The Witch Part 7
Fantasma’s eyes caught fire in their sockets as she rose from her faux mothering position on the couch, both hands firming themselves into hardened balls of flesh and bone as they planted one on each hip. Then her neck began to work.
“Ellis James? Lemme tell you somethin’, and you better hear me the first time ‘cause if there gotta be a next time then I can promise it ain’t gonna be any kinda time you will appreciate, hear me?”
Ellis was no longer regarding his daughter with horror, or even paying her much attention. Instead, he had resumed the uncomfortably familiar posture of confrontation with his wife that had become standard procedure several times a week for the past three years of their marriage ever since their son – Ellis Jr., Donatella’s baby brother – had died in his crib early on a Saturday morning from an unknown disease.
Ellis cut his light brown eyes down to slits to where their color, the color that had made him so irresistibly attractive to Fantasma all those many forgotten years ago, was barely noticeable. He grinned in a way that resembled a Laughing Jack more than it did anything close to a smile.
“Ain’t gonna be a next time, Fan. You ain’t gotta worry one bit about that. All you got to do is do what I say, and you get to sit your ass back down before I knock you through that wall and rattle those rotten-assed teeth outta your head. Fuck with me and see how much I’m playin.”
Far from any consideration of backing down, Fantasma flashed a Halloween pumpkin grin of her own before daring to take two taunting steps forward. They both knew down deep it wasn’t any remnant of love or kindness that kept them together after all these years, but rather a mutually cherished and nurtured resentment which enabled them to at least keep feeling something. It may not have been lovemaking, but it was the best they could do anymore.
Donatella had seen this macabre dance far too many times for one so young to the point where she had gone blind to it all, even when it was happening right in front of her. Sometimes she would chart an escape route around her parents to her tiny bedroom at the end of the hall. There she would quietly close the door and then crawl into bed where she would scrunch herself into a tight ball underneath the sheets covered with cartoon characters. But other times she would sit there in her perch at the breakfast table and pretend to watch the spectacle, her eyes dull and lifeless as copper pennies found on the street.
Today would be different. Donatella could no longer watch her family feast on itself, and her bedroom was not far enough away from the carnage to offer the protection she really needed. In her child’s mind the only way to truly escape was to escape, whatever that might mean for a small Black girl who would suddenly find herself all alone in a world she was convinced must hate her to allow her existence to be such a horrible thing. So while Ellis and Fantasma James began once again to circle one another faster and faster into a cyclone of violent passions and regrets, Donatella stepped down from her chair and, without saying a word, walked out the door. She walked haltingly down the hall, past the apartment doors that quickly shut and locked as she approached, and into a sun splashed street where she stood still looking up at the cloudless sky as tears began to stream down her face and she started to sob. It was the first time she had ever cried that she could remember, and it was more of a relief than anything else. The longer she cried, standing all alone on the sidewalk, the more she felt the crushing pressure that had been her lifelong passenger begin to rinse away like hardened bits of mud loosening in a stream. In the distance (although it wasn’t so far at all), she could hear the yells and screams of Fantasma and Ellis spilling into the air from an open window up above. She started to turn, but then changed her mind. Because to look back was to go back. And Donatella was not going back. Ever.
It may have been the certainty of that decision, made by an 8-year-old child no less, that opened the locks to what would become the rest of her life. After what felt like days of tears, but was probably no longer than five minutes (because would all those grown people in a city like Detroit really stand around and watch a child cry for that long without doing something about it unless …maybe they knew who she…wasn’t she that child who…?)
Donatella gathered herself, like someone much older, then blinked twice. Hard.
“Hi.”
The small, bright voice, sounding like bells ringing in a soft wind, came from her right. She appeared to be a few years older than Donatella, just shy of being a teen. Her smile was chocolate and warm, and Donatella loved the unusual way the multi-colored beads were zig-zagged into her shoulder-length braids. Her eyes were black, almost too black, which made the white pearls of her teeth seem to flash.
“Hi,” she said again, this time taking a step closer and leaning forward, one eyebrow raised semi-comically.
She grinned. Donatella grinned back. The girl extended a hand. Several moments passed before Donatella took the girl’s hand in her own. Nodded.
“Maura,” the girl said.
“OK,” said Donatella, to which Maura laughed.
“So is that your name then? Your name is OK?”
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK AS THE STORY OF ‘THE WITCH’ CONTINUES…