Adrenaline surged through Kevin's bloodstream as he emerged from the SMARTA station. Today would be the day. Today would be the day.
Crossing the street to Washington Heights, he dodged an ice cream truck merrily chiming "Twinkle, Twinkle" from its speakers. Knowing the neighborhood for what it was, Kevin guessed that the truck sold more magic herbs than ice cream - and not the type of magic herbs he had bought from the woman at The Wrath.
As Kevin opened the door to apartment 981, his heart thundered with excitement and the effort of sprinting up nine flights of stairs. Dropping his bag by the door, Kevin got to work immediately.
Patrick's body still lay chained to the steel table in the center of the room, the corpse's pallid skin glowing in the light of the bare bulb overhead.
Kevin lifted the now dried entrails and placed them in a large mortar. Adding the herbs the woman at The Wrath had given him, he began to grind the mixture with a pestle. When he had successfully powdered the herbs and innards, he divided the mortar's contents into four small bowls. Placing one at each corner of the steel table, he lit the powder samples with a lighter from his pocket. As a savory yet revolting aroma filled the room, he picked up the piece of scrap paper the woman had handed him. Her calligraphy itself seemed to evoke the magic in the words, as though no recitation was necessary.
Mors non finis est; mors solus inceptum est; is qui mortatus est rursus vivet
As the last syllable echoed against the barren walls, Kevin felt a change in the atmosphere of the room. The room seemed to have a new life to it. The hairs on Kevin's neck began to stand up. He could feel the incantation working, but Patrick showed no signs of life as of yet. Kevin would have to wait.
Pulling a chair to the table alongside Patrick's head, Kevin sat to wait. He waited for hours. He waited until the flames died down to embers. He waited until the glowing embers began to fade.
As the last burning ember was dying, Kevin turned to leave. His plan had failed. He would never have Patrick back in his life again.
But as Kevin reached for the door handle, the last ember died with a puff of smoke. With this final signal came a slight rustling. Upon hearing it, Kevin turned around, searching for the source of the sound. It came from the table. Kevin's heart skipped a beat.
Patrick was moving hypnopompically, as though he was waking from a deep sleep. At last, he opened his eyes. "Kevin?" he inquired in a voice that seemed as if it had not been used for the last three years.
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I roughly pushed open the door to the rooftop of the apartment building and hurried through. My arms were full, and I was sure to drop something if I didn't move quickly. The door banged shut behind me in the good breeze that had worked itself up throughout the morning. I dropped my armfull of objects and settled down next to the flowers I had planted so carefully a few days before. Besides looking extremely battered by the storm of the previous night, they looked to be doing well. I had always loved pansies, and the pansies themselves seemed to somehow be thriving in the gloomy environment that was Washington Heights.
I dumped the contents of the metal wastepaper bin I had carried most of the things upstairs in onto the dirt next to me and set the bin in front of my folded knees. I opened and placed carefully around me the candles that had been left on my doorstep by the woman who owned The Wrath. "I haven't seen her since that day I went in to get candles myself," I wondered aloud. "Is she alright?" I arranged the candles in a semicircle and stuck them into the dirt so that they stood on their own. I pulled a pack of matches from the pile next to me and lit the candles one by one. They made me think of my mother.
Now that the canldes were lit and the flames danced merrily in the breeze, I began on the pile that I had dumped so unceremoniously beside myself. First, I picked up my apron from the bakery and dropped it back into the trashcan. A cloud of flour rose above it, making me wrinkle my nose. "I'm so sick of flour and bagels and fingerprints," I muttered as I lit another match. "I'm so tired of that man who makes my life a living hell every time I walk into the bakery." I held the match for a moment, letting the flames creep up the matchstick. "I'm done with taking his thinly veiled insults and his condescending looks." I dropped the match into the trashcan and watched as the flames crept quickly along the fabric of the apron. When the fire had been going for a couple of minutes, I looked at the pile next to me again.
I picked up my little bottle of liquid hand sanitizer and stared at it a moment before dropping it into the trashcan as well. The flames flared as they came in contact with the hand sanitizer. "I'm done with you as well," I said to it as the flames died down a bit again. "I'm done with sticky and fingerprints and smudges and dirt and stains and everything like it. I'm done. I won't worry about it anymore. I won't. I can't." Next, I dropped a pile of neatly folded letters into the bin, the ones from my mother that I had never answered. It was time to put my anger behind me, or at least to try to talk to her again. I had proven that I could live by myself, she had to agree with me now. Finally.
I stared at the paper napkin sitting next to me for a long moment before picking it up. It was from the diner down the street. I had had it clutched in my hand when I had run out on Kevin before. When I finally got home, I was still holding it. "Silly Maria," I told myself, "you hold onto things longer than you should, just learn to let them go, learn to leave them alone and in the past." I dropped the napkin on top of the letters and watched as the paper was quickly eaten by the flames.
There was only one thing left in the pile now. I had cleaned the trenchcoat and folded it as neatly as I could. The folds were messy now after being carried up the stairs in a wastepaper bin, but I could still see the time and effort I had put into making to coat nicer. I hadn't gone looking for its owner though. Besides the fact that I didn't really want to see him after he had witnessed my breakdown in the street, I didn't know where to begin to look for him. I had realized that I didn't even know which floor he lived on. "Shows how much people notice around here. I've been living in Washington Heights but I still don't really know anything about it. I could tell someone where the diner was, but I don't think anyone would understand if I tried to tell them about the people."
I picked up the trenchcoat and stared at it. It was a mark of the past, a reminder that I didn't want with me when I left. While this place had been relatively good to me, helping me find myself again, helping me forgive people, I didn't necessarily want to take any of it with me when I left. But as I leaned over to drop the trenchcoat into the flaming trashcan, I couldn't make myself do it. I paused there for a long moment, stretched out, leaning over the trashcan, trenchcoat in my hands, but unable to finish the action. Finally, when I realized that it was impossible, I moved back to my seat and set the coat down beside me again. I sat there silently and watched as the flames in the trashcan burned lower until finally the flames in the trashcan and the candles around me went out, burned to ashes and melted to waxy stubs.
Before I moved again, I thanked my mother, silently this time, for what she had driven me to accomplish. I thanked the people of Washington Heights who hadn't killed me or stolen my belongings or made me walk on sidewalks. But I wasn't one of them.
So, I stood, picked up the trenchcoat, and slipped into it. I picked a pansy and stuck it in my hair. I walked away from the trashcan without looking back, I walked through the door and down the flights of stairs, all the way to the bottom of the apartment building. I walked through the entryway without changing my course because of the vending machine. I hopped the sidewalk outside and turned down Bucher Drive. I walked past the park without looking right or left even though there was an ambulance parked on the other side of the street. I continued to walk even as people gathered around the park, watching as a stretcher with a small form on it was lifted out of the wreckage of a fallen tree and carried to the ambulance. I walked past the synagouge and the bar; I walked past the Last Resort Thrift Shop without pausing.
I walked in the beautiful sunshine and the breeze. I walked in the road because where else was I supposed to walk. I walked right out of Washington Heights without looking back.
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