"My family hides a dark secret. The lies are eating us alive. Time to come out of the broom closet."
On the anniversary of a tragic suicide, a diverse group of teenagers is drawn to the Simi Hills in Los Angeles. Others answer the call: Latino broth...
I, Aislinn McBride, am ready to move on to Step 4 and make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.
I mean, I think I'm ready. But if I stop running, the past will catch up to me. Everything I've ever done and the things I know I should've done but didn't. All the selfish acts, the people I screwed. Payback. The past will grind me up into little pieces. Whatever's left won't be "me," just a soulless body, a shadow self.
The Twelve Step program promises, "You will not regret the past, nor will you be doomed to repeat it." I'm struggling to believe this promise because I've done unspeakable things. How do I seek forgiveness from the dead?
My hand is shaking, turning this journal entry into an unreadable scrawl.
Perhaps I'll begin with the time magick blew up my life. You were probably expecting me to write, "when addiction ruined my life," but my truth is way more complicated.
Tuesday, August 6, 1996, 12:00 a.m. Vashon Island, Washington, U.S.A.
Opening my eyes, I find myself beneath towering firs. A misty blanket seeps across my bare feet. Toes curl into the mud.
Am I dreaming?
I pinch a naked thigh. Where is my nightgown? Damnit, now I'm sleepwalking?
Dark clouds part to reveal the half moon. Based on position, it's midnight. The north wind bites at my nakedness. Despite the Puget Sound damp, I break out in sweat.
I wrap my hands around my belly and the precious life I carry. A sweet daughter. She'll be a redhead, like me.
The wasted years trying to get pregnant, watching friends shit fat little babies and hating their good fortune. Now that I'm fully awake, I want to hit, smash, crush something.
As I shift toward my sister's house, I notice the quiet. None of the usual owl hoots or night noises. Wobbly from nausea, I take in a deep breath to keep from vomiting.
The crunch of footsteps on the forest floor reaches my ears. "Rose, is that you?"
Spasms torque my gut. A violent convulsion forces me to the ground.
My sister crashes through the trees, a tall blond woman at her heels. Rose flies to my side.
Muscles clench, then pulse in ragged waves. I piss myself, drenching legs and feet. With the flood of urine comes something else, moist, sticky and dark.
"Rose!" My sister's arms envelope me as she strokes my hair. Turning to the blonde stranger, I yell, "Call 9-1-1!"
The contractions come fast, in slicing bursts of pain.
"What's wrong with you? Why won't you help me?" A sharp thrust under my breastbone comes in response as my core pushes to expel my little girl.
With a grunt, I throw Rose off and push onto my knees. "Screw you. I'll save myself."
The blonde is expressionless. Leaning in, she whispers, "Om shree dhan-vantre namaha." She settles into a cross-legged position.
I'm so hurting this bitch on the way out. Lunging, I punch air.
The stranger's voice now speaks from behind me. As I turn, hazy, hooded figures encircle me and join the blonde in a new chant, "May the light which we seek be the path which we keep."
With a moan, I collapse. This isn't happening. I'm hallucinating.
Rose grasps my shoulders and kisses my forehead. "I've called on the ancestors. Brigid is coming."
I crumple into a ball. Let me die with my baby. Dear God, bless us and take us from this earth.
I reach to touch Rose's cheek, but her thin frame is frozen, staring at the moon. A comet zips across the sky. In an abrupt change of direction, it plummets toward earth.
In the star-filled night, the comet explodes in a flash of gold. Heart pounding, I watch in disbelief as a streak of fire plummets. As the starburst clears the tree line, I see what's coming, for me.
An arrow tears into my stomach. Pain bursts in jagged waves.
"Murderers!"
Ancestors my ass. You'll pay. I'll spend my life making you suffer.
Red-yellow flames dance along the shaft. Vision blurring, I clutch at the arrow, but am laid flat by agonizing spasms. A six-foot oak lance nails me to the ground.
Symbols are carved into the wood, three interlacing ovals. White light zips from the flames to ignite the triad above my adomen. The center oval morphs into an electric blue eye
You. Of course.
My hands once stroked his chiseled face, searing him into my memory, along with his words. "Our children with be so powerful, a magical dynasty the world has never known."
Pain yields to throbbing rage. Screw you, bastard. "You can't have her!"
Rose cradles my head. "Breathe, my darling."
Her long red hair forms a swaying curtain which my eyes follow. Helpless, my anger drains into dreamy numbness.
With a deep inhale, golden sparks rush through my nostrils. Exhaling releases thick soot. The noxious fumes gather in a dark cloud.
No one speaks as the black mass rises to hover above the circle. The pulsating form expands and contracts into a vulture.
An elongated, bony yellow head emerges. Its crown is blood-red. Beady eyes stare across a hooked grey beak. Giant wings flap and spray sparks from the burning arrow.
Rose grips my shoulders as she sobs.
Unable to break the vulture's gaze, I grab her hands.
A voice whispers, one I've not heard in years. The voice of a woman I once considered my best friend. Her parting words are as clear as the last time we spoke.
"Santa Muerte te reclama."
Saint Death claims you.
Flames ignite in a ring to surround me and Rose. We should be burning, our flesh melting in fatty globules.
From the shaft spreads a white, gauzy shroud, covering us like dead bodies under sheets.
Pinned to the earth, I can't breathe or move. In fire and light, we are the center of a Harvest Moon.
Character illustration of Aislinn McBride
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