Shadow Sentences
Even in the face of magic, they will fool themselves into logic.
The N train from 36th Street (Sunset Park) to 34th Street-Harold Square. Transfer to the Q to 84th Street. Then the N from 34th Street-Herald Square back to 36th Street. Finally, the N from 36th to 14th Street-Union Square.
**********
Backstory: A lot of random pieces of life were compiled to make this story. First, I heard the phrase “Shadow Sentences” in an episode of the podcast “Modern Wisdom.” I thought it was an excellent two words.
Next, when I started writing, I found myself leaning into the opposite point of view from what I had planned... a character I thought would be likable became an asshole. So, I embraced a very Freida McFadden plot, leaning into the “once thought to be nice guy turns out to be not nice guy and meets murderous woman” trope.
Then, I wanted to have fun with the points of view. In books, it’s more common to hop around with different character POVs. And it’s so fun to see the same story from different perspectives. I decided to have fun exploring different points of view in a short story. So, every time you see an asterisk (*), there is a POV switch.
Last, when doing some research, I learned about the story of Giles Corey and loved the idea of making the beloved ancestor in the story the opposite gender than one might expect.
There is the giveaway explanation you didn’t ask for that probably doesn’t make any sense until you read the story. Cheers to the witches out there.
**********
I knew something was wrong when she began to speak in shadow sentences. Of course, by that point, it was too late. She was beautiful. Dark, silky hair, eyelids like caverns; the gold eyeshadow she brushed over them making me want to mine for gold. And God, when she kissed me…it was immortal. Not because she wore lip gloss with a lingering taste or anything, but because from the moment she first kissed me, I felt a deep absence whenever her lips weren’t pressed against mine.
I wasn’t a relationship guy. My only genuine commitment was my tenure with Winston-Salem State University. I’d never strayed beyond the borders of North Carolina and didn’t plan to. But it was fun to stray within them. We met at a North Carolina State educational networking event. In layman’s terms: a mixer for nerds. When she walked in, I think everyone assumed that this woman—in her high black heels and sleek dress that rippled like water—had entered the wrong bar. But sure enough, she picked up a name tag: Emilia Bent. New professor at Salem College, the oldest educational institution for women in the United States. Open since 1772, but it had taken over two centuries to find their queen.
There was a bar seat open next to mine, and for some reason she took it… and suddenly I’d lost the next two months of my life to this woman. And let me tell you, a woman had never kept my interest for that long. I was skeptical at first. Someone like her being single must mean there was something wrong with her, right? Either crazy or needy or one of those attention whores. Or one of those girls who got too emotional about trivial shit. Or who held men to unrealistic standards. That was most women, after all.
But she was different. Never minded if I was out late working or out later at the bar. She’d greet me at my apartment with those lips that filled a void, and whisper sweet nothings, always saying the right thing. Always the right thing. And that’s when I started to see the shadows of the words she spoke.
I noticed it first at the steakhouse. It was her birthday, and you know how girls are about their birthdays. Princess treatment seeking. I told the waiter to do something nice with dessert and shook his hand with Andrew Jackson in mine. The dinner bill itself was over $500 since I splurged on a chilled bottle of Italian prosecco. I told her she looked beautiful because she did. But when the night ended with candles in a molten chocolate cake, those ruby red lips of hers were pursed, and her eyes were narrowed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh? You’re ready to chat now?” She spoke cheerily, which was off-putting.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve just been on your phone all night. That’s all.” Still smiling.
I sighed. You shower a woman, and still she wants more. Not to mention I’d told her I was grading end-of-term papers. I’d taken time out of my busy schedule for her birthday dinner, so if I needed to take a moment to message my student, Gabriella, about a few ways she could boost her grade to an A, she could be patient.
Which is what I told her over the last bites of molten chocolate cake.
And she said, “I understand. Of course, darling. You can message whoever you need to when you’re with me.”
That was when—for the first time—I noticed the dusk-like flicker that clouded the green of her eyes and the shine of her smile, tainting the words that were so agreeable. I didn’t think much of it at first. What did I care if she glowered, as long as it didn’t cause wrinkles in her perfect skin.
We met for dinner again two nights later. Before the appetizers had arrived, I reached for my phone, and it burned me.
“Gah!” I cried out. “What the—?”
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” She gazed at me over a glass of red, sounding concerned but looking quite bored. I reached into my pocket again, assuming it had been a freak electric shock. Once again, the surface of the phone scalded my hand. It didn’t feel hot in my jacket pocket. It only burned when I touched it. I reclaimed my fork and knife.
“Something’s wrong with my phone,” I snapped. Her heavy eyelids dipped in sympathy.
