Kate Fox & The Three Kings (17 page)

“We must go,” Hemming dragged me from my kneeling position and snatched up his clothing. “Mmm...Now,” he beckoned.

“Why?” I croaked out, winded already.

Hemming’s voice was low: “I—hmph— wasn’t the only one down there.”

A
s Hemming instructed
, I ate the berries from the flowers that night and interrogated him over who or what he encountered in the caves. He stood in my kitchen, monitoring my reaction as I chewed the berries. They burst in my mouth like tiny wild grapes, with the lingering flavor of sour lemon, making me pucker as I swallowed.

“I can’t be certain of what I saw,” he shook his head, retrieving a box of chocolate chip cookies from the cabinet. “The—hmph— figure was shadowed. I felt its presence before I ever spotted it. The presence was heavy—smothering. Melancholy, even, but not quite malevolent. I think—” Hemming busied himself with opening the package. The foil relented in a satisfying rip. “I think...it was...familiar. I grabbed the Belladonna and didn’t investigate further. I know very little about spirits. But what I am sure of, is that the majority are tied to a location or person, but the dark form followed me from the cave, which is unusual, to say the least. That’s why I insisted we leave.” Hemming’s tone was casual, but the tension in his jaw relayed worry under the guise of a cool demeanor.

“Did it follow us here? I mean, do you sense its presence still?” I asked in a hushed voice, directing my attention to the windows and door.

“Mmm...No...I don’t think so. But if we’re being completely candid here—I feel an overwhelming sense of dread that I didn’t experience before going in the cave,” Hemming frowned, leaning against the counter. I snatched the half-eaten cookie from his hand as he guided it to his mouth.

“I think tomorrow night is the night,” I announced, meeting his weary gaze. “I must play the Three Kings Game tomorrow.” I nodded, convincing myself with whatever false confidence I could manage.

“Another night,” Hemming shot back, growing more rigid with each word. “You’re being too impulsive after tonight’s events. Just because you’re young and impatient doesn’t mean you’re prepared to play the game.”

I blushed to my ears when the words “young”, “impulsive”, and “impatient” escaped Hemming’s mouth. Of course he viewed me as a silly child. He’d never see me as any different. I was in a perpetual state of missteps from his perspective: first, navigating my escape from W.H.O.R.E. without a trace of finesse; second, assuming his interest in me was more than platonic and kissing him; third, my inability to get a grip on what was happening to me without assistance from him or his awful twin sister.

Embarrassment evolved into fury in a matter of seconds. If not for Hemming and Helen’s insistence on utilizing me as a hit woman, I wouldn’t be in a pickle. Or would I? I’d noodled over this question ever since encountering Helen and Hemming at the farmer’s market, when they revealed that it had been a team effort, liberating me from W.H.O.R.E. and relocating me to my Aunt’s house. I felt manipulated. Hemming hired me at the Soda Fountain and didn’t utter a single word about knowing who I was. The siblings kept their end of the bargain with my father, ensuring my safety, in exchange for my willingness to end their lives once and for all. An essential piece in the moving parts of the equation involved playing and winning the Three Kings Game, in which I had to participate if I didn’t want to walk around feeling like a cancerous growth was spreading inside me.

But what if Helen never intervened? Surely, on that hot Saturday of picketing, the same events would’ve played out, with Gideon’s attack and my escape into the woods. Our supernatural altercation stirred the Fox inside. Prior to colliding with Beastie, my plan involved finding a highway, perhaps hitching a ride. Then what? The only place of retreat was Aunt June’s. The process certainly would’ve taken longer than 24-hours, but I was confident that I would’ve ended up in Apalachicola regardless, which meant W.H.O.R.E. would continue hunting me. I’d eventually become ill, with the Fox eating away at my insides. And to ever have a fighting chance against W.H.O.R.E., I needed to play the Three Kings Game.

I rolled my eyes at my inner dialogue. With the realization that either scenarios ended with the same conclusion, I expected to be less annoyed with Hemming. Unfortunately, my mind was littered with confusion, mostly processing the difference between what Hemming said and what he actually meant.

“I was under the distinct impression that me playing the Game was the entire point of our—” I pointed to the empty space between me and Hemming. “This—whatever ‘this’ is. After all, I’m just a means to an end, right? So, run along, tell Helen. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled,” my words were laced with sourness as I tried to push him towards the door.

