"Three"-a short story by Edie Berke

Trigger warning: This story is a spooky tale with a reference to a knife

The house looked as though it was covered in small bright spots of yellow fungus, which, if you looked close enough, turned out to be eggs. The sunny yolks glowed in the light from the streetlamps as they slipped down the faded wooden boards, dropping with a soft plop into the flowerbed below. Ants and beetles swarmed among the bone-dry mulch to accept the feast from above as if accepting gifts of manna from some unseen god. Above them, black paint splattered in long, messy shapes dripped down the wall with the egg and marred the whites with an ugly gray color. The insects chittered their disapproval. It seems their god was not so benevolent.

The sudden opening of a door signaled them to skitter off into the shadows and the crevices between the shifting bricks. A screen door, pasted with egg remains and screaming on its hinges, swung open into the overgrown yard, and from the darkened maw of the house a figure materialized. A thick curtain of mottled gray hair fell over her shoulders, but what truly betrayed her age was her bent figure, hunched toward the ground in a deep bow, and her clouded eyes that looked as if they had been replaced by milky marbles.

Her slow steps led her down the short stairs and onto the lawn, where she slowly turned and lifted her head to take in the house. The eggs left damp trails all over the stained gray wood, and the shells were littered in small white pieces across the lawn. The paint had dripped down the side of the house like ebony tears, but the message intended for the woman had not faded.

“Witch.”

Her voice was rough, crackling like old paper. She scoffed.

Then, a shift in her expression. The set of her jaw tightened, and something like remorse flashed across her eyes. It was gone as soon as it had come, leaving her lined face set toward the door as she began the slow journey back up the steps. Once inside, she made her way to the kitchen through a maze of cardboard boxes, bags of trash, and large pieces of old furniture. Everything, barring a single armchair, was covered in a thin layer of dust.

Maybe things would have stayed cleaner if she hadn’t fired them, she thought, but the house seemed hell-bent on dishevelment. Maybe she deserved it.

She wiped the dust off of a drawer handle and slid it open, jangling the many sets of keys inside. She selected a large ring, flipping through it until a silver house key slid to the front. It was not marked in any way, differing from the others only by color. It unlocked one door in the house: the one she now stood in front of.

Her hand shook, whether from old age or apprehension, it was impossible to tell. It hesitated, there in the air, hovering between two choices of which neither seemed the better option. Emotions flashed across her face again, flickering like a candle. She slid the key into the lock, twisted it with a small click, and swung open the door, grabbing the hand rail on the wall to aid her down the set of rickety wooden stairs.

She knew who had vandalized her house. There was no guess. They were the same ones that had helped keep it livable for a time. She believed they were good kids, she truly did, they were just going down the wrong path. They had only wanted to make a little money.

They had shown up on her doorstep several months ago, back when the weather was warm, attempting to ring her broken doorbell. Two girls, one with dark curly hair and the other with hair like straw, and a boy, short and fidgety.

She struggled to remember their names. It was difficult to remember much of anything these days. Some things, however, could not seem to be forgotten. The dark-haired girl had announced they were looking for a job, and volunteered herself and her companions to help clean the house for a small fee. She had always seemed to be the leader.

The woman obliged them, and soon they became a fixture as regular as the wingback chair and dusty boxes, which had slowly disappeared with the help of the three teens. The woman had begun to enjoy their company, showing her gratitude through their meager salary and occasional treats left out for them to enjoy. Sometimes, she would even tell a story or two, tales of love and youthful exploits.

The teens had seemed to warm up to her, but the dark-haired girl’s gaze constantly drifted toward the locked basement door. That was one curiosity that would not be revealed with the woman’s consent. So, one day, while she was running errands, the girl convinced her friends to dig through the key drawer and locate the single one that would answer her questions.

The woman came home just as they were coming back upstairs, but it seemed they had been left with more questions than answers. The woman could see it in their eyes. The confusion, the accusations, and was that a hint of fear? She knew this would not be the last time they explored the basement, and she couldn’t allow them to go down there again. That is why she fired them.

The offenses began about a month later.

At first they were minor. Hiding the mail, stealing the food left out for the stray cats. No doubt some childish fits of anger at their dismissal. Then they got bolder, and started vandalizing her house, breaking windows and defacing the siding with a few well-aimed projectiles. Their intentions were clear now. These infractions were born of a shared fear that had morphed into something much more threatening, something that had to be addressed. And so that is what she would do.

At the bottom of the stairs, the woman had to stop to catch her breath. The lights buzzed on with the flick of a switch, and she moved through the room, past the tabletops covered with bowls and jars that were full of questionable substances, herbs and trimmings, and things that may have once been alive, to a single dusty shelf on the far wall, and a bag of salt that lay on that shelf. It took strength to heft it, strength that you would not expect her to have, but somehow she dragged it to the center of the room.

She grabbed a large knife from a nearby table and cut a jagged slit into the bottom corner. Salt immediately began to spill out, but with careful motions, she distributed it on the floor like a painter with a brush, circles and stars and strange intersecting lines appearing wherever the bag touched the dusty earth. Once satisfied with the shape and integrity of the circle, she moved to a table and began to pour various herbs into a mortar, grinding them periodically to the finest powder.

Again, she took up the large knife and set its blade against her fingertip, wincing when its fine point drew blood. She sliced each of her fingers in turn, allowing the blood to flow freely into the mortar until the concoction became a muddy paint that she spread around the outside edge of the circle, flicked onto the salt, and smeared onto her forehead and the palms of her hands. With trembling hands she grabbed a tall candle, stepped into the center of the circle, and knelt down upon the floor with the candle between her bloody fingers.

She breathed gently upon its wick, and immediately a flame sprang up. A breeze drifted through the room and ruffled her hair. It grew stronger, whipping around her face, yet it never moved even a grain of salt. The lights overhead buzzed, flickered, then went out.

The flame of the candle only illuminated the edges of the circle and the face of the old woman, screwed tight against the wind. The blood on her hands began to slide up her arms, flowing against gravity to cover her wrists with red. A whirlwind spun around the room, upsetting jars and sending them crashing to the floor.

Then it stopped. Everything stopped.

The jars hovered in mid-air. The blood ceased its movement. The flame of the candle held steady. The only motion was the woman’s heaving chest, the only sound her ragged breaths. A shape rose up behind her, made of darkness so complete the light of the candle was swallowed instantly. It was formless but for an area that could be called a face, but it shifted so constantly between features recognizable and horrifying that one could not possibly categorize it in such a way.

It lingered behind the woman, reaching tendrils of shadow into the edges of her vision. For a long moment, she did not move. When she did, she drew herself up, and spoke one word into the stagnant air.

“Three.”

The face of the creature flickered briefly into a jagged smile, then it was gone. The flame of the candle snuffed out, and the woman slumped to the ground. Overhead, the lights buzzed back to life, signaling the suspended jars to come crashing to the ground, littering the floor with broken glass. She did not flinch.

Somewhere, past the walls of the house, in the center of town, three screams carried easily through the night air.