“Oh,” she purred. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I suppose you’ll have to talk to me.”
The next week, I came over too drunk. She commented on the smell of my breath. I told her to fuck off. She submitted, responding as she should. But again, I could hear that shadow. The next time I drank, I vomited the moment the sweet liqueur touched my tongue.
It went on and on.
Soon, when I wanted to flirt with another woman at a bar, my voice ceased to work. If I didn’t help clean up after a home-cooked meal, my body itched like bugs were crawling beneath my skin.
I started choosing my words and actions carefully, because I knew that if she didn’t approve, she’d use whatever her inhuman ability was to make my life hell. Each shadow sentence brought more misery upon me, forcing me to act as she wanted. That unbearable bitch.
Well, it’s almost time for payback.
*
Witch, actually — with a W.
Witch.
I’m convinced that’s where the word “bitch” came from. I think way back when, a powerful woman with transcendent powers made a man feel small, so he got as far into the alphabet as he knew—the letter “B”—and made up a new word, intended to harm and chastise.
Well, I’m here to correct. Witch. Not bitch.
I’ve been doing this—correcting men—for a while now, but this one really hurt because I was actually charmed.
Usually, I choose my targets. I see a man acting in ways he shouldn’t, and I insert myself, ready to be the perfect woman so that he feels confident to expose his true colors. And that’s when I—how shall I say it?—repaint.
My sister disagrees with my methods.
“Have you learned nothing from the past? Look at what happened in Salem!” Maggie always says the same thing. “We have a peaceful life. If people find out what we are, it will be highly inconvenient. And people will get hurt. Grandfather wouldn’t approve. He set a better example.”
I find her fear of us being caught to be a little absurd. Specifically, because she’s the one who suggested we settle down in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Talk about obvious. We might as well start a book club called “Witch Trials.”
“That was over 300 years ago,” I always say. “Back then, people had a certain wonder and awestruck fear when they looked at the majesty of the world. Now people are stubborn and small. If you tell them there’s a witch in their backyard, they’ll ask ChatGPT if witches are real and then get distracted by a text or tweet before reading the full answer.
“The men I curse don’t suspect a thing, trust me. They’d sooner believe they’ve contracted a never-heard-of disease where their insides turn molten when they try to reach up a girl’s skirt, than admit a woman has power over them they can’t comprehend.”
Maggie never pressed me much after that, which I was grateful for. If she had, I most likely would have stopped my corrective habits long ago. My older sister can be very persuasive.
Anyway, he was different. He wasn’t a planned target. I didn’t know him at all; I had never seen him be cruel. We met, and I was smitten. Then I began feeling the condescending air that surrounded him, the wafts of unchecked ego. And I learned what he asks his female students to do for a better grade.
I thought I’d found a good one; instead, I’d found someone worse.
I’ve made it more subtle for him, more drawn out, because he’d made a fool of me. So, my revenge has mirrored his courtship: slow and deceptive. I say everything he wants to hear and tuck each curse between the words he loves and thinks he deserves. And… oh! There’s the door. He’s home for dinner already.
*
I used to not care about being late to our plans. She could wait. But as of four days ago, for each minute I was late, it became steadily harder to breathe, as if the time itself was compressing my lungs. But today I’m not late. I’m early. Because I finally figured out the words to use to set myself free.
“Welcome home.” She’s smiling at me from the staircase. My staircase, mind you. She insisted on having a key. It’s hard to believe that the red lipstick smeared across those perfect lips used to turn me on.
*
“I’m so glad to be here.” He grins at me from the entryway, daggers in his eyes.
“I thought I’d wait for you to finish making dinner. So we could do it together.” I throw my long, black hair over my shoulder.
“Oh, fantastic. I didn’t want to come home to a freshly cooked meal after a long day of work anyway.”
“Long day?” I step from the stairs onto the ground floor. “Well, perhaps if you learned how to make Gabriella finish quicker…on her papers, that is, you’d be home sooner.” I stride past him into the kitchen where the water is set to boil, the oven is preheated, and the vegetables are lying out, finely cut.
“I’m leaving you.” He shouts the words after me, and I stop. I have to say, it’s not what I was expecting. He’s overdue for an escape plan, but this isn’t the tactic I thought he’d take. Perhaps he has more guts than I gave him credit for.
*
“And why would you do that?” She turns around slowly and leans her hands against the counter. It’s very difficult not to focus on how close the talons of her left hand are to a cutting knife lying on the counter next to an assortment of chopped zucchini and eggplant.
