JER-BEAR AND GREGORY had been having me participate in rituals for a few months now but this time something else got their attention. Normally they hide what the intent of their rituals are from me but I can hear them fuming from my little closet. I walk over to the ritual room. It's down the stairs and a few hallways that don't make sense structurally but the architecture of this place is a mystery. I don't venture beyond the kitchen, bathroom, my room, and the ritual room. I wasn't told not to I just want to keep to myself.
As I enter the ritual room Jer-Bear and Gregory have tuckered themselves out from the fuming. They're cradling the house cat, taking turns lavishing the thing with affection. I forgot the cat's name but it sounds like “Naruto.” I'm sure they didn't actually name their cat after a gottverdammt anime.
“What's the plan, my dudes?” I ask as I slowly creep into sight.
“Lucas Greane is at it again... Again!” growls Jer-Bear.
“That guy who's all pray the gay away, let's bulldoze the light rail?” I inquiry.
“The same.” confirms Jer-Bear. He passes Neruda, my nickname for the cat, back to Gregory who's too angry to talk so he takes it out on the cat in the form of affection. Neruda is purring so gottverdammt loud it's almost funny.
“That worthless, self hating dickweed wants to bulldoze this whole block for a condo!”
“Is Georgetown even zoned for high rises? I mean, the tallest building here is that Brewery. It was built, like what, 80 years ago?” I ask.
“Yeah, well this asshole has a lot of pull with the city council and all kinds of developers. Soooo... we gotta hex 'em. Hex him good.”
“I'm always down to stick it to the real estate market.” Finally someone I can fuck with who utterly deserves it. I have a lot of ideas of how to ruin this man's life but somehow I doubt I'll get the honors.
“You and the whole damn city.” Growls Gregory.
“There is one issue. We gotta do this very covertly. Like everyone in this city, he has witch connections. Big ones. So easy task for you, low risk. We're gonna have ya pickup some stuff from Silas at Pentacle's Edge. You met Silas yet?”
“Nope. What do they look like?”
“Kanth's apprentice. They have some facial tattoos and, ugh, white dreads.”
“I used to have dreads. Cut 'em cus everybody would get on my back about cultural appropriation.” I ramble off without thinking.
Gregory shoots me a glare. I want to pull out the I'm 1/4th Korean so I'm technically not white card but that never gets me anywhere in the “dreads are cultural appropriation” arguments. Honestly, I don't give a shit about wokeness or social justice. I think everyone deserves to suffer.
“Lemme give you Silas's number.” He says.
Another go-for errand. I'm doing a lot of bullshit for this free room. No such thing as a free meal. I catch the 60 up to Cap Hill and transfer to the 49. It's a gottverdammt hour of seeing the boringest parts of Beacon Hill and First Hill. South Seattle and North Seattle are two different worlds. You see houses for miles and miles in both parts but everything south of Union is where people of color used to live in the city. You see poverty and homelessness. You see communities destroyed by gentrification. You see the massage pallors of the International District. I wonder how many of those sex workers were trafficked here against their will. Then you hit First Hill and the rich people avail themselves. Pill Hill, land of hospitals and weird bars I'll never go to. Some of them look like they could be in a noir film; seedy jazz club and private detectives. Onward to Cap Hill and the condos and techbros. I get off at Union and walk it to the Pine 49 stop and wait there like I have a million times in the past. I'm used to waiting for the bus to come. Waiting to get home to Wallingford at 1am after a night of clubbing or coming home from Seattle Central classes. Gave up on that tech degree like I give up on everything.
It's my favorite bus ride. The 49. Once you're off Broadway and on to 10th forward bound then it's all rich people's houses and quiet. Across the University bridge and on to 12th Ave, the main bus terminal of the University District. I get off early so I can walk up without hitting the main drag. I like to get off the bus early to walk it. Gives me much needed alone time. It's grey, drizzling, 60 degrees. Perfect weather. I'll never understand all the Californians who move here. Why come if you hate the rain?
I slink into Pentacle's Edge and they are having a big pagan meetup. Greg and Jer say witches and their go-for's show up and hide in plain sight at these events. That way, no one can clock who's a real witch and who's a woowoo wiccan / pagan. This is my first time doing this. I always hated this place. They always point and laugh at me when I pass by. Why the fuck they do it, who knows? I don't dress alternative anymore. I assume it's cus of gossip or my bad rap. Fuck 'em. I've only set foot here like 3 times in my life. The old tarot reader was this white chick with dreadlocks who had a Dark Crystal tattoo on her chest. She'd point and laugh at me as I walked by. The new tarot reader is a black woman with dreadlocks. She points and laughs at me when I walk by. She's there and snickers as I walk in.
I glance around the room. Tuns of goths. Some old folks in black t shirts. Some new folks in fancy, trendy forest witch attire. None of them are the real deal. Finally, I spot Silas. They're a smallish crust punk playing with a pet rat, sitting on the floor towards the back. I help myself to a tun of free food and pop a squat right next to them.
“Dr. Livingston, I presume?” I try to be clever.
“Oh hey, you must be Mary Abaddon.”
Fuck, I am never losing this new nickname, am I?
“In the flesh and twice as ugly.”
“I've heard about you.” They say.
“Nothing good I hope?”
Silas is taken aback but then the joke sets in and they roll with it.
“Oh yeah, nothing but bad things. My pronouns are they / them. So, how are you?”