His towering frame didn’t budge. “You need to calm down, Miss Fox. You’re being—”

“What I
need
is a lobotomy after I’m done. Maybe then, I can forget about you,” I laughed without humor. I couldn’t look at him anymore: the way his fists were balled and his jaw was tensed. The way he studied me with a million unspoken intentions. So, I turned around and distracted myself with the leather bound book containing all the details of the Game. I flipped to the inside cover, where “George Fox” was scribbled in cursive handwriting.

“Mmm...I’m sorry,” he muttered, his heavy footsteps thumping toward me. “I’m sorry I did this to you,” he placed his hand on the small of my back.

I whipped around to shake off his touch. The action forced me to absorb his defeated expression. “You don’t get to say you’re sorry!” I yelled back at him. Something about his undoing pushed me over the edge. “What’s set in motion—this is exactly what you and Helen wanted,” I smacked at his hand as his fingers tried to reach out. “Don’t you get it?” I tried to ignore the shake in my voice. “Either way, I lose. If I lose tomorrow, I die. If I win, I lose you.”

Hemming cleared his throat to speak, but I stopped him. “Maybe I should hate you for everything you’ve done to me—but I don’t. I can’t. And that’s the worst part.”

“Try—hmph—saying it,” Hemming leaned in close. “Try saying you hate me.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I leaned in closer, meeting his eye. His lips were a whisper away from mine. “Fuck you.”

After we stared at each other for a solid hour from opposite ends of the kitchen, waiting for something exciting or terrible to happen as a result of poison consumption, like frothing at the mouth or exploding eyeballs, I announced I was fine, and I insisted Hemming leave. I crawled into bed and fell asleep without incident, and when I awoke, my body felt invigorated, like I’d been on the grandest holiday, complete with spa treatment. I stretched my arms and legs with a big yawn.

Today was the day.

Today, I’d play the Three Kings Game. Today, I’d either win and live, or I’d lose and die.

Helen picked me up at eleven that evening. She served as my ‘helper’ for the night’s festivities, as Hemming refused to return my calls. With little enthusiasm, Helen explained that we’d utilize her house for the game. We didn’t say much to each other on the drive over. We didn’t have to. I wasn’t sure who was more nervous, her or me. She parked in front of an old barn, illuminated only by her headlights. With curious inspection, I noted that the shadowed lofts and creaky noises leaking from the boards above. Helen explained the barn hadn’t been used in decades, but the smell of horses and manure lingered in the air, along with moldy hay. We set up three bales of hay, two facing each other, with dusty antique mirrors placed atop the bales, leaning against wooden beams. The seating represented three points of a triangle.

In the wellhouse, I filled a metal basin full of chilly water and placed it beside my throne of hay. I intended the basin as a backup if I was unable to blow out the candle. I scoffed at how ridiculous the entire night was panning out to be, and a tinge of guilt tugged on my conscience. I spent my day Christmas shopping with Billie, skipping through crowded stores and gossiping along the way.

“Everything alright, hussy?” Billie prodded as I selected a non-stick bakeware set for Aunt June.

I managed my best smile and lied straight to her face, “Yes, perfectly fine. Everything alright with you?” I loathed lying to my cousin, especially since I fibbed from the very beginning of our new friendship, omitting details of magic and danger entirely. Though I attempted to convince myself otherwise, Billie’s suspicion seeped out during our conversations.

She nodded, eyeing me from head to toe. “What do you want for Christmas? You have to tell me something, otherwise I’ll buy you a room of vibrators—maybe even a Diva Cup!”

“Oh!” I flinched at her use of the v-word. “I have everything I want,” I brushed her off.

“Why don’t you stop pretending that your former cult being in Florida doesn’t bother you?” she demanded, her tone tinged with annoyance as she revved the Jeep’s engine. “I’ll be frank with you, I don’t mind the whole Christian vibe—you know, holding yourself accountable for all the dumb shit you do, attempting not to be an asshole to folks in a desperate struggle to secure a place in Heaven—but I don’t understand Jesus Christ’s self-proclaimed, number one fans, who you spent the last six years of your life with.”

“What do you think happens after you die?” I blurted out.

