A Summer's Spirit
by Victoria Mier
I.
I held the dove’s wings—white as snow, like the children’s stories go—flat against her sides. She stopped struggling. Her amber eyes darted this way and that, breast heaving against my damp palms.
I had been scared at first, too.
Her tiny feet curled like daffodils un-blooming, winding tighter into yellow buds. For a moment, it felt like she had stopped breathing. I looked down to see she was staring up at me, her eyes searching mine. Something about her gaze was familiar.
I could find another dove. The merchant outside had at least twenty in one cage alone.
I tore my eyes from the dove’s. She held my gaze as I spread her wings. I looked away. When the priestess sliced through the sinew and muscle of the dove’s left wing, the bird made no sound.
II.
When my father was young, he met a man on the train platform. The man wore an old-fashioned three-piece suit. The sun was just beginning to set.
The man asked my father for a cigarette. He pronounced it “cig-ah-rette,” stressing the last syllable instead of the first two. My father obliged, but when he offered a light, the man continued to stare at the cigarette. He rolled it between the fingers of his left hand once, twice, three times, before tucking it into his pocket.
“Not even going to smoke it?” My father asked.
“No,” the man answered.
My father fell silent, moving a step or two away from the man. The platform remained empty. He couldn’t see any trains in the distance. His gaze eventually drifted back toward the man.
“Aren’t you cold?” My father wanted to know. My father was like that.
“No,” the man answered, his eyes trained down the tracks. He took an old pocket watch from the folds of his tweed blazer. He rolled it between the fingers of his left hand once, twice, three times, before tucking it into his pocket.
As my father watched, the train station began to change. The bricks became new, raw red in the low light. The benches became old-style rod iron, crisp and black. The colors of the sunset turned sepia.
With a start, my father realized there was a train pulling into the platform, though he never heard the engine. The man in tweed approached the door.
“Do not follow,” the man warned.
“Who are you?” My father remembers asking.
The man stood in the doorway, pulling the cigarette back out of his pocket, rolling it between his fingers. He lingered for a moment, but did not answer, and then disappeared into the darkness of the rickety train, its sides heaving like an exhausted animal.
For so many years, my father remembered the man, the train platform, the sepia-colored sunset. All my life, he paused when we said the Apostle’s Creed in church, right before the “I believe” lines. It was just a small pause—one, two, three.
III.
An ad in the classifieds section of the Midwestern city’s newspaper read: “For sale: Beautiful King James Standard Bible set. Well-loved, but ready for a new home. No room on my bookshelf.”
During the service, the preacher held the rolled-up newspaper high and raised his voice to ask how someone could not have room for God. He had never tried worshiping anything else.
IV.
“Reality is like fabric,” he explained, grinding his cigarette into the dirty rug. “It’s thinner in some places. Places like this, actually.”
He had found her on some internet forum. They had paid by the hour. No one stayed longer than they had to. A tiny, battered statue of the Virgin Mary sat on the end table, next to the newspaper. The top story read, “FOURTH LOCAL MAN MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD.”
“All the people coming and going,” he added, like she didn’t understand.
She cleared her throat.
“Let’s get started,” she said.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, okay.”
He pulled the candles and the deck of cards and the other necessary items from his bag.
“Light them,” she said, taking the cards from him. She began to shuffle. He noticed how lithe her hands were—two pale serpents speaking a language he didn’t understand.
He had never wanted anything so badly.
“How much are we going to do tonight?” he asked.
“Be patient,” she murmured.
Someone knocked at the door. Housekeeping. The noise distracted him, his vision blurring as he looked at the woman seated on the floor in front of him. He didn’t remember letting her in. He didn’t remember coming here at all.
“Come back later, please,” the woman called.
He remembered a story his mother once told, when everyone in the house had fallen ill—he had just been an infant then, and caught the fever, too—and she was sure at least one of them would die, with the doctor ninety miles away. His mother had gone outside, desperate for air that wasn’t thick with phlegm.
She swears she saw the cloven hoof marks of the devil in the dirt outside their porch, circling the house. She called the pastor instead of the doctor. The pastor came, and when he did, he flung his arms wide, vestments battered by the wind, and cast the evil out, or so he said. There was holy water involved, his mother remembers, the pages of the Bible quivering like a fish struggling to breathe on land, and shouted prayers. They were all healthier within the day.
“I was raised Christian, you know,” he said to the woman, his gaze cast down at the thin carpet, searching. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he looked back up at her. The walls seemed to fade away until he could only see her face filling his vision. Her eyes were black and wide, nostrils tight and pinched.
He lit the candles and prayed she would swallow him whole.
I held the dove’s wings—white as snow, like the children’s stories go—flat against her sides. She stopped struggling. Her amber eyes darted this way and that, breast heaving against my damp palms.
