1 Straight to Hell Page 3

  “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.

  Chapter Three

  I rarely attend funerals. It isn’t that I don’t know people who have died, it’s just that I show an appalling lack of decorum in these situations. Nerves, I guess. But all I need to do is walk through the doors of a funeral home, and I start to snigger.

  The day I went to make my mother’s arrangements was no exception.

  I’d spent the morning in a daze. I did all of the normal things like shower, dress, and make my bed, but the routine seemed dreamlike and fuzzy at the edges. My mind clicked away, making notes of all the details I had to take care of, yet I accidentally poured orange juice into my coffee and nearly left the house without a coat.

  Surprisingly, my stepsister took control of the situation. After the girls went to school, Jas offered to drive me to the funeral home. I was touched. Jasmine is not known for her ability to offer moral support in times of crisis. For example, when I told my stepsister that my ex-husband was having an affair, she said, “So what did you do to make him want someone else?”

  But today was different. Jasmine looked uncharacteristically solemn in her navy suit, and she hugged me tightly after breakfast, something that brought me to tears. “Your mom was the best,” she said. “I’ll miss her.”

  The first part of that statement was, of course, false, and we both knew it. But the second part was true. I’d always suspected that Jasmine kind of envied me for the type of mother I had. Jas’s mother is nice enough, but she’s very businesslike and doesn’t have a lot of imagination. My mother, on the other hand, was a spitfire. She frequently hosted poetry slams in her living room. She took bartending lessons when she was sixty-five, and could out-drink any of her college-age classmates. She was always the first to throw a party and the last to leave one. People loved her. I probably would have loved her if she hadn’t been my mother.

  The funeral home was like every other funeral home I’ve been to: a ponderously dreary place of heavy draperies and thick carpeting and the sickening smell of freshly-cut, hothouse flowers. The funeral director, Harold Black, was a young man doing his very best to look as old as possible. His thinning hair and gold-framed glasses marked him as nearly sixty rather than barely thirty. When we all sat down together, Harold gave me a mournful look. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  I nodded and dabbed my eyes with a damp tissue. I’d cried most of the night, and was surprised that I could still manage to produce a tear. It also surprised me how sad I was over my mother’s death. She’d popped in and out of my life for the last thirty-four years as infrequently as a warm day in January, and her timing was always incredibly bad. She would show up a week after my birthday parties or a month after graduation. And then she’d bring gifts so inappropriate that it was obvious she had no clue what was going on with me. Like the time she bought me a Barbie doll for Christmas, and I was fifteen. Or the time she’d shown up with a box of expensive chocolates, right after the doctors had finally determined that chocolate gave me migraines.

  Carrie was more an annoyance than anything else. A heartbreaking reminder that, although I did have a mother, she didn’t give a shit about me. As a kid, I’d done everything I could to get more of her attention. As an adult, I wished she would leave me the hell alone. And now I couldn’t stop crying.

  I let Jasmine take over the arrangements. She loves shopping, even shopping of the funerary variety, and she happily flipped through catalogs full of coffins. As I listened in on their conversation, I noticed that Harold frequently referred to ‘Mother’. As in, ‘Mother would look nice in blue, I think.’ and ‘Did Mother like roses?’

  For a second, I wondered if Harold had some kind of Norman Bates mother fetish, perhaps subscribing to Norman’s philosophy that, “A boy’s best friend is his mother.” So when Harold said, “Mother would like violin music,” I snorted so loud both Harold and Jas looked up in alarm. Trying to stifle my laughter of course did nothing but make me want to laugh. I wondered if Harold had used his funerary skills to preserve his own mother and had her posed in a rocking chair in the basement of the funeral home. I sniggered a little. Maybe it was time to think twice about taking showers. By now, I was shaking, helpless with suppressed laughter. Tears rolled from my eyes.

  But then I realized he meant my mother. My mother who would look good in blue and like roses. My mother who would like violin music. My laughter turned into a little sob. “She really is dead,” I croaked and began crying in earnest.

  Jasmine was about to put her arm around my shoulders, but Harold was quicker. He scooted over to me and offered me his handkerchief. “This is hard for you, I know.” His peppermint-scented breath puffed in my face. “Can I get you anything? A glass of water maybe?”

