1 Straight to Hell (4 page)

“Don’t worry about that.”

Not worrying was the last thing I was capable of right now.  I had to know.  “But what is it?”

Her eyes went hot.  That’s the only word I can think of to describe it.  An enraged fire blazed behind them, making it perfectly clear that no matter how much this Miss Spry looked like Katherine Hepburn, she was not.  She had a rage that was unearthly, making all of my fears about demons and pitchforks and hellfire return in an instant.  The room, despite its French doors and view of the garden, was not a safe place.  I shrank back in my chair.

“We don’t talk about that one,” she said, clearly annunciating each word.  I nodded quickly, eager to show her that I did understand.

“Now you are in the center of all this.”  She put a little X in the middle of the triangle.  Her temper had blown over in an instant, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Not living, not dead.  Right.”  So what am I, I wondered.  A zombie?  A vampire?

Miss Spry smiled slightly, as if guessing my thoughts.  “My dear, you are a succubus.”

I gaped at her, speechless.  A
succubus
?

There was a knock at the door, then the prison guard entered pushing a tea tray.  Miss Spry thanked her and began pouring tea from a china pot.  She offered me a cookie from a silver tray.

A succubus?  In college, I’d taken a course on mythology and remembered that a succubus was a female demon with insatiable sexual desires who slept with men before sucking out their souls.  Was she kidding me?  “I’m an elementary school teacher,” I said.

“I know,” she assured me as she handed me a cup.

“I haven’t had sex in over a year.”

She pursed her lips.  “Let’s just keep that to ourselves, shall we?”

“Look at me,” I insisted.  I stood up to give her the full view.  I’d put on a little weight since my divorce.  Okay, a lot of weight.

“And I only have a B cup.  I’m not a super model.”  I had a thought.  “Maybe you’re confusing me with my stepsister Jasmine?”

“No, you’re the one.”  I must have still looked confused because she said,  “My dear, it’s what’s in here that counts.”  She tapped the side of her head.

“What’s in here?”  My voice was climbing up octaves, making me shrill.  “What’s in here is trying to make sure that my daughter has clean underwear every day, and that she’s done her homework.  And that my niece, Ariel, isn’t trying to burn down the house again.  And that my sister doesn’t get a hold of my credit cards.  And that there’s enough cat litter in the house so that the cat won’t start peeing in the plants…”

“Ms. Straight.”

“And then there’s my ex-husband.  Don’t even get me started on him…”

“Ms. Straight!”

I was pacing now, too aggravated to sit still.  “And my job.  My stupid job.  You’d think the school district would want to hire a woman with a master’s degree in women’s studies, but no!  So now I’m languishing as a substitute teacher…”

“Sit down!”  Miss Spry’s evil look had returned.  The eyes behind her steel-rimmed glasses glowed hotly.

I sat. 

“Now drink your tea, and listen to what I have to say.”

I took the cup with a trembling hand and tasted it.  After years of living with my father, the tea expert, I consider myself quite an authority, yet I’d never tasted a tea like this one.  It was strong but not bitter.  It had a rich flavor that reminded me somehow of fall leaves and the smell of the first frost and honey.

“How much do you know about your family?” Miss Spry asked.  When I shrugged, she said.  “Did you know that your mother was a succubus?”

My mother, the ex-hippie, who claimed that she’d traveled (and slept) with every rock-and-roll legend who’d ever tuned a guitar at Woodstock.  My mother who would willingly tell anyone (her hairdresser, her gynecologist, the paper boy) about the time she’d spent with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters aboard their psychedelic bus.  My mother whose freak flag could have been the official banner of Haight-Ashbury.  My open-yourself-to-all-experiences mother was a succubus.

At last, something that made sense.

She continued.  “Your grandmother, too, was a succubus.”

My
grandmother
?  I’d never met my grandmother, she’d died long before I was born, but I still couldn’t imagine it.

“As was her mother and her mother and so on.  It’s a line that extends all the way to Sarah Goodswain.”

I leaned forward in my chair, fascinated in spite of myself.  Sarah Goodswain?  I’d never heard of her.  My mother wasn’t one for genealogies, and I wondered if she even knew this information.

“Sarah was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1723, and in 1744, she was arrested for being a witch.”  Miss Spry smiled slightly.  “She wasn’t a witch, of course, none of them were.  But Sarah was a clever girl.  She realized that the only way to escape hanging was to actually do what she’d been accused of and make a deal.”

A deal?  With whom, the Devil?  Could people actually do that?  I’d never heard of such a thing, but then again, I’m not really an expert on religion.  Yes, I’d gone to Catholic school, but that place had taught me only two things: (1) everything I did was a sin and (2) I hated God as much as he hated me.  When Grace went through a religious phase and asked me about God, I acted like he was a bad boyfriend.  “You’re better off without him.  Trust me,” was all I’d said.

“So what you’re telling me,” I said, “is that my great-great something grandmother made a deal with the Devil?”

“We don’t use that word here,” Miss Spry said tartly.  “Let’s just say that Sarah made a deal with someone she knew who could get her out of prison and away from Cotton Mather and his father.  She promised that she would do the master’s bidding in return for her freedom.  But the Master is clever, too, and he drives a hard bargain.”  Miss Spry’s eyes twinkled.  Clearly she admired this Master person.  “He made Sarah agree that every female descendent in her line would follow her path and become a succubus.  And that path, Ms. Straight, has finally led to you.”