Dear god, the small talk. Seattle's overly polite and indirect culture will be the death of me. We shoot the shit for about a half hour. They tell me how Kanth is a rat breeder among other things. We discuss the pitfalls of collective housing and how much we hate New York. They used to live there. I came back from a year of attempting to make it work there. That was two years ago. Every time I've tried to live in NYC it's been an even bigger disaster. This last time I couldn't find a job to save my life and ended up just crashing on friends couches. Had no choice but to head back to Seattle with my tail between my legs, for the fourth time now? I've tried escaping the northwest so many times but I always come back because I have nowhere else to go. But I've felt the same about The Bay and New York. The three areas I've lived all my life and keep jumping around. I never learn and I never try any new cities. It's pathetic.
I bitch about my life to Silas cus I've run out of small talk.
“I grew up in Philly. Mom was a crazy gaslighter. Stepdad was a homophobe who secretly hated my guts and liked to treat me more like a girlfriend than a daughter. Real dad lived in Jersey with my stepmom. I used to spend tons of time with them to get away from my mom and stepbastard. My stepmom was like a sister to me. But she had seizure while waiting for a train. Fell on the tracks and died. Dad stopped talking to me shortly after that and just disappeared.”
I'm lying. Stepmom died in the hospital after weeks of the nurses and doctors ignoring her cus she didn't have insurance. They'd clear her to leave, she'd have another seizure, and she'd be back and they'd be no help. Last time I saw my stepmom she had a black eye and broken nose from falling during a seizure. She died on a Tuesday. My dad didn't tell me until a day later. He didn't disappear. I ghosted him for not telling me. I couldn't stand the sight of him. I hated him for not taking care of my stepmom. For saying I was always welcome in his house but kicking me out after my stepmom got sick so her parents could stay in my room. Turns out Lady J, my stepmom, was the only one who actually wanted to house me. He was always taking liberties, just doing what he wanted and I hated him for it. I haven't seen him since.
I don't know why I lie but I do quite often. Little white lies. Lots of them. Sometimes I lie about my stepmom too. I change the relationships depending on who I talk too. Who was good and who wasn't. Truth is, I never liked any of my family. They all gaslighted me, abused me, punched down on me. But no one wants to hear “I never liked any of them.” So I tell people what they want to hear, like a true Seattleite.
“That's rough. Let's go see Kanth. Unless, ... if you need a minute though?”
“No, I'm good. Let's roll.”
We go up Roosevelt ave, walking and talking. I've walked this path a million times, be it to window shop at Trading Musician or play open mic nights at Cafe Racer. We walk well past 65th and now we're in a part of Seattle that brings back bad memories. Used to live at a queer collective house around here that made me homeless because they found someone cooler to replace me. I tell this to Silas.
“Well, you can't blame a collective house for wanting to pick their roommates.”
“What happened to queer people supporting each other? How do you just make a queer person homeless over nothing?”
“Well, it's their collective and...”
I stop listening to them. Fuck you too, Silas. I wait till they wrap up before my attention turns back to them.
“... but ya, know back in the day there was this one place that any queer could crash at. But that was a long time ago.” Silas finishes.
“Yeah, now I keep my laptop, birth cert, social security card, and other shit on me at all times.”
“Good survival instincts.” They seem impressed by my paranoia.
We get to the place, which turns out to be a basement apartment only accessible through a back alley entrance. This S&M looking trans dude opens the door and invites us in. The alleged apartment is literally one room with a hallway bathroom split between the other basement occupants. The Witch Kanth is inside. We are surrounded by tapestries, embroidery, and in the back of her apartment are the cages. Most are filled with the rats they breed and two tanks for snakes. Kanth, noticing my gaze, says if a rat bites them, they toss it and its children in the snake cage.
Silas and Kanth are already on super friendly terms. To everyone around me I'm not even in the room. I park myself down in the corner and listen to Kanth instruct Silas on magic. Good thing about people ignoring you is you get a front row view of their secrets. If they act like you're not in the room eventually they'll forget to keep their guard up. I take notes mentally on everything Kanth is teaching Silas.
One sticking point they bring up is that all magic is transactional. You don't get something for nothing. I assume Jer-Bear and Gregory paid Kanth in advance. Soon it's drawing near time for me to haul their prize down to Georgetown... all the way from Roosevelt. I'm literally going from one end to the opposite end of the city. But I enjoy the bus rides as long as my phone has enough battery to play music.
“Kambucha!” Silas is delighted at the jugs I now have to drag down there.
“It's made from my garden teas and most of the resin from previous meals.” Says Kanth.
Meals is code for people. The ritualistic cannibalism. Some nerds call it diablerie. Call whatever you want but it's just eating dead witches and arcane beasts to get their magic. Mostly people. Those beasts are extra hard to come by and people die all the time.
“Technically it's Vegan but it's extra powerful no matter how you cut it. Do you want some?”
Silas pulls out two cups. For the first time since we got here they remember I'm in the room. We drink without a cheer or any sort of fanfare.
We leave with two jugs, or more accurately, I leave with the jugs and Silas makes nice in a long goodbye. When it's our turn to part ways Silas gives me a weak farewell and once again I'm alone. I'm also stuck dragging these heavy ass jugs down to the bus stop by myself. I catch the 49 back down to Cap Hill and by sheer luck get the last 60. On a weekend lots of hipsters crowd the last 60 on their way back to Georgetown but it's a Tuesday. So it's me and a few old people. Nights like this make me love living here. When I don't want to talk to anyone and the city is a ghost town.
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