  “No, I’ll be fine.” To refocus myself, I picked up a catalog and began thumbing through it. The caskets were made of polished wood and chrome, as lovely as fine furniture. And twice as costly. The prices made me gasp. Even the least expensive one was double my rent check.

  I glanced at what else Jasmine had been ordering: an immense casket spray, two enormous flower arrangements, a string quartet to play music? Even if Carrie had possessed the means to pay for the funeral, I’d not be getting her money until it went through probate, and that would take months.

  The room seemed to fold over on itself, suddenly becoming far too small. “I can’t pay for any of this,” I said. “Jas, I can hardly scrape enough together for groceries this week.” The insurance company had yet to reimburse me for the damage to the house, claiming the fire wasn’t accidental, and I hadn’t worked in a few weeks because of the Christmas break. My savings account balance was zero, and my checking account was very close to being overdrawn.

  “Just put it on a credit card,” Jasmine said, giving me one of her famous what’s-the-big-deal looks. She pulled out her phone and began texting.

  Harold gave me a reassuring smile. “We do have a payment plan.”

  Nowadays, everything has a payment plan. Cars, doctor’s offices, computer systems. I should know since I was on every damn one of them at the time. “I’m sorry, but I can’t afford this.” I didn’t want him to think I was so cheap that I’d send my mother off in a pine box, but I was desperate.

  I’d expected Harold’s smile to fade when he realized what a piker I was, but it remained as bright as ever. “Not a problem, Ms. Straight. Not a problem.” He picked up the notepad he’d been using and crossed off several items. Then he added figures on his calculator, mumbling to himself as he punched in the numbers.

  He showed me the final total with a triumphant smile. The sight of it made my stomach drop. Even pared down to the basics, the funeral would bankrupt me.

  “It’s just so much,” I said. “How about cremation? What does that cost?” I wondered if Carrie could see me down here haggling over her funeral like a tourist at a Middle-Eastern bazaar. I prayed that she understood.

  Harold re-totaled the numbers. The result was only slightly less disastrous than the one before it. Seeing my stricken face, he said, “I understand if you’re feeling overwhelmed.” He slid so close to me that our knees touched. “I don’t want you to be distressed.”

  I continued to cry. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “But I do understand,” he said. “You’re feeling so vulnerable, aren’t you?” Very softly, he began to rub my shoulder. “There’s nothing I hate to see more than the tears of a beautiful woman.” His other hand sought out my knee.

  My jaw dropped. What the hell was he doing? My first instinct was to jump up and slap his face. But at that moment, a thought blipped into my head like an instant-message popping up on a computer screen: You’re a succubus now. You’ve seduced him.

  The previous day’s experiences hadn’t been erased from my me
mory, but my mother’s death had pushed them to a dark corner of my mind. The events seemed distant, like something I’d watched on TV instead of something that had happened to me personally. But now, as Harold the undertaker stroked my knee, I began to realize that all of it was true. The trip to hell, the meeting with Miss Spry, and worst of all, the contract made by Sarah Goodswain, all of that was real. The fact that Harold’s hand was now wandering up my thigh was unmistakable evidence.

  Next to me, Jasmine was too deep into her text conversation to notice what was happening. She laughed at something, then let her fingers clickety-click away at the minute keyboard.

  It was obvious that if I didn’t get a hold of the situation, Harold would pull me into the nearest casket for a quick tumble. I had no idea that the demon’s powers would work so quickly or so well, but there had to be a way to control it. As Harold began to stroke my hair, I frantically tried to remember what Miss Spry had told me about the demon. Hadn’t she said it was a separate entity?

  Desperate, I gave it a mental command, Down girl! I’m in charge here.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then I felt a quiver inside as the demon responded. I realized that for the past few minutes, I’d been heating up like a menopausal woman in the throes of a hot flash, until I was enveloped in a warm glow. Cool it, I told the demon. She did.

  Harold blinked as if waking from a deep sleep. I was pretty sure I could have regained complete control, but I never got to find out for sure because, at that moment, Jasmine noticed what was happening. “Oh my God!” She dropped her phone and was on her feet in an instant. “Are you groping my sister?”

  Harold yanked his hands back as if he’d been burned. “No!” He looked horrified but baffled, too. As if he only now realized that maybe stroking a grieving woman’s leg was not in the best of taste. “I mean, I’m sorry if I upset you, Ms. Straight.” He was blushing down to the roots of his baby-fine hair. “I didn’t mean to.”