I shoved my cup aside, slopping tea over her spotless desk.  “Don’t I get a say in all of this?  I mean, a succubus?  A demon that sleeps with strange men?  No.  Way.”

“First of all, you are not a demon.  You
house
a demon.  The same demon that your mother and grandmother had.  In fact, the same demon that Sarah herself had.  You are essentially still human, but now a demon shares space inside of you, and gifts you with its powers.”

I started to object, but she held up her hand.  “Secondly, a succubus is a seducer, Lilith.  That’s all.  It isn’t so bad.”

“That’s all.  It’s not so bad.  Are you
kidding
me?”  I leaned forward in my chair.  “And what if I refuse? What then?”  I might have been acting brave, but my legs trembled and my mouth was bone dry.

I had expected the old woman’s eyes to go hot again, but instead she smiled.  “You may choose not to become a succubus if you wish.”

I didn’t dare relax.  I could tell there was an unspoken ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.

Miss Spry didn’t disappoint me.  “But then, of course, you’ll remain here.”  She hesitated a moment.  “Dead.”

Dead.  The word hit like a jab to the solar plexus, and I sank backwards in my seat.  “I can’t be dead!  I know I was hit by a car, but still…”  I stood up.  “I mean, look at me!  I look fine.  I
feel
fine.”  I spun in a little circle.  “No injuries.  No scars.”

She shrugged.  “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, Lilith.  But you are, in fact, dead.  Right now, your broken body is crumpled on the road, and a stray dog is lapping up your blood.  But don’t worry.  The funeral director will do a fine job of covering up the damage, so your young daughter won’t have to witness the gruesome condition of your corpse.  Of course, it won’t prevent her from becoming hysterical when she sees you lying in your coffin.”

Miss Spry’s cunning little smile lit a fire inside me.  “You can’t do this to me!”  I lunged across the desk, but Miss Spry lifted her hand in defense, and I was thrown across the room.  I hit the wall so hard that all the air in my lungs was expelled in a single gasp, and my chest ached as I sucked wind to refill them.

Miss Spry left her desk to stand over me.  Her face was hard; her eyes hot.  “You either become a succubus, or you die and the next female takes your place.  But either way, the line will continue unbroken.  There are no exceptions.”

Die now or allow the Devil to take my soul.  It wasn’t much of a choice, but I knew that there was only one way for me to go.  My mother had abandoned me when I was a kid, and I couldn’t bear to do that to my own daughter.  When my lungs reached equilibrium, I gasped, “Fine.  I’ll do it.”

Miss Spry nodded.  “Good.  I’ll return you to your world,” she said, “and you can resume your life.  But when I need you, you’ll be summoned.  And you
will
come.”  I knew that tone and that expression.  This was a woman who would not be crossed.  If she said come, I came.

As it turned out, I hadn’t been wrong about what would happen to me in that place; I was just wrong about who would be owning me.  It wasn’t the woman in the prison cell after all.  No, I was Miss Spry’s bitch.

When I came back to reality, I was standing on the same sidewalk where, seemingly ages ago, I’d been texting Jasmine.  My hip ached, either from the impact of the car hitting me or the impact of Miss Spry throwing me against the wall.  I couldn’t be sure.

In fact, I couldn’t be sure about any of it.  I still held the half-empty cup of pop, though the ice had long ago melted.  My cell phone was in my pocket.  But at the same time, I was missing a shoe, my watch was broken, and there looked to be tire tracks up the side of my slacks.  I felt sick and disoriented and promptly leaned over and heaved up my guts all over the clean sidewalk of one of the nicest suburbs in the city.

It was my guess that succubae generally don’t do this as it’s not very attractive.

It was growing dark, and as I returned to my car and drove home, my head felt strangely empty.  Like I needed to remember something important, but no longer cared enough to find out what it was.  I recalled the jail cell, the conversation with Miss Spry, even the taste of the tea, but all of these things were like pieces to a puzzle I couldn’t solve.  I drove numbly, obeying all of the traffic laws out of habit, but not really understanding what I was doing.

By the time I got home, it was fully dark, and every light in the townhouse blazed.  I sat in the car for several minutes, trying to think of what to say to my family.  How to explain the missing shoe, the tire tracks up my pant leg, the fact that I had indeed borrowed Jas’s purse without her permission.  But at last, I simply gave up and went inside, figuring whatever happened, happened.

Grace, her face tear-stained, met me in the doorway and hugged me so tightly that my injured hip yelled in protest.  “Mommy!  Where were you?”  I was instantly on alert; she hasn’t called me ‘mommy’ in years.

Behind her stood a very worried-looking Ariel and a mournful Jasmine who was leaning against the hairless wonder who, seemingly years ago, had been sleeping on my couch.  I felt a glow in my chest.  They loved me!  They were worried about me!  “I’m okay,” I assured them.  “I wasn’t that hurt.”

“Hurt?  What are you talking about?  Who’s hurt?”  Jas looked offended, as if I was trying to upstage whatever she had going on.

But before I could make my big announcement – that I’d been hit by a car, killed, sent to hell and survived the trip thank-you-very-much – Grace pressed her face into my side.  “She’s dead, mommy.  Gramma’s dead.”

The news rooted me to the spot because the pieces finally fell together.  I’d been made a succubus because my mother had died and someone needed to take her place.  Because, like Miss Spry had told me, one generation must always follow another.