hands. I zoomed down, picked it up, and thrust it into her heart. She cried the devil’s tears as I wrenched that knife in good while she coughed up blood.
“I may not have destroyed you,” she said, each word taking a lifetime to speak.
“I cannot be destroyed,” I said. After the Mack Truck incident, I gave up trying, spent the next year in quiet solace with the horrible notion I’d live forever. I was three-hundred and forty-two at the time. I hadn’t come to Ocean Park yet. I’d been ready to end it all, only to be thwarted.
“Maybe not,” she said, spitting up more blood. “But I did destroy who you deem closest to you.”
I plunged the knife in deeper. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Mary,” she said, as her pupils ascended, her eyes blank and white.
“Mary?” I cried. “What did you do to her? What…”
But it was too late. Cecile had died. I cut out her heart in a messy fit of anger and attempted to devour, having to give up mid-chew and spit out the organ on her wicker chair.
I ran out of her apartment over to Mary’s. The door was locked, but I used a spell that was just as good as a key. It had been over a week since I’d seen her. The apartment smelled of rot. I searched the rooms and found her in the bathroom splayed on the tiled floor, Rutabaga eating her face.
“Mary,” I said, swallowing my tears. I shooed away Rutabaga and stared at what was left of Mary: no nose, no eyes, half a jaw, cheeks chewed up, lying in a pool of her blood. I tore up her apartment to exhume my rage, but it didn’t work. In all my years, she was the only mortal I ever cared about. I knew she would pass someday, but not at the hand of my enemy, not because I was responsible.
I returned home and drowned myself in darkness. I didn’t let a slit of light inside and stewed in my torment. Days upon days passed while I lay in filth until the eve of the Blood Moon arrived. I sent a video to my followers from my dark den reminding them of the date. I whispered with as much love as I could conjure and how I longed for all of us to meet. I told them to being their drink and we will consume upon sunset and moonrise.
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a creature thick with dirt. I got into a bath and scrubbed and scrubbed until I was pink. I braided shells into my mane of hair. I put on all the free make up sent because of my account. I didn’t sleep, too jacked up from adrenaline. I meditated my wishes during the day, and once the sun set, made my way down to the beach. There were hundreds of souls cheering my arrival. I blew them all kisses, never feeling this overwhelming sense of love and devotion before. I told them to raise their drinks high. In the winking moon, they all reflected silver from the colloidal silver I had them consume each day. The silver cannot be digested and has nowhere to go but into the bloodstream. The Blood Moon pulled me toward its beam and I levitated as mouths dropped and the beach became silent. Like a maestro, I conducted them all to sip. In tandem, my silver army raised the poison to their lips. I held them momentarily before I’d allow their doom. Frozen with the drink, they watched for my direction. I could save them all, let these withered souls come back to my casita and have an adoring audience that would always remain rapt. I could watch them all grow old and then succumb to winter, like everyone I’ve encountered, like Mary. In a flash, I saw Mary’s digested face appear in the moon. She told me she loved me and that I didn’t have to do this. That I could be benevolent like I set out to be when my powers first showed. But Mary was dead, no longer an influence, or a confidant. So, I raised my hands as the ocean swelled and my orchestra all took their fateful sips. Their smiles beamed, taking selfies and videos of this night to post to their followers, of the wonder of me levitating, a vision of uncanny delight.
As I floated down, their smiles quivered, turning to frowns as the poison took hold. They collapsed to the sand, foam spewing from their mouths, blood erupting from their eye sockets while I danced between their rigid toes, their fists locked into battle, their innocence ruined while I made love to each of their essences before they left this planet on the way to wherever a mortal’s essences went, where Mary had gone, where I never would because I’d outlast Time, unless another Cecile arrived able to annihilate.
But my fate would never be tempted.
Because it never had been.
The police drove up in dramatic fashion with their blinking lights and sirens. They trained their guns on me and fired a hail of bullets into my body that took their punishment as I descended into the ocean, bubbling down until I’d emerge on another shore ready to obliterate.
Click on me. Follow my page. Fall into my spell. For it is only a matter of time until everyone will.
Until I am all that remains.