I had been scared at first, too.
Her tiny feet curled like daffodils un-blooming, winding tighter into yellow buds. For a moment, it felt like she had stopped breathing. I looked down to see she was staring up at me, her eyes searching mine. Something about her gaze was familiar.
I could find another dove. The merchant outside had at least twenty in one cage alone.
I tore my eyes from the dove’s. She held my gaze as I spread her wings. I looked away. When the priestess sliced through the sinew and muscle of the dove’s left wing, the bird made no sound.
II.
When my father was young, he met a man on the train platform. The man wore an old-fashioned three-piece suit. The sun was just beginning to set.
The man asked my father for a cigarette. He pronounced it “cig-ah-rette,” stressing the last syllable instead of the first two. My father obliged, but when he offered a light, the man continued to stare at the cigarette. He rolled it between the fingers of his left hand once, twice, three times, before tucking it into his pocket.
“Not even going to smoke it?” My father asked.
“No,” the man answered.
My father fell silent, moving a step or two away from the man. The platform remained empty. He couldn’t see any trains in the distance. His gaze eventually drifted back toward the man.
“Aren’t you cold?” My father wanted to know. My father was like that.
“No,” the man answered, his eyes trained down the tracks. He took an old pocket watch from the folds of his tweed blazer. He rolled it between the fingers of his left hand once, twice, three times, before tucking it into his pocket.
As my father watched, the train station began to change. The bricks became new, raw red in the low light. The benches became old-style rod iron, crisp and black. The colors of the sunset turned sepia.
With a start, my father realized there was a train pulling into the platform, though he never heard the engine. The man in tweed approached the door.
“Do not follow,” the man warned.
“Who are you?” My father remembers asking.
The man stood in the doorway, pulling the cigarette back out of his pocket, rolling it between his fingers. He lingered for a moment, but did not answer, and then disappeared into the darkness of the rickety train, its sides heaving like an exhausted animal.
For so many years, my father remembered the man, the train platform, the sepia-colored sunset. All my life, he paused when we said the Apostle’s Creed in church, right before the “I believe” lines. It was just a small pause—one, two, three.
III.
An ad in the classifieds section of the Midwestern city’s newspaper read: “For sale: Beautiful King James Standard Bible set. Well-loved, but ready for a new home. No room on my bookshelf.”
During the service, the preacher held the rolled-up newspaper high and raised his voice to ask how someone could not have room for God. He had never tried worshiping anything else.
IV.
“Reality is like fabric,” he explained, grinding his cigarette into the dirty rug. “It’s thinner in some places. Places like this, actually.”
He had found her on some internet forum. They had paid by the hour. No one stayed longer than they had to. A tiny, battered statue of the Virgin Mary sat on the end table, next to the newspaper. The top story read, “FOURTH LOCAL MAN MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD.”
“All the people coming and going,” he added, like she didn’t understand.
She cleared her throat.
“Let’s get started,” she said.
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, okay.”
He pulled the candles and the deck of cards and the other necessary items from his bag.
“Light them,” she said, taking the cards from him. She began to shuffle. He noticed how lithe her hands were—two pale serpents speaking a language he didn’t understand.
He had never wanted anything so badly.
“How much are we going to do tonight?” he asked.
“Be patient,” she murmured.
Someone knocked at the door. Housekeeping. The noise distracted him, his vision blurring as he looked at the woman seated on the floor in front of him. He didn’t remember letting her in. He didn’t remember coming here at all.
“Come back later, please,” the woman called.
He remembered a story his mother once told, when everyone in the house had fallen ill—he had just been an infant then, and caught the fever, too—and she was sure at least one of them would die, with the doctor ninety miles away. His mother had gone outside, desperate for air that wasn’t thick with phlegm.
She swears she saw the cloven hoof marks of the devil in the dirt outside their porch, circling the house. She called the pastor instead of the doctor. The pastor came, and when he did, he flung his arms wide, vestments battered by the wind, and cast the evil out, or so he said. There was holy water involved, his mother remembers, the pages of the Bible quivering like a fish struggling to breathe on land, and shouted prayers. They were all healthier within the day.
“I was raised Christian, you know,” he said to the woman, his gaze cast down at the thin carpet, searching. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, he looked back up at her. The walls seemed to fade away until he could only see her face filling his vision. Her eyes were black and wide, nostrils tight and pinched.
He lit the candles and prayed she would swallow him whole.
Victoria Mier (she/they) is a strange woman, disabled writer, independent bookstore owner, and obsessive copyeditor for Wyrd & Wyse. She was published extensively as a journalist (Philadelphia Magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer) but is just now sending fiction into the world. Her work can be found in SORTES and Vulnerary Magazine.