Billie jerked the Jeep into a gas station, screeching the vehicle to a halt in front of a pump. “Why? What are you planning to do? Do you need to talk to a professional? I talked to a therapist after my parents got divorced. I saw some shit I cannot un-see—my dad in bed with another woman, my mom crying until the early hours of morning. The therapist helped me through it...She told me it wasn’t my fault,” Billie spoke at the speed of light, rattling words off without pausing. “We can go to a therapist right now. I’ll call and make an appointment. We’ll bulk up on security around the house,” she held her phone in a death grip, bringing the screen to life.

“No! That’s...that’s not it.” Billie stopped frantically flipping through her contact list and studied my face.

“Oh, well...I’m not sure what happens after death—as far as where you go, what happens to your soul, if souls even exist,” she bit her lip. “A bunch of my classmates are part of an atheist club. I attended a meeting once. Their snack selection was lackluster. No one actually likes pretzels, but I digress...They explained that death was like falling asleep. For example, do you remember anything before you were born?”

I shook my head. Of course, I didn’t remember anything before age three or four. “The atheist club president said that’s what death is like. You don’t care. You don’t remember. You don’t think. Because you’re nothing.”

“Nothing,” I mused, rubbing my temple.  I’d never been content with the concept of nothingness—the notion that, one day, our existence inevitably fades into memory, and those who hold our memories dear will wither away. Thus, a person’s existence vanishes from the world—forever—taking on a new identity: “nothing.”

Perhaps that’s why I couldn’t stomach the rejection of an afterlife. The idea of the earth’s inhabitants, composed of soulless beings, fulfilling our respective responsibilities to live, and nothing more. I believed I possessed a soul, because I felt it shatter long ago. My childhood sprinted off with pieces, but experience demonstrated that kindness held the ability to reassemble the shards.

I’d known for a while I could never be nothing, as there’s nothing in nothingness for me. In the beginning, we start out as nothing, we are no one, until we become something—more than ash, dirt, bones, or a stone in an old graveyard by the sea.

“Interesting!” I piped up, coating my words in optimism and cheerfulness. We sped off to Aunt June’s, and I refused to wallow in the idea of death. I embraced Billie and Aunt June after dinner, complimenting Aunt June on her tasty rendition of oven-fried chicken: breaded in Panko, with a light dusting of cheese, baked in the oven until crisp. Then, I departed to the pool house without another word.

When we were finished, Helen and I strolled back to her cottage and purposefully left the barn door open. My stomach growled as we crossed the threshold. Seated on a leather couch with the TV off, Hemming awaited our return, with the look of absolute dejection plastered across his face. If I lost the game tonight, there would be consequences. Consequences I didn’t fully understand. I had no knowledge of the Shadowside. Who resided there? How was it different from our world? And what would happen to me if I got stuck there?

“It would be beneficial if you got a bit of rest before the festivities begin,” Helen instructed, placing a black kettle over the wood burning stove. The cottage was more like a cabin, with old, wooden floors and intricate woodwork sprinkled throughout the kitchen. When the kettle screeched and fumed, Helen poured the hot water into a mug, dunking in a tea bag. She handed the mug to me, with an unreadable expression: “You can use Hemming’s room. We’ll wake you when it’s time.” This wasn’t a suggestion as much as it was an order.

I sighed. I was tired. Hemming rose to his feet without saying a word, establishing eye contact then tilting his head toward his room. I followed him down the narrow hallway. His room and Helen’s were on opposite sides of the house. The moment I stepped through the doorway, I knew he must’ve called shotgun on the master suite. Not overly spacious, the room was equipped with a built-in desk that overlooked the river, a wide, king-sized bed arranged with a cozy patched blanket tucked in the center of the room, and an armoire that reached the ceiling. The bedroom led into the master bath, with granite countertops, Jacuzzi tub, and a glass-door shower, but my favorite part of Hemming’s bedroom was the entire wall, comprised of glass, overlooking the river. The sliding glass doors opened up to a series of stone steps illuminated by lanterns, pacing down to a floating dock surrounded by bobbing cattails. Weathered Adirondack chairs were arranged into a circle around a metal firepit. During the day, it could’ve functioned as the perfect spot for an alligator to sunbathe.

I pressed my face against the glass to catch a glimpse of the night sky bouncing off the calm waters. The moon was high and full enough to irradiate the surrounding details, like floating Spanish moss and the occasional disturbance rippling beneath the water’s surface. The stars twinkled and danced off the river’s reflection like lightning bugs in the summer. I sucked in a deep breath. Aside from my pacing heart, the only sound I could decipher was the chirping cicadas.