The Witch of Hollywood

Chapter 1: Hal

  THE WITCH OF HOLLYWOOD

Prisha Sule walked her first red carpet at 21 years old. She thieved the eyes, smiling till her cheeks swelled and the red of her lips cracked. Everybody knew she was a witch. They'd known at the shock of her sinister beauty and forever blasé mood, but nobody knew of her youth or the sacrifices she made to get there; the shedding of her borne skin or the sinful abandonment of her own blood.

They did not know her reasons why or the stories of her wry childhood, but they had all seen the portrait. It had been whispered of—mimicked, copied, praised. Redone in museums, papers, studied in courses, and still, nobody knew the reason why The Witch of Hollywood was painted on the wall of Hal Moulin's 10.8 million dollar mansion.

"Bill, didn't Hal Moulin marry Vivian Astora?"

"Mmhm."

"But, then—why is there a portrait of another woman here?"

"Where?" He asks, though it could not possibly be missed by the eye.

"There."

"Ah," He says. "Right," He says, as if he had not seen it at all.

"Yeah. So why is it here?"

"Not sure. You'd have to ask her that."

"Her?"

"Yep, Prisha Sule—the witch."

"The witch?"

The woman with eyes coated in blood-like liner, velvet draped across her shoulders, and a crystal ball at her chest.

"Prisha...but why Prisha? Why not Hal? Since this was his house—right?"

"Yeah," Bill says. "But Hal won't tell."

"How do you know that?"

He shrugs as if he's asked Hal Moulin himself. "Hal's done several interviews about this mansion, and in each one somebody asks why he has this painting."

"And?"

"And he tells them to 'go ask Sule.'"

"Oh...then I guess I will have to ask her."

Bill smiles, his voice bitter, "Yep, ok. Good luck finding her."

"What do you mean?"

He saunters into the next room, shuffling through stacks of stale papers that Dustin will sign soon, but not before she pries some more, because mother raised her this way—to be persistent in her wishes, to demand answers if they are not given in will.

"Bill. Doesn't Prisha live in the hills, too?"

"Nope. She used to, but she left the exact year she would be nominated for a Grammy."

"But where—? Where'd she go?"

"I don't know."

"I'll look it up."

"You can't. Nobody knows where she lives now, and if they did, they wouldn't be able to get an answer out of her."

Ever since Dustin Bloom was a kid, she always did what people said she could never do. That's why she was buying Hal Moulin's house, and that's also why she spent three and a half months tracking down The Witch of Hollywood.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆

Solana is a three and a half hour drive from Los Angeles. The land is hotter there, the sun never shy nor subtle. The beaches are made of browned sand and the streets brim with scents of herbs and ciphers. At first, Dustin Bloom thinks she's in the wrong town, at the wrong house, standing before the wrong woman.