“I’m the perfect woman,” she continues. “Everything you say, I agree with. Isn’t that what you dream of? Someone you can hold like a toy, bend in whatever way you want, place on the shelf until it’s time to play?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh! I suppose that was my assumption about you. How silly of me!” Her voice is a maddening squeak. “But now that you mention it…you have changed. It’s admirable to see people working on themselves with such care.”
I swear I’m going to strangle her. But I need to remain calm.
“That’s very supportive of you. This high-level communication is certainly something I’ll miss most about our relationship.”
She cocks her head.
“But you’re not leaving me.”
“And why is that?”
For a moment, she falters. I sense it and strike, attacking the opening because it’s all I have.
“Talk about wanting to have someone as a toy. I am telling you amicably that I would like to break up. You’re lovely—of course—this just isn’t serving me right now. I want to focus on my work and my students. Gabriella really does need my support. And not respecting that would make you…controlling? Egotistical? Manipulative? Inconsiderate? All the things I fear you think I am.”
Break. Break, you righteous woman.
Her lip trembled. A watery quality rose in her eyes.
Holy shit. Is it work—?
She began to laugh.
*
It’s the hardest I’ve laughed during our entire relationship. I grip the edge of the counter. A piece of zucchini rolls to the floor. My midsection hurts.
“Really?” I gasp. “You think you’re going to win this by calling me a hypocrite? That’s your Hail Mary?”
He blinks at me, the momentary look of hope on his face now flitting far, far away.
“I’m not a ‘treat people the way you want to be treated type of girl,’” I hiccup, trying to rein in my laughter. “I abide more by a ‘treat people the way they’ve treated you’ moral compass. So, your little attempt to hold up a mirror? Show that I’ve stooped to your level? Not going to work. I want to be on your level.”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” he screams, and it’s quite pathetic. “W-what are you doing!? What are you?!”
It’s a fair question. I’m surprised he’s waited this long to ask. I’ve made my abilities quite obvious to him. Usually, I stick to a one-curse-and-done rule. But he hurt me.
And does he really think I don’t notice him basically undressing the knife on the counter with his eyes? Is he really stupid enough to think that I—who can bring him agony through the mere shadows underneath my words—can be brought down by metal? Fine. Let him try. This will be fun.
*
I break into a sprint. She jumps out of the way—just as I hoped she would. Ha! I grab the hilt of the knife, its blade still ripe with green juices, and spin around, facing her wide auburn eyes.
“Oh! I guess I deserve that,” she says in agreement, as she always does, a smirk dancing across her face, flashing in her eyes. I step towards her, plunging the knife at her midsection. But the moment the blade pierces the top layer of her skin, fiery agony engulfs my stomach. I look down.
A moment ago, it was only sweat that made my white button-down cling to my skin. Now, a rosette of sticky red blooms above my belly button.
Holy shit. She turned herself into a goddamn voodoo doll.
I yank the knife back before it enters any further into her—and my—skin.
Then another voice speaks from behind me: “What. The. Fuck.”
*
It barely stung, honestly. He didn’t stab me that deeply. But how much he stabbed my skin doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that Maggie walked through the front door of his apartment the very moment he attacked.
“What. The. Fuck.”
The bag she’s holding crashes to the floor, and marinara sauce smashes out. Apparently, she was planning to gate-crash dinner with my boyfriend to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid. This is bad. Really bad.
As I watch her standing there, staring at us in the kitchen, I feel actual pity for him. I also feel an intense desire to run. I don’t want to witness what’s about to happen. You might think that’s ridiculous after what I’ve done to him. But I barely use my powers. I teach bad men lessons, that’s all. I’ve hurt people, but only those who’ve deserved it. But even he—even someone worse than he—doesn’t deserve whatever is about to happen right now.
*
He has a knife pointed at my sister. At my sister.
I hate how reckless she is. How she toys with scum who aren’t worth our while. I’ve told her that before. No amount of boots-on-the-ground justice will rid the world of the men she traps in her hidden web of curses. These pathetic creatures are not worth the risk of our exposure.
But now, this particular man has a knife pointed at my baby sister.
He turns around and faces me.
God. He’s not even handsome.
“Who are you?”
“Maggie.”
His eyes are blank, and I tuck it in the back of my mind to have it out with my sister later, since she clearly hasn’t mentioned me.
“Emilia’s sister,” I add. His eyes widen.
Behind him, Emilia looks just as scared as he does.
That’s always been a fundamental difference between me and my sister: the way we use our powers. She likes to sprinkle them into her daily life, weaving magic into the mundane, making little imprints here and there. I don’t touch my powers. I save them. Harness them. Study and master them. And I only release them when a moment comes where I see no other option.
All I’m seeing now is red.
“Well, I-I’ll be going,” he says. “Leave you to enjoy a family night.”
