Exquisite Poison (Original Draft)

Chapter 1 - Obsession

"The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain."

― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

The edges of the card dug into the creases of her clenched hand, like teeth. When the subway car jostled, it made the edges begin to dig further into her hand. Still she held it, refusing to look at it for much of the journey. As though if she could ignore it for long enough, it could cease to exist.

Holding the cracked, worn business card tight in one hand, the woman tried to find some form of relaxation in the packed space.

As she had pulled that sad uniform on earlier, she had thought that she had gotten the worst part of the day over with. It was as she was walking outside that she found a box resting against her doorway, like a delivery. It was curious to begin with. Who just left packages without getting a signature?

She took the box - a small, rectangular thing, about the size of a ring box - to her ear and gave it a good shake.

Resting by itself alone in the box was something akin to a light being tossed down the long cavern of her memory. To her, they may as well have belonged to someone else - another life's time ago.

She had spent much of the morning staring at that card, wondering if she was missing something in it, like a secret message. Something, at least, beyond what was written in embossed purple letters on the front - and then in a hurried cursive on its back.

Without really wanting to but unable not to, Netta opened her hand and examined its front once again.

Medium Cafe and Tarot Emporium

The number written beneath it was disconnected, she already knew after having tried it twice already that morning. The address, she believed, however, was still the same, halfway across the country. She wondered at first where the e-mail or website information was. Searching the internet turned up nothing, as though it did not exist.

The card's paper looked wrinkled even before she had kept it clenched in her fist.

Mid way into examining the card yet again, she hesitated and looked around the compartment, almost guiltily.

All around her were morning commuters, plus those who wanted to escape the treacherous winter weather above ground. Everyone had a personal bubble, aided in no small part by their awkward, thick winter clothes.

The compartment was jam packed.

Looking back down at the card, Netta turned the wrinkled thing over and stared at the message scrawled on its back. She recognized the hand writing, as much as she wished that she couldn't.

Come back home. The coven needs your help.

For one moment, she found herself longing for what she could never have.

Cutting that feeling off abruptly, Netta shoved that piece of paper into the oversized pocket of her coat.

With it away, she found her gaze for a moment drawn to a little girl say across the way from her. Somehow - like how no one had taken the seat to the right on Netta - no one was standing in Netta's line of sight between her and the girl.

The girl, who did not look all that far away from being post-Kindergarten, sat on the ground before who Netta assumed was her mother. She seemed preoccupied with a Barbie and a Ken doll in breezy summer clothes. She tottered them on their long legs in a play trance.