“We’re at your apartment,” I say. “So no. You won’t be leaving.”
*
“In fact, you won’t be going anywhere ever again,” Maggie adds.
He looks back at me, as if I—the woman he just tried to dump and stab—will come to his aid.
But God, I almost want to.
“Listen, Maggie, let’s just—” But she cuts me off, her eyes blazing.
“We don’t ever really have family nights. Want to know why?”
“I-I—” His voice sounds so small. I can tell he’s terrified to answer, but even more terrified not to.
“Our family dates back to Salem. Massachusetts, that is. The witch trials.”
He gapes at her. But come on. After everything I’ve done to him? I can understand fear, but surprise…really?
“You come from w-witches!?”
“Not exactly,” Maggie’s eyes hold a dangerous gleam. I want to leave, but my body is frozen. Not by fear but by her. She’s holding me there to witness the end of what I started, and no spell I cast will be strong enough to overpower hers. “Our grandfather was Giles Corey,” Maggie’s voice drips with pride. “Well… add about half a dozen ‘greats’ in there, but Grandfather, all the same.”
*
“W-who?” I stare at her. These women are deranged. Giles Corey… I’d skimmed The Crucible in 10th-grade English, and the name sounds vaguely familiar.
The woman named Maggie steps towards me, and I step back towards Emilia, whose weeks of torment now feel warm and safe compared to the current stare of her sister.
“Twenty of the accused were executed,” the sister hisses. “Of those twenty, nineteen were hanged. The other—Grandfather—was pressed to death.
“He wasn’t a particularly good man. But he was good in his death. He’d seen what happened to the others who pled not guilty, so he stayed silent; refused to stand trial. He would not give the court the satisfaction. Not play their games.” Her eyes flash behind me, to where Emilia stands.
*
I immediately look away from my sister’s piercing eyes. This was one of the main reasons she resented my use of magic to toy with people I’d deemed “romantic wrongdoers.” She said that Grandfather’s legacy taught us not to stoop to the level of petty games.
*
The crazy, self-proclaimed witch keeps speaking. A part of me is captivated by her words, but most of me is looking for an escape route.
“Peine forte et dure. It was illegal! It was barbaric! He is the only person in the history of the United States to be pressed to death by order of the court. Many say that the public attention brought on by his inhuman murder created public opposition to the witch trials, saving who knows how many of our kind. And do you know what Grandfather’s famous last words were? ‘More weight!’”
This is the moment for me to praise both women. For me to tell them I can be better, more honorable, more like dear Grandfather Giles Corey. But instead, before I can stop the words, they tumble from my mouth: “Sounds like an old wives’ tale.”
*
Oh no. He did not just say that.
Welcome to your end, little boy, I think, just as my sister speaks.
*
“Peine forte et dure,” she whispers, stepping towards me. “Peine forte et dure.”
Her words are strange, low and guttural, musical in a way that one should never hear. My skin tingles. It feels like it is being stretched. No, not stretched, but—
“Peine forte et dure!”
*
“Maggie, stop!” My sister screams at me, but this is not her game anymore. With a flick of my wrist, I send her body into the air and slam her against the kitchen wall, where she stays, held by nothing, her arms splayed on either side of her like a crucifix.
He starts to scream.
“Maybe this will be a wives’ tale one day, too.” I tilt my head and step forward as he collapses to the floor. By the demented look of pain on his face and the twitching of his body, I can tell he wants to writhe, to at least have the freedom to let his pain lash out. But it’s hard to move even an inch when the weight of the world is crushing you down. I can almost hear his bones cracking.
“All your students will tell each other stories of their sad, lonely professor who was found with every bone in his body crushed, in the town of Winston-Salem.”
*
It doesn’t take long. For Grandfather, it is said to have taken two days to die. Maggie only draws it out for about fifteen minutes. I’m unsure if you can call that mercy.
By the time she lets me down from my crucified position, my arms ache. I don’t dare look at his body as we leave the apartment, marinara sauce still painting the hall red.
“You really think it’s okay to just…leave him there?”
“Let them find him.”
“But…aren’t you always the one saying I’m too reckless and will get us caught?”
“And aren’t you the one always saying that people lack wonder these days? They will guess murder, perhaps, but not witchcraft. Even in the face of magic, they will fool themselves into logic.”
“And you’re not worried the girlfriend will be a logical murder suspect?”
Maggie stops in the middle of the sidewalk and looks at me. I am struck by how fierce my sister is; by the power that so clearly courses through her veins.
“Come on, Emilia. A pretty little thing like you? Murdering a big, strong man like that?” She bats her eyelashes and smiles. “Let them come for us, Emilia. Let them see just how far witchcraft has